They had to fill the air with something, though, so generic date talk it was.
Genevieve knew how to tell a tale of her own life, at least. From the moment Aya inquired about her time back in Singapore, they were on a ride beginning with her childhood home, a lofty hilltop estate called Orchid Grove, to college in America, to the worldly travels that took a woman to weddings on stunning Italian islands to funerals at sea in the south of Africa. Genevieve flashed her red passport, which didn’t look much different from Aya’s – except Genevieve’s was almost full of stamps and visas from all sorts of locations over the past few years. “I’ve never had a passport expire,” she had said. “I always fill it up before the expiration date. Then I have to get another one.”
Aya could not relate. Her passport was seven years old and only a quarter of the way filled, and that was because she was regularly traveling to America for a holiday before the pandemic shut everything down. She had also spent a weekend in South Korea to visit an old friend, and trekked down to Australia for a global real estate conference, but that was it. Many of the stamps in Genevieve’s passport were a mix of exotic locales Aya had forgotten existed, and the European mainstays that beguiled even the most common Japanese person watching travel shows on their analog TVs out in the middle of Shikoku.
She would have chalked it up to her being from an island, but Genevieve wasn’t exactly landlocked out in Singapore. Sure, it was connected to Malaysia, but it still took some trekking to get anywhere else.
No, she was simply made of money. Lots of it.
That became more apparent the longer they talked about their different lives. Although Aya was well-aware her new girlfriend was wealthy, she didn’t quite understand the extent until Genevieve flippantly spoke of “waking up and deciding on a whim to spend the week in Morocco” and “hiring a crew of assistants to fly with her to Indonesia, where she attended a Sultan’s wedding as a guest of honor.” She spoke of these things like Aya’s family might discuss going to visit the grandparents or buying an extra suitcase for the trip.
When she showed Aya pictures of Orchid Grove, someone nearly had a heart attack.
“What house is yours?” Aya had asked, staring at Genevieve’s phone screen and barely making heads or tails of what looked like a residential development interspersed with public parks and a six-hole golf course.”
“All of it.”
“All of it?”
“I mostly live in the main house, of course,” Genevieve pointed to the mansion behind one of the parks, which turned out to be Genevieve’s front yard, “but the others are part of my property. They’re guest houses and staff dwellings now. Once upon a time, though, it was where the extended family of the Liu clan would live or stay, but most of that ended long ago.”
She didn’t seem to want to talk about what led to her being all alone as a young adult. Aya barely knew her girlfriend’s parents were long gone. Some kind of accident. Genevieve always changed the subject whenever it came up.
When it came time for Aya to talk about her own upbringing, she felt embarrassed in ways she never had before. Not when talking to one of her own girlfriends, who often expressed excitement over the antics of Aya’s mother and sister. Or were out-of-towners who wondered what it was like to grow up in the Tokyo metro area. What was there to say, besides the fact she grew up in a bedroom community in Saitama Prefecture, went to a decent college, studied abroad in America, and had since been working for a living?
Yet Genevieve never made her feel stupid, or somehow lesser than. Her questions were pointed and open-ended, inspiring Aya to inject as many details as she dared. She’s a great conversationalist, but I’m also great at reading between the lines. Genevieve’s natural curiosity about the world and the people who inhabited it could fill a thousand diaries. Aya, on the other hand, knew more about the minutiae of her small universe.
She was grateful to get the hell out of there. Didn’t matter if the wine was sublime and the oysters delicious. She wanted to go to a place where she and Genevieve were more equal. Or, dare she admit it, things swung in the other direction.
No wonder she was quick to get Genevieve into bed once they reached her hotel room. The lights never had the chance to come on. From the moment Genevieve latched the door shut, Aya came on strong, urging her girlfriend against the wall and promising to do to her what they had last accomplished in an Ikebukuro love hotel two weeks ago.
Except Genevieve wanted it all in bed this time. From the disrobing to the rutting, she was more interested in how many fingers Aya could fit inside of her than engaging in stimulating pillow talk.
What does she think about when I’m on top of her? It had never been a point of contention. From the first time they made love, Aya was on top. It was how she liked it, but it was also how Genevieve wanted it. The only time Genevieve’s head got some air was when she rode Aya like the queen cowgirl at the rodeo, her hair matted against her sweaty forehead and her toned arms flexing in the shadows. Is this what she really wants me for?
It hadn’t bothered Aya before that day. She didn’t think this relationship was anything more than a temporary dalliance that would eventually fizzle out as life got in their mutual way. Because Aya knew how it was between women looking for love, even the ephemeral kind. You find someone you like and are attracted to. You fuck their brains out as much as money and your work schedule allow. Then you move on. Aya was always prepared for that, especially when fooling around with foreigners. It didn’t matter if Genevieve intended to purchase an apartment in Tokyo – she wouldn’t be around all that often, and if Aya fell in love at this point in her life, she wanted something more than long-distance.
That inspired her to make harder love to Genevieve. After all, she should delight in the fanciful, erotic world of sex for as long as it was here. Yet it also made her hesitate in exposing any other part of her soul. Some parts had to remain protected from heartbreak – like an egg in a glass case.
Everything is fragile. Everything is ready to crack and explode.
Was that what happened to Genevieve when she threw her head back between both pillows and cried out in ecstatic ecstasy?
“You’re amazing.” Those breathless words barely touched Aya’s ears as she claimed a spot on the far right of the bed and stared at the shadowy ceiling. “The things you do with your fingers should be illegal.”
“If it were illegal, you wouldn’t be in this bed with me right now.”
“What makes you say that?”
Aya pulled over the nearest pillow and supported her head as her whole body finally released its sexual tension. “You’re a good girl. You don’t do illegal things.”
Genevieve scoffed with an infectious smile on her face. “I’ll have you know that all of this is technically illegal back in Singapore.”
“Only for men, I thought.”
“Yeah, well…” Genevieve sighed in defeat. “According to the tabloids, you’re a man, anyway. So maybe it’s not so bad.”
“Un.”