A Taste for Christmas Cake Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Love Hotel

We stood in front of the display, the photo of each room flanked with a little button. The occupied rooms were all blacked out, but there were a number of rooms still available.

“Anything catch your eye?” I asked the boy.

He looked at each of the photos. I knew he was not very good at making decisions - he’d shown that numerous times over our little impromptu dinner - and I was enjoying making him squirm.

“There are so many to choose from,” he murmured. “Why aren’t they all booked up? It’s Christmas eve, right? Wouldn’t lots of couples want to, uh...”

“Well,” I said, charmed by his embarrassment. “There’s a very simple reason behind that. See the different prices for Rest and Stay?”

“What does Rest mean?”

I chuckled. “It’s when you only use the room for a couple of hours. Once you’ve, haha, enjoyed your ‘rest’ you can just up and leave. You don’t have to make believe you’re staying at the hotel to get a good night’s sleep, although you can do that too, of course.”

The boy blushed. “So most people have already had a uh, ‘rest’ and gone home?”

“You catch on quick.” I sighed. “Seems like no one wants to stay in bed and snuggle afterwards. That’s Japan for you - rush, rush, rush. I’m guessing foreigners would be more into the whole ‘stay’ thing, right? What with your relaxed attitude to everything...”

He nodded. He agreed with everything I said, even when he was living proof my generalisation about foreigners was wrong. It was adorable.

“So,” I said. “Are you going to pick one or are we going to have to spoon up here together in the foyer?”

At the word ‘spoon’, the kid swallowed and darted forward, picking a room at random.

“Well, let’s go get our key.”

I pushed the money at the disembodied hands at the counter. The rest of the attendant was shielded from us in deference of our privacy, but I could tell from the pronounced veins they were an old woman’s hands. I chuckled to myself. It seemed my reckless behaviour was being enabled by older women tonight.

I led the kid into the elevator which was waiting for us. We of course met no one. There was a different exit provided for those leaving, allowing them to enjoy their post-coital glow without the potential embarrassment of running into someone else.

I walked fast, with an almost unseemly eagerness. The kid hurried to keep up with me, always staying a step behind like a little shadow.

We soon found the room. Apart from the slight ghost of cigarette smoke it was a pleasant enough room. The room was dominated with a huge bed with an array of buttons on its headboard. There was a big flatscreen on the wall for watching pink videos, and a little bar fridge. I ducked my head into the bathroom and whistled.

“Look at the size of that tub!”

The kid poked his head in beside me. “Wow,” he said. I knew he was genuinely impressed. The bath was the size of a Jacuzzi. Japanese people love their baths and the bigger the better.

“You could fit almost all of Eastport’s management team in that one tub,” I mused. “It seems a waste for just the two of us.”

The boy nodded, but when he realised what I’d implied he gasped and moved away. I was too close to him, within boob-brushing distance, and it was obviously making him nervous. I knew he could smell me. I wondered if he could smell how excited I was? Since the whole thing with him bad-mouthing Kazuo I’d been walking around in sticky underwear. I was probably soaking inside them, now. I leaned across him, ostensibly to check out the toiletries on the sink, but really I wanted to smell him.

He’d lost that sour-milk smell foreigners sometimes have, if in fact he’d ever had it. The Japanese diet was already working on him. But he smelled different, somehow. It was a nostalgic smell.

Then I knew. He was wearing a sports deodorant. He was still a kid and didn’t wear aftershave or anything like that. It was a smell I remembered from over a decade ago. The boys would walk around in a haze of it after baseball practice.

And yet the scent wasn’t overpowering. The kid also smelled of that delicious male spiciness, a mixture of perspiration and, well, hormones I guess. I love that smell. I could almost taste it.
I knew it would smell even better after a shower.

“So would you like to take a shower first or should I?”

He stared at me.

“Oh, I was just joking about sharing a bath, unless you want to, of course.” I jogged him in the ribs and he skittered laughing away from my elbow. “Well, I’ll take the first then.”

He nodded and I shut the door before quickly reopening it. He hadn’t had time to move, and I behaved as though I’d caught him up to no good.

“You’re not going to peek on me are you?” I asked with narrowed eyes.

“What? N-no,” he replied.

“Good. These doors don’t lock after all.” I pointed at the bed. “Just amuse yourself with the control panel. It works the lights and TV and everything.”

I shut the door. I quickly stripped out of my clothes. I heard music in the other room. The kid was already doing what I told him. The thought of him sitting on the bed there while I was almost naked here, just a room away, made my heart race. For a second I toyed with the idea of just walking out of there in my bra and panties and grabbing him. The little movie played out in my head: the look of wide-eyed shock on his face, the way he’d be unable to take his eyes off me, how he’d scramble backwards when I climbed onto the bed and advanced on him, that first touch as I grabbed his hand and pulled it to my heaving chest...

I gasped. I was starting to flood. I stripped my underwear off. They were soaked. Great. Now I’d have to wear dirty underwear on the way back tomorrow. At least there was a bathrobe for me to wear in bed. I wished that there’d been yukata as there sometimes is in Japanese-bath themed love hotels, but I’d have to make do.

I scrubbed my face of my makeup and then dove under the steaming wate rs of the shower. It was hot and delicious. I gave myself a quick but methodical wash. I was just as sticky as I’d expected between the legs. Gross. I decided to skip washing my hair: there was no way I was going to put the kid through half an hour of me drying it. Anyway, you can never gauge the heat of the dryers they have in these hotels: my hair could end up frizzed to hell.

I got out as quickly as I could. I didn’t want to keep the kid waiting for his own shower, and also I wanted to play with the toiletries provided. The moisturiser was a bit oilier than I liked and I missed my night cream, but of course I hadn’t brought my night bag with me so I put up with it.

Boys. Things are so much easier for them. The kid was just going to come in here, throw off his clothes and then soap himself all over, rinse and get out. He wouldn’t care about moisturiser or anything like that. Maybe he’d try on the after shave. He didn’t need to shave, though. He didn’t even have a five-o’clock shadow! He really did have a nice complexion. It was like a little boy’s. And his hands had been so soft and smooth...

I squeezed my thighs together. The hot water of the shower had been bad enough, but now, with my imagination going wild...

I looked myself over in the mirror. The patchiness of my complexion dismayed me, but it was better than smearing the kid with old makeup. I didn’t look all bad. My cheeks were pink and my eyes were large and dark. I looked exactly how I felt: turned on. The extra blood flowing to my flushed face minimised the smile wrinkles I knew were hiding there. I didn’t look too closely, though.

My body was pink, scrubbed fresh, lightly steaming from the heat of the shower. I held my breath: my breasts looked perkier that way. I ran a hand over my sucked-in stomach: the little after-dinner curve disappeared.

I slipped my bathrobe on and let my breath explode out.

Good. I was ready.

I looked back at the mirror. That face. Whose was it? Nakagawa Mieko, middle manager for an English tutoring company? Mieko ? Mi-chan? And who was she, exactly? The kid’s teasing but supportive sempai? A boy-hungry predator?

A stupid, reckless woman.

Those eyes were wide and dark and hungry, but they were fragile, too. The light in them seemed on the point of breaking.

That bastard...

It was the kid’s fault, really. He called me out here. He was the reason I was so worked up. He couldn’t expect me to just lie there in bed with him and do nothing. He owed me.

I sighed. I knew I wasn’t going to do anything. We’d lie together in that huge bed, a wide gap between us, make some awkward, flirty conversation and then go to sleep. We’d wake up tomorrow, hung-over, for some even more awkward looks and words before slinking back to the train station and going our separate ways.

I opened the door. “Your turn.”

The kid swung to look at me, shock on his face. The remote flew out of his fumbling hands. I followed his horrified gaze. The TV was on but the sound was off and there was a girl in a schoolgirl’s uniform on all fours, her skirt pulled up, betting pummelled from behind by some faceless tanned gentleman.

“Oh,” I said. “I see you found the movies, then.”

The kid babbled, horrified. “Uh, I...”

I laughed. “Oh c’mon. I know what boys are like.” I leaned over and picked up the remote. The kid was staring at me. Oh yeah, my boobs. My bathrobe had fallen open.

“Hey,” I murmured, covering up. I glanced at him askance. “Oh, well at least these ones aren’t pixelated.”

The kid smiled awkwardly then grabbed his own bathrobe and fled into the bathroom.

I slumped onto the bed and pushed my face against the pillow. You idiot! Falling out of your robe, making goo-eyes at him.

Pixelated? Stupid. They don’t pixelate boobs in pink videos, only genitals!

I turned and looked up at the girl on the TV. She’d been flipped onto her back now and was being lustily ploughed, squealing like a stuck pig the whole time. She was pretty chubby above where her skirt was all bunched up. Probably puppy fat. How old was she, nineteen, twenty? I pinched myself around the waist. All those hours on the treadmill seemed to have done something to my love handles, at least.

I turned off the pink movie. Somehow the girl’s squawking and the man’s single-minded penetrating of her depressed me.

I heard the shower shushing. There was soft padding and slapping. The kid was washing himself.

The sounds were like liquid Viagra. After a while I had to cover my ears.

I was so horny it was embarrassing. The alcohol, the kid’s smell left on the bed, this whole being stuck together in a love hotel...

My hands slipped inside my bathrobe and slid down along my stomach.

No. I couldn’t. Not here, while he’s...

But it would be the only chance I got. Otherwise, it would mean a whole night of agonising frustration.

I could always do it in the toilet if...

What? The kid was naïve, but even he would be able to tell something was going on. There was no way I’d be able to keep quiet enough.

The shushing stopped. I grabbed a menu and leaped into bed.

I was still acting like I was reading it when the kid slipped out of the bathroom. He was wearing his bathrobe, but I knew his underwear was on underneath. His pants, shirt and tie were all neatly piled in his arms.

I glanced at my own badly-folded clothes. Luckily I’d had the forethought to place my undies in between the skirt and blouse. I’d have loved to have been able to wash them, but there was no way they’d get dry by the morning.

“Feeling refreshed?” I asked.

The kid couldn’t meet my eyes and just nodded.

“I... I’m sorry about before,” he murmured. “Ah, about everything, actually.”

“What? The movie?” I laughed. “Hey, least I know you’re not gay, now.”

Not gay. Nice work, Mie. Brilliant. What every boy wants to hear: “I thought you were gay.”

I patted the bed beside me. He stared for a moment and then hesitantly came up to the bed and stood there, shifting from foot to foot. The whole situation was getting even more awkward.

“Hey,” I said. “Could you get something to drink out of the little bar fridge? They should have some rice wine and beer and stuff. Care to join me for a nightcap?”

He nodded, and even managed to glance up at me. Thank you alcohol! I had no idea you could save an awkward situation even without being drunk.

The boy opened the fridge and after fumbling around a bit brought out some rice wine.

“Good choice,” I said.

The kid was blushing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh,” he replied. “It’s just the... uh, other stuff in the fridge. I didn’t realise they’d have that sort of thing here as well.”

Oh yeah, right. I’d forgotten. The sex toys. Love hotel minibars are always full of them. “The ‘personal massagers’ and stuff?” I chuckled. “Silly, isn’t it? The way I see it, if you need something like that to get your girl worked up you probably shouldn’t be at the love hotel in the first place. “

I was starting to sound boorish so I shut my mouth. But somehow the exchange had melted the awkwardness. The kid got two tumblers and then we sat on the bed and toasted each other.

After taking a sip he shook his head and placed a hand to his forehead.

“Nakagawa-san, I’m so sorry. I really screwed up your Christmas eve,” he said. “Please. You have to tell me how much I owe you for dinner and...”

I snorted. “C’mon. I already told you, it’s my treat.” I took a sip of the overpriced rice wine. Hakutsuru, the one with the crane on the label. You could buy it for 450 yen at any convenience store. This one had set me back 1000 yen, I was guessing. “Anyway, this is the best Christmas Eve I’ve enjoyed in years.”

The kid took another sip of his drink. “Really?”

I thought to myself. I wasn’t just saying that to make him feel better. This really was the most fun I’d had on Christmas Eve since, well, maybe ever.

“Really,” I said. “Kazuo was never really into romantic gestures and stuff like that. We usually stayed at home and watched TV and ate KFC.”

“I’ve heard about that,” said the kid. “Uh, about the KFC for Christmas thing, I mean.”

“Strange, huh? Just another crazy Japanese tradition...” I laughed. “You must think we’re all crazy here.”

The kid shook his head, smiling. “No. I don’t think so. I mean, things are so different from back home, but I like it here. I think my country is crazier in a lot of ways.”

“Is that so?” I asked. “I’d love to visit there someday. You’ll have to show me around.” I took another sip and poured myself some more. The kid’s tumbler was looking empty so I finished the bottle off in his.

“I’d like that,” he said.

“Maybe I can get bring myself back a foreign boyfriend,” I said. “I don’t seem to be having much luck with Japanese ones.”

The kid glanced across at me. “Nakagawa-san, have... have you ever gone out with a foreigner?”

“What?” I blinked at him. “No, no I haven’t. The most exotic guy I’ve ever gone out with was a guy from Osaka. And don’t believe what they say about everyone from Osaka being funny - he was just an asshole.”

My boorishness was coming out again, so I quickly said, “Hey, while we’re on the subject, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you all night.”

“What’s that?” The kid seemed happy with the change of direction of the conversation.

“Well, you’ve been with a Japanese girl now, right? So how do we compare? With girls from your country I mean. Are there many differences?”

The kid stared at me. He went beet-red. “Ah, I don’t know if I can answer that.”

I realised then what a forward thing it was I was asking. I’d forgotten all about who we really were: a manager and her responsibility. A few drinks and I was treating him like someone I’d just met in a bar.

Hadn’t I been doing that all night?

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “Too personal, right?” I kicked myself. How sleazy and desperate must I seem to this kid? I should have just plopped my bare boobs in his face and started pawing at him, it would have been more subtle. I knocked back the rest of my drink and started eying off the beer the kid had got out as well. A few more drinks and maybe I’d wake up tomorrow having forgotten about all of this.

“N-no,” said the kid. He’d taken a while to reply and I was surprised when he did. “It’s just... ah, I can’t answer your question because I’ve... uh, I’ve only ever been with one girl.”

I frowned. “What? You mean Rika?”

He nodded, smiling shyly. “Yeah. She was my first... uh, first girlfriend I mean. But not my first, well... you know.”

I stared at him. “You mean the two of you never actually...?”

He shook his head. “We did some other stuff, but we never actually went the... well, the whole way, I guess you call it.”

The kid’s smile was a mixture of shame and embarrassment and humility and utterly charming. Just what you’d expect from a virgin.

A virgin. I looked him over again as if seeing him for the first time. He really did look young. The mama-san hadn’t been overreacting when she’d been worried he was underage. With his hair wet and slicked back, his skin pink and shower-fresh, he seemed especially childlike.

That earlier tension. It had never gone away. It revealed itself again with redoubled force. It was too much for me, now. I was naked under this bathrobe and I could feel myself getting gooey. There was no way the kid couldn’t smell me in this condition. The thought of him knowing how excited I was made me even more even more excited.

I could just reach across to the kid - he was in grabbing distance. Maybe that whole thing about shoving my boobs in his face wasn’t such a stupid idea after all.

Wait, no. Mie, focus. You’ve been drinking, remember? Think before you do anything...

The kid was focussed on his drink. His eyes flickered in my direction. I had been staring for a few seconds now, in total silence. You fool! He thinks you’re horrified. Say something!

“A virgin, huh?” I put my drink down on the bedside table. “Well, we’ll have to fix that then, won’t we?”

The words were out before I really knew what I was saying. The kid stared at me, his eyes wide. He was shocked and confused and terrified and excited all at once.

I knew what I had to do. I had to laugh and act like it was a joke. I had to laugh and then the kid’s heart would be broken and we’d lie down in this bed and go to sleep and wake up and go our separate ways and I’d have a lot less money this month in my budget, but I did say I’d treat him and...

And nothing would change. Nothing.

I didn’t laugh. I leaned forward and kissed the terrified boy on the lips. He flinched - he actually flinched! - but when I took hold of his shoulders to keep him from escaping he pushed his lips back against mine. I darted the softest little subtle tap of my tongue against his lips before I broke away. I didn’t want him to think this was some auntie-nephew kiss, some chaste little peck. I promised more, if he was brave.

He lay back, blinking at me. I smiled my most reassuring smile at him as he lifted his fingers to his lips.

“Wow,” he said. “Uh...”

He was lucky I had such a thing for flustered, vulnerable boys, or otherwise that look of fear and bewilderment on his face might have ended everything with some other girl, with someone like Rika. Some women are afraid of virgins, after all. But for me it was a potent aphrodisiac.

I brought a hand to the front of his bathrobe and flicked it open, baring his chest. There was a little hair there, more than a Japanese guy’s, but his skin... it was so pale. He was slightly tanned on his neck and arms and legs, but here, under his bathrobe, his skin was white, like a girl’s skin. I ran my hand across his smooth skin and he closed his eyes and sighed.

“Yes,” I muttered. I don’t know what I meant by that ‘yes’. Was I telling him he was consenting, or was that ‘yes’ intended for me, telling myself that I wanted this? His skin shivered under my touch. I grabbed the hem of his bathrobe and pulled him across to me. He still had his drink in his hand and he spilled a bit.

“Oh shit,” he said.

I tutted and took the drink from him. I downed it and placed the empty glass next to mine on the bedside.

“You know,” I said. “It’s bad luck to spill sake unless you’re intending to do it as an offering.”

I brought my lips up against his again. He was calmer now, so I took my time, enjoyed the sweet, liquory scent of his breath as I mouthed his bottom lip between my own. The kid actually gasped. Was he doing this on purpose? Was this whole innocence thing a come-on? Was he playing me?

No. He was no host-club boy, trained in pushing a woman’s buttons. This kid was the real deal, a real honest-to-god virgin, and it was my hand that was sliding between the cotton of his bathrobe and his skin, across his chest, over his hard nipples and down his slim ribs to his flat stomach. And all the while I kissed him, hard, coaxing his timid tongue out of his mouth to play with the tip of mine.

At least the kid wasn’t a virgin when it came to kissing. He must have done it at least a few times before.

The thought filled me with sudden jealousy and I kissed harder. I wasn’t going to lose against those other girls! I’d show him what a Mie, what an old piece of Christmas cake has over a Rika...

I left him gasping. I guess I overdid it. But the kid was quickly becoming a shivering, sloppy mess.

I liked it. I didn’t want to slow down. I pulled the bathrobe from his shoulders, revealing more of his skin.

“Ah, Nakagawa-san...”

“Shhh,” I said. “Call me Mie.”

I drew my lips, then, across his shoulder. His skin was smooth and cool as I traced his collarbone.

“So white,” I murmured. “A soft, naked body. It’s been too long.”

I noticed then his arms were still hanging at his sides. He was too timid to touch me. I took hold of one hand and brought it to my neck. His fingertips brushed my skin and then he began to caress me. I cooed under his timid, tentative strokes. His inexperience was turning me on far more than some lothario’s well-worn skills ever could.

Kazuo. Those hands had been good at whatever they touched. Shame he couldn’t keep them off other women. I’d been willing to ignore the first few times I’d discovered his little things on the side. He’d get over it, I thought. But he never did. And now one of them was fucking him, no doubt, probably in a love hotel just like this one.

Fuck him. Fuck Kazuo. Fuck him for making me remember him even while I have this panting, delicious ice-cream-skinned kid, this boy drawing his fingers across my skin, cupping my breast...

It was my turn to gasp, then, as his fingers found a nipple. At least he knew what they were for! His other hand found its courage and soon he was cupping my breasts as I shrugged my bathrobe off my shoulders and let my breasts hang free.

Like I said, they’re modest, but when you’re leaning over, even modest breasts seem pretty impressive. And the kid had a handful of them.

His touch was gentle, sensitive and eager rather than rough. He didn’t just squeeze my breasts like a lot of guys do. He knew that places other than the nipples brought pleasure as well.

Nipples. I kissed across the hair of his chest. I love a man’s chest. There’s a scent of him that pools there, that spicy earthiness of perspiration, and even a freshly washed man has it. The boy’s smell was light, but it intoxicated me. I licked at his skin then, tasting salt and his body, and then latched my lips around a nipple.

He cried out, then. His voice was high, excited and utterly adorable and I smirked around his nipple as I gave it my best tonguing. I wanted to please this kid fully. I was going to be his first, after all. I was the woman that he’d compare all his other women to. I was the one he’d think of, in the darkness of the night, as he lay next to his wife, remembering how he’d finally lost his virginity. I‘d fuck him until he forgot about that bitch who made him cry. He’d never even remember her name. But he’d remember me, remember Mie, kind, loving, gentle Mie...

The thought drove me wild and I bit down.

He cried out then. Had I taken things too far? I licked at his nipple, bathed it in my saliva as though trying to heal it. He moaned and crushed my head to his chest.

I knew then that I hadn’t misread things. He was a boy who wanted a girl to take control, to teach him, to lead him...

...and to take him.

I pushed him back onto the bed and clambered on top of him. I was bare from the waist up, the bathrobe pooling around my hips. I helped him pull his arms out of his own bathrobe, leaving him in the same situation, except for the fact that he was still protected by his underwear. I glanced down. Beneath my bare pink belly and the dark hint of my pubic hair I saw he was wearing boxers. I could feel the sizeable hard bulge in them and it pleased me. I straddled him, arching my back to make sure he got a good view of my boobs and my flat stomach. I tossed my tousled hair like some sultry pink-movie actress and smiled down at him.

“Well, it seems you have me at a disadvantage.”

“Wha-?”

“You’re still in your underwear and I’m totally naked.” I shifted what remained of the bathrobe’s tenuous hold on my body with a flick of my hips and tossed it aside.

He stared up at me, his eyes wide. I’d had my fill of that bewildered look and wanted to see more of the desperate, cornered horniness I had seen earlier. I leaned down and kissed him as my hands busied themselves with pulling his bathrobe off him. He helped me by lifting his back and I soon had him in only those offending boxers.

“So soft and smooth,” I murmured, kissing my way down from his sopping lips and along the arch of his neck, the curve of his chest and the flatness of his stomach until I finally encountered the roughness of his boxers’ elastic waistband. I reached up and let my fingers score across his ribs as I kissed at the smooth bulge I encountered below that roughness. He groaned and I closed my lips around the hidden shape of his hardness. The scent of him was fresh and intense and exciting. I had to taste him.

“Did she ever do this for you, I wonder, that Rika of yours?” I drew my hands down to the waistband of his boxers and peeled them off like I was peeling fruit. I was teasing myself as much as I was the kid.

The scent of him intensified as he popped free. Even with as many drinks as he’d had, he was impressive. I was flattered and wasted no time in running a hand over his sparse pubic hair and down along the length of his hardness, bringing it at a right angle against his belly so that I could slip my lips right down onto it, which I did in a single, hungry movement.

The feeling of that smooth, velvety head piercing my lips was divine. That mixture of hard and soft, the knowledge that you’re the one responsible for producing that beautiful hardness you’re feasting on right now... I’ve never tired of it. I’ve never considered myself particularly good at blowjobs, but I wanted to treat this kid. I was going to give him the deluxe pink-video version.

I drew him into my throat as deep as I could and then let my lips slide down along his length while my tongue basted the underside. The head popped free of my lips and I flicked the tip of my tongue at the sensitive spot underneath it. Every man I’ve known has enjoyed that, and the kid was no exception. He groaned, his dick jerking.

I spent a few moments letting my tongue slide over the head, tasting new saltiness, before sliding him back in. This time I took things slower. I’ve had enough men burst unexpectedly inside my mouth to know the danger of too enthusiastic a blowjob. It’s not that I don’t like a mouthful of semen - it’s pretty flattering, after all - I just didn’t want this all over before it had even begun.

I drew him out again and licked along his length, gazing up at him with limpid, hungry eyes. He looked down at me, that adoring, ecstatic look I love seeing in a man’s eyes. I had him where I wanted him.

“You look ready,” I said. I kept a hand around his length as I edged my knees up on either side of his hips. I dove down and kissed him, my tongue hot in his mouth. He accepted it eagerly, even after I’d had him inside my mouth.

When I tore my lips away from him he was breathless.

“Uh,” he gasped. “Mie, wait. Should we... should we really be doing this?”

I cocked my head at him. “Don’t you remember what I said at the izakaya? I’m the oldest so I should treat you.”

He nodded. Well, who doesn’t enjoy being spoiled, after all?

The half-truth that this was all for his benefit, that I was ‘treating’ him rather than myself, excited me with its shamelessness. Treating him was treating me, after all.

But actually, I was taking his virginity, wasn’t I? It was a prize, something you take. Was it any different because it was a boy’s virginity, the one thing they want to lose more than anything else?

I gazed down at him, wanting to see the change in his face when the moment came. He winced and bit at his bottom lip as I ran the head of his penis up and down against my swollen, sticky sex. I knew how excruciating sensitive he must be and delighted in these final delicious moments of teasing.

Enough teasing! I eased myself down onto him and cried out as the head parted my lips and his length sliced up into me. He cried out as well, grasping the sheet beneath him with hands that had become claws.

It had never felt like this before! I flooded as his entire length slid even deeper into me. For a moment I panicked that I’d taken too much. It was a stupid thought. He was fully inside me now and I rolled my hips, grunting as my button scraped against the wiriness of his pubic hair. The kid looked up at me in a daze, as I panted, open-mouthed, wholly focussed on the incredible feeling his hardness was producing in me. He blushed and turned his face away, but the flush quickly spread down across the white expanse of his skin, like a crimson dye staining ivory. Embarrassment and excitement were vying inside him. He began to pant.

I almost felt bad for him. I leaned over him and ran my hands across that pinkening skin, feeling the spreading heat my movements were generating inside him. Then I lifted my butt and drew myself up so that his penis slid partway out.

The kid’s eyes flashed open. He looked panicked. I guess he must have been worried that I was already finished with him, that I was going to pull him out of the slick, delicious place he was engulfed by. I smiled reassuringly at him and thrust my hips back down so that he surged right back into me to the hilt, forcing a desperate cry of ecstasy from his lips.

I took hold of his hands, pulling them from their grip on the sheets and entwining my fingers in his, and began bouncing on him in earnest.

Maybe I should have taken things slower. All those thoughts of making his first time a gentle, reassuring experience fell by the wayside. I don’t think it mattered to the kid, though. He was thrusting up into me with abandon, now, moaning as he clashed his hips wildly against mine.

I shifted until I found the right position for his inexperienced though eager thrusts. Yes, that was it! The most divine angle, stopping just before he bottomed out against my cervix. I felt so full with him inside me. I panted and tossed my hair, meeting each of his increasingly desperate thrusts with hungry movements of my own.

I saw a black blur reflected in the mirror: my hair, flowing loose down to my shoulders, matted with sweat, crazy, out-of-control hair. Then I saw my face My eyes were hooded like I was drugged, my olive skin infused with pink, my forehead glistening with perspiration, my mouth half-open, panting. The sight of myself desperately humping that pale, boyish body beneath me was beyond lewd. It was too much for me, far too much. I reared up and slammed back down on him in a single fluid movement and screamed out. I abandoned everything, then, my body flooding with heat, my mind delirious as the first wave of my climax broke over me.

The boy felt how much hotter I had grown, felt the swollenness of my sex against him. He threw his head back and cried out, his cry echoing my own as he came inside me.

There was nothing else, then, just his ecstatic voice resounding in my ears, the searing delight of his semen spilling up into me, the vicious grinding together of our hips. I slid my hands from his and cupped his chin, my hot, slick tongue pouring into his panting mouth. His hands found my hips then and guided me as he thrust his final, squirting thrusts up into me.

I slumped down over him, his pink, shivering, sweat-coated body slick underneath my own. My hair fell over his face and neck as my lips sought out his chest, licking at the delicious saltiness of his fresh perspiration. My mind was a scene of devastation after that flood of pleasure, and the after-surges kept coming as I mouthed and pawed, animal-like, at his body.

His hands, confident now, slid across my buttocks and squeezed them lightly and I giggled. The sensation brought me a little way back to who I was.

Mieko. Naughty, greedy Mieko.

I wanted to lie on top of him forever but I knew that he’d find it hard to breathe, so I slid regretfully off him. He lay on his back, panting, and I pulled him onto his side and buried my face in his chest. My aggressiveness had transmuted with my climax to a timid neediness and I clung to him. He put his arms around me and I went dizzy with happiness. I felt him kiss the top of my head as he hugged me and I melted with the gentleness of his touch.

“Uh,” he said at last, an eternity after we had started embracing here in this world of post-coital bliss. “Are you okay? I couldn’t hold back. I uh, came inside you.”

“It’s okay,” I murmured, amused at the mixture of shyness and bluntness of what he was saying. “Today is a safe day.”

Add that to the list of lies I had already told him. Lying, lying Mie. I didn’t care then, even if I did get pregnant. The delicious heaviness of my belly I wouldn’t swap for that grotesque fumbling of sticky, smelly latex when you should be cuddling. Fate would take its course. I was ovulating, actually, at my most fertile, my most horny. Those little mid-month cramps were a dead give-away.

Poor kid. I wouldn’t force him to take responsibility. I was the older one, after all. It was my responsibility if something happened. I kissed at his still-hot face and he smiled and opened his eyes.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I know you want to sleep. So sleep. Sleep.”

I fell asleep telling him to sleep.

-----------

I woke during the night. For a moment I panicked, wondering where I was. I tasted rice wine in my mouth, that cloying chemical sweetness. I glanced across at the snoring body next to me. The bedclothes covered his body from his chest down.

The boy. I remember now.

I reached out for him. He murmured but didn’t wake. I took the end of the bedclothes and slid them down. His underwear was still around his knees.

Protectiveness and covetousness welled up in me in equal parts. I slid a hand down along the curve of his pale body. He shifted in his sleep and murmured.

Mine. My boy.

No, not yours. You don’t think you can have him, do you, Mie? What? You’re his manager. Tonight is a strange inbetween-place, a beautiful dream you haven’t woken from. Not yet.

No, not yet. I drew my lips over his body, careful not to wake him. I knew what would come when he woke. The sign of the love-hotel, purple and yellow, spilled its surreal light across the room, turning his body lurid, dreamlike.

I took my fill of his sleeping body and, replete, lay back again as sleep again stole over me.

-----------

I’d known what would come after he woke.

Awkwardness.

I woke first and went and had a shower. His scent covered me and it excited and terrified me at the same time. What had I done? I’d forced myself on the kid, taken him while he was at his most vulnerable.

Wait, that was just melodramatic Mie. Stop.

His face, flushed, dazed with pleasure.

He wasn’t the kind to report this, no matter how straight and nice a kid he was. He had my interests at heart. I grew calmer, let my mind blank as I showered.

When I came out dressed the kid was awake. He was sitting up in bed.

“Sleep well?” I asked.

He nodded. Then he started to say something, but I put a finger to his lips.

“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “Last night was last night. It’s a new day out there. Why don’t you just go and have a nice shower and freshen up and we’ll go get some coffee.”

“Okay,” he said. I think he was thankful for my taking control of the situation. He’d clearly been panicking about what to say.

When the kid came back out he was wearing that tie. The company makes all its teachers wear ties. It’s all part of the brand.

He’d tied it sloppily. I stepped up and tightened it for him.

“You look beautiful,” I said. And then, flushing with shame and beating myself up for my stupidity, I busied myself with the pointless job of straightening the bed, of which there was no need.

The awkwardness grew worse over coffee. I tried to turn the conversation around to teaching him Japanese, but all my lessons seemed forced. All I could think of was bishounen, bishounen, that beautiful young boy, crying out beneath me as he filled me to overflowing.

The kid, love him, tried his best as well. He even paid for the coffee and muffins.

This time I let him.

We parted ways at the station for our different platforms. He was going back north, while I had to go south, back into Tokyo.

“Hey,” I said, just before we parted. “Why don’t I give you my number?”

He blinked at me. “Your number?”

Dumb. Dumb, reckless Mie. Why did he need your number? What single reason could you think of that would...

“You know, if you get lost again.”

The boy blushed and he nodded. “Yeah. I’ll try not to get lost again, though.”

His words broke my heart. I took out my phone. “I’ll just Bluetooth it to you.”

The boy looked at his own phone and slapped his forehead. “I left it on last night. The battery’s dead.”

I sighed. “So what’s your email address? Those phones we give you are with Docomo, right?”

“I don’t know it,” he said.

Fate. Could anyone fight against fate?

But I’m bloody-minded. The kid was going to get my number. I hadn’t gone through this awkward charade for nothing!

I took some paper and a pen from my purse and wrote it down for him. He took the slip of paper and looked at it with both hands.

I laughed. “It’s not a business card. You don’t have to be so formal.”

I knew he was just being polite, but it was just too cute. I couldn’t resist teasing him even now.

He blushed and nodded, putting the paper in his top pocket.

There was a rumble. His train was coming.

“I have to go,” he said.

“You do,” I said.

“Uh.”

I glanced about. There were a few people coming through the ticket gates, office workers. I fought back the shame that threatened to overwhelm me and hugged the kid. I knew it was what he wanted.

I wanted it, too.

“Be careful,” I said to him.

He nodded. “You too.”

He turned and began to walk away.

”Hey!” I called out his name and he looked back. “Merry Christmas,” I said, lamely.

“Merry Christmas,” he repeated with a shy smile.

Then with a wave he was gone.

The train trip back home was a purgatory of hungover regret. That it had happened, that I had taken it so far, that it wasn’t going to happen again.

His pale body lying there beside me. Covetous, covetous Mie. He isn’t yours. Only last night was he yours. And today is today. He’ll remember you forever, but you can’t have him, except as a memory. Only for one night. Only last night.

I went two stations past my stop and had to catch a train back.

--------

I was woken by a chirp from my cell phone. I swung over and retrieved it from the bedside table where it was charging and knocked over a bottle of water as the cable came with the phone.

I eagerly stroked the touchscreen. A new message.

It was from Hideyuki.

Work. Even on the weekend I couldn’t escape it.

I stared at the date, my eyes stinging. The 26th. Boxing Day, right?

So it was true. No one wants Christmas cake after the 25th.

Tears came to my eyes, unwarranted, arrogant tears. What had you expected? That he’d message you and want to go on a date or something? With someone your age? Don’t be so stupid, so damn stupid. So needy and goddamn stupid.

I spent the whole day moping. I was still in my pyjamas early in the evening when I looked at my phone again. I wasn’t checking to see if he’d messaged me. No. I had to check that mail from Hideyuki. I’d forgotten about it. It was Sunday, but it might be something important.

Hey. How was your Xmas? Hope that thing with the foreigner worked out. You missed out on some boring speeches, though. Gon got super drunk and did that stupid thing where he pulls out the pockets of his pants and acts like an elephant.

Want to meet up tonight? There’s a new tachinomi opened just outside Ikebukuro station that I’ve heard good things about. Give me a call.

I stared at the message. I’d been joking when I’d thought about taking Hideyuki home, hadn’t I?

Now he seemed...

Well, he wasn’t a sensible choice. He’d already gone through all the secretaries at the office. I knew my chances of being the one who could keep him under control were not high. He was a lot like Kazuo.

I lay back on the bed. Maybe I was being unfair. He was a nice enough guy. I needed something like this. That whole thing with the kid, what a huge mistake!

I was typing a reply when someone called me. I almost hung up, since it was a number I didn’t recognise, but something stopped me. I took the call.

“Moshi moshi? Eastport no Nakagawa Mieko desu,” I answered in Japanese.

“Uh, moshi moshi. Is that Mie? Uh, this is...”

I dropped the phone. It was the kid. He sounded older on the phone, but it was definitely him. I’d recognise that unsure ‘uh’ anywhere.

I retrieved the phone and promptly let it slip from my hands again. I was like a fat man chasing his hat that’s blown off in the wind.

At last I got hold of the phone, praying the kid was still there.

“This is Mie. Hey. How are you?”

I sounded so eager I found myself blushing as hard as the kid had.

“Uh, sorry to call your personal number, it’s just I lost your email and I looked everywhere for it and...” He sighed. “You won’t believe how hard it was to get your number. I had to tell some pretty huge lies.”

“I forgive you,” I said.

“So, uh... what are you doing right now?”

“Talking to you,” I said.

“No, I mean...”

“Later I’m meeting up with you for coffee,” I said. “If you’d like.”

“Uh, sure. Where? I mean... Which coffee shop?”

This kid. He was so indecisive. I’d given him his chance and he’d blown it. “There’s a Tully’s next to the station at Kanazawa. That’s on your line. Do you know it?”

“Yeah, I know it.”

“I’ll see you there, then. Say 11 o’clock?”

“Okay. Uh... I missed you, Mie. Yesterday, I mean.”

“I...” I moved the phone away and covered my mouth with my hand, swallowing back a sob. “I missed you too.”

“Well, see you then, then.”

I threw the phone down on the bed and ran into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror over the sink. My eyes were puffy and swollen, wet with the beginning of tears. My hair was a rat’s nest and there were wrinkles everywhere on my face. I looked like someone’s grandmother. All of this would take time and effort to rectify. I should have suggested midday instead!

I splashed water on my face and rubbed it with a towel until the horror I’d seen disappeared. When I looked back in the mirror I recognised the grin that greeted me there.

Nakagawa Mieko was going to do something reckless again.

But luckily there were equally reckless young boys out there who found Christmas cake sweet enough to eat even after the 25th.

The End