“That’s right,” Grace told him. I was used to Grace taking over someone’s mind and having them communicate with us, but it was always strange when she did this, especially when the person spoke to us naturally, no indication that their mind belonged to her.
“Then follow me. There are a couple of places around here, one of which I used to stay at when I would come in late from abroad, and had to be at Fussa the next day.”
“Fussa?” I asked as we followed the man toward a 7-11 convenience store.
“There’s a US airbase there,” Dallas explained. “It’s been there forever, about an hour and a half outside of downtown Tokyo, actually. I was relieved to go there. I had been stationed in Minot, North Dakota, before then. Just…” He gulped. “Ha! Just hope that you never have to visit Minot. It’s colder than balls there.”
Michelle snickered.
We took one of the pedestrian bridges that went over the street. Once we got to the other side, I noticed a burger joint, or at least I thought it was a burger joint. There was a picture of a burger on the outside, but they also sold other things there as well, most notably fried shrimp.
We hung a left down an alley, which seemed sketchy at first glance, but it was Japan, and I could already feel the place was safer than Norwalk, Connecticut, on a sunny day.
Eventually, we came to a glass door with the words “hotel” in bright neon.
We entered, and Dallas greeted the woman behind the counter with a bow. He spoke to her in Japanese for a moment, the woman looking at us curiously as Grace did her thing.
I was starting to see how Grace was working. She would communicate through someone using their knowledge of the Japanese language, while also transmitting images into the victim’s head.
At least that’s how I pictured it working.
Eventually, the old woman gave us the thumbs up sign. “Okay, desu,” she said with a wide-toothed grin, many of her teeth crooked.
While the lobby was small and cozy, she squeezed through our group with relative ease, stopping in front of an elevator.
“You think we will all fit in here?” I asked.
“It’s worth a shot,” said Dallas. “Worst-case scenario, we get stuck…”
“We won’t get stuck,” said Stella, confidence behind her voice.
We all piled into an elevator that couldn’t have been for more than four people, and once we were in, the old woman pressed the button for the top floor. The elevator moaned and creaked, but eventually it started to work, slowly moving through the dingy hotel.
It was odd. From what I had seen in the lobby, the place was clean, yet it still felt old and a bit dusty, ancient and vintage in a profound way, like it existed in limbo, like it was some sort of Studio Ghibli creation that would come to life at night and fly around the city.
The door opened at the top and we all stepped out, Dallas telling us that the entire floor would be ours. There were just a few rooms on the floor, the space no larger than my garden apartment back in New Haven, and there was also a breakfast nook off to the side, near a restroom.
I turned to the first bedroom to see that there weren’t any beds, that there was just a pair of futons folded in the corner.
“We sleep on the floor, right?”
Dallas nodded. “It’s how we roll around here, or better, how they roll. Get all your bedding out beforehand, and sleep on the floor. Once you wake up, put the bedding up. That’s how it goes. It can be uncomfortable at first, but some people say sleeping on the tatami mat is good for your posture.”
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Michelle said, picking a room and dragging Ingrid into it. “Let’s get our beds set up.”
“This is going to be quite the experience, isn’t it?” I asked Grace.
Dallas responded. “Hey, at least there is an onsen of sorts in the basement. And before you ask, an onsen is like a spa. So go ahead, pick a room, and then go down to the spa and relax a bit. There will be hot water, a place to bathe, the whole nine yards. I believe it is separated into male-female, but I’m sure that could be overlooked…”
I glanced to a few of the CBGs, Grace and Dorian nodding, Stella yawning, Chloe looking half-interested and Veronique looking at Dallas like she was hungry.
“You just ate,” I reminded her. “In Shibuya.”
“Just a little more, and then you can go have your spa time,” she said, depositing her backpack in the first room, the one I had already claimed. “And you’d better not hog the futon.”
“There are two…”
“Exactly.”
The basement sauna was everything I had hoped it would be.
Taking the elevator down there was like stepping into a forgotten land, the elevator opening onto a pair of doors, one for the male’s changing room, one for the females’, and from there into two saunas, each with murals of Mount Fuji done up on the walls in tile.
Of course, the hotel was empty, so Dorian, Veronique, Grace, Chloe and I all piled into the women’s sauna.
I was keenly aware that I had been with all of them, yet I still was a bit bashful as they started undressing. I didn’t know which part of me still had these damn scruples, probably my damn Puritan upbringings, but I definitely tried to suppress it as I took my Manchester Missions shirt off, pants too.
If they were uncomfortable around each other naked, they didn’t show it.
Whew.
Dorian was the first to get completely undressed, and my eyes naturally traced the outlines of the tattoos that covered her arms. She didn’t have any on her chest, but she had mentioned wanting to get them around her breasts, her side body as well.
She asked me what I thought about this and I told her I wasn’t so into it. She was already practically a work of art, why spoil it with even more graffiti?
Just an opinion, though. I was sure whatever she’d conjure up for her next inking would be cool.
Grace was nude now, in her base form, her breasts two sizes larger than everyone else’s. I was pretty sure she had done this on purpose, especially as I saw Veronique standing next to her, her small chest at odds with Grace’s swangers.
Chloe was the last to get nude, and once she was in her birthday suit, she lifted her arms and twisted her hair into a bun.
“Shall we?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at me.
I had been in this situation before, a situation that most men only dreamed of.
The odd part about my life was that the situations I encountered went from using a superpower to hooking up with multiple beautiful women, sometimes within the timeframe of an hour. But there were parts of my life that no one would have wanted, like the time I was taken hostage in Austin, or abandoned in the Nevada desert, or any of the other downsides that came with my incredibly strange life.
I followed the ladies into another room, admiring the Mount Fuji mural yet again. There was a large sauna made of stone in the center of the room, with a railing on one side for older guests. I was just about to cannonball into the sauna when Grace tugged my arm.
“You’re supposed to wash first,” she told me, nodding to a couple of showerheads jutting out of the wall.
“But do I have to?” I asked her with a wink.
“It’s the rules,” she said, and sure enough, I saw that there were rules written on the wall in Japanese and in English: Shower first, then you can use the sauna.
Simple enough.
I moved over to the shower and turned the water on, noticing that there was a tiny bucket for me to sit on as well. I had seen someone shower like this in an anime before, so I got the gist. You sat on the bucket, the water hit your back, and you scrubbed down.
And I started to do just that when I felt an extra hand, Dorian’s, the punk rock teleporter now with a loofah covered in soap suds.
“You really are dirty,” she said as she began to wash me.
“It was a long plane ride…”
“Speaking of long, you and Grace sure went to the bathroom for a long
time,” Chloe said as she too washed off. “Making brownies together?”
“Not exactly,” I said as Dorian cleaned my man parts. I had my arms up in the air now, just letting her take over. It was definitely sexy, and who wouldn’t have a half chub in this sort of scenario? But I wasn’t trying to turn this into a big orgy, at least, it wasn’t what was exactly on my mind.
First of all, I was still tired and jetlagged from the flight, and I was especially feeling it in that moment. Then there was the fact that Grace and I had already hooked up less than eight hours ago, and she had done a pretty good job draining me of…
Is your mind always here? Grace thought to me.
I mean, I really don’t want to always be here. Sorry. I had better get in the hot tub before things get out of hand over here, I thought back to her.
Good idea, Writer Gideon.
“Thanks,” I told Dorian as I moved away from her, trying to cover my half-chub.
“But you aren’t washed off yet,” she started to protest.
“I’m as good as I’m going to be, don’t worry.”
And with that, I cannonballed into the sauna.
It wasn’t as deep as it looked, only about five feet in the center, but that didn’t stop some of the water from spraying Veronique in the face as she approached the sauna.
Oh, I felt the drain.
Just about as soon as I came up for air, Veronique was already sucking away at my life force, an angry look on her wet face.
“Ease up,” I started to tell her.
“I didn’t want to get my hair wet, not yet.”
“Why not?” I asked her.
“Because, it looks better once it’s been dirty for a day or two. Haven’t you heard this before?”
“I can’t say that I have.”
I relaxed into one of the corners, feeling one of the jets beneath my lower back. The water was pretty hot, but now that I was in it, I was digging it. What a sweet fucking space. And to think that we were under the building, that there were subway trains whipping all around us, hundreds of pedestrians in the streets above.
Yet here we were, the CBGs and Sir Gids a Lot, beneath it all.
Just chillaxing.
“This is nice,” Grace said. “So nice… ” She was in the water now, laying her head back on the edge of the sauna, and I had this inkling that she wanted to just be herself for a moment.
And I would have encouraged it too, but it was her place to make this decision.
Dorian was next to her, Chloe to her left, and Veronique on my left. All of us were silent for at least a minute, which is a long time, especially with a garrulous motherfucker like myself.
“I don’t want to ask what the plan is for tomorrow,” Grace finally said, her eyes still closed, head leaned back.
“I don’t even want to think about tomorrow,” I replied.
“Why can’t we just relax all day?” Dorian asked. “Maybe do some shopping, you know, just get our bearings?”
“Who says we can’t?”
“You’re the leader,” Chloe told me.
“That’s fearless leader to you,” I said with a smirk. “But really, if you guys want a day to just hang out in Tokyo, who am I to deny that? I mean, originally, my plan was to divide the group, and send those with sleuthing capabilities to Setagaya. I just think it would be less conspicuous to have a smaller group there. I’ve looked at this neighborhood now several times online. It’s big. And there’s no telling where he is in the area, plus with our translation difficulties…”
“We will always find someone who can work for us,” Grace said firmly, opening her eyes and looking at me.
“Take no offense,” I told her. “You are our superstar. For sure. None of us had any idea of what it would be like to be in a foreign country when it came to your power. And maybe this is on me. I had thought about it some, but I never dug too deep. Regardless, I was planning to separate the group tomorrow.”
“Disaster always happens when we separate the group…” Veronique said.
“No it doesn’t,” Dorian told her. “We separated the group a month ago, Gideon doing the book release and some of us taking care of the scientists in New Haven. That worked out, well, aside from what happened at the end.”
Sure enough, a darkness spread over the room as all of us remembered Fiona. Even though we were all nude, each of us still wore our rings with a piece of Fiona’s crystal on them. The rings were made of silver, all aside from Veronique’s, which was made of a thick and sturdy plastic.
“I know that it is dangerous to divide the group,” I told them, “but I feel that in this situation, it’s better if we don’t bring too much attention to ourselves. But we don’t have to do this tomorrow. Maybe I was rushing things by thinking that we should just jump right into this.”
“I agree with dividing the group,” said Chloe, “and I also agree with giving us a day off tomorrow. I slept some on the plane, but not enough. And I can’t understand why am feeling so groggy right now.”
“Jet lag,” I told her. “None of you have ever travelled very far, right?”
“We have traveled all across America…” said Dorian.
“No, I mean internationally. There are different time zones, and when it is night in America, it is day here in Asia. Kind of strange.”
“Have you traveled abroad?” Veronique asked me.
“I have been to Canada, but that’s not very far from Connecticut. And there was the time that I was in Mexico with Chloe, but we weren’t very far from the border.”
Remembering the time that we were teleported via a portal to Mexico spawned a thought at the back of my mind. Natalie Johansson had a facility there, or at least it was where her tech guru, the man named Hummingbird, had been.
Once we got back to America, we would need to see to that facility.
I didn’t know how we would find it, but I figured flying our happy asses around the border between Mexico and California could produce some results.
“I agree with Gideon. Let’s split up, but only after we have a day of rest,” said Grace. “I really want to explore Japan. Sorry. I hope I’m not the only one…”
“I do too,” said Dorian.
“I don’t know how interested I am in Japan or the people, but I am definitely interested in some of its architecture, and I don’t want to wear the missionary shirt if I don’t have to.” Veronique offered the group a crooked smile.
“Sounds like a plan then,” I said.
“Yay, I’m excited now!” The punk rock teleporter pinched her nose and dipped her head into the water, coming back up, her hair now wet. Her cheeks deflated and she spat water at me. “Sorry,” she said as I wiped the water out of my eyes, “someone had to do it.”
I still wore my glasses, which were strapped onto the back of my head, but the water had splashed up under them, and it stung.
“Dammit,” I told her as I tried to rub the water out of my eyes. It wasn’t quite saltwater, but it was definitely laced with something.
“It tastes so bad,” Dorian said, making an icky face.
“You’re not supposed to put this water in your mouth,” Veronique told her with a laugh. “You are very stupid sometimes, you know that?”
“I’m stupid, huh?” Dorian started to get out of the sauna, and made sure to kick her leg back, splashing Veronique in the process.
The showerhead turned on; the handle that controlled the cold water moved all the way to full blast as Veronique got her revenge. The cold water sprayed against the front of Dorian’s body, Dorian crossing her arms and bending backward, jutting her ass out.
“It’s so cold…” she said, trying to move away from the showerhead only to be hit by another showerhead as Veronique turned them on, a devilish look on her face.
“You know, you two are supposed to be trained assassins,” said Chloe. “Am I the only one that remembers that?”
“Okay, okay,” Veronique said, not able to wipe the smile off her face
as a sopping wet Dorian trudged back over to the sauna.
But Dorian wasn’t finished.
In the process of being sprayed with water, she had gotten a mouthful, which she quickly unleashed on Veronique, much to Grace’s amusement.
“This is great,” Grace said as Veronique got out of the sauna, her hands at her sides, glowing red.
Was I about to see two naked women fight it out using their superpowers in a basement sauna somewhere in Tokyo?
I mean, I sort of hoped so, but I also didn’t want to bring any attention to our presence in Tokyo.
Luckily, Chloe and Grace had already gotten to work, Chloe calming both of them through some octave that I couldn’t even hear, Grace was helping as well, using her telepathic ability to scrub away any memory of the altercation they had just had.
Dorian plopped back into the water, her breasts bouncing as she settled. Veronique got in next to me, a confused look on her face.
“Where were we?” Veronique asked.
“We were talking about tomorrow,” I told her. “We are going to take the day off; the CBGs are going to live it up in Tokyo, and see what this famous city is all about.”
Chapter Fifteen: I Think I’m Turning Japanese
I was well aware that other superhero groups like the Mystery Men, X-Men, X-Force, the Avengers, Justice League, yada, yada, yada, never seemed to take days off.
But that’s for a number of reasons, the most important reason being that none of those teams were real.
And the CBGs were real, which meant we got tired, that we were curious, that we got grumpy (mostly Veronique), and that sometimes, we needed a damn day off.
And yes, one could argue that we had taken a whole month of days off, but we needed that month too, mostly to lick our wounds after Fiona’s death. We had done a lot of training during that time though, a few hero missions, plus some team-building exercises. All this to say: I figured we would need to make the best of our day off.
And seriously, only Jeebus knew when we would have another opportunity to relax.
So I was up early, mostly because the futon was definitely not as comfortable as the old lady hotelier had promised, but also because I wanted to plan out the day.
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