Indeed, Kiki wasn’t hard to ensnare. Some flirting, some suggestion, and soon the girl from Yamaguchi was leaning across the table, her foot not-so-secretly bumping against Reina’s. And Aiko’s too, probably. Time to drop the most powerful suggestion of all. Wanna come to a hotel with us?
Of course, Reina phrased it much nicer than that, insinuating that they would do anything but have sex in a hotel room. Of course, Kiki caught on right away. She went through two stages of blushing and staring at the table before she finally gave a nod. Excellent. Reina ordered another round of drinks to make sure they were good and loosened up. Aiko dumped hers down her throat the fastest. I can’t wait to watch her go for it.
“Well look who it is. Hold me while I feign surprise.”
Reina put her glass down and glared at the shadows looming over their table. The fuck are they doing here. She didn’t know whether to express shock or contempt at the random appearance of Hitomi and her brainless friend. And yet here they were, in the most packed lesbian bar in Ni-chome. Joke’s on them. Everyone thinks they’re lesbian lovers. Even Aiko, who leaned over Reina’s shoulder and asked, “Friends of yours?”
Hitomi laughed, her curly hair shaking on top of her off-the-shoulder shirt that glittered in the low lights of the bar. Beside her, Yoko crossed her arms and smiled with so much self-satisfaction it could choke the room. “This must be your... what do you say? Girlfriend? Priceless. She looks like she’s barely in high school. I guessed that you dykes recruit them young.”
Nails dug into Reina’s arm. “How dare she!” Aiko hissed. “Reina, who is this foul person? Tell her I’m a legal adult.”
Down, tiger. Aiko could talk a big game with her girlfriend blocking the shots. “What are you two doing here? Get lost looking for hairspray at the pharmacy?”
Yoko balled her fists. Before she could open her mouth, however, Hitomi spoke. “We happened to be in the area. Heard that this was a good place for a couple of girls out on the town to come and hang out at. I see why now. Although I had no idea that I looked like a dyke. Yoko-chan, do I look like a dyke to you?”
“You’re much too beautiful to be mistaken for one of these lesbians.” She looked straight at Aiko. Back off. My girlfriend’s gorgeous. And about to break Reina’s skin with her nails.
“Then why did we get sent here? Clearly that person would have seen my careful attention to my appearance and known that I wasn’t some slovenly lesbian. For fuck’s sake, I don’t even have short hair. And I know how to properly apply make-up.” Another glare at Aiko.
“Why the hell are you here?” Reina wanted to stand and confront her, but Hitomi was too close to the booth in that crowded bar. I can smell the stench of her perfume. “The fuck do you have against me? You had no problem being all buddy-buddy with me when you thought I was straight. Now I’m some pariah you think you get to stalk and make fun of? You must be really bored. Go find your boyfriend and leave us alone.”
Hitomi bent next to Reina, saccharine-coated voice squeaking out of her throat. “Don’t be so jealous because I have no problem getting a man. Not that your suggestion is terrible... after all, there’s nothing like a good dick to make me feel like a woman. A real woman. Not some washed-up she-man who can’t figure out what’s supposed to go in her vagina. Ugh. And to think I was so taken in by your style. You’re not trendy. You’re just a dyke.”
Heat from rage and Aiko’s fingers filled Reina with crimson-colored irritation. “You have no business being in a place like this!” she said, pointing a finger in Hitomi’s face. “I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but your disgust for me doesn’t give you the right to come into this safe space and insult me, my girlfriend, and every other woman in this place!”
By now the situation had the attention of almost every pair of eyes in the room. Music played over the speakers, yet the rabble had been jugulated as women of all gender expressions glared at the two straight twits in the middle of the bar. Yoko shrank back under their thunderous stares, but Hitomi either lived for their negative attention or couldn’t be assed to care. “You make it sound like you’re someone worthy of respect. I have news for you, and that’s society has no use for the likes of you. What good is a woman who won’t marry and have children? Why do you go to school to learn? You think you’re gonna get a job? Who would hire a dyke? You’re waste. You’re a drain on society, a drain on your family, and ugly to boot!”
Reina fought her way out of the booth, but Aiko pulled her back into the seat. Let me at her! Reina hadn’t been in a good bar brawl since high school. Overdue.
“Is there a problem?” A woman sitting at the bar slipped off her stool and put her hands on her hips. Round glasses steamed up from the body heat in the bar obscured her face, but she was unmistakable to Reina, who often saw this girl protesting this or that, organizing seminars for bullshit, passing out condoms on the street corner, and being a general pain in the ass. Sometimes literally, when Reina hooked up with her and found out someone couldn’t differentiate holes during the height of her pleasure. Now she was playing the moderator while one of the bartenders ran into a back room, probably to get the owner.
Hitomi turned toward the other woman. “God, each one of you is sadder than the last. When you’re not making me puke with your ‘fashion’ choices, you’re not even bothering to brush your hair and put on clean clothes! Who the hell are you? Reina’s mom?” She laughed, and Yoko giggled.
The frizzy hair and matronly clothing called into question did not rile up the other woman. “No, I’m a gross dyke named Mayumi. And guess what? You have every right to think I’m disgusting, a degenerate, and a drain on society. I’m sure you’re not at least two of those three things, oh mighty hetero-sama.”
Hitomi took a step toward her.
“But you don’t have a right to come into a space for gross women like us and insult us with so little inspiration. You’re not even original. You think we haven’t heard that same exact spiel from your straight brethren? Give me a break. You better get out of here before someone flirts with you and makes your face melt. Keep it up and Reina-san there will be the one doing the flirting.” Thanks asshole. “Don’t go catching the gay cooties now.”
A large woman came out from the back room, eyes going straight to Hitomi and Yoko. It didn’t help everyone else in the bar was seething in their direction. “We get it.” Hitomi held up a hand to the bar owner and took a step toward the door. “We can show ourselves out. Smells like rotten fish in here anyway. Jya ne, Reina-san. See you in Lit class!” Her usual peppy voice filled the air as Yoko scurried out ahead of her and held the door open for her homophobic friend. They laughed a riot in the streets of Ni-chome, talking loudly about how gross gay people were and how they should conspire to call themselves bisexual to get into another place.
Mayumi turned to Reina as the bar owner issued an apology to the other patrons. “What did you do this time to piss everyone off?”
Finally, Aiko lessened her hold on her girlfriend’s arm. “I was in a study group with her. Real lark, as you can imagine.”
Mayumi shook her head. “Now you’re pissing off the straights. So much that they go out of their way to make asses out of themselves. Someone should really do something about that. Build a place for educating the public about who we are. Anyway, you three have a nice evening. I’m going back to being a gross lesbian.” Mayumi waved and rejoined her friends at the counter.
“Those were your classmates?” Aiko asked, eyes blinking incredulously.
“Yeah.... sorry about that.” Reina looked at Kiki, who by now was half her original size in her seat, shifting in too many nerves to count. “Now where were we?”
But Kiki was no longer interested in what Reina and Aiko offered in a love hotel room. Something had spooked the country girl, and now she was grabbing her shit and getting out as quickly as possible, probably to hop the next flight back to Yamaguchi and a mundane straight life. Reina didn’t get her threes
ome, and Aiko spent the rest of the night staring at her face in mirrors, asking her girlfriend if her make-up was okay.
It was a frigid day when Reina accompanied her girlfriend to the house in Kita Ward for the first time. Aiko had been informed only two days before that Junko would not be able to go check in on her aunt due to a “thing” at her husband’s job. At first, Aiko thought she could handle taking care of Kanoko for an afternoon. While her great aunt was not altogether “there,” she was docile and funny. Then Aiko found out she was expected to babysit her niece Eri as well. A senile old woman and a hyperactive little girl at the same time? She had to call in reinforcements.
Reina, however, was not a proper reinforcement. She was irked at the idea of hanging out in an old lady’s home, and she was even more irked at the prospect of babysitting. “I’ll take care of the most pressing issue,” Aiko had said. “I need you to watch the other one while I’m distracted. Just in case of an emergency.”
The only reason Reina agreed was because Aiko offered to bake a batch of cookies in return. My cookies can bribe her to do almost anything. The only thing more effective was sex, but Aiko would do that regardless.
So Reina brought her study materials that cold February day, and the two of them set off to the station in Kita Ward that would dump them off at Kanoko’s house. “She has a nice place,” Aiko said, leading her girlfriend through the streets. “Not that musty or cluttered. Not anymore. She used to be very meticulous about it, and then my mother and I put order into it again this past year.” No small feat. The summer heat had not been kind to some of Kanoko’s older items. I hadn’t seen so much mold since that time I tried to make Penicillin in chemistry class. The things she did for family.
For the most part it was a nice, quiet day, with the four of them sitting around the kotatsu heating table in the middle of the living area. Aiko and Reina did their homework while Kanoko and Eri watched an anime block on TV popular with young children. Or at least Kanoko was supposed to be watching with her great-great niece. Instead she spent most of her time staring wide-eyed at Reina and Aiko, her misty pupils swirling in mischief as she smiled like a young girl with some gossip to tell.
“Nee, Ai-chan,” she said, tapping Aiko’s arm around the corner of the table. “Who is this handsome young man you’ve brought here?”
Aiko looked up from her English dictionary. “Young man? You mean Reina? She’s a woman, Auntie. I’ve introduced you twice already.” The first time when they entered the house, and the second ten minutes ago when Kanoko had already forgotten who Reina was. Here we go again. Her aunt was getting worse and worse at remembering new people.
“A woman? Are you sure?”
Characters had a gruesome battle on the television screen. Eri squealed in delight as one punched the other in the face. “I’m very sure, Auntie. Reina is a woman.” She had checked multiple times.
When she looked over, she saw Reina haking her head. “I look like a man, I guess,” she said. “Because God knows I’m not the first woman to have short hair.”
Aiko patted her girlfriend’s shoulder. “She’s old and senile,” she said in a low voice. “She means no offense.
Reina shrugged, and that was all from her end.
But not from Kanoko’s. Aiko’s great aunt continued to badger her on the identity of this mysterious young man and why “he” was there. “Is he your boyfriend Ai-chan?” she asked, following Aiko into the kitchen to help make dinner. “Oh, a boyfriend is so exciting! I hope you two have a good and long relationship together!”
Aiko politely ignored her great aunt’s prying. The more she denied that there was something going on between her and Reina – or that Reina was a boy – the more Kanoko became convinced of it. Ramblings of a senile old woman, indeed.
She made instant food for dinner. Nothing she was proud of, and not her usual fare, but when cooking for an old woman, a young child, and Reina of all people, Aiko wanted something quick and easy. She threw together some food and served it on paper plates. If her mother saw this, she would be appalled. Thankfully, the girls of varying ages she served made no complaints.
“It’s my favorite show!” Eri exclaimed halfway through dinner, when the cartoon on TV switched over to a different one. “Mite, Auntie Aiko.”
“Uh huh, I see it.” The poppy chorus of a theme song played while Aiko slurped her noodles. She didn’t want to say in front of Reina that she watched this show frequently as well.
Eri, on the other hand, was a member of the target audience and ran up to the TV to touch the characters. Her tiny hand caressed the long blond hair of the main character. “Se-era Mun!”
“Sailor Moon,” Aiko corrected her niece. Not that it mattered, but she wanted to practice an L rolling into an R in English. Passable.
“Eh, is this that show people are always talking about?” Reina folded her hands over her bowl. “I’ve never seen it.”
“You haven’t? With how popular it is? You haven’t even read the manga?”
Another shrug. “I don’t read much anymore. Or watch cartoons. You know, for as much as grown women shit themselves over this show, I thought it would be a bit more... adult?”
“It’s a children’s show.” Further demonstrated when one character slapped another one in the deformed face. “Although there are some adult elements to it. Haven’t you heard that two of the characters are lesbians?”
“Ah, naruhodo, I remember why people were talking about this now.” Reina flicked her nose with the end of her thumb. “Something about lesbians. Is there sex?”
“Reina! It’s a children’s show.”
“These days you can never be too sure. Perverts everywhere.”
“Mou, like you.”
“It happens. Not much I can do about it. So where are these lesbians everyone is talking about? Oh, God, that’s them, isn’t it?”
Aiko looked at the screen. I guess that’s them. Two grown women hanging over each other, one of them clearly masculine looking. Eri slurped her noodles while kicking her feet behind her, and Kanoko hummed into her bowl without a care in the world. Either too young or too old to care about the conversation. “Do you have something against lesbians in media?”
“No. I don’t see why I should be up their butts because they exist. For all I know they are terrible people.”
“I wouldn’t know about the animation, but I’ve read most of the comic and they don’t seem terrible?” Even though it’s a children’s series... I wonder if I can find some fanworks... Aiko knew where to buy the doujinshi works created by talented fans. Another reason for Junko to have a heart attack if she went through her daughter’s things.
During a scene featuring the Sapphic characters, Eri leaped up from the floor and ran to the TV, putting her hand on a head of yellow.
“Nani suru? What in the world are you doing?” Aiko got up to prevent her niece from damaging her great aunt’s property.
Eri snickered as if she had done something naughty. When Aiko took her hand, the girl hung off her aunt like a monkey. “Suki yo!” she exclaimed, her tiny body jumping up and down on the carpet.
“Mou.” Aiko took Eri back to the table and sat her down. “We don’t say that about fictional characters.” Not until you’re past puberty, anyway. “Eat your dinner.”
When Aiko sat next to her girlfriend again, Reina said, “Your niece has a crush on a lesbian cartoon character.”
Noodles jammed into Aiko’s mouth. She slurped them down her throat before responding. “Don’t talk like that. She doesn’t understand anything and won’t for at least ten more years.”
“Suit yourself.”
The evening was quiet once the dishes were done and Eri settled down with a different cartoon. Kanoko asked for a bath to be drawn for her and Aiko complied, but drew the line at helping her elderly great aunt bathe. My mother doesn’t even do that. Halfway through Kanoko’s bath, Aiko’s sister-in-law arrived to take Eri home. With one
less person to keep track of, Aiko suggested that she and Reina head out once Kanoko was settled into bed.
They walked out hand-in-hand, since the sun had set and the neighborhood was quiet. Aiko shivered beneath her sweater and held herself to Reina’s coat, smacked in the face with stale cigarette smoke. I can never tell if I like it or not. Not a pleasant scent, but it was Reina’s.
Since Reina only lived one ward away, they long planned to go to her house for the night. “My mother is home,” Reina said, pulling out her key as they reached her front door. “So we have to be quiet tonight.”
“I see.” The door opened, and Reina grumbled that she was home. No reply came.
Aiko rarely saw her girlfriend’s mother, either because Sachiko was working or because she was holed up in the living room with the doors locked. She doesn’t like me. She didn’t like anyone who came home with Reina, not that she did anything to stop it. She doesn’t even like Reina... Of course she did – she was Reina’s mother! The woman who worked three jobs so her daughter could go to a good high school! Aiko never brought it up. Her girlfriend had enough problems getting along with her mother.
“Should we take a bath?” Aiko sat on her girlfriend’s futon, legs crossed and hand in backpack full of clean clothes. “I’m kinda cold...”
Reina was already half undressed. “Huh? I hadn’t planned on it. You can if you want.”
By myself? As a guest? Maybe if Sachiko was a lovely person who liked doting on her daughter’s girlfriends. Otherwise it was too awkward to bathe in someone else’s bathroom alone. “That’s okay I guess. Besides, there are other ways to get warm on a chilly night, right?”
Reina pulled on a long-sleeved shirt and sighed. “Yup.”
Joshoku Page 8
