Black Manga

"Here's what I'm wondering," Akemi said with smoke punctuating each word. She pursed her lips and exhaled the excess smoke in her lungs. "Do I tell the preacher of the most respected Korean Christian church in DeKalb County that I found his daughter smoking and reading porn?" She paused to take another puff which she again snapped back. She noticed Stacy's eyes glistening as tears began to form at the edges. Akemi felt a thrill surging through her body. It's all about dominance. "Or do I chalk this up as a young girl's indiscretion," she then focused her eyes on Sara, "led, no doubt, by the poor misjudgment of her best friend?"

Sara turned her eyes away from her mother. She would kill for a cigarette right now.

"Mrs. Lee..." Stacy began.

"Nakagawa," Akemi interjected icily. "I kept my maiden name."

"Ms. Nakagawa," Stacy said with a swallow, "I'm so sorry. Please don't blame Sara. She didn't force me to smoke or look through this magazine."

Akemi was taken aback. She expected an argument out of this beautiful teenager. Instead, she was touched by the willingness of Stacy to stick up for her friend while also taking personal responsibility for her own actions. Immediately Akemi's tone softened. She reached over to the coffee table and tapped some ash into the ashtray.

"Look," she said with an expression that showed understanding, "I know the kind of urges you both are going through right now in life. I went through them myself. And oh, what a tumultuous time it was," she added wistfully. "I don't think there is any reason for your father to know about what happened here today. After all," she said as she picked up the hentai magazine and placed it on the desk behind her, "we all have secrets that are best left uncovered."

Akemi's meaning was clear to Stacy. "I understand," she said with the relief of a criminal who had just been spared execution. "No one will know what I saw here today."

Akemi smiled sweetly at the young woman. "Good girl. You should be off now. Sara and I need to have a chat."

Stacy looked worriedly at her friend.

"I'll be okay," Sara whispered.

"We'll see," Akemi said, once again reestablishing dominance. "Oh, and Stacy," she added as the teen got up and opened the cabin door, "be sure and wash up before you head home."

Stacy smiled. "Thanks, Ms. Nakagawa."

-----------------

Silence filled the room for several seconds after Stacy left. Akemi wondered if she should speak Japanese or English. The former was best used when showing her displeasure, but Sara was most comfortable with the latter after spending 8 years in America.

"Where do we begin?" Akemi asked in English as she tapped her cigarette again over the ashtray. "That you and your friend were going through my things in my personal sanctuary, or that you were both smoking?"

"Mom, why are you drawinghentai?" Sara asked quickly but earnestly.

The question threw Akemi off-guard. Apparently her daughter also knew something about establishing dominance. "What I draw is not your concern," she replied in an effort to retake control of the situation.

"Mom, those drawings are so graphic. Why are you publishing this smut?"

Akemi was suddenly flustered. "Honey," she began after taking another puff and tapping the ash off of her 120, "hentai is very profitable in Japan, and..."

"You're a best-selling author of children's manga, Mom," Sara said insistently. "This isn't about the money."

Sara understood that she and her mother had an honest relationship; a close bond that was formed living alone together in Japan and being foreigners in their new home in Georgia. They were practically sisters. She decided to lay all of her cards on the table. "I want to know," she said in a serious tone, "because Ilike reading it. And I like smoking when I do."

Akemi was conflicted. She sat back in her chair and brought the 120 up to her mouth for a full, tip glowing puff. This was not a situation that called for dominance; it was one that called for an honest conversation between mother and daughter.

"Light a cigarette," she said softly as she pointed at the humidor.

Sara didn't hesitate for a second. She opened the top of the box, quickly plucked out a 120 that went straight into her lips, and lit it freehanded, taking a hard puff that she immediately inhaled, and then a second puff just as hard while smoke cascaded down through her nostrils. Akemi was impressed with her style. She also realized that her daughter wasn't well on her way to addiction; she was already there.

"How long have you been smoking?"

Sara sat back on the couch, considerably more relaxed now that she had the companionship of Virginia between her fingers. "One month," she replied in a smoky exhale. It was actually closer to eight years that she had been sneaking puffs off of her Mom's unattended lit cigarettes in an ashtray whenever the opportunity arose. She brought the long cigarette to the center of her lips and took a gentle puff. She then nosehaled the smoky contents in her mouth and held it in her lungs for several seconds before exhaling a creamy river of smoke. Once again she had wondered why she had waited so long to take up her mother's and step-father's habit.

Akemi had to be honest with herself: she loved the fact that her daughter had embraced the pleasure of smoking. It was like a confirmation of her own 30 year addiction. Not only that, her daughter was a fan of hentai, yet another common interest the two shared. She held up the magazine. "And this? When did you find it?"

Sara had just finished taking a puff and felt her nipples tighten when she saw the cover of the brother and sister engaged in a smoky kiss. "At the same time I started smoking. I found it sitting under this pile of manga on the coffee table."

"Hmmm," the mother replied as she fingered through the pages while dangling a freshly lit Virginia Slims between her lips. "I was wondering where I misplaced it." She was also not surprised that her daughter had decided to start smoking at the same time she found the magazine. Akemi turned to the page where the brother and sister were engaged in anal sex. "It's pretty good stuff," she said approvingly as she showed the image to her daughter. "This issue was a huge best seller in Japan. I pulled it out because an American publisher wants it translated into English." She continued to flip through the pages, then paused and raised her eyes to Sara. "So you can still read Japanese?" she asked in surprise.

"Most of it," Sara said proudly.

"Then you know what it's about."

"Incest," Sara said softly, yet the word cut through the airspace like a butcher's knife. The greatest taboo of all: sexual relations between family members. The sound of the word itself invokes something unholy and disgusting.

"Yup," Akemi said with her eyes downward as she closed the magazine and tossed it onto the coffee table. Her daughter had been honest with her. It was time for her to reciprocate. She moved from her chair and sat down on the couch next to Sara.

"You see those awards?" she said pointing with her cigarette at a collection of framed certificates on the wall above her desk. "They say I understand what children in Japan feel as they grow up in a conformist society that grinds individualism into dust." She paused to take a long puff, snapped back the smoke which she then held in her lungs, and then exhaled a creamy cone which appeared to climb upstream towards the award on the wall.

"But there is something else I understand," she said seriously. "I understand that Japan is a society that is starving for intimacy. This is a culture that is so sexually frustrated that the population is literally in decline because so many people have stopped having sex with each other. I know what this culture is like because I born into it, but I also have an outsider's view after my years living in America. Tens of millions of Japanese are trapped in a cultural prison of their own making." She reached over to the coffee table and tapped her cigarette over the ashtray. "I can't change that, but I can provide some needed relief. My hentai - published under a pseudonym - won't spark a population boom, but it will provide some emotional escape for my readers. And, well, to be honest...it's also an escape for me."

"Are you unhappy, Mom? I mean, like, marriage wise?" Sara asked.

"Oh, no, honey," she said wrapping her arm around her daughter's shoulders. "Steven makes me very happy. He and I are soulmates," she said with an assuredness that Sara took as genuine. "He's a good man, and he's a good father to you and Kevin -- that is, when he's not away on business. It's just..." she paused as she searched for the right words to explain her feelings. "We all have a dark side, you know? In some of us, it's really strong."

Sara had a concerned look on her face as she stared at her mother.

"Oh, don't worry honey," Akemi added with a chuckle, "I'm not an axe murderer or anything. But I do," she looked up at the ceiling in embarrassment, "like...sex."

Sara giggled.

"When I was your age, my friends used to call me 'Kinky Akemi' because I could draw the most erotic cartoons imaginable. We'd all get together in my bedroom and smoke up a storm while we'd all...um...masturbate."

She looked at her daughter with some embarrassment and immediately noticed the scandalized look on her face. "Tell me you and Stacy weren't doing the same thing before I came in here," she added jocularly.

"Well," Sara said bowing her head, "Stacy wasn't."

Akemi bumped her daughter's shoulder with her own. "You're a Nakagawa, alright," she said lovingly. "Drawing hentai is an outlet for me. It keeps that dark side in check."

"Hmmm," Sara hummed as she brought the VS120 up to the center of her mouth and took a slow puff. She was beginning to understand her attraction to hentai. She must have a dark side, too, like her mother. "What would happen if you let it run free," she asked thoughtfully, "the dark side, I mean?"

"Oh," Akemi said with the wave of her hands, "Armageddon! Sometimes I feel like I'm on the edge of a precipice, just barely holding on; and I wonder to myself, what if I just let go? What would that feel like? What would I do if I moved the fantasy off the pages and into reality?" She took another puff and snapped it back, then turned towards her daughter with smoke cascading down from her nostrils. "Best not to think about it." Then she added, "And I wasn't kidding about hentai being profitable. I have tens of millions of Yen sitting in an Osaka bank account that you'll one day inherit. Japanese just eat this stuff up."

The two sat in silence for a minute with the only sound being the soft hiss of exhales as they blew streams of smoke in front of themselves. Akemi then spoke up.

"So you like my work. Can I ask what you're feeling when you go through the pages and view the images?"

Sara blushed.

"I want you to be totally honest with me, honey," Akemi said in an understanding tone.

"Well," Sara said with a slight chuckle, "It turns me on." She took a quick puff, inhaled, and exhaled in one smooth flow before crushing her cigarette in the ashtray. She then turned to her mom and said quite excitedly, "It's like watching a porn video online, but also different. With an online video, the man cums and it's over and done within a few seconds. But with hentai," she placed a fresh cigarette in her lips and let it dangle as she lit it. She then reached over to the coffee table and picked up the comic book. She flipped to a page where the brother's dick was ejaculating all over his sister's face. She placed the 120 back in her fingers. "With hentai," she said softly as her fingers slowly stroked the face of the girl on the page, "it's frozen in time. The image itself is seared into your memory. And because I'm smoking while viewing it, every time after that when I take a puff, I'll think of these images. It's very..." she paused, searching for the right word as she looked into her mother's face, "...erotic."

"For me, too," Akemi said with a giggle which became so infectious that Sara started giggling, as well. "And there's more where this came from." Akemi stood up, pulled a key out of her pocket, and unlocked the second cabinet in the room. When she opened the door, Sara saw that hundreds of comic books were stacked on the shelves.

"Oh my God!" Sara exclaimed. "Are these all hentai?"

"Yup," Akemi answered proudly.

"And are they all drawn by you?"

"Most of them," Akemi responded as she held the 120 horizontally to her face. She brought the cigarette to her lips and took a deep puff, French inhaled, and then blew a cone of smoke towards the books. "The rest I keep for erotic inspiration."

"Research," Sara said mockingly.

"Yes," Akemi replied with her signature radiant smile. "Research." She walked over to the coffee table, stubbed out her cigarette and reached for a new VS120. "So I suppose you'll want to be smoking openly now," she said before lighting the dangling cigarette freehanded. She took a puff, inhaled, and blasted out a cloud of smoke that was split in two directions by the cigarette in the center of her lips.

"Oh, no," Sara said as she placed the elbow of her right arm on the back of her left hand so that she could comfortably hold the cigarette up close to her face. "I don't want anyone to know."

Akemi was very confused. "Why? Your Dad isn't going to care. He's probably already wondering what's taking you so long."

Sara smiled. Was it so obvious that she was going to become a smoker? "No, it's not Dad that I care about; it's Kevin."

Again, Akemi was very confused and asked, "Why should that matter? He's used to being around smokers."

Sara was suddenly very uncomfortable by this conversation. "Well, I..." she hemmed and hawed as she tried to avoid answering the question.

"Sara," her mother asked in a deeply concerned tone, "is there something going on between you and Kevin?"

Sara gave in. "No," she said in exasperation as she sat back down on the couch, "but Iwish there was." She took a puff and inhaled, but the smoke didn't feel nearly as good as before.

Akemi sat down at her desk chair with a thud and brought both hands up to the top of her head. "Does Kevin know how you feel?" she asked after several seconds of silence.

"Pfft," Sara mumbled in disgust. "For someone who wants to be a writer, he's pretty oblivious when it comes to matters of the heart." She took another puff and again inhaled. The smoke still didn't feel right, so she decided to stub the half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray.

"Certain things need to be kept on the pages of a comic book," Akemi counseled. "Incest is one of them."

"Mom," Sara said misty-eyed, "this isn't about sex, okay? I love him! I always have since I first saw him walk into our Osaka apartment. He's my soulmate."

"Honey," the mother replied in an understanding tone, "it's obvious to me that you believe that. But you're still so young. How do you know he's your soulmate until you go out into the world and meet other men?

"How did you know that Steven was your soulmate? You had practically only talked to him for a few minutes before you sent Kevin and me down to the playground for an hour."

Akemi blushed. She was surprised not only at her daughter's skill in her native tongue, but also in her memory. Again, she tried the motherly, understanding tone. "I was in my 30s when I met Steven. I had lived half a lifetime, and so had he. We knew when we met each other that the universe had brought us together."

"So if it had a plan for you, why is it so hard," Sara asked her Mom sincerely, "to believe that the universe has a plan for Kevin and me?"

Akemi sat silently for a moment as she contemplated what to say next. She wanted to choose her words very carefully. Eight years she had been waiting for this conversation. Now it was time to take the next step.

"Honey," she began, "there are no words that I can offer to ease the emotional pain you are experiencing. But..." She stood up from her chair and pulled a large black three-ring binder from the previously locked cabinet. "As I do for millions of my readers in Japan, I can offer you a means of escape from it." She opened up the binder and thumbed through the pages. "In my blackest, most erotic moods...particularly when Steven is away...I put my emotions, my desires, my darkest thoughts onto a page." She closed the binder and handed it to Sara as she once again took a seat in the desk chair. She puffed slowly on her shrinking 120 as she waited in anticipation for Sara's reaction.

Sara read out loud the words which were written in English rather than kanji. "Black Manga." She looked at her mother quizzically. "It almost sounds like Black Magic."

"And in many ways it is," Akemi said after guiding a wall of smoke from her mouth up into her nostrils. "It's powerful stuff," she added. "My best work, but very dark. Very intense. You may be shocked at what you see in these pages."

"Ohhhh," Sara said with a chuckle as she began to open the binder, "I don't think there is anything more today that can shock..." Sara stopped talking and immediately felt her pussy moisten and the tips of her breasts harden. She was looking at a drawing of one Asian female teen sitting in the lap of a white male teen with his dick inserted up her ass. Both had their eyes closed with expressions of ecstasy on their faces. The young man's mouth was cracked open, a cigarette clenched between his teeth and smoke pouring out from between his lips. The female had a long cigarette between her fingers and smoke floating from her open mouth with her head cocked slightly upwards. She recognized the faces on these drawings. The teens were herself and Kevin.

She turned the page.

A young female Asian teen was on her knees giving a blow job to an adult white male who leered at the girl with a lecherous smile. Behind the girl was a young white male teenager, an expression of painful pleasure ripping across his face, whose hand was wrapped around the base of his dick as it ejaculated into the girl's hair, while an adult Asian woman sat on a chair, her legs spread wide as she masturbated with a radiant smile while watching the scene. Everyone in the drawing was smoking, the females 120's and the males all-white 100s. The resemblances in this erotic family portrait were unmistakable.

As Sara stared at the picture, she was mesmerized by it. She could feel a salty taste in her mouth, and her pussy felt like it was ready to blow, though she knew that she was not in any way about to have an orgasm. There was a cool sensation in her chest which started to expand throughout her body. It was, she concluded, the same sensation from smoking a menthol cigarette, but stronger. It was so pleasant. She felt so light, as if she were floating. These sensations were all very confusing. "Mom," she said as her breathing grew heavy, "these drawings are...dark. They make me feel strange."

"There is an inexplicable power that emanates from these drawings," Akemi said before placing a fresh 120 into the center of her lips and taking a gentle puff with a nod.

"Does Dad know?"

"Nobody knows," Akemi whispered, feeling horny herself now that she was showing these images to her daughter. "These images I don't publish at all. They're too powerful."

There were hundreds upon hundreds of drawings in the binder, each one as black and erotic as the other. Sara came across one drawing in which her mother stared up at Kevin with submissive eyes and a freshly lit cigarette horizontally jutting out of the corner of her mouth. Kevin glared at her with a sneer as his dick ejaculated between her breasts. In a way, Sara could feel both the ejaculation AND the cum dripping onto her own breast; not in a physical sense, but as if it were a memory still fresh in her mind. It was a sensation unlike anything she had ever felt.