“To be in Japan? I was born here.”
“Don’t be difficult. I meant to be in my husband’s service.”
I could answer her with the same despair, but, motivated not to, I replied, “There’s not much to say. I had not travelled so far as you or that girl on the ship from San Francisco. I’m from a small village in the south only a few hours away by train. I went to Kyoto to enter training as a maiko. I had the naive dream of becoming a geiko of renown, and, well of course that did not work out as I had hoped, so I ended up here. The man that had convinced me to leave my family for fame and fortune really glossed over the finer points of becoming a geiko, like how preposterous a prospect it is, especially for a girl like me.”
My lady cocked her head. “A girl like you? You’re very beautiful, Niko. You would’ve made a fine geiko, I’m sure.”
“Thank you, madame, but beauty is not the only aspect of being a geiko. Nor is it the most important. More important to being a geiko is the ability to charm men, which did not come to me naturally.”
She snickered. “Because they were men.”
I blushed and turned my face to the sea. We strayed dangerously close to a topic I would rather not discuss.
“Have you ever made love to a woman, Niko?”
The question came suddenly, but in a manner to suggest it had been biding its time. It was nonetheless jarring to hear it. I would have never considered Lady Evelyn to be the sort that would ever wonder about the carnal interests of her servants. Then again, before last night, I would have never considered her to be the sort to gift her servants her soiled stockings.
“I have not, madame,” I said. My voice rasped.
“That’s a lie,” she replied immediately.
I looked at her incredulously, not for her brashness, but because she was right. Once again, she had seen right through me. I could not hide anything.
“Tell me about your first time,” she said.
I made a flustered noise as my admission that she was right to accuse me so. The excitement of the prospect of confessing a secret began to wring me. I knew that it wasn’t wise to entertain my lady’s interrogation, but I also knew that I wanted to. So I did. “I may have once developed feelings for… for my geiko…”
The admission burned my chest, and made me short of breath. I had told no one before. It was a secret I had never dared to share with anyone.
“Oh? How delightfully naughty…” she answered, her face lightening in a way that was exhilarating to witness.
“…Perhaps it is the reason I was expelled from the teahouse.”
“Indeed, ” she answered with a chuckle. She held her legs more tightly together and dug her chin into the divot between her brought-together knees.
“So it isn’t just my imagination playing tricks on me,” she said.
I swallowed. Nodded. My heart was ready to burst in my chest with fear and yet I was spellbound, helpless, to do nothing else but to spill all my life’s secrets to her. How it had come to be this way, I hadn’t a clue. But my prattling heart at least pumped me full of vigour that was wonderful to feel. I had more to spill, and I wanted to spill it.
“How did it come about?” She asked.
Another question that caught me by surprise. Another question I would never have thought she would have the interest to ask, yet now that she had asked it, I was all too eager to answer. I could not help but smile to see the excitement on my lady’s face. She was hungry for my secrets. Truly hungry. I had never seen such a look of hunger on her face before. And that had the effect of giving me reckless confidence.
“Well…,” I leaned in closer to her so as to be heard above the sea wind whistling through the grass. “Over time we formed a bond, as is usual for a maiko and her geiko. A sisterly bond, as is proper. But I knew from the beginning that I would always think of her in ways beyond sisterly. I was infatuated with her from the moment I first laid eyes on her, but of course I never dared to act upon that desire, because I never believed she could possibly have anything more than a sisterly affection for me. That began to change one night when she complained about soreness in her muscles after a show. I took to massaging her legs and feet, and that was when I suppose I realised there was a chance for something more. At first I was modest. I risked nothing. But I could see the clear satisfaction on her face from my touching her. I could see the yearning. Perhaps I was seeing things that were not so, but all the same, little by little, I became more daring in my touches. More sensual. Until one night, I could not help myself. We had both received a bit too much sake from our clients and that did me in. I began massaging her just like any other night, but that night, I had the idea of… licking her foot. It was meant to be a playful tease, of course. But she did not react to it as if it were so. She asked for more. So I gave her more. And, well…”
I felt myself becoming tight with arousal as I recalled those wonderful nights all those years ago. The most heavenly nights of my life.
My lady was holding her breath now, and barely holding onto her composure. She wanted to hear more, but I had not much more to say without reliving heartbreak and betrayal, so I ended the story, saying, “that was how we first came to make love.
She breathed out slowly, and laughed bashfully and her chest heaved as she said, “my, how utterly sinful… how wonderfully exhilarating. I’ve always wondered what it must be like to lie with a woman.”
She spoke aloud, but she did not speak to me. She spoke her thoughts to herself and her eyes were fixed on the black plume that came from the ship beyond the horizon, wistful, thirsting. And I waited with tremendous anticipation for what she might then say or do, feeling very much like one of the seagulls that rode the updrafts along the bluff.
Suddenly, she turned her eyes back to me. I came back into focus. Her eyes were sharp, and so were her lips. Her expression had suddenly transformed from being amused, to something else entirely. Devious. Demonic even. “You’ve laid bare all your dirty sins, Niko. So lay bare another: what did you do with my stockings last night? You took them with you to bed, haven’t you, naughty girl?”
“Umm…,” I answered, taken aback by her challenge, unsure if I had it in me to spill this particular secret. But she wasn’t going to let me get away with anything. Her hand shot out. She pincered my cheeks harshly, forcing me to look into her eyes. “Tell me, Niko. Did you take my stockings to bed last night?”
With an instinctive worry about what the sort of punishment the truth could bring me, I said, “No, madame!” with a lisp through my pinched mouth.
“That’s a lie, Niko! Do you know how I know? I went to the laundry room this morning and guess what I didn’t find there?” She sang her inquisition. She pinched harder, and I winced and made a whimpering noise.
“So answer me again. And answer truthfully. Did you take my stockings?”
“…Yepppth,” I replied through my pinched cheeks, spittle flying off my tongue.