Koibumi

by Hildred Billings

  “Ow.” She slowly pulled her leg off the sink, muscles stuttering beneath her skin. Reina did not envy her. Enjoy your burning groin muscle. She reached over and turned on the sink, running her fingers beneath the cold water. “That was good,” Aiko continued, her hands still on her spouse’s strong shoulders. “Let’s do you next.”

  Reina shut off the faucet and shook the water off her hand. “You mean let’s go home and finish there.”

  Aiko relaxed. “You want me to get my strength back before you get yours.”

  “That too.”

  As Reina finished cleaning up – and zipping up – Aiko fingered her spouse’s jacket and pulled her into another kiss. “Can we play with your cock?”

  Ripples of arousal blasted down Reina’s spine. “Which one?” She knew which one she preferred that night: their new purple strapless toy that gave them both penetrative sensations…and lots of nubs for Reina’s clitoris.

  “Whichever one you’re thinking about.”

  They shared one last kiss, reveling in their lingering love. Reina reminded her wife that she didn’t care how old she got as long as they were together. Aiko’s sigh as they got ready to sneak back out into the club could have stopped Reina’s heart.

  Instead her heart was stopped by the whistles greeting them as they stepped outside.

  Chloe clapped her hands as Reina and Aiko quickly closed the restroom door behind them. “Ha!” she said, her freckles the only thing recognizable on her face. “Please tell me that happens all the time!”

  Horrified, Aiko hid behind Reina. The latter glowered at Chloe and led her wife back toward the bar, where Haruka and Kaori sat.

  “There you are!” Kaori latched right onto Reina’s arm as Chloe continued to giggle behind them. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Her breath reeked of alcohol.

  “Really? Why?”

  Uninvited to her personal space yet again, Chloe whispered something into Haruka’s ear and made her jump off her stool. “What!” She gaped at Reina. “You did it in the toilet?”

  Kaori’s eyebrows flew off her face as Aiko banged her head into the counter and Reina grimaced. “You shouldn’t share those things!” she snapped at Chloe.

  “Hmph.” The foreigner skipped back into the dance crowd.

  “Reina-san…” Haruka slapped a hand over her mouth. Years of experience told Reina what that young stud was thinking behind those pretty, bulging eyes. Thinking about us doing it. Even though Haruka had been rebounding at the time, Reina wasn’t about to think she hadn’t enjoyed herself. It’s mutual, kid. Perfect breasts and all. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Eh?” Reina flung her dominant hand in Haruka’s direction. “Do you need to smell my wife’s pussy to believe me?”

  “Reina!”

  “Reina-san!” Kaori’s voice overpowered Aiko’s. “That’s really…wow!”

  Reina shook her off like a spray of water. “Fucking hell. Stop drinking! You’ve got a job to look for!” She pointed to Haruka. “Stop thinking about doing it when your girlfriend needs you to cut her off!” You and your damn tits! She pointed into the crowd, where Chloe’s red hair stood out like fire. “Shut the god damn hell up about people’s private business!” She grabbed Aiko’s hand. “And you!” She met her wife’s surprised face. “You come home with me, young lady. There’s cocks to fuck.”

  The only one to say anything as Reina and Aiko left Max 30 was Kaori, who climbed into her girlfriend’s lap and said, “I want to do it in the toilet too!” The last thing Reina heard was Haruka telling her girlfriend to get her shit together. Young love. Thank God that was behind her.

  Although only a fifteen-minute walk away, Aiko hadn’t entered this particular neighborhood in years. Not since she strayed into it as a young adult and realized it was not a place for her.

  Wealthy. In Tokyo, even in the slightly more spacious northern neighborhoods, space was a premium. These houses she walked by now boasted multiple balconies and windows, and gardens – with car parks! – the size of a small yard in the countryside. Aiko had grown up in a fashionable area of the western neighborhoods, but her childhood home, while roomy, was nothing compared to these mini-mansions. For one, her family didn’t have modern Western automobiles taking up every parking space.

  This can’t be right! Aiko looked at her handwritten note again and then double-checked the addresses on the houses. No, this was right. This was the neighborhood Takeshi lived in. How does a professor live here? Maybe he married a successful woman. Maybe he still lived at home and his parents were rich. Maybe a lot of things that Aiko had no business speculating.

  When she reached the house emblazoned with the name MATSUMOTO out front, Aiko heaved a minor sigh of relief. The houses on this end of the street were older, with slanted steel roofs and dark brown wooden frames. Takeshi’s yard was full of ivy cascading down the fence, wrapping around flower beds of roses, and trailing beneath a small cherry tree hanging over from the neighbor’s yard. She rang the buzzer and hoped he wasn’t home.

  “Ah, come in! The gate’s unlocked.” came a voice over the intercom. “I’ll meet you at the door.”

  Aiko gently pushed the wrought iron gate open and stepped into the small enchanted forest growing in the middle of the densest city in the world. The moment she closed the gate behind her she swore she stepped into another world, full of fairies and other spirits enriching the earth beneath her feet. She followed a stone pathway to the front porch and sliding front door. It opened before she reached it.

  “Konnichiwa! Come in!” Takeshi slid it all the way open, revealing his lean build shrouded in khaki trousers and a black and green plaid shirt. He removed his glasses and bowed.

  “Shitsureishimasu,” she said as she stepped inside. A clean yet musty smell overcame her as she stepped into pristine humidity. The genkan had a concrete floor and an old beaten shoe rack, but the raised hallway floor was a dust-free pine. Aiko removed her shoes and slipped into a pair of slippers Takeshi provided.

  She had been in plenty of old houses before – Reina’s childhood home was quite old and cramped – but none like this. The crisp lines of the interior had a level of sophistication Aiko did not associate with pre-war buildings. Where most paper screens had dents, tears, and mildew accosting them, the ones lining Takeshi’s walls were white and clean. A narrow staircase twirled to the second story before the hallway dropped off into a steel kitchen. Takeshi showed her through and into the living area, the only room downstairs with a carpet as opposed to tatami mats. He motioned for her to sit at a wide table beneath the air conditioner.

  When Aiko looked up after settling on a mauve cushion, she gasped. Before her, lining the walls, were bookcases full of tomes with old bindings and scrolls with metal handles. The more Aiko’s eyes wandered, the more old Japanese texts and classic Western literature she saw. Is that Jane Austen and John Steinbeck? On the same bookshelf? Only libraries had such collections around there.

  “I’m so glad you could come pay me a visit, Takeuchi-san.” Takeshi served her a glass of iced tea and a cookie. “I feel I should properly apologize to you for our previous incidents.”

  Aiko pried her eyes off the bookshelf and refocused on Takeshi, who sat around the corner from her crossed legs. “Oh, it’s no problem.” She had forgotten why she was there. “Are those all yours?”

  “Hm? Ah.” Takeshi smiled. “I forgot you are an English student. Do you like to read literature?” His voice inflected a hopeful interest.

  “Oh, yes! Although it’s been a long time.” Those days the most Aiko read in its original English were naughty lesbian novels. But she still had some Brontë books stacked somewhere in her and Reina’s room. “I originally wanted to be a translator for novels.”

  “Really!” Takeshi slapped his hand on the table. “Well, Hasegawa is good for that sort of training. What do you mean ‘originally,’ though?”

  “I ended up switching to interpreting.” Back then that was the more lucrative care
er option, and with the way Reina’s education was going, it seemed pertinent that Aiko choose something that could make them money.

  Takeshi sipped some tea. “Fantastic. Who do you work for?”

  “Ah, well…” Aiko shifted on her legs. “I don’t work for anybody. I’m a homemaker.”

  “Oh.” Her host gave a subtle glance to her left hand, where her wedding band lurked. “Oh! I’m sorry! I never noticed you were married.” He almost knocked over his teacup. “Goodness, I hope your husband doesn’t mind you being here.”

  Husband. That word was a punch in Aiko’s gut. Reina didn’t like being called “husband” due to gender implications. When they discussed what titles to go by after getting married, Aiko jumped at “wife” while Reina turned her nose at both that and “husband.” In the end she settled for the neutral, if not bland, “spouse.” “I’m neither your wife nor your husband,” she had said. So now hearing that word only served to remind Aiko about her precarious situation.

  “I don’t have a husband,” she said without thinking.

  Takeshi stopped talking, bemusement claiming his sharp features. “But you’re married?”

  Damnit, Aiko! She only had herself to berate. As nice as Takeshi seemed, Aiko still knew better than to come out to him. Reina would faint if she ever found out about that. “This is…” She took off her wedding band. “A gift from somebody. But not a husband.”

  Takeshi cocked his head. “You are an interesting woman, Takeuchi-san.”

  “Please, call me Aiko.” “Takeuchi” was her mother. And thank God I am not my mother.

  “Aiko-san.” Takeshi scratched the stubble on his chin. “Forgive me for prying, but I am confused. You said you are a homemaker, and yet are not married.”

  “I…live with a roommate. She does all the working so I don’t have to.” Poor Reina. Relegated to roommate again.

  “I see. That is quite interesting.”

  “Heh.”

  Takeshi jumped up from the table and strolled to his bookshelf. His hand perused the bottom shelf. “What year did you graduate from Hasegawa, Aiko-san?”

  She welcomed the change in subject. “1996.” Had it really almost been twenty years? I really am getting old. Like she needed to be reminded.

  A long black book sprung out from the bookshelf. Takeshi brought it back to the table and set it down for Aiko to see. Emblazoned on the front were the words, “Hasegawa Women’s College, Class of 1996.” Aiko blinked.

  “I have every yearbook going back to 1992. Started as a research project, and I ended up getting the missing books for completionist’s sake.” He drank the rest of his tea. “Douzo.”

  Aiko opened the book with anxiety. Although she had her own copy somewhere in her childhood home, she didn’t like to look at it. Yearbooks only served to remind her of how difficult the last three years of university were for her socially. Once she had close friends – but after she came out, they abandoned her, and rumor to “stay away from Aiko Takeuchi” kept others from befriending her. She was never bullied or threatened, but she felt the lack of human companionship at her school all the same. During those years Reina was my only friend. Aiko politely flipped through the photobook and looked for her picture.

  “What a beautiful young lady.” Takeshi smiled at the picture of twenty-two-year-old Aiko smiling at a camera. Back then she had long hair she usually wore in a high pony-tail. How ‘90s of me. It had suited her then. “Do you know Professor Honda?”

  “Of course I do. He was my adviser at one point. Why? Is he still teaching? He was ancient when I went there.”

  “He’s department chair now. I work with him.”

  “Really!”

  “Yup. Still prattling on about John Milton.”

  Aiko closed the book and pretended this concerned her at all. “I must compliment you on your home. It’s very lovely.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “Who takes care of your yard? It’s immaculate. Your wife?”

  Takeshi sat up to attention. “No. I am not married.”

  Really? A professor who lived in an affluent neighborhood? How young was he? “Oh, I see. Your mother?”

  He laughed. “I am afraid she passed on a long time ago. No, it’s only me here. I take care of the house, and the garden by extension.”

  Aiko’s mouth dropped open for the second time that day. While she knew better than anyone not to judge a person by their gender, experience still taught her that men were not wont to tend house and garden. Next he’ll tell me he’s a chef!

  “Is it really so shocking?” Takeshi leaned against the table. “I grew up without a father, so my mother taught me how to take care of the house while she worked. I actually enjoy it. Cleaning, cooking, gardening…they’re all therapeutic in a productive way. It’s a nice break for when my brain gets overloaded with academia.”

  Reina hasn’t cooked in years. Could she cook? Her spouse could make tea and put things in the toaster oven, but that was all Aiko ever saw. The idea of Reina preparing ingredients and standing in front of a stove was about as likely as her putting on a dress while doing it. For years Aiko assumed it was part of her masculine leanings. She had never known a man who also helped with the housework, let alone enjoyed it. “I love to cook too. Cleaning not so much.”

  As it turned out, she and Takeshi still had more in common. After they ate their crumbling cookies and finished their cooling tea, he got out a collection of books to rummage through and discuss. When Aiko stopped to think about the circumstances of her going there, she realized how bizarre it was – on two occasions she had bumped into this man, and on two occasions he made an effort to contact her. It’s almost like he’s… She blinked as Takeshi glanced at her and then looked away. Flirting with me? No. Men hadn’t flirted with her in years. Side effect of her hardly ever interacting with them outside of her family.

  Still, she was soon able to forget their strange meeting, and soon it was as if they had been friends for a while already. Takeshi did not talk down to her as a man or as a professor. Instead he engaged her in stimulating conversation about Victorian England and some Edwardian for good measure. Soon he spoke of classic American literature and pried Aiko for her opinion on Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nobody’s asked me about him in my entire life! Aiko was surprised to find she had a good memory for The House of the Seven Gables.

  The sun disappeared behind a canopy of cherry trees in the late afternoon, swarming the living area in darkness. Aiko gave a start after realizing what time it was. “Ah! I’m so sorry! I have to go.” Reina would be home soon, and Aiko still hadn’t bought groceries for dinner.

  Takeshi closed his books and nodded his head. “Appointment?”

  “I need to make dinner for my spo…my roommate.”

  “I see.” He stood up beside her. “Thank you for visiting me today, Aiko-san. I find that I enjoy your company immensely. Would you care to visit again?”

  Aiko froze as if he had asked her to marry him. “I…suppose.”

  Takeshi picked up the nearest book, a copy of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. “Here. Please borrow this, so you’ll have a reason to return.”

  The book felt hard and warm against Aiko’s chest. Something slammed against her ribs. Her heart? Why in the world is it beating so fast? “Thank you…I’ve never read this one.” She looked at the cover, a plain, dark blue affair with the English letters embossed in gold.

  “Please tell me what you think of it the next time we meet.”

  He showed Aiko out into the genkan, then into his garden – where he pointed out a small patch of clover – and finally past his gate. An old auntie hobbling by on a cane stopped and stared at them, her toothless grin hollering, “It’s about time you found yourself a wife!” Takeshi gently corrected her, but the old woman went on her way, laughing.

  Aiko ended up following her half the way home, until the old woman turned in the opposite direction. Book still in sweaty hands, Aiko ambled down her street and stared
at the binding. The humidity made the book give off a musty smell.

  Great Expectations, huh? Aiko didn’t know what to expect from this new…acquaintanceship? Friendship? Maybe she didn’t know how to be friends with a man.

  She didn’t know how to do anything with a man.

  Holding the book close to her chest, Aiko stood outside her front gate. She ignored the heat and the pressing need to get to the grocery store.

  In truth, she had no idea how to process anything. She didn’t know what to tell Reina. She won’t be impressed if I befriend a man. But Reina didn’t control her wife’s social life, nor did she ever express a desire to. What social life? The closest friend Aiko had was Yuri, and she was busy a majority of the time. And although she also knew English, she was never one for conversation about literature.

  Aiko went inside. Returning to her mundane life did nothing to stimulate her brain.

  Since the dismissal of Kaori Hanawa from the department, Reina’s work life had regressed to that of a pseudo-secretary.

  She was used to it: answering phones, running errands, standing in front of the copier, making endless pots of coffee…she had served as half-secretary seven times now, between each secretary she had ever worked with. Even though she was a senior worker, she still had to do it because of her sex. The only thing keeping her from having a dysphoric breakdown in the restroom was the fact many of her male colleagues were doing the same chores on top of their own work. As long as Reina wasn’t forced to hand out drinks, she could manage.

  There was also one upside to running endless errands and being kept away from her desk – she didn’t have to sit across from Nakamura, the man who once tried to drunkenly assault her a year ago. Anything that kept them apart was fine with Reina. Although he had never tried to touch her since that day, being in his presence unnerved her. So when she returned early that afternoon from running mailers to another department and saw him absent from their desk, she sighed in relief.