by India Millar
“Akira-san tells me he is making changes here, in the Hidden House. A new girl is coming. He says she’s very special and he wants you to be her elder sister.” I bowed, smiling and nodding, even as I wondered what this poor creature was going to be like. We were all flawed, here in the Hidden House. I pitied her already. “And he’s decided that there’s too much work for Bigger to manage on his own. He seems to think that Big’s not going to come back, so he’s found a new man to work with Bigger.”
My heart sank. I was sure that Bigger would never have said a word to Akira about our antics in the bath. It would have been too much loss of face for him. If he had spoken to Akira about it, the yakuza would either have dismissed him on the spot or used the incident to make his life a misery forever after. And there were no spy holes in the bathhouse. It was probably the only place in the whole of the Hidden House where it was possible to be private because it was also the only place where we never entertained patrons. I shivered. Did Akira have some way of hearing us that nobody knew about? Could he read the very walls in the Hidden House? I wouldn’t put anything, anything at all, past him. Some said he was a demon in human form, and at that moment, I believed them.
“Yes, Auntie. It is my privilege.” I bowed again, and Auntie shuffled out without a backward glance.
We had no patrons at all that night. That puzzled us until Akira descended on the Hidden House with his retinue of yakuza with him. We bowed and smiled until our mouths were stiff. All except the twins, who had the sense to retreat behind their masks of blankness again. I thought Akira-san looked at them with something like amusement, but he said nothing at all. In any event, it wasn’t the twins he had come to see.
It was me.
“Mineko-chan.” He beamed at me, and I shuddered. I feared him even more when he used an endearment with me. “You look well, and happy. What has caused that, I wonder?”
“To see you again, Akira-san,” I said promptly and smiled as sweetly as I could.
He didn’t believe me, not for a moment. “Dear girl, do come and sit next to me.”
I lowered myself quickly to the tatami, making sure that there was space between Akira and me. But he was having none of it. He reached out casually and took a fold of my kimono in his fingers, tugging me toward him. As soon as I was close, he slid his arm around my shoulder. I saw the other geisha glance at me and then look away quickly.
“I thought we would have a private party this evening,” he said. “My men deserve something a little special, they have been working very hard recently.”
I tried not to think about what that hard work might have been. Akira was the most powerful, the most feared of all the yakuza gang leaders in Edo. We had all heard whispers about his cruelties—me more than anybody. Midori had whispered to me about the things he had told her. Beatings, killings, anything and everything that he thought necessary to maintain his place. “He is a monster,” she had said. “He will do anything if he thinks it is good for him. I hate him.”
Akira looked up and nodded. Auntie immediately clapped her hands, and the maids came in with sake and food, which they spread on the tatami and then immediately began to pour sake for the men. The first cups were tossed down at once, and I began to worry about what kind of evening we were in for.
Akira must have had everything planned in advance. Two of his men—men who were seated on opposite sides of the tatami—beckoned to the twins, separating them. I felt their distress. The remaining two men nodded at Naruko and Masaki, who rose and went over to them quickly.
“There now. Isn’t this nice?” Akira said amiably.
I glanced at the nearest twin; her hair was parted slightly to the right, so it was Sayo. Her yakuza had taken her face in his fingers and was pinching her cheeks so her mouth was parted. As soon as she was modeled to his satisfaction, he began to pour sake between her lips. The other men were ignoring their geisha and were stuffing food and drink in their mouths as if they were starving.
“Would you like something to eat, Mineko? Some sake, perhaps?”
I tittered politely behind my fan. “Thank you, Akira-san. But no. I will take my pleasure in watching you eat.”
He reached for a dish of noodles laced with ginger and lotus root and began to eat them delicately, with pauses to lick his lips and make satisfied noises. I was hungry, but watching him eat with such a show of pleasure killed my appetite. He spoke through the food.
“The twins seem to have settled in nicely.”
“Oh, yes, Akira-san.” I simpered. “Such lovely girls. They are a true credit to the Hidden House.”
He paused with the chopsticks inches from his mouth and stared at me. I cursed myself for my stupidity. Did I really think I could fool this terrible man? To my relief, he simply nodded.
By this time, the other men had finished the food. Second flasks of sake had been poured and the maids were sent running for more. Akira, I noticed, wasn’t drinking at all. The other men were at the noisy stage of the evening. All our patrons—except for Midori’s Danjuro, who had been a man apart—followed the same pattern. They ate the food provided by the Hidden House’s excellent kitchen, drank a lot of sake, and then decided it was time to amuse themselves with the geisha. Sometimes we would be asked to dance or sing, but more often the men simply decided it was time to get their money’s worth from us without bothering about enjoying our traditional skills.
Masaki’s yakuza had laid her on her back and was untying her obi with his tongue stuck between his teeth in concentration. If it hadn’t been so serious, I would have laughed. Poor Masaki looked like a helpless child, laid out in front of him. Tiring of his careful game quickly, her patron yanked her kimono open and tore at her undergarments so that she lay naked on a bed of her own clothes. She was smiling at him guilelessly. I remembered the sumo wrestler-sized patron she had dealt with so effectively and hid a smile. Masaki might be tiny, but she could look after herself. Then the yakuza threw himself on top of her without any further warning, and I heard her grunt as the air was knocked out of her lungs. I clenched my teeth and smiled through tight lips.
Naruko seemed to be faring better. Her patron was inspecting her feet with enormous interest. He had unwrapped them and was trying to pry her toes from underneath her foot. It must have hurt her, but Naruko had obviously endured this before, probably many times. Her kimono was hanging open, and she simply leaned forward and dangled her breasts enticingly in front of the man’s lips. The foot was forgotten in a second as he took a nipple in his mouth.
“Don’t forget the twins.” Akira’s voice startled me so much that I forgot to keep a closed face and gawped at him. He had been watching me, then, when I thought he was concentrating on his food. “I thought it might be a good idea to part them for an hour or so. They should be lost without each other, but they’re not. Interesting, isn’t it?”
In spite of the fact that they were physically apart, the twins were still one. I didn’t want Akira to see my interest, but I couldn’t help staring. The men who were taking the twins were physically very different. One was much taller and slimmer than the other, and the short, plump one was quite a bit older than the other. But no matter, both twins—unable to see each other, as their backs were turned to deal with their patrons—were taking care of their men in exactly the same way. Both had undressed themselves, leaving their clothes in a neat pile on the tatami. Naked, they were not only beautiful but also somehow managed to preserve a startling dignity. As I watched, Hoshimi ran her lips down the chest of her yakuza, finally taking his tree of flesh in her mouth and nibbling gently on its hood. Less than the blink of an eye behind her, Sayo did exactly the same thing to her patron. It was quite amazingly erotic.
Akira obviously felt the same. “I wonder what it would be like to take both of them, at the same time.” His voice was slightly hoarse.
I took the opportunity to glance at his face and saw a thread of saliva between his teeth. His pupils were enormous, dominating his grey irises.
“You could do that, any time you wanted.” I could have bitten my tongue as soon as I spoke, but it was too late. I waited miserably for Akira to punish me for my lack of respect. To strike me or perhaps throw me onto the tatami for his men to play with when they were bored with the other geisha.
“Ah, but that’s the point, isn’t it, Mineko-chan?” He sounded amused, and I breathed again. The gods only knew which way this strangest of men would jump. “All I have to do is click my fingers and they would come running. It might be fun once, but there would be no challenge in it. But I have been thinking it is time I married. Or perhaps took a mistress. I have been lonely since Midori No Me disappeared.”
His change of track took me by surprise and I blinked at him, forgetting to make sure my expression was neutral in my shock. He was smiling widely, and I shuddered as I wondered if he was thinking that I could take Midori’s place. He obviously read my thoughts.
“Much as I respect your wit, your beauty, and your courage, dear Mineko, I have to admit I would never feel comfortable having you about my house. The temptation to slide a knife between my ribs might become too much for you. And if you did, even if my men had you tortured, you wouldn’t feel a thing, would you?”
I shrugged uncomfortably, and he grinned.
“It must be so nice, being unable to feel pain,” he said softly. “But I wonder, do you feel the pain of others? You loved Midori No Me, I know you did. Now why, I wonder, do I not believe that you truly pine for her?”
“I miss my elder sister every day,” I said simply.
Akira nodded. “I’m sure you do. But have you found some new friends, perhaps? Not to take her place, but to interest you?”
He stared at the twins, by that time both beneath their patrons who were hammering on their bodies. Both girls, I noticed, were simply lying still, enduring what was being inflicted on them. I forced my face into an expression of polite interest, no more.
“What would you say, Mineko, if I told you I was thinking of marrying one of the twins? I wouldn’t dream of parting them, of course. I would take the other one as my concubine. They come from an excellent family; it would be a good match for me.”
I could hear the laughter in his voice. I shuddered and felt the small hairs at the nape of my neck rise. You promised them! I shouted silently. You promised them you would take them back home, give them their lives back! And then I realized that all he was doing was trying to hurt me, so I smiled.
“I’m sure they would appreciate the honor Akira-san was bestowing on them,” I said smoothly. I knew he was angry. A muscle twitched beneath his eye and his smile slid into a feral grimace. But as soon as it came, his expression changed and he was smiling again.
“You are truly a jewel, Mineko. I am so glad you belong to me. But I have something to show you. Come with me.”
He stood abruptly, obviously expecting me to follow him. I did, of course. What option did I have? I did wonder, though, if Akira was simply showing his contempt for me as I scuttled behind him. Hampered by my kimono, I found it difficult to keep up with him.
He moved toward Auntie’s rooms. Once inside, he walked briskly toward the end wall, where the house shrine was kept in a shallow niche. I watched bewildered as he put his hands beneath the shrine and tugged, hard. In the next moment, I was literally gasping with amazement as there was a loud click, and the entire wall slid smoothly to one side. I had lived here for years and had never dreamed there was anything at all beyond Auntie’s quarters.
Akira stepped into a short corridor. There was a door on each side, but he ignored them and instead beckoned me to his side as he faced a door at the end. He put his finger to his lips and then slid aside a square panel set at head height in the door. His head height, that was. I had to stand on tiptoe to peer through.
“This place isn’t used often.” Akira’s mouth was so close to my ear his voice tickled. He made me jump. “Sometimes, friends have a need to disappear for a while, until they can leave Edo in safety. This is where they stay.”
I swallowed. I didn’t want to know Akira’s secrets. Hadn’t poor Midori told me that she knew too much about him ever to be comfortable? Akira nudged me, and I looked into the room.
There was only one lamp burning, and the light was dim, but it was enough for me to see that the hidden room was a fairly small, six tatami matting space, but beautifully furnished. The walls were bright with scrolls and there was a small table, a gilded chest, and a futon. And that wasn’t all it contained.
A figure was seated cross-legged on the tatami with its back to me. Even though it was shrouded in a cloak, with the hood up, I guessed it was a woman from the shape. Perhaps an arm’s length away from her, a man stood, obviously guarding her, although what anybody had to fear in this secret place was beyond me. I glanced at the man, and then really looked at him, my attention drawn to him as if by a powerful magnet.
Midori had often said that she had known Danjuro in her body before she had even seen him properly. Had known that he was going to be her future from nothing more than the sense of his aura. It may sound like a silly woman’s fantasy, but I had always understood what she meant. When I ran away from my father, I managed to find a lowly place in the kabuki theater. My father had been the best calligrapher in Edo before his hands had curled with arthritis and he became a drunken sot. He had taught me to read and write, all the time bemoaning the fact that my lovely handwriting was virtually useless since I wasn’t a boy and couldn’t take his place in the family business. But I had managed to convince the manager at the kabuki that I could be useful to him by writing playbills and making the many changes to the scripts that the actors demanded. In return, I was given a cubby hole to sleep in and fed from the theater kitchen.
I saw Danjuro often. He was the star actor in the kabuki. The crowds loved him. He could have had his pick from any one of the many courtesans—and not a few of the supposedly respectable married women—who thronged the kabuki, mainly to see him. But he was interested in nothing at all but his art, and he never even noticed them. Never really noticed Big, come to that, in spite of the fact that Big haunted the kabuki, trying to get Danjuro to see him. Not that Danjuro ever spoke to me, of course. I wasn’t an actor, so he simply gave me a polite nod now and then. It must have been karma, but it was Big who persuaded Danjuro to come to the Hidden House. Danjuro had been unhappy with his performance as a young woman, and Big had told him that he needed to speak to real women, women who had seen life and had suffered.
And that was how he came to see Midori No Me. And, I think, for the first time realized that a woman could have a part to play in his life. Midori had simply fallen head over heels in love with him from that first moment. I had often envied her, wondering if my inability to feel pain also meant I was cold emotionally. I loved Midori as a sister, but I had never felt anything like love for a man. None of my clients—not even Akira, when he had taken me with such practiced skill at my mizuage—had ever aroused the tiniest glimmer of lust in me.
Now, it was my turn to be shocked by the storm of emotion this silent man was arousing. I put my hand in front of my mouth to hide a gasp of amazement. Was this what Midori had felt when she first saw Danjuro? I stared and stared at the man who was on guard. Akira was saying something quietly to me, and I managed to nod, but I had no idea what he said. He seemed satisfied as he grunted and opened the door, pushing me in front of him.
I nearly tripped over the tatami. I simply hadn’t seen it. Instinct saved me. I automatically acted the part of a geisha, unfolding my fan and hiding my face behind it while I bowed politely. But I could see him, and I devoured him with my eyes.
He was bowing low to Akira, his hands clasped at his waist. Even so, I could see that he was tall, taller even than Akira, who was taller than most Japanese men. But where Akira was slender, this man was broad. He had the wide shoulders and slim waist of a wrestler. Not a sumo wrestler, who resembled nothing more than a moving mountain, but a man who was skil
led in the discipline of kobudo, a man who wielded such power in his body and arms that he could not only disarm a samurai of his swords—if he should dare!—but do it with the style and grace of a dancer. Akira’s attention was focused on the woman on the floor, and I risked a glance at the man’s face.
He was beautiful. Not a word I would normally apply to a man, but his face had an ascetic magnificence that made me gasp for breath. Large, intelligent eyes watched Akira quietly. His mouth was full; I wanted to kiss it. His skin was almost the color of a ripening peach, the skin tone deliciously even. I stared at him rudely, greedily, willing him to look at me. To smile, perhaps.
But he didn’t. His whole attention was on Akira.
My heart sank as I realized that this magnificent man must be Big’s replacement. So not only was he Akira’s creature, no doubt body and soul, but he was probably not in the least bit interested in women either. Lucky, lucky Bigger! But what a waste. I nearly sobbed out loud with disappointment.
“Mineko-chan.” Akira beckoned me toward him, and I blinked, recalled abruptly to reality by my master’s voice. “This is our new addition to the Hidden House. Her name is Sute.”
For a moment, before Akira reached out and twitched the hood back from the girl, I felt nothing but pity for her. “Sute” means foundling. Had the poor girl been exposed at birth and somehow survived? What was so very bad about her that she deserved such a fate? Grimly, I had already decided that her deformity must be great, and she would no doubt do very well in the Hidden House. But when I saw her, I gasped, reeled back, and shook my head in disbelief.
Sute was a foreign barbarian. She was smiling at me timidly, blinking in the light of the oil lamp. Her hair was so fair it was almost white; her huge, round eyes were bright blue. Her skin was the hue of silken tofu, without a tinge of color. Midori had been half foreign barbarian, but apart from her green eyes and her curious hair, which shone quite red when the light caught it, in full geisha makeup, she could almost pass as Japanese. But Sute could never do that.
