by Laine Watson
Haru tosses me on the bed and snatches the covers from me. He whips his belt from the nightstand. “Come here,” he says authoritatively.
“No, no.” I back away from him to the other side of the bed and jump down; I press my hand in the corner. He stands before me, belt in hand.
“No, Haru. I don’t want it tonight. Please!” I sob.
“Are you serious or do you just like saying no?”
“I’m serious, Haru. I just... Tonight is different. I want to touch you and be able to feel you.” My breaths are slow and deep, my chest rising and falling. “I love when you do that to me, but not tonight, Haru. I need you in my hands, inside of me, all over me—please.” I beg, full of desire. When I step forward the curtain moves beside me.
“Princess.” Haru moves the curtains and steals me out of the corner. He lays me on the bed, dropping the belt. I can’t slow my breaths. He looms over me, then kisses my lips. As soon as his lips are on me, my breathing reduces. Like being injected with a sedative, he calms my thudding heart.
He lifts my legs in the air and slides inside of me, then lies down on top, taking my nipple in his mouth as he pumps. I open my legs wider to him and rub my hands in his hair as it falls upon my wet body. This easy position, so simple, feels like Heaven is exploding.
I moan. “This is what I want tonight, Haru.”
“You can have me however you want, princess.”
If no other night, if he has to tie me up every other night, I just need one night now and then, like this. I’m so open, my juices spill out onto the covers. A sound I’ve never heard comes from my body, from my flower. We both stop, abruptly. I gasp. My cheeks burn like fire, I want to run away.
Haru’s laugh is hearty.
“Best sound in the world.” He smirks.
“No, it wasn’t. I promise it wasn’t....” I say, covering my eyes.
“I know what it was. All pussies queef when they’re this wet. It’s not going to be the last time, princess. Let it be, let me know all of you, don’t shrink in embarrassment.” Haru leans down to me. He dives deeper into all my sweet goodness, and we fly to heaven, drifting on the wings of angels. Every shuddering moan, every quiet scream, rhythmic grunt, and muffled groan Haru makes, flows through me, giving my heart reason to keep on beating. I hold nothing back; whatever sounds come from me, they slip out naturally, and I want them to. Just as much as I want to taste and touch, smell and hear Haru, I want him to taste, touch, smell, and hear me.
As my body is pushed past its limits, I take it all, because it comes from Haru. I will do anything for Haru. I love him.
I lie there, body spent, engulfed in mine and Haru’s sweat, saliva, and other juices. I want nothing more but to keep them right where they are. After we have gone as far as we can go, and our bodies have climaxed and orgasmed until there is nothing else inside, Haru pants beside me.
“Oh my God. You...” he says, breathily. “You’re amazing.”
I try to catch my breath; I can’t even respond.
“Shit.” Haru says short of breath. He rolls over lazily and turns the lamp off. He rises to his feet and pulls the comforter off the chair in the corner and covers us, pulling me closer to him. I’ve already closed my eyes.
“Goodnight, Mrs. Arima.”
“Goodnight, Daddy.”
Haru, laughs, “Yeah, I owned that ass tonight, didn’t I?”
I giggle. “Go to sleep.”
Chapter Twenty: Subpoena
When we are back in the states, we go to Haru’s parents’ house to get Max. When Haru opens the door, Max knows right away it’s us.
“Mom and Dad are back!” he shouts as he runs straight toward us. He bypasses Haru and jumps into my arms.
“Maxie!” I hug him tightly. The stunned expression on Haru’s face tickles me.
He points his index finger at me. “You know it was her idea to leave?”
“Hey, Dad!” Max waddles over to Haru, playfully resistant. When he reaches him, Haru picks him, and they hug each other tightly.
“Hey, Buddy.” Haru cuddles him.
I can’t help but smile and feel all warm inside.
Haru’s mother and father come around the corner with enormous smiles.
“Haru!” his mother says.
“Mom, thanks for watching Max.”
“Oh, yes. We enjoyed it.” She folds her hands in front of her. “Hello, Summer.”
“Hi.” I gleam, as she walks over to me and gives me a big hug. I hug her tightly too.
“Dad, look!” Max runs around the corner and returns with an airplane. “Me and Grandpa made it. Isn’t it cool?” Max extends his arm toward Haru.
Haru bends down to get a better look.
“Ah, this is cool, Max. You going to put it on your shelf with the others?” Haru asks.
“Yeah, I’m going to have a whole collection of planes, and trains, and super-fast cars!” Max enthuses and takes his creation to his room.
“Mom, where’s dad?” Haru asks, after smiling fatherly as Max disappears down the hall. He sits down on the sofa. I join him.
“In the garage.” Haru’s mother takes a breath, her hands moving behind her. “A man came by the house looking for you while you were away.”
Haru glances up toward his mother. “A man?” He stands.
“Yes, he didn’t say anything after we let him know you weren’t here. He said it was important. We let him know you’d be back today. He said he’d try again.”
Haru glances at me suspiciously.
I wonder what that’s about.
Max returns and sits down next to Haru. “Dad, did you bring me anything?” Max asks.
Haru stares down at Max with a smirk. “Yeah, we got everybody something.”
“Is it something cool?”
“Like?”
“Like a train or an airplane; something from Japan.”
“I did. I got you some bullet trains.”
“Really? Sweet!” Max enthuses, hopping right off the sofa, jumping up in the air with his fists extended above his head. “I’m going to go tell Grandpa!” Max darts out of the room, heading for the garage.
Haru smirks at me and leans in for a kiss. I smile invitingly, pushing his chest back. I’m sure I’m confusing him.
“What?” He arches his neck.
“You tried to throw me under the bus.”
“It was your idea.” He steals the kiss, and I surrender to his lips on mine. “Be right back,” he says, rising to his feet.
“Where are you going?” I ask, watching him open the front door.
“To get the souvenirs,” he says and closes the door behind him.
I sigh.
“Did you enjoy yourself? Was it everything you hoped it would be?” His mother asks.
“Yes. It was better than I could have ever hoped or dreamed.”
“Come. I will make some tea.” She hugs me. She leads me to the kitchen. I sit down at the table as she prepares the kettle that has matching cups and saucers.
“I will make Shiawase Cha today. It’s a tea of happiness. It will relax you and give you a heart full of happiness,” she tells me as she brews it.
“I’m sure Haru’s happy too. We talked about a lot of things.”
“That’s good. He’s not a talker.” She smiles.
“He told me how important Iroshima is.”
“Ah, my little boy is a full-grown man now. You have achieved something, I, have always hoped would happen.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Haru knows exactly what he wants and there is nothing that will stop him from getting it. When he was younger, he didn’t seem to have any goals. We set expectations for him and reached toward them, maybe forgetting his own agency. I never meant for that to happen. So thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I don’t think I didn’t anything special though. Haru is the one who is special. Being with Haru has allowed me to be stronger than I’ve ever been.”
“Heh.” Haru’s
mother, moves from the stove to the sink, then turns on the faucet, “Did Haru mention anything else to you?”
I smile, I know what she is looking for you.
“Oh, you mean us having a baby?”
Her smile becomes affectionate as she washes her hands and dries them on the hand towel hung on the stove handle.
“Well, yes. We’d be thrilled if you two decided to have another baby. Since you’re so close, we’d be able to help. You probably don’t want to think about that right now with all the wedding plans. I don’t want to ask to much of you. You’ve already done so much.”
I smile affectionately. “No, actually, Haru and I have talked about it.”
“Oh, really?” She smiles, finally looking at me. “I have lots of natural ways to help you through your pregnancy, and before, to get your body prepared for your first child. I would be overjoyed to do anything I could.”
I get it. She wants to be around for the pregnancy—the whole thing. They met Max when he was three or four, and they didn’t get to see him in person until he was six. They missed all these special moments you probably get to have with babies.
I glance up as his mother sets an antique gold teacup on a saucer and pours from the dragon-like teapot.
“Oh, this is beautiful.” I look up at her.
“It is a lovely set, isn’t it? It was Chiaki’s mother’s.” She stares thoughtfully out of the window. “It means a great deal to me.”
“Do you know a lot about Japanese culture?”
She smiles down at me.
“I know Chiaki Arima, the man I married, and I almost tore his family apart, but he chose me anyway. Only after that did his mother accept me and teach me things. I do love the culture. At one point, I even wanted to change my name from Brenda to Sakura, but that was a fleeting desire. Chiaki’s mother was a great teacher, and with time, she really did accept me as her son’s wife. I miss her despite our rough beginning. That is why we try to keep a few things about the culture intact. That are some traditions that don’t mesh well with our lifestyle, but we wanted Haru, and we want Max, and whatever other children you have to know all of their roots.”
My eyes water.
“We never stressed how important family is, because it felt like it was me and Chiaki against the world for a while. When Haru disappeared, I realized we should have put more emphasis on being close and leaning on your loved ones when you need to.”
“That’s okay. He understands now.”
She sits across from me, setting the teapot between us. She sips a bit of her tea as do I, so as not to be rude—I don’t really like tea.
“We didn’t push a lot of tradition, Japanese or otherwise, on Haru. Chiaki wanted him to be successful, if nothing else.”
“He’s very successful.”
“He is. We are very proud of him. You notice I said Chiaki wanted him to be successful, that was the only thing.”
“You wanted something different?”
“I wanted him to be successful, but I also wanted him to fall in love. Haru has never been a sentimental person. Love just hasn’t been at the forefront of his endeavors until recently. The look in my son’s eyes now is one I have never seen before. I say this regarding both you and Max. He is happy.”
“I’m thrilled, too. As happy as I’ve been in my entire life.” I lower my eyes and take a sip of tea, afterwards I place my cup back on the saucer. “I’d like to apologize for my mother’s actions when she was here. It’s just—”
“No need to explain.”
“I want to, though. She’s not racist. That’s not why—did you know we don’t have her blessing and she refused to come to the wedding?”
“I figured as much. Chiaki’s parents weren’t at our wedding either. However, they did allow us to get married. Some things you have to accept until it’s time for them to change. Whatever the reason your mother has qualms with your decisions, love will always prevail. You continue to be the loving mother to Max that you’ve been, the faithful companion to my son and I guarantee you, all will be well.”
“Yeah.” I smile, sadly.
“You are a family now. You can be the one to let your children know how valuable family and friends are, start your own traditions. I often wish we would have started some traditions of our own. My son is both American and Japanese. I will never know what it feels like to be him. And you may not understand what it will be like for the children you bear. But you will always want the best for them. What you think is the best, may not be at all, and it may not be what they want or need. Sometimes it takes people a while to accept that.”
I smile with a warmness filling me up. We hear the front door open.
“That must be Haru,” his mother says, staring back observantly.
The door slams so hard our cups rattle on the saucers. Our eyes lock in suspicion, curiosity and a tinge of apprehension.
“SUMMER!” Haru shouts, injecting a crippling terror in my bones. Never has Haru’s voice invoked so much fear in me.
He didn’t call me princess.
I scramble up, forgetting to answer him. With his mother right behind me, I stand in the middle of the living room, Haru’s eyes darkly peering into me.
“Where’s Max?” he grumbles.
“In the-in the garage with your dad.”
“Mom, make sure he stays there.”
“Yes,” she says and scurries off.
Haru breathes heavily as he stomps over to me with a paper in his hand and a manila envelope I hadn’t noticed.
“Haru! What’s wrong?” I ask in desperation.
Before he can answer, the darkness in his eyes dissipates and a child-like fear replaces it as tears pool around his eyes. He drops to his knees.
“They’re trying to take him,” he reveals.
“What? Who?” He holds on to my hips as he cries into my zipper. The envelope slips from his hand and lands on the floor as he hands me the paper. I sit down on the sofa, my face right in Haru’s as I try to figure out what would make a man like Haru, fall to his knees and cry in my crotch. He lays his head in my lap and I caress his hair gently as I read.
“I got subpoenaed.”
I gasp. “Who is Miako—”
“Okay, listen to me, Summer,” he says, lifting his head up. He takes my shoulders into his large hands. I glance at the portion of his hair that has fallen in his face; my hand reaches for it, but I pull it back. “Miako is Emi’s mother.”
“Max’s mom?”
“No, you’re Max’s mom.” He sniffles angrily as he rises to his feet. I stand up to. “It’s been over three years, and she’s said nothing to me, and now she’s taking me to court for custody of my own son? If she wanted him, why did she even bother telling me?!”
“Haru, calm down!” I grab his face.
“Calm down?” He steps back away from me, his upper lip rising in disgust.
My chest caves in on itself.
“Don’t tell me to calm down when this worthless bitch is trying to take my son away from me.”
“Haru, please.”
“No, and then look,” he says, snatching the paper from me. He points to a spot in the paper, wrinkling it.
I home in on the date he is pointing at. “August twenty-eighth,” I read and glance up at Haru.
“Right, three days before the wedding. You want to take my kid away from me three days before I get married?”
“I’m sure it wouldn’t happen that quickly.” I look a little closer. “There is a preliminary hearing before that. Maybe we can take care of it then. There’s probably just some misunderstanding.”
“Shut the fuck up, Summer! Are you serious? I don’t need that innocent bullshit now. There’s no misunderstanding. She’s trying to take him away from me—away from us. She doesn’t even want joint custody; she wants full. Why? She can’t—she can’t have him!”
His first words still ring in my ears; my lip quivers as my eyes fill with tears, and I breathe quick and heavily. I
don’t exactly know what will come out of my mouth, but here it comes: “Don’t you EVER talk to me like that again!” I shout at Haru, breathlessly, my fists balled tightly beside me. “I don’t care what’s going on.”
Haru gulps and steps back.
“We just spent an entire week in Iroshima. I am going to be your wife, so you don’t get to talk to me like that! We’ll figure this out. Nobody is taking Max from us!”
His eyes bulge out of his head. In the next moment, Haru’s arms are around me, his hair falling in my face.
What’s happening?
Haru doesn’t let me go for a long while. Finally, he cups my face in his hands. “I love you so much. I’m sorry. I’m scared. That doesn’t give me the right to be disrespectful, I know that. I’m not that great of a dad or a fiancé. I’m sorry again.”
“It’s fine, just don’t get so angry.”
“I forgot. You’ve got a mouth on you.” He smirks, sadly.
“Yes, I do, and you are a great dad and fiancé.”
“No, princess, you’ve made me great.”
“You were a great dad before I came along.”
Haru shakes his head. “What are we going to do?”
“The first thing we’ll do is find out what this is about. We’ll talk to this Miako, and then we get married on the thirty-first. No one is messing up my wedding. Darby wanted to see a Bridezilla. Well, here she is.”
Chapter Twenty-One: Sadness
The beginning of June has gotten off to a rocky start, but we’re managing. Haru has been quiet about the hearing. I don’t say a lot about it either because I don’t know what I would say. We don’t talk about the wedding. If I’m being honest, I’m scared and I want to talk to my mother. Even though she doesn’t approve of what I’m doing, maybe she could shine some light on this darkness.
Haru has been going to work normally, and he gets the vasectomy reversal. For a few weeks, he isn’t able to do a lot of moving around, but he’s almost back to normal now. It’s late in the evening when Haru gets home. I’m making dinner, and Max is up in his room playing. The door opens, and Haru slides his shoes off next to the door. He doesn’t greet me as he passes through the house. I watch him, thinking at any moment he’ll lift his head to smile at me.
