SHUFU

SHUFU

By Katharine Sexkitten

"I am Shufu."

I received a tender kiss.

"Ten No Ai."

Another tender kiss.

"You honor me," he said.

"I am yours. I am your Shufu."

Another sweet, soft kiss.

"I am Shufu."

He pushed, and the glorious ordeal began, again.

How many people can truly say that their entire life changed in one moment?

Seriously. How many?

In one completely random second of time, unplanned and unexpected, neither dreamed of nor considered at all, the entirety of one's very existence, molded and fabricated and sewn by experience and societal coercion, could somehow lose its weave, just like that?

People talk about it, sometimes, how this or that thing that happened that one time played a 'big part', a 'significant role' in who they were, or who they became, almost all of them only realizing it long after the fact, one of those, "If I'd only known then..." stories.

And the professionals would tell us that everybody, and that means every person, has had numerous of those kind of events in their history, usually not even aware of them, until, once they realize it, instead of chalking them up to the simple logical explanation of time gone by, they give it veneration, and adoration, as something revelatory.

But how many of us can point at one moment, one specific second on the celestial calendar, and say, "that's the one"? And even more so, how many can say they knew it, right then and there?

Yessirree, that's the one that changed everything.

I can.

It inspired my second visit to San Francisco.

My first visit had been two years before that, with my wife.

Well, my ex-wife now.

She and I had done all the touristy things, pretty much, other than Alcatraz, in our five-day visit. Chinatown, the Embarcadero, Nob Hill, the Market, cable cars, the winding street, all of it. We packed our days full, with museums and tours and shopping. We did the Golden Gate, and got pictures. One day she even insisted we go to the park across the street from where all the colorful houses were, from some television show back in the eighties. Red door, blue door, green door, etc. The Seven Sisters, they're called. The area wasn't necessarily sketchy, but the bus driver was still a little surprised when I asked him to let us off there. She took a couple of pictures and then we got on the next bus and left. Most of the time, though, we walked everywhere, never feeling threatened or in peril, despite the small-town warnings we'd received.

At times, while she was poking her head in various shops, I would stand outside on the sidewalk, and people watch. It was my favorite activity in the world. Or, better still, close my eyes, listening and feeling for the mood of the city, and the people therein. You can tell a lot about a place from the spiritual vibrations you pick up, if you let yourself be open to it. Some of the folks back home warned us that the big city was full of violence, and hatred, but those weren't the impressions I got.

I felt the Mount Everest of energy, and love.

Our hotel on that trip was five-star opulence, down by Union Square. It was our first real vacation together since we'd gotten married, six years earlier. We'd scrimped and saved and eventually booked the flights, calling it our honeymoon, which we couldn't afford at the time we got married. Neither of us had decent-paying jobs for many years, and both of us had accumulated some debt in our early adult lives, so we put off the idea of having kids right away and worked on our finances first, which meant no luxuries, or even frills, especially socially. We were two hugely-introverted people who met through work, in our very early-twenties, gravitating to each other because neither of us had anybody else on the horizon, and one of the side benefits of becoming a couple and living together was that we could make our combined small paychecks go farther than two single ones. We didn't have to buy two of everything.

I was a generally quiet calm person, and perfectly fine being a homebody, because we could never afford to do much outside of work, save for the occasional treat of a night at the movies. I tried not to make a fuss about much, and get along with everybody, and enjoy what I had.

She was generally dissatisfied, and antsy, and prone to bursts of frustration and anger, at the littlest things, and at her status in the world.

I assumed that, over time, she'd learn to be more relaxed, and easier to get along with, not just for me but for everyone, including her own family, which was a dynamic that would take me decades­ to explain, and I spent our initial years together absolutely sure that all my patience would rub off on her, gradually but eventually, and she'd see that life was just so much more fun to go through sedately, with a grin, as opposed to bouncing from one disappointment to another.

I was wrong.

But, I did hold some hope that the trip to San Fran would finally make her realize that we were actually doing okay, and living a good life, compared to lots of folk, which countered her general attitude since we'd met. I was optimistic that she'd come to see that we had lots to be grateful for, and it might lighten her up, even just a little.

I was wrong.

For instance.

She considered herself an open-minded person, and talked the talk about equal rights and respect, to appear worldly, but when push comes to shove she refused to go to the Castro district. All she'd ever heard about it, growing up, was that it was the 'gay' neighborhood, which from her religious upbringing and general lack of enlightenment meant 'godless debauchery' neighborhood, and visiting there would mean she was doomed to a life of burning in hell. Without admitting it, I could tell that she feared that just walking around the place might magically and mystically somehow turn her into a full-fledged lesbian, which was almost the silliest thing I'd ever heard, but no amount of gentle cajoling from me would change her mind. It's not like you take one step into the neighborhood and crazed femmes run at you, spraying you with magic pixie dust, making you automatically become a rug-munching dyke. When we were planning the trip, talking about which famous areas we'd visit, like Haight-Ashbury and the Presidio, I'd brought the idea of the Castro up, but the look she gave me at that time confirmed what I'd sadly felt and hoped I was wrong about since the beginning of our relationship, though it took nearly two more years for anything to change.

There was no way she'd understand where I was coming from.

None.

Me, on the other hand, well, I wanted to spend a lot of time there, in the Castro.

I wanted to absorb its history, right through my pores and into my bones. I wanted to feel the vibes that must still permeate through the very air in the streets, the millions and billions and trillions of dust particles themselves steeped in the decades of human activity that had gone by.

The decades of daring.

The decades of freedom.

The decades of open and honest living, men and women celebrating their true inner desires, uninhibited by constructed social norms.

I wanted to revel in the passions that must surely still be wafting there, leeched into the very pavement and bricks by the totality of all that particular human experience.

Human same-sex experience.

I wasn't gay.

I'd never had a gay experience in my life.

I'd never had a gay thought in my life.

Ensconced in wedlock, I had sex with my wife every chance she gave me, which had started out at once a week, but quickly over the years had diminished to once a month or so, or less, me with boundless enthusiasm and her with the attitude that she just wished I'd get it over with.

I performed and celebrated my heterosexuality. Every woman I saw, day or night, I mentally undressed, although most times only partially, since lingerie had a special place in my heart.

And then, of course, I mentally had sex with them.

And it was always really good sex, the best sex ever, completely unrestrained and completely passionate. Every woman I saw, I had mental sex with. Well, except for the really obese ones, which I have never been attracted to. Lovely people, I'm sure, but they do nothing for me. But every other woman, young or old, short or tall, overly feminine or not, made my heart tingle a little bit, the erotic scenarios endless, imagining uninhibited romps with them in every room of the house and every open space in the known world, especially if they were dressed in certain ways.

Those ways, of course, were the ones that celebrated their femininity. Skirts, blouses, dresses, heels, those sorts of things. Anything silky or satiny or revealing or delicate or shimmering would make the energy volcano inside of me erupt. And really, the more formal the better, to my mind. I found long flowing dresses and evening gowns particularly exhilarating, so much so that certain ones could make me almost swoon. They always had.

Anything that made them look more womanly would generate mega-watts of appreciation from my soul.

I wasn't gay.

I'd never had a gay experience in my life.

And yet.

From my earliest memories of the differences in people, the 'lifestyles', as they were sometimes called, I had felt something deep inside me burn with joy, just for the idea of it. There was this huge attraction in the very essence of my soul with humanity being wide enough to accept and appreciate 'them', that 'they' were the bravest people of all, and that 'they' must experience this life of ours in ways that are light-years beyond my understanding, and therefore 'they' were perhaps far more enlightened than I could ever hope to attain.

'They' were people I admired, more than the 'me's' of the world.

'They' refused to kowtow to other people's staid limits on living. 'They' arrogantly and rightly followed their own paths, despite the obvious dangers of angering closed minds clouded by made-up religions, the so-called "god-fearing" people who thought it perfectly acceptable to judge others, threatening them with harm and ridicule and discrimination, just because they're different. 'They' bucked the system, the one the powers-that-be had spent centuries setting up, expecting the subservience of the masses.

Countless times over the years I'd analyzed my feelings, trying to discover some implicit truth known to those with loftier minds, perhaps arrogantly defining myself as several steps up the evolutionary ladder than most folks, including my wife.

I'd only ever reached one conclusion.

'They' were, to me, the most fortunate and beautiful people ever created. 'They' were in the minority, not playing by the same rules as most people. 'They' stood out, proudly, like beacons.

'They' were given the full extent of my admiration, my empathy, and respect, and, yes, my jealousy.

I envied them for their differences. I envied them for their courage, to move forward against societies' rough framework, purely in the name of their own happiness, and purely in the name of love.

In the name of love.

Love.

Not the bullshit Hallmark kind of love that the facile amongst us talk about, all repressed and goody-two-shoed, the one-dimensional standard crap, as defined by the hypocrites known as moral leaders. Those were the phonies who had proven themselves to me, day in and day out, to be the worst people in the world, time and again, completely unaware of their own hideous infallibility, preaching love while railing against it, and doing everything in their power to stop it.

Love.

The most revered human connection of all.

Nature's bounty was limitless when it came to species and pecking orders and environments, and so too was it with love.

By the time I'd gotten through my teens, there was no greater defender of gay rights, nor greater proponent of gay rights, than me. The troglodytes of the world wanted to punish them, while I made it my life's mission to celebrate them, to cherish them, and to promote their rights from sun-up to sun-down. In conversation, with anybody, I'd speak up, even knowing the risks that involved, with the soap-dish level IQ in some people out there.

And many of them would glare at me and make their uninformed accusations, that I must be 'one of them', which couldn't be further from the truth.

I wasn't gay.

I'd never had a gay experience in my life.

I wasn't gay.

But sometimes, as strange as it sounds, in some ways, I always wished I was.

I wished I was that brave.

I spent every second of every day wishing I was that unique, their kind of unique. I rued my lot in life, being trapped in the boring missionary-position world of straightness. And while there were men out there that I thought well of, or even attractive, classically, nothing sexual about it, the very notion of falling in love with another man seemed preposterous.

So while I could never fathom a world where I might actually be gay, I spent my time imagining how wonderful it would be if I could have been.

Like the smallest savings account at a bank, those wonderful feelings slowly grew and grew over the years, deep inside me, their cumulative effect making them accrue, like interest, a little bit at a time, which made my spirits soar ever-so-slightly more, every day.

After our trip we returned to our normal life, me with a feeling of dread building inside that the comfortable complacency we'd established was now a growing divide between me and her, for the first time genuinely questioning what I was doing, and questioning whether we had a future together.

Fourteen boring months later, it happened.

That moment.

The one that changes everything.

Only in my case, I knew it, right then and there.

On the spot.

It was a rare day off. Drizzly skies. I woke up with a restlessness I couldn't explain. After she went to work, I puttered about, unsatisfied, until my feet got the better of me and I hopped in the car and drove downtown, my destination unknown.

I wandered.

Aimlessly.

Some streets I'd been on before, and some I hadn't.

Being a life-long lover of books, I was delighted to come across a tiny store, after a turn onto a busy road that was new to me, the front door of the shop tucked just inside the entrance to an squalid alley, so non-descript I almost walked by it.

The bell inside and above the door had a ring that was muted, as if either it was damaged in some way or just hadn't been used in a long time. There were shelves everywhere, almost to the ceiling, stacked with tomes. With walkways barely wide enough for a normal-sized human being, I managed to slide through okay, being only five-eight and only one-fifty-five in pounds. I saw one lone figure, a stooped man with white hair and all the hallmarks of age, at the rear, behind a counter, who nodded a hello at me and went back to reading whatever was in front of him.

Dusty volumes of every subject, fiction and non-fiction, were laid haphazardly, with no discernible logic to their placement. History books were interspersed with spy stories, while science textbooks, some that looked as old as the wind, were piled next to dragon novels, fantasy themes, or romance novels with their tastefully-drawn but tawdry cover art.

Shelf after shelf and row after row enchanted me. I've always been a reader, and had always held a reverence for old things, the older the better, so I began looking at the spines, searching for the tell-tale signs of age, cracks and splits and fading words. Maybe, I reasoned, I'd find a treasure that the old guy didn't know he had, and get it for cheap.

Then I found it.

On a top shelf near the back, sandwiched between two giant thick heavy clunkers, their titles in German, I saw a glint of gold, set against a rich red wine color. It caught my eye. There was nothing on the thin spine, no words, so there was no way of knowing what was in it, but it somehow glinted at me, the cheap fluorescent lights above perhaps playing a trick, and I had to quickly grab a step-stool from the adjacent aisle to get high enough to look at it, let alone wedge my thin fingers in between the two bricks and fish it out.

It looked old. It felt old. It even smelled old.

A thin sheen of dust gave up the ghost when I blew on it and slowly filtered to the floor, exposing what appeared to be black marks, which, upon actually wiping with the palm of my hand, revealed a character. Asian, for sure. Chinese, maybe, or Korean. Could be Japanese. I didn't know enough about any of those languages to differentiate.

Overcoming my worries about destroying it, because in my hands it felt more delicate than anything I'd ever held, I carefully pried back the cover, hoping to see something that would tell me what it was, and maybe provide a clue as to its age, when a folded piece of aged-white paper fell out and butterflied to the floor, me clumsily trying to capture it in mid-air as it somersaulted down.

When I picked it up and opened it, I was delighted to see that the writing was in English.

Very proper English.

It was a letter, dated January 8, 1911.

The author, noted at the bottom as, 'Your devoted and faithful friend, Ernest' had truly regal penmanship.

'My Dearest Alexander,' it began, 'I've time only for a brief rest, such is the frantic pace of our journey, but write to you I must. Naturally, I hope and trust that you and Morag and your darling children are all well, despite the dreary rains of winter that Cardiff must surely be experiencing, something we are all too familiar with. Father's promise of untold fantastic sights and sounds have completely been fulfilled on our adventure, be assured, and I look forward with great delight to regaling our adventures to you upon our return. Knowing your passions for literature as well as the unusual, I enclose a modest gift from the island of Honshu, a present bestowed upon me by a local antiquities merchant, a rigorously polite little man who insisted on repaying me for some perceived action I cannot recall. My first thought upon seeing it, of course, was that your vast knowledge of the language, from your frequent visits here, would be a positive boon with translation, something I confess I find myself extraordinarily curious about, considering the subject matter of the artwork herein. Dear friend, I would never consider prejudicing anything by describing what you're about to view, however, I do find myself in the position where I must insist that you use the utmost of discretion when doing so, never allowing the delicate eyes and minds of your lovely wife and your charming children to observe, even accidentally. In the coming weeks, the Good Lord willing, we shall return to the green rolling fields of Wales, home at last, and I am bursting with anticipation at seeing you again, when we can share long evenings of wine, cigars, and conversation.'

There was a bit more written, all of it personal and meaningless as regards the book itself.

I stood in the aisle, gently holding it, burbling inside with an energy I couldn't explain. The restlessness I'd felt upon waking was now a burning fiery ember in the pit of my belly, as if a motor had been switched on, and was gently purring in idle.

With the lightest of touches I could grace, I opened the front cover again.

The paper was blank, a yellowish color.

Making dozens of tiny crackling noises, each one unnerving me, for fear the book would fall apart, I opened the next page, and again saw nothing.

The next delicate open revealed more crackling noises, and then, to my utter delight, characters, written in the darkest of inks, lines with other lines crossing them, or adjacent, or mixed in. And so it was with the next open, and the next, until the moment that changed everything struck me, like I was a mannequin placed on the tracks of a high-speed railway.

One entire page was covered in a drawing. The book was so old it couldn't have been a photograph. I had no way of knowing what the book was about from the text, and no way of knowing if the author was also the artist, and none of that mattered.

The image was in the landscape position, so I had to turn the book. In rich, vibrant, bold colors there was a garden. Cherry trees, in full blossom, surrounded shrubs and bushes and flowers, a cornucopia of hues, nature's beautiful harvest, ablaze on the page, with outstanding clarity, tantalizing to the eyes and the spirit, with a small grassy clearing in the middle.

On the grass, a couple lay in sexual congress.

He was a barrel-chested warrior of indeterminate heritage, on his side, his tunic and sword cast askance, now naked, his skin taut over muscles, and golden. On his face, which seemed a mixture of a variety of races, there was the most intense look of masculine vigor and satisfaction, his eyes staring like rays of lustful energy into those of his lover, who lay back to his front, head craned up and around, thick lashed and dark-eyed, with pouting ruby red lips, returning his lust, with a delicate womanly softness and glow, on a face that was neither classically beautiful nor unattractive, but rather handsome, as the traditional use of the word dictates. Her gown looked draped, long and flowing and untied, open down the middle, gossamer, and almost see-through, showing curves, and flawless skin, smooth and pure and supple, paler than his, with small breasts, barely-there little bumps, adorned by large nipples that were a dark enflamed reddish-brown, one leg stretched out in front and one lifted up, held high by his hand gripping under the knee.

His manhood, thicker than seemed normal, to my experience, was half-in and half-out of a hairless, swallowing hole, one that surely was being stretched to its limits, phantom shoots of shivers rocketing in my soul at the very thought of absorbing such a huge invasion, a frame of mind that was new, and staggering, and setting me up for my epiphany.

The rugged warrior's lover, as delicate and lovely as a blossoming flower, was also a man.

Looking nothing like a man, however, with nary a masculine attribute, she, as I saw her, had a small, hairless groin of her own, fully erect, and dribbling a babbling brook of creamy liquid, some of which rolled down her thigh and spilled onto the ground.

The warrior was embedded in her ass.

In the space of an instant three things happened.

First, I reeled and gasped in shock, out loud, certainly of a level the shopkeeper must have heard.

Second, my whole body bolted upright, including my penis, one second flaccid and the next second throbbingly erect, as hard as a mountain.

Third, I exploded in orgasm, standing in the aisle of a hidden gem of a bookstore, throes of pulsing ecstasy matching the pulses from my testes, four large full-body convulsions emptying my balls.

And filling my pants.

A sticky-sweet odor instantly filled my nostrils, while rivulets of cooling semen began their journeys downward, pulled by gravity.

As quickly as the all-encompassing joy of cumming harder than any time in my life had befallen me, it disappeared, taken over by the embarrassment of what I'd done, the mess I'd made, fear taking over, worry about how I would get home without people on the street pointing at me and laughing at me, or being disgusted by my stain or my smell.

The fear then doubled when I heard a wizened voice from directly behind me.

"Is everything alright?"

My best guess was he was just a few feet to the rear, my fight or flight instinct raging, resolute that I couldn't turn towards him, allowing him to see the stains already forming, and moving, growing as my slime oozed this way and that.

I held up the book, over my shoulder, so he could see it, and turned my head, knowing my face was flushed red.

"How much for this one?" I asked, breathlessly, in a strained voice, my free hand fishing in my back pocket for my wallet.

He scanned it, from a distance, and I could see him trying to figure out what it was, and how much to charge.

"How about fifty?" he asked.

I had two bills in my wallet, a twenty and a ten.

"How about thirty?" I replied, "it's all I've got."

He hemmed and hawed, but after I showed him my empty billfold he took the money, telling me to bring the book to the counter so he could put it in a bag for me.

I declined his generous offer.

In the alley, I scanned the surroundings, looking for anything I could cover myself with, while my ejaculate started cooling onto my skin, making me shiver in the drizzly weather. A flattened cardboard box, or corrugated board box to be specific, was just big enough for me to hold directly in front of my groin, as I hurried down the streets to my car. I got some strange looks from people, but that's it.

The entire drive home, I felt like I should pull over and scan the entire book, the promise of other artwork pulling at me more than gravity itself. Unlike most of my life, I was again excited and erect, so erect, surprisingly so soon after a climax, my warm output now chillingly cool, dribs and drabs of iciness splayed out through my groin, feeling swampy, and over my thighs and even down one calf to a shin.

My pants were ruined.

The corrugated box saved my bacon in the parking lot of our apartment building, neighbors out and about on both sides of the street, and once inside I emptied my pants pockets, so nothing valuable like my wallet or ID would get soaked, and walked straight into the shower, clothes and all.

I washed my own ejaculate off my now-ruined pants, and underwear, as well as my own skin.

The warm water, pelting down onto my sensitive erection, was making me shiver and dance on my toes, sharp acute shots of an almost painful pleasure from the rat-a-tat of the spray providing the music.

Once dry, I lay naked on the bed, and opened the book again.

I noticed that the text character on the cover was also on the first page of writing, several times, which led me to think it was a place name, or maybe a person's name, or perhaps an emotion, something universal and easily described with one shape. For a few moments I thought I might be able to suss out some meaning in what I read, but then I realized, staring at the rows and tiers, that it was a fool's errand.

Like creeping down the hall at night, tip-toeing, trying not to awaken any of your family, your parents, your brothers and sisters, in the wee hours of a Christmas morn, just to discover if Santa had visited yet, and espy the presents under the tree, I silently slid through the pages of symbols until the first art.

The one that made me cum, in the store.

There was a divinity about their expressions. And yes, of course, it was art, and the unknown master was obviously talented, and had a deft hand, but still, there was an honest, underlying truth depicted on the page, laid bare most vividly, of two people complete in abandonment to their desires. Two lovers, free of the bonds of restraint, as natural as the Holy Mother made them, with only love as their accompanying physical and spiritual goals.

And it hit me, just like it had hit me in the store.

I was witnessing, in glorious physical manifestation, that which I had admired and envied, all my life. The power of the drawing, or painting, I wasn't sure which, it moved me. I couldn't imagine if seeing it for real, and in person, would have been any clearer, or better.

Which is when some critical thought crept in, being that experiencing it for real would mean getting to also absorb the sounds that such wanton behavior elicited, the murmurs, the purrs, the groans, the words, the breathing, sharp intakes and exhausted gasps, the flesh-slapping-together sounds, all of which must be so extraordinary, considering mere artwork had already set the bar so high.

I had to go further.

The next three pages were text only, continuing the unknown story, tiers and rows again, including the title page character frequently, and with each crinkling turn my anticipation grew and grew, until the next piece of art showed itself.

To my great joy, I didn't explode right away. I managed to exert some control on the urges and actions scything like earthquakes through my core.

It was the same couple. There was no mistaking their faces.

They were indoors, with thin pillows under them and strewn everywhere overtop of a wooden floor, paper-thin walls and sliding doors behind them, covered in flowery art.

The warrior was propped up on one elbow, muscles and golden skin everywhere, intensely gazing down between his own splayed legs, meeting his lovers' eyes, hers as relaxed and dreamy as someone intoxicated, a glow of heavenly peace on her face, her bright red lips wrapped around his shaft, lovingly fellating him. I could almost see her tongue moving, such was the craftsmanship of the artist, and it was equally true that her face conveyed all the different emotions she was feeling. Joy being the main one, followed in no particular order by lust, and greed, and desire, as well as a languorous serenity, as if there was nowhere else on the globe she'd rather be, or anything she'd rather be doing. That calmness, that peace of mind, was not just acceptance of her lot, no. It was plain to see that she wanted it, with every cell in her body.

There was no pretense. This was as real as it gets.

She was wearing a different long, flowing gown, robin's egg in color, see-through in material, and gauzy. She had long pendants dangling from her ears, gold and silver bracelets on her wrists, one hand with delicate painted fingers, shiny gold rings on all of them, wrapped around the base of his shaft, the other cupped underneath his meaty sac, caressing him. There was a gold chain around her waist, which glinted in the light. On her bare ankles were thick circles of gold, leading to her two sets of painted toenails.

From the angle she was laying in, her rounded feminine bottom was splayed, showing her genitalia, small and hairless and turgid, as well as something cylindrical and thick deeply embedded in her hole, a tiny bit sticking out, a smooth wood-grained round object, the details so precise I would swear I saw the faintest glint of wetness around it, a lube of some sort.

There was so much in the art that commanded my attention, and I flitted back and forth between details, always returning to their eyes, the windows to their souls, rapt on each other, shining like beacons with their abject and frank devotion to the holiest of holies.

Love. In one of its infinite varieties.

Every mote of history that I knew I'd absorb if I ever made it to the Castro, all the way to my bones, magically coalesced and congealed, right there, naked on my bed, fighting myself not to explode again, wanting to delay it, and prolong the sweetest agony I'd ever felt.

It hit me, again, like the bullet train.

As good as all my sexual experiences had been, all of them with women, always as sure as can be that I was a heterosexual man through and through, and not gay in any way, other than in spirit and camaraderie, it hit me that I was lying to myself, that I'd spent my whole life lying to myself, that it was all a fake dream, a feint shadow, barely intelligible in the face of a monumentally bright sun.

I wanted to be these two, the warrior and his lover, because they shone like all the stars in the sky put together.

I yearned for their freedom. I yearned for their unabashed passion.

I yearned to live as they were living, devoted slaves to the forces of nature called lust.

Most especially, and to my extraordinary surprise, I yearned to be her. Certainly I'd spent three decades on the planet presumptively sure that in such a given scenario I would always be the 'man', because I wasn't gay, and yet here, witnessing these two lovers and their moments from history, there was no internal debate going on in my head, no back and forth at all.

Let me paint my face, as she's done, and my nails. Let me slip into the softest of gowns, as she's done, showing the world both my delicacy and the enormous strength of my curves and my convictions. Let me grow the hair on my head long and thick, enough for a man to run his fingers through, while eliminating every hair on the rest of my body. Let me adorn my body with bangles and rings and every other feminine affectation.

Let me be the target of this man's carnal urges.

Let me be the target of every man's carnal urges!

Wracked with conniptions, my torso shaking uncontrollably, I came again, with just enough control of myself to ensure that none of my spray touched the book, instead coating my belly, frosting myself with white-hot creamy juice, my pulses so exhausting that afterwards I panted and gasped and breathed hard, like an athlete just finished the hardest competition they'd ever been involved in, the battle over, the victory sweeter than honey, the trophy theirs for the keeping.

I gazed at her face again, somehow knowing that when it happened, when she made it happen with her skills, when she finally allowed her man to reach his zenith, she'd swallow every single drop of his essence, with greed and pleasure, giving herself the sustenance she needs, treating herself to a meal fit for a queen.

Or, perhaps, a mere mortal.

Like me.

Unlike my wife, who had always refused to even consider performing oral sex on me, but who had no problems at all with me performing on her, let alone allowing any of my seed anywhere near her mouth, in our entire sexual history, I gulped and swallowed like a starving man at a banquet, covering my fingers and palm with my semen, the first taste of it on my tongue transforming my entire outlook on living, matching the crack of thunder I heard from the heavens, whether it was real or not. She'd always called it disgusting, as if she actually knew what semen tasted like.

I now knew it to have the most unique taste in the world, unmatched in any cookbook.

Exhausted by my own explosion, I ventured on, with several more pages of characters only, until the next piece of art.

Just seeing the colors appear, as I slowly and carefully turned the previous page, nervous at all the crinkle and crackle sounds, made blood go rushing back into my penis, like a shot.

In what appeared to be a temple room, surrounded by dark wood and thick beams, candles burning everywhere, golden idols on venerated shelves behind them, the same couple lay, no mistaking them, this time with the warrior flat on his back, and the loveliest feminine lover I can ever recall sat astride him, legs bent at the knee and splayed, fully impaled on his massively thick erection, buried to the hilt, leaving only the fronts of his balls showing between his legs, her ass completely full of him, the angle of the art such that I couldn't actually see her genitals, but there was the hint of a shadow on his belly, telling me she was as excited as possible, ready to explode her own cream at any second.

Her hair was lustrous, and shone, while her eyes were smoky and sultry, golden hoops in her ears, pink cheekbones and blood-red lips, wearing a charcoal-grey gossamer gown, the hint of a rosy-red nipple on one side, enflamed and as thick as a pinkie finger, her arms thrown back behind her, her hands flat and hovering over the floor, her entire weight and spiritual being anchored on just one point, one thick meaty pole, in complete balance, with the laws of physics and with the laws of the soul.

Eyes fixed on the other, there existed nowhere on this planet, not even the finest museums, a more perfect physical representation of pure joy.

They were making love, as their reverence to their Maker.

I exploded all over my belly. Again. Body-wracking, fierce blasts, draining me of energy, and all the semen my body could manufacture.

Which, after some calming down and getting my breathing back, became my favorite taste treat, again. Pungent, and almost acrid, some parts runny and some parts with body, its one-of-a-kind effect on my palette and my consciousness staggered me into the most profound shock, of the most exhilarating kind.

Again.

Despite my exhaustion, I wanted to press on, and see more, luck playing an unexpected role when I casually looked at the bedside clock and saw what time it was, and how long I'd been in bed, giving me just enough minutes to clean up and hide the book before she got home from work.

The whole evening, she kept asking me if something was wrong, if I was feeling okay, and I lied through my teeth and told her everything was just fine. She doubted me, I could tell by the look on her face, the furrowed brow a dead giveaway, and told me she was worried, that I was jittery, twitchy, as if I had ants in my pants.

But she was wrong.

The only thing in my pants was a pulsing seemingly non-stop erection, yearning to be set free and touched, throbbing with every erotic synapse firing in my cranium, as if the whole of humanity was turned on and filtered through my loins.

Every second that passed I had to stop myself from dashing to the closet, pulling out the book from under the pile of my sweaters on the top shelf, the ones I never wear, and progressing to the next picture. The urge to see more, to experience more, was stronger than every other desire a person could have, including the very primal and necessary acts of breathing and eating. On a planet full of humans and animals and activities beyond counting, I could only see one such role I wanted to play.

Being like them, the warrior and his lover.

Being her.

My heterosexual world had been decimated.

Destroyed.

Erased, with the ease of a gust of wind, as if something I'd assumed as monumentally intrinsic and important was just a casual flirtation. Thirty-one years of living, three decades of presumptions and experiences and steadfast realities, all of them shattered into fragments so small they'd never be put back together again, even with all the king's horses and all the king's men.

I knew, more than I knew anything, right down to every cell in my flesh, that everything about me was different now. No longer just a philosophical advocate for same-sex relationships, I'd fallen over the cliff and into the deepest well imaginable, irrevocably altered, drowning in gay.

Sleep eluded me, laying in the dark next to her, this woman I'd pledged my soul to, my partner in life, twitching with energy, spasming from head to toe with little tics, fighting the urge to throw off the covers and get to the next image in the book, only slightly worried that more orgasms might seriously do me damage, physically. Around the four o'clock in the morning part of a wide-awake night, silent tears began to run down my face, from both sides. I wasn't overcome with sadness about losing my straight-ness, nor about coming face-to-face with the realization that the person next to me suddenly offered absolutely zero attraction to my sexual sensibilities anymore.

I cried because I knew that there'd be a conversation I'd have to have with her, soon, and it would not go well. I cried because I knew what I'd say would hurt her, emotionally, and despite the radical one-eighty in where and what my life was, and how I needed to make it happen, I was still going to cause her pain, which made me feel like a bit like a cad.

Though not an actor at all, the next day I went to work pretending to be slightly under the weather, by making my voice sound a little plugged up, as if I was congested, the lack of sleep helping my look, and by eleven in the morning my manager popped her head in my workstation, keeping back a little bit, and told me to call it a day, go home, and get some rest.

I went home.

I didn't get any rest.

On my way to our bed, lump in pants and book in hand, I was hit with a thought, one that stopped me dead in my tracks.

I turned my head.

Just there, a few feet away, was her dresser, the one with her sweaters, all folded neatly, and her p. j.'s, equally precise in their creases, as well as her yoga pants and her gym stuff, and, more importantly, all her lingerie. There was one whole drawer of nothing but panties, and while most of them were boring and utilitarian, she did have some lacy frilly feminine pairs, stuffed in the back, that she never wore anymore. Below that, I knew, was another drawer, full of bras, and camisoles, and a few slips, and half-slips, as well as several pairs of pantyhose, which I thought kind of boring, but where I'd once spotted a pair of black stockings, the kind that stay-up, with elastic in the tops of them, that gripped onto your upper thighs and had sexy lace patterns on them.

The pleasure meter in my brain was already running over the red-line, but it couldn't help but rev hotter still when I bunched up the stockings, into little donut shapes, and slid them up my legs, one sensuous inch at a time, literally stopping all movement a couple of times, at the point of almost no return, ready to explode in orgasm, at the mere touch of softness on my skin. In between all the mental commands I was giving myself to NOT cum, I had to cease motion altogether, knowing even the tiniest little quirk would set me off.

When the stockings were finally on, and I was able to move again without popping, a slim shiny satiny mustard-yellow thong panty found itself wrapped around my waist, and encasing my genitalia. As tight as can be, the fabric pulled at my bits, compressing them, eliciting earth-trembling roils of delight through my torso, and making my sphincter pucker, again and again, the taut touch of the material rubbing it in a manner just so totally foreign to me, my own clothes never touching me this way, never affecting me this way, never stimulating, or exciting.

In a heartbeat, I knew exactly what she was feeling, the warrior's lover, wearing clothes meant for a woman, the gossamer gowns and such. Like finding the wisdom of the ages, or stumbling across the Holy Grail in the dark, I discovered the ultimate and most sacrosanct truth.

She didn't wear feminine clothes just for her man's pleasure.

She wore feminine clothes for her own pleasure. First and foremost. For her own pleasure. For her own integrity.

For her own completion.

In mere hours of enormous firsts, wearing panties and stockings was like the cherry on the world's best sundae, like dropping a penny and bending down to find a twenty-dollar bill.

Without looking at details, after lying down on the bed, I carefully opened the pages of the book, still worried that the tiny cracking noises could mean destruction in some way, and did a quick, edges-only inventory.

In total, there were seven pages of art, in this mysterious small thin foreign book. With three already seen, that meant I had four remaining. In one extraordinary yes/no moment, I wondered at the feasibility of doing all four in one go, just as quickly wondering if that many explosions might do me serious harm, or even do me in completely.

And besides, I didn't want to rush anything. I wanted, no, check that, needed, to examine every detail, every brush stroke, or crayon stroke, or whatever medium the artist had used. I had to, more than anything else I'd ever thought of, analyze, memorize, and internalize every single atom, no matter how they were organized. I needed to absorb and learn every dot, every detail, and every eyelash. It was the only way to salve the furious fire burning in me, and the purest way to sate my soul.

I owed it to myself.

I was filled with a dedication now, one that wouldn't let me cheat, or go half-assed. What I'd seen so far had literally changed me, altering my DNA, like banging a permanent narcotic into my veins, flying high, no longer worried about crash-landing, knowing that the soaring ride would never be anything but joy, never causing me pain, inside or out, so long as I never got too close to the ground.

All in.

This must be how 'born-again' people feel, I thought.

Except my conversion was as grounded in reality as the air we breathe, and the dirt on the ground, unimpeachable, never prone to fall to the simplest intellectual retort, unable to defend its own mythological base.

No, I'd not skimp. I was going to squeeze every ounce of pleasure and joy out of this life, and this experience, as possible. They'd have to rip this book out of my cold dead hands. No four pages this afternoon, not for me.

I was going to spend the whole time lost in just one image at a time.

With the care and attention of a museum curator, picture page number four showed itself soon enough, once anew dazzling me in color and the most delicious detail.

My warrior, and my role model, at night, a blanket of twinkling stars above them, the light of a fire burning nearby separating them from the darkness, and as bright as their energy.

And it hit me, I was looking at her as exactly that, as a role model, as a potential me, comparing us, and on the face of things seeing only some minor ones. We were both technically males, we were both on the paler side of skin tone. Facially, we weren't alike other than we both had noses and chins. Her eyes were dark, mine were lighter. Her forehead had more of a slant than mine, my nose was a little wider. Her chin was more pronounced, my cheekbones might have outdone hers.

And yet there was one huge monster of a similarity.

She was as feminine as she could be, a feeling that I now truly felt and understood, and she was resolutely proud, almost arrogantly proud of her attributes, and her passions. Unabashed, unashamed, and unembarrassed, living in the moment, existing for the moment, empowered and empowering, pursuing those urges that are preternatural in all of us, if we let them out, flaunting her lust to the viewer, whether they be the type to live buttoned-up, or the type to live free, as she does. No concern for adhering to someone else's ideas of proper behavior, she was above it all, on a plane of transcendence, from mere mortal to enlightened being.

They were both facing the artist, both on their knees.

Intricate details of their facial expressions seemed to jump off the page. They were both in the throes of carnality, no pretense to be found, nothing but abject visceral honesty.

Sheer unadulterated pleasure.

Sheer unadulterated joy.

Sheer unadulterated ground-zero veracity.

Two people, engaged and sharing in the highest form of interpersonal communication.

Her long dark hair cascaded around her face and down, framing her face, with her scarlet lips and her dark eyelashes, spirals of gold hanging from her ears, wearing yet another see-through full-length gown, this one white and open and falling to the ground, but gapped with enough space to show her tiny bosom, topped with those dark round delectable-looking nipples, the artist showing her bald erection and pearl sac swinging below her, between her spread alabaster thighs.

On her shoulders were his hands, firmly gripping and pulling.

He was directly behind her, his strong chest above her, muscles pronounced, his solid thick thighs barely visible, my perspective easily letting me see some of his meaty girthy cock, with its rippling veins, half-buried in her ass.

I barely had enough time to pull the panties away from my groin before I erupted out a veritable lake of white cum, whiter than I'd ever seen it before, which staggered me, and my head fell back and my whole body shook, my eyes half-closed, a strangled moan hurtling out of my lungs that I'd never made, sounding like some sort of alien creature composed of nothing but emotion. Completely addled, completely fried, it took me more than a few seconds to find the wherewithal to come to again, and catch the creamy semen that was finding anyplace on my belly it could find to let gravity take it. I could feel, warm on my skin, multiple rivulets moving, this way and that, slowly at first and then picking up speed.

And my brain went, NO! I'LL STAIN THE COVERS!

So worried and therefore so inspired, I slurped down all my cum as fast as I could, not getting to savour any of it until the last blobs, when I sucked on my fingers, as far as I could stick them in my mouth, imagining they were cocks, thin of course, but hard, and tasting unlike any other food or drink ever grown or devised.

Taking a few moments to reenergize, I then spent almost two hours poring over the picture, imprinting every nuance on my spiritual circuit board. Like a fine piece of music, I learned every note, every rest, every key change and every coda.

Paradise had to end, and when my wife got home I was cleaned up and in guy mode again, the book carefully hidden. After dinner we watched a movie, and at two different times she stopped the tape and asked me if I was feeling okay. The look on my face told her something, but she couldn't figure out what it was.

I lied, and said everything was fine.

Like a junkie desperate to get another fix, I came to understand true frustration, not finding an opportunity to see the next picture for three whole days.

They were the longest and dreariest three days of my life.

Finally, on a Sunday, she decided to visit her parents, for lunch, and I made an excuse not to go that worked.

I gave myself ten minutes after she'd gone, to be safe, in case she'd driven off and then realized she'd forgotten something, making her turn around, and then for good measure I gave her five more.

At fifteen anxious minutes plus thirty seconds I had the panties on again, shivering with delight as they slid up the skin of my legs, settling down tightly on my groin, encasing me again in their hold of love.

The stockings were equally delicious, and went on much more slowly, so I could revel in every second of it.

Three crackling pages of characters after image number four, just like all the other breaks in the book, led me to picture number five.

I wasn't prepared for the blast of color.

Whereas the first four images were strong in the darker aspects of the spectrum of colors, this page fairly burst in lighter tones, blues and greens and yellows, rich and lustrous and full of body and depth.

Water, as far as the eye could see, to the horizon, meeting the bluest sky ever in the world, splattered in a few places with tiny white fluffy clouds, mindlessly casting by. There was motion to the surface of the water, with edged ripples, giving the impression that they might be in the ocean, or a lake, with the wind picking the water up. Each little crest glinted with golden sunshine, seeming to be from just above and to the left of the lovers.

The warrior, and his feminine lover. The same two.

She was floating, on her back, on the surface, the water line delicately cutting her in half, the lower side clouded by the water, murky, the upper side shining in the brightness of the day. Her gown was around her shoulders and still on her arms, but most of it fell below her body, in the water, soaked and weighed down. Her face was, as always, beautiful, and cast up skyward, with red rosy lips and long-lashed sultry eyes, but her eyes were downwards forty-five degrees, on an angle, focused on his.

He was standing in the water, his hands on her hips, his body in-between her splayed legs, his mighty cock buried to the hilt in her ass. They each had the most ferocious look to their faces, the details of the art brutally honest, so I could feel their vigor, I could internally sense their heightened state, hearts pumping harder, lungs bellowing faster, muscles pulsing and flexing stronger, her small erection as hard as a tree stump. Through the sweetest sensual osmosis, touching the page as I stared, I absorbed their energies, both the ones they were putting out and the one they were creating, two burning supernovas colliding and becoming one mega ball of light in the sky.

Inside me I could feel, and almost go through as well, the slow tender strokes at the beginning, each of them lovingly getting used to the fit, prolonging the languid sensations, the pre-glow, until those animalistic urges became too strident, and the true love-making began, bodies thumping together, the water around them sloshing and swirling, urgency swelling, two lovers out in the open, under nature's view, for all the world to see, the very definition of pride, in their actions and in their love.

As I'd come to expect, my orgasm was sudden, and immense, incapacitating me for minutes on end after, until the veil of euphoric mist gradually dissolved, and I was alert enough of mind to begin my favorite chore.

Cleaning my own cum up, straight into my mouth.

Like before, I spent as long as I could afterwards taking the image in, immediately throbbing hard again, dissecting brushstroke by brushstroke, until I could recite it from memory. Just like the others, I committed the very essence of it to my center, to be held dearest, and to be honored.

Two days later, I did the pretend-to-be-sick thing again.

Lingerie on, I carefully opened up to the sixth image.

I had to grab onto my own erection, squeezing as hard as I could, as if my life depended on it, to stop the explosion I wanted to go through, at my first glance.

The entire page was of them, as if they'd been fitted to the inside of the box the page created. There was no discernible background at all. I had to turn the book sideways to view it properly, the second image in the book that wasn't in the portrait setting.

It was the beast with two backs.

She was on the bottom, on her back, her legs bent backwards and held by his shoulders, his strong legs splayed around her beautiful ass, his arms around her, her arms around him, clinging to each other, seemingly for their very lives, nose to nose and forehead to forehead, they gazed into each other's eyes with a ferocity that stunned me, that shattered any previous ideas I might have had about what abject concentration would look like.

Their entire life was committed to each other, through their eyes.

The warrior's mighty cock was completely buried in her ass.

Like a raging boiling kettle, I let loose, my squeezing useless, and filled my panties with cum.

My abdomen felt like I'd just done a hundred thousand sit-ups.

I spent hours poring over the image, every nerve in my body excited, rampantly erect the whole time, absorbing and assimilating the details. The second time I exploded in cum, when I finally allowed myself to, and dangerously close to the time my wife might return, was inspired completely by the look in their eyes.

They were staring through each other, into the very cells of the other, joined as one, as much of his body inside her as he could get, the both of them existing as lovers to the exclusion of everything and everyone.

Later that evening, for reasons I'll never understand, my wife tried to initiate some romance, something she'd never done, or at least was so long ago that I couldn't remember it. She was flirty, from the second she walked in the door, and while I was washing the dishes after dinner she changed into a little nighty and panty set that I'd bought for her some Valentine's Day years ago, early on in our relationship when I still held hope she'd become more affectionate and sexual, asking to snuggle on the couch while we watched a rom com movie.

Flickers of shame zipped here and there in some recess of my mind, for an hour and a half, while she occasionally caressed my chest, and then my tummy, and then my upper thighs, slowly, things that should have got me as horny as a goat, that would have gotten me that way up until just a few days ago, while I tried to think of a reason why I wanted to even try to have sex with her. The very thought of putting on the 'horny hetero guy' act offended me somehow, and yet I thought it might be the best thing to do, all things considered. I stewed and tried to pretend that I was enjoying what she was doing, but every time I allowed myself to imagine anything to do with her vagina, I was visibly turned off.

In the end, I pretended to fall asleep.

Truth was, I was actually tired.

Today's cums had tuckered me out.

With her, I not only didn't want to, but actually didn't get any reaction from my penis.

Lying in bed, later, after she was obviously disappointed at me for falling asleep but couldn't really say much about it, considering how many hundreds of times she'd pulled the same thing with me, real or not, we went to bed, but only to sleep, although I couldn't.

It was as if the book was calling to me, and from the first emanation of it, I was hard. She didn't excite me.

But the book did.

The warrior and his lover did.

More than everything.

With one image to go, one last chance to go through the experience, I needed a guaranteed few hours of alone time, and that didn't come along for another four days.

Four excruciating days.

Ninety-six excruciating hours of being almost-painfully erect, in my panties.

I'd taken to wearing them every day to work. With the stay-up stockings under my pants.

Knowing that I was wearing women's lingerie under my clothes while everyone in the office was unaware was almost as exhilarating as my role model and her man.

Almost.

Finally, the day arrived, a Saturday, with my wife out visiting a friend, and me volunteering to stay home and do laundry, something we both needed. And, not that I needed any such thing, because I was getting to the point where it didn't matter anymore, what she thought, but volunteering like that actually did score me some brownie points.

If she only knew.

Thighs encased in silk and my soldier encased in panties, the tip of my head, my eye, poking out the top, once again being delicate and careful, I opened the book, to the last image.

I was as excited as I'd ever been, period.

There were no warnings.

There was just instant eruption from my gonads, a gigantic spew of semen, like a white rope, which hit me under my chin, followed by five pulses, each progressively smaller, all landing on my chest and belly.

My warrior, and my role model.

He was sitting upright on a mat, with her facing him in his lap, his arms around her, gripping both her delicious round ass cheeks, to raise and lower her, her arms tightly wrapped around his shoulders, her legs wrapped around his lower back, his substantial cock almost all the way in her, her erection pressed up against his belly.

What made me blow, like Mount Vesuvius, was the most erotic and sensual sight I'd ever seen.

They were kissing.

Eyes closed, dreamily, they were open-mouthed kissing. Her bright red lips were only partially visible, but there was a little tiny gap in their mouths and I could someone's tongue, in the other's mouth.

Free of the bounds of pedestrian living, they were united, in every way possible.

One inside the other. One full of the other. Cock in pussy. Tongues in mouths. Body to body, skin to skin, eyes shut in rapture, the ultimate manifestation of passion, of life, of the essence of life. Two of the rarest people, resolutely oblivious to everything that they didn't need to create their fires.

I managed two more orgasms that afternoon, both of them straining my gut muscles, my convulsions as I spewed my delicious nectar making me feel like a woman must feel, when she's pushing out a baby.

The next morning, she went for a yoga class at the community center, giving me an hour and a bit, so I gave myself ten minutes per image, to stare, and dream, and reinforce the details, right down to my central processing unit.

How I managed to avoid cumming I'll never know.

And then, just before zero hour, when I had to get the book back into hiding, for no reason other than curiosity, I cautiously rifled through the last three pages, to match the first three empty pages, expecting them to be blank.

But the last one wasn't.

It had writing on it.

English writing.

In what must have been a quill and ink, someone, presumably the recipient of the book with the experience in translation, had made notes. Some of them were cryptic, just one or two words.

Others were fragments of sentences.

One word, at the top, was bigger and blacker than the rest, bolded with extra ink, and underlined.

SHUFU

Perhaps the maker of the notes had started out neatly, in an organized manner, writing on the horizontal plane, but it hadn't lasted long, because there were words and phrases on other planes, pointed up and down, or on angles, as if they were added at different times, in a hurry. Some notations were cryptic, such as 'kami', and 'shintoshu', which meant nothing to me, while others were simple words, universal themes, such as 'love' and 'devotion'.

One such note was 'Empress Genmei', causing my heart to race with excitement. This was, as best I could tell or hope, a real person, and therefore I could look it up. I could research the subject, the promise of translating and understanding the text characters, the symbols, shining at me like a mega-watt lighthouse on a jut of land in the midst of the darkest night.

Two days later, I began my quest.

I had to know what the book was about.

Volunteering to stay late after work, I did some legitimate catching up, and then, when the coast was clear and I was the only human left, I started the operation.

Carefully opening the book, handling it as if it might puff away with any wrong movement, I photocopied all the text pages. As erect as I've ever been the whole time, I had to fight my own urges and not look at any of the seven images. I had enough presence of mind to know that if I started I'd never stop.

Numbering them, in order, I created a binder and set them in plastic protectors.

Ernest, in his note, had mentioned the book was given to him on the island of Honshu, so logic told me the symbols, or words, were in Japanese.

Online resources were, as I expected, plentiful. I learned that the characters are read from top to bottom, right to left, so at least I had a starting point. My problem was, of course, that there are literally several thousand characters in the language in regular modern use, and that in many cases they have more than one intrinsic meaning, as well as pronunciation. I read that modern-day Japanese students in primary and secondary schools have to learn over two thousand of them.

Later, when I saw that there are over fifty thousand characters, or 'kanji', my heart fell. Tens of thousands of them were only present in historical writings, and not used in modern Japanese, which meant that if the story was as old as I thought it might be, I'd never even come close to finishing the translation, even if I lived to be a hundred.

Almost as soon as I'd started, I'd hit a roadblock.

How could I possibly look up all these characters, one by one, to determine their meaning? It could very easily take me years, or decades. And besides, I realized, if the text was as old as the images made it look, then I could be dealing with the ancient or earliest varieties of the language, which over the course of thousands of years had slowly evolved from an origin of mostly Chinese characters, mixed in with other ancient South Asian languages, including from India, into a modern-day communication system.

But how?

Facing the most daunting challenge of my life, not even knowing how to go about my task, I became crestfallen, and frustrated. How do I do this? What steps do I take to solve the mystery? There was no option to ignore the words and enjoy the images. As much as I had to do anything, including breathing, I had to learn the story behind the two lovers.

It became my obsession in life, to the exclusion of everything else.

Early on, I managed to suss out a few things, on history websites.

Empress Genmei lived in the later seventh and early eight centuries, A. D., and was the forty-third monarch of Japan. Research showed that her reign was one of 'significant cultural advancement', including the arts, herself a poet, and it was thought she encouraged and promoted all manners of lifestyles, including, probably, a small but distinct sub-culture of homosexuality. She didn't necessarily encourage it, but she condoned it. Most importantly, she authorized the completion of the Kajiki, the official Record of Ancient Matters. History is always written by the winners, it's been said, so our modern-day knowledge of the history of Japan is directly related to her version of what had come before her.

Historians believed her to be a benevolent, perhaps even loving monarch.

Many of the notes written at the back of the book dealt with nature. There were descriptions of the seasons, and the majesty of the earth. 'Bounty' was one notation. Some of the cryptic words were also about what the translator wrote as, 'elements of beauty', as well as inferences to men 'as lovers', with question marks after, then adding, as an aside, 'one man only, not plural, with one woman - curious'.              

Without any direct knowledge, my obsession to translate the book became like a drug to me. I had to have it, I had to pursue it, each available second I could. Work became a chore, and I struggled to put in my eight hours every day, knowing and at the same time not much caring that my quality of work was suffering.

At home, I drifted away from my wife, and my marriage.

The routine was still the same, we still had dinner together and talked about our days and we still watched television together, at times, and we still did the necessary stuff like grocery shopping and such, but I did all those things with the barest of efforts, and the minimum of energy.

My internal fire burned elsewhere.

One day, I told my wife that I had always had an interest in learning the Japanese language, my whole life, which surprised her, since I'd never mentioned it before, and I began spending hours poring over online resources, searching for characters and their meanings, as well as delving into the history of the culture, hoping to find analogies to the few symbols I'd lucked into solving.

The process was slow, but I gave it all I had.

When I was alone, and knew she wouldn't be home for a time, my every second was spent with an image, lost in fantasy, lost in appreciation, lost in envy, and lost in masturbatory paradise. Not even as a teenager, with raging hormones, had I ever spent so much time engaged in physical pleasure, nor had I ever had so many massive orgasms.

At least once a day, part of my diet was my own semen. I'd hold it in my mouth, letting it seep and settle in-between my teeth, coating my gums, giving every single taste bud in there the chance to be coated, to be drowned in it, awash in cycling waves of pleasure that ricocheted and rippled through my whole body, increasing as my slime slid slowly down my gullet, right down to my toes, almost always with silky hose on them.

It was almost six months of daily research and daily pleasure when one day my wife quietly cried and told me she wanted a divorce. It was sudden, and unexpected on that particular day, but I wasn't a fool, and there was no question I'd known it would one day arrive. She didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. I was distant. I was uninvolved. I had changed.

When she said that I'd 'changed', it was like a bell going off in my head.

She was right.

I had changed.

More than she could possibly imagine.

And, I knew, so much for the better.

I will admit those were a sad few weeks of the separation process, for the both us, which was entirely my fault. I still held her in a place of love, in my heart, and would never have knowingly hurt her, if I didn't have to. Even though I had no attraction to her anymore, romantically or sexually, she was still my first love.

But there was no going back for me, nor denying myself what I had to learn, and what I had to become.

Being alone gave me all the time in the world to do my research.

It also gave me all the time in the world to go further, in my devotion to my role model, and I began buying more items of lingerie. Like a talisman, she pulled at my soul, my only purpose in life to live as she did, if for no other reason than to honor her bravery, and her honesty. And several times a week, just knowing that a package would be in the mail room at my new apartment building, waiting for me, filled with feminine clothes, made me ride a river of excitement at work, and to my great delight my work productivity soared. Both of my bosses commented several times about my improvements, and, to quote one of them, 'keep up the good work'.

I took that to mean in my growth and development as a person, and not just an employee.

And I was a better person, especially in spirit.

My days at home were blissful, clad in the finest softest clothes to be found. The long flowing gowns my role model wore became a staple of my attire, with one always delicately draped on my frame, the softest silks and satins, peignoirs so sheer I could see every pore of my own skin, shaved smoothly every day and shiny in the light, my gowns over-top of my requisite panties and stockings, including the modern addition of garter belts, which were as stunningly staggering as were the bras I'd soon added to my ever-burgeoning wardrobe, which gripped me in tightness and made me feel like I was being held by an unseen lover. They also pushed up my pectorals a little, and created cleavage, the sight of which could almost make me explode by itself. And best of all, I didn't have to chance the embarrassment of actually going to a shoe store in public to buy heels, instead finding three pairs online that they delivered straight to my home. One black, one red, and one white pair, all of them with pointy toes and ankle straps and four-inch stiletto heels, waited for me every day when I got home from work, and it wasn't usually more than a minute or two inside the door before I was clacking around my apartment.

And to my utter glee, I'd found exact replicas of the different powerful red shades she wore on her lips, rose and scarlet and ruby and blood, hers no doubt concocted by her own skilled hands with purely natural ingredients, mine available by the hundreds in shiny tubes, at the drugstore.

One day, a few weeks in, the image of her orally making love to him, the crystal-clear picture of a gentle lady adoringly blowing her warrior, with the hand-made wooden dildo in her ass, finally had enough of an effect on me that I couldn't deny myself anymore, and I added a few more dollars onto my credit card. The next day, I had three life-like rubber dildos of varying sizes and two butt plugs delivered to my door, by a man who smiled at me as he handed me my package, as if he somehow magically knew what was inside and was both supportive and turned on by the thought.

Jolts of excitement shot through me, at the idea of turning a man on, erasing a lifetimes worth of sexual fantasy, where every woman I'd ever seen I'd mentally undressed and had sex with. Gone. Who cares about any of that?

I yearned for that which my role model had. Let me grow my hair and wear soft clothes and paint my face, gladly and willingly, for the very reason she did.

To have the experience of her life, with a man equally suited.

From the first delicious moment when the six inch dildo touched my well-lubed hole, through that initial push, shivers exploding in my most virgin flesh, to the brief struggle put up by my inner ring, and its eventual release, and onto the exquisite euphoric ecstasy that is being filled, I came to a much greater understanding of the look on her face, in the images where she was filled with manhood, when she made the conscious decision to allow her body to be invaded, willingly.

An explosion of almost the same size as my first look at the images in the book overtook me, my joy manifest, made that much better at the knowledge that a real cock, attached to a real vibrant virile man, would be so much more impactful, so much more life-altering, as if I'd walked into heaven only to find out there's a VIP section with my name on the guest list.

Months later, with thousands of hours of work and very little to show for it, I began pursuing academic web sites, specializing in languages, eventually contacting someone who listened to my story, cleaned up of course, devoid of the sexual aspects, and who referred me to a website/blog where Asian literature, including arcana and obscurities, was actively discussed. She was sure, she said, that I'd be likely to connect with someone who could help.

She was right.

I soon came into contact with someone who identified onscreen as Takahashi, who from the outset seemed fascinated with the story of my book. After just a short back and forth, I took a photo of the symbol on the cover and posted it in the blog, hardly able to contain my surprise when, just a few minutes later, I had an answer.

'SHUFU. In modern era Japanese, it translates to the word 'WIFE'. Sometimes 'HOUSEWIFE'.

After many further conversations, over days, where I answered as many of the questions as posed, about the paper and the printing style and the binding, Takahashi asked me to look for a certain symbol, perhaps embedded into the paper itself, even just one page, or on one or both of the covers, and with the utmost in caution I explored, until finding something.

It wasn't what he'd described to me, but close enough, and his reaction was immediate. I first drew as accurate a rendition as possible, much larger than the actual symbol, before attaching it to a text, after receiving permission to use a personal cell phone number, and then taking a life-size picture with my phone and texting that as well.

On pins and needles, I waited long minutes for some sort of reaction. The more I waited, the more nervous I became. If it was in fact a publishers mark, as suggested, some of my questions about who wrote it and when might be answered.

Finally, I saw a message onscreen.

'It is very old'.

Next, I took a photo of the first printed page in the book, and texted it.

Takahashi advised me it could be days, or even weeks, until I heard a response. The older it was, the more ancient aspects of the language might have been used, the symbols rarer, perhaps not even necessarily defined or understood. And even though it pained me, knowing I was so close to answers and still having to wait, I bided my time, every day, in the manner I'd become accustomed to, as I'd now made my usual practice.

Dressing in the finest feminine clothes I could afford, and pleasuring myself, with the seven images in the book, and with the daily use of butt plugs and dildos in my bottom.

I'd even begun thinking of it as my pussy.

More and more, I sank into an imagined world of a life like hers. The warrior's lover, my idol, immersed in divine feminine loveliness, fused with and guiding her natural masculine sexual appetite, free of the burdens of everyday existence, totally given to the sacred feminine.

More than two weeks later, at work, I received a message from Takahashi, directing me to contact a learned Professor, in California, at a major University, so I did, and who, after several back and forths, referred me to a respected colleague and historian, in Japantown.

I had to ask which island in Japan that was on, when I learned it was actually in San Francisco. I was surprised, since I'd never heard of it, or seen it on my one visit there, almost two years ago, with my soon-to-be ex-wife. It was explained to me that it was a small area, just a few blocks square, one that for many years had been a busy home to the growing Japanese community, in the early days of immigration, before they had spread out all over, like most ethnicities, dispersed into all the other neighborhoods. The tiny enclave was still sometimes referred to as Japantown, but it wasn't the hub of ex-pats that it used to be.

I called up Google, and saw that Japantown was indeed a small area, and indeed just a few blocks square. And to my utter thrill, it was more or less directly next to the one neighborhood in the world I wanted to go to, more than anything, the one that I wanted to absorb, that I wanted to immerse myself in.

The Castro.

It was serendipity, surely.

From my first message to Mr. Lee, the historian, it became obvious that he was very interested in the book, from an educational perspective. Anytime, he commented, that he can discover a heretofore unknown piece of literature, the older the better, was a good day.

I sent him a copy of the first page, as an introduction. He sent me a message that asked for some time to do his work, and I begrudgingly agreed.

Six days later, after I'd more or less given up hope of ever hearing from him again, he sent me a message, all in bold capital letters, demanding, 'SEND MORE'.

Hemming and hawing for hours, I finally opted for full disclosure, and sent him a copy of all the written pages, in the correct order. I must admit I had hesitant, dissenting voices in my head, worried about whether I was sending material of a subject matter that could offend others, but the need to know, the urgent pressing yearning, was too strong.

He again asked for time.

Waiting, day by day, I masturbated more and more. The very act of self-pleasure was to me a paean to her, my role model, in reverence and to honor her. While I could never approach her level of devotion to a man, her lover, I could build myself up to it, one tier of sensual bricks at a time. With daily practice, I soon became adept at taking eight solid inches of dildo into me, every day, exhilarated at the initial concentration and work involved, and then lost in the unequalled bodily adaptations I went through, so full of thick cock, touching parts of my inner tissues that reacted in soaring pleasurable ways I'd never imagined, never thought possible, making my whole lower body buzz and rattle inside, vibrations that cannot be achieved any other way, and vibrations I now had to have, as much as I needed air.

As addicted as I'd become to long flowing gowns and delicate feminine clothes, I was equally living life with another monkey on my back, not a day going by when I was out in public that I didn't have a butt plug inside me, sometimes hours on end, my home hours religiously spent with a thick long dildo embedded into my body and soul, the flesh-like ripples and veins in the manufactured skin becoming like familiar old friends to me, recognizing them for their unique placement every time I lubed up and made love to myself.

Like a nervous patient, waiting for the lab results, I lived day to day on the edge, everything inside me all a-twitter in anxiety, waking every morn with one thought, one question.

Would today be the day?

For almost three weeks, I'd end up disappointed, and while I never gave up hope, a twinkling of it always ever-present in my mind, I will admit to falling into a subtle kind of despair, slowly, frightened that I'd never get to understand their story, scared that the one and only thing I absolutely needed to know in this life, the very information that was as necessary as oxygen to my system, might elude me.

So the morning that Mr. Lee texted me and told me to call him, so he could explain his findings verbally instead of through pixels, was as life-altering a moment as I'd known. I sat at my desk, in the big open-area work farm where we all had workstations, literally shivering with elation, tremors and shakes of the most profound ferocity pulsing through me, over and over and over again. At one point, a co-worker popped her head over the dividing wall, to ask me a question about something, and saw the look on my face, hers immediately curling into one of fear, as if she was more concerned with how I looked than whatever issue she needed help with.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her voice choking up.

All I could think of to say, the only words that appeared in my consciousness, came out of me in a voice I couldn't even recognize.

"I gotta go home."

I didn't ask my boss for permission.

I didn't even bother to clock out.

A drive that took its normal twenty minutes or so felt like an eternity, and I did it all on auto-pilot, zombie-like in my movements. Turn here, turn there, all by rote. Even if I'd had an accident, or an incident, I would have been later charged with driving away, because nothing was going to stop me from getting home.

Wearing a pink peignoir, full-length, to the floor, over top of panties and bra and stockings, sitting on the bed, the book next to me, and with shaking fingers, I dialed his number.

My fate, my future, my everything was on the line.

Mr. Lee had a thin voice, high in register, giving me the impression that he was a smaller man, middle-aged or older, with the clipped delivery of a bureaucrat, or teacher.

But there was a nuclear warhead's worth of energy behind that voice. It was apparent, from his opening 'hello?' that whatever the result of his work, it was interesting to him, exciting him, something unique and rare and captivating.

There were to be no pleasantries. After introducing myself, he went straight for the jugular. He more or less insisted that I explain again how I'd come to own the book, which I'd already done in a general sense through our online messages and texts, so this time I talked him through it, trying to remember every detail, every nuance, of that day, and the shop where I'd found it.

And it was the easiest task of my life. The words flowed out of me, descriptive, providing context, due, I realized, to the enormous pride that discovering it and owning it had instilled in me, and the life-changing effect it had inspired.

I told him everything, except the images and all that they'd done to me.

Those were words for me alone.

Until.

In a moment that made me freeze inside, abject shock rendering my nervous system locked, he flat-out demanded to know if I'd really sent him a copy of every page in the book, or whether there was more. I couldn't think of what to say, suddenly frightened, the dead air on the phone line living for long enough to become as loud as a hurricane, which prompted him to state outright that there had to be more.

There had to be, in his words, "at least one or two, if not several pages of artistic representations to match the textual story. It was common in certain rare kinds of works, as a general rule. And in the case of this account, I believe that would have been true."

Frozen, I still couldn't answer, another long pause filling the time.

"If there are no images," he added, "then what you have is at best a copy of previous work, and at worst a complete fake, which makes it no less historically intriguing, I suppose, based on what can be ascertained with some of the details, and the unusual publishers mark, but without images it is much less significant in terms of monetary value, and almost certainly completely impossible to provide provenance."

My reaction was immediate.

"I don't care about the monetary value," with some confusion in my voice, and an instant feeling of defiance, "I would never sell it, ever."

I didn't add that the book meant too much to me to ever even entertain the idea of letting it go. It meant more to me than everything else.

He ignored my response.

"Did you send me a copy of all the pages?" he asked, sharply.

Yes, I silently said, you got the important ones, the words of the book, the story itself, fiction or not.

And no, I mutely replied, to myself, there were seven pages you didn't get, but those were for me, and me only. They had to be. They'd touched me as deeply as sentience itself.

No, you won't ever get those seven pages.

Then I realized.

Eight pages. Eight pages I didn't photocopy. The last page, the one with all the notes, I'd not sent him that one either.

Then I thought, no, not eight. Nine. There was the letter, as well.

After the longest silence of all, Mr. Lee began talking, ignoring the unanswered question, with perhaps a small amount of frustration in his voice. I didn't know him, after all, and I could have been wrong, but he sounded a little peeved at my not answering his question.

Like a schoolteacher, he began his lesson, to me, the only student in his classroom.

The overwhelming majority of the words in the book, a digital copy of which he'd moments before emailed to me, dealt with a simple love story, as timeless as the earth itself, two souls, perfectly matched, and their devoted and endearing relationship through the seasons and the years, celebrating their passions with passion, including the natural world around them. As was typical of the culture at the time, the sexual part of their bond was written about openly and honestly, without hesitation or worry of impropriety, because it was as much a part of nature as eating or breathing, but it was only one aspect of their coupling, and not necessarily the only subject matter in the book.

Just the major one.

It was, he instructed me, a form of story-telling that by today's standards would be considered 'erotica'. Written in the third person, in a diary form, it was possibly a memoir, by either of the lovers, just as much as it was possible to be mere fiction.

Based on "what he'd been given, and what he'd seen".

That inferred meaning was like a dropped grenade, the pin out, ready to explode.

What he'd seen.

Which of course, wasn't everything.

At one point he stopped, and paused, and I got the sense that he wanted to ask something, or say something, perhaps about the possibility of images again, or some other aspect that was unusual, or out there, but, deciding against it, he continued on.

Shufu, he explained, was the title, and as he'd previously explained, in today's acceptance would translate into the word 'wife', or 'housewife'. But it was a certainty, he continued, that throughout the centuries, Shufu would have also had other accepted meanings, other descriptors, including but not limited to words and concepts like 'partner', and 'lover', and 'companion'.

He was also close to one hundred percent confident that Shufu could very well have been a person's name, given to them as a title of respect, and love, and admiration. And in this case, he was certain of it.

After another long awkward pause, his voice became less strident, and more apologetic, asking again, almost begging to know, if I'd sent him the entire book.

One staggering question filled me.

How can I do it?

How can I possibly acknowledge the artwork, giving up the only thing I possessed in the entire universe that mattered to me? How could I admit them, and not lose my ownership of them, my own selfish grip on them? They were my life raft, ratcheting fear suddenly multiplying second by second inside me that the most glorious state of mind possible to be achieved might be taken from me, with only it's imprint on my soul as a reminder.

Mr. Lee asked if we could FaceTime.

My reality hit me like that freight train, snapping me out my worry.

If I said yes, he'd see me, wearing the peignoir, and the bra underneath, unless I held the phone in such a position that would be awkward and ridiculous. But not saying yes would seem unfriendly, and I was the one who'd been asking for his help, so I couldn't very well refuse his request.

Another long pause filled our ears, until I thought of an excuse, lying, telling him we'd do that, of course, but that there was just a knock on my door, and I needed to answer it, and I'd be right back, which gave me time to take off the cream-coloured gown, and quickly throw on an old sweatshirt, thick enough and rumpled enough to cover up any possibility of him seeing my bra straps.

Seeing his face, moments later, surprised me.

Older than I'd thought, he had a mirthful cheeriness to him, not the inscrutable Asian academic of my imagination, based if nothing else on his surname. He was almost bald, with barely a whisper of white hair around the circumference of his head, just above his ears, and clean-shaven. He wore glasses, small round lenses that made his eyes seem overgrown. With a wry smile on his lips, he bowed his head slowly, and after I returned the small gesture, he smiled a little more.

"There is more to these words you've shown me," he began again, "then mere erotica," before happily explaining to me, in general terms, Japan's long history, rich in mythology, the centuries of monarchs and rulers, describing glories and battles and cultural achievements, sincere pride in his voice. Heritage aside, his knowledge of the subject was of huge interest to him, it was obvious, and he delighted in sharing it with me.

At one pause in his monologue, he took a breath, and then gazed at me, on his phone.

"Is the book nearby to you now?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied, almost breathless at what I knew he was going to ask.

"May I have the honor to see it?"

Sitting on the edge of my bed, holding up my phone to face level, he could see me in my sweatshirt, probably from the shoulders and up, and it hit me that if I agreed to show it to him, I'd have to hold my phone and move it without giving away too much detail of the book, laid next to me on the mattress, details like the colored edges of the seven best pages, that I was so afraid of somehow losing if I admitted their existence, and without letting the angle of my hand movement slip too much, so he didn't see that while the sweatshirt I had on was normal enough, the panties and the stockings uncovered below simply weren't.

"Please?" he asked again, quietly. "There is only one sure way for me to properly assess what you have, you do understand that?"

I couldn't help but nod, one tiny lowering of my chin.

"If I can just view it, the cover, the construction, just those alone would help me, seeing it with my own eyes, would answer to me almost certainly one way or the other, whether it's a clever re-creation, perhaps copied from the original or perhaps made up out of old stories, passed down through generations, or whether it is, in fact, a document so old and so rare as to be a historical relic of academic importance and potentially a national treasure of the country of Japan."

My eyes shot open.

"A national treasure?"

His eyes became warmer, somehow.

"Please?"

My heartstrings sufficiently tugged, I carefully moved the phone, slowly, bending my body sideways to get closer to the mattress, letting him see the book beside me, without showing my crotch, or my legs. With what I thought was the patience of a professional cinematographer, I panned left to right, and then up and down, and then turned on a sideways axis, rolling over the cover to the spine, letting him see that up close, before slowly bringing the phone back to my face and my shoulders, never letting him see anything else.

Mr. Lee gazed at me, on the phone, for second after second after second, making my nerves as taut and brittle as icicles.

"In the year 661 A. D., a daughter was born to the Emporer Tenji and his concubine, a woman who held the rank of Hin, which means Beauty, and the child was given the name Abe. Pronounced 'Ah-bay'. Princess Abe. As a grown woman, she became the wife of another royal, a Prince, Kusakabe. They had three children. One of them, their only son, grew up and quickly ascended to be Emporer, but upon his tragic death she took power, and became an Empress. Empress Genmei. Like all her predecessors, her reign had times of struggle, of war, as well as times of great blessings. History as we know it tells us Genmei was loved by her people, respected for her generosity and kindness. She was believed to be a great patron of the arts, everything from painting and sculpture to music and literature. She was also thought to be a brilliant strategist, with her armies. There are no known or recorded losses during her reign.

"She had many great warriors, of course, who led on the battlefields, men who today would be the generals and commanders. Many of these men were chronicled at the time, their feats documented and recorded, almost in the same way today's celebrities are, and many of those relics still exist, to this day. There are any number of museums in Japan and around the world, as well as the scientific and historical departments of many Universities that house most of them. As I'm certain you can appreciate, these relics, these antiquities, many of them are valuable, potentially very valuable, and some are priceless."

I nodded. Yes, of course they would be.

"These warriors were treated like privileged stars. They had wives, of course, for procreation mostly, to continue the blood line. Also, it's without certainty that they almost all had concubines, or mistresses by today's standards, it stands to reason, and they almost all quite probably sired children out of wedlock. There exist more than a few stories of inter-family scandals over the years, as the official children sometimes battled the pretenders, the bastards, for power and wealth."

Then his gaze tightened, a seriousness taking over his face.

"Perhaps the most revered, the mightiest warrior in Genmei's reign, according to recorded lore, was also the one least documented. Despite his bravery, and his successes, which were almost unmatched, very little is actually known about him. His personal life, his stardom, should have been bigger than the others, and yet it's the opposite.

"His name was Abe, which of course was the Empress's birth name, and so we have to ask, was it just a coincidence, or was it therefore unquestionably a pseudonym, a tribute to her, rendering his real name and origin unknowable? And what are we to make of a male warrior, perhaps the fiercest of them all, taking a woman's name? His cunning as a soldier, the details of his brilliance on the battlefield, and his total dedication to his Empress are plentifully and often noted, the records exist, as is his official private life, his one wife only, somewhat unusual for the time, and the offspring they produced, creating what has become a continuing family tree to the present. But as opposed to the other warriors, the other stars of his time, there survives to this day almost nothing of his public peacetime activities, or even of his, shall we say, off-duty, his extra-marital activities. In fact," and he paused, "I can find only one reference, amongst all the databases of the world, a simple mention, an aside in the telling of another warriors accomplishments, a piece of jealous gossip, that Abe's life away from battle was entirely consumed with training, always in the company of his second-in-command, his adjutant, his trusted aide, whose name is never actually given. He was, simply, always beside Abe."

Then he took a moment to swallow, as if he was a little nervous about what he was about to say.

"I shall leave the relevance to you, but the actual symbol, the word used to describe Abe's number two, translates from a very ancient form of the language, and could mean 'companion'."

I felt the wind get knocked out of me.

"Which," he said quietly, "is one of the possible interpretations of the word 'Shufu'."

Then his face looked down, and around, back and forth, as he searched for something, finally saying a quiet 'AH', before looking at me again.

"This," he said, pointing his phone to a piece of paper he was holding up, "is the only known artistic rendering of the great warrior Abe in existence."

What he showed me was startling. It wasn't a gigantic punch in the gut, or like the proverbial ton of bricks, but it had some weight to it.

The Abe he was showing me looked like the warrior in my book, in some ways. There were some similarities. But it wasn't like an exact replica, or a dead-ringer situation. Beyond the obvious that both were men and both had faces with eyes and ears and noses and mouths and chins and jaws, there were also differences. And yes, they were both works of art, and therefore subjective depictions, and not verifiable photographs. Reason reminded me that they were likely from different artists, doing their own unique personal interpretations, using different artistic sensibilities, so there was no concrete way of telling anything.

But it wouldn't be any stretch of the imagination to believe that if they weren't the same person, they were possibly from the same family.

When he brought the phone back to his face, I sensed he was studying my reaction.

"I told you earlier that there was more to this document of yours than a simple love story, or mere erotica, yes?"

He didn't wait for an answer.

"There are also numerous historical references, and by that I mean specific names and events, details only very knowledgeable people at the time would have known. Details only powerful people would have known. All of which led me quickly to the opinion that your book is almost certainly not raw fiction, and not the imagination of a clever story-teller."

The question popped out of my mind and straight through my mouth.

"You think it's real? That they're real?"

Mr. Lee nodded.

"I do."

Then he looked serious again.

"Based on what I've learned, after reaching out to scholars and professionals all over the world, verifying what I suspected and pointing me in directions I wouldn't have considered," and then he paused, and sat up straighter, "and now having seen it with my own eyes, even the cursory inspection you've just provided, I can now state, with confidence," and he stopped again, taking a deep breath, "I believe that you hold what might be a most ancient manuscript, one of a rare single printing, sometimes obliquely referred to as a Fukisawa Folio."

"A what?" I responded.

"A Fukisawa Folio."

He looked down at his own desk and searched around, making paper-shuffling noises.

"Named after an influential and wealthy friend of the Japanese court, perhaps as far back as before the time of Christ," he continued searching, "Fukisawa was apparently quite full of himself, and decided to document his own life, thinking it important for future generations to know all his details, hiring a writer to help create his autobiography, almost certainly fictionalizing events, as well as finding a capable artist, to visually add the details that Fukisawa thought worth showing. A vanity press, by today's standards."

Finding what he was after, he abruptly moved his phone from whatever stand it was on and pointed it at a piece of paper, hundreds of small printed words I couldn't make out, and one photocopied grainy image that I did recognize.

It looked like a carbon-copy of my book.

His voice wafted through the tinny speaker in my phone.

"The folio's themselves were limited editions, one-offs you'd call them. These were often pompous people, self-important in many cases, paying handsomely to have themselves immortalized in print. Historians tend to take them with a huge grain of salt when one appears, which isn't often. You see, while some of them do actually contain important historical data, so there's a positive, many of them tend to be exaggerations, or completely fabricated, fiction, in order to make the subject look good, as if modern day publicists had gone wild, which dictates that we must observe them and read them with an appropriate amount of skepticism, and doubt."

I gazed down at my book, on the mattress, wondering which of those options it might be.

Mr. Lee brought the phone back to his own face, which had his serious look again.

"All of these folios," he continued, matter-of-factly, "these ego-trips, would have had accompanying artwork within them. It was a standard."

Then he stared at me, silently.

"As I have already mentioned, the historical details in your possession are specific and verifiable, your book is rich in factual statements, specific events and specific dates, all of which leads me to say that yours is likely the true story of Abe, the great warrior of Empress Genmei, a Fukisawa Folio of potentially unparalleled importance. I have almost no doubt."

The idea of owning such an important document thrilled me. I'd gone into that bookstore that day specifically with the hope I'd find a hidden treasure, never actually believing it would happen.

I felt blessed.

"But..." he continued, before pausing again, a determination reappearing on his face, "the tiny doubt that I do have, that still remains, before I can state with certainty that what you own is real, well, that doubt can only be eliminated by two things."

I had to ask.

"Which are?"

"Number one," he said, loudly, "I must insist on an answer to my earlier questions, which you seem to be avoiding. Did you send me copies of all the pages? Every page? Are there aspects of the printing that you're not telling me about? A folio of this kind without some form of artwork would be almost unheard of, and cast serious doubt amongst my fellow historians as to the veracity of its origins. And number two, we need to be examining the book, physically. Scientifically. Carbon-dating can be done on the paper and the inks used. Spectral analysis will give us more definition of the composition of the materials and allow us to pinpoint more closely when it was created, and where it was created."

Then he stared at me again.

"However, all of those events, those tests, will not happen," he warned, "and my personal attention will be over and done," and his voice got more serious still, "as of from this moment forward, unless you finally confirm for me this one outstanding issue. Otherwise, I will stop my participation. The University pays me well, for many tasks, and yours has already taken a great deal of my time, time spent without approval I might add. Do you understand?"

Unable to work up the energy to speak, I simply nodded my acceptance of his demands.

I had to. If it was the only way to know if the story and all its details were real, then I had to be willing to share with him the entire truth.

I had to share it even if my greatest fear was somehow realized, and I was forced to give up ownership of the book.

"Did you send me all the pages in the book?" he asked, again, stridently, with enough tone in his voice to let me know he'd probably never ask it again, if he got an answer he didn't like.

It took a few seconds, but I managed to shake my head.

No.

A flicker of something, hope probably, registered on his face.

"Are there one or two pages of art?"

I shook my head again, which I could see confused him, after the initial flickers of optimism I'd just given him.

"There are seven pages."

I was holding back tears, almost shivering inside. I felt like I was confessing to some sort of crime.

His eyes shot open with surprise, and slammed his hands down on his desk, and his phone shook on its stand, blurring his face slightly as I watched.

"SEVEN?"

This time I nodded, slowly.

"Are any of these paintings of an erotic nature?" he asked, eagerly.

I nodded, and spoke, my voice almost breathless.

"They all are."

He smiled. He had a nice smile. He was excited about something.

"All seven are erotic?"

I nodded again.

Mr. Lee went to speak, and then stopped himself, and I watched his face, as he contemplated what to ask next and how to ask it.

"Forgive me," he said, his voice now quieter, "there is no delicate way of posing this next question," and he licked his lips while he thought, "so I'll just be blunt. Are any of these erotic images of a, um, homosexual theme?"

He stretched out the word, 'ho - mo - sex - u - al", pronouncing each syllable with a delicacy, perhaps not wanting to risk offending me.

It took a long few nervous seconds, but I finally nodded for him.

"They all are. All seven of them."

Mr. Lee laughed out loud, brazen and boisterous, and said something in what I assumed was Japanese, which made me think that it might be the literal translation of, "HOT DAMN!"

"SHUFU!" he blurted out, and when I didn't respond, he said it again.

"Shufu! That's it! The warrior Abe was a homosexual man, a gay man. Yes, he obviously had a genetic woman for a wife, to bear him children and to carry on the family name, it would have been a social necessity for a man of his position. But his second-in-command, the unnamed soldier who was always by his side, that man had to have been his companion, his partner, his lover. His wife. His Shufu."

It all instantly and blindingly made sense. The love story, which I hadn't read yet, combined with the pictures, which I'd studied and memorized and committed to the deepest parts of my psyche, must surely combine to tell the tale of the great warrior Abe, and his Shufu.

My insides were twitching, nervous anticipation streaming through my veins, soon to be finally reading the words, to match the power of the pictures. I found myself close to the brink of a powerful orgasm, my erection pulsing in my panties.

Mr. Lee, after a gleeful smile, shaking his head slightly as he digested this new information, suddenly became serious again.

He became the respected historian again.

"Would you be willing to send the book to me, for an array of tests, to help determine the age and authenticity?"

I couldn't answer.

"I assure you, there will be nothing done to the manuscript that can harm it in any way, and you will receive it back in the exact same condition as it is now."

That threw me for a loop.

"I'll get it back?" I asked, surprised.

His eyebrows furled.

"Of course you will get it back. Why wouldn't you? It is yours. Barring any last-minute new information, there is no indication that the document was stolen, or subject to any illegal cultural appropriation. Part of my research on any relic is with regards to records of loss, or dispute of ownership. There are numerous international agreements that most developed countries in the world have signed and agreed to, with regards to the repatriation of stolen artifacts, of course. But there's nothing I can find to suggest your artifact is subject to any claims. So yes, of course it will be returned to you."

Just the thought of sending it away, of not being able to gaze at those seven images any moment I wanted to, scared me. It frightened me to my core.

He saw my reticence.

"Or," he offered, "perhaps, if you are concerned at the prospect of the folio being lost, or damaged, would you consider bringing it here personally, to me? To me, and my colleagues at the University? You could be present and observe while we do our work. That might allay any worries you have about its safety?"

My first thought jumped right out of my mouth.

"I can't afford that."

He nodded.

Then he thought for a few moments.

"If you'll allow me to suggest, I could begin discussions here, on my end, internally, with my colleagues. Perhaps there's some way of finding a budget for such a trip. After all, it could be argued that the educational opportunity is an extraordinary one, and well worth the expense."

Each new moment of knowing Mr. Lee, I grew more and more to like him. He had a warmth to him, over and above his scholastic inquisitiveness.

He deserved the whole story.

I explained the note, that had fallen out of the book initially, and how it suggested that the book had been given to a Welshman, in the early part of the 1920's, from a compatriot who'd travelled to the island of Honshu.

"Send me a copy of that note!" he fairly shouted.

Sheepishly, because I was still admitting to information that I'd neglected to disclose earlier, and had actually denied, I told him about the last page, that should have been blank, but had cryptic notes on it.

"Send me a photocopy! Just like you did with the text! Please! AND THE IMAGES! ALL SEVEN OF THEM!"

His excitement was addictive.

After promising him I would get him copies of everything, right away, he asked if I could open the book to the note page, and show him, on the phone, and after again carefully aiming the so he couldn't see the lingerie I was openly wearing, and even more carefully one-handedly opening the book, right to the end, I passed my phone over the whole page, slowly, like I thought a good scientist should, letting him see each detail for himself, slowly. I could hear little clicking sounds, making me think he was taking screen shots on his phone.

When I'd finished, I closed the book and again carefully aimed my phone upwards, bypassing the unmentionables.

Mr. Lee looked serene. I barely knew him, and yet I got the distinct impression he was experiencing pleasure, and joy, as if finding out the true details of the 'folio' had sated an inner yearning. He struck me as the sort of teacher who did it because he loved the subject matter.

"I should tell you," he began, "an artifact such as yours would be a remarkable addition to the scientific world, particularly those fields that relate to history, and the arts. It goes without saying the University would be enormously grateful to become the trusted custodians, only with your generous approval, naturally. There are also significant tax benefits that can occur in these kinds of donations that many people are not aware of. At the same time, with the disclosure of its existence, I have no doubt that there will be some voices, perhaps many voices, in Japan, who would respectfully ask for the safe return of the folio to its country of origin, with an appropriate financial compensation, naturally. I would be neglectful if I didn't encourage you to consider either or both of those ideas."

I wasn't aware of doing it, but he saw my reaction of immediately shaking my head, no, and he nodded twice, holding up his hands, palms out, which I took to mean he could see I was shocked at the idea of having to give it up.

"I understand," was all he said.

My arm was getting tired, holding up the phone to face level.

"May I ask one more favor?" he said, his voice softer.

When I nodded yes, his eyes lit up.

"Would you show me just one of the images? Now?"

My whole groin flexed, every muscle seizing at the same time, and I grimaced, focussing all my will on not allowing myself to erupt. I could feel my sphincter quivering and puckering, like a tiny blowfish, desperate to grab onto something, anything, and suck it inside, to feel penetrated again, and full again.

I'd forgotten to slip a butt plug in when I got home, as was my new normal, so desperate to speak with Mr. Lee.

"Are you alright?" he asked, bringing me back to the present.

"Uh-huh," I croaked out, "it's just..." and I stumbled to say something, to find any excuse, moments later glomming onto one, "... it's just my arm is getting tired, holding the phone like this."

It was the first fib I'd told him today that actually had a kernel of truth in it.

"Oh," he replied, "I'm sorry, I've kept you on here for a long time, haven't I?"

I shrugged.

"That's okay. I've really enjoyed meeting you, and I can't thank you enough for all the work you've done for me."

He shook his head.

"No, the thanks are all mine. Thank you for bringing this amazing find to my attention. And thank you for sharing with me today, the more, shall we say, delicate aspects."

He nodded again, respectfully.

"I should let you know," he started again, "my work is not over yet, by any means. When you read the translation, there are a total of twenty-seven characters that I was unable to find in our databases, so there are gaps in the syntax of the story. The Japanese language has evolved over many many generations, resulting in tens of thousands of characters in the language that are no longer in use. They haven't been for centuries, and I must continue to look back in time to complete the story."

We smiled at each other.

"I look forward to our next conversation," he offered, "and I promise you, it will be soon. One way or another, we must find a way to get you and your folio here to the Bay area. Even if for only one visit, I would consider it the thrill of my lifetime to look upon your treasure, and, with your permission, to hold it in my hands."

Just the idea of pleasing him that way made my heart sing.

"I'd like that."

Again, we began to wind up the call, when he paused, and smiled, and then begged my forgiveness, with one repeated request.

"Would you allow me the honor of seeing just one of the images, now?

Something in the tone of his voice told me his interest was of more than a purely educational pursuit. I couldn't name any one specific thing, but I began to infer a desire in him that might be the along the same lines as mine, hoping it wasn't misplaced optimism.

Is he a kindred spirit?

Carefully aiming the phone, and even more carefully opening the book again, one-handed, my heart started beating faster, the unparalleled excitement I get viewing any of the seven images larger than normal, which is huge, the added thrill of getting to share something so wonderful with another person, something that has touched and reshaped my very life, became like heaven piled on top of heaven.

At his first sight of the first image, in the grassy clearing, the warrior and his Shufu, on their sides, her leg held up, his blood-filled cock buried in her ass, their eyes stabbing at the others with laser-focussed lust, Mr. Lee gasped. I heard it, loud and clear, followed by a slight moan, one that sounded suppressed, as if he'd wanted to let more out, but caught himself, not wanting to risk any social discomfort, for either of us.

I moved the phone slowly, letting him take in every detail, remembering my first glimpse at it, and how it had started me on the road to my most joyous state, to where I was in my heart, and in my soul.

When we finally returned to a face-to-face conversation, I could see his reaction, and how the image had obviously affected him. His eyes were wide open, appearing even bigger through the lenses of his glasses, his nostrils were flared a bit, he had a red rosy glow to his cheeks that wasn't there before, and his mouth was slightly open, in a reverential gasp.

For the longest time, he said nothing, and I could see him reeling, trying to make conscious sense of something that was affecting him in his subconscious.

Then, quietly and with awe, he uttered two words.

"Oh my."

I couldn't help myself in my reaction.

"I know."

Just seconds before we signed off, he said he hoped I'd enjoy his translation, knowing I was anxious to get to it, and just after we signed off, I took down all the mental barriers I'd put up during the call, the ones not allowing myself to do what is natural by bursting in orgasm, and immediately flooded both my panties and my sweatshirt, in huge lurching pulses.

I didn't even have to touch myself.

Flying high on emotions of the purest glee, and after licking up as much of my delicious spew as I could, that hadn't already been soaked up by my clothes, I amazed myself with my own display of discipline and, instead of reading the translation file on the spot, I ran into the shower, without taking anything off, and washed the remains of my semen away, once again dancing on my toes at the machine-gun spray of water on my super-sensitive penis, through the soaked panties, making it reverse its post-blast deflation, bringing me to a surprising hardness again.

I HAVE THE IMAGES.

AND NOW, I HAVE THE WORDS!

Even though I was bubbling inside to read, desperate for it, I forced myself to make every motion in half-speed, on purpose, teasingly, delaying the pleasures waiting for me just in the next room, increasing the build-up of delectable anticipation, while I stripped off, throwing the wet clothes into the hamper, drying my whole hairless body, shaving having become a daily ritual, before carefully and thoughtfully selecting what I'd wear next. I allowed myself the slow languorous process of sliding stockings up my legs, wallowing in their silky caress, before attaching them to a garter belt, inspecting them from every angle in the mirror, making sure their fit was perfect, front and back, that my gams were as sensual and sexy as could be, before stepping into the blackest, silkiest, wispiest G-string panties I owned, the mere touch of them on bare skin erotically inspiring, until they settled over my throbbing shaft and balls, the string running right up between my buttocks harshly tight to me, gripping me, holding me, almost protecting me, taking a few seconds to pinch my nipples, which seemed to radiate shoots of delight right into my cerebral control center, before snapping a bra together, in front, and then spinning it and sliding it upwards, until the soft cups molded themselves to my chest and pushed, creating my cleavage, my breasts, the shoulder straps then snapping in place, one final check in the mirror to make sure they hadn't twisted.

The ash-gray silk robe alit on my skin like a whisper, slowly settling on the rest of my torso, and legs, and I loved the way it flowed open when I moved, especially after donning the pair of shiny black pumps I'd bought, their four-inch stiletto heels making little dull 'thuds' in the carpet of my bedroom as I sashayed around, rolling my hips in what had become my new and preferred way of strutting, amplifying to sharp 'cracks' on the bathroom tile floor, where in front of the mirror my lips became a glossy shiny bright scarlet red, as kissable as any I'd ever seen in any fashion magazine.

After laying on the bed, and opening my gown, I slid the string of my panties away from my hole, far enough to sink two lube-coated fingers as far as they could travel inside my pussy, again and again, and then moaned in absolute depravity when the fattest of my two butt-plugs fully sunk in, a thin wide round plastic base being the only thing stopping me from anally swallowing all of it.

The book was next to me, as was my tablet, to read the file.

I felt whole, and complete, for the first time in my life.

Mr. Lee's translation had a foreward, not-so-briefly explaining that he'd had to make inferences between certain symbols, connecting words that would have been understood but not noted, one of the differences between Japanese and English. He also made points about many of the historical references, providing URL's that would show details should I be interested in learning them, rather than explaining them fully now.

He followed with a synopsis.

The book was written in unconnected parts, seven discernible different moments in time, taking place over perhaps as many as five years. Each of the parts, or chapters, seemed to take place immediately after a significant event, such as a military action, or battle.

All seven parts were poetic in construction, written in an almost-flowery style, although some of the English words that are the best available matches were not in and of themselves poetic.

So I read it.

Each word.

Slowly, to take them in properly.

All seven parts were completely dedicated to relating the simple and pure devotion of two people, to their own natural desires, and to each other, and each other's desires.

Two people, sharing one earthly spirit.

Two people, perfectly matched in body and mind.

Two people, each giving strength when needed, giving comfort when needed, giving laughter and touch, each devoted at every moment to the other, to the needs of their soul, and the needs of their flesh, each celebrating the other's strengths and weaknesses.

It was the story of two people, alive with the fire of romance, and burning with passion.

The Warrior, and his Shufu.

To my disappointment, it didn't read like a romance novel, or any famous novel from history. It wasn't really a story, in the sense of action, like this happened and then this happened. It didn't seem to be based on a timeline, or have a beginning, or middle, or end.

Page after page, other than the factual historical references, were simply words and phrases, some of them flowing and some disjointed, all of love and adoration. The love of their friendship, the love of the glorious natural world they lived in, their surroundings, peaceful and lush, providing them with sustenance to feed their daily hungers.

But most especially the love of their physical and romantic appetites, and the way each of them complimented the other, and completed the other.

Those were hungers that were constant, and insatiable.

Every page, of all seven chapters, was enthusiastic to the point of being avid, and almost completely about their love-making. Unfortunately, one of the vagaries of languages, as Mr. Lee had alluded to earlier, was that in the many places where we who use modern English might say words like 'screw' or 'hump' or 'fuck', or even 'make love', the clumsiness of translation led him to words a lot less common, or romantic.

There were multiple uses of 'fornicate', and 'penetrate', and 'mount', or 'mounting'. As well, there were multiple examples of words to describe passion, including 'ardor' and 'energy' and 'zeal'.

These were two people who burned bright, every second of every day, each to their own abilities and talents, who lived for each other. Their daily lives were completely consumed with their love, even during the mundane aspects of daily survival, passages about Abe toiling in the fields, growing and reaping the food they needed to survive, while Shufu cooked and cleaned and kept their domicile in a livable fashion, and how no matter their tasks on any given day, their struggles of basic living and survival, there was always the 'mounting', and 'the glorious ordeal'.

Every day. Multiple times a day.

Whenever and wherever the mood struck them.

The warrior and his lover, who fought together as two men, but who lived together as man and wife, was the dominant theme of the poetry. If indeed Abe had paid for this folio, as an ancient-times version of today's vanity press, there was no exaggeration in play about his heroic exploits, or his brilliance as a leader of men, a military strategist. Rather than using the publication to boast about his professional successes, and make himself look like a star, a publicists dream, he'd chosen instead to concentrate the entirety of his book on that which was most important to him, which was his love of Shufu, and their devotion to each other.

It seemed to me to be the purest of love stories, written with no prestige in mind, or to beef up somebody's public profile. The impression Mr. Lee described was one of an honest rendering of their relationship, more factual than bragging, with nothing embellished or exaggerated.

Love.

Surprisingly, one of the most oft-used words was Tsuyoi, which translates into 'strong'.

Abe was tsuyoi, and his strengths, not only of body but of mind and heart, were numerous, and decidedly masculine.

Shufu was also strong, or tsuyoi, with masculine aspects of his own, in public, and on the battlefield, doing his duty to the Empress and his commander. But, away from the rigors of the necessary, her true light, her true tsuyoi, shone brighter than the sun, teeming with the strengths of the feminine.

Different than her warrior, but equal.

Long into the next morning, I read and re-read and re-re-read the book, absorbing every nuance, until it permeated my spirit, and my soul.

My orgasms were overwhelming, and almost debilitating, each more than the last, sadly with lesser and lesser creamy outputs. They drained me of not just my delicious semen, but my physical energies. My emotional energies, and my desires, they couldn't tire even if I'd wanted them to, but my body felt as though I'd been in a car accident, tossed around more than just a fender-bender, exhaustion trying to take over.

Reading the words, and gazing at the images, in the order in which the chronicle was written, became my baptism, my willing surrender to the gods, their message received and understood.

We are made in our creator's image.

I knew then what my image was.

With almost no sleep, I slid clean panties and stockings under my work clothes and spent the first hour at work apologizing for leaving without notice yesterday, being reminded twice that my recent upswing in productivity was no 'get out of jail free card', showing atonement by volunteering to stay late, again, to catch up.

The last person left, and I nervously waited half an hour, just to be safe, spreading papers around on my desk, to make it look like I'd been doing something. Finally alone, and with the precision of a skilled craftsman, I slowly and carefully made digital copies of the seven images from the book, at the highest resolution possible, big files, as well as the letter from 1911 and the note page at the back, printing off copies for myself, so I didn't necessarily have to use the book itself every day. To preserve it.

I'd die if it ever fell apart or became destroyed somehow.

Sometimes, it turns out, paranoia is a good thing. Just before I went to leave, I thought about something, and after reading the color printer user's manual, realized that the printer had a buffer, of the last several documents printed, in case the machine was set up to run things but ran out of paper, which somebody might discover in the event of any weirdness or disruption, which instantly consumed me with worry, until I calmed down and thought about a fix, which was clearing out that buffer, by printing newer stuff. According to the manual, the buffer was ten documents.

I printed thirty, and threw them on my desk.

Now it looked even more like I'd been slaving away.

I sent Mr. Lee copies via email the first second I could after I got home, just like I'd promised.

The very first second, once I'd yanked off my boring boy clothes, jumped in the shower, cleaned myself inside and out, because I'd learned weeks ago that a few minutes of unpleasantness prevented unwanted issues later on with my dildos, shaved my body, neck to toes, dried off, lubed myself and deliciously slid my smaller butt plug in as far as it could go inside me, reminding myself how fantastically mind-blowing it felt to be penetrated and filled, lovingly slinked into white panties and stockings, pinching my nipples to puff them up and deciding to forego a bra, donning my white heels and gauzy-white peignoir last, and finally adding a fresh thick slick of blood-red shine to my lips.

I had my priorities straight. Becoming my own version of my role model did come first.

It was barely ten minutes later, after I'd just begun fucking myself with a seven-inch modestly thick black rubber dildo, that my cell rang, breaking my concentration, taking my eyes away from their eyes, as Abe stared down at Shufu, her full red lips wrapped around the shaft of his magnificent cock, her gorgeous bare ass and genitals pointed almost right at me.

Perturbed that someone, anyone for that matter, would be calling so late, I glanced at the screen, and saw the caller ID.

D. Lee.

I answered it right away, the dildo almost totally buried inside me.

He wanted to Face Time again. Right away, with an excited voice, he sent the request.

My insides clenched, out of worry, of how he'd react if he saw me dressed, with lipstick on, and the dildo involuntarily squeezed out of my hole, starting out slowly but then rocketing at the end, with an audible wet 'plop' sound, and an even louder soft moan of disappointment from me.

"I'm sorry! Did I wake you?" he asked, concern appearing in his voice.

Relief washed over me, at his suggestion.

"Uh huh," I said, trying to sound like I was just waking up.

"Oh, I'm sorry, so sorry. I didn't realize how late it was, with the time difference, please forgive me."

I assured him it was alright.

"I had to call," he said, genuine excitement in his voice, "to thank you for sending me the files," and he paused, "the, uh, the hand-written letter, yes, and the notations from the last page," and he paused again, a real energy to his voice, "they give my colleagues and I so much more to work with, to research, they are a truly wonderful addition to our knowledge, and I must thank you again."

I was about to thank him in return, when he kept talking.

"As well," and he paused, "the images," another pause, "they are, um, obviously, well, as you know, they are..."

He couldn't find a word, so I found a couple for him.

"Stunning? Beautiful?"

Mr. Lee sighed, in a mirthful way.

"Yes," he said, slowly, "they are indeed most stunning, and beautiful."

His words, his acknowledgement of my suggestions, bathed me in a glow of a shared acceptance, a shared appreciation for how staggeringly attractive this art was, that an unknown visual artist had created, so many hundreds of years ago.

My new-found desires, my dreams, my yearnings, became validated, in that one moment.

And I knew it.

We ended our call shortly after that, with him promising to keep me in the loop at every moment of both the research and his plans to somehow find a budget big enough to fly me to San Francisco, to meet with him and his fellow historians, and to show him the original book itself.

My days at work became instantly forgotten, the second I shut down my workstation and locked the cabinet drawers. I did what I had to do, to stay employed, and to pay my bills, but my heart and mind were always elsewhere.

The entirety of the rest of my life was devoted to living up to the lessons taught to me day in and day out by Shufu. I was growing my hair, I was experimenting with nail polishes, hand and foot, and after much practice, I learned how to apply make-up other than just lipstick, from foundations to eyeliner to mascara to blush.

I wasn't going to fool anybody into thinking I was born a female, but I began to look even more like a feminine me, the me I wanted to be, and more representative of my internal woman, all of which only served to amplify my joy with the hours I spent reading the poetry while pouring my consciousness into the images, masturbating multiple times a day, always sating my hunger for the seed, or strutting around my apartment, never without heels on, my robes and gown and peignoirs flowing behind me, occasional daring ventures out onto my tiny deck, to take in the sights and sounds and smells of the city, brazenly challenging the world to see me, as I wanted to be.

As I truly am.

A modern-day Shufu.

Who, more than anything, needed to take the next step in her evolution.

Shufu needed her man.

Her warrior.

More than anything.

I knew it, more and more, every second of the day and night.

My time had come.

Those brave souls I'd spent my life admiring, from the Castro on out, all clear around the globe, throughout the vast expanse of time, their life-force flowed through me, and I caught the same wind that lifted their sails.

Enlightenment.

Exactly nine Shufu-filled days later, each better than the last, Mr. Lee called me while I was at work, and I was in a meeting and couldn't answer, and I spent nearly ninety minutes itching to hear what he had to say before I got the chance, in a bathroom stall.

His voice was alive with verve, fairly begging me to call him at my first chance.

It was a conversation I didn't want to have at work. When I got home, driving like a maniac, I overruled my own basic requirements, my own laws of living, and didn't strip off before I dialed. I didn't do my make-up. I didn't slip into heels. I didn't even slide a silky gown over my shoulders, without which I was uneasy, feeling almost rudely naked. It felt wrong, in some ways, not to be wearing only lingerie underneath the drabness of masculinity, and not to have something filling my hole, a norm I thought I couldn't live without.

He was excited, but matter of fact at the same time.

"If you remember, I mentioned that Abe, the warrior, had a genetic wife who bore him children, and continued a family line that exists to this day," and when I said "yes" he added, "which was a normal phase of my initial research. As part of compiling information, I initiated contact with several arms of that long-extended tree, with no positive results, until discovering a smaller branch, if you will forgive the pun. The family name is Sekiguchi. Here, after some minor back-and-forth emails, I found success."

Suddenly, my nerves rose in worry, a slow creeping anxiety spreading out around my spine.

"Success? How do you mean?"

Standing in my small living room, my knees shaking, Mr. Lee gave me a step-by-step account, very much still an educator at heart.

The particular Sekiguchi's that he had eventually contacted responded immediately, the patriarch of the family keenly interested in what had been found, eager for all the details. Tradition, as my educated friend explained, played an important role in Japanese culture, and society in general, and in this specific man it became apparent in an instant that the long family lineage was of paramount pride, and importance, to be studied and documented, and to be celebrated and revered.

Then he paused, for a moment, and asked to Face Time, which I immediately accepted, and once again I got to see the face of this gentle learned man, adding more cheer to the moment.

He nodded, in respect, and I returned it, just like we had in our first meeting.

The he smiled, and began talking again.

Once sufficiently warned, as to the particulars of the prose and the artwork, Mr. Lee had shared digital copies of all the pages in the book with the patriarch, Katsu, digressing for a quick moment to explain to me that Katsu translated into the word 'victory', including all of the seven images, in the most detail possible, as well as the letter and the note page.

Mr. Sekiguchi then instructed Mr. Lee to express his 'profound gratitude', those are the words he used, for allowing him to share in something so dear to the history of his ancestors. Just the knowledge of its existence itself was, in quotes, "a gracious blessing'.

Then he added more.

After multiple and lengthy discussions with the Sekiguchi family, they had authorized Mr. Lee to present an offer to me.

In short, an all-expenses paid trip to San Francisco, first class all the way, for me and a companion. Any hotel or resort I chose to stay at would be paid for. Luxury transportation would be provided to me twenty-four/seven, from the moment of landing to the last second on the ground, no matter what transpired during the week. Mr. Lee and his colleagues would get several days to analyze the folio, and test and discover, with me observing the entire time, should I insist, making sure nothing untoward happened to my book. Then, a representative from the family would meet with me, to formally express their gratitude for sharing the book and its contents with them, and to formally see and hold it for themselves, their first-hand chance to literally touch their own history.

Lastly, the family would present me with a monetary offer, for my consideration. There would be no pressure, he assured me. I would not be required to answer immediately. Mr. Lee then explained that the family would actually make several offers, for several scenarios, any of which would result in financial gain for me. The first and most obvious offer would be to convince me to sell the book directly to them, and that they would then immediately loan it to the University, for scientific study. The second offer would be for me to donate it to any University or scientific organization in my own name, with all the appropriate financial benefits, on top of the amount they were offering.

Mr. Lee almost rushed his words, to explain to me repeatedly that I was under no obligation, legally, morally or ethically, to part with the book, to the family or anybody else, or donate it, or in any way lose possession of it. He further explained, in the pursuit of honesty, that as a scientist his personal interests were purely academic, and that while he would hope that it was available for study, for him and his team or any other historians, especially in Japan, I was under no obligation to even do that.

His reassurances were many.

It is my book. He said that over and over again.

If, he further explained, I chose to either sell it back to the family or donate it for research, the Sekiguchi's would also pay skilled craftspeople to recreate one version of the book, a replica, strictly for me, with modern technologies. It would, Mr. Lee assured me, be as close to the original as possible, but monetarily it would mean nothing. It would be entirely a keepsake, for my own use.

And there it was. One of those moments, when events occur and life changes and you're not just aware of it, and its significance, but you're elated by it.

My own book. No matter what transpires, I have a copy. Either the original, if I don't let it go, or an exact replica. As close to the original as makes no difference.

I win, either way, and both ways.

The trip took organizing, wheels in motion on different continents, thousands of miles apart, and I had to wait almost a month-and-a-half to go, surprising my bosses by actually taking vacation time I'd piled up, every non-working day living as Shufu, putting up with the indignities of normalcy in terms of clothes and behavior only at the office.

But finally, the day arrived.

My life, as exciting as it had ever been, went electric.

I had no companion this time, other than the folio. I was all by myself, in this romantic city by the Bay. My checked suitcase was one-eighth-full of men's clothes, and seven-eighths-full of women's, including heels. I even brought along one butt plug, and one dildo. Plus make-up, naturally. In whatever time I had to myself, I planned on being dressed and filled and painted exactly as I wanted to spend my life, as the feminine me, as a modern-day Shufu.

On the plane, I had the book in my satchel, my carry-on bag. There was no way I was going to leave it in my suitcase and chance the airline losing my luggage and potentially ruining my life, so I held it in my lap, the entire two-hour flight.

The guy in the seat next to mine gave me a look, a couple of times, that suggested he didn't understand why I hadn't stored my carry-on above us, like everybody else did with their bags, and I shrugged a little, wordlessly trying to let him know that it might be weird, but that's the way it was.

I stayed at the same five-star opulence that my ex and I had stayed at. I remembered it as hoity-toity and it hadn't changed. The limo driver was waiting for me, as arranged, when I got off the plane, the journey from SFO to Union Square unremarkable, and as he helped me with getting my suitcase out of the trunk he explained to me, after handing me a fancy, embossed card, that his company had been hired for all day, every day, strictly at my beck and call, anytime, day or night, to go anywhere, and while it wouldn't be him all the time, because people had to sleep and eat occasionally, he'd be my main man. Miguel. Short and thick, like a fire hydrant, with a moustache that only had about fifteen hairs in it.

I tipped him a twenty, from the generous two thousand dollars the family had provided me ahead of the trip, to cover incidentals. They really had spared no expense, it seemed, once my visit was agreed on.

My first night, I was excited and tired and hepped up and anxious, my hotel suite enormous, and after a long bubble bath, followed by getting dressed in lingerie and gown and heels, and properly filled with a plug, now more than ever happier to go through the rigors of lubing and spreading and prepping, until sliding and filling and moaning and oohing and aahing and going back to my ideal condition, feeling full and heavier, I paced, nervously, learning every square inch of my temporary new home, including the deck that opened up over a tiny courtyard, the sounds of the city behind the building barely muted.

No one was on any of the other decks that I could see, which disappointed me a tad, since I was in full Shufu mode and as brave and determined as I could be that nothing and no one would stop me from showing it. I wanted people to witness my transformation. Perhaps some might be shocked, or offended, but that didn't bother me one bit. Maybe the prim amongst us should be offended, every day, I reasoned, and maybe they should realize that of all the places in the world, this remarkable city would be the most natural place on the planet to see sights such as me.

The Castro, now just blocks away, was calling to me, and inspiring me. Challenging me. Its power was uncontainable.

Never again, I decided, would I live in silence, or in the shadows.

Meeting Mr. Lee, face to face, the next morning, was exhilarating. At first formal, he bowed to me, and then offered his hand, which I took, his skin warm and soft, but after an awkward-filled few anticipatory moments we came to a mutual unspoken agreement, and slipped into the other's hug.

A masculine man-style embrace, of course.

Still, after years of living with a woman who wasn't prone to physical affection, hugging my new and perhaps greatest friend filled my tanks. It just felt wonderful to touch someone else, and my delightful emotional reaction was paled by the seemingly permanent semi-chubby in my panties gaining in size.

The reverence and the care that the scientists showed the book was heart-warming, all of them wearing gloves and masks and smocks, recording visually as well as in writing, every moment, every observation, and every new piece of data, in a gigantic laboratory room that was filled with machines of every kind, from regular microscopes to their modern electronic cousins, to bio-hoods, which were floor-to-ceiling booths with the big rubber gloves inside, to things with names that started with 'spectro' and did the most amazing things, none of whose details I understood or remember, other than they magically used waves of something to literally peer at the atoms that made up the materials. With my permission, they surgically detached three fibres from the cover, a material they were sure was an animal hide of some sort, a leather, and with the skill of micro-surgeons, they took two tiny little pieces of a page, so small I could barely see them, to analyze both the paper and the inks used. One of Mr. Lee's colleagues, who spoke very fast, explained to me that knowing their composition would help determine the folio's age, since certain combinations of materials would have only happened in certain time periods.

I was treated like a celebrity, for three entire days, while at the stunning campus. Modern, and yet lush and warm, the grounds were alive with people and energy, so just standing and people watching, my favorite thing to do, or closing my eyes and breathing in the aura, feeling the vibes, reinforced all the positivity and excitement I was awash in.

My first evening, I asked Miguel to take me to the Castro.

There was a steely determination in my voice, which he felt, because he looked at me for more than a few seconds, in the rear view mirror, before starting us away.

I walked the streets for almost three hours, with the limo parked, waiting for me. The years of desire I'd had to breathe it all in, the sights and the sounds and the smells and the history floating around me, the decades of love, the countless gazillions of raw, unfiltered human experiences, same-sex experiences, were finally being sated, and instead of the letdown that finally getting most things we pine for usually brings, built up with imagination over time to the point of being virtually impossible to match, this was the opposite.

It was light years better.

It filled me. It energized me. It took my early presumptions of happiness and blew them away, showing them to be but tiny tremors in the fabric of me, when in fact finally being in the Castro in the flesh was a massive tectonic Richter-Scale-shattering earthquake.

It completed me.

As if every cell in my body had suddenly found its long-lost mate, doubling in size and power, soaking in the Castro had finally finished what the folio had started.

I was, for the first time in my life, at the age of thirty-one, whole.

Evenings number two and three were spent the exact same way. I became a metaphysical sponge, soaking up the invisible essences of the eons. I gazed in windows, respectfully, and I popped into a few shops, just to poke around, touristy, but mostly I kept in the open, letting the weight of the collective historical zeitgeist push through my skin and settle in the very marrow of my bones. I people watched, of course, never being sure who was gay and who wasn't, assuming most weren't, except for the occasional couple holding hands, or the few really swishy men I saw.

I also wandered into Japantown, of course, since it was barely a few blocks away, sucking in all the vibes from there as well, the history, the architecture, and the people. It was like a second home that I never knew I had, in some ways.

The morning of day four shone with sunshine, as opposed to the mostly-cloudy days so far, making me wonder if it was a sign of some sort, an omen, because I had a lunch appointment with the Sekiguchi family representative, at the stroke of noon, in the place of my choosing. The Top of the Mark. My ex and I had planned on going there, to the restaurant, just because it was famous and we'd heard about it, but never did.

Miguel patiently waiting on the street, I took a moment to look back down the hill, thinking it fortunate that I didn't have to walk all the way from my hotel. It was a heck of a climb. Walking into the lobby of the restaurant, my satchel around one shoulder, I was instantly impressed with the dozens of framed photographs on the walls, from various eras, of the famous people who'd either performed there or visited there. Sinatra. Fitzgerald. Bennett. Names I knew, and some I didn't. Damone. Who is that? Lawrence and Gorme? I'd never heard of them. But they must have been somebody. And the pictures themselves were full of period clothes too, the men oftentimes in ill-fitting suits with big lapels, and hats, the women always, and I mean always, dressed to the nines.

It was thrilling, and sensational to my heart, to see so many deliciously feminine creatures dressed exactly like delicious feminine creatures. I envied them their beauty, and their looks, and their fashions. Fitted dresses, tight skirts, flowing evening gowns, they all became fuel for the fire that burned in me.

The room itself was bigger than I'd imagined, once I'd told them who I was and that I was expected and they'd shown me in, with the stage at one end and the big dance floor in front of it, and all the tables ringed around in a u-shape, the seats at the large windows offering the most stunning views I've ever seen, of the city and the Bay.

Already seated at a table for two was a taller-than-me rugged-looking gentleman, solidly-built, not as big as a football player, but close, shaped like an Olympic wrestler maybe, a division or two down from heavyweight. The brilliant sunlight streaming through the north-west facing windows shone on a clean-shaven face that looked serious and jovial at the same time, with little lines around his eyes suggesting decades of life experience, and while there was definitely Asian blood in him, my assumption being Japanese, there also seemed to be influences of at least one other race, maybe more in his visage. Based on his haircut alone, I also assumed that he might have had a military background, his brush-cut was short and thick, a sea of dark with little eddies of greyish-white mixed in, and wiry, all around his skull.

As he stood, I took note of his very expensive suit and tie and shoes, which gleamed with polish, as well as the very expensive-looking watch on his wrist, and the shiny pin on his left lapel, glinting in the light as he moved, golden and rigid, a Japanese character of some sort. When he got to his full standing height he bowed slightly, respectfully, before nodding, and after the hostess introduced me, he bowed again, formally, before offering his hand in the more traditional western handshake.

"It is my honor to meet you," he said, with absolutely no accent in his voice, as the beginnings of a genuine smile rose on his face, and a sparkle in his eye, his grip firm without being over the line, his hand bigger than mine, and what felt like a furnace of heat emanating from his skin, before introducing himself.

"My name is Sekiguchi," he said, surprising me that the representative they'd sent was actually one of the family, before adding, "Katsu, Katsu Sekiguchi."

It almost took my breath away. He was the patriarch of the family, according to Mr. Lee! I had never even considered it possible to meet anyone other than a lawyer, or a business agent, it hadn't occurred to me their interest would be so strong that they'd send the old man himself.

With his free hand he pointed to the empty chair.

"Won't you please join me?"

Placing my satchel gently on the far corner of the table, I shrugged off my wind-breaker jacket, a necessity in San Francisco, and was about to hang it on the back of my chair when I heard an "ahem" of sorts, and realized the hostess was still standing there.

"I can take that for you," she said, smiling politely, "and the bag."

"I keep the bag," I said, immediately, and a little defensively, and handed her the coat, leaving me in the camel brown silk button-up shirt I was wearing, the feel of the material like a caress on my skin, part of my new philosophy in life, which is I will never again wear any clothes that aren't delicious to the touch.

"Of course," she said, and withdrew.

As I sat, I noticed that he waited, until I was fully in place, before sitting himself, and wondered if that was perhaps a Japanese custom.

I watched his eyes jump from me to my bag and back again. He knew what I was carrying, and his eagerness to see it was a driving force in him, but he displayed enormous patience, and politeness, and didn't rush headlong into asking me to show it to him.

"I must confess," he began, "for weeks I've been brimming with anticipation about this," and he smiled, warmly, "meeting you and, with your kind permission of course, holding the folio, touching with my own hands a part of my heritage, a part of the very history of my flesh and blood. I can't thank you enough for agreeing to see me, you are most generous."

I couldn't help it, and blushed. All the money that had been spent on me, first-class everything, and now his kind words on top, I'd never felt so flattered in my life.

My nipples felt like they were trying to burst, heavy and solid on my chest, the silk of my shirt, which was actually a woman's blouse, bought in a fashionable boutique, constantly caressing them.

Inside my pleated trousers, the only men's article of clothing I'd brought on my trip, other than a tight pair of hip-hugging jeans for any wandering or touristy outside times I'd spend, were my panties, a G-string, with Valentine's Day heart red strings, and a wispy gauzy triangular weave see-through front panel, and they were holding me as tight as a drum, rubbing in tiny little titillating movements against my smooth hairless testicles and my rock-hard erection, as I breathed and moved, the way everyone does without noticing it, something I've learned to live with and love since that momentous day of discovering the real me, those movements totally apparent when you're excited, when there's no room in there for space, or even air. You can't help it. It's an enormous part of the pleasure of wearing soft silky sexy things, like panties, especially combined with the thigh-high stockings I'd also slipped into. Wearing sexy silky clothes keeps me constantly on the outer edges of orgasm, varying levels away, but close enough to hint at it, close enough to almost taste, close enough to tempt.

"Thank you," I replied, "but I feel like the honor is all mine, Mr. Sekiguchi, and..."

He brought his hand up, but not towards me, and pointed a thick finger in the air, gently asking to interrupt me, with a larger warm smile than before.

"Mr. Sekiguchi sounds so formal, does it not? Please call me Katsu."

I nodded at him.

"Katsu," I said.

"It translates to the English as..."

Before he could say it, I did.

"Victory."

His smile grew by leaps and bounds, and I realized he was touched by my understanding.

"Mr. Lee told me," I said.

"Dr. Lee," he corrected.

"He's a doctor?"

"Yes," Mr. Sekiguchi replied, "he holds two doctorates, actually. One in chemistry and one in anthropology. Did he not indicate that, when you first spoke?"

I searched back in my mind. There was no way I'd remember it, so monumental were all the other things going through me that day.

"I don't recall," I confessed, with an embarrassed laugh.

"It is not important," he assured me, "but in the short time I have known him, I've come to understand that his education is extensive, as is his expertise. And, to add even more, he has impressed me, from our first conversation, with his integrity, and his character. A truly charming man, is our Dr. Lee. I believe we're both in his debt."

A few seconds of just looking at each other later, I softly said his name.

"Katsu."

"Again, I am so honored and impressed with your generosity," he said, his voice more subdued, "for sharing the existence of the folio in the first place, and, more importantly of course, the knowledge inside. I have always been a strong advocate of science, as well as recorded history, particularly as it might relate to my own history, the history of my family, and where I came from, so imagine the absolute joy I felt when first approached by Dr. Lee, finding out that I was connected to your discovery, that my family was connected to it."

I couldn't think of a thing to say, my mood elated, a grin on my face, excited and quivering with erection in my panties.

Katsu began again, softly.

"From the beginning, Dr. Lee has described you to me in the warmest of ways. You have impressed him as a person who is polite, and kind and thoughtful, but more importantly as a person who is genuinely passionate about the book, and the subject matter, as I am."

Smiling even more, with a wistful look in his eyes, he continued.

"Forgive me if I'm being too forward, but I feel as though, perhaps, in ways, through him, I have come to know you, even a little, through our shared interests, eager to learn more, and that we could be considered friends, of a sort, connected in some form or other, so I hope you'll not think me presumptuous, but it would please me greatly if you would consider calling me a friend as well."

"Of course," I blurted out, immediately, surprised, and filled with awe that he was as genuinely welcoming as possible to someone he just actually met in person. I barely knew him, had just moments ago physically met him, and yet I was more than elated to have him as a friend.

His lips curled into a proud grin.

"In that case," he added, quietly, "let me tell you something," and before he continued speaking he scooted his chair just a smidge nearer to the table, getting us minutely closer, suggesting a desire for privacy as much as a collaborative moment, so I leaned an appropriate amount forward, eager to hear his words.

He spoke slowly, and tenderly.

"As a child I was given a nickname, by my father. Being small I didn't understand the significance of it, and adding to my not understanding for all those years was the fact that my father never used the name in a public setting. In front of anyone else, everyone else, I was Katsu. Always. But, when there was just the family, him and I, or my brothers and mother, then, and only then, I wasn't Katsu anymore. I wasn't 'victory'. Growing up, many times I asked him why he used a different name for me when we were alone, and his answer was always the same, that within the privacy of the family, to honor tradition, and because I was, as far as he was concerned, more daring than my brothers, more eager for challenges and more likely to fight tooth and nail to achieve them, it was a name that seemed to him most appropriate."

I watched a memory or two creep up on him, that filled him with warmth.

"He said it was just a natural fit. So he gave me the name of an ancestor, a brave man, apparently. For most of my life, I paid it little attention, to be honest. I had battles of my own to fight, in the business world. It was just a silly little affectionate nickname. Now, years after my father has passed away, it is a name that only my brothers use, rarely, in private conversations, or when they want to tease me."

He pointed at the pin on his lapel.

"My father gave me this pin, as well, which I've worn most every day of my life, as a show of respect, for my father. I never understood what it meant, the symbol, and neither did he, except that it related to the name. All he'd ever heard was that it was, in some way, associated with the great warrior."

My heart perked up, at the sound of the word.

Warrior.

It was an unusually shaped character, the gold pin in his lapel, like so many in the book, lines and slashes and squiggles, and for a second or two I thought it looked familiar, but quickly realized that was silly to think. I'd seen so many, and understood so few.

"I'd be delighted if you would feel comfortable enough to use that name," he said.

"What did your father call you?" I asked, now enormously curious.

His eyes became alive with fire.

"Abe."

He pronounced it "Ah-bay".

His concentration on me was fierce, even with his smile.

"The warrior," he added.

I had to fight a modest-sized battle with myself and not cum in my panties, in one of the most famous restaurants in the world. I couldn't stop the reaction that followed, though, my eyes darting to the satchel, the folio inside, the ripe and rich story of the original Abe tantalizingly close.

He saw my eyes return to him.

He nodded.

"Yes," he whispered, "I was quietly given the honorific of the very same warrior in your book, a legendary figure in my family, from many centuries ago. A brilliant and brave man, we were told, who fought many battles, and was always victorious, in his support of his Empress. A man who, legend has it, lived to be very a very old man, and yet so little is known about, other than his glories of war."

"Abe," I said, breathily, my voice filled with respect and admiration, knowing the ancient version to be my personal hero, along with his lovely second-in-command.

A waiter appeared and delivered a bottle of champagne, on ice, in a fancy tall holder, the color of brass, showing the label to Abe for his approval, and professionally opening it after getting the nod. The first flute filled was handed to me with care, by Abe himself, before lifting the other, towards me, for a toast.

"To your health, and may all of your dreams come true."

We clinked glasses.

It was sweet, and bubbly, and chilled, spreading like a temporary sheen of ice on my tongue, warming and melting and disappearing as fast as it arrived.

For the next hour, during which we'd also ordered and received our meals, Abe charmed me, giving me the verbal rendition of his C. V. He was the President of a small electronics design and manufacturing company, inherited from his father. Sharing ownership with his two brothers, both of whom he described as being far better running the labs than the executive offices, he oversaw the operations of the company for decades, and often spent time overseas, away from Japan, shaking hands and slapping shoulders and greasing the wheels for more sales, and more profits. He said they weren't Microsoft-sized, far from it, but they had prospered for decades, slowly the first few years, and he gladly saw no end of that in sight.

"In fact," he added, softly, "it has taken a long time, but we've struggled and battled in the industry and grown to the point where I can often enjoy extended breaks, from the day to day. The truth is, if you add up all my work days, they amount to roughly only half of the year. The rest of my time is for me. My own two sons are rising in the ranks, learning all the different facets of the business, and I'm proud to say that both of them, as well as one of their cousins, are more than ready enough to take over, one day, after my brothers and I retire. Perhaps they'll even share it, who knows? But the future is secure, I am certain."

If for no other reason than to make conversation, I asked. Plus, I was curious.

"So you have lots of time off? For vacations?"

Abe nodded.

"Yes, exactly. I went through years of hard work and struggling and sacrifices, of course, fighting the battle of keeping a business afloat through good years and bad, and I've been blessed with good fortune, and success. So yes, now here I am in my late fifties, able to devote some of my time, more and more as the years go by, to less stressful activities than the daily grind, for my health and well-being, both physical and mental, to occasionally travel the world, and, of course, to pursue my," and he paused, still gazing intently at me, "my passions."

The tone of his voice, the smoothness of the tenor, was like something powerful, a sledgehammer maybe, wrapped in satin.

It was strong.

"Tsuyoi," I said out loud, remembering the definition of the word.

Abe tilted his head, his smile never wavering.

"Strong?" he asked.

I nodded. "Mr. Lee told, I mean Dr. Lee taught me that word." I looked at him, his eyes welcoming, his demeanour open and gregarious, and repeated the word, truly enjoying the way it sounded, and the way it came off my lips.

"Tsuyoi. It seems to me that to survive and prosper as long as you have, in any business, you must be strong."

He nodded his agreement.

"Like a warrior, I suppose."

He nodded again, slower, and more appreciative.

I shrugged my shoulders. "So it just seems to me you must be very strong, to have succeeded like you have. You must be very tsuyoi, in body and mind. Like the Abe, in the book."

I looked him up and down, the parts I could see behind the other side of the table. He had a broad chest, and thick shoulders and arms, his expensive tailored suit doing little to disguise his shape.

He totally looked strong, to my appreciative eyes.

"You honor me," he said, with what sounded like genuine reverence, after a long moment of just looking at me.

"May I ask? How do you fill your time off? What are these passions, that you have time to pursue?"

It was a subject that I held in the highest interest, having only recently discovered my own passions, after three decades of not understanding what they were, or how to recognize them.

His smile was enigmatic, and made me realize I was asking what could be interpreted as a very personal question, but I could tell he wasn't taking offence, he was merely being cautious.

"You mentioned travel," I added, "as one."

He nodded.

"Yes, I have been most fortunate to be able to see so many wonders of the world, that is true," and his eyes glazed just the tiniest bit, as memories came flooding back to him. "But too much travelling can be wearying, for me. Too much motion. I already have had to do so much of it, over the years of growing the business. No, I'm more of a homebody, a quiet person with a quiet life. My passions, when I'm not working, are mostly quiet pursuits. For instance, I am an avid reader, of both fiction and non-fiction."

I burst into a grin.

"Me too."

He smiled.

"Something else we share," he said, with a tilt of his head, which increased his smile. "I enjoy the outdoors, being in nature. I hike, I mountain bike, I play golf, something I only started doing a few years ago, and I've fallen in love with, although I'm not very good at it, but it has become my latest challenge, and like the business world, I'm attacking it with all my energies."

He took a sip of his champagne.

"I'm also a complete nutcase about gardening."

He laughed, self-effacingly, and it made me laugh.

"I could be accused of taking it far too seriously."

Listening to him speak was thrilling all by itself, his voice deep and rich and sweet, and I wanted to keep that going.

"It all sounds wonderful."

His gaze became wistful.

"It does. And it is, naturally. And, I'm not naïve. I'd be arrogant and rude if I tried to pretend I wasn't privileged, because I am. But," and he paused, impressing me with his honesty, and his objective assessment of his own place in the world, "would it surprise you to learn that someone with my blessings, no matter how much hardship was involved in getting them, could still harbor life-long feelings of discontent? Or disappointment? A kind of, I don't know, sadness, at some hard-to-define something that was missing?"

I thought of my own life, and how he'd just vocalized feelings I'd had, for all those years, and never knew.

"No," I shook my head, "it wouldn't surprise me. Of course not. You're human, after all, the same as anybody. The same as everybody. The same as me."

His eyes focussed on mine.

"Have you also had those kinds of feelings in your life?"

I nodded.

"I used to."

His eyebrows shot up.

"Used to?"

Before I could answer, a waiter came over, and discretely took away our dishes. Behind him, our hostess appeared, asking if we'd care for any dessert, or coffee, before we go.

For the first time since I'd arrived, I looked around the room, and realized it was filling up. They were busy, and getting busier. A cacophony of noise suddenly hit me, always there, but completely ignored, my entire concentration having been on Katsu.

Abe.

I didn't want our time together to end so soon, so I gushed out that I'd love a coffee, and after his eager nodding she turned and flitted away. Then he looked at me with a conspiratorial grin.

"If I'm not mistaken, I believe we might be getting a five-star version of the bum's rush."

We shared a giggle together.

"Once again, I must beg your forgiveness," he said, his voice quiet again, quiet but determined, "I've taken up all this time talking only about myself. I can only hope you aren't thinking of me badly. I've yet to let you speak, for goodness sake."

I waved off his suggestion.

"I have loved every second, listening to you."

With the tiniest tilt of his head, his eyes narrowed a little, and he silently transmitted a thank you. I felt it, for long seconds, as we wordlessly bonded.

Finally, his eyes slowly left mine, and moved to my right, to the satchel, still on the corner of the table. I saw the recognition hit him again, that the folio was in there, that this journal he'd only recently come to know about, so richly woven into the fabric of his heritage, was within his arms reach. I was, of course, aware he had a copy of all the pages already, and had so for weeks, so I knew he knew the content inside, he knew how provocative it was, which must have been shocking to him initially, and yet I knew more than I knew anything that he was yearning to finally see the real thing.

"Would you like to see it now?" I asked, my voice hopeful and nervous at the same time.

His eyes snapped back to mine, and for a few seconds he said nothing, until he bowed his head slowly.

"With your gracious permission."

Opening the bag, I first pulled out two pairs of cotton gloves, two of several given to me by the scientists, after they'd explained the slow unseen damage that skin oil can cause, and after I promised them I'd always handle it in their preferred way in the future. I began to hand a pair to Abe, when he slipped his right hand underneath his suit jacket, and from the inside left breast pocket, he pulled out a pair of the same gloves, his playful smile returning.

"Dr. Lee has taught us both well," he grinned.

We donned our gloves.

I slid the folio out of my satchel.

He took in a huge lung full of air, in a gasp, at his first sight of it.

His body snapped to even more attention than he usually had, which was a lot. I watched his chest rise and fall a little faster than before.

Holding it in both of my hands equally, I lifted it over to him, and he bowed his head again, reverentially, and with both of his hands took possession of it, closing his eyes initially, absorbing the feel of it, and the weight of it, letting the essence of it, it's spirit, touch him, perhaps through osmosis, but in much the same way I like to close my eyes and take in the spirits of whatever place I'm in.

He was becoming one with the book.

Opening his eyes, he put the book down, delicately, and with the gentlest of movements, he flipped open the cover, the little crackles of the antique pages almost drowned out by the crowded restaurant, taking another breath before flipping the first blank page, and yet another flipping the second. With the third flip, he got text, and he grinned, a bemused, satisfied kind of look, beaming with pleasure, as he was with the next text page and the next.

I was just about to warn him, that the first image of the lovers, in the grassy garden, would be exposed with the next flip, when he paused, and closed his eyes, and then gently closed the book again.

Waiting a few more seconds, he two-handed the book back to me, and I took it two-handed, and with care slid it back into the satchel.

"If I may," he finally spoke, "it would mean the world to me if I could examine the folio somewhere less public than this," and he waved one gloved hand to his right, towards the room. "Is it possible for the two of us to go somewhere, anywhere of your choosing naturally, where the environment might be, how shall I put it, more subdued? And perhaps," he added, "less noisy? Is it just me, or did it get suddenly much louder in here?"

Standing outside, back on the ground, after Abe took care of the bill, my limo was just up the street from his limo, both of them parked nose-down, on a really steep angle.

I was trying to think of a place for us to go, somewhere quiet and uneventful, stumped for more than a few seconds, when the answer popped into my head.

"Are you sure?" he asked, "I would not want to invade your privacy in any way."

I was happy to do it.

On the drive back to my hotel, Abe dispensed with his limo driver and was riding in the back with me, and Miguel up front, a relatively short ride, all things considered, in a big city like this, and I talked about me, at his bidding. Who I was. Where I was from. I spoke about my upbringing, my family, my education, my interests, my career, where he asked a lot of questions, pertinent ones, that someone who'd spent a life in the business world would ask, as well as my marriage, and it's recent sad dissolution as well.

He expressed genuine sadness about that, including making a clicking sound with his mouth, the kind that people make when they acknowledge something that they don't necessarily want to, and saying with enormous understanding and sympathy to me that it is always a shame when marriages end suddenly, and how both parties end up suffering, but that oftentimes it's the best thing that can happen, even with all the emotional pain.

All of my story, to my mind, was more or less mundane, and boring, especially compared to his journey on this planet, but he listened with rapt attention, and occasionally asked personal questions, wanting to know more about certain subjects, always related to my feelings, and my well-being, physically and emotionally. His questions were considerate, and kind.

I'd splurged with the generosity forwarded to me by him, and booked a suite in my favorite hotel, the one my ex and I had honeymooned in, on the top floor, one of the three penthouses. With my satchel around one shoulder, I was almost walking on air as I led him in the door.

I wasn't nervous, or even worried that he might see my things, the kinds of personal effects that people leave around when they're staying in one place for more than a night. My laptop was on the coffee table, open but dark, next to the printed copies of the text pages and image pages, strewn in a meandering pile. A wine glass from last night, empty, sat next to it, one I should have slipped into the dishwasher before retiring.

Except I'd been far too busy last night, completely dressed as my version of Shufu, bra and panties and garter belt and stockings and heels and lipstick, my long flowing gown, dark and silky, open and splayed as I'd returned from the Castro full of energy, full of the profound history and spirit, and I'd dived back soul-first into the images and literally fucked myself silly with the nine-inch dildo I'd brought with me, orgasming over and over in little squeaks and squirts, each time my mouth then swimming in the after-effects of a cum-coating, finally so exhausted from the internal pummeling that I'd barely dragged my ass to the bedroom.

So the wine glass was still there.

As was the robe I'd been wearing, right where I'd been wearing it, where it had slid off of me, on the spacious and deep leather sofa. Thin, sleek, as black as ebony, and long, on me it fell to the floor and gently kissed it, and hugged my body tightly, when I did it up.

Offering him a seat in the spacious living room, and asking him to make himself as comfortable as he wanted, I lifted the robe and apologized for my lack of neatness, but he graciously smiled and shook his head, and said he saw nothing to be concerned about. I lay the robe on the end of the sectional sofa, nearby, for me to use again as soon as I could, and after asking him what he'd like to drink from the generous bar fridge that he was paying for, he giggled and we both chose a Merlot, something rich in flavor, and we sat, two feet apart, side on to each other.

"To Abe," I toasted, nodding at the folio, now sitting in a place of honor on the coffee table, halfway between us.

He nodded.

"And Shufu," he added, making me nod seriously fast, in agreement, before he added, "may their love for each other, and their devotion to each other, serve as an example to us all."

We clinked glasses, and tasted.

"Mmmm," he murmured, "delicious."

I ventured a tease.

"The wine?" I asked, "or the story of Abe and Shufu?"

He laughed, almost a snort, and then he turned his head, and looked me straight in the eye, near him on the sectional sofa, and his grin disappeared, and his voice got serious.

"Both, of course."

An electric current shot through me, zipping and zapping around my insides, forcing the energy out through the millions of nerve endings, all the way to my skin, which tingled, making me feel as if my new life, the one I'd chosen to live, the awareness of my desires and my dedication to them, was just a beginning, a starting point, for pleasures untold.

After a long stretch of enjoying our wine and not saying anything, he took another sip of wine and smiled at me.

"Tell me, please," he started, "about finding the folio, that day. Tell me everything."

It all came back to me easily, because every moment of it was so important in my life that it was fairly stamped into my cells. The dreary weather. The restlessness. Driving downtown, and wandering. Finding the book store. The words came easily, with occasional stops for a sip, his eyes rapt on me, glee on his face, delighting in sharing my experience.

I told him of seeing the book, up high, the flickering fluorescent light playing on the gold edging, and the glorious red of the cover, and how I had to get on a step-stool and wrestle it out from between two massive books, both with German words on their spines.

I lay out the scene for him, the sights and the smells, and we digressed at that, both of us agreeing with delight that books, new or old, have such a unique and unmistakable effect on the nose, like a good wine, and how we both loved libraries, public or private. He said, "yes, yes," about a dozen times as I overly described the sensual changes that took me that day, the dust, the distant traffic noises and the old man behind the counter breathing the only components of my soundtrack.

As best I could, knowing I was animated about the subject, and not concerned about how it looked, I used every word in my knowledge to convey my euphoria at the time, my ardor, my exuberance, and my joy.

I talked about opening it, hearing it creak and groan, knowing it was therefore old, and special, before delicately doing the page flips, until the first page of text.

"Did you have any previous occasion in your life to learn Japanese, even a little? Did you understand any of it?" he asked, enthralled.

I shook my head.

"No, nothing," and I had to stop talking for a second, emotions rising up in me, all of them delicious, remembering what happened next.

"So the subject matter was..."

I cut him off, softly.

"I had no idea."

I looked him in the eyes, letting him see the honesty of my words.

"But there was something about it that pulled me, that pulled at me. I fear I can't adequately describe it now. It simply became an imperative, a requirement, a need, in my head, and in my heart, a promise to myself, that I would immediately begin studying the language right away, and learn it, as much as I could, so I could one day sit down and translate whatever I was seeing, what I was holding, so I could fully comprehend it, in my soul."

His look said it all. As gentle and compassionate a smile as I've ever seen. He was as happy as a person could be for another person. He got it, that magnetic event, because, perhaps, the same thing had happened to him.

I bared my soul.

"The next page I turned to was the first image," and I pointed to the laser-printed copy on the table, my voice almost breathless, "Abe and Shufu in the garden."

His eyes darted to the picture, and lingered, before returning to me.

I felt my eyes fill with tears.

His words were firm, but spoken slowly.

"What was your reaction to something so, um, provocative?"

For perhaps the first time ever, I was at a loss for words. And while many words did actually appear in my brain, none of them seemed appropriate, or sufficiently described my reaction that day. And while I very well wasn't going to describe having an orgasm in my pants, in the aisle of the bookstore, I had already arrived at a place in my life where I wasn't going to go out of my way to cover up anything I felt anymore, or anything I did.

I was a changed man.

No shame.

The truth, I heard myself tell myself, will set you free.

"It moved me."

I watched him swallow.

"In what way?" he asked, quietly.

I told him my truth.

"In every way. I was moved. Emotionally, spiritually, physically, sensually, and completely. It overwhelmed me, body and soul."

I could see his grasp of my words, and they were affecting him.

"At that moment, in that dingy bookstore, I had an epiphany. I had a change of life. It became the first thing I'd ever seen, in my entire life, that moved me in so many ways. It moved me in the most important ways, ways that will never be matched by the regular world."

Abe's eyebrows shot up a little bit.

"Never?" he asked, surprised.

"Never," I answered, confidently.

"It showed me the most important lesson I'll ever learn, if I'm being honest with myself."

"Which is?" he asked.

I smiled, as proud as I've ever felt.

"True love."

He nodded.

"Heavenly love," I added, which was far closer to how I actually felt about it, and I was startled by how animated his reaction was. He sat up, snapping his body closer to me, leaning forwards towards me, not threatening my space or intimidating in any way, but making his face nearer to mine.

"Heavenly love?" he asked, his voice booming.

I nodded and beamed. "The most devoted and perfect love of all. The highest plane of human existence. And it's nothing to do with religion, the word 'heaven', you see? Heavenly love," I added, "is pure, and genuine, and real, and free of restrictions, and it's out there, in the world, for each of us, if we've the desire to find it and let it take us."

Despite barely knowing him, I could see in his face that Abe was as keenly interested in the conversation as anyone ever could be. I got the feeling that perhaps I was voicing thoughts he may have also had, in his life.

After we both sipped on our wine, in warm silence, he put his glass down, off to the side, and then fixed his gaze on me again.

"So do you believe in kismet? Or serendipity?" he asked, and when I nodded, he nodded as well.

"This pin," he said, pointing to the one on his lapel that I'd noticed at my first glance of him, in the restaurant, "was given to me by my father, as I mentioned earlier," and I nodded, encouraging him to keep talking, "and for years I was told that it was connected to the ancient legend of the great warrior, and out of respect for both men, Abe and my father, I've worn it ever since, most of my life."

His big hands moved quickly, and for such a little object his motions were smooth, and delicate.

"I'd be honored if you would accept this, as a gift of eternal gratitude, from me, to you."

Suddenly he was holding it in the palm of one hand, reaching towards me.

"I can't," I uttered, in shock, my first reaction, "no! It belongs to your family. It belongs in your family, in your possession, for always."

With as warm a smile as I'd seen yet, he gently shook his head, holding his arm a little closer to me.

"Nothing would please me more," he whispered, "if you were to accept this gift, as a memento of my deep appreciation for all you've done."

"But..."

He shook his head, leaning himself towards me again, shortening the distance between us.

"I must insist," he breathed out, "please," he asked, "It would mean the world to me."

I could feel his breath on my skin.

I was almost overcome with his generosity, and acquiesced, slowly holding out my hand, and he respectfully placed it in the middle of my palm. The tips of his fingers bumped my skin as he did, only the second time that we'd touched, after our handshake in the restaurant. Like then, his skin was warm, afire with life, like a fireplace in full glow.

"Up until just yesterday, I had no idea what it meant, this symbol," and he sat back again, his nearly-finished glass of wine back in his hand, a joyous aura on his face, "and neither did my father, for all those years. He just knew it was somehow connected to the warrior, or the story of the warrior."

Studying it, I was captivated by its gleam and its shape.

"And now you know the meaning?" I asked, hopeful.

Abe smiled again, obviously and enormously self-satisfied, as big a grin as possible, and then let out a satisfied laugh.

"As I mentioned earlier, we both owe Dr. Lee a debt of gratitude, for his dogged determination and his vast knowledge of history," he said, an almost honey-like quality to his deep voice, "when he first contacted me about the discovery of your folio, I of course told him about that pin, and its connection to the warrior, small as it may have been. It's taken him and his fellow historians all this time, because our language has evolved over millennia, and there are many words and symbols that have fallen out of use, some of them centuries ago, but happily they are now certain of the meaning."

I studied it again. It was actually three tiny characters in a row. From left to right there was a character that looked like the roof of a pagoda, next to a small-case letter 'e', reversed and tilted counter-clockwise, next to something that looked like a folding picnic chair, or a director's chair from a movie set.

"It is pronounced "Ten No Ai," he taught me, slowly.

I repeated it three times, until I got it just right.

"What does it mean?" I asked, on pins and needles, something about his excitement stirring mine.

Abe roared with laughter.

"It literally means, 'Heavenly Love'."

I thought my jaw might fall off.

"Are you kidding me?" I asked, and Abe shook his head 'no', over and over again, while he laughed and laughed, inspiring me to follow, the both of us become almost loud and raucous.

When we soon quieted down, I said to him, "Thank you. You are so very kind to me. I don't know how to thank you properly. I don't know what to say."

A determined look came upon him.

"Say that you'll wear it from time to time, and think of me."

Tears came back into my eyes again.

"I'll wear it every day," I whispered, "and I'll think of you every day."

I watched the tiniest stream of tears appear in his eyes, and his voice became soft.

"When you do, think of how my ancient ancestor had it made, for one purpose. For one person."

I knew who he meant.

"Shufu."

Abe nodded.

"Shufu."

We were both low in wine, so I rose and refilled our glasses, moving slowly, with purpose, and I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that his eyes followed me, from the living room to the wine fridge to the living room and back again, all the way to my return, sitting just a little bit closer to him. I wondered if he knew that I was throwing a little oomph into my hips as I walked, strutting just a little, in flat shoes, or if he thought this was my natural way of walking.

Then I had an 'aha' moment, and realized it was my natural way of walking, and had been since that perfect day, and any physical governor I might have been inadvertently putting on my body's movements, in the interests of politeness, went right out the window.

He smiled, as warm as the sun, and wordlessly thanked me, and we clinked glasses for the second time.

"To love," he said.

"To heavenly love," I answered.

His eyes sparkled with delight, and darted to the pile of photocopies on the coffee table, digital recreations of the seven pieces of art in the folio.

"You were saying," he whispered, "about seeing the two lovers in the garden, and how it moved you."

Leaning back into the sofa, I let myself be transported back in time, to that day, again. I could feel, like a fog descending, all the sights and sounds wafting in, that most important day of my life re-emerging from my memory banks.

"I'd never seen anything like it," I said, honestly, skirting the details of my sudden, mind-blowing, pant-filling reaction that day, not because it embarrassed me or that I feared it might offend him, but because it seemed to me to have been the most selfish event of my life, and I worried that talking about it might take away some of that luster.

"Neither had I," he replied.

"It was as if a door opened up," I continued, "right there in front of me, an invisible door, that I didn't even know about, suddenly showing me the brilliant sunshine of a world that hadn't existed to that point in my thinking. A world, a life, I wasn't aware was even possible. The life I'd been in, my whole life, was, in one second, revealed to be dark, and lifeless, and completely opposite to what I want and what I need. Deep down, in my soul. I didn't just discover a book, I discovered an entire universe. A universe of love, the purest of love. A universe of devotion, of passion, of commitment. These were two people attaining their truest selves, lighting the fire in their hearts and mixing it with the other, free of rules, free of manufactured ideas of right and wrong, free of constraints. They were giving the biggest middle finger in the world to the world, or to anyone that dared judge them poorly."

He was listening to me, rapt in attention.

"It moved me. It moved everything I held dear, in my heart and in my soul. That image touched every part of inside me. It instantly became my oracle, my touchstone. She," I said, and paused, "Shufu herself, became my inspiration, and my guide, and my teacher."

I took a long slow sip, remembering that day.

He leaned closer to me, and his voice became subdued.

"Can I tell you?" he asked, and didn't wait for an answer, "I too was moved, that day when Dr. Lee sent me the digital copies of all the artwork." His eyes ventured off to the side, and I could see he was reminding himself of everything he'd felt. "I was alone, in my office," his voice quieter than before, "I cancelled a meeting, actually," and he chuckled, "which is most unusual for me," and he chuckled again, "but the warning that Dr. Lee wrote, in the body of the email, was dire. I recall being shocked at his cautionary words, things like 'extremely controversial', that was one of his phrases, so much like the warning in the letter from the Welshman, as it turns out, the one about children and wives being protected, I decided that I had to be alone, and that no-one who worked for me or with me would be in the room."

He wore no ring, and this was the first mention, in all of our conversations today, of a wife.

"Does your wife work in the family business too?"

His eyes, far away, returned to the present, and to me.

He made a tiny little noise, which I couldn't decipher, and gently shook his head.

"No, she does not," he said, the fire in his previous words gone, "my wife, the mother of my children, wants nothing to do with the business, and never did." He stopped, and sighed. "Japanese society, as I'm sure you're aware by now, is often a very formal one, very traditional. I worked, and she had the babies. She raised our two sons, admirably, and mostly by herself, because my dedication to the success of the company was necessarily all-consuming, and for which I extend to her my eternal gratitude and devotion, her efforts were a complete success. It's entirely because of her influences that both of our sons have both turned out to be wonderful adults, hard-working and thoughtful and considerate of others. But once they got to be of school-age, over time, she developed pursuits that don't involve the stresses of business, the sales, the operations, the manufacturing, or the electronics, in any way. She's at her happiest living at our apartment in the city, amongst all the noise, surrounded by her friends and occupied with her interests, which are wide and varied. Many of her interests are philanthropic, by the way, helping others, so I have the utmost in admiration for her for that."

He paused for a moment.

"Over the years, my wife and I have had, shall we say, differing ideas of what a marriage is all about," and he looked at me, sheepishly, as if admitting these things to me, almost a stranger, was perhaps more than he'd ever dared to do before, his eyes moving again, back to far away.

"I want a life of quietude and peace, full of passions. She has only one goal, and one focus, which is being a social butterfly."

I nodded, trying to convey with it that I completely understood the differing dynamics of married couples.

I'd been through the same thing myself, and failed at it.

I watched the warmth come back onto his face, his eyes travelling far away again, and I knew he was back to thinking about the images.

"Alone in my office, I called up on my computer screen the first attachment from Dr. Lee," he whispered, and pointed to the pile of photocopies, "Abe and Shufu, in the garden. I was 'shokku de'," and before I could ask he translated, "it means 'in shock'. In a lifetime of struggle and hard work, at a point in my adult life when I assumed nothing of any kind could ever shock me, ever, those two lovers completely re-wrote the rules."

I nodded, because I knew exactly what he meant.

"They were so open," he continued, "so brazen, so brave, and so proud. And yes, of course, the fact that they are two men, genetically, was in and of itself shocking, and controversial. None of us is so foolish as to think that homosexuality doesn't exist and hasn't existed since time began, naturally, but to see it, in such rich and vivid colors, it was completely unexpected. It was totally out of left field, the mighty warrior, and his mate. I was expecting, from the warnings that Dr. Lee gave me, to see Abe and a mistress, a woman, a concubine, something very common in our history, and completely not out of the ordinary."

He looked at me, his eyes determined and laser-focussed on me.

"Witnessing their sex act, their love-making," he added, quietly, "affected me, in ways I'm still trying to process. I was, that day, and still continue to be to this day, stunned by it."

Then he smiled again.

"A good kind of stunned, mind you. The best kind of stunned."

He pointed at the paper on the coffee table again.

"Those two made me jump, in my heart and spirit. They made me realize, that because of you and your discovery, that it is an indeed an honor, a profound one, to be named after such a glorious figure, such an amazing man, from such a very long time ago, let alone a national hero from within my own ancient family."

I raised my wine glass again.

"To the modern-day Abe," I suggested, and after nodding his thanks respectfully he smiled gleefully, before clinking his glass to mine, the both of us taking another sip of Merlot.

For the next few minutes, we sat in silence, as he slowly and lovingly went through the reproductions in front of him, on the coffee table, one by one. With each new image he studied and admired I could hear his breathing increase, and gentle murmurs of appreciation, or awe, start somewhere deep in his body and find their way out, all of them becoming slightly louder with each new artistic scene revealed.

And I knew, of course, that he'd had these images, the digital version, for weeks, and had therefore seen them before, many times, but watching him, it reminded me of me, of the effect they had on me.

Abe was reacting to it just as I do.

Each new view inspired visceral physical and emotional reactions in both of us. Each new view was like the first.

Almost.

When he got to the seventh image, the last one, of the two lovers wrapped around each other, engaged in the most romantic kiss imaginable, his sigh was as loud as I've ever heard, with nothing but admiration in the tone.

"Heavenly love," he whispered, gazing at them, the ancient Abe buried balls-deep in his Shufu, hands on buttocks, lips on lips, tongues in mouths, eyes closed to the world, one hundred percent of their concentration on the other, on their bond, and on their love-making.

I dared not disturb his admiration, knowing how I liked to scan it for hours and take it all in and assuming he was feeling the same way, so I silently watched.

I watched his nostrils flare in and out, when he breathed. I watched his eyelids flutter a little tiny bit, from time to time. I watched his pupils stretch to their widest, taking it all in. I watched his chest rise and fall with his breathing, controlled, yes, but faster than usual.

I watched what appeared to be a significant lump form in his trousers, from time to time appearing bigger still.

His lump looked much bigger than my lump.

The room quiet, for minutes on end, him staring at picture after picture, he suddenly blurted out a question, surprising me.

"You mentioned earlier that Shufu had become your inspiration, and your teacher," he said, and I nodded to him because I indeed had said it and felt it, and with an intense stare into my eyes and a short pause, he asked the question that was paramount on his mind.

"May I ask, what did she teach you?"

Perhaps with any other human being I might have been coy, or skirted around the words I chose, finding the vaguest way to convey my thoughts, but sitting so close to him, feeling his energy in the room, and seeing his reaction to the artwork from the folio, I realized that I couldn't, and wouldn't, be ambiguous about this subject. Not with him.

"She taught me to be real.

"She taught me to be me. She taught me to follow my passions, no matter where they lead. She taught me that the greatest gift anyone can give to others is themselves, the truest form of themselves. She taught me, and," I paused, to make my point stand out, "she still teaches me to this very minute, that 'heavenly love' starts from within, and is only at its zenith when it's shining out on others."

Abe's gaze at me was fierce. I could see him taking in my every syllable, soaking them into his heart, knowing that he was finding agreement with me, and acceptance of what that meant.

"She taught me," I said, slowly, and somewhat dramatically, "to always be myself, to treat myself with exquisite pleasure, in everything, from the way I act to the way I dress, and which automatically means treating others with pleasure, and to express myself in the most natural ways possible, reflective of how I feel. She taught me how to be comfortable, inside and out, whether at home or in public, amongst others, and to never worry about what anybody else thought."

He said nothing. He just stared at me.

"She taught me that this life of ours is one to be cherished, to be celebrated, and to be pursued eagerly, with honesty, and passion," before adding, "she taught me the true meaning of 'heavenly love', which is not just to believe in it, but to actually practice it, and use it, every second of every day. She taught me that the 'old' me was on the wrong path, and showed me the way for the 'new' me to pursue."

Abe slowly smiled, and nodded, staring straight at me.

"And may I say," he started, his voice as intimate as I'd heard it, soft and deep and full of care, "that this 'new you', the one that I see before me, is a most lovely person, perhaps the loveliest I have had the good fortune to meet, in many a year, and I am eternally grateful to have had the chance to be with you. This 'new' you."

Then his eyes narrowed more, focussing on me and me alone.

"I very much like this 'new' you."

His compliment covered me like a warm blanket on a cold night, and made my spirits soar.

And then I had another of those moments.

The kind of moment that is a game-changer, that is seminal somehow, and you know it, at the same time it happens. You can feel it infuse itself into the cells of your bone marrow.

I made a decision. A perfectly natural one, I realized, but perhaps momentous.

I stood up.

"Would you excuse me for a few moments?" I asked him, and saw the tiny question appear on his face, wondering where I was going.

I was only too happy to answer it for him.

"If you'll allow me," I said, my voice soft and gentle, "I would like you to meet the complete 'new' me, the complete 'real' me, the me that Shufu has inspired. I'd like to get truly comfortable for you."

His eyes moved, the tiniest little bit, perhaps wondering what exactly I was getting at, but his giving nature and warmth reappeared almost immediately.

"Of course."

"And then," I added, walking towards the bedroom suite, looking back over my shoulder, a flirt to my walk and a smile on my face, "I have three things I need to say to you, if you'll permit me."

That made his face change. Curiosity took over from the warmth.

I made him wait.

It takes time to be the real 'new' me.

I painted my nails, a vibrant cherry red, hands and feet, and waited for them to dry, blowing on them like the ladies did in old-time movies and television. Once set, I did a quick shave, of my face, and then my legs and crotch, the only places I'd ever had hair to begin with. I wanted to be as smooth as possible, of course. Then I used a wet washcloth, luxuriously thick, and did a quick bathe on my skin, all over, just to get as clean as possible. Spotting one of my tubes of lube, I slicked myself up, fighting to keep quiet the sigh that escaped my lips, before sliding my butt plug inside myself, opening myself, filling up five inches of myself, spreading me, and making me feel that wonderful fullness again, the one that I seemed to need to feel at every second of the day.

Make up was next, starting by slicking back my hair, now long enough to touch past the nape of my neck, making my hair seem to follow the contours of my head, and then down, like a waterfall. Eyeliner, mascara, blush on my cheeks and neon-cherry-red lipstick with gloss ensued, until I looked as feminine as I felt.

A golden necklace that looked Egyptian and matched my earrings followed, as did two rings on each hand, gaudy fake diamonds, as did wide gold bracelets on both wrists.

Finally, I gazed at my wardrobe, lovingly hanging in the bedroom closet. Although I had many options, there was only one that I wanted to wear at that minute.

A matching bra/panty/garter-belt/stocking set, with lace trim everywhere and all in the most virginal snow-white possible, so white it almost glowed.

A sheer gown of the lightest linen, ecru in color, fell on me like a butterfly, sending tremors of delight to my skin and on through to my flesh. It had three-quarter length sleeves, and cascaded down to just above my ankles, and when I moved it flowed outward like a puff of wind moves a breezy cloud, and did little to hide my taut nipples, held in the sheer bra, or the state of my excitement. My white heels, four-inches high, with an ankle strap buttoned up tight completed everything, and I shivered with delight standing behind the door, gazing at my reflection in the full-length mirror, now finally for the first time about to show the real me to an actual living human being.

I was as nervous as I could be.

I was as excited as I could be.

I was as horny as I've ever been, my panties stretched with my erection, a small round wet spot already forming.

I took one breath, deep and long, into my lungs, and opened the door.

Abe heard the first few clacks of my heels on the floor before he looked up. He'd been in intense concentration, on one of the images, and after two steps I could see enough to know that he was gazing at the sixth image, the one where they take up the entire page, like they were inside a box, eye to eye, nose to nose, forehead to forehead, the warrior's majestic cock buried mightily inside his lovers' ass.

When he looked up, his eyes went as wide as truck tires, and he gasped.

I made a man gasp.

That alone filled me with pleasure.

As I approached him, his eyes scanned me, from top to bottom and back again, twice. He was methodical in his examination, slowly moving, taking in everything, stopping longer than most places at my crotch, my erection as obvious as the sun in the sky, before I stopped, about six feet away, and put my hands on my hips.

"This," I declared, with pride, "is the real 'new' me," taking one step forward, stopping with all my weight on my outside hip, like women do, "this is what Shufu has taught me. This is what I've learned from her. To be the real me is to be the feminine me."

His mouth fell open, slightly.

As if on auto-pilot, he slowly put the paper he had in his hands down onto the table, never taking his eyes off of mine, before slowly rising from the sofa, to his full height.

His suit jacket did little to hide the significant bulge in his tailored pants.

We gazed at each other. When his eyes moved to other parts of me, so did mine to his, and every time I ogled him, I could almost see through his clothes, and inside, to the real man.

Finally, after a long silence, he looked like he was about to say something.

I held up a finger. I watched his eyes flick over, and then open a little more when he saw the fingernail, red and glossy.

"Earlier, I said I had three things to say to you," and he nodded his remembrance, "so here they are."

He stared at me.

"Number one," I said, "I owe you an apology, of sorts. You see, you asked me earlier how the first image had moved me, and, well, I didn't tell you the whole truth," and I watched his eyes narrow a bit, concerned, "not that I lied, because I would never do that to you, but I left out the most important point, the most compelling way Shufu affected me, which is this," and I paused, standing tall as I could, proud, letting him know there was no shame in what he was about to hear, "standing in the aisle of that dingy bookstore, holding that book, upon my first glance of the first image, I had an impulsive and explosive orgasm."

His eyes went wide again, noticeably so.

"I had a full-body, out-of-control reaction, a total surrender to the sensual joy I saw, the great warrior, Abe, your ancestor, behind his lover, holding her, his cock buried in her, the look of love on their faces, her own erection, obviously having already cum from him, all of it, it gave me the greatest blast of my sexual life, up until that point. I flooded my pants, just from one glimpse of one image."

I watched him swallow.

"Number two," I said, before bending over and gently picking up the original book, the folio, and two-handed holding it towards him, "is that I thank you with all my heart for whatever you were going to offer me, money-wise, for this," before pausing, and smiling, "but I have decided to give it to you, without payment, free-of-charge," and he started to speak, so I shushed him, "because, more than anything, this is yours. It belongs to you. This is a part of your life. This is a part of your ancestry, a part of your family, a part of who you are and where you came from, and the blood that flows through your body. And, besides, you've promised me, as part of our agreement, that you'll provide me with a replica, which will more than suffice for my needs. To have the story, the words and the images, is all that matters to me, because the actual original copy is not connected to me like it is to you."

I saw abject awe in his eyes.

"This book is your history," I stated, and then added, "whereas this book is my future."

I watched tears come up again, except this time they got thick enough that drops actually fell out of both eyes, two on the left and one on the right, and while he took the folio from my painted hands, he whispered his thanks.

"Arrigato."

Then he closed his eyes, and bowed, towards me, and held it, and I felt like he was paying me an honor, or an homage, which lit up my burbles of joy.

When he finally opened his eyes, he just looked at me, through teary eyes, eventually sniffling, putting the book back down on the coffee table with care, before reaching into a pants pocket and pulling out a handkerchief, to wipe his eyes with.

With a subdued voice, he spoke.

"You said you had three things to say to me."

I stood up straighter.

"Yes," I whispered.

I took one more step towards him, putting us close enough to touch, if we extended our arms.

"Number three," I said, a husky sound coming onto my voice that I didn't recognize, "is the most important."

I spread my arms out, to the sides, and lifted them, to shoulder height, my gown opening up down my front, displaying more of my lingerie and my body to him.

"Number three," I said again, beginning another of those times, when everything changes, and you know it, standing at the precipice, ready to gather all my courage and leap, "is simply this..."

I took a breath.

"I am Shufu."

Nothing but pride in my voice.

"I am yours, if you want me."

Nothing but desire in my voice.

"Ten No Ai."

The modern-day warrior stood like a statue, his imposing gaze like a laser-guided missile straight at my eyes, with their long thick lashes, while I returned it, open to his view, honest and sincere in who I was and what I was offering, unafraid of his answer.

I merely sent one message through my gaze.

Yes.

I am Shufu.

I watched him think.

I watched him consider everything in his life, from his marriage to his children to his business to his history, and finally to the promise of what could be possible, if he truly saw the beauty of it, and dared to take the chance.

Abe took one step towards me, and brought his left hand up, teasingly slowly, until his skin touched mine, his palm on my cheek, as he cupped under my jaw.

Bringing his face close to mine, I could feel his breath on my skin.

"I swear to you now," he began, almost breathless, "as my ancestor himself, the great warrior Abe once swore to his Empress Genmei, I will always tell the truth."

Millions of jitters began inside me, radiating outward through my flesh, making my skin tingle everywhere.

His voice got quiet.

"In my office, with the doors closed, I opened up the file sent to me by Dr. Lee," and then his face lit up, "and I too had such an experience, as you."

I almost jumped out of my skin.

"No, really? It made you cum?" I asked, excitement tinging my voice.

"It made me soak myself," he answered, with glee.

I closed my eyes just as his lips met mine.

Delicate, at first, his lips transferred their lust to me one pore at a time, one micro-sample of flesh at a time, until my mouth formed to his, the both of us open-mouthed, his tongue stabbing at mine, and mine playing back, which his arms wrapped around me and pulled me to him and my arms wrapped around him and pulled him to me and I felt his tumescence 'thud' into me, the thickness of his erection rammed up against my belly, and after untold minutes of seriously-entertaining kissing, Abe broke it, leaning over to lift me up from under my knees, carrying me into the bedroom, before gently laying me on my back, sideways on to the bed.

My gown fell open, and only covered my arms, in the sleeves. I gazed up at him, as he wordlessly began taking his jacket off, carefully laying it on the back of a chair in the corner of a room, before teasing me with the slow, methodical disrobing of a man who was in no rush to enjoy himself because he was already enjoying himself immensely.

When his pants fell to the floor and disappeared from my view, I saw the shape of him, in his underwear.

It looked like he had a thick tube in there, taut to his body, sticking up to the left, hemmed in by the cloth, with a visible round wet spot of his own.

Something we shared, wet spots in our underwear.

Then he slid those down.

Abe, my warrior, was naked.

His body was firm, considering his age, with very little hair, even around his cock, which throbbed and moved as he breathed, rocking back and forth and side to side like one of those carnival toys, they wobble but they don't fall down. He was uncircumcised, about seven or so inches long but as thick or maybe even thicker than my biggest dildo, and I could see a small sheen of sticky liquid seeping out of his pee hole already.

He took his eyes away from mine long enough to scan around, and see the tube of lube I'd placed on the nightstand.

He made his intentions clear.

I spread my legs, teasing him, slowly lifting them upwards at the same time, forming a giant 'V', never letting my eyes leave his or the satisfied grin leave my face, and as I watched him squirt out some lube and begin covering his shaft, I brought my knees up to my own shoulders, and with my arms extended to my sides, I reached around and under and pulled my panties to the side, roughly and tightly against my right bum cheek, exposing my crack and hole, and the round base of my butt plug.

No words were spoken.

None needed to be spoken.

With kindness, he gently slid the butt plug out of me, the both of us smiling at the 'plop' sound it made as it came out, the cool air of the room instantly rushing inside my gaping hole, sending chills into my channel.

On his knees, he shuffled on the mattress, until his legs were just slightly outside mine, his torso slowly descending onto the backs of my legs, his shoulders hooking right underneath my knees, and as his body met mine I wrapped my arms around his back, pulling at him, and he slid his hands under my shoulders and under my head, his big fingers caressing the back of my skull through the thickness of my hair.

We became eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose, and forehead-to-forehead.

I felt the very rounded tip of his cock touch my skin, poking me just below my testicles, which were already taut and pulling up towards my body, I was so excited, and then he poked me again, further down my taint, until the third poke put him nestled directly into the inward curve of my anus, not quite touching the edge of my rim.

He stared at me, and I stared at him. I watched little flickers in his eyes, interpreting them as him asking, 'are you sure?', so I gave him my answer right away, through little flickers of my eyes, a most definitive, 'YES!'

I realized at that exact moment that from the side we would have looked exactly like the great warrior and his lover in the sixth image, the one Abe had just been gazing at, tears of joy rising in my ducts, flooding my eyes, threatening to plummet down my cheeks, waiting for the biggest game-changing moment of them all.

He sunk into me, with one long slow push, propelling us both into a new world, a new paradigm, and a new stratosphere of pleasure. Gutteral moans escaped both of us, as did snorts of breaths, rapid and intense, while he kept shooting me flickers that asked, 'more?' and I kept sending him flickers that screamed out, 'YES YES YES YES!', until I felt the few hairs around his crotch touch the soft delicate skin of my crack, and realized he was in me.

My warrior was in me!

For the longest time, he held himself fully seated in me, enjoying how my inner delicate fibrous tissues were encasing his shaft, titillating and tormenting the skin of his cock, wrapped around him like a wet cocoon, knowing from my hetero days how good a sleeve like that can feel on a cock, elated that it was me who was giving him such joy, for the first time finally understanding what it meant from the other direction, to be filled with cock, to be penetrated, to be mounted, to have the significant part of another human being embedded inside me, trying desperately to get more, until human nature took over for him, and he began withdrawing, slowly, making me moan in disappointment, but just before actually coming completely out of me he changed direction and slid into me again, all the way, thudding our pelvises, filling me again, and then the glorious ordeal began.

The glorious ordeal.

Sex with a woman was never like this, never this impactful, and never this exciting.

Sex with Abe was everything. Pulse-revving, lung-compressing, bone-shaking, body-slamming, adrenaline-producing, muscle-spasming, sweat-pouring, and orgasm-creating.

I came, harder than I've ever cum, harder even than that day in the book shop, three times, while staring into his eyes, each one slightly less productive in terms of semen output, but each one further and further debilitating me with pleasure, overloading me with pleasure, exhausting me with pleasure, my eyes slowly closing, because I just couldn't keep them open, as his weight came onto me and into me in rapidly increasing shots, faster and faster, harder and harder, the both of us going through the most body-wracking times of our lives, giving and giving, to each other and through each other.

Approaching the point of passing out, I remember only that his pace got to a frenetic point, where he was just slamming into me, again and again and again and again, until the final pummelling thrust, his head falling beside mine, his mouth buried in the comforter, his muffled moan almost a scream, as he emptied himself into my body.

That was my last memory, before losing my touch with reality.

Sometime later, I came to. I could feel someone's finger brushing my hair off of my own neck, and then the softest kiss ever. I was on my left side, my head on a smooth forearm.

Abe kissed me on the neck again, and I came to fully, enough to remember what we'd done, how we'd made love, how we'd fucked, harder and faster and longer than any sex I'd ever experienced with a woman, so much better than all the sex I'd ever experienced with a woman combined.

Then his cock head touched my ass again, and I realized he was holding my right leg up, just like the ancient Abe had held the ancient Shufu's leg up, in the first image of the book.

With surprise in my voice, I asked, "you're ready again so soon?"

He kissed my earlobe.

"You inspire me," he whispered, pushing just a titch, making his cock rub up against my opening, still slightly gaping from before, which made my whole body lurch, tender as I now was.

He stopped kissing me, and I craned my neck and looked him in the eyes, seeing his concern for me.

"Did I hurt you, before?" he asked, worry crossing his face, "are you too sore for more?"

Human empathy being what it is, he began to pull his groin away from me, not wanting to cause me any pain, and I surprised myself with my own speed, my right hand shooting down between my spread legs and behind, searching briefly until I found his cock, rock-hard and throbbing, and pulled at it, getting him back closer to my hole.

"I am never too sore for you," I proclaimed, "never. Do you understand, my love?"

Nodding, he whispered a response.

"And I am never too tired for you."

His eyes got as teary as mine felt.

"I am always here for you. I am made for this. For my warrior. For my Abe."

He wriggled his groin and placed the head of his cock against my dripping wet hole, and I knew we were almost at the point where talking was superfluous.

I only had one more thing to say.

"I am Shufu."

I received a tender kiss.

"Ten No Ai."

Another tender kiss.

"You honor me," he said.

"I am yours. I am your Shufu."

Another sweet, soft kiss.

"I am Shufu."

He pushed, and the glorious ordeal began, again.

The End