Chapter 17: Ask Me Properly

The overhead light in 202 was on, and neither of them reached for the switch.

Nanami sat on the edge of the bare futon with her glasses on and her coat on the floor.

Ria stood in front of her in the middle of the tatami, small and pale in her cream trench, and held her own wrists.

It was eleven in the morning on a Monday.

The curtains were open an inch, and a stripe of grey November light lay across the room.

"I have prepared nothing," Ria said.

"Good."

"I always have a clause. I looked for one all night, and there is none."

"Then say it your own way."

Ria drew a breath.

Her ears went red, and her voice shook, but she did not look away.

"I want to touch you, Nanami. I want to do it slowly, and I want you to watch me.

"I want you to tell me when it is good. I want to tell you everything you did right."

"That's all?"

"I want you to say yes because you want to say yes. Nothing is owed. Nothing is waived. Will you let me?"

Nanami's eyes stung.

"Yes," she said. "Yes. Come here."

Ria knelt on the futon in front of her and took her face in both hands.

She kissed her, softly, once, and then again.

It was not the kiss of a hungry woman.

It was the kiss of a person who has been given a gift and is afraid of dropping it.

"You walked into a room of thirty people," Ria whispered against her mouth, "and told them the truth."

"I was terrified."

"You were magnificent. You did not raise your voice, and you did not look at the floor."

Nanami made a small, broken sound.

Ria unbuttoned her blouse one button at a time.

She kissed the skin that appeared at each button, the hollow of her throat, the top of her breastbone, the soft curve above the lace.

"You ate the castella," she said. "All of it. It was awful. I know it was awful."

"It tasted like you."

"That is the most generous thing anyone has ever said to me."

Nanami laughed, and the laugh turned into a gasp as Ria's mouth closed over her nipple through the bra.

Ria undid the clasp with one hand.

She slid the bra off her shoulders and bent over her again.

Her tongue circled and flicked the nipple until it was tight and aching.

Nanami's fingers pushed into the long red hair.

"Look at you," Ria breathed. "The light is on, and you are lovely. You are so soft."

"Do you know I could not stop thinking of this at the funeral?"

"Ria."

"I thought, she carries the box and does not cry, and I want to take her home."

She eased her down onto her back.

She opened the grey skirt and drew it off with the tights, and the plain cotton underwear after it, and laid them on the tatami.

Nanami lay in the stripe of daylight with her glasses on and nothing else.

She had never been looked at in good light.

She started to cover herself, and Ria caught both hands gently and pinned them on the pillow.

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