Three Little Words

“Exactly. So… let’s think. What kind of series can you do with a Venus and Japan?”

“Time,” she suggested. “And beauty.”

“Show me.”

Her eyes flashed and she reached for her sketchbook. She flipped to an empty page. “I want to do something with Wren,” she said as she began drawing. Her eyes never left the page, and her lines flowed smoothly as she talked. “I hope you don’t mind. The Replicant was my excuse to be near you.

And this time—”

“You want to be near Wren.”

“I knew you’d understand. I’m glad you aren’t jealous. I love her, even though she drives me crazy sometimes. Not like you do, but still. She’s on one of her marketing campaigns again.”

“Lemme guess, she wants us to have sex.”

“Yeah. It’s none of her business, but it sort of is. What she really wants is to do it with you. On a regular basis, I mean.” She didn’t bat an eye at what she’d just said. She was so focused on her drawing that she’d forgotten her normal inhibitions. She turned her sketchbook to get a better angle to draw the figure’s torso.

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” she added, “but I kinda want that too. I know it sounds weird, but I wanna watch you have sex with her. No, I take that back. I wanna watch you fuck her. Like, really pound her and make her scream, like in a porn movie.”

My eyebrows shot into the air. When I recovered I did my best not to

betray myself with my voice. “Um, okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

“And don’t think I didn’t notice what you did in Tahoe,” she added without looking up.

“Oh? What’s that?”

“You said you wanted her to suck your cock, but you didn’t actually let her. You saved it for me, didn’t you?”

“Not on purpose. Not that I recall.”

“Well, you did. I notice things like that.”

“You do,” I agreed.

“She was a little annoyed.” Christy chuckled. “She’s funny when she doesn’t get her way. Anyway, she’s on a marketing campaign to get us to go all the way—you and me, I mean—so she can get what she wants. She’s so selfish sometimes.”

“She can be.”

“But she’s also really generous and caring. I mean, like tonight. She kept our dinner warm and brought it up to us, simply ’cause she loves us.”

“Mmm hmm.”

Christy lifted her pencil and closed her eyes for a moment. She opened them again and began drawing the figure’s face. I twitched in surprise when I recognized who it was: Sayuri. But instead of the woman we knew from next door, Christy had drawn the teenage girl from the snapshots of pre-war Kanagawa.

“I’ll have to get Wren to pose for the body,” she said absently as she studied the final sketch. “But I want the real Sayuri to pose for the modern one.” She turned the page and began a new drawing. “She’s really very beautiful. I know you probably don’t think so, ’cause she’s old, but—”

“No, I do. There’s beauty in everything, remember? Sayuri might not be Wren—not as far as her body goes—but she’s still a beautiful woman.”

“She is,” Christy agreed. “And she’s so… monoshizuka. Okuyukashī too, but I’m sure she’ll pose for me.”

I shook my head in clueless amusement.

Christy saw out of the corner of her eye. “Sorry,” she said. “I know I’m speaking Japanese. I don’t know the words in English. I mean, I do, but I can’t think of them now. I’ll explain later.”

She finished the sketch of the older woman, although the body was more stylized than the younger version, because she hadn’t actually seen the modern-day Sayuri nude. She titled the sketch in Japanese characters and

used a question mark in place of the last few.

“I don’t know how to say ‘Venus’ in Japanese,” she explained. “I’ll have to ask Sayuri. But the title of the series is going to be Venus of Kanagawa, 19-uh…”

“19-uh?”

“You know I stink at math. What’s fifty years ago?”

“1934.”

“Oh yeah, right! So it’s going to be Venus of Kanagawa, 1934 to 1984.”

“I like it.”

She grinned at me. Then she stifled a huge yawn.

I glanced at my watch. “Wow, it’s after midnight. Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“You can say that again.” She closed her sketchbook and smiled. “I like drawing with you. You make me forget everything else. I feel like I can do anything, as long as you’re with me.”

“I feel the same.” I nodded at the scattered building sketches on the table.

“I couldn’t have done that without you.”

She waved at her sketchbook. “And I couldn’t’ve done this without you.”

“We’re good for each other.”

“In lots of ways.” She smiled a secret little smile.

“I bet I know what you’re thinking,” I said.

“Maybe,” she teased.

“Bed?”

“Yes, please.”

“But not sleep.”

She feigned innocence. “How’d you know?”

“I know you, Miss Sex Kitten.”

“I like it when you call me that.”

I stood and held out a hand. “Then let’s go to bed, my little sex kitten.”

“I like it even more when you say that.”

“Good, ’cause I’ll be saying it a lot.”

“I should probably feel guilty,” she said at the bottom of the stairs. “I mean, we’re about to commit a sin.”

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”