It was the face.
The man drinking and smoking and laughing with other men in the small alcove close to the stage lip was the one from the pictures she had taken secretly at the police station.
It was the face she had tried all evening to entice into looking at her fully.
It was the face she finally had turned to her and staring.
It was the face she had memorized and hated.
It was the face she had imagined scratching, clawing at the eyes, breaking the nose with the heel of her hand, punching the windpipe and turning the jaw.
It was the face of the man she had been looking for for months.
It was the face of the man who had had her sent for and brought to his table to personally pour drinks and sit in his lap, hands squeezing her thighs painfully hard, holding her by the forearm until her hand throbbed, fingers pulsing as blood rushed back to them after he released her.
It was the face of the man she now knew would be there again.
It was the face she tried to clear from her mind as she showered at home later, smoothing jasmine mask into and then out of her hair, steam clouding the mirror and her airway, pumice stone scraping heels, cherry bodywash and coconut oil dripping.
She meets Mamoru in their bedroom when she's only barely dry, hair still heavy and dark with water.
He knows something is wrong when she looks at him, unflinching in her nakedness, eyes wide with something he can't translate and ringed with smudges of washed away eyeliner, cloudy and smeared with what he would have thought were tears if he couldn't feel the heat from the shower billowing from the open bathroom and coming off her skin itself.
She's asking for absolution and comfort and needs desperately for him to put his hands on her just as hard and harder than the man with the face she is obsessed with and also in this moment trying to forget and replace. She needs him to reclaim her body as his own space so she can feel some remove from whatever secret thing it is she thinks she's doing and hopes he feels some vindication in taking out some of his hurt or suspicion on her. He's owed some revenge. But more so, she wants to feel sure that she's his alone, remind herself.
So when she kisses him without speaking or trying to explain the hour or why she's cleaned and prepared herself so ceremoniously for use, and he is overcome with the heady smell of her hair's jasmine and skin's warm and edible coconut sheen, drunk on the smell and feel of her, he finally understands that this is the only way she's going to speak to him right now and is asking for something.
Holding her hard by the jaw with one hand, other hand going to her throat, she encourages him with a soft huff and gentle push on the chest. As he tries to step away from the embrace, she grabs him by both wrists, keeping him in place, pulling them closer to her, keeping them on her face and throat. Stay.
There's something about her tonight that's contrite and in need of defeat, and if that's what she needs, that's what he'll give.
He pushes her down, pulls her to him, holds her against him, hold her wrists behind her, pulls her hair back, grips her hard by the hips, presses the side of her face into the wall, the pillow, his own shoulder, does the talking for both of them, telling her that she is his, and this is what makes her exhale an almost surprised cry of pleasure and relief, nails in his arm as she shakes, and he spills inside her.