Khoe; A Tale of Sadness & Joy Ch. 05

She picked up a different article and pointed, “I doubt that this would last more than four times with real matcha. This is marketed to sell to westerners, not to Orientals of any nationality. I don’t mind that it was made in China. I’m not in Kyoto - not even in Japantown. I’m just looking for something serviceable where I am.”

But they didn’t have anything better, though the manager asked what to look for in things such as this and Kumiko gave her a few tips. “You know that it is an art form,” she said, “I could spend a week telling you everything for what you asked, but if you can remember what I said and tell your buyers, it might help.”

So Kumiko had to buy all of the items separately, but they were all of a better quality than the set that she’d seen through the window. Kerry stepped up to pay, but she shook her head.

“No, Kerry. This is my foolishness to pay for. I’ll have to make the best of it for now, that’s all.” She shook her head as she held up one of the little bowls while the young girl was wrapping each ceramic article carefully, “The bowls don’t match the pot. Nothing matches anything else, most especially in the style, but it’ll work this way at least.

She sighed and spoke in a voice which she knew that the clerk could hear, “My mother would kill me for this.”

The girl looked up,” Why? I mean, I see that some things don’t match, but, …”

The manager rolled her eyes, “Take twenty bucks off the total, Nicole.”

Kumiko looked at the manager and thanked her. Turning to the salesgirl, she noticed a button on her sweater that indicated that she was against abortion. She’d seen similar ones in Toronto, and so she guessed that the girl was a bit religious.

“Would you ever dream of going to church on Sunday in a tube top and a pair of cut-offs?”

The girl looked up in a little shock and shook her head.

“It’s a little like that. It’s just not done,” Kumiko smiled and the manager at least understood.

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“What was all that about at the import shop?” Kerry asked later over dinner. He’s spent some time keeping the baby a little amused while Kumiko had washed the articles that she’d bought.

Kumiko shrugged, “I have the sense that we are coming together a little in our own strange way. This fine home guides me in its way and reminds me that I have never had a way to prepare tea in much more than the way that it is done when one wants a cup of tea.

I saw that store and I suddenly had a wish to do it at least a little correctly. If I am to be allowed to remain with you, then it is my duty to take an active part in the household. It’s a little quaint these days, I suppose, but a large part of that for me is to promote and maintain the peace and harmony of the home for you.

I can’t do what I wanted with what I bought, but at least I can offer you tea a little properly. It is a time to talk and appreciate.”

She shook her head a little,” I don’t know the mall there, but even so, I can’t believe that I couldn’t find matcha. I would have been prepared to accept a lower grade, but to see none at all...”

"What's matcha?" he asked.

It's the bright green powder which is the best of the tea. It is why I bought the little whisk to whip it. You can't use the whisk on gunpowder tea such as I had to buy. The little kernels are rolled tea leaves and they open in the boiling water. if you whisk that, you'd just make a mess."

She chuckled a little as she rolled her eyes. “My poor mother; her heart would stop if she saw that all that I could get was gunpowder tea.”

She saw his expression and she thought that she might know what was coming, so she said, “I left home to come here to go to school and I did not see her again for almost ten years. Even then, it was for only a short time. I learned enough to know that she was proud of me. It was enough.

Tomorrow,” Kumiko smiled a little hopefully at him, if you would permit it, I will serve you tea. I will break a lot of rules, but I hope that you would allow it and we can talk and enjoy the time while Carriaghe-chan naps.”

She carefully asked him if he thought that they could try to make love that night.

“I’m not sure,” he replied as a careful joke and then he smiled, “Alright. I’m still trying to find the fit, but on the other hand, I think there has to be something between us at some point, otherwise this all just remains a sham. I’d rather not live that way at all, so I guess that we’d better make some sort of attempt at it, so I’ll try if you will.”

She nodded and took his hand, “It doesn’t have to be much, since we are finding the fit – as you say. I am trying to find the fit into your life and that is not easy.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Kerry said, “this is not the way that I’d have ever thought that I’d have a relationship with anyone, but I’m beginning to understand ‘us’ a little better. I also wanted to tell you that, well, seeing as we have the sort of house for it, if you want to dress a little more traditionally, I can’t see anything wrong with that at all, Kumiko. I don’t know what that might have been, but I think I have a sense that you might want to do that sometimes, though you ought to dress any way that you see fit to at any time, obviously.”

She looked a little surprised and she smiled, “Thank you, Kerry. I think that I would like that. Of course you know that most people dress in the same styles as are worn here, but there are times, …”

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He found that though she was as quiet in bed as she was out of it most of the time, Kumiko did have wants in her and he played to them as he learned what they were. She had an insane ability to please him, playing to his obvious want of her in much the same way that he’d been doing, though she was much more adept at it as a skill.

But he had a sense that Kumiko was still in the role which fate and her life had cast her in – at least a little. It wasn’t what he wanted. He could accept it from her, knowing where it came from, but he wanted for her to have what any woman could have – for herself.

He couldn’t imagine the way that she must be holding herself so carefully, fearful to break the eggshells which she thought that she must be treading on when there really weren’t any there for her to break. He told her that if this was going to work between them as she quite obviously hoped that it would, then he had a request to make of her.

Kumiko nodded and looked at him in the thin light of the hall nightlight that they’d bought. “What would you like me to do for you?” she asked.

He tried not to so much as smirk at the way that the pleasure droid in her came out at times like this.

He kissed her softly for a moment, happy that they’d gotten this far.

“Kumiko, I’m going to ask you for something that just might shock you a little. It’s probably deep into weird as far as you’re concerned but I want to tell you to see if you can handle it.

I want a woman. I want you to hang onto me in the dark the way that you’ve been doing it. I want to get laid in the arms of a beautiful girl – seeing as I’ve got one here with me and all. I don’t need feathers or fur or anything fancy. I just want a woman who wants me.

I’d do a lot for that. I want to screw her pretty ass really gently once in a while because I like that sometimes, and, …

Well, I want to live in her heart if it means that I can try to get to it from between her legs if that’s ok with her.

I want a woman who’s edible in my bed and likes that from somebody that she cares about, and I’d do a lot for a woman who likes to give head the way that you do. I’d give a lot of myself to a woman like that if she never uses her body as a bargaining chip.

I’m sorry if it’s weird to you, but that’s what I’d want, and if that woman wants me on the hopefully often-occurring chances when the planets manage to line up suddenly in the afternoon, I’d love it if she told me that she wants me then. The rest – all of the incredible things that you can for me and to me, well, sad to say, but while I really like that - ok, I`m understating that a whole lot, since I REALLY love that about you, but I only really need what I’m asking you for, if you think that it’s alright.

Oh, and I find that I want a woman like you around a whole lot so that she can laugh at me as I try really hard to raise our son with her. He seems to have pretty good range when he decides to spit a little of his formula out at me.”

He stopped there, waiting to guage her reaction.

Kumiko blinked a couple of times and he raised an index finger to her as a warning, “I’m telling you right now that if you try to make me wear a dog collar and ask me to run around the bedroom with an ostrich feather struck up my ass, then it’s over between us.”

Kumiko blinked a few more times, but then she lost it and began to laugh. He found himself on his back a moment later.

“That’s what I want a lot more of as well,” he laughed from underneath her after she’d thrown her arms around his neck and forced him down onto the bed.

He loved the way that she looked at him then, and he just relaxed into the bed as she began to make love to him in her way. Her kisses were soft and lazy, just the way that he found that he liked them from her – though not always. To Kerry, it was like listening to a symphony that one wasn’t at all familiar with. There were quiet parts to it and then there were the loud bits. But those lazy kisses of hers could keep him helpless all evening just by themselves.

He`d never had such satisfying kisses in his life.

Kumiko knew what she wanted, and she also knew what she had in him right here. He was the single largest man that she’d ever been with and she really liked that about him and the way that he was built just kept her wanting him – as much as that amazed someone as jaded as she thought that she’d been. Just lying with him naked against her showed her that.

She was always amazed at the size of him. She could lie on his chest and be happy just doing that.

“Please stay here and live with me,” he said in a muffled voice from under one of her ears and the darkness of her incredibly long and lovely black hair. Her only reply was her soft sigh and it raised the hair at the nape of his neck for a moment. He kissed her neck for a moment.

“I`ll use the `L` word if I have to.”

She ran her hands over him and she moaned a little softly now and then. “I may not show it as much as you deserve because I am afraid to offend you by sounding like a young girl,” she said, “but I stared when I was shown a picture of you that Khoe took. I tried to keep this in my mind as I walked up the road to meet you, praying that you didn’t throw us out.”

She kissed his chest and her grazing kisses felt like the touches of the lightest butterfly on him as she worked her way up to his ear.

“When I saw you for the first time,” she said, grazing her lips over his ear, “I was lost, and I have been that way until just now, so afraid to say the wrong thing – even though you have tried so hard to be generous and kind. And I understand about the `L` word. I want to use it too, though I`m a little afraid to just yet. I think that it is much too soon.”

She moved her body against him and it just happened that she was a little off center due to her position to him as she’d begun this. Her lower half slid sideways a little and she found that her mound was right on the edge of his hip. As she slid off a little more, she stopped right there and moved back just enough. After a second of thought, Kumiko just began to rub herself on him there. She looked down at him, staring into his blue eyes as she humped, not knowing what seeing her face and the resultant expression was doing to him. All that she knew was that he was what she wanted and they needed, and now, it wasn’t only out of fear and desperation.

She went on for a minute before she seemed to come back to herself and she looked a little embarrassed for losing herself like that.

Before she could get too far into it, Kerry reached up for her, “Hey,” he said softly, “you seem to keep hoping that I`ll accept you. You told me that this was your chance to have a man and a son. Well little Ciarraighe might not have noticed it when his mother was switched on him, or maybe he did and he’s too little to worry about things like that for long. But I can see that there’s nothing that I can do to change much and after these few days, I’ve come to see that I really don’t want to.

I can’t imagine what kind of world you and Khoe and people like you who seem to be caught in a web or something have to live in and I don’t think that I even could. But I’m trying to tell you that you can stop hoping, Kumiko. I`m saying that you`ve got me. I think that we have to try.

You were doing just fine humping my hipbone a minute ago. You just go ahead and do that if you like it.”

“You don’t mind?” she asked and he shook his head with a little smile.

”Not at all. You’re very beautiful and you looked as though you were having a ball right then. Go back to it if you want. I could probably watch you do that for an hour. Well, maybe a little less, I dunno.”

She put her head down on him and he softly stroked her back and haunches as she rubbed herself the rest of the way on him, kissing his chest since she was so taken with this man who was trying to come to grips with the strangeness of it.

When she rested to catch a little breath, surprised at herself at the way that just the little thing that she’d done had been so nice. She felt his hand on her head as she kissed his nipple.

“If we’re really going to do this, Kumiko,” she heard him whisper, “Then I need to know a couple of things. Are you and Ciarraighe safe here with me? I think from the things that you said, that there really wouldn’t be a place that anyone could run to in order to be safe.”

Her voice came to him very quietly after a moment as she said, “Economics would be the only factor, such as if I were able to run to the moon to get away. They would probably leave me alone due to the cost. If you and I do this, then your son and I cease to be details which might need to be dealt with one day.”

She looked up then and he saw the resemblance that she’d spoken of that first day, “You said a couple of things. What is the other one?”

He hugged her a little and smiled, “I don’t want a sex toy.” He smirked a little, “I can’t believe that I’m saying this in some ways, but the only way that this can really work is if you stop thinking of yourself as a replacement for someone else. That doesn’t work for me at all. That boy in the other room is my son and his mother is now you. We can`t change much of anything here if I understand this. If you’re going to be his mother, then you just can’t be a member of my staff. You need to be my wife.

I’m sorry if it’s not what you thought that you were getting into here, but that’s how I need it to be. He needs his mom - you, Kumiko.

And I don’t want a servant – well unless you want to play it as a game in bed or something. I want somebody to share my life with. I had somebody and I lost her to a fucked-up kid with a gun. I tried so hard with Khoe, but I’m finally seeing that it was the wrong thing to do for us to even start anything.

But it’s led me here with you on top of me and if I can – seeing as how I seem to be making you a little more comfortable with me – then I might just try to annoy you in little ways one day soon, just to see if I can get you a little angry with me.

You do that, and to me, that’ll mean that we’re out of this strange little bit of woods that we’re in here. I know I’m probably cutting my own throat to say this, but if I can do that, you just might be surprised to find me wanting to take you downtown to get married, just saying. If it goes that far, then I think that I'd want that.”

Kumiko’s mouth fell open for an instant and then she smiled, nodding a little. “You know, I think I even understand what you just said. You’re telling me, … you’re saying that, …”

He nodded, “I am, and don`t worry about saying the wrong thing, because you can`t. I didn’t plan on all of this, but I’m here and you are too. We have a son together. Let’s do this so that it stops feeling strange. Be my friend, ‘cause that’s the only thing that’s missing between us, and I’ll be yours. I think I already am. Just see if you can love me Kumiko. I don't need any more than that.”

He had to reach for the tissue box on the nightstand after that, but it marked the moment when they turned a corner.

Kumiko moved down on him with tears in her eyes and she began to make love to him with her mouth out of her own interest and desire then – as a woman who has something of her own rather than it feeling to her as though she was a stand-in.. It didn’t take her long at all to have that part of him straining and then she got up onto him and she began to ride him for all that the two of them were worth.

Kerry was astounded again as he looked up at her while she went to town on him, and for the first time, he wasn’t looking at a woman who was doing this for someone else’s pleasure. She bucked on him – her tears still running down a little, but she was smiling.

She grabbed his hand and brought it to her breast because she wanted it there. The nicest sounds that a woman can make to her man were his to listen to then and no one else’s to hear and it was the beginning of the best loving of their lives.

Her voice sounded a little smoky when she finally got him spent for the moment and she looked down through her long black hair with a smile just for him as she kept at it, just humping a little until he was too soft. She climbed off then and eased herself down beside him.

“I want to thank you,” she began, but he moved then.

“You already have,” he grinned up from where he was then, looking over her mound at her, “without saying a word - well any that I could understand.” He began on her then and she went limp.

She couldn’t believe that a man would do this right after filling her. Few of them had ever bothered to want to please her this way and none at a time like this.

Not one.

But Kerry did.

And he was so ... good at it, too.

As he listened to her sighs, Kerry did his best, remembering what he’d been taught and enjoying the taste and the soft texture – even the taste of them together as it came to him. When he thought about changing this up for her, he drew back a little and used his fingers for a while, loving the one that he hoped would be his new woman, because that was what she felt like to him now.

In the dimness of the bedroom and in the shadows between her thighs, he could just make out the little marking tattooed there on her perineum, the tiny brand that said that she’d been owned once. He wasn’t surprised to see it. He’d seen one just like it before.

Kumiko came several times, and he gave her little respite – never pushing her – only making teasing little suggestions with his mouth that she had to allow and then he’d start again in a slightly different way.

But the big bang came for her again and when it did, Kumiko arched her back and pressed her head back against the pillow as her head lolled back and forth. She tried, but her voice got away from her and for the first time in her life, she actually let go and cried out when it overtook her, forgetting about the robe or anything to quiet things down.

It woke up their son.

Kerry got up to get him and he carried the sniffling infant to the kitchen, thanking God for the invention of microwave ovens. He smiled to himself over the boy’s shoulder as he watched a few seconds count down on the display.

He had to do it twice before he was satisfied and he was careful to check that it wasn’t too warm before he carried the infant to the bedroom.