Joshoku

by Hildred Billings

  Reina could only stare at them as if they had two heads and a tail. “I’m not interested in dating right now.” She had to choose those words carefully. If she insinuated it was just men she didn’t want anything to do with, it might raise some suspicions.

  “Really? Why not? One of the best things about being a woman is dating a man!”

  Speak for yourself. Reina would rather step into a bear trap.

  Before she could say anything, however, someone spoke up behind her.

  “Reina? Reina Yamada?” It was a girl in jeans and a T-shirt, swaying back and forth with an empty bottle of beer in her hand. A group of college kids cheered behind her over some drinking game. She doesn’t smell like alcohol at all. “From St. Francis?”

  Hitomi and Yoko regarded the drunken girl with sneers. Reina was glad to have a distraction. “Yeah? Do I know you?”

  “Yatta! It’s me! Katsumi Watanabe! From C class?”

  “Ah...” Yes. Katsumi. A girl from Reina’s class in high school. Boy, she sure looked different now than she did in her Catholic school uniform. So do I. Katsumi used to be another nondescript girl at St. Francis. No make-up, long hair, and a gentle way of speaking. This Katsumi had three years of college under her belt. Bad breath, a short skirt, and a waver whenever she tried to move more than three centimeters in any direction. “I remember you. Surprised you recognized me.”

  “You cut your hair!” Katsumi laughed so hard that she snorted into the top of Reina’s head. “Even so, I would always be able to recognize you. A girl doesn’t forget the girl who fucked her on her lunch break.”

  Katsumi may have snorted, but the table Reina sat at became deathly silent.

  “Oh my God, remember when you went down on me in front of my friend? I thought I would die! Ha!”

  Reina’s fingers gripped her chair.

  “Fuck, I’ve gotta go, it’s my turn at the game. Bye!” Katsumi stumbled back to her table with a drunken roar.

  If this were a gay bar, Reina would brush a woman like Katsumi off with a laugh or a knowing look to whomever she was with. If this were a gay bar, she would show some pride from having made such an impact on a girl. If this were a gay bar.

  It was not a gay bar.

  And the women sitting across from her were not patrons at a gay bar. They were two straight women with their mouths hanging open and eyes dilating in shock and intrigue.

  Reina had seen that look a million times. One would think she was used to the oncoming shitstorm.

  The door to Aiko’s bedroom swung open, forcing her to quickly stuff the magazine she perused into a binder. “Ma!” she cried, sitting up in her bed and staring at Junko in the doorway.

  “What’s this? Studying? You just started summer break.” Junko took three steps into the room, leaving the door open behind her. She always does this. Aiko had no expectation of privacy in her own home. Ever since she was a child, Junko would intrude in her personal space without announcement, whether in her bedroom while she changed or in the bath while she cleaned herself. There were no locks on the bedroom doors in the Takeuchi house. “Ara, what a diligent girl!”

  Aiko held the open binder fast to her chest. “Yeah, that’s it, studying...” Never mind that she didn’t want to look at another English text for a year if she could help it.

  Her mother put her hands on her hips. “At least you stay busy. Anyway, when is Reina-san coming over?”

  “Hm? Oh. Seven or so. Are you starting dinner now?”

  Junko affirmed that and stalked away, closing her daughter’s bedroom door behind her.

  Aiko waited a few seconds before reclining back in bed and looking at her magazine – the naughty one she never wanted her mother to know she possessed.

  She found it in her older brother’s things a year ago, when she was cleaning out the closet to help her mother turn the place into a guest room. I had no idea he kept such... filth. That’s what her mother would call it. A glossy magazine called “Joshoku Monthly” from the mid ‘80s. Big hair and bigger personalities on every page. And bigger tits.

  I wonder what it’s like to have big breasts. Almost every woman had them, whether fake or real. The first half of the magazine was Japanese models, full of interviews, written works from the women themselves, and demure shots of them wearing lingerie on one page and lying spread eagle with no clothes the next. The second half were foreign models, some of them from other parts of Asia, but most of them from either the USA or Canada. Big blond hair covered bigger breasts until it was time for them to bend over backward for the camera. When Aiko first found this magazine, she looked at it for the inevitable comparison of her body to these women’s. She kept it because discovering her sexuality made her more curious about certain things.

  In this magazine alone she could see a range of body types she couldn’t see anywhere else. There were the familiar parts that looked like hers, but then there were some that were nothing like what she had on her body. Or on Reina’s body. The Western models had curves that made them look like buxom goddesses; they had hair that was naturally curly and came in all sorts of beautiful shades; their skin ranged from pale white to deep black. Aiko studied every one of them, marveling at how different the female body could be from person to person.

  Of course, she also wondered what it was like to have sex with them.

  A year ago it brought her shame and embarrassment. Back then she could barely contain herself with thoughts of Reina making love to her, let alone a foreign stranger.

  Now she was more used to it. As the months went by, she picked out her favorite models from both sections of the magazine and stared at them until her imagination went wild with fantasies. Part of her relationship with Reina meant threesomes with other young women, and through those few experiences Aiko’s world had opened up to other women’s bodies. I won’t forget my first time going down on someone whose omanko literally looked like a blooming flower. She could now say she knew where that imagery came from in art.

  The doorbell rang downstairs.

  Aiko shoved the magazine beneath her pillow and bounded down to the genkan before her mother could answer the door. Just as she suspected, Reina was there, a whole hour early.

  Reina did not come over often. Maybe once a month at most – a far cry from Aiko spending nearly every weekend at her girlfriend’s house because Reina’s mother didn’t care about anything. My mother doesn’t even know we’re gay. Reina was “the best friend,” and Junko often inquired why such a person in Aiko’s life didn’t come to visit more often. Because we want to cuddle and make love, and we can’t do that here. Not without a lock on the bedroom door.

  “How are your studies, Reina-san?” Junko asked as they sat down for dinner. Shrimp salad with rice, miso, and marinara sauce covered the table. Since Reina was the guest, Aiko served her, giving her extra shrimp since it was one of her favorite foods.

  “They are fine.” Curt and blunt fit Reina until it came time to talk to Junko. “I finished my finals yesterday.”

  “Ah, so did Ai-chan. Wasn’t this your first semester?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very nice. Do you have a boyfriend yet?”

  “Ma!”

  Reina almost dropped her fork. “No.”

  “Mou, poor Aiko doesn’t have a boyfriend yet either. She says she goes on dates but...”

  Aiko froze as her girlfriend gave her a side glance. I say that to placate her. The less Junko interfered with her love life, the better. If Aiko didn’t lie about dates with boys she would be facing more random men in her house at the request of her mother.

  “Something should be done about you two...”

  Shortly thereafter, Reina decided she wasn’t hungry anymore.

  Aiko had an inkling that there was something wrong with her girlfriend. It wasn’t like her to be early, and it wasn’t like her to not finish meals. But Aiko did not bring it up for hours, not even when they were up in her room watching
a movie. Their routine consisted of cuddling and making out while they watched, since those were easy activities to recover from should Junko make an unexpected appearance. We almost never get to have sex here. Maybe that’s what was wrong with Reina.

  “I want another pillow,” she said, getting up and grabbing Aiko’s pillow off the bed. “Ah, what’s this?”

  Horror seized Aiko’s chest. The magazine! She forgot she put it there!

  “Ai-chan...” For the first time all night, Reina flashed her knowing smirk. “This is a porno mag.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Aiko tried to pay attention to the movie.

  “What do you have this for? Eh?” Her girlfriend crawled up behind her, breathing into her ear. “You like joshoku.”

  Normally Aiko would cower in humiliation at such an accusation. I’m not anything like that... She didn’t have the lust and zeal for women like her girlfriend did. Reina was the flirty one between them. Very few women stood a chance against her charms. I certainly succumbed to them. For the better. But Aiko often thought about how she would never be like Reina in that regard. Joshoku... as if.

  “This page is dog-eared.” The picture of the American woman with blond hair popped in front of Aiko’s face. “You like this one, huh?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Maa, she has a nice pussy. Nice tits too. I bet she would be fun to play with in bed. You think that too, huh?”

  “Reina!”

  “What? That’s the only reason a shy thing like you would constantly stare at her. You think about doing it with her. I don’t blame you. She’s pretty hot.”

  Aiko shifted her hips. So much for watching the movie now. “I’ve never done it with a foreigner before...”

  “Mi-chan is half white,” Reina said, referring to her best friend back in America.

  “You can’t really tell looking at her though... not if she stands still.”

  “Yeah, not until she opens her big American mouth. Or walks into a room like she’s gonna stick a flag in the middle of the place. Manifest destiny across the Pacific.”

  Aiko didn’t know whether to be appalled or amused at such imagery. “I’m surprised you know such a phrase...”

  “Me too.” The magazine snapped away. Silence ensued.

  Aiko decided to break it with a tentative question. “Have you ever... done it with a white or black woman? Like the ones in that magazine...”

  “Eh? Of course I have.”

  Of course she has! What a way to say it so candidly... as if the implication that Reina hadn’t was the offensive choice. To her? Yes. “I should have guessed.”

  “You make it sound like they’re exotic animals. Sheesh. They’re women like anyone else. They look different, may be more confident or louder... but sex is pretty much the same.” Reina wrapped her arm around Aiko’s midsection. “Maybe next time we go to Ni-chome we should find a foreigner to play with us, huh?”

  Aiko didn’t know how to respond. She rarely did when Reina was suggesting naughty things like that.

  The movie was a bust thereafter, with Aiko only half-watching and Reina flipping through magazines – dirty or no – while she stretched out on the guest futon on the floor. Every so often Junko’s footsteps would hover outside the door, preventing the couple from getting too handsy with one another. That couldn’t happen unless Junko left or went to bed. Considering Aiko’s father was out late that night, that was an unobtainable reality.

  Around midnight Aiko brushed her teeth and returned to her bedroom only to find her girlfriend lying on the futon and staring at the ceiling. The dirty magazine was left open to a page of a Japanese woman wearing a shoddy blond wig and talking about her “first time” back in the ‘70s. The way Reina sighed told Aiko that more than hormones were at work.

  “Doushita?” she asked, kneeling next to Reina.

  Her girlfriend looked away. “Nothing,” she said.

  “I think something’s up.”

  Reina scratched her neck. “I want a cigarette.”

  Nice try. Although her girlfriend had a nicotine dependency, this dance was nothing akin to withdrawal. Something else was up. “What else is bothering you?”

  Eventually, Reina mumbled about what happened at the party she went to the night before. It was Aiko’s first time hearing details about these people her girlfriend was studying with – well, outside of stripteases, as far as Aiko knew. They don’t sound like the type of people she would hang out with at all. Straight, for one. Fashionably feminine for another. Sure, Reina could handle the latter, but only if she knew they were into girls.

  “They tried to set you up with a male friend of theirs?”

  “That’s not the only thing.” Another mumble about stumbling into a girl named Katsumi.

  “Oh... so now they know that you’re... well, what happened?”

  Reina rolled over on the futon. “Nothing. I left before anything else could happen. I haven’t talked to any of them since.”

  Is that it? Aiko knelt behind her girlfriend and nuzzled her nose into the back of Reina’s head. It smelled of shampoo and stagnant cigarette smoke. “I’m sure it will be fine. Are you worried that they will treat you differently for being gay?”

  “Maa. Maybe.”

  “I understand.” Freshman year Aiko had two good friends. After she came out, one dropped out of school and the other not only stopped being friends with her, but spread rumors around their classes that she was dirty. Now Aiko was lucky to find underclassmen to work with on group projects. The teachers treated her as politely as ever, but her classmates... “But I’m sure it’s fine. It’s not like you to sulk about such things.”

  “I’m not sulking.”

  “Sure.” Aiko got up and dressed for bed, leaving Reina to pout in the futon.

  Usually they did not sleep together in Aiko’s house. Too risky, since Junko could barge in at any time and see her daughter cuddling with another woman. There’s two girls being intimate, and then there’s the line we cross. Aiko would climb into her bed while Reina conked out in the guest futon on the floor. But that night dear Reina looked so forlorn, so worried that Aiko could not bear the thought of leaving her girlfriend to deal with it on her own – even if that was what Reina was used to.

  Aiko pulled her desk far enough to block her door. At the very least, it would alert her if someone tried to come inside. She then set her alarm clock for fifteen minutes before breakfast, that way she could distance herself from Reina before Junko came on a tear to get everyone to eat. Lastly, Aiko turned off the lights and crawled into the futon with Reina.

  “It’ll be okay.” She didn’t get to offer assurances like this often. “You say so yourself that anyone who won’t accept you for who you are isn’t worth your time. Besides,” Aiko curled herself around Reina, pushing her lips against throat and shoulder, “I like you. I like you a lot. You’re funny and charming and...”

  Reina craned her head back. “And?” Ego fueling time.

  Aiko kissed her girlfriend’s nose. “And a whole lotta fun.”

  That’s what Reina liked to hear. She turned herself in Aiko’s arms and brought her girlfriend down for a kiss. It would not be the last one that night.

  Summer vacation brought with it two months worth of dates, work, and relaxation. Reina had forgotten how much she appreciated breaks when school was thrown into her life. Three years since she last embraced the month of August for giving her a reprieve from what school made her feel. By the time second term started in early October, she was refreshed enough to get back to studying – and thinking of Aiko naked – but not so much getting back to her social life at the college. She hadn’t heard from Hitomi or Yoko once in the two months since they last saw each other at the party. Reina did not think it was a simple lapse of memory.

  The first day of term was a warm one, the last blast of summer heating up the quad on campus as students ambled around
in search of friends and classes. Reina sat smoking on a bench, book bag wrapped around her as she worked up the nerve to go to her first kanji class of the semester.

  She was more nervous than she had been on the first day of college. Perhaps it was because she knew what to expect now. Hard work. Tests. The occasional aneurism. It didn’t help that she was expected to run to work an hour after classes were over that day.

  That’s not why I’m so nervous.

  It was the same scenario she replayed in her head every day for the past two months. Hitomi, sneering at her; Yoko, laughing at her. Inevitable. They hadn’t called her since that night. Sure, they weren’t friends outside of studying together... but it seemed strange.

  Reina extinguished her cigarette and got up. Time to face what was in store that semester.

  Kanji class was in the same classroom as before, and Reina took the same seat in the back she always took. This time she knew to pull out her notebook and start jotting down the characters on the blackboard. Indeed, ten characters were on display, written in the professor’s careful hand. They would surely be on a quiz the following week.

  “Hey.”

  Reina looked up and saw Hitomi standing in front of her, quaff of blond hair obscuring half her face. “Hi...”

  “How was your summer?”

  “It was fine. You?” That’s how she was supposed to respond, right?

  Hitomi shrugged. “Okay.”

  Yoko entered the classroom soon after, followed by the professor. Class started before Reina could think of something else to say.

  Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. Neither Hitomi nor Yoko said something bad to Reina, and from the way they continuously glanced back at her during class they still seemed interested in her. Why do I care? She wondered what they were giggling about halfway through class. Hitomi scribbled something on a piece of scratch paper while Yoko stifled her laughter. The professor never paid them any mind while he droned about stroke orders.

  After class was over Reina gathered up her things and prepared to hang out. Should I ask if the study group is still going? Hitomi and Yoko were getting their things together as well.