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Chosen Path

By: wjwilliams



I believe that most people are victims of their fates. I have always chosen mine. Of course, we can only choose what we will do and who we will be. Our lives form along the interfaces between ourselves and the world, by which I mean that we may architect our own destinies, but we cannot choose the ground on which they must stand. Please know that I speak with all due humility in light of my own upbringing's privilege and luxury, but I have had my moments of choice. I have felt those times at which one decides to become a new person, to live in a new world. I remember them with unusual specificity. I have seen and heard and done things that threw the features of the world into stark relief, and in those fragile, fleeting moments of clarity, I have made choices.

I can remember the moment in which I made my first choice very clearly. He laughed. Mother was angry, but Father laughed. I cannot blame him. Even as a small child, I had come to them dozens of times to announce what I would be when I grew up, but that time, that one time, I meant it. It was not the sound of my own proclamation that cemented my certainty but that of Father's laughter. That was my moment of truth. By all objective measures, he was very successful. He was an honorable man, provided well for us and multiplied the family fortune. In that moment, I resented him not for all the advantages he had, advantages he would pass on to me, but for what he did with them, with all that opportunity: the same thing as everyone else. I would do something that he never could, something astounding, something beautiful, something that would burn an indelible scar into the memories of everyone who met me. I chose to become a living, breathing work of art.

It may seem odd that I should consider the mastery of traditional arts to be an act of rebelliousness. In a family like mine, the measures of success are all very clearly defined, and a geisha registers low on most of them. The profession is appropriately respected of course, but it is considered something that other people do. There is a separation. They dress it up as courtesy, but in the end, there will always be a separation between those who burn the incense and those who buy it. For me, that separation started as a vent.

The au pair thought I was asleep. In fact, I had removed the vent cover from the heating duct in my room and crawled in. My parents were hosting a party that night, and I wanted to see what it was like. I was able to move easily through the ducts; I was very young. Doing so silently took some care. When I finally reached a vent from which I could see into the parlor, where all the guests were, dinner had ended. There were two geisha and a maiko at the party. The apprentice was dancing.

All of them were beautiful. They all wore the traditional makeup, though the geisha would not have been required to do so. In hindsight, it must have been a very prestigious event. The two geisha played shamisen and drums while the maiko danced. She wore her obi in the dangling style and only wrapped her sleeves twice around her arms so they still hung very nearly to the floor. She moved slowly but elegantly, perfectly. Her every action, every motion, every shift of her embroidered silks interlocked with the music in a viscerally detailed explanation of the legend she performed. One of the geisha sang. I wish I could remember what dance it was, but I have thought of it so often that the memory has almost completely worn away.

At that time, I did not even know what they were. I told my parents I wanted to be a dancer like the painted lady at the party. Mother started by excoriating me for sneaking out of my room, but she eventually got around to her disapproval of my decision. When she said I would not be permitted to learn any such dances, Father cut her off, adding "unless you earn absolutely perfect marks in school." He didn't even look up from the morning paper while Mother glared at him.

Of course, perfect marks were very simple as a small child. As I got older, I came to think of school as a game, and I always run up the score. That was the price of my freedom to choose, and it seemed a small price to me. Not until many years later did I begin to appreciate the gravity and courage of Father's decision. It remains the only time I have ever seen him directly contradict Mother. She never forgave him for it, but she complied.

I went to the hanamachi every weekend, every day once I was old enough to ride the train alone. I was by far the youngest woman, the only child, there. Father must have pulled strings for me even to be allowed inside the teahouse. I studied for more than a year before Kazaharu-sensei accepted me as an apprentice. Even at that age, I could tell that her peers disapproved, but they didn't dare say so. She was and still is the best. She believed in me.

She was disappointed by my decision to attend university in America, but she did not disown me. She even allowed me to earn my erikae, my debut, before leaving. I was, truthfully, far better than all the other maiko, but Kazaharu-sensei required me to be perfect. I was perfect. I thought the decision to study abroad was my own, but in hindsight, it was Mother's. For years, she dropped very subtle hints suggesting that only the most brilliant women could learn to be successful in more than one culture. In hindsight, she was hoping that I would not debut and would never go back to the hanamachi. She played me like a shamisen. That was the first time I managed to avoid a major decision by choosing both paths.

I never used my trade name or rank in America, but I needed to practice. I started by performing at festivals and giving exhibitions on campus. Very quickly, I started receiving requests to perform at private events. Collecting the honoraria felt like a way of keeping score, and it was nice to have plenty of spending money without relying on my parents. By the time I started law school, I was able to pay my own tuition.

I chose law school mostly out of disappointment with my peers (perhaps I should call them my contemporaries) in business school. It was simply too easy. I prefer a challenge, and being admitted to the bar in two countries certainly is that. I did a lot of extracurricular reading on Japanese law. I even read the minutes of the Diet. Politics fascinated me. I could infer some of the intricacies from the Diet minutes. It looked like a very complex game to me. I enjoyed studying it.

I liked the man who was Prime Minister at the time. He seemed very sly. I could tell he was setting up economic reforms with very small measures that he snuck in carefully over years. He never took on the establishment directly. He was patient, and he was winning.

I agreed to a performance at a hotel in New York for a very generous fee, not knowing he would be there. I generally tried to avoid performing for people who might be able to tell I was a real geisha. The party was ancillary to a United Nations event, so there were many dignitaries there. I managed to avoid him for most of the night. When I finally did meet him, I liked him.

He looked like he was about my father's age. He had graying, almost shoulder-length hair that cascaded down around his face, the trustworthy face of a politician. He was immaculately dressed, of course, but he was also very polite in a very skillful way. He managed to speak to me with appropriate respect without acknowledging my rank, knowing that I had chosen not to perform under my trade name. He also seemed very kind and earnest. He asked permission to have his picture taken with me, and I agreed.

I spoke to his staff photographer to make sure the picture would be framed appropriately, leaving empty the position that belonged to his wife, who did not make the trip with him. I also asked him not to publish the photograph. He kept it on a credenza in his office. It took more than a year before someone recognized me and my parents found out. Mother had nothing nice to say. Father went to see the picture and agreed that it was tasteful. If he had known the rest, he might not have been so lenient.

It happened quickly, seamlessly. When I went to the powder room to neaten my regalia after my final dance, the Prime Minister's personal aide was there as if by coincidence. She was an older woman with gray hair up in a bun and a very conservative, black suit. She had the look of a grandmother who might either sneak you dumplings before dinner or wash your mouth out with soap for speaking disrespectfully.

"The Prime Minister was very impressed with your performance of the Furumachi Niigata Odori," she said, looking down into the sink as she washed her hands.

"I was very impressed with his amendment to Consent Resolution 37."

She spoke casually, politely, "I'm sure he would enjoy discussing CR-37 with you privately if you are interested in it."

The proposition was obvious, but for a fraction of a second, I hesitated, unable to believe such illicit trysts happened at all, much less with me. I thought briefly about his wife, the tabloids, my family. The way she spoke, it was clearly a commonplace occurrence, yet there had never been reports of infidelity in the media. Having only allowed myself the blink of an eye to decide, curiosity won the day. I answered, "I would certainly enjoy such a unique opportunity."

She set her purse on the counter to get out her compact and touch up her eyeshadow. Through her elongated face, one eye closed to apply makeup, she said "He will be giving a press briefing about it next Wednesday."

"Sadly, I have other commitments that day," I lied. I was uncertain what she intended until she sighed her minor disappointment and walked out. There was a room key on the counter where her purse had been. I palmed the key and tucked it into my obi as I left the powder room.

I did one more circuit around the party, mingling with guests before I went to the elevator. Not knowing the room number, I pushed the button for the top floor and waited for the doors to close before checking the key. I had the floor right. There was a Secret Service agent standing in the elevator lobby. He was ethnically Japanese but clearly an American. When he saw me, he said something into his sleeve instead of bowing.

The guard posted at the door, however, was definitely Japanese. He didn't bow because he didn't see me. I walked right in front of him and stood next to him to slide the key gently into the hotel room's lock. He couldn't see me because I wasn't there. No one entered the room, especially not a beautiful, young woman. I suddenly felt much more comfortable.

Adjusting the lighting in the bedroom was simple since angles didn't matter. The sitting room took some time. Ultimately, I had to rearrange all of the furniture, but it turned out fine. Reevaluating my own preparedness, I noticed that I wore uninspiring, white, cotton underwear. I wondered briefly what an over-sexualized woman should wear under her kimono, but the answer soon struck me with certainty: Chanel No. 5, of course. That settled, I sat and waited in the middle of the floor. It was a western-style room, no tatami mats, so that was the best I could do. One must learn to make do with the resources available to her.

He arrived hours later. As he opened the door, he looked tired, worn down, but as soon as he saw me, he became once again a perfect specimen of charm and decorum. He bowed and thanked me for the privilege of my company. He told me his name was Hiro, inviting me to speak familiarly with him by giving me a shortened version of his name. I had decided to give him my real name. "You may call me Yumi."

He paused and looked at me inquisitively. "Yumiko Itsumoto?" I admit I was so shocked he knew my name that my face may have shown my surprise. He quickly bowed low and said "I beg you to ignore my foolish ramblings, Geiko-sama." He addressed me by rank even though I hadn't worn the signet combs in my hair. I flatter myself to believe he inferred it from the quality of my performance since he was obviously surprised to learn who I was. He kept his eyes lowered respectfully as he rose from his bow and added, "My impertinence brings me great shame."

"I see no shame upon you, Hiro-san," I assured him with just a touch of formality, "I would be pleased for you to call me Yumi."

"Thank you Yumi-chan." He looked up at me, blinked, and smiled slightly. "You have your mother's eyes." He turned toward the wet bar and added, "and your father's audacity. Would you like a drink?"

When he looked back for my answer, I slowly blended formality into intimacy, leaving the honorific off his name as you would for a lover. "I would be pleased to drink with you, Hiro. You speak as if you know my parents." He turned back toward the bar and asked if they told me how they met. "At a cocktail party," I answered.

He sniffed and muttered, "hell of a cocktail party," while he dropped ice into two highball glasses. "I suppose that makes bourbon the order of the day." I did not know what he meant by that, but my answer to his offer of a drink suggested that I would have the same as he would. He returned from the bar with a small tray containing our drinks and four empty glasses. He sat down on the floor opposite me and arranged the empty glasses in a square on the carpet. Then he turned the tray upside down on top of them, making a small table so he could serve me formally. It was a nice touch, very polite.

"Cocktail parties," he said, raising his glass to make a casual toast in the American tradition. I raised mine formally in front of me with both hands, nodding assent to his toast, and tasted the liquor. He had initially sat cross-legged, but leaned aside and raised one leg to plant his foot on the ground. Then he propped his forearm, holding his drink, on top of his raised knee, transforming himself very quickly from the manicured statesman to an ordinary fellow at his ease. He proceeded to tell me the whole story.

"So Esau," my father's name, "had stolen a bottle of bourbon from the dean's office, and I knew this sophomore girl who was always looking for trouble. We snuck into her dorm room with the bottle, and within minutes we had five or six of them in there with us, all in their pajamas—this was in the middle of the night. It was beautiful. We're all pretty drunk pretty soon and having a great time. Esau has this one girl on his lap with a hand up her shirt, and she's a screamer. She starts squealing, and all the other girls are over there on top of them trying to shut her up because we're breaking all kinds of rules, of course. And I've got the bottle at that point, but all the girls are piled up on top of him, so I'm thinking 'what the hell?' right?"

"And that's when your mother walks in. And she's got curlers in her hair, and she's wearing this big, pink robe and matching slippers, some sort of gunk on her face, the whole bit." I laughed. Up to that point it felt like he was talking about someone else, surely not my uptight parents, but I could easily envision my mother as he described. I had seen her like that a few times.

"She doesn't curl her hair anymore," I said, too amused to consider the words before they came out of my mouth.

"Good," he assured me, "she shouldn't. She has a very elegant face, very classy. Anyhow, so we're smashed, and she's livid. She starts tearing into these girls like you wouldn't believe."

"I might."

He laughed hard at that. "You might. Now these girls know what's up, so every time she turns on a different one, anybody who thinks they can get away runs out of the room. Including, mind you, the two who live in it. Pretty soon it's just the three of us in there, and we've managed to stand up, but Esau is between me and the door, and he's just staring at her while she chews us out."

He made a face, tilting his head to the side, opening his mouth and crossing his eyes. "So I can't get around him—the room is tiny—and he's not going anywhere, and she just keeps yapping on and on. I don't know how she didn't run out of breath. Finally she gets to some rhetorical question like 'and what do you have to say for yourselves?' And in the split second she pauses, Esau says 'You're really pretty.' Zero hesitation, she slaps him hard."

Hiro became increasingly animated as he told the story, gesticulating and making faces and voices for the dialog. It was a joyful memory for him, and telling it made him feel young. He continued. "I can't help it. I bust out laughing. So she turns on me, and he reaches out to her and says 'Hey wait! What's you're phone number?' I wish I had a picture of the look on her face. She turns around to pick up the phone so she can beat us with it, and I push Esau out across the hall. Now, we're both totally plastered, and the only reason we don't fall down is that he's trying to go back in. But this room is at the end of the hall, and so we're up against the door to the stairs, and I'm trying to work the handle."

"She comes out holding the handset, dragging the phone behind her, and she swings it at him, but the cord isn't long enough! Whiff! And this is an old, heavy telephone, OK, this would have done some damage. She screams and yanks on it hard enough to rip the jack out of the wall, but by that time, I finally got the door open, so we proceed to fall down the stairs. When we get to the bottom, Esau yells 'Call me!' just before the door clicks shut."

"So yes, they met at a cocktail party," he quoted me, "I guess you could call it that."

I caught myself giggling, which is not something I do inadvertently. Mirroring his casual posture, I put one of my hands on the floor and slid my hips aside to sit on the floor rather than on my feet. "What else can you tell me about them?"

=====

"Esau!" Hiro stood and moved out from behind his desk. "How's it hanging?"

"Long and strong," Esau answered, "you?"

"Like a bull elephant." The two men, old friends, embraced. They had not seen each other in many years.

"I hear you saw Yumiko-chan in New York," Esau said.

Hiro's face lit with excitement. "I did! Check it out; I have a picture!" They walked to the credenza to look at the photograph. "She looks like her mother, doesn't she?" Esau smiled. "She acts like you, though."

Esau put on a frown and replied "How dare you talk about my daughter that way?" Both men dropped into defensive stances and pantomimed karate.

"Hey I've got to get to a meeting, but what are you doing Saturday night? We ought to pick up some chicks, get wasted and go skinny-dipping in the Miatomo River."

Esau clapped Hiro on the arm and said "sounds good." Then as he left the office pointed back at Hiro and added "hit me up."

That Saturday night, Hiro gave the keynote address to a convention of investment bankers. Esau took his wife to the symphony. The Miatomo River had been diverted 15 years prior for the construction of an office park.

=====

I returned from the bar with our refreshed drinks and set them on the small table he had set up. Then I knelt behind him and pulled his jacket back over his shoulders. He let me have it. I immediately dug my fingers deep into his shoulders, leaving him no chance to question or to object. He groaned as his head bowed and arms went slack. I spent several minutes on his shoulders before moving down his back, all the while working the back of his neck just enough to keep him silent.

I spoke to him of how much it meant to me to come to know my family better through his stories, of how he had given me a new appreciation for them. I told him of my own memories of them, of my decision to study traditional arts, of my mother's disgust and my father's support for it. With my hand on his neck I could feel him smile. I told him I had read the minutes of the Diet, and I described to him the ploys I had seen him use. He nodded silently. As I began to let him speak, he told me more of his strategies, subtleties I hadn't seen, contingencies that were still unfolding.


Chosen Path Ch. 02



The fact that I feel silly walking up out of the subway wearing a kimono bothers me. I am neither a woman who feels silly nor one who dresses for the benefit of others. The present falsity of both of those facts proves that I am not, as I also believe I am, a woman who does not make mistakes. I further find error in that belief as well because today I act to countermand a prior decision. Either I was mistaken to leave him, or I am mistaken to go back.

It must be Sunday. There are too many people on the street for a weekday. Also, I would be at work. My situational awareness is very poor. I must take care not to walk past Kosei's building. I know the insomnia also impairs my judgement, so perhaps I am wrong about doing this. I don't think I am. I know I have missed him ever since I left. I remember very clearly having been able to sleep occasionally since then and still missing him. I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot of things, and I know that now. I'm not just desperate.

Which of course implies that I am also desperate, which I am. I am desperate to be able to sleep again. I know that, and I still believe I am making the right decision. Being aware of our biases helps us to mitigate their effects.

I'm not just desperate. I do love him, and I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot of things. Kazaharu-san was right that I had been unwilling to make a decision between career and family. Lots of women juggle both, even with children, but fundamentally one or the other has to come first. For me it has always been career, without question, any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I think today is Sunday. Between practicing law and entertaining, career easily devoured almost all of me. I suppose I had two careers. I suppose they did have all of me.

This is his building. The elevator code is still the same as it was years ago.

My decision is not which will come first. I have to give up one of those careers. I suppose that that, like many of my thoughts today, is untrue. He wouldn't mind me booking engagements as a geisha. Only the sex bothered him. But if you're going to play by the rules, why bother? It just wouldn't be the same. For me, the thrill was always the con-to see how far I could push a man's judgement beyond what he knew to be unreasonable. Approaching as a geisha was simply one of my opening gambits. Only sex can truly destroy a man.

I am ready to give that up for him, all those years of careful study and practice. I am ready to let go. I am ready to compromise. I am ready to love harder than I work. I am not ready to knock on his door.

How long have I been standing here? It bothers me that I don't know. Too often lately I realize where I am and cannot remember how I got there. Those must be the moments in which I sleep. It was a heavy thud against the inside of his door that woke me up. Put your hand down, Yumi. I caught myself preening like a schoolgirl. The door remains closed. Maybe there was no thud. Maybe I dreamt it.

No, it was real. Lightly pressing my ear to the door, I can hear a woman's heartbeat, no one I know. It's racing, and either she is very tall or her feet aren't touching the ground. A slight moan escapes her throat, and her body lurches against the door again. I recognize it now. It's him. It's the same intermittent cadence, the same pauses and shuffles. He never did that to me. I should be the one on the other side of that door. A reflexive twitch of lustful anticipation turns to resentment and anger and other feelings for which I cannot remember the names. I need to leave.

-

That must be my train that's pulling away. How long have I been standing here? There will be another train in 15 minutes. When you miss a train, another comes, not so with people. I can feel in my gut the hard truth that there is more between me and Kosei now than a door. I should have anticipated that he would be seeing someone. He is a handsome man. He is also light-hearted, relaxed, casual. I need that. I need him back. His bed was the only place where I ever felt I could rest-the only place I can still get to anyway.

I will be able to take him back from her, whoever she is, but it will require some preparation. I must first discover my adversary. Nothing can be left to chance. She could be anyone. I want him back so badly that I can smell his scent as if he were nearby. I've started seeing things lately too, little defects in the corners of my vision. It must be the lack of sleep. My situation is untenable.

"Oh, your kimono is so lovely!" I should thank the woman next to me for her compliment, but I already don't like her. It's only because I envy her. She seems so free and natural, so casual and peaceful. Maybe she only feels good because she just had sex. There is more than that though, maybe the engagement ring. It's a beautiful ring.

"Thank you so much," she says, "my boyfriend—my fiancee—just gave it to me today!" I wonder how much I said out loud. "It's a dream come true," she continued, "I've never met anyone like him. Is that our train?" Another is coming, but it won't stop here. The local just left.

"No," I answer, "the express." The slightest moan escapes her in her disappointment. It echoes in my mind with the sound of Kosei's lover, matching perfectly. I must be delusional, thinking this girl could possibly be the one. She is clearly too young, too frivolous, too modern. Her tank-top and cutoffs are generic enough, but she wears glitter in her nail polish and has a little tattoo of a turtle behind her ear. Kosei wouldn't be attracted to a girl like that.

She is also an idiot. She wears her purse far too casually for how expensive it is. It must have been a gift from another idiot, but she doesn't hold it as if it came from her idiot boyfriend either. The purse doesn't bother me. I've seen plenty of old money wasted on oblivious girls. I have always taken care not to be one of them, not to be oblivious. The turtle offends me. That particular design is a ka-mon, and it belongs to the Yoshimitsu family. I can only infer that she likes turtles, because this girl is no Yoshimitsu. Kids today have no respect.

She jumps a little when her phone chirps and the purse inevitably falls. Once she digs her phone out of it, she doesn't even stand before checking the message. It must be from her idiot boyfriend. His phone number is the same as Kosei's.

-

She screams as she tumbles forward, right in front of the express train. I've never actually seen it happen before, but suicide by train is not uncommon. I wish people wouldn't do that. It always throws off the scheduled service. It must make quite a mess for the maintenance people too. Deafening shrieks of emergency brakes crowd out the echoes of her scream. At least there is one less idiot in the world.

It doesn't make sense, though. She was so happy to be engaged. Why would she kill herself? She didn't plan to. Even delirious as I am, I would have noticed suicidal intent in her mannerisms. I feel sorry for her fiancee, for Kosei. He deserves better; I would never hurt him like she has. The thought of it makes me angry at her, but anger never solves anything. I wish I could go to him, to console him, but first I have to get rid of his lover somehow.

Wait.

What just happened?

I need to leave.

=====

Yumiko staggered backwards into a bystander who was innocently waiting for the train. She jumped in shock and turned, excusing herself, then walked toward the exit. Then she ran, but only one step. She walked the rest of the way to the escalator. As soon as her vision crested the escalator's horizon, she saw exit gates flashing through the intermittent gaps between people's walking legs. She knew immediately that she had made a mistake.

She paid her PASMO with a credit card. The exit gate would read it on the way out and know she had been there. Then it would know who she was. Then the two hard plastic wedges that politely gave way for innocent travelers would crush her. The entry gate read her PASMO on the way in. The exit gates would be ready for her, waiting to strike. There had to be another way out.

She needed time to think. She walked over to the side of the atrium and stood facing a system map. That bought her time but not much. People would start to wonder. Someone would ask her if she needed directions. Then they would ask her why she killed that woman. She needed to be alone. A bathroom might work.

She found one, entered, and walked up to a sink to wash her hands. Her PASMO would betray her to the gates, then they would know. It already had. It was too late. They knew she was in the subway, and they were guarding all the exits, waiting. She felt the room closing in around her like the slightly-too-tight tie of her obi.

The girl was right. Her kimono was lovely. It was Kosei's favorite, black silk, soft lining. Flames licked up from its hems, which she didn't particularly care for, but they morphed into a mix of petals and butterflies as they rose up her legs, flying into a black sky. Her obi accented the flames' colors. It bore the subtle texture of a dragon's skin, coiled around her waist. She had it in a drum knot that day, but there were painted accents on it so that if she tied it dangling, the ends would appear to be the dragon's head and tail.

She looked down at her hands, pruned from being held so long under the running water. She had leaned slightly over the sink to wash them. Then she stood and shook them once to dry. The dragon shifted as she stood. She could see it in the mirror, it's delicately patterned, silken weave seemed alive when it shifted in the light. It was too tight, and it was very wide.

As she watched, the dragon's coils expanded, deviating from their neat, overlapped paths. It slithered around her, deftly reaching out to encompass her arms as it turned. It crawled slowly down around her hips, frightening away the butterflies, diving between her legs to coil around one thigh then the other. It had her, but it toyed with her. The gates would have crushed her quickly, mercifully. As it undulated around her form in a single, sinuous arc of circumscription, it clung tight around her, not tight enough to crush her bones and suck the marrow, but tight enough to make her know it could.

It pressed hard into her as it turned, forcing its way around and over her breasts, climbing up along her shoulder, then down her back, then around. It teased her cruelly. The dragon was strong, strong like living steel. As it snaked around her form, it defined the limits of her body, carefully propagating each curve down its length as it slithered over her. It felt so strong and held her so firmly that its slightest mistake could accidentally tear her apart, forcing her flesh into some inhuman mold, squeezing her between its coils like dough between fingers.

The steady motion of its coils and counter coils sheered her kimonos into shreds, burning them in heat of friction against her skin, raising just enough smoke to imbalance the rising heat of an infinite sea of flame on which she stood into a whirlwind around her, sheathing her in fire and whipping through that nonexistent space between the dragon and her skin. The maelstrom whirled tighter around her, like the dragon, but fast and angry, buffeting her with the ashes and dust of butterflies, of flowers, of shredded silk, as it blew them high into the air.

The dragon's head rose solemnly behind her amidst that tumult. It flattened and widened, like a hooded cobra. It swelled and ascended like a hot-air balloon. Its eyes smoldered hungrily, and in a flash like lightning, its multiply forked tongue snapped down around her and blinked away, tasting her tender flesh. It licked her again, its tongue descending down around her head, enveloping her body like bonsai roots trained around a stone, branching into hairy tendrils to probe all her surface, looking for its meal.

The third time, it penetrated, measuring the rounds of her eyeballs and digging far enough under her toenails to taste the quick. Her scream only gave it another way into her, letting it push aside her breath to lick the disused corners of her lungs. The tongue pressed both sides of her eardrums, filling her ear canals and sneaking tiny shoots up her eustachean tubes. It burrowed through the deepest recesses of her sinuses, searching for direct entry into her brain. Its probing branches missed nothing, delicately attenuated enough to tickle her ovaries and so long and serpentine that two ends intertwined somewhere in her intestine.

All of those sensations slammed into her mind at once, bowling over all her thoughts and scattering them like autumn leaves before a winter wind. The flash of its disappearance left her consciousness hollow, echoing with gentle resignation to the inevitable permanence of all those sensations, deceived by their sudden absence. Then it licked and lingered for almost half a heartbeat, sliding slowly all over her for an instant before it was gone, testing every crevice, every poor, tasting her and judging. She welcomed its return and felt a twinge of shame that she had disappointed it when it left again.

The dragon's face loomed angrily over the earth like a thundercloud. It sent lighting, thick and dazzling along every path its tongue had tested, snatching her up naked from the ruins of her world, from its preparatory coils, from its whirlwind of fury. She slid along the peristaltic press of its throat, down into its gut. It had devoured her. She belonged to the dragon. She was part of it. It was part of her. She kicked and struggled in her tight, acidic sack like a fetus unready to be born while her flesh melted away. She was not dead. She was no longer anything at all.

=====

I have thought a great deal, a very great deal, about what went wrong, searching for the headwaters of my deluvial apocalypse. I have always made choices. For as long as I can remember, I have chosen my life. At least I thought I had. I certainly do not think I would have chosen my present circumstances, yet somehow I did. Here I am. There was one moment, on one day, on a subway platform, in which my life seemed to fall off the rails, yet I know now that that moment was neither the beginning nor the end of my undoing.

Everything fits together in a strange way. When I look for my first mistake, I always begin on that subway platform. I play the events of my life step by step, day by day, year by year forward and backward from there, yet I can find no fault, no sin of which I can accuse myself. I cannot remember the day that I was born. Perhaps it happened then. In any case, I feel certain, as one might consider fitting, that my deepest, darkest descent into despair and madness, when the world juiced me dry against its cruelest rasp, happened underground.

I woke in darkness, unable to feel my legs. To my right, I felt a ceramic, tile wall, to my left, faucet feeds and a drain trap. I sat with my back against a wall and my knees tucked under my chin. I grabbed an ankle in each hand and walked my feet out away from me until my legs lay flat along the floor. Then I righted my torso and pushed up, supporting my weight with my hands. The nonidentical twin sensations of prickling pain and cadaverous cold oozed slowly into my thighs. I was intact.

I was also impatient. Correctly supposing I was sitting under a countertop, I leaned forward and hooked my hands up over it. With that initial grip on reality, I pulled myself out into the floor of the bathroom proper. Though lucid, I felt confused and disoriented, a paradoxically comfortable condition for me at that time in my life. I rolled down onto my side and drug myself forward along the floor while my legs' intense and disconcerting pain soaked out toward my feet.

A faint glimmer marked the door of the large, commercial bathroom. I slid toward it and pushed it open. A single, lonely light had been left on somewhere in the station: not enough to push the darkness all the way out to its walls, but enough for me to remember where I was. I also remembered hallucinating in the bathroom. Truth be told, I had only achieved sufficient composure to hope it had been a hallucination. I lowered myself to the floor, pressing my cheek against cold, clammy concrete, and waited for my legs' excruciating resurrection.

I probably should have screamed. That might have been appropriate somehow, but I did not. I think I was afraid. I knew the sound would echo through the cavernous station and tunnels, and I did not want to hear even my own voice speaking to me, paralyzed as I was. I felt safer alone.

I wondered why a light had been left on in the empty, obviously closed, station. I suppose it was for my benefit, for safety. There is something inside us that we do not understand, some part of the human animal that makes us what—not who—we are. It is the seat of fear. The homunculus is afraid of the dark. We need to leave a light on in every space we have been in case we ever return. There are dark nights, dark rooms, pitch black voids like the bathroom in which I awoke, but even in those places, enough ambient light seeps in to tickle the retina and to give us hope. The only space in the universe where true darkness exists is the grave.

Once I was able to stand, I walked to the exit, clicking up frozen escalator steps in my wooden geta. The station had been closed for the night. Heavy overhead doors sealed it off from the street. They lowered electronically, and I couldn't find a control pad. I returned downstairs and stood at the platform as if the cargo-cultish ritual of waiting for a train would make one come.

Lit only by a single emergency light, the station felt unsettled, like a thick jungle on a moonless night. All of its features threw long, black shadows. Even the pips on a braille sign lit at a low angle of incidence seemed sinister and haunted, reaching out with their inky tendrils. That darkness you always see far away down a subway tunnel crept forward into the station, emboldened by the night. By day, the careless clamor of passengers ruled this domain, but by night, everything belonged to the darkness.

I wondered what to do while my eyes fought that darkness back. A wise woman knows when to wait. I do not. I bent down to grab the hems of my kimono and pulled it up, inverting its skirts until I could tuck the hems into my obi. If I let it hang freely I was sure to ruin it. Chill, damp air tickled the skin around my knees between the tops of my split-toed stockings and the bottom of my inverted kimono.

I could not see the rails well, but I knew they were there, about a meter down below the level of the platform. I turned and jumped down, landing on the near rail with one foot in front of the other. After recovering my balance, I began to walk.

=====

She walked slowly forward down the rail, holding her arms out at first as if it were a balance beam but lowering them to her sides as she became more confident in her steps. She could easily follow the rail with the platform right next to her. It felt like wading waist-deep in a train station.

As she entered the tunnel proper, she tracked her heading by judging her position with the amorphous loom of its walls and ceiling. Farther from the station, light became a memory. She walked within a void, her only anchor that steel rail beneath her. She adjusted her gait to probe the rail's edges with each footfall, keeping herself on track.

It seemed she walked a long time into that infinite gloom. The rail felt exactly the same under each step as it had under the last. She could see nothing through the increasingly thick emptiness around her. She could have been on a treadmill and never known. She had no way to witness her forward progress because she never looked back.

Everything feels very loud in the dark. Closing your eyes or wearing a blindfold is simply not the same. Your vision reaches out desperately, struggling to find some hold, some traction, but it slips, barely missing every surface like a repelling magnet. Your mind reaches out too, and you find sounds. Down within the foundations of a living city, you find plenty. None can you discern, none can you ignore.




Chosen Path Ch. 02



One step felt different than the others. She paused a pace past it and thought. Balancing on one leg, she raised the foot that had detected the anomaly and groped out to her side with it. Not far away, she found another rail, which confirmed her fear. She stood on a switch.

Yumiko had ridden the train to and from Kosei's flat many times, but those times were all so long ago. She closed her eyes to shut out that oppressive and distracting impenetrable black, and she tried to remember. In her mind, she left the station, walking slowly to an empty seat, always ready to grab a handhold if the car lurched. It did not, not yet. She continued forward.

She did find one sound she could understand: rats. She passed slowly through a kingdom of rats and insects, all the scavengers and shadow-dwellers that human civilization churns up in its wake. Sometimes they were far, tiny scratches echoing down the long, wide tunnel. Sometimes they were close, too close, moving purposefully in the same journey she was.

Soon, all sounds were made by rats. Rats teemed hungrily in an enormous pit somewhere far below the narrow rail on which she walked, waiting for her eventual misstep. Rats scurried along the surface of the earth above her, clicking their tiny claws as they ran. Rats dug the tunnel ahead of her, burrowing through solid rock, laying sections of rail and welding them together. Rats followed her, and if she ran, they would chase her. If she stopped, they would overtake her.

Rats were the least of her worries. She knew that a dragon lived somewhere in that cave. She knew the dragon far too well.

Another station and its one lonely lightbulb, like flotsam of a shipwreck, gave her some slight respite from her struggles to stay afloat in that ocean of devouring void. She placed her hand on the platform at her side, making sure it was real. As she walked, she read the signs along the tunnel's far wall, the station name. She was moving in the right direction.

She did not know specifically where she intended to go. She felt the need to get away from something, but chose not to remember what it was. Her imagination spun its rolodex of places she would rather be, but she wasn't paying attention. The thing that was looking for her would find her wherever she went.

She would need to fight it somehow. She remembered facing it before, fighting to a draw and slinking away wounded. It could not be persuaded or seduced. It must have been a force of nature, maybe an avalanche or a flood. She needed to find a refuge where she could hide from it, wait it out. She passed another station, another island of light, not high enough ground to make her stand, not by far.

She felt like she had walked for days, but it had only been hours: past another station, then a switch, then another station. She lost count very quickly. She kept walking, feeling like the world was turning underneath her and she had to keep walking just to stay in one place. Somewhere down in that abyss with her, the dragon woke.

She felt it rumbling far away. It moved though the caves quickly and effortlessly; they were its home. Yumiko felt like a trespasser sneaking through a monster's lair, hoping she was small and insignificant enough to pass unnoticed and unharmed. The monster was awake and moving toward her, shaking the ground underneath her harder as it drew near.

She walked faster but had no place to hide in the three-inch width of steel on which she balanced. She could only go forward. A dim flicker barely lit the walls around her. She turned her head to look back and saw one brilliant eye sliding through the tunnel behind her in the distance. It frightened her and she lost her balance, turning and falling on her back beside the rail.

The dragon charged at her, filling the cave with the fire in its eye. Yumiko's terror paralyzed her. It moved far too fast for her to get away, yet she still tried to scramble backward, pushing with her feet and elbows. Her kimono snagged, and she pushed harder, ripping it wherever it caught. It was no use. The beast was almost on her.

She turned her head aside and pressed it back against the ground, shielding her face with one arm, instinctively cowering as best she could from the danger. She remembered the last time the dragon had found her, and she turned her knees inward, pressing them together as tightly as she could. It thundered onto her, but that time she was not its prey.

It passed without even noticing her. It brutally tore away one of her sleeves and singed her garments with the sparks thrown by its claws as they plunged into the stone floor for traction, but that was all. Surprised to be still alive, she released the breath that she had thought would be her last.

=====

When the trains started running again in the morning, I came closer, at least, to my senses. There was truly no hope to run or to hide. I needed to face charges, and I needed help. They say that one who represents herself has a fool for an attorney. That would be true of me because my specialty is contract law. I know very little about criminal prosecution. However, working at a firm as prestigious as mine gave me the benefit of knowing an exceptional criminal defense lawyer.

His name was Jun Shimizu, whose surname aptly signified cleansing and purification. I was filthy and not just metaphorically so. Jun had only been at the firm for three years, having served as a prosecutor previously. As a prosecutor, he was undefeated. As a defense attorney, his former colleagues had wisely never made him go to trial.

Litigation is only partly about the merits of one's case. It also requires that the litigant be believable. I certainly took advantage of my ability to subtly convince male members of juries to consider the merits of my argument carefully. Jun held the same advantage doubly. He looked average. By that I do not mean I found him unattractive—far from it. Everything about his appearance fell precisely in the middle of the road.

He looked tall but not towering, trim but not scrawny, strong but not bulky. He wore the face that eight out of ten Japanese men see when they think of themselves. He spoke clearly and plainly, calmly and in a voice that perfectly melded every news anchor and radio announcer within a hundred kilometers of Tokyo. He was the ultimate Everyman. Any man on a jury could see himself in Jun's shoes. Any woman could see herself in his bed.

If anyone could get me acquitted, Jun could.

I snuck into the first open station I came to, waiting until no one was looking to climb up onto the end of the platform. My kimono was torn in several places and covered with grease and grime from the tracks. It might have been possible to repair the obi, but I did not feel particularly fond of it at that time. I took both of them off and threw them away. That left me wearing only my thin, white, inner kimono. That meant I was walking around in my underwear, yes, but it was nice, conservative underwear.

It too was torn and sullied in places, particularly below my knees, to match my filthy stockings, but not nearly as badly and what I had worn over it. What I could see of myself in reflections looked like a wreck. I looked like a wreck but not necessarily like an insane killer on the lamb, which I was.

I hadn't brought my phone with me, only my PASMO, a credit card and a little bit of cash, all hidden in my sandals. I could have called Amaya, my assistant, to get Jun's address, but I felt reluctant to wake her up at 5:00 am, as if letting her sleep in would somehow make up for the moral abomination of my sin. Instead I called Information from a pay phone in the station. Even Jun's name is common. There were 27 Jun Shimizus listed. The operator patiently read all 27 addresses to me. Fortunately, one of them sounded familiar. I had seen his resume before we hired him, which was before I lost my mind.

=====

Why am I awake? My alarm goes off before I figure it out. 6:00 am, exactly. I smash the clock and wish I could sleep in. If I ignore the sunrise, maybe it will go away.

knock knock knock

Who knocks on a person's door at 6 o'clock Monday morning. Maybe that was what woke me up. Maybe if I ignore that it will go away too.

knock knock knock

No such luck. What could they possibly want? Whoever it is will have to deal with me answering the door in my underwear.

"Jun-san, I need your help," the woman says before I even get the door open.

She clearly needs someone's help, half dressed, grimy, hair all over the place. One thing confuses me. "How do you know my name?"

"From work," she answers. As I stare blankly at her, she elaborates, "at the firm."

She does kind of look like... no way; not possible. "Yumiko Itsumoto?" She nods, curtly. I don't interact much with the senior partners, and there are so many incomprehensible things about this situation that I will clearly need to keep talking for some time while I try to understand what is happening. "How can I help you."

"I believe that I would benefit from sound legal council."

"Most people would," I say, but she keeps looking at me as if I am supposed to say something else. Why is she at my door at 6:00 am on a Monday morning? Why is she only wearing an under-kimono? Why is she...um...why is she looking at me like that?

"Will you take my case?"

"What case?" I'm still confused.

"A criminal complaint."

"Against whom," I ask. I would be honored to have this conversation if we were at work. Maybe this is a referral that somehow cannot wait out the next couple of hours.

"Me."

Her? "What are you talking about?"

She has clearly run out of patience. "Will you represent me," she asks flatly and with finality, "or will you not?"

It sounds like this is my last chance to say something sensible. While rubbing my palms into my eyes, I manage to frame the problem as one I can understand: Miss Itsumoto is asking me to do something. What that might be is irrelevant. "Yes, of course. Please come in."

Her demeanor relaxes somewhat as she side-steps past me through the door. "Thank you," she says with a soft note of charm suddenly folded into her voice. "And may I use your shower?"

=====

He gave me a towel and a yukata. I decided I would wrap up my hair and wear the yukata. I had also decided to go ahead and indulge a little bit. It had been a very difficult night. I smeared some of the grease from my forearm onto my back where I could plausibly claim to need help removing it. I worked as quickly as I could to remove the rest, but it probably still took me 20 or 30 minutes.

I emerged from the bathroom and sighed my relief, saying "ah, I feel so much better." He lived in a small, modest flat, sparsely decorated in Japanese style: tatami flooring and shoji to separate (or not) a small bedroom from the tea room. I liked it. Jun had put on a yukata as well and sat formally in the tea room. I duly went to the first guest position and knelt. "Do you have any citric acid?"

He blinked and asked, "citric acid?" I had woken poor Jun from a sound sleep and it seemed he was still trying to gather his wits.

"Yes," I said softly, "I was unable to remove all of the grease from my skin. If I might further impose upon your hospitality, I would be grateful for your help with it. Citric acid, lemon juice if you have it, might break down the grease more readily than soap could."

As he stood and walked toward his small kitchen, I turned my back to him and widened my stance to sit directly on the ground with my feet beside me. I opened my yukata and dropped it from my shoulders to expose the smear of grease on my back. Holding the yukata up with the crooks of my elbows, I crossed my arms modestly over my chest and turned my head down. I heard the halt of his steps as he saw me. He approached slowly, carefully, and knelt behind me.

"I would be honored to provide you with whatever council I can, Itsumoto-san."

"Thank you, Jun-san," I said, "and please call me Yumi."

"Will you tell me of the matter?"

I breathed deeply and kept silent as he began to dab cold lemon juice too gently onto my back. He seemed very nervous, but I could not be certain why, exactly. There were several possibilities. In any case, I would need to tell him about what happened sooner or later if I wanted his help.

"I was waiting for a train yesterday," I began. "There was a woman next to me. She was killed by a passing train. I believe that I will be charged with her murder."

"Why would you be charged?"

I breathed heavily again. It was hard enough admitting my mistake, a mistake made in the making of another mistake. I had to tell him the unconfessed secret of my heart in order to answer him. In a way, sitting half-naked in front of him made it easier to let go of my pride. "I believe that she was engaged to marry a man I previously dated—a past lover. I had gone to his home yesterday hoping I could reconcile myself to him. When I got there, someone, I believe it was this woman, was there with him. I left without announcing myself. It seems she left not long after I did and intended to catch the same train as me."

"After he incident, I ran. That was foolish. I was scared, shocked and not thinking clearly. I have not been sleeping well. I had not slept for perhaps a week. This insomnia has effected my mental state. I did not intend to kill her, but I stood to benefit from her death. There were many witnesses. I paid my PASMO with a credit card. The police will be able to determine who I am."

"Your situation may not be so dire as you believe it, Yumiko-san," he assured me, "but I can understand that it troubles you."

"Jun," I said after a pause, "when a woman takes off her clothes and kneels before you, it's safe to assume you can drop the honorific."

"I never assume facts not in evidence."

I sighed. I felt his attraction to me in his finger tips on my back, but he was too nervous even to wipe away the grease. We would be there all day unless he stepped up his infinitesimal efforts. "I want you to call me Yumi. I want you to press hard against the stain on my back and scrub until I am clean."

He did as I told him, putting one hand on my shoulder to steady me and grinding into the grease smear with the other. Once he began to work on it in earnest, finishing did not take long. I felt him wipe the area smoothly with clean water one last time, then he raised the collar of my yukata to pat me dry. I gave him further instructions. "I also want you to fuck my brains out."

His hands snapped back away from me in shock. He remained silent, but I decided to wait him out, breathing slowly and wandering my gaze along the weave of his tatami floor. Eventually he spoke.

"Will you not be needing them?"

I liked the innocence of his question, so I decided to answer earnestly. "They have functioned poorly in recent times." I waited again to hear his next quandary.

"I would think it a difficult thing to do to a woman of your considerable intellect." It seemed he needed to work up to it, to flirt a little bit before he could believe me.

"Take your time," I assured him.

Then I sat and waited patiently while he tried to think through what was happening to him, seemingly as disturbed by his own unanticipated circumstances as I had been by mine the night before. Cold and clammy fingertips, followed by their palm, touched down high on my back then slid haltingly up onto my shoulder and alongside my neck. I turned my head up slightly, yielding to the almost imperceptible push of his index finger. He followed, and I continued until I craned my neck back as far as I could.

When his fingertips moved back, I leaned back instead of letting them drag against my skin. I kept leaning, transferring my weight back onto my toes, which pointed back along the floor by my sides. Finally flipping over my toes to set my weight on my spine and straighten my knees from that position is always a difficult and awkward move. Jun was not prepared for how suddenly I fell backward when my weight transferred, but he caught me with a hand behind my neck before my head hit the floor. That was just as well because the abruptness of his catch knocked the towel free from my hair and just in time because I held my back still fully arched and would have driven my head hard into the mat.

I had left my hands in my lap, straightening my elbows as he bent me backward, so my torso lay bare in front of him, and my yukata lay folded inward over my thighs only enough for a pretense of modesty. His eyes struggled not to wander as I stared up at him, so I closed mine to let his have their way. I had told him to take his time, so I parted my lips slightly and waited.

"Did you do it?"

My eyelids rocked open in surprise. That was neither what I wanted nor what I expected. "You ask your clients if they're guilty?"

"I'm asking you."

I closed my eyes again and rolled my spine downward, relaxing my back and lying on the floor. "Nice dodge."

"Likewise," he volleyed. "Shall we play again?"

"I'd rather not," I admitted.

"Then answer my question."

He became more confident as he worked his art. I felt it in his hand behind my neck, which was shortly joined by his other to cradle my head. He had no idea how to handle a woman, but he knew exactly what to do with a hostile witness. I would have to tell him, and he knew it. I was the one asking him for help. He could simply decline and be rid of me. Something inside him clamped down abruptly and turned to stone. I could tell that our little back-and-forth spanned the full width of his patience. It takes a hard man to set murderers free every day and still look at himself in the mirror. I drew a very deep breath to show him I was about to answer. I needed a hard man. I was a murderer.

"Yes," I began, saving my equivocation to come after my answer. "I must have. I was there. I had motive. I fled the scene. She would have had no reason to kill herself and showed no signs of suicidal ideation. There was a man standing right behind me. He would have given a statement to the police."

"I didn't ask you if you would be found guilty," he pressed me, "I asked you if you were." 

"I feel guilty."

"Again, you have answered a question other than the one I asked."

I continued slowly. "I remember standing next to her on the platform. I knew the express was about to pass. I remember seeing Kosei's number on her phone. I don't know if I was fully cognizant of the fact that she was engaged to him. I knew it on some level. She screamed."

I paused, handling my fragile memories of the event carefully. They had already begun to deteriorate. "I remember being surprised when it happened. I felt annoyed because I expected subsequent trains to be delayed. I remember just standing there, trying to ignore her. I also remember pushing her. These memories cannot all be true, but I do not know which are real and which are my mind's efforts to fill in the blanks. I began hallucinating moments later—I hadn't slept in many days. I thought my obi was trying to kill me. I blacked out in the station's bathroom and woke up under the sink. The truth is that I don't know what happened. I cannot remember."

After gently laying my head down on the floor, he stood up, found a pair of sandals for me and then started getting dressed. I noticed a sudden pang of fear in my mind, fear that he was abandoning me. It was irrational, and I suppressed it. Instead of asking where he was going, I laid there silently.

"Get dressed," he commanded, nodding toward the sandals he had set next to me. "We're going to the hospital for a toxicology report."

"What about my brains?"

He turned to face me squarely and stopped buttoning his shirt. "As your attorney, I advise you to come to the hospital with me immediately for blood tests." I recognized both the wording and the tone. I had used them many times. They were the legal precursor to 'I told you so,' a more polite wording than 'don't blame me when this blows up in your face.' I nodded slightly and sat up.




Chosen Path Ch. 02



He continued buttoning. I caught a glimpse of a very slight smile turning at the corner of his mouth as he said, "You told me to take my time."



Chosen Path Ch. 03



"There."

"Pillar."

Wakahisa-san advanced one frame and pointed at the screen. "Right there."

"Pillar."

"OK, now watch how she waves her arms around like she's trying to grab something or catch her balance." Wakahisa-san played the video forward again until the train hit.

"Yep."

"The kimono woman totally pushed her."

"Can't see," Shimizu said, looking over Wakahisa-san's shoulder. He wasn't convinced. A structural pillar obscured the best view they had of the platform. Detective Wakahisa was looking for a suicide. She wanted to see the decedent step calmly off the platform, looking straight ahead. She wanted to see a lost soul wander into the station, scan the walls and ceiling as if searching for any other way, then peer down into the trackway like she was staring into her own grave. Wakahisa-san didn't see it.

Detective Shimizu was looking for murder. He almost never looked at the victims. Victims, by definition, aren't doing anything wrong. Whenever he saw someone, he was looking at a suspect. The woman in the kimono was definitely a suspect. She walked straight into the station, right up to the platform and stood perfectly still for more than half an hour. Both of the lines that stopped at that platform had come and gone while she stood there. The decedent walked up next to her and spoke to her, but she remained perfectly still.

The kimono woman stood her ground. It was the decedent who approached, who kept moving the entire time they stood next to each other. Both women were visible in the video, taken by a camera at the end of the platform, on the far side of the tunnel, but a structural pillar obscured the scene of the crime, the concrete right behind them. Shimizu didn't see murder because a pillar obscured his view. The killer needed footing to propel the decedent's body forward. One of them had planted a foot back, away from the track, and used that footing to push.

Neither of the kimono woman's feet were visible under her perfect hem. She walked like she was wearing geta, elevated, wooden sandals, and she clearly wore them all the time. The skirts of her kimono didn't move when the crime occurred, but they didn't move when she walked either. She seemed to float along about a centimeter above the ground. The decedent had dropped her phone and crouched to pick it up, turning toward the camera to do so. In that position only one of her legs was visible. With her center of gravity lowered, the decedent had better control of her balance. She wore flip-flops, rubber flip-flops, recovered from the scene. Shimizu was looking at the decedent's foot, and he only looks at suspects.

Several other people stood in the video, but none of them were close enough to push. Only one witness they interviewed claimed to have seen what happened. He said the kimono woman pushed the decedent. Shimizu looked at the witness's position in the video, and Shimizu only looks at suspects. The witness had entered the station about a minute before the decedent did. He stood almost behind the kimono woman, probably checking her out. Shimizu would have. Blocky surveillance video cannot show you how beautiful a woman is, but it shows how many heads she turns.

Wakahisa-san moved her mouse and clicked, playing the video forward from the moment of impact. "Look," she said, "watch the kimono woman run away."

She did run away, but not soon enough, not fast enough. First, she took three steps backward and collided with the witness. The kimono woman had not intended to kill. "Atrium camera," Shimizu said.

Wakahisa-san loaded the atrium video again and advanced it until the kimono woman appeared on the escalator. "She doesn't want to go through the exit. She must have a PASMO. She knows she's guilty." The much younger detective hesitated for a moment, thinking, then said, "but her PASMO would have been read when she entered."

"Yumiko Itsumoto."

"Wait, what? You know who she is?"

"Yep." Wakahisa-san was right about her PASMO, paid with her credit card, scanned on entry, no exit. They must not teach cadets how to pull transit records at the academy. Shimizu thought the only thing she was supposed to learn from being his partner was alcoholism. "Platform-3."

Wakahisa-san loaded camera 3 and advanced until the kimono woman came back down the escalator. The woman went straight into a bathroom and stayed there. Both detectives watched the bathroom's door. Wakahisa-san got impatient and started accelerating the video. "And she's still in there when we showed up! We should have looked in the bathroom."

"Pervert." They said Shimizu had no sense of humor. Wakahisa-san wasn't laughing. Maybe he didn't.

"What is she doing in there?"

Shimizu knew exactly what she was doing: hiding. She was scared and confused. The only thing he wasn't sure about was exactly what frightened her so much. Up to the moment of the crime, she moved placidly as an angel. Afterward she moved like an animal, thought like an animal. First, she tried to run, then she hid.

When the station closed for the night and the video went black, Wakahisa-san kept staring at the screen. "She could still be there," the young detective mused.

"She's at work."

"Oh, come on, Shimizu-san, how could you possibly know that?"

"Doorman." The kimono woman had arrived home at about 7:45 that morning, changed into her work clothes and departed. The staff at her building liked her. The doorman sounded genuinely concerned when he asked if she was OK. She had arrived wearing a yukata, not her kimono from the night before, and the doorman had thought nothing of it.

She must have calmed down some time in the night. She went somewhere. While she hid, she figured out where to go. Maybe she figured out how to leave the subway; that station would have been locked up for the night while she was still hiding. Maybe the bathroom had another exit. There were too many possibilities. The only thing clear to Shimizu was that the kimono woman had started improvising. She was not afraid anymore.

Shimizu turned back to his desk, grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair and started putting it on.

"Hey, Shimizu-san, where are you going?"

"Her office."

=====

They looked like an odd couple to Amaya, an old, haggard-looking man and a chipper, young woman. The woman did the talking.

"Hello. We would like to speak to Yumiko Itsumoto."

"Miss Itsumoto is currently unavailable," Amaya answered politely. Amaya was always very polite to anyone who came to the firm's office. Otherwise she would not ask questions to which she already knew the answers. "Did you have an appointment?"

"No, but this is a personal matter of some urgency. Will she be free shortly?"

"No." Central booking was only a few blocks away, and arraignment usually happened quickly. Amaya expected her back in the office that afternoon.

The man spoke. "Where is she now?"

"She is out of the office."

He didn't bother asking again, but he clearly was still waiting for an answer. It made the woman uncomfortable. It appeared to Amaya that the pair's poor rapport disappointed the woman, but the man didn't care. She spoke as if in apology for him. "We're detectives with the Tokyo Police Department, and we believe Miss Itsumoto may have witnessed an incident we are investigating."

"Show me your..." The man had his badge in front of Amaya as soon as she began to speak. She clicked a picture of it with a small camera she kept on her desk. Then she answered, "She was arrested this morning."

"By whom?" the man immediately asked.

Checking her notes, Amaya answered, "Detectives Hayabusa and Yoshida."

The woman looked puzzled and started trying to form a question, but the man didn't hesitate. "When?"

The woman started talking, but Amaya answered the man's question. He seemed to be the one moving through his business most quickly. "About 45 minutes ago."

The man said, "Print the photo," but Amaya was already connecting her camera to download it.

"That...that's odd. Who...why...what did they look like?" the woman asked.

Without answering Amaya excused herself to go to the copy room for the printout. When she returned, the man traded her his business card for the image of Yoshida-san's badge and said, "Send the original." Then he immediately turned and walked toward the elevator.

"Can you tell us anything else," the woman began, but then looked back at her partner who was still trudging away. "I'm sorry. Excuse me." She ran after him, caught him quickly and smacked him on the arm. "Hey! Where are you going?"

All he said in reply was, "Video."

Amaya looked down at Detective Shimizu's business card. She slowly set it on her desk and picked up the warrant for Yumiko-san's arrest. Then with her other hand, she lifted the handset from her desk phone and dialed the court clerk's office.

=====

I gave him back his handcuffs as soon as we got in the elevator. He probably expected me to leave them on, but I wasn't in the mood. He recovered from his surprise quickly enough to say nothing as he took the handcuffs and put them away. Both men looked pretty beefy, which was not common for detectives. Their badges looked authentic enough, of course, and the warrant seemed to be in order. I had hoped to turn myself in when I could make time in my schedule for the arraignment, but it had to happen sooner or later.

We walked straight out the building's front door to a car waiting at the curb. One of the detectives opened its rear door. There was already a driver in the car, and I thought detectives came in pairs. It was also unmarked and far too expensive to belong to a public servant. Those facts struck me so suddenly that I stopped in my tracks before devising a plan of action. As soon as I halted, the other man ran into me from behind.

It felt like something bit my lower back hard, and every muscle in my body cramped instantly. He must have hit me with a taser or a stun gun. I had been electrocuted often enough, but only recreationally. Instantaneous, electrical paralysis felt novel, in a way. I wondered if I should learn to use it somehow. While I considered the new sensation, the man quickly wrapped an arm around my waist and brought his other hand around my chest to choke me, presumably so I wouldn't scream. The two of them stuffed me into their car while an indescribable mix of numbness and pain set in. 

=====

"Detectives Hayabusa and Yoshida." Shimizu laid a printout from a security camera at the kimono woman's office building on the lieutenant's desk. "And Yoshida-san's badge," he added, laying down the second paper.

"It there a problem?"

"Yep," Shimizu answered.

Wakahisa-san continued. "The witness's assistant called minutes later and stated that the warrant presented at the time of her arrest had not been issued by the court named on the warrant. The department employs two people named Hayabusa: a traffic enforcement officer and a janitor. The only Detective Yoshida on record retired seven years ago at the age of 59, and this," Wakahisa-san said, pointing to the menacing looking fellow on the printout, "is not a picture of her."

"I see," the lieutenant replied thoughtfully. "I'll take it from here. Forward any additional information or inquiries regarding this case to me."

"Yep" was the sound of Shimizu standing up to leave. Wakahisa-san made a different sound.

"Lieutenant, I would very much like for us to remain on this case if possible."

"That will not be possible," the lieutenant answered.

Shimizu had almost made it back to his desk when Wakahisa-san caught up. She was obviously not satisfied with that outcome. "So that's it? We're off the case? Just like that?"

"Yep," Shimizu replied while sitting down and starting to tickle a stack of files, looking for something.

Wakahisa-san's posture deflated and she collapsed into her chair. "What are you going to do?"

"Next case." He was curious too, but after 30 years of police work, he had become accustomed to unsatisfied curiosity. Maybe that was what he was supposed to teach the girl—alcoholism and that. She was bright, but he found her enthusiasm exhausting. Shimizu got a new partner every year. They always put the academy's top graduate with him. The chief had some line about wisdom and experience, but he was pretty sure it was just because no one wanted to be his partner.

Shimizu worked too much. Always, always, some case remained unsolved, some lead remained to chase down. Everyone had to find their own balance between work and family. You had to learn to leave the job at the office if you wanted to have a happy life. Shimizu took the job with him everywhere he went.

Most other detectives, men and women with families, couldn't do that. Their wives and husbands wouldn't have it. Shimizu's wife didn't complain about his long hours anymore. Her new husband was a salaryman: 9:00-5:00, no nights, no weekends. Must be nice. He did miss her in a way, but not with his heart. She never really loved him in the way that made a woman lay awake at night hoping her husband was OK, that he would be able to solve whatever case had called him away. Once he understood that, he had no reason to go home to her.

He missed her with the rest of his body—all the rest of his body, not just the one part. As a detective, he studied the animalistic nature of people: needs and wants, fears and fantasies. He knew the delicate, web-work bridges a person's mind would spin out to bring itself closer to the things it needed to survive. Those rationalizations eventually lead to crime. Under enough pressure, with enough time, anyone would become a criminal.

Shimizu missed his wife as an animal misses its mate. Humans need to be touched by each other. They need to love and to be loved. They need to be told of that love body-to-body, not voice to ear. Otherwise, the animal does not understand. The mind, on some level, knows what it needs, and it begins to reach out for it. It hungers and it thirsts. It starves, sometimes to death.

Wakahisa-san was certainly a pretty girl, but she was just that: a girl, probably about the age of Shimizu's son, maybe younger. Still, sometimes when he looked at her, his gaze would slide along the smooth surface of her cheekbone, out to her ear. She wore earrings sometimes, only studs when on duty, and at first he thought their sparkle was drawing his eyes away from hers. But it wasn't the earrings that drew him up around her ear's outer helix, tracing its gentle curve down to the lobe.

It wasn't an earring that brought his eye down into the quiet recess behind her jaw, down the smooth, perfect skin of her neck. It wasn't sparkle that he saw in the dangerous shadow between the collar of her shirt and her bare skin. The long too-lonely animal saw a female, and it struggled urgently to draw her in as if she were its breath.

Shimizu was an honorable man, of course. He would never so much as touch the girl, never even smile at her. To flirt with a colleague was dishonorable, moreover one so young. He was under enough pressure, but for not enough time. He could keep his wits about him for a year, until his next assignment to another rookie. It didn't help that she seemed to idolize him. People said he was very good at his job. Really he had no more or less skill than anyone on the team. He simply worked all the time.

He did allow himself his thoughts on occasion. Trying to deny one's desires only allows the mind to construct its madness in the shadows. He fed himself a diet of one fantasy each week. In this week's fantasy, she played the damsel in distress. She had been kidnapped by a criminal syndicate, and he, her partner, rescued her.

Their hideout, in this version of the fantasy, was a meat-packing plant. She hung naked from a meet hook on an overhead track, hooked under the ropes that bound her ankles, somewhere in a long line of beef sides that moved slowly but inevitably down the track toward an unnecessarily slow and painful sausage grinder. Shimizu could see her from where he stood on the roof of the old factory building, looking through a window on the side of the roof's elevated ridge line.

He impossibly shot one of the henchmen tending to the facility's nefarious purpose, whatever it was, through the window with his revolver, then he broke out the window, climbed through and ran along the catwalk below the ridge line while bullets ricocheted in the metal grating beneath his feet. By virtue of unspecified, subsequent feats of daring-do, he defeated all remaining henchpeople, then ran to the front of the grinding line, where Wakahisa-san dangled helplessly and precariously close to the grinder's turning jaws.

He had to plant his foot on the grinder's front bezel and transfer his forward momentum into a jump up to where she hung, grabbing her around her waist and pushing her far enough upward to free her ankles from the hook. He landed on his feet with her over his shoulder, legs behind him. Being the gentleman that he was, he brought one arm up under her chest and dropped her aside, down off of his shoulder to catch her knees in his other arm. As she spun into position in his embrace, she threw her own arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder.

"Shi...Shimizu-san," said his fantasy, still addled by whatever drugs her captors had given her, "you saved me." She held him as tightly as her sedated muscles could while he carried her to safety. The syndicate would send reinforcements. They needed a place to hide, to wait out the danger. He ran, carrying her, through the old factory, looking for an exit or a closet or anywhere they could be alone.

He came to a door that lead into offices in the plant's rear corner. It was closed, and he looked down at Wakahisa-san in his arms, thinking whether he could open it without setting her down. He saw, in that instant, her bare and beautiful body, his view only partially obstructed by her tender limbs and realized that he could not bring himself to shift his grip on her even slightly for fear of discomforting her. He kicked in the door.

There was an emergency exit at the end of the long hallway. Offices on the right had windows looking out into the factory, and those on the left had exterior windows. As he walked down the hall, he considered his options. If he took her outside, what then? Was he parked in front of the building, or had he even driven there at all. He realized he had no idea what was outside, so he carried her into one of the interior offices, closed the blinds and locked the door. Hopefully they would be overlooked.

He carried Wakahisa-san over to the desk and lowered her down parallel to it on her back. Then he moved her laterally over its surface, using her body to push its contents off onto the floor. As he set her weight down, her arms loosened around him, and her head leaned back into the crook of his arm. As her hands slid down from his neck, she took hold of his tie and pulled him closer and closer still. She pulled him so low, he had to withdraw the arm behind her until he held her head in his hand and lower her knees, still tucked under his other arm, to make room for his shoulder approaching her chest.

"Please, Shimizu-san," she said in a breathy whisper that tickled his face, "please, I'm so scared." While her lips still moved with her speech, she pulled him down until they touched, and she kissed him. When she released his necktie, he stood, rising away from her kiss. She had swiveled her ankles so they crossed in the lashing around them, and that allowed her to spread her knees apart and pull her knees down even further. As she reached up to hold her feet with her hands, she softly said, "I want you, Shimizu. I want you inside me."

As her thighs had widened out beside her, one came to rest under Shimizu's hand. His hand moved, without his knowledge or intent, slowly along her smooth skin, down toward her hip, where he caressed the big, perfect hemisphere of her upturned flesh. Withdrawing his hand from behind her head and sliding it down over her chest, he moved around the corner of the desk to stand directly in front of her, pressing his own hips against hers through the fabric of his trousers.




Chosen Path Ch. 03



Every time, without fail, as soon as he began to look down at her, his alarm clock went off.

=====

I woke up groggy to the faint smell of chloroform. That time I did have enough presence of mind to think before acting. With my eyes still closed, I surveyed my circumstances. I was still dressed, but my shoes had been removed. I was lying on my back on a thin futon with a very low cushion, perhaps a folded towel, behind my head. The ambient temperature felt comfortable, but the air held too much moisture to have been mechanically chilled.

I could hear crickets and not much else. None sounded close. I smelled trees, conifers, and at least two different men. Someone had brewed tea with recently dried leaves. A small, wood fire burned somewhere silently, a cooking fire. There was also rice, stagnant water and manure somewhere farther away. I slowly opened my eyes enough to see sliding doors, wooden walls and the inside of thatched roof. The coals of the cooking fire and a small lantern lit the room. The sun had set; I must have been unconscious for more than 10 hours.

A voice said, "Welcome, Princess. Please forgive me for my meager accommodations. Your presence greatly honors this humble home." The man speaking sounded very old. Since he knew I was awake, I opened my eyes fully and rose to a sitting position. He was indeed very old, and he wore the traditional clothing of a peasant farmer. His eyes hid behind the features of his face: wiry, white hair, bushy eyebrows, oversized nose and ears.

He had spoken politely, so I followed suit. "Thank you for your kind hospitality. I regret that I must tell you I am not a princess."

"Are you not the daughter-heir Itsumoto?"

"I am."

The man feigned his visible disappointment in my answer. "I was born before Reconstitution, Princess Itsumoto," he replied, "so by my oath of fealty, you are thirty-fifth in line to ascend the throne."

He had a point: a dull, rusty one. I have no patience for revisionist historians who cling foolishly to a past that never was. "Your oath was to the Emperor, who assented to Reconstitution. I am grateful for this opportunity to remind you of that fact, lest your error be mistaken for treason."

He scoffed and turned to a kettle hung low over the small fire. "May I pour you tea?"

"Regretfully, I can accept no more of your hospitality," I answered. "I must attend to duties elsewhere."

"Yes, yes, duties," he said waving one hand at me to suggest both the brevity of his remaining business with me and the futility any attempt to leave. "You must attend to your duties, but first you must attend to your opportunity." My cold blank stare demanded he get on with it. "I know of your dilemma, Princess, and I can help you to resolve it. Sometimes in this hectic and violent world, a single murder can simply be forgotten. You might consider such happenstance to be good fortune."

"You know nothing of my circumstances."

"I know more than you wish were true, Princess. I know of the poor woman in the subway and her tragic demise."

"I have retained council and expect to prevail on the merits of my case if I face charges."

"Yes, yes, the merits of your case," he waved off my rejection. "I know also of this ill-fated woman's betrothal and of your regret. I know of a man whose grief will turn to anger, a man whose love will turn to hate. Must we allow one tragedy to follow another? Must he also lose his only other love? Will you draw and quarter him between death and betrayal? Or will he too prevail on the merits of your case? No, Princess, I think it best that no more hurt should come of this."

I didn't understand how. How could he possibly know everything the day after it happened? The police must have known immediately, and his offer to suppress the investigation implied that he had agents within the department. They knew who she was and who I was. They found the engagement ring, the text message from Kosei. They questioned him. Had they told him, asked him if he knew me? If so he already knew. There could be no hiding from him.

Kosei! In all my panic and confusion, I hadn't thought of him again since that moment at the station. I was running. When I ran, I ran from him, not the police, not prison. I turned my mind away from him and fled as fast and far as I could. I could not bear to think of what I had done to him. I felt the weight of it crushing me inside. I had splattered a poor woman all over the tracks, but that oppressive, irresistible guilt driving me down into my own personal hell had nothing to do with her. I hurt my love, hurt him in a way that does not heal, and my mind piled together and compounded all the pain and sorrow it could conceive to punish me for what I had done to him.

That I felt nothing for the woman frightened me, made me wonder if I was a sociopath, but an avalanche of fear came down from my love of Kosei and swept that thought away. A chunk of falling terror hit me, and I tumbled with it, becoming part of that avalanche. My thoughts battered and crushed me as I fell. I needed to get out. I thought I was dying, like I could feel the fingers of his judgement sliding around my heart to tear it out. In that moment, I would have done anything—anything—to undo what I had done to him or even just to hide it from him. If I could have traded my own life for hers, I would have done it gladly.

But the old man was telling me that he could hide it, that it could be forgotten. How? They hadn't questioned Kosei, or they hadn't asked him about me. They didn't need to. My motive was obvious. Maybe someone saw me go into his building, and they put it all together from that. I didn't know. I hadn't gone there to commit a crime; I didn't care who saw me enter. What if I killed myself? There would be no trial. Maybe he would never know. Maybe.

But if there were a trial, the day would come that he would look at me across the courtroom, and he would see a murderer who had broken his heart in two and killed one of the halves. I could confess, plead no contest. He would know. They would tell him who killed his fiancee. Suicide was out for the same reason. They would tell him when they closed the case. He had a right to know who did it. I had run so hard from those thoughts because I knew deep down that I could not hide.

The old man could see it. He had me, and he knew it. That made me angry. I stood, slid open a door and walked outside. A picking basket on the teahouse's wide porch confirmed we were on a rice farm. Two other men, not the fake detectives but just as beefy, sat on wooden planks near where the porch ended. I only saw their faces by dim lantern light from inside when they turned to look at me. I could see nothing beyond them through a thick fog that blocked out all the stars, making the moonless night feel as black as the tunnels into which I had fled before.

I could run, but they knew the terrain. Even if I ran, what then? I reluctantly accepted the obvious solution. I needed time. I needed to leave there with the old man believing I would consider his proposition. He knew that too, and he walked up beside me to state his terms.

"Life pays for life, and blood for blood," he said. "You have murdered a woman who was innocent. Now you must execute a man who is guilty."

"I am no murderer," I answered.

"How many people must you kill before you would call yourself a murderer?"

That seemed a fair question, so I answered honestly, "One more than I have."

"You admit your guilt!" He turned to me smiling.

I kept staring ahead. If he had known as much about me as he thought, he would have interpreted what I said more carefully. "I do not," I reminded him.

"That is a pity, Princess Itsumoto," the old man said, turning to stare into the same darkness as me. "I admit mine. You view me as a criminal. I can see it in your eyes. I am no more a criminal than you. We both are simply part of the ecosystem. I am a scavenger, a shadow-dweller. I am a rat. I sift through the disgusting residue of human civilization, nibbling up the refuse of what you call society. Without me, moral pestilence and social decay would pile higher than the tallest buildings of the cities that produce them. We rats, we clean up after people like you, and so long as you fuel your avarice with the poverty of others, we rats will never disappear. Our work must be done."

"Rats like me are everywhere, crawling quietly through the tunnels and sewers of the world. Millions of people walk the streets above us every day while we work our labors in peace. No one cares about rats, Princess, until someone sees one. If any rat strays too far from the shadows, if one of the nice, clean people like the woman you killed sees a rat, that peace is lost."

"Normally we rats will kill and eat our own, but when one of us crawls into the light, what are we to do? If we chase him, if we fight him in the clean spaces where nice people live, we lose everything. One rat can be ignored. When one rat pokes his head out of the sewer to smell the clean air, well, then people see a single rat. They curse the rats in an abstract way and go on about their lives. But two rats, Princess, two rats make an infestation."

"Only one good end can come to these rats that would forsake the shadows. They must be hunted by another animal. When humans kill a rat, they leave poisons and traps everywhere. Our lives become difficult, and our work slows down. But the hawk strikes fast and cleanly, then there is peace. Our ecosystem must remain in balance. We need a predator."

"And you, Yumiko Itsumoto, are the apex predator of human civilization. You are more than a hawk. You are a dragon. When you killed, when you murdered, you came near enough to the shadows for us to see you. We risked ourselves to come and talk to you, we risked being seen, because the hawks have not done their job. I will take your refuse, Yumiko Itsumoto. I will hide it, and we will eat it, and it will be forgotten. All I ask in return is that you hunt."

I answered, "I am not your assassin," but it felt perfunctory. The old man was too clever to believe I would simply acquiesce to his demands. I knew he had more, and I waited for him to continue.

"The dragon hunts as she wills," he said. "I only wish to direct your gaze. There is a man who calls himself the Shogun of Saikaido. He has left the shadows and moved into an estate near Kagoshima. If I may judge by your response to my courtesy, Princess, I expect you will find him even more despicable than you find me."

"For me to kill every fool I meet would make a very empty world, though death would spare you and yours from the loneliness of it." Again my answer felt pointless, just going through the motions, struggling against bonds I knew I could not break. I waited.

"I would kill him for his foolishness, but you will kill him for his guilt, which you will find aboard a container ship scheduled to dock in California two days from now. My associates will provide you with details. Go there and judge for yourself. I will wait to hear of your decision. Now please, my Lady Dragon, drink your tea. It will make your journey home much more comfortable."

I walked back inside, and swallowed the tea he had poured for me in three quick gulps. Then I laid down on the futon and waited for its tranquilizer to set in.

I woke to the sound of my alarm clock the next morning, and I found a small envelope filled with documents beside the clock. I had gotten more sleep recently than I had for months, but I probably would have felt better had it not all been while tranquilized, hallucinating or otherwise blacked out.



Chosen Path



We talked all night. Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of New York, so although he had had a very long day, he showed no signs of being sleepy. He took me into his confidence and taught me a great deal. I have stolen the trust of a great many very powerful men. This man give it willingly for his friendship with my father. I wished I could have returned his gift, but he knew more than me even of the art of reading people's intentions. He was brilliant, much more so than he lets on.

On his first breath deep enough to show his fatigue, I slid my hands over his shoulders and untied his tie, leaning up against his back and curling my legs behind me. I worked the buttons of his shirt, feeling the warm, rough skin of his chest and the cotton collar of his A-shirt.

"Why are you doing this, Yumi," he asked, "why did you come here? You're too good for this. You can do anything. You can be anyone. I'm a lecherous old adulterer who uses the trappings of power to seduce unwitting women, but you know better than to be impressed. You know your own power. Why would you choose this?"

As he spoke, I continued down his shirt, unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants. I answered him with a whisper into his ear. "I came because I want to know something. I saw how you worked the crowd downstairs. I have read how you manage the Diet, how you dance among the opposition. Every day, you deftly manipulate large groups of people to get what you want, to do your job. I want to know what happens when you face only a woman alone, when she cannot oppose you, when you act out of desire instead of duty."

"Your mother must never find out. It would be my ruin."

"As it would be mine," I whispered, "come." I stood and walked slowly into the bedroom without looking back. I had worked my kimonos fairly loose through the course of the night, but my obi was still tied in a drum knot. I held my hands behind me in position to release it, and I bowed my head to expose the nape of my neck. I waited.

His footsteps approached slowly until he stood behind me, so close I could feel his breath tickling my neck. As I began to pull my obi apart, my sleeves tugged and slipped down over my hands. He wrapped his bare arms around me, crossing the long tails of my sleeves behind my back and dragging them forward, tying them in a gentle square knot in front of me. I relaxed my arms into their baggy, silken wrappings and whispered "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For taking over." He knelt behind me as I spoke, reaching down to lift the hems of my kimonos and slide his hands slowly up my legs, along my split-toed stockings and beyond them, rising to my pelvis, where both hands moved counterclockwise around my torso. He stood, lifting me from the ground and bending me over his forearm. His other arm behind me pulled my skirts up over my obi inside out, leaving me bare from the waist down.

As he carried me forward to the bed, I bent and spread my knees to kneel for him on the edge with my face down against the duvet. I felt him behind me, teasing me, but then his hands slid around the outsides of my shoulders and took hold of my collars, which he pulled open and back, freeing my chest to press against the duvet's intricate quilting. I closed my eyes, arched my back and breathed deeply with anticipation.

I shrieked ungracefully when his hand came up inside my thigh and spun me fast around the axis of my spine, arcing my open legs into the air and dropping my hips into the arm he cupped under them. With my head against the bed and tucked tight to my chests, I saw his trustworthy face between my legs, beyond by breasts and the parted silks of my kimonos. Instead of pulling my arms free, I grabbed at my obi through their sleeves to untie it while he kissed me, slowly and lightly at first, exploring the tender flesh beyond the scope of my vulva.

Untying the obi gave me something to do with my hands and what was left of my mind. With his free hand, he pushed my stockings down past my knees, then caressed me everywhere while he kissed me more firmly, more directly and his freely tussled hair tickled the insides of my thighs. It seemed like an impatient age had passed before his fingers and tongue began to embellish upon his lips' increasing efforts. I relaxed, fumbling ineffectually with the complex knot in my obi.

I usually think of sex like a dance. I carefully count the rhythm and place my steps precisely. That time I couldn't, or rather, I didn't want to. He teased me slowly and thoroughly enough that I could not perceive the passage of time, knowing only how he touched me everywhere in one elongated moment. That moment ended when I felt an arm come up under my shoulders, partly lifting me and throwing me farther onto the bed, far enough that my feet rested flat on the duvet with my knees slightly bent.

He descended on me, wrapping my shoulders in his arms and kissing me while he disassembled my hairstyle and slowly drew his penis up and down along my labia. I pushed my hands down farther into my sleeves to pin them behind my back and let my head fall to rest. He chose his own placement of every careful kiss while I waited and guessed wrong every time. As I felt him start searching for my vagina, I wrapped my legs around him and adjusted my hips to bring him to me. He moved slowly and steadily, still kissing me and plowing his fingers into my freed hair.

I remember very little else. I was lost. He moved me but stayed pressed against me. I lost track of his caresses, barely cognizant as his grasp slid out my arm that he had pulled it free from its sleeve. He showed me what I had told him I wanted to know, and indeed, I could not oppose him, neither in action nor in thought.

I woke at sunrise, lying on his chest in a pile of silk. I kissed him very lightly and slid off without waking him. I folded over a blanket to cover him then closed the curtains against the morning light. Just inside the door to the suite, I found the bag in which I carried my clothing and equipment. His aide must have brought it up from the dressing room downstairs. After changing back into my street clothes and brushing my hair, I looked just like any other woman, headed downstairs to hail a cab. The guard didn't see me leave either. I was never there.

As I rode away from the hotel, lurching along in traffic, several things occurred to me. First, I had walked through security too easily. An arbitrary person off the street would not have been able to come near that room. For that matter, very few people could. There was no badge, no warrant, no staff uniform, no utility access, no disguise, no identification with which I could so easily have entered that hotel room. I was invited.

Second, I spent more than six hours talking to a man with whom one cannot simply make an appointment, a man who summons people to his office if he wants so hear from them. Lobbyists regularly make millions of dollars of campaign contributions in hopes of having their voices heard for an infinitesimal fraction of the time I had. Furthermore, thousands of people make careers out of guessing what a man like him might be planning, things that he had told me outright.

Finally, I had been tutored in politics by a master of the craft. I carefully took those lessons to heart, replaying in my mind all the things he had said. Over and above all of that, I found one thing about the experience so shocking that it made me afraid, in a way, of myself: I could do it again. I could do it any time, and every time I did, I would get better at it.

A geisha's ultimate end is entertainment, elicitation of some enjoyable feeling or creation of some pleasant memory in her clients. With skill and dedication to her art, she can make those feelings and memories pure and perfect, even blessed. What I had done felt different than that. My ultimate end was my own power, power for the sake of power alone. I remained silent for my entire journey home, contemplating my motivation and wondering if I was wrong for it. I decided that I was not.