“I’ve called you at least ten times. You’re not the kind of guy who misses two important meetings. Open up, come on. Everyone at the office is saying you’re turning into a hikikomori.” Ichiro stands still, a metre from the door, breathing slowly. Hikikomori. He hadn’t thought of that. It’s true he has no desire to leave his flat, but then he has a good reason to stay. It wasn’t as though he’d had a breakdown or anything like that. That doll, right there, cost 5 million yen, and she’s been entrusted to him. If she were stolen, he’d be responsible. He looks over at Eve, sees that she is emitting a light just like the moon, which is rising in the sky, its own light dimmed in the lights of Tokyo. Ryuko Mori is still chattering behind the door, but Ichiro no longer hears her voice. He walks towards Eve, raising one hand towards this source of energy, and sees that the kimono has fallen open over her chest. Below, her Mount of Venus is smooth and bare. Once again Ichiro is disturbed, and feels the need to cover her up. An absurd idea comes to him: Ryuko Mori’s knickers! He smiles and nods his head. She doesn’t come near Eve’s perfection. His mother had, but unfortunately she’d never worn knickers.
Women’s underclothes had tormented Ichiro from a very young age. His grandmother hadn’t worn any either, and she wasn’t even a geisha. She’d worn a koshimaki or a naga-juban, like the “real Japanese”. Wearing knickers meant you were imitating the Americans. She used to say, “You, Ichiro, you know what those Americans are like!” And it had sounded like a threat. As though Ichiro had had something to do with women’s matters. As though he could somehow bring his grandfather, blown to bits by the atomic bomb, back to life.
And so he grew up among women with no knickers. And, the only man in the house, he bore all the responsibility for Little Boy and for Fat Man, as though he were every man in the world.
Ever since he was a teenager, it’s been the little cotton panties, especially the white ones, the ones for children, that have driven him crazy. They are pure rebellion. Not to mention manga, where you learn what a pussy is through the pleats of panties that are rolled up, stretched, torn, pulled askew. Even so, and even though in Tokyo it is pretty common, Ichiro had never tried to procure a little girl’s little white panties. It was a line he’d never dreamed of crossing – until now. It would be like... opening Eve’s box and playing with her. Ichiro pushes the Playstation 3 away with his foot, to make some space. He asks himself, as he does, how he could ever have spent so much time glued to Final Fantasy. Now, just the idea of turning it on gives him a sick feeling, like the smell of food after having indigestion.
The sound of the elevator interrupts his thoughts. “Is it them, Eve?” Ichiro slides the knife into his trouser pocket, opens the door and peers outside. The concierge is coming down the hall towards him with a questioning look. Ichiro nods his head.
“Still nothing, ma’am. But I’m waiting!”
“Is there someone in there with you?”
“Yes... or, nobody, I mean. Look, I’m just putting these up.” Ichiro lifts the security camera above the doorway. “Could you help me? When I’m up on the chair, pass this to me.”
“Banzai! You’re talking about a knife, Ichiro san!”
“I can’t hear you. Now, hold the drill.”
“Like this?”
“Very good, hand it to me. There – from now on, everyone who walks by will appear on my computer screen, and an alarm will sound.”
“Well, you won’t sleep at night!”
“It’s just until tomorrow, ma’am.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Ichiro san.”
*
An hour later, Ichiro’s computer screen glows in the dark flat. At the top right, the image of the hallway. In the middle of the screen, the online catalogue for Suera, the original burusera shop, which does 24-hour home delivery. “So long as they don’t send an actual child, Eve. I don’t think I could... today, in the metro, there was an awful thing. A monster with fingers almost like tentacles, who threatened a— Fuck, they’re sick, these guys, listen to this:
Knickers stained with excrement: 5,000 Y
Very filthy G-string: 6,000 Y
Tights worn for one month: 7,000 Y
And this can’t be for real, listen:
Tampon worn during a period: 3,000 Y
Knickers worn during a period: 10,000 Y
Expensive, I’m telling you. And then there are the refrigerated items:
Urine: 5,000 Y
Saliva: 5,000 Y
They’re sick, people who buy actual shit. I just want a pair of panties to cover you. Eve?” Ichiro looks at her. “You’re so pretty, you don’t need anything.” Then he smacks his forehead with his hand. “I forgot!” He turns on the lights and, a few seconds later, he comes towards her with the red wig. He covers the pale skin of her head, sticks on the purple eyelashes, pulls the fluorescent pink fishnets up her legs.
“Me, I prefer a fiction, Eve. The distortion of the real. You see, to play like this, without anyone...” As he moves her, a little golden book falls to the floor. Ichiro flips through it. He looks troubled. After a few minutes, he drags the cello case in front of Eve, and opens it. Placing the book at his feet, he begins with a few chords. Then he plays. Play for mama. He shakes his head and keeps playing. The melody is dramatic, a siren song. Tokyo is flooded, burned. The neon explodes. A black, chemical smoke envelops the tops of the skyscrapers. His fingers press the strings, the bow sets them quivering and Ichiro breathes in the destruction that Eve has brought with her. One single wave, one single orgasm and Tokyo is submerged. All the men are dead and the alarms go on wailing.
Ichiro smells danger. From his nostrils, it insinuates itself into his skull, into the ankylosed mechanism of desire. He wants to bite her full breasts, still flushed from her bindings, tear off the fishnet stockings that mark her flesh. Suck at her pussy. She is real, Eve, and she drives him mad. His penis is pressed up against the back of the cello and it makes the body of the cello resonate every time he moves. His tie is undone, his shirt is unbuttoned over his smooth chest and his sleeves are pushed up, leaving his forearms bare, their swollen veins, tendons and tensed muscles.
How long does he play? It’s hard to measure time objectively. It is a succession of notes. At last he rests his bow and stands. He collects up the little gilded book and flips through it frenetically.
The user’s guide to Eve.
Eve’s fingernails are made of the real fingernails of schoolgirls.
“No, not this.” He turns the pages as though they are burning.
To undo the knots of Eve’s shibari, which is inspired by the grand master of bondage of the twentieth century, Denki Akechi, pay close attention to the following illustrations...
“Shit, where is it?” Ichiro tries to be calm. At last he finds the page:
The Liquid Silicone Rubber elements are the product of a reaction between two different gelatinous components. The process of reticulation, comparable to vulcanisation, can be accelerated or slowed depending on the temperature. Eve’s organ is perfectly adaptable for all sizes and can withstand temperatures of -60 degrees to +280 degrees.
Ichiro does not dare. But his member, swollen like a pufferfish, throbs. So much so that he lets the book drop to the floor before he finishes reading down to the bottom of the page: WARNING: Read these instructions carefully. “Excuse me, my sweet,” he says. Remembering the drawings in the user’s guide, he introduces one finger into Eve’s sex, the fleshy part of his finger turned up. And he feels it – the G spot, the ejection button. When he finds himself with the whole organ in his hand, he trembles with impatience. “I only need a few millimetres,” he tells himself.
In the kitchen, he puts the vagina in the microwave. He sets it for 30 seconds. And then he hears a long beep from the next room. He runs to the living room, convinced that there are thieves. But he trips over a slipper and lands on his arse on the tatami. There’s a stab of pain, and, paralysed for a moment, he looks outside. Daybreak, an artificial blue, transf
orms Tokyo. Between night and day. He rises, rubbing his tailbone. The screen flickers on his mobile: If you don’t make it into work today, he’ll sack you. Ryuko. “Fuck, Ryuko,” Ichiro whispers, between his teeth. He goes back into the kitchen and switches off the microwave. And then the burglar alarm begins to ring.
*
There are three of them. A commando unit.
They fill the computer screen. They’re coming down the hall, kitted out in chemical protective gear, brandishing funnels that look like hoovers. Ichiro is seized with panic. He grabs the knife, laughs, but it sounds more like a moan. He lets the knife fall to the floor. “It’s sarin, Eve.” He turns towards every corner of his flat, but there’s nothing that can protect him. They are only a few metres away when he hears the explosion. The smell of burning rubber fills the flat and Ichiro covers his mouth with his hand. His serious eyes fill with tears. He knows that that sound was Eve’s vagina exploding, but he says nothing. It’s all over. The men are at the door. Ichiro seizes the cello and throws open the door, howling like a samurai. The men step aside, and Ichiro trips over one of the funnels and glides into the air, his cello under him like a flying carpet. When they hit the ground together the body of the cello cracks like a nut, and splits open. Ichiro rolls over, encased in the instrument. He wants to see them, but the men’s faces are covered by masks.
He says, “Do whatever you want, she’s burned. Can’t you smell it?”
The three men look at him.
“What are you talking about?”
One of them offers him a gloved hand. “Stand up, sir – are you all right?”
“Perhaps you weren’t notified.”
“It’s weird, the concierge was just there...”
“Mr Uku, we’re here for the annual disinfection.”
But Ichiro can’t hear them, his ears are ringing. And it’s almost as though they ring with the song of a ningyo, a doll, a malevolent mermaid...
Glossary
ma – “between”, the time between two events, a space between two things, the relation between two people or two moments within the same story
pocha-pocha – a lapping, a swishswashing
muku-muku – a man’s excited grunt
tsupa-tsupa – a sucking, a slurping, the sound made between two mouths
baku – an eater of dreams, an imaginary being rather like a tapir. On waking from a nightmare, you must say, “Baku, eat my dream”
Higengo komyunikeshon – non-verbal communication
geta – thong sandals
shojo – a delicate girl-woman
tsuru-tsuru – the sounds a finger makes as it moves in and out of a wet vagina
bakemono – monsters in human form, such as vampires, werewolves and the like
ningyo – a doll, but when pronounced slightly differently, a siren, a malevolent sea creature
shibari – the art of erotic binding
kuritorisu - clitoris
kitsukitsu – a tight vagina
hikikomori – a voluntary recluse. Someone who shuts himself away, refusing any social contact; a symbol of the failure of a society
koshimaki – a skirt with a sash
naga-juban – a kimono you wear like a slip, below your clothes
banzai – an exclamation meaning “long life”
burusera – play on the words “bloomer seller”, seller of undergarments, and also of “bloomer sailor”, the name for schoolgirls’ knickers
Translated from Italian by Anne Milano Appel and Norah Perkins.
From THE SAINT
Tiffany Reisz
Tiffany Reisz is the author of the internationally-bestselling and award-winning Original Sinners series for Mira Books (Harlequin/Mills & Boon). Tiffany’s books inhabit a sexy shadowy world where romance, erotica and literature meet and do immoral and possibly illegal things to each other. She describes her genre as ‘literary friction’, a term she stole from her main character, who gets in trouble almost as often as the author herself. Reisz is a Romance Writers of America (RITA) Award winner, as well as a Book Reviews Award nominee. She lives in Oregon.
Søren lingered at her mouth, he kissed her and she returned the kiss with equal and even greater fervency. Their tongues mingled and she drank of the wine on his lips, swallowed the heat of his mouth. Eleanor winced as Søren nipped her bottom lip.
Søren dusted kisses across the sensitive skin of her chest. Under his mouth her heart pounded, her blood throbbed. She ached to touch him but every time she tried to move her hands the bonds held her. Kingsley had warned her about the bondage. Søren needed to stay in control as much as possible. The more helpless she was, the more he would feel compelled to protect her.
She inhaled as Søren licked the tip of her right nipple. He brought his mouth down on her breast and sucked gently as he teased her left nipple with his fingers. Tied down as she was, she couldn’t do much but arch her back to offer more of her breasts to him. He moved his mouth to her left nipple. Heat gathered in her breasts and melted through her stomach, settling into her hips. She wanted him inside her. No, not wanted, needed.
“Please, sir...” she begged.
“Please what?” He raised his head and cocked his eyebrow at her as if amused she would even dare beg for anything.
“I want you.”
“You have me.”
“I want you inside me.”
“I’m always inside you, Little One.”
Eleanor entertained a brief fantasy of stabbing him in the neck. But then he moved his lips to her mouth again.
“Patience,” he whispered against her skin. “I have waited years for this night. I won’t rush it.”
“Did you really want me from the day we met?”
“So much it scared me.”
He ran his fingertips down the center of her body until he rested his palm against her clitoris. It pulsed against his hand.
“I want you to come for me. I need you as wet as possible before I enter you. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.” She started to breathe heavier as Søren pressed the heel of his hand in deeper. He dipped two fingers into her vagina before pressing his now wet fingertips against her clitoris. Desire engulfed her as he made tight circles on the swollen knot of flesh.
Her hips rose off the bed and she went still underneath him. Her entire body locked up before exploding with pleasure. Her vagina clenched and released rapidly, fluttering inside her and pressing against nothing. She couldn’t wait to come around him, to let him feel her own pleasure on his body.
“Good girl,” he said, brushing a lock of hair off her forehead.
He kissed her nipples again as she recovered from her orgasm. He sucked leisurely, lazily, at them as if he intended to spend all night lying between her breasts. She had a vague memory of Wyatt kissing her nipples like this. When he had done it she’d watched him and felt tenderness toward him like a mother to a child. They might have been the same age but she felt so much older than him. But with Søren she felt like the property of a king, like Esther in a harem, captured and conquered. And like Esther, she knew she had conquered the conqueror with the greatest of all powers – love.
Søren kissed the valley between her breasts and his lips traveled down her stomach and over her hips. He nipped her hip bone with his teeth and the moment the pain registered, Søren moved between her thighs. Eleanor stiffened as he licked her, kissed her, made love to her with his mouth.
“Fuck...” she groaned, unable to contain herself. She hadn’t expected him to go down on her. He’d said he would pleasure her but this act seemed almost submissive to her as he knelt between her legs. But then he increased the pressure on her clitoris with his tongue and he pushed in two fingers and rubbed that soft hollow on the front wall inside her. He mastered her with his mouth. With his fingers he spread her folds so wide, exposing the entrance to her body. She couldn’t hide from him. He saw all of her, all her most secret places. He licked her clitoris again and again, and when she
came, she clenched at his lips and fingers.
He rose up and kissed her. She tasted herself on his mouth and couldn’t get enough of it. Had she imagined anything so erotic before? His hand traced a line down her body from her collared neck to her thighs. He slid his thumb into her and she winced at the strange sensation. The wince turned into a gasp of pure pain as he pressed down hard against her hymen, not hard enough to tear it but hard enough that tears sprang to her eyes. He inhaled sharply as if he registered her pain inside his own body. He experienced her pain as his pleasure. Let him hurt her, then, so he could feel the pleasure of it. Let him destroy her so she could be reborn.
The pain passed and Søren settled in between her thighs, the tip of his length pressing against her clitoris. She pushed her hips hard into his, opening herself to him, offering herself to him.
She looked up and saw Søren’s eyes were closed. His long, unnaturally dark eyelashes lay against his cheeks. The veins in his strong arms and shoulders quivered as he held himself over her. He started to speak but not in English. It was Danish, his first language. She knew some Danish, enough for her and Søren to tell each other “I need you, I want you” without anyone understanding them. But in her fevered state she could recognize nothing he said, not at first. He murmured the words like a prayer. She raised her head and pressed a kiss against his throat, her most favorite part of his body, the part hidden by his collar. The final words of his prayer she understood.
Jeg elsker dig.
I love you.
“I love you,” he said, in his first language, and the words rose like a banner over the bed.
With her eyes half-closed, she felt the world falling asleep around her. She heard music somewhere in the distance, a haunting solo voice almost inhuman in its beauty. Did she hear this? See this? Or did it all come from within herself like a dream half remembered only hours after waking? She buried her head in the hollow between Søren’s chin and shoulder. She breathed in and inhaled the scent of snow, new snow, clean and cold. And then she knew the truth.
Søren didn’t smell like winter. Winter smelled like Søren.
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