Hirata’s heart pounded. Each time the dealer called the round, Sho put out a couple more coins and each time his turn came, he called the dice correctly until a sizable pile of money pieces was stacked on the floor in front of him. Hirata suppressed a bark of laughter. Sho’s intensely sharp hearing actually enabled him to hear how the dice landed!
The game continued and Hirata looked forward to witnessing another feat of incredible hearing from Sho, but instead of putting in another bet, Sho pulled his earnings toward him, piled the coins into a small sack, which he tied around his torso, gathered his cane, and left. Hirata followed him out, trailing him as far behind as he dared. He wasn’t letting this man out of his sight until he knew for sure this was Sho. And then, he wouldn’t let Sho out of his sight until he understood why Sho had denied him.
Up ahead, Sho turned a corner, heading in the direction of the town’s tiny pleasure quarter near the theater. Hirata followed. But when he turned the corner, Sho had disappeared.
Hirata gasped.
“Why are you following me?”
Hirata froze in his tracks. He turned just as Sho emerged from behind a stack of barrels. Sho faced him, his head tilted to the side, his sightless eyes staring downward.
Hirata’s gut lurched. “I—”
“What do you want with me?”
Hirata cleared his throat. “I’ve been searching for my friend for ten years,” he said. He swore he could see the other man flinch slightly and then compose himself. But the response could just as easily have been in his imagination. “You… look so much like him. I was sure you’re him.”
The anma stood quietly for several moments. “My name is Jiro,” he said finally. “I’m… sorry to disappoint you.” Then he turned and trudged on.
Again, Hirata trailed him from a distance. Not that it mattered, Sho…. Jiro… whoever he was, would probably know he was being followed. At the end of the street, the anma, tapping his cane before him, found the edge of a porch to a two-story building that flanked the theater and stepped up. Passing under the eaves, the anma once again disappeared between the flaps of the noren curtain.
Hirata stepped up to the edge of the porch and trained his listening. The front door had just slid shut behind the anma, but Hirata could hear a voice inside, welcoming him. Carefully, he stepped up onto the porch, slipped between the curtains, and stood closer, lightly pressing his ear to a small space at the window shutter.
“Welcome, Jiro-san,” Hirata heard a breathy voice say. “Aoki will be so happy to see you!” And then, “Aoooookkkiiii! A guest to see you!”
Hirata frowned. Aoki? The voice greeting Sho had sounded somewhat feminine. If this was a geisha house, someone named Aoki wouldn’t be there.
Momentarily, a squeal of delight resounded. “Jiiiirrroooo-sannnn! Oh! You did come to see me!” Whoever this Aoki was, he was thrilled to see Sho.
“Hello, Aoki-san,” Sho said.
Hirata’s face burned with the most uncomfortable sensation. Even Sho’s tiny acknowledgment of Aoki’s existence made him envious.
“Come, Jiro-san! I have the entire afternoon free before rehearsals tonight. We can spend it together.”
Hirata caught his breath. That feeling of being pierced through the middle hit him again. The thud of their footsteps receded toward the rear of the building. This Aoki character spoke as if he were greeting a long-lost lover and was taking Sho to a room where they could—
Hirata pulled in a breath. Manlove was common practice among samurai. But for Sho? Curiosity, like a fever, gripped Hirata. Though his need felt like an illness that would lead him to witness something that would send him into the dregs of depression, he could not prevent himself from stepping off the porch and hurrying around the back of the building in search of a way to spy on Sho.
“Jiro-san! I’m so happy to see you!” Aoki’s shrill voice carried through the air.
Hirata gasped. They were upstairs! How would he get up there? Ah, an answer presented itself immediately. Someone had piled up barrels nearby. Hirata pushed them together and placed another barrel on top, just high enough so he could climb up the small roof that shaded the back entrance to the ground floor. Following the voices, Hirata crouched and inched along, peering through the long slats of the second floor windows. At the second window, he stopped.
There they were! Aoki was tugging Sho’s hand, leading Sho into the room before sliding the shoji door shut. It was a room typical of any geisha house—basically empty but for the futon spread invitingly in the center of the tatami floor. To the side, against the wall, a samisen rested, waiting for its strings to be plucked in entertaining a guest.
Another burn of jealousy stabbed Hirata’s middle at this reunion of Sho’s with an actor he came especially to visit. Aoki appeared just as Hirata thought an actor would. Long sleek hair, pulled back at the nape of his neck as if he were a woman, hung down his back, over a beautiful silky kimono of narrow white and dark blue stripes. Aoki’s facial features and flawless ivory skin were delicate too. With his high cheekbones, pouty lips, and eyes the shape of perfect almonds, he was as pretty as any geisha.
“I thought I’d never see you again, Jiro-san,” Aoki was saying as he slipped his own sandals off and then swiftly unwrapped Sho’s gaiters, revealing powerfully muscled thighs and calves. He set the gaiters aside and led Sho over to the futon. “It’s been months!”
“I apologize, Aoki-san. There have been urgent matters to attend to, including a stay at the castle. I just returned today. You were the first person I wanted to visit.”
“Oh, Jiro-san, I’m so flattered! At the castle? How impressive!”
“Don’t be impressed, Aoki-san. I’m needed only to check pulses and that sort of thing.”
Hirata’s heart thumped. Sho tended to the lord of the province? How did a zato-level anma achieve such an honor?
“You won’t be leaving again any time soon, will you?”
“No, Aoki-san. My plan is to remain nearby for as long as I can.”
“Ohhh! You’ll have to come and see my next play. I will reserve a place for you up front. The theater has grown immensely in just the few months you were away. I was so lucky that Genji took me in when he opened the theater. Do you remember my telling you?”
“Oh yes, Aoki-san.” Sho allowed Aoki to set his cane aside and assist him onto the futon.
“Of course you remember! You’re the smartest man I’ve ever met!” Aoki helped Sho off with his outer coat, which he carefully set aside, and then knelt in front of him. “You know, we were both in that traveling troupe from which he’d been fired because he fell in love with that samurai he met by chance at the hot spring. But that samurai convinced the lord of the province to let him build a theater, just for Genji, and now Genji is the boss.” Delicate hands went to the sash of Sho’s kimono and expertly began to unwrap it. Then he folded the sash as if it were the most valuable piece of silk. “But Genji is so generous! He lets me have lead roles too, sometimes.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Thank you, Jiro-san. I wish I could say he does it merely because I’m so wonderfully talented, but truthfully, it leaves him time to train the new boys for the stage and for trysts with his special man.” Aoki giggled softly. He shifted around so that he knelt behind Sho and slipped off Sho’s kimono, which he folded and set neatly off to the side. When he turned back to Sho, his eyes widened a moment. Appreciation slipped into his gaze and he fluttered his eyelashes. “Oh, Jiro-san, you are as amazing as ever.” Aoki’s voice dropped to an adoring hush, and Hirata watched the slim actor run his hands over the rounded caps of Sho’s shoulders and down his back.
“Thank you, Aoki-san,” Sho murmured, his shaved head bowed.
Hirata swallowed hard, mesmerized. Like a perfectly trained geisha, Aoki had peeled off Sho’s layers of clothing, right down to his loincloth. Sho had grown into a handsome man with the same flawless skin of dusky gold. The baggy clothing of an anma hadn’t hinted at all of Sho�
�s physique of chiseled muscle. A piece of twine around Sho’s neck drew Hirata’s eye down, to something hanging, like an amulet, between his pectoral muscles. From this distance, all Hirata could see at the end of the thick string was some sort of bulge wrapped in many more layers of twine.
Hirata stared at the path of Aoki’s hands over Sho’s sleek body. Aoki shifted again so he knelt in front of Sho.
“You’re still wearing your half of the stone, I see.” Aoki reached out, delicately tracing the thin rope around Sho’s neck.
Hirata pulled in a breath and stared. At this distance, he had dismissed the item around Sho’s neck as some sort of amulet related to his trade. His heart began to pound. Could it be—?
“You are such a romantic,” Aoki breathed, his voice a dreamy sigh. “I love the story behind the stone. How your samurai broke the stone in half when you were children and you each kept a half. And now you’re waiting for him to find you again.” Aoki fell silent and gingerly fingered the twine-wrapped half stone.
Hot tears rushed Hirata’s eyes. Momentarily he closed them and pulled in a deep breath. Ecstatic waves wracked his body, and he fought as silently as he could for balance on the hot clay tiles. His search had finally ended. That anma was his beloved Sho!
However, in the next breath, shock, elation and hurt blended into a melt that caused a painful lump in his throat. Seventeen lonely years had separated them, encompassing day after day of yearning and missing his friend, and a seemingly endless search that had ended in Sho’s blatant, harsh denial of what they’d shared and the precious time that had been ripped from them.
What could possibly be the reason for such a response? And why did Sho not even use his real name?
Aoki finished touching the half stone. “Forgive my boldness, Jiro-san. I just can’t help it. I’m so moved by what this charm represents.”
“It’s all right, Aoki-san. I understand.”
Aoki’s hands left Sho’s chest and covered his own heart. “Genji has his samurai, the ronin who built this theater last year, just for him. And you have your samurai. Maybe my turn will come soon?”
Sho chuckled but the sound wasn’t mocking. “I can’t imagine it won’t,” he said softly. “You’re exquisite.” He reached out and took hold of Aoki’s wrists, drawing him closer.
Aoki giggled again. “Ooohhh, thank you, Jiro-san. How I wish all men were like you.” He let Sho pull him onto his lap so that he straddled Sho’s hips. He clasped his arms lightly around Sho’s neck. “One day, perhaps I’ll try my own hand at writing a play. It’ll be about you and your samurai. People will come from every province just to see such a romantic, soul-filled story.”
Sho’s hands slid up and down Aoki’s back, over the silky kimono. “I’m sure you’d write a wonderful play. With beautiful music.”
Aoki gasped. “Thank you, Jiro-san! How kind you are.” He pulled the tie out of his hair so the ebony fall spilled over his shoulders. He picked up Sho’s hand, guiding it to his hair.
Hirata watched, his grief momentarily pushed away by the scene unfolding before him. Sho sifted Aoki’s hair through his fingers while Aoki undid the sash of his kimono. The robe fell from his shoulders and slipped down his arms. The young man had a graceful body with pale skin, so much narrower than Sho, who truly looked like a warrior in comparison.
Aoki tilted his head back, hands resting on Sho’s shoulders, obviously loving Sho’s exploring caresses over his hair and willowy torso, down his slim arms and over his back. He sighed, a smile on his voluptuous lips. “I suppose you don’t want tea?”
“No.” Sho’s voice was lower now, huskier. “Just your comfort, Aoki-san.” His hands slid down to Aoki’s waist where he grabbed hold of the kimono and yanked it off.
Hirata remembered at the last second not to make a sound. The afternoon sun pounded on his back, baking him as it baked the gray clay tiles of the roof on which he crouched, but he could not have moved, not even if the house had caught fire. Not if it meant having to tear his gaze away from the scene through the vertical slats of the window.
Sho’s seeking hand had found the other man’s erection and was stroking it, up and down in quick caresses that made Aoki gasp and sigh. “Oh, Jiro-san! Jiro-san!” he cried, his fingers pressing into Sho’s shoulder muscles.
Sho’s head, too, was tilted back, his lips slightly parted. He seemed lost in the concentration of pleasuring the man straddled across his hips.
Hirata felt as if sparks ignited on his own skin. Titillation warred with jealousy inside him. So many times over the years he’d imagined himself and Sho together in the completion of their beautiful friendship. Mates for life, they’d want and need no others.
And yet, in all his imaginings, he’d pictured their coupling as a grunting, forceful act, with himself sandwiched between Sho’s rutting body and the tatami that crushed his cheek, the way it had happened between himself and Sozaemon. That’s what he believed the sexual act to be, what he’d learned at the age of thirteen.
At first he’d been honored to serve the ronin saké in his room as his father required him to do. Sozaemon was handsome with a rugged face and broad strong body. He was a highly skilled swordsman who laughed a lot and made Hirata feel special with the way he joked with him every day. However, the one time Sozaemon invited him in to sit while he drank his saké had ended in his being flipped onto his stomach, loincloth yanked down, a large strong hand over his mouth. No doubt he’d somehow provoked Sozaemon into such behavior, and the whole incident had left his face burning with shame, his heart and spirit shattered, and his backside sore and bruised.
Sozaemon left the dojo shortly afterward, and Hirata, afraid to hurt his father’s school and reputation if he told his father what had happened, had lived in shameful silence ever since.
How very different it would have been had it had been like this….
“Oh, Jiiirrrooo-sannnn!” Aoki’s slim body stiffened, and in the next second, white creamy seed spurted from the tiny opening in the head of his musuko. The milky substance coated Sho’s hand and dripped onto both men’s chests.
Aoki’s shoulders slumped and he moaned softly again, his head lolling back. His climax had emptied itself and he sat, breathing heavily. With one hand he lazily pushed his hair off his face. “Thank you so much, Jiro-san. No one is as generous as you, caring for my pleasure too.” Aoki’s hand left his hair and landed on Sho’s chest, splattered with the other man’s emission. “It’s your turn now, my dear.” He gently pushed Sho onto his back.
Aoki scooted back and crouched between Sho’s legs. Hirata’s gaze followed Aoki’s hands as they caressed Sho’s powerful-looking thighs, over his kneecaps and all the way over the hillocks of his calf muscles.
“Ahh, Aoki-san, your touch is heavenly.”
Aoki sighed. “I know how much you enjoy that.” His touch traveled back up, over Sho’s inner thighs, and then skimmed the bulge pushing out the front of his loincloth. Aoki hesitated, for just a moment, then pulled at the loincloth, causing the end of Sho’s musuko to peep out. With a few more gentle tugs, the loincloth slipped completely away and Sho’s erection sprang free.
Hirata had just a second’s view of the hard, lightly veined shaft before Aoki leaned over and captured the plump head in his lips.
Sho hissed in obvious pleasure. His head jerked back; his sleekly muscled body stiffened, becoming a prisoner to the pleasure of Aoki’s mouth on his manhood.
“Ohhh.” Sho’s lips parted and a quick breath escaped him with each upward slide of the other man’s lips on his shaft. He seemed completely lost in rapture, his body an instrument—like the stringed samisen that leaned against the nearby wall—from which Aoki’s skilled mouth drew music in the form of sensual bliss.
However, just when Hirata thought Aoki would bring Sho to his climax, Aoki lifted his head, allowing Sho’s cock to slip from his mouth. “Are you ready, Jiro-san?” he breathed.
“Yes, please,” Sho panted, his chest rising and falli
ng heavily now.
“As you wish, my dear.” Aoki reached out and gathered the creamy seed from Sho’s chest onto his fingertips.
Hirata pulled in a breath, mesmerized by the sight of Aoki’s fingers slathering the seed onto Sho’s straining musuko. When the member was coated, Aoki once again straddled Sho’s hips and brought his back opening onto the head of Sho’s cock and guided it in. Several tiny pushes and Hirata saw the plump head slip into the stretching hole.
Aoki cried out softly and pushed again, one quick jerk of his body and another until Sho’s cock slipped deep inside.
Both men moaned and sighed. Sho grasped Aoki’s slim hips and rested them there while Aoki, his hands on Sho’s chest, began to ride him as if astride a horse.
Hirata could do nothing but continue to stare. Time seemed to slow and then to stop, suspended, as if all that existed was the pleasure of sexual congress, the shadowy room with its timbered, whitewashed walls, providing a tiny space in which Sho could experience the rapture that Aoki was giving him with his slender body.
Sho stiffened. His fingers slipped from Aoki’s hips and curled into the bedding, gripping it against the waves of his climax.
Aoki seemed to know expertly how to raise and lower his body over Sho’s musuko, as if milking it for every drop of pleasure Sho could experience. Only when Sho wilted into the bedding, panting, his hands lifting to rest on Aoki’s thighs, did Aoki end his wild ride and sit, also breathing heavily, his long hair hiding his face.
As if a spell had broken, Hirata turned away. Carefully he lowered himself so that he sat, his back against the wall, to the side of the window and tilted his face down, eyes closed. Inside he could hear Aoki murmuring and Sho responding. No doubt the perfect host, Aoki was washing the seed from Sho’s muscled chest and stomach. How he guessed that, he wasn’t sure, but when he dared next to peek through the window slats, he saw that his guess had been correct.
“Thank you so much, Jiro-san.” Aoki now knelt beside Sho, gently wiping a cloth across Sho’s chest.
Blind Love Page 3
