Chapter 4

Then my endless sea churned once more.

It happened the day Lord Sasaki’s business partners from the West arrived. Dutch businessmen. They were invited for supper, and to stay the night before they would make their way to Tokyo.

I waited as I always do in her dressing chamber following dinner. She came in, flushing with as much wine in her cheeks as she was apt to on any given night. When she stumbled to my front, I gave her a smile and commenced unbuttoning her. Her dress tonight was elegant. It held to her body lovingly. Green velvet. Another of the latest fashion from Paris, or so explained Fumiko, so as to show our guests from the West how in touch with the latest fashion we were. I avoided her eyes as I’ve grown accustomed to doing, but I could feel them on me as I plucked the buttons of her dress. They felt different, but altogether familiar. They felt impatient in the way they were once impatient that one summer morning by the seaside. And I could feel that her breathing was heavy.

When I had removed her dress, she sat on the edge of her chaise in her underwear.

“You look beautiful tonight,” she said abruptly. I froze. For a moment I did not believe my ears but after not responding she said, “did you not hear me Niko?”

“I did, madame,” I replied meekly. “Thank you, madame.”

There was a momentary silence, then she said, “May I confide in you?”

I looked into her eyes. Months it had been since I last looked directly into her eyes. They were wetted with tears and hopelessness. I nodded slowly. She smiled, then her smile quickly vanished.

“My husband… he had just ordered me to bed one of his business partners. And I… Well, this is the first time he had asked me to do such a thing. This could only mean that I have finally fallen out of his favour,” she said with a soft voice. A gentle voice intoned as if giving solace rather than asking for it. Even still, I could hear the anguish in it as clear as day. Not a heartbreak anguish. Not a love lost. No. A sort of anguish that comes only from feeling so very alone. I of all people should be able to hear that sort of anguish in a voice. In the dim moonlight, which was the only light we had now, her eyes were dark and shone like a still pond in a forest glade.

“I suspect it has been far too long that I hadn’t given him a child. Did you know that we had been trying, Niko?”

I shook my head, but of course I knew. We all knew. The fact that she had not given him a child yet has been the talk of the house.

“I hadn’t given him what he wanted, so now, I must sleep with his business partner. I suppose that is how I can still be useful to him.”

I sat still. I put my hands on my lap. I kept my eyes on her. For a long moment there was silence between us before I blurted.

“Mustn’t I?” she responded.

“You are the lady of the house. It is reprehensible for him to treat you in such a manner.”

“Loyalty above all, Niko. My husband commands me and so I shall obey. Isn’t that how it works? If I do not show up to the man’s door tonight, then the shipments may cease. Should that happen, my husband will have to answer to higher authority. We wouldn’t want that now, would we? Much is at stake, Niko.”

“That is not your responsibility,” I answered, to which she barked a laugh.

“Oh how charming. How envious, the simple life of a handmaiden. A beck and call to attend to and that is all.”

“It seems it is the same for you,” I replied rather tersely, then, hearing those words escape, my eyes widened with horror, and I clasped my hands to my mouth.

“Oh! I’m so sorry madame! I didn’t mean it!” I squeaked, bowing my head ashamed of my impertinence.

She laughed and clucked her teeth, shaking her head, and responded, “My dear Niko. Do not apologise for speaking your mind with me.”

I shook my head in response. “No. I should not be so crass. I should not be so disobedient.”

She flicked the tears from her eyes and smiled kindly. “You should. And perhaps I should pluck a page from your book.”

“What do you mean, madame?”

“I should be disobedient too. You’re right. I mustn’t go to that man’s bedroom tonight. So I won’t.”

“Oh… I see. What will you do instead?”

“What I want, of course.”

“…Which is?” I asked cautiously.

She leaned back on her chaise and beckoned me with a finger. “Come nearer, Niko.”

I came nearer, to the foot of her chaise, and when I did, she extended her leg so that her foot touched me between my legs. “You, Niko. If you’ll have me.”

I turned away from her.

“Madame, I do not know how to take your advances.”

“Take them at face value.”

I turned back to face her and with unmitigated vexation in my voice I replied, “Face value? You told me that I seduced you with my perversion and that I should never do it again. You held me in contempt for my desires. Do you not remember?”

“I do… Of course I do. But let me tell you this, Niko, and I’ve been meaning to say this for a very long time now. All the things that I told you I found contemptible about you… The truth is, I envy you. I find I want to be just like you, Niko. I want to be able to give in to what I want for once. For always.”

Her trembling lips, the aching glint in her eyes, her unadulterated naughtiness setting flame to the lust within me; I could not help myself.

I cast aside all my timidity. I grabbed her foot just like I had that one morning on the seaside, hoisted it up to my mouth and I flattened my tongue against the sole and licked. “Is this what you refer to?” I asked. Then again, I licked from her heel to her toes.

She moaned. She uttered a soft, “Oh yes, Niko… yes…”

I licked again. And again, and while I licked, I untied my obi and shrugged my kimono off my shoulders, then I flung off my undergarment to become fully nude. My lady took a good look at me and sighed with pleasure at the sight of my nudity.

She moved her foot to between my thighs again, to place it right against my wet slit.

“Do you want me, Niko?”

“Yes,” I replied unapologetically. “I’ve always wanted you.”

“As you I,” she said, and she slid off her undergarment and parted her legs to show me the proof that she did not lie. Beneath the golden tufts of her mound, her lips glistened.

“I would very much like you to pleasure yourself with my foot now, Niko,” she said.

“If that is what you want,” I answered with a sly grin. I sat on the floor before her “wariza” style, with my legs splayed out to the sides. She lowered her foot down and pressed it gently against my aching slit.

Slowly at first, I rubbed myself against her foot, and, when I had gotten the hang of it, and found that it was indeed as pleasurable as I had hoped it would be, I went faster. I rubbed my swollen bud against the ball of her foot, and then when I had done that enough times, I inserted her toes inside my slit, as many as I could manage, to pleasure myself with them inside me. While I pleasured myself with her toes, she pleasured herself with her fingers. And we gazed into each other’s eyes.

In her eyes, I discovered not the Lady Evelyn that I thought I knew, the Lady Evelyn who was as cruel as her husband. I did not see Lady Evelyn at all, in fact. I saw Evelyn, from England, who once had adventure and romance in her heart. I saw her true self blooming for me now. I wondered then, if she saw my true self, whatever that could be and I wondered if that was why she wanted me. In any case, I wanted her, and I had her. I had crossed over from wanting simply to satiate my own desires, to wanting to love this woman.

My ecstasy rose quickly. So did hers. We both moaned and trembled, and laughed with glee, then came the wonderful release, the flood of ringing pleasure. When it was done she beckoned me onto the chaise to be with her. I crawled into her arms, and we held each other as we trembled with love, and we kissed.

I stayed in her arms for a long while afterwards, and wanted very much to stay there and sleep there with her, where she could keep me warm in the cold autumn night. But realising that the longer I lingered there, the more likely someone might discover us like this, I stood, wrapped myself carefully in my kimono and fixed my hair as best I could, and departed for my quarters.

She said nothing to me as I left. She only watched. But shortly after I had unrolled my futon and laid out my quilt, I heard the sound of my door sliding open. She stood in my doorway, her silhouette gleaming silver from the moon behind her, and her hair gleaming too. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t need to ask her why she was there. I knew why. Quietly, I climbed into my quilt and when I was in, she slid the door shut behind her and made her way over to me, and climbed in with me and held me. I was happy beyond measure, but shortly a gloomy thought cast a shadow on my mind.

“Your husband meant for you to visit his guest tonight,” I whispered to her.

“Will you not go?” I asked.

“I do not intend to,” she replied.

“So you do intend to disobey him.”

My gut twisted at the very idea of disobeying the lord of the house. It was an instinct grafted onto me by all the terrible and terrifying punishment I had witnessed him dole out to his servants for even the most trivial of infractions or by nothing more than whim. But, she was not a servant. She was his wife. So I tried putting it in my mind that there was no need for an alarm. I squeezed her intimately, and she squeezed back. She kissed me on the cheek and said, “I intend to stay here with you tonight, and warm you, and be warmed by you.”

“I will not object to that.”

“Good. Then let’s keep each other warm.”

We kissed on the lips and we kissed with our tongues. I felt happiness on her tongue. I felt hers and I felt mine. I do not remember being happier in my life.

The moon lingered long enough to be the light for our happiness. When it finally descended behind the hazy mountains, we drifted into sleep.

As for the heart that finds joy in fields of wild autumn flowers: Is it content to stay? Or does it yearn to leave? – Akazome Emon

It should not have come to me as a surprise that happiness miraculously afforded, was always fleeting. Once again, I watched my happiness melt away in a single morning like a snowfall too early in the season.

I awoke in the arms of Lady Evelyn in the morning and was so overjoyed, so overwhelmed with a giddy glee, I nearly burst out with laughter. But I held in the laughter so as to not wake her. I wanted to watch her breathe through her smiling lips, and I wanted to feel her gentle heart beat on my breasts for as long as I possibly could, which meant until the sun began to grey the sky dawn.

When the sky did finally grey to dawn, I stirred her awake by nudging her and whispering in her ear,

“Madame, you must wake up and return to your room. I will come to fetch you for breakfast in an hour.”

She sighed deeply then nuzzled me in a cat-like way. “I’m not hungry. Please let me stay here.”

As much as I wanted to, I could not accept that answer. “Please, madame, your husband expects you to have breakfast with his guests.”

She pouted at me while I put on my kimono, but despite the face full of protest, allowed me to drag her out of my bed and wrap her in her kimono. After seeing that the corridor was clear I nudged her out of my quarters forcibly. She turned back to me and pulled me into her arms and kissed me right in the middle of the corridor.

I squirmed to indicate my disapproval of her brash behaviour — if anyone had been in the corridor to see that, then my days would’ve been numbered, and, in all likelihood, her days as well. Recklessly, she laughed through the kiss, then sighed, then kissed me once more on the cheek before I was able to pry her off of me.

I glanced up and down the corridor to make sure it was still empty before leaning in and whispering to reiterate my protest in the manner she insisted, “Evelyn… please…”

“I don’t care if anyone knows,” she replied.

“Yes you would,” I warned. “Now please, you must return to your bed. I will come fetch you in an hour.”

After I was sure she had returned to her room, I quickly dressed in my outfit for the day, a traditional English servant’s dress to impress the lord’s Dutch guests, then hurried to the kitchen to make Evelyn’s meal.

“Tamagoyaki, aged-miso soup, and natto,” Kimiko instructed. “The lady of the house will have a Japanese breakfast today.”

It was a strange order as the rest were being prepared an English breakfast, but I did not question the order. That is what I made.

The lord’s chamberlain, Keinosuke, caught me in the courtyard rushing back to wake Evelyn to give me more instruction. “Lord Sasaki demands that his wife wear her jÅ«nihitoe at breakfast.”

The order was so absurd that I let out a noise of confusion and protested. “Apologies, sir… if I am not mistaken, I believe you said to dress her in her jÅ«nihitoe?”

“That’s right. Now hurry so that she is not late.”

He left before I could ask for any further clarification, but I suppose I understood the intent. It was to make an impression on the guests. A jÅ«nihitoe is no simple kimono as it were. It is an outfit reserved for high nobility, and, usually, highly formal affairs such as a royal ceremony. Evelyn had never worn her jÅ«nihitoe, nor did I believe she ever intended to. It was a wedding gift from her parents, a token of their respect for Japanese society and Lord Sasaki’s high status in it. But he had always shown resentment towards it. He, as many of the upper echelons of modern Japan, asserted that such a relic was nothing more than a shameful reminder of Japan’s past corrupt feudal system, or so I was told. The dress had therefore always remained hidden from view. I wonder what has changed? Or perhaps nothing had, and all the resentment for the past was simply theatrics. I suspected that many of the lords, many who have come from samurai families, secretly yearned for the old samurai ways.