I AM NOT ASHAMED 08 THE MEGUMI STORIES BY MEGUMI KATO AND FRIENDS VOLUME 03: I AM NOT ASHAMED BY KIMIKO KOBAYASHI AND MEGUMI KATO CHAPTER VIII The Silver Pavilion My temporary husband rose from one of the lobby armchairs and watched me approvingly as I rejoined him. We took a taxi the short distance to the Hankyu Department Store in the centre of Kyoto. I soon found exactly what I wanted: a pair of tight white boots which reached almost to my knees. The heels were high - I insisted on that - but they were broader than those on the shoes I had worn since leaving Tokyo, and more comfortable for walking. Black laces cris-crossed all the way up the front of the boots between silver hooks. The young assistant tied them tightly for me as she gave me a smile full of secret meaning. She knew the effect the hint of bondage was having on my watching lover. More important, she could sense how much the tightly bound leather was exciting me. I suddenly realised that she was experienced in such pleasures herself. What a lot I had to learn about being a woman! When she had done, I examined myself critically in the store's mirror. "I didn't think to bring any other kind of tights with me," I said thoughtfully, "but this fishnet style doesn't suit the boots, does it?" "No," he said as the girl nodded approvingly, "not really. They're lovely, and show off your beautiful legs, but between that white skirt and those boots you need something sheer and light." The young assistant kindly went to the underwear department for me and returned with a pair of tights she thought would suit. I visited one of the changing rooms and pulled them on, then let the girl again lace me tightly into my exciting new boots. He was right, of course. The new tights did not draw attention to my thighs as blatantly as the fishnet design had done; instead they subtly emphasised the smooth curves between the hem of my skirt and the top of my boots. But oh, the assistant knew her business: the tights were sheer all the way up and did nothing to hide the tiny white panties which flaunted so charmingly whenever I moved! This morning I would have been horrified to think that I might display myself without shame like this in public. Now it gave me a delightful fluttery feeling to think how desirable I must look in the eyes of every man - especially one particular man. I left the changing room walking as sexily as I could. For a moment I thought he was about to suggest that we should abandon the sights of Kyoto and go straight back to the hotel together. But just now culture apparently had more to offer than my bottom and thighs. We'll see about that, I thought - and was then astonished that I had thought it. It was a grey, cold afternoon outside and I was glad to be wearing more sensible - even though still elegant - footwear when another taxi dropped us at the start of a gravelled path which zig-zagged between austere hedges to a formal entrance. After David had paid the entrance charge we walked along a strangely unimpressive path - it was like threading one's way between private houses in one of the more traditional parts of Tokyo - until we found ourselves among a group of buildings arranged around a lake. Right in front of us at the edge of the water was a perfect flat-topped cone of grey sand, nearly a metre high, at one end of an obviously artificial sandy beach. I stood and looked at it in silence for a while. "What does it mean?" I asked at last. "Oh, Kimiko darling, don't disappoint me!" he said laughing. "That's what _gaijin_ say. They try to make logical sense out of such things, and get angry and frustrated when they can't. But Japanese are supposed to accept things the way they are." "I'm sorry," I said, concerned at having failed him rather than thinking about what he said, "you're right. It's strange, but it's lovely." "You shouldn't really see it standing up. Go and sit over there, on your own. Give me the camera." He indicated the open wooden veranda of the building to the left, where some people were already sitting - girls mainly, but a few couples. I was relieved to find there was no need to enter the building first: that would have meant taking my boots off, of course, and I was not sure I could do the laces up again properly without practice. I sat on the ledge with the others and with them looked solemnly at the mountain of sand; then, as I realised he was filming me, smiled and swung my legs for him. He was right. Even Japanese girls like me who have never learnt much - or paid attention to what they were told - about the arts of traditional Japan can appreciate its values instinctively if they give themselves the opportunity. The construction had been there for hundreds of years, tended carefully by generations of gardeners whenever rain or falling leaves marred the perfection of the mountain's slopes or the stylised wave patterns of the beach it stood on. The buildings too - replaced as they doubtless had been after fire and earthquake - had earned the right to exist by existing. The cool feel of the smooth wood under my thighs, polished by countless pairs of shuffling stockinged feet, added to a strange sensation of tranquillity. Acceptance of what had always existed; doing what was expected of one; the search for appropriate behaviour in whatever situation one was placed in - an aesthetic peace began to blend with the new sexual satisfaction and poise which had so recently overwhelmed me. Whatever is, is right - whatever is right, cannot be shameful - I floated, balancing contentedly on a point of stillness where time, place and pleasure converged, sensing for the first time in my life how the continuity of Japan, the Japanese Gods and the beauty of Japan, which are all the same thing really, can hold its people suspended in the moment and in eternity, if only they will trust themselves to it ... I found he was sitting beside me - had been perhaps for some time - careful not to interrupt my feeling. Then, seeing me ready to listen again, he told me how the mountain was supposed to represent a real mountain rising from a real lake in ancient China, how aristocrats of old Kyoto would gather here to watch the moon shine on the sand, drink sake, write poetry ... and if they were lucky feel, I now realised, the oneness and content I had just been granted. I came back to reality - or to a version of it - and slithered down off the veranda to stand on the gravel below. I stretched out my hands to him. "Show me the rest of it," I asked. In the watery autumn sunshine we walked round the lake. Brilliantly red miniature maple leaves stuck damply to the toes of my boots, then slid off to join the random pattern on the narrow paths. Twig brooms swept miracles of beauty into piles for later burning. Carp flickered lazily among sodden leaves as colourful as themselves. My lover took my arm and guided me up the hill to the spring whose fresh water had for centuries fed the lake, and the ceremonial tea-makings which offered brief tranquillity to rulers and warriors. As we stood with others by the little spring, a young couple held out their still camera and asked us to photograph them together. The light was fading and the simple point-and-shoot mechanism automatically flashed. For a moment I got a clear view of them both: the tall young man looking solemn, the girl pretty but presenting herself badly in a calf-length narrow skirt, ugly ankle-boots and a woolly cap on her short curly hair. They offered to do the same for us and David handed the young man my video camera, explaining how to use the display, which buttons controlled the zoom and how to start recording. We posed, then suddenly I decided to remove my coat. The girl held it for me, smiling, as David and I stood together, then laughed and kissed, I coquettishly raising one foot. "You must be happy ..." whispered the girl shyly as she returned my coat. "And you?" I asked. "Oh yes. It is our honeymoon, you see." She looked towards her husband, who was surrendering the expensive video camera with a touch of reluctance. "Is it yours too, perhaps?" "No, no ... I'm just with a friend." "Oh, I see ..." she said, confused for a moment, and then confided, "I never did anything like that, before I was introduced to ..." She looked towards her solemn new husband with a mixture of awe and apprehension. "He has an important position in his Ministry," she concluded in a rush, eager to justify an arranged marriage to someone who obviously chose her lovers - and _gaijin_ ones at that! - on a whim. "Please be very happy," I concluded formally as we left, "and thank you for your assistance." The four of us bowed, the young man looking severely at his wife as soon as we all rose, anxious that all this girls' talk had not undermined his still precarious authority. The encounter had depressed me, and I was lost in thought as we continued our walk round the garden and left the Silver Pavilion. The young couple had so much to learn about each other, and would be lucky to do more than make a start during their brief honeymoon. That apart, in Japan sex was for love and for pleasure, while marriage was for children and being a housewife. If you didn't find love before or outside marriage, then your sexuality hardly existed, and would have to be sublimated into life as a devoted slave to your husband and children. Until Megumi's wedding, that had been the fate in store for me. My elder sister Fumiko was still unmarried, of course, and still a rebel; but that would all have to stop when she graduated next year. Already my parents were talking meaningfully about the sons of my father's university cronies. Once Fumiko was settled it would be my turn. It suddenly burst upon me that I could not afford to waste another moment of my brief freedom. I wanted to start immediately, learning to enhance my new-found capacity for sexual pleasure - never mind what strange, kinky by-ways I found myself exploring. The stranger and more perverted the better, I now felt. I woke up from my reverie, and took my lover's arm. "Let's go back to the hotel now, at once!" I said. "I want you to do _everything_ to me. Anything you like. Teach me to enjoy all the things I've never done before." "Everything, slave?" he replied with a laugh. "Are you sure that's what you want?" His use of the word "slave" made my body tingle with delighted apprehension. Had I committed myself too far? Well, there was only one way to find out. "Everything, Master," I insisted firmly. [Next in Part 09: Chapter IX: Before and After Dinner] For complete series so far see /files/Authors/Bob_Williams