“Yes, Kathlene-san,” Hisa said, bowing low and peeking up my kimono, hoping to catch a glimpse of my blond pubic hair on my sand mound.
“The gods will punish you for that,” I teased. He knew I followed the geisha custom of not wearing anything underneath but a light silk wrap. His searching eyes made me giggle, though I blushed at the thought of him seeing my silky golden tuft of hair. He also knew my secret, but he would never tell. He accepted his place in the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree and guarded it carefully.
I slipped into a dark, shadowy corner under the sloping roof of the teahouse and waited. Would Hisa come?
No flickering lights from inside the teahouse sent their warning that the confines of social dignity must be worn here. He did come and joy filled me up. Within seconds his arms were around me, holding me, his chest pressed up against my breasts, my body moving and rocking against his, seeking a pleasure too long denied to me. My soft lips caressed him, brushed against his cheek and wandered up to his ears.
I was lost in the heat of my capricious moment, then startled when he grabbed my breasts. I stiffened, but he didn’t notice. Not satisfied with the touch of silk alone, his hands reached under my kimono. No. I wanted him to hold me, not make love to me.
Before I could stop him, he pushed aside my lightweight wrap that reached from under my breasts to my ankles, making it easy for him to open my kimono by folding the layers back and revealing my pale thighs. I prayed the gods would turn their faces away and not see my shameless passion. I moistened my lips, craving his kiss as much as his touch, but he wouldn’t kiss me. Kissing was a private and erotic act and not practiced openly, but in the dark with a geisha. Yet I longed to feel his mouth on mine, fulfilling me with something that went beyond the sexual act. Something I yearned for but had never known. Love.
“I’ve waited all these years since I first saw you to make you feel the pleasure of my mushroom, Kathlene-san,” Hisa whispered in my ear.
“I’ve waited, too, Hisa-don, but you know it’s against the rules.” I held my breath, surprised at my own words. Yes, I wanted him, but I wanted to be a geisha more.
“I want to taste your essence, Kathlene-san, smell your delicate, sweet fragrance, feel you squeezing my penis hard.”
“I can’t,” I whispered, my heart racing, my lips dry, my palms perspiring. I rubbed my hands on my silk kimono and up to my sash. Although the lustrous material appeared to be thin and delicate it wasn’t at all delicate, but woven from the strongest of silken fibers. Precious brocade that shone like sunlight and rainbows but was as strong as leather and as soft as crepe with its massed gold threads.
Strong like the heart of a geisha, I could hear Mariko saying, the echo of her persistent voice hammering in my head, reminding me we lived in a world that had no place for a woman’s feelings, that Kioto was a city of spiritual secrets.
Secrets of the geisha.
And I couldn’t betray them.
“I must go, Hisa-don,” I whispered, tossing my head and pushing my hips away from him.
“They say you’re the most beautiful maiko in Kioto, Kathlenesan,” he said, breathing into my ear, then licking it.
In spite of myself, I sighed, then breathed in deeply and a strong, woody fragrance filled my nostrils. “You’re no longer a boy, Hisa-don,” I whispered, regretting the words as soon as I said them. His entire body went rigid as he pressed up against me, my softness melting into him, tempting him with the promise of moonlit nights, his nude body showered with fragrant white blossoms.
“Then let me make you a woman, Kathlene-san, though I’ll lose my head if okâsan discovers us,” he said, asking me to sacrifice my closeness to the gods and go with him. “It would be worth it to hear you cry out in the night.”
I rolled my tongue over my lips, tasting my desire. He meant a woman’s greatest pleasure. Orgasm.
No, I couldn’t. I had to do something. Fast. What?
If he thinks I’m not a virgin, I can send him on his way without losing face.
Dropping my voice, I said in a seductive manner, “You’re not my first lover, Hisa-don. I’ve entertained many men in my futon. Politicians, court officials, even royal princes.”
Hisa smiled, then shook his head. “That’s not true, Kathlenesan. It’s tradition okâsan sell spring.”
I frowned. So he knew about the ritual where a maiko’s virginity was sold to the highest bidder. It came about during the time of the shôguns when the prostitutes of Yoshiwara staged cherry blossom parties beneath the red and white blossoms of spring and sold their virginity, some more than once.
I wasn’t for sale. I wanted to fall in love with the man who would make me a woman.
“What makes you so sure I haven’t made love to a man?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t be so hungry to taste the fallen fruit at your feet if you’d known other men.”
I shrugged. Double talk. Meaning he was considered beneath me. Yet it frightened me to know Hisa was willing to break those rules for me and risk death, his head ending up on the end of a post outside the city. I didn’t wish to see him lose his life because of me.
My conscience gnawed at my brain. I must make him go away before we were discovered. The gods wouldn’t be so cruel to expose us.
Would they?
“If you let him taste your golden peach, Kathlene-san,” I heard a girl’s voice say behind me, “it will be forever spoiled.”
5
I squeezed my eyes shut. Mariko. She had followed me into the hidden part of the garden with dwarf pines and flickering stone lanterns, a place where we went to forget all the unpleasant realities of life. To me, it was a fairy-tale palace garden lost in the charmed quiet of the great shadows behind the high walls.
Today it couldn’t hide my secret.
Mariko had seen me flirting with Hisa.
And what he was doing to me. What would have happened if Mariko hadn’t come upon us? Would I have tossed away my fears as if they were grains of rice and let him make love to me? True, I’d fantasized about being naked with him on a snowscape, my body entwined in his arms, spreading my legs wide as he was about to penetrate me. In my dream, I pushed my back hard into the snow as he thrust into me, thrusting his desire and satisfying this mysterious need I had that remained unfulfilled.
No excuse, Mariko would say, then admonish me for breaking another rule. Though I begged him to stop his hands roaming in forbidden places, in Mariko’s eyes I was like the honorable carp, toying with his fish hook, his penis, and arousing the jinrikisha boy.
What else could she think?
I dragged my hands across my breasts, covering myself, hoping she’d forget how our bodies became entangled in an embrace, my moon grotto oozing with fluids, dripping and bubbling with desire. She’d understand I lost control.
Wouldn’t she?
I pulled away from Hisa quickly. Too quickly. The tightly woven white cord of silk around my midriff loosened as Hisa’s fingers pulled on it, then came undone and fell to the ground. I made no move to pick it up. Instead, I tilted my chin up, determined not to give Mariko any indication I was shaken by her intrusion. I should apologize to her, since it was the accepted way to get back into