Chapter 5 #2
This was not a brothel. Brothels were dirty, desperate places where men paid copper coins for quick relief.
This was something else entirely. This was art and beauty and refinement weaponized.
This was a place where pleasure had been elevated to something religious, something transcendent.
This was a place where I would be transformed into a thing of beauty, my rough edges polished and perfected and put on display.
I pressed my hands against my thighs as I walked, but I could not make them still.
“This way,” my escorts murmured.
We moved deeper into the endless house, down a corridor lined with more screens, more carefully placed decorations.
Finally, we stopped before a set of doors more elaborate than the rest. Cherry blossoms were painted on dark wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl that captured the light like cherished jewels.
The kind-eyed woman knocked softly.
“Enter.” The voice from within was feminine, cultured, calm.
The doors slid open.
The room beyond was large but not cavernous. A low table sat in the center, flanked by silk cushions. Scrolls hung on the walls—calligraphy and paintings, all of them exquisite. An alcove held a single perfect flower in a thin, clear vase.
Everything spoke of wealth—and restraint.
And at the far end of the room, seated on a raised platform atop plush cushions, was Momoko.
She had changed from her market clothes into a kimono of deep purple embroidered with golden thread.
Her hair was still elaborately styled, her face still painted, and her lips still that deep bloody red.
But here, in her domain, she looked more formidable than fragile.
She watched me enter the way a cat might assess a mouse.
Not hungry. Just . . . interested.
“Come in, Kaneko,” she said. Not -san. Not -kun. Just my name, spoken as though she already owned it, which, I supposed, she did. “Sit.”
My escorts bowed deeply and retreated, sliding the doors closed behind me, leaving me alone with Momoko.
“Sit,” she repeated.
I crossed to the cushion opposite her and kneeled, trying to remember the proper form. I was a fisherman’s son, not a noble trained in courtly etiquette, despite Yoshi’s best effort at taming my unruly beast.
My palms were slick. I pressed them against my thighs, hoping she would not notice.
She noticed. Of course, she did. This woman missed nothing.
A smile touched her lips. “You are frightened.”
It was a declaration.
I said nothing.
“Good,” she said. “Fear means you are paying attention.” She poured tea from a delicate pot into two cups. The sound of liquid falling was thunder in the silence. “Do you know where you are?”
“A . . .” I swallowed. “A pleasure house.”
“The pleasure house,” she corrected softly.
“There are many brothels in Bara. Dirty, disgusting places where men rut like animals and disease spreads like wildfire. The House of Petals is not that.” She slid one cup across the table toward me.
“We are an establishment of refinement, of artistry. Our courtesans are trained in music, poetry, conversation, and yes, pleasure—the kind of pleasure that makes men dream and yearn for years afterward.”
I stared at the tea. Steam rose from it in delicate spirals.
“You will be trained,” Momoko continued.
Her voice remained quiet, conversational, as if she were discussing the change of seasons.
“In all of these arts: music, poetry, how to move, how to speak, when to move and speak—and when not to—how to make someone feel as if they are the only person in the world.” She paused and raised a delicate hand to her porcelain face, trailing finger down her painted mask.
“How to touch, how to be touched, how to give pleasure in ways you cannot yet imagine.”
My face burned. I couldn’t look away. Her fingers, her face, her voice, they were everything. They consumed me.
“You will learn,” she said. “You will practice. You will perfect. In exchange, you will give our guests a glimpse of heaven. They will pay handsomely for it, and you will be fed, clothed, and housed in luxury.” Another pause. “You will be valued, protected, and safe.”
Safe. The word was almost amusing given what I’d survived these past months.
“Do you understand?” she asked.
“I . . .” My voice cracked. “I do not want—”
“What you want is irrelevant.” Her tone did not change, still soft, still calm.
Somehow that made it worse.
“You are here. You belong to this house now, as do we all. The question is not whether you will do this. The question is whether you will do it well enough to thrive, or poorly enough to return to the market.”
She took a sip of her tea.
I watched her throat move as she swallowed.
“Now,” she said. “I need to understand the man seated awkwardly before me. What do you prefer? What does your body most respond to? What will make you most . . . effective?”
I blinked. “Momoko-sama . . . I . . . uh . . . what?”
She set down her cup, her lips curling again, one brow rising as it had in the market. “You prefer men, yes?”
“Men? To . . . I’m sorry . . . for what?”
“To lie with,” she repeated patiently, her voice taking on the tone of an irritated teacher schooling a particularly slow pupil. “Do men or women stir your passions? Do you look at a man and feel desire?”
Heat flooded my face. No one had ever asked me such a thing. No one ever would.
“I . . . I do not . . .”
“Or women? Do women make you stiff, make your heart beat faster? When you see a woman’s breasts, does your body respond?”
“Oh, gods. Momoko-sama, I haven’t . . . I don’t . . .” I could not finish the sentence. Could not force the words out. “I have never . . .”
“Both?” Her head tilted slightly. “Neither? Something else entirely?”
“I don’t know!” The words burst out of me. “I have never . . . I have not . . .”
“You are a virgin.”
My head fell. I couldn’t speak. Yoshi’s lips filled my mind, his touch, his taste.
I longed for him, to be lost in his arms, to know love in ways none other could ever offer.
We had lain together, only once, but that one time showed me all the glories of the sunrise.
I would not sully his memory—our memories—by speaking them aloud.
The mistress took my silence as ascent.
“Good,” she said. “Virgins fetch higher prices for their first time, but that is not why I am pleased. I am pleased because you are unshaped, a blank canvas.” She leaned forward slightly. “Tell me, Kaneko, when you lie in bed at night, alone in the dark, what do you think about?”
“I do not—”
“You are a man. Of course, you do.” Her voice remained soft, but something sharp entered it.
It was not cruelty—at least, I didn’t think it was.
Only certainty. “Everyone thinks about something. Everyone feels desire for something, even if they do not have a name for it.” Her eyes held mine.
“What makes your heart race? What makes your breath catch?”
I couldn’t look away, couldn’t think.
My mind was blank.
“I . . . I do not . . .” I tried again.
Failed again.
She waited.
The silence stretched.
My pulse thundered in my ears.
“Sometimes,” I whispered finally, “I think about . . . about being touched. Just . . . touched. Held. Like . . . I matter.” The admission felt like peeling off my own skin. “Not . . . not like that. Just . . . gently.”
“Intimacy,” Momoko whispered to herself. “Interesting. Not sex for the act, but for the closeness.” She nodded, as if I had answered a question correctly. “That is valuable. Many customers seek the illusion of being wanted for who they are, not merely for their coin.”
She stood in one fluid motion. I started to rise, but she gestured for me to remain seated.
She circled behind me. I could hear the whisper of silk as she moved.
“You will learn,” she whispered from somewhere over my left shoulder.
“How to read people, to know what they need before they know it themselves, to understand how to become whatever they seek.” Her hand grazed my shoulder—light, just fingertips—and I flinched as if stabbed with iron.
Her lips were a hair’s breadth from my ear, so close her words tickled.
“You will learn how to accept touch, how to give it, how to make someone feel cherished for a fleeting span of time.”
Her fingers lifted, and she returned to her seat, again regarding me with her dark, judging eyes.
“You will start with the basics in the morning,” she said.
“Posture, movement, how to sit and stand and walk in ways that draw the eye, how to pour tea properly.” She took another sip from her delicate cup.
“We have teachers for everything, the best in Bara. You will listen. You will learn. You will obey. You will regret anything less. Is this clear?”
I nodded because I could do nothing else.
“Good.” She gestured toward the door. “Hana will take you to your room. She will find you suitable clothing. Bathe and rest. Tomorrow your training begins.”
I stood on shaking legs and bowed—too deep, probably wrong, but it was all I could manage, all I could think to do. I was halfway to the door when she spoke again.
“Kaneko.”
I stopped and turned.
Her expression had not changed, but something in her eyes had softened, ever so slightly.
“I paid twenty-five ryō for you,” she said quietly. “That is more than a skilled craftsman earns in a year—in five years.” She paused. “I saw something in you on that platform. Prove me right.”
I had no idea what to say, so I bowed again and fled.
Hana—the kind-eyed escort—waited outside. Without a word, she led me through more corridors, up a staircase, and down another hall. Everything was still beautiful. Still quiet. Still terrifying.
She stopped before a door and slid it open. The room beyond was small but elegant.
A sleeping mat with silk covers.
A small table.
A screen for dressing.
A basin of water that smelled faintly of flowers.
And laid out on the mat—more clothes—but not like the kimono I wore.
These were . . . less.
So much less.
Silk, yes, but sheer, cut to reveal more than they covered, not that being covered by air cloaked much of anything. They were beautiful in a way that made my stomach twist.
“The mistress is good and fair,” Hana whispered, so quietly I almost did not hear. “Harsh when she needs to be, but also good. You will see, Kaneko-san.”
Then she was gone, sliding the door shut behind her, leaving me alone.
I stood there for a long moment, staring at the clothes, at the room, at the beautiful cage I had been locked inside. Finally, I moved to the sleeping mat and sat, then lay down and stared at the ceiling.
Twenty-five ryō.
I had no home. No family. No choice.
But I had a price.
Outside, somewhere in the house, a shamisen played. The notes drifted through the walls, hauntingly beautiful. I felt them on my skin, in my mind, seeping into my soul, and wondered if they would be the last beautiful things to pierce my chest in whatever of this gods-damned life remained.