The Geisha Who Could Feel No Pain (Secrets From The Hidden House Book 2)

by India Millar

  He bowed low and spoke from a half crouch. “If I may be allowed to leave, I assure you I will be grateful. Perhaps I could leave a present for Mineko-chan?”

  And since when had I been Mineko-chan to this, or any other, patron? I suddenly realized that Ken, too, had called me Mineko-chan, and I was absurdly pleased. In any event, Ken was having none of it. He crossed to the door and slid it open.

  “Get out. You are not welcome in this house any longer.”

  He stood silently with folded arms as Fuwe-san made sure his robe was securely fastened and scuttled out, fast and timid as a mouse pursued by a cat. I was still half sure I was dead and dreaming all this, the more so when Ken dropped to his knees beside me and lifted my chin, touching my neck with the softest of caresses.

  “Has he hurt you?” He shook his head at his own stupidity. “No, of course he hasn’t. I mean, has he caused you any injury?”

  I thought about it carefully before I answered. “I don’t think so. I can breathe. Ken-san, what happened? Why did you interfere? Did Akira tell you to keep an eye open for me?”

  “No,” he said simply and then sat, crouched on his heels, looking at me. I managed a deep breath and wondered why I felt excited. Perhaps it was because I had almost tasted death and was overjoyed to be alive. Or perhaps not. I lowered my eyes shyly under Ken’s stare and blushed ripely, thinking how silly I must appear to him. I had been a geisha for over three years. I could think of nothing that one or another of my patrons had not done to me. Each and every one of the orifices of my body had been used and abused by men. There was not a hair’s breadth of a man’s body that I had not explored with my fingers, my tongue, my sex. If it could be done, then I had done it. Or had it done to me. And none of it had had any effect on me. Each time, when the man had walked away, I had forgotten him.

  We geisha in the Hidden House were all the same. We had to be. It was the only way we could survive.

  But now…

  Ken’s fingers were still touching my neck. My skin burned under his touch. I wanted to rub against his hand like a beloved child demanding attention. Even more did I want him to kiss me. To put his arms around me and hold me against him. To whisper sweet things to me. Did I want him to make love to me? I didn’t know. I longed for him. And at the same time I shook with terror. No other man had ever aroused me in the least. What if Ken took me—and I could think of it in no other way—and still I felt nothing? Ah, how cruel would the disappointment be then?

  He took his hand from my neck and lifted my own hand to his lips, kissing my fingers softly. All the time he watched my face as if he was asking, does that please you? Do you like that? My mouth opened and closed, but I could make no sound.

  “Can you stand?” he asked softly. I nodded, and he helped me to my feet. “It’s not safe here. Akira-san is not here, but Auntie can watch. And the less either of them knows about us, the better.”

  About us? What was there to know? I had no idea, but still I shivered with fear and anticipation.

  Ken took my arm and guided me out of the room. He paused in the doorway, listening carefully. There was nothing but the sound of loud laughter from where the twins were entertaining Fuwe-san’s friends. Satisfied, he led me down the corridor to Auntie’s suite of rooms. I pulled back in disbelief. Could he really be that cruel? Had he simply been amusing himself with me, leading me on to make matters worse before he marched me in front of Auntie and told her how I had brought dishonor on one of the patrons. I moaned out loud in despair, and he put his finger on my lips, silencing me.

  “No. Don’t worry. Auntie is keeping an eye on how well Hoshimi and Sayo are entertaining their clients. She isn’t here.” Still, he spoke quietly, with his mouth very close to my ear. “Come.”

  He tugged me forward, feeling for the panel that opened the secret room where Akira had kept Sute. The door swung back silently, and he stood to one side, bowing formally for me to enter. I did, of course. What other choice did I have? What choice did any of us in the Hidden House have?

  When I had last been in the secret room, it had been lit by lamps. Now, it was in darkness. But there was a nearly full moon, and it was light enough to see by. Ken pulled the door closed behind him and fiddled with the frame until I heard a click.

  “It’s locked,” he said quietly. “Nobody can get in unless we let them. And I don’t think that’s going to happen, is it?”

  I sat down on the tatami. I had no will in the matter. My legs simply refused to support me any longer. Ken folded himself down at my side and slid his arms around my shoulder, hugging me close to him. We sat in complete silence for a long time.

  “Mineko-chan,” he said finally. I waited. “Would you honor me by being my friend?”

  This strong, beautiful man. This creature of Akira’s. He was asking me if I would honor him? Instinctively, I knew he was asking for more than just friendship. But what else was he thinking of? He must know already that if he wanted my body, then he could take it as the fancy occurred to him. And yet, he sounded impossibly young and shy, and I smiled with pleasure. But only for the briefest of seconds, as something occurred to me.

  “Don’t you already have a friend in Bigger?” I was suddenly sure that Ken was playing some sort of game with me for his own amusement, and I spoke cruelly. Coldly. Fighting down my own rising hope and excitement.

  “Bigger?” He sounded astonished, but I said nothing. “You think that Bigger and I are…are lovers?”

  “Aren’t you?” Go on, I thought. Convince me that you’re not. Please. “Bigger isn’t interested in women. And I saw you with him in the bath. He was all over you, and both of your trees were standing to attention.”

  I felt Ken shaking, and for a moment I thought he was angry. Then I realized he was laughing. Laughing at me.

  “Bigger made his intentions very clear to me the day Akira-san brought me to the Hidden House. And I was equally clear to him. I am not a man who is interested in other men. Bigger was not happy, but he assured me he would make me change my mind. He has not. And he never will. But he is older than I am, and he is my superior, so I must be polite to him.”

  “That is what you call it?” I pushed aside the leap of hope that made me tremble. “So polite that your tree reared up just because he was near you?”

  Ken giggled. It was an odd sound from such a big man, but it made me smile.

  “You never thought, Mineko-chan, that it wasn’t Bigger who was interesting me? You didn’t bother to notice that it wasn’t him I was looking at?” His voice became serious abruptly.

  I stared at him. The moonlight was so bright it was almost like daylight, except for the curious silver and black quality it gave to everything. I raised my hand and watched it move toward his face. I stroked his cheek, his lips. I licked my fingers where they had touched him and tasted the salt of his skin. I wondered whether I dared to trust this stranger, or if by doing so I was signing my own death warrant. I decided I didn’t care. No man in the whole of my short life had aroused any sort of feeling in me, yet Ken was doing it effortlessly.

  I sighed and leaned against him.

  He didn’t answer, or at least not in words. Very gently, very slowly, he rubbed his face against the side of my hair. After a long time, I felt his skin brushing against my forehead. Then his lips were moving slowly down my nose, stopping when they found my mouth. I fought for breath, conscious of the blood pulsing through my veins. Held my hand up and stared at it in the curious silver light and was amazed I couldn’t see through my skin.

  Ken kissed me gently, so softly his mouth almost tickled my lips. I stayed still. I didn’t know what else to do. I had never been kissed before. Oh, we geisha kissed each other constantly. Kisses meant for comfort, for reassurance. For friendship. But never, not once in the three years I had been a geisha, nor when I had been a maiko, not even before I came to the Hidden House, could I remember ever being kissed by a man.

  Some patrons liked to bite and nibble at our lips, but ther
e was no tenderness in it. For me, in particular, it was often just another way to see if they could hurt me. My men did not kiss. I had often wondered why the gesture was spoken of with such affection by the kabuki actors. I had asked Midori about it once, and in answer she had given me the sweetest, softest kiss full on the mouth and asked if I liked it. It had been pleasant, I remembered, but there had been nothing more than friendship in it.

  Now, Ken was hesitating. He seemed puzzled by my lack of response and drew his head back to look at me questioningly. My lips suddenly felt naked without his mouth against them and I lunged forward, pressing my mouth hard against him, squashing my lips onto him clumsily.

  He stood it for a moment, and then moved away, gently. His finger traced my lips softly, and I bit at his fingertips hungrily.

  “That didn’t please you?” he asked softly. I was near to tears. Had this magic moment finished before it could really begin? I shook my head in frustration, and then realized he thought I had disliked being kissed by him.

  “Yes!” I whispered quickly. “Yes, it pleased me. Or at least I think it did. I don’t know. I’ve never been kissed before.”

  Ken stared at me. His expression passed from astonishment to disbelief to pity in the space of a moment. I wanted to reach out and take his robe in my hands and shake him. How dare he feel sorry for me! We were both Akira’s property. Both at his beck and command. He had the power of life and death equally over each of us. How dare he look at me like that! Then the tears came and I was sobbing into his robe, trying not to make a sound.

  He wrapped his arms around me and rocked me back and forth like a child. His body was warm and smooth beneath me, and I wanted to burrow into him until I was part of him.

  “Tell me your story, little Mineko,” he said softly. “How did you come to be here?”

  I didn’t want to speak to him, not at all. I was consumed by need, a need I thought I would never feel. But Ken was not to be denied.

  “Tell me,” he repeated. “Is it really true that you cannot feel pain? Were you born that way or did something happen to you that caused it?”

  I realized that he truly wanted to know, and it delighted me. So I told him. Explained that I had never been able to feel pain. That I didn’t know what pain was. I hesitated, but finally told him about my father, who had drunk himself out of an excellent business as a calligrapher. My father, who had taken my elder sister to be his wife when our mother died. I told him how I had run away from home when I was little more than a child myself when my sister had died in childbirth and I realized that I was probably next in line to take my mother’s place. I spoke eagerly of the kabuki theater, where I had been allowed to stay when they discovered I had an excellent memory and even better handwriting. I had been useful to them, writing playbills and helping to change scripts at the demands of the actors. It was there that I had seen Midori’s Danjuro, the chief actor at the Edo kabuki theater. Not that he had ever noticed me, of course. Until he met Midori-chan, Danjuro had had thoughts of nothing but the theater.

  “Akira-san has mentioned Midori No Me to me,” Ken said softly. “On nights when he has taken far too much sake or has smoked one opium pipe too many, he has kept me awake until the small hours talking. Always about her. He is certain she will come back to Edo. That he will get her back somehow.”

  I nodded. I had been right, then. Akira really had—still did—loved Midori. For a moment, I wondered how much I should say to Ken, how much I could really trust him, then threw caution to the winds. What was the point of worrying now? Already I had come too far. “Midori will never come back. She hated Akira. Hated her life here. And she loves Danjuro. She would never leave him. Never.”

  He didn’t ask how Midori came to be with Danjuro. Had Akira told him about his feud with the great kabuki actor, I wondered? I decided not to ask anything at all to do with Midori. My dear friend had escaped from my world, but I—and Ken—was still here. And then Ken startled me, speaking as if I had actually said the words.

  “Midori-san is gone from the Hidden House. But you and I are here. Go on, tell me. How did you get from the kabuki theater to here?”

  “My father fooled me.” I shrugged. “I heard a rumor that he was dying and calling for me, so I went home. There was nothing wrong with him, except that he had run out of money to buy sake and was in a terrible state. As soon as I got home, he locked me in a cupboard. When he let me out, an old woman was with him. She was very rude, demanding to know if I could sing or dance, and if I were a virgin. She seemed happy with father’s answers, and then hit me very hard with her cane. When I didn’t flinch, she laughed and said I would do very well with her. It turned out that she was our Auntie. She bought me here, made me a maid in the Hidden House. Eventually, she decided I had the makings of a geisha, and I became a maiko, watching the other girls and learning to sing and dance and to make witty conversation with the patrons. Midori-chan was my elder sister for my mizuage. After that, I became a geisha.” I stopped and took a deep breath. If he flinched and drew away from me, then so be it. I watched him carefully. “You know what our life is like here. We amuse men with our many talents, and we service them with our bodies. It is not normally as bad as it was tonight with Fuwe-san, but often it is not much different. That is my life. That is what I have done virtually every day for the last three years.”

  “And yet you have never been kissed, my beautiful Mineko.”

  Beautiful. He had called me beautiful. No man had ever called me that in my entire life. Tears dripped down my cheeks and he leaned forward and licked them away.

  “If you have never been kissed, then you have never known a man. If you will allow me, I will show what it is to be loved. I will be your lover. Your very first lover. If you would like me to be.”

  I couldn’t see him for the tears. As fast as he tongued them away, they fell faster still.

  “That doesn’t please you? You don’t want me for your lover?”

  I could hear the pain in his voice and I almost laughed through my tears. There was nothing in my life that I could think of that I wanted more, but what if Ken took me and I still felt nothing? I blinked furiously and saw his expression. I had to try and explain.

  “It pleases me more than anything, Ken-chan.” I paused, searching for the right words, and finally shrugged, letting the words come as they would. “But I do not feel pain. You know that.”

  “I wouldn’t try and hurt you,” he said eagerly. I saw his worried expression and smiled crookedly.

  “I know. But I have to tell you.” I stared into space and took a deep breath. “The gods were merciful to me when they gave me my gift. I think my life here at the Hidden House must have been written into my fate when I was born, and they took pity on me. But it’s not just that I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel…anything. All the men who have taken me over the time I have been here, not one of them aroused me. Oh, I panted and moaned to order, all of us geisha do. It’s part of what the patrons are paying for. But I have never enjoyed any of it. Ever. Never felt anything. Not even for the nicer ones who wanted to take their time. And there have been many men. I am very popular. I am in demand virtually every day.”

  I swallowed, listening to my own words, expecting Ken to move away from me in disgust. How many men had possessed me in my time at the Hidden House? I had tried to work it out, once or twice, but had always lost count. Hundreds of them, I knew that. And would Ken, this beautiful, tender man, still want me, now that I had explained to him plainly that I was nothing better than a common whore? An expensive whore, undoubtedly, but still at the service of any man who stepped over the threshold of the Hidden House. I had lost my chance with him with my own words, and I knew it.

  I thought of myself as a geisha. We all did. I knew that I was a talented performer who could sing and dance, perform the tea ceremony with great grace, play the samisen well enough to entrance the patrons—assuming they weren’t too drunk to even listen, of course. But at this moment, I knew I wa
s no more than a whore. Neither better nor worse than the poor women who were imprisoned behind the lattices in the public brothels, available to any man with a few coins in his purse. The only difference between us, I thought bitterly, was that my cage was gilded. My price exorbitant.

  Lost in my own despair, I barely heard Ken speaking. He turned my head to face him and leaned forward, resting his forehead lightly against mine.

  “Listen to me, Mineko-chan. I understand what your life is like here. I have watched and listened.” I remembered wondering if he was mute and bit my lip. Not mute, at all. Just…noticing. “I have watched you, Mineko-chan. When I saw you for the first time, I knew I had found my fate. I had always thought the idea of love at first sight was ridiculous. How could you love somebody when you didn’t even know them? But as soon as I first saw you, my heart knew you.”

  I shook my head. A Japanese man talking of love? Ah, what nonsense this was! One man in a thousand might love his mistress. One in ten thousand his wife. But generally we women were there to be used. To bear children. To keep house. And—in our case—to amuse and entertain our men. Midori had been lucky, so very lucky. Danjuro had loved her enough to risk his own life to come back and snatch her away from Akira. But Danjuro was very special. Could the same thing ever happen to me?

  I closed my eyes, waiting for Ken to get up and walk away. I would wait a while, until he was gone, before I left the room. I would not cry until I was safe in my own room. Perhaps not even then. After all, it had only been a passing dream. Not real.

  Ken put his hands on each side of my face and held me there until I opened my eyes.

  “I didn’t want it to happen,” he said softly. “When Akira-san asked me to come here, I had no choice. But I wasn’t unhappy about it.” I frowned, wanting to ask what he was talking about, but he put his finger on my lips, silencing me. “I will tell you later. Now is not the time. Akira-san explained that he needed me here at the moment. Told me he was no longer sure of Bigger, and that he needed somebody he could trust. I would stay at the Hidden House only until Akira had solved some of his more pressing problems, and then I would move to be one of those who were close to him.”