Aiko had her suspicions over what this was about, but did not voice them out of propriety. Kenji remained largely unresponsive while his mother did the talking, telling Aiko that their family was from Saitama Prefecture and that Kenji went to prestigious Waseda University to get his graduate degree in accounting. Oh, and he was an only child, of course. This meant that one day she hoped he would give her lots of grandchildren to spoil.
“That’s lovely,” Aiko responded through closed lips.
All the while Junko hovered nearby, teeth bursting through her mouth in the biggest grin since that time she almost won the lottery. I get it already! The only time she spoke was to encourage Aiko to mention what she studied in university.
“She’s very smart,” Junko told Youko. “Like a dictionary! You need to know how to say a word in English, and she’ll tell you. Go on, try her!”
Youko incited her son to laugh alongside her. “How about neko?”
Is she kidding me? Aiko forced her own laugh nonetheless. “I believe that is ‘cat’ in English.” Who was she, Eri?
Kenji slapped his hands on his knees. “Aren’t there many words for cat in English, though? My American exchange friends told me that a common word for cat is ‘pussy.’ Do you know it?”
It took every ounce of effort as a mature adult to not burst out laughing as this upright young man saying “pussy!” in her childhood home. If only Reina were there! The first thing Aiko thought of when hearing “pussy” was not a sweet and dapper kitty, but wet and gaping omanko hiding beneath bushels of pubic hair. Kenji must have mischievous friends.
“Yes, I believe that is a word for cat.” Aiko bit her lip. “But it means other things as well.” She left it at that.
The conversation turned to innocuous topics, such as the news and latest dramas on TV. Aiko busied herself with her tea, drinking from it every time it seemed somebody wanted her to participate. For the most part it was boring: Youko dominated the discussion with her feelings about how good looking President Clinton was, while Kenji was consumed by his own dimples. Aiko decided he was nice looking – but even when she once thought she was straight, he was not her type. Whatever that was.
After forty-five minutes of impeachment scandals overseas, Youko and Kenji announced they had to start heading home if they wanted to reach Saitama by nightfall. More bowing ensued, and Youko left behind her calling card before putting on her shoes and heading out with her son.
“So, what do you think?” Junko asked in the hallway. “That Kenji is a nice boy, eh?”
Here we go. “He didn’t say much, but he seems like a decent person.”
“Deshou? But as a first impression, he was quite good looking!”
Aiko retreated into the living area. “If you’re wondering if I should like a private date arranged with him, save yourself the trouble. I’m not interested.” She picked up her purse.
Junko followed her, confusion already swarming her face. “Why not? Hey, he’s gonna be an accountant! Graduate degree from Waseda! You can’t beat that!” She furrowed her brows. “What girl wouldn’t want a husband like that?”
“Me.” Aiko secured her purse strap across her chest and walked into the hallway. “I told you, I’m not interested. Was this because of what happened last week? Mother, I’m not interested in dating men. I’m not single, and haven’t been for some time.” She stepped out of her slippers in the genkan.
“Ai-chan!” Junko stomped her foot like a five-year-old. “I’m giving you a chance to get away from that life! Come on, it’s time to grow up. You’re not going to be young and pretty forever. You should get a husband while you still can!”
Aiko slid open the front door and stood on the threshold. “I appreciate your concerns, Mother, but they are completely unfounded. I can take care of my love life myself.”
She stepped outside and embraced the hot sunshine pouring down from the sky. Whether her mother followed her in a boiled fury or not, she did not look over her shoulder to find out. There were bigger things to contemplate. Like pussy.
Festive music chimed in the thick, hot air as crowds of families perused the booths of the local neighborhood carnival. Reina did an acrobatic dance to avoid running over a pack of children as they migrated from a goldfish catching booth to a snow cone machine. Before her, Aiko meandered from one side of the street to the other, her eyes as big as the sun.
“Mite, Reina!” She stopped at a booth and held up a keychain of a fat dog pouting. “Isn’t it cute?”
Reina knew better than to say otherwise. “Yeah, it’s adorable.”
They continued through the fray, stopping at every other booth so Aiko could gush over the latest cute item or encourage random children in their festival games. As for Reina, all she could concentrate on was her growling stomach and the multiple weights on her mind. She was still bitter about losing her promotion, even though Aiko had gone out of her way to make her foods she loved. And it was obon, the time of year when families got together, had parties, and cleaned the ancestral graves. Reina had gone to her father’s grave earlier that morning to dust it off in peace without her mother’s complaints. The only thing keeping her afloat was a surprise phone call from her American friend, Michiko, telling her she’d been granted leave from the military to come visit in October. Actually, when Reina contemplated that, she perked up and smelled a delicious scent coming from a booth.
“Oi, Ai-chan!” she said, waving her hand in her girlfriend’s direction. “Give me a hundred yen so I can buy some takoyaki!”
“Eh? Don’t you have money?” Aiko fished through her coin purse for a dollar.
Reina mumbled something and continued to make grabby hands, mouth salivating at the scent of fried batter and octopus scraps. Two minutes later she had her coveted snack, and she was better able to put up with her girlfriend’s squeals of feminine joy with grease shoving around the inside of her mouth.
Although clouds covered the sky, the heat was still merciless, dotting Aiko’s skin with sweat and making Reina go through two bottles of water. Who has a festival during obon? Apparently her new neighborhood did. Reina looked forward to using her days off to laze around the house, but Aiko insisted on coming to the neighborhood block party the moment she heard about it from…
“Oh, ohisashiburi Takeuchi-san!”
Their path was blocked by Mrs. Uchiyama. Thus far, she and Reina had only met once when crossing paths in the street. Once too many. Reina didn’t like the way this woman sniffed.
“Good afternoon!” Aiko bowed. “How are you?”
Mrs. Uchiyama snapped out a fan and flushed it furiously at her face. Her curly dark hair swung back and forth at the force. “Isn’t it a great season for a festival? I hope it doesn’t rain!” Her laugh was faker than a cat’s fickle love.
While Aiko and Mrs. Uchiyama swapped empty stories, Reina polished off her takoyaki and hovered nearby. She made sure to keep a respectable distance from her girlfriend, lest the neighborhood association president got the “wrong idea” about them. Heaven forbid. When she stopped and thought about the problems it would cause, she only lost that much more faith in humanity. Right up there with giving a promotion to the slacker who’s getting married. At least Michiko would be coming to visit in a couple of months. Reina took solace in that.
“Yamada-san?” Mrs. Uchiyama’s voice was like nails on the face. “Are you well? I was asking about your job.”
“It’s work. It pays the bills.” Barely. More bitterness.
The sycophantic smile on Mrs. Uchiyama could have punched pigeons out of the sky. “Certainly, your unique home arrangement offers equally unique challenges. I wish you both the best. If you would excuse me.” She shuffled away, fan still twirling.
“Ugh, what was that about?” Reina shivered even in that oppressive heat.
Aiko pinched her in the side. “She was being nice! Mou, you don’t have to be suspicious of everybody, you know.”
Why not? That’s how Reina stayed alive. “She
’s catching on to our relationship.”
“Eh? What are you talking about? How could she even tell? I doubt my mother’s said anything to our neighbors.”
Reina shook her head. She knew that kind of devious look nosy busybodies got when they started sniffing out scandals. “Just be careful what kind of things you tell them. It’s bad enough your mother knows about us. We don’t need the neighbors giving us dirty looks too.”
Aiko did not respond.
They spent the remainder of the afternoon hanging around the festival, trying their luck at a lottery and a ring toss game – they lost at both. Reina started complaining around dinner time that she was hungry again, and they retreated to their house for a dinner of cold sandwiches and salad. Aiko brought out juice as a sweet dessert, noting the time when the evening fireworks were supposed to begin.
It wouldn’t be their first firework show together. In previous years they made dates out of it, using the cover of darkness to sit together and hold hands even when not in gay-friendly environments. But that was in places they didn’t live. Reina saw the gleam in her girlfriend’s eye as they packed up some blankets and wandered to the neighborhood park. This isn’t a date. They couldn’t even look at each other the wrong way without raising suspicion.
The park was packed with people in the lower areas surrounding the river. Reina suggested they try the top of the small hills, flanked with trees that gave the false air of shelter. It was better up there, with only a few couples and packs of teenagers milling around from time to time. They laid a towel beneath a tree and huddled together under a blanket. If anybody saw them together, Reina could only hope that her short hair and lack of breasts made them look like a straight couple.
“Isn’t this romantic?” Aiko melted into Reina’s weak embrace. “Our first fireworks together in our own neighborhood.”
The fuck is romantic? Then again, Aiko always looked for an excuse to feel romantic.
The rabble in the park below erupted into a reverent awe as the first firework launched in the distance. An explosion of reds and blues rained down in the now clear skies, leaving a trail of glitter along the city skyline in the distance. Aiko wrapped her arms around Reina’s torso. Another firework, this time three dazzling shades of green, swirled among the stars.
Reina didn’t watch the next few. When you’ve seen one fireworks show, you’ve seen them all. Still, she remembered a time when she did enjoy fireworks. The first was when she was a small child, sitting atop her father’s shoulders and screaming in delight at the blue fireworks, her favorite color. The second was in high school, when her friend Michiko told her a story about souls traveling the span of a millennia in search of their mates. The third was five years before, sitting with Mio and listening to her breathe like Aiko did.
“They’re so beautiful.” Every time a firework went off, Aiko’s face was alit in a golden hue. Reina ignored the schoolgirls talking a few meters away and kissed Aiko on the cheek.
She only meant to give her a brief, frisky peck, but the moment her lips touched Aiko’s skin she felt the swell of desire explode inside her like one of the fireworks. Maybe they are romantic. Or maybe Aiko was too beautiful to resist.
“Reina…” She didn’t protest. Aiko sighed, whether from the successive fireworks bowling into the air or her girlfriend’s lips passing over her throat, Reina didn’t know.
Nor did she care.
There were only a few patches of skin on Aiko’s shoulders and chest, and Reina covered them all, her tongue eking out to collect the sweat accumulating. Her hands went from holding down the blanket around them to feeling up the back of her girlfriend’s tank top. She tugged on the hooks of Aiko’s bra while her teeth grazed a shoulder.
I wish there were no one else here, and I could make love to her beneath these stars.
Romantic, indeed!
“Yamede Reina.” Aiko’s chiding was accompanied by a firm hand. “Not out here.”
She retracted her hand from the bra snaps but did not lift her head. “Why not? Nobody can see us.” Her groin ached for her girlfriend’s reassuring touch.
A large purple and gold firework received applause in the park. “You don’t know that. I’m not going to get in trouble for having sex in public. It’s illegal, anyway!” Yet there was a playful tone to her voice.
Reina left a trail of light kisses up her girlfriend’s throat and into her ear. “Admit it, you want to do it here, under the bright fireworks.” Her breath toyed with Aiko’s earlobe. “Come on, just a little…”
“Just a little what?” Aiko laughed and withdrew her arms from her girlfriend’s torso. The blanket loosened around them. “You’re such a perv.”
Really? Was it perverted to want to make love to her girlfriend? Yeah, yeah in public, so what? Was it perverted to make it as romantic as possible? That’s what she cares about the most. In the end, Reina resigned herself to a sexless fate and tried to concentrate on the fireworks.
And then Aiko’s hand darted between her legs.
“Well, maybe a little bit…”
Attempting to hide her giddiness, Reina pulled the blanket back around them and clenched it tight, so not even the undulations of her other hand could be seen by anybody else. More fireworks burst in the air, and more fingers brushed against her zipper and fumbled with the button to her jeans.
“If nothing else, Reina-chan,” Aiko said in a muted whisper, “I’ll make this a fireworks you’ll never forget.”
Reina knew that meant no reciprocation was preferred at that time. Understandable, since Aiko kept her eyes on the sky and her girlfriend’s hand was needed to keep the blanket shielded around them. But that didn’t mean Reina’s one free hand couldn’t shove beneath Aiko’s top and search for her breasts, their rounded mounds a perfect fit in her palm. Aiko swallowed, hard.
Fingers managed to find the inside of Reina’s clothing, making their way down her underwear and mingling with her pubic hair. Aiko’s middle finger searched for the top of Reina’s cleft, both of them breathing, hard.
“Ai-chan…” Reina buried her face in her girlfriend’s shoulder. A golden firework crackled above them. “You’re so naughty…”
She chortled, finger rubbing against her girlfriend’s clitoris in a surprise attack. “You’re the one crippling my dignity.”
By now ripples of pleasure rolled through Reina’s skin, two fingers prying apart the folds of her omanko and wetting themselves in what she offered. “Uh huh…oh!”
“Shush.”
Between the gentle digits massaging the lips and bumps of her omanko and the firm breast in her hand, Reina melted into a pool of bliss at the top of that hill, there beneath the lights of fireworks. Every time they sizzled in the sky, she thought she would be brought to orgasm – but Aiko’s dexterous knuckles caressed her as deftly as ever.
She clamped her teeth around Aiko’s shirt and whimpered, the cotton fibers drying her tongue but muffling the sounds of her pleasure. She’s so naughty! Never in a thousand years did Reina think she would get Aiko to finger her in public, even beneath the cover of darkness and a thick blanket. This was Reina’s kind of romance. And I could get used to this!
Aiko was quick to flick her finger over her girlfriend’s clitoris, dipping into the hole beneath when she was able to gain access. Reina slammed her eyes shut and prayed she wouldn’t scream into the night.
She didn’t.
But she really, really wanted to.
Her pelvis grew as hot as the fire in the sky, as solid as the breast in her hand. A leg snapped from the blanket, letting Aiko’s fingers slip further inside. With two knuckles brushing against her clitoris, Reina rode the crest of an orgasm, cries burrowing into Aiko’s sleeve.
When it was over, Aiko pulled her hand out and wiped her fingers on her girlfriend’s T-shirt. She left Reina to button and zip up her own jeans. “There. Are you happy now?” A devilish quality lurked in her voice.
Gasping, Reina released her death grip on her
girlfriend’s breast and fell languid against her. “For now. You might have to do it again when we get home.”
“I would be irked if I didn’t.”
Aiko invited Reina into a proper embrace again, the blanket falling lax around them as they watched the fireworks erupting in the sky in a blaze of rainbow colors. People shouted and applauded, but all Reina could think of was their cool bed and the possibilities residing inside. Oh, and the sweet kisses dotting her cheek in the glow of the fireworks. Those were nice, too.
Between the shirt drenching heat and the gloomy, overcast sky, Aiko didn’t know which was a more ominous sign that this would be an awful obon.
She dragged Reina – sometimes literally – from the train station toward her childhood home for the family gathering. When Reina complained and asked why she had to come to a Takeuchi get-together, Aiko insisted it was so her mother could see them and realize that their relationship was not a farce.
Still, she was not unaware of Reina’s faltering steps and the pallor of her face. Aiko refrained from holding her girlfriend’s hand in this neighborhood, but offered her all the encouraging words she could. “Don’t worry, my mother hasn’t told anybody.” “Shizuka will be there too.” “Nobody’s going to say anything.” “If it’s really unbearable we’ll sit in a corner for a couple hours and then come up with an excuse to go home.” That last bit got Reina to perk her ears up. She probably thinks I mean we’ll go home to have sex. Wasn’t last night – in a damn park! – enough?
People already milled about the front yard when they reached the Takeuchi house. The commotion came from Aiko’s sister and sister-in-law comparing the feats and abilities of their children, including Eri, who did admirable cartwheels in the street to the delight of her aunts. When the little girl bounded up and took sight of Aiko and Reina, she cried out in excitement and danced around them like a fairy with invisible wings.
Kataomoi Page 12
