Daisuki Page 3

  “It started on Valentine’s Day.” She then relayed a few details to Michiko, including the refusal to confess love after nineteen years and to laughing at her suggestion they get married.

  “Maji de!” Michiko exclaimed. “You brought up marriage to Reina Yamada!”

  “Mi-chan! Don’t tease!” Aiko almost cried again. “It’s awful!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not surprised she fucked it all up, though. Valentine’s Day? So you haven’t been speaking since then?”

  “No. We haven’t been anything. We’re like roommates who hate each other. No touching, no kissing, and we barely talk.”

  “No touching! How is she handling not getting laid regularly?”

  “She’s not.” The night before Reina was beyond irritated, and when they went to bed Aiko could hear her attempting to silently masturbate on the other side of the bed. But Aiko knew her well enough to know her pleasure from sex came from being with other women, not just getting off. Reina would continue to dismantle until she…Aiko didn’t want to consider it. For all she knew, Reina called her friends in Ni-chome to arrange hookups during lunch. “She’s smoking more.”

  “Well of course she is. She’s probably more wound up than a jack-in-a-box.” Michiko sighed. “Do you want me to talk to her for you? She might listen to me.”

  “No…I mean, I know she would…but…” Aiko didn’t know what she wanted Michiko to do. Just listen, she supposed. “You are the only other person who knows her as well as I do. Maybe even more. She opens up to you.”

  “Ha! Not really, I just badger her.”

  “I’m serious, Mi-chan.” Aiko fumbled for more words. “I just…why won’t she say she loves me? She loves me, right? We’ve been together for twenty years! Wouldn’t she love me by now?” The tears ran down her cheeks, but Aiko managed to control her voice so Michiko couldn’t hear them.

  “You can’t think like that with her, Ai-chan. Reina doesn’t think in terms of ‘love.’ She doesn’t put names to her emotions. She just does and is.”

  Aiko’s lips quivered, and she picked up a handkerchief to dab her cheeks. “I know that. Deep inside, I do. But it’s so hard to go twenty years with somebody without hearing them say they love you. At all.” She sniffed. “And you know our lifestyle. How do I know she just doesn’t stay with me out of convenience, because I let her do what she wants? Because I take care of her? How do I know that?”

  “Ai-chan,” Michiko said, “if you keep thinking like this, you’re not going to get anywhere. You’re just going to hurt yourself. Just because she doesn’t say it doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel it. She could be too embarrassed to say it. She might see it as too ‘feminine.’”

  “There is that.” One of the hardest things to adjust to with Reina – besides the random women in their house – was her aversion to anything deemed too “feminine.” Aiko had met many “butches” in Ni-chome but Reina wasn’t like them, stylistically. She cropped her hair short and never wore skirts anymore, but she was feminine in the way she carried herself and even the way she spoke, like a tomboy trying to show how “tough” she was. Reina was a woman inside and out, but she lived in a world forcing her to choose between “masculine” and “feminine,” and it seemed she floundered between the two, scared of the one but wary of the other. Why would Reina want to become a man when she wasn’t interested in them? “I just don’t know how to believe she loves me.”

  “Believe me, you’re special to her,” Michiko said with a laugh. “I’ve never seen her dote on another woman like she dotes on you. I’m impressed she even knows your name.”

  “That doesn’t help!”

  “I’m joking, sort of. But Reina knows you’re the queen of her life. I’ve seen you two, together.”

  Aiko’s mouth dropped open. She supposed Michiko had seen that plenty of times over the years.

  “I’ve never seen a couple like you before. Especially in Japan. Hell, I rarely see couples like you here! You’re like yin and yang. You two fit so well together it makes me kind of jealous sometimes!”

  Aiko giggled, her heart fluttering at the thought of anybody thinking she and Reina fit together. “Thank you, Mi--chan.” She put down her handkerchief. “I feel better. Still hurt, but better.”

  “Well, better is better than nothing. You need to talk to Reina, if she’ll listen. Well, she’ll listen. She may not act like she is, but I would bet money she is.” Michiko paused. “You know, I can’t say I’ve seen it for myself, but I’m fairly certain she doesn’t fuck me the way she fucks you.”

  And there it was: a frown, again. Aiko pretended to act nonplussed, however, for Michiko’s sake. “I don’t know…she really, really likes you, you know.” Aiko could replay every instance she had ever watched Reina and Michiko together. She always tells her I like to watch. She did like to watch, but it was times like these making her heart raw. “But thank you, Mi--chan. I think I feel better now.”

  When they hung up, Aiko sat and contemplated her cell phone on the other side of the dining table. Talking to Michiko helped, but it also caused a little more pain. Once, Reina had pursued Michiko for a more permanent relationship, but she had declined and returned to America. Since then Reina never flirted with someone she wasn’t trying to seduce like she did with Michiko when the chance arose. On the surface Aiko saw it as two old friends connecting on a different level than lovers, but sometimes she wondered…

  What if she loves her more than me?

  She had seen them, together. Without her. In their house. Aiko never felt any jealousy between Reina and other women, but a bolt of fear always hit her heart whenever she walked in on Reina and Michiko having a morning roll in bed, or, that one horrendous time when Yuri was over and they walked upstairs to find them copulating on the hallway floor. Aiko always forgave her. The one time she found any sort of camaraderie was when Michiko brought her American lover with her for a visit and the four of them had some fun. Aiko had asked the American lover what she thought of Michiko and Reina lost in their own world together in front of them. The American had said, “It can’t matter. I have a boyfriend in America. I’m happy for her.”

  Aiko thought she was happy for them, too.

  She grabbed her cell phone and sent a text message. A half hour later, she had a visitor.

  Yuri brought with her a bag of salty crackers for them to eat while Aiko served tea in the living room. They chatted about Yuri’s busy husband and almost busier ten-year-old who took English lessons and ballet. When she finished her side of the conversation, she asked Aiko why she looked tired.

  “Reina and I are fighting,” she said matter-of-factly. She wasn’t the type to air out dirty laundry, especially not lesbian dirty laundry, but Yuri was the closest Japanese friend she could confide to.

  “Eh! Uso!” Yuri held her hand up to her mouth. “Not you two! You’re my favorite couple! You can’t fight!”

  Aiko snorted. “Sometimes, in every relationship, it happens.” She did not expand on what the fight was about. She had already explained her sad demeanor – that was enough. “Sometimes,” she then continued, “Reina is a very selfish person. Like a child. And it makes me a little upset, because I feel more like her mother than her…” She wanted to say “wife.” “Girlfriend” was used up over a decade before.

  “Aw, kawai sou no yo.” Yuri further extended her condolences by taking Aiko’s hand. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  A smirk, not unlike Reina’s casual ones, crossed Aiko’s face as she squeezed Aiko’s hand back. “Maybe there is, if you wouldn’t mind coming upstairs to help.”

  Yuri blinked at her but did not retract her hand. Aiko’s nerves were on fire – she had never been so forward with a woman not Reina before. “Aiko-san!” Yuri exclaimed. “I…but…but Reina-san isn’t…”

  “Forget her. She has her other girlfriends, why can’t I?” She thought about Reina and Michiko murmuring in each other’s ears and felt the fury infuse in her cheeks once more. “Besi
des,” she said, tracing her fingers up Yuri’s quivering arm, “it’s been a long time since you and I did anything.” It wouldn’t be their first time together, alone. Aiko was the one who reinitiated Yuri into the lesbian world after she had a crisis in her marriage, spurred on by an old girlfriend from high school. Now Yuri had the biggest secret out of all of them, since her husband was to never know about her affairs.

  Yuri blushed so hard Aiko wondered if her cheeks would literally catch fire. “But…if you’re fighting with…it wouldn’t be…”

  “Reina wouldn’t care, fighting or no.” A good chance she was right, granted Reina’s lax attitude toward sex in general. Aiko gripped her friend’s arm and watched her relinquish herself over, their hands squeezing together as Yuri leaned in to kiss her.

  Yuri was a gentle kisser, unlike certain women Aiko knew who preferred to smother their lovers. But with Yuri’s timidity also came her inability to dominate her sexual partners. Usually when shy and inexperienced women found themselves in Aiko’s home, Reina was also there to take the reins and drive the horses back into the stables, panting and satiated. But when it was her and Yuri, Aiko got a rare glimpse into her own dominator, the same one who disappeared when pinned beneath Reina’s undulating body.

  When Aiko kissed Yuri back, lips opening and tongue extending, the younger guest melted into a happy puddle on the carpet, taking Aiko’s hand with her.

  “Chotto matte,” Aiko said, standing and walking to the other side of the room. She glimpsed out the large window overlooking the street, where gloom settled in amidst the frosty March drizzle. On sunnier days any number of people would walk up and down the streets. Today it looked as if not a single person existed outside of Aiko’s house, but she would take no chances granted how easy it was to see through the large window.

  Aiko drew the curtains closed with a final, authoritative huff. Behind her Yuri cleaned up the tea items and pushed the tray to the other side of the table. “Should we go upstairs?” Yuri sounded like an innocent girl asking her tutor for commonplace suggestions.

  Hesitating to address her second lover, Aiko wrung her hands near her chest and blinked dust from her eyes. She took in a deep breath and turned, gazing at Yuri’s figure still kneeling on the floor. She wore white, even on that dreary, dirty day, and her long skirt pooled around her seat where one naked foot poked out. Her likewise white button-down sweater heaved up and down with every breath. She’s so young. In truth, Yuri was not much younger than Aiko, perhaps a robust thirty-five, but her skin had yet to age and her hair was as long and black as the day Aiko first met her when she moved into her house with her husband ten years ago, her stomach round with the daughter inside her. Yuri was the only mother Aiko had ever had sex with, to her knowledge. Even with that, she seems so young.

  “Aiko-san?”

  She blinked, her brain flipping between thoughts of her own mortality and the little lady sitting a couple meters away. When she was one with her body again, she slowly approached Yuri, whose visage went from hopeful to unsure with every step Aiko took.

  Why am I nervous? Was she nervous? Three weeks since she last had sex, the longest she had gone since dating Reina. And this wasn’t her first solo-ride with another woman, let alone Yuri. Perhaps Aiko felt more pent up than she realized, and didn’t know what to do with all that sexual energy. The closer she got to Yuri, the more Aiko became aware of her own breasts and loins conspiring against her, telling her to fuck the neighbor until Reina waltzed in.

  Reina… Aiko stood in front of Yuri and felt a hand on her leg, fingers curling beneath jeans and stroking an ankle. I want Reina. Reina would know what to do with her pent-up sexual energy. She imagined, while Yuri reached up and undid the zipper to her jeans, that Reina was there, goading, teasing, and whispering into her ear all the “unbelievable” things she would do to her. “I’ll fuck you until you can’t speak anymore.” But Reina wasn’t there, and hadn’t been a liable lover since Valentine’s Day. I still want Reina.

  “Nee, Aiko-san,” Yuri stopped her pawing and snapped her fingers. “You okay? You look sad. Should I go?”

  Aiko shook her head and kneeled down to Yuri’s level. “Oh, no, I was just thinking about all the unbelievable things I’m about to do to you.” “I’ll fuck you until you can’t speak anymore.”

  Yuri’s mouth dropped, inviting Aiko’s tongue in as they fell onto the seating cushions and then rolled side-by-side onto the carpet. Yuri remained motionless until she had room to lie on the floor and pull Aiko atop her.

  Even when Aiko was allowed to get on top of Reina, it never lasted more than a minute – and so when Yuri seemed complacent to let Aiko top all she desired, she almost didn’t know what to do. Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned from Reina. But she couldn’t rip the clothes off and rut against another woman. Could she?

  She tried to. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons on Yuri’s sweater, slipping with nerves while Yuri tugged on the long, baggy sleeves of Aiko’s blouse. Finally, she had the last button undone and stared down at Yuri’s chest, still covered by a low-cut cotton shirt and bra beneath that.

  Aiko sprinkled Yuri’s chest with kisses, listening to her sighs and feeling the curls of her legs. Within another second Aiko managed to pull down the line of Yuri’s shirt and push away the cups of her bra, tasting the hardening nipples waiting underneath. While Yuri gasped and grabbed the table nearby, Aiko cupped her hands around Yuri’s breasts and squeezed, her palms unfamiliar with the sensation of full breasts since Reina’s were non-existent. I’ve forgotten how good they could feel.

  Aiko continued to rub and kiss Yuri’s breasts until she felt her own constricted beneath her bra. She sat up and stripped her blouse off before tossing it behind Yuri’s head. Aiko straddled Yuri’s hips and fussed with her own bra before giving up on the snaps and instead peeling off the straps so she could lower the front of the bra. Her nipples instantly reacted to the chill in the winter air.

  “Kirei…” Yuri extended her arms to take Aiko into an embrace as she fell on her and began to thrust against her hips. “You’re so beautiful.”

  Stopping long enough to align her bare breasts against Yuri’s, Aiko thought of how often Reina called her “beautiful.” Not often. She just calls me “cute.” Sometimes “sexy.” Aiko moaned into the carpet as her nipples brushed against Yuri’s, and Reina disappeared from her mind.

  The longer she humped the wetter she felt inside her jeans. “How wet are you?” she breathed into Yuri’s ear.

  When Yuri spoke, it was with the voice of a shocked girl. “I don’t know! A…a little?” She clamped a hand around Aiko’s side. “How should I know?”

  A small ripple coursed through Aiko’s thighs, and she felt more “wet” ease out of her body. How can she not know? What a sheltered girl! Regardless, Aiko swore she got wet more than she usually did with Reina, and wondered if it had to do with her “dry” spell for the past three weeks. “Can’t you feel it coming from inside you?” she asked.

  “Ma…maybe.” As they stilled, Yuri ran her fingers up and down Aiko. “Maybe you should tell me?”

  Aiko chuckled to herself. The closest Yuri would get to forwardness.

  Yuri’s skirt pulled up with the ease of dry cotton fibers rustling in the breeze. Aiko tickled the bare skin beneath, teasing Yuri for not wearing any hosiery on a winter day. Heat emanated from Yuri’s lingerie. “I think you’re probably wet.”

  “Iya, you didn’t touch it!” Yuri’s mouth ticked at its corners.

  “Do you want me to touch it?”

  Yuri squeezed her eyes shut and clasped a hand over her mouth. Aiko laughed and pushed aside Yuri’s lingerie to feel her.

  Folding skin. Fine hairs. And a warm, moist liquid seeping among both. A gasp escaped between Yuri’s fingers as Aiko rolled one of her own in Yuri’s wetness and probed the folds in her skin. “Ii?” she asked, watching for Yuri’s nod. When she bobbed her head up and down, Aiko pushed her finger in further, up to her secon
d knuckle. “Good?”

  The hand fell away from Yuri’s mouth and grabbed Aiko’s breast. “Ii yo!”

  If devil horns could sprout from Aiko’s scalp, she figured she would feel them at that moment. She pulled her finger out of Yuri and sat back. As Yuri’s face contorted into a crestfallen countenance, Aiko told her to sit up, the power from controlling somebody else swelling inside her stomach.

  Yuri complied, her lips searching for Aiko’s skin, but was held back. “What’s wrong?” Aiko could almost see tears of rejection in Yuri’s eyes. She really is innocent if she doesn’t know this game. Sometimes Aiko lost perspective on how much Reina had taught her since her own early and naïve days.

  “Nothing is wrong,” she made sure to say softly. “Did you enjoy that?”

  “Yes, of course. Why? Is it over?”

  “What? No!” Aiko tried not to laugh, but Yuri’s naiveté was almost too much. “Why? Do you want it to be over? Do you want to go home?” This game was fun.

  “No.” Yuri tried to touch Aiko’s breasts but was held off again with a strong, playful hand. “Mou, Aiko-san, what’s going on?”

  “Can you feel it?”

  “Eh? Feel what?”

  Aiko leaned forward, her nose almost burrowing into Yuri’s ear. “Can you feel how wet your pussy is now?”

  Yuri’s eyes bulged in sudden understanding. Aiko nipped the nape of her neck and felt Yuri’s blood stop flowing beneath her skin. “Y…yes,” Yuri answered, while Aiko continued to suck the soft flesh of Yuri’s throat.

  Aiko stopped long enough to say, “How wet is it?”

  “I…I don’t know! You were the one who was just in there!”

  Still kissing her across her throat, Aiko took Yuri’s left hand and shoved it beneath her skirt. “Feel your pussy and tell me how wet it is.” She guided Yuri’s hand to her own genitals, and waited.

  Yuri bit her lip and slammed her eyes shut, much to Aiko’s sadistic glee. “It’s wet.”

  “How wet.”

  “Really wet.”

  “Can I taste?” Aiko pulled Yuri’s hand away and looked at her fingers.