Koibumi

by Hildred Billings

  “Tell your pussy to toughen up. You’re married to me, after all.” Reina poked her wife on the nose. “But if you need a recovery, I can wait until tomorrow.”

  “Oh, tomorrow! How kind of you to give me a whole night of peace between my legs.” Clicking her tongue, Aiko laid her head on Reina’s chest.

  “Maa, I can’t help it if I love doing it with you.” Twenty years and sex with Aiko still wasn’t old. Especially now that Reina was exploring a more submissive side of herself for the first time since she was a teenager.

  Aiko closed her eyes. “You should tell that foreigner all about how you like doing it.”

  As sleep gradually overcame them, Reina considered that option. I could tell all my trade secrets and life history to some American. When she thought about it, her love life was the only true legacy she had. Some women saw immortality in having children, raising businesses, or producing great works of art, but Reina saw it in the happy faces leaving her embrace.

  She closed her eyes and joined Aiko in a dream of creating their own carnal legacy.

  The crossing signal turned a bright, glowing green, signaling a herd of people from Shinjuku Station to the other side of the main avenue cutting through the neighborhood. Aiko joined the surge on her way to Ni-chome, Tokyo’s premier gay and lesbian district.

  What an awful day to run errands here! The heat was at record highs, baking the asphalt and making Aiko sweat out of her cotton blouse and flowing skirt. For the first time in years she wished her hair was long again so she could pull it off the back of her neck. She instantly retracted that wish when she saw a young woman with a pixie cut and sunburn on her neck.

  The only reprieve from such weather was in ducking into shops and worshipping their air conditioning. Of course, nowhere Aiko wanted to go was nearby enough to keep her from stinking up her clothes. Ni-chome was a ten-minute walk away from the station, and the shops there on the far end of the street. She had to stop inside a convenience store to keep from overheating.

  Aiko normally didn’t go to Ni-chome on her own, let alone on a weekday. It was a long ride from her neighborhood just to run some errands – so the only time she showed up was when she and Reina needed “supplies” and the latter wasn’t available to tag along. Maybe if she stopped breaking our toys on weeknights! That past Monday Reina cashed her chips in for sex and took Aiko out for a spin with their biggest strap-on. Halfway through the plateau of an eye-splitting, neck crinkling orgasm, a snap on Reina’s strap came flying off. The only place to get a new one without judgment was at the lesbian-run sex shop in Ni-chome, where they got all their paraphernalia. Reina gave Aiko a laundry list of things to pick up that morning, including more disinfectant and “maximum size” condoms. She made sure to underline the maximum part. Yes, dear, your cock is huge. Trust me, I know.

  The shop was nearly empty, granting Aiko the keeper’s full attention. While they weren’t friends in the strictest sense, they had known each other for years, and the shopkeeper was privy to some details of Reina and Aiko’s sex life. The moment Aiko said “Reina broke a strap” the shopkeeper had a replacement in her hand, all the way down to Reina’s small waist size. She also knew the brand of disinfectant they used and what size condoms they needed. If Chloe wants to know about our sex life, she only has to ask this shopkeeper for the details.

  After paying for her bag of goodies, Aiko ducked out and faced the heat again. Halfway down the main street of Ni-chome she began to succumb to the weather again, and made a break for the lesbian bookstore. Air conditioning graced her face like an angel.

  Unlike the sex shop, the bookstore was busy. Women of various representations spilled across the aisles, from butches with facial piercings to femmes with frilly stockings. Aiko figured she looked like a haggard, drowning witch compared to some of the young blood in there. She always got a kick out of watching young women gawk at sexual position books in the back.

  The only section Aiko ever had any interest in was the lifestyle corner. She particularly liked flipping through homemaking guides and perusing LGBT wedding magazines. That past December she and Reina exchanged vows overseas. Has it really only been half a year? Married life flew by almost as quickly as the twenty years before it.

  While looking at pictures of a destination wedding in Okinawa, another woman bumped into her from behind. They exchanged apologies, the woman stopping one shelf down from Aiko.

  A baby hung from her chest.

  “Kawaii…” Aiko hid her involuntary reaction behind her magazine. The baby smiled at her and made tiny fists. So cute! Something pined inside Aiko’s gut. Her instincts made her wonder if the feminine woman toting around her newborn knew where she was. After all, what were the odds of…

  “Youshi, are you ready?” A heavyset butch woman appeared next to the mother and tickled the baby’s cheeks. The small family concurred on departure and left the store, the baby still smiling at Aiko through the window.

  She stepped where the mother had been, eyes scanning the books stacked in neat rows on the shelf. One title in particular caught Aiko’s attention: “How We Did It: Two Lesbians Having a Baby.” On the white cover were two stick figures pushing a baby carriage with a stork flying in the background. Aiko picked it up and flipped through.

  Once, when she was barely an adult, she assumed she would marry a man and bear his children. It was a reality she accepted with no fuss; after all, she liked children, and the pains of and anxieties of childbirth did not scare her. By eighteen she already picked out a boy and a girl’s name; by twenty she was planning the best age to start procreating.

  Of course that was before she realized her destiny as not only a lesbian, but as the future wife and companion of Reina Yamada, the most non-maternal woman to ever try to rip out her own uterus. Who needs a baby when I have her? Aiko scoffed as she flipped through checklists for sperm donors and tips for government hurdles. And yet…

  Something panged in Aiko’s chest, and a dark foreboding hung in her mind. She was forty. Within another ten years her body would start shutting down the baby-making factory and she would no longer have a choice in the matter. She wasn’t twenty-something Aiko who had time to change her mind. She wasn’t even thirty-something Aiko who had considerations but didn’t think too heavily. No, she was forty, and time was running out.

  A baby? Aiko clutched her own stomach. A part of her always wanted to experience pregnancy – to feel a human being form inside her and be brought into the world via her strength and own life force. It was a gift of her sex, and one she never thought she would use since the day she told Reina, “I love you.”

  Reina. She would never go for it.

  Aiko put the book down and scuffled out of the bookstore. Outside the heat whipped into her face and mocked her airy clothing. The sun was so bright that Aiko was temporarily blinded, the entire street one constant glare.

  She stepped out anyway, convinced the sun would disappear behind the nearest building.

  “Watch out!”

  Aiko flung herself back against the wall as a man on a bicycle came whizzing by. He chimed his bell at her and swerved to miss, barely grazing her purse and nicking the rainbow-colored flowerbed in front of the store. Aiko breathed in the adrenaline pulsing in the humid air: how close had she come to dying? Or at least going to the hospital.

  The man readjusted his course before hopping off and swerving to face Aiko. “Are you okay?” Perspiration poured off his brow and dampened the creases of his brown suit. “Did I hit you?”

  After checking to make sure she was really in one piece, Aiko nodded and let out the huge breath wracking her ribs. “Daijyoubu desu!” She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed her forehead. “I’m okay!”

  “Thank goodness.” The man bowed at her. “I’m so sorry! The sun was in my eyes, and when I could see again you were about to walk right in front of me!”

  “I’m fine, really.” Yet Aiko’s hand remained clutched to her blouse. Her brown shopping bag full of sex
stuff almost fell from her shoulder and tumbled to the ground. “You didn’t hit me at all. Just scared me.”

  The man pulled out a calling card and offered it to Aiko on two open palms. “My name is Takeshi Matsumoto. Please contact me if you need any assistance because of what I have done.”

  Aiko took it with trepidation. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?” She fished through her purse for her own calling card. “You’re the one who went flying.”

  Takeshi shook his head, beads of moisture flinging off his tanned skin. He looks young. Aiko blinked away the thought. “I am fine, uh…” He took Aiko’s card. “I am fine, Takeuchi-san. Please accept my most sincere apologies.” He bowed again, deeper.

  “It’s no problem. Please do not worry about me.”

  Standing like a scarecrow, Takeshi grabbed the handle of his bike and attempted to climb back on. “I’m sorry, I must go, Takeuchi-san. I’m on my way to work. If you need me, please come call on me at Hasegawa College.”

  “Hasegawa?” Aiko stopped him before he could take off. “You work there?”

  “Y…yes. I am a professor of English there.”

  Ho! “That’s my school! And my department!” Or it was until about twenty years earlier.

  “Really?” Takeshi put one foot on the ground again. “You don’t look like any of my students? Oh, God! What a day.”

  “No, no, I graduated there years ago. When it was still a women’s only college.” Last Aiko heard Hasegawa had gone co-ed about a decade ago. Now being a lesbian there probably isn’t as scandalous. Too little, too late. “And I studied English,” she said in the language.

  Takeshi’s eyes grew as big as the sun pounding above them. “What a coincidence! I almost ran over a Hasegawa English graduate! I’d lose my head for sure.” He laughed, uneasily. “Well, Takeuchi-san, please do not hesitate to summon me should you need anything. I really must be going now. I’m running late for classes.”

  Aiko bowed in understanding. Takeshi hopped on his bike and pedaled away down the main street of Ni-chome.

  How bizarre! Aiko ducked back into the bookstore to use its restroom. What a small world they lived in.

  Another day, another afternoon of hell at work.

  Reina knew it was coming when she walked in that Friday morning and encountered a note on her desk asking her to run errands. Usually that was the secretary’s job, but Kaori was glued to the front desk returning a million messages. What in the world is going on? Some days were like that. All Reina could be grateful for was that she was not the only one overworked – her male colleagues were as prone to being summoned for menial tasks as much as she was.

  Eventually her errands took her outside the office. There were memos to deliver to other departments and cleaning supplies to restock. However, the hallways between departments were not air conditioned, and by the time Reina returned to hers at the end of the work day she was drenched in sweat.

  “Yamada!” The section chief called her once more into his office. She went with her head bowed and an extra skip in her step. I feel like a dog. An invisible leash tugged at her throat.

  The section chief made her take a memo before she was dismissed to go home. Another task Kaori the secretary was supposed to perform, but now the woman was nowhere in sight. Reina thought nothing of it. Odds were she was resuming her own errands.

  When Reina was free to leave, she collected her briefcase and shut down her desktop computer. She checked her phone for messages before scooting out of the office, out of the building, and toward the train station.

  She had no plans that night, aside from going home to Aiko’s dinner and a possible romp in bed. We still need to try out the new straps. It had been both a crowning moment of achievement and a total embarrassment when Reina finally thrust hard enough to break the last set mid-coitus. And maybe they could…Reina stopped halfway down an alley and undid the top button of her shirt. Maybe we could try it the other way around. Twenty years went by before Reina could appreciate her wife wearing a strap-on. That was a lot of time to make up.

  Reina was blissfully imagining her wife pegging her when she heard a croak coming from a ditch.

  “Yamada-san…?” A timid, feminine voice emerged from a stack of crates outside a bar. Reina pivoted, eyes bulging at the sight of Kaori Hanawa sitting among empty beer bottles and cockroaches. Her black skirt was rumpled and her designer shoes covered in sticky residue. She’s been assaulted! Reina lunged forward, mouth opening to ask if her coworker was all right.

  “Daijyoubu ka?” Reina grabbed Kaori’s arms. “Did somebody hurt you?”

  “Yamada-san…” Kaori closed her eyes and wiped away a slew of tears with the back of her hand. “Forgive me. It’s too embarrassing to speak of.”

  “Eh? Did you fall down?” Her next thought was that one of their male coworkers had assaulted her – why not? One of them had tried to do it to her before.

  Kaori clutched Reina’s arms in return. Odd. She was usually a shy young woman, who didn’t touch her coworkers out of propriety. Here she was though, sitting like a drunken uncle and clawing Reina through her blazer. “I was fired…”

  Fired! “What? What are you talking about? Fired from what?” Reality crashed into Reina’s brain. “Fired from work?”

  More tears fell down Kaori’s round cheeks. “Yes! This afternoon I was told to clean out everything and not come back!”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” She sniffed. “Maybe I’m too old to be a secretary now. I’m on the dark side to thirty.”

  What does that make me at forty, then? Ancient? Reina knew the answer to that. But she was in a different position from Kaori, whose main job was to look pretty and exude youthfulness in their department. She barely looks twenty, though! Kaori, when not crying, looked exactly like the ideal secretary, with smooth skin, long hair, and feminine clothing wrapping a lean body. “Did they give you a reason?”

  Kaori shook her head. “No. But they gave me a letter of recommendation…”

  “Oh, boy.” Reina tugged on Kaori’s arms and guided her to stand up. She picked up her purse and Reina’s briefcase. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

  They weren’t two steps away when Kaori broke down.

  “What am I going to do?” she asked between convulsions. “I need the money! And my family…what will they do now?” Kaori had once told Reina she sent part of her paychecks back home to Iwate Prefecture, where her farming family needed help staying warm in winter and keeping food on their table.

  Reina didn’t have any answers. She wasn’t good with reassuring words or advice. But she knew how to cheer a woman up.

  “Give me your phone,” she said, palm hanging out. “I’m going to call your girlfriend.”

  Kaori stopped and stared at her through puffy eyes. “What? Why?”

  I know, it’s stupid of me to do so. Once, ignorant of their relationship at the time, Reina slept with Haruka. As far as she knew Kaori still knew nothing about it. “Trust me. You could use her right now, and you’re too upset to tell her what I want you to.”

  Slowly, Kaori pulled her phone out of her purse and plopped it in Reina’s hand. She searched through Kaori’s contacts until she saw Haruka’s name and dialed it. The phone was damp against her ear.

  When Haruka answered it was with a kind, flirty voice. “Moshi Kao-chan? Are you off work yet?”

  “This is Reina.”

  A pause full of shock and worry. “Reina-san? Why are you using my girlfriend’s phone?” Reina could hear that edge of “Oh God, what’s happened?” in Haruka’s tone.

  “She’s not feeling well right now. Are you busy?”

  Kaori leaned against Reina’s shoulder. Now there was a trip. Did them suddenly not being coworkers anymore mean they could touch like this? Not that Reina minded, but it was so out of Kaori’s character that taking her to the hospital was a consideration. Eventually Haruka’s voice came back on the phone. “I’m at home right now. Should I meet her
at her place? What’s wrong? Is she sick?”

  “Er…” Reina didn’t think it was her place to say what had befallen Haruka’s girlfriend. “Can you meet us in Ni-chome?” She relayed a certain place she had in mind.

  “Ni-chome? Why in the world would we meet there?” Doubtless Haruka was reminded of the first time she met Reina – in a bar in Ni-chome, crying because Kaori had dumped her.

  “I have it in my mind to get her slightly intoxicated.” Alcohol solved all work related problems. Especially getting fired. “And if you don’t show up, I’ll flirt with her.”

  It only took one more second for Haruka to agree to go. She knew the great power that was Reina Yamada’s romantic persuasion. I wouldn’t really sleep with her. Not even if Aiko suggested it – which she once had. Reina kept a firm line between her work and non-work relationships. As far as she was concerned, Kaori was still a work relationship.

  After hanging up, Reina guided Kaori to the train station and told her they were going to Ni-chome. At first Kaori protested, even after hearing Haruka would be there. Not until Reina insisted on paying for a drink did the former secretary finally relent.

  While they waited on the platform for a train, Reina called Aiko.

  “Ah, Reina? What is it? Are you late?” She almost sounded as flirty as Haruka.

  “Yeah, I’m going to be…late.” When she told Aiko what had happened and what she intended to do, her wife gasped into her phone.

  “That’s awful! How long will you be out? I already have dinner ready.”

  “I don’t know. Two hours at the most? I’m only staying long enough until her girlfriend arrives to take care of her.”

  Aiko muttered to herself about the steps necessary to keep dinner warm for another two hours. “Thank you for calling to tell me. Be careful. And don’t get drunk! We have a guest tomorrow.” She waited another beat. “And don’t sleep with them!”