stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. ‘Should we talk and get to know each other better before we have sex or wait until after?’
He drew back and gave me another searching look.
‘Do you think I’m kidding?’ I flashed him a smile.
‘Damned if I know,’ he said, but apparently it didn’t matter because when we came together again, we were kissing. It wasn’t my first kiss, but it was my first nice one. Harris used his tongue with the desperate athleticism of a salmon swimming upstream. But Mike’s kiss was as slow and melting as the first hot day in June, tasting of strawberries, sugar and dreams.
Caroline winked her approval as we headed up the stairs, bound for her bedroom. We’d made her bed beforehand with her dark-green Chinese print sheets, in case there was blood, and she’d showed me where the condoms were hidden in the nightstand drawer.
‘Are you sure it’s OK if we use your cousin’s bed?’ Mike said, frowning at the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the doorknob, which I ignored.
‘Oh yes, she knows we’re going to have sex. She reserved it especially for us.’
He shook his head and laughed again.
And then, well, I don’t remember exactly how we got naked, or who pushed whom down on the bed, or when exactly we stopped kissing and started doing other things, but there were more than a few firsts that night.
It was the first time a guy kissed my breasts so softly and slowly that I learned that lips tugging gently on my nipple could make me wet between my legs.
It was the first time I tried Marybeth’s lesson on a real penis—thank you Marybeth for a gift that keeps on giving. It was bigger than a thumb, but far more interesting. I loved the way it twitched when I stroked it, the way it grew even harder in my mouth, the way Mike moaned softly as he watched me do it, eyes glowing.
It was the first time I heard my favorite sound on earth—his sweet groan of homecoming as he slid inside my cunt.
And then, somehow, it wasn’t new any more. It was as if I’d always known this: his warm weight pressing me down, his musky boy’s smell, his soft lips and slick, snaky tongue, his satin-tipped hard-on and the taut curve of his ass. Then of course, that moment when he bucked and groaned and went crazy because of me just being there, just being.
I didn’t come that night—that first would happen thanks to the persistence and skill of the justly famed cunnilinguist Doug—but I was happy enough to take my ecstasy once-removed. Mike, bless him, didn’t ask too many questions.
I was the one who decided to confess as we lay together afterwards, just like on TV, with my head resting against his shoulder and his arm around me like we were a real couple. ‘That was the first time I’ve ever been with a guy, you know.’
‘Lydia, you can stop kidding around now,’ he said, but gently. Didn’t he notice that, of course, all my ‘jokes’ turned out to be true?
‘Why do you think I’m kidding?’
He frowned. ‘First of all, you give great head. There’s no way that was your first time. You’re a pro. Well, I didn’t mean it that way, you know, just that you knew exactly what to do.’ He laughed, embarrassed, and stroked my hair. ‘And then, well, you were really into it.’
‘I do like to joke around. It’s an old habit.’ It wasn’t exactly a lie.
‘You know what? You’re fun. It’s easy to be with you.’ He pulled me on top of him. ‘Wanna do it again?’
I nodded. Back in my high school, a million years and a billion miles away from where I was now, naked and straddling Mike’s hard belly, it was a bad thing for a girl to be ‘easy.’ Now I knew the secret.
It was good.
CHAPTER ONE
At first, my love affair with Japan seemed just as easy, a feast laid out for my pleasure, not the keg beer and pizza of Caroline’s parties, but icy chuhai cocktails and okonomiyaki, a savory pancake of cabbage, egg and smoky fish sauce ‘fried as you like it.’
I was twenty-two, fresh out of college, and hungry for new flavors of every kind. Each day of my first year in Kyoto brought some wonderful new discovery—a mysterious fox shrine tucked away in a winding alley, the beguiling sweetness of bean jam wrapped in soft rice pastry, a lovely boy bowing nervously as I ushered him into my apartment. Even in the recollection there is magic. The whole year seems to fold in on itself like a dancer’s fan, leaving one perfect day in high summer.
I awoke that August morning with a naked young man snuggled against me, his hard-on pressing into the cleft of my ass. This was not an uncommon event, but I was relieved that this time I remembered his name. My bed partners were almost always college students, the only Japanese males with the leisure for impromptu flings with the English conversation teacher, so exchanging business cards was not usually part of our courtship ritual. A quick cup of Nescafé Gold Blend would usually shake loose a surname from my sleep-fogged brain, although I still found it strange to call a man ‘Mr. Aoki’ or ‘Mr. Nakamura’ after we’d spent the night doing it in every which position on my futon.
But Hiroyuki had been staying over regularly for a few weeks now, so I even knew his first name, too.
‘Hiro-kun. Wake up,’ I said in Japanese. ‘Tuesday’s my busy day, you know.’
He mumbled something and slipped his arms around me, warm hands cupping my breasts.
‘I have to get the train at nine.’
He made one of those little Japanese sounds I loved, a musical grunt, rising into an unspoken question.
I rolled over to face him and gave his cock a gentle squeeze. ‘Yes, we have time, but it’ll have to be fast.’ Hiroyuki smiled sleepily and eased my cotton kimono over my shoulders to take my nipple between his soft lips. I stroked his thick black hair and sighed. I was still amazed at how beautiful these boys were with their velvet eyes and luminous skin that would put moon-bathing Marybeth to shame. In Japan I’d become menkui—a ‘face eater’—which meant I liked them handsome, and plenty of the handsome ones liked me, too.
Hiroyuki was special though. We seemed to have a relationship blessed by the Japanese gods, which I attributed to my habit of stopping by Kyoto’s many shrines to offer the kamisama a ten-yen coin in return for a cute lover. I was sitting in a coffee shop on Kawaramachi Street, devouring a book I’d just found in the English corner at Maruzen book store—Look Ma, No Hands: A Woman’s 8-Step Program to Satisfying Sex Every Time—when Hiroyuki sat down at the next table and ordered an American coffee. We started talking. He wanted English lessons. I wanted a warm body on which to practice the exercises the book recommended. Both of us got what we wanted and more.
I couldn’t have ordered a better partner than this nineteen-year-old virgin who was eager, trainable and completely without preconceptions in bed. He wasn’t like my boyfriend at Princeton at all. He didn’t expect me to pretend to come in the missionary position, he had no ego issues with me playing with my own clit or doing it for me while we fucked, and he was genuinely curious to know what felt good for me. What felt best of all was his pure and heart-felt gratitude. After our first time, Hiroyuki wrapped his
