Heaven's Net Is Wide Lian Hearn (leveled readers .TXT) 📖

Takeshi had gone, Shigeru dressed in a light cotton robe and returned to his apartments, half expecting to spend the night alone, half expecting… he was not sure what. But his pulse had quickened and his veins tingled, not only from the heat of the water.

It was almost dark. Lamps had been lit in the doorway and inside the main room, making the pale colors of the flowers on the painted screens gleam in the shadows against the golden background. The eyes of the finches among the blossoms glinted as if they were alive. A spray of jasmine had been placed in the alcove, and its fragrance filled the room.

At the same time as he stepped out of his sandals, he could smell beneath the jasmine another scent-perfumed hair and garments. He paused for a moment, allowing himself to experience the moment, the anticipation of pleasure as acute as the pleasure itself would be.

She had had the lamps placed so they lit her face. He recognized her at once: the white skin, the eyes shaped like willow leaves, the strong cheekbones that stole true beauty from her face but gave it character that somehow added to her charm-Akane, the daughter of the stonemason. He heard the soft rustle of her clothes as she bowed to the floor and said quietly, “Lord Otori.”

He sat cross-legged in front of her.

She raised herself and said, “I came to thank Lord Otori for his kindness to myself and my mother. You honored my father in death. We are forever in your debt.”

“I am sorry for your father’s death. The bridge is one of the marvels of the Middle Country. Its construction adds to the glory of the clan. His death enhanced that. I thought it should be commemorated.”

“My family have sent gifts-nothing of any significance, food and wine. It’s asking too great an honor, but may I serve you them now?”

His single instinct was to touch her, to hold her, but he also wanted to treat her with courtesy, to respect her grief; he wanted to know the woman who had cried out in the moment when her father was entombed, not merely the courtesan who would eventually give herself to him because he had expressed a desire for her.

“If you will share them with me,” he replied. His heart was pounding.

She bowed again and went on her knees to the door, where she called quietly to the maids. Her voice was soft, yet she spoke with complete authority. A few moments later he heard the soft pad of the maid’s socked feet, and the women exchanged a few words. Then Akane returned with a tray of food and wine, bowls and shallow dishes.

She gave him one of the dishes and he held it with both hands as she poured wine into it. He drank it in one gulp; she refilled the dish and then, when he had drunk a second time, held out her own so he could pour wine for her.

The food was chosen and prepared to increase the sensitivity of mouth and tongue: the orange melting flesh of sea urchin, slippery oysters and scallops, a delicate broth flavored with ginger and perilla. Then fruits, cool and juice-filled: loquats and peaches. Both of them drank sparingly, just enough to set their senses on fire. By the time they had finished eating, Shigeru felt he had been transported to an enchanted palace where a princess was bewitching him completely.

Watching his face, Akane thought, He has never been in love. He will fall in love for the first time with me.

She was also beginning to ache with desire.

He had not known it would be like this-the driving compulsion to lose himself within the body of this woman, the complete surrender to her skin, her mouth, her fingers. He had expected there would be the physical release-as in dreams or by his own hand-under his control, swift, pleasurable but not overwhelming or annihilating. He knew she was a woman of pleasure, a courtesan who had learned her craft with many men; he was unprepared for the fact that she seemed to adore his body and took the same delight in it as he did in hers. He had never known intimacy, had barely talked to a woman since his childish conversations with Chiyo: it was as if half his self, which had been asleep in darkness most of his life, had suddenly been caressed and startled into life.

“I have been waiting all summer for you,” she said.

“I have been thinking about you since I saw you at the bridge,” he replied. “I am sorry you had to wait so long.”

“Sometimes it’s good to wait. No one appreciates what is easily acquired. I saw you ride away. People said you were going to teach the Tohan a lesson! I knew you would send for me. But the days seemed endless.” She paused for a moment and then said very quietly, “We met once before, you will not remember. It was so long ago. It was I who helped you when your brother nearly drowned.”

“You will not believe how many times I dreamed about you,” he said, marveling at the workings of fate.

He wanted to tell her everything: the torture of the Hidden, the dying children, the courage of Tomasu and Nesutoro, the fierce satisfying skirmish with the Tohan; Iida Sadamu; his disappointment and anger at his father’s reaction; his distrust of his uncles. He knew he should be guarded, that he should trust no one, but he could not help himself. He opened his heart to her as to no one else in his life and found her mind as receptive and willing to accommodate him as her body.

He knew he was in danger of the very thing his father had warned him against-becoming infatuated with Akane. You will not fall in love with her, his father had told him. Yet how could he prevent that happening when she delighted him completely? At midnight it seemed