by India Millar
“Well, if you see him again let me know.”
We moved casually with the crowd. I glanced from left to right carefully, but there was no sign of the man. Why, then, did the hairs at the back of my neck prickle again as though my body was certain we were still being watched? We were beside the river now, and I was grateful for the cool breeze that came off the water
“Isamu-san! It is so very good to see you again. It has been far too long.”
Isamu stopped abruptly. “Reo-chan. It’s good to see you again. Please, allow me to present my good friend, Jun. I am afraid you’ll find him nothing of a conversationalist. The silly boy has taken a month-long vow of silence to try and appease the gods.”
I almost winced at Isamu’s fond greeting.
“Indeed!” Emiko’s despoiler ran his gaze down from my face, through the length of my body.
She had described him as iki; I couldn’t see it. I thought his robes were a little too flamboyant for true good taste, and there was a distinct lack of good manners in the way he stared at me. As if he wanted to eat me up. I smiled, hoping he wouldn’t notice the way the muscles around my mouth bunched with the effort.
“What a deliciously unusual face! I wonder, does it indicate anything else that is exotic about the dear boy? I am enchanted to meet you, Jun.”
I bowed. At the same time, I thought curiously how very odd it was that in my incarnation as a boy, my features were not only acceptable, but Reo-san appeared to regard me as deeply attractive. When I was a girl, Emiko told me constantly that I was ugly beyond redemption. Truly, the ways of the world were weighted in favor of men! Isamu put his hand on my shoulder in an overt declaration of ownership.
“This is Jun’s first visit to the Floating World. I was just about to show him a lattice brothel.”
“Really? I would have thought that a little uncouth for you, Isamu-san!” Reo was smiling far too broadly for my liking.
Isamu shrugged. “Jun has to learn to distinguish gold from dross,” he said easily. “But so far he’s proved an excellent pupil. He’s already made a remarkably good impression on Hana-san. She invited him to visit the Hidden House.”
“Really!” Reo’s jaw dropped. “By all the gods, he must have something special. I’ve been dropping hints in Hana’s ear for months that I would be honored to be invited to taste the joys of the Hidden House and I still haven’t gotten there. I suppose you have?”
“Most certainly. Many times.” Isamu’s smile was inscrutable. “And I can tell you, you must intensify your efforts to gain admittance. There is nothing else like it anywhere.”
I smiled with him. I had disliked Reo when Emiko told me about him. Now that I had met him, I would have taken great pleasure in pushing him into the serene waters of the river and seeing him drown before my eyes. I had to force myself not to jerk back when he leaned toward me and spoke with apparent sincerity.
“There is no greater
Joy in this life than watching
Youth become a man.”
Emiko had said he had spent an entire evening composing haikus in celebration of her beauty. And now he was paying the same compliment to me. The rat!
“Come now, Reo. Would you try and steal my treasure? I really don’t think I can allow that. Would it amuse you to come with us to take a look at a lattice brothel?”
“Normally, no. But in the company of Jun—and yourself, of course—how could I refuse?”
He walked far closer to me than was polite. His gaze never left me, to the extent that he tripped and would have fallen if Isamu hadn’t caught him by the elbow. I willed Isamu to tell him to mind his manners, but my brother found the situation extremely funny. I could see the laughter in his eyes and the way he was fighting to stop his mouth twitching with amusement. I longed to break my vow of silence and tell him how this monster had deflowered Emiko and then thrown her aside carelessly. I stayed silent. It was impossible. Isamu would be furious with me if I so much as spoke in Reo’s hearing and spoiled his joke. If I told him what Reo had done to Emiko, the shame of it would probably be enough to force my brother to commit seppuku—vulgarly known as belly slitting—the most painful and lingering suicide available to an honorable samurai. And I was fairly certain he would dispatch both Emiko and me before he took his own life. Emiko for the shame she had brought on our house and me for revealing it to him.
I bit back the words. I had survived the nightmare of the cliff-face. I had no intention of dying here on the streets of the Floating World. Instead, I smiled sweetly at Reo, even as I cursed him in my heart.
“Here we are.” Isamu tugged my sleeve to attract my attention. I glanced at the building that ran alongside us and coughed to cover my startled grunt of horror.
“Anything that meets with your approval, Jun-chan?” Reo leered at me. He rested his head on my shoulder, his chin sharp in my flesh. I wondered with revulsion how the yujo we had seen could possibly accept this sort of arrogant behavior from their clients night after night. And for these poor girls behind the lattice, it was even worse. They didn’t even have a yujo’s freedom to choose their clients.
Reo was obviously out to impress me. He raised his head from my shoulder and almost danced the length of the building.
“What about this one?” he called. He poked a finger through the slats and tugged cheekily on one of the girl’s hair. I would have bitten his finger off. She smiled and put her head on one side coquettishly.
“Or this one?” He went even further with the second girl. She leaned forward against the wooden lattice, and Reo promptly fingered her breasts. I could hardly believe it, but she giggled.
“Oh, stop playing with the whore, Reo,” Isamu called. He sounded bored, and I was glad of it. “I don’t actually want to take Jun in there. I just wanted to show him one more of the delights of the Floating World.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Reo seemed to have found a girl who appealed to him. He was tickling her under the chin, his tongue stuck between his lips. “I quite fancy the look of this one. I don’t recollect seeing you before. New, are you? What’s your name?”
“Hayami, lord,” she whispered. “I only arrived here yesterday. This is the first time I have been offered to the honorable gentlemen.”
“Did you hear that, Isamu? Her name means rare beauty. Bit of an exaggeration, but she’s not bad. And fresh as well.”
“Believe that if you will, Reo,” Isamu said drily. “Still, if you want to dirty yourself here, that’s up to you. I think Jun may have seen enough for a first visit. Are you tired, Jun?”
I was nearly asleep on my feet, but I was determined not to show it. I shook my head firmly. Isamu was having none of it.
“Come on. Time we were on our way. It will be very late before I get Jun to his home. Reo, are you staying here?”
I glanced at Reo and swallowed hard. The girl he fancied had pulled her kimono apart so that her breasts were fully displayed. Reo had slipped one hand through the bars and was fondling her left breast happily. The girl sighed and put her head back, her eyes closed and her mouth ajar in apparent ecstasy. Just arrived today? Even I wasn’t fooled! But apparently Reo was.
“Of course, if Jun is tired, you must take the poor boy home.” His eyes remained fixed on the whore’s breasts as he spoke. “I rather think I will venture inside and see what price they want for Hayami here. I hope I may have the pleasure of calling on you soon, Isamu?”
“Of course. You are always welcome in my father’s house, Reo. Goodnight. I hope your flower is well worth her price.”
Reo took his eyes off his choice of whore long enough to dart over to us. He bowed courteously to Isamu. I had expected a quick bob of his head toward me, but instead, he slid his hands inside my sleeves in an oddly intimate gesture and squeezed my wrists.
“Do take care of this delicious creature, Isamu.” He smiled into my face. “I am so looking forward to meeting him again!”
Hayami appeared worried that she was losing a customer. S
he leaned against the bars and made kissing noises. Immediately distracted from me, Reo turned and walked back to her, rubbing his hands together briskly.
Isamu was grinning widely. I guessed he was amused by Reo’s choice of where he was to spend the remainder of the night. I kept a stone face. Surely my iki brother could see a fool when he was in front of one. Besides, look at the way Reo had treated Emiko. My anger lasted only a moment before it gave way to exasperation. How could Emiko ever have been fooled by that shallow idiot? Surely, even she could see that Soji-san was worth a thousand of Reo?
“Give any man the sniff of a bit of manko he really fancies and he’s lost to the world.” Isamu snickered.
I nodded absently. The lattice brothel had disturbed me deeply. I was filled with pity for the poor girls behind the lattice. Suddenly, Father’s plans to give me in marriage to a man I didn’t know seemed a great deal more tolerable. At least I would have only the one husband, whereas those poor girls had to accept strange men into their bodies every night. How could they live, I wondered, knowing that each day of their lives would be a repeat of the same humiliation? I think my thoughts must have been written on my face, as Isamu was suddenly quite serious.
“You feel sorry for those whores, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said seriously. “I can’t imagine what it must be like, having to display yourself like that. And then to be made to give your body to any man who wants you. It must be hell on earth for the poor women.”
“They enjoy it,” he said brutally. I stared at him in astonishment. Could he really believe his own words? “It’s an easy life for them, sister. All they have to do is open their legs for their customers and take pleasure in what is being done to them. In return, they are fed and clothed. They have somewhere to live. Unless they misbehave, they are not beaten. For most women, that would be more than enough.”
“But they’re not free,” I said lamely.
“You can’t eat freedom,” he said cheerfully. “Look at it this way. Most of those women were purchased from their parents when they were young girls. Their fathers would have been delighted to get rid of them. If they had stayed at home, they would have been one more useless mouth to feed. It’s likely they would have been sold off as slaves sooner or later. As it is, they not only bettered themselves by becoming whores and earning decent money, but they also gained great respect by sacrificing themselves for the good of their families.”
There was a flaw in that argument, but I could not find the words to explain it to Isamu.
“I would commit suicide before I allowed myself to be used like that,” I said finally.
“Would you? That is the onna-bugeisha in you speaking. I have obviously trained you well, Jun.”
“Will you bring me back to the Floating World, brother?” I dared to ask. When Isamu did not reply, I added, “Soon?”
“Perhaps. If I have the time.” He shrugged. I hid a smile as he added, “It has been quite amusing.”
We walked out of the great gate in companionable silence. Isamu would allow me to come back with him, I was sure of it. I was also certain that there was much more here that I had yet to experience. I looked forward to it!
I was so tired I worried I might drop into sleep on the way home and fall from my horse. Perhaps I did sleep and dream for I was sure that there was somebody behind us all the way, the rhythm of their horse’s hooves exactly matching ours.
All nonsense, of course. Whenever I glanced behind me, the road was empty.
Fourteen
I see. I hear. I
Feel. How much more good fortune
Could I ever need?
Perhaps I was simply too tired to sleep. I had often been like that as a young child. Emiko used to scold me constantly, telling me to stop talking and go to sleep. But if I’d had an exceptionally interesting day, sleep always refused to claim me.
I threw my—or rather, Isamu’s—robe to the floor. I would see to that in the morning. But sleep eluded me still. I tossed and turned on my futon until the kakebuton—the top quilt—was a wrinkled mess. I was physically tired, but my brain refused to slow down. I replayed the events of the day over and over again in my mind.
Should I, I wondered, tell Emiko I had seen Reo-san? I quickly decided not to. She would immediately demand to know whether he had asked about her, and I am a terrible liar. Besides, how could I explain what I had been doing in the Floating World with Isamu? If she believed me—which was unlikely—she would hate me for it. No, I would not tell her.
My mind finally at rest, I turned over, ready to find sleep at last.
I was wide awake again in a flash. I could hear a voice. Not a voice I knew, nor was it coming from inside the house. It was outside my shoji, very soft, repeating a single word over and over again. My name. Or, rather, the name I had taken for this evening’s adventure.
“Jun.” Pause. Then again, softly as the wind sighing through the grass. “Jun.”
I sat up and shook my head. Surely I had fallen asleep after all and was dreaming. My palms had blistered from gripping the horse’s reins. Very deliberately, I squeezed my fingernails into my own flesh and winced with the pain.
So, I was awake. I was not dreaming. I had been right when I thought we had been watched. And whoever the watcher was, he had the nerve to follow us home. Oddly, I realized I was almost jittering with energy rather than feeling frightened. Instead of shouting for a guard, I spoke softly.
“Who are you?” I asked quietly. I was sure I had spoken too softly and that he would never hear me, but I was wrong.
“Ah, sweet Jun. Shouldn’t you ask me why I am here? What I am doing outside your window in the hours before dawn calling your name?”
“Would your answer mean anything to me if I did?”
“I don’t know. That is something you must ask yourself.”
He was laughing at me. I could hear the amusement in his voice. I smiled to myself with him.
“Then why should I bother to ask you?” I responded.
I used the time before he answered me to listen to my own body. I should have been terrified, I supposed. A stranger had followed me all the way from the Floating World. Not only that, but somehow he had slipped past the guard who patrolled the garden around our house constantly at night. I was exhilarated and excited, but afraid? Not at all.
“How much did you bribe the watchman to let you through? I hope it was a lot. If Father finds out the man has taken bribes, he will not live to enjoy the cash,” I said conversationally. Under the cover of my words, I got to my feet and padded over to the window on silent feet.
“Watchman? Oh, you mean the man who was huddled over a brazier heating water for his tea. I assure you, he never saw me.”
I was at the shoji. I jumped with surprise as I realized the voice was no longer coming from there, but was over by the screen that led into the garden. The path that ran outside the house was graveled, both for beauty and to make it impossible for an intruder to approach without being heard. How had he moved without me hearing him? And more to the point, how had he heard me coming up to the window? I had not even heard myself move. I spoke calmly, taking care to show no fear.
“Well, my mysterious visitor, tell me. Why are you here? Why were you watching us in the Floating World?”
He laughed, very low. A finger of pleasure tickled my spine.
“I wasn’t watching your brother. I had eyes only for you, Jun.”
“Then you will be disappointed.” I moved very slowly, putting one foot carefully in front of the other, walking on my toes. “I was Jun only for tonight’s amusement. For the rest of the time, I am Keiko.”
“Of course you are. It is a lovely name, but not as lovely as the girl who bears it.” That caught me unawares. I teetered, one foot in the air and the other so arched it could barely support me. “Take care, Keiko. I would not have you hurt yourself.”
I put my foot to the floor quickly. There was a full moon, and a gentle wind caused the sh
adows of the shrubs to move languidly. But there was no shape of a man. How could he move so silently? How could he see me when I could not see him?
“I will not hurt myself. And neither will you. I’m not afraid of you,” I called at once. I heard him laugh, quite softly. His voice was delicious, as warm and rich as honey dripping from a spoon. I could barely remember what he looked like from the brief glance I had had of him in the Floating World, but it hardly mattered. I was beyond excited that somebody could be so taken with me that they had followed me about all night and had taken the trouble to pursue me to my own bedroom.
“Of course you’re not afraid of me,” he said. “Why should you be afraid of the man who is going to be your lover? Dearest Keiko, do open the door and let me in. I can hear your night watchman stirring. He may be deaf and blind, but even he can’t fail to notice me crouching here.”
I dithered for a moment. I should simply stay still and allow him to be found. I had told Isamu somebody was watching us; none of this was my fault. Instead, I darted forward and slid open the shoji, and a shadow glided through soundlessly. A moment later, I heard the watchman clatter past. He was so clumsy, I wondered how he failed to awaken me every time he passed.
I held my breath until the scrunch of his feet on the gravel had died away. I thought ruefully that even if I had been snoring lustily, he would never have heard it over the noise he was making himself.
“You are very beautiful, Keiko. I like you far more as a woman than I did as a man. And I have to say you entranced me even when you were a boy.”
This was ridiculous. And undoubtedly dangerous. I should be screaming for the watchman to return and take this upstart who had dared to follow me and invite himself into my room. He stood in front of me, almost close enough to touch if I stretched my hand out to him. I did not call out. Instead, I whispered, “Who are you?”
“Do you mean, what is my name?” I nodded. It would do for a start. “I am called Yo.”