“Oh,” Ron said, a little deflated. “Well—with your permission, Mr. Sakai, I’d like to say good-bye before I head off with you all.”
“Of course, Mr. Avidan.” Sakai-sama nodded at Chris, who excused himself from that company with a bow and walked outside with his brother.
“Wow, well, this happened kind of fast,” Ron said with a grin.
“Yes,” Chris said. “I’m sorry there wasn’t more time to prepare you.”
“Shit, I’m not the one in the new collar, Chris. And you’ve been preparing for this your whole life.” He looked down at Chris and sighed. “Do you want me to tell the parents anything?”
“Tell them I’ve moved to Japan. With any luck, it’ll make their therapy easier if they don’t think they might run into me somewhere.” Chris smirked.
“Fine with me. You got any stuff I need to look after?”
“Nothing,” Chris said. “Thank you. But write to me—and send me a photo of you, will you? And one of that new boy of yours.”
Ron slapped his forehead. “Jeeze, that’s what I didn’t tell you! He’s no boy, kiddo. This one’s as old as I am. And guess what—he lives in New Jersey!” He laughed, and Chris smiled. “Man, is that a sign of my age, or what? But I like him, I really do. He makes me laugh.”
“Good, you’re much too serious,” Chris said, punching him. They hugged.
“Take care of yourself, baby bro’. And take care of handsome Mr. Sakai, too.”
“I will.”
“But tell me one thing—did he really piss on you?”
Chris pushed his brother away. “Oh, for crying out loud, Ron!”
“Well, did he?” Ron’s eyes were wide and innocent and pleading, and he looked about ready to throw himself down on his knees and beg.
“Go to Tokyo, Ron. Get out of my Master’s bathroom.”
“I bet he’ll tell me!”
“Then you’d better ask him!”
* * * *
Michael didn’t have a chance for a private good-bye. He wanted to ask for one, but didn’t know whom to ask. Anderson? He was technically hers again. Sakai-san? But could he even talk to him without permission? That sort of hierarchical tangling was too complicated, and by the time he figured out that he should ask Anderson if it was OK to ask Sakai-san, it was time to go, and Chris was not in the group waiting at the gate while the cars lined up for the airport. He was upset—he hated to think that his last scene with Chris had been that angry moment when Chris was trying to explain that trick of empathizing with slaves, angry that Michael had dared to feel badly toward his new Master. Michael wanted to apologize, and most of all, he wanted to thank Chris for everything, especially for what he had learned here in Okinawa. But he didn’t get a chance, only got to wave from the car that he got into with a somber Alexandra Selador. And that was when he realized that maybe he wasn’t the only one who would miss Chris. He couldn’t even imagine what Rachel would say.
But he promised that he would do Chris proud
. I’ll be the best trainee they’ve ever seen,
he thought.
And I’ll write to him and thank him in a letter
.
* * * *
Chris made himself useful in Sakai-sama’s staff as much as he could, with Jiro’s enthusiastic help. No one treated him like a strange outsider, no one stared at him rudely or sneered at him. And when Sakai-sama and Anderson left together, with more than half the staff, Jiro had stood next to him as they bowed the car away, repeatedly saying good-bye until it was out the gates and down the road.
“I will find a room for us,” Jiro said, as soon as they were out of sight. His r’s slurred a little, but his diction was very clear otherwise. “And I will send a—a—supa-visa? for you, to tell you what to do, is that acceptable?
“
Hai, arigato
,” Chris said. They had agreed to speak only each other’s language to each other as much as they could, to better practice. At least when Sakai-sama wasn’t around. Sakai-sama had already instructed Chris that he was to speak whatever language the Master was speaking to him, and if, by the end of one year he was not suitably fluent in daily speech, he would be subject to discipline. That seemed more than reasonable, especially since it seemed that no one was actively hostile toward him this time around.
Jiro walked away, leaving Chris to stroll slowly toward the main outdoor pavilion, where so many discussions had taken place over the past few days. He could see people watering the pathways and scrubbing the benches, but one bench was free. He sat down and at last drew his treasure out of his breast pocket.
Romeo y Julieta
. Mandarin had damn good taste. He unfolded his pocket knife and snipped the end neatly, and rolled it gently in his mouth. Putting the knife away, he pulled out his lighter—when was the last time he used this, a year? He had left it with Rachel at the house on Long Island, thinking that he would not smoke when he went to Anderson’s. That lasted for about a week.
He lit the cigar carefully, drawing the smoke into his mouth and letting it swirl out again. Dropping the lighter in his pocket, he leaned back and enjoyed the rich taste of the tobacco.
Congratulations to me
.
When he was about one quarter down its length, an older Japanese woman approached him and bowed. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, in lilting, accented English. “Are you Pah-kah-san?”
“Yes, Elder Sister,” he replied in Japanese, sitting up. “Are you my supervisor?”
“Elder Sister?” she tittered nervously. “You are a brother to me?”
He reached inside his shirt collar and brought out his new chain. She leaned forward and examined the chop on the cylinder and sucked in her breath and tittered again.
“Ah, so, you are my Younger Brother!” she laughed. “A fortunate Younger Brother, fortunate in your Master!”
“Thank you, I am. Please tell me what I can do, Elder Sister.” He stood up, and to his amusement, found that he was actually taller than her.
“Well, Younger Brother, what can you do? Can you clean tatami? Can you polish silver? Clean floors?”
He laughed, understanding every one of her options. Perhaps his Japanese wasn’t as forgotten as he thought. “Yes, Elder Sister, I can do all those things. Please—use me—as you think best, and excuse my bad Japanese.”
“Oh, but your Japanese is very excellent, Younger Brother! Come with me please, and put out that stinky thing, we must not leave that smell in the building!”
Chris laughed again, and obeyed her and followed her inside.
Yes
, he thought.
I can do anything, now.
Six months later
Chris Parker bowed his way politely out of his Master’s suite and closed the door gently. Rubbing his wrists one at a time to work down the slight red marks, he walked down the hall to the stairs instead of taking the elevator. When Tetsuo was in town, he rarely had the time to get in a run, so he had gotten used to taking the stairs whenever possible just to keep up a little aerobic activity.
Two floors down, he passed a slave who was industriously polishing the banisters. They, like every other part of the building, got cleaned thoroughly on a schedule that made plenty of work for any number of staff or trainees, and in a nation of people who grew up cleaning the halls of their schools as children, it was done without a second thought. She backed away and formally bowed, and murmured, “Good morning, Teacher.”
“Good morning, Mariko,” he said. “Have you seen Abe-sensei this morning?”
“Yes, Pah-kah-sensei, he was in the dormitory fifteen minutes ago. May I have the honor of taking a message to him?”
“No, thank you, please continue working.”
“Yes, Teacher, thank you,” she smiled gently, almost shyly and bent to her task again.
The stairways were unheated, and the early spring chill easily penetrated Chris’s yukata. He still missed his boots. Later in the day, he would change into a suit and tie again, after the morning meetings were done. But the first thing he wore every day was his household livery. He had in fact finally learned to tie his sleeves back with an ease that suggested that he had been doing it all his life. The jokes about his being a member of the Yakuza had also gotten under control, especially since Sakai-sama’s first tattoo was in place.
His Master did not waste time.
There were seven slaves in training here in Kobe, and three junior trainers, all at different levels of skill. The school was a refurbished office building, with Sakai-sama’s suite on the top floor and room for everyone to live and work. While everyone else shared dining, work, training, and sleeping areas, Sakai-sama had the entire top floor to himself, an almost obscene amount of space and privacy. What’s more, it was thoroughly modern in layout and furnishings, as was most of the rest of the building. There was only one floor with traditional tatami rooms, and that chiefly used for training or entertaining. The school could easily sustain two more trainers, a full staff of twelve employees or household slaves, and up to fifteen slaves in training, although it was unlikely that they would ever be that busy. Chris and Jiro shared the management duties, although Chris’s duties were heavier when Sakai-sama was in town.
Which was, frankly, wonderful, although occasionally exhausting. He had only gotten a few hours of sleep during the night, but his back was deliciously sore. The trade-offs were certainly acceptable.
He went directly to the office he shared with Jiro and pulled out the day’s training schedule. He wrote a few notes about Mariko to pass onto Jiro—technically, she was under Jiro’s supervision. While he was writing, one of his clients came in and delivered his second cup of coffee. Thank goodness Sakai-sama was a coffee drinker. Giving it up would have been more challenging than tobacco.
“Hey, you pale excuse for a human being,” Jiro said in English, walking in. He was dressed in black jeans, a neat white shirt, and a narrow tie. Only his indoor slippers were not completely American, he was probably intending to do some work on the tatami floor later on. He had been encouraged to dress this way to get him used to it, and he was quite pleased with the effect. “I see your lazy behind is finally out of bed today,” he continued, waving the slave away.
“At least I was hard at work, pleasing our most honored Master, when some other people just stuff their faces with sweet bean buns and watch wrestling all night long,” Chris answered in Japanese.
“At least it is sweet buns in my face and not my face is toilet, OK?” Jiro cackled.
Chris tried to suppress a grin. “I win. That should be ‘at least I have sweet buns in my face and not my face in a toilet,’ Jiro-san, or, ‘and not urine in my face.’ If you meant to make a...word-trick...”—he couldn’t recall how to say “pun”—“...then you could have said ‘at least I had sweet buns in my face rather than the Master’s buns.’ ‘Buns’ is American slang for buttocks, do you understand what I mean? Besides, you’re just jealous.”
“Damn! Shit! Fuck!” Jiro said, annoyed. They had been working diligently on colloquialisms, especially insults. “Jealous? Jealous my ass. You keep the Master’s love, and his beatings and his buns, and I will be happy not to take the extra work.” He laughed again, stressing the English word, “love,” which he found hilarious for some reason. In truth, there was neither jealousy nor dislike in him. Tetsuo Sakai was truly a trainer of the old school—he did not miss a chance to use any of his under trainers in any way he desired. Jiro had of course, taken all the attention offered him with appropriate gratitude, but it was not, he privately admitted, to his taste. He was glad to be freed from such use, especially by someone who seemed to enjoy it. He never indicated that it was Chris’s slave status which made it more endurable or appropriate—only noted that it was best when persons suited to each other sought pleasure together. The two men had grown to be friends, and each was openly sorry that they would soon be separated.
Jiro had spent the first month or two gently asking questions about American culture and some innocuous training questions, and then one night surprised Chris by asking, right out of the blue, “Will Anderson-sensei want to be sexual with me?”
“Well, no,” Chris responded.
“No? Not at all?”
“She is well known for not doing so. You can read it in her papers. You might be asked to sexually evaluate any slaves you might be working with, and she may send you to some other trainer who might make that request, but you will not be expected to perform with her.”
Jiro digested that with some measure of disbelief. “Will she beat me then, if I am disrespectful or do not perform in my duties?”
Chris smiled a little. “Only if she likes you very much,” he had said, and from then on, he and Jiro understood one another.
“So, here is your shitting mail, shitface,” Jiro said, handing the envelopes to Chris politely, with both hands. “Please eat shit and die.”
“Thank you, beanstalk. Please go away and spare me from your stench.”
“Aieee, that was not nice,” Jiro said. “But stench is good, better than smell. Beanstalk is good, too, Shorty, but not very dirty. I will have an excellent insult for you later. I am going to breakfast, are you coming?”
“I’ve already eaten.”
“Yes, I bet you have!” Jiro laughed and mimed cocksucking, and made exaggerated choking sounds and Chris tried very hard not to blush. He had forgotten how explicit and ribald the Japanese trainers—and slaves—could be about the sexual activities around them. It was especially hard to handle such casual, borderline insulting jabs at sex with the Master, something never—never! done in either British or American Marketplace culture. But the rule was as long as the Master didn’t hear—or, failing that, if he was flattered—then it might be all right.
But it was open season, of course, on those of lower ranking who provided Master with such diversions. It had taken a little time—made worse by the fact that anyone could see that Chris was uncomfortable with any discussion of what went on beyond the eyes of his peers and juniors between himself and his owner. The very fact that he could be sensitive over such a minor thing made it even more fun to tease. His only defense was to surrender to it.
“It is true that the Master is huge and virile,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Unlike the many examples of small and... puny men I would have to choose from when he is not here. Do you have wonder that I devour every inch of him when I can?”