murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

though she was really suffering, and she was sweating like mad, so I
started to give her a good massage. Then she apologized and asked me
if I'd mind taking off her bra, as it was hurting her. So, I don't know, I
did it. She was wearing a skin-tight blouse, and I had to unbutton that
and reach behind and undo the bra hooks. She had big breasts for a
13-year-old. Twice as big as mine. And she wasn't wearing any starter
bra but a real adult model, an expensive one. Of course I'm not paying
all that much attention at the time, and like an idiot I just carry on
rubbing her back. She keeps apologizing in this pitiful voice as if she's
really sorry, and I keep telling her it's OK it's OK."
Reiko tapped the ash from her cigarette to the floor. By then I had
stopped eating grapes and was giving all my attention to her story.
"After a while she starts sobbing. "What's wrong?' I ask her.
"Nothing,' she says. "It's obviously not nothing,' I say. "Tell me the
truth. What's bothering you?' So she says, "I just get like this
sometimes. I don't know what to do. I'm so lonely and sad, and I can't
talk to anybody, and nobody cares about me. And it hurts so much, I
just get like this. I can't sleep at night, and I don't feel like eating, and
coming here for my lesson is the only thing I have to look forward to.'
So I say, "You can talk to me. Tell me why this happens to you.'
Things are not going well at home, she says. She can't love her
parents, and they don't love her. Her father is seeing another woman
and is hardly ever around, and that makes her mother half crazy and
she takes it out on the girl; she beats her almost every day and she
hates to go home. So now the girl is really wailing, and her eyes are
full of tears, those beautiful eyes of hers. The sight is enough to make
a god weep. So I tell her, if it's so terrible to go home, she can come to
my place any time she likes. When she hears that, the girl throws her
arms around me and says, "Oh, I'm so sorry, but if I didn't have you I
wouldn't know what to do. Please don't turn your back on me. If you
did that, I'd have nowhere to go.'
"So, I don't know, I hold her head against me and I'm caressing her
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