Joshoku Read online

  Reina scoffed. “Something like that won’t work on me.”

  “Are you sure? It’s a sound method.”

  “I’m sure.” Reina’s brain couldn’t be manipulated so simply.

  “There isn’t anything that can reward you?”

  Another scoff. “I’m not a puppy.”

  Something menacing appeared on Aiko’s fair visage. She lifted her brows, curled her lips, and shifted her body so she fell to one side. The sleeve of her baggy blouse fell down her shoulder, exposing its soft flesh. “Nothing?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

  “Reina...” Aiko flicked the cards in her hand. Every movement of her delicate wrist was torture to the arousal making its presence known in Reina’s body. “I think I know something that will reward you well enough.”

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that was.

  “I’ll tell you what, Reina-chan.” Aiko sank back on her legs again, tossing her ponytail over her shoulders and licking the sweat off her upper lip. “For every one you get right,” she held up the flashcards, “I’ll take off a piece of clothing. Once you get them off, we’ll do it.”

  A nuclear bomb went off in the back of Reina’s brain.

  “I thought that might speak to you. Now, what’s this?”

  Time stopped as Reina assessed her situation. She’s using sex to make me study. Not just sex, but nudity! A piece of her clothing for every... Reina’s eyes darted up and down, counting the amount of clothing her girlfriend wore. Four, max. Blouse, shorts, bra and panties. Too hot that time of the year to wear layers or even socks. Thank God this wasn’t January. But I get to see her naked all the time. Didn’t matter. The promise of sex... of excruciating foreplay dangled before her. All she had to do was remember four Chinese characters she had looked at every five minutes for the past few days. That was all! Then Aiko would be hers, and this cursed arousal could be vanquished for one more night.

  “Reina? What’s this?”

  She stared at the kanji on the flashcard. C’mon... What the hell was it? She couldn’t even remember writing it! “Keihan?”

  “No, sorry.”

  Reina knew this. Somewhere in the depths of her memory lurked the readings to these Chinese characters no one with a high school diploma needed to know. Reina wasn’t a scientist, a doctor, or anyone who needed to know kanji outside of the norm. Far from it. She could read a newspaper. So what else? Frustration brewed inside her like a bad cup of coffee. It didn’t help that Aiko was shuffling her shoulders up and down to the beat of the music in the background.

  “Gojou!”

  Aiko gasped. “Pin pon!” she said, insinuating that her girlfriend was correct. The flashcard fell to the futon as Aiko leaned back and unbuttoned her denim shorts.

  Reina did not expect those to go first. They must be strangling her hips. In that heat, over there? Bless the weatherman. Aiko shimmied out of her shorts and threw them at her girlfriend. Bare legs kicked in the air as she rolled forward, black panties sucked to her skin.

  “Next,” she said, holding up another card.

  Joke was on Aiko. Since she only held up one card, the light from the desk lamp shone through it and illuminated the phonetic spelling on the back. “Bunbon.”

  “Eh! See! You can do it when you have a reward!” Yeah, now show me your tits. “And you have a pretty good reward, if I do say so myself.” Aiko leaned back so she could pull her blouse over her head.

  It took a moment for what was beneath to sink into Reina’s head. “Hora!” She exclaimed, her eyes clearly deceiving her. “It’s the black bra!”

  Aiko pushed her legs off to the side, now clad in nothing but her black lingerie. The bra from the underwear shop pushed up and lifted apart her breasts, just as they had in the changing room two months before. Since then Reina had only seen the white and pink bras her girlfriend bought that day.

  “I needed another new one recently,” Aiko said, snapping a strap. “So when I went shopping, I decided to get one you liked so much...”

  “I see.”

  Aiko picked up a card and slapped it against her breasts. “What’s this one?”

  “That’s not fair. Now I’m staring at your tits.”

  The flashcard rubbed against Aiko’s skin, dipping into her cleavage whenever it braved far enough down. “What is it?”

  Reina couldn’t even focus on her handwriting. There were three characters smashed together, making up some archaic word nobody cared about. Except Reina cared a lot right now. That stupid word stood between her and her girlfriend’s beautiful breasts. Sure, Reina could say she wasn’t playing anymore and wait until Aiko was willing to have sex without the games. She could do that. But her groin ached in desire, and she fought to keep her hands from touching her girlfriend only a meter away. Her girlfriend, holding a fucking flashcard against her cleavage. Let me in there. Aiko loved it when Reina licked her there. Wearing that sexy bra full of good memories? Shit.

  “Give me a hint.”

  “Nope.”

  “Then can I pass and do a different one?”

  “Nope. No reading, no boobs.”

  “That is fascism.”

  “Tough shit.”

  Reina clasped her hands against the sides of her head and concentrated on the kanji. The fucking characters on top of her girlfriends tits. In that black bra. From the changing room. Where they did something no good girl ever did. “Toumogeko.”

  The card fell from Aiko’s breasts. “What a smart girlfriend I have.” She pulled a strap down, slowly. Please do not make me answer another one to get the other strap off! Reina would die. Seriously die.

  She was lucky that night. With a naughty demeanor, Aiko lowered her other strap, just as slowly, and pushed her chest up, enticing Reina in ways she did not understand. Treading dangerous ground. If she kept this up, Reina would not be able to play the game anymore. She almost lost it when two nipples popped out of the black bra. The lingerie hit Reina in the face.

  “One more, and you can have me.” Aiko was on all fours, her breasts hanging from her chest as she rocked back and forth. She waited until Reina was salivating before leaning back in the futon, legs spread. A fourth and final flashcard slapped upon her panty-covered omanko.

  For the briefest moment Reina laughed at how perverted her girlfriend had become in a year and a half of dating. Brief, because Reina was a damned horndog and wanted to dive between Aiko’s legs as if her omanko were an Olympic swimming pool. Ten points for style. She’d get her tongue in that hole on the first try.

  “Reina-chaaan,” Aiko cooed, toes twitching. “What’s the word say?”

  Reina’s mind went blank. Words. Syllables. Chinese characters. What the hell were they, anyway? What was language? What was the point of this silly game, of college, of life beyond the bedroom when primal instincts were at play? Instincts that Reina barely had control over when she wasn’t trying to study for a test? What the hell has my life become?

  A blip of clarity popped into her mind. “Jyuushoushu,” she said, lunging forward to rip her girlfriend’s panties off.

  Sweet, sweet warmth met her mouth as she did as promised. Sweet, sweet yelps filled the air as naked Aiko fell back and clutched the futon. Fire burned inside Reina at temperatures she rarely felt before. Only when she needed a woman as badly as she did right now. She’s so wet. Maybe it was sweat, but it soon became mostly aieki, tumbling out of Aiko’s body and onto Reina’s tongue. She lapped it readily, pressing her tongue against her girlfriend’s clit before dipping her tongue back in again.

  “Reina!” Aiko cried out as if this were her first time being fucked by Reina Yamada. Don’t make me laugh. But that was part of the fun with her. Whereas other women who had never been with another before Reina soon became bored with her lust, Aiko was still entranced, enamored, enslaved. She writhed as if having another woman’s tongue in her pussy were a completely new thing. Still not laughi
ng. Since they started dating months ago, Reina had put her girlfriend – the longest relationship she had yet to have – through countless positions and adventures. Tongue-in-hole was so basic when compared to what they did on Aiko’s birthday last September.

  Another name burst into the air, Aiko’s legs dangling on either side of Reina’s head. Surges of heat blasted into her face, and Reina reached up to grab those breasts she coveted for too many minutes. As she pinched her girlfriend’s nipples, her lips sucked on the swollen clitoris beneath them.

  Feeling Aiko come on her face only served to rile her up more.

  “You’re so insatiable,” Aiko said weakly, helping to pull Reina’s T-shirt off as the needy woman climbed between her girlfriend’s legs. “What makes you think I can do it again now?”

  “I hear that a lot.” Reina fumbled to get her pants and underwear off. A great feat when she was otherwise preoccupied with a very sexual woman beneath her. “And yet you always seem up for it.”

  Both naked, they came together, Aiko’s legs wrapped fast around Reina’s waist. One kiss later, Reina was thrusting her omanko against her girlfriend’s, so happy to finally be releasing her sexual energy.

  “Don’t stop,” Aiko whimpered, her sweaty hands clinging to Reina’s shoulders. “I want to feel you do it.”

  That didn’t take long. With her girlfriend’s heat and wetness burning beneath her, Reina soon had an orgasm hard enough to dilute the torture in her body. She muffled her moans in her futon, Aiko’s fingers stroking her short hair.

  “See how well you did with a reward?” Aiko’s soft voice lulled Reina as she rolled over and took a deep breath. “You need a reward for being so good.”

  Reina said nothing as her girlfriend disappeared between her bent legs. I’ll come harder this time. Everything burst in a riot of pleasure as Aiko’s tongue reciprocated the love from earlier. Reina was too exhausted to say a damn thing. Forget kanji. Forget her homework. Now was the time to relax and indulge in the best pleasures of life: the wonderful tribulations of the cult of joshoku.

  “Ai-chan! Please come help me in the kitchen!” Junko’s voice cracked through the stuffy house like thunder.

  “Coming!” Aiko slid the front door of her great aunt’s house shut. “No, no, Auntie Kanoko,” she said, helping the elderly woman step up from the genkan. “You have to take off your shoes first. Remember?”

  The kindly old face looked at her with a quizzical expression. Of course she didn’t remember. She also didn’t remember to put her shoes on before wandering out of the house for their walk earlier.

  Aiko hadn’t met her great aunt many times before, for all her mother’s commendations about what a wonderful woman Kanoko once was. I wish I could have met such a woman. The Kanoko Aiko knew now was a shell of a woman. Certainly, she was kind, and could still take decent care of herself, but the dementia was growing. Junko and her sister did most of the caretaking every other day, making sure there was plenty of food and that the house and laundry stayed clean, but when Aiko had no classes nor plans with Reina she would come along to keep an eye on her poor aunt.

  “Ai-chan has such pretty hair,” Kanoko said as the three of them sat down for tea. Junko tested the temperature of her aunt’s before serving it.

  “Yes, it’s quite beautiful.”

  Aiko patted the top of her head. “Thank you, Auntie.” So far she was the only person Kanoko regularly remembered. I guess she likes me.

  Her great aunt put her tea down and continued to stare at the back of Aiko’s head. Eyes that were usually cloudy became clear, a light sparking in the depths of Kanoko’s mind. “Does Ai-chan have a boyfriend?”

  The teacup in Aiko’s hand clattered back onto her saucer. “No, Auntie. I don’t.”

  Kanoko frowned.

  “Such a shame that she doesn’t.” Junko was like a bloodhound sniffing out that clue. “I keep telling her she won’t be in that university forever. So many good potential partners there.”

  Aiko could only smile. Her mother didn’t know about her sexuality, and it was going to stay that way. Doesn’t mean the “get a boyfriend” speeches don’t ever get old. Never mind that Junko always forgot her daughter went to an all girl’s school.

  Kanoko, however, chose that day to have the most lucidity in a long while. “You should have somebody. I’m as independent as they come, but I still had a husband.”

  “I keep telling her that...”

  “I’m fine, thank you, Auntie.”

  Kanoko continued to share her condescension with Aiko throughout their tea time, lasting until the latter could no longer take it. It was one thing to remark that Aiko had no boyfriend... quite another to berate her about it for half an hour until the sun started to go down and the afternoon melted away. She finally had the chance to excuse herself as her mother was preparing dinner for Kanoko, citing that she was off to meet some friends from school.

  It was a lie, of course. Aiko had no friends anymore. None besides Reina, who was the “best friend” she never thought she needed. Nobody wants to be my friend now. Not since she was outed in the middle of the university center her freshman year. She had study partners and acquaintances over the years, but no friends. Most of the time it didn’t bother her... until her mother brought it up.

  Aiko was envious of Reina. She has friends besides me. Reina had a friend in every room she entered. Aiko wondered what it was like to be so likable – to be strange, different, but still accepted in every group of friends.

  That’s how Aiko saw her girlfriend’s relationship with other people. What would it be like to be her? Lonely Aiko wouldn’t know.

  Nobody told Reina that the place for the post-term celebration was an izakaya deep in the bowels of Roppongi, one of Tokyo’s biggest party towns. Reina thought her study group had invited her to karaoke, after a semester’s talk of inane pop music and idol worshipping. If I have to hear one more thing about SMAP I will punch myself in the face to spare me the misery. Karaoke she could handle, especially if alcohol was involved. But no amount of booze in the world could prepare her for a seedy bar in the heart of Tokyo’s playground for the elite.

  Still, she was in the mood to party, and although Hitomi and company were not her idea of “friends,” they were decent, and rich. No doubt one of them was picking up the tab for this party, which included enough beer to drown vermin and fried foods to go with it. They dominated a table in the middle of the restaurant, loud, half-drunk, and flippant with their money, like every other table in that place. An izakaya was not known for its solitude.

  “Kanpai!” Hitomi cheered, holding her beer up in the air. “To our first semester of college. May it rot in hell.”

  Reina could drink to that. Four months of busting her ass at school was almost too much to bear. The only way she got through her kanji class alive – albeit with less than stellar marks – was because of Aiko’s handy-dandy study tips. I’ve seen her naked a lot this semester. It got to the point where Reina was imagining her girlfriend naked whilst in the middle of taking her tests. Not great for keeping a steady hand while she remembered her stroke orders. No, the other kind of stroke orders.

  But the semester was over, and Reina had over two months of summer vacation ahead of her. She would be taking on more hours at work to make extra cash, but she had no homework. Four months felt like an eternity since she last had such freedom.

  Hitomi asked for another cheer, and six bottles of beer clanked together. Reina shot back her beer as quickly as possible to drown out her companions.

  Of course, Hitomi and Yoko were there, sitting next to her. Those two were veritable best friends, but Reina was allowed to tag along at their study groups and at parties like this. I’m not sure why else they want me around. Surely she was no longer so interesting to them. Ryota was there too, a quiet man who mostly did his girlfriend’s bidding. Reina liked quiet men, since they usually had nothing of merit to say anyway.

  The oth
er two men there that night were not quiet, however.

  Reina wasn’t sure who they were or what they were doing there. Throughout the night she learned that one of the other men was Yoko’s boyfriend – apparently, she had one – but the third one’s identity completely eluded her. They didn’t even go to their college. “We finished our classes today as well, Reina-san,” said the man sitting across from her, someone named Kouji. He had some slimy look about him that Reina wanted nothing to do with. It was probably that goatee he sported on his chin like it was a trophy. Or the fact that he kept talking to Reina like she would have any interest in him. “What do you study, Reina-san?”

  She stared at the top of her beer. “Japanese,” she mumbled.

  Kouji rambled about the kanji in his name, sending Reina into a stupor where she only cared about drinking beer and eating fried food. At this rate I’ll be hungover tomorrow. Considering she had plans, that would be inconvenient.

  A few minutes later the boys got up to haul Yoko’s boyfriend to the bathroom to retch. Yoko followed them as far as the bathroom door before returning to their table with a crestfallen countenance. “He’s always doing that,” she said.

  “Nee, nee.” Hitomi leaned in, waving her hand in Reina’s direction. “So what do you think of Kouji-kun, eh? Pretty good looking guy, right?”

  Laughter almost burst out of Reina like a hyena’s cry. She had to grip her beer bottle to contain herself. “Good looking? I can safely say he’s not my type.”

  “Oh?” Hitomi frowned. Not a good look for her, since it made her curly hair sag around her face. “We invited him here so maybe you could find someone to date.”

  Beer clogged Reina’s throat. “Excuse me?” She wiped spittle from her mouth.

  “You said you didn’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Yeah.” It was one of the first things Hitomi asked when they started studying together.

  “Didn’t mean to shove someone onto you, of course, but he’s one of Ryota’s friends. So, what kind of guy do you like? Maybe one of us knows someone?”