by Guy Willard
After Fumio had had his bath, he went up to their room where Seiko had prepared the bedding. Shortly afterwards they heard the professor come home. It was about 11:30. Some twenty minutes later, they heard his steady tread coming up the stairs. He knocked once and entered, and immediately Fumio as well as Seiko got up to the formal sitting position. When he saw them, the professor said, “No, no, please relax. After all, it’s your own room.”
He sat down on the cushion Fumio provided for him, and Seiko got up to get him something to drink.
“A beer,” he called after her.
She disappeared down the stairs.
“Fumio, how was your day at work?”
“Fine.”
“Good. I’m glad you like teaching. Someday you’ll be running one of the new jukus and I want you to learn the business from the bottom up. And once you’re in charge, all you have to do is let the others do the work.” The professor lowered his voice. “What’s this talk I hear about your wanting children?”
“I said nothing of the kind, sir. It was just something Seiko and her mother were tossing around.”
“Listen, I think it’s a good idea for you to have children. My wife is all in favor of it. And I gather Seiko isn’t against it, either. What do you think?”
“Well,” said Fumio uncertainly. “I was thinking Seiko and I should spend some more time together as husband and wife before having our first child.”
“Nonsense. The sooner you have one the better. Seiko is probably bored to death playing housewife. In her heart she wants a child, like all women. It’s what they’re made for.”
Seiko heard his last remark as she came up the stairs. “So I’m nothing more than a machine for producing children, am I?”
“Biologically, yes,” said her father. “And your hormones work in such a way that you feel happiest when nursing a baby or raising children. Your mother was like that and you’re probably no different.”
“I resent that,” she said, but the tone of her voice indicated that she didn’t really hold it against him. She set the tray down on the table and opened a bottle of beer.
As she poured it out for the professor, he said to her more gently: “I just want to see my grandchild before I die. Is that too much to ask?”
She laughed. “You’re hardly on your deathbed, Father. In fact, I’ve never seen you so healthy and happy. Ever since Fumio-san moved in here, you’ve been looking better than ever.”
“It’s the presence of youth that revitalizes me.” He glanced at Fumio. “To have a young man in the home, so full of life and energy....”
To change the subject, Fumio said to Seiko, “Lately you seem more open to the idea of having children. Didn’t you used to say you wanted some time together before being saddled with that responsibility?”
“I did. But in the last few months, it seems all my girlfriends are having babies. And two of them are pregnant right now. They all seem so happy.”
“And here I thought you were so independent,” laughed Fumio.
She frowned. “Independence is good while you’re single. But when you’re married, you can’t afford the luxury of freedom; you’re no longer on your own. There are other people to think of, you know. I’m a grown-up member of society now, just like you.”
“Yes. Just like me.” Fumio poured the rest of the beer into the professor’s glass.
“We need another bottle here, Seiko,” said her father.
“All right.”
After she’d gone downstairs, Akiyoshi whispered, “Fumio, please have a child. Give me the son I never had. Complete my happiness.”
The older man looked almost apoplectic as he said this. Listening to the cheerful sound of Seiko talking with her mother downstairs, Fumio tried to keep the repugnance from his face. He found himself secretly wishing the old man would die soon. Then he would be free. The smell of the professor’s breath was so sour that he almost wrinkled his nose at it.
“Sensei, as far as babies go, I’m just going to let nature take its course. If it happens, it happens.”
“No, you must try.” He cut off his impassioned whisper when he heard Seiko’s tread on the steps.
She came in smiling. “What are you two looking so serious about?”
“Nothing. Just business talk about the future of the juku.” The professor accepted the beer she poured out for him with a smile.
Later, after her father had left, Seiko was sitting in front of her make-up table rubbing cold cream onto her face. She turned around to look at Fumio lying on his side.
“Father’s taken to dropping in here almost every night. I wish he’d leave us alone. How can we even have the privacy to make babies with him always barging in? I feel him between us all the time, even when we’re in bed. He leaves his smell behind, an old man’s smell.”
Secretly Fumio had to agree. The professor’s presence was almost palpable in the room, and it wasn’t only the smell.
“I wish we didn’t have to live here with him,” Seiko muttered, bringing up another long-held grudge.
“What do you really think about having babies?”
“I’m all for it. I wasn’t before. But when I saw how cute Yuka’s baby is, something inside me ached for one just like it. Besides, having a baby will at least keep me busy. Right now, all I do is wait around for you to come home. I had no idea married life would be this dull.”
“That must be the main reason why most couples have babies.” Impatiently he stubbed out his cigarette. Seiko was consulting a small desk calendar on her make-up table. She mused silently to herself, counting with her fingers.
24
It was still early afternoon, but Fumio had skipped his university classes to visit Shinjuku’s 2-chome. In a gay bookstore there, he flipped through a copy of Barazoku looking for someplace interesting. The ad copy for a “touch room” named Mirror Man caught his eye: “Enjoy the thrill of watching...and of being watched!” According to its map, it was located just around the corner.
Putting the magazine back, he stepped outside and easily located the place, on the second floor of a nondescript building. The entrance to Mirror Man was an automatic sliding door tinted purple, with a hand-written sign taped onto it which read “Members Only.” He stepped inside.
An attractive young man with the body of a weightlifter greeted him. “Good afternoon.”
“Hello,” said Fumio. “Um, this is my first time….”
“I see. Did you come to watch videos?”
Fumio nodded.
“Right this way, please.”
Along one side of the room were about eight cubicles which looked solid and air-tight like the compartments inside a cargo ship. Fumio could hear the sounds of video monitors within them. He was led to the cubicle at the far end, where the young man opened the door to let Fumio enter before joining him inside.
The compartment was just large enough to hold a single video player, a large TV monitor, and a black leather chaise-longue against one wall, with a small round table next to it. On the table was a box of tissues.
The young man handed Fumio a plastic binder filled with a listing of the videos available. After glancing through it, Fumio quickly chose one called College Boxer.
The employee left, and Fumio looked around. On the walls were pin-up photos of attractive men, along with several original drawings, including a signed pencil sketch of an erect penis. Otherwise, the place seemed no different from an ordinary video room. Then he noted that the wall on right side didn’t extend all the way to the end. A tiny gap was there, perhaps twenty-five centimeters wide. And in that space was a mirror whose reflection allowed him to see the lower half of the chaise-longue in the next cubicle.
There was nobody in there now, but Fumio could tell that if a boy had been lying on the chaise-longue, most of his body would be visible. By the same token, the other boy would have a similar view of Fumio’s body. Fumio understood now the advertisement’s line about “the thrill of watching...and of b
eing watched.”
The employee returned shortly with the video, along with a cup of warm oolong tea. Fumio accepted the tea and watched as he slid the video into the player, pressing the play button. “Have a good time,” he smiled as he stepped outside, closing the door behind him. The compartment was completely private once the door was shut.
Fumio locked the door and lay back on the chaise-longue to watch the video. It featured a good-looking young boy in a pair of boxing shorts, training in a gym. After shadow-boxing for a while, he pulled off his trunks to show his pure white jock strap. His body was glistening with sweat. Now he began skipping rope, causing his solid pectorals to twitch sexily. When he was done, he wiped himself dry with a towel before pulling his jock strap completely off. But his genitals were hidden by an obstructive patch of pixilated censoring. Still, this pixilation had been done so badly that the penis was sometimes all but visible. It was a very sexy sight. The boy was cute, and had such a nice, muscular build that Fumio was tempted to masturbate to him then and there. After all, it might be some time before anyone entered the neighboring cubicle. But just then he heard a sound from next door: someone was about to enter it. He sat up and waited.
By gazing at the mirror, he saw that a young man had just sat down on the chaise-longue and was leafing through the video menu which the employee had handed him. Fumio couldn’t see the boy’s face, but could tell he was quite tall, perhaps 180 centimeters in height. And he seemed to be a college boy or even a high school student, judging from his blue jeans and white sneakers.
Soon the employee left and returned shortly with the video the boy had chosen. In the meantime, the boy had made himself comfortable on the chaise-longue. As the video started up and the employee left again, he remained lying there, perhaps watching the video. Fumio lay back on his own chaise-longue, all his attention directed on the mirror in the gap. He had a perfect view of the boy’s body from the chest down to the feet. Undoubtedly, the boy was enjoying the same view of Fumio.
The detached anonymity of the whole situation was somehow very erotic. Fumio wondered how the boy looked...and then decided it didn’t even matter. Both he and his neighbor had come here to look at each other’s bodies only.
And now, as if on cue, the boy in the next room began rubbing his hand up and down his thigh, gradually letting it come to rest on his crotch. Fumio’s entire attention was focused on the action in the mirror, the video no longer interesting him at all.
He continued to gaze at the mirror, still not quite believing what he saw. It felt strangely unreal, as if the other boy were communicating with him through gestures across a great span of space. The sounds from their video monitors had become an unnoticed background noise. Suddenly Fumio half-raised himself. The other boy’s fingers were seductively tracing the outline of something solid underneath his jeans, a clearly discernible erection.
Fumio lay back again and reached down to the front of his own pants, gently rubbing himself, giving his penis soft squeezes.
The hand in the mirror replied by tugging seductively at the zipper, but without pulling it down. Fumio swallowed hard. He was aching to see more. His own penis was now fully erect underneath his slacks, and the knowledge that the other boy could probably see it got him even more excited.
And then Fumio saw the hand in the mirror slowly pulling the zipper all the way down, and undoing the fly. Stopping his own caresses, he gazed transfixed as, with a brazenness like something seen in a dream, the jeans were pulled down, exposing a pair of clean white briefs. These in turn were slowly slid down so that, bit by bit, the solid flesh of the boy’s fully erect penis gradually came into view. It lay flat against the belly, pointing straight up to the navel.
Fumio felt as if a film had glazed over his eyes, yet everything remained sharply focused. There, perfectly framed by the four sides of the mirror, was the naked, uncensored beauty that was always kept hidden by the censors’ patches. Fumio gazed hungrily at it, his mouth going dry. He was reminded of those nights when he’d glued himself to the peephole in his apartment, praying for the least glimpse of Tatsuya. But here, the stranger in the neighboring room knew perfectly well that he was being looked at…and was actually courting Fumio’s observation. The hand in the mirror continued its performance, sexily kneading the balls, gently caressing the tight skin of the engorged shaft. Again, Fumio reassured himself of his own anonymity...and of that of the boy he was watching.
Leaning back on his elbows, he lifted his hips and pulled down his own pants and briefs. Why should the other boy be the only one having all the fun? As his own erection emerged, he felt his heart hammering hard, and when he’d pulled his pants all the way down to his ankles, he lay back for a long moment to revel in his naked glory.
The hands in the mirror had paused in their activity, and Fumio could almost feel the other boy’s gaze drinking in the sight he himself was offering up. The excitement of being watched was every bit as satisfying as its opposite. He hadn’t been this aroused in a long time. And he knew that the feeling was shared, for he saw the erection in the mirror twitch once or twice. And then the boy’s hand closed around the rigid shaft, gripping it tightly. It began stroking in a slow, sensual rhythm.
Fumio lost no time in responding. With his eyes on the mirror, he timed his own motions to the other’s. It wasn’t easy to shake the illusion that his own stroking was directly stimulating his partner—and that the mirrored hand’s caresses were stimulating his own erection.
There was something raw and masculine in this dream-like exchange. The freedom allowed by their mutual anonymity was dizzying. Neither partner had any idea who the other was. The only thing that mattered was their shared desire for some voyeuristic pleasure. The fist in the mirror increased its up-and-down speed. Fumio, with his free hand, pulled the box of tissues closer.
And then he saw that the boy had gotten up from the chaise-longue and was approaching the gap in the wall. Fumio lost no time in joining him there. From their respective positions, it was still impossible to see each other’s faces. Yet there was just enough space in the gap for them to reach through and touch each other’s penises.
As Fumio’s fingers closed around the firm warm flesh of his partner’s erection, he felt a delightful thrill. And when his own dick was similarly gripped, his knees almost gave way beneath him. Together they stroked, strangers unknown to each other, yet now as united as a single boy masturbating alone in his room, happy in the knowledge that he won’t be interrupted by anything or anyone.
Fumio leaned his head against the wall and gave himself up to pure pleasure. The other boy apparently had some tissues on hand, but Fumio wanted to enjoy the direct contact of his partner’s warm semen against his own flesh…it didn’t matter where.
He didn’t have very long to wait.
25
Fumio was having a vivid dream of his high school days when he felt his shoulder being shaken. As he opened his eyes he heard Seiko whisper: “Fumio-san….”
The room was dark and he was in his futon. He turned toward her. “What’s the matter?”
“Shh. Please keep your voice down. I think they’re both asleep downstairs.”
He felt his heart sink as she lifted his futon cover and came under it, snuggling against him.
“It’s safe now,” she whispered mischievously into his ear.
The whole house was silent, and from somewhere far away came the tiny mosquito-like buzzing of a lone motorcycle in the night. Fumio turned toward Seiko and put his arms around her. But he knew already that any attempt to give her what she wanted was doomed to failure.
After some time had passed with no initiative on his part, she pulled away. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just not in the mood for it tonight.”
“But you’re never in the mood for it these days. Am I that unsexy to you?”
“Far from it. I think it might be just the pressure of having to produce an heir for the Akiyoshi house.”
“Silly. That’s the last thing on my mind right now. How do you think I feel as a woman, lying here night after night expecting you to make love with me, and hearing you snoring away in your futon as if it’s the last thing on your mind? If you want to know the truth, it took a lot of guts for me to crawl into your futon like this, as if I was some kind of hussy.”
“I’m sorry….” He was about to add more, but fell silent.
“Well? Say something, Fumio-san. You’ve been acting so cold toward me lately.”
“Have I?”
“Yes.” She turned her face aside. “I realize that a marriage can’t always be a honeymoon, but...don’t most couples usually have sex more often?”
To his surprise he noted tears in her eyes.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, alarmed.
A tear trickled down her cheek and Fumio felt a stab of guilt. He wished he’d been able to love her as any normal husband would. But a homosexual man married to a woman had to accept the fact that his life could never be anything other than make-believe, otherwise he would go crazy with guilt.
“Fumio-san, is this what you expected marriage to be like?”
Her sudden question caught him unawares.
But she didn’t even wait for an answer, merely shaking her head gently back and forth, almost regretfully. “I don’t know about you, but as for myself, it—it just doesn’t feel like I’m married at all. There’s been no big change in my life, no shifting of gears. It isn’t at all what I pictured it to be. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so. But that’s probably what everyone feels at this stage.”
“True. My married girlfriends also say there’s a feeling of letdown after a while. Maybe it’s just been built up too much. They always say that marriage means happiness for a woman.”
“Seiko, aren’t you happy?” He was afraid of the answer.
Still unable to look at him, she whispered in a voice so faint that he had to lean toward her to hear it: