Slice of Life
Surrogate I
I watched Shinta from the porch. He was piddling about in his garden. For someone who had once stopped me from picking grass, he was vicious with weeds. He tugged them up by their roots and tossed them over his shoulder, muttering the whole time. The garden had been a good idea, I finally admitted. I had feared that Shinta would fail in it, and that it would crush him, but it had actually thrived. Sometimes, the vegetables we ate were strictly those he had grown. It gave him a peculiar glow. I tried to imagine him being a farmer. It didn�t work.
He smelled very nice when he came to hug me later. He smelled like sunshine and dirt and sweat, not a scent I was at all used to associating with Shinta. I thought I could grow to like it. It old him so, and his little nose scrunched up. �You�re crazy, koi. I�m going to take a bath.�
I watched him walk away, wanting nothing more than to run after him and join him in the tub. I missed the large bath at the Oniwabanshu house. I sorely missed bathing with him.
I started dinner wihle he bathed. He returned to the house dressed in a robe, his clothes bundled under his arm. He kissed my cheek. �Now I smell nice,� he told me, grinning. I couldn�t disagree. I smiled for him and told him to get dressed. Dinner was almost ready.
We ate on the porch. Shinta leaned against a post and smiled. He had eaten more than half of his rice and a good portion of the fish. He must have had a good day.
�Aoshi,� he said suddenly. �Did you want children, ever?�
I blinked at the odd question. I might have, once, but that desire for children�for a son to pass on my name and my technique�had paled in comparison to Shinta�s smile. �I suppose,� I told him carefully. �Why?�
�I was just wondering. Are you finished?�
�Yes.�
�I�ll do the dishes.� He stood and went t o do that. I knew he would never let me help him, so I watched the sunset.
Eventually, he came back onto the porch. He was wearing a yukata now�it was blue, and he was beautiful in it. His face was sad though. He knelt beside me, legs tucked neatly underneath his thighs, and half leaned on my shoulder. �Yoko came to see me yesterday,� he said finally. �She�s dying.�
�From what?� I asked, speaking softly.
�One of the diseases prostitutes get,� Shinta answered with a shrug. I pulled him to me and wrapped him in an amebrace. He tucked his head under my chin. Two years ago, Yoko had been the one to find me and tell me what Rumi was doing to Shinta. If she had not, Shinta would be dead now.
And Shinta always referred to Yoko as a prostitute. When he referred to his own actions, he was �a whore.�
�She has a son,� Shinta continued. �He�s four years old, Aoshi, and living in that place.� It froze my heart to think of it, too. Shinta himself had been only eight when Rumi had bought him and sold his virginity to a sadistic man that I still intend to kill if ever we meet.
I knew a little of Yoko�s story. Her name wasn�t Yoko. She had affected it to hide. Her husband had been a samurai, who had died young in some sort of accident. He had left them indebted to a series of rice brokers. Yoko�s options had been few. Somehow, she had ended up in the same brothel as Shinta. She had become his companion and guardian angel. I owed her my Shinta�s life.
If I had the funds, I would have bought her contract, too. I still owe money to more people than I care think about�Okina and Hannya, namely, and also a samurai who owed me a favor. They loaned me all they could so that I could buy Shinta and take him away from that place.
Shinta�s hands dropped into his lap. �She asked me if I could care for her son, Aoshi.�
I think I stared at him for a long time, because his face began to fall into a wounded sulk. �Does she understand that you live and sleep with another man?� I had to ask.
�Yoko doesn�t know anyone besides me!� Shinta answered. �Her family won�t speak to her, and neither will her husband�s. And Yahiko is so little, but I don�t know anything about being a man, let alone a father, so you could maybe be his dad and I�ll just do the cleaning and stuff like I do now��
I put a hand over his mouth to stop him. �Just . . . let me think about this for a minute, Shinta, lovely.�
So he sat in my lap and watched my face as I thought about what it would mean to have a child living with us. Could we handle it? I thought about the house. I imagined Shinta wiping the dirt from a little face. I imagined a grown boy towering over him and demanding to know why he had two fathers and no mother.
It was going to be hard.
But I owed it to Yoko.
Maybe Misao could come live with us, too, and Yahiko could have an older sister.
�We can do this,� I told Shinta.
His eyes widened, and he took my hands in his. He kissed me hard enough to leave me gasping. �Yoko will be so pleased!� Shinta gasped.
�How are we going to tell her?� I asked him.
His face grew thoughtful for a moment, then filled with apprehensiveness. �I guess we�ll have t-to go there. And tell her. There.�
In Yoshiwara. In the White Lily. In the brothel where Shinta had been abused for eight years.
I kissed his cheek. �It�s okay, lovely. You�ll be okay.�
Part Seven |
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