Aiko trailed behind, locking the doors and turning off all the lights and appliances. Reina and Chiyo whispered things to each other as they reached the top of the staircase and turned left down the hallway. For a split second Aiko wished she could have Reina all to herself that night.
Nerves. Just nerves.
Chiyo lauded their bedroom as spacious and admired the hardwood floors as opposed to tatami. Aiko closed the bedroom door and rechecked that the windows were shut, covered, and locked. Why was she always the practical one? Biding my time.
When she turned around she found out why there was an eerie silence: Reina had engulfed Chiyo in a kiss and the two of them pawed each other like cats at Christmas. Aiko felt that first pang of shock shoot through her; she went to sit on the bed and watch.
Reina always told people Aiko “likes to watch.” True, to an extent. Something artistic dwelled in the way Reina groped and kissed other women, as if she were the master of her craft and all others aspired to her greatness. Watching Reina do much of anything in that regard was enough to glaze over Aiko’s eyes and make her tingle in places foreign to the everyday mind.
But Chiyo was different – Chiyo kissed and groped back, and that was…Aiko couldn’t think of the word. She had no problem watching Reina rub and grunt on other women, but seeing it happen in reverse opened a can of wormy jealousy inside Aiko. She swallowed. It could end up a long night for all the wrong reasons.
And then Reina pulled back, her hand slapping against her forehead. “Ai-chan!” she said, while Chiyo grasped her own clothing and straightened out her hair. “Did we buy new…you know…”
Aiko took a bit to realize what Reina wanted. “Oh. Oh. Yes, but they’re downstairs. They should be in the pharmacy bag with the unsorted toothbrushes.” The things I buy!
“Be right back.” Reina hurried out the door.
The guest giggled and joined Aiko on the bed. “Your girlfriend is very…ah, talented.”
Aiko nodded, her eyes focused on Chiyo’s smooth legs. In the brighter light of their bedroom she could see the tautness of her calves. Something stirred inside. “You have no idea yet.”
“Eh…” Chiyo extended a hand and felt at Aiko’s arm. “So is this what you two do? Go out and find fresh meat to bring in and keep your relationship alive?” She laughed. “Cause I like it.”
“It works for us.” It started because of Reina being Reina. “Maybe it’s a reason we’ve been together for so long.” Odds were high if they didn’t engage in these bedroom romps with other women then Reina would’ve either ended the relationship early on to continue life as an obstinate bachelorette, or Aiko would have dumped her for inevitably cheating. Aiko considered herself someone who enjoyed these meetups, but that night she felt so…
“It’s kind of romantic, you know?” Chiyo taunted Aiko’s flippant eyesight as she slowly, slowly lowered one of the thin sleeves of her white dress. The way her long black hair wisped in the air against her skin made Aiko wonder what took Reina so long downstairs. “You two must really love each other.”
In the gut. Aiko rubbed her hands against her sad face. “You have to love Reina to do this.”
When she lowered her hands she saw Chiyo undressing, her hands slipping off her dress and exposing her company’s black, lacy bra. Aiko looked down at where her chest was and wondered if anything sagged or pulled…she neared forty, after all. “How old are you?” she asked, while Chiyo rubbed a hand against her own thighs.
“Twenty-eight. I’ve been doing the lez thing for a few years now, so don’t worry.”
“How many partners have you had?”
Chiyo raised an eyebrow but remained otherwise nonplussed. “Six? Seven? Most are repeats, you know.”
Thirty-nine, one for every birthday. Aiko and Reina didn’t get many repeats, unless they were American, it seemed. And the wind only knows how many more Reina’s had herself.
As if on cue Reina barged through the door with a new box of condoms. Aiko wondered why she never asked her girlfriend how many women she had sex with throughout her life.
“Oh, what naughty things are you going to do with those?” Chiyo watched Reina toss the box to the side. “I am intrigued.”
“I’m not much of a talker,” Reina began, her hand snatching out to take one of Chiyo’s breasts. “I’d rather show you.”
Reina twisted her head around Chiyo’s back and nipped the black bra; Chiyo rolled her head back and moaned, eyes shut.
“Aha!” Reina proclaimed, as she finished unhooking the bra with her teeth. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Chiyo chuckled. “I thought you said you weren’t much of a talker.”
Reina had the bra off and on the floor before Chiyo finished talking; Aiko didn’t try to hide her gaze toward Chiyo’s breasts. “I’m done talking now,” Reina said, and pushed their guest onto the bed.
Thus Aiko was put into that awkward place in life as the third-wheel in this encounter. On one hand, of course the guest should get most of the attention; on the other, some nights Aiko didn’t want to be a voyeur. Different when it was with established friends, like Yuri and Michiko, and everyone knew each other well enough to avoid embarrassment. But sometimes Aiko felt a knot in her stomach when she watched Reina rut against a new woman. The only thing to do at that moment was “watch.”
“She likes to watch.” That’s what Reina told everyone, including Chiyo when she asked what Aiko was supposed to do. Yes, she did like watching…when it was with women she trusted, her friends. Every time somebody new came in she had to readjust her jealousy meter.
Just imagine it’s a love story on TV. Reina once made the comment that Aiko’s “love stories” were nothing more than Western soft-core pornography. Her favorite movies were the lesbian noir romances coming from the West, with plenty of angst and sex scenes of varying quality. When she was younger it was the gentlest way for her to study the way women made love. Now she watched them out of habit, and to annoy Reina, who hated pornography of any kind because she said it bored her.
Aiko crept off the bed and turned down the overhead light in the center of the room until it was on its lowest setting. At that point Reina and Chiyo were nothing more than slobbering shadows a few meters away, and it suited Aiko because it meant she could sit and watch without notice. She slipped out of most of her clothing and sat in a chair on the far side of the bedroom.
By the time she watched again, Reina had shucked off her clothes and wrapped various limbs around Chiyo’s responsive body. Aiko could hear Reina’s usual grunts and Chiyo’s whimpers above the humming of the space heater in the corner.
Aiko wasn’t amused by any of it until she saw Reina’s head disappear between Chiyo’s legs. Her breasts heaved in the darkness and her hand clasped upon her face as she cried out. Legs drew up and one foot perched on Reina’s shoulder. Aiko wished she were Chiyo.
She had to console herself with the fantasy that her own hand was Reina. Wishing she had another alcoholic drink to keep her going, Aiko rubbed herself while she closed her eyes and listened to Chiyo’s pleasure until she couldn’t take it anymore.
Aiko stood and crossed the room, pausing at the side of the bed to study every tremble pulsing through Chiyo’s body. She extended a hand and brushed against Chiyo’s warm skin – the woman snapped her hand out and grabbed Aiko’s arm, drawing her in for a heavy kiss.
She tastes like candy. Reina’s mouth always tasted like a layer of wintergreen gum over tobacco. In comparison Chiyo’s lip gloss was candy. Aiko focused on that while Chiyo’s tongue probed inside her mouth; Aiko reached down and stuck her hand in Reina’s hair to assure herself her girlfriend was there.
Chiyo pulled away and clung to Aiko as she declared she was coming, going, maybe somewhere in between. The moans disappeared and all Aiko heard were sharp, harried breaths lost in the air. Aiko leaned back and took off her bra.
“Did you wear her out already?” she scolded Reina, who resurfaced to kiss her girlf
riend – Aiko’s initial shock subsided as she tasted another woman on Reina’s smoky lips.
Reina seemed to have forgotten to respond as she felt Aiko up like she would any night they were alone together. Aiko leaned forward and breathed into Reina’s ear, inciting her to pull away and scrounge through their belongings in a drawer.
“Do you like to play with toys?” Aiko once heard Michiko go on and on about how hilarious the terms for various adult toys in Japanese were to her American mind. “Every time you ask one of these girls if they want a ‘penis band,’ I die!” Aiko continued, “You were wondering what Reina intended to do with those condoms.”
Chiyo caught the last of her breath and gaped at Aiko as if she had grown a second head. “Hell yeah! You guys are awesome!”
Aiko felt Reina move behind her. “Do you need help?” she asked, looking over her shoulder to see Reina finagling with her equipment.
Reina grunted in the negative. Her brain was so far gone into “sexsexsex” she was incapable of human speech. But twenty years’ experience told Aiko what the various sex grunts meant.
“She wants you to turn around.”
Sometimes Aiko thought Reina was a bit too much of a natural with the toys. Granted, Aiko had never slept with a man, but she couldn’t believe they were much better at wielding their own real genitals than Reina was with her fake ones. Or at least, Aiko had never seen a woman dissatisfied by Reina’s expertise. Chiyo was no different. She yelled, she cursed, she begged for more – well, she was different in the sense she was loud. Aiko was grateful the neighbors were a pair of deaf elders.
“Shit!” The first thing Reina said since seducing Chiyo. Aiko knew what that meant as well, as she watched Reina pull away and stare down into the dark abyss between bodies: Aiko grabbed a new condom and tossed it to her girlfriend. Sometimes Reina was too rough.
We go through so many of those. And Aiko bought most of them at the same pharmacy, from the same young man behind the register. He must think all I do is have sex. It wasn’t unusual for her and Reina to make love every couple of days, depending on how they felt overall. And Reina loved playing with her toys, so they went through a few boxes of condoms a year. No wonder he stares at me every time I go in there.
Chiyo thrashed around for a few more minutes until she stilled. Reina cleaned up with that boastful perk to her face, as if she had claimed half of the wild jungle as her harem. What a smug-head.
Aiko motioned for Reina to come kiss her while Chiyo relaxed beside them. She was met with a feral tongue and scrambling fingers. Aiko grabbed the toy dangling from Reina’s waist. This was her favorite part.
Nothing ever beat the thrill and intensity of Reina thrusting into her after just finishing with another woman. Michiko had once told Reina to stop treating Aiko like “a sloppy second” but Aiko didn’t feel that way at all. It was one of the few times she ever felt so primal with her girlfriend, who was so in tune with herself and her motions by that time she could have made any woman pass out in exhaustion halfway through. It took a woman who knew Reina best to last until she couldn’t go anymore. Whenever Aiko thought she may be on the verge way before Reina, she always stopped focusing on what they did and instead inhaled her surroundings: the scent of Reina’s hair, the heat of her sweat, the squeals and clicks inside her grunts and groans. Even when other women were there it was like they were still all alone in their own world of sex with each other.
Aiko had a brief sense of accomplishment when Reina came first, hips freezing as she called out in Aiko’s ear. Brief because Aiko soon fell through that same trap, like a lemming falling off the cliff after its friend. Between the sound of Reina panting, the scent of their mingled sex, and the feeling of everything full inside Aiko’s body, she thought she would either have a heart-attack or eject Reina’s fake appendage with half the liquid in her body following. She chose the latter, since it was more gratifying than getting the chance to say she died during a threesome.
Chiyo had watched them, Aiko came to find as she rolled over after disengaging from Reina. “You two are insane.” Chiyo looked like she had stars swirling in her eyes. “Amazing, but insane.”
Aiko felt Reina slip an arm around her and nuzzle into the crook of her neck. “We probably are,” Aiko said, reaching out and poking Chiyo’s foot. “You’re going to remember us for the rest of your life.”
Chiyo laughed. “God willing!”
Reina received an incoming international call whilst on a smoke break.
“Un,” she answered with the cigarette still in her mouth.
The line crackled, like bubble wrap passed between two obnoxious kids. “Un? Is that the greeting I get? What if I had been somebody in control of your financial fate?”
Reina took out her cigarette and blew smoke all over her cell phone. “I’ll greet you however I want! How are you? You in town yet?”
Michiko took her time responding, as evident by the humming she did in the background of the crackling phone. “I’m fine. And no, I’m just calling to warn you that I’ll be in town next week. I have a show and I want to visit my grandmother.”
“Oh, okay.” Reina checked her watch to make sure she didn’t get back to work late. “What day are you coming? When can I see you?” She was aware she must have sounded like a child pining for candy…Michiko had that effect on her. “And are you coming alone or…?”
“Slow down!” Michiko chuckled, her voice as teasing and arousing as it had been twenty years or so before when they first met; Reina felt her heart lunge into her stomach and then spring up again into her throat. “I’ll be flying in the Sunday of Golden Week. Alone.” Sometimes Michiko liked to bring her significant other with her, although Reina could never remember her name or what she looked like. “Are you available? Or are you and Ai-chan going on a vacation?”
Reina took another drag of her cigarette as she thought of her “plans” for Golden Week, the nationwide vacation week of mid-spring. Reina got nine blessed days off, and although she and Aiko would take a vacation somewhere sometimes, neither of them liked the crowds of everyone else on vacation too. “No real plans. Ai-chan wants to go to Nikko with her brother one day but I’m not going.” That guy hates me more than he hates sticking it in his wife. “I mostly plan on just doing my thing.”
Another chortle. Michiko always thought everything was so humorous. “So that means you have time for me on my time off.”
“I always have time for my Mi-chan.” Reina could feel her everything warming to the idea of having Michiko in her arms. “But I thought you were…unavailable.”
“We have an understanding.”
Reina nodded, and checked her voice before she spoke again – she didn’t want to sound like a giddy schoolgirl fraught at the thought of a date. “Well, whatever. I’ll follow your lead.”
“Or create your own.”
“Hey now!” Reina finished her cigarette and extinguished it in the designated place. “Well, just let me know when you get in. I’ll keep a day open on Golden Week for my Mi-chan.”
They parted cordially, with unspoken but subtle promises. When Reina disconnected and put her phone away she thought of all the wonderful things she wanted to do with her best friend – at least two of them could happen outside of a bedroom. Reina didn’t care what kind of arrangement Michiko had with her significant other so long as it meant togetherness. It couldn’t have been different from Aiko having sex with the neighbor on rainy afternoons.
Reina must have had some sort of stupidly smitten look on her face when her coworker, Nakamura, stumbled out of the building to take his own smoke break. He took one peek at Reina’s face and commented, “Wow! You have a nice smile!”
Said smile turned into a grimace as Reina looked back into his wrinkling, pale face. Nakamura was older than her, a bachelor with a half-bald head and glasses twice as big as his eyes. Reina had an inkling she knew why this man was still a bachelor: inside the office he was as polite as expected, but outside he had a tende
ncy to talk-down to and extrude general creepiness to every woman he came across. Even now she could smell his breath mints permeating in his pocket. “Um, thanks.” She nodded in practiced politeness.
Reina stood and attempted to steal back into the building before she got in trouble with her section chief, but Nakamura was apparently not going to let her get away that easily. “You should smile more. It makes you look like a woman for once.” His words were mangled on his cigarette as his hands fished for his lighter.
“Uh…” Reina felt something – disgust? – run down her spine in little pricks. Like him. “Thanks…I have to get going.”
“I bet the section chief would like a smile or two sometimes.” Nakamura pulled out his cigarette from his mouth as Reina opened the door. “Keep it up and you’ll be prettier than the errand girls.”
Reina slammed the door against his endless chattering. She thought she tasted bile in her throat.
Even though Aiko loved to watch lesbian romance movies, she rarely found any from Japan that attempted more than brushing the surface or indicating a horrible existence for all Asian lesbians – they were always depicted as dead at the end, after all. And when she did find the occasional one showing women in healthy relationships together, she watched them until she learned the dialogues and knew the love scenes outside and in.
That afternoon, as she leaned against the living room table, she watched one she had never seen before. It featured two women on a journey of self-discovery in their suffocating lives. One was an “office lady” and the other was a housewife, one unmarried but both undecided on how they wanted to perceive themselves. Everything was intermingled with luscious love scenes and “on the couch” confession scenes in which the two characters blurted out their innermost feelings to the viewer. Aiko had seen enough movies to know the women would split up, or the housewife would kill her husband and end up hanged, or, or…Aiko did not expect the housewife to leave her husband and chase off after her lover to be with her “until they breathed no more.”
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