Before she could throw her knife into the sink, the hallway telephone rang.
“Fucking telemarketers calling on Sunday morning.” That’s all who used the land line now. For the past few years, all other calls went straight to her and Aiko’s cell phones. “What?” she growled into the receiver. Telemarketers didn’t deserve her respect. Especially on Sunday morning, the day after she let another woman fuck her with a strap-on.
“Reina? Is that you?”
Her heart seized in her chest. “Okaasan!”
Sachiko’s breath was full of rattles. “You startled me! What’s wrong?”
“I…” Reina couldn’t find her tongue. “Why are you calling me?” Sachiko hadn’t called in at least two years. And the last time it was to ask for money to help pay her doctor co-pay. She’s the one who won the lottery. A small lottery, but it wasn’t like Reina was made of money.
Sachiko waited a few seconds before responding. “I wanted to talk to you. I’ve been thinking about you more since we ran into each other on obon. How are you doing?”
Is this a trick? Sachiko, the woman who barely waved goodbye the day her daughter moved out of the house fifteen years ago? Sachiko, the woman who spent all of Reina’s teenaged years trying to “fix” her? Sachiko? “I’m fine,” Reina said with an edge to her voice.
“Oh, good! And how is…how is your…”
“My wife?” Reina could play this game. She could play this game all day, until her anger erupted like a volcano and she started calling her mother awful names.
“Yes. Yes, how is she?”
Reina didn’t know whether to call prank and hang up, or to go upstairs and make sure her hung over wife wasn’t drowning in her own saliva. “She’s fine. We’re both fine. Everything’s the same here.” They could hang up now, right?
“Good! Ano, I was wondering if maybe you two would like to come visit and have dinner with me sometime soon? I’ve been cleaning the house but…there are no visitors. And I haven’t seen your…wife…in a long time.”
As it should be. Sachiko had largely ignored Aiko’s existence in those early years.
“I don’t know. We’re busy. Really busy.”
As if summoned from the depths of her pounding brain, Aiko came down the stairs, still in her pajamas of a tank top and short-shorts. She snuggled up next to Reina in the hallway, her arms looping around her spouse’s small midsection as she yawned and scratched her tangled head. Reina turned her face away before she had to smell her wife’s alcohol-infused morning breath. What was she drinking last night?
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” Sachiko’s voice became mousier the longer she spoke. “I hope we can meet up again sometime soon. I miss yo –”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll talk to you later. I’ve gotta go now. Bye.” Reina hung up before her mother could drag that agony out any longer.
Aiko lifted her head, eyes full of sleep and redness. “Who was that?”
“My mother.”
“Eh? What did she want?” Aiko yawned again. “Money?”
Reina devoted both her arms to embracing her wife. Although she smelled of alcohol, Reina buried her nose in Aiko’s scalp and relished in the softness of her hair. “Something about us going over to have dinner with her or something.”
“Us?” Suddenly Aiko was as alert as a startled cat.
“Yeah. She was asking about you. How you’re doing.”
“My head hurts.”
“I see that.” Reina brushed her thumb across Aiko’s forehead. “What were you doing?”
Aiko squeezed her eyes shut, pouted her lips, and flung her head back against Reina’s chest. Her fists clutched her spouse’s T-shirt as if she would run away. “I was at a dinner party, and I had way too much wine.”
Reina sensed there was something else her wife may have had too much of, but did not press the issue. “How late were you out?”
“I think I got home around one. I went straight to bed.” Aiko hugged her tighter. “I missed you. I wish you were there last night.”
Oh, now she says that! Where had that been the night before? Half-drunk Aiko with a strap-on was less distressing than Jun with one. “You told me to stay at the hotel. So I did.”
“I know.”
Reina noted that she did not ask how that went. She doesn’t want to know. “Are you hungry? I started making lunch.”
Once again Aiko’s bloodshot eyes grew to the size of pools. “You did what?”
Reina escorted her into the kitchen and pointed to the abandoned bell pepper and the rice cooking on the counter. “I started lunch. But…I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You started to cook?”
Mumbling, Reina turned her back on her wife. Yeah, give me a medal while you’re at it. She didn’t need further proof that she was incompetent at life. Just like my mother would tell me. That left a worse taste in her mouth than if she tried to eat that bell pepper whole.
Aiko scratched her head again, realizing her hair was all tangles. “Give me a minute to get cleaned up and dressed, and I’ll show you how to cut a damn bell pepper.” She said it with a slight smile, big enough to tell her spouse she was only giving her a hard time.
“I’m sorry about what happened the other night!”
Those were the first words Takeshi said when Aiko went to meet him for lunch Wednesday. He stood from his seat as she approached and bowed twice, his face as pale as death even though the day was one of the hottest of the year. A restaurant server had to jump to avoid running him over.
Aiko nodded her head and sank into the nearest seat. Takeshi bowed once more before joining her. “Please don’t be bothered by it. I’m willing to forget about it if you are.”
“Ah…” He fidgeted with his hands as the server came by to give Aiko water and take her order. Once the server left, Takeshi continued, “I’m glad to hear you say it, Aiko-san. I was worried you would not be comfortable talking to me again after that. I would not blame you for it, but I hoped you would not be.”
“I still consider you my friend.” Aiko knew that was not what he wanted to hear.
“I’m glad.”
They plowed through lunch with careful conversation, although it lacked their usual casualness. It will never be the same. Not when she knew how he really felt about her, let alone the secret still hanging between them like rancid mistletoe. Reina. It pained her to know she kept this from the both of them. On Sunday, Reina was a model of tenderness as they spent the whole day together at home, cuddling until they eventually went to “take a nap” in the late afternoon. The gentleness of that lovemaking had eased most of Aiko’s worries, for a time. Until a day later when Takeshi called and asked to see her again.
He loves me. Or at least he thought he did. Still, it flattered her. When would such a good looking and successful man ever pay her such a compliment again? She knew it should not matter, since she had Reina, but she was still human and dependent on praise. And while she loved her spouse, she admitted she wished they could have a more intellectual relationship outside of sexual theories. Sometimes Aiko wanted to talk about books, get turned on, and fuck. Sex manuals didn’t count.
At least in the realm of discussions Takeshi remained largely unchanged. Only when they skimmed over personal matters did he freeze up and avert his eyes. All Aiko had mentioned was her pregnant niece still on bed rest. Oh God, he’s thinking about babies with me.
Apparently they were both psychics. “I was thinking about what you said the other night, Aiko-san. About age and having children.”
Aiko dropped her fork.
“I never really considered what women have to go through in this day and age. You’re right when you say there’s only so much time for you, and after a certain point it becomes more difficult physically and mentally to be a parent. For men it’s different. I guess I can have kids whenever I want, if that’s what I choose. But I was honest when I said it didn’t matter if I had kids or not. If my wife wanted them, great, but i
f she didn’t, that’s fine too. I don’t mind a relationship of her and me. We can be a family too.”
Aiko wasn’t sure if he meant a hypothetical “we” or “Takeshi and Aiko we.” Both. She chewed on a salad crouton. “That’s admirable. But what if your wife wanted children and she couldn’t have them?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s something you have to think about too.”
Chatter from the world around them dominated Aiko’s senses as Takeshi sat and pondered her meaning. When he spoke again, it was with a candor she did not expect. “You really want children, don’t you, Aiko-san?”
She swallowed her food before seriously considering that. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“Well…never mind.”
“You think I don’t want to date you because it would be too painful for me if you couldn’t get me pregnant.”
A streak of red flashed on Takeshi’s cheeks as he apparently imagined what that would be like. Yes, yes, go ahead and think about fucking me for a few seconds. Being with Reina for so long had desensitized Aiko. She assumed everyone thought about fucking each other.
“Please don’t think that’s what I was –”
“It’s fine.” Aiko dabbed her lips with her napkin. “It’s a practical thing to consider. But I’m a lot like you in the sense that I can also be in a relationship without children.”
“Really?”
“I’ve done it before.”
“But you said you weren’t in any relationships…”
Not with men. “This is a complicated matter. But, my own feelings about children aside, I’m not sure it would work out romantically between you and me. I didn’t want to tell you that the other night. Well, that and I was shocked by what you said.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Aiko folded her hands in her lap. “To tell you the truth, Takeshi-san, there are things about me that I have not been forthright about.”
He turned his head slightly to the right. “What things?”
But as Aiko opened her mouth to start rambling about things that may or may not come back to her being “intimate” with her roommate, Takeshi held up his hands and spoke again.
“No, it doesn’t matter. You know why? Because I know whatever it is you have to say won’t sway how I feel about you, Aiko-san.” The Takeshi now blooming before her was not one she thought she would see again after Saturday. “Even though we’ve only interacted a little in the realm of the world, I still feel that I know you well. You’re a kind, intelligent person. I was serious when I told you I felt like it was a spark of destiny between us. Why else would we have ever ran into each other that day? The mere fact that we have so much in common astounds me. I’ve never met a woman who makes me feel like you do. I know this seems fast, and it is, but I don’t make these decisions brashly. I’m fond of you, Aiko-san. I would like it very much if you would do me the honor of becoming my girlfriend, and maybe becoming something more down the line. But I respect you if you say no. Say no, and I won’t ever speak of it again.”
Aiko sat at the table, staring at her salad. Reina doesn’t say these things about me. Logic told her to pick up her things and go. Someone who felt this way about her, no matter what they promised, would always think them whenever their paths crossed. Even if Aiko said no, Takeshi would always feel that sting of unrequited love in her presence. She didn’t want to do that to him.
But there was the part of her that was attached to the thought of a man like Takeshi feeling this way about her. It’s Saturday night all over again. Except now instead of being alone, they were surrounded by a hundred other people eating their lunches, as they laughed and chided one another as friends and lovers. As Aiko looked at the walkway next to their table, a toddler wandered up the aisle, a pacifier in his mouth and his young mother chasing him down a few meters away. That would’ve been me. In another life. A life in which Aiko never met a lesbian named Reina who charmed her into discovering that part of herself.
For years, Aiko had assumed she had given up all her dreams of children to be with Reina.
But Takeshi was there, in love with her, and wanting to be with her. He would love her whether or not she could have children. Having children with a man… When she thought about it in the context of still being with Reina, she was willing to have sex with a man if it meant she could become pregnant. But like this? To make love to a man? That dream, in which Takeshi invaded Aiko’s subconscious and made love to her, plagued her as she sat across from him. The breath stilled in her lungs. I can’t lie. Not to herself or to Takeshi. “I have to tell you…”
Ping ping ping.
Both Aiko and Takeshi turned their heads to the window nearby. Through it, marred by a glare from the summer sunshine, was Saki.
Saki.
“Oneesan!” Aiko leaped from her seat and met her sister’s shit-eating grin.
“Your sister?” Takeshi followed her, craning his head to see who the thin woman with a giant tote was. He shielded his eyes and gave her a small wave.
“Excuse me!” Aiko pushed herself away from the table and dashed through the aisle, out the door, and onto the sidewalk where Saki stood like the happiest woman in the world. Aiko hadn’t seen that plotting smile since the day Saki announced she was going to get her boyfriend – now husband – to marry her by lying to him about being pregnant. “What are you doing here?” This was Aiko’s neighborhood. She was sure her sister hadn’t stepped in it in ever.
“I was coming to see my baby sister! I literally just left the station.” She jerked her thumb toward the train station around the corner. “Walking by here I happened to look in and see you.”
“What are you doing here?” Saki? Near the den of lesbianism?
“Stopping by to have you sign something.” Saki opened her red and white striped tote and produced a form from the local ward office. “Hospital needs to confirm you’re one of my next of kin. I’m going in for minor surgery soon, and let’s face it, compared to our other siblings you have the most time in the world. I doubt anything will happen. And Mother and my husband are ahead of you anyhow.”
In that order? Aiko pulled her stamp out of her purse and placed the red ink along the dotted line. “What minor surgery?”
“Abortion.”
Aiko dropped her stamp.
“Saa, turns out the old baby oven is still working. Should’ve listened to it when my husband started pawing at me a couple of months ago.” Saki readjusted her tote strap as she snatched the form from Aiko. “Like hell I’m having more kids, especially at my age. I’m finally getting rid of the ones I already have.”
“I see…” Aiko was not upset about a woman having an abortion – around there, it was done with such nonchalance that few thought of it as a big deal. But Saki? The Queen of Domesticity who made it her life’s mission to be the perfect housewife and mother? Of all the people Aiko thought would have an abortion, her sister was not one of them. “Well, be careful.”
“Say, who is that man you’re with?” And now the real reason Saki was smiling came out. “He’s good looking! Boyfriend?”
“What? No!” Aiko bent down and picked up her stamp before it could roll into the street. “He’s a friend. He teaches at the university I used to go to.”
“Oh, you don’t have to be coy with me, little sister. I know a date when I see one. Good for you. It’s about time you got rid of that sludge that’s been trailing behind you for much too long. You’ve got enough time left in you to have a nice, normal life with a good man.”
“That sludge is my spouse!” Aiko hissed it to the best of her ability, in case Takeshi could hear them through the window. When she glanced at him, he waved at her. What a disaster. The last thing Aiko needed was her nosy sister walking in on an important moment with an eligible bachelor. “And don’t you dare suggest anything.”
Saki rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. You’d best wrap that man around your finger be
fore he finds out you’re a…” She paused. “Does he know about your deviancy?”
Aiko froze and stuttered. “N…no! And don’t you tell him!”
“Me? Tell him? Please, I’ve never properly met the man. That’s your job. Oh, but I bet Miss Sludge really likes this situation.” She gasped. “She doesn’t know, does she?”
Aiko could say nothing. Anything she said would be a lie.
“Fascinating.” Saki crossed her arms again and sent one last smile in Takeshi’s direction. “Well, thank you for signing the form, little sister. I’ll leave you to your date. Jya ne!” She pushed a pair of sunglasses onto her face, waved, and spun around to return to the train station from whence she came.
Alone again in the sweltering heat, Aiko attempted to regather her bearings. This isn’t happening. Saki would now go tell the entire family about what she had seen. A new mess of teasing, goading, and perhaps the entire unraveling of Junko’s civility toward her daughter’s marriage would occur. And Takeshi… Aiko turned and stared at him through the window. When he waved at her again, she felt her heart explode inside her chest. No matter what she did now, she could not win.
Though she wished she could think of anything else, the situation at the restaurant haunted Aiko for the rest of the day. She went home half mortified, half intrigued, and spent the afternoon debating whether or not to tell Reina about Takeshi. All I have to say is that I have a friend who is a man. Reina wouldn’t care. She may be confused, but wouldn’t care. Yet when she came home that night, babbling about the pervert at work retiring that day, Aiko decided not to ruin her good mood with scandal.
After dinner, Reina yawned and laid her head in Aiko’s lap, snuggling into the groove between her legs and curling up beside her. Aiko placed her hand on her spouse’s hair and brushed away dandruff. I love her. That would never change. But the new things Aiko thought about were how much she loved Reina, and if it were possible to love someone else more.
Koibumi Page 19
