The train came to the stop and the young beautiful woman stepped off with the many other passengers. Then the train sped away with a shivering hum. Kyoto, full of people this time of year, made Noriko nervous. She had come to meet her lover, a married man she had met only three weeks ago.
Their first weekend together. She lived in an hour away from Kyoto, working at the Toshodaiji Temple in western Nara. He had come into the temple where she was the tour guide. He and his wife wanted to view the ancient writings and sculptures.
His black hair was full and streaked with gray at the temple. He was not a tall man, but impressive. His compact body seemed to be completely under his mental will with not one wasted movement. He had chatted companionably with the older woman beside him. Noriko hated her, hated her silly tote bag, her matching linen outfit.
He glanced at her. When she looked back steadily while slowly licking her bottom lip, he did not look away. His wife stood reading to him from a travel book, her glasses perched like a wren on her nose. Yet he stared at Noriko.
His look burnt her and curled like flames at her crotch. Wife or no wife, crowds or work, nothing mattered to Noriko but the passion that swelled from below. Her unused body trembled at the level gaze of the dignified, older man.
His eyes cast her into the darkness of privacy. She wrote her cell number and slipped it to him at the end of the tour.
She felt a humming, a vibration at her core during the rest of her shift. Noriko’s pulse pounded in her in her ears and in her groin. She felt an ache for something she had not yet experienced.
When her cell rang shortly after six that night, she answered, as she lay on her bed, nearly incandescent with fire, knowing it was he; it was his call. Her nipples tightened as she answered. Their muttered speech left no questions.
He came to her small apartment within minutes. They joined furiously on her bed; he still dressed in trousers and shirt, quickly with few words. In mere seconds, they split apart. Noriko’s red-dyed hair stuck to her glowing face. A seeping wetness wicked away on the sheet. Panting, they stared at each other.
“I have to go. Can I call you? Again?”
She nodded, aching again for a more intimate completion. He stood about to adjust his trousers -- she rose up until she stood with one leg on the bed. His look seized her again. In frenzy, they remained motionless still engorged with heat. Slower and harder than before, he moved into her. With his hands on her back, low down, he ground against her pale flesh moving her with his tension and force. As the burst of liquid drained from him again, her body rose to meet it, quivering in multiple small jerks as a soft cry burst from her mouth.
He smiled at her then. His smile burst like a rocket in her body. She dropped to her bed, barely lucid as he rearranged his clothes.
“My name is Daisuke,” he said. He bent to kiss her thigh and he left.
That was three weeks ago now. Noriko shivered at the aspect of seeing Daisuke again. The phone calls had only ensured her obsession of him. She told him she had been a virgin. He had awakened her. He spoke to her in graphic language, often making her blush, even though she lived alone.
Now they would have a whole weekend in bed, maybe except for one dinner out. They would be together in that primitive, insular way for hours. Noriko trembled with anticipation.
She took the taxi to the hotel. She rode with her knees pressed together, whether to keep her desire secret or to keep from shaking, she could not decide. Why did she wear this plain silk dress? Would it be the same? Would the fire take her again? Would her body open to his again? The quiver still nestled in her crotch like a cat intending to pounce.
She took the elevator to the 11th floor. Knocking lightly on 1110, she could barely breathe. Why women were so silly as to think they were dressing up for men? Dressing HOT was not what men wanted; they wanted sex.
She knocked again. Daisuke opened the door, smiling that curved, carved smile. He welcomed her in and offered her a glass of red wine. Old jazz played just low enough to hear. Annoyed because she wanted sex, now, no wine, Noriko sat on the sofa. Her legs crossed with the short silk dress riding up high, as she knew it would. He scrutinized at her intensely; then he offered the wine glass.
She took it, jiggling her foot in irritation. Daisuke talked but she couldn’t seem to understand. Her body had its own voice. Now. Now. She pressed one hand between her legs, pushing the sage green dress down against her body.
Daisuke asked her a question. She looked at him, trying at last to figure out what he could want more than sex.
“I have brought you a costume. I so need you, Noriko to wear, no, to dress as a Geisha with lipstick and powder. Please.” He nodded toward the king-sized bed.
She looked finally at the bed. On it laid a red kimono, pillows, sashes, and on the nightstand, there was a manikin head with a huge bouffant wig on it.
“Oh. Okay, then can we do it?” Noriko asked, realizing at last how unsophisticated and young she was in comparison to him.
“Yes, then I will be able to come to you with all of my passion,” Daisuke told her, those black eyes and pale hot hands waiting just beyond her possession. He leaned close and whispered, “I’ll fuck you.”
When he said that nasty common American word, she shivered. To hear it thrilled her in someway and aroused her. Such a bad word to say.
She sighed in great anticipation as she walked toward the bed. He turned the spotlights on over the bed. Obviously, they were there to make housekeeping easier but in this case, it was to illuminate Noriko’s conversion to an older time.
She stepped out of her mid-heeled sandals. She stopped, confused, thinking - panty-hose or dress - she wondered.
“Dress,” he told her from the wood frame chair. She pulled the dress over her head, and tossed it on another chair, as she smoothed her feathery spikes of red hair against her cheeks.
Her new bra barely concealed the upper roundness of her breasts. Her matching pink thong panties showed beneath the black panty hose.
“The kimono. Now. Kimono. Now.” His voice was raspy as though he had smoked a joint. She looked past the shadows the edges the lights cast and saw that he was nude and masturbating. Fleetingly she worried that he would not want her if he came.
She slipped into the kimono. When she could not tie the sash and pillow, he came to help her. Expertly he fastened the vintage garment around her. The kimono had the odd musty smell of the old and maybe even the long dead. Her skin went goose bumpy.
“I don’t want to wear this. It’s creeping me out.”
“For me, Noriko, for me. Please.” He put his hands on her cheeks and kissed her so softly she thought she might have imagined it. She sighed. Daisuke helped her with the wig. When it sat on her head, she felt taller, even regal.
“Come into the bathroom. I want to powder your face.” She took his hand and he led her to the bathroom. She naturally took small steps, as the kimono seemed to demand it. The man, her lover, she thought tenderly, tilted up her chin so that the light fell on it. Daisuke took a small jar and a sponge, and applied a thick white coating of foundation and powder. Then he took a red pencil and decorated her eyes. Finally, he took a lip wand in the deepest of reds and made a mouth.
When he pulled her up and gently turned her, so that she could see her image in the mirror, Noriko gasped. She looked like a clown. All she need were big floppy shoes. Noriko felt her desire diminish. .She giggled unexpectedly.
Daisuke slapped her hard. Noriko was dazed into numbness. No one had slapped her ever, even as child. Then he had to repair the smudged make-up. When she couldn’t hold back a tiny tear and it meandered down her cheek, he slapped her again, much harder. Noriko began to quiver. Again lipstick and powder.
“Finished. Noriko, you are beautiful. A great beauty. The fantasy of my life, Noriko.”
Daisuke stood in the bright light and gazed at her.
She searched for her passion under her stinging cheek and trembling shame.
“Okay, fine. I did my part. Let’s do it.” Her eyes filled with tears stared at the limitless black eyes of her lover. She leaned forward and barely moving her lips, whispered, “Fuck me.”
He led her back to the bed, and gently pushed her down on it. She looked up at him, afraid now. He studied her face, as a muscle in his cheek jumped.
“Beautiful Noriko you are a goddess to me now.” Daisuke leaned over her. “I can’t, not ever again. My beloved mother endured her life as a geisha, you see.”
Noriko’s shout was loud and insulting as she hurled the wig at his head. He grabbed at her arms as she jumped up flailing her arms, with tiny fists on his face. Daisuke pushed her again on to the bed. She leapt up, her fingernails this time drawing claws across his unlined face.
“Cheater. Liar. Bastard. No wonder your mother hated you.” Noriko screamed at him, her fingers curled to strike again. Daisuke turned and strode out the door.
Noriko ripped off the silk garments and, reeling such shame, she jerked on her dress, slipped on her sandals. As she stepped into the hall, she whispered, “Fuck YOU, Daisuke”.
Noriko stormed out through the hotel door, tears and rain flooding her powder and dimming her lipstick.
