The Blonde Geisha. Jina Bacarr
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a geisha mean I would find pleasure with a man such as this?
Did such a man exist?
“Pillow book,” Mariko said with no embarrassment. “It’s most helpful in learning how to please a man, is it not?”
“Yes, but I don’t see any pictures of women with this mushroom you’re talking about.” I skimmed through the rest of the bound book.
“That’s a woman’s secret, a tool to search every crevice of her vagina until she finds her pebble of pleasure, her clitoris,” Mariko explained. “A gift from the gods of thunder and lightning.”
I nodded. It made sense. Somewhat. Though I had to ask, “How can you have thunder without lightning?”
“That’s why there is the mushroom.”
“Tell me, Mariko-san, are the sounds we hear through the paper walls sounds of pleasure from this mushroom?”
Mariko nodded. “Yes, women such as okâsan, who have many duties and no chance to enjoy the scent of a loincloth, must find pleasure in other ways.”
“Loincloth? You mean making love with a man? Taking his penis deep into your vagina?”
I noticed the girl’s eyes sweep over my belly. I covered myself with a wisp of silk, but it didn’t lessen the warm achiness forming in the pit of my stomach.
“We call it ‘flower heart.’ In olden days, women such as okâsan lived in seclusion in semiscented darkness indoors, hidden behind bamboo blinds and curtains, speaking to men through latticed screens. They found many interesting ways to pleasure themselves without men.” Mariko hesitated, then whispered again in my ear, “Though you must be careful if the head of the mushroom swells by the heat of your body so it doesn’t become…stuck.”
I giggled. “Down there, in your…flower heart?”
Mariko lowered her eyes, but I could see the smile she was trying to hide escaping onto her berry lips.
“Yes, in the most secret of a woman’s secret places,” she said. “Come, you will see for yourself.”
Mariko smiled. I smiled back. I was more curious than ever to experience the pleasures of this mushroom and it was that thought of discovering something shocking that induced me to follow the girl through the teahouse. White paper butterflies hung from the ceiling on thin silk strings and fluttered in the breeze from the open sliding doors as we walked past them, then over a small indoor bridge.
The gurgle of running water soothed the strange warmth invading my body before we slipped through rice-paper doors, painted with cranes in a pastel cream of rainbow colors. I guessed this must be the entrance to the quarters of okâsan. Mariko put her finger up to her mouth, as if warning me not to speak, then she opened the side panel so we could slip inside and hide behind a many-paneled screen.
The rain was busy dropping its freshness on the earth, softly tapping on the wooden roof, but inside the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree it was quiet. So quiet it was easy for us to hear the soft sounds of a woman’s mournful longing mixing with her sexual enjoyment. We listened as the humming sighs grew louder and a faint but delicious scent seemed to pass through the room like unseen waves of pleasure.
“I feel so strange, Mariko-san, like I’m getting ready for a journey I’ve never taken before,” I whispered. “A journey that will satisfy a hunger deep inside me.”
“All women have that hunger,” Mariko whispered back, then added, “that’s why there are engis.”
“Engis?”
“Yes, replicas of a man’s penis made from paper or clay and filled with sweetmeats.” She licked her lips. “Very tasty.”
I had to hold my stomach so as not to laugh, then leaning forward and standing tiptoe on my bare feet, I saw movement beyond the screen. What I’d seen from a distance was confirmed close up. The okâsan, Simouyé, was sitting on her heels on the mat, rocking back and forth. Back and forth. She looked so beautiful. Her kimono was blue and simple. Her sash was also simple and tied in a small knot in the back.
But it was the erotic look on her face that so fascinated me my own body reacted in a strange and mysterious manner. I let out a sigh before I could stop herself. Mariko clasped her hand over my mouth, her dark eyes warning me to be quiet, for if we were discovered, I could guess what punishment would befall us.
I nodded. Mariko removed her hand from my mouth, her palm moist with the wetness of my lips. Before I had time to feel embarrassed, she whispered, “Watch.”
My eyes widened. My mouth dropped, yet I couldn’t look away as okâsan changed her position and bent her body forward. My eye was drawn to what appeared to be something tied to her heel with ribbons. Something long and slender and shaped like a—
“Mushroom,” I whispered, then I clasped my hand over my mouth to keep from crying out. This mushroom was not of the vegetable variety, I could see, but a carefully sculpted, brown leather object resembling a man’s penis. Big, and anatomically real with bulging veins.
I withdrew into the shadow of the screen, thinking. This penis put the woman in control. I smiled. Such power intrigued me and reaffirmed my desire to be a geisha.
I looked again.
Simouyé got to her feet and pulled her light silk kimono around her midriff, then fastened a red cord around her sash and under her breasts. She removed her soiled socks, then put on a clean pair.
“Why is she changing her socks?” I asked, turning my head.
“Geisha consider wrinkled or faintly grayed socks to be the height of impropriety. Showing clean white heels and clean white toes is proof of a most honorable feminine delicacy.”
I smiled at that, thinking it a strange priority after what I’d seen, then I looked back again at okâsan. I didn’t see the strange leather mushroom. Simouyé must have hidden it in one of the numerous drawers in the wooden chest standing in the corner.
The scene was surreal in my eye, but the tears flowing down okâsan’s cheeks were real and disturbed me in a way I didn’t understand.
Didn’t understand at all.
A tightness gripped my throat. Watching the woman pleasure herself had made me feel uncomfortable and yet strange and wonderful. Watching her cry made me feel as if I had violated something more sacred. I didn’t like that feeling. Mariko sensed my discomfort.
“I’ve seen women among us who embrace the ideas of the West,” Mariko said, “and abandon the age-old tradition of a woman walking behind a man and instead, walk hand in hand with him.”
“Are you saying okâsan is such a woman?”
She nodded. “The female mind has many strings, Kathlene-san, and a woman like okâsan is an artist in playing every one of them.” Then before I could quiz her further, she said, “We must go.”
I nodded. My private thoughts lingered in the darkness invading the room, black and velvety quiet, as we left as silently as we’d come. With a little luck, maybe in that silence I’d find the courage to embrace this strange new world. Nothing more could be done tonight. I would go straight to okâsan in the morning and tell her of Youki’s apology. I would bow my head and speak the words Mariko bade me to do, for nothing must stop me from entering the secret world of the geisha.
Crouching, I followed Mariko through the sliding door, down the hallway, over the tiny bridge and into a room where a futon had been unrolled and left for us, as if by magic. A four-paneled mosquito netting, trailing on the floor like the train of a royal robe, hung on silk cords from hooks set in the framework of the teahouse. Its misty transparent walls of green sea foam invited peaceful sleep to all who entered its folds. I was again living the fairy tale, though I guessed setting up the futon was Ai’s doing. I wondered how much the old