Koibumi

by Hildred Billings

  At some point between deep, satisfying thrusts, Aiko wondered if having sex with a biological man felt as good. I don’t care! Nor did she care that, if she closed her eyes tighter, she could imagine that Reina was a man, fucking her with abandon until he or the both of them orgasmed. She says that not being able to get pregnant is the best thing. No. The best thing was that Reina’s cock could stay hard inside her forever and ever.

  “Ikou ka?” Reina asked in Aiko’s ear.

  She had to assess herself: God, yes, she was about to come! Her nails dug into the base of Reina’s neck, lips now on her breasts as her spouse directed her cock further inside. “Iku yo!”

  This time Reina let her ride it out, timing her thrusts so they coincided with Aiko’s hiccupping wails.

  Her orgasm was quick and livid, tearing her up inside as she struggled to fling herself beyond Reina’s body. The best ones always… Her thoughts faltered. The best ones always leave me unable to control myself. Aiko fell away as the phallus continued to pump inside her, slowing, but still there.

  “Che, are you done already? You know that was barely a minute…” Reina flicked one of Aiko’s nipples as she recollected her breath. My thighs are so sore. The kind of furious fucking Reina liked to give her in that position would leave the most veteran bottom raw. “I want to do you again.”

  Aiko finally opened her eyes; the ceiling swirled before her. “Again?”

  Reina pulled out of her, leaving an emptiness behind. “Turn over.”

  Already exhausted, Aiko did as commanded anyway. It will be worth it. She rolled onto her stomach and made herself comfortable. “And why do you want to do me this way?”

  Reina lowered her mouth to breathe into Aiko’s ear. “Because I want to see your omanko on my cock.”

  That was all Aiko needed to melt back into her pillow, her legs opening once more to accommodate her spouse’s incoming hips.

  By now she was so wet the phallus slipped in easily on the first try.

  Whether Reina got her visual desire, Aiko would never know, for she remained facing the wall as her spouse took her from behind. She raised her chest high enough to let her breasts graze the pillow – they swung with every heavy thrust coming into her, her areolas shivering in delight every time they passed over the soft cotton pillowcase. But the cherry on this sundae was when Reina grabbed her hair and yanked her head back in search of a kiss.

  “How’s this, huh?” She was winded from her own satisfaction at fucking her wife like an animal. “Is this what you wanted? Like a man?”

  Aiko’s head was yanked back farther as one hard, well-timed thrust crashed into her omanko. She swore to God she was fuller than she had ever been before. “Yes!” What else could she say? It was what she wanted. For those blessed moments she could pretend she knew what it was like to fuck a man – although she doubted most of her heterosexual friends got it like this. “Hamede!”

  Reina obeyed.

  She was a professional with her own phallus, the very one she sometimes wore around all day in her pants when she wanted to feel masculine. In time she released Aiko’s hair and concentrated on holding her hips, directing them atop her phallus at the right momentum to make Aiko’s groin ache in pleasure. Since she had already orgasmed once, her second one took longer to arrive – during her wait she sank into her pillow, content to let her spouse do all the work from behind. She concentrated on the sensation of her spouse’s cock pounding in and out of her. Her concentration broke once Reina discovered the coveted spot inside.

  “Kimochi!” Aiko tried to draw out a long, happy whine to express her pleasure, but her strength was completely zapped. Reina discovered a way to do her harder and went at her innermost place as if she would never have the chance to again. Aiko could only clutch her pillow and muffle her moans as she came.

  “Ugh!” Reina fell out of her and then onto her side of the bed, leaving her wife to keep her hips up in the air and her aieki dripping down her thighs. The bedding was messed around them. Reina lay completely exposed, phallus pointed up from her waist, wet and glistening. From me. Aiko gave herself one deep breath before she crawled over to inspect it.

  There’s no way this is the same with a real one. Regardless, Aiko pursued one of the acts sure to bring her spouse pleasure. She grabbed the base of the phallus near the straps and parted her lips over the silicone head. She recognized the taste of her own aieki as it dribbled down her throat and from her abandoned omanko.

  “That’s good.” It was Reina’s turn to close her eyes. Her hand rubbed her wife’s exposed rear and searched for her breasts. “Keep doing that. I still haven’t come yet.”

  And I’ve come twice now. That was normal. Those days it took Reina longer to come than it did Aiko. But there were certain things, like grounding the base of her straps into her vulva while proclaiming her cock the best in the land, that got her off as hard as anything else.

  Once Aiko managed to push the whole damn thing down her throat, however, Reina asked her to stop.

  “You don’t have to do that.” Reina drew Aiko down into her arms and held her in a gentle embrace. She placed one kiss on her wife’s cheek.

  “You sure? I don’t mind.” For Aiko, doing that sort of thing was fine if it meant her spouse enjoyed herself. She didn’t pretend to understand Reina’s gender dysphoria, but she didn’t begrudge it either.

  “I’m sure.” As Reina kissed her, she undid the straps around her waist and let the phallus drop to their bed. “Because I want you to do it to me now.”

  Aiko’s eyes widened at the thought. Since April, Reina had started experimenting with penetration again as she worked through her gender dysphoria. But that had fallen to the wayside again as July went on and their therapist was on hiatus. “I…really? I’m kinda tired.” Aiko didn’t have the energy that Reina did when it came to these matters. She also was still getting used to using a strap-on more than once a year on a guest. “I could go down on you, though.” In fact, that angle she was at now could be romantic.

  Shoulders slumping, Reina picked up the phallus again as if she were going to clean it up. “I shouldn’t have fucked you that second time,” she said with a small grin.

  I can’t say no to that cute face. She really couldn’t. Aiko took the straps into her hand and fought with them over her feet. “Fine, fine. But I’m not capable of giving it rough right now.” Just the thought made her want to pass out in exhaustion.

  “You don’t have to be rough.” Reina wrapped her hand around the phallus as it came to rest atop Aiko’s vulva. “I just want you to do it to me.”

  “Why?” Aiko stared at her girlfriend as she tightened the straps around her waist.

  “Because I like it when you do it. It makes me feel close to you.”

  Such a candid statement strung Aiko’s heart. She cleared her throat. “How do you want to do it?” Reina lay on her side, legs crossed closed and body languid as if they were about to go to sleep. Aiko secretly hoped Reina would be content with letting her roll onto her back and ride her like a cowgirl.

  But that was too easy, apparently. “I want to do it the usual way. Like I did to you first.”

  Aiko hid her slight resentment. Most nights that sort of request would raise her to heaven and beyond, for she reveled in tending to Reina’s private needs that she let no one else indulge. Yet sleep pawed at the back of her eyelids and her muscles ached in and around her waist. The thought of crawling between Reina’s legs and keeping a steady rhythm made Aiko want to slip against her pillow and pass out. I’ll do it tomorrow. First thing in the morning, before breakfast.

  Thankfully Reina remained oblivious. She grinned and made herself comfortable in the bed, legs kicking apart while her hand stimulated her vulva. She never does that… Reina was as interested in her own genitals as a cat is interested in its toys. She’d rather jump in someone else’s box. “You don’t have to do it hard,” she said. “I just want to feel you doing it.”

  Aiko sat up and pushe
d herself between Reina’s legs. The wet hole of her spouse’s omanko hid beneath a mound of dark hair. “I’ll do my best,” she promised.

  It was not what Aiko had in mind when she seduced her spouse earlier. Her subconscious desires to fantasize about being with a man did not include her putting on a strap-on and fucking her butch spouse. If only. Yet Aiko did not deny that Reina’s sanguine expression as she lay back and spread her legs was comforting deep in her heart. For so many years Reina had fought with her gender identity, to the point where for a long time she could not indulge in such acts as these. Having her enjoy them again had been one of the biggest breakthroughs they ever shared. I remember when I first did this to her. Aiko forewent going down on her spouse in favor of going straight for the goods – Reina was expectantly wet enough as always.

  “Ah…” She clung to her wife’s hips as the phallus pushed inside her. Aiko counted the ways her spouse was beautiful as sweat fell down her nose and her hair matted together into the pillow. When their hips came together close enough for Aiko to feel Reina’s pubic hair against her skin, she noticed her spouse emitted a whimper from her open throat.

  Unlike other women Aiko had fucked like this, there were no breasts for her to cling to. She had to make do with the bedding on either side of Reina, who pulled her down anyway so she could ravage her back with ground fingernails. Grateful that she didn’t have to move too much to satisfy her spouse, Aiko let her hips bob up and down enough to make Reina tremble beneath her.

  “That feels so good.” Aiko never knew where that soft and feminine voice came from when Reina was like this. She also didn’t know where her spouse learned to moan like a queen. From me. From all the women she took to bed over the years.

  One minute was all Reina needed to topple over the edge: her moans turned into empty breaths as her legs crumpled in the air like twigs. Her entire body moved in undulating waves as she gently thrust herself upon the phallus and her digits curled. Aiko wished she had the energy to enjoy it.

  “Yokatta.” It was Reina’s turn to say it as they stilled together. Aiko pulled out of her and immediately detached the strap-on.

  They fell asleep that night facing each other, arms wrapped around one another in the most mutual way possible. At some point Reina’s forehead burrowed into Aiko’s chest, although the latter never rolled onto her back. I should be content with this. She loved it when Reina showed vulnerability. I should want this.

  But when she closed her eyes, her mind slipped right into the dream she feared: a man named Takeshi, coming to her with open arms and an open bed.

  In what she considered a most cunning move, Reina went to her family’s gravesite early the first day of obon to avoid the crowds.

  Regardless of her plan, women and children bedecked in colorful yukata flooded the streets as she stepped out of the train station and recounted the way to the local cemetery. Although obon was sometimes celebrated in July in Tokyo, Reina’s family – and her company, by chance – honored it in August, when a majority of the nation held their family reunions and ancestral honoring. While Aiko returned to her natal home to feast and chat, Reina went to see the only parent she deemed fit to talk to.

  The cemetery was empty save for some flowers left behind the day before. Mid-morning was the most auspicious time to arrive, for the early-to-rise aunties had already come and the younger families would wait until the last minute to fulfill their duties to the ancestors. Reina ducked into the shadow of a cherry tree as she searched out the Yamada memorial.

  The obelisk stood in the center of the cemetery, amidst Tanakas, Suzukis, and a large clan by the name of Ban. Or so Reina assumed the kanji read. Likewise, she could read few of the kanji littering the interment list on the Yamada site. But she knew the most important one: her father’s, etched in there since she was a young teenager.

  Obon was the only time Reina came to visit her father since moving in with Aiko. When she lived with her mother, she used to come every other month to rant about the injustices of the world. The need for that abated when she had Aiko to turn to. Reina sat at the base of the obelisk and pulled out a compact duster she carried in her back pocket next to her wallet. While humming a childhood tune, she dusted off the leaves and weather stains from the granite enshrouding the ashes of her ancestors.

  She imagined her father kneeling next to her, still dressed in his brown suit and yellow tie he always wore to work as a professor. When he died he had barely been forty – Reina’s current age. She stopped dusting long enough to ponder the fact she was outliving her father.

  I wonder if he would be proud of me. Her father was a man of modest accomplishment, but he lived for what he did and always tried to inspire confidence in his daughter. He was the one who taught Reina to respect herself, and to know that her body was hers alone to do with as she pleased. He’s the only man I’ve trusted without a shred of doubt. A car ended his life before he could teach her to dream.

  Reina finished dusting the gravesite and burned some incense nearby. By now the sun assaulted the back of her neck and made sweat drip down the front of her T-shirt. She continued to sit and stare at the obelisk as if it would begin speaking to her.

  “I’m sorry I don’t come by more often,” she said, loud enough for the dead to hear. “But I guess it doesn’t matter. If you’re really out there somewhere, you can follow me wherever.” She picked a piece of debris off the granite. “So I guess you’ll know everything that’s happened to me too. Which isn’t much. Oh, besides this.” She flashed her wedding band. “I got married last winter. Nothing to get excited about. I married the woman I’ve been with since I was twenty. Sorry, I’m still gay.” She wasn’t sorry. “Our marriage isn’t legal, but she really wanted it. I think you met her before. She insisted on coming by that one time to pay her respects. She’s cute, huh?” A smile crossed Reina’s face as she remembered young, feisty Aiko, with her ponytails and baggy sweaters. I used to get so excited about ripping her clothes off so I could see what was beneath. Who was she kidding? That still excited her. “No kids, although she wants them.”

  There wasn’t much else to say. Reina continued to sit in silence for a while, letting her presence soak into the obelisk, as if the giant kanji saying YAMADA could steal some of her familial life force away. Or maybe that was the sun making her parched. When she began to fear a sunburn, Reina stood up and brushed the dirt off her jeans. She gave a slight bow to her ancestors and turned to head home.

  A figure stood in the entrance of the cemetery, blocking her way.

  At first Reina did not recognize the old woman standing like a statue, arms full of flowers and a raggedy feather duster. Then the glare from the sun disappeared, bouncing off the woman’s round glasses and reflecting in her short, silvery hair.

  “Reina?” The woman clutched her flowers closer to her breast.

  Dread and guilt flooded Reina’s stomach. “Okaasan.”

  It had been over a year since she last saw her mother, Sachiko, although they only lived one ward away from each other. After the death of her husband, Sachiko had to get multiple jobs to cover the costs of their living and her daughter’s schooling. Even before her father’s death, they were not incredibly close. Sachiko was the type of mother who faulted her children until they forced self-improvement. As it turned out, Reina was not interested in other people’s opinions of her. Especially their opinions about her sexuality. When Sachiko finally gave up ever “correcting” her daughter’s behavior, the two of them stopped speaking until Reina finally moved out, taking the last of their relationship with them.

  “Ohisashiburi.” Even her mother’s voice was barely recognizable. Like the rest of her, it had become smaller, mousier. Age had not treated Sachiko Yamada well. She’s gotten so old. In truth, she was only a little over sixty, but doing so much work for so many years made her weaker and more fragile. The only reason Reina had been able to move out and take her earnings with her was because Sachiko won a small lottery and could quit all bu
t one part time job.

  “Un.” Reina didn’t know what else to say.

  “Genki?” Sachiko almost dropped her flowers.

  “I’m fine. You?”

  “Fine.”

  Reina scratched her head. “I dusted off the grave, if that’s what you were about to do.”

  “Oh. Thank you. I suppose there’s room for flowers?”

  “Un.”

  Neither of them moved or spoke for a while. What the fuck do I say to my own mother? The humidity was turning Reina’s T-shirt into a washrag.

  “What have you been up to? You haven’t called in a long time.”

  I never called you! Besides, didn’t that go both ways? “I’m still working. I have a family to take care of.”

  “I see. Are you still…”

  “Yes.” Reina brandished her ring once more. “We got married.”

  “Oh. Oh!” Was that a glimmer of excitement behind Sachiko’s glasses? “Congratulations…”

  Reina cleared her throat, wondering if the lump inside her came from the humidity or her mother’s presence. “I need to get going.” She forged ahead and brushed past Sachiko, knocking flower petals to the ground as she turned in the cemetery gate. “See you.”

  “Wait!” Against her better judgment, Reina stopped in her tracks. Her mother’s voice pricked her spine like a needle. “If you wait a little bit for me, maybe we could go home? I have some shrimp. We could make shrimp! It used to be your favorite. You used to help me pick out veins when you were a little girl.”

  That memory came to Reina like a rock thrown in her direction. She remembered standing on a stool in their old kitchen, pulling long, purple strings out of the shrimp she couldn’t wait to eat. As she grew older her obsession with shrimp abated, replaced with sex and beer. “I can’t. I have somewhere I need to be.” Home. Watching TV and waiting for Aiko to return with leftovers for dinner.