by India Millar
The pillow book was right on top, as if it was waiting for me. I ran my fingers over the smooth leather, as warm as skin. Amongst much else, in my time in the Green Tea House I had learned to read and write—nothing fancy, but better than nothing. Now, I knew the gold characters said “Tamayu’s Book.” I reached in and lifted the book out carefully, carrying it to the tatami matting where I sat with it opened in front of me.
The pictures held me spellbound, even as they frightened me out of my wits. I turned page after page, staring with my mouth dropping open. Couples entwined in ways I would not have thought possible. Men with men, women with women. One woman with two men. One illustration was so complex that I tilted my head to one side, trying to make sense of it.
“I see Tamayu’s shunga is intriguing you, Junko.”
I thought my heart had stopped. I dropped the pillow book as if it had suddenly become unbearably hot.
“Big!”
He stared at me and then walked in, sliding the screen door shut behind him. “Tamayu’s gone to a bunraku performance. She’s taken a fancy to one of the puppet masters. She’s not going to be back for hours. Don’t worry.”
I smiled at my friend, and then glanced down at the pillow book in embarrassment. It had fallen face open at my side.
“I don’t know why I wanted to look at it. Aki thought it was fascinating, but I don’t think I like it at all.”
“Do you miss Aki?”
“Yes,” I said simply. “I do miss her. Ren never seems to have time to chat with me these days. Saki’s lovely, but she’s older than me and I don’t always know what to talk to her about. I get lonely.”
“You can always talk to me, little one,” Big said softly. He turned the pillow book to a new page and stared at it.
“But you’re not always here. And you’re not a girl,” I pointed out. He laughed, and impulsively, I decided to take the risk of annoying him.
“Why was Auntie so angry with Aki, Big? You and Bigger brought her back, so where was the harm in it? I’m sure she would never do anything so silly again.”
Big frowned and shook his head. “Aki did a very foolish thing, running away like that. It caused Auntie a great deal of distress. If it became known that a maiko from Auntie’s house had dared to run away to chase a boy, then people would have laughed at Auntie. Her patrons would not have approved at all. Besides, Aki lied. She had lain with her boy. Not just once, either. I think a number of times.”
I goggled at him. The memory of the man pounding at Chieko’s body came vividly to my mind. Aki had done that? Not just once, but often?
“How did you know?”
Bigger laughed silently, his head thrown back. I reddened, feeling that I had said something very stupid. He wiped his hands over his face and smiled at me.
“When Auntie took you from your village, did she examine you?”
I stared at the floor, flooded with embarrassment. Before she had taken me from my parents’ house, Auntie had sat me down on the floor and instructed me to open my legs. Wide. Without ceremony, she had slid her fingers into my private place and had fiddled around, finally pinching me so hard I had gasped with the pain.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“That’s what Kaede did to Aki when we took her to her house. Did it hurt when Auntie probed you, before she brought you here?” I nodded, unable to speak for embarrassment. “Well, it didn’t hurt Aki at all. That’s how Kaede and Auntie knew what she’d been up to. And that was another reason why Auntie was so furious with her. Because she’d been with a man, she couldn’t have her mizuage ceremony. That means Auntie will lose a lot of money and even more face as her danna had already been arranged. And Kaede gave us barely anything for the stupid girl.”
“Why was Aki so afraid of going to Kaede’s house? Couldn’t Aki be a geisha there, just the same as here?”
“No. Kaede’s house is a common brothel,” Big said bluntly. “The men who go there don’t want the girls to sing and dance for them. They’re only interested in taking their pleasure out of the girls’ bodies. After what Aki had done, Auntie had no choice. Do you understand, little one?”
“No,” I said helplessly.
He was silent for so long I thought he must be angry with me for my stupidity. Finally, he smoothed the pages of Tamayu’s pillow book and held it out to me.
“Look.”
I shook my head obstinately. I would be ashamed to look at the shunga with Big at my side. He stretched out his hand and pushed my face so that I was looking straight at the pillow book. I longed to close my eyes, but did not dare.
“This is what Aki did. She was a fool. She gave her body and her future to a boy who only wanted to boast about his conquest. She should have kept herself whole for her danna. She knew that. A girl cannot have her mizuage if she is not a virgin. And if she does not have her mizuage, she can never become a geisha.”
I stared at the illustration, my face burning. A couple was entwined on a futon. The man’s robe was thrown back from his body. The woman’s kimono lay beneath her. The woman’s legs were splayed wide. Even so, it seemed she was not satisfied with her posture, as her hands rested on the inside of her thighs, obviously tugging her legs still wider. Her back was arched, her small breasts thrusting toward her partner. The man was rearing over her, just the very tip of his jutting tree of flesh finding the entrance to her black moss. One of his hands was beneath her moss, lifting her toward him and the other was parting her secret place. I swallowed, so embarrassed I wished that Tamayu would come back and disturb us. Anything would be better than having to look at this with Big at my side.
Big spoke to me gently.
“This is what men and women do together, Junko. This is what you will do with your danna, during your mizuage ceremony. Afterward, you will be a woman as well as a geisha.”
Big’s voice was throaty. I glanced away from the book to his face. His upper lip was beaded with sweat and the pupils of his eyes were enormous. I thought that the shunga picture had excited him. My gaze went down to his lap. His robe was tented out as if a tree truly was growing there.
I giggled out of sheer nervousness.
“Do not laugh at me, child. Have you never wondered where my name came from?”
I shook my head. Both of the boys were tall. I had simply assumed that their names referred to their unusual height. It seemed I was wrong. Without taking his glance off my face, Big pushed his robe apart and reached his hand inside. His tree of flesh reared unfettered, seeming to bob at me with a life of its own. I stared at it, hypnotized.
The man I had seen laying with Chieko had possessed nothing like this. Not even the shunga pictures in Tamayu’s pillow book could compare with it. Fascinated, I put my finger on the swollen tip and bounced it.
Big’s reaction astonished me. He gasped loudly, and I was about to ask if I had hurt him when he grabbed my hand and wrapped it around his tree. How very small my hand looked, trying and failing to meet around that fleshy thickness! His flesh was smooth and warm. Veins made shapes like little worms. I wondered if they would wriggle away if I touched them, and ran my fingernail down one that was longer than the rest to find out. Nothing happened except that Big made a strange noise deep in his throat.
Wonder engulfed me. Surely, no woman could take this inside her? And yet, all the women in the shunga appeared to be enjoying their men’s trees. Was this was what I could expect from my mizuage? A thought came to me suddenly. Surely, if I had to ride the dragon, at least it could be a dragon of my own choosing!
“Big, you are my friend.” I stared at him earnestly and he nodded. To emphasize the importance of my words, I gripped his tree tighter. “Please, I know you. I like you. Will you be my danna for my mizuage? I know you’ll take care of me and be very gentle. I can’t bear to think a strange man, somebody I don’t even know or like is going to pay to put his tree in me.”
For answer, Big leaned forward and loosed the sash on my robe. He took one of my breasts in his
hand and held it gently as he bent his head and put his lips around my nipple, sucking gently. It was quite shockingly pleasant and I sighed out loud with delight. Big raised his head and looked at me, a thread of saliva glinting between his teeth. He closed his eyes as if something was causing him pain and shook his head.
I was deeply hurt when he sat back, prying my fingers away from his tree. He drew his robe tightly back in place and then—with huge gentleness—pulled my own robe together and tied my sash.
“There is nothing I would like better, Junko. And you do me great honor by asking me. But it cannot be. Your danna for your mizuage will be a rich, important man. Already, many of Auntie’s patrons have expressed an interest in you. You should be delighted.”
I was not. All of the men who came to the Green Tea House were old. Many of them were much older than my own father. I hated it when they touched me, patted my hand, or put their cheek against my face. How could Big insist that one of them was going to be allowed to put his tree inside me! He was my friend. Surely he could persuade Auntie that he should be the one.
“If you won’t help me, I’ll run away,” I said. “I’ll go somewhere where you’ll never find me.”
“There is nowhere we wouldn’t find you,” he said simply. “Auntie has much influence in the Floating World. There’s nobody who would shelter you, Junko. They would be too frightened.”
“The geisha in the Hidden House will help me,” I said defiantly. “They are my friends. Better friends than you are.”
Big stared at me as if I had struck him. “The Hidden House, little one? And how have you come to make friends with the geisha there?”
I thought about lying, but I am a terrible liar and I knew Big would never believe me. So I told him the truth.
“The day Aki ran away I was in the garden. There was a terrible storm and I lost my bearings. I banged on the only door I could find and Nami opened it and let me in. The geisha were very kind to me,” I said simply.
“They should have sent you straight back here,” he said harshly. “The Hidden House is not for you.”
Anger made me stubborn. I shook my head. “The geisha there are more beautiful than even Tamayu. And they are kind. Why should I not go to see them? They’re my friends. My sisters.”
“They are freaks,” Big snapped. “That’s why the patrons are willing to pay and pay and pay to go there. They attract the men who have a fancy for something strange, something different. They have no choice who lies with them. They’re little better than the whores who are kept behind the lattice in the lowest sort of brothels. The Hidden House’s door is closed to you, Junko. From this moment on. You will not go there again, ever.”
He was so angry I dared not defy him to his face. But he was telling me lies, I knew he was. Nami and Gin and Hiromi were the most beautiful women I had ever seen. And they had been so very kind to me. I would go back to the Hidden House. And I would make sure that nobody saw me. Especially Big.
Six
Without rain, there can
Be no life. My tears bring forth
Not life but sorrow.
I listened to Ren absently. Since her mizuage, she had moved out of Tamayu’s room and now had her own quarters. But she still visited me often, and I was glad of the company
“I don’t really see why you’re coming.” I had drifted away on the tide of my own thoughts. I had no idea what Ren was talking about. “I mean, after all, you’re only a maiko. It should just be us geisha who go to an important event like this.”
I nodded, picking up the thread of the conversation quickly. That evening, Tamayu, Ren, Saki, and I were all going out of the Green Tea House. We had been hired to entertain a powerful noble. Ito-san, a daimyo. Only the shogun himself was higher caste than the daimyo. It was a very great honor for the tea house.
“Of course I shouldn’t be there,” I agreed readily. The thought of an evening all by myself was delightful. I might even be able to go over to the Hidden House, see if any of my friends there were free. “Perhaps if you mentioned to Auntie that you geisha didn’t think I should go, she would change her mind.”
Ren preened under the flattery, but shook her head.
“Tamayu says Auntie’s determined you’re going.” She pulled a face. “She’s even gotten you a new kimono for the occasion. More than I have.”
I shrugged. What could I say? Ren poked at her hair and then brightened.
“Have you seen my new combs?” I had no need to reply as she rattled on happily. “One of my patrons gave them to me. You know, now that I’m a geisha myself, I often think what a fool Aki was.”
“She was in love,” I pointed out mildly.
Ren laughed. “So what? If the stupid girl had put her boy off for just a month or two, until she’d had her mizuage, she would still be here. And once she was a geisha, there would be nothing to stop her from taking as many lovers as she wanted, providing she was discreet about it. Instead, she’s a prisoner in Kaede’s house, at the beck and call of any peasant who has her price in his purse.”
I felt a flash of anger so fierce I could not hold my tongue.
“And is she so different from us, then? We’re just as much prisoners as she is. We’re Auntie’s slaves, instead of Kaede’s.”
“At least we don’t have to whore ourselves for anybody who fancies us,” Ren snapped back. She glared at me angrily. “And who are you to be so fussy anyway? Just what do you think would have happened to you if Auntie hadn’t brought you here?”
My anger vanished as quickly as it had come. I stared at the tatami matting and said nothing. I knew what Ren was going to say, and she was right.
“You would probably have been sold as a slave. If you were lucky, your father might have found somebody who wanted to marry you. If he could scrape up a dowry, that is.”
I shrugged my shoulders miserably. Our scrap of land produced hardly enough food to feed my parents and my brothers. Often, I went hungry. There would have been no dowry for me, I knew that.
“It was the same for me.” Ren’s voice was gentle suddenly, and I stared at her in surprise. “We’re all the same. Tamayu and Saki and me—all of us. We all come from poor families. If Auntie hadn’t seen something worth having in us, we’d all probably have ended up as a slave in a rich man’s house. After I had my mizuage, Tamayu told me how it is.
“Auntie will take every penny the patrons pay for you,” she said. “But if you’re sensible, you can make the old idiots think they’re gods. And if you do that, they’ll give you nice presents. If you’re lucky, you might be able to save enough to buy yourself out of here. If you’re luckier still, you can use the talents the gods gave you to beguile one of them enough so that they want to buy you out and keep you for himself.
“That’s what Tamayu’s going for. The man who was her danna for her mizuage is besotted with her. He already has a wife, and a man of his class isn’t going to set a high-born lady aside for a geisha. But she’s sure he’ll take her as his concubine, and she’s happy enough about that.”
“But there’s no love in it,” I blurted.
Ren sighed in exasperation. “Love? Since when did a Japanese man think about loving a woman? Oh, I suppose some of them that have been married for years and years are fond of their wives, but that still doesn’t stop them visiting the like of Kaede’s, or taking a concubine if they can afford it. And no matter how much they care about their wife, if she was barren or just produced girl children, there’s not one of them who wouldn’t put her aside like a worn-out shoe. That’s the way life is. Make the most of what you’ve got, Junko. That’s my advice.”
She was right, of course. But I still didn’t have to like it.
I sat very still while Saki put on my makeup. She had already dressed me carefully in my new kimono and obi, first patting my layers of chemises in place so that just a touch of silk peeked coyly through the neckline of the kimono.
“Your kimono is exquisite,” she said enviously. “Auntie ha
s a good eye. That pastel color would be all wrong on me, but it makes you look like a flower. Now keep still.”
Her hand hovered over an exquisite jade pot, and then passed on to a small bottle.
“I don’t think your lovely young skin needs any of that.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a very special skin cream.” Saki looked smug. “One of my favorite patrons bought it for me. It’s made from nightingale dung and is the most wonderful thing for keeping the skin bright.”
I managed a smile, all the time thanking the gods that Saki had decided not to waste any of her precious potions on me. The thought of smearing my skin with bird shit made me feel sick. She tipped the bottle and slid golden oil onto the palm of her hand, massaging it carefully into my face with her fingertips.
“Camellia oil. Just a very little, so we can get your makeup on properly.”
I nodded and she tapped my nose in mock anger.
“Be still, child.”
I watched her hands busy themselves amongst a variety of pots.
“Now listen carefully. I will do this for you this time, and then you must do it yourself, under my instruction. I’ll lend you my mirror,” she said magnanimously.
As she spoke, she worked water into a white powder. When it was to her satisfaction, she raised her finger at me.
“Put your head back.”
The paste slid on easily over the top of the oil. Saki’s skillful fingers smoothed it quickly over my entire face and neck, working it down just past the neck of my kimono.
“Head forward,” she instructed. “Now this part, you will always need help with. When you’re a geisha, either your own maiko or a maid will do it for you.”
Her fingers busied themselves on the nape of my neck, reaching down almost between my shoulder blades.
“For Japanese men, the nape of the neck is the most erotic part of the body.”
Is it? I thought, startled. None of the men in Tamayu’s shunga book had seemed very interested in the back of their partner’s necks!