Hatsukoi

by Hildred Billings

  Shizuka left with her order, abandoning Reina to two uncomfortable women and one who continued to adjust her glasses. Aiko cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “Won’t you sit down, Reina-san?” She wished she knew the girl’s last name.

  Those eyes went from judging Tomoko to searching Aiko’s face. She willed herself to not pale, or redden, or otherwise change into a color alerting Reina of her unscrupulous emotions. Without heavy make-up, Reina’s eyes were not so special anymore, but Aiko’s heart still thumped nonetheless. It’s like I can see her whole self on her face. Society had trained her to expect everyone to hide themselves, their feelings, and their desires so far inside odds were she would never discover them. Was Reina really human?

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice an even, feminine tone. Reina pulled back the empty chair next to Aiko and sank into it, her baggy blue sweater oozing over the arms. “So, what are three pretty ladies doing here?”

  Even without the unsophisticated words, Reina’s candid comments had the usual effects on those around her. Aiko glanced away, Tomoko choked, and Nana cocked her head to the side. Aiko said something before Nana could. “These are my friends. We study English together at the women’s college near here.”

  “Oh, English? I’m so awful at English.” Reina’s laughs were also lighter and more feminine in the present company.

  The awkward silence enduring afterward was impenetrable. Aiko searched for her cousin up at the counter but saw Shizuka was stuck at the back of an unfortunate line. Sweat beaded down Aiko’s forehead. Such a damnable, awkward silence.

  “I have to go to the toilet,” Tomoko said with a leap to her feet. She scurried away from the table faster than if she had seen a mouse.

  Nana also stood up once Tomoko vacated the area. “I’ll go with you!” she called after her friend.

  Aiko fought the urge to join them, but the politeness instilled into her since birth won out. Grievous indeed to abandon even someone like Reina for such selfish reasons. “Ano…” She hid her clenched hands beneath the tablecloth.

  “Hm?”

  “You look different without your make-up.”

  “Oh. They make us wear a lot of that crap for the shows we do. So I don’t like to wear it much when I don’t have to.”

  “I see.”

  Although Aiko kept her head pointed straight, she remained aware of Reina staring at her. Am I ugly? Why was that the first thing she thought of? Who cared if she was “ugly” to someone like this? Maybe she thinks my hair is ugly. Why did I wear it off to the side today? It’s stupid! Or maybe she thinks my red sweater is grandmotherly. Oh, God, what if she sees my boots?

  “So, your name’s something like ‘Aiko,’ right?” Reina leaned in closer. “Sorry if I’m wrong, I meet a lot of girls.” Her voice plummeted back into the tenor Aiko heard the night before. “Although usually not as cute as you.”

  Dry though Aiko’s throat was, she attempted speech through faltering lips. “Y…yes. My name is Aiko.” She couldn’t bring herself to comment on the second part, although that observation made her muscles tighten. “Do…do you…”

  “Do I what? Play guitar? Nah.”

  “Do you always flirt like this with girls?”

  That got a smile out of Reina again. “I will admit I am a shameless flirt. Shit, ask anyone who knows me.” She scooted her chair, Aiko’s skin charging in heat the closer Reina came. “Especially with wound-up girls like you who haven’t heard of lesbians before. It’s fun.”

  “I’ve heard of lesbians, thanks.”

  “Oh, are you one?”

  “N…no!”

  “Ah. Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Aiko extended a shaking hand and grabbed her glass of water. “Not currently.” She had boyfriends since high school, of course, but she dumped the last one a couple months before. He didn’t make me feel anything. None of them did.

  “Well, that’s convenient. Have you thought about my offer from last night?”

  “Wh…what offer?”

  One side of Reina’s mouth lifted in the coyest smile – it almost made up for the lack of glamorous eye make-up. She tossed her hair to the side and lowered her head to Aiko’s ear. Even closer, and she smelled tobacco on parting lips.

  “The one where I offered to fuck you.”

  Something in the grating whisper, the hot breath, and the colorful word choice sent a shiver throughout Aiko’s entire body – the fact such a shiver tipped off in her breasts before swirling southward was not lost on her. She was naïve, but not uneducated. When she found her voice, hidden with her bearings, she said, “That’s not quite how you said it.” It’s been playing in my head since yesterday.

  “Oh, how did I say it?”

  The way Reina’s voice so easily fluctuated between deep and light both intrigued and confused Aiko. “I believe you said…you offered to have sex with certain body parts in a satisfactory manner.” She didn’t have it in her to use such rough language.

  “Ah, so I did. Well, then, did you think about it?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Oh, well, never mind then. But not even a kiss?”

  “That would be most inappropriate.” Where is Shizuka?

  Reina took the glass still clenched in Aiko’s hand. Before widening eyes, Reina sipped some water and returned the glass. “Consider it an inadvertent kiss. Best way to start trekking off on the road to Lesbos.”

  As Aiko stared at the gross invasion of privacy, Tomoko and Nana reemerged from the restroom. Reina leaned away and hailed Shizuka, who also returned, arms laden with coffee and pastries. Aiko remained locked in her seat while her friends sat and her cousin stole Reina away. Once the two were gone Aiko let out a heavy breath. She looked up to see her friends staring at her as if Reina had tagged her with graffiti.

  “She’s quite the character,” Aiko said, picking up her glass without a thought.

  “She always was,” Tomoko mumbled.

  “She’s quite deplorable!”

  Aiko shrugged. What matter was it now? “How’d you like me to fuck your pussy real good?” She looked at her glass and noted the large lip print from another woman. “Consider it an inadvertent kiss.”

  Turning the lip print toward her chest, Aiko wondered what it would be like to kiss another woman, even one with such a foul mouth. She had kissed her boyfriends before, but never a girl.

  It doesn’t mean anything. Aiko clamped her mouth over the lip imprint and sipped. The water rolling over her tongue tasted like waxy lipstick and tobacco.

  Broom closets were not the most romantic places for a tryst, but Reina could care fuck all about romance when an orgasm was just one minute away.

  Said orgasm was delayed, however, when Michiko bumped into a mop and sent its wooden handle crashing to the ground. They shared curses and listened for anybody outside the closet, but heard nothing above the usual rabble of managers, talents, and ordinary staff yelling at each other. Reina rolled her mouth back onto Michiko’s throat, where a love bite formed.

  “Maybe we should stop.” Not that Michiko would stop humping Reina’s hand first. She ignored the suggestion and plunged her fingers into Michiko’s wet omanko again, her own fit to burst if she didn’t find a flat surface to straddle her friend on soon.

  All one of those “it seemed like a good idea at the time” moments. This wasn’t their first liaison in a public closet, but it was their first so soon after a show. Their manager was probably out hunting them down in all the wrong places. Show’s permanently over if he finds us in here fucking. Hard to market two young girls as fantasy-fodder for middle-aged men if the virginal examples were found rutting against one another.

  Michiko opened her mouth to speak again, but instead a long groan came out as her thighs clamped together. Her muscles strangled the fingers inside her, and to keep herself from shouting again she found Reina’s mouth and kissed her as an orgasm erupted between them.

  Reina withdrew her damp fingers an
d stuck them in her mouth. Michiko slumped down the wall, the short skirt of her dress catching around her hips – her body was limper than a doll’s. Must’ve given her a better ringer than I thought I could in here. Reina tried to hide her smirk of pride.

  “Did you come?” Michiko wrapped a hand around one of Reina’s bare legs. “Please tell me you came.”

  Reina pressed both hands against the wall. “Nope,” she said, her hair dangling past her shoulders and brushing the top of Michiko’s head.

  “Fuck. Give me a minute and I’ll finish you.”

  By the rising sound of voices beyond the closet door, Reina wasn’t sure they had a minute to waste waiting for Michiko to catch her breath. “Don’t worry about it.” Reina could already feel her own orgasm abating, like a cat slinking away from a boring toy. “Feeling your omanko devour my hand was enough.”

  She meant it, too. Although Reina loved to grind and get licked like most of her other partners, she wasn’t beholden to it for satisfaction. Some of the most memorable sex was when she never had an orgasm. But seeing a woman collapse in gratifying exhaustion, knowing her own body brought that pleasure, was more than fine every so often. Reina’s pride could orgasm too, apparently.

  “Nee, Mi-chan.” She knelt beside her satiated friend and kissed her forehead. “What are you doing after work?”

  “Going home.”

  “You should come home with me. My mother’s out late tonight. She won’t even know you’re there.”

  “Oh, sure, until she hears you wailing in your futon because another girl has her tongue on your pussy.” Michiko shrugged Reina away from her and stood up. “I’ll just owe you one.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” But Reina didn’t elaborate. All she thought of was taking Michiko home to snuggle with in her sleep.

  Michiko kissed her, their tongues lolling atop one another. Reina supposed if she couldn’t have her to cuddle that night, then gently exploring the inside of her mouth was a sufficient end to their stolen time together.

  “Oi!” Reina slipped off Michiko and spun around, suddenly staring into the face of Shizuka. Worse people could catch them screwin’ around in the broom closet. “The hell are you two doing in here?” Shizuka kept the door closed just enough so nobody walking by could see. “Manager’s looking for you, Michiko.”

  One last peck on the cheek and Michiko slipped out, dress smoothed and hair flattened. Nobody would know she had just been mid-coitus in the closet. That left Reina standing there, her eyes meeting Shizuka’s in the wilting light.

  “You want a turn too?” Reina teased, one brow rising in play. She tried to seduce Shizuka many times since first meeting her, but she proved stubbornly straight and uninterested. At least I don’t need to fuck her to know I’m still better than her boyfriend.

  “Piss off.” Shizuka opened the door and drew Reina out.

  Mobs of people shoved around the backstage. One of the other acts of the evening, a nine-piece dance group, huddled together in a line of Mrs. Claus ensembles with jiggling cotton balls. Reina felt her abandoned orgasm pine away in the pit of her stomach. I bet none of them have ever seen another girl’s vagina.

  “Oh, Reina-san…”

  That sweet, little voice tingling in her ear could only have been Shizuka’s cousin. Reina pivoted on her foot to see the naïve and honorable Aiko Takeshita (Takegawa? Takemura? Takeda?) hugging the wall with a messenger bag across her stomach. She wore her hair down today, unlike the ridiculous pony-tails the previous two times, and the dye-job to make it appear naturally brown was noticeable. “Eh, Shi-chan,” Reina scolded the coworker next to her, “why do you keep bringing this little tagalong with you?”

  “Show some respect. She’s my cousin.” Before Shizuka could continue, a man’s sharp voice cut across the room, summoning her full name. “Don’t mess with my cousin, Yamada.” Shizuka then apologized to Aiko and scuttled across the room.

  “You look pretty tonight, Reina-san.”

  Reina turned her head to see Aiko still keeping to the wall. “Hm? In this old thing?” She wore what she always wore for her theater shows: a skin-tight, short, blue dress with long sleeves and black boots. “I guess.”

  Aiko looked down again.

  “Ehh, you’re a shy one.” Reina approached, careful not to startle the lamb. “But cute. Did you enjoy the kiss I left you yesterday?”

  She thought she saw a flicker of a smile on Aiko’s face, but didn’t count on a positive response. She probably wiped off that glass or threw it onto the nearest dish tray. What she got was neither positive nor negative, but a change in topic. “Do you like flirting with me like this?”

  Just as Reina opened her mouth to answer in the absolute affirmative, Michiko returned with an agreeable complexion and a ringing voice. “She flirts with any feminine body that moves. It’s supposed to be one of her endearing qualities.”

  She nudged Reina for a cigarette, which she provided with the flick of a hand. Aiko pushed the hair out of her face. “Nice to see you, Michiko-san.”

  “Oh, she remembers me.” Michiko lit and took the first drag of her cigarette. “I love it when a cute girl remembers me.”

  “Are you…?”

  “A lesbian? I thought I told you that last time we met.”

  “…Girlfriends?”

  Reina choked at the thought. Mi-chan, my girlfriend. She had asked more than once for Michiko to become more than a best friend and casual sex partner. Together they could have pooled their paychecks and gotten a small apartment, away from the disapproving eyes of their mothers. But Michiko always said no.

  “No way!” Her laugh brought Reina out of her little fantasy, where somebody cooked dinners and drew baths for them to share after a long day at practice. “I’d kill her if she were my girlfriend.”

  Somehow, Michiko managed to lure Aiko into small talk, which Reina blocked. Small talk was Michiko’s style of flirtation, unlike Reina who preferred cutting to the chase of what she offered a woman in the bedroom. It’s usually enough. Although this one seems straight. No skin off her body; women teemed in Tokyo.

  Thus when Michiko tried to confirm with Reina that they should all get lunch together the next day, she had to be told twice. “Eh? Lunch?” There went her plans to go out drunk that night and sleep off a hangover the size of her fist. But Michiko’s pretty pleading face was enough to win her over any day. “I suppose.”

  Aiko took a step forward. “I guess you won’t be wearing make-up tomorrow, Reina-san?”

  “No, I guess not. Why? Does that bother you?” Reina wanted a cigarette, but she had given Michiko her last one.

  A giggle. “I think your eyes look beautiful with this make-up.”

  The last thing Aiko said to her before she left with Shizuka that night. Michiko teased Reina relentlessly over it, chatting about her “beautiful eyes,” and how “that little straight girl threw a flirt back.” Reina tried not to think about it. But as she changed into her street clothes and gathered her things to go out for the rest of the evening, she stopped and lingered in front of a mirror, admiring her own eyeliner.

  Maybe she kissed me after all.

  Aiko swore she tried on five outfits already, but none were good enough, each worse than the last. She likes blue. Aiko assumed that, of course. But she didn’t wear much blue, aside from one tank top inappropriate for a cold December day. She then questioned why she forced herself to wear blue at all, when pinks and browns were much more natural to her wardrobe.

  Reina. Somewhere, in her mind, she wanted to appeal to her. As Aiko surfed through her closet and fished through her drawers, she cursed herself for wanting to illicit more flirtations from a woman. She didn’t doubt she was going through some sort of perverse phase, and didn’t see the harm riding it through…so long as flirtations remained just that.

  Eventually she decided on a dark pink sweater and a black headband with pink rhinestones to match. Too much pink. Aiko stood in front of her mirror, fussing with her hair u
ntil it fell just the way she wanted.

  She swung the strap of her purse across her chest and skipped downstairs. Her mother was the only other person in the house that morning, and Aiko intended to stop by the kitchen to announce she was off to meet Shizuka and “some friends.” But when she slid open the door to the living room, she met an unexpected body.

  “Daisuke!”

  Aiko’s ex-boyfriend stood there, his fingers fumbling together while his voice fought for words. What is he doing here? She hadn’t seen or heard from him since she dumped him in October.

  “Ah…Aiko…” Daisuke kept his eyes pointed to the carpet like he always did when trying to express emotions to her. At the beginning of their five-month relationship Aiko thought it endearing, but by the end she wanted to shake him to get real words from his mouth. “Ano… ohayou gozaimasu.”

  “Good morning,” Aiko mumbled back, and heard her mother’s footsteps coming from the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”

  Before Daisuke could answer on his own, Aiko’s mother, Junko, appeared with a plotting smile. Mother! Junko put a hand on Daisuke’s shoulder to steady him and said, “I found this poor boy hovering outside our gate like a lost little puppy. He said he wanted to see you but I knew you were getting dressed.”

  “Yes, I told you I was going to meet Shizuka and others for lunch today.”

  “And? Can’t you say hello to your boyfriend for two minutes before you go off to play?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend anymore.” Aiko wasn’t sure where this sudden vitriol came from – certainly not from Daisuke, who until now had faded into the past like he was meant to. Mother! Damnit! Junko hovered a little too comfortably around a boy not her son. “I mean, this is odd. What is going on?”

  Junko scoffed and Daisuke recollected his voice. “Ano…” She wished he would just come out with it already. “I’ve been thinking and…”

  “And?”

  The silence hanging between them all was almost too much for Aiko to tolerate. Just as she thought she would run out of patience, Daisuke shrugged away from Junko and darted out of the room past Aiko. He hurled an apology over his shoulder before slamming the front door behind him.