'I haven't done anything wrong. These bastards had better not be trying to pin something on me,' I thought as I dropped my businesslike mask for a moment to scowl at the casino director's door. I couldn't think of a single reason why I would be called to this man's office. Any issues with a lowly croupier like me could be dealt with by a floor manager or a shift manager. If they were going to accuse me of some shit and fire me, it didn't take the director to do it.
After knocking and being called into the office, things got even more suspicious - Soryu Oh was standing with the director. If the director had no cause to talk to me, Mr. Oh didn't have a reason in hell. He was friends or business partners or something with Eisuke Ichinomiya, the CEO of the company that owned Tres Spades Hotel and Casino. I was so far away from him in the pecking order that he shouldn't have even known that I existed. I was a faceless employee in a white dress shirt and blue vest.
He was drop dead fuckable, as usual. His gray suit fit his tall body to perfection and his black hair was slicked back away from his face. His dark eyes evaluated me as we were introduced and he shook my hand. While Mr. Ichinomiya had a cold confidence, obviously assuming that the world would remake itself around him to suit his needs, Mr. Oh's confidence was hot and commanding. He wore a perpetual frown and his muscled body seemed to be always at the ready for violence. If the world would change to suit Mr. Ichinomiya, Mr. Oh was constantly prepared to forcefully change the world to suit himself.
A little shiver went through me as our hands touched, and I quickly smacked down the feelings of arousal that were automatically building in me just from being near him. He was one of my favorite guys to fantasize about when I got myself off. My body had basically been programmed to turn on whenever he was near. On the nights that he came into the casino, I'd secretly watch him and let desire build up in me before spending my break locked in a bathroom stall playing with my clit. My mind had been fucking this man in every conceivable way for over a year. Now that we were standing closer than ever before, without a gambling table between us, without work and a crowd of people to distract me, my body was crying betrayal because my mind was forcing a professional calm.
And then the director stepped out of the office and left us alone. My body said, 'fuck yes!' and my mind said, 'what the fuck?' Mr. Oh said, "Let's have a seat over here, Sakiko."
I sat across from him at a table that the director must use for small meetings. Mr. Oh slipped a sheet of paper out of a folder that was sitting on the table. "Before we talk, you'll need to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Do you know what that is?" he asked.
"Yeah. It means if I tell anyone what we talk about you can sue me for everything that I have and more," I replied. What the fuck did he want to talk to me about that would need to be kept a secret? Had something gone down in the casino that I wasn't aware of? There'd been a rumor that someone was pilfering chips. Did he want to talk to me about that? He'd better not be planning to accuse me of stealing. I felt my body tense up as I prepared to defend myself.
He'd spun the contract around to face me and was pointing to each paragraph with a pen, briefly explaining their meaning. As soon as he was finished, I took the pen from his hand and signed my name.
His eyes searched mine, one eyebrow lowering as he tried to figure me out. "You don't need to think this through?" he asked.
"I don't have a problem keeping my mouth shut," I said with a shrug, pushing the paper over to him. He slipped it back into the folder.
"I understand that you're something of a master when it comes to dealing cards. Your file even says that you're the best management has ever seen. They kept you at the roulette table for over a year just to make sure you could be trusted with cards in your hands," he said, his eyes watching me for my reaction.
Too bad I could hold a poker face indefinitely. I wasn't giving anything up to him that I didn't want him to see. "I wondered why they kept me on roulette for so long. I'd thought it was a sexism thing," I said.
Mr. Oh responded by setting a new package of cards on the table and sliding it towards me. "Show me what you can do."
I broke the seal on the package and tapped the cards out into my palm. The shape and weight of them was so familiar that they instantly sent a wave of relaxation through me. If all Mr. Oh wanted was for me to show him my skills, there was nothing to worry about. I started by fanning the cards out facedown on the table and quickly scanned the motif on the back.
"These are marked," I said, as I deftly flipped the cards upright and folded them back into a neat stack. "You know that right?"
When he nodded, I began working through a series of trick shuffles and said, "This marking is for shit. If you want marked cards come to me. I can juice-mark and teach you to read juice."
"That won't be necessary," he said. "I'm here to talk to you about something else and this is the information that must never leave this room. Eisuke Ichinomiya, independent of The Ichinomiya Group, has a small underground organization. We would like to offer you a position in it."
I brought the deck of cards back together with a final snick and sat them in front of me on the table. I should be appalled and indignant. I should be shocked and arguing that I was an upright citizen who would never join a group of criminals. Instead I felt as if a fairy godmother had popped into existence and granted one of my wishes. I was being given the opportunity to step onto the other side. The side of power and control.
My father was a gambler. A sell the wife's wedding ring, disappear for weeks or months, loan sharks are at the door looking for Daddy type of gambler. It goes without saying that I had a fucked up childhood. Most people in that situation would have grown up to either be a gambler or to avoid gambling altogether, but I had gone a different route. I'd become a dealer. I sat on the other side of the table. I held the cards, I dealt the cards, and I laid down fate for gamblers, but I never played the game. I ruled the game.
Joining a yakuza would mean that I would never have to worry about scary bald men with tattoos hammering on my door in the middle of the night. I would be on the same side as the scary men.
I studied Mr. Oh. I'd always noticed his strength, his self-control and the way that his eyes never seemed to stop taking in the room around him. He had a confidence that most men did not have. Even the celebrities that often came to the casino. Their confidence was based on praise and attention, it had to be constantly fed in order to survive. Mr. Oh's confidence came from the inside, from knowing that he could handle anything and everything that was thrown at him.
It was the kind of confidence that I wanted.

"Tell me more," I said, looking him in the eye.
"We need an an agent in the casino," he explained. "You would mostly just be watching people for us and collecting information. At times you might control the outcome of a game. In fact, we'll need that done in a few days. I'm assuming you can do it?"
"As long as I'm not going to get in trouble for it, it's no problem," I replied.
"We would move you to a blackjack table immediately. Since it's a more popular table, you'll be of more use to us there. Although you should be ready to go wherever we need you at a moment's notice," he said. "We'll raise your pay and we'll give you bonuses for completing assignments. You may be promoted at a faster rate than normal, or you may be passed over for promotions because we need you at the tables. If that happens, you'll be compensated with raises."
"That makes sense," I said with a nod.
"There is danger involved. It isn't something that we expect to see in the casino, but nowhere is really safe. You're aware of the shooter that got into the penthouse recently? And that Olivia Graham was kidnapped?" he asked.
"Yeah, of course," I answered.
"By joining Ichinomiya's group, you would come under his protection. He takes very good care of his people. However, there is no way to guarantee your safety. I want you to be very aware that there is risk involved," he said grimly.
People had been shot when the shooter got into the penthouse and a security guard had been killed. What if that happened in the casino? Whether I was part of Ichinomiya's yakuza or not, I'd still be there, potentially in the line of fire. It made more sense to be protected, to have more information and know what was really going on rather than to stand oblivious, shuffling cards while secret deals went on all around me. As far as I could see, I would be safer in than out.
"I'll do it," I said. His eyes searched mine but I maintained my poker face.
"You don't want to take some time to think about it?" he asked, a few drops of concern in his voice. When I shook my head, he continued, "Olivia is going to be very happy about this. She needs a friend, someone to talk to who's in the organization and knows what's going on. She needs a female friend."
I'd entered the office worried that I was going to be fired from my job. Mr. Oh and I had been talking about criminals and danger and people being shot, but for the first time real fear slid down my spine and settled in my stomach.
I avoided deep connections with people like the plague. Sure, Olivia was my friend. I'd known her for almost half a year. I wore my friendship mask around her - laughing and joking, showing her the silly side of me, but never the darkness. I didn't talk about what was really inside of me and if Olivia had ever tried to talk to me about serious things I would have backed off, dodged the bullets and if that didn't work, I would have dropped our friendship altogether. Now I had inadvertently signed up to be her confidant.
'Nothing comes without a price,' I reminded myself as Mr. Oh suggested that we go up to the penthouse immediately so that we could tell Olivia the good news. As I followed him out of the room, I told my feet not to run and my heart not to panic. I'd deal with being Olivia's friend. I'd figure it out and manage it just like everything else. Being part of a yakuza, being on the side of power, was worth it.

"Sakiko!" Olivia yelled as Mr. Oh and I stepped into the penthouse. She ran over and wrapped me in a big hug. "You said yes!"
While Olivia bounced excitedly, a big orange kitten ran up to Mr. Oh and greeted him with several loud meows. To my surprise, he bent down and picked the kitten up. It was strange to see him standing as stiff and unemotional as he normally did while the cat rubbed its head against his neck and cheek. An image of myself licking and nuzzling his neck popped into my mind and I quickly tucked it into a back corner for later use.
"Your cat's too loud."
I looked over to see Mr. Ichinomiya walking towards us. I'd crossed him off my list of masturbation material when he'd started dating Olivia, but I couldn't help but notice how sexy he looked in jeans and a black t-shirt. I usually only saw him in a three piece suit.
Olivia ignored the comment about the cat and smiled at Mr. Ichinomiya. "Eisuke, this is my friend Sakiko. She's joined your underground thing, so she gets to come and visit me anytime she wants. Sakiko, this is Eisuke."
"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Ichinomiya," I said and bowed.
While Olivia said, "No, no! We're friends, call him Eisuke when you aren't at work." Mr. Ichinomiya's eyes focused in on me. I'd noticed his eyes before, the way that he seemed to read other people when he was in the casino, but this was the first time that he'd really looked at me. It almost felt like his eyes were swords that were trying to pierce my poker face. In self defense, I broke eye contact and looked at Olivia instead.
"And call Soryu, Soryu," she was saying. I glanced over at Mr. Oh and he gave me a quick nod to confirm Olivia's directive. She fluttered her hand to the side of the room where a tall man was slumped in a chair. "I'll introduce you to Mamoru sometime when he's awake. Now let's go talk."
She took the cat from Soryu and lead me down a hallway to a room that could only be the personal salon that Mr. Ichinomiya - or Eisuke - had ordered to be built for her when they moved in together. She'd told me about it on the same day that she'd been kidnapped.
"Wow," I said. "This is amazing. Look at all these clothes."
"I'm going to give you some," she said. "I already decided. I've been dying for Soryu to talk to you and praying that you would say yes so that we could be real friends again."
"You don't have to give me anything," I said, feeling my stomach twist. If she gave me clothes, she'd feel like I owed her favors. "I'm here to talk and hang out, not get stuff."
"I'm definitely giving you some things," she said, as kind and guileless as usual. "Eisuke wants me to wear these super short dresses all the time, so I have a ton that don't meet his requirements."
"Yeah, you never used to wear clothes like that," I said, trying not to stare at the short dress that she was wearing. She was showing off a lot of leg.
"I'm pretty much used to it now," she said with a shrug and then looked at me seriously. "I'm taking a bunch of classes now. Did you hear that I got kidnapped by Takahiro? I'm doing self-defense, karate and shooting classes. I want you to go with me so that we can both learn to kick some ass. Will you?"
Part of me balked immediately. She hadn't even handed over the clothes yet and she was already asking for favors, but I forced myself to think about things logically. It made a lot of sense for me to take those classes. Especially since I was now going to be in a yakuza. "I definitely want to learn to kick ass," I said.
"Great. Start coming with me tomorrow morning, then," she said and looked at me for a moment. "You seem different. Are you upset about something?"
I realized that I'd forgotten to put my cheerful friend mask on. "It's just been a shock, you know? Learning about Mr. Ichinomiya's underground organization and being invited to join it. I never would have expected anything like this," I said.
"I totally understand," she said. "Come sit with me on the couch. I totally want to tell you about everything that's been happening since the night I met Eisuke. You aren't even going to believe it."
I walked over to the couch slowly and took a seat in the 'girl gossip' pose - legs crossed, sitting turned to the side to face Olivia, concerned look on my face. She was going to tell me everything? I felt as if I were standing in front of a firing squad.

Over two hours later the elevator doors closed between me and Olivia. She was smiling happily, even though it was plain to see that she'd recently been crying. The story that she'd told me had been shocking and horrific and with every new trauma she revealed I'd felt as if a grappling hook were embedding itself into me.
I was fucked up and I knew it. I couldn't even tolerate a real friend in my life. I could nod and say the right things and make the right noises of sympathy, but inside I just wanted to run. After the long conversation, I was filled with a nervous energy that had me jumping up and down in the elevator and shaking my free hand to try to get a little of it out. I felt like I was going to explode. I needed to get out. Out of the elevator and out of the hotel. I needed to find someone to fuck.

(Eight Years Earlier)

"Sakiko?"
I'd just let myself into the apartment and the sound of my mom's voice caused anger and pain to twist in my stomach. 'Not today,' I thought. 'I do not want to deal with this today.'
I'd just had an argument with my boyfriend, Natsu. He'd called me crazy and said that I was like a robot because I didn't have any real feelings inside. What the fuck did he know? I had plenty of real feelings, but I wasn't going to share them with anyone. Getting close to people was not my thing. If you let people get close to you, they would just suck you dry. Just like my mom.
"Sakiko? Is that you?" she called from her bedroom. Her voice was full of pain and despair.
"Yeah, Mom," I answered, dropping my backpack on the floor and heading towards her room. For just a moment I felt like crying. For just a moment it was all too much, but I gave myself a shake and put a smile on my face. Misery loves company. If I went in there moping, she would latch onto me for hours.
When I opened the door she was lying curled up on her futon, the only light was the bit of evening sun that shone between the apartment buildings and oozed through the window. I knelt down on the floor next to her, saying, "What's up, Mom?" in a cheerful voice like she might tell me that she'd gotten a promotion or was going to bake me some cookies.
"My back's been killing me all day," she moaned. "Work was terrible. Kazuko kept making little comments about me moving too slow. She knows I have a bad back. Why can't she just be a little understanding? I'm worried that she's going to complain. If she does, they'll probably fire me."
"Why don't I rub your back and get the hot water bottle?" I suggested with a smile. "Then your back will feel better tomorrow and everything will be okay."
"Okay," she said, reaching out and taking my hand. "But just sit awhile first. I've been so lonely since I got home. Maybe you can make dinner, too?"
"Yeah, of course," I said, thinking about all of the homework I had to do. "I'll make something. Do we still have some of that saury?"
Before she could answer, the sound of the front door opening sliced through the air. We both sprang to our feet. Despite her complaints of back pain, Mom moved just as quickly as I did.
"Hoshi!" my dad's voice was so loud it almost made the walls vibrate.
"In here," my mom called as I opened the door and ran out of the room. I swerved to the left, giving my father plenty of room as I passed by him. He didn't so much as glance at me as he made for the bedroom door. I snatched up my backpack and ran towards my own bedroom, my hand digging in the front pocket for my MP3 player.
I stopped in my tracks as I pulled the small device out and remembered that its battery needed charging. I wouldn't be able to stuff earbuds in my ears and listen to music to drown out the sounds of my parents arguing or having sex or my dad beating my mom or some combination of the three. I took a few moments to connect my MP3 player to its charging cable so that it would be ready for me when I got home later and then bolted out of the apartment.
As I ran down the hallway to the stairwell, a giddy panic began to rise up in me. This is why Natsu had called me crazy, because I got silly and giggly when things got too intense. Because I hid from the worry and the pain and the fear by laughing and acting wild. I'd done it since I was a little girl.
I'd like to see him deal with the shit that I had to put up with and not act crazy. It wasn't easy and it was my choice how I wanted to cope with my own feelings. At least I wasn't depressed or suicidal.

As my sneakers hit the first floor lobby, I realized that I had nowhere to go. I didn't have any money and I needed to do something immediately to release the nervous energy that was threatening to overwhelm me. I turned around and ran back upstairs, only this time I stopped at the second floor and went to Natsu's apartment.
"What?" he said when he opened the door and saw me standing there.
"Are we broken up?" I asked, trying not to fidget and give away just how jittery I was feeling. "Is your mom at work?"
"I don't know if we're broken up and yes my mom is at work," he said, narrowing his eyes at me. "Are you manic again?"
"I'm not Bipolar," I said. "If we're not broken up, then let's make out."
He hesitated for just a second before standing aside to let me into his apartment. I dropped my backpack on the floor and flopped onto the couch. "Just so you know, I'm not doing this so you won't break up with me. I just feel like making out," I said.
He sat down on the couch and started kissing me. I opened up to him immediately, letting his tongue come into my mouth and pushing my body against his. I wanted to be overwhelmed with desire, I wanted his kisses and touches to make me forget everything that could be happening upstairs in my own apartment. I'd always maintained strict control when we'd fooled around before, setting hard limits and not letting him past them. Now, I didn't think about rules or limits at all, I focused on the hot, achy feelings that were filling my body and pushing everything else away.
"Damn, Girl," he said, when I let him unhook my bra and touch my bare breasts for the first time. "This is fucking hot."
I moaned in agreement. This was better than anything else, better than listening to music, better than playing video games. This wasn't a thin distraction that drowned out sounds and feelings with loud noise. It was a full body tempest that made everything else disappear except for me and Natsu. When his fingers slid up under my uniform skirt and rubbed over my panties, I didn't pull away or protest. I pushed myself into him and begged for more.

I escaped the elevator and hurried to my room in the employee dorm to change out of my uniform and drop off the big bag of clothes that Olivia had insisted that I take. When I opened the front door to the apartment that I shared with three other employees, my roommate Kyou was standing at the stove. As usual she was wearing impossibly short shorts and a tiny t-shirt. If the rules for employee behavior weren't so strict, I'd have seduced her the first week she moved in.
She turned to look at me with a smile. "Oh, did you go shopping?" she asked.
I responded with a nod, not trusting myself to speak. I felt like I was on the edge of insanity. I hurried to my room and stripped off my uniform, replacing it with one of the dresses that Olivia had given me. It made me feel a little better to be in normal clothes. I was one step closer to getting what I needed.
I'd had a fuck friend for awhile. A guy who'd lived in the small neighborhood that was next to the hotel. He'd been good in bed, but he'd moved for his job, leaving me to trawl for dick at the convenience store. I was way too on edge to take the train and go to a club. I sat at one of the tables in front of the store with a bag of chips and a few cans of beers, watching the customers go in and out as I shuffled the deck of cards that I always carried in my purse. It wasn't too long before a guy in his mid-twenties crossed the street and headed towards the store. He wasn't bad looking. He had nice lips and his hair was mussed.
"Hey," I said with a smile as he passed by. "It's a nice night."
"Uh, yeah," he mumbled, avoiding eye contact as he hurried into the shop.
I'd spooked him but by the time he came back out of the store he'd pulled himself together. "You know how to play anything?" he asked, stepping up to the table.
"Yeah, I can play a lot of things. You wanna join me?" I asked, running my fingers through my hair and holding his gaze with mine.
"Yeah," he said, setting down his grocery bag with fingers that were trembling a little. "What's your favorite?"
"Do you work for the hotel?" I asked.
"No," he said, looking a little confused, afraid he was giving the wrong answer and he'd lose his chance. "I work for the bank down the street."
"That's great," I said with a big smile. "And my favorite game is strip poker, but we really can't play that out here."
I watched his cheeks flush and he said, "We can go to my place."

His name was Nori. We decided to skip the card game and get right to the fucking. He was a dud in bed. After a few clumsy kisses and a couple of nipple pinches, he'd shoved his dick into me and was pounding away, completely oblivious to the fact that I was lying disgruntled beneath him
I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "hey, let me get on top", pushing him over while he blinked down at me in confusion. I straddled him in the reverse cowgirl position, lowered myself onto his cock and filled my head with images of Soryu Oh.
I knew that I shouldn't do it. Even if there was a chance that we would end up in bed together, I still needed to control my mind and body when I was around him. There were a dozen guys that I could have pictured while I worked my pussy on Nori's shaft, but Soryu was the only one that I was interested in. The image of me licking and nuzzling his neck came out of hiding and I wondered what he would smell like, what his skin would taste like and what I would need to do to get his impassive mask to melt away.
Would he like me to suck and nibble his earlobe? To whisper dirty talk in his ear? To pull his hair? If I kissed him, he'd take over. His mouth would be hot and forceful, his tongue demanding. He'd push me down on the bed and touch me with hands that conquered and commanded. I cupped my breasts and rolled my nipples between my thumb and fingers while I imagined his hands on me. He would be the type that stared into your eyes when he was touching you, watching for your reaction, letting you know exactly who was in control and meting out the pleasure.
My body began tensing up and everything focused between my legs as I got close to an orgasm. I imagined Soryu over me, his cock long and hard, the tip glistening as he moved between my thighs and entered me, filling me with his hot length. I ground myself down on the dick inside of me, moving fast and hard, pushing down to get the tip to bump against my cervix, imagining another man inside of me, hovering over me hot and sweaty, his eyes watching as I orgasmed beneath him.
I rolled off of Nori and lay on the bed, my head at his feet, dragging in breaths to calm myself down.
"That was so fucking hot," he said and I wondered what Soryu would say if I were lying next to him. Maybe just the same thing - my brain was too sluggish to think of something else - but Soryu would say it differently. 'That was so fucking hot,' he said in my mind, his voice deep, sexy and intimate. Not immature and excitable like Nori's was.
'Fuck, I have to stop this,' I said to myself as I pushed myself off the bed and headed into the bathroom to clean myself up. The last thing that I needed to do was to build a crazy obsession for Soryu when I would actually have to interact with him sometimes. I needed to be completely in control when I was around him, professional and businesslike, not lost in fantasies with a wet cunt.
I went back out into Nori's tiny studio apartment and picked my underwear up off of the floor.
"What are you doing?" he asked, sitting up and looking at me with puppy dog eyes. "Are you leaving? I thought you could stay the night and we could do it some more."
I sighed and looked at him. "Do you have a girlfriend?" I was okay with a one night stand with a guy who had a girlfriend - not a wife - but not anything long term. If a guy was going to be an ass and cheat, that was on him, but I wasn't okay with taking a guy away from another woman for more than a night.
"No," he said, pouting a little. "We broke up a couple of weeks ago."
I frowned at him. He was awful in bed, but I needed someone to fuck. There was no telling how stressful being in a yakuza would be and I was going to be taking classes with Olivia every day. I couldn't even imagine how often she might want to push our conversations past the superficial. I might need to fuck someone on the daily. "I'm not interested in a boyfriend, but I need a fuck friend," I said. "The kind where I contact you, you never contact me."
"I can do that," he said without taking the time to think about it, eager to get his dick back into me.
"And you've got a lot to learn. Like, a lot," I informed him without any sympathy. "I'm not even sure you're worth my time. You'd have to be totally willing to learn whatever I teach you. If you drag your feet or complain, I'm out."
"Yeah, yeah. No problem," he said excitedly. He really was like a puppy. "I'll do my best to learn whatever you want to teach me."
"I need clean bedding on the bed whenever I come here and beer in the fridge and snacks. I prefer salty snacks to sweet." At this point I knew that I was being a bit of an ass, but if I was going to put a bunch of effort into teaching this guy how to fuck a woman, I at least deserved a few bags of chips.
"I can do all that. No problem," he assured me.
"Okay, then," I said, dropping my underwear and climbing onto the bed. "We'll start with kissing."