Chapter 6

Softly, “My Robert, this is the room of your youth.”

“Yes, Chiki-san.”

Her giggle pealed. “Oh, so now I am ‘Chiki-san’? Do you understand what you say?”

“Only that it is supposed to be a term of honor. You deserve my honor, my lady.”

“Titles are very important where I come from. I do not know if I deserve...”

“I love you. I cannot give you as much as I think you deserve. I would live my whole life...”

“ ... And I would be the honored wife of Robert, son of Lord Raymond, daimyo of Kaplan.”

“I only wish to see the look on the face of my father and mother when you tell them that...” I paused. “How do you know where we are?”

“Silly. I am sent. I open my eyes to where I am sent.”

“And I came here. You are here.”

“It is my duty.” Her laughter rang in my head. “So strange. ‘My duty to be where you are.’ So much like a faithful wife, to live and die with her husband ... Before I was sold to Lady Sakura, I would have become wife of a peasant like my father. When I was sold, my duty became to Lady Sakura. Now my duty is to something in The Void.” She kissed me softly. “I want my duty to be to my Robert.”

“How do we fix this, Sachiko?”

“I do not know, Robert. I am commanded...”

“I don’t want you to stop, but I do want to walk with you in the sunshine, I want us to sit at meals together, to feel the winds together, to share the sunlight...”

“Somehow, Robert. Perhaps. Or, perhaps this is our fate, that we have each other like this. I would rather this each night than to have nothing.”

“Now that I have you...”

The next day the cat showed up.

“Odd,” Dad said. “Used to be more cats around, but since the coyotes started taking them...”

“I know a guy who shoots coyotes,” I said. While I was talking, the cat jumped from the porch deck to my lap.

“Looks like a friendly little thing,” Dad said. Dad was an appreciator of cats. Barn cats are useful around the place, keeping control of rodents and pests around the place.

I didn’t tell him that I KNEW this cat and that its her appearance here just validated an idea I was forming in my mind. “Hello, kitten,” I said. The cat reacted by insinuating herself snugly into my lap. Having reached a conclusion that the young female cat in my lap had some sort of connection to the young female in my dreams, I lavished her with caresses and tickles and scratches. She reveled in the attention, balling up, playfully raking my hands, nipping, purring like a small chainsaw.

Sam came out to join me and Dad. “Mom’s starting the dishwasher.”

“You should be the dishwasher,” I said.

She stuck her tongue at me in derision, noticed the cat. “Yeah, that’s YOUR speed. Derive your joy from interacting with lower lifeforms.”

“Oh, hold up there, girlie,” I laughed. “I’ve seen some of the guys YOU date ... And cats are interdimensional beings, connecting the physical and spiritual. And some are excellent judges of character.”

The cat reacted by intensely and smugly staring at Sam. “See?!?” I said. “She judges you.”

“Cats usually LOVE me,” Sam whined.

I was surprised. The cat jumped down, jumped into Sam’s lap, nuzzled her with her nose, then returned to me.

“She says she forgives you but you’re advised to treat your brother with proper respect.” The cat lounged back against me. “See?!?”

We watched the sunset over the fields. It’s a tranquil time. The cat disappeared, though, when I stood up to go inside. Everybody looked. No cat.

“I hope she finds someplace safe,” Mom said. “Could’ve left her out something.”

TV with the family. Mom and Dad argued over a movie, then we all watched it together.

Bed time had me listening to Sam whine about the dearth of hot water for her shower. She sneered at me in the hallway. “You’re the one who probably needs cold showers.”

I retired to my old familiar bed, read for part of an hour, then turned out the lights and closed my eyes.

Sachiko.

“Chiki-san, there is a cat...”

“Cats have a very respected place in my culture. They bring good fortune.”

“What do you know of a small little girl cat that shows up everywhere I go?”

She averted her eyes demurely. “Perhaps if a maid cannot go places herself, there is a way somebody might be her eyes and ears.”

“So the cat Is not actually YOU?”

“The kitten is parts of me. It is how I begin to see YOUR world, to see YOU in it.” She sighed. “To find out that I love you even more because you are the same person out there as you are when you are here with me. The kitten is me when I cannot be there.”

“So you’re with me at times during the day?”

She smiled. “I am only beginning to understand what I can and cannot do.”

“I love the kitten, but how do I get THIS Chiki-san out into my days?”

“I do not yet know. I am to understand that there are fences, but I am beginning to understand that for every fence, somewhere there is a gate.”

Kisses. Talking.

“Your family – it is different than the life I knew – any of the lives I knew, the one back at the village, the life after I was sold to Lady Sakura.”

“I worry about that, Chiki. A thousand years and a vast ocean separates the life you had with the lives we’re living now.”

“I have thought as well, my Robert. First, though, I was commanded to find you. Second, something is not correct in my summoning. You were supposed to die. Instead, you live even more. Third, I was not the correct one to be sent. You must understand as I have told you – I am virgin. Never have I lain with a man. A correct succubus would have ... All I can learn is that my status and your status, both of us un-mated, that is not the usual thing.”

“What does that mean? Chiki-san, I want...”

“I know what you want. I also want. But there is something I do not know. I do know that the barrier is strong and I do not know what lies on the other side. I fear that if we break that barrier, I am no longer the one summoned. Robert, between your world and mine, we have each other. I always want to have you.”

“You are beautiful and wise for your age.”

“I am fourteen. Plus eight hundred years.”

“My Sachiko. To fill my eyes and my heart and my years.”

“I would like that. I liked being your kitten, sitting on your lap in the evening with your family, Robert. Your mother could be my mother and your father could be my father. And I would sit with you in the evenings and we would watch the sunset together.”

“How would you fit in this world, my Chiki?”

“It is ... I cannot explain. I come here from the Void and I already know how to care for the things I need to do to collect your essence, as I was commanded. But it seems that I was not restrained, was not bound to that knowledge only. Others who were summoned, they seldom converse with their, mmm, victims.”

“You never made me feel like a victim.”

“When you opened your eyes to see me the first time, Robert ... I knew that I was not a succubus, not like the others. You looked into me, Robert. And I looked into you.”

Like all the other nights, we loved each other gently, and as has become the nature of our loving, we orally gratified each other, first me savoring her femininity to the point of her whimpers of orgasm, her body curling around my head like she was holding me at her center, then her on me, not the simple, quick actions I experienced at first, no, this was her playing with me, giggling, teasing, nipping, love talk continuing between us until finally ... And Sachiko is gone.

And Robert is lying there as completely physically satisfied as he has ever been in his life. I assessed. Yes, that’s a true statement. Also true now is that I won’t be complete until our bodies are completely mated.

The next day after breakfast I headed out with Dad to attend to the chores. When I stepped out of the back door, the cat was there.

“Guess she found a safe place,” Dad said.

“Cats’ll do that,” I said. I bent over and picked her up. “C’mere, Chiki.”

“Oh, now you’ve named ‘er.”

The kitten purred loudly, pushing her head against my cheek. “I like this cat.”

That afternoon I was packing my car for the trip back to college.

“Where’s your cat?” Mom asked.

“Dunno,” I said. “Chiki? Are you coming?”

I don’t know exactly how she does it, but she showed up in the middle of the yard, sauntering towards us. I hugged Mom and Dad, told them to tell Sam that I’d see her at Christmas, then turned to the car. The cat was inside.

Well, that’s closer. Maybe it’s supposed to be baby steps.

And now I’m talking to the cat. “You’ll know a lot more about my world than I know of yours, Chiki-san.”

Purrrrrr.

“You don’t mind me talking when you can’t talk back?”

Purrrr.

“Okay.” And I did my best ‘stream of consciousness’ commentary on the way back to my apartment, landmarks, things that have changed, new things, old things, and she was on her hind legs, paws on the window ledge, taking it all in. We finally pulled into the drive at my apartment. She jumped out, followed me as I hauled my bags up the stairs, checked into each of the rooms, then ... She wasn’t there. I called her name. Nothing. I don’t understand everything about this relationship.

Late afternoon. I wonder what’s up at the Student Union, a short trip that takes me past Madame Ramona’s. Okay, talk with HER about Chiki and the revelation.