I could do this.
I had no choice.
Damn it, Iwantedto. I wanted him. I wanted this stunning man whose lips lit fires in my chest and whose touch caused every part of me to tingle. The press of his hardness against my own confirmed everything he needed to know of my longing.
It told me of his as well.
This was madness. I couldn’t want this man, this courtesan who’d spoken only a handful of words. I couldn’t . . .
But deep within, in the depths of my waking need, I knew that to be a lie.
Ididwant him. I craved him. I needed him.
Not because of who he was, but how he felt, how a mere glance at his body caused my loins to ache. I wanted him pressed against me, holding me, kissing, filling the space in which I stood.
Why? Gods, why? Take these feelings from me. Take my life, damn you.
I tried to still my mind, my heart, yet everything in me craved more. The vigor of youth, the unbridled passion of men’s urges rose and swelled and demanded . . .
Compelled . . .
Begged . . .
I leaned forward, a movement so slight it might’ve been missed had this man been farther away, but he wasn’t. He sat before me, so close I could taste his desire. My mind knew he was here to train me, to follow the orders of our mistress, but something in his eyes, in the feel of his lips, in the sensual gentleness of his palm on my skin, told me he wanted me as badly as my own traitorous body craved him.
“Give yourself to me, Kaneko,” he whispered into my mouth.
His words were a plea and a command.
This stranger, this beautiful man—he wanted all of me.
I felt myself leaning into him as the press of his body and the heat of his skin consumed the last of my will.
Chapter 12
Kaneko
After that first lesson with Sakurai—if it could be called such—my days divided.
Mornings belonged to Hana.
She came to my chamber as the first light touched the paper screens, bringing tea, gentle corrections, and an odd sense of normalcy to a world turned on its head. We practiced poise—the angle of my shoulders, the tilt of my head, the way I held my hands when idle. We studied literature, reading poetry aloud until the rhythms became natural to my tongue. She taught me songs on theshamisen, her patience endless as I fumbled through chord progressions that should have been simple.
Some days we rehearsed the tea ceremony again, refining movements until they became something more than technique. And occasionally, she taught me to dance, guiding my body through movements that felt foreign and beautiful and strangely intimate. I enjoyed our dancing most of all.
Evenings belonged to Sakurai.
He returned the night after our first encounter . . . and every night that followed. Our lessons began simply enough—how to kiss without fumbling, how to touch with intention rather than hesitation, how to read the signs of pleasure in another’s breathing and movements.
But Sakurai’s training quickly grew into something more.
He taught me all the ways one man might pleasure another: how to use my mouth, my hands, where to press and where to tease, how to make someone gasp or moan or beg for more. He guided me through the mechanics of desire with the same precision Hana used for tea ceremony.
More than anything, he taught me the performance of intimacy: how to make each look feel like a promise, how to infuse a kiss with meaning when there was none, how to touch someone as if a bond existed, as if our connection was more than a simple transaction.
“Customers do not pay for mere release,” he said one evening, his voice a low murmur in the darkness of my chamber. “They pay for the illusion that they matter, that one as beautiful as you desires them, that for this brief time, they are special.” He traced a finger down my arm, demonstrating. “See? Even this simple touch can feel like worship if done correctly.”
He taught me how to capture a man’s gaze and hold it as firmly as one might grip a sword. And he taught me how to grip each sword just so—the pressure, the rhythm, the variations that made pleasure spike or sustain.
