Dropped Trust

“I fake it so real I am beyond fake.” Doll Parts-Hole

Eighteen stories up in the dark. A corner unit with a balcony that faces south. And a long narrow triangle hidden in shadows where the edges of the building meet that I can hang in from my balcony railing and not be seen. My feet dangle in the void and my hands burn as I grip the cold metal railing, but from here I can see.

Two blocks away a wall of lights in the windows of his office. I can see the shadowed figure of him at his desk. He’ll be there long into the night. I was there with him once. A year ago before he decided family was more important than me.

“Mai-chan, we just can’t anymore. You know, my family. I was wrong to start this. I’m sorry.”

He bowed and I bowed back mumbling my own apology and that was it. The last time I was in his office, the final time I spoke to him outside of our formal rigid office interactions.

It’s ridiculous really. Japan is a “look the other way” culture, but the entire office pool knows. I’d go in his office during lunch time and emerge twenty minutes later. We did our best to muffle the moans, but Japanese offices are small and the walls are thin.

And later I learned that office pool knew because I was far from the first to spend my lunch hour with Mr. Ando. No matter how many times I said, “Ando san, not on my skirt, not on my skirt,” I’d always leave his office with the stains.

Now I’m part of the ostrich club, all the girls outed from the OL cliche that eat lunch by themselves in the company cafeteria. I watch his office around lunchtime though, from my desk, all the ostriches do, staying late pretending to work hard, but no new girl lunches with Ando these days. An overheard private phone call by one of the girls confirmed that he is living alone in a tiny bachelor’s apartment near his office.

But hanging here in the dark, my fingers straining, the cold winds wiping through my clothes, I watch the lights and shadows, especially the shadows, in his office. There are no lights on above his office. The OL offices are one floor below his. I know all the girls that stay late. If the lights in the OL office go out and another shadow appears in his office I know what that means. The note is on my kitchen table in my apartment. Even the last stained skirt, though I don’t know if DNA is traceable after a year.

When that shadow appears I’ll drop 18 floors through my shadows to escape.