Page 2 of Billion Dollar Love: Manlove Edition

Tonight, the empty mask leers, as if it also remembers every time I’ve come.

“Welcome Home, Omocha.”

The flickering smile on the mask isn’t real. Just the product of an overworked imagination that’s already on high-alert and one hard shove from a drop into madness.

Welcome home? What the hell do I do with that?

“Mr. Ito?”

No change in the darkness or silence.

“Mr. Ito, are you here?”

Nothing.

The silence, the cool, the dark fills me. Like hiding backstage while the rest of the company frolicked as an ensemble. Only here I don’t even have the black-on-black of the stagehand’s silent, selfless dance to keep me company.

Just that strange silver and gold half-face on the wall.

Does it mean, “Find the maid costume and pretend to clean my spotless apartment?” Maybe, “Take up a position and be an object in my home.” Or maybe a pet? I told him I don’t do pet-play. And what the hell is Omocha?

According to the Internet, omocha is Japanese for “toy”. Judging by the anime, there might be sexual connotations.

Real cute, Ito.

The minimalist room has no place for toys. Not children’s toys and not sexy ones either. Maybe in the coffee table drawer… I walk toward it to investigate.

As I step on the stairs, the lights change. One bright beam, like God’s eye, shines down from the high ceiling and illuminates an ornately folded black cloth.

The text of the screen changes at long last.

“Naked except for the hood. On knees and elbows. Find your light.”

A perverse relief fills me. I can give Mr. Ito what he wants.

And get what I need.

****

Memory is an odd dance partner. I saw Mr. Ito unmasked once, but all I can remember is the cut of his suit, the darkness of his eyes, the firm line of his unflinching mouth.

Mercy, Van, and I performed at Charity Ball. The kind of weird, wonderful combination of jazz ballet and neoclassical music that only the avant-garde tolerated. Big hit on YouTube in the next few hours. Well, big for our company.

Mr. Ito didn’t stand out right away, another black suit in a jungle of black suits. Only artists wore colors, and we swirled like beautiful birds, pecking for promises and destroying cocktails.

I flitted toward him because he watched me. Typically, all eyes are on Van—and why not, she’s a former Rockette and a stunning woman. But his gaze licked over my body, like a tiger watching a particularly drunk child playing too near to the wild. When I purposefully walked toward him, he detached from the suits he orbited and boldly faced me.

He bowed slightly. “Your performance was exquisite.”

“I appreciate that.”

His English was good. We talked about Van and the choreography, the room’s loudness. I made him laugh. He admitted to a career in technology, coding, marketing, something about a start-up sold to Microsoft.

My memory has given him the mask’s face, though that’s far too eccentric even for this clientele. So, I only remember his mouth. When I asked his name, he’d paused, and the two thin lines of his brown lips pressed tighter as if his own name was a detail he could decide. The expression settled into a formal frown. “Call me Mr. Ito. What’s your pitch?”

A summer camp for rural kids. The inverse of sending city kids to the country for a taste of nature, we’d pull in children from all across America to introduce them to NYC. Matinees on Broadway, art galleries, the museums, conclude with a talent showcase if we got the funding…

But Van, Mercy, and I had a formal pitch scheduled with Mr. Joji Ito and several others. I couldn’t pitch alone any more than I could dance the tango by myself.

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