Or was this meeting about my courtesan training, the reason I had been purchased in the first place?
My palms were sweating by the time we reached Momoko’s office. Hana slid the door open and gestured for me to enter. The room was exactly as I remembered—elegant, restrained, perfect. Momoko sat behind her desk, her painted face serene and her posture impeccable.
There was no woman in black this time. The room was far too bright for her brand of shadows. There was only Momoko, only the mistress who owned me.
“Come in, Kaneko,” she said. “Sit.”
There was no honorific from a master to a slave. I bowed deeply and then crossed to the cushion and kneeled, pressing my hands flat against my thighs to hide their trembling.
Momoko studied me for a moment, her dark eyes forever calculating sums and weighing worth.
“You have done well,” she said finally. “Very well, in fact. Both Hana and Sakurai report that your progress has exceeded their expectations.”
I bowed my head, not trusting my voice.
“Hana tells me you have mastered the tea ceremony to an acceptable standard. Your calligraphy, while not exceptional, is also adequate. You move with grace, speak with refinement, and you have learned the arts of conversation and companionship.” She paused. “Sakurai tells me you have become most proficient in the art of pleasure, as well. If I didn’t know better, I might think he has come to fancy your company more than his instruction requires.”
Heat flooded my face. Yoshi and I had lain together once. I’d lost count of the times Sakurai lay naked beside me. My initial lessons with Sakurai had involved more intimacy than I’d experienced with any other man. I’d begun to forget Yoshi’sfeatures, while Sakurai’s body was a map whose lines were now etched into my mind.
“You have been here . . .” She glanced at some paper on her desk. “Almost a year. Some take far more time before they are ready, but you, Kaneko—” She looked up at me. “You have adapted remarkably well. You have learned quickly. You have become what I asked you to become.”
The words should have felt like praise. Instead, they felt like a eulogy for whoever I had been before.
“Therefore,” Momoko continued, straightening her already impeccable posture, “I have decided that your training period has concluded. You are ready to take the next step.”
My heart skipped a beat, then tumbled forward.
“The next step?” My voice came out hoarse.
“Receiving customers.” She said it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, as if she were discussing the weather rather than selling my body. “This will be your last day of training. Tomorrow, your maiden voyage will cast off.”
Her lips curled at the quip, the reference to my nautical past. My roiling gut refused to find the humor in her words. The room tilted. I gripped the edge of the table to steady myself.
Tomorrow. One day. One day until I would be given to a stranger. To many strangers.
Again and again. Day after day.
Until everything I had learned, everything I had been trained to do, would be put into practice.
One day until I became truly what this place had made me: a slave to the pleasures of other men.
“I see you are nervous,” Momoko said with all the emotion of a tax collector counting sums. “That is natural. All of our courtesans feel apprehension before their first customer, but I assure you, you are ready. Your Virgin Auction will be awkward, but everything that follows should soothe your nerves.”
“Virgin Auction?” I croaked.
She nodded. “You will see. Think of it as a game, of sorts, a game to maximize my return on your initial investment.”
I gulped back fear and bile and whatever else my gut tried to toss on Momoko’s floor.
She stood, a dismissal.
“Go. Rest. Relax. Tomorrow your work begins.”
Chapter 21
Kazashita
Iwas hauling crates onto a merchant vessel when the world exploded.
