Hard Rain

hate me," I said. I was
    trying for light, but she didn't laugh.
    She looked at me. "So all we have left is tonight."
    I almost said no. I almost told her it would hurt too much.
    Then I decided I would deal with the hurt afterward. The way it's
    always been.
    We went to the Park Hyatt in Shinjuku. She was staying at the Okura
    but going back there together would have been too dangerous.
    We took a cab to the hotel. We looked at each other on the way but
    neither of us spoke. I checked us in, and when we got to the room, we
    left the lights off. It seemed natural that we should walk over to the
    enormous windows, where we watched the urban mass of Shinjuku twinkling
    in the violet light around us.
    I looked out at the city from my lofty perch and thought of all the
    events that had led to this precise instant, this moment that I had
    imagined and ridiculously longed for so many times and that I was now
    trying to savor even as I felt it slipping irrevocably away.
    At some point I felt her looking at me. I turned and reached out,
    tracing the outline of her face and neck with the back of my fingers,
    trying to burn all the details into my mind, wanting to have them with
    me later when she would be gone. I found myself saying her name,
    quietly, over and over, the way I say it when I'm alone and I'm
    thinking of her. Then she stepped in close and put her arms around me
    and pulled us together with surprising strength.
    She smelled the way I remembered, clean, with a trace of perfume that
    remains a mystery to me, and I thought of wine, the kind you wait and
    wait to decant and then hesitate to drink because afterward it'll be
    gone.
    We kissed for a long time, gently, not hurrying, standing there in
    front of the window, and at some point I really did forget what had
    brought us here together and why we would have to depart alone.
    We pulled off each other's clothes the way we had that first time,
    fast, almost angrily. I removed the baton from where it was taped to
    my forearm and set it down. She knew better than to ask about it. When
    we were naked, still kissing, she pressed against me so that I had to
    move backward toward the king-sized bed. My legs bumped against it and
    I sat down on its edge. She leaned forward, one hand on the bed, the
    other on my chest, and pushed me down onto my back. She knelt astride
    me, one hand still on my chest, and reached down for me with the other.
    She squeezed for a second, hard enough to make it hurt. Then, looking
    at me with her dark eyes but still saying nothing, she guided me in.
    We moved slowly at first, tentatively, like two people unsure of each
    other's motives. My hands roamed the landscape of her body, now moving
    on, now lingering somewhere in response to the pace of her breathing or
    the pitch of her voice. She put her hands on my shoulders, pinning me
    with her weight, and began to ride me harder. I watched her face,
    silhouetted by the reflected light of the windows,
    and felt some intangible thing like heat or current surging between our
    bodies. I brought my feet up to the bed and from the slightly altered
    angle of our bodies I felt myself moving more deeply inside her. Her
    breathing shortened and quickened. I tried to hold back, not wanting
    to let go before she did, but she moved faster, more urgently, and I
    started to go over the edge. A sound, part growl, part whimper, came
    from her throat, and she leaned forward so that her face was almost
    touching mine and she looked in my eyes and as I felt her coming and as
    I came too she whispered, "I hate you," and I saw that she was
    crying.
    Afterward she straightened but kept her hands on my shoulders. She
    dipped her head forward so that shadows obscured her face. She made no
    sound but I felt her tears falling onto my chest and neck.
    I didn't know what to say, or even whether to touch her, and we
    remained that way for a long time. Then she eased off me and walked
    silentiy to the bathroom. I sat up and waited. After a few minutes
    she came out, wearing one of the hotel's white terrycloth robes. She
    looked at me but didn't say anything.
    "You want me to go?" I asked.
    She closed her eyes and nodded.
    "Okay." I got up and started pulling on my clothes. When I was done I
    faced her.
    "I know you're doing well in New York," I said. "Ganbatte." Keep it
    up.
    She looked at me. "What are you going to do?"
    I shrugged. "You know how it is with us creatures of the night. Gotta
    find a rock to crawl under before