InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 10: Anomaly ❯ Mist ( Chapter 8 )

"This is . . . disgusting . . ."

Madison giggled, taking another bite of her Coney dog, watching intently as Mikio slowly chewed and swallowed before pushing away the paper hot dog tray.  "Not your thing?"

He shook his head, casting her an apologetic little half-smile.  "Not really," he admitted.  "You don't eat this kind of stuff all the time, do you?"

"Nope," she admitted, though her amusement hadn't waned.  "Not very often, to be honest.  But every now and then, I just have to come down here and have one.  Call it a guilty pleasure, I guess."

They'd already explored most of the boardwalk, until Madison, in one of her more inspired moments, had decided that Mikio just had to try a real, honest-to-God Coney dog, and there was no place better to get one of those than at Nathan's.  It didn't really surprise her that Mikio didn't care for it.  She had yet to met a Japanese person who actually did, though Evan said that his mother had grown to like them, to a point.

"One time, Kichiro-nii told me about this kind of thing," he went on rather thoughtfully.  "He said Bellaniece-nee-chan made him try it, too, the first time they'd gone to Maine for your mother's first surgery."  Then he chuckled.  "He said they were one of the most disgusting things he's ever tried."  Mikio made a face.  "He lied.  They're worse."

That assessment only made Madison giggle more, but it didn't stop her from taking another bite, either.  He eyed her with an expression that was an interesting mix of horrified fascination and the slight green of nausea, and that amused her to the point that she had to hurriedly reach for a napkin, lest she end up, spraying food everywhere.  "They're not that bad," she protested after she finally managed to swallow her food.  "I'm pretty sure we could find worse for you, if you want."

He held up a hand and leaned back in his chair.  "No, thank you.  I don't know if my body could take anything worse than that."

There was simply something about the way that the gentle breeze blowing off the ocean played with Mikio's hair, as the silvery strands were lifted, held, then let go, taken by the air, as it slowly drifted down once more.  That same breeze brought the scent of him close, filling the space around her with a comfort that she couldn't quite comprehend, unlike anything she'd ever really felt before.  There was an understated presence to him, one she'd noticed before, almost a regal kind of presence, and maybe he didn't sense it himself.  After all, it was hardest to truly see what you looked upon every day, wasn't it?  And just why did it bother her that he didn't seem to notice, just like he didn't seem to notice the women who stopped, turned, stared at him in passing, their gazes full of the same kind of quiet appreciation that Madison understood because she felt it, too?

'He's really something special, isn't he?'

She sighed.  'Yeah . . . Yeah, he is . . .'

"You . . . You're suddenly quiet," Mikio remarked, his gaze shifting to lock with hers.

She felt the warmth rising in her cheeks, but she didn't look away as she broke into a little smile.  "I was just . . . thinking . . ." she mused.

"About something in particular?"

Giving a small shrug, she laughed softly.  "Someone," she admitted, tilting her head to the side, shifting her gaze toward the slightly overcast sky—not nearly cloudy enough to be unpleasant, but enough to keep the sun from beating down on the city in an overly harsh, almost abrasive kind of way.  Savoring the feel of the breeze on her skin, silently thankful for the near-perfect afternoon after the cleansing rain from the day before, she wondered fleetingly if she'd ever feel such a deep and profound sense of peace again.  "So, I've taken you to see the Statue of Liberty and Coney Island today.  Anywhere you want to go next?"

He considered her question, his cheeks tinged with the barest hint of pink, though whether it was because of her statement or because of the breeze, she didn't know.  Then he chuckled, and the sound of it was warm, pleasant, despite the hint of self-deprecation.  "Maybe somewhere that has, uh, decent food," he ventured.  "Where do you like to go when you've got free time?"

"Me? Oh, that's easy," she said with a flick of her wrist.  "I go shoe shopping."

Her answer must have caught him off guard because he blinked then barked out a laugh.  "Shoe shopping?"

She sighed and made an exaggerated show of rolling her eyes.  "All right, so I'll admit it: I have a deep and arguably unhealthy preoccupation with shoes, but I figure that it's better than some other things I could potentially be obsessing over."

"You mean, like Evan?" he asked, arching an eyebrow in silent question.

She shook her head.  "Not him, no.  I mean, he has vices, sure, but nothing really bad or dangerous, and even then, I'm pretty sure that his obsessions have changed in the last year or so, too."

"Then . . . who?"

Giving a small sigh as she fiddled with her paper cup of tea, she shrugged in a deliberately off-handed kind of way.  "I guess you could say that I've seen it all, but not necessarily from just hanging out with Evan.  Well, maybe not all of it, but I've seen more than I'd ever really realized was out there, especially considering that nothing like that goes on around Bevelle."  She made a face, but laughed softly as she slowly shook her head.  "One of my first really high end clients flew me out to LA back when I used to work for Hubert Georges.  She was one of Hollywood's 'leading ladies', and she was going to the Oscars—her comeback, she said—and she wanted me to do her hair and makeup.  So I'm, like, twenty, just finished getting my certification, had only been working for Hubert for, maybe six months or so, and I walk in while she's sitting there in a white styling chair, wearing nothing but this gossamer dressing gown while five people—one girl and four guys—were laying around on a huge bearskin rug, smoking things, popping pills, downing wine, screwing like bunnies . . . I mean, the air reeked so badly that I thought for sure that I was going to choke or pass out—I definitely ended up with a contact high, and it wasn't until halfway through arranging her hair that she tells me that she 'owned' those people.  They were her living art.  I mean, she paid these people to come in every day, get drunk and stoned and fuck each other right there in her living room because she thought it was art, of all things . . ."

He looked properly horrified, though, to his credit, he tried not to.  Clearing his throat, he shook his head, like he was having trouble, wrapping his brain around it.  "That sounds . . ."

She smiled.  "Horrifying, right?" she supplied when he trailed off.  "It was."  Suddenly, she laughed.  "Okay, so it was a little funny in a completely absurd kind of way," she admitted.  "So, I figure that collecting shoes isn't nearly so bad."

"No," he agreed at length.  "No, most certainly not."

"Granted, there's nothing at all wrong with sex," she went on, her voice taking on a philosophical lilt, "but you shouldn't get paid for it."

Maybe it was the tongue-in-cheek way she'd said it, or maybe it was simply the outrageous statement itself, but Mikio laughed despite the darkened flush that had surfaced in his cheeks at the given subject.  "Well, I guess there's that, too . . ."

His cell phone rang, and he frowned as he glanced at it.

"Do you need to take that?" she asked, nodding at the device that he held in his hand, his expression rather undecided as he stared at the caller ID.

"It's, uh, Mama," he muttered.  "I can just call her back later . . ."

"Oh, no, it's fine," Madison said.  "Maybe it's important."

He looked like he didn't really believe her, but he let out a deep breath and connected the call, anyway.  "Moshi moshi . . . Mama . . . Yes, I know.  I sent you a text . . ."

Wiping her hands on a thin paper napkin, Madison scooped up Mikio's barely touched Coney dog along with her empty cardboard and wandered over to throw them away.

Biting her lip at the rather pinched expression on the hanyou's face, she took her time, mostly to give him a moment alone.  Even from the distance as she very slowly headed back to the small table, she could feel it, couldn’t she?  The tension—not quite hostility, no, but something else—something a little deeper than that—that had gathered around him . . . But why . . .?

Mikio grabbed her wrist as Madison whipped around to find Kagome.  "Not her," he hissed, his whisper imploring as his eyes met hers.  "Not Mama."  He grimaced and let go of Madison's wrist.  "Please."

Frowning as the memory faded away, Madison slowly shook her head.  'He's . . . He's not very happy she called, but . . . but she's his mother . . .'

'Come on, Maddy.  You had to have noticed it yourself, didn't you?' her youkai prodded.  'The way she fusses over him all the time—all the time?'

'She's his mom.  She's supposed to do that.  My mom does that to me, you know.'

'Maybe, but not like that, she doesn't.  Kagome loves him, certainly, but still . . . He's also a grown adult, and he has been for quite some time, and maybe he's getting a little tired of it.'

That made sense, sure, depending on just how overwhelming that motherly concern was.  Madison didn't rightfully know, but she had seen a little bit of it. Then again, she had to wonder.  If she'd seen that much of it in just a very short time—enough that she'd noticed it— then just how bad was it, really . . .?

Miki o sat back in his chair, trying not to look as out of place as he felt in the strange little bar that Madison had dragged him into.  She swore that it was a fun place, and he'd gone along with her, though he knew damn well that it wasn't anywhere he'd ever have chosen on his own.  It might well have been the luridly pink—hot pink—baize doors that had greeted the passers-by on the street, or the name of the place: Luscious.  Maybe it was the flashing neon depictions, the alternating flicker of the proclamation, 'Naked Ladyboys'—something that he'd become familiar with at Evan's bachelor party—and not exactly something that Mikio had really wanted to explore any further.  Even so, she had laughed, hadn't she?  She'd smiled that smile of hers, and she'd rolled her eyes with a soft giggle, telling him that it really wasn't as bad as it looked, she promised.

And he'd followed her inside.

'All right, it isn't really as bad as you thought it'd be,' his youkai-voice prodded.  'Well, if you can ignore the topless guy—some with very fake but very nicely bouncy boobs—running around . . .'

Considering he'd expected much, much worse, then no, it wasn't as bad as he'd thought it was going to be.  That didn't necessarily mean it was good, though, either . . .

Shiny, heavily lacquered wood in shades of cherry and mahogany, rich earth-toned fabrics, ambient lighting that was easy on the eyes without becoming oppressively dark, despite the black marble floors lined with soft running lights that created a path between tables . . . The music filtering from the house speakers was understated, almost soothing.  There was, he noticed, a jukebox over near the stage—just now, darkened and vacant—but no one had programmed in anything, so it stood, silent, waiting.  The stage, however, was shaped like a 'u', the sides jutting out with tables between, but seated back where they were, there was a semblance of privacy, too, since those tables were sectioned off from one another with divider walls of thick, smoked glass blocks, open only on the sides facing the stage, yet separated from the general seating area further up by gauzy curtains that were tied back to allow an unobstructed view.

All in all, Luscious wasn't exactly what he'd expected when they were standing outside, when Madison had asked him if he wanted to go inside.  Somehow, the interior of the place seemed completely at odds with the almost garish outward appearance.  As though Madison understood the gist of Mikio's thoughts, she laughed softly.  "The outside is kind of a joke, since it's technically a strip club, and all strip clubs should look like one, you know.  The owner of this place has a wicked sense of humor," she said, eyes shining in the almost hazy light, lending those violet eyes a mysterious sort of glow.  "At least, that's how it always seemed to me."

One of those topless girls hurried over with a bright smile that was painted a ghastly shade of deep red and more makeup on her face than a street mime, carrying a small black plastic tray and possessing entirely too much jiggle in her chest.  "My, my, my!  If it isn't Madison Cartham!  It's been forever, honey!" she pouted, lips turning down at the corners in an exaggerated moue.  "I thought you'd abandoned us!"

"As if I'd do that," Madison scoffed, leaning on the table, resting her elbow casually on the surface as she flicked her wrist in a dismissive kind of way.  "And you haven't been in for a treatment lately," she went on, reaching up to snag a handful of hair that she proceeded to tug until she bent to the side so she could give the ends a thorough inspection.  "Oh, my God!  You've been cheating on me!"

The waitress laughed, but didn't deny Madison's accusation.  She let go with an exaggerated sigh as she flicked her hair back over her shoulder.  "All right, so I did have a date with a box of Miss Clairol," she admitted.  "But I swear to you, it was just a one night stand."

Madison laughed and shook her head.  "Yeah, well, schedule an appointment and get that fixed," she insisted, waving a hand at the waitress' hair.  "All those split ends . . . It hurts me to see it, Jazz.  Oh, ask for Stephan.  I'll bet he's just your type."

"Stephan, Stephan . . . Okay, I got it."  Jazz giggled as her gaze finally shifted to Mikio, and her smile widened, but she leaned toward Madison and spoke in a very pronounced stage whisper without taking her eyes off the hanyou.  "Oh, now, he's just delicious . . . Yours?"

To Mikio's surprise, she blushed a little, though her smile didn't wane.  "Not in the way you're thinking, Jazz."

"Oh?" That one syllable was drawn out and covered about three octaves as her gaze grew more appraising.  "Is that so?"

"Back off, harlot," Madison quipped.  "And aren't you supposed to be asking us what we want to drink?"

Jazz rolled his eyes, but laughed.  "Fine, fine, you want a white wine spritzer," she said quickly and rather perfunctorily before smiling at Mikio once more.  "You, however, don't look like a white wine spritzer type of man, so what kind of man are you?"

Clearing his throat, Mikio glanced at Madison, only to find her smiling at him in such a way that told him quite plainly that she knew that he was trying his damndest not to blush at the very blatant flirting coming from the one that she had called 'Jazz'.  Even so, he wasn't a huge drinker and never had been—after all, he had enough trouble, staying on his feet, stone cold sober.  "Just a, uh, beer," he said, figuring it was probably the safest option.

"Oh, so you're a rough and tough, no muss, no fuss, football-loving, toss-her-on-the-bed-and-fuck-the-hell-out-of-her kind of man—just how I like 'em," Jazz said with a nod and a wink before hurrying away.  Mikio's mouth dropped open as the blush he was trying to hide shot straight to the surface of his skin as he watched Jazz go.

"Wh-What just . . .? What just happened?" Mikio asked slowly.

Madison giggled and reached across the table to pat his hand.  "Ignore her," she said between rounds of giggles.  "She's just teasing you."

He smiled at her and slowly shook his head.  "Is that what that was?"

She nodded.  "Jazz is a real sweetie, even if she does have a really evil sense of humor."

His smile faded as a thoughtful frown surfaced.  "You keep saying 'she', but . . ."

Madison nodded again.  "Technically speaking, Jazz is still a male," she said, as though she understood what was going through his mind.  "I met her maybe five or six years ago at the Bunny Hole.  At the time, she was still Jeff—no hormones or anything.  I mean, she hadn't started to transition yet.  Anyway, she was waiting for Bugs—he had some kind of emergency, which, to Bugs could have been little more than a broken fingernail—or another letter from Ed McMahon.  So Jazz and I split a bottle of wine, had a few shots of whiskey, and by the time Bugs came around to tell her that he'd just be another hour or so, I was in the middle of getting Jazz's very drunken life story, complete with her secret desire to be a woman."  Settling back with a deep breath, Madison's gaze seemed fixed, as though she were looking back in time and seeing it very clearly before her.  "They broke up a few weeks later since Bugs tends to get bored too easily, but Jazz . . . I liked her, so I kept her."

Mikio smiled, too.  "Is, uh, she friends with Evan, too?"

Gaze darkening as she considered his question, she shrugged.  "Actually, no, they haven't met.  Guess she's just never been around when Evan is, which is a shame because they'd probably get along pretty well."

"You'd better not be giving away all my secrets," Jazz remarked as she set the drinks on the table and pinned Madison with a marked frown.  The stern expression was ruined a moment later when she laughed.

"Nothing too damning," Madison assured her.

She rolled her eyes then sighed.  "I'd much rather stay here and chat, but I'd better not.  Let me know if you need anything else."

"Thanks, sweetie," Madison replied.  Jazz waved a hand to indicate that she'd heard her as she rushed off to another table.

"Are all your friends this interesting?" Mikio asked as he dared another look around the place.  He had to admit that it really wasn't that bad after one got over the initial shock of it all—and the idea that all the waitresses were topless.

"You could say that I know a lot of very different people, yes," she mused.  "The woman who owns this place—Sindy, but she likes it better when you call her 'Sin'—opened it up when she was fired from the strip club where she used to work.  She'd already had a sex change operation by then, but when the owner of the club found out about her reassignment, he said that he thought it was bad for business.  He was afraid of what his regulars would think if they ever found out that 'she' used to be a 'he'.  She sued the club for wrongful termination and sexual discrimination and won.  Then she used the money to buy Luscious."

"That's pretty sad."

"What they did to her, you mean?" she asked.  He nodded.  "Maybe, but if they hadn't, then she would have opened this place, and everyone she employs is transgender.  She turned it into a successful business, though."

"I would say so," he agreed.  The whole place was pretty busy, especially since it was only a Wednesday night.  It seemed like the tables were being filled about as quickly as they were vacated with a very diverse range of clientele, from what he could see.

She laughed.  "You think it's busy now?  This is nothing.  Through the week, they do evening shows, but it's not total nude—just down to the pretty little panties.  In fact, they should be getting ready to do a show in a little bit.  On the weekends, though . . .? Now that's a show.  Full-on nude.  It's quite the spectacle.  I imagine most come here the first time just out of fascination or maybe morbid curiosity, but there's something strangely erotic about them, if you want my honest opinion."

He wasn't entirely sure what to say about that.  Madison, however, had a strange sort of expression on her face: one that was almost sad, but not quite, just as it was almost amused, but not exactly, either, and Mikio really didn't know how to interpret it.

"Jazz told me once that all her life, she felt like she was pretending, trying to be everything that everyone else around her wanted her to be, and that everything she thought of herself was always pushed down, always swept under the rug because she was afraid of what those people might say if she were to even hint at the idea that she didn't feel the way they thought she should.  She said that her parents were ridiculously rich, that she was afraid that they'd be embarrassed by her if she told them how she truly felt—what she truly wanted.  She said that they could handle the idea that he was gay, but transgender?"  Trailing off with a sad little sigh, she shook her head.  "I couldn't imagine that, you know?  My parents . . . I'm not saying that they'd be happy if I had ever wanted to tell them something like that, but I'd know deep down that they still loved me."

"She hasn't told her parents?"

"No, she told them a couple years ago."  She winced.  "I . . . I told her that she should.  I thought that she could use the support going into that surgery, right?  I honestly believed that she was worried about nothing, and I . . ." she grimaced.  "I discounted her concerns because I just couldn't fathom the idea that parents would be anything but completely supportive of their child, no matter what, but . . . But I . . . I was wrong."

"Wrong?"

The expression in her gaze took on an angry sort of glint, almost a certain level of  bitterness.  "They no longer have a child," she said quietly.  "That's what they told her when they cut off her trust fund and took away all their financial support, and she hasn't seen them since."

"Maybe they were just, uh, shocked?"  But even to his own ears, he sounded like he was simply grasping at straws.

She snorted.  "Two years, Mikio.  How does a parent go for two years without calling their child?   Without at least wanting to make sure that they're safe?  I'm an adult, and my parents don't let me go a week without contacting me, you know?  And yours obviously don't, either, right?"

"That's true," he admitted with an inward wince.  His parents didn't like for him to go a day without calling, but then, they were also a little overly concerned, as far as Mikio could tell.

"I mean, I realize that I don't have children, so maybe I'm completely off, but . . . but a parent is supposed to love their children, no matter what, and even if they don't like something that the child does, they are still supposed to love them, period, right?  I just can't . . . Can't understand it, you know?"

Mikio grimaced.  No, he couldn't quite grasp that, either.  "That's . . ."

She tried to smile.  It didn't really work, but she'd tried.  "It's disgusting."

He nodded.  Disgusting was a damn good word for it . . .

"Tha nk you for showing me around."

Madison shot Mikio a quick glance as the two wandered down the street toward her apartment building.  "You're welcome," she replied, wondering if he'd notice if she slowed down, if she tried to prolong their time together.  "I had more fun this afternoon than I've had in awhile."

"Y-Yeah?" he asked, sounding genuinely surprised.  "I did, too."

She sighed, but it was more of a contented sound.  "There's, um . . . There's still a lot of city to explore—if you want to, that is."

"I'd . . . I'd like that," he replied.

The breath that Madison hadn't realized she'd been holding escaped her in a rush, leaving her feeling somewhat light headed, a little giddy.  "We can skip the transgender bars next time," she offered with a soft laugh.

He chuckled, too.  "That . . .  wasn't too bad," he allowed with a shrug.  "I mean, maybe not an every night kind of thing . . ."

They stopped in front of her building, and she turned to face him, offering him a rather shy smile.  "Would you . . . Would you like to come up for a bit?  Have a drink or something?"

"Oh, I, uh . . ." He made a face.  "I'd like to, but I really need to go over the files Jamison-san sent over.  I'm supposed to meet with the company's lawyer tomorrow, and I want to make sure I've gone through those first."

"Sure, I understand," Madison said, casting him a bright smile that faltered when he reached up, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.  His fingertips brushed her ear, and she shivered despite the warmth of the late summer night.  "Maybe next time . . .?"

He didn't seem to hear her, at least, not right away.  Gaze transfixed on hers, he blinked once, twice, then slowly nodded, even as a sudden brightness entered his eyes.  Then he nodded, clearing his throat as he took a step back, almost more of a shuffling of his feet than an actual step.  The sound of the soles against the concrete sidewalk echoed in her ears.  "G-Goodnight, Madison," he said softly, his own smile shy, reluctant, and completely breathtaking, just the same.

Slowly, he turned, stuffing his right hand into his pocket, his left hand reaching up, fiddling with his twitching ear, though she supposed that to a human, it might just look like he were scratching his head.  As she turned to head up the steps onto the stoop, he stopped, glanced back over his shoulder, his smile widening as he waved before moving further away into the night.