Khoe; A Tale of Sadness & Joy Ch. 05

***The final act in this short play. 0_o

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“Does he sleep through the night?” he asked her, whispering after they’d put the infant to bed in his own crib as they watched him drop off and she shrugged, “He’s getting there,” she said, “He manages to more often than not now.”

It had come to his mind a few times during the day, but Kerry still wasn’t really prepared for the way that she followed him to the bedroom and took her clothing off to stand before him.

He felt his jaw falling open. It wasn’t a thought which came to him, but at that point, Kerry’s notion of the paradigm of feminine loveliness rose to where the bar was set right then. He hadn’t been prepared at all for this. With her rather conservative style of clothes on – and he guessed that there had been a reason that she was so, … well-covered in her dark slacks and her cloak, though it had really suited the weather that day, he supposed.

He liked what he was looking at, but for all of what she’d said to him, they were strangers and this wasn’t a whorehouse.

He almost winced as that thought hit him. Other than the strictest western connotation in that she was or she wasn't, the whole concept didn’t apply to her at all.

She saw his glance at her breasts for just an instant. “They were very slight bits of nothing by themselves,” she said, “I lost my baby early in the third trimester and I was given implants to even get them to this small size afterward. I hope that they might be sufficient for you. I think that western men like much larger breasts, many Orientals like this now as well.”

Kerry shook his head, “I’m not shopping for melons today. I’m just on my ass over you walking in here and dropping your clothes and then standing there like that – as if I was a …

Well, I’m not, ok? I’m just, … really confused, I guess.”

She stepped forward to where he sat on the edge of the bed, trying to offer a little smile, “I know you must be confused and even for me, it is different, but think of what I said if you can. I am offering something to you, Kerry. I am trying, I guess, to offer you a life with your son and a woman who wants to live a life with you – a real, regular, life. I think that this is a little different, but it is still the same thing that any woman offers to the man she chooses, just all at once, because I am used to having men look at my body. I don’t mind, I am trying my best to show you what I am.

You might see it as trying to tempt you and in a very small way, I guess that I am, but really, I am trying to show you my honesty here. This is me,” she said with a little wave of her hand,” This is what I am, and I suppose that it is what I can offer to you. The difference is my hope that it is enough for you and that I am not offering a man my services for a night or two. This is what I offer in exchange for a life with you.”

His eye caught something on her left forearm that he’d thought that he’d seen earlier in the restautrant and something different a little higher up that went to her shoulder and disappeared. She saw his glance and she nodded, “Something that my last patron had done to me. The dark pattern on my lower arm is new and is only just finishing its healing. I had it done to ruin the message of the other one.”

She turned around and Kerry gasped. What he’d seen on her arm were tails. Three scaled tails which wound themselves together and went up her arm to her shoulder and then - now that he could see the rest – went right down the length of her back, though mostly to the left side of her spine. They were three very serpentine and almost eel-like dragons ending with their heads not far above the line of her buttocks.

“Whoa, … “he sighed, “Is there a meaning to that?”

She nodded, “Another thing I had no say in. I suppose that it means something to old and very powerful criminal businessmen, though I doubt that it means anything at all to the younger ones of today. My sleeve is to ruin it since I can’t remove the big one. I may want to add something else on my back to remove the message, but I haven’t decided yet.

May I please sleep with you tonight?”

“You really were serious,” he observed, and then he smiled, “Well we’ll see just how long this lasts. I probably snore and fart in my sleep.”

“You do not understand,” she said quietly, “I don’t know if it will ever happen, but I have a hope that you might love me one day. That’s really what I want out of this for myself. You can use me for tonight if you wish. I only ask that I be allowed to hold you.”

It still twisted his brain. He told her to sit next to him on the edge of the bed and she did.

“Look, Kumiko,” he said, “I can’t understand this part. You’re really quite beautiful. The word doesn’t even do you justice. I don’t get what you’re doing here at all. I mean, you could just go to a government office and walk out like 20 minutes later with all the government support that you’d ever need to start a life with him. What do you want to do this for? For that matter, why are you always a little meek and subservient to me?”

She sighed, “It isn't about money. It’s either this or we just return to being undesired details for someone to remove quietly. For me personally, I guess that I would want what I was never supposed to have or even want to have. I want a child, but I can never have my own. With you, he would be my own. He would be ours together. I don’t know if I can explain it any better than that. But I also cannot express how much of a desire that is for me – to want what any other woman can have.

And,” she looked down; clearly struggling now – which boggled Kerry’s mind right there because it wasn’t that she was there next to him naked and feeling self-conscious, though he could see that it played a small part.

“And I might be able to have a fine husband in you, Kerry. You are very attractive to most women and you’re beyond really attractive to me.”

She almost lost it then as she struggled to hold in a sob as she sat with her head down and her face hidden in her hair to whisper something which he found actually hurt him to hear, now that he knew her a little bit.

“I would do anything for a life like that. What almost any other woman can have – I would do anything for even the hope of it.”

“Please get into the bed,” he smiled quietly, “Nobody’s going to be using anybody. I think that you’ve been used enough, Kumiko.”

“Don’t you like me?” she asked, and Kerry was stunned.

“I’m getting it, Kumiko,” he said, “I’m getting it, as slow as I am, but I need a little time. None of this was on my agenda when I got out of bed this morning. I’m not angry and wanting to turf you out anymore, am I? If you try to see this from my side, I’m about to get into a bed with a beautiful stranger under circumstances that neither one of us might have chosen easily.

I’m not the kind of man who can just look at a lovely naked woman and drool a little, rub my hands together and nod like an idiot, though I may not be much better than that on my worst day.

I will tell you one thing, though. I think that your desire to be held is a good way to help us get over everything and I find that I’m more than prepared to do that for us both. I suppose that I can piss and moan over all of this, but I’ve been alone with my thoughts for a good long while now and I find that by myself, I’m not much good for company.

No matter what you might think about me, I don’t get the chance to hold a lovely naked lady in a bed at night all that often, and you’re offering, so I want to at least do that with you.”

When he was undressed and in the bed beside her, he turned the light off and he reached for her, but he did it so that she could have what she wanted and it felt pretty good to him to feel her hold onto him. In a way, it didn’t feel strange to him at all.

He was still awake when she drifted off with her face against his throat. It showed him a little of her weariness, and to him, some rather amazing trust in a stranger. He had a passing thought where he wondered just how much a night in her arms might have cost the men who sought her services. He had no doubt that it wouldn’t take a woman like this very long at all to crush his castle.

He drew his head back to look at her in the dimness of the room from the moonlight outside and he saw that she could easily take a man’s breath away. He didn’t think that he had any business being in the arms of a woman like this.

Kumiko opened her eyes then, waking up from her descent into deeper slumber. She smiled at him and then she pulled his head down to kiss his lips very softly once. “You are even better to lie against than I thought. Thank you, Kerry.”

His manhood had been trying to cast its somewhat automatic vote the entire time, and it now refused to obey him at all, surging against her so that he wanted to apologize. But she only smiled, “A natural thing, I know.” She reached to move it so that it would be more comfortable and she stroked it only a little. “I can help with this if you would like. I don’t mind at all.”

He was about to tell her no as gently as he could, but she kissed him again, just the same way with just the same smile on her face afterward, her hand still moving a little, “If you see this as a chance for a life for yourself with me, Kerry, then this will require a little familiarity with your woman, which is what I seek to become. I am not what I was any longer. To offer her man a little comfort is – or should be - as nothing to a woman.

Lie on your back, and I will only do enough so that you are pleased and less uncomfortable and then we can go to sleep. I see it as earning my place to hold myself against you.”

She pushed him a little and he rolled back so that she had the room and she moved and sat up a little, stroking him perfectly in only a moment and he watched as she looked at his body in her own appreciation of it. She didn’t say anything because she didn’t have to. She knew that he saw the way that she felt. When she’d gotten him along in only a few minutes as he looked at her in wonder, she lowered her head to his shaft and she finished him very nicely.

True to her word and to Kerry’s amazement, it wasn’t more than what she made of it. She kept it at the level that she’d mentioned and he didn’t exactly blow his load, she just coaxed it out of him, swallowing all of it easily and very quietly to end it with her very gentle suckling. The next moment, she was lying beside him again and pulling him back onto his side as he mumbled his surprised thanks.

“I think that I should thank you as well, “she smiled as she looked up at him.

Kerry suddenly felt a desire in himself to show her that he wasn’t without his own feelings and so he slowly lowered his mouth and kissed Kumiko very slowly, never forcing himself against her lips very much at all. It caused her to sigh and she slid her arm over his back to hug him.

“Kisses like that make you rise even higher in my sky,” she smiled, “You kiss very well. I never expected something like that. Thank you.”

He nodded and they settled together to go to sleep. Kerry felt strangely comforted with her next to him like this and he dropped off to sleep not long afterward – which was uncharacteristic for him in bed with a woman.

When she heard his breathing shift, Kumiko allowed herself the silent tears that she felt. It said a lot to her that he’d kissed her after she’d fellated him. None of her clients really ever had as a show of some affection.

She looked at him for a few moments and then she closed her eyes.

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The next day, they were still feeling each other out a little cautiously.

Kumiko got up before Kerry. It was just something that she’d gotten used to because of the baby, so she woke up, knowing that she had only a little time to get the day’s formula prepared. She was ready just in time with a bottle at just the right temperature when she heard him stir. She was a little amazed at herself. After changing him, she sat feeding him and thinking about her notebook PC, not knowing if Kerry even had internet service here. She rather doubted it, so she pulled out her cellphone and found the barest of signals, maybe one bar and a bit. She turned the phone off and spoke to the little one softly in Japanese.

That was how Kerry found them and he stood wearing only jeans in the doorway watching for a few minutes before Kumiko noticed him. He was smiling a little and she thought that it was a good thing.

“I was going to ask how you wanted to handle the speech thing,” he said.

Kumiko handed him his son and the bottle and gave him a few tips on the correct way to feed an infant. He was doing alright, but he looked up when she draped a clean dishtowel over his bare shoulder.

“I think I prefer you like that,” she smiled, “but he’ll need a burp in a minute and there might be a little, … well, you’ll see. By the way, is there internet service here?”

He nodded, “I get a feed from a tower a few miles away. There’s no cable TV so there’s no DSL. That’s why I use the tower. Why? Do you want to use my PC?”

She shook her head, “No, I have a notebook. But I would like to be able to get to the web. Mostly I like to surf, do my banking, and read a few smutty stories now and then.”

She laughed a little, “I never used to, but I’ve found that it’s the best thing for those nights or times when he just screams, from colic or whatever. You need to see to him then to make sure there’s no real issue. Babies can get painful gas. So you have to do what you can, but there are sometimes that he can just scream. He had colic one time, and there’s nothing much you can do but try to comfort him. I’ve gotten to the point where I can hold him, talk to him softly, try to think of a plausible reason for what’s upsetting him and read all at the same time. The thing is that he’s the focus the whole time.

He’s a really good baby, and he’s happy a lot of the time, so when he isn’t, he’s got my attention, but sometimes he needs to cry about something and he needs a shoulder and a head to lean against and to hear some quiet words and it can take a little time.

I’ll also want to use the online phone directory to find a pediatrician in the area. Would that be alright?”

“Sure,” Kerry smiled, “I was just asking.”

They decided that they agreed on English as the main language focus, quite obviously, but Kerry insisted that she also teach him Japanese, which he saw pleased Kumiko, but then she looked at him, ”What about you? I don’t think it’s fair that he and I can converse in something that you don’t know.”

“Maybe I’ll take a course or something,” he said a little sheepishly.

“Maybe won’t cut it,” she smiled, “Maybe I’ll paint the backyard fence, and maybe I won’t look out of the window so I can’t see it and then it won’t get done.

Maybe I’ll try to find you a tutor; a mean old Japanese mother-in-law type with more rheumatism than patience.”

“Ok, you win,” Kerry chuckled, and his son spit up.

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Kerry brought a pair of coffee mugs to the table and set one down in front of Kumiko. She looked up and thanked him. What he saw over her shoulder was incomprehensible to him on the little screen there since he couldn’t read the language.

“This isn’t one of my accounts,” she said, “This one is Carriaghe-chan’s in a Canadian bank. Barely three months old and he has a little over twelve thousand dollars. I gave him five to begin with and it feeds a registered educational fund.”

Kerry blinked for a moment, “Where did the rest come from?”

“Khoe,” she said, “She put in five as well and she adds to it when she can, from wherever she is.”

Kerry sat down slowly opposite to Kumiko, “Why?”

“He is someone that she feels an obligation to,” Kumiko said, “She cannot keep him. She does not even know when she can contribute to this. But to her, that is not his fault. Sometimes she is not where she would be able to for months at a time, depending on her situation, but she told me that she would try when she has a chance to. So far, she has deposited two thousand dollars more.”

Kerry was silent for a moment, “Please give me the info that I’ll need to deposit there as well. He’s my son too. I just never thought …”

Kumiko’s voice was very quiet as she looked over the table at Kerry, “Your heart was broken and through her, I have been given a chance to do what I can for you as well as your son. But her heart will never stop hurting her. She knows this and she wants to do what she thinks that she must for him. He will never know her by her wish, but that does not change things for her.

I know some things of her past, Kerry. She knows how it feels to grow up without real parents. This is something that she caused along with you, It is her way of trying to help.”

“Who helps her?” he asked and she shook her head, “Because of who she is, she has found her mother and her father. It took her years to do it. It is enough for her. It has to be.”

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The bathroom in his home was really two rooms joined by a sliding wooden panel. As with much of the home, the décor was simple and consisted of dark wooden walls. There was a room with a large shower stall, a toilet and a sink.

In the other room, there was the same décor, but aside from a sink as well, there was also a large wooden tub, large enough for a man like Kerry to sit in comfortably almost up to his neck.

The day had turned to dusk and they’d had their dinner. Kerry had a shower and now sat in the hot bath, leaning back with his eyes closed. Other than relaxing, he was thinking.

What had he done? He knew that he’d wanted Khoe to stay. He also knew that he’d have done anything that he could have done so that they could remain together – no matter what Khoe had said to the contrary.

Looking back now, he saw that she’d been the one to demonstrate more maturity in facing what they’d done.

He knew himself, and he saw his actions at the time to be a little adolescent and driven by his own need of one woman where plainly Khoe had been right and it couldn’t have gone on.

But it had taken the conversation in the kitchen that morning to make him see things as they were now.

Khoe had told him once that what they’d begun was something that she should never have allowed herself to do.

Now?

Now it was October and he hadn’t seen Khoe in over a year.

Now he was standing at the edge of something which Khoe had engineered for him and their son as well as lovely Kumiko, handing each of them to the rest so that three people could become a family.

He just had to decide.

It also told him that he really would likely never see Khoe again. He’d had the thought two days ago when Kuniko had walked in through the door. Now he was certain of it.

He heard it when the panel leading to this room slid open just a little. He felt the slight coolness of the air from the outer bathroom as some of it entered where he sat. He didn’t open his eyes.

His arm rested on a shelf that was at the level of the rim of the tub and after a moment, he felt the slight vibration in the wood of something being set down on it. Then he felt her fingertips as they traced along is bicep to his elbow very softly. The fingers of her other hand curled around a little of his neck on the right side to lie gently on his throat and his jaw with the first two against his lower cheek and he felt the caress of her thumb on his ear. He remembered then that he hadn’t shaved that morning.

“I am sorry if I have upset you, Kerry-san,” he heard her whisper to him, “I wanted to show you that I am being honest with you. I knew that you would ask what you did and I wanted to show you that she did not cast you aside coldly. This goes on for her just as it does for you and I. All three of us have feelings which tie us to that little sleeping boy.”