The Tachibana Tree

This is a rather long read, covering several separate occasions when Chie and I met. If you're all right with that, I hope you can forgive a wordy caution here. It has to be categorised as Loving Wives - that is the whole point of this memoir - but be warned: there is a scat tag because we did go there, especially at the end; also a fair bit of watersports (and anal sex). This does not become a fetish-category story merely because niche practices make their appearance; a fetish is a thing fairly central to someone's pleasure. Readers who dislike any of those activities had better just click away, I'm afraid.

Still here? Pace yourselves, gentlemen. Ladies, settle in. Enjoy!

My wife and I have a cotton printed photograph, the size of a beach towel, hanging on one wall of a spare bedroom in our house. It shows a middle-aged couple sitting side-by-side, but looking at each other, at an outdoor café table with some kind of citrus tree behind them; it's a little fuzzy but I recognise them and know their names. They are a couple I knew before I got married to Kyoko -- in fact I met them not long after Kyoko and I broke up for the first time, and it was years before she and I got back together, again and for good. Their love for each other is evident as they look into each other's eyes; this is a couple whose partnership is forever. We keep the picture partly for that simple romance, which any guest in that room can appreciate; but also because it reminds us that no couple should be embarrassed by any kinks, or secrets from the outside world, that are part of their bond. Their names are Henry Taniguchi and his wife Chie -- you pronounce it Chee-eh, like the sound in the middle of 'witchy energy'.

When I lived in the Tokyo suburbs, they lived near the centre. But I went at least a couple of times a month to a second-hand bookshop with English stock near Ebisu station, and I would then drop in at an independent café round the corner. That shop was an hour's journey for me; I liked to sit quietly and enjoy one of my purchases before the return trip. One late-autumn afternoon I was there when a woman caught my eye: a woman older than I was, forty perhaps but trim and pretty, who had just sat down two tables away. She was with her husband, but he was facing almost the same way I was so I couldn't see his face at all. I seemed to have noticed them there before, I thought, as I let her see my gaze travel down her figure and up again. She was wearing a tight thinly-striped T-shirt under a light unbuttoned cardigan, and long white sharply-pressed trousers, and her hair was in a long ponytail.

I read a little, saw out of the corner of my eye that she had leant forward, and heard her say a few words. Gradually my attention returned to my book, but a minute later I was interrupted. 'Hey, I'm really sorry to bother you. My name is Henry; I wonder if my wife and I could join you for a while?'

It was the husband. He looked Japanese to me, dressed quite smartly in a polo shirt and black trousers, but was speaking idiomatic American English with no discernible accent. The woman was still in her chair, but watching us with a small, neutral smile. In general, Japanese people are about as likely as Brits like me to strike up a friendly conversation with a stranger, so this was already weird; but if he was American it was less so. This didn't look like a woman who'd been offended at my ogling her and sent her hubby to punch me; one other possibility could be someone hoping to arrange private English lessons but this guy was obviously a native speaker, so not that either...

It took me perhaps three seconds to decide this probably wasn't aggression or a nuisance, although it was something odd. I stood up. 'Of course. I'm Nigel. Glad to meet you.'

We shook hands, and he invited his wife over with a tiny nod. 'This is my wife, Chie.'

I began to extend my hand to her too, but caught myself just in time not to look stupid as the woman was bowing. 'Dozo, yoroshiku o-negai shimasu,' she said in polite greeting.

I bowed back, repeated the same formula, and -- hang on. A woman in Japan often puts both hands together for a bow, one over the other somewhere in front of her waist or crotch. As Chie did so, just for a moment I thought I saw her lower hand press hard, in between her legs.

We sat down. Henry talked eloquently; Chie spoke so little that I could hardly tell how well she understood English. I introduced myself briefly. Chie complimented me on my Japanese, although I had scarcely used any, which made me feel better as although I had some culture and serious literature in the pile of books I had bought earlier, I had picked an old detective story to start with and didn't feel that I looked particularly sophisticated. Henry turned out to be from Hawaii, with mostly Japanese heritage as far as I could tell; he was a vice-president in a small Tokyo printing firm. Chie was a born-and-bred Tokyoite.

I tried very hard not to indicate, by even the slightest movement of my eyes, that occasional shuffling movements of her finger in her lap were distracting me.

As we were finishing our coffees, Henry turned the conversation to art. Did I know the National Museum in Ueno? Did I like ukiyo-e paintings; did I have a favourite ukiyo-e artist? Yes, yes, and not really. I didn't want to assume a false knowledge of painting, but everyone likes ukiyo-e; otherwise T-shirts, mugs, calendars and key-rings in tourist traps wouldn't be plastered with them. I knew the names of a few of the most famous artists. Did I take my girlfriend to places like that? Well, I broke up with my last steady girl a few months ago, might have been there together once. Great, would I like to come and have a cup of tea with them and see some of their collection? 'Also, my wife is a bit shy, but at home she'll relax a bit. You can get to know each other.'

I was paying close attention now.

'That will be very nice,' I said, inclining my head politely in Chie's direction.

'She knows a lot about ukiyo-e too. She's very intelligent. I'm so proud of her. Not only for that reason, of course, ha-ha!'

Henry looked at his wife as he chuckled, seeming noticeably more nervous than when he had first approached. I had a sense of trickery and subterfuge in the air; somehow, though, it didn't feel like when a pickpocket sits next to you in a metro carriage, or a so-called art student in Beijing takes you to a 'gallery' with 'bargains'. It felt more as though I was being set a riddle. There would be more hints, perhaps, if I played along.

We drove to their apartment building. Henry opened the passenger-side back door of his car for Chie, but instead of closing it so I could sit in the front he waited for Chie to slide over, and gestured me to join her. I sat down with my bag of books on my lap. Chie ignored me until Henry was starting the engine, then leant over and picked the bag up and said, 'Let's put this there, you can relax and be comfortable,' moving it to the empty front passenger seat. Putting her other hand on my thigh, rather than the seat between us, as she leant over, seemed only slightly strange. But she left it there.

I had a natural continuation anyway, saving me the bother of reacting to that. 'You speak English too! I thought perhaps you only spoke Japanese. That's great; my Japanese isn't very fluent.'

'Chie lived in the US for a --' Henry began.

'Omae wa unten da yo!'

'Yes, sorry,' he said.

That made sure of the general theme. Details remained to be filled in, but Chie had basically told Henry to shut up and drive. Not rudely, more as a firm reminder; but still, he had obviously done his job of finding a young man that his wife would be happy to know. 'Yes, I speak some English, I lived in America with Henry for three years,' Chie admitted modestly. She still had an accent, but was obviously perfectly able to converse. 'But Henry always speaks Japanese at home, so it's nice to meet a young guy to speak English with me. Nigel,' she squeezed my thigh and smiled innocently, 'I hope maybe we can meet up often and talk together?'

'Oh yes,' I agreed. I was becoming more confident by the moment. I had no experience as a lover of a married woman, but it looked pretty difficult to put a foot wrong here provided I was polite and didn't go too fast. Did Henry just want his wife to have fun, or did he really want to be humiliated? I could find out later. 'I should like to get to know you properly and make sure you aren't still shy about anything. It's great to make new friends and be relaxed enough to talk about,' I paused and pressed my leg against hers, 'all kinds of things.'

At their flat, Henry unlocked the door and gestured me in after Chie. 'Mi casa es su casa,' he said hospitably. I took off my shoes and followed Chie in, and she said loudly without turning round, 'That's right. Whatever is Henry's is yours.'

I think they had rehearsed that, but I never got round to asking. It was a nice flat, positively spacious by Tokyo standards. Chie and I sat on a three-seater sofa, with her in the middle and me six inches away beside her. When Henry brought tea, he sat on a cushion on the other side of a low table, but he was exceptionally jumpy. He sipped his tea, put it down, shuffled back and forth on his cushion, fidgeted with some lacquered saucers on a shelf under the table, and drank more tea. Chie and I were looking each other up and down. I wasn't sure of the next move; making slow progress was fine; making no progress was frustrating.

'I think you said you had some paintings to show me?' I hazarded. It was as though Henry had had a pin stuck into him: he fairly leapt to a bookcase in the corner of the room. 'We have some on the walls, as you can see,' Chie said placidly, 'but there are some in these catalogues that are just as interesting to look at.' Indeed, there were a few good but unremarkable landscape pictures hung here and there. She took the catalogues from her husband, laid one on the table and opened the other on her lap. 'These are by Koryusai, do you know him?'

'Um, I think so. Isn't the one with the monk, with that kind of bucket-hat on his head, by Koryusai?' I slid along so that Chie and I were touching.

'Yes, it is, that's in here somewhere,' Chie turned a few pages and found it. 'Is that a very well-known one?'

'I don't know, I just remembered it because it's slightly ridiculous.'

'Yes. Lots of ukiyo-e are humorous. There are some here,' she picked up the second catalogue, 'like that. These are not all Koryusai, but some are. This one for example.'

The second catalogue was all shunga, ukiyo-e-style erotica. The one she had found was not explicit, but very topical. It showed an old man cowering under bedclothes while a storm raged outside; his wife on her hands and knees next to him for reassurance, with a hanging from the ceiling coming down to her back; and her lover hidden by that hanging enjoying a doggy-style coupling. I chuckled. 'Are there a lot of shunga on that theme?'

'Yes, quite a lot I suppose. There's another here somewhere,' Chie murmured and flipped pages; 'ah, here.' This time the husband appeared to be asleep, but the sliding door between his room and his wife, busy with her lover, was not shut. 'Look at the details.'

'Which details?' I asked innocently. The picture was a lot more graphic. 'She looks very...ready.'

Chie leant against me. 'I mean, this for example.' She pointed not at the carefully-drawn genitalia, with the lover's finger pressing the wife's swollen lips apart, but at an ear-pick shown on the tatami next to the husband.

A moment or two passed, and Chie sipped her tea. Henry was pretending to be interested in other books on the same shelf he'd picked up the catalogues from. An ear-pick... 'Oh, I see, he's not asleep?'

'That's what I think,' Chie agreed. 'The door is open, he's cleaned his ears, the writing next to him says snore, snore. I think it means he's awake, listening, pretending to snore.'

'Do you think they know, the couple having sex?'

'No way to tell. What do you think?'

'I guess...the wife knows, the lover maybe doesn't care either way?'

'Maybe. Henry,' Chie called unexpectedly, 'why are you standing over there? Come back and join us.'

Henry obediently turned round and came to sit on the sofa, on the other side of Chie from me; as he did so Chie pressed her leg extra-hard against me and I decided caution could be thrown to the winds. I shifted a little to face towards them, put my arm round Chie's waist and my other hand on her thigh, and stroked gently.

She leant back. Even with the catalogue on her lap, Henry could easily see what I was doing.

'What do you guys usually do at weekends?' I asked. 'Are you outdoorsy people?'

'We go walking in the mountains occasionally,' Chie replied, 'not that often. Sometimes just to a park, Meiji-jingu Gyoen isn't far, for example. Why?'

'I just thought, you look fit, like you get good exercise.' I was ignoring Henry completely. 'These muscles,' I squeezed her thigh through her trousers again, 'feel toned. Strong. I bet when your husband said he was proud of you for many reasons as well as your intelligence, he was talking about your figure.'

Chie put the catalogue back on the low table and sat up a bit straighter. 'Really? Thank you! I don't know if I have a very nice body, but...'

She let her sentence trail off, put her hands above her breasts and trailed them down slowly, looking at me.

'Well, you do. Trust me. At least, as far as I can tell at the moment, you certainly do; but of course...' I sat back, ogled her again, and turned my palms up in gesture of helplessness to reach a truly reliable judgement about the loveliness of her body under the difficult circumstances of its being clothed. Chie sipped tea, and stared straight ahead.

'I would never expect the privilege,' I went on, laying it on much too thick, 'of confirming that, but I already feel lucky just to be sitting next to such a beautiful woman. I'm not usually glad if someone interrupts me when I'm reading. Maybe Ebisu, as a god of fortune, has been looking after me,' I ventured, since the café was in the district named after him.

'Maybe,' Chie agreed again. She paused, and then with the tiniest tilt of her head towards her husband she said, 'I wonder if...' she let the rest of the sentence go.

She and Henry were perfectly in step. 'How about a cocktail?' he asked. 'I can make you, er, a G&T, or, er...' he tailed off too.

'I'm sure,' Chie said slowly, resting her hands between her legs, 'Nigel will look after me...if I...want a cock...'

She left it a couple of seconds and gestured lightly with one hand, as though to say that the rest of that sentence was unnecessary. It's a very common thing in speaking Japanese to leave listeners to fill in a few words or syllables unsaid.

'I will look after Chie-san,' I agreed. 'But perhaps if you want to make a drink for yourself, and have a rest, while we get to know each other better?'

Again, Henry jumped to his feet. In fact he jumped so energetically I thought he was rather spoiling the idea that Chie might want or need a younger man. 'I will,' he said. He walked out of the room, but I don't think he could have been through the doorway by the time Chie was on my lap with her arms round me. I kissed her full on the lips and pulled her forwards so she could feel, rubbing against her, how much the conversation and the situation had excited me. She pushed herself hard into my crotch as we kissed, bucking firmly back and forth. I slid my hands up under her T-shirt, unclipped her bra and reached round underneath it to the front. Chie's nipples were little rocks, and as I flicked and squeezed them she bucked harder. A wave of wonder hit me when I realised she was so excited, more even than I was, that she was already coming. I held her as her stiff, violent movements settled back down to a comfortable rocking on my tent-pole, and stroked down her back.

'Wow, Chie-san,' I said eventually, 'you are so, so sexy.' It was my first experience ever with a woman twenty or so years older than I was, and I had never really believed that a woman's libido ramped up so significantly at that age, but in Chie at least it seemed to be a fact.

'You don't need to use 'san' with me,' Chie began. 'And I won't with you, Nigel, Okay?

'Okay,' I agreed, still stroking her. 'So...what's going on? Why is it my lucky day?'

'More than a day, I hope,' she said softly, rocking away and nuzzling against my neck. 'Well...anyway, I've had a strong sex drive for years,' she continued. 'So when Henry and I began to, you know, talk about me and another man, it was kind of a fantasy at first, or a thing to say just to turn each other on in bed, and then the more we talked about it the more we got excited, and a couple of months ago we just realised we were really going to do it. Ah, I can't describe how erotic it was, we were talking in bed and saying things like "You'll kiss him," and "He's going to put his hand up my skirt," and "I wonder what positions he will like," and suddenly we knew it was going to be real. I remember saying "He's going to do so many things to me," and I came so hard that night, imagining the man...imagining you. I had to change the bedsheets. So we've been sort of looking out for someone...attractive. In the café today, when I saw you, I'd seen you before, I knew it would be you, and I was really turned on. You saw me, I couldn't stop touching myself. I know you saw me.'

I felt that Chie had almost said 'suitable' rather than 'attractive' then decided to be politer; but I didn't care; she had chosen me for whatever reason. I ran my hands through her hair, then lifted her head so I could push her T-shirt up over her head. She held her bra in place as I did so, and looked at me. I peeled her fingers away, gently but firmly, and she shrugged out of it with that timeless, unique expression on her face: 'Will I do?'

I bent to kiss her nipples, one after the other, and said simply, 'Perfect.' She smiled, and began to unbutton my shirt.

'So,' I asked, letting her see my joy in cupping her firm handfuls, 'this is mostly about us having amazing sex? I mean, Henry doesn't want to be humiliated, or be scared that you'll leave him, or...join in? Or are there specific things you want to do?'

Chie helped me shuffle out of my shirt-sleeves and sat back a little on my lap. With one hand she started to stroke along and around the erection pushing up my trousers in front of her; with the other she traced scribbles in my chest hair and gave my nipples squeezes and twists.

'To be honest...we haven't really talked that far, you know? We decided he had to introduce us, and then he would leave it to...me and the guy...to see what happened, and then I'll just tell him about it. The rest of it is still kind of, like I was saying, between fantasising and really doing it.' She undid my fly buttons and reached inside my boxer shorts. 'I don't think he'll want to join in, but I don't mind. The rest, I don't know, but I -- oh my god!'

Chie had at last freed my cock from my underwear, and I pulled the elastic down so my balls were free too. She was right to be impressed: I was harder and bigger than I'd been for a while.

'In that case,' I said while she was temporarily silent, 'I'll just do whatever I want with you. You'll love it, I promise, and so he should too.' I kissed Chie again, and she put both her hands on my stiff, thick rod. Our tongues met briefly, then I pushed the table away with my feet so she had space to drop off my lap to the floor and kneel in front of me.

She stared at it for a good ten seconds, holding me gently below my balls. I tried to feel the rush she had to be experiencing, after years of marriage to a man whom she still loved and who was certainly watching her, as she knelt before a younger and bigger manhood, ready to give its owner pleasure by her mouth for a while -- and already, surely, looking forward to the main event. 'Yes,' I whispered, 'put it in your mouth, Chie. Suck it, and later it will make you come so hard...'