Archive of Our Own

Dear Brother, you will never receive this letter of mine. If you were to read it, I would die of shame and could never look at you again! But I feel that I must write it nonetheless, or else I fear I will go mad.

Mad from the jumble of emotions that I’m feeling still, if I think back to what happened this afternoon; mad from this strange combination of shyness and bold excitement that I’m feeling when I think of when I will be seeing Rei again; mad from the force of my own feelings for her. 

But, my Brother, don’t think that the shame I would feel at the idea of you reading what I am about to recount comes from my being ashamed of what we did. Rather, it is because I know that the image of me that emerges from this disclosure would clash with the image you have of me—Nanako as your sweet and naive little sister; and I fear you would prefer it to who I am: a girl who is quickly growing into womanhood. 

This morning too I felt that I was going mad.

Me and Rei had agreed to meet at two to go to the three thirty show at the cinema. We would have something together at a café and then we would be going to get our tickets. 

They are showing Breakfast at Tiffany’s at the old-movie theatre; we have read passages of Capote’s book in our English class, but I had never watched the movie, although I knew it was already considered a classic.

I confess that I had never been to the cinema before. 

I know it seems strange for a seventeen-year-old girl, but my parents are old fashioned, in a way, and I’m their daughter. My mother didn’t want me to go unaccompanied by someone older, and I never wanted to keep you from your work with something so trivial as a little girl’s wish. And of course now you are in Germany . . . 

Ah, you see! I keep slipping into this character so easily even now that I know it’s nothing more than a character anymore. 

Well, today I didn’t disobey, though, since Rei is older than me. I suppose Mother meant someone of age, but I’ve decided to mean her literally, for my peace of mind. 

This morning, I couldn’t wait to walk inside the cinema hall, let myself be hugged by the chairs and then be enveloped by darkness when the lights went out, feeling Rei sitting so close in the dark next to me. 

Rei.

What I truly couldn’t wait for was to see Rei. 

We have had quite some dates together already, but each time it feels as exciting as the first. Just waiting for her, and then seeing her arrive, knowing she is there to see me, makes my heart flutter with joy and love. And she would be taking me to the pictures for the first time.

School is already over, so I had the whole morning for myself; it would have been a blessing in any other circumstance, but today I was feeling too restless, thinking about the afternoon that was separated from me by what seemed like an endless stretch of empty time that I had to fill somehow. 

I decided to let out my yearning for the afternoon on my wardrobe, trying to find something nice to wear for my date. I raged on my clothes ruthlessly, until each piece of clothing that I own lay slain on the floor, which resembled a battleground when I was finished declaring that I had nothing to wear. I called Mariko and Tomoko to inform them of my emergency and they agreed to go shopping with me. 

As hard to believe as it may seem, Mariko seemed to be more excited about my date with Rei than I was. I suspect that her relief that I was not in love with you after all, my dear Brother, still hasn’t worn off. And Tomoko will forgive me, but I took a tiny bit of pleasure in knowing that she was a little jealous, because she’s never been to the cinema herself. But I believe I already did my due penance by enduring her playful taunting all morning without protesting, not once, my dear Brother.

In the end, I bought a pale yellow shirt with subtle floral details that we thought went really well with a dark blue skirt that had stolen my heart. Mariko convinced me to buy a clip for my hair in the shape of a flower, while Tomoko wouldn’t stop fooling around the shop, wearing the most extravagant hair accessories and being a clown for us. 

Spending the morning with my friends ended up working me up even more; by the time I was home again to start getting ready for the afternoonI was feeling all aflutter with anticipation, so much that I was only able to eat a few nibbles of my lunch; and while in the shower, I kept turning off the water to check the time, in that strange mood when it seems to go by too slow and too fast at the same time.

Where had the morning gone, Brother?

The time it took to get dressed, run out the house to catch the train and the ride to where I was supposed to meet with Rei passed in a haze. Until I was standing at the spot we had agreed upon, and it was ten minutes until the time of the appointment.

I saw her appear at the end of the street precisely at two o'clock and as soon as I recognised her, my trepidation melted away. 

She was wearing a loose, old-fashioned white shirt, one of those with the balloon sleeves; she kept it open at her chest. She had black, high-waisted trousers, and she had fastened a red silken scarf around her hips. She looked like she had stepped out of a Shakespeare play, were it not for the cigarette between her lips. She was gorgeous.

She walked towards me with her usual indifferent gait that seemed to announce to the world that she was a tough girl; I could almost hear the cries of squealing girls that would follow her had she been at school, and I couldn't help giggling to myself as I was washed over with happiness and incredulity that I was the lucky one. When she saw me, I saw her lips curve into a smile around her cigarette and it reached her eyes, making them shine, and my adoration for her sparked in my chest. 

She stubbed her cigarette out and flicked it away, and came to stand in front of me. “Here you are,” she said warmly. 

My Brother, I would have loved for her to bend down and give me a kiss; but I knew she didn't like to do that in public, or to hold hands and do other things that couples usually do. So I just smiled at her like she was smiling at me, and took her arm as I hummed. 

“I want a milkshake before going,” I declared. 

Rei laughed. “Haven't you had any lunch? You always pester me to eat more and better, and now you're the one not eating,” she said. 

“I couldn’t eat.”

“You couldn’t? And why is that?”

If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t have admitted it, my Brother. But to her—I had good reasons to give her the satisfaction of knowing that I was ruffled.

“I was too excited to see you, Saint Juste-sama,” I said, not looking at her. 

But with the corner of my eye I saw my prize, what I was looking for. Her lips creased in her smug smile that made her look so devilish and yet so beautiful. 

We sat down at a café and Rei ordered a coffee while I sipped my strawberry milkshake through the straw after letting her steal the strawberry from its throne of whipped cream. I followed her movements as she put a spoonful of sugar in her coffee and stirred, the spoon clinking softly. 

“I don’t know why I always imagined you would drink your coffee black,” I said. “But I should have known you like sweet things; you love my cakes, after all.”

She hummed softly as she sipped her coffee. Her eyes wandered out of the window at the people walking on the pavement outside. 

“Do you remember when you stole one of my cigarette butts because you wanted to smoke it, only because it had touched my lips?” she said suddenly.

Despite myself, I felt my cheeks become warm. Of course I remembered, and I told her as much, mumbling my little confession into my milkshake. 

One moment she was looking out, as if still lost in her own thoughts, and the next one she dove for my milkshake, stealing the straw from between my lips and taking it to hers, gulping down two big mouthfuls of the soft cream. 

“Ah, Rei!” I cried, “That’s not fair!”

“Now we are even,” she said, “And you are right, I like sweet things. After all, I like you, my sweet little girl.”

She laughed at me, then, cruel as only she can be cruel. 

There was a time when I couldn't tell if she was an angel or a devil, and you might remember that from my letters, dear Brother. But now I know that, even if she has something in her that resembles a devil, and will always be there as a part of her, she is someone that I can't help but trust and adore. 

“Come on, hurry up finishing your milkshake, or we'll be late to the movie,” Rei told me with a fond smile when she saw me pouting, and I immediately forgave her for taunting me.

One of our schoolmates was working as a clerk at the ticket booth at the cinema. 

She looked like she would have rather been anywhere else but there, but as soon as she saw Rei approach the booth, her face lit up and she became overly friendly and accommodating. Rei seemed to enjoy the effect she was having on the girl as she asked for two tickets for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and paid for them. 

That was when the girl seemed to notice me for the first time, despite the fact that I had been standing beside Rei the whole time.

The shift in her demeanour was immediate. She shot me a narrow look and her lips curled with distaste. While she had been repeating Saint-Just’s name in bright peals at every sentence, she only mumbled my name once to acknowledge me. 

I recognised her as one of the girls that had joined in my bullying for being in the Sorority. The Sorority is old history now, and it still surprises me how quickly Seiran accepted the demise of an institution that has been so important for the school; it’s as if it never existed, as if it’s never been the cause of so much pride, of longing and of pain among the students. So I know that her dislike of me had nothing to do with the Sorority anymore and all with the fact that I was there with Rei, having won once again something that she, and I'm sure many others don't think I deserve.

Rei must have given the girl a bad look then, for being rude to me, for suddenly she became ruffled and forced in her friendliness when she spoke to me again.

“I hope you’ll enjoy the movie, Misonoo! It is a really good one!” she said shrilly. 

I thanked her sullenly, turning away to follow Rei to the hall, feeling the excitement I had felt at the bright lights and colours of the place, and the smell of coffee and popcorn and sweets bleed away.

I was feeling disheartened at the girl’s reaction to seeing me with Saint-Just, and at the fact that Rei had felt the need to defend me, albeit silently and subtly.

I found myself wondering, dear Brother, if I am going to elicit different reactions in people, not because of myself, who I am and how I act as a person, but always, always because of what I have that other people want for themselves.

Wasn’t I admitted into the Sorority only because of my familiarity with you, my Brother? And weren’t my classmates interested in uninteresting Nanako only because of that? This morning I felt it was all very depressing that I had not escaped their jealousy, and it felt clogging and sticky and impossible to shake off.

And even you, Brother—do you read my letters and endure the writings of a girl like me because of myself or because of my relationship with Father and to feel the warmth of a family that is still whole?

But then I thought that Tomoko and Mariko never loved me for anything other than myself. And Prince Kaoru too never cared that I was admitted into the Sorority, in one way or the other, and she showed me her friendship nonetheless.

And Rei.

I know she loves me because of the love I feel for her, and have felt since the first moment I saw her, and because of what that love means; which is part of who I am and of who she is and nothing, absolutely nothing else. And what else should matter to me and to us, my dear Brother?

And just like that I felt happy again that I was there with Rei, and ready to accept and face whatever my love for her would bring in my path as I followed her into the hall to find our seats. 

There were few people sitting in the rows, and most of them were Seiran girls; I spotted a group of four of my classmates who looked at us as we made our way to our seats, and they immediately started whispering among themselves, not even trying to hide the fact that they were talking about us. I tried my best to ignore them, so as not to get my mood ruined again; fortunately, our seats were at the other side of the hall from them. 

We settled into the red armchairs and I drank in the shining lights all around and the smell of clean carpet and upholstery. It was like sitting in a new car, with the excitement and the promise of a new adventure that was about to begin. And when the lights went down and there was a moment when everything was dark and all I could feel was Rei, sitting beside me and chuckling softly at the little gasp that escaped me and finally, finally grasping my hand in hers, making me hold my breath-I felt as if we were two astronauts strapped to our seats, waiting for the countdown and for the roar of the engines that would send us in orbit.

Then the big screen flashed and the film began.

I’m sure you would be more interested in it for its relationship with the novel, dear Brother. But I enjoyed it for different reasons. I enjoyed its humour and whimsy through which sorrow could be felt, as one can see inside a wrecked home through a window with flower boxes and sheer white curtains; I enjoyed it because of the ragged elegance, the dresses, the romance; I loved it because of Rei’s hand resting in my lap through the whole thing.

Holly reminded me a lot of Rei. 

Mutable and unpredictable; Holly too seemed to have a little cruel, devilish side; I knew Paul Varjak’s torment and bliss at her hands like my own. But there’s no real cruelty in them, rather a sense of restlessness, an instability, a reckless abandon in the face of the world that put teeth to their kindness and vulnerability. I could see Rei’s childish side play on the screen, and her struggle to keep upright and whole in the face of life. As I watched, I felt a strong desire to be as sensible and as grounding to her as Paul was for Holly.

In the darkness, I held Rei’s hand in my lap and stole glances at her face, her features licked by the changeable lights from the screen and wondered if she saw herself as I was seeing her. I would squeeze her hand tight, then, and she would turn around to look at me with a puzzled smile, and I would have to struggle to hold back the tears that welled in my eyes. 

She must have thought that I’m such a silly girl, as much as you would, dear Brother, if you could read these words. 

But something else was happening to me in the dark hall, where the other girls sighed and giggled softly a few rows from where we sat. If you could see my pen now, Brother, you would see how it’s all bitten from my gnawing on it as I struggle and fight with myself, torn between the desire to put off my confession and the need to make it, at last, and be done with it. 

I’m not so naive as it might seem and like some of the more rude girls have alluded crudely to make fun of me. Even though I always feel a sense of prudish trepidation when the matter is brought up or alluded to in conversation, I’m not a child anymore, and I’ve long known what two people do when they are together and in love and are attracted to one another. I know that some of my schoolmates, even in the lower classes, already had their experiences.

But until today, it was something that I thought about rarely, a vague shape in the future, like getting a job, being married and having children; something that the version of me that was yet to come would undoubtedly find more interest in than the me of the present. While my yearning for emotion and love has been very much present in me since I was little, the physical side of it has been dull and has pricked me only occasionally and impersonally these last few years. 

The first time I’ve ever felt unmistakeable desire for someone caught me this afternoon while sitting in the dark cinema hall.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t the sensual and beautiful Audrey Hepburn what did it; and it wasn’t even the scene at the stripping club later in the movie.

It was Paul’s friend, his decorator, his lover. It was the inherently sexual nature of their relationship, hinted at but never shown. She reminded me of Rei also, in the way she seemed to treat Paul like a child, but ultimately seemed to care for him, and in the way she laughed in the face of her disappointment and heart-break. I found myself wishing the story would show them to us openly, in a way that had not occurred to me to hope for Holly and Paul, who inhabited the realm of pure, romantic love, and that surprised me as voyeuristic. 

And suddenly I was acutely aware that Rei’s hand was resting hot against my thigh where my skirt left it bare, climbing up a fraction. Suddenly, I wanted her to caress me, to let her scorching palm run slowly and secretly along my thigh. I wanted her to do what so many boys do in the dark—steal kisses and touches from me, murmur words in my ears, the surrounding darkness the only witness and a complicit in my imaginary crime.

The thoughts came to me so violently and unexpectedly that I acted against them without thinking: I pushed Rei’s hand away from me abruptly. 

She turned towards me as I cursed myself from my foolishness. “Is something wrong?” she said. I couldn’t read her tone, nor could I see her expression properly. I wanted to take her hand back in mine, but I found out that I was shaking. 

I clasped my hands together as I stammered “No, I’m fine, I was just getting too warm, is all.” 

Rei seemed to be satisfied with my explanation, and went back to watching the movie, oblivious to my turmoil. For a while I didn't dare to take her hand again. I did so only when I had calmed down a little; I reached for her, interlacing my fingers with hers in a silent apology, and remained linked until the end of the movie.

When the film was over, we walked out of the cinema together as I cried and cried. I hid my face against Rei’s chest while I sobbed. 

“You silly girl, what is there to cry for so much? Is it about the cat?” she said, petting my head. 

How could I explain to her that it was about the cat and so much more; it was about loss and the relief from pain that is so strong that it is a kind of pain in itself; it was about her, and how I knew it must have hurt her to start feeling better. It was about how happy I was that she was there with me. But every time I tried to tell her as much, only more sobs came out.

“Let’s go home,” Rei said, when it was clear that I could not speak coherently. 

On the bus we took to Rei’s apartment, I had calmed down but my face was puffy and red and the other passengers kept giving dirty looks to Rei, thinking she was the cause of my crying. I clinged to her arm as we rocked back and forth, as if that way she could feel through her shirt that I was sorry. As always, though, Rei didn’t seem to care about what people thought about her. 

The last stretch to Rei’s apartment we made on foot. Rei lit a cigarette and smoked it silently as we walked side by side on the pavement. 

The afternoon was still young and bright and golden; I would have spent it happily outside still. Rei’s apartment is still the same as it always was, even if she keeps the windows open now, and even though I love to be welcome there for her always, it still unsettles me sometimes. The cigarette butts and the smell of ash have increased. She is doing much better about her addiction, and one rarely sees a pill pass her lips now, but she is smoking much more than she was before. I guess it will take much longer for her to be completely well. 

The thoughts that had swarmed me in my seat at the cinema had subsided but had left me feeling strangely brittle and tender, like one feels after a high fever. I linked my pinky to Rei’s and inhaled the puffs of smoke that blew my way from her lips. 

You’re back to your usual silly self, Nanako, I thought to myself. 

Rei put her cigarette out in the ashtray that she insisted on keeping on her kitchen table. She grabbed a biscuit from the batch that I had baked for her from a plate next to it, and headed to her bedroom while munching on it. 

I didn’t follow her right away, but trailed behind to empty the ashtray in the bin and put Rei’s stray plates, cups and used cutlery to soak in the kitchen sink. I must confess, dear Brother, that a part of me feels a strange pleasure in knowing that she needs me in her life, to take care of her in this way. It doesn’t bother me that she is messy and forgets to take care of herself or of her house; as if she were an overgrown child who can’t fully look after herself, instead of making me feel exasperated with her, I find it endearing and it gives me a sense of purpose. 

As soon as I was done in the kitchen, I went to join my dear Saint-Just in her bedroom.

She was lying on her bed, an arm thrown across her face. She had unfastened the red scarf from her hips, and it was blinking crimson from the chair she had  left it on in the orange afternoon light coming from the window. I went to kneel next to her side of the bed, the carpet soft under my knees. She must have heard me; she took her arm away from her face, and looked at me with soft, sleepy eyes. I felt a new rush of affection for her. 

“Are you tired?”

“Just a little. Did you enjoy the movie?”

“Yes. I enjoyed everything about today, Rei.”

She chuckled low in her throat. “I’m glad. When I saw you crying that much I was afraid I had messed it all up.”

I vigorously denied that, shaking my head. 

Her hand found my face then, brushing my jaw and cupping my cheek softly. She is still wearing her golden bracelet. I don’t believe there’s anything in the world that will ever get her to give up that bracelet for good. If she wants to keep it, I don’t mind, as long as she is well. Below it, on her pale wrist, I could smell the faint scent of her cologne. 

Her fingers carded through the hair at my nape as I bent forward to find her lips with mine. I exhaled my relief into her; I had been waiting all afternoon for this kiss, and I didn’t mind if it tasted a little bit of her last cigarette still. 

Rei’s shirt left her throat open, and she had pulled a couple of buttons free on her chest. I could smell the clean scent of her skin, riding the warmth that came off her body in soft waves. I remembered thinking that she smelled like a man, that time when I crashed into her at school. 

It happened again then, this time more gradually but much more forcefully. It began with a little tug under my skin, that soon became a pull like a hook just under my navel and a hot pressure in my lower belly.

I found myself gasping into Rei’s mouth as I opened my lips to her, drinking in her mirroring, soft gasp of surprise. I didn’t notice when I rose to my feet to climb onto the bed and straddle Rei’s hips, as her hand found my waist and gripped me hard. As her tongue spilled onto mine like hot honey, I felt my body quiver and open up to her. I could feel my pulse everywhere under my skin, every hair standing on end, as if every cell inside of me wanted to reach out to her.

She bucked softly under me and the hand that was holding my hip pushed me off of her to land on the mattress; I barely had time to gasp for air and she was on me, her golden hair raining down around me, her long body pressed flush against mine. She held my face with her palms.

“Nanako,” she panted, “My darling; I have been waiting for you.” Her voice was husky, strained. I think I gasped her name, too.

When I felt her thigh press between my legs, I think I tensed, and she felt it. She stopped. 

“I’m sorry, I got carried away,” she said sheepishly. She started to pull away and even though I was overwhelmed, the loss felt unbearable. I took hold of her.

“Don’t go,” I pleaded, “Can we just go a little bit slower?”

She smiled at me, as she repositioned herself next to me on the bed. “Of course, ma cherie,” she said. 

And, oh, she was so beautiful and sweet that I had to kiss her again then. 

Soon enough, I felt her lips bend into a grin against mine. “So you’ve never . . . ?” she said. I felt my face grow warmer than it already was, and I lowered my eyes. 

She laughed, “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s endearing, actually. Besides, it would have surprised me; you seem like such a well-behaved girl.”

Dear Brother, it was strange how I didn’t want her to think I was too much of a good girl, and at the same time her words from that day at the park echoed in my head.

I want you to remain exactly as you are, until the end of time.

Except that I was already changing, right in front of her and under her hands. How could I remain exactly as I had been that day and express a love that was evolving and changing? I didn’t want to remain the silly Nanako who had stolen a cigarette butt to smoke it in secret, or who had felt that she needed to prove something to be worthy of an older, cooler woman’s attention. 

But at the same time I didn’t know how to convey this change to her; how to show her that I was different, and yet essentially the same in whatever she had seen in me that day. 

My own mouth did that of its own accord. “I want to. With you,” I said.

She laughed, and I was afraid that I had achieved the exact opposite of what I wanted. But then her eyes were trained on me, and what she said next held no taunting or refusal but, incredibly, an offering.

“Have you ever seen another woman naked?” she asked. When I shook my head, she added, “Would you like to?” 

Dear Brother, she had been angel and devil to me, and now she was a siren; I felt like I was paralysed at the top of that ladder once more, her hand outstretched. I only had to take it and she would guide me and welcome me into her world, so intimately. 

“Yes.”

“Undress me then,” she said, her voice low and enticing; her eyes held a want as much as a challenge as she lay back on the pillow, offering her body to me. There was no defiance in her words, though, when she said “You can stop or change your mind any time, poupée-chan," as she saw me hesitating. 

I won’t ever want to stop, I thought. It was the force of my desire for her as much as a fear of making a fool of myself that was making me waver. And it was with trembling fingers that I reached for the last few buttons of her already half-open shirt to pull them free and part the thin fabric that was shielding her from me.

She had very small breasts and they were bare under the shirt; her nipples were pale and not bigger than a five-hundred yen coin, smaller and much lighter than mine; around them grew a few long, blond hairs, as fine as eyelashes.

The scent of her had become much stronger and intoxicating. I could see that she was looking at me from the corner of my eye, but I didn’t dare to look back at her; I feared that I would lose my resolve and crumble at her feet if I did. Instead, still careful not to meet her eye, I helped her completely out of her shirt.

Below her navel, her stomach dipped into the waist of her trousers. Without any clothes to cover her, it is impossible to ignore how thin she truly is. The bones of her shoulders and her hip bones jut out under the skin, and you can count her ribs with your finger. The only thing that consoled me, as I worked to take off her trousers and her underwear, was feeling the softest trace of flesh around her waist and on her belly. I promised myself that I would keep feeding her and nurturing her, like one would with a stray kitten. 

Yet, there was nothing kitten-like in the woman that was now lying completely naked before me. 

The first thing I noticed, and I blame my frivolous nature for this, was that Rei doesn’t groom her body like I do, and like all the other girls I’ve caught a glimpse of in the locker rooms. Her long legs are surprisingly hairy, the hairs fine and downy but very long. Between her legs, she doesn’t keep herself trimmed and the hair there is much darker than I could imagine it would be. 

But as I saw her stretch and hum contentedly on the bed, as she reached for another cigarette and the lighter on the bedside table, my entire perception narrowed down on the electric shock that was going through my own body.

I was feeling like a glass made of thin crystal and Rei was a taut bass string, vibrating in her low, passionate note, threatening to shatter me to pieces.

Most of all, I felt hot all over; I started to undo the buttons of my own shirt, but fumbled in the process. I became impatient then, and pulled it off over my head, with the same frenzy of someone caught in the desert at midday. Only then, sitting on the bed in my bra and skirt, did I meet Rei’s eyes.

There was hunger there, of a kind I had never seen before. I didn't know exactly how, only that I could satisfy it, that she was waiting for me to do it.

I don't know why I did what I did next. I think I was just trying to look more confident than I was actually feeling, and also trying to build up some kind of courage to tip the both of us over the edge. 

I reached for Rei’s cigarette as she was taking a drag, and pulled it away from her lips. In the second of surprise during which she held her breath, I pressed my lips to hers. 

The smoke scorched my tongue and lungs as it poured into me from her. I held it inside, trying not to cough and hack, and it was followed by her tongue and her breath, and her hand into my hair. When I pulled back it came out of me like a ghost; I imagined it was old Nanako leaving me forever. 

Rei was looking at me with those hungry eyes. “You are perfect,” she said with a sigh.

I didn’t feel perfect, dear Brother. Instead, I was starting to feel bad for her, so exposed while I was not. At the same time I wanted to know if her pale skin was as soft as it looked and couldn’t bring myself to touch her, even if I knew that she would like me to. 

She didn’t move; it was as if she was afraid to scare me away if she did, as if I were a frightened deer. I took her hand that was resting beside me and started to play with it, caressing each of her fingers and her palm and wrist to stop myself from fidgeting. When I ventured up to the warm inside of her elbow and upper still along her arm to her shoulder, she was humming softly, like the purring of a cat.

The faintest trace of a blush had bloomed across her chest. Her skin was unblemished, except for three little moles arranged in a crooked triangle just below her breastbone. When I brushed them with my fingers, I felt her muscles ripple imperceptibly.

 My palm was resting on her lower stomach then; her skin was warm and yet it had broken into goosebumps.

“Are you cold?” I asked. 

She shook her head. 

“Stop thinking,” she said then, suddenly, “You can do whatever you want.”

Whatever I wanted? What was it that I wanted?

I knew what my body wanted to do; I could feel it respond to Rei’s—blooming, my blood rushing and gathering to the same place on the map of Rei’s own body from which I couldn't tear my mind off. I knew what her body wanted, too. Her skin was taut on her belly, and her hips were quaking ever so slightly under my hand as if fighting against the urge to arch and press against my palm.

But what did I want? I knew that I didn't want to make a fool of myself, to cross a line that shouldn't be crossed. I felt like I was at the edge of uncharted waters—she was like the open ocean, stretching endless before me, glistening with a promise and the dangers lurking in unknown depths. I was standing with my feet in the water, afraid to take another step. It was that ladder in the dark again. 

Stop thinking. 

But she wasn’t holding her hand to me this time. She wanted me to come down to her on my own accord—and to give me the chance of walking back from the lip of the trap door and into the comforting darkness of the tower.

You can do what you want.

I hid my face into her neck, and reached for her.

I found myself mirroring Rei’s little gasp of surprise. It was familiar and yet completely alien from what I knew from my own body. She was different and the same; the only map I could follow were the sounds that she made.

Her scent shifted slowly; now it was stronger, like pressed flowers between the pages of a book, then like things of the undergrowth, wet leaves pressed into the soft earth.

Her hand was into my hair, it was the only place where she touched me as I searched her like a bumblebee into a flower. Sometimes her lips found my ear and whispered praise into it, and I would tremble with pleasure and press my hot face harder against her. Sometimes only inarticulate sounds came out of her, interposed with endearments, and in those moments my love for her swelled along with her pleasure.

Dear Brother, it wasn’t urgent like I imagined it would be.  It wasn’t like those times when Rei had embraced me in the past would have let me imagine—crazed and feverish and delirious. 

It ebbed and flowed, it was slow and only at times it became insistent; she let me explore her and learn her and play with her like a new instrument that rewarded me with sound. 

Her bracelet caught the light of the lamp she had turned on and it blinded me. She was white as the surf and tasted of salt on her neck.

I was stunned before her pleasure; she was feeling more alive than ever against me, and it was unbelievable to me that it was me who had made all this life come forth in her. She was breathing as if she had run a mile, and soon her skin was red like an apple. I felt that I would never want to see and feel her less alive than she looked in that moment, ever again, and my love and tenderness and happiness for her were so strong that I found myself sinking my teeth into her shoulder. 

She gasped for air and sobbed my name once, before she arched off the bed, pressing hard against me she gave a hoarse cry and I felt her spasm. She remained suspended like a drawn bow, then she sighed deeply and went still.

The wariness she exuded as she lay on the bed was the same I was soon feeling, creeping into my bones. I rested against her shoulder. 

Her cigarette had been forgotten and it held on between her fingers as a pitiful column of ash. We laughed at it until our bellies hurt. Then Rei looked at me, brushed away my damp hair that had stuck to my forehead. My heart, that had started to slow down, sped up again in my chest. I thought that she was going to say it, then. 

“Who would have thought that Misonoo Nanako was such a bad girl,” Rei said instead.

When I heard those words, dear Brother, I crashed down to the ground like a slain dove, my heart shattering upon impact. 

Bad? Did Rei think that what we had done was something that she could do only with someone who was bad? Was I that way in her eyes now, those eyes that had looked at me with such love and desire the whole time?

I pulled away from her embrace then, hurt. She was immediately alert.

“What’s wrong?”

She reached for me; I turned away from her, despising myself for the tears that were already welling in my eyes. She must have seen me trembling.

“Nanako?”

I hated the confusion in her voice at that moment. How could she not understand? But then I thought of how lost she had always been under Lady Miya’s tyranny over her, never knowing what would elicit a reward or a cruel punishment, and my desperate love for her made me take pity on her. 

“Do you really believe what you just said? That I’m a bad girl for making love with you?” 

I felt angry. If I have to think why I did, dear Brother, I believe now it was because a part of me agreed with her; a part that believed deep down that love and sex didn’t entirely blend; a part that was afraid of what other people would think. A part that I believed I had killed for good the day I had left the Sorority and refused Lady Miya. 

Rei was confused. “That was just saying; I didn’t mean it.”

It wasn’t the first time I had heard her use that phrase. But that she would use it to describe myself felt cruel and untrue. Did that mean that I want to be considered a good girl, then, too good to express herself like she wanted to? I knew that wasn’t true either. And Rei’s words hurt me so. So which one was it? The answer, dear Brother, was none of the two. I only wanted to be Nanako for her.

“Take it back, then, if you didn’t mean it,” I said. “Because I don’t believe I’m a bad girl for loving you.”

Rei wrapped the sheets around her to cover herself. Her head was hanging low when she spoke, but her face was serene, even smiling to herself.

“You are right,” she said softly, “I take it back. There have been many bad girls in my life; and one in particular,” she added and her fingers went to the bracelet. “There was one girl once who was good to me, and she still is, but I’ve always been the bad one to her and in the end her affection became very coarse.” She laughed softly to herself; I think she meant Prince Kaoru, dear Brother; who else could it be if not her?

“But you are something else, Nanako. You can’t be bad, you wouldn’t know how to be even if you tried. And most of all you are not bad for loving me,” she went on. “And I don’t want to be bad at loving you.”

She looked up at me then but I couldn’t see her anymore through the tears. I crashed against her and into her embrace. I kissed her again and as the kiss became long and languid, I’m sure she drank half of my tears. 

“Stay here with me for the night,” she said; she sounded drunk with the kisses and the tears. “Do you want to—?”

I could feel the long tendrils of pleasure come back to brush at the extremities of my body, but I shook my head. “Let’s go slow,” I said. It wasn’t entirely the need for a low pace with Rei, but more the fact that I did really feel already content and complete with having seen and caused her pleasure as much as if it had been mine. But that was something harder to express and to explain, and I felt I didn’t have the words right then.

Rei seemed to accept my explanation. She draped herself against my back and pressed her cheek against mine. 

“When you’re ready,” she sighed in my ear, “I will show you a different kind of kissing. It’s my favourite thing. I’ll make it good for you.”

I could feel her grin against me, and when we dozed off we did so with the tickling promise of a different pleasure to come that we would share.

When I woke up, it was evening and dinner time at home was not too far away. I wiggled from below Rei’s warm body, where she had buried me in her sleep. I was surprised with how well I had slept, given the excitement of the day, and with how good heavy and restful sleep looked on Rei; it was the first time I saw her sleep from happiness and not drugs, or fever, or delirium and it felt a lot like a truce. 

She protested when I commanded her to remain where she was and to rest, and that I was perfectly fine with going home on my own. I knew she had her fridge full and some dishes I had already prepared for her. She huffed as I kissed her goodnight, but I saw that she had gone back to sleep when I peered into the bedroom just before I walked out of her door.

I felt the cool evening air on my face like a cold hand cupping my cheek, coming as I was from the warmth of Rei’s bed. I welcomed it as much as the solitude that came with it and that would accompany me until home. I needed it to collect my thoughts on all that had happened. I felt that the whole afternoon had jumped on me by surprise, like a summer storm during a mild spring day. I could see the loose thoughts run around my feet and along the side of the street like rivulets of water as I walked; I could still feel Rei over me like the pouring rain.

It is the first time for me, dear Brother, so I don’t know if this is just what being really in love feels like. The whole way home, I thought about the words that would compose this letter that I’m writing right now. It’s just as good that you will never read it.

When I got home I ran myself a bath, even if that meant coming late downstairs for dinner, and threw my clothes into the washing machine; I was so afraid that my mother would smell, not only Rei’s cigarette but also what we had been doing, on me. 

As I floated in the tub, my head half submerged, I felt my body ache with the physical absence of Rei. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was what she had been feeling for Lady Miya all the time, and even just imagining it was unbearable. And then there was the tantalising image of her in my mind.

I imagined her in the bathtub with me, glistening, the water dripping from her hair and her lips and her tiny breasts, and it hit me then that it wasn’t only a fantasy but it could be the promise of a near future, if I wanted to, whenever I was ready. 

Rei’s ghost tormented me all through dinner. 

When the phone rang, I shot out of my chair to reach it, thinking, hoping , that it was her. Instead, it was Mariko who wanted to know the details of mine and Rei’s date. If I could not talk with Rei, I was at least happy to talk about Rei, and Mariko seemed all too happy to listen; I think she would love to have a date with Prince Kaoru like the one me and Rei had today. I talked to her in detail about the cinema, from the milkshake at the café to the girl in the ticket booth, to the hand-holding in the dark of the movie hall. I didn’t say a word of what came after, though, and Mariko will always know a version of today where Rei and I shared a romantic and innocent walk in the park. 

When I said goodbye to Mariko, I felt that talking with her had troubled the bubbly waters of my emotions even more. Once in my room, I sat down at my desk with a purpose; I knew that only writing a letter to you would help, dear Brother. So that’s what I did and am doing still.

I think, at the core of it, that something changed forever today, between me and Rei. She used to work on me like a magnet, ever since I fell against her on the bus that first day of school; or like a planet, attracting me, a little moon or maybe a satellite, round and round and always closer to her centre of gravity as she herself was gravitating dangerously close to her own star. Our little system was bound to an inevitable and violent collision.

But even considering such a fiery ending, the image it evokes is of a slow and gradual motion. What I felt today was not slow, it was not gradual, but hungry and sudden and had the quality of blood rushing through our veins. 

 I don’t feel like a placid little moon anymore; instead, I’m one of Rei’s daggers, thrown at breakneck speed at their aim. But instead of the stone-cold heart of Lady Miya, I am always aiming back at Rei; and instead of a cutting blade, I feel myself transform into an endlessly loving kiss. Not blood and death, I only strive to draw happiness and love from her.

Oh, my dearest Brother, you will never know how helpful your oblivious ear has been to your silly little Nanako. As I reach the end of this page, I imagine you going about your evening, not knowing that so many miles away you made me happy by just being there; and even if you will never read this letter, I know that you would be glad to know that I now feel more at ease. 

So now I will get ready for bed and tomorrow, before calling Rei to ask her if she slept well, I will read these pages again; I will probably laugh at myself from the wisdom of a new day, and then I will turn them to ashes.