Chapter 16

After his arduous journey back to Kushiro and in no way being sexually needy Matt delayed going to Hanna’s for lunch for two days. Having done without for over three weeks Hanna dragged him to the bedroom and had her way with him not once but twice and even then she was reticent to let him get dressed and he ended up in the kitchen with only a yukata as a covering. As Hanna laid out the fixings of bagels, cream cheese, sliced red onion, lox, pickles, and potato salad Matt drank the beer that she had opened for him she asked, “While you were in Shintoko did you hear about the man Yoki-Ona fucked to death?”

“No, I didn’t. How on earth did you know about it that area was snowed in tight for nearly the whole time I was there. When did it happen?”

“I’m not sure. Kiku told me about it. How she heard I have no idea but she seems to know everything that goes on around you.”

“Around me? Why would I be of any special interest to her?”

“Oh, come on Matt you know how Kiku feels about you. She is serious about Christianity and you represent Christianity to her. Besides, like I told you before she is sweet on you.”

“Stop that kind of talk Hanna. You know Kiku is merely concerned about the Church and its success.”

“You are Kiku’s forbidden fruit, Matt. You may be out of reach because she is true to her marriage but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t keep a watchful eye on you and what happens to you. It wouldn’t surprise me if she sent someone to follow you in Shintoko just to be sure you were safe.”

“Oh, please. That is going a bit too far don’t you think?”

“How else would she know what happened in Shintoko before you had time to get back to Kushiro.”

“Seems like a stretch to me.”

“Another beer?”

“Yes, please. I don’t know why it took me coming to Japan to find out about lox. I just can’t get enough of the stuff and this German potato salad really goes well with it.”

“Thank Tevye, he’s the one who cold smokes the salmon. There must be an art to it because not all lox is this good. And Golda is the gourmand when it comes to the potato salad and those are homemade dills right from her kitchen.

“I’ll be sure to thank them both.”

“Don’t think all of this raving about the lox is going to distract me from your promise.”

“My promise?”

“Yes, your promise of another hour in bed if I would let you eat.”

“Oh, that promise,” Matt said with just the hint of a smile as he thought the stamina required for Maaya’s seemingly never-ending desire for different positions and mating rituals. “If this keeps up the ladies won’t have much to work with tonight.”

It hadn’t taken Hanna long to reach the conclusion that Matt had somehow been protected against Yuki-Ona while he was stranded by the snowstorm in the Hidaka Mountains which closed all the passes in and out. If she had followed him there as seemed probable something had prevented her from achieving her goal of capturing his essence and bringing about his demise by fucking him to death. For some unknown reason, Yuki-Ona seemed determined when it came to Matt.

The thing that protected Matt in Kushiro was keeping him well fucked and sexually sated during the snow-rich months that spawned Yuki-Ons’ power. So, to Hanna’s way of thinking, Matt must have been well fucked while he was in Shintoko only she couldn’t figure out how he had managed that in a strange place where he knew no one. Even the Reverend Michaels was in Sapporo at the time.

At their next meeting, Kiku would enlighten Hanna about the gift left for Matt at the Inn of Happy Spirits by the father of the baptized child and that the gift remained with Matt during the snowstorm. Also, just to be on the safe side Kiku had ordered a Maid of the Pillow to go to Matt’s house in the early morning on the day he departed for Shintoko.

“How was your lunch?”

That’s strange, thought Hanna, Kiku had never asked about her and Matt’s lunch meetings. “It was fine. Same as always. We had bagels and lox. Matt has taken a liking to lox since he has been coming to lunch. I told him he should get some from Tevye to have on hand.”

“Same as always, huh? Did he talk about his stay in Shintoko?”

“Only about the baptism and the snow. The conditions were so bad he had to ride in a carriage all the way back.”

“Nothing about his gift?”

“Now why would he tell me about that? I’m sure he thinks that that little go-round has stayed in Shintoko. I don’t think he wants to have that put about in Kushiro.”

“I suppose not,” Kiku said with an air of resolve.

Now back in Kushiro Matt fell into his routine of visits to the hospital, visiting the homebound, overseeing the activities of the church and its various committees, sermon preparation and delivery, and providing time for those who sought solace in their religion. Then there were his lunches with Hanna and recently his visits with Keiko and Matsuki.

Keiko seemed to look forward to his periodic visits and he was beginning to look forward to them as well. His visits with Keiko were more like time spent with a lover even than his time with the ladies who came at night or even his lunches with Hanna. Hanna was enjoyable to be with but it has become more like an obligation that he owes for the sexual education that she had gifted to him and the time between his visits with her is becoming greater. As a consequence, Hanna is more demanding when he does visit.

Matt has failed to accept that his actions are those of men everywhere. He has become tired of the familiar and more interested in the new. Keiko is younger with a younger body which rises to his touch and offers new and different sensations She is not demanding but giving and intent on his pleasure rather than her own and he has become fond of her and the boy.

Maybe it was just his imagination but it appeared to Matt that there had been a sizable turnover in the Maids of the Pillow this year. If he had paid closer attention he would have noted an increase in the birthrate in the congregation over the last six months or so. There were so many children with lighter skin and the odd eye shape that he had first noticed about Matsuki and Yoshido, the younger, that Matt now accepted the condition as normal. The Church nursery was getting to be quirt full on Sundays.

Many of the Maids of the Pillow had decided that it would be a good thing to have a child whose father was Jesus Christ’s representative here on earth. They felt that it would raise them in the sight of God and as a result, it had a tremendous evangelical effect and the zeal of their devotion to the Church. Their attendance was more regular, their voices fuller in song and prayer, and their letter writing to the Bishop in praise of Reverend Billingsley more frequent. They proselytized their neighbors spreading the word of everlasting life through Christ. None of this new found spirituality slowed their continued desire to fuck Reverend Billingsley.