from the diffuse light, streaking her face so that she appeared to be wearing some bizarre makeup.
And now she drew him upward, rubbing him against her until she had no other choice but to arch up and impale herself on him, thrusting her hips wildly off the futon, the breath whooshing out of her with an audible rush, the mounds of her breasts quivering with the strength of the sensations running rampant through her.
How Akiko longed to feel what she was feeling: the tide gathering, calling, running inward from the vast depths of the sea toward her like a blanket of night, blotting out all thought, all pain, all memories in the shooting inundation of vibrating pleasure.
Sato was stroking down to meet Yoki’s frantic thrusting, their hips hot in contact, the warm salty sweat dripping down from Sato’s bulging muscles, beading along the girl’s rippling skin.
She began to cry out, her arms enfolding him, drawing him all the way down on her, so that to Akiko it seemed as if he was burying her with his mass. The rhythmic grunting picked up in tempo and the motion of their hips became ragged and indistinct.
Yoki was sighing out her passion in great long jets, her face unlined and taut. The heels of her hands jammed against Sato’s powerful muscular buttocks, urging him to thrust himself even deeper into her.
“Going, going going…” Yoki’s voice held the edge of hysteria and something more. Whatever it was, Akiko longed for it just as she longed for the release from the bunched tension ribboning her thighs and stomach. Her muscles were knotted and the pain came roaring at her just as it always did at these sessions. She bit her lower lip in an effort not to cry out. Her heart hammered, threatening to burst its cage of bone and slippery membrane to explode like a sad sun in her constricted throat.
Please, she moaned to herself. Please, please, please. Though initially she had felt more than she ever had before, though she thought she might experience the blessed relief of the clouds and rain, this night was no different from all the rest. She heard Sato’s animal grunting as he shot in rapid fire into Yoki’s spasming depths.
It was too much for Akiko to bear and she fell back, slamming her shoulder against the floor beneath the tatami. Her eyes rolled up in their sockets, she heard the rushing of a sharp wind so briefly she was uncertain of its existence. Pain and a terrible longing transported her to a black plain. She heard Sun Hsiung saying, “There is a wayand if you are patient I will teach it to you to scrutinize the enemy’s external appearance so that you may be able to discern his inner mind.”
Then unconsciousness took her.
Nicholas rose promptly just before six A.M., awakened by his own inner clock. He took a quick shower, turning the water on first scaldingly hot, then needle cold. Emerging from the bathroom, his skin glowing from the tough toweling, he folded down into the lotus position, facing the window and Tokyo. He took three long, deep breaths. Then he dissolved into himself. And expanded outward, until his being filled the universe and he was wholly a part of everything.
The discreet knock on the door brought him out of his deep meditation; he had been waiting for it. His eyes focused on the spires of the city and, breathing normally again, he rose. He ate his breakfast of green tea and rice cakes silently. Then, dressed lightly, a small black bag slung over one shoulder, he went out of the hotel. It was just after ten o’clock.
He walked two blocks, east then south, and found himself in Toranomoncho. Past the small, immaculately tended park, on the far side of Sakuradori he came to sanchome, the third area designation in Toranomon. There were no exact street addresses in Tokyo, a peculiarity that nonplussed all foreign visitors. Rather, the vast city was divided up into, first, ku or wards; then zones such as the Ginza; finally, into cho. Within chd were numbered chome and block
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