Ren'Ai Rensa: Hatsukoi Part 5

Aiko searched the area to see if any of the other patrons heard what Reina said the only people around them were those coming and going from the restaurant stand, n.o.body staying longer than they had to in that chill. The man behind the counter was too busy running his shop to pay any heed to the conversations of two young women.

"Gomen, Reina..." Saying just her name and nothing else felt both like a great transgression and elating, since it meant Reina considered her closer than a stranger. "Forgive me if this is too personal, but, I don't really know anything about you besides you being..."

"A lesbian?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I don't know much about you, either."

What followed was the usual conversation two people on a first date would have: Where did you go to school? What food do you like? Who is your favorite band? Reina didn't ask any questions, but she did answer Aiko's with brevity. "I went to a Catholic girls' high school; I like okonomiyaki; I don't care about anyone in particular." Aiko took it in stride and shared her own profile, from being the youngest of five siblings to studying English at a local college. Reina, however, finished her ice cream, crossed her arms, and stared into nothingness while Aiko talked. I thought this was the whole point of a first date, but she doesn't even say much.

"So," Aiko continued when the silence began gnawing at her skull, "my friend Tomoko said she went to high school with you. Do you really not remember her?"

Reina's arms tightened around her torso. The frustration in her muscles traveled up her neck and into her cheeks, where a tic formed and pulsed just beneath her eye. "There were a lot of girls at my high school. All the same." She scoffed.

"What do you mean by that?" Aiko buried her hands beneath her purse when a freezing breeze blew by.

Reina, however, remained undeterred. "All the same. They see something they want, and at first they're too scared to take it, until they see all their friends taking it. And then it's okay. So they take what they want until they get too scared to take any more. And they run away, taking everything preapproved for them. I hate it. They're all the same."

Her voice was strong and stern, like a politician declaring a new era after the fall of the old regime, but Aiko had eyes: she didn't see hatred in Reina's cringing countenance, but pain. Something in her heart cracked under the duress of her explanation. "Was my friend like that?" Aiko chose her tone carefully.

"I don't remember your friend."

"Oh, right." Aiko picked the threads in her sweater while processing the snap in Reina's voice. "I'm sorry, I know this is probably uncomfortable for you."

"Maa, it's like this." Reina's posture slackened, but her appearance remained resolute. "I'm tired of those kinds of girls. I've got too much of a life to live without them. And they don't care about me, so why should I care about them? You probably think I'm just some lecherous pervert, and maybe you're right..."

"I don't think that."

"...But I don't care, because that's just how I am. It's how I've always been. I like to f.u.c.k girls. A lot. Regularly. I can't even remember how many girls I've been in anymore. So if you don't want that kind of life, then let's just forget this. Go home and go be a good little girl."

Aiko was too flabbergasted to reply but when she did, she made sure to keep her voice as clear and calm as possible. "Then why did you ask me out, if you're going to talk to me like that?"

Reina leaned forward, her arms bracing against the table. "Because I want to f.u.c.k you."

Although Aiko's head stayed forward, her eyes darted around to make sure, once again, n.o.body listened to their scandalous conversation. Not until she was satisfied did she linger on those words. "How'd you like it if I f.u.c.ked your p.u.s.s.y real good?" Now this? At least n.o.body could say Reina wasn't forward about what she wanted. Me. She wants me. A nave voice giggled inside Aiko. Was that the infection? What was the infection, anyway? Lesbianism? s.e.x? What kind of woman am I if I do that? And then she understood: she never had to question her motives with men. Why should she question her desires for women? Because I never knew it was possible until I met her.

"Ano..." Aiko finally said, long after Reina had begun picking at the dirt beneath her fingernails. "You should know I don't do that sort of thing on a first date."

"What? f.u.c.k?"

A frustrated sigh seethed through Aiko. "Yes. That."

Reina laughed. "I do."

"I don't."

"I do!" Reina slapped her hand on the table. "Does that bother you?"

Aiko slammed her eyes shut, but she still couldn't stop the image playing in her head. There Reina was, naked, rubbing herself against Aiko and saying "I'm going to f.u.c.k your p.u.s.s.y real good. Right now."

"No." She opened her eyes. "It doesn't bother me. That's your business. I respect that. But don't think you're going to pressure me into doing something I'm not comfortable with."

"What? f.u.c.king me on a first date, or f.u.c.king me as a woman?"

"I don't know. The first one."

"So you're not opposed to f.u.c.king women?"

"Stop saying that!"

"What?"

"That word!"

Now people glanced at them, politely, with their hands near their faces and their feet carrying them far away from the vulgar girls. Reina hmphed and rubbed her hand against her mouth. "What's wrong with that word?" she said between her fingers. "It accurately describes my desires. Saa, you really are a good little girl!"

"I don't see how." The word Reina kept using was "hameru," literally, "to insert." Aiko heard it many times as a vulgarity for s.e.x, but that wasn't what upset her so much she didn't understand how Reina could "f.u.c.k" her. She doesn't have a...so how could she? With her fingers? Aiko crossed her legs.

"Oooooiii." Reina snapped her fingers beneath Aiko's fantasizing eyes. "Look, I'm sorry if I'm fast moving, but you have to understand...I've been p.i.s.sed on so many times by girls like you that I just want to know upfront....are you just gonna use me for your experimentation, or is this flirtation real?"

So many words for Aiko to process at once! She started to reply numerous times, but on each occasion she stuttered and had to regroup her thoughts. What do I want from this? Am I just using her? Why am I here?

"I won't lie to you, I'm not sure." Aiko pulled her purse strap over her shoulder, her hands digging through it for a piece of paper and a pen. "But I can a.s.sure you I'm not the type to joke about this, nor do I have any intention of causing you harm. I...I think I like you. And as I'm sure you can gather, this is something new for me." Her hand scribbled some strokes on the paper. "You are a very confident woman, and I'm jealous of that. Because I'm not."

Aiko stood and pushed the paper across the table.

"What's this?"

"My phone number." Aiko smoothed out her clothing. "If you want, you can call me and we can try this again. You've reminded me that I should think about what I desire as well. Maybe it's s.e.x, maybe it's not. I appreciate you being so forward with me so I know where we stand, but...I'm not ready for that. Call me if you're still interested in dating me, but know that you're operating on my time."

Marching off from the situation both invigorated Aiko and scared the s.h.i.t out of her. What did I just do? Was that me? On the outside she presented a woman in charge of her life and decisions, but inside she crumbled like the burnt cookies in her kitchen.

So she tried to walk away. But within another second Aiko pivoted on her foot and approached Reina again, the girl half turned in her seat.

"Did you forget something?"

That c.o.c.ky grin was just asking to be slapped off. She's worse than a man!

Aiko bent down and kissed Reina on the forehead.

"There may be more where that came from," she said. No, it wasn't any tongue, or even a cheeky word, but it was what Aiko offered. The door was open.

Reina continued to smile with those heavy eyes and taut lips. They always said Cleopatra was some sort of vixen. I could have her, right now. No. Too soon.

"I look forward to it."

But Aiko was already turning and shuffling down the sidewalk as the last of those words chimed in her mind. She didn't look back until she reached the corner, and all she saw was an empty picnic table. For all she knew, Reina was just a fabrication of the imagination.

The last day of cla.s.ses before New Year's vacation ended with a surprise test about English participle phrases and subject-verb agreement. When it was over and handed in, Aiko left the school building with the decision to treat herself to something special.

She wanted to go shopping down a fashionable street, but the day was too rainy to spend long outside. Aiko then debated waltzing down a shopping arcade, but packs of high school boys filled them. Maybe Tomo-chan and Nana-chan will go to karaoke with me. But they were at a club meeting. Eventually Aiko gave up and got on a train home, with the idea to rent some videos.

Her neighborhood rental shop was full of the usual folk: older women arguing over cla.s.sic Hollywood films, children squealing over the latest animations, questionable salarymen sniffing around the erotic movies in the back. Aiko folded her umbrella and went to the "New Releases" section. All her usual favorites were already out. She didn't care much for action films, and the humor of Western comedy usually went over her head. And although she preferred to watch Western films as English practice, she went on to look at the new j.a.panese movies, but they were the usual sports and detective fare.

This isn't what I came for anyway. She had the idea the night before when she went to sleep dreaming about Reina and Michiko making fun of her. "She doesn't know how to have s.e.x!" Michiko had cajoled, and Reina answered by kissing her friend for a long time. But Aiko's imagination wasn't quick enough to fill in the subsequent blanks of a wet dream. Beyond two women taking off their clothes, kissing and heavy petting, what was the point?

Practicality was the one thing capable of keeping Aiko focused on her "research." She slipped into the back of the store, wandering the romance aisles in search of any movie about two women as "more than just friends." She knew she could just follow the salarymen into the sectioned off corner, but shuddered at the thought. The gentlest way to "research" was to find a movie with a story as well as the...other parts.

Unsurprisingly, Aiko couldn't find anything. Not at first. All the romance movies were about men and women, with the occasional film about two men. But two women? Like looking for sunshine in winter! She wanted to give up until she found one j.a.panese film she remembered from her childhood, when it came on TV one day and her mother turned it off to the tune of, "I don't want this disgusting c.r.a.p on in my house." The scene she banned was of two women flirting over a gla.s.s of milk.

Or so how Aiko remembered. She read the description on the back, careful to not let anyone see her. A "love story" about two women? And are they naked? One of the tiny, grainy screen caps made it look that way.

Aiko hurried to the front counter, grabbing an innocuous comedy film along the way. She didn't want the t.i.tle of the one movie showing up on her family's history, so she opened her own account just to hide her dirty little lesbian secrets. The hardest part was not fainting when the clerk retrieved the tape for her after staring right at the naked ladies. I'm not a pervert, I swear!

She muttered a thanks and left, umbrella in one hand and risque videos in the other. The ten minute walk to her house consisted of Aiko staring at every person walking by and wondering if they knew what filth she carried.

The worst was her mother asking what she had the moment she stepped through the front door. "Oh, just a couple movies I rented." Then Junko wanted to know what movies, and Aiko showed her the comedy film. "I thought I'd watch the other one upstairs. Is there time before dinner?" With an affirmation, Aiko went to her room.

She had her own television and VCR, hand-me-downs from her older brothers and sisters. As the baby of the bunch, Aiko never got much new when it came to expensive electronics. She also had a CD player her sister insisted was "junk," but Junko forced her to leave it in Aiko's room. It is junk. It doesn't even work.

However, the TV and VCR both worked. Aiko pulled her comforter and a pillow onto the floor, and then went downstairs to get a gla.s.s of orange juice before settling down to watch her movie. She made sure the door was shut but not locked, she wasn't so privileged in that house and her shutters were closed as the movie started.

Aiko still wasn't prepared for how quickly the movie delved right into the lesbian theme. Within two minutes she watched two grown j.a.panese women teasing and kissing each other. They look like best friends pretending. But they weren't friends these two characters had met not even an hour before in movie time, and here they were acting naughty! Aiko hid in her pillow and remained fixated on the TV, as if those women could see her through the screen.

They stopped kissing and continued with the overall plot, which made little sense. One woman, a housewife, involved herself with a carefree, single woman and now spent most of her days going out with her new friend. Her husband remained oblivious to his wife's antics, and even Aiko forgot for a while the s.e.xual undertones of the movie, until the women were back in an apartment, slowly disrobing one another.

Forgetting that the one character cheated on her husband, or that the main plot still seemed senseless, Aiko realized she had never seen another woman's body in this context before. Of course she had seen other naked women, having grown up with two older sisters and done her time in various locker rooms. But never like this. These women didn't undress to change their clothing or to bathe they undressed for one another, maximizing the thrill of unveiling one breast, then the other, and staring into their lovers' face for a reaction. They caressed one another with a softer affection than Aiko ever received from any boyfriend; they kissed and touched each other's most intimate spots, with sighs and rea.s.surances. Aiko sank into a trance and watched it all through growing eyes.

She didn't expect the movie to continue the scene, but soon she was absorbed into tongue kisses, ma.s.sages, and gentle humping. The way the couple's legs intertwined, so one didn't know whose was whose, was almost as engrossing as their method to make love. It doesn't look that different from a woman and a man at all. How could it feel good for either of them? Maybe just being with each other like that is all that matters.

The movie cut away after that, and Aiko daydreamed. She curled into her pillow and imagined herself with another woman. Could I undress before another woman? Could I let one touch me like that? Could I rub my body against a girl? Aiko almost had, back in the restaurant and karaoke booth. At the time Michiko was more than welcome to kiss her or maybe put a hand somewhere.

Michiko ended up not wanting her. However, Reina did.

Later, she would thank her luck that the movie was in the middle of a normal scene when a knock came at the bedroom door. Aiko leapt forward and turned off the movie before answering, her brain crashing down into reality.

"Ai-chan, how's the movie?" Junko shouldered her way into the room and frowned at the blank TV screen. "Ara? Aren't you watching something?"

"Yes, but it was short. It's over already."

"Oh. Oh! You have a phone call waiting for you downstairs."

Hope resurfaced inside Aiko. "Really? Who is it? Nana-chan?"

"No." Junko furrowed her graying brows. "I don't know who this girl is. But she has a really rough voice. I already forgot her name."

Aiko pushed past her mother and bounded down the stairs to the waiting phone in the hallway. Please be Reina. Please be Reina.

Please be Reina!

"What's this?"

Reina looked up from her desk and saw Michiko rummaging through the pile of dirty clothes on the bedroom floor. A pang shot through her stomach from her seiri wreaking its first day havoc in her uterus. "What are you doing in my clothes?"

Michiko tossed Reina's jeans and held up a white piece of paper. "Oooh, it's a phone number! Where did you get this? Hailey's Bar? The Pink Night? Do you even know who it belongs to?" She sat on Reina's blue sweater and began folding the paper into a crane.

"Yes, I know whose it is." Reina ignored the pain in her stomach. "That's Aiko's phone number."

"Ehh?" The crane came undone as Michiko searched for the number again. "No way! You actually went on a date with her?"

Nodding, Reina remembered how feisty that good girl had been. Few girls in Reina's hometown had the double-punch of femme and a.s.sured, and she had spent most of the previous night digesting her own feelings on the issue. Until her seiri arrived just in time for bed, of course. Then all she could think about was running down to the nearest convenience store to get chocolate, fried food, and a back up package of panty liners.

"Yup. We went on a date."

"Majisuka! I heard her say yes, but I didn't think it would actually happen."

While Michiko recommenced folding the paper, Reina turned to her desk and studied the stationery before her. What was I going to say? A couple lines of j.a.panese kanji filled a void, but it was meaningless. Reina got the notion to write a letter that day during rehearsal, but found that her inability to express herself in words raged on. Her thoughts were once more interrupted when a paper airplane crashed into her hand.

"So? What was she like?" Michiko scooted over and sat at Reina's feet, like a child waiting for a pre-naptime story.

"What was who like?"

She received a slap to the leg. "You know. That Aiko girl. The one who's falling down the lesbian rabbit hole faster than a Sapphic Alice herself." Michiko placed her head on Reina's lap. "I didn't think a good girl like her was your type. You usually whine about how awful they were when you're done with them."

Reina continued to shoot daggers at her opening line. "Ah. You mean how was s.e.x with her."

"Obviously."

Reina flipped over her stationery and put her pen down. "We didn't do it."

"Hontou ni?" Michiko sat back on her haunches again, a puzzle brewing on her visage. "Oh, did she turn you down? I thought it would be as much with a type like her."

"More or less." But she left her window open for me to climb through sometime.

"Aw. Well if we have time after work tomorrow maybe we can go to Peach Skin and get you some new p.u.s.s.y."

Still ignoring her friend, Reina picked up the airplane and unfolded it to see Aiko's crinkled number. "She baked me cookies." She opened the top drawer in her desk to reveal four cookies remaining in their pink packaging. "They're pretty good."

The drawer swallowed Michiko's head. "Ah! Oishii ne?" She pulled out the cookies and sniffed through them. "Can I have one?"

"Sure."

Michiko snapped a cookie in half and chomped on one of the ends. "Oishii sou! She's a good baker." After a few more chews she continued, "Well, if nothing else, she went into that date wanting to score with you, eh? She was pretty willing when we went to karaoke. But I didn't go through with it because she didn't seem "

"She said she wasn't ready for s.e.x." Reina took the other cookie half from Michiko's hand. "I don't get it. I'm always ready for s.e.x."