I should have instantly denied her. But instead I said nothing. In one part of my understanding, she had spoken the words with a different meaning, and in another part, she had simply misunderstood them herself. In any way that I read the thought, what she had said was a mistake. I couldn't deny her. I was helpless in the way she persuaded me her words, her looks, without any effort at all. She never meant to make me her slave. It happened all on its own, and I had somehow fallen victim to it before I realized it was happening.
A long time ago I had understood that the red string tied around my little finger flowed freely from me, and wound its way into the far distance. I had a long way to travel to find whoever it might have been on the other end of that string. At the times I could catch a glimpse of it in the corner of my eye, reflecting in the sunlight, I could see clearly that it continued still far away from me. Though I had tied myself to Mori, my fate did not, and I had expected her to know as much. But it didn't excuse the conversation.
"She asked you to what? And you said what?"
"I said nothing."
She and I had developed a habit of visiting the bath house as the night dragged on, the darkness thick, and the streets bare. The onsen bath was set into the corner, carved archaically from the trunk of a tree, and we sat together, reminiscent of the time we spent in the natural hot spring that pooled in the hollowed rocks in the mountains. How lucky we were, to have experienced such splendor, to have such memories to recall.
"Saying nothing is worse. Why say nothing? The answer is obvious."
"Is it so obvious though?"
I felt the fingertips of her eyes over the crevasses of my brain, and I let her explore as she pleased a while. Every thought in my head was pure and true, though they were not always wholesome. "You're a father figure to her." I left my eyes close as she combed my hair with her fingers, gathering it in her hands, from both of my temples, then from the nape of my neck. The ends had been soaking in the water, hanging to my hips, and she arranged a neat top knot, securing it with a hair pin discarded on the side of the bath.
"Does she see me that way?"
"You taught her how to dance, how to pour tea, how to hold an audience, how to play shamisen, how to wear a kimono. You taught her as any father would teach his child."
"I taught her the art of seduction." Seduction. And nothing after her audience had been seduced. The lights had always faded, the tea house doors closed, and the onlookers had always left. But there would come a time when they wouldn't, and she would no longer have control. I could teach her that though. I could teach her that better than anyone. "You don't have to search me that hard. You know me better than that."
"You believe everything you're telling yourself."
I waited, knowing there was more to what she wanted to say to me. I didn't have to possess the ability to read her mind, even momentarily, to know that I had stirred something in her. She could entice a smile from me so naturally. "Ask her then, how she thinks of you. Maybe it would be an act of necessity for you, but for her it could be something else. If you decide to go through with it, be stern with her."
"Are you jealous?" Though she knew as if my mind was unfolded before her, I had a desire to continue to evoke her. The glass of her eyes laid upon me unrelenting, and as much as I could feel their weight on me, I resisted. I waited for the height of her insecurity. "Mori." I hardly ever spoke her name. "I chose you."
"So this is necessity to you. You're a monster after all."
I reached into the water, my fingers wrapping around her slender wrist, and I pulled her with the grip as I leaned my body into it. "I'm not good with words, you know." I could use my body to inflict harm, pain, and I could use my body to induce want and longing. There were not many occasions I could recall in which I used my body for comfort. For the expression of love, or any kind of sweetness.
I could feel her unyielding to the way I held her wrist, her resistance enough to overpower my advance while I left my advance only enough to equal her strength. "Choose a Danna for her, help her find love. Sell her off." She gave in to my consistency in my hold on her, and allowed me to take her balance forward. With intention, I drew her with a hand behind her head in between my bent knees. She crawled a few paces, her free hand on the bottom of the onsen to offset her knees. She was awkward, and I was unrelenting. "I would like to do that for her. Find her someone who loves her. But I still feel the need to teach her so that she can't be taken advantage of."
Settled between my knees, she reached up to grasp my jaw, her fingers curling into my skin, her nails grazing. "I want you for myself. I don't want to share for the excuse that you have a lesson to teach." We were both unyielding. We had always been at war with each other in some way. Through hatred at first, through captivity, through beauty, through control. I could only take the lead because she gave it to me. "And you are a brutal lover. You would surely not show her love."
I released the hold around the back of her head, leaning back into the onsen. The knuckles of her fingers against my lips tasted sweet, and smelled of the damp humidity of the bath house. I ran my tongue over them, to collect the water droplets. I felt satisfaction with the description of brutal. I had become strong, and I was proud of her, because I knew strength was also required to take me.