Takeshi shifted where he sat. “If you want.”
Aiko did. She wanted to get away from the subject of sex, and especially her sex life. Takeshi didn’t need to know those things. Not when he had made certain intentions clear the last time they were friends. He wanted me. Does he still want me? She supposed her sexuality and marital status changed things in his heart. But elsewhere? Only Takeshi knew.
But the good feelings of their dinner and movie did not return. Aiko sat at the table, berating herself for being too stupidly casual. And Takeshi… sitting there with his set jaw, all joviality sucked out of him. He instantly looked ten years older.
Beneath the table, he took Aiko’s hand into his.
“Ara?” She glanced up and met his eyes from around the table. They were pained, but beneath them was a hint of a smile that returned his boyish mannerisms whenever he was excited about something. Like me? “Takeshi-san…” She closed her fingers around his and looked away before she could pass out from nerves.
It was silly. Back in high school and her freshman year of university, she had boyfriends. She held their hands. Kissed their cheeks. Kissed their mouths. She even let them get close to touching her intimately, and her them. Most of it was innocent. After all, her heart was rarely into it. But now? I’ve forgotten how it goes. The not knowing every difference between a man and a woman’s bodies. The amazement on a boy’s face when he touched the female form. Let alone kissing! He’s kissed me before. Just because Aiko would kiss him back now…
As if he read her mind, Takeshi slowly leaned in, hovering his lips centimeters away from hers. He was going to let her make that final decision.
Do I? She wouldn’t be able to take it back. Do I want to? Would she risk their friendship again because of her stupid whims? Do I want it to be him? Who else would it be? There was no other man Aiko trusted in any capacity, let alone was attracted to.
She pushed forward, letting her lips brush against his.
Who jumped in first, she would never recall, but within another second she was kissing Takeshi… or Takeshi was kissing her. She couldn’t tell.
When she was young, at least young enough to have never heard of a woman named Reina Yamada, Aiko never felt a damn thing when she kissed a boy. They didn’t light her up with adoration; they didn’t turn her on in her most basic levels. They were there, someone to kiss. It was Reina who introduced me to what real passion and desire was.
Maybe it took twenty years for that core part of her to mature. Because now, with Takeshi wrapping his hand around her head and releasing his own ardor, Aiko felt alive.
It wasn’t the same as Reina, or even Yuri and other women she deemed special in some way. This was different. This had an undercurrent of trust to it that felt wonderful to release. I never trusted those other boys. She wouldn’t let them touch her, not because she wasn’t a sexual being, but because she didn’t trust them to not use her as a vessel for their own pleasure. Women understood her reservations. They knew what it was like to have to open up to a sexual partner and not be hurt in return. Sometimes they were hurt anyway, but it was different – less dangerous – than being hurt by a man.
To kiss Takeshi and not feel that danger, that lack of trust, was liberating.
Aiko lost herself in him, in his desire for her as he pushed her to the carpet, in his strange body that was so foreign to her, in his natural need to dominate her, even if tenderly. I need it anyway. She wanted Takeshi to lead her, to show her how it was done. Takeshi wasn’t an innocent lover. He had girlfriends – serious ones – before. That only made Aiko feel more comfortable in his arms. She was the type of person who needed experienced lovers to show her how love was made. It’s why Reina was so perfect for me.
But Aiko wasn’t innocent anymore. Not by a long shot, and not like she was when she met Reina. In twenty years she had innumerable partners, lustful experiences, threesomes, foursomes, even fivesomes, and done and enjoyed things that would have made young and naïve Aiko hyperventilate. She should feel free to jump into lovemaking without a doubtful shudder.
It’s different, though. Making love to a man would be different beyond measure than making love to a woman. Aiko could feel it in Takeshi’s body as it swallowed her on the floor, strong and sturdy – completely unlike any woman to ever top her. Not even Reina, in all her curveless, masculine glory, ever felt this solid in her arms. And Takeshi wasn’t a large man. More average, especially at his age of approaching forty. I feel like a dumb virgin again.
Even though she wasn’t.
Takeshi held all the power. He had been with women – he knew how to have sex with women and make them feel good. Aiko had no idea what to expect, even with Reina being who she was. That’s not a strap-on rubbing against my thigh! She panicked, but only because of the speed at which they were flying through this.
“Aiko-san.” His voice was rough, lustful. He wants me. “Please…”
Please what? Stop him? Let him continue? Aiko let him between her legs as the passion intensified. He was grunting into her throat, pushing against her pelvis with his, and…
No, that was definitely not a strap-on.
“Matte!” she bade, gently pushing against his shoulders. One second later her request registered in his brain, and he stopped, looking down into her face with one that suggested he was on the brink of losing it.
“Doushita?” he asked. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Not yet, anyway. “I just…” What an awkward time to bring this up. “I’ve never been with a man before, you know, and…”
“I see.” Takeshi sat up, his sweater and hair already disheveled. I barely recognize him. Oh, God, what was she getting herself into? “Sorry. I forget… you’re just so…”
So what? Sexual? “I didn’t say I’m a virgin. I’m nervous about… certain things…”
He was off her now, sitting on the carpet with one arm propped up against his bent leg. “I admit, I’ve never been with a woman with your background either. If that makes a difference.”
Aiko sat up too. “So what now?”
Takeshi looked at her as if she were speaking another language. “That’s up to you.”
“Should I start from the beginning?”
“What?”
Embarrassment returned to flush Aiko’s face. “Maybe it’s better if you know exactly where I’m coming from. Then we can go from there.”
“There’s more?”
Oh, he had no idea.
Would rather get drunk. That was Reina’s first thought as Shio presented her with a cup of tea in her humble apartment. It was one room, but a nice size room, not crammed against the kitchen or with a closet-sized bathroom. Quite the feat for the trendy area of Tokyo.
“Sorry it’s not much,” Shio said, sitting next to Reina at the table. “But on my salary I can only afford so much.”
Reina watched the steam rise from her cup of tea in that dark room – only the kitchen light was on, leaving the two of them to fumble in the shadowy living area. Shio apologized for this as well, saying the overhead light never worked and her lamp smelled funny if left on for a long time. Reina didn’t mind either way.
“You don’t have to say if you don’t want to,” Shio said, not touching her tea either, “but if you want to talk, I’ll listen.”
Talk about what? “I don’t know what I would talk about,” Reina said. “I’m upset today.”
“Because of your wife?”
“I guess.”
Shio nodded, as if she understood. “That’s okay. You barely know me anyway.”
That got a laugh out of Reina. “But you know me, right? Because of that book.”
With a cheeky smile, Shio got up from the table and pulled something off her shelf. “Have you looked at it at all?”
“Eh. Not really.”
The book popped open, and Shio turned to the very back where a good number of pages remained. Really? I’ve got top billing of s
ome kind? When Shio found the place she wanted, she began to read. “‘I have never been so sure about anything in my life except that I want to love and be loved by women. All kinds of women. I don’t care if they’re short, fat, dark, old, or any other kind of excuse people come up with to dismiss a woman’s appearance. I care about their souls, about the experiences they exude when they make love. No two women are even close to being the same. Some are looking for hope, some for fun, some for a misplaced need for healing, and others want to get fucked. But no matter what their motives, you can feel it inside their hearts when you’re with them, whether you’re making slow love in bed or banging a stranger against a bathroom wall. No woman can hide her ikigai when she’s with another. It pours out of her with every breath and movement she makes. Sex is the highest form of expression, I think. It doesn’t only feel good in the physical sense. It’s cathartic. I never feel as good as I do after sex.’” Shio looked up, trying not to smile too widely. “Do you remember saying that?”
Reina shrugged. “I don’t deny that I did say that, but I also don’t know if I recall saying it.” She said a lot of things.
“The sentiment is still true though, right?”
“Sure, I guess.”
This time Shio couldn’t contain her smile. “When I read this, I thought you were a really honest and interesting person. I hadn’t met you yet back then, of course, but you seemed like the kind of person I wanted to know. Then I found out about your gender dysphoria, and I related to you even more.”
“Related to me?”
“Of course. Can’t you imagine why?”
“I’ve never heard someone say they related to me before.” She was used to being a lone wolf queen when it came to her feelings and experiences. Other women would find her interesting, fascinating… but few ever admitted to sharing the same thoughts and feelings. “I’m nobody special. Lots of women have lots of sex with lots of people. I don’t have a fancy job that is going to change lives. I don’t have much money. I barely keep myself together most days.” Reina left out the part where she would probably be dead by now if it weren’t for her wife. “I don’t know why people always act like I’m special.”
“To people who love you, you matter a lot, I’m sure.”
“Do I?” Reina snorted through flared nostrils. “I’m not denying that people love me. But I can’t think of many who would be destitute if I disappeared.”
It was one of the most self-denigrating things she had ever said about herself, and this was the woman who often considered herself a fuck up of the worst proportions. But normally she didn’t care that she was a fuck up. Tonight, however, was different.
“Don’t you think your wife would miss you?”
“She would be the only one really affected.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“What do you know?” Reina reined in her disgust. “Sorry. I’m annoyed with myself.”
“You’ve got a lot going on right now. It’s understandable.”
She’s too nice. At any rate, it was time to change the subject. “Sorry for making tonight all about me. What about you? I barely know you besides the…” She didn’t mention it.
“I’m not sure what there is to share that I haven’t already.”
Reina looked around the frumpy apartment. It had character – drawings on the walls, curtains hanging from random areas, and teacups shaped like zoo animals lining one of the half-walls next to the kitchen. I know nothing about her. “You’re young, so I’m guessing you’re still deciding what you want to do with your life, eh?”
Shio blinked incredulously. “I suppose.”
“So, what do you want to do?”
“I haven’t really thought about it I guess. I mean, I’ve spent most of my adult life focusing on getting by and making the changes necessary to feel more myself, you know?”
“Oh, sure.”
“I don’t know about my future. Maybe I’ll go to junior college. I don’t know what I would study, so I don’t know what ‘career’ I want either. Maybe I’ll open a bar one day. I don’t mind bar work. Sure, lots of people end up in it because they couldn’t get jobs elsewhere. But I don’t mind it. I get to meet people. I get to help make them happy. Life could be way worse. I’m grateful for what I have.”
That’s how it should be. So why wasn’t Reina grateful? “That’s an admirable ikigai.”
“I take it one week at a time.”
So did Reina.
“What about you? If you could do anything, what would it be?”
That made Reina laugh. “I guess you want me to unveil some career I’ve always wanted or something. But nah. If I could get away with anything, I would rest and play all day. I guess I’ve never grown up in that regard. It’s a good thing I have a boring job to keep me grounded.” Even though she hated it.
Shio finally began drinking her tea while she looked around her room. It was one of the few times Reina had been in one without a TV. “You ever play two truths and a lie?”
“Sure.” She didn’t mention that it had been as recently as a couple of months ago. That game at her parties could get quite lewd.
“Want to play?”
“I guess.”
Shio sat up straight, pushed her blond hair behind her ears, and put on the most serious face she could muster. “I’ll go first. You have to guess which one is the lie.”
“Okay. And if I lose?”
“Ah… if you lose…” The serious face disappeared again. “You have to tell me something that no one else knows about you.”
Good luck. Reina was an open book about most things... at least to someone, anyway. “And if I win?”
“I’ll get off my ass and get us something better to drink.”
“Un. Ii yo.”
At that confirmation, Shio sat and thought about her two truths and a lie before continuing. “When I was nine, I fell off my bike and broke my arm in two places.” She pointed to where these breaks would have been. “It took six months for both to fully heal.”
“Okay.”
“My first kiss was with a girl in preschool. She chased me around the playground, demanding I give her a kiss until I let her kiss me on the cheek.”
“Hm.”
“Finally, I have never been to Osaka.”
“That one,” Reina said. “That’s the lie.”
Shio tilted her head. “No. Sorry. The second one was the lie.”
“Damn. Oh well.”
“Now you have to tell me something that no one else knows about you.”
Reina picked up her chilled tea and drank as much of it as she could in one go. What was there to share? Aiko knew almost everything. And what she didn’t know, other people did. People scattered to the four corners of the earth, whether they remembered her or not.
So she said the first thing to come to her mind.
“People think that the scariest thing that could ever happen to me would be a man assaulting me. In a way, it’s true. But they’re wrong. The most frightening thing I can imagine is no longer knowing who I am.” She drank the last of her tea. “Even if a man forced himself on me, I would still know who I was the entire time. It would be the only way I could survive.”
Shio did not blanch. “I know what you mean.”
The fact she could say that so confidently was why Reina was there to begin with. She looked at Shio and wondered why she couldn’t have met someone like her years ago. If I met her before Ai-chan… Reina sat back. She wouldn’t go down that rabbit hole.
***
Aiko looked around Takeshi’s bedroom, an eerie resemblance to her own creeping up in every corner. There were the hardwood floors, recently polished; a large bed with dark green blankets; furnishings suggesting that someone of means but also of a playful lifestyle lived there. But that’s where the similarities ended. It was also sophisticated, much more than Aiko and Reina’s. Takeshi had taken great care over the years to
decorate his room with a mixture of traditional and modern. Bonsai in one corner and a Victorian doll in the other. Aiko felt like she was in the room of a diplomat, not a professor of English.
She also felt naked. Perhaps because she was.
“Daijyoubu?” Takeshi asked, standing beside his bed. He was still dressed, holding a jacket in front of his waist. He’s hiding it from me. After all, he gazed upon her bare shoulders and the sides of her back as she curled her naked arms around her legs, enshrouded within the green blanket. Aiko was the first to get undressed while Takeshi was out of the room. She then climbed into his bed, feeling both at home and in a stranger’s room. Her clothes were folded neatly by the bed, her underwear covertly hidden at the bottom.
“I’m fine.” She held the blanket up and around her chest, her eyes cast toward her feet poking through the end. “Just give me a moment.”
She couldn’t believe that she was doing this. After spilling her guts to Takeshi only half an hour ago, Aiko jumped into his arms again, mad with the fury of her libido, fantasies, and everything that made her a fool for him tonight. But after he tried to take off her blouse, Aiko had stopped him, too nervous to deal with that. “I want to go very slowly,” she had said. It was Takeshi who suggested they undress separately, and Aiko agreed. If – when – there was a next time, she would be more comfortable with him undressing her.
But for now, this was how it would be.
“Okay,” she finally said. “I’m ready.”
Takeshi waited a few more seconds before pulling his sweater over his head and letting it fall to the floor.
It wasn’t the first time Aiko had seen him half naked, but in this context it made her look away like the maiden she felt she was. It’s just a body. And yet seeing Takeshi unbutton his jeans out of the corner of her eye made her completely turn away.
One minute later, the bed sank in his direction. The covers pulled against Aiko as Takeshi climbed in next to her. He leaned back, looking uncomfortable in his own bed.
Ikigai Page 19
