1.Rain spattered down onto the rooftops of the outer buildings. It wasn’t supposed to rain today, but it seemed that the fates had other plans. The viewing of the new gardens would have to wait for another, more auspicious, day. Sheets of water spilled over and gave the impression that people on higher floors were dumping buckets of water over their trellises. It slid over my fingers and then dripped down towards the streets below.
Down below vendors sold umbrellas and newspapers to the businessmen who hadn’t thought to stow them in their briefcases before heading out in the morning. Some of them briefly glanced up at me and stumbled backwards, almost scared of me in my unapproachability. I smiled and waved coquettishly. The sort of thing that would have cost them hundreds if they’d been inside. But that wasn’t why I was looking out the window.
The tree branches bent under the assault of the rain as it grew harder and then finally some snapped, sending torrents of water to splash down on the vendors, who raised their fists to the sky and screamed vengeance.
“Get away from the window! You’re wearing your good kimono...and you’ll catch your death of cold.” Amir, my “mother”, screeched from the doorway. He came in and pulled me away. “What could you possibly think was so exciting out there? Come back in.” I stared at him dully. He was so old and set in the old ways that he didn’t understand there was a life outside the pleasure quarter.
I went to the room I shared with Paige and sat down on the edge of my bed. He rolled over and continued snoring. It drowned out the noise of the rain...I should have been used to it by now. I’d been living here for most of my life after all. I spent the rest of the night watching the rain splash against the window panes. Leaves collected in the gutters and became sodden with liquid.
Maybe once I asked Amir why he made me refer to him with female honorifics and why we had to wear kimonos and talk in high voices. I think I still have the scars. Stupid to ask him while he was heating oil, even stupider to ask him while he was pissed at me for not helping the maid fold kimonos. Afterwards Paige explained. He was smoking the long pipe most of our peers favored and reclining against the windowsill.“You don’t really appreciate all that’s been done for you. For all of us. Used to be it was enough if you could just spread your legs and moan convincingly. The customers, if you can believe it, got a bit tired of that. At least the ones that paid. Some big pimp had just come back from a trip to Japan, he’d been visiting some friends of his.” Paige paused to wink suggestively and puff little rings. “They had a party, some geisha came in. I guess the conversation got around to how men couldn’t really do it, be a geisha, be anything more than midnight cowboys...everyone laughed. The pimp took that as a sign.” I watched as the little rings slid to the ceiling and slowly slipped away. “He came back here, set up a little pleasure quarter of his own, looked for somewhat talented individuals, and that’s what he’s been doing ever since. Just to prove those geisha wrong. Of course, real geisha don't have sex with their clients. That was his invention.”
We were silent for a moment. I picked at a stray thread on the cheap cotton kimono Amir bought me for day to day wear. Didn’t bother pointing out to Paige that the original geisha were men...that women had earned their own way into the profession and eventually took over. But I had enough bruises from where Paige had hit me with his hairbrush for other insubordinations, so I kept silent. Finally I looked up. Paige’s watery blue eyes were still focused on the door. “Why did people go along with it?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I really don’t know, it was a long time ago. I personally got into it because it was a lot less demeaning and I had some choice in who I fucked. You still have to fuck, you see, you just get a choice about it. Sometimes all you have to do is talk and they’ll pay Amir on the way out.”
The trees were still gently swishing against the window when I awoke the next morning. Amir was too cheap to give us separate rooms. I wasn’t supposed to need one anyway. Paige was my sister, he was supposed to provide. More often than not he didn’t, he’d just get drunk on cheap wine and leave me to fix dinner and clean the room, on top of whatever else Amir had me do that day. I knew once I made my debut things would change a bit...there weren’t as many apprentices as there used to be, and most of the customers wanted at least a few younger faces. No matter how thickly Paige slapped on the white makeup, it never covered all of his emerging wrinkles. Most of the time personality and talent could make up for it, but Paige only had the bare minimum of those in my opinion, which didn’t count for much anymore.Paige rolled over and kicked me again. I sighed and pulled the feather filled comforter closer about myself. Not for the first time was I glad that there were two comforters instead of one, because I had no doubt that Paige would have hogged one all to himself and left me to shiver in the unheated room. Posters of film stars plastered the walls, Paige was ever the consumer of pop culture. His tastes and mine collided, so my pictures and magazines laid immaculate at the bottom of the dresser. It was rare that I actually had the opportunity to look at them.
Tried to sleep for a few more minutes, then realized that sleep was impossible.
The drawer slid open quietly. I made sure to oil it thoroughly so that I never disturbed Paige while opening it. He had the habit of watching me and tattling to Amir. When I had smoked in the house he’d run and told Amir and I’d had to give it up cold turkey, despite devoting five years to the practice.
Pages slick with newness, I’d only looked through them completely once, tops. Movie stars, music stars, all parading and smiling into the camera. I delayed my gratification for a few minutes, then turned right to the pages I wanted.
He stared up at me, unattainable and clean, not flawed by the hands of thousands, not like I would be. Because even with Paige’s assurances that I wasn’t, I knew I was little better than a high class prostitute. My fingers traced over the cold paper, sinking into his pockets, caressing the stubble that didn’t seem like it would ever be completely shaved away. Brown eyes so full of sadness, loneliness. His girlfriend had died in a horrible car accident a year or so ago. Left him with a kid, now he was the model of responsibility. I stared at his name, his features, I felt like I knew him just from touching his picture. Bobby.
Paige snorted and blinked his eyes open. I shoved the magazine back into the drawer and hid it underneath a pile of silk. “Jay, get a bath ready...” he mumbled and smacked his lips loudly. I scurried off to do his bidding. Anything else would have resulted in more bruises than I ever wanted to have.
Some of Amir’s old friends came over later and I was supposed to sit in the corner and pretend that I cared about what they were talking about, an inane smile plastered on my face and perfect posture even though my knees were giving out. Paige lounged about on the floor, letting more of his underwear appear than was seemly. Everyone knew he had a crush on Marshall and everyone knew that Marshall didn’t really give a shit. They wouldn’t have worked well together anyway. Marshall ran one of the better teahouses that Paige frequented when customers requested his services and used to be one of Amir’s peers when Amir was still a geisha. There had been some tragedy that forced Marshall out of the profession, now he just sort of provided services no one really wanted but were too ashamed to refuse. He was an angry man, prone to huge outbursts in crowds...no sense of timing. Amir doted on him.Along with Marshall came Marilyn. Marilyn was one of the older geisha in the district, he’d been around almost as long as Amir, and hadn’t quit. Bets were placed on exactly when he’d give the trade up, but generally it was assumed he’d be around as long as the district.
I was falling asleep listening to their banter about politics, but I was grateful because it kept me away from the kitchens, where I might have had to help the maids scour out the pans. This was research for when I was a geisha in my own right. More in how not to act than in how to.
“When are you going to let Jay make his debut? All of those singing lessons will come to nothing if you keep him holed up here. He’s not going to run away you know.” Marilyn teased, hitting Amir on the arm gently. Paige and Marshall laughed politely. Marilyn was allowed to say whatever he wanted, his seniority was still supreme.
Amir sipped his tea demurely. “I’m planning on letting him entertain at a party tomorrow. It was supposed to be a surprise.” My eyes slid open and I watched him carefully. “Perhaps it will be interesting. Some musician asked for his retinue to be entertained.”
Marshall nodded. “He’s the son of one of my old danna, of course I had to allow it. What better place for one of Amir’s girls to make his debut?” It still phased me how they could mix up gender pronouns so easily, but they had had years of practice. “Still, he has a silly name for a rock star. Bobby something...”
“Is it true?” I asked quietly, waiting for a pause in the conversation. Paige giggled and touched Marshall’s knee gently then smiled at Amir.
“He’s got a crush on Bobby..he’s got all these magazines hidden in our dresser with the pages folded right to his picture.” Everyone laughed at me, but I didn’t mind. Not like it wasn’t like that all the time anyway. But I’d finally get to meet Bobby. I slid my hands up into the kimono’s sleeves and sighed. This could be...perfect.