The Fire Kimono (2008) by Laura Joh Rowland

Author:Laura Joh Rowland [Rowland, Laura Joh]
Format: epub
Tags: Laura Joh Rowland
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2008-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

A sharp-edged silver moon illuminated the garden of the estate. As Etsuko crept through the shadows, her heart raced. All day she’d waited impatiently for her tryst with Egen. She reached the tea ceremony cottage, a small wooden house secluded in a grove of pine trees, unused in the winter. Egen was already there.

He caught her in his embrace. Their desire was so great that they couldn’t wait to get inside the cottage. She pressed her body against his and felt the hardness at his loins. He fumbled the door open. They fell into the cottage, onto the mattress they’d sneaked inside. Egen kicked the door shut. Etsuko flung the quilt over them. In the warm, musty darkness under it, legs intertwined with legs. Hands tore open clothes. Flesh met hot, ardent flesh.

The feel of Egen’s strong, muscled young body thrilled Etsuko. She climbed atop him and sighed as he caressed her breasts, her hips. Together, in this private place, they could forget the world. They didn’t care that it was wrong for them to make love, that she was violating social custom and he his oath of celibacy. Nor did Etsuko care about Doi, her fiancá. Nothing mattered except satisfying this need.

Egen rolled, throwing Etsuko onto the mattress. She pulled him down on her. When he entered her, they moaned at the sensation. The first time, three months ago, had hurt so much that Etsuko had screamed; afterward, she’d bled. But now, as Egen moved inside her, it was pure, astounding pleasure. She arched her back to meet his thrusts. As he shuddered and groaned out his release, she rode waves of ecstasy.

Later, they lay side by side, holding hands, in the moonlight that seeped through the window shutters. Unhappiness filled Etsuko as cold, harsh reality intruded.

“I wish we could run away together and marry,” she said.

“So do I.” Egen exhaled. The chains of society’s rules and their prior commitments shackled them. “But even if we did, what would we live on?”

“You could sell your poetry.”

He laughed, a gloomy chuckle. “Who would buy it?”

“Everybody,” Etsuko said, wanting to cheer him up, fervent in her belief in his talent. “We’ll be rich.” She turned over, hugged him. “And happy together forever!”

They embraced in desperate, doomed love. Suddenly Egen raised his head and sniffed the air. “I smell smoke.”

Now Etsuko smelled it, too. “Look—it’s coming in the windows.”

She and Egen threw back the quilt. This fire season was a dangerous one, and as much as they hated to cut short their time together, they couldn’t lie abed while a fire burned in the estate. Straightening their clothes, they hurried outside. The smoke billowed from a far corner of the garden, behind trees that raised bare, skeletal branches against the fire’s crackling orange light.

“Come on,” Egen said, running toward the fire. “We have to put it out.”

Etsuko ran after him. The smoke stung her eyes and made her cough. She and Egen halted near the fire—a bush piled with dead leaves, burning like a giant torch.

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