Lightly tinkling,
with me they celebrate
the wind bells?
When Yukichi was back from the station at first we chatted a while. I think that both of us were burning with the desire to finally lie down together, but neither one of us seemed to have the courage to do the first step. Possibly it was exactly the fact of having waited so long for that moment, and now that nothing more interfered with our reciprocal desire, made us hesitant.
Until I decided to do something and said him: "Yukichi, I don't like seeing you around in our home with these western clothes on you. Pull them off and wear a yukata, go on!"
"Why don't you pull them off, professor? I always dreamed it was you who undressed me." he answered almost shyly.
"Draw nearer, then. No, stay up." I said standing up and started to unbutton his jacket.
Even before I finished undressing him, we started to kiss, caress each other and finally make love. When all our clothes were a tangled on the floor, I gently drew him into the near room where Naosuke had already spread our new mattress and lit the lamps. And our first, long, so sweet night of love started and I could at last be intoxicated with him. He gave himself to me with transport, eager to please me, to become at last mine. I took him with all my gentleness, as I knew I was the first man he ever had. It was so good, so right, so beautiful -- as if all my life was ordered to that moment. But the greatest gift, was reading a deep happiness in his eyes while, in the dead of the night, he abandoned himself, sated, between my arms.
On the following morning he woke up first, and woke me up, starting again to make love with me. We stayed in bed for hours and hours, never sated, to be at last able to give full expression to three years of love and desire, waiting for this day.
We had a few free days before I had to go back teaching and he started his university courses, therefore on the following day I asked: "What do you think about going to visit the Hayashis?"
"Hayashi? I know nobody with that name."
"Yes, sure you know them, the brothers Hayashi, especially the elder. But he will be surprised to meet you. Will you come?"
"I don't understand about whom you are talking, professor. But if you like, I' will gladly coming with you."
I smiled. We left for Kamakura. He had never been to this ancient town, therefore he could not recognise the way. Moreover, I didn't tell him that Oshima and Irota now had that family name -- Hayashi Ichiro and Hayashi Jiro, the two brothers who were in reality lovers. Also Oshima, who had been a classmate with Yukichi, did not know that he was the lover about whom I gave him a hint. It would be a surprise for all of them.
Reached Kamakura, I went to see my friend asking him the address where the two boys lived and we showed up at their home. They were living in a small apartment on the first floor of a house not far from the publishing house where they worked.
When "Ichiro" came to open the door and recognised me, he at once brightened up and immediately invited me inside. Then he noticed Yukichi and looked at me with interrogative air.
So, I introduced them: "Here, this is my lover about whom I told you, and this is, now, Hayashi Ichiro. And Jiro is..."
"Irota Masato!" Yukichi exclaimed brightening up.
The boys were really happy to meet again.
At a certain point, Yukichi asked them: "Don't you regret having had to stop your studies?"
"I'm just sorry for Ichiro. But I am happy being with him, therefore I have no regrets at all."
"No, I'm sorry for Jiro. But our job puts us in contact with books, you know? I translate western books and Jiro does the proofreading, therefore, in a way, we are continuing to learn. We like very much our job. We have been lucky and we owe this luck to professor Fujita. And we think that our employer does not regret having hired us."
"On the contrary, he told me he is really happy with both of you. He said you are precious to him, and that you fit very well in your job."
"Yes. Also the neighbours, believing we are two brothers, two boys without a family, are spoiling us. And, in this little apartment, we can share our love sheltered from everybody and everything."
We spent all the afternoon with them. When we bid good bye, they invited us to come again to visit them: "We cannot come to visit you, it is better we don't go back to Tokyo, Jiro's family lives there and we don't want to run the risk to meet them. But any time you desire coming to visit us, it will be a real joy for us."
We promised to come again, and went back to Tokyo. We spent a really pleasurable afternoon with the two boys. Yukichi was happy, cheerful and loquacious.
I was listening to him when, at certain point, I told him: "Yukichi, I am no more your professor, now. Why don't you try to be less formal and don't you call me just Shige? I would be very pleased?"
"If you will be very pleased... how can I say no?" Yukichi answered in a low voice. In reality he didn't succeed soon -- it is not easy losing an habit of three years. But to me it was important, and at last it became natural to him to use with me the plain speech and to call me just Shige.
School started again. I bought a second bicycle for Yukichi, so that he could reach his university in less time. He learned quite soon to use it, and he became an enthusiast of bicycle riding, so that we started to go often together riding with our bicycles, to go to visit my friends who soon became also his friends, to explore the new areas of the capital in fast expansion or to do excursion out of the city when weather was fine.
We discovered a small delicious ryokan in a small village not far from Tokyo, called Atsugi. Surely the owner must have soon understood our real relationship, as after the first time we went there, he always gave us a room separated from the others, opening onto a secluded corner of the beautiful garden, and he sent to serve us always the same young and handsome man, never a woman. The servant one day, without saying a word, made us find spread in our room, instead of the usual two single futons, a wide double futon. Surely he had been aware we always used only one of them. So, that small ryokan in Atsugi became for us almost like out "holiday home". We also liked the discretion of the owner and of the personnel, who made us feel completely at ease.
My family had stopped trying to arrange a marriage for me. But Yukichi's parents from time to time tried to find a wife for their son, proposing to my boy the "mimai", or previous meeting. But Yukichi, with one pretext or another, being the best that he wanted first graduate and find a good job, always succeeded in refusing his parents proposals. They, once a month, sent two servants with a supply of good food, a sum of money for their son, and a letter.
Yukichi wanted at all cost that I put all his money together with mine, saying to me: "If I really belong to you, then also all I possess is yours, isn't it?"
I accepted only when he accepted to use our money without asking me every time for authorisation. He was anyway really frugal and at times I had to care to buy him things he liked but that he didn't think indispensable.
We normally studied together or else, while I was preparing my lessons and corrected my students' works, he helped me. We often discussed literature, art, politics, but at times, reading one in the eyes of the other the same desire, we interrupted to start making love. Days with him passed sweetly and pleasurably. Naosuke became really fond of my Yukichi at least as much as he always had been of me. His presence was solicitous but discrete. He had to have like a sixth sense, as he always appeared in the right moment and didn't made him seen or heard in the right moments.
Yukichi practically took in his hands the house management, a thing I did not regret at all, both because this made my lover feel being really in his own home, and relieved me from a thousand small worries. Naosuke accepted quietly this tacit change of the house management, and obeyed him without any problem.
Naosuke's relationship with Sadao was continuing and strengthening. The two young men were evidently in love with each other, and when Sadao had his first son, called him Naosuke. Yukichi was really happy with that. He, in fact, had to heart my happiness (and his own) but also that of the people around us. Therefore that gentle gesture, that made really happy Naosuke, made happy also my Yukichi. The more I discovered his character, the more I was in love with him. He was kind with everybody, but of a spontaneous, natural, not formal kindness. He was determined in his things (he gave me the best proof with the three years he endured waiting to become my lover) but not stubborn. He was extremely sincere and honest; he had a lively intelligence, and a remarkable sense of humour. I liked him to die for. It is not that he did not have flaws -- he was orderly to the point to be pedantic and he wanted me too to be so and this at times was a burden to me; at times he also tended to be somewhat selfish -- if he gad some problems, let's say in his studies, he expected me to stop anything I was doing to help him. But these or other small flaws didn't ever become a problem to me, also because he made him forgiven with the intensity of his love for me.
Also physically he was becoming more and more of a man, and I liked him more and more. I liked admiring, when we went to bathe at the nearby river, his wet body shining at the sun rays, and I alighted with desire for him. He read this in my eyes then, if there was no other people, he withdrew amongst the bushes, inviting me with his glance to follow him, and they were very sweet moments for both of us. We often made love also in our bathroom, because it was impossible to us to wash each other without being inflamed with desire.
It was a little more than one year since Yukichi lived with me, when came a letter from Otto, where he announced me that he would come to Japan. I was really happy for that. We went to fetch him at Yokohama Port. With him was also an extremely handsome and elegant young man (I recognised Otto's hand) -- the clothes modelled his body giving a hint of his perfect shapes. He had shining and lively eyes and a luminous smile, a thick mane of dark, curly hair. His name was Frantz,
In the train, while the two boys were chatting between them, Otto whispered to me: "Frantz is my lover, as you can have guessed."
"He is the gypsy musician, isn't he?"
"Yes, he in person."
"Then, it is some two years you are together."
"Almost three, now. Three splendid years."
"You will be our guests, as long your stay in Tokyo. The house is not big, but we reserved you the Tea Room. There, being somewhat secluded, you can have all the intimacy you can desire."
"Thank you, I like very much your Yukichi. He is very handsome and it seems to be a really valuable boy. Are you happy with him?"
"Yes, certainly. More than that could not be possible."
"Yes, I see. I could feel that from your letters."
Arriving at our home, I showed them the Tea Room, that they both found really agreeable.
Explaining to Otto the use of the room, I said: "If during your intimacy moments you want to darken the room, you can just slide shut those panels outside."
Otto smiled: "You still remember my manias, don't you? But Frantz compelled me to revise my habits, if I wanted him. And now I sincerely prefer the day light, or lamps, to look at my beloved one and at the pleasure that appears on his face while we make love. He has a very strong character, my Frantz, but also very passionate, he knows how to take me from the right side and makes me do what he wants. But he is also able to give me all I could desire. I feel really well with him."
"Does he know what there was between you and me?"
"Certainly, this is why he wanted to come to meet you."
"He is really a fascinating boy. How old is he?"
"Twenty seven."
"Really? He seems much younger, I thought twenty one or two."
"Yes, it is so."
"How did you meet?"
"The same way I met you, at one of those parties. Just, when he first saw me, it was him who at once came near me and told me he wanted to make love with me. I was really attracted to him, therefore I accepted immediately. I was thinking it could be one more of my many pleasurable adventures. And instead, I fell in love with him. It has not been the classical lightning stroke, a love at first sight, no. He conquered me, subjugated me, made me fall in love with him gradually. He tamed me. And now I am aware I could never live without him."
"But... he is not an aristocrat -- doesn't that give you problems?" I asked with curiosity, remembering how much this was a problem for his relation with me.
He again smiled: "I told you that he compelled me to change many of my points of view, didn't I? Many of my habits. You, do you see, were much too docile with me, and you always let me have the last word. Not he. He knows how to take me from the right side, my Frantz." he said with evident satisfaction.
I don't know if my submissiveness was more a question of character or of culture, but he was right. I thought that people with a strong character, as Otto was, loves to find who is able to stand up to them and appreciate such persons. Evidently Frantz was the right person for him and I was really pleased for that because, even if of course I was no more in love with him, I was anyway affectionate to that man that I loved and with whom I spent a really pleasurable period of my life.
They remained with us a little more than a month, then they did a journey to Kyoto and Nara for another month, and last they spent with us one more week.
During that week, one day Frantz asked me: "Is not jealous Yukichi of your servant? He knows he has been your boy for a long time, doesn't he?"
"No, he is not at all jealous. He knows it is thing of the past. He knows that now he only exists for me. By the way, you are not jealous of me, are you? And yet I was Otto's lover, as you know."
"No, I am not jealous of you, but anyway I would never let you alone with Otto for too long time. Also if unwillingly, the old flame could light again and I don't want to run useless risks." he said with a smile.
"No, I have Yukichi, I am really not interested in anybody else. You, for instance, I think you are really beautiful and likeable, and you are for sure very desirable, but I would never do anything with you -- my Yukichi does not deserve that. I am faithful to him and also Otto is to you, I am sure."
"Yes, certainly. But I prefer not to lose sight of him. Opportunity makes the thief, as we say in Germany. Anyway, I am really glad I met you. Yes, because now I feel like I know a little better my Otto. Also Yukichi is a really likeable person. Why don't you came to Berlin? We have a nice apartment downtown and there will always be a place for you two. I would be pleased to pay back your exquisite hospitality and also Otto would be glad. Moreover, for Yukichi it could be useful living and studying for a while in Germany, as it had been for you. He speaks fairly well German, but living in a place you can learn in a few months what here would demand years."
"Who knows. Thank you for the invitation, anyway." I answered.
We saw them to Yokohama, to the steamship that took them back to Germany. But after then, I continued to think about Frantz words -- yes, certainly it would have been good if Yukichi went for a study trip to Germany. But this would mean to separate for one, two or three years. I could not leave my teaching for such a long period to go with him. This thought frightened me. Not to see him for so long time seemed to me unbearable, too hard, too difficult. And yet, I had to think above all of Yukichi happiness and of his future. I should not be selfish, as much it could cost me.
So, I decided I had to clearly talk with Yukichi, but in reality I always postponed the moment of this speech, even if I was repeating to myself I had to do it, because I feared the possibility of a separation. I was terribly torn and so I continued to think I had to talk with him and I continued not to do it.
Yukichi, with his sensitiveness, became aware that something was troubling me, some worry was buzzing in my head, and tried to make me tell him.
One night, after we made love, while we were relaxing embraced in silence, Yukichi said: "Why don't you tell me what is worrying you since the day of Otto and Franz departure?"
"Yes, I have to tell you." I answered and I told him about the possibility of his study journey to Germany, telling him honestly all I thought, felt, feared. He listened at me in silence, meanwhile he gently caressed me.
At the end he told me: "Shige, my Love, you really are so dear! But I don't want to be away from you, I could not resist just one week without you, just guess one month, one year or more! No, do not even talk about it. If one day we could go to Germany together, I'll go willingly. But never alone. I'd rather renounce my university career, but not to you, absolutely not. Therefore, don't have so many problems, Love. As long as I have you, all the rest is absolutely not a need. Do you know why I admire, esteem and love Oshima and Irota, or should I say the brothers Hayashi? Because they have been able to renounce the things they loved, just to be able to live together. This is being adult, real men. Not all the rest. Don't worry, then, my love, please."
My incomparable, sweet Yukichi!
He continued to seriously devote to his studies at the University with good results. And finally, in the year 25 of Meiji, he graduated with a beautiful thesis on Goethe.