X.
“Won’t your parents be missing you?” Ken asked as Kamishiro stretched in front of the mirror.
“My parents? How considerate of you to ask,” she said, beaming at him. “No. I’m right where I mean to be.” She settled down on his bed. “My mother is crazy. She probably thinks I’m in my room playing video games as we speak. There’s no getting through to some people.”
She was completely hairless, her skin pimpled and scarred. Her hipbones stuck out like those of a teenage boy’s. She had taken out those ridiculous pigtails removed the makeup. It made her look even more childlike. It turned his stomach.
“Hey, Ken-chan, you know I can’t resist when you look at me like that.”
Kamishiro was using his body again. He was sat on the floor watching her. She was riding his body, slapping his face to make him look at her. She was rough, her nails scratching down his skin. He would circle the bed and watch her pimpled ass bounce as she took him inside her.
She called him Ken-chan and made him beg for her.
It was best to be away when that was happening.
He wanted to leave the room, go far away from there. He could leave her with his body for a time. It was all she seemed to want. Kamishiro was too crazy for him to fight. Only he could never get further than the door. Whenever he tried, she seemed to know. She would produce the knife. She would produce something sexual and plastic to hurt him further.
“Stay with me,” she would coo.
Each time, he would leave her full of him. She would tell him that it made her feel like a bride. Kamishiro would lean in and tell him how much she loved him, how much she wanted him. How she used to think about him all the time. How she would wear her skirt short and wonder if he was watching. She would find herself longing to be bent over his desk and fucked over and over again, no matter who was watching.
“It was dizzying,” she groaned as she licked along his torso.
She would watch him as he sat quietly while the class working on a pop quiz and wonder how many women he had fucked. Did he think about sex? Or did he sit there with nothing but school and his family on his mind? Every time he smiled when someone got a correct answer.
“I love you, Ken-chan,” she said.
“I love you too.”
When was the last time he said that to someone? Never to Yuri—it would have confused her—and not ever, never to Cana; she would have laughed. He didn’t say it to his fake girlfriends with their lumpy skin and worn-out pussies. Never to Ruka, he might have done, if she gave him the chance.
There was the first time, with Lisa, when she was all confused about who started what. He told her that she was bold, getting him into bed like that, and he loved her. His wild little thing. He only said it once.
No, the last time must have been…
“Oh, Ken?”
He groaned as he put his shoes away and strode into the apartment. His father was in Malaysia on business. Nora was sat on the sofa, sipping a bourbon and reading a magazine by the fire. Her skirt had ridden up her thighs. He could see down her blouse from where he stood.
“What is it, Nora?”
“You rudely dismissed me the other day at breakfast, so I’m just clarifying the plans for tomorrow night. Do you recall?”
“No,” he said coldly.
“Your father needs you here tomorrow night,” Nora said, slowly, as if addressing a simpleton. “This is an important night for him, for all of us really.”
“I’m not going. I’m seeing my girlfriend.”
“Oh yes, that grade schooler.” Nora had seen him and Lisa walking home from school. She had asked him spitefully at dinner if he was babysitting. His father had laughed, like he wasn’t a hypocrite. “I’m sure she must have an early bedtime. You come here after school. We are going to the Jewel for a celebratory dinner. It will be noticed if you aren’t there.”
“I don’t want to go,” Ken said bluntly. “And don’t call Lisa a grade schooler.”
“This matter is not up for discussion, Ken. And as your mother, I can comment on when you are embarrassing yourself. It reflects on the family and as we both know,” she said, smirking a little, “you tend to learn faster with humiliation.”
He felt the colour rise in his cheeks. His hands curled into fists.
“How it reflects on the family? Are you serious?”
Nora got to her feet and folded her arms. “Would you care to elaborate?”
He was shaking with rage now. “Do you really think people have forgotten Dad’s romance with the babysitter?” Nora didn’t flinch. “And to clarify, you aren’t my mother, Nora. You were whoring yourself out to my father when my mother was still alive and everyone knows that.”
She slapped him so hard that his head smacked into the wall.
“You watch your mouth,” she hissed at him. “You stupid boy.”
“You’re a whore,” he yelled at her.
“You disrespectful little shit. Didn’t you learn from last time? If you think—” she snarled, kicking him in the stomach, “you can talk to me like that, I’ll ruin you!” She stamped on his hand hard. “You think you’re like your daddy, dating some doe-eyed little girl from school? I bet you only go for the young girls so you won’t need to use that sorry excuse for a dick on her!”
Ken grabbed hold of her foot and twisted it sharply, throwing her off balance and face-first onto the floor. Nora tried to scramble upright but Ken lunged at her, grabbing her silky head of hair and pressing it into the carpet.
“You’re awful!” he yelled at her.
She tried to throw him off, thrashing and kicking her legs. Her skirt had ridden up further now, showing off her long slim thighs. Ken was shaking now, using his body weight to keep her restrained on the floor.
He imagined forcing her legs apart and showing her what he thought about all those nights his father fucked her out in the hall by his bedroom. Then he imagined getting up from her struggling body. The Nora in his mind laughed at him.
“Get off me, you gutless little bastard,” she hissed.
“Is that what you tell him? I know you do it with him everywhere,” Ken sneered. “I don’t remember you telling him to get off.”
She stopped thrashing now and lay there still. He could hear her heartbeat pounding against the floor.
“You’re a slut, always acting better than you are,” he snarled at her. “You like embarrassing me, telling me what to do. You like thinking about what I do or don’t do with my girlfriend?” His heart was in his throat as he shoved a hand between her legs.
She didn’t flinch. Nora twisted her head and looked up at him with a sneer.
Ken was shaking as he yanked her onto her back by her arms, pushing her onto the floor. Her hair splayed out across the carpet. She hit him in his shoulder, nails scratching at his throat. Ken slapped her, hands shaking as they ripped at her blouse. Her underwear was made of silk, ivory, like a bride. She kicked her legs when he parted them, her skirt tugged up around her waist.
Ken grabbed her neck with one hand, keeping her pinned, gagging. The other hand slipped between her legs, tugging aside her underwear with some difficulty as she twisted her hips from side to side. She was dry and cold down there.
“You’re dry as a bone. Do you make some effort for my father?” he sneered. “Or does he like fucking a corpse?”
Insults fired from her mouth, choked and snarling. Ken didn’t hear them. He wanted to hurt her, to embarrass her. She was always so cruel; she didn’t have to be. He reached down to unzip his school trousers. Nora reached up and punched him in the stomach. He grunted in pain and struck out, slapping her hard like she had to him so many times.
Nora stopped struggling; she just glared at him with cold, unmoving eyes.
Panting, Ken pressed down on top of her. He had done this with Lisa just days before.
“You don’t scare me, little boy,” Nora hissed at him. “You think I’m scared of your dick? I’m not. Clearly you don’t take after your dad.”
“Shut up.”
“Am I putting you off?” she taunted. “I’ve been doing this since I was thirteen. Think that fucking me will make you a big man? It won’t.”
“Why can’t you just shut up?” He pushed hard against her backside. Ken saw a flash of fear in her eyes. “Just another cock, right, Nora? Maybe I want something a bit more exclusive from you?”
A pained groan came from her throat when he entered her from the back. Nora’s hands came up and covered her face from him. Lisa had been gentle, wet, and tight. She cried at first and clung to him. Her arms tightened around him and her insides seemed to invite him in. Nora was tight, so tight it hurt, her insides squeezed trying to repel him. It burned and she grunted in agony. This was something she didn’t do with his father.
It hurt. His body felt pinched and strained as he forced himself to move, tearing into her. Her knees knocked against his sides as Ken picked up the pace. This was not like how he imagined it. Nora with her hands over her face, tears pooling on the carpet.
“Why do you have to act like this—!” Ken groaned. “Nora—! Nora!”
He remembered shouting her name, her silence. Then, before he came, he shouted that he loved her, he loved her, he loved her so much.
Ken pulled out of her, semen mixed with blood and brown leaking from her. Then he burst into tears and scrambled away, trying to pull up his trousers. Nora just lay there for a while.
“Nora, I’m sorry,” he whimpered.
Her knees closed together, covering herself. She winced as she sat up, removing her underwear and smoothing down her skirt. Her eyes were red from crying.
“I’m going to clean myself up,” she said, finally. “I suggest you do the same.” She smoothed down her hair with her hands. Apologies filled his mouth, but he was unable to speak.
“Nora…”
“Stop crying, Ken,” she snapped. “It isn’t manly.”
He rubbed his hands over his face, taken aback.
“Are you going to tell my dad?”
“About what?” she said, her tone like ice. “Quite frankly, I would rather pretend this humiliation ever occurred.”
He felt relief wash over him. Ken reached out to touch her arm.
Her hand sprung up and nails dug into his throat, jamming him back against a wall.
“If you ever touch me again, I’ll kill you,” she said, her breathing laboured. “Ever brag to anyone about this, I’ll kill you. If I see you look at me again, like you did tonight, like you are prone to do, I’ll kill you. Don’t think I won’t!”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You don’t tell anyone about this, Ken,” she snarled. “Not ever!”
He had just wanted to hold her.
VI.
If Lisa had returned his calls, come to visit him at university, he would have forgotten about Nora. He would have had Lisa, who loved him. Nobody else could compare. Nobody else could mean a thing.
“Ruka-chan, I’m surprised to be hearing from you,” Kamishiro said cheerfully.
Ken was lying under her as she snuggled into his chest.
“No, it’s not a bad time. How have you been?”
He could hear Ruka’s voice on the other end, so gentle and calm.
“Yeah, I’ve been taking some time away from school. I’m seeing someone and we’ve been enjoying some time in a love nest.”
A soft, concerned murmur.
“No, no, it’s nothing weird like you! Don’t worry! I didn’t meet him online. He’s a total dreamboat. Yeah, he’s older, he’s got his own place.”
He thought about calling out to her for help. It would be so easy. Just raise your voice and call out for help. Ken opened his mouth and closed it again.
“I’m really happy,” Kamishiro was saying. “Don’t be jealous, I’ll still have plenty of time for you. How’s the new school? Met anyone cute?”
She pressed the phone against her chest and whispered. “Ruka-chan has a date for the dance her school is putting on.” She giggled and pressed the phone back to her ear. “Oooh, really? He sounds great. Maybe we should do a double date sometime?”
Ken lay still, trying to push her out of his head. He closed his eyes and shifted his wrists uncomfortably. The skin was reddened and sore from the bindings.
“Yeah? Yeah, I’d love to go for coffee soon. I’ll check with my guy when I’ll be free. Yeah, yeah, I’ll let you know. Okay, bye, Ruka-chan.” She rolled her eyes and tossed her mobile aside. “I thought I’d ditch her once we hooked up, but she’s actually pretty fun to be around. You know she’s dating some senior from the neighbouring boys’ academy now? I guess she likes older men, just not as old as you, Ken-chan.” She smirked.
He nodded.
“Don’t look so sad: like I said, she was never going to be into you.”
“I’m not…”
“Let’s not talk about other girls,” she said sharply. “You’re being stupid again.”
He closed his eyes tightly.
“You know, I think I’ve always been into a more mature man.”
He opened his eyes. She was smiling. He smiled back at her but said nothing.
“I’d never sleep with a high school boy. They are all really stupid. Once in middle school, these girls who used to give me a hard time threatened to get this older boyfriend of theirs to rape me. I think that was just to scare me, though.”
Kamishiro was fiddling with her hair; she kissed along his neck, mapping his body with her hands. “My virginity was long gone by then. I had this huge crush on this delivery boy my mum was super-flirty with when I was around thirteen. He was such a loser: who’s a delivery boy at twenty-six? But he was good-looking; he had really thick hair, like you. Anyway, he was at our place getting drunk one night and passed out on the couch.”
“Did he attack you?”
That might explain it. Like him, she was confused about sex. Like him, she got misled a long time ago and maybe—
Kamishiro laughed. “God no! I was a kid, he never would have looked twice at me. No, I started fiddling with his trousers. He woke up with me on top of him.” She giggled and pushed back her hair. “He was horrified. Please, I’m prettier than my mum. I thought he was going to scream so I told him to shush or I’d scream and tell my mum that he assaulted me.”
Ken felt his stomach drop.
“He wasn’t fun after that. Like I said, he was kind of a loser. And after him, there was this pervy record shop owner, who I think just had a thing for little girls, just like you, Ken-chan.”
“I’m not like that,” he mumbled.
She ran a hand along the wound of his chest to make him wince.
“No, I suppose he was worse. He wanted me to pretend I was in elementary school or that he’d abducted me.” She rolled her eyes and snorted. “Unless you really are a pervert and that’s something you’d like to try in the future, Ken?”
“No thanks, Rin-chan.”
She shrugged and nuzzled his neck.
“After pervy record guy, I started high school and got a crush on you. So nobody else would do.” She was stroking along his crotch now.
“Is that true?”
“Is what true?”
“All that stuff about those guys?”
“Am I too unclean for you?” She was stroking him up and down.
“No. It’s just…you were so young. Playing abduction, coercing people? What about love?” he asked gently. “What about dating? You’re so young.”
“You’re such a romantic, Ken,” she said lazily. “That’s why I’m lucky.” She squeezed his cock. “Maybe it’s all true. Maybe I’m just trying to sound tough.” She started to slide him between her legs. Ken shifted his hips away.
“I’m too tired,” he mumbled.
“You’re always tired. I’m the one doing all the work anyway,” she said. Then her eyes lit up. “Wait, I have an idea!” She clambered down and, from the bag he had come to dread, she produced a small plastic egg like device.
This was something Cana had once tried to introduce to their intimacy. He never liked it. It felt too mature. He told her that it made her seem cheap.
“Rin,” he tried helplessly.
Kamishiro climbed between his spread legs and pressed a button on the device. It started to buzz and vibrate. He trembled as she moved it along his hardening cock, arched his back as it pressed over his balls.
“Rin, please—!” he stammered out. He felt his eyes clench shut in disgust as she pressed the device against his hole and gently pushed it inside. It wasn’t big, but it felt irregular, uncomfortable. He twisted his hips and clenched his buttocks to try and push it out.
He was painfully hard and leaking against his stomach now.
“It’s a love egg,” she said. “I sometimes wore it to your lessons.” She smiled at him as she mounted him and slid him down inside her. “Aaah, yeah, that’s it—!”
He clenched a eye shut, trying to shake off the pain and itchiness of the buzzing egg inside him. He gasped and twisted his head to the side.
“So, I told you about all of my old romances,” Kamishiro said, her hands on his chest. “Do you have any other ones you’d like to share?”
Ken shook his head.
“What about your first love?”
He ignored her.
The knife was back in her hand.
“I bet,” she said, tracing the blade along his stomach, “you still think about her from time to time. Your first.”
Ken closed his eyes.
“You remember her, don’t you? I looked her up as well. Lisa? Lisa Takizawa? Pretty? Too skinny? Wore big, boxy glasses?”
“Rin-chan, I thought you said that you didn’t want to talk about other girls,” he tried.
She shifted her hips slightly to make him gasp. Then the knife pinched at the skin of his chest.
“Ken-chan,” she cooed, “I want to talk about Lisa Takizawa.”
She kept moving, keeping her pace slow.
“Tell me about her.”
“Lisa was 13. S—She was my first girlfriend.”
“And you fucked her, right?”
“R-Rin—!”
“It’s not crass. You did, right?”
“We were each other’s first lovers.”
“How romantic,” she said mockingly. “Did she want to? Most 13-year old girls are prudes.”
“Lisa wasn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
The knife again.
“Yes.”
“She didn’t want to,” Kamishiro whispered, digging the blade into his skin. She started moving her hips harder now, slamming her lower body down onto his. “She said no and you told her that she was pretty—a—and that you wouldn’t believe she loved you if she didn’t fuck you.”
The knife tore along his stomach.
“I did—!” Ken sobbed.
“You’re such a pig,” she said, laughing.
“I’m not!” he yelled. “I loved Lisa. I loved her!”
The knife tore along his stomach. Hot blood gushing around his navel.
“She didn’t want me anymore,” he said. “She pushed me away. She left me and didn’t even say—!”
The knife retracted.
“I went off to college, I wrote to her. She never wrote back. She had a new boyfriend when I came home for the holidays—! I would have stayed with her—!”
“So you could rape her some more?”
Ken’s burned wrists ached as he tried to sit up, snarling, spitting at her. Fresh tears ran down his cheeks as he wriggled against Kamishiro’s bucking hips.
“Like you’re doing to me? You fucked up little hypocrite?”
The knife jerked up to his throat.
“What else can I do? It’s how I was made.”
He froze and she lowered her knife back to the wound she was making on his stomach. She continued to dig it along, making him wince.
“If you had bothered to look Lisa up—” She moved her hips with frantic aggression now, tight and wet around him. “—you would know she got knocked up. Nine months hard labour while you were in college, then back to her ordinary life. H—her grandparents took in the baby in. Lisa didn’t have to be a mummy until she finished school.”
“You’re lying—!”
“I never lie about my poor mess of a mum,” she said.
“No, no, no—!” Ken groaned, thrashing against the bindings. The zip of the wire rushed through him and he felt bile rising in his throat. The buzz of the egg inside him made his bowels tremble.
“She was this little 18-year-old office lady with a five-year-old girl. Q—Quite the appealing date, right, Daddy?” Kamishiro dug her nails in as she rode him faster.
“You really did a number on her. N—not quite as nice and shy as she used to be.” Kamishiro laughed at the terror on his face, revolving her hips and slamming him back all the way inside her.
“Doesn’t care much for me. We fucked up her life together, Daddy. What a team! My stepfather couldn’t fill the hole in her heart that we left—! Neither did the booze or the credit cards or the sex—! Aaah! I’m getting close!”
“You’re lying! You’re lying!”
Instead of “maybe,” she just laughed and laughed.
“Get off me! Get off!” Ken screamed. He was thrashing violently now, trying to dig his heels into the bed. “Get off me, Kamishiro! Let me go! Get off—!”
She was laughing, cutting wildly with the knife. He looked down, saw her wet hips bucking up and down. He saw a crude, sliced in heart on his stomach. Ken vomited on the pillow beside him. Groaning and screaming in horror, his arms and legs flailing, he could hear her calling him as she came: “Daddy—! Daddy—! Daddy—!”
One of the wires gave a thud as he pulled the right bedpost loose. She didn’t notice. She was holding the knife. Her head tossed back. Her small breasts bouncing as she moved. Ken let out a rage-fuelled scream. He reached up and grabbed her by the neck. Her eyes widened as she dropped the knife. He shoved Kamishiro onto her back in the sweat-sodden patch he had been restrained in. She was still laughing when he slammed his knee into her stomach. His trembling sore hand, weak from lack of circulation letting his left hand free from the post. His legs locked over each other as he towered over her.
She was laughing when he punched her. Still weak from being restrained, he started hitting her again and again. Fists pummelling her face, crashing into her flat chest, her pimpled stomach. The buzz of the egg inside him filling him with disgust as he hit her again and again. Tears rolled down his cheeks, spittle on his chin.
“You bitch! You bitch! You bitch!”
There was blood on his fist. Kamishiro still smiling, still smirking through all that blood.
“Daddy,” she groaned.
“You liar! You’re a liar! I’ll kill you—!”
Arms seized him from behind. He was dragged from her, pulled from the bed, the wires zipping around his feet. He saw his neighbour, the divorced salaryman from 903 above him, white as a sheet. The old woman from the floor above, rushing to Kamishiro, sobbing.
“What the hell is this, Yasuhisa?” his neighbour was saying.
Ken felt the world dissolve around him. He started to speak. Then he closed his mouth.
“He wouldn’t let me leave,” Kamishiro croaked.
Eyes on him. Eyes closing around him. Disgust coming from them like a bad smell.
Kamishiro sat up, blood dripping from her burst lip, glaring at him through blackened eyes. “I love him so much, but he just wanted to hurt me. M—my name is Rin Kamishiro. Mr. Yasuhisa is my teacher. I thought…I thought he loved me.”
She was crying, but it didn’t reach her eyes. One of his neighbours came and put his coat around her shaking bare shoulders.
His next-door neighbour was holding him down, as if he was not already restrained by his ankles. He heard someone out of his vision mention something about the police. Kamishiro got up from the bed, the old woman from the floor above, holding her arm, as if she couldn’t walk on her own.
“It’s okay,” she was saying to Kamishiro. “You’re safe now.”
“Kamishiro,” he gagged, glancing up at her feet as she walked out of the bedroom. “Kamishiro—! Wait—! Tell me about Lisa—! Tell me about her! You have to—!”
“You leave her alone,” his next-door neighbour snarled at him. “Haven’t you done that young girl enough harm, you pervert?”
He glanced up, his head cold against the bedroom floor. Kamishiro glanced back at him from the front door; she had retrieved her goblin mask from the door handle. She smiled at him through the bruising and the blood.
“Bye, bye,” she mouthed.
Ken could hear the sirens in the street. The whispering of his neighbours. The dripping of the blood on his fists. He closed his eyes. He thought of them all: Lisa, Yuri, Cana, Ruka, all gathered amongst his neighbours, whispering and quiet. Kamishiro was beside them, staring and smiling. And then, in the corner, was Nora. Young and lovely as that day in the park, smoking a cigarette in her school uniform.
Her mouth twisted into a smile as she started to laugh.
Everything else seemed to fade away.
***
For all installments from True Love, click here.
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Rachael J. Llewellyn is an English writer living in Wales, where she is about to start her PhD exploring memory and folklore in the novel. Her work aims to challenge its readers in its uncomfortable social and moral themes. Her fiction has been previously published in The Tinderbox, published by Warwick University—where she completed her MA—and in Wordsmith HQ’s webzine, Freckled Ink.
