Lian Hearn - Heaven's Net Is Wide

He sat cross-legged in front of her.

She raised herself and said, “I came to thank Lord Otori for his kindness to myself and my mother. You honored my father in death. We are forever in your debt.”

“I am sorry for your father’s death. The bridge is one of the marvels of the Middle Country. Its construction adds to the glory of the clan. His death enhanced that. I thought it should be commemorated.”

“My family have sent gifts-nothing of any significance, food and wine. It’s asking too great an honor, but may I serve you them now?”

His single instinct was to touch her, to hold her, but he also wanted to treat her with courtesy, to respect her grief; he wanted to know the woman who had cried out in the moment when her father was entombed, not merely the courtesan who would eventually give herself to him because he had expressed a desire for her.

“If you will share them with me,” he replied. His heart was pounding.

She bowed again and went on her knees to the door, where she called quietly to the maids. Her voice was soft, yet she spoke with complete authority. A few moments later he heard the soft pad of the maid’s socked feet, and the women exchanged a few words. Then Akane returned with a tray of food and wine, bowls and shallow dishes.

She gave him one of the dishes and he held it with both hands as she poured wine into it. He drank it in one gulp; she refilled the dish and then, when he had drunk a second time, held out her own so he could pour wine for her.

The food was chosen and prepared to increase the sensitivity of mouth and tongue: the orange melting flesh of sea urchin, slippery oysters and scallops, a delicate broth flavored with ginger and perilla. Then fruits, cool and juice-filled: loquats and peaches. Both of them drank sparingly, just enough to set their senses on fire. By the time they had finished eating, Shigeru felt he had been transported to an enchanted palace where a princess was bewitching him completely.

Watching his face, Akane thought, He has never been in love. He will fall in love for the first time with me.

She was also beginning to ache with desire.

He had not known it would be like this-the driving compulsion to lose himself within the body of this woman, the complete surrender to her skin, her mouth, her fingers. He had expected there would be the physical release-as in dreams or by his own hand-under his control, swift, pleasurable but not overwhelming or annihilating. He knew she was a woman of pleasure, a courtesan who had learned her craft with many men; he was unprepared for the fact that she seemed to adore his body and took the same delight in it as he did in hers. He had never known intimacy, had barely talked to a woman since his childish conversations with Chiyo: it was as if half his self, which had been asleep in darkness most of his life, had suddenly been caressed and startled into life.

“I have been waiting all summer for you,” she said.

“I have been thinking about you since I saw you at the bridge,” he replied. “I am sorry you had to wait so long.”

“Sometimes it’s good to wait. No one appreciates what is easily acquired. I saw you ride away. People said you were going to teach the Tohan a lesson! I knew you would send for me. But the days seemed endless.” She paused for a moment and then said very quietly, “We met once before, you will not remember. It was so long ago. It was I who helped you when your brother nearly drowned.”

“You will not believe how many times I dreamed about you,” he said, marveling at the workings of fate.

He wanted to tell her everything: the torture of the Hidden, the dying children, the courage of Tomasu and Nesutoro, the fierce satisfying skirmish with the Tohan; Iida Sadamu; his disappointment and anger at his father’s reaction; his distrust of his uncles. He knew he should be guarded, that he should trust no one, but he could not help himself. He opened his heart to her as to no one else in his life and found her mind as receptive and willing to accommodate him as her body.

He knew he was in danger of the very thing his father had warned him against-becoming infatuated with Akane. You will not fall in love with her, his father had told him. Yet how could he prevent that happening when she delighted him completely? At midnight it seemed impossible, but when he woke again at dawn, he lay thinking about his father’s words, making a huge effort to pull back from the edge of the pit, as dangerous and inescapable as the Ogre’s Storehouse. He told himself that she was not beautiful, that she was a prostitute, that he could never trust her: she would never bear his children; she was there only to give him pleasure. It was unthinkable to fall in love with such women: he would not repeat his father’s weakness.

She opened her eyes, saw he was awake, and drew him to her again. His body responded and he cried out again at the moment of release, but afterward he spoke to her coldly, told her to leave after the first meal was served, without saying she was to come again or what future arrangements might be made.

He spent the rest of the day in some turmoil, wishing she was still with him, hoping he had not offended her, longing to see her again, yet fearing becoming entrapped by her. He wished he was back in Chigawa-dealing with the Tohan seemed simple and straightforward.

AKANE SENT FOR her palanquin and left with as much dignity as she could muster, but she was offended and mystified by his sudden coldness.

“He doesn’t like me after all,” she said to Haruna. “He seemed to at first, very much. He even talked to me, as if he had never talked to a woman in that way in his life. But he sent me away this morning.” She frowned. “It was almost insulting,” she added. “I won’t forget it.”

“Of course he liked you,” Haruna said. “There isn’t a man alive who wouldn’t like you. But he is the heir to the clan: he’s not going to fall in love with you. Don’t expect him to. He’s not another Hayato.”

But Akane still missed Hayato. She liked having men in love with her. She had been flattered by Lord Shigeru’s interest in her, and she found him very pleasing. She wanted to be with him again; she wanted him to love her.

“I don’t expect we’ll be hearing from him again,” she said. “Everyone knows I spent the night at the castle-and why. It’s so humiliating. Can’t you put it about that I spurned him?”

“I give him three days,” Haruna replied.

Akane spent the next few days in a very bad temper, quarreling with Haruna and being spiteful to the other girls. It was still very hot-she would have liked to walk to the volcano, but she could not go out in the sun. The business of the pleasure house went on all around her, day and night, sometimes arousing her desire, sometimes her scorn for the insatiable lust of men. On the evening of the third day, after the sun had set, she walked to the shrine to see the flowers and shrubs planted by the old priest. Some exotic yellow flower whose name she did not know gave out a heavy sweet fragrance, and huge lilies gleamed white in the dusk. The old man was watering them with a wooden bucket, his robe hitched up into his sash.

“What’s up with you, Akane? You’ve been alone all summer! Don’t tell me you’ve gone off men!”

“If I had a grain of sense, I would,” she replied.

“You need one of my amulets! It’ll spark your interest again. Or better still, come and live with me. I’d make you a good husband.”

“I’ll do that,” she said, looking at him fondly. “I’ll make you tea and scrub your back, clean the wax from your ears, and pluck your beard.”

“And keep me warm at night, don’t forget that!” He laughed so much that he began to cough and had to put the bucket down.