Chapter 45

The best mind-altering drug is the truth.
- L. Tomlin

One of the most anticipated things that I had been looking forward to during our trip to Japan was a chance for a post coitus cigarette without having to leave the room. After Traci and I chuckled over her little joke about housekeeping being on the other end of the line during our fucking, I withdrew my softening cock from her pussy and got out of bed. Retrieving my cigarette case from my jacket, I fumbled a cigarette when I took one out, such was my haste. After popping it into my mouth, I walked over to a small table in the corner of the room where an ashtray and matches waited.

As I picked up the matches, Traci said, "Chad, you--"

"Look," I interrupted her, "I'm going to open the window, and there is a vent in the ceiling that will suck up the excess smoke."

"No, it's--"

"Please, just let me have this cigarette," I begged.

Traci raised her palms up in surrender, and I quickly lit a match before she could say anything else. I took a deep drag and immediately began coughing as the acidic taste of melted filter filled my lungs. Pulling the cigarette out from my mouth, I stared at the ruined filter for a few seconds before looking at Traci.

Bless her heart; she was fighting hard not to laugh outright at me.

"Hey, I tried to warn you," she told me.

Embarrassed, I replied, "And I was being a jerk and not listening to you."

"Strange, as large as this hotel is, we were stuck with a smoking room," Traci said sarcastically.

I explained, "The hotel has 815 rooms, and 96 of them are non-smoking, which is about twelve percent. Rose and Pollyanna have a non-smoking room, which means that twenty-five percent of the rooms we have are non-smoking. Therefore, we should consider ourselves lucky, since we're taking up more than twice the amount of non-smoking rooms available."

Math was not Traci's strongest subject, but even she knew what I was spouting was 'horseshit' and told me so. She reminded me to open the window before she went into the bathroom and locked the door. I had to struggle with the latch on the window for a few seconds before I was able to open it to its maximum, approximately ten centimeters. Deciding not to waste the spoiled cigarette, I pinched off the ruined butt and was about to light it again when Traci burst back into the room.

"Chad, come here!" Traci said excitedly.

Setting the matchbook and cigarette in the ashtray, I walked over to the bathroom that Traci had reentered. When I joined her, she pointed at the toilet and said, "Look at that!"

"It's a toilet seat," I enlightened her.

"Duh! It's like warm, and those buttons on the side shoot water up... well, it cleans you!"

Nodding, I said, "The buttons control a retractable wand that acts like a bidet. It most likely has a deodorizing feature, as well."

"I was expecting to squat over a hole," Traci said with a frown.

"Public restrooms and some older homes do have toilets like that, but Western toilets are becoming the standard, especially with advanced features. Didn't you see that story on the news about some company developing a toilet that could analyze a person's waste and determine how healthy they were?"

Shrugging, Traci answered, "If I did, I forgot about it. Okay, you're dismissed." I arched an eyebrow, so she added, "I didn't finish in here yet."

"You're the one who invited me in," I pointed out with a grin.

Rolling her eyes, she told me, "Go smoke your cigarette."

Before I left the bathroom, I snagged a towel from off the rack and took it with me. Since I was naked, I figured it was only proper to lay it out on the chair that I was going to sit on. Before I took my seat, I paused to open up the drapes and was greeted with a spectacular skyline. I lit up the (now) non-filtered cigarette and took in the view.

As pretty as it was, I wished that I were on a lower floor when I spotted an office building below. The alternative for the mile-high club that I had came up with on the plane was for Traci and I have to have sex with the lights on and the drapes open so that we would be visible to anyone who would happen to look our way. The next time we came to Japan, I would make sure to get a room on a lower floor.

I snuffed out my cigarette when I finished it and debated on lighting a second one when I realized I needed to take a major piss; cursing at the fact that I had not done so when I was at LAX. I found the bathroom door unlocked, but still knocked and waited for Traci's permission. When she granted it, I quickly entered and begun draining my bladder.

"Make sure you're only peeing," Traci warned from behind the shower curtain. "I doubt the deodorizer can handle the smells that you make."

I was tempted to flush the toilet when I finished urinating, but realized that it would be futile; the shower and toilet were most likely on two different lines. Instead, I joined Traci in the shower and began assisting her. She in turned and helped me, then when we were both clean, we drew a bath.

The hotel's bathtub was much smaller than the one in our master bathroom, but it did have considerable depth. Once we had filled it and settled in, a portion sloshed over the edge, which worried Traci until I pointed out a drain that was next to the tub.

"You see, the bathroom is set up so that you can wash yourself outside of the tub and just save the tub for soaking," I explained to her.

She asked, "That's why the showerhead is on a hose?"

"Yup."

My arms were wrapped around Traci's waist, and we soaked in silence for a few minutes before she asked, "When do you think we can actually have anal sex?"

"Not until you're about the same size as your mom and sister."

Nodding, Traci asked, "So you think maybe in three years, two months, and three weeks?"

It took me a moment to figure out what she was referring to, but when I did, I could not help but smile. "I don't know," I replied slowly. "What happens if you stop growing?"

Traci did not hesitate when she replied, "I'll get Erin to buy me some butt plugs to stretch me out."

It seemed that Traci had put a great deal of thought into the matter, so I gave the nape of her neck a kiss and told her, "I guess my cock won't be going up your ass until our wedding night."

Traci craned her neck and beamed at me; seemingly happy that I figured out what she had been talking about. "I don't know if that is the sweetest or crudest thing that anybody has ever said to me."

After we exchanged a quick kiss on the lips, I said, "Only problem is that it'll take you at least six years to get through high school."

Splashing some water at me, she scolded, "Not funny."

"Sorry," I apologized. After a few seconds reflection, I asked, "Do I tease you too much?"

It was Traci's turn to take some time and weigh my question. Finally, she replied, "No. Teasing is a sign of affection. Dad would always tease Mom and us. We actually used to tease each other all the time until, well, until Dad died. I mean, we kinda kept doing it, but it wasn't quite the same. Now that I think about it, I think that's what drew us to you. The way that you always tease is just like Dad."

"It wasn't my charming personality?" I asked in mock-disbelief.

She let out a snort. "And your dumb sense of humor. You and Dad would have gotten along great. Well, he might have had a problem with you bopping his wife and two baby girls."

I was unsure what to say, but fortunately the doorbell chimed, followed by a soft knock. I had left the bathroom door open and called out, "Chotto matte kudasai." After untangling myself from Traci, I got out of the tub and grabbed a towel. I began drying myself as I made my way to the doorway. A quick glance through the eyehole told me who it was, and after I rapidly dried myself off, I grabbed one of the yukatas from the closet, quickly donned it, and opened the door for Michelle.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Michelle apologized.

"No, no. Come in, come in," I told her.

"Who is it?" Traci called out from the bathtub.

"Housekeeping," I replied. From the confused look on Michelle's face, I quickly deduced that she was not on the other end of the line earlier.

"Remember, no tipping." The way that she stressed the last word told me that she was not referring to money.

"What's up?" I asked as I walked back into the room towards the table.

"Nothing, really. I stopped by to see if you two might want to head on out..." Michelle's voice trailed off as she spotted the way Traci's and my clothes were strewn upon the floor. My earlier cigarette did not do much to mask the scent of the rutting that had taken place, either. Blushing, she said, "Oh! You two are busy. I'll go."

"It's okay," I assured her, "You're not interrupting anything. Honest."

Michelle had started to turn to leave, but stopped and studied me for a few seconds before nodding. I took out a cigarette and looked to her for permission before lighting up. When she smiled and nodded again, I made sure that the proper end was in my mouth and lit up. After I exhaled a pleasant lungful, Michelle continued with what she had been saying.

"I was wanting to go on out, but Mom was exhausted and fell asleep as soon as we got into the room. I was going to see if Pollyanna and Rose wanted to join me, but they sounded, umm, busy."

Michelle looked slightly embarrassed and I told her, "I'm sorry that you're stuck in the room next to them."

"Oh no!" Michelle quickly replied. "They're not that loud. It's just that I'd thought I'd heard something, and when I'd pressed my ear against the wall, it definitely sounded like they were 'busy'."

Nodding my understanding, I told her, "I can't speak for Traci, but I'm game. It'll just take me a minute to get dressed."

Michelle picked my pants off the ground and brought them over to me. She quickly turned around and faced the opposite direction when I began to pull them on, only to be greeted by the sight of Traci coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her torso.

"Hey, Michelle," Traci greeted her friend.

"Hi."

I informed Traci, "Michelle wants to go out and take a look around. You interested?"

Traci had removed her towel and begun to further dry herself off. Traci's self-confidence of freely being nude in front of her friend reinforced my belief that she was clueless about Michelle's true feelings towards her. Being in a difficult position, Michelle acted unsure which way to face, then seemed visibly relieved when she turned to see that I had my pants on.

"Yeah, but I'm really beat. I'm think I'm going to call it a night, but you two should really go," Traci said eagerly.

I was mildly surprised by Traci's enthusiastic response, but shrugged it off. Retrieving a tee shirt and sweatshirt from my backpack, I put them on and pulled back my hair in a ponytail. I also took out a wool cap and put it on, since my hair was still wet. After a little soul-searching, I decided that I really should wear socks, too, since I had just gotten out of the bath, so had to get into my laptop case to retrieve them. Once I had finished dressing, I slid my cigarette case into my inner jacket pocket along with the matchbook.

"If you can, pick something up for me to eat," Traci told me after I gave her a goodbye kiss.

Frowning, I asked, "Won't you be sleeping by the time I get back?"

"Yeah, but I can always eat it when I wake up," she answered.

Michelle and I left Traci and made our way down to the lobby. When we got off the elevator, I led Michelle away from the way we had come in to the hotel and towards the back exit. I did stop in my tracks when I spotted a particular vending machine and quickly hurried over to it.

"You looked like Traci, just then," Michelle observed with a grin, as I salivated over the wide selection of cigarettes on display.

I nodded in agreement as I fished out a thousand-yen note from my wallet. Fortunately, the cigarette machine was not equipped with a reader that required an identification card with an integrated circuit chip showing that the bearer was over twenty. I ended up buying packs of Seven Stars, Alphabet Hs, and Cabins. I would have preferred buying another Japanese brand cigarette, but the Cabins came with a free lighter -- an offer that I could not pass up.

I opted to try the Alphabet H first, and the novel way that the box slid open instead of having a flip top was neat. I soon discovered that the H stood for 'hard', indeed; it was stronger than my usual Camel Wides. As I savored the wonderful taste, a pack seemed to catch Michelle's eye.

"Rose," she said, misreading the label.

"Rosé," I corrected her.

"Close enough," she replied with a shrug.

Since I had already debated buying the pack with the name similar to our friend's, I dug out three hundred yen and purchased it. After retrieving the change and smokes, I handed the cigarettes to Michelle, saying, "Your mom smokes lights, so you can give it to her. It can be her birthday present."

Smiling, Michelle slipped the cigarettes into her purse, and we headed outside. As the cold, crisp air enveloped us, I was glad that I had chosen to put on the socks. When we walked down the pathway, Michelle asked, "MOS Burger?"

The chain restaurant that was situated across the street from us most likely prompted her question. "Mountain, Ocean, Sky," I explained.

The rear entrance to the hotel emptied out onto a four-way intersection, and it seemed that most of the activity was towards Ikebukuro Station, so we went that way. After we crossed the street, Michelle mused, "I still can't figure out how you found out Mom's birthday."

"You told me," I said, causing Michelle to glance in me in surprise. "Okay, not exactly. You mentioned that you were born in San Luis Obispo County, so I looked up your birth certificate and it listed your mom's and dad's birthdays."

The revelation seemed to shock Michelle, as she came to a halt and just stared at me. "Shit," she muttered, "Mom's going to kill me. She made me swear not to tell you."

"'Loose lips sink ships, '" I said with a wink after I came to a stop. "I wouldn't worry about Jean finding out just how I got ahold of the information, since you and I are the only ones who know how, and I know I'm not telling her."

Giving me a sad smile, she said, "Perhaps it might have been better if you'd hadn't told me. Mom and I have been sharing a lot of stuff lately, and I would hate to lie to her."

"Then don't. If she asks, feel free to tell her. It's not really your fault, anyway. I mean, how many people would actually go out of their way to take a bus up to San Luis and dig through the county records just to find out somebody's birthday?"

Grinning, she replied, "At least one."

We started walking again, and I added, "And there was no way that you would've known that I was so..." My voice trailed off as I tried to think of a proper term.

"Anal?" Michelle supplied.

Smiling, I told her, "I guess that works."

It was a short walk to the Metropolitan Plaza, and even though it was close to eleven o'clock, we saw clusters of people in business attire, along with others in more casual apparel, leaving through the station's Metropolitan exit. Tobu -- a department store that had only until recently been the world's largest -- was closed, so we continued our journey north to see what we could find.

Michelle did not say much as she looked around in wide-eyed wonder at the sensory overload of bright lights, strange sounds, and different odors. A few times, she would nudge me and point to what had caught her attention: a pachinko parlor, a van that had been converted to create and sell crêpes, a woman handing out packs of tissues. As we walked by the woman, we accepted the offered tissues, and Michelle asked me, "What is this?"

"An advertisement for a bar," I told her after I read it. After she frowned, I explained, "People are more likely to accept something if it is useful to them. If she had just been handing out flyers, I doubt many people would take them."

"But I thought that Japanese didn't blow their noses. Isn't that why we saw some people wearing masks?"

Ever since we arrived in Japan, we had occasionally seen people wearing what appeared to be surgical masks. Jean had asked about it, and Rose had told her that people wore them when they were sick, since they could not blow their noses in public. I reminded Michelle about the 'public' aspect of Rose's statement, and added, "Also, toilet paper is not common in restrooms, so it is always good to have some tissues handy."

We began walking westward when the north started to turn into more of a residential area. I had just lit up a second Alphabet H when Michelle was drawn to a café's window display. Among the dozen or so plastic replicas of food items, there was a strawberry parfait that Michelle was interested in so we started to enter. Then Michelle spotted their hours of operation.

"25:00?" she asked.

"One AM," I explained as we stepped inside.

A waitress greeted us when we entered and showed us to a table in the smoking section; the cigarette dangling from my mouth cluing her in. After we were seated, she left, only to return shortly later with two English language menus. I politely declined them and ordered Michelle's strawberry parfait and a melon soda float for me in Japanese; I also ordered hot tea for the two of us. The waitress quickly left to fill our orders.

An awkward silence fell upon the table as we waited; Michelle seemed nervous about something. While she seemed to work up the courage to say something, I decided to continue the discussion we had been having earlier.

"The reason why Japanese wear masks when they are sick is not only to, umm, catch their snot, but to prevent them passing their illness to others. Even when a person is healthy, they will sometimes wear a mask to protect themselves from catching a bug. There is also a different type of mask that people will wear because of allergies. Hay fever is a big problem for some Japanese."

Michelle nodded, but did not say anything. When the waitress brought over the tea, we sipped our tea quietly. The tranquility was broken after a couple of minutes when Michelle took a deep breath and asked, "Will you have sex with me?"

Despite being in mid sip, I did not choke on my tea; Michelle's behavior had forewarned me. Still, it was amusing that she had chosen that opportune moment to spring her request upon me. Of the numerous things that I had thought she was going to say, that was not one of them.

I stared at her blankly for a few seconds before I answered her honestly, "No."

Michelle was taken aback and sounded hurt when she asked, "Is it because I'm not pretty?"

"Hell, no! You are a very beautiful young lady," I quickly replied.

"Then, why?" she asked.

"Traci. I think--"

"Oh, her!" Michelle said, misunderstanding me. "She gave me permission to have sex with you, on the condition that she is there to watch."

Somehow, that did not surprise me. As much as I wanted to clear up what I had been about to tell her, I found her statement intriguing and arched an eyebrow and asked, "Oh, really?"

Nodding, Michelle -- who had begun to grow gradually redder as our conversation continued -- told me, "The other week, she and I were talking about sex, and when I asked her what it felt like, she suggested that you could show me."

Rolling my eyes, I told her, "My girlfriend's pimping aside, I think it would be a very bad idea for the two of us to have sex when you are in love with Traci."

She stared at me dumbfounded and tried to come up with a reply consisting more than just a few monosyllables. The plan had been to wait to have this conversation with Michelle until after the trip, but that had gone out the window due to her proposition. The arrival of our food gave her some additional time to recover, but they remained untouched until she finally asked, "How do you know that I'm in love with Traci?"

The fact that she did not try to deny it was a good sign, so I answered, "The way that you look at her is the way that I imagine how I must look. It is more than just being smitten; it is a look of someone who accepts another completely, faults and all."

Michelle nodded, but remained quiet. Sensing that she just needed a little prompting, I observed, "The fact that Traci could be so blind is just one of her many endearing traits. If you don't mind me asking, when did you fall for her?"

Michelle's mouth turned up into a half-smile as she recollected, "It was when I first met her in junior high. There was something about her that just drew me to her. She was really quiet back then and almost never smiled. I think the reason why I wanted to be such close friends with her was to make her smile. When she would genuinely smile, my heart would actually flutter. I've always known that there was something wrong with me for liking girls, but Traci was..."

Michelle's voice trailed off when she saw me raise my hand. As much as I hated to interrupt her, I could not leave what she had just said alone. "I'm sorry, but 'wrong' is the wrong word to use. The only thing wrong would be to deny how you truly feel. I doubt that Rose and Pollyanna would consider their feelings for one another 'wrong'."

Giving me a wry grin, Michelle said, "I think I knew how they felt for each other before even they did." Michelle drew quiet for a few seconds before adding, "You sound just like Mom. Not the whole Pollyanna-and-Rose thing, but the denying-feelings part."

"Jean is a smart woman," I replied.

Nodding, Michelle said, "She told me that, when she was my age, that she was attracted to other girls and that she used to fool around with them until she fell in love with Dad. She said it wasn't just a phase, because lately, she's found herself attracted to--"

Michelle suddenly stopped talking as she realized what she was actually saying. Her forehead wrinkled with worry as she quickly added, "You won't tell anybody what we're talking about, would you?"

"Of course not," I assured her. "What we talk about is between you and me. I won't tell a soul. Now, go on. Whom is Jean attracted to?"

Michelle matched my grin and shook her head. "No way, José. Mom would kill me. It's bad enough that I told you about her messing with other girls."