Aiko didn’t wait for more of her mother’s “advice” – she picked up her pieces and marched out of her childhood home.
The sun beat upon her while she stomped toward the train station with little care. All she could focus on was maintaining a stiff upper lip, lest she have a public breakdown in the middle of the street she grew up on. How’s that for being a disgrace to the neighbors? Oh, she wanted to cry. She wanted to huddle up into a tiny ball and scream. What did her mother know about love between women, anyway? Apparently nothing.
Aiko shoved a train ticket into the turnstile and rushed to catch the oncoming train. The moment she flung herself into a seat she tried to cry, but held on strong – old aunties and college students sat around her.
She tried to focus on the one positive from this: she no longer had to lie or hide her relationship from her mother. Reina no longer had to “pretend” to be her best friend and not her lover of five years. It seemed like a good positive…so then why did Aiko only want to cry?
She rejected me. Aiko rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands. My mother rejected me.
At least Reina would be waiting at home. Oh, Reina! Aiko hadn’t thought of how this would affect her! Not that her girlfriend had any affection for the extended Takeuchi family, but now it seemed inevitable they would never speak to her again – unless it was to call her awful, awful things like “she-man.” Reina doesn’t think she’s a man! Aiko had never met a more confident lesbian in her life. It was that confidence that melted her heart.
Junko would not be there to hold her, but Reina would be.
The neighborhood clock chimed the late afternoon when Aiko arrived at her home station. She still had nothing to make for dinner – and now she had no desire to make dinner, even if Reina devoured her cooking as if she hadn’t eaten in days. So Aiko stopped into a fast food restaurant and got take-out. Grease would go down as easily as the bitterness in her throat.
To her surprise, Reina awaited her in the front hallway of their house. Aiko stumbled in, sweat and tears mingling on her face and take-out bag dangling from her hand. Reina took one look at it and raised an eyebrow.
“Tadaima,” Aiko greeted. She slid the door shut behind her and shook her shoes off.
“Okaeri.” Reina took the bag from her hand. “This doesn’t look like groceries.”
Sandals remained haphazard in the genkan as Aiko bounded into the house. “I changed my mind. You like hamburgers, right?”
They ate in the dimness of their living area, twilight pouring through the large window that exposed their relationship the day before. Aiko slammed the shutters shut a full two hours before she normally would. Reina only watched her, nibbling on fried potatoes while pretending to be more interested in channel surfing.
After their supper of Western food, Aiko dumped her day on her girlfriend.
She told her everything. If Junko’s words had been toxic the moment she uttered them, they were even more awful now, directed at the woman who caused such ire. Reina said nothing while Aiko expressed her anger and frustration, tears returning to her eyes.
“It was so awful,” she reiterated, her mouth full of sobs. “I knew she probably wouldn’t like us being in a relationship, but I wasn’t expecting that!”
Reina wrapped an arm around her. “I know. It’s hard.”
Although hot and sweaty, there was something reassuring about Reina’s strong embrace. Aiko sank into it and inhaled the familiar scent of her girlfriend’s body.
“What if she hates me now?”
“I don’t know. Give her some distance. Maybe she’ll calm down on her own.”
Even Aiko knew that was farfetched, but she appreciated the gesture.
Within the hour she had managed to sniff up most of her tears. She cleaned up the trash and washed down the counters in the kitchen, her mind racing through the day’s events. By the time the sun set she had almost forgotten how much her mother hurt her.
Almost.
The only things bringing her any reprieve were Reina’s sympathetic looks as they passed in the living room and hallways. Once Reina even stopped Aiko and caressed the cheek before resuming her march to the toilet. Those little things reminded Aiko why she went through what she did. Our love is too deep to let go. She would rather drown in it than come up for air.
By shower time Aiko felt a little better, although the cloud of dread continued to hang above her. She summoned Reina from the living room to come shower with her. Footsteps padded down the hallway at record speed.
They didn’t always shower together – perhaps about half the time – but Aiko wanted Reina near her as she bathed. The thought of being alone with her thoughts, in a suffocating room full of steam and water, seemed like a bad idea. Yet with Reina beside her, Aiko figured she could get through another twenty minutes of living with reality.
“I need to go in early to work tomorrow.” Reina pulled her T-shirt over her head. “If I get a jump on the week’s work, it’ll help me look good to those handing out the promotion.”
Aiko’s own clothing shed from her body. Once they were both naked, she bent down and gathered their clothes into a laundry bin outside the shower door. “I can get up earlier to make your lunch.” The door opened behind her.
There would be no bath that night. Usually Aiko filled the tub full of hot water before she and Reina rinsed off under the showerhead and jumped in together. Or sometimes they would take turns having a relaxing soak. That night, however. Aiko’s brain was too jumbled to think that far ahead. The tub sat uncovered and empty. Reina insisted it was fine.
The showerhead burst into life, full of refreshing cold water slowly turning into heat. Steam rose from the tiles as Reina stepped beneath the showerhead and rinsed her hair.
Aiko stood back in the doorway. The words of her mother froze her in ways the humidity couldn’t melt. “You’re just confused!” Was she confused? Aiko peered down at her naked body, the curves she could never showcase through clothing now covering her. She took down her ponytail and let her hair cascade around her shoulders. I’m a woman. She looked up. Reina shampooed her short hair, the water running down her hard, lean body. To the untrained eye it was easy to mistaken her for a man since she lacked curvature in the hips and breasts. She doesn’t even have breasts. Reina’s nipples poked out from the flat of her chest.
I’m just confused…
No she wasn’t. She knew Reina was anatomically female – and didn’t need to have sex with her to know that. She also knew that Reina was a woman upstairs too. When Aiko approached their relationship, whether physically or emotionally, she knew she was dealing with another woman, not somebody she wished were a man. Isn’t the whole point of being a lesbian not dealing with men? No man she had ever known was as beautiful as Reina, who allowed water to pour down her skin and caress her joints. It pulled at Aiko.
She finally closed the door behind her and joined her girlfriend by the tub. The spray from the showerhead wasn’t wide enough to cover them both, so they had to take turns washing their skin and hair. When Aiko wasn’t beneath the showerhead she was sitting on the edge of the tub, running a razor over her arms and legs. Reina didn’t shave, and thus spent her non-rinsing time leaning against the wall, melancholy on her countenance.
“I wonder if your mother will get me kicked out of here,” she said over the roar of water.
Aiko looked at her. “What makes you think that? It’s my house. She’s not our landlord.”
Water droplets fell down Reina’s arms. “It’s what I’m used to.”
“Huh?”
“Whenever I’m dating a woman and their family finds out about us…it usually ends with me disappearing.”
Aiko placed her hand on Reina’s chest. “You’re not disappearing. Do you understand?”
“Okay, okay! I don’t mean because I want to, but because it behooves me to.”
A frown tugged at Aiko’s mouth. “Is that what happened with Mio?”
“Eh? Wha
t’s she got to do with this?”
“Did her mother find out about the two of you?”
“I told you, we broke up because she was trying to push me toward monogamy.”
“Well apparently it happened with somebody.”
“What does it matter? It happened.”
Aiko leaned her forehead against Reina’s shoulder. “I don’t want you to leave me.” Tears stung her eyes, again.
“Oi! I’m not going anywhere! Even if I’m forced out of here, it doesn’t mean we have to break up!”
“Don’t leave this house!”
“I won’t!”
Water rose around Aiko’s foot. She rubbed away the tears in her eyes. “Good.”
Reina embraced her, her wet and warm chest pushing against Aiko’s cheek. “You need to stop thinking about this. There’s nothing you can do about it right now.”
“How do I stop thinking about it?” Aiko choked. “How?”
A hand stroked the small of her back and dropped to her bare rear. “Distract yourself.”
Before Aiko could ask her how she was supposed to do that, her girlfriend kissed her. Oh, I see. It lasted two seconds before she remembered that was how her mother discovered them in the first place – what would have once been a hot, blood boiling moment, turned sour when Aiko remembered the revulsion on her mother’s face.
Reina shoved her against the wall. Hands clutched Aiko’s shoulders, but it was not like Junko’s frantic grip; instead, Reina’s firm hold was almost tender. “Don’t think about it,” she said again. “Don’t think about anything.”
Aiko smiled. “Except you, right?”
The determined mien before her disappeared as Reina forced back her own smile. “If that makes you feel better.”
“It does.”
In their few years together, regardless of aches and pains and foul moods, almost nothing made Aiko feel better than being in her girlfriend’s tight embrace. It so happened that now it was a wet embrace, and the kiss accompanying it even wetter. Soon these won’t be the only things wet. If sex was the only way to erase the pains of the day, so be it.
Reina was the type of woman who could have sex anywhere at any time and still find ways to make it a pleasant experience. Even now, surrounded by hard tiles, sharp corners, and slippery floors, she gently kissed Aiko’s skin and lulled her into a sense of comfort. This is what I need.
They meandered beneath the showerhead, the pulsing water splashing between their faces. So long as Aiko ignored the water dripping over her nose she could concentrate on the tongue circling inside her mouth and the hands acting as a buffer between her back and the wall. One of those hands disappeared between her legs.
With Reina’s mouth diverting to Aiko’s ear, she leaned her head back and caught a spray of water down her throat. At the same time the first finger pushed into the folds of her vulva and brushed against her clitoris. Aiko’s moan quickly turned into a pleasured cough.
And so it went, with her girlfriend teasing the spots sure to titillate her and moving fingers across every sensitive place on her body. When she was out of the water’s way long enough to open her eyes, Aiko admired the wet sheen on Reina’s skin and in her hair. As a distraction, it was enough.
What was more than enough was when Reina bent down on her knees and eased her head between Aiko’s thighs. Her chin rubbed against the soft, curving skin there, nudging into her flesh as her tongue lolled against the water. Aiko splayed her hands against the wall, the shower water running down her chest and over her stomach.
She managed to forget what had upset her the moment her girlfriend’s tongue burrowed into her body. And yet, even in those minutes in which Reina regarded Aiko as a goddess worth lavishing affection upon, she imagined a flash of her mother watching through the tiny shower window. You wanted to know how two women do it? Reina’s lips pursed around Aiko’s clitoris. Take a good look.
Her girlfriend pulled away. Reina unhooked the showerhead and sat it on the floor, drawing Aiko down with it.
Tough business making love in a shower, no matter how accommodating to adventurous positions. Aiko tried to find a comfortable seat leaning against the tub, but gave up when her tailbone bruised. Reina pointed the showerhead toward the wall and ran her hand against Aiko’s body. Again, it was enough to soothe her ails.
I love her. She reminded herself that as Reina kissed the length of her arm and licked away the water drops. This is worth it. What would happen if they broke up? Aiko couldn’t afford living in that house even if she got a part-time job…and why would she want to? She would have to move back home. And what would wait at home? Her relationship with her mother would never be the same again. Every time Aiko would befriend a woman, platonic or not, Junko would suspect the worst.
This assumed Aiko could function again if she broke up with the woman she loved.
To reassure herself that Reina was still there, Aiko lunged forward and kissed her girlfriend with all the strength she had. She cupped her hands around Reina’s face and traced the line of her jaw while their tongues danced together. The taste of her girlfriend’s throat beckoned Aiko closer.
She wanted to lie on the shower floor and pull Reina atop her; she wanted to feel their bodies thrash together in unadulterated lovemaking. Yet Reina held her against the side of the tub, head lowering again. Aiko did not protest.
Through the steam wafting through the shower, Aiko could not see more than a few centimeters before her. Reina’s head was a mangled black blob in her lap. But her tongue was there, nonetheless, stroking her vulva and massaging the inner walls of her pelvis. The gentleness of it caught Aiko off guard – her girlfriend was not a romantic at heart, but she had her ways of showering Aiko with affection. Sweet, thorough lovemaking was one of them.
“Reina…” Aiko’s words garbled in the steam and water. “Make me forget it, just for a little bit.”
The showerhead rolled into Reina’s hand. One second later her mouth was replaced with a pulsing stream of water.
It was not the gentleness from before, but it did its job. Reina wrapped her lips around each of her girlfriend’s areolas while the jets continued to pound below. Water slammed down Aiko’s thighs, coursing over her clitoris and dripping into her opening.
Enough.
Aiko’s head flung back over the edge of the tub. Her hair dunked down the sides and fell away from her, just as her bearings fell away from her body. The pressure intensified the closer Reina brought the showerhead; the breaths inside Aiko’s chest increased with the pleasure of it.
She tried to announce her orgasm’s arrival, but found her words trapped in her throat. Her senses cranked up their awareness until she was convinced Reina literally surrounded her, entered her, and left her to fend for herself once more. And then reality crashed back again, and all that remained was the ripple of satisfaction coursing through her loins.
Reina nipped her girlfriend’s shoulder once more before pulling the showerhead away. Aiko sat up, dazed, legs slowly closing again.
Not enough.
Only one glance was necessary to confirm this with her girlfriend. Reina snatched Aiko into her arms.
Yes. Now she was surrounded, above and below, by her girlfriend’s body, rocking against her. Their legs entwined in such a way that Aiko didn’t know who ground against who. Yes! Reina’s lips battered her ear while her tongue scoured her throat. Fuck, yes! Aiko clung to her and gave everything she had, fingers managing to slip inside.
This time she did cry out, her voice echoing in the small chamber of the shower. Reina moaned too, into the cleft of Aiko’s neck. Their forceful thrusts knocked enough of the fear out of them until they stilled together, soaked hair plastered against their faces.
Aiko’s spine hurt.
They sat up, still embracing. Muscles stretched inside Aiko’s body while her bones ached from the frantic lovemaking on a bed of tiles. Worth it. Aiko repeated that to herself while Reina turned off the shower. The steam slowly dissipat
ed into the vents.
“Do you feel better?” Reina asked. She pushed the wet hair out of Aiko’s face.
“Yes, a little.” Feeling her girlfriend like that was the solid reminder she needed that it was worth her family’s indignation. She is a woman. The only woman Aiko wanted be with.
Although their shower was finished, they cuddled against the tub in a tangling embrace. Reina nuzzled her nose against Aiko’s forehead and ran her fingers over tingling skin. In turn, Aiko’s hand massaged her girlfriend’s thigh.
“Reina,” Aiko said again, her voice clearer without the water pounding between them. “I am so grateful to have you. Sometimes I don’t realize how lucky I am that you chose me.” She could have her pick of women, like Mio.
Kisses painted her cheek. “I’ll take care of you. Soon I’ll have that promotion, and we’ll do as we please. Your mother can trip into the sewer for all I care.”
Aiko knew she shouldn’t laugh, but she did. “Don’t remind me about her. If you do, I’ll need more amnesia.”
“I can do that.”
Upstairs a big, soft bed called to them. They could do whatever they pleased there, right now, and no mothers could stop them from expressing their love for one another. “I’d like that.”
Reina kissed her once more before getting up to grab their towels. “Everything will change for the better. Just you wait and see.”
Aiko wasn’t used to such optimism in her girlfriend’s personality, but she’d take it. She needed all the optimism she could get.
While Reina was fairly optimistic about her promotion prospects, she was not an optimistic person – especially when it came to matters of relationships and parents. Monday morning she went to work expecting to come home to a barricade outside the house, headed by Junko Takeuchi herself. She never liked Aiko’s mother, but had no reason to outright hate her…until she made her daughter cry. Reina hated it when her girlfriends cried.
Mio cried. Since that Saturday she had replayed the memory of her ex-girlfriend on the floor, sobbing because Reina wanted to break up. Dumping girls wasn’t something Reina liked to do, but she also didn’t let relationships flounder. Especially when girlfriends tended to get a little cranky about Reina wanting to still sleep with other women.
Kataomoi Page 9
