Shikata Ga Nai

A favourite teaching engagement was the annual intensive August fortnights in a scenic English location for Japanese wanting to improve their English while on vacation. This account of the last year is a love-story, though the loving was all too brief.

Part of the enjoyment of these events was the competence and energy of the course director, Akira. Cheerful and encouraging, she inspired confidence and commitment in all participants. She was middle-aged, with a mop of short black hair, emphatic eyebrows and a plump, smiling mouth. She was short and a little overweight, nut that made her seem comfortably maternal. An academic, she was erudite in English language and literature.

Then came the seventh year, and she was different. Still efficient, but her vigour and good cheer seemed forced. This wasn't apparent to those didn't know her, but we three regular teachers were perturbed. She seemed unwell in body or mind, though her patience and gentle humour were as before. We hoped she might confide in us.

Late on the thirteenth evening of the course, I was in my hotel room preparing for next day. There was a knock on the door and I opened to find Akira standing in the empty corridor, apparently tense, a nervous smile on those ripe lips. She stepped in and began to pace about, as if the hard work had left her keyed up with adrenaline.

I sat on the bed and signalled she was welcome to the desk chair, and eventually she sat down, smoothing down her skirt in a fussy manner untypical of her usual carelessness about her clothing. She crossed and clamped her legs together, which didn't stop the upper one jigging up and down. She was snatching glances at me, checking my response to this visit and anxious I might find it unwelcome.

Eventually she drew breath sharply and asked, 'Norma, do you know why I'm here?'

'Of course. You want to check my coverage of the disappearing subjunctive.'

She laughed, aware now that I had an idea why she'd come. 'Well, that, of course...'

'Maybe you'd like me to guess?'

'But that would be difficult, because we Orientals are inscrutable.'

'Oh no, Akira, I can scrute you fine.'

'Must be from spending too long with you transparent Occidentals.'

'Why don't you stop trying to hold it in and come and sit with me?'

'You might take advantage of me. But I'll risk it.'

'Why don't you take advantage of me?' I asked. 'I have a listening ear.'

She slumped against me and I put an arm round her.

'What do your scrute, Norma?'

'You are suffering grief with a side-order of depression, Akira.'

'You've scruted me, but Shikata ga nai.' She said, putting her head on my shoulder.

'I know that one. There's nothing can be done. But if that's so why are you here? We'll get to that. Meanwhile, you have two choices, Akira,' I said, 'To tell me or not, and you bury your face in my solacing bosom or not.'

'I will tell you, Norma, and what else are the bosoms of older ladies like us for?

I manoeuvred us onto the bed, lying with her head as agreed. 'You know the story, one of the five, seven or nine basic plots.'

'Your partner has left you. Probably for a younger lover.'

'Is there no end to your scruting?'

'Time to kick the bravado, then,' I said. 'Spill the soy beans. The breasts can take it.'

'Just one more scrute?'

'It's a woman.'

Now she began to weep, leaking a few tear through my shirt into my bra, then sobbing, shoulders heaving, gasping and groaning. As the storm abated she said, 'After thirty years, I was fat, she no longer loved me, didn't want to sleep with me.'

'And just as you were leaving for England, of course.'

There was no more to say and we lay still for a while, till she said, 'I've soaked you.'

'I can always remove the wet garments,' I said, 'Though I don't want to shock you.'

'I could always keep you in countenance.'

'I'd like that,' I said, sitting up to peel off my blouse, 'I've been longing to see your countenances for seven years.'

'You have?' She sat up.

'Oh yes, by the end of our first staff meeting I was in love, with three erections.'

'We women are lucky we can have three, aren't we?'

'Undo my bra and you'll see two of them now.'

'Yes, I see. But you never said anything.'

'I knew you were reserved.'

'In both senses?'

'Well, the one dictated the other.' I dried my breasts with my blouse.

'Those are lovely countenances, Norma, and quite large.'

'Hers are smaller, so mine seem big by comparison?'

'Her are cherries, while yours are melons.'

'Honeydew. I hope you'll try them.'

There was a pause. She stood and said, 'Do really want to, Norma? Aren't you thinking this Jap dyke has just come because she's frustrated?'

'Or wants to balance the equation now her partner's sexing with someone else?'

'Well, perhaps she simply wants a cathartic come.'

'I love it when you talk dirty,' I said. 'And I know why you're here.'

She took off her blouse, gazing into my eyes, and turned for me to unhitch. Then she stood with her back to me for some moments and I said, 'No-one else has seen them for thirty years, so you're shy. You feel no-one else should see them,'

'You want to see them?'

'I want to make them tingle and swell.'

'I love it when you talk dirty,' she said, 'But I must warn you that Nipponese nipples always point to the East.'

She turned and sat beside me. 'But they're pointing straight at me,' I said.

'Do you like these breasts? She said they'd gone floppy. Do you want to touch them?'

I'd been awaiting the invitation, careful to progress with her permission. I hefted them in my hands. 'They're quite heavy, but beautiful, and those Nipponipples are superb.'

'She said they'd got rough and stuck out like sore thumbs.'

'You know, you don't have to consider her comments any more. Listen to mine.'

'I know you want to reassure me, so you might put on a gloss on things.'

'Now, Akira, you know me better than that. Nothing but the truth from me. And I love those nips.' Still holding her breasts I ran my thumbs over them. 'And now they're pointing at me even more. Oh, look at the way those areolas are puckering!'

She shuddered. 'That feels good. Can you...would you suckle?'

Again, I'd been waiting for permission. I tongued one and thumbed the other, and she cradled my head and murmured with the pleasure, but I sensed that she was, as with her good cheer and humour, forcing it, wanting to give herself into my hands but also holding back.

Aware of this difficulty herself, she said, 'Oh, Norma, I came to you for us to make love, and I'm inhibited, like some coy little virgin.'

'It's not shikata ga nai, dear Akira. You didn't come for sex, you came for sympathy, which is fine, with or without the naked nipples.'

'But, Norma, I'm desperate for it. It would help me so much, to make me a proper woman again.'

I changed tack. 'Leave it to me, then.' I stood, drew her to her fee, unzipped her skirt and drew it off. Without pause I dragged down her shiny silk knickers and embraced her, running my hands down her back onto her bottom.

'It's not a bad old bum, is it?' she said.

'I love the way it slopes away from your waist and makes these magnificent mounds.'

'It sags, though, doesn't it?'

'It overhangs, but that makes these deep under-cheek creases for me to hook my fingers in, like this.'

'How strange and moving to press my breasts to yours. Exciting and soothing.'

I sat her down and swung her legs up onto the bed. She lay passively, eyes closed, awaiting whatever I might do, and I stepped to the bedside cabinet, opened the drawer and took out the little bottle. I gently pared her legs enough so that I could kneel between them. Without speaking I opened the bottle, poured lavender oil into my palms and began to massage her feet Lifting her heels onto my shoulders I gained access to her ankles and calves, and slowly moved up her thighs.

Stopping short of her labia I slid onto her flanks, up her sides and onto her breasts. Those I gently squeezed and palpated, pressing the nipples with the heels of my hands. Then I progressed back down her body until I was holding her hips. She was breathing deeply, both relaxed and half hoping I might go on downwards and inwards onto and into her vulva. But instead I commanded her to turn onto her back for me to manipulate her shoulders and travel down her arms and cross onto her lower back.

'Now I began to speak. 'Akira-san, I am your bath-house masseuse. I am to make peace in your body. I will stroke you to give you pleasure. I will touch your secret places bring you release.' I went downwards to knead and compress her cheeks, harder and harder, dragging them upwards to spread her crack and pull on her lips. They parted a little with a slight sucking sound.

I helped her turn over, and, at last, allowed myself to study her pudenda, before resuming the massage, just above the knees, ascending the thighs until my the webs between my forefingers and thumbs were caressing the edges of her labia majora. 'Now, Akira-san, it's time.'

I swept my hands alternately over her vulva, pressing gently, without delving. 'It is my role, my joy to do this. I am not making sex, I am making comfort. Take the comfort, Akira-san.' Only then did I slide my oily thumbs into her groove and glide along its length, stopping just short of her clit. Quite naturally one or other slipped into and out of her vestibule. 'Does this please you, Akira-san? Shall I stop?'

'No, no. Go on, go on. The feeling is growing.'

I edged a thumb to the clitoris and held it there a moment, then withdrew down the slipper crease. She moved her hips towards me to try and re-make the contact, and after a moment I not only brought back the thumb-tip and nuzzled the little erection. She shuddered, raised her hips and said, 'Yes, please, please, more.'

'Akira-san can feel the special feeling growing?'

'Yes, she can go all the way.'

'This is the comfort coming, Akira-san. Do you feel it climbing?' I pushed two hooked fingers into her vagina and felt for the spongey spot just inside. As I pressed into it I slowed the clitoral stroking, then speeded up again. She began to gasp and her pelvis thrashed up and down.

'It is orgasmic now, Akira-san,' I said, and she came long and hard.

She lay still a while, then said, 'As you see it's not true what's said about the orientation of us Oriental ladies.'

'That notion that your slits go east-west rather than north-south? I never believed it.'

'What do you think of it? Do you like it?'

'It's lovely,' I said. 'I see you trim that teasing tuft. It looks like a tiny welcome mat.'

'Well, Norma, you're certainly welcome.'

'And your inner lips don't show between the outer ones until they open.'

'You like that?'

'I would love whatever your sweet puss was like.'

'Lie with me, Norma. Let our bosoms ebb and flow against each other. 'Did you see mine swell, as you wished?'

I lay beside her and we embraced, squeezing our breasts between us. 'Those Nipponese nips of yours are asking for more, I think, Akira. There's more behind the flood-gate, isn't there?'

'Yes, and it's not a case of shikata ga nai. Or rather nothing now can stop us, can it?'

'Shikata ga nai, then. We have no choice but to go on.'