(Friday, October 26)

"Cheers," Jomei said with a big smile and we clinked our glasses together. "Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication, Miss Sera. There's no way this project would have been a success without you."
"Thank you, Mr. Date," I said, taking a sip of my beer. "But I think you're jumping the gun, this project hasn't been a success yet."
"You're splitting hairs. We've conquered the bulk of the work. The program runs. From here on out it will be smooth sailing," he said. He was in high spirits after a test run of our program had performed very well this evening. His eyes were shining and his cheeks were flushed. He looked like he needed a kiss.
"I think you're being overly optimistic and in the end we may be doing all of this programming for nothing. Ms. Mihara could just tell us to fuck off," I reminded him.
"You always have to be the evil voice of reason," he said, his smile taking the sting out of the words. "It doesn't matter what Ms. Mihara says or does, I got what I wanted out of this project. It let me spend more time with you, so that you could get to know me a little better and let me into your bed."
"I always knew you were a sneaky bastard," I said.
"I'm sneaky?" he asked, feigning innocence. "You're the one who's been spying on me in the coffee mirror all this time."
"Someone had to keep an eye on you and don't even think of asking for another round of 'Tell Me a Secret'," I said with a warning glance. "If I have to hear another secret like you putting folded paper in your shoes to make yourself look taller all through middle school, I might have to break up with you."
"Don't blame me for my deceitfulness," he replied. "I was young and I hit my growth spurt late."
"It's the vanity that bothers me," I said with a sad shake of my head that made him laugh.
"Tell me what you were like in high school."
"I thought Beth already told you. I was the DDR champion," I reminded him, trying to avoid the question.
He looked gently into my eyes and said, "I know you were more than that."
"It isn't happy, I don't think we should talk about it. We're supposed to be celebrating our victory."
"I want to know all of you, happy and sad."
"I just didn't fit in," I said with a shrug, trying to be emotionless about it. "I had my friends - and they're still my friends - but even with them I didn't quite fit. I didn't have the things that it takes to be like everyone else. I wasn't pretty, I was too serious, I just...I just didn't get the way that everyone functioned. It never made sense to me. I loved DDR because it was such a fun challenge, but in the end I hated it. It made everyone pay attention to me for short bursts. I'd be the center of attention while I was competing against a rival school, and then everyone would immediately go back to ignoring me...or making fun of me."
"I think you're pretty," he said with a smile.
"You don't have to say that," I said, looking away uncomfortably.
"I'm not. I love to look at you. Seeing you makes me feel so many things," he said. "It always makes me happy."
"You said I was an anomaly, but you're the anomaly."
"I'm fine with that. I'm very happy with that. If everyone else is too stupid to see you, it just means that you are all mine."
I watched the play of emotions across his face. He seemed to be telling the truth. I remembered that first night when he was kissing me behind the bush, he's said that I was all his even then. The waiter came by and I ordered another beer.
Jomei raised his eyebrows. "You're having three?"
"It's a celebration," I said with a smile. "And I'm hoping you'll take advantage of me."
"I'd like to take advantage of you right now. I love it when you let your sense of humor show. Don't take too long to drink that beer. We need to continue the celebration back at your apartment."
"What were you like in high school?" I asked.
"Happy," he replied. "Oblivious. Just like you would say: obsessed with lotion and clothes."
"Why did I even ask?" I said with a shake of my head.
"I remember fondly the first time that I saved up all of my allowance money and bought myself an expensive bottle of lotion," he said with a mischievous look. "It was the kind with glitter in it. I wore it to school every day. I was so happy to sparkle under the fluorescent lights. Everyone said that I looked like a movie star, and they were right."
"Stop it," I said with a laugh. "When you're being silly it makes me want to kiss you and I can't kiss you in a restaurant. Save your glitter jokes for later."
He twisted his smile into a fake pout. "Now I feel deprived. I'm supposed to get kisses but you're holding them back."
I sighed. "Be good and keep your hands to yourself and I'll kiss your man part when we get back to my apartment."
"Always withholding and rewarding. I feel like I'm in some sort of behavior experiment."
"Are you complaining?"
"No. I'm enjoying it."

By the time we got into my apartment we were both panting. I'd pulled him behind two bushes and stopped him in the stairwell for kisses. His tie was askew and his shirt was half-unbuttoned. As soon as the door closed, I pushed up him against the wall and finished removing his dress shirt and undershirt.
When his chest was exposed to me, I began kissing his hot skin and pressing soft bites around his nipples while I swirled over them with my tongue. I put my hand between his legs to stroke and squeeze his man part through his pants, enjoying the way his hardness felt against my hand. Jomei was making the moaning sounds that I liked so much. His hands were trying to get to my blouse to undo my buttons.
"Get ready for me, man part. I'm going to come down there and kiss you all over," I said happily.
"Akiko," Jomei said, in the warning voice that he used to let me know that I was getting too weird, but I didn't care at all.
"Take your pants off," I said and stepped away from him to strip my own clothes off. "I want to see your man part now."
When he was naked, I pushed him back against the wall and dropped to my knees to start licking and kissing his thighs and over his lower belly, everywhere but his man part. I was enjoying teasing him, the taste and feel of his skin on my tongue was making my nipples buzz and my lady bits tingle. He'd cupped my head in his hands and was trying to guide my mouth to his part, but I was having none of that. I sank my teeth into his thigh, a little too firmly to be gentle, in order to punish him. He let out a little cry and then moaned as I licked over the place where I had bit him.
Pushing his man part up against his stomach and out of my way, I rubbed it gently while carefully licking his balls. When his moans began to sound a little more desperate, I licked my way to the base of his part and addressed it, "Are you ready now?"
I made happy yummy noises as I kissed and licked my way up his shaft to the tip, being sure to be extra spitty. When I reached the top, I flicked my tongue several times on his frenulum. "Jomei," I said, looking up to meet his eyes. "You always taste even better than I remember."
"Just, please…" he said, his words fading away as I took the head of his part into my mouth and played with it with my tongue and lips. I could tell that I was making him go a little crazy and it was making me feel happy and powerful. I slid my lips down, taking in as much of him as possible before backing up to the head and then pushing back down again, working my lips and tongue on him just like he'd taught me to on that first weekend.
I could feel pleasure building to a fever pitch within him by the way he moved his body, tugged at my head and moaned. Before he got too close to an orgasm, I pulled my mouth away from him and dropped him from my hand. "Sorry, man part. I'm not going to be able to drink your seed tonight," I said.
"What?" Jomei asked, confused.
"Get on the bed," I replied. He blinked a couple of times and then went to lie down on my bed.

I followed behind him, snatching the rubber bands out of my hair and quickly running my fingers through my hair to remove my braids. Climbing onto the bed, I moved to straddle Jomei and slowly rubbed my wet lady bits over his hard length. I looked at him and smiled to let him know how much I enjoyed the feel of him. "Pull my hair," I directed.
"What? Are you sure?" he asked.
"Just do what I tell you to do." I answered. As he tangled his fingers into my hair, I placed the head of his part at my entrance and pushed down until I was firmly seated upon him. I moved slowly, focusing on the way that he felt inside of me and the feelings that moved in my stomach and over my skin.
"Now!" I hissed and he started tugging at my hair. "That's not hard enough…" He pulled harder and I moaned as the pain pleasure flood through me. I moved faster on his shaft as his fingers worked in my hair, making the good feelings build up stronger and stronger in me until I pulled away from his hands and sat up.
I needed a better angle so that I could move faster and harder on him. I moved until I found the best position with the maximum amount of stimulation for my lady bits. "Pinch my nipples," I said, and began to work myself on him as hard and as fast as I could manage while his fingers tugged and twisted my nipples.
I could feel the orgasm building inside of me, my body was tightening and straining towards it. "Akiko," Jomei called. He knew that I was close and he pinched my nipples harder, thrusting his hips up forcefully to bury himself deeply inside of me. The orgasm struck and I fell down onto his chest, arching and twisting against his hot skin, crying out with pleasure. My mouth found his shoulder and I bit down, working my lady bits against him to continue stimulating myself, forcing the last dregs of good feelings from my body. His hands moved down to grab my hips, and he thrust himself up into me several more times before he found his release.
I rolled off of him, smiling and gasping. "That was amazing."
"What was that?" he asked. "What was with all the biting?"
"Don't pretend like you didn't like it," I said.
"And where did you learn to suck my cock like that? I didn't teach you that stuff."
"You're not the only one who can look up information about parts on your phone," I said. "After we take a shower, I'm going to toss your salad."
"What the hell?! No you're not." he said firmly, as if he could scare me. "No more beer for you. You've gone crazy."
"You don't tell me what to do!" I snapped. "Now get in the shower!"

(Sunday, November 25)

"Asas, what have you done?!" I hissed at my brother. Over his shoulder I could see my father getting up from the couch and my mother coming into the room from the kitchen. As my brother gave me a confused look, Jomei stepped into the apartment behind me and closed the front door.
"Akiko!" my mother said, rushing over to give me a hug. "Hanae just told me that you have a boyfriend, but you never told me on the phone!"
"Out of the way," my father said, pushing Asas and my mother aside and standing in front of me. "Akiko, if you were dating a man, you should have informed us immediately. It does not look good that you have hidden him from us."
My sister-in-law, Hanae, had come into the room and was watching with triumph in her eyes. I felt like screaming at her, but I held myself back. Instead I introduced Jomei to my parents. He was as polite and charming as usual, making my mother smile and my father frown suspiciously. My father was just like me. He wasn't going to be fooled by Jomei's smooth words.
We all went and sat on the floor around the table in the living room where Hanae had arranged a couple of trays of appetizers. As soon as everyone had settled into their spots, my father looked at Jomei and directed, "Pull up the app on your phone and show me how much money you have in your checking and savings accounts."
"Dad!" I raised my voice to make sure he was listening to me and leaned across the table toward him. "That isn't necessary for two reasons: 1. Jomei is just my casual boyfriend. I am not going to marry him, and 2. Any idiot can see that this man spends all of his money on clothes. Don't make him embarrass himself by showing you his accounts. That's just bad manners!"

"What in the hell is a casual boyfriend?!" my father roared. "You date someone to see if you want to marry them! That's the only reason! If you aren't going to marry this man, you're wasting your time! Dump him immediately and find another boyfriend! He is scaring away prospective suitors!"
"This man," I indicated Jomei with my thumb, "is not scaring anyone! And I will date who I want, when I want and how I want! This is my life!"
"You have a familial obligation to find a mate, get married and produce my grandchildren! You are in your thirties! You have already failed to meet the goals and expectations that were set for you when you graduated from college! I have shown more than enough patience, but you are slapping your mother and I in the face by casually dating this man!"
Before I could answer, Hanae slapped her hand down hard on the table. "I've figured it out!" she announced. "He's a fake boyfriend! She hired him to make it look like she has a marriage prospect! Women are doing it all the time! I saw it on tv!"
"That doesn't make any sense, Hanae!" I yelled at her. "If I was trying to pretend that he was a marriage prospect, why would I say that I'm not going to marry him?!"
"Oh," she said before quickly smacking her hand on the table again and pointing at me accusingly. "He's one of those fake boyfriends that women hire when they don't have anyone to date and they're lonely!" She turned to my father and said confidently, "He's not a real boyfriend. She's just hiring him to take her on fake dates because no one else will."
"That is not true!" I yelled.
"Look at him," she continued triumphantly. "He's obviously too good looking for her! He's probably a failed actor and this is the only job that he can get."
"He's not even my type!" I argued. "Look at him! Do you think that I would choose this man if I could go through a catalog and choose any guy I wanted?!"
"He's perfectly handsome!" she yelled back at me. "Don't try to pretend that you don't find him attractive when the last time you were here you were talking about 'benefits'!"
"Attractive and marriage material are two different things! I don't-Wait a minute! Are you showing him your accounts?!" I swung around to see Jomei holding his cell phone up for my father to see.

"Decent, decent," my father said, adjusting his glasses. "It probably should be better. It is obvious that you spend too much time in shopping malls. But you have provisional approval to marry Akiko pending my review of your IQ, university entrance exam scores and your university transcripts. You can fax those to me here." My father handed Jomei his business card.
"That isn't fair!" I yelled. "Hanae didn't have to submit her IQ and scores!"
"Why does it even matter if you aren't going to marry him?" she asked snarkily.
"I'm not going to marry him, but if I were going to I would expect fair treatment! The only standard that Jomei has to meet is working at or above the level of an office temp with an associate's degree! He's a manager, so he's automatically accepted!" I declared.
"Don't bother saving a date for the wedding, Mother," Hanae said. "He's just an actor pretending to be her boyfriend to boost her self esteem!"
"Don't you bring my mother into this! And don't you lie to her either!" I looked over at my mother who was sitting quietly next to my father as usual. "He's my real boyfriend, Mom. We do all the things that boyfriends and girlfriends are supposed to do."
Hanae made a gagging sound. "He must be a gigolo then! You must be spending all of your savings on a gigolo! How pathetic!"
"That isn't true! Asas! Control your wife!" I demanded. My brother just sat quietly next to her, as usual.
"Akiko!" my father barked. "Show me your savings account! Now!"
"Why? You think I'm paying Jomei to have sex with me?! You have got to be joking!" I screamed.
"Oh dear," my mother said.
"You're upsetting Mom," my brother interrupted.
"Your wife is upsetting Mom with all of her lies!"
"Akiko, show me your savings and checking account amounts immediately!" my father demanded.
"God dammit!" I pulled up my app and passed my phone to my father before turning back to Hanae. "This is all your fault! You invited my parents here without telling me and then made up lies about Jomei being a fake boyfriend! You are going to have to be sanctioned!"
"Sanctioned?" she tossed her long hair. "How in the hell do you think you are you going to sanction me?"
I stared at her and said in a deadly serious voice, "I'm going hands off the kids."

There were a few seconds of shocked silence and then everyone looked to my father to bring me back in line.
"How can you threaten the children like that?!" he yelled. "Are you going to throw away your familial responsibilities entirely?! This will not be allowed!"
"This woman," I pointed at Hanae, "sits at home all day doing her nails while I manage her children's education. Asas, our mother spent all of her time getting you through school with decent grades and you allow your wife to do nothing. It's fine to just let me take care of it because everyone thinks I'm an old maid! Well I'm not! No one came to my defense when Hanae was telling all of those lies, but everyone wants to push all of the work onto me!"
I felt Jomei's hand on my back and he leaned in to say quietly, "I think you should calm down. You don't want to say anything more that you will regret later." He looked over at my father and said, "I think we all know that Akiko has a bad temper. She loves the children very much and would never do anything to jeopardize their wellbeing or their futures. But she has a point. It isn't right for her to take on too many of Hanae's responsibilities. She has a career and her own life to live. And just to make it clear, I am not a hired boyfriend."
Jomei's hand on my back moved to my waist, pulling me closer to him. My father looked at us darkly, he was against any form of public display of affection, but I didn't care. Jomei had stood up for me during an argument with my family and no one had ever done that before. Asas was the one who always got preferential treatment and leniency, I was the one who was supposed to do everything right and bear every burden.
"We haven't been dating long," Jomei said as everyone remained quiet. "We'll talk about marriage another time." He was digging a hole that I would have to fix later, but that was okay because he was helping me now.
"I still don't get it," Hanae grumbled.
"It's the braids," he said with a shrug as if that answered everything.
"Tell me about your job and your potential career path," my father said.
"Mom, I think something's burning in the kitchen," Asas said.
"Of course it is," Jomei muttered and began telling my father about his career plans.

(Monday, December 24)

"I want to apologize to you, Akiko," Ms. Mihara began. She'd called me into her office first thing in the morning without giving me a reason. "I know that you must feel like you should have been given the Purchasing Manager position. It's important to me that you know that I didn't just forget about you. You've worked very hard and you are one of the strongest and most dependable employees that we have. But I didn't think giving you the Purchasing Manager job was the right decision. The people in Purchasing already rely on you too much. They play at incompetence in order to get you to do their work for them. As their manager, this would have continued. You aren't afraid to take on too many responsibilities, and you would have ended up vastly overburdened, doing nearly everything on your own. A manager needs to guide and facilitate, not do the work herself."
"I see."
"There's also the question of your temper. At times it can get the best of you. A situation in which you were doing far too much of the work and your subordinates were slacking would have been a powder keg waiting to go off at all times."
"Yes," I said tightly, wanting to ask her why she had called me up here months later to explain to me why she had given Jomei the job instead of me. This was a waste of my time.
"But, I do have a position in which your knowledge and skills and even your temper are greatly needed," she said. "Igarashi has resigned. He was having trouble adapting to some of the changes that we have been making within the company and decided he would rather work at a small company in the country. I would like you to take over his position and manage the warehouse. If we're going to implement this program that you and Date have built, I'll need someone strong down there who isn't afraid of change and computers. Someone who can yell at delivery men when it's necessary."
I stared at her for a moment in shock as my mind made the change from irritated to happy. "I appreciate the offer," I said, "but are you sure that you just want to give me the position? You don't want to conduct interviews?"
"I know that it isn't standard and there will be those who say it isn't fair, but in this case I'm going to bend the rules one more time. You are the perfect person for the job. Conducting interviews would just be a waste of time - I think that's a concept that you can agree with," she said with a smile. "I want you down in the warehouse with Igarashi starting today. He was only able to give us a one week notice because the other company needs him badly. I want you to learn as much as you can from him before he leaves."

I thanked her again and walked out of her office in a daze. My heart was pounding as I walked down the hallway toward the elevator. I suddenly stopped and looked around. I needed to tell Jomei privately. When I got back down to Purchasing, I'd have to talk to him like we didn't even like each other. I was standing in the hall where the meeting rooms were. After making sure that no one was around, I ducked into one and dialed Jomei's desk on my cell phone.
"Purchasing, this is Date," he said.
"Jomei! It's me, Akiko," I whispered into the phone.
"Why are you whispering?" he asked.
"Shhh, don't give any hints that you're having a weird conversation," I said. "I'm in the meeting room that smells like old cheese, the one that no one ever uses. Come up here and-"
I looked down at my phone. He'd hung up on me.
A few minutes later he slipped into the room and locked the door behind him. He was winded and his hair was in disarray. "Okay!" he said. "I am so glad that we are finally going to do this."
He came at me and hustled me against the wall, his lips searching for mine.
"Jomei! Stop it! What are you doing?"
Pulling back, his eyes searched mine. "You didn't call me up here for some naughty office sex?"
"No I didn't!" I hissed at him. "I called you up here to talk! I can't believe you thought I was going to have sex with you at work in the stinky cheese room!"
"Oh. I see. Why do we need to talk in here?"
"Because I just got a promotion! I'm the new Warehouse Manager!" I smiled happily up at him.
"Oh God!" he said, putting his hand over his eyes. "Don't smile at me like that! It's too cruel! I'm so happy that you got a promotion! I'm so proud of you!"
"Stop covering your eyes you dimwit! Give me a hug!"
"Oh yeah," he said and moved to wrap me in his arms. His lips dropped little kisses on my forehead, but I didn't complain. "This is so amazing. You are so amazing!"
"I know! Ms. Mihara just gave it to me without an interview or anything! I'm concerned that she might have early onset dementia, but today I don't care!" I held him tight and breathed in his warm familiar scent.
"God, we have to celebrate," Jomei breathed in my ear. "I want to make love to you all night, but we'll have to have a dinner with Purchasing this evening. Maybe you can act all mean and they won't insist on going to a bar and then karaoke after the meal."
"Hey, I like karaoke! And keep your hands to yourself!"
"Dammit, Akiko! Fine! We'll go to dinner and a bar and karaoke, but no alcohol and we are going to a love hotel as soon as we can sneak away!"