The Blonde Geisha

Disbelieving, I studied her soft moon face, round cheeks and tiny pink mouth. This girl was going to be a geisha? She was so young and plain-looking. I believed geisha were mythical creatures of great beauty who started the fashion trends and were immortalized in songs. They were the center of the world of style and often called the “flower of civilization” by poets.

I continued staring at her, shocked by the girl’s honesty. As if embarrassed by my stare, Mariko pulled her kimono around her nude bosom in a shy manner. I looked away, but I had new respect for this young girl. She reminded me of bamboo bending in the breeze. Strong but flexible.

I was also dying to ask her more questions about life in the geisha house.

“I’m curious, Mariko-san, why do you call the woman named Simouyé okâsan?”

“Many girls who come to the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree to become geisha lost their families when they were very young and have never known their mothers. Simouyé-san nurtures us as if she were our mother,” Mariko answered with much feeling in her heart. I could see by the wistfulness in her eyes, like a leaf filled with dew after it falls from the tree, she was such a girl.

“Simouyé-san is a difficult woman to understand,” I said, thinking, then I found myself saying, “and very beautiful.” Why did I feel I had to add that? Because my father had touched the woman’s breasts, held her in an intimate manner? As if that excused his actions?

“Yes, she’s hard on us, Kathlene-san, but it’s our way that all geisha in the teahouse give Simouyé-san much respect and follow her authority, as they would their own mothers.” With her eyes lowered, her lips quivering, she tried to keep her emotions from spilling over into her words. “It pleases me that okâsan has said I’ll become a maiko soon, then a geisha in three years.”

“You’ll be a geisha in three years?”

Mariko, in that knowing Japanese way, must have sensed my perplexity at hearing her words. She added, “I have much to learn before I can become a geisha.”

I leaned in closer to her. She didn’t back away. “Tell me, Marikosan. I want to know everything about becoming a geisha.”

She explained how an apprentice geisha was expected to be both observer and learner, that words didn’t have the same power as a telling glance or sway of the head.

“Geisha must learn how to open a door in the correct manner,” Mariko continued, “to bow, to kneel, to sing, to dance, to have undeniable charm, but it’s the main purpose of a geisha to converse with men, to tell them jokes, and be clever enough never to let them know how clever a geisha is.”

“How does she do that?” I challenged.

Without any shyness, Mariko said, “A geisha learns many ways to please a man, Kathlene-san. She presses her body against him and says something outrageous, then she allows him to slip his hand into the fold of her kimono and touch her bare breasts as she pours him sake.”

I knew my mouth was open, my eyes wide, but I couldn’t help it. I never expected to hear anything like this.

“What else does a geisha do?” I asked.

“A geisha must also master artistic skills like flower arranging and tea ceremony,” Mariko said without hesitation. “Okâsan says these skills are the most important treasure in a geisha’s life.”

“More important than falling in love?” I heard the plaintive cry in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. My image of the geisha as a fairy-tale princess was dissipating into thin air, like a wisp of smoke hanging from the end of an incense stick.

“Yes, Kathlene-san. Okâsan says geisha don’t fall in love with men. They fall in love with their art.”

An ongoing sense of apprehension settled over me, yet I couldn’t resist asking, “Do you think I can become a geisha?”

“That would be difficult, Kathlene-san. Okâsan is very strict with us.”

“She can’t be worse than the teachers at the missionary school,” I said, remembering the stodgy English women with their padded bustles widening their hips and woolen rats tucked into their hairdos.

“The stricter your teachers are, okâsan says, the more you will learn, and the better geisha you’ll become and…”

Mariko hesitated.

“And what?” I asked, hanging on to her words.

“You must follow our way of doing things…and the rules.”

“Rules?” I made a face. I found it hard to follow rules of any kind, having had no mother to guide me. “What kind of rules?”

After thinking a moment, Mariko rushed forth with a list that made my head spin. “Geisha must get up in the morning no later than ten o’clock, straighten their clothes, then clean their rooms, wash their bodies, paying special attention to their teeth and their dear little slits—”

“Their what?” I’d never heard that term before and it shocked me, but it also piqued my interest about obeying the rules of the teahouse.

“You know…down there.” She pointed to her pubic area. I nodded and she continued, “…making certain their pubic hair is properly clipped—”

I gasped, intrigued with this rule, but Mariko continued without drawing a breath.

“—fix their hair, pray to the gods, greet okâsan and their geisha sisters, then have breakfast of bamboo shoots and roots—”

“Is that all you eat for breakfast?” I dared to ask her.

Mariko hesitated, then shook her head. I smiled. So, she was teasing me. Her playful spirit surprised me. Life in the geisha house would be fun with her.

She continued with, “A geisha must also be careful not to have caked face paint under her fingernails or splotched on her earlobes. She mustn’t have smelly hair, for that is a geisha’s disgrace, and she must be sure to take her bath in the public bathhouse by three o’clock. And she can’t use familiar terms with her manservant who carries her lute, lest anyone sees them and forms a bad impression.”

“I’m afraid I’ve already made a bad impression on your okâsan, acting like I did,” I blurted out, getting to my feet. My movements were quick and not too graceful. Would I ever learn to move like a geisha? “And that girl, Youki-san, she doesn’t like me either.” I rolled my cut-off hair into a ball and tied it with my kimono ribbon. I had nothing to hold my kimono closed to hide my nudity, but I felt more naked without my hair.

“Youki-san wishes you no harm,” Mariko said, surprising me.

“How can you say that? Look what she did to my hair.” I held up my cut-off strands. Why would she protect the girl?

“She’s very frightened, Kathlene-san. If she doesn’t become a geisha, she can’t work off her debt.”

“Debt?”

“She was sold by her parents to a man who buys young girls for a great sum of money. She must earn that money back from her work as a geisha.”

“That doesn’t excuse what she did to me, Mariko-san,” I interrupted her.

Mariko bowed her head. “Yes, Kathlene-san, but if she doesn’t become a geisha and get a benefactor to help advance her career, she’ll be sent to the unlicensed quarters of Shimabara as a prostitute.”

I dared to ask, “What will happen to her there?”

“She’ll be put into a bamboo cage and made to blacken her teeth and shave the hair between her legs and pleasure the penises of many men in one night.”

“Are you certain of this?” I asked, putting my bundle of cut-off hair down to my side.

Mariko nodded. “It’s true. We can’t let this happen to her, although there are those in the teahouse who report everything to okâsan.” I had no doubt she meant Ai, the handservant. “Youki-san will be in big trouble when okâsan hears about what she’s done tonight.”

“What can I do?”

“Go to okâsan and tell her you accept Youki-san’s apology.”

I made a face. “What apology?”

Mariko smiled. “The one Youki-san will give you when she finds out you helped her.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand, Mariko-san. You want me to accept an apology that’s not been offered yet?”

“You must try to understand us, Kathlene-san. It’s the way of the geisha to bond as sisters.” Mariko lowered her eyes. “It’s the root of our geisha society for the experienced one to become the big sister to the new geisha, no matter what their ages.”

I shivered. “I wouldn’t want Youki-san for my sister.”

“If you stay in the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree, I would pray to the gods okâsan would choose another maiko for your sister.”

“Oh? And who’s that?”

Mariko bowed low. “I’m not worthy but I will soon become a maiko, Kathlene-san. I would be most honored to be older sister to you.”

“You, Mariko-san?”

“Yes, I would be both mentor and friend, but I’d also give you loyalty.”

Mariko looked directly at me, something she’d never do in ordinary circumstances, but for some reason I couldn’t understand, the girl wouldn’t change her mind about this sister thing. And helping Youki.

“You’ll go to okâsan and follow our tradition?” she asked, though it was more of a statement than a request.

I hesitated. I had to admit, I wasn’t happy about approaching Simouyé and giving her this phony apology story, but I’d do it if it was part of being a geisha.

I slid open the rice-paper door, apprehension tugging at my insides as I ran my fingers over the hand-painted crestlike circles of flowers on the paper screen, admiring their beauty, knowing I mustn’t mar that beauty.

“You have your wish, Mariko-san. I will go to okâsan,” I said, “and tell her I accept Youki-san’s apology.”

Bowing, Mariko smiled, then followed me. “Then I will go, too.”

I said nothing. I had the feeling it wouldn’t do any good if I did.

Deep breaths. Soft and gentle. Someone sighing. As if a nightingale wept because its wings had been broken. These sounds floated to my ear as I walked with a purpose through the long corridor of the teahouse. I looked everywhere at once, wondering which room behind its dusky red walls belonged to okâsan.

“Isn’t it late for a geisha to be entertaining customers?” I asked Mariko, daring to think about what kind of entertainment emitted such elusive sounds.

Mariko covered her mouth and giggled. “This is the hour when the women pleasure themselves.”

Pleasure themselves? I could feel a warm flush tinting my cheeks plum-pink. So I wasn’t the only female to discover the magic of her fingers. I was interested in finding out what the girl could tell me.

“What is this pleasure, Mariko-san?”

The little maiko covered her mouth with her hand, then she whispered, “Harigata.”

I shook my head, not understanding. “Harigata?” The word had no meaning for me.

I strained again to hear these strange noises coming from behind closed paper doors. Silence had replaced the last whispering sighs from the woman inside the room and the dark colored wall obscured what lay beyond. I tensed. Something curious, something beyond my world of schoolgirl copy books and writing brushes and India ink was going on in the private quarters of Simouyé.

My curiosity was piqued about the woman whose beautiful dark eyes misted over like a wisp of fog hiding in a ray of sunlight when my father touched her breasts. She must be engaged in something that intrigued me more then frightened me.

“Harigata,” I repeated. “What does it mean?”

The little maiko hesitated, her geisha code of secrecy requiring her not to give up the mystery of what went on behind the high walls of the geisha house, but I could see a sparkle in her eyes as she leaned forward, her eyelashes fluttering like twin black butterflies. “I tell you this because okâsan said you’re to be treated no differently than the rest of us.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Tell me, Mariko-san.”

“It’s most unusual for a maiko to speak openly of these secrets to anyone—” she began, again hesitating to say what was on her mind.

“Then don’t speak, Mariko-san, whisper them to me.”

If the girl was as anxious to talk as I thought she was, she would do so. And she was. She leaned in closer and cupped her hand around her mouth, then whispered into my ear.

“Have you ever seen how a man’s penis resembles a radish or a carrot or…” Mariko giggled, then hid her mouth. I could barely hear her whisper, “A mushroom?”

“A mushroom?” I repeated with a smile. “Are you saying she uses a mushroom for a penis?”

“Yes. As a lover, a large mushroom is said to be more satisfying than a man.”

Her words excited me, and the idea of experimenting with such an object made me feel a pleasurable ache in my groin. “Are you sure of this?”

Mariko smiled. “To see for yourself is the best truth, Kathlenesan. Come, I will show you shunga.”

“What’s that?”

“Shunga means spring drawings. They give a form and focus to the dreams of those who wish to find sexual pleasure.”

Before I could protest, Mariko motioned for me to follow her. We walked outside the teahouse and crossed the court, then creeping through a small door in a large gateway, we entered a retreat with a floor covered in mats so soft it felt like a velvety green moss beneath our feet.

“Where are we?” I whispered, looking around. The small room was empty, but quiet and cool.

“In a private tearoom where we won’t be seen.”

Even in the low light, Mariko had no trouble locating a large, red brocade-covered book placed with great care on a small, lowto-the-ground, black-lacquered table. She left the paper screen open to the night and the pale, yellow moon became the candle by which I could see page after page of a man making love with a woman or two women or many women.

Their exquisitely detailed and patterned kimonos were flung open, their eyes half closed in a personal ecstasy as they showed their exposed sexual organs and silky tufts of black pubic hair to anyone who looked. The men and women pushed, pulled, stretched, climbed, tugged, hugged, even sat on top of each other in a series of positions that made it clear what they were doing was most enjoyable. Their legs were up in the air, over their heads, while pretty young girls peeked at the sexually engaged lovers from behind screens, promoting learning by observation.

I looked. And looked. And looked.

A warmth filled me up inside and a curiosity about what I was seeing gave me a chill.

And still I couldn’t believe. But, oh, what succulent feelings went through me, my passions so aroused I wished I could slip between the pages of the book and into the pictures and fondle the man’s penis with my hands, then my lips, making it so enlarged it would move slowly in me at first, then faster and faster, until—

“What do you call this book?” I asked, trying to catch my breath as I stared at the man’s penis in the drawing. His sex organ was as big as his forearm. Did becoming a geisha mean I would find pleasure with a man such as this?

Did such a man exist?

“Pillow book,” Mariko said with no embarrassment. “It’s most helpful in learning how to please a man, is it not?”

“Yes, but I don’t see any pictures of women with this mushroom you’re talking about.” I skimmed through the rest of the bound book.

“That’s a woman’s secret, a tool to search every crevice of her vagina until she finds her pebble of pleasure, her clitoris,” Mariko explained. “A gift from the gods of thunder and lightning.”

I nodded. It made sense. Somewhat. Though I had to ask, “How can you have thunder without lightning?”

“That’s why there is the mushroom.”

“Tell me, Mariko-san, are the sounds we hear through the paper walls sounds of pleasure from this mushroom?”

Mariko nodded. “Yes, women such as okâsan, who have many duties and no chance to enjoy the scent of a loincloth, must find pleasure in other ways.”

“Loincloth? You mean making love with a man? Taking his penis deep into your vagina?”

I noticed the girl’s eyes sweep over my belly. I covered myself with a wisp of silk, but it didn’t lessen the warm achiness forming in the pit of my stomach.

“We call it ‘flower heart.’ In olden days, women such as okâsan lived in seclusion in semiscented darkness indoors, hidden behind bamboo blinds and curtains, speaking to men through latticed screens. They found many interesting ways to pleasure themselves without men.” Mariko hesitated, then whispered again in my ear, “Though you must be careful if the head of the mushroom swells by the heat of your body so it doesn’t become…stuck.”

I giggled. “Down there, in your…flower heart?”

Mariko lowered her eyes, but I could see the smile she was trying to hide escaping onto her berry lips.

“Yes, in the most secret of a woman’s secret places,” she said. “Come, you will see for yourself.”

Mariko smiled. I smiled back. I was more curious than ever to experience the pleasures of this mushroom and it was that thought of discovering something shocking that induced me to follow the girl through the teahouse. White paper butterflies hung from the ceiling on thin silk strings and fluttered in the breeze from the open sliding doors as we walked past them, then over a small indoor bridge.

The gurgle of running water soothed the strange warmth invading my body before we slipped through rice-paper doors, painted with cranes in a pastel cream of rainbow colors. I guessed this must be the entrance to the quarters of okâsan. Mariko put her finger up to her mouth, as if warning me not to speak, then she opened the side panel so we could slip inside and hide behind a many-paneled screen.

The rain was busy dropping its freshness on the earth, softly tapping on the wooden roof, but inside the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree it was quiet. So quiet it was easy for us to hear the soft sounds of a woman’s mournful longing mixing with her sexual enjoyment. We listened as the humming sighs grew louder and a faint but delicious scent seemed to pass through the room like unseen waves of pleasure.

“I feel so strange, Mariko-san, like I’m getting ready for a journey I’ve never taken before,” I whispered. “A journey that will satisfy a hunger deep inside me.”

“All women have that hunger,” Mariko whispered back, then added, “that’s why there are engis.”

“Engis?”

“Yes, replicas of a man’s penis made from paper or clay and filled with sweetmeats.” She licked her lips. “Very tasty.”

I had to hold my stomach so as not to laugh, then leaning forward and standing tiptoe on my bare feet, I saw movement beyond the screen. What I’d seen from a distance was confirmed close up. The okâsan, Simouyé, was sitting on her heels on the mat, rocking back and forth. Back and forth. She looked so beautiful. Her kimono was blue and simple. Her sash was also simple and tied in a small knot in the back.

But it was the erotic look on her face that so fascinated me my own body reacted in a strange and mysterious manner. I let out a sigh before I could stop herself. Mariko clasped her hand over my mouth, her dark eyes warning me to be quiet, for if we were discovered, I could guess what punishment would befall us.

I nodded. Mariko removed her hand from my mouth, her palm moist with the wetness of my lips. Before I had time to feel embarrassed, she whispered, “Watch.”

My eyes widened. My mouth dropped, yet I couldn’t look away as okâsan changed her position and bent her body forward. My eye was drawn to what appeared to be something tied to her heel with ribbons. Something long and slender and shaped like a—

“Mushroom,” I whispered, then I clasped my hand over my mouth to keep from crying out. This mushroom was not of the vegetable variety, I could see, but a carefully sculpted, brown leather object resembling a man’s penis. Big, and anatomically real with bulging veins.

I withdrew into the shadow of the screen, thinking. This penis put the woman in control. I smiled. Such power intrigued me and reaffirmed my desire to be a geisha.

I looked again.

Simouyé got to her feet and pulled her light silk kimono around her midriff, then fastened a red cord around her sash and under her breasts. She removed her soiled socks, then put on a clean pair.

“Why is she changing her socks?” I asked, turning my head.

“Geisha consider wrinkled or faintly grayed socks to be the height of impropriety. Showing clean white heels and clean white toes is proof of a most honorable feminine delicacy.”

I smiled at that, thinking it a strange priority after what I’d seen, then I looked back again at okâsan. I didn’t see the strange leather mushroom. Simouyé must have hidden it in one of the numerous drawers in the wooden chest standing in the corner.

The scene was surreal in my eye, but the tears flowing down okâsan’s cheeks were real and disturbed me in a way I didn’t understand.

Didn’t understand at all.

A tightness gripped my throat. Watching the woman pleasure herself had made me feel uncomfortable and yet strange and wonderful. Watching her cry made me feel as if I had violated something more sacred. I didn’t like that feeling. Mariko sensed my discomfort.

“I’ve seen women among us who embrace the ideas of the West,” Mariko said, “and abandon the age-old tradition of a woman walking behind a man and instead, walk hand in hand with him.”

“Are you saying okâsan is such a woman?”

She nodded. “The female mind has many strings, Kathlene-san, and a woman like okâsan is an artist in playing every one of them.” Then before I could quiz her further, she said, “We must go.”

I nodded. My private thoughts lingered in the darkness invading the room, black and velvety quiet, as we left as silently as we’d come. With a little luck, maybe in that silence I’d find the courage to embrace this strange new world. Nothing more could be done tonight. I would go straight to okâsan in the morning and tell her of Youki’s apology. I would bow my head and speak the words Mariko bade me to do, for nothing must stop me from entering the secret world of the geisha.

Crouching, I followed Mariko through the sliding door, down the hallway, over the tiny bridge and into a room where a futon had been unrolled and left for us, as if by magic. A four-paneled mosquito netting, trailing on the floor like the train of a royal robe, hung on silk cords from hooks set in the framework of the teahouse. Its misty transparent walls of green sea foam invited peaceful sleep to all who entered its folds. I was again living the fairy tale, though I guessed setting up the futon was Ai’s doing. I wondered how much the old woman knew, if she’d seen us, and if so, would she tell on us?

Mariko guessed what was on my mind. “We must be careful of Ai-san. She is a woman who embraces everything you don’t, Kathlene-san.”

“What do you mean?”

“She owes allegiance to no one except to the one who pays her.”

Mariko was right. I must be careful around the house servant.

I looked over at Mariko and she motioned for me to lie down on the futon next to her. Without a word, I did so, though my pulse beat with such excitement, such hope for the future, I couldn’t sleep. Tonight I had seen, heard and felt something so delicious it stirred my imagination with thoughts of what life would be like in the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree: scents of orchid and rose petals, a geisha untying her obi, her silver hairpins falling as she loosened her long hair, then parting her legs, welcoming the bulging penis of her lover. I wasn’t sure what to think about it. Not yet.

As I lay on the futon, the rain pounding on the rooftop became a song, its dripping melody sounding like dancing cats scurrying back and forth on the gray tiles. Long minutes passed. Frogs croaked. I could hear Mariko’s slow, steady breathing. Neither of us spoke as we lay on our backs, our slender bodies touching, warming under the covers. I could smell the scent of tangerine and ginger water on the girl’s skin from her bath mixing with the humid heat emanating from our bodies.