Warning: Spice levels are increasing. Proceed with soothing beverage of choice.
oOo
Kagura tried not to fidget as she waited for her client of the night to enter through the ornate sliding doors at the back of the room. She was seated just in front of the double futon where a tray containing an assortment of liquors had been set up.
As she waited anxiously, she wondered if tonight would be the night the killer decided to strike.
The only info she had to go on was that the murderer was potentially a good-looking man, though there was no way to confirm that the customer the late Keiko had been boasting about was the one who had killed her. She needed to treat every client with the utmost caution.
At last, the door slid open, revealing a forty-something-year-old well-dressed man who had the look of a government official about him.
Kagura smiled the way she'd been taught and bowed low before him. "Welcome, Mr. Tsuchihashi," she greeted cordially. She lifted her head and looked up at him from under her eyelashes alluringly. "I am Kagura. It will be my pleasure to serve you tonight."
Unlike last night's retired general, tonight's customer maintained a serious expression as he took his seat beside her. As Kagura poured him his first drink, she took a moment to covertly study his features.
His nose was straight and his facial hair was neatly kempt. Was he what the other courtesans would refer to as handsome? Kagura didn't know. He wasn't repulsive, but he wasn't Kyoushirou or the sadist's kind of handsome, the kind that wooed ladies in host bars.
She was just thinking of how she wanted to broach conversation with this man when he opened his mouth and said, "I was reluctant to believe the rumors, but you are as beautiful as they say on the street." He lifted his saké cup to his lips and his eyes roved over her body. Kagura tried not to shift as his gaze lingered on her neck and her lips. When he lowered the cup, it was empty. "Who would've thought a flower such as yourself could bloom in this dingy gutter?"
He reached out a hand to stroke her face and it was all Kagura could do not to let her smile become tight. Hurriedly, she ducked to grab the saké bottle, breaking contact, and made a show of dutifully refilling his cup. Just the way Hinowa taught her, she fluttered her eyelashes at him and smiled coyly. "Oh, you flatterer," she said with a simper. "I hate to disappoint you, but I too have sides to me that a man such as yourself might find… objectionable."
Bold. Eloquent. Flirty. Just has Hinowa had instructed.
To her surprise, the man's serious façade broke and a little smirk stretched his lips. He tossed back his second drink and his eyes roved over her body once more. "Oh, I'm counting on it."
Kagura inwardly cringed at Mr. Tsuchihashi's come-on. While she enjoyed flattery as much as the next girl, such a line coming from a man nearly three times her age who was eyeing her like a juicy piece of meat lessened the charm. Unlike the general from the night before, tonight's client clearly intended to get what he paid for.
It was as Kagura was deliberating how to answer him that a large hand grabbed her shoulder, and before she could register what was happening, she found her back colliding with the tatami. Not expecting such forward behavior, she could only watch in surprise as Tsuchihashi crawled on top of her, his dark eyes full of undisguised lust.
He continued to eye her with obvious hunger as he brought his hand back to her face to stroke her cheek wi-0th the pads of his fingers. "Look at you. Skin so white and smooth…" His thumb dragged over her lips. "And such a pretty, pretty mouth. I could just eat you up."
It was lucky for Mr. Tsuchihashi that Hinowa had prepared Kagura for advances such as this or he'd one-hundred-percent be a smear on the wall by now. Instead of punching him into next Wednesday like she was sorely tempted to, she giggled like a halfwit twat and let out a little noise of scolding. "Mr. Tsuchihashi! the night is still young! We've only just begun. Don't tell me you're so impatient that you already want to move on to the main event?"
The man growled low in his throat and moved his hand to down to her neck. There, he caressed the exposed flesh of her throat with the backs of his fingers, causing a shiver of revulsion to zip up Kagura's spine. Ew, ew, ew, she thought, trying her best not to let her feelings show on her face.
Mr. Tsuchihashi made a noise that sounded like he was trying to purr, but it came out about as sexy as the mournful cooing of a dying pigeon. "Maybe I am."
Was this supposed to be hot? Kagura didn't have a lick of experience in the physical intimacy department, but the way grown-ups went on about "adult pleasure" she'd always imagined it being a little more, well, pleasurable than this. Instead all she felt was majorly squicked out. Still, she was getting paid to act interested, so she swallowed her discomfort and let out a loud moan as if she'd just been presented with the biggest, juiciest steak in Edo. "Oohh, Mr. Tsuchihashi…"
Her intention was to give him an ego boost and then divert his attention back to drinking, but Tsuchihashi had other plans. "You like that?" he attempted to purr again. "You're such a naughty little flower, coming undone at such a little touch. I can see that you can hardly wait to get started yourself."
Big head much? Kagura thought in the privacy of her mind, her eyebrows inching up her forehead without permission. She quickly schooled them back into place before it became apparent to her guest that she wasn't finding this nearly as sexy as he was. She needed to quickly divert him before this farce could gain any more momentum.
Just as she was about to coyly draw his attention back to the liquor tray, Tsuchihashi abruptly moved his hand from her throat to stroke the fabric over her chest and…
Oh.
Kagura surprised herself when a little moan that wasn't faked issued from her throat as Tsuchihashi roughly palmed her breast through her kimono. Oh. That sensation was unexpected.
Tsuchihashi took the noise as a sign of encouragement, and the next thing Kagura knew, his hand was slipping into the innermost layer of her kimono to fondle her naked chest. She sucked in a breath when his thumb flicked over her right nipple and something deep inside her tightened. He cupped her breast in his palm and continued to caress her nipple as he lowered his body onto hers, his knee parting the folds of her kimono.
It was only when he attempted to pull her top apart and his hand ventured dangerously close to the handcuffs she'd hidden there that Kagura snapped back to her senses.
Abort! Abort! Abort! her mind screamed and she quickly placed a hand on the man's chest and pushed him away. He growled again as her Yato strength lifted him off her despite his effort to continue his fondling.
"W-wait a minute, Mr. Tsuchihashi!" she squeaked. Thinking quickly for a way out, she cast her mind back, trying to remember Hinowa's surefire method of slowing things down when the customer got ahead of himself like this. What was it?
Ah, that's right.
"It's not fun if you jump straight into the action. Why don't we play a game to make things a little more interesting?"
To her relief, Tsuchihashi backed off. He looked interested. "Oh? And what sort of game is this flower proposing?"
Kagura lifted herself from the floor and elegantly straightened her disheveled kimono. Her hand lingered a moment by the heavy cuffs tucked away near her heart. She didn't think that this man was the killer, but it was still reassuring to feel them there. Almost like a security blanket.
"A drinking game," she revealed, plucking his discarded cup from the floor and filling it. "She handed it to him with a flirty smile. "I'm a girl who values a man who can hold his liquor." She produced a second cup and placed it before her. "The game is simple. Both of us will drink. For every drink of mine that you match, I will reward you by removing an article of clothing." She slid the cup toward him. "Simple, yes? Of course, you may choose what I drink." She gestured fluidly to the assortment of bottles on the tray.
Tsuchihashi matched her smile. "An interesting proposition." He turned from her to examine the bottles and Kagura fought the urge to grin in triumph. Use their pride against them, Hinowa had instructed her. Men are predictable. Know how they think, and you will have all the control.
"It would be unsporting of me to ask you to match me with saké. You're a woman, after all." He pushed the tall saké and shochu bottles aside and instead grabbed a slender, pink bottle filled with amber liquid. "Plum wine is far better suited to a delicate lady such as yourself."
Hook, line, and sinker.
As he poured the beverage into her cup, Kagura wanted to cackle at her victory. Hinowa had been absolutely right.
When faced with choosing a drink for you, he will always pick the most feminine beverage with the lowest alcohol content. This will make him look manly because it will demonstrate that he isn't afraid that you might outdrink him. And in the event that you do outdrink him, he can blame it on the handicap.
As expected of Hinowa. She really knew her stuff. Unfortunately for this poor man, the game was decided before it even began. Kagura had no intention of drinking this night, or any other for that matter. While he got wasted on hard liquor, she would, in fact, be sipping normal plum juice.
The two of them clinked their cups together. "Well, then. Shall we?" she prompted with a wink.
Tsuchihashi answered by knocking back his drink in a single gulp.
Kagura did the same with her juice and then proceeded to pick apart the knot of her obi. She took her time unwrapping it and allowing the material to slowly fall to a pile on the floor. All the while, Tsuchihashi's eyes followed the motion like a hungry dog waiting for its dinner.
When the obi was gone, Kagura made a seductive show of stretching her arms above her head and allowing the layers of her kimono to loosen just a little.
"Ready for round two?" she asked as she picked the bottle back up and brandished its nose at him.
Tsuchihashi hurriedly raised his cup for filling and then proceeded to pour a second round for her as well.
Another clink of their cups. Another drink.
Kagura's smile remained in place as she devested herself of her outermost layer.
A third drink.
Tsuchihashi's face was already beginning to turn red. Kagura kept her eyes firmly on his as she slid off another layer. The man shifted and Kagura could make out the proof of his arousal in the tenting of his hakama.
This caused her own face to pinken. She'd seen plenty of penises (mostly the gorilla's) but never had she been the cause of one coming to life like this. It was gross, of course, but it was also sort of flattering. For the first time in Kagura's life, here was a male demonstrating a clear want to copulate with her. Deep inside her, there was an instinct that caused her to preen at being so desired.
A fourth drink.
This time Kagura extended her leg and gave the man a generous glimpse of the backside of her thigh as she slowly pulled off her left tabi sock. She let her foot linger in the air for a moment, stretching out the time in order to give the alcohol time to work its magic.
The organ in Tsuchihashi's pants gave a little twitch as his eyes traveled up and down her smooth leg. When she retracted her leg to pour his next drink, she caught his eye and flicked her own eyes downward to draw his own attention to Tsuchihashi Junior. "Impatient as ever, aren't we?"
Just as she'd hoped, Tsuchihashi looked down as well and she used his moment of distraction to slip a tiny, liquid-filled capsule out of her sleeve and into the nose of the saké bottle. By now he'd had six drinks and was surely plenty drunk enough to not notice being slipped a sleeping drug.
She swirled the bottle once to make sure the draught was properly mixed in and poured his final drink of the night.
Tsuchihashi didn't suspect a thing. He tossed back the drink just like all the others and Kagura's smile transformed into a smirk as he set the empty cup down on the tatami.
This was it. She had exactly one minute to give him a nice memory for tomorrow.
Making a grand show of casting aside her own cup, she let out a wanton moan and declared, "I forfeit. You're just too strong, Mr. Tsuchihashi." She pushed the tray aside and reached out to grasp his shoulder with her right hand. "Besides… There's something else I want to drink now."
She put on her dopiest expression and gazed into Tsuchihashi's eyes as she moved to straddle his lap. Her left hand pushed between them and, trying not to think overly much about what she was touching, she wrapped her fingers around his manly-bits.
Tsuchihashi let out a groan of pleasure and Kagura responded by pumping him through his pants, her fingers caressing and squeezing the surprisingly hard organ just like she'd seen the girls do in Gin-chan's porn magazines.
"Ah, Kagura-chan…" he ground out as she worked him. "You're such a naughty girl."
Kagura smiled and brought her face close to his. She could feel his breath on her face and she remembered how he was looking at her lips earlier. She parted them and exhaled, breathing warm air over his mouth. "Yes. I'm very, very naughty," she agreed.
Three, two, one…
Tsuchihashi moved his hand to the back of her head to draw her in for a kiss, but right as his hand made contact with her hair, his eyes rolled back and the hand dropped to the floor beside his leg.
Kagura licked her lips and lifted herself off the unconscious man's lap. "Very naughty," she repeated triumphantly, straightening what remained of her kimono. "Sweet dreams, Ossan."
Her mission completed, Kagura dragged the man onto the futon and proceeded to disrobe him. She removed his hakama and kimono and scattered them about the room before pulling the comforter over him. She didn't touch his briefs. She'd already had enough contact with that locale, thank you very much, and she didn't need to see the thing she'd forced herself to grope.
When she was satisfied with the room's arrangement, Kagura opened the large closet set into the wall and pulled out a spare futon and blanket. All that was left now was to catch some Z's until morning.
A morning that would see her two-hundred-thousand yen richer.
Wearing a self-satisfied smile, she slipped under the covers and let the sounds of the night carry her off to dreamland.
oOo
Kagura yawned as she pulled the sheets and blankets from the futon and tossed them in a corner to be picked up by the laundresses for washing. It wasn't quite 8 AM and she'd had to get up at six in order to sneak into bed with her client before he figured out she'd spent the night without him. The early morning combined with her late night left Kagura direly wishing for a nap.
"Kagura-san, you should let me do that. You're a very important person now, you know? You shouldn't sweat the small stuff."
Kagura laughed and threw an apologetic smile over her shoulder to the girl who had been sent up to help her tidy. Kagura recognized her right away as the friend of the previous victim. "Please, don't worry about it, Saya-chan. I made the mess, so I'd feel bad if I didn't help to clean it up."
The girl put her hands on her hips and shook her head. "If you say so. But if I were you, I'd be happy to get out of cleaning." She winked and added, "Although in your case, the clean-up is a breeze compared to what we usually have to deal with. You don't even know how many washes it takes to get some of those stains out."
Kagura shivered and stuck her tongue out. "Geh. I think I'm happier not knowing."
Saya giggled and tossed a pillowcase onto Kagura's pile. When she was finished with the pillows, she walked around to the side of the futon where Kagura was standing and stuck a hand into the front of her kimono to rummage around for something. "By the way, Kagura-san, now that you're the new star courtesan, there was something I was hoping I could get your opinion on."
Kagura regarded the girl curiously. "Sure! What is it?"
The girl was interrupted by a knock at the door. The two of them turned their heads to see the shoji slide open, revealing Tsukuyo. "Ah, Kagura. I was hoping you'd still be here. How was last night?"
Kagura grinned and gave the courtesan of death a thumbs up. "No problems at all!" she reported proudly. "The customer was a frisky one, but he was easy to deal with once I got him drinking."
Tsukuyo nodded, her expression pleased. "That's good to hear." She lifted a hand to her chin thoughtfully and added, "It sounds like he wasn't the killer, then. I thought for sure our killer would strike last night, but there haven't been any reports of a body turning up anywhere in Yoshiwara."
Kagura hummed contemplatively. "Maybe he's on holiday?"
Tsukuyo chuckled and shook her head. "I doubt it."
Saya cleared her throat, getting the two girls' attention. "Maybe he's saving up money to see Kagura-san?" she suggested. "It's well known that he likes expensive girls, but paying to see Yoshiwara's star is a steep price no matter who you are. It could be that he needs time to get the money together."
Tsukuyo hummed and nodded. "You make a fair point. In that case, we'll just need to keep going as we are for now and see what happens." Her serious expression melted away then and she turned back to Kagura. "By the way, you're heading back to Kabuki-cho after this, right? Any chance you'd be willing to pick something up for me? Seita needs a new science textbook." She reached into her sleeve and produced a folded piece of paper which she handed to Kagura.
Kagura nodded and stuffed the paper in her pocket. "Sure! I'll go right away." She turned on her heel and made to leave but stopped when she remembered Saya's request from before. She turned back to the girl. "Oh, I almost forgot. You wanted my opinion on something, right?"
Saya shook her head with a smile. "It's not that important. Go ahead and get Seita's textbook. I'll ask you another time."
Kagura frowned slightly but nodded. "Okay. If you're sure."
With that, Kagura left the two women behind to face the new day.
oO0Oo
Hot damn, that was the porniest thing I've ever written and it wasn't even between the main couple. I never imagined my first time writing semi-explicit content would feature some gross rando.
Also, high-key regretting choosing the name Tsuchihashi. That was a beast to type over and over again.
I didn't originally intend for this chapter to focus solely on Kagura, but that's how the cookie crumbled this time. Poor Sougo will get his turn next time.