Joshoku

by Hildred Billings

“You know what I’ve been thinking lately?” Reina said, her fingers drawing circles on Aiko’s nipples while her words played into her girlfriend’s ear. “I used to get a big kick out of putting you in these situations. I wanted to see how you would react to having a woman you barely knew start to go down on you. But it’s been a while now, and I guess my feelings have changed. Now when I think of these situations, I think about how it makes me feel to share it with you. Like right now. You’ve got this beautiful woman eating your pussy, and you’ve spent the whole time pawing at me. It’s going to my head.”

  Aiko looped her arms around Reina’s shoulders and kissed her until Glitter’s tongue dipped into her hole. A moan shattered the stillness between them, and Aiko flung her head against the back of the couch, Reina still clinging to her. “Everything goes to your head.”Another groan filled her, thanks to Glitter’s fingers holding open Aiko’s omanko so her tongue could sneak inside.

  Reina didn’t answer any of that. She kissed Aiko again, this time grunting into her mouth to show how much it turned her on as well.

  There was no turning back now. Aiko could feel an orgasm stirring inside her, a group effort between Glitter’s nimble tongue and Reina’s pinching and throat sucking. In the moments leading up to her losing her mind, Aiko grabbed Glitter’s wig and pulled on it, a feat that made Reina laugh as she lifted up her girlfriend’s sweater and licked her nipple. Two talented women giving her so much attention... Aiko couldn’t help it. She missed this kind of sex in the months she and Reina went without it.

  “Iku,” she whispered into Reina’s ear. Her girlfriend smiled as if she won a prize. One moment later, Aiko was writhing against the leather couch, her toes curling in the air as both Reina and Glitter made sure she got the most out of her orgasm.

  “Owatta na...” Reina sat back in the couch as Aiko turned into a limp body. Glitter disappeared from between her patron’s legs, letting Aiko close them and return to herself. I can’t believe that happened. Of course she believed it. At this point she believed anything that happened in Reina’s presence. “That didn’t take you long to finish.”

  “You’re not finished though,” Glitter said, hopping into Reina’s lap. Aiko was awake again, her eyes fixated on the naked woman in her girlfriend’s hold. “Let me give you a good finger, for old time’s sake.” One of Glitter’s hands fumbled with the zipper on Reina’s jeans.

  Dark eyes glanced in Aiko’s direction. “That’s not necessary,” Reina said. She instead coaxed the stripper’s legs over her lap, one hand grabbing that naked ass. Fake blond hair shimmered in the black lights as it created a veil around dancer and patron. “But you can help yourself. My girlfriend should watch you get off now.”

  “That so?” Glitter licked her lip in Aiko’s direction. “Are either of you going to help me do that? I wouldn’t want to overstep my bounds.”

  “As if you haven’t tried doing that already? Maa, Ai-chan, should I help her?” Reina reached over and caressed Aiko’s cheek. “Do you want to watch?”

  Maybe. The perv inside Aiko liked watching. “I don’t mind,” she said sheepishly.

  “Eh, what a nice girlfriend you have!” Glitter embraced Reina and pulled her upright so their noses touched. “You better not disappoint her.”

  Reina would never let that happen.

  Watching Reina have sex with another woman was like viewing a movie in a detached fashion. She was virile, going at the other woman like an animal, full of grunts, energy, and a passion to please. But she was also Aiko’s girlfriend, so it was like watching... her girlfriend have sex with another woman. A long time ago Aiko accepted this was a part of her relationship with Reina. At first it unnerved her, but now... even with her clothes on, Reina was clearly enjoying herself. She kissed every patch of skin she could find and invited Glitter to hump her lap. Aiko had no idea how Glitter was getting off, but the dancer enthusiastically thrust herself against Reina’s hips and declared it too good to be legal. It isn’t. Aiko found herself staring at the lines of Glitter’s naked body, from her curvy thighs thrusting at Reina and to her heart-shaped face contorting in an oncoming orgasm. All Reina had to do was kiss those breasts and Glitter was off, her wig knocked off-center so her natural hairline peeked out.

  “Shit!” She almost fell off Reina’s lap, so she hopped off instead, landing on the far end of the couch with her wig completely off. A small bun of black hair was kept hidden beneath.

  “Everyone is so easy to get off tonight,” Reina lamented, arms draped behind her head. She invited Aiko into her hold, and her girlfriend acquiesced, smelling that stripper’s perfume all over Reina’s clothes. “I won’t be so easy.”

  Glitter stood up, wig back on and skirt pulling up her legs. “I am done. Gonna need to take a smoke break now, you damn hussy.” She waved at Aiko. “You two go ahead and finish your hour. I’ll make sure you get some privacy. Hey, how about I get you some more drinks? Since I can’t stick around even though you paid me to...”

  “It happens. I wear women out.”

  “Oh, be quiet.” Glitter blew a kiss and disappeared out the door.

  “Did you hear that, though?” Reina kissed her girlfriend’s forehead. “We get the rest of the hour to ourselves. Whatever shall we do with it?”

  Aiko knew. Made sure Reina knew too when they kissed on that couch as if a million other women hadn’t over the years. Or maybe as if they had. Reina’s had sex with so many women in this room. Why shouldn’t Aiko be the last one?

  The gathering to hear the reading of Aunt Kanoko’s will was small, consisting of Aiko, Junko, Junko’s sister, and two other older people Aiko didn’t know. It was the sort of affair in a stuffy lawyer’s office that Aiko was more than willing to miss, but the lawyer requested her to be there. Perhaps I’ve inherited something. What, she had no idea. Perhaps some jewelry or a small wad of cash. It was a nice thought, at least.

  Not as nice as the silence was in the room, however. The older people were grave, some sniffing even though Kanoko was a month cremated, her remains interred in her late husband’s family plot a few neighborhoods away. Aiko had gone to the funeral, one of the first in her life, but had yet to shed a tear for her departed great aunt. Not like Junko, who was one of the people sniffing in a handkerchief as the lawyer resumed reading out some of Kanoko’s will. This should have been done after the funeral, but according to Kanoko’s lawyer, there were “matters” to be sorted before the family could be summoned.

  “To my niece Junko Takeuchi, I leave my collection of Chinese silk linens. The ones embroidered with carnations. I remember when you were young and you used to admire them all the time. Now they light up your home as they did mine.”

  Junko blew some snot into her handkerchief. Aiko patted her mother’s shoulder while the others were courteous. “I really did love those linens...” Junko said from behind her hand.

  “To my great-niece Aiko Takeuchi,” the lawyer continued, and the room fell silent once more. “I didn’t know you very well, but I vastly enjoyed your company in the last year of my life. I’m sorry that was the state you knew me in. Besides your beauty and your kindness, what I remember most was seeing how happy you were with that young boyfriend of yours...”

  “Eh?” Aiko sat up. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  Uncomfortable shuffling commenced among everyone else. It’s like they have hemorrhoids all of a sudden. “...I cannot think of anyone who would need a house to make a home in more than you. Therefore I leave my home and my estate to Aiko-chan, so she and that young man of hers may make a home of it for themselves and their future children.”

  The room was deathly silent, but Aiko was aware of every pair of eyes – including the lawyer’s – on her. “She gave me a house?” she asked, standing up in surprise. One of the stranger women in the corner muttered something to her companion. “What am I supposed to do with a house?”

  The lawyer put the will down. “That’s what it says, Miss Takeuc
hi.”

  Since it was the last item on the will, the others argued with him for a good twenty minutes, trying to get him to see how ridiculous it was to give such a young girl that Kanoko barely knew a whole house in the suburbs. A house paid in full. There wasn’t even a mortgage on it. Just yearly taxes? Those could be quite numerous, even in Kita Ward. Aiko was still in too much shock to properly process what kind of responsibility was thrust onto her.

  Although the lawyer admitted he had tried to dissuade Kanoko from leaving her house to such a young person, he also said that his hands were tied and this was the law. By the time Junko and Aiko excused themselves so the others could fill out paperwork, Aiko was staring at the wall as if it contained the answers to the universe.

  “What in the world was that?” Junko asked out in the hallway. She took her daughter’s arm and continued, “Your poor auntie was so confused. It was so very sweet of her to leave you a house, but... oh, if that’s how it is, we’ll clean it up and sell it. How does that sound? You can use the money to pay off the taxes on it and put a nice chunk into your savings. Yes, that’s the responsible thing to do. Or you could sign it over to another family member! I think your auntie’s niece through another relative wanted that house. I will help you negotiate with her...”

  They were called back in. “As it is,” the lawyer said, “you cannot do anything with the house right now. There are other legal matters tying it up that do not concern you.”

  “When can I do something with it?” Aiko asked.

  “At this point I have no idea. Perhaps next spring, at the earliest. These things take time.”

  “Next spring!” Junko clasped her hand over her chest. “But who will maintain the house until then?”

  “A custodian has been procured.”

  “I don’t have to pay for it, do I?” Aiko joined her mother’s handwringing. “I can’t afford a custodian or the taxes...”

  “It’s been arranged by your great aunt’s estate. I will contact you when the house is ready to come out of holding and we will finish up the paperwork. Until then, you can think about what you want to do with the house.”

  “She’ll be selling it or signing it over, of course!”

  “Like I said, it will be arranged next year sometime.”

  Junko and Aiko left the lawyer’s office that day befuddled. “A house!” Junko kept muttering to herself on their way to the subway station. “A boyfriend! Oh, I wish you had a boyfriend. But what is there to do about it? You refuse to date and now you have some house.”

  She continued to mutter about it all the way home, alternating between her laments for her daughter’s dire dating prospects and her shock that her great aunt would give a whole house to a girl she barely knew. Aiko didn’t know what to think. There’s only one person I would move into a house with. As it so happened, it was the person Kanoko had in mind all along.

  Reina came home from work one Wednesday evening too sore to sit up. Although Mr. Kawaguchi’s offer to join his department had been enticing, Reina hadn’t taken into account that her role as the “new kid” would mean kowtowing to her senpai by getting them drinks, making their copies and faxes, keeping the office clean before and after work, and doing her own work on top of it. Being new sucks. She was used to starting new jobs and having to do the grunt work. But this was her first time working for corporate Japan, and although the pay was a huge leap from what she used to make even at the theatre, it left her sorer and grumpier in the evening than dancing on a stage for old men ever did.

  “Tadaima,” she mumbled, sitting in her house’s genkan and taking off her shoes. She let her briefcase rot on the hardwood floor. “Not that you care.”

  The television rumbled in the other room, so Sachiko was definitely home already from one of her jobs. But Reina learned a long time ago that her mother didn’t care when her daughter came and went. Just be quiet. That’s all she cares about. Yet Reina had to make a bit of a ruckus when she went into the kitchen to scrounge something up for dinner. She hadn’t received her first paycheck yet, so ordering in was out.

  “Urusai!” came the scratchy, slurred sounds of Reina’s mother a few meters away. She lifted her head off the sitting table, two empty bottles of beer in front of her. “Spoiled child. Always so noisy.”

  Reina slammed the fridge door shut for good measure. She also slapped a pot on the stove so she could make some noodles.

  “What are you doing?” Sachiko pushed herself onto her feet and stumbled toward the kitchen entryway. Her dark hair was matted to her wrinkly face, eyes swollen shut and beer remnants hanging on her chin. Reina remembered when her mother was once a cleaned up woman. Still a bit surly, but not halfway drunk all the time. Then Dad died. Sachiko’s gradual descent over the past ten years was not lost on her daughter. “Where have you been?”

  Reina looked up from the stove. “I was at work. You know, I’ve got a job now. A ‘real’ one, as you always put it.”

  “It’s seven. What are you doing back so late? You were supposed to get groceries.”

  “You never told me that. Besides, I don’t have any money right now to get groceries. I can get groceries next week after I get paid. You’ve been here longer than me. Why didn’t you get groceries?”

  “Don’t back talk to me. I’m not the one who dallied after work.”

  “I didn’t dally. I came straight home after work.”

  “This late?”

  “The hell is your problem? Dad used to come home this late all the time.”

  The tragic face looking back at Reina insinuated she had said the wrong word. Great. “Don’t talk to me about your father!” Sachiko slapped her hand against the pillar in the entryway. “You think I don’t know that?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you? I don’t think you are. I think you’re a lazy child who doesn’t give a shit about her mother!”

  Water hissed on the stove as Reina slammed a washrag down. “I don’t give a shit? Since when have you given a shit about me? You never talk to me unless it’s to criticize me. I’m sorry I’m such a fuck up in your eyes, but I thought that you would at least be a bit proud of me for doing what I’ve done!”

  “And what have you done, besides shame me ever since you were in high school?”

  “Excuse me?” Did you miss the part where I graduated college and got a job? Forget this.” Reina turned off the stove and went into the other room. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

  Her mother said nothing as Reina went upstairs to her room. She ripped off her blazer, her blouse, and her trousers, switching them out for sweats and a T-shirt. Her stomach grumbled. Of course she was still hungry. She hadn’t eaten since she scarfed down a sorry lunch of half cooked rice and soggy steamed vegetables. But she couldn’t deal with her mother when she was like this. Critical. Defensive. The only Sachiko Reina knew since her father died.

  She flopped onto her futon and waited for the sounds of her mother going to bed an hour later. Only then did Reina creep back downstairs and scrounge up some food.

  Halfway through eating and watching TV, the phone behind her rang. She answered it before her mother could scream down at her to make it stop ringing.

  “Reina!” Thank God it was Aiko’s sweet voice. Reina preferred a sullen night alone, but she would not say no to her girlfriend giving her some attention. “You’ll never believe what happened today.”

  Noodles slipped out of Reina’s mouth and back into their bowl. “What?”

  Aiko spoke a kilometer a minute, blathering about the reading of her great aunt’s will and how she inherited a whole house up in Kita Ward. Wait, what? Reina wasn’t sure she understood her girlfriend correctly until Aiko repeated it. “The house is in holding for a few months, so I can’t do anything with it but... can you believe it? I inherited a freakin’ house!” Aiko laughed, and it was all Reina needed to relax a bit.

  Of course talk of the house dominated their conversation, but A
iko asked how her girlfriend was doing and how work was. Tiring. Mr. Kawaguchi was a nice section chief, but the work was overwhelming at times. I could be doing way worse. She could still be handing out tissues on street corners or wearing short skirts on a stage.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking these past few hours...” Aiko said later. “I’m not sure what I will do with this house yet. Maybe sell it off or sign it over to a family member who really wants it. But I’ve also been fantasizing a little. What would it be like to live there on my own? I’ve never lived anywhere but in this house my whole life. Of course I couldn’t live somewhere like that by myself. But what if maybe... we moved in together?”

  Reina stared into her empty bowl of noodles and her mother’s losing lottery tickets beneath it. “You’re funny.”

  “I’m half-serious. We’ve been together over three years now. Wouldn’t it be natural for most couples to want to move in together? I know we don’t have a ‘normal’ relationship, but... oh, forget I said anything. It’s silly.”

  “I couldn’t do it anyway.” Thank God Reina could let her down gently. “My mother needs me to help pay the bills around here. She can’t do it by herself.”

  Aiko was silent for a second. “I thought you hated living with her.”

  “I do. I live for when she’s not here.” The scowling, the whining... Sachiko could be a right shithead. Deep down Reina loved her – she supposed – because she was her mother, but there was no respect or kindness between them. They worked to keep a roof over their heads, the lights on, and some food in the fridge. Reina coped by avoiding her mother and spending most days out of the house. A place to shower and sleep. The older she got, the truer it became. “But I guess I have some filial piety for my parents.” Old cultural habits died hard.

  “Of course. Like I said, I was musing to myself. We would be completely incompatible living together.”

  Reina laughed. “Yeah...”

  They hung up shortly after that. Reina stared into her bowl some more, wishing she could eat the delectable cooking of someone who took pride in that sort of thing. Like Ai-chan. Reina didn’t get to eat her girlfriend’s cooking often, but when she did, it was always fantastic. Imagine coming home to her every night. A home full of the bubbly warmth Aiko offered every time they were together. Reina would never admit it out loud, but the thought made her smile. Escaping this life for one with Aiko... that was the stuff of dreams.