by Livia Ellis
She reaches for me. My shirt is given a tug. Join her.
I make a tactical decision and just go for it. If this is her way of saying let’s just make up and be friends that get naked, I’m into it.
I strip off my clothes letting them fall to the floor as gravity intended.
She moves around, splashing a bit, and in general being very both adorable and sexy. I’m into this. I like this Olga. This Olga is a lot of fun.
Before I get into the bath, she gets out. She stands behind me and begins running her hands over my body. When I’m stiff as a stick and pointing towards the far wall, she returns to the bath. The water is still running and it’s begun to spill over the sides into the bed of polished black volcanic rocks ringing the base.
It’s slightly warmer than I like it, but I’m not going to complain. Before I can sit chin deep in the water, Olga pulls me to her as we stand.
Her teeth nip my earlobe as her hand splashes in the water pouring out of the spigot. One word comes from her. Cameras.
I glance around. Cameras. Fuck me we’re being watched. No wonder.
Someone wants a show. Fine. We can give them a show. This is what we do after all. This is what we are being paid for.
Olga is attentive and fawning. I make a few attempts to engage her, but she laughs girlishly and tells me to let her do what she likes best to do.
Which is?
To make me happy.
The effort it takes me not to laugh out loud at this absurdity nearly damages my internal organs.
Whatever. I let her service me. She washes my body with her own. She massages my shoulders, my neck and my head.
When I exit the bath she dries my body and wraps me in an indigo dyed yukata.
I lay on the mats which make up our bed and let her have me.
As much as I enjoy the attention, I know it’s not real. Every flutter of her tongue, flick of a hand, or brush of her lips is not really for me. It’s for whoever is watching.
Her thighs straddle mine and a condom is rolled on. The way she slips on me with her back arched, her neck long and her breasts sticking up and out is stunning to behold, but wholly artificial. This is not how Olga likes to make love. This is acting.
But it works for me. I certainly don’t hate it and my body responds as expected.
Like a well-orchestrated dance routine, her climax is both anticipated and nicely choreographed. I think it might have been genuine, but why ask?
She slips off of me, cleans me up, puts on a pale pink silk robe, and then massages my feet.
I am not complaining. I lay on the mat staring at the ceiling and listening to the rain on the leaves in the garden. I hope they leave us alone until it’s time to leave. If the Samurai wants to watch us fuck as if we don’t think we’re being observed, fine by me.
But we’re not left alone. I only hear the nearly silently footsteps the last moment before the man in the mandarin collar slides open the door.
We are invited to join The Samurai.
Both of us?
Yes.
Olga rises from the mat securing the silk kimono robe around her body. She needs to change.
Not necessary. We can come as we are.
I rise from the mat, tie the blue and white print cotton robe tight around my body, then follow.
We are brought to a room not unlike the one we left.
Olga kneels and I copy her. We wait. A door facing us slides open.
The person who enters cannot be the Samurai. The person is rather diminutive. If it is the Samurai, I am confused. Best guess, Harold is about my size. I’m not a large man, but I’m tall and reasonably strong. Add to that the assumed fact Harold spends more time at the gym than I ever will. It is not posturing to believe I could easily overpower this person if he tried to harm me.
Olga bows. I follow her lead.
This is the Samurai. This rather androgynous person who looks simultaneously like a pretty man and a handsome woman couldn’t possibly have done to Harold what I have been led to believe. But then again, what do I know and who am I to question the voracity of Harold’s story?
He tells Olga to remove her robe. He speaks English well. He wants to look at her.
Olga rises, removes her robe, and lets it fall to the ground. She stands in the middle of the room.
The Samurai is nearly half a head shorter than Olga. He approaches her as if she is a curiosity. A lovely statue in the Louvre meant to be observed.
I watch filled with curiosity as a most inscrutable ritual begins. The Samurai walks around Olga as he examines her body.
Occasionally a hand strokes a hip or a finger touches a nipple.
He gets on his knees in front of her and stares at her black hair covered sex.
Thoughts of that odious Booth Buxton stopping me in the Four Seasons lobby and wanting to know about the sex parties fill my head. Booth Buxton wouldn’t believe this if I brought him video.
I have to admit I’m dying of curiosity to know what The Samurai is going to do.
His fingers start probing her. Not in a sexual way designed to elicit a physical response from her, but rather just as if he is very curious to see her bits.
He tells her to lay down.
She lays down stretched out flat.
The Samurai begins to stroke her body. He touches her breasts, running his hand around the perfect curve. He is beautifully gentle with her. I don’t know if pretty is a good adjective to describe the motion, but it is the best I can imagine. It is worshipful.
Physically, Olga is as close to perfection as a natural woman could hope to be. She is without surgical enhancement. I cannot help but to wonder if back in the day when people worshiped gods and goddesses without questioning their existence, but rather a pure knowledge that they simply were, would Olga have been set apart for her beauty? Would she have been a temple maiden? Or worse, a sacrifice? Something pure and perfect to offer to the gods?
The way the Samurai touches her feels like worship to this observer.
The Samurai has her open her legs. He kneels between them but back a distance so he can look at her sex hidden amongst the curls of black hair.
I hear myself hold a breath as he reaches out a finger to touch her.
I don’t know how long this study of the perfect female form takes, but it feels like a while.
A moment comes when the Samurai is suddenly done. He rises from the ground next to Olga and takes a place across the mat.
Olga is dismissed.
She rises from the ground and puts her robe on.
I rise to go with her. Before I’m too my feet, the Samurai tells me to stay.
Olga goes.
I don’t know what to do, so I go back to my knees.
Do I like sake?
Yes. I like sake very much. (I do not add that I could really use a drink after what I just observed. I’m both incredibly turned on and honestly a little unnerved.)
Saki is brought for us.
We drink.
We talk.
Do I think Olga is very beautiful?
Yes. Of course. Olga is very beautiful. That is without question.
We drink more.
We talk more.
Can he look at my body?
Yes. I stand and open my robe letting it drop to the ground.
I undergo the same sort of inspection Olga had performed on her, but he doesn’t touch me. He just looks.
He thinks I’m very handsome. Do men envy me?
I don’t know. If they do then they need to reprioritize.
I can put my robe back on.
I do this then sit again.
We drink more.
We talk more.
I try to be professional, but I get drunk. This is what happens when sake is poured down my throat. I cannot be certain, but I do not think the Samurai is drinking nearly as much as I am even though he keeps refilling my cup.
Do I like men?
This question again. Do I have to like one
or the other? Can’t I like both? When I’m drunk I think I’m so very eloquent. I doubt that I am in reality. How do I put this? I’m open minded doesn’t cover it. I like everyone. I’m not picky isn’t right either. I’m not picky but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is I think everyone is beautiful in their own way. No. I think that’s a song. I’m not being very clear.
Do I think there is beauty in a transgender person?
Yes. Of course. He should meet my aesthetician. Now that’s a good looking woman.
I do not find them unnatural?
Not in the slightest.
Would I make love to a transgender person?
Yes. If I found that person attractive, charming and interesting.
I wouldn’t do it just because I found them a curiosity?
No. Maybe. Not anymore. That’s a bit immature and not really respectful.
What about intersex?
Intersex. I know this word. Does he mean hermaphroditism?
Yes. But he likes the word intersex better. What do I think of intersex people?
I think they’re people. I don’t think they’re strange or bad or anything stupid like that. They’re just people that are neither one or the other. Sort of like me in a way. Except I’m all man physically, I go back and forth mentally on what really puts the snap into my turtle. Am I making any sense at all?
Yes. Do I like secrets?
Of course.
Can I keep a secret?
Would he like to tell me a secret? Because it’s a good moment to tell me a secret. My memory is notoriously bad after I’ve been drinking.
He rises from where he’s been sitting. He unties the sash on his black robe and lets it fall open.
I see his very small penis that is erect and probably no longer or larger than my thumb. His hand comes to his genitals. I don’t realize what I’m looking at for a long moment. Then I get it.
He’s like an Aphroditus statue in anasyromenos pose. But in reverse. He is a man lifting the veil and revealing a different sort of secret.
I look up from where his fingers are opening the folds of a vulva, to the penis, to his face.
You’re a woman. It’s so clear. How did I miss this?
Do I think she is a woman?
I don’t know. Does she think she’s a woman?
Yes. But everyone else thinks she’s a man. This is what her parents wanted. But she doesn’t feel like a man.
Then she’s a woman.
This is what she thinks too. But she lives her life as a man.
Can I touch her?
Do I want to touch her?
Yes. I would very much like to touch her.
Do I think she is strange?
No. On the contrary. I think she’s wondrous.
CHAPTER NINE
Secrets and Lies
This wondrous creature stands before me. Neither man nor woman. But something else entirely. A beautiful hybrid. A lovely tea rose. Two things brought together to create something wholly perfect in my eyes. She is the physical embodiment of what I most desire. Neither one nor the other. But both. Everything I physically desire in one body.
Her kimono open, her sexual organs exposed.
I have been granted a special favor. I am allowed inside this secret so carefully guarded against public scrutiny.
I look but I don’t touch.
Her skin is that of a perfect porcelain doll. She is without blemish or freckle. Slim hipped, legs like a baby giraffe, small rounded breasts. A penis no longer or larger than my thumb. No testicles. Just a perfectly pink vulva opened by her fingers and inviting me to look closer.
She’s plied me with sake and taken the edge off of my ability to respond.
I look to her face after careful scrutiny of her body. It is clear she is concerned, fearful even, of how I might react. When I am again sober I will remember this moment and wonder what truly happened with Harold.
Can I touch her?
No.
The robe is closed and tied. The secret is again concealed. I am denied access to the thing I desire most and want it all the more.
She leaves the room by slipping through a door concealed behind a screen. .
The Servant enters a moment later.
I am dismissed. I am to return to my room.
Olga sits on the bed. Wrapped in her robe. One of the three dozen magazines she insisted she absolutely had to have open in her hands.
So? Did The Samurai get all freaky on me?
I don’t want to hear it. I take the magazine from her, toss it against the wall, and then fall on her.
She instantly responds to the roughness of my hands, the insistence of my mouth, and the desire she assumes is directed at her.
We roll on the bed like two rutting beasts. We fuck like it’s the end of the world. We are the only two survivors in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Humanity depends on our ability to get off.
I raise her legs over her head. I turn her on her stomach and take her from behind. I write a new chapter to be included in the Kama Sutra. I’m a fucking machine. I make Ron Jeremy look like an amateur with my prowess. If screwing were an Olympic sport I would have brought the gold home for England.
When we are exhausted and marginally satiated I lay on my back for only a moment. Then the sake reappears. It gurgles up in my stomach until it erupts like a fountain. At least I make it to the toilet.
Olga places a cold cloth to my forehead as I empty out the contents of my stomach.
Am I okay?
I wretch again in response. I hate her, I hate her kindness, I hate that she puts a cloth on my forehead, and I hate that she loves me most of all.
What the hell did the Samurai do to me?
Nothing. I just drank too much, too fast on an empty stomach. That’s all.
She helps me up from the floor and back to the bed. A duvet is placed over me, she telephones to order food, and then she tidies up her magazines after binning the used condoms. The bustling and fussing annoy me beyond reason. But I keep my annoyance in check. Like it or not, I need her. I’ve learned the hard way that the women in my life really do have a limit on how much shit they will take from me before I am denied their love and compassion.
Miso soup, tamagoyaki and rice are delivered along with tea. My favorites. Perfect for an empty stomach.
I eat slowly, still digesting what I have learned.
How many times has she had sex with the Samurai? And by sex I mean penis entering vagina sex.
Never.
Never?
Never. It’s always just the touching and the looking. Weird.
No. It’s not weird. Actually it is very understandable.
How so?
Never mind. It doesn’t matter.
No, really. She wants to know.
She’s very beautiful. Who wouldn’t want to touch her and look at her body?
This earns me a kiss on the cheek. Are we still cross with each other?
I was never cross with her. She was the one that wasn’t speaking to me.
Because I was wrong. Do I admit I was wrong?
Sure. I was wrong. (NOT! Oh these little lies we tell that keep a relationship afloat!)
She drops another kiss on my cheek. She picks up the issue of Italian Vogue (as opposed to French, American, Russian, or British issues of Vogue she absolutely had to buy in the airport newsstand – I probably wouldn’t bitch so much if I wasn’t treated like her fucking pack mule) and skims through it. She shows me a dress. It skims the models body like liquid silver.
Do I like it?
Yes.
Do I think she’d look beautiful in it?
Yes. Does she really need to ask me this? Honestly – has she ever doubted how beautiful she is? Has she ever had a moment in which she questioned whether or not another human would either find her attractive or be attracted to her?
Not really. What do I think of this dress?
The second dress is shimmering red and appropriately slutty for O
lga.
I don’t like it.
Really? What don’t I like about it?
I think it looks whorish.
Really? She thinks it’s pretty.
It’s a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen.
She thinks she’s going to get it for her sister’s wedding.
No. She can wear the silver dress, but the red one is just too much.
Really? Since when do I know anything about women’s fashions?
I never said I did. I just know slutty when I see it and that is a slutty dress. I will not go anywhere with her when we are being ourselves, rather than James and Anastasia the traveling prostitutes, if she looks anything less than a wholly proper young lady. And just so she knows, young ladies do not walk around with their tits and asses hanging out. She annoys me. I am annoyed with her. Doesn’t she understand that sometimes I know what’s best?
This shuts her up. Her mind is still working – I can see that in her eyes. Those blue eyes that would slay me with a look if only they had the power to do so. We are again not speaking. Fine. I finish my dinner then read The Odyssey.
The book is older than me or even my grandfather. I took it from the library before we left home. It’s the book in which I received my first lessons in Latin. My grandfather standing over my shoulder as I read slowly and stuttering. He corrected me when I needed it and praised me just as often.
The language is lovely. All thees and thous. I’ve read the Fagles translation. It’s clearly more accessible for our time, but I like the way the eighteenth century translation slips over my tongue.
There are pencil marks in the margins. These are not mine. They are my great-grandfather’s notes. The Oliver Adair that married the American heiress. The American that ruled Wold Hall like a majordomo for eighty years. Bless her – the old bird lived to be a hundred and two! I was seventeen when she died. Maggie Smith couldn’t have done this woman justice. Lady Charlotte. The constant foil to my grandmother Lady Helen. At least until my mother came around. Then they found a common cause.
CHAPTER TEN
Odysseus
It is the height of summer break, but here I sit in a tweed suit complete with short pants (SHORT PANTS! THE INHUMANITY OF IT! WHAT MONSTER MAKES A TEN YEAR OLD BOY WEAR SHORT PANTS!? My grandmother Lady Helen – that’s who. Somehow it’s a matter of pride to her that she’s put me into my father’s old clothes. I won’t even mention how my grandmother has arranged my hair in such a way that the lines from the teeth of the comb remain distinct and undisturbed through the waves of brown – if I were any other boy I’d beat me up on principle), shirt and tie as my grandfather stands over me as I struggle to please him.