by India Millar
Without freeing himself from my mouth, he lay on his back so that I was partially on top of him. He grasped my shoulders firmly and lifted me up. I was still greedy for his flesh and tried to hang on.
As soon as I was free, Danjuro twisted me around so that our private parts met our mouths. I howled with pleasure as his tongue flicked into me, in and out and in and out. Not like a snake, for snakes are cold blooded and Danjuro’s tongue was hot, scalding my sensitive flesh. Like a forest fire, then. A fire that cannot be satiated until it has consumed everything in its path.
I jerked on his mouth, spreading myself against him, forcing as much of his lips and tongue into me as I could get. He sucked at my pearl and I thought I was about to explode. But no, for a second later he had taken his lips away and was running his nose up and down my opening, teasing and arousing at one and the same time. Then his lips came into play again, and his tongue, that eloquent actor’s tongue, was forcing itself inside me.
I thought that I could take no more pleasure. But I was wrong. Without removing his lips and tongue for a second, Danjuro slid his hand up my flank and slid his fingers in my anus. I was so slippery with my own juices that the movement was effortless. He worked his fingers in me for a few moments, and then withdrew them slowly, teasingly. They were soon replaced by his fingers and thumb, and then tantalizingly slowly, his whole hand. He clenched his fist and worked it around in me.
It was too much. I felt the heat build in my belly, spreading to my sex like a fast moving fire. I screamed against Danjuro’s flesh in my mouth and he laughed again.
It was only when my sensations began to ebb that Danjuro took himself away from my body, and turned himself so that he was half-sitting, half-crouching across my breasts. He began to thrust into my mouth, slowly at first, then so fast that I could do nothing except to try and contain him. When I could hardly breathe for the size of him, he gave one last, great, thrust and his ejaculation spilled down my throat, trickling out of the corner of my mouth since I could not contain it all.
Danjuro watched me dress and tidy myself in silence. This did not worry me at all; most men were quiet afterward. But I realized that I had not mentioned Mori-san to him, and that Auntie would be most displeased with me if I did not.
I left it to the last possible second, when Danjuro had risen and was courteously taking my arm to walk me to the screen door. He was smiling, a gentle, pleasant smile and I wondered who was the real Danjuro? The man who worried he was not good enough to be Danjuro? The intense, demanding lover that he sometimes was? The man who often just wanted to talk to me, who treated me as an equal in an unequal world? Or the man I had just seen, who was not just my Master, but reveled in the knowledge of it.
I shook my head at the uncertainty of it all, and then thought, did it matter? Whether the real Danjuro was one of them, or all of them, or somebody I had not yet met, what did it matter to me? I was here. In the kabuki. With my lover. That was all that mattered.
“Auntie has had an offer to buy me out,” I blurted, angry with myself for my clumsiness.
Danjuro stopped and his grip on my arm tightened. “You surprise me,” he said lightly. “I would have thought that a geisha of your beauty and talents would have had many offers.”
He was playing games again. I knew it. Very well, two could play that game, not just one. I smiled up at him, as gaily as I could manage. “Ah, but Mori-san has not offered for me just once, but three times. Each time he has increased the amount he is willing to pay to secure me. I think Auntie is becoming tempted.”
“Mori-san.” Danjuro was fingering his upper lip in a gesture that was familiar to me. He often did that when he was trying to work on a difficult piece of dialogue, and I was delighted. He didn’t know he was doing it, but it meant he was concentrating. “I know the name. He’s a goldsmith, isn’t he?” His tone was unconcerned, but I knew better.
I nodded, waiting. He was using the silence as only a skilled actor could, waiting for me to falter and be forced to speak again. I did not. Finally, Danjuro spoke slowly.
“You may tell Auntie that I would be very displeased if she accepted an offer for you. From Mori-san or anybody else.”
He turned away and held the door open for me. Suzume was waiting outside, and she bowed deeply. Danjuro nodded at both of us, kindly. We could have been honored guests that he had entertained with tea.
I trembled when I gave Auntie Danjuro’s message. I thought that she would be furious, but she was delighted. “As good as we could have hoped for!” she crowed. She saw my bewildered expression and wagged a minatory finger at me. “A man like Danjuro knows how the game is played. We could not expect him to make a counter offer for you straight away. He would not do that. But he has indicated that he is interested in you, child. It will do. Oh yes.”
I was pleased, and hoped that she might divert Mori-san to somebody else. But she did not. A bit of competition would do Danjuro no end of good, she said.
Chapter Fourteen
Fireflies share their beauty
With the night.
We are sisters.
The day for Suzume’s mizuage had arrived. She had asked Auntie – brave girl that she was! – if she could resume her given name of Mineko once she was no longer a maiko, and Auntie had agreed. I had thought of her as Mineko for so long, I was delighted.
I had gladly agreed to be her Older Sister and had spent weeks answering her avid questions. I explained the order of the day: the visit to the bathhouse, her makeup, putting on her kimono, and finally the feast where she was introduced to her danna. “You were there for my mizuage feast, you saw how it went.”
She nodded, her little face very serious. “Will Auntie watch mine in the same way she did yours?”
I frowned. I had always been aware that Auntie had peepholes everywhere, but I still did not like the idea that she was watching us with the patrons, making sure that we girls performed as she wanted. Mineko must have guessed what I was thinking, as she smiled slyly.
“Perhaps we should think of it as a little kabuki performance?”
We both laughed at the thought and the tension was not so much broken as shattered. We had been through too much together, Mineko and me, to have any secrets between us. We still did not know who Mineko’s danna was going to be. Normally, rumors would have been circulating weeks before, and by the week of her mizuage, we would all have had a shrewd idea of who the danna would actually be. I would have been happier if I had known, at least then I would have been able to coach Mineko in the best way to please him. Stranger still, Auntie announced that the danna himself was providing Mineko’s kimono, and that she was to keep it as a gift afterward! Now that was almost unheard of. Very occasionally, a girl who was obviously going to be an exceptional geisha was honored in this way, but it had never happened to anybody in the Hidden House.
Stranger and stranger. Even the normally imperturbable Mineko was beginning to jitter. Who is he? We all wondered, turning names over in our heads. But we couldn’t come to any conclusion. Even Mori-san, who had given me presents, had never gone so far as to buy me a kimono. Kimonos, with their rich embroidery, were fabulously expensive and were the main reason why so many geisha could never hope to be out of debt to their Auntie.
And Mineko’s kimono was sumptuous. Made of the finest silk, it was embroidered with gold thread and tiny seed pearls. We were all deeply envious of it.
I prepared Mineko’s makeup with a hand that shook. Her danna must be an important man, a very rich man, to afford this. Even her undergarments were sheer silk, edged with contrasting colors. I sat back on my heels and looked at her admiringly.
“Mineko, you are truly beautiful. I hope your danna appreciates you.”
A sudden thought nearly choked the words in my throat. No, it was not possible. This couldn’t, could it, be some sly trick of Danjuro’s, to punish me for flaunting Mori-san before him? Other than himself, of course, he had never given me anything more than some nice bits of jewelry, certainly noth
ing to rival the magnificence of Mineko’s kimono. I had seen him a number of times since the day I had told him about Mori-san’s offer for me. Though, now that I thought about it, he had chosen to visit the Hidden House rather than summoning me to the kabuki theater. But he had been the same, hadn’t he? Or at least the same as Danjuro ever was, this consummate actor who seemed to be half a dozen men all living in the same flesh.
Worry burned like acid in my stomach. I winced and pretended to Mineko that I had been crouching for too long and that my foot had cramped. I don’t think she was fooled, she knew me too well.
I adjusted the folds of her kimono, jealousy almost making me want to vomit. Danjuro? Danjuro and Mineko? Had he ever even glanced at her? Not that I had noticed, but now, I began to wonder. He wouldn’t, would he? His mocking voice echoed in my head. Who is your Master, Midori No Me? He would. Oh, but he would.
I fixed my face into a smile of welcome as I escorted Mineko to the reception room. We paused outside the door, listening to the sound of the samisen and laughter.
“Ready?” I whispered.
Mineko nodded and slipped her hand into mine. Her fingers were deadly cold. “I know he can’t hurt me, Midori-chan. But I’m still terrified.”
I forgot my own worries and slipped my arms around Mineko, hugging her as tightly as I dared without disturbing her makeup or her kimono.
“Don’t worry,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “I’ll be close by. If it gets too much for you, shout for me. Your danna can have two for the price of one if it comes to it!”
Mineko giggled shakily and we entered the room side by side.
The yakuza who had stopped me on my first visit to the kabuki was lolling on the tatami in the place of honor, his chin cupped in his hand. Three of his henchmen sat across from him. I couldn’t remember his name, but Mineko could. She hid her face behind her fan and hissed, “Yoshida Akira. Akira-san.”
If I hadn’t been so relieved that Mineko’s generous patron was not Danjuro, I would have remembered the dreadful man’s name. Abruptly, a wave of fear for little Mineko washed over me, drowning any thought of Danjuro. Or perhaps not drowning him, exactly, but putting him aside for the moment in the face of this new worry.
Something was wrong here. Something was very wrong. Akira-san had barely glanced at Mineko that day. His whole attention had been focused on me, or at least I thought it had. And I knew he had never been to the Hidden House before. If I had been absent when he came, the gossip would have found its way to me. I had told him he could find me here, certainly, but he had not sought me out. Now here he was, buying my poor Mineko’s virginity. And not only paying for the mizuage, but also paying far more for Mineko’s beautiful kimono and undergarments, an unbelievably extravagant gesture.
Suspicion flared brighter than the lamps that illuminated the room, but I kept a smiling face. We – Mineko and I – had our parts to play. No matter what.
Mineko tottered forward and bowed deeply to her yakuza. He smiled and nodded at her, gesturing for her to sit by his side. Deeply courteous, he gestured to one of the maids to pour her a cup of sake. I was left standing, totally ignored.
I glanced at Auntie, who was beaming and nodding like a puppet, manipulated by unskilled hands. Deeply embarrassed and feeling totally out of place in my own home, I was forced to simply stand as the feast progressed. Etiquette demanded that I could not sit down until the guest of honor indicated that I should. Equally, the same politeness dictated that none of the other girls, not even Auntie, could pretend to notice me until then. I smiled and smiled, into thin air, more worried every minute.
The feast was nearly over before Akira-san pretended to see me. He was a terrible actor. He looked startled, his grey eyes wide open with surprise, and he placed his hand over his heart as if to hold back a jolt of shock. Two could play at that game, I thought, and I unfurled my fan, holding it in front of my face as I tittered like the true geisha I was.
If Akira-san was a bad actor, then that night I was a great one. He jumped to his feet, his expression a mask of concern, and took my elbow, ushering me to a suddenly vacant place on his left. I smiled and bowed and fluttered my eyes at him, as though he was doing me the greatest honor by finally acknowledging that I was in the room. I lowered my gaze to the tatami and murmured my thanks for his condescension in noticing my humble presence. I could feel the puzzlement bouncing between the other girls, but they simply carried on as if nothing strange was happening.
Akira-san pressed a cup of sake on me, and I accepted it with fulsome thanks. Would Akira-san like me to play on the samisen for him? Or perhaps dance? I asked. Akira-san said he would be greatly honored to hear me play.
I took the samisen from Auntie – who was nowhere near as good a player as I was – and after I sat behind it, I began to pluck out one of the melodies from the current kabuki performance. I thought I saw Akira-san hide a smile that might have been amusement, but it might equally have been a grimace.
And so the evening wore on. Mineko was getting quite tipsy. Not a bad idea, I thought, as I was beginning to dread whatever Akira-san had in store for her. The Hidden House had never entertained a yakuza before, so none of us had any idea what to expect. As the sake was replenished, Auntie began to beam more and more widely. This must be costing Akira-san a fortune. And for what? To deflower one poor, defenseless little girl. Perhaps I had had more sake than I thought, as once the idea had taken root in my mind, I could not get rid of it. I became angrier and angrier.
How dare this stranger, this low-class gangster, come into the Hidden House and behave as if he owned not just the house, but all of us in it? The more my fury built, the wider I smiled and the deeper I bowed at every witticism uttered by one of the yakuza. The gleam in Akira-san’s eyes became ever brighter.
As midnight approached, Akira-san clapped his hands and rose. He bowed deeply to Auntie, and at his signal she got up – shakily, somebody else who had taken too much sake! – and began to usher us all out. But Akira-san stopped her with an oddly elegant gesture of his hand.
“My friends would also like to be amused while I am preoccupied.” He smiled widely. Auntie was nearly bent double bowing. I could see the pile of coins mounting in her abacus of a mind.
I knew, just knew, what was going to happen. Even so, I could hardly believe it. Akira-san’s thugs rose to their feet quickly. One went over to Kiku and bowed to her. Another chose little Masaki. The third paused by me, but then passed on and put out his hand to Naruko. Even though I guessed instinctively that our earlier meeting was behind all this elaborate play-acting, this final, carefully planned humiliation left me bewildered. This was a rich and powerful man. Head of the most feared yakuza gang in Edo. Why was he spending so much time and money to humble me, a nothing in his world? He had appeared amused by my defiance at our first meeting. But now I wondered, had he decided he had lost too much face by my refusal to kowtow to him in public? Apparently he had.
Within a minute, the room was almost empty. The maids came in to clear the feast and lay down the futons and bedding. I stood and stepped aside to allow them to work. For one terrible second I really thought that Akira-san was going to pile further insult on me and ask me to stay, to watch or even participate.
But at least I was spared that indignity. Once the maids had finished, he bowed with great politeness and simply stood, obviously waiting for me to leave.
I bowed even deeper and backed myself out.
Chapter Fifteen
Those the gods wish to
Demean, are first
Given great pleasure
We all clustered around Mineko as soon as we could next morning. Akira-san had stayed all night with her, not departing until dawn. His entourage had also stayed with the other girls, and they all presented warm, satisfied faces, their eyes still lazy with sleep. I hated every one of them, and I was sure they were all smirking behind my back.
“Well?” Kiku demanded. “What was he like? We’ve never
had a yakuza before. Do we want one again?”
All the girls giggled happily. I joined in, but each laugh cut my tongue like a sword.
“He was lovely.” Mineko was beaming shyly. I stared at her in disbelief. What did she mean “lovely?” The man was a gangster, a ruffian. Surely, he had played some strange games with her? Surely he had wanted his money’s worth, not just for the mizuage, but for the incredibly expensive kimono?
“Didn’t he try and hurt you?” Naruko demanded bluntly. I was very glad she asked. I was dying to ask, but felt that I couldn’t.
Mineko shook her head. “Not at all. He said that I was a dear little flower, and he was glad that it was he who had plucked me.”
We all stared at her in astonishment.
“Akira-san said that? But he’s a yakuza!” I finally blurted out. “Not just a yakuza, you told me he’s boss of the biggest yakuza gang in Edo. They say he’s killed more men than I could count!”
Mineko shrugged. “I can’t help that,” she said smugly. “He wasn’t at all like you would expect from his reputation. He was really gentle and patient. He showed me what he wanted me to do for him, and later on he said he was going to make me happy. And he did, too.” Mineko’s voice was doting. I itched to give her a slap.
Kiku’s face was a picture. Her eyebrows rose and she grinned. “Well, there is something new under the sun after all! I must admit, his…associate was a pleasant change as well.”
The rest of the girls murmured their agreement. I shrugged and tried to look as if it was all irrelevant to me. As if I couldn’t care less.
“There was one thing that was a bit odd.” Mineko’s little face creased in puzzlement. We all looked at her with avid interest. “Akira-san was very nice. Very…practiced. But he never took his clothes off. Not so much as his robe. Not all night.”
We stared at each other with interest.
“Didn’t he visit the bathhouse?” I asked. “I was too busy getting Mineko ready to notice. He was already here when we came in. I assumed he had been to the bathhouse first, as customary.”