Chapter 45: "Cerulean Life, Azure Dreams"
Monday, November 4, 2002
…...…...?
My eyes slowly open. They take some moments to focus, as I once more look up at the tester from my bed, aware that my body seems very spread out and taking up a great deal of room.
I feel so exhausted... so completely and totally drained, that my body is more than willing to accept going back to sleep if I would but close my eyes once more. It is trying to encourage me to do so, with heavy eyes and muscles that feel entirely void of energy.
I... am on my bed, in my room. Nothing is unusual about that... that is how I start every morning.
...Until I remember what happened last night.
"…...Nii-san?ǃ"
With sudden violence, I sit up and look around. There is no sign of Nii-san or of Yumizuka-san.
In fact, there is no sign of anyone.
My bed appears that it has been disturbed, though... the sheets and blankets are certainly more out of order than they would be by mere sleeping... it clearly looks like there was not one, but several people, on my bed.
I pull my covers off of me. Somehow, I have been re-dressed in my bra, underwear, and nightgown.
...Or... had I never undressed at all?
…...My underwear sticks to my body and the scent of my own arousal leaks through. Lifting the hem of my nightgown... the underwear is very obviously soiled, causing me to blush furiously in embarrassment. Furthermore... the smell is definitely not the foul odor of urine... and I can tell by both sight and smell that it lacks the iron tang of red blood.
Then, the only thing it could be... are fluids of arousal...
...What happened? Did…... Did I have a sexual dream and... release in my sleep...? Th, Those are possible, but... that could not have been a dream... could it...?
...Well, that is a silly question. I remember what happened. Far too clearly for it to be anything but the truth...
And yet... dreams can be very realistic as well...
Was... that real? Did... did that really happen? Or was it only a dream...?
...I cannot tell. It looked real. It felt real... It felt so very real, and so very good, and I did not want any of it to stop for a moment, but...
I am not sure if that was just a very perverted dream, or if I actually did...
...I could ask…... no. No, no, no, no. Confirming it could be bad enough, but... if it were a dream... I do not think Nii-san, Yumizuka-san, or especially myself would ever live it down. I would be embarrassed from admitting it was a sexual dream, and Nii-san would be embarrassed because I had a sexual dream of him, and Yumizuka-san probably does not even think of me in those terms. No, I am a friend for rescuing her, and her nominal master, but to think she would have a sexual interest in me is so absurd as to be almost unbelievable...
...I could check for my hymen!
…...Ah, but... that can be torn in other ways... and some women are simply born without one...
And, of course, never having had a reason to go up in there before except for basic cleaning, I, well... I don't know if I was born with one, and... I avoid tampons... I have always used menstrual pads. So there is really little reason for me to have checked...
Perhaps... perhaps this is a question best left unanswered.
As much as it will gnaw at me, knowing the truth could be worse. If... if that was real, I would never be able to look Nii-san or Yumizuka-san in the eye again. And, if it were a dream... I would be so embarrassed that I would just want to curl up into a small ball and die...
...Yes. That is the only answer that could possibly get me out of a situation like this with my dignity, as well as Nii-san's and Yumizuka-san's, intact.
With a sigh of resignation to leaving that question unanswered, I lay back in bed. The sun shines through the window, greeting me on this blessed morning, as if to say that whatever happened last night, whether real or not, today is just another day, as Nii-san would say. I stretch my limbs and–
…...The sun is upǃ?
My head whips towards the alarm clock.
…...NINE EIGHTEENǃ? WHY DID THIS CLOCK NOT GO OFFǃ? I'M LATE!ǃ!ǃ!ǃ
Surely it was a new world record for throwing thick covers off of oneself and running to the bathroom as fast as possible.
As my driver does highly illegal speeds and reckless maneuvers down back roads, I begin to wonder... why did Hisui not awaken me?ǃ I will have to raise a very sharp complaint about this when I get home! She knows very well to wake me up if I am not out of my room by six-thirty! Unless she was so violently ill that she could not get out of bed, or has died in her sleep, such a dereliction of duty is absolutely inexcusable!
Great... now the EARLIEST I might see Souka is lunchtime. Maybe. If her schedule falls into place. Usually it does not, so our goodbyes are limited to perhaps fifteen minutes at the end of the day. I had hoped to speak to her before classes even started for the day, and now my frustration and nervousness is at an all-time high. I have to practice breathing calmly when a quick look in the small mirror of a compact reveals the tips of my hair beginning to turn red.
...Well, if that is the case today, then my driver can wait. We need a good talk. Fifteen minutes is not enough time to talk to Souka. Not today...
Eventually, my limousine pulls up outside of the entrance to the school. I fling the door open with my hand after pulling on the door handle, and race outside. I nearly immediately stumble, but manage to roll slightly before my face plants into the ground, and I hardly even break forward progress. It means my uniform, or at least my knees, are surely dirty... but oh well. Dirt is dirt. Attendance is attendance!
On. On. On. I know I am late. The later I am, the worse it is...
Up the steps. Faster. Harder. I hear my heart thumping in my head, feel it beating in my chest. Hear the noise of air rushing past my opened lips, feel it refusing to stay in my chest. Hear the noise of my feet hitting the ground rapidly, feel the ache of my leg muscles, begging me to stop running.
But I cannot. And I will not. I have a mission to get to the classroom as fast as possible, so as to minimize the amount of lost face that I will incur.
Upon reaching the door to my classroom, I knock twice, announce "Excuse me for being late," and enter.
Needless to say, everyone in the class looks at the tardy student with surprise and shock, even as she stands firm.
"...Good morning, Tohno-san. Be seated," the professor announces with an icy chill in her tone.
I am given a stern talking-to by my professor for arriving so late. The whole of the book is thrown at me, as the expression goes.
I accept and take the full blame for this. I could have avoided the reprimand by simply not attending, but I already missed part of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. A fourth day would be inexcusable.
A few of the girls look at me, seemingly amused that the campus valedictorian, she who always tops the rankings without fail... not only missed three whole days of class, but was even late on her return. I do my best to ignore them, while silently remembering who to put down on my list for later... interrogation.
Yes, I was late, and I will have to accept that. But there was a very good reason for wanting to show up to class today.
...I really want to talk to Souka. Badly. Very, very badly.
I have so many unanswered questions... so many concerns, thoughts, feelings... that I am not going to be able to be at complete peace until I can talk with her...
As it is Monday, she is sure to be here, or at the very least, in our dorm. Tsukihime Souka's presence, despite her laid-back attitude, is quite consistent, although on occasion she does take off from a class, claiming that it is healthy for the mind to not be so rigid with structured dates or times so constantly.
With the weekend gone, our week begins anew. Today is a Monday; certainly not the first Monday I have experienced, and hopefully it is not the last yet.
…...Because this will be more than a mere new week for me. It will be... a new me, period.
It is strange. Last week on Monday, I was very fidgety in class, as I am today. I was anticipating confronting Seo Akira about her doujinshi... only to later find that she was not in at all...
Now, I am fidgety for entirely different reasons. I desperately want to talk to Souka. About Friday. About these new thoughts in my head. About the strange thoughts and feelings I have had. About... everything.
If her goal was to get me curious about these things, well... the victory is hers. I am now. I just have to hope she is here... but unlike Seo, Souka almost never misses a class without good reason, or illness, unless she simply does not feel like showing up on occasion.
At least I know the answer to one of those questions without having to resort to asking her...
How can two women love each other...?
It's so stupidly simple.
When one separates love from reproduction, it is very obvious two women can love each other... physically, emotionally, and even sexually. The only thing – the ONLY thing – they cannot do is produce a child between them. Otherwise, love between two women... or two men... can be just as strong as one between opposite genders, and can fulfill the needs of both partners in the relationship.
Because, aside from differences in the genitals, the breasts, some internal organs and to an extent bones, all humans have the same fundamental things. Eyes. Ears. Nose. Lips. Mouth.
And... all of those things, in some way... can be used to bring one bodily pleasure.
Eyes, visually, showing things that one knows the other desires to see.
Ears, by sound and encouragement, indicating that they are comfortable with what is happening.
Nose, by pleasant odors... and making even those "bad" ones somehow instinctively pleasant.
Lips, by kissing, as well as the odor of the face, for we smell partially with our sense of taste.
Mouth…... by saying those things that the other person wants to hear...
A penis is not needed for a woman to be sexually satisfied... there's still places a woman can touch, and lick, and taste... and... a finger or two could substitute for...
I feel the blood seemingly flood my head so fast my vision becomes slightly red. I actually audibly gasp slightly, and I quickly try to shake these thoughts out of my head. Not here... if, if I got aroused here, I would absolutely die of embarrassment…...
"Tohno-san, are you okay?" The voice of my teacher for this period, Minowa-sensei, brings me back to a sense of reality.
"H-huh?" I snap out of it when I realize Minowa-sensei has called upon me. I look up at her.
"...You have a nosebleed... do you not notice?" She sounds worried.
"...I do?" I wipe my philtrum carefully with the back of my right index finger. Sure enough, a slightly sticky red liquid clings to my finger, leaving a noticeable red streak as it is spread and smeared by the action.
"...It seems you are not well, Tohno-san. Perhaps you are overdoing it with trying to make it here." She frowns slightly, not out of anger, but out of concern. "I'm sorry, but please make your way to the nurse."
"...Yes," I say with a resigned sigh. "Please forgive me, everyone." I blush slightly in embarrassment as I wipe my nose, clean my desk, gather my things, and head to the nurse's office.
I can feel the eyes staring at me as I leave. So far, today seems to be a victory for the enemies of Tohno Akiha.
After a small battery of tests, the nurse finally clicks her tongue softly and shakes her head.
"I'm not sure what happened to you, Tohno-san," she announces, "But whatever it was, it seems to be transient. There's definitely nothing seriously wrong with you."
"That's a relief..." I announce with a sigh, my tension lifting from my shoulders.
"However, just as a precautionary measure, I would like you to lay down until lunchtime. If no further problems occur, I will release you then," she tells me.
"...Very well, Sensei," I reply, not having much choice in the matter.
I have only been to the nurse's office once or twice. Surprisingly, despite being afflicted with aches and pains for the last several years, I have hardly been in here. It is a strange room, smelling of chemicals, and yet the room has an a fairly warm feeling from it. It may be unusual to someone who is used to being cared for medically in her own home, perhaps, but it seems that most students, nor most people, would find the setting of this room very strange at all.
I am led to a bed in a darker corner of the office. I take off my shoes, and lay down on it. The nurse smiles, and after wishing me to relax, she shuts the curtain. The area becomes mostly dark, with only a thin amount of light piercing the very bottom of the curtains, for they do not fully touch the floor.
...Well, I suppose that the quiet will allow me to at least regain my thoughts.
The nurse informed me that I am fine. Well, I know I am fine... That was not the issue. The... the nosebleed was because I got to thinking about... those things again.
The events of what Souka did to my body on Friday.
Of all the days in the world she could have chosen to do that... she did it on a day that I was absolutely not looking forward to experiencing.
A day that I never wanted to come... and now, a day I can never forget.
Two years in a row...
Then... there was whatever happened last night. Whether it was real or a dream, I do not know, but... it was incredible.
If it was real... then, it was absolutely an experience that none of us will ever forget.
If it was a dream... then, the human mind's capacity for imagination, for creating an ideal world, an ideal setting for itself... it is beyond reproach. How could I criticize something like that now... when it turns out that, when it came down to it...
...That I enjoyed it immensely... and wanted more of it despite myself...? That I wanted it to never, ever stop, and was drunk on the sensations my body was producing, even as I was doing the most disgusting things, like pushing my hips up and down and hearing the squishing noises of my vagina in response, or of feeling Yumizuka-san licking... a very dirty place indeed...?
I certainly have some insight on why people do that now, I suppose.
Because of the simple fact that... it feels... good.
I wish I had a better way to describe the sensations, the thoughts... but I do not. There is no single word, or even group of words, that will completely sum up the desires, the wants... the needs that I had.
Words STILL fail me to adequately describe how that felt, and I do not have those intense sensations of pleasure, of fullness, of love and desire and passion pushing my other thoughts away, unlike then. Therefore, in the peace and quiet of this room, all my mind can do is focus, and focus, and focus...
If... if it feels like that, every time... then... I may become a slave to the desire of it. Feelings and sensations like that... make one drunk, and seek even more... Even now, I can feel my body heating up just thinking about it... of such... carnal pleasure.
It is strange.
All last week I was wondering just why, and how, two women could love each other like that, and why people were slaves to such a simple, messy, disgusting biological act. I knew why it was necessary, of course – humans reproduce sexually, and thus to continue the species, two humans must have sexual intercourse, but I did not see why some people would seek it out so... enthusiastically. After all, when one looks at it from a purely external point of view, it is just a man inserting a penis into a woman's vagina, and movement of hips until the man ejaculates inside of her vagina.
...And that was the problem.
Sex is not something one is to view externally. There are elements of it that one can watch, that one can see, that one can even enjoy, even without participating in the act itself. Yumizuka-san was proof of that, as was the dream that Nii-san had, where I watched Kohaku and masturbated with incredible passion to the sight.
But... the real truth of it, the reason why people seek it out, over and over and over again...
…...Is because of the feelings and sensations that are tearing through their body, paralyzing their thought and reason, and rendering them helpless to do anything but continue to enjoy the carnal pleasures... for an ejaculation into the woman is what is necessary for sex to be successful from a biological point of view.
Or, to put it more succinctly... if it did not feel good, we would probably fail to reproduce.
Friday provided me that answer to the first half. Because in Souka's hands, I felt helpless, but... I did not want to be helped. I did not even care that my genitalia were exposed to her, or that she was licking and touching and smelling it. After awhile, I simply stopped caring about how she was a female, or that she was doing those things to my most private places, or even that someone might see or hear us, and catch us in the act... I just wanted more of it. More, and more, and more... until I could not stand it anymore, and... that is when I had... that.
What biology classes told me was called an "orgasm."
Then, last night, dream or not, gave me the other half. Because as intense as Souka felt... Nii-san was just so much better... I found myself doing things that I couldn't even believe, or even know why I was doing them, like pushing myself up and down... something told me to do it, and the instant I did I felt even more pleasure from the act, of feeling him moving in and out, like my vagina was made for him and him alone...
Instincts, surely... instincts that wanted me to keep going, to never stop... the more I did that, the faster I did that, the better and better it felt... the more I did it, the less I wanted his penis to exit my vagina...
...And... there was also Yumizuka-san... saying those words... feeling my body...
I... I never thought she'd be that type, but... somehow, that made the pleasure even more intense... knowing she was watching... knowing she was touching... and knowing that it was not just me, but... herself as well... knowing that her own body was pleased, knowing that I could smell a scent that was neither mine, nor Nii-san's, mingling with ours...
And then... me saying that word...
"Cum."
Filthy, guttural slang. And not only did I tell him cum, but... cum inside...
Without even a thought towards the consequences of what could happen, without any sort of thinking on protecting myself... I just wanted to feel that. I wanted to feel something, but I did not know what...
...But as soon as I felt liquid warmth shooting into my body, from the throbbing intruder inside of my vagina... I somehow knew that was it... and so my body quit on me, and I had an orgasm so violent that I felt my soul being wrenched away from the anchors of my body once more...
Telling him to do that inside of me like I did... that is never something I would normally do... so...
...Did... my body want to bear Nii-san's child...?
The female body is a very efficient machine for making children. Despite the man trying his best to delay his release, everything it does to the male serves to bring him to a hard and fast orgasm, so that as much semen as possible fills her womb, increasing the chances of impregnation, and–
…...D-Did my stomach just twitch? Am I…...?ǃ?
N-No... don't be silly, Akiha, you're letting your imagination run wild. You can't be pregnant yet. It's impossible. Completely, totally impossible. Your period isn't for another two weeks or so. You should be safe. Besides, a baby would not form overnight! Y-Yes... you're fine... perfectly, completely fine. The nurse said so herself, and such knowledge is her job, so of course you're fine...
Ah... I, I'm getting myself worked up. My hair is a little red. Not good... can't reveal that here... that's twice today... damn it...
Close your eyes. Breathe. Inhale deeply, through the nostrils, breathing from the diaphragm in your stomach, and not your chest. Exhale slowly, but forcefully, through the mouth, allowing your lungs to empty at a steady pace.
In... Out... In... Out...
…...Stop thinking about Nii-san and the sex, Akiha! Argh! You pervert...
...It's hopeless. My mind is preoccupied with that now for some reason. Th, This isn't good.
I sigh, clench my fists firmly and shut my eyes tight, and make the thoughts exit my head, with great difficulty, by sheer force of will. I focus on my breathing, no more and no less.
It takes some five or ten minutes, but eventually I calm down, and my breathing through my nose is a fairly good indicator that I will not be risking a second nosebleed.
...Just in time for the bell to ring for lunch.
The nurse opens the curtain a few moments later, and looks over me with a smile. "How are you feeling, Tohno-san?"
"...I am feeling fine, thank you. The rest helped me greatly, I think," I reply.
"Good, good. Looks like everything is okay,too... Please take care of yourself a little more. I understand you wanted to return to class after missing much of last week, but please do not push yourself so hard. Your body is more important than some classwork, remember that." She says with a smile. "You can always make up an assignment, but you only have one life to live, you know?"
...Heh, well, if you knew that for eight years I only lived half a life, you probably would freak out, wouldn't you...?
I stand up. "Thank you for letting me recover in here. Pleasant day to you," I say to the nurse with a smile.
I collect my things, and head for our dorm, to collect my lunch.
These thoughts... why am I thinking about them so much?
Surely, this sort of constant dwelling upon them is not healthy...
Hopefully, I will find Souka in the cafeteria...
Next Week (4/17/11) – Chapter 46: "Inner Shade"