Ren'Ai Rensa: Hatsukoi Part 10

"Oh, that reminds me." She speared a cooked radish with her chopsticks and munched while she talked. "There's a Christmas sale at the department store tomorrow if you want to go with me."

"Tomorrow?" I'm going to have another amazing date with Reina tomorrow. "I'm a little busy tomorrow, sorry."

"Sou? What are you doing? I would think your friends would all be out on dates tomorrow."

"They are, and so am I."

Junko slowed her chewing and glared into her daughter's wandering eyes. "Is that so? You still dating that one boy you never talk about?"

"Ah...sort of..."

After swallowing her morsel, Junko smiled, her crooked teeth grazing her dry, cracked lips. "Nee, when am I going to meet this young man? You can't go on more than one date with a boy and not tell me about it." She dropped her chopsticks. "Is it Daisuke?"

A snap of frustration darted down Aiko's spine. "No. He's creepy!" She had told her mother the same day it happened about Daisuke's strange visit. "He has no boundaries."

"He's not creepy, just in love." Junko wagged her hand around as if it were a tail.

"It's not Daisuke."

"At least tell me his name."

Time to lie, again. "Ren."

"Ren what?"

"Ya..." Aiko decided to pick a different last name, just in case Junko ever met her daughter's impending girlfriend. "Ren Itou."

"Such a young sounding name! Well, have fun tomorrow." Junko stood up and cleared away her own dishes.

Aiko didn't wait around for her father to come home late from work. After helping her mother do the dishes, she waited for her turn to use the shower.

The hot water blasted down her skin and soaked her hair. Aiko readjusted the spray to a gentler pressure and searched for her shampoo and razors. She rinsed her hair, shaved her arms, and lathered the other place p.r.o.ne to grow more than a centimeter of hair. When she dated boys she used to shave her entire body, minus her pubic hair, but since dumping Daisuke tended only to hair visible with conservative clothing.

She wondered what Reina thought of body hair.

Aiko paused in the midst of wringing conditioner from her hair and examined the chipped tiles on the floor. They were blue, Reina's favorite color. Her thoughts traveled from questioning whether or not Reina would grab a leg one day and complain about the hair there, to imagining her naked body, and whether she shaved anything as well.

Imagination wasn't enough to conjure a respectable image of a nude Reina. She always wore long-sleeves and jeans, except from the dress she wore at work, and aside from that her sweaters were baggier than the hand-me-downs Aiko used to get from her sisters. She realized she had never stared at any part of Reina's body aside from her face and hair. If I liked women, I would stare at all of her, right?

Aiko unhooked the showerhead from the wall to rinse off the last of the soap and arm hair from her body. Maybe I'm not like that after all. Ridiculous. She had to be at least somewhat "like that" in order to enjoy the day before.

In her dreams she had been back in that karaoke booth with Reina, kissing her for the first time, second time, every time. And each time she kissed her, she felt a hand somewhere else on her body. At one point Reina had lifted Aiko's skirt up to no contest, but her brain was so bothered and confused it could not fill in what would happen next, now that her skirt was up and her legs were spread.

It's obvious, idiot! Nevertheless, Aiko couldn't bring herself to imagine the proper course of action between two women making love. She didn't know if it was her own naivete or insecurity, but the mere thought of Reina kissing her anywhere but on the lips was just...

The water from the showerhead spritzed Aiko across the chest, and her knees buckled at the s.h.i.+ver racing from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. What timing! She craned the showerhead around to drip down the front of her body.

It feels like her fingers. If Reina had a hundred little fingers. Drops of water ran down Aiko's chest and to her stomach, where they gathered and got lost in the top of her pubic hair.

She closed her eyes and pretended Reina was there with her like the episode on the phone a few days before. What would she tell me to do? "Touch yourself." Reina's sultry voice reverberated in Aiko's memory, and the next thing she knew she put her hand on her breast.

"Ah!" The water continued to run down her hips. The closer the showerhead got to her body, the more pleasurable the water pressure felt. Aiko maneuvered the gauge so the pressure intensified. Since the water was directed right at her pelvis, she received a surprise.

All the water was a wave of release, was.h.i.+ng Aiko's skin and purging her thoughts. She conjured the image of Reina with her, holding the showerhead, and teasing her with flicks of water spouting off in intense increments.

Aiko slid down the wall and sank into the corner of the room. Her head fell back onto the edge of the bathtub. For a moment she second-guessed her intentions, but then she remembered Reina's tongue in her mouth.

"How'd you like it if I f.u.c.ked your p.u.s.s.y real good?"

"Yes." Aiko's body relaxed as if she lay in her own bed. Her hand rubbed the top of her v.u.l.v.a, fingers coaxing through hair and into the folds. The showerhead pointed from her nipples to between her legs, where her fingers spread apart her genitals and let the water finish the job.

At first she didn't feel anything, until she thought of kissing Reina again and then something sprung from inside her, uncoiling all the s.e.xual frustration she didn't know she had. The release bounced around her body and settled into her erogenous zones. Although brief, the o.r.g.a.s.m had done its job. Aiko dropped the showerhead and breathed.

She decided to forego another rinse.

Reina should have antic.i.p.ated the volume of couples in the local "kitty cafe," granting it was Christmas, but she blew it all the same.

Her and Aiko pushed through the door to La Lune Cafe and accidentally rammed it into another woman's a.s.s. After obligatory apologies, Reina attempted to guide Aiko further into the cafe, but discovered it br.i.m.m.i.n.g with couples at every table and sometimes in between them.

"My, it's busy." Aiko clung to Reina as a pair of women tried to skirk by. "I guess this place is popular for holiday dates."

"Uh, yeah." Reina counted half a hundred heads in the small, noisy establishment. The worst part was realizing she had probably had s.e.x with a majority of the younger women in there.

Just as Aiko suggested they might go somewhere else, the owner of the cafe rounded the counter and approached them. "Ah, Reina! I haven't seen you in a while."

"Busy with work." Reina didn't want to stand so close to the owner, but the congested crowd continued to push them all together. She knew the owner and had a pretty good guess that they never did anything together given the woman's age, but seemed to recall an instance in which they were both drunk in the same contest. Reina may or may not have thrown up on her.

"I see you've got a date today!" The cafe owner and Aiko exchanged pleasantries. "I don't think I've seen you around these parts before?"

Reina jumped in before Aiko could embarra.s.s herself. "She's new in town." No need for people to think Reina was picking straight girls off the sidewalk...again.

"Oh, and what a little cutie!" The meaty arm reaching out to tap Aiko's cheek had a tattoo of a bulldog on it. It looks like it wants to bite her. "Hey, if you two don't mind waiting a few minutes, I could get you a table. Although you're gonna have to share a side."

Aiko hooked her arm around Reina's. "That's fine."

Waiting for a table was not Reina's idea of a good date, especially when she knew the most she'd get from this affair was maybe a goodbye kiss from Aiko. If I want something more from her today, I'll have to get her alone. The plan was to go to karaoke again and attempt a make-out session, but at this rate half the day would be gone before they left the cafe again.

After a third couple squeezed out, saying risque things to each other while other cafe patrons shouted love hotel recommendations, the owner directed Reina and Aiko to a table in the far back corner. The close side of the table was occupied by two women talking to another table, but the far end was vacant. Reina slipped in by the window, Aiko right by her side.

As soon as they were alone again, Aiko pushed her chair closer to Reina's, leaned her head on a shoulder, and interlocked their arms together while looking at the menu. "It's crowded in here, but nice."

"Yeah. Real pleasant." She sure is friendly today.

While Aiko took her time ho-humming over the soup options, Reina looked over her date's head and surveyed the other patrons. Just as she thought: the occasional woman glimpsed at her and Aiko, as if jealousy welled inside them. If Reina really had slept with most of them, odds were some still held resentment for whatever supposed relations.h.i.+p crime she may have once committed. Not calling, no second date, selfish s.e.x...even if these glaring girls were now in the company of better dates, Reina knew a resentful scowl when she saw one.

Reina still thought about those women when a server came to take their orders. Aiko ordered two of the same thing when Reina wouldn't say anything. Once the menu was cleared for the next set of customers, Aiko said, "This is already the best Christmas date I've ever had."

That's sad. Reina's best Christmas date was the year before when she and Michiko got drunk and played strip Old Maid. "Didn't you ever go out on Christmas with a boy?"

"Well, yeah." Aiko kicked her feet out and touched one to Reina's leg. Is she flirting with me? "But they weren't interesting."

"I see."

Aiko bit her bottom lip through a giant grin. "By the way, I got you a Christmas present."

"Eh? Hontou ni?"

Arm still locked around Reina's, Aiko rummaged through her knapsack and pulled out a tiny rectangular box wrapped in blue paper and topped with black ribbon. It looks like me.

"Merry Christmas!"

Reina took the gift. n.o.body had given her a Christmas present since her second year of high school. She didn't count the "presents" Michiko gave her all the time, sometimes landing on Christmas. "Thanks."

"Open it."

Reina's eyes darted from the glittery black bow to Aiko's expectant visage. "Eh?"

"I want to see you open it!"

"Uh, okay." She attempted to pry the ribbon off without ripping it. She got as far as one side undone before a tear appeared beneath the bow. "I hope you don't want this bow back."

"Why? It's part of your present. You can keep it or throw it away."

"Ah." Once the bow fell onto the table, Reina made short work of the remaining blue wrapping paper. Beneath it was an inconspicuous black box, with one piece of tape holding the lid down. Oh my G.o.d, she bought me jewelry. What had Reina gotten into with this girl?

But it wasn't jewelry inside: it was a stick of eyeliner, the same brand and style Reina used for her practices and performances.

A squeal eked out of Aiko's mouth. "I hope I got you the right one. I asked s.h.i.+-chan what kind you used...although now that I think of it, your company probably pays for it."

"It's perfect." Reina closed the box and put it in her bag. "My make-up is out of pocket, actually, and I'm almost out."

"Yokatta." Aiko heaved a relieving breath. "I'm glad you like it."

Various women snickered at them even above the rabble of lesbians on Christmas dates, they still had time to judge them. Was it jealousy? Revenge? "Oh look, that Reina s.l.u.t has got some girly-candy attaching herself to her."

"Nee, Reina..."

Aiko's voice brought Reina's eyes back to their table. "Huh?"

"When's your birthday?"

"Oh. It was December third."

"Uso! So soon ago?"

"Yeah."

Aiko became crestfallen, and her grip on Reina's arm relaxed. "Now I have to wait a whole year to get you a birthday present."

Later that night, after she reviewed everything else from that day, Reina would go to sleep with an image of Aiko's pouting lips and moping cheeks and think, How cute. "Sorry."

She was further saved by the arrival of their lunches, a pair of bowls full of minestrone soup. The owner serving them took one look at the hand on Reina's arm and chuckled, eyes rolling and tongue clicking. Clearly a conspiracy.

Aiko grabbed a spoon and started eating. Content to eat lunch in silence, Reina soon had another eye-bulger when a different spoon appeared at her lips. She has got to be kidding.

"Ah!" Aiko put her untouched spoon back into her bowl. "Is something wrong?"

Reina didn't know how to break the news. "You know, there are lots of people watching us."

That seemed to do the trick, as Aiko sent a fleeting look around the room. "Why would they be looking at us?" She wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Don't they have dates to deal with?"

"It's not that simple." Two women whispered things into each other's ears as they not-so-covertly pointed to Reina and Aiko they parted, laughing. Reina recognized one of them from a bar party and subsequent s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g in the bathroom. "I guess you could say I've 'dated' a lot of these women here at one point or another."

"So? They look to have all moved on."

"They're not laughing at me."

Aiko's hand lowered from its perch. "That means they're laughing at..."

"Lesbians can be just as rude as anyone else."

"But why?"

The sigh building inside of Reina would have to wait for another day. "I've told you before, I've built a reputation as a philanderer."

"But just for casual relations.h.i.+ps, right? You said you haven't dated anyone in a long while."

"Casual relations.h.i.+ps" was a nice way to put those liaisons with women Reina would never know the names of: bathrooms, back rooms, closets, love hotels, under tables...maybe a time or two she went to another woman's apartment to f.u.c.k there. Reina was a couple 10,000 yen bills away from earning the next level of reputation. "That's how I think of it, but you know, most people don't. So they're looking at you and thinking..."

"That I'm just some girl being taken for a ride."

"Basically. The fact you're girly and n.o.body knows you from other lesbian circles isn't helping either."

"I don't care."

Reina opened her mouth to argue, but stopped when she heard Aiko's last word. "You don't?"

"No. Because I know they're wrong."

Is that so? She was probably a little too trusting for Reina's blood. They weren't "girlfriends," either. Reina still had free reign in the realms of s.e.x as far as she was concerned. She should probably worry a little. I have no reason not to treat this like a joke. G.o.d knows I'm never gonna get any.

Aiko took Reina's hand and brought it up for a surprise kiss. Before she could react, Aiko said, "I can take care of myself."

She's more mature than I gave her credit for. Reina had dated "girls like Aiko" before: they whined about "lesbian germs," pouted when she never paid, and had a million complaints during mediocre s.e.x. The best part was when she stopped calling them and they threw public fits. None of those girls were here in the cafe now, since last Reina heard most of them went on to collect d.i.c.ks.

But since Aiko insisted she was fine with the attention, Reina wasn't going to worry about it anymore. When Aiko wanted a kiss on the cheek, she indulged her; when she wanted to spoon-feed her date minestrone soup, n.o.body said no. In time, Reina loosened up and put her left arm around Aiko, turning the role on her with demands for kisses and shoving a spoon into her mouth which she screwed up, dribbling brown broth all over Aiko's chin and lips.

"It's okay." She picked up her napkin and attempted to clean herself up, but within the next second Reina kissed her and licked the soup away.