Less Of Her

The Lucky Garden

I am what they call a shut-in, a nerd, what the Japanese call Otaku and what my foster home appointed psychologist described as an obsessive-compulsive bordering on the Autistic spectrum. I love machines and code, mechanisms and circuits. They fascinate and enthrall me. They have logic, rules and complexity. I can work them out, I can deal with them. People, not so much. I'm no good with people. So, I don't get out much and I didn't know any of the local restaurants except by their take-out menus. That is why I took Lumi to my favorite Chinese, the Lucky Garden. They always delivered very quickly, the food was always hot and tasted excellent, in my uncultured experience.

They delivered so fast because the restaurant was on the border of the industrial zone not far from my workshop, on the side I'd never ventured to before. I didn't know this until the puzzled taxi driver drove us there. We got in the taxi outside of my workshop and I gave the driver the address from the menu pinned over my workstation. He looked at me for a long moment, shrugged and then drove down to the end of the road, turned right, drove another few hundred meters and stopped. I tipped him big and got out before he could say anything.

The Lucky Garden wasn't everything I'd hoped for. Delivery boys with rangy bodies and lanky hair hung around the door like flies around roadkill, sharing cigarettes while their battered mopeds charged in their docking racks. Inside was a high counter and an old plasma TV bolted to the end wall, blaring out what I guessed was a Chinese game show with subtitles. The colors were over-bright and the subtitles were blurred with burn-in. There were two plastic tables, the kind used as cheap garden furniture. Two more delivery boys huddled around one table, their heads close as they whispered together and watched us furtively as we crossed to the counter.

"Ready to order?" asked the girl behind the counter. She was young, probably still in school, but her smile was sincere, professional. I looked at Lumi; she was carefully examining the menu stuck with peeling tape to the counter.

"I don't know yet. What's good here?" Lumi asked without looking up.

The counter girl ran down the specials with practiced ease.

"Are you together? Do you want the special set meal for two?" She asked. Lumi looked at me, her face blank, expressionless.

"Sure. Okay?" I said and Lumi nodded in agreement.

We sat at the other plastic table. I stared at its surface, barely seeing the grease and dirt embedded deeply into the scratches. When I looked up, Lumi was watching me. She smiled at me, raised an eyebrow and shrugged. I didn't know what that meant. I went back to staring at the table.

It seemed to take an age but, in reality, our food was ready in only a few minutes. The counter girl rattled off the names of the dishes and held out a paper bag filled with gently steaming cartons of food.

"C-Can we eat it here?" I stammered as I took the bag. The counter girl hardly paused before reaching under the counter and handing me paper napkins, plastic cutlery and two sets of cheap wooden chopsticks. I carried the bag and other stuff to the table. By the time I got there, the counter girl had come out with two clean plates.

Lumi opened the cartons and placed them on the table between us and we helped ourselves. She made sounds of appreciation, praised the food, tried to make small-talk. After a steady return of monosyllables she stopped trying and we ate in silence. Behind me, the delivery boys came and went but I could feel their eyes watching us, my skin crawled with it.

I felt sick by the time we had finished eating. The thickness of the air and the stench of frying had become overpowering. Stepping out of the front door and into the quickening twilight was a relief. We hovered together on the edge of the light pool cast by the Lucky Garden's window.

"Sorry," I said.

"What for?"

"This isn't what I expected," I said. "I only took take-outs before."

Lumi laughed, a low, dry chuckle. "The food was good though, even if the ambiance wasn't everything I could have hoped for. Is that why you haven't said more than two words together since we got here?"

I nodded, head down with shame.

"Well, I was more interested in your company than the food really. It's a pity."

"What now?" I asked.

"Coffee?"

I looked back at the Lucky Garden, uncertain. Lumi seemed to read my mind.

"We could go back to your place?"

I nodded and turned, started walking back the way we had come in the taxi. Lumi caught up beside me quickly.

"Where are we going?"

"Back to the workshop."

"I meant, maybe we could go back to where you live, somewhere you would feel more comfortable, more relaxed.

I stopped and Lumi stopped beside me. "I live at the workshop, I don't have anywhere else," I confessed.

"Come with me then," she said, after a beat, "I have a hotel room, come back to the hotel with me."

"For coffee?"

"If you like."

I felt flustered, stupid. I wanted it to be over, the awkwardness and embarrassment but part of me was thrilled, excited, part of me wanted to go with her. I nodded. She called a taxi.

It was still early evening, the hotel lobby was bright with hard edges of marble and glass. Hotel staff looked precise, the sharp creases of their uniforms complementing the angles of the architecture. I waited by the revolving doors as Lumi went to the desk. I almost expected to be told to leave for making the place look untidy. Lumi talked to the receptionist with a semaphore of smiles and nods. They laughed together as the receptionist handed her a key-card. I envied them their poise and ease. Lumi walked back to me, a smile still on her lips, took me by the hand and led me to the elevators. I followed her, mute and meek.

In the elevator, she said nothing, just long-looks and smiles. I returned them in kind but they looked unconvincing in the mirrors surrounding us.

She led me down a hushed, carpeted hallway, past identical doors. TV sounds blared behind some, most were quiet, anonymous. At the end, she opened her door and beckoned me into to a cool dark room. She put her card in a slot by the door, recessed lights came on. A double bed, a TV, a desk, a sofa, a door open to a white bathroom. It was neat and tidy. It smelled clean, like fresh linen. The hum of the mini-bar and air-conditioning was soothing.

"Do you really want coffee?" Lumi asked, dumping her bag on the sofa and shrugging off her jacket.

"Not really." I was so jittery, coffee was the last thing I wanted.

"I didn't think so."

She came at me so fast I thought she was going to attack me. In a way, she did; she kissed me hard enough to bruise. This was no chaste goodbye, this was urgent, insistent. Lumi pushed herself against me, I felt my lips part against hers, felt the sharpness of her teeth. The shock of it ran through me, made my breath falter, made my heart beat fast. By the time I came to my senses I was already kissing her back.