I looked at Thomas and mouthed the words, “You and me?”
He nodded, giving me a thumbs up.
Dr. Brown let us meet with our partners for the remainder of the class. “So, what do you think, Sam?” asked Thomas. “Do you want to do it on women in the workforce or something like that?”
I giggled. “Is that really what you’re interested in?”
He shrugged. “I’m trying to be accommodating. I grew up with three brothers. I don’t understand a lot of girly things.”
I nibbled on my lip. “Well, I kind of have an idea. It isn’t ikebana or art or anything like that. It might be a little tricky. We’ll have to make sure Dr. Brown will let us do it.”
“Now I’m intrigued. What is this fascinating subject?”
“The water trade. Mizu shobai. I want to learn about all of it, from regular bars and nightclubs to those that cater for people with…unusual tastes.”
“So basically our research will be drinking? I can get behind that idea.”
I nudged him with my elbow. “I thought so. But there’s more.”
He studied my face. “You want to write about the other stuff, too, like the place were Kylie works.”
“And soapland.”
“Soapland? Eee, Sam. I can’t let you go to soapland.”
I leaned close. “You’ll have to, because I don’t think I can get in without you.”
He covered his face with his hands. “You want me to go in as a customer?”
“Yes. In the interest of research. I have to see how they do their job. Don’t worry. It won’t be bad. And I’ll be there with you—taking notes.”
I tried to remain serious, enjoying the look of horror on Thomas’ face, but ended up laughing. He let out a long, relieved breath when he realized I’d been teasing him, making me laugh even harder.
“Not nice, Sam. Not nice at all.”
We spoke with Dr. Brown after class, explaining the topic we’d chosen. He looked at us over his glasses. “The water trade. Interesting. As long as you take this seriously, as a research project, and as long as you stick together, I don’t see a problem with it. The term ‘mizu shobai’ actually comes from the time of the Tokugawa shogunate, something I’m sure you’ll uncover in your research.”
We stepped out into the cold February sunshine together. “When do we start?” I asked.
“No time like the present. I say we go tonight.”
I had a break in the afternoon, so I went to find Mr. Ando at Ryoanji. He sat on a stone bench in the outer garden, bundled up against the weather, his bald head covered with a colorful woolen cap that reminded me of one my sister had back home. He grinned when he saw me.
“Sami-san. How are you? You look genki.”
Genki, a single word in Japanese that encompassed so many in English. Healthy. Happy. Energetic. Lively. Well.
“I’m very genki today, thank you.”
“Did you figure out my puzzle?”
“Yes. I had a little help, though.” I explained about Thomas and how he’d been the one to figure it out. “I learn only to be contented. Do you really think that’s true? It seems like the more I learn, the more I realize how little I actually know, and it makes me the opposite of contented.”
“You are correct, but this isn’t the only way to interpret it. You must find the message that works for you. It can also mean, if you learn to be content, you are rich in spirit.”
“Oh.” I thought about it, perplexed. “How do I learn contentment?”
He covered his mouth as he giggled. Adorable. “That is the tricky part. If you knew it, you would be a Zen master. The important thing is to try to find joy and pleasure in simple things. You can be materially wealthy, but poor in spirit.”
The cold from the stone bench seeped into my bones. I stood up, shivering. “Thank you, Ando-san. I’d better let you get back to work.”
He stood, too, although he didn’t seem bothered by the cold in the heavy robe he had on. “This is my work. I breathe in. I breathe out. I exist. At my age, an accomplishment.”
“I’ll come back and visit you soon.”
“Good,” he said. “And you have another homework assignment. Pay attention to the times you feel true contentment. Remember them. Hold onto them. Bring them back and share them with me.”
“Sure,” I said, giving him a puzzled frown. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you are definitely the strangest janitor I’ve ever met.”
He tossed back his head and laughed. “Yes,” he said, “Yes, I am.”
As I walked back to my dorm room to get ready to go out with Thomas, I thought about what Mr. Ando said. Dylan told me long ago I made him content, but learning to be content seemed impossible. A person either felt it or they didn’t. It wasn’t a skill. It couldn’t be taught.
Thomas picked me up promptly at eight. I dressed in a black mini, black tights, and a bright blue sweater I borrowed from Hana. I needed a bit of color. I’d grown a little weary of black, black, and more black. She’d loaned me a jacket, too. It matched the sweater and was cut short, tight, and kind of sexy.
Thomas had on jeans and a dress shirt that hugged his muscles. He had a sweater tossed over his shoulders in deference to the February temperatures, but he didn’t seem cold at all. I shivered inside Hana’s little coat, wishing I’d brought a hat.
Thomas gave me a brief appraisal. “You’d better wear more than that bahookie freezer or you’ll regret it.”
“Bahookie?”
“Your bottom,” he said, sneaking a glance at my backside. “Of course.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be fine. And so will my bahookie. Where are we going?”
“I have a surprise for you. Our first stop on the mizu shobai express.”
We took an elevator to the top floor of a building with big glass windows and bright flashing lights. The elevator doors opened, and a man dressed as a geisha greeted us, squealing as soon as we stepped into the room.
“Gaijin-san. Irrashaimase.” Mr. Foreigner. Welcome.
Soon a small herd of heavily made up men, all dressed as geisha, surrounded us. I plastered a smile on my face. “Where are we?”
Thomas gave me a crooked smile. “You wanted interesting, didn’t you?”
A man in the back of the room smiled and waved when he saw Thomas. He had on a red kimono and a high, black wig with red chopsticks coming out the top. The makeup on his face made his skin very white, and contrasted with his darkly lined eyes and red lips. He walked up and gave Thomas a firm and manly kind of handshake.
“Nice to see you, mate.”
I blinked. “You’re Australian?”
The guy stood nearly as tall as Thomas, with shoulders almost as broad. “I’m Japanese, but I lived in Australia growing up. We went there for my dad’s job. I’m Shinji.”
I shook his hand. “And how do you know Thomas?”
“We play rugby together,” said Shinji.
“Of course.” Thomas could have warned me about this. “Did he tell you about our research project?”
He nodded. “The other blokes would love to speak with you. We have a table in the back.”
I sat down next to Shinji and pulled out my notebook. Thomas sat on my other side. The tall geisha who’d greeted us at the elevator, Aki, sat down so close to Thomas he was nearly on his lap.
“You’re so handsome,” he said, batting his eyelashes. “And so biiiiiiiig.” I looked under the table and saw Aki’s hand creep up Thomas’ thigh. Thomas shifted uncomfortably.
“Dame da yo,” said Shinji, giving Aki a dirty look. That’s bad.
Aki pulled his hand away, perturbed. “De mo hoshii.” But I want it.
Shinji scowled, speaking even more firmly this time and shaking his head. “Dame.” Bad.
Thomas, in an effort to avoid getting fondled, got up to buy drinks. I turned to Aki, trying to smooth things over. “Do you work here?” I asked in Japanese. “Your kimono is beautiful.”
Aki waved her fan. Even though they both dressed as women, I realized Shinji was definitely “he” and Aki “she.”
“Thank you,” she said in English, smiling coquettishly at me. Then she answered my question in Japanese. “I work here. I work at some other places, too. I’m a busy girl.”
“So you identify as female?”
“I am otokonoko.”
Thomas had come back with our drinks and sat across the table from Aki and those wandering hands. He raised an eyebrow at me in question.
“Otokonoko means ‘boy,’ so I think Aki identifies as male. Not what I expected.”
Shinji shook his head. “It’s pronounced the same, but you’ve got the wrong otokonoko, Sam.” He wrote out the kanji for me on a napkin.
The word “boy” was formed with the kanji for “male” and “child.” What he jotted down had a very different meaning. I looked up in surprise. “Male daughter?”
Thomas gave me a proud smile. “She’s the kanji master, ladies and gentlemen.”
I beamed. My kanji really had gotten better lately. I had high hopes now about acing the test for the Institute of Applied Linguistics. As long as I kept up my progress and got good grades in my other classes, I knew I’d get in.
“Thanks to you, ox.”
“Ox?” asked Shinji.
“An endearment,” explained Thomas. “She called me a Scottish ox the first night we met, and she’s teasing me with it now.”
“She does it because she loves you,” said Shinji, making a heart shape with his fingers.
I tried to smile, but my face froze. I took a long swig of beer, composed myself, and asked questions to the cross-dressers, trying to ignore the question going through my own mind.
Did I love Thomas MacGregor?
The very idea sent a tremor of fear through my body, making me remember a million moments with Dylan, a million mistakes I made. None of it was Thomas’ fault, but he now paid the price for things that happened long before I met him.
I turned to Shinji, pen at the ready. “So do you describe yourself as otokonoko as well?”
He looked a bit surprised. “I’m a man and I date women. I dress this way for fun. To blow off steam. Life in Japan can be pretty stressful.”
“Are people in Japan more accepting of this than they are in Australia?” asked Thomas.
Shinji shrugged. “That’s a hard question. Yes and no. It’s long been a part of Japanese culture, as has homosexuality. Did you know the samurai thought sleeping with a man made them purer, more powerful, and more manly than sleeping with a woman? And there have been cross-dressers as long as there’s been kabuki theater. Kind of like men dressing up as women to act out Shakespeare.”
I frantically took notes, trying to observe the activity around me as well. “Tell us more about the mizu shobai. How does a bar like this fit into it?”
“Everything in the mizu shobai is interconnected. Even the seedier elements, like the pink salons and the image clubs.”
“I’ve heard of soapland, but not those.”
He leaned closer to explain. The bar had gotten noisier as more customers came in. Some dressed in drag. Others wore business suits. “Pink salons offer basically one service. The women perform oral sex on the customer. Image clubs can be pretty clean, just a bit of role-play and costumes, but it gets nasty, too. A lot of Japanese men fantasize about schoolgirls. They can act that out in an image club.”
I felt sick to my stomach. “With actual children?”
He shook his head. “Just women who look like children. Disgusting, but big business. I know a girl who works in a pink salon. Would you like to talk with her?”
He promised to put us in touch with her, and we got up to leave. Aki came over to give Thomas a big hug goodbye, squeezing his butt in the process. Watching him trying to wriggle out of Aki’s grasp cracked me up.
“I feel violated,” he said as we walked back to campus.
“Poor you, getting your butt grabbed.”
“It wasn’t just my bum, Sam. Aki tried to fondle something else, too. Shinji warned me he has a thing for Scottish men, but I didn’t think he’d try to grab my baws in the middle of a pub.”
I started laughing so hard I couldn’t walk, doubling over. Thomas pulled me aside so people could walk past. When I could finally speak, I could only get out two words, “Your boys?”
He looked confused. “Not boys. Baws. My nuts.”
I wiped away a tear. “Sorry. It’s terrible that I’m enjoying this so much.”
He grabbed my hand and we walked back to the dorms. “It is terrible. I was attacked by an arse bandit, and you think it’s hysterical.”
After that I was useless, unable to stop giggling or even walk normally. Thomas laughed just as hard as me. Every time we tried to calm down, I said, “Arse bandit” and we’d start again.
He walked me to my door, both of us suffering from residual giggles. He pushed a lock of hair away from my face. “It’s good to hear you laugh like that, Sam. It’s a sound I don’t hear quite enough of.”
I stared at him, knowing he wanted to kiss me. His eyes locked on mine, and I saw the question in them. The doubt. In an instant, I knew what to do.
I reached up, laced my hands through his gloriously thick hair, and pulled him closer. “I’m going to kiss you now, Thomas MacGregor.”
Our lips were only a hair’s breadth apart. “Please do.”
I touched my mouth against his. Once. Twice. The lightest of caresses. Then I got bolder, nibbling on his lower lip. Sucking on it gently. Touching it with my tongue.
Thomas tried to hold himself back, I could tell. I felt it in the tension in his muscles and the stillness of his massive body. As soon as my tongue touched his, though, he gave up, wrapping his arms around me and slanting his mouth across mine. His kisses were powerful but sweet. Rocking me to my core. Unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.
When the kiss ended, we stared at each other in shock. I’d known I was attracted to him. That had been fairly obvious for a very long time. What I didn’t realize was I had an answer to the question I’d asked myself only a few hours before.
Did I love Thomas Alexander MacGregor?
The answer was yes, but I couldn’t tell him that. Not yet. Not now. Instead, I did the only thing I could think of to lighten the moment and make things less intense. I went up on my tiptoes, kissed his cheek, and whispered in his ear, “Arse bandit.”
CHAPTER NINE
Over the next several days, we ate together, studied together, and went to bars together every night. Some were classy jazz clubs. Others pulsated with loud music like a disco. A few looked like pubs and reminded Thomas of home.
Afterward, he’d walk me home and we’d kiss. It became a routine. He never asked to come in. I never invited him. But our kisses became hotter and more out of control every night, and my desire for him grew with each passing day.
We went to the ikebana show. Every single Japanese girl flirted with him, making me feel a level of possessiveness I’d never experienced. I watched him play rugby, and felt every slam or hit he took. After one particularly vicious match, he came out of the locker room with a bandage on his forehead. I winced.
“Is it bad?”
“Old Tommy just gave someone a Glasgow kiss,” said Malcolm. He laughed at my blank expression. “A head butt. Not a real kiss. No need to be jealous.”
After Malcolm left, I reached up and gingerly touched the area around the bandage. “Ouch.”
Thomas pulled me into his arms, a cheeky grin on his face. “Do you know what would make me feel ever so much better?”
“A kiss?” My eyes went to his mouth and I pressed my body close.
He considered it. “I was going to say a pint, but a kiss will do.”
I swatted his chest, but didn’t pull away when he gathered me close for a kiss. I’d stopped pulling away at all.
We walked hand and hand back to my dorm. “What shall we do tomorrow?”
/>
I thought about it. “Well, we still haven’t gotten in touch with Shinji’s friend. The pink salon lady. Friday might be her busy night, though.”
I shuddered at the thought of someone performing oral sex for payment. It seemed like such an intimate act, more intimate than sex in many ways.
Thomas looked down at me, frowning. “We are not going to a pink salon tomorrow, Sam. Don’t be daft. It’s Valentine’s Day. I’m taking you somewhere nice.”
“Valentine’s Day?”
Thomas must have seen something on my face that made him worry. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine. Let’s do something fun.”
I’d lost track of my days. A pang of guilt went through my heart thinking about the Hunters and how hard Friday would be for them. I wondered if Dylan even knew about his birthday. I wondered what he thought about inside the dark and terrible place where he now resided. He’d described it before as a torment, a nearly unbearable and painful agony. It hurt me to even think about it.
Mom said very little about him when I called her. I no longer asked. It felt too hard to hear the same thing over and over again. He had to get better soon. I’d never expected it could go on so long.
The next day, I got ready for our date slowly, spending extra time on my hair and makeup. I took a black dress out of the closet and Hana huffed.
“You can’t wear that.”
She pulled a beautiful red A-line dress out of her closet and handed it to me. I slipped it on. It fit like a dream.
“It’s gorgeous, but won’t you need it tonight?”
She shook her head. “Hiro had to go home. Again. I’ll see him tomorrow. I’ve never been all that into Valentine’s Day anyway. All that love and chocolate. Ew.”
I saw the hurt behind her eyes, but knew she really didn’t want to talk about it. I thanked her, grabbed my coat and Thomas’ gift, and waited outside.
The weather felt warmer than it had it weeks. I sat on a bench, watching happy couples stroll past. Knowing Thomas would soon appear around the corner with his loud voice and smiling face. Feeling something strange.
Saying Goodbye, Part Two (Passports and Promises Book 1) Page 7
