Seikou, p.2
Seikou, page 2
part #3 of Ren'Ai Rensai Series
She hoped that would be the end of that, but Aiko was friskier than a cat latched onto a string. Nails traced circles into Reina’s arms as her wife loomed over her, breasts slipping forward and bobbed hair casting shadows. “I think I might know what will make you feel better.”
A shiver spread throughout Reina’s body as she ogled Aiko’s cleavage. Heat coursed to her pelvis, and it was like she was twenty-five again, ready and willing at the single promise of sex.
They kissed until Reina slipped into her other world where women existed solely to fuck one another. What a wonderful world. The toxic perfume of her wife’s scent, from her breath to her natural odor, overcame Reina’s senses alongside the first squeaks and tastes of lovemaking. The moment Aiko’s breasts pressed against Reina’s flat chest she had to have her, and she flung her wife onto the other side of the bed and jumped her.
If there were anything more relaxing and healing than sex in the world, Reina didn’t want to know it. She swore by mutual orgasms and naughty whispers, all the better if they were with Aiko, the one woman who loved her more than any other. And after twenty years, Reina knew every curve of her wife’s body, every hair, every little space she could stimulate to get the maximum reaction.
She had Aiko’s nightgown halfway up, exposing her stomach and her breasts, when the first betrayal occurred. As Reina knelt down to probe her tongue into the respectable cleft between her wife’s breasts, Aiko heaved upwards and tossed her aside. Before Reina could correct this situation and get back into the dominant position, Aiko hopped onto her lap and pinned her arms down.
The look on her face was one of victory.
Reina attempted to throw her off and retake dominance, but found Aiko more stubborn than usual when she clenched her thighs and pushed harder against the body beneath her. “Dame yo,” Aiko said. “Tonight I’m up here.”
Just like that, Reina’s libido crashed and burned into a fiery blaze of disappointment. She couldn’t explain the exact source of her anxiety, other than she wanted it and everything related gone. So she fell limp beneath her wife, and allowed Aiko to nibble her ear and hump playfully against her, but did nothing to respond or acknowledge her.
Eventually Aiko got the message and slid off. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there?”
Reina turned off her light, casting the entire bedroom into shadows and darkness. “I guess I’m not in the mood.” She curled into the fetal position, back to her wife.
She was aware of Aiko’s eyes on her for another few minutes, although neither of them said anything. At some point Aiko sank into the bed as well and said goodnight. Reina clung to herself, her heart beating as if spurned on by fear.
Aiko ascended the stairs, a laundry basket wobbling between her arms. Rain pattered against the roof of the house. Aiko stood in the hallway and resigned herself to another rousing day hanging up underwear in the confines of her dark, dreary abode.
A shower splattered against the sliding glass door in the hallway; Aiko pulled down Reina’s work shirts from the rope strung across the balcony overlooking the first floor. Each torrent of drops echoed throughout the house in the same way Reina’s silence had the night before.
It had been years since Reina turned down sex – when was it, when she got the stomach flu in 2008? Aiko unclipped the last of the work shirts and carried them to the ironing board. She smoothed out the first shirt and glanced over her shoulder at Reina in her office, huddled over the household finances she couldn’t finish. Aiko knew what was wrong. She didn’t want me on top. Over the years Reina’s ability to receive sexual acts had diminished the more her gender dysphoria grew, and no matter how sexy Aiko tried to make topping her spouse, she knew she dragged up every gender and sexual issue.
Aiko inhaled the steam from the iron. The hot air cleared her senses, her memory, and her doubts. She hummed a tune to herself as she pushed through her chores, the rain dripping like tears down the window.
“Hai, owatta.”
Reina shoved the finished finances in front of Aiko’s face. “So? How is it? Do we get to eat for another month?” They lived entirely on Reina’s salary, and some months were easier than others. A lot easier before the therapy.
The notebook disappeared. “It’s the usual. You can get a new toaster oven if you want.”
“Good! Because that ancient one we have now is about to start a fire, I swear. I’m pretty sure my great aunt bought it back in the ‘80s.” Another shirt done. Aiko folded and stacked it on top of the others. Two more to go. “Did you remember to include the medical bills?”
“I don’t need to anymore. My company approved it for the insurance.”
“Really?” Aiko turned off the iron. “What are you telling them it’s for?”
Reina removed her reading glasses and shoved them into the front pocket of her flannel shirt. “They haven’t asked. So I haven’t told them.”
Aiko took the notebook and read Reina’s tiny notes. My haircut did not cost that much! Her cigarettes are killing us! She tipped her chin up and smiled.
“Anyway, I’m done with that. Let’s do something.”
The linen called to Aiko, begging to be ironed; the rain turned into a dribble, promising a sunny break. “I have some chores to do still…”
Every single item on her mental list was crossed out the moment Reina bent down and kissed her. Relief trickled into Aiko as if the rain had come into the house. She nipped her spouse’s bottom lip.
“See, I told you I would feel better today.”
“So you did.”
Without another word Reina went to deposit her notebook and reading glasses in the tiny office. Aiko made sure the iron was unplugged. Together they went into their bedroom to make good use of the remaining afternoon.
Aiko decided to ignore Dr. Katou’s advice, if it meant Reina was her usual self and had the opportunity to enjoy sex as she always did. So when she slammed Aiko against the wall and kissed her throat, she let her; when Reina fought off her wife’s roaming hands, she let her do that too. Aiko would be lying if she tried to convince anyone, least of all Dr. Katou, that she didn’t like it when her spouse took complete control of their lovemaking. And before any of Reina’s issues came to light, it always seemed natural to let her be the dominant one.
They took their show to bed, shirts unbuttoning and jeans dropping. Aiko yanked on Reina’s flannel shirt and exposed her breasts beneath. Naughty girl isn’t even wearing an undershirt! She was used to Reina never wearing a bra.
Somehow in their fury Aiko ended up in Reina’s lap, legs wrapped around each other as kisses slowed and dotted entire faces. Reina’s nimble fingers crawled beneath her wife’s bra and stimulated her skin. The more they held and touched each other, the more Aiko wanted to thrust herself against her spouse’s hips.
Alas, the world conspired against their engaging pleasures.
The first telephone ring went through one ear and out the other; after all, Reina’s hand was tracing a finger around Aiko’s navel, and that was all that mattered. But the second ring registered. They kissed each other a final time before Aiko slunk off the bed, promising to come back as soon as she could.
Her desire had abated by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs. One hand shot out to pick up the ringing telephone while the other smoothed down her mussed hair. “Moshi moshi? Takeuchi-Yamada desu,” she greeted.
“Mou, what took you so long to answer? I’ve been waiting five minutes!”
That harried, choppy voice could only belong to Aiko’s older sister Saki, the sole golden daughter out of three. Although the middle daughter, Saki was the one who managed to get married (to a man) and have children, unlike Aiko, and never get divorced, unlike their oldest sister. What she was doing calling Aiko of all tainted people, one could only speculate.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the phone.” That was half right, anyway. This had better be worth it. In no universe was foregoing sex with Reina better than talking to the Queen of Housewives.
“How useless.” Saki’s voice maintained its grating alto. “Anyway, dear sister, I need you to come to the old house starting tomorrow to tend to Mother. I can’t do it anymore since my sons both have graduations this week and, you know, a house to run of my own.”
Aiko grimaced. Behind her light footsteps fell on the stairs as Reina wandered into the kitchen to rummage through the refrigerator. Food’s the next best thing to sex. “What do you mean ‘take care of Mother?’ Isn’t she doing better?” Junko, the matriarch of the Takeuchi clan, had contracted a seasonal cold the week before – Aiko knew, because her mother had called to complain about it for an entire afternoon. Last she heard, Saki was the one roped into stopping by the house to cook and clean since their father was as competent as a baseball when it came to household chores.
“No! Her cold has turned into a flu, the same one my family had a month ago. She spends all day in bed convinced she’s going to die. The doctor said she shouldn’t be moving around, but somebody has to take care of the house. I’m done. You get over here starting tomorrow.”
“I…”
“What? Are you busy? Ha!” Saki forced the coldest chuckle any woman had given since villainesses wreaked havoc in animated movies. “It’s not like you…”
Aiko waited for it.
“…have a family to take care of.”
There it was, the metaphorical slap to her face. Aiko fought the urge to slam her phone down and run crying into Reina’s arms. Even though both parents and all four of her siblings knew she was a lesbian in a long-term relationship, nobody cared to recognize it as honorable. At best Aiko’s family would change the subject when Reina came up in conversation, and at worst they made derogatory comments and suggested men to date. “I may have time to come by tomorrow.”
“And the next day. I can’t make it. You have to do it.”
So this is what it’s like to be forty? Aiko had always heard horror stories of siblings shifting their responsibilities to their parents between kin, but Junko’s tenacity meant it never seemed a reality. “I’ll come tomorrow.”
“Good. And don’t bring your roommate with you. Mother hates her.”
Aiko’s brows furrowed so hard they almost snapped off her forehead. “She’s not my roommate. She’s my spouse.” They had sent cards announcing their marriage to deaf ears.
“I don’t give a shit what you think she is. Don’t bring her.”
“Well, I can’t. She works, you know.”
“Whatever.”
The rest of that sordid conversation ended with more insults from Saki, leading Aiko to smash the phone when it was time to hang up. She huffed around to find Reina sitting at the bottom of the stairs, her flannel shirt still unbuttoned. Sexual desire had long flown out the rain-trodden window.
“My mother’s sick. I have to go take care of her this week.”
Reina popped a raisin into her mouth. “Maybe she’ll die and that whole family can stop harassing us.”
“Reina!”
“What? Your mother’s a haggard old witch.”
Aiko smacked her on top of the head and marched upstairs to finish the ironing. Why do I bother defending that immature child?
She peered over the banister to watch Reina toss a raisin and catch it in her mouth. Her short, black hair thinned a little in the middle of her scalp, revealing a small patch of suntanned skin. As if she knew her wife peered at her, Reina shoved her fingers through her hair and scratched the balding spot.
Because I love her. Aiko twisted her wedding band around her finger. Sometimes she wondered if love was worth the ridicule.
Reina wanted a cigarette.
She always wanted a cigarette two hours into the work day, but she would have to wait for her lunch break like everyone else. As the nicotine-craving nerves inside her hands latched onto the idea of a cigarette and spread throughout her body, Reina busied herself with the stack of papers waiting for computer entry and the occasional document dropped on her desk for signing. She had no real power in her department, even at her age and seniority, but she had a company stamp in her desk that granted her permission to officiate documents.
Maybe if I actually read what I was signing on behalf of the company, I would get promoted before I died. Fat chance. The other drones toiled away in Reina’s corner of the office: a majority of them were young men in their twenties, fresh from universities and hopeful for quick advancement. But there were others closer to Reina’s age, too, most of them men who couldn’t keep their mouths shut or hands to themselves, and another woman who once dreamed of having her own department to command. She, like Reina, had given up climbing the corporate ladder once they realized they were supposed to feel special about being hired in the first place.
And then there was Hanawa, the twenty-something secretary who had a desk in the center of the room and acted as personal maid to everyone around her. Usually she had a permanent smile on her rosy face, but so far that week she wandered around like a lost little puppy, serving the wrong coffee and forgetting her handbag when she stepped out for lunch.
“Hai, Yamada-san.” Hanawa stopped by Reina’s desk to deposit a stack of documents. “These need inputting into the accounting files. I’ve sorted them by week for you already.”
Reina nodded her head and flipped through the documents – they were sorely out of order. “Thank you,” she said anyway.
Hanawa’s gloomy figure took precarious steps to the man working on the other side of Reina’s desk. “Please file these electronically, Nakamura-san.”
That man – the only underling in the office older than Reina – sniffed Hanawa’s hand and gave a sloppy grin. Gross, gross, gross. Almost a year before Nakamura had made a drunken pass at Reina, and even let slip that he knew she was a lesbian, something she could’ve been fired over if her company thought it would reflect poorly on them. Since that day he had been blessedly reserved around Reina, but still acted inappropriate to the secretaries – like now, when he told Hanawa how pretty she was before she returned to her desk.
I want a cigarette. Reina opened a separate window on her computer. And Ai-chan. Nothing better or more stress relieving than a hearty romp in bed followed by the longest cigarette in the universe.
Such was the morning, until fifteen minutes before lunch, when the door to the section chief’s office flew open and he emerged in his balding, slobbering glory with panic strewn across his face.
“Everyone up!” he said, his voice ripe with a screech. “I said up!”
Chairs scraped against the carpeting as everyone stood together behind their desks. The section chief spun in a circle, his eyes never leaving the double glass doors on the far side of the room. Great, we’re all getting fired.
“Stand straight and look sharp!” Too bad the section chief was incapable of looking like anything beyond a mini-tornado himself. “We’ve got a visitor!”
The same question must have burned in everyone’s minds, but nobody dared ask: Who the hell is visiting ‘us?’ Beyond some efficiency drone, of course. Corporate loved wasting money on efficiency “experts” in the guise of firing employees to “save money.”
But the section chief didn’t usually act this frantic when company spies were on the rampage. No, the last time he became a little woodpecker hell bent on taking down a whole tree was when some bigwig like the chairman came by to visit. Oh, great. The chairman had recently passed away and the entire company was in management limbo. Maybe his successor was making the rounds before formally taking up the position. Just what we need. And by “we,” Reina really meant “me.”
The doors slid open, admitting a small entourage of four middle-aged men in business suits and one younger man without a tie. They fanned out across the room while a woman emerged from behind.
She was tall, either naturally or from her five-inch-high heels. With her height she carried a commanding presence swathed in fine layers of designer whites and reptilian accents, held to a curving figure swaying with each step. On top of her head was a large, boorish white hat trimmed in black, shadowing her presumably flawless face and hiding her coils of dark hair. Reina swallowed – and then averted her eyes.
“Ohayou gozaimasu,” the woman greeted through a casual smile.
All the workers bowed at their waists, including Reina, whose ID badge flopped from her neck. “Ohayou gozaimasu!” they called back.
“Surely, everyone recalls the wife of our dearly departed chairman, Mrs. Sakamoto.” The section chief bowed once more to the honorable woman. Everyone else had to also bow again.
“Please don’t mind me today.” The woman lifted a gloved hand and brushed some lint off her hat. “I’ll be shadowing your section chief for the remainder of the morning, so I can get a perspective of what the incoming new chairman after my…dearly departed husband’s untimely death…will be like.”
More prim bows around the room. Reina didn’t know in what world the widows of chairmen did this sort of thing, but she did recall a piece of gossip that the new chairman was Mrs. Sakamoto’s brother. Keep that shit in the family. Reina had no siblings, but she didn’t doubt she’d tell them to piss off if they expected her to do something as stupid as babysitting the most boring department in any company ever. And with an old man entourage. What were they going to do? Kneel on the ground so she could rest her Gucci pumps on their backs?
Mrs. Sakamoto gave another cordial bow before being escorted to the section chief’s office. On her way by, the privileged dame spared a glance for Reina. She thought she saw a smirk shake Mrs. Sakamoto’s smooth cheeks before she disappeared into the office, associates following.
Everyone sank back into their seats and resumed their work like the robots they were. Reina checked the clock every few minutes for when she could go on break and finally have her cigarette.
Five minutes before lunch, Hanawa received a buzz from the section chief inside his office. Reina continued to plow through her stack of papers while peering at the secretary’s inability to push the right button on her intercom.
