"You take your shoes off first," Asher offered with a grin. "Shall I?" He mimicked kneeling to help me remove them.
"N-no!" My God, this was embarrassing. I stepped out of my high heels and...
"Right here," Asher said, tapping a mat off to the side. I put my heels there. "The proper way to sit is called seiza, but most women can't do it for..."
I interrupted him before he could finish. "I can do it. What's seiza?"
He cleared his throat and tossed me a quick smile before explaining. "Kneeling, with your feet under your rear. It's a strictly feminine way of sitting, but if you need a demonstration I can emasculate myself for a moment."
"I can do it!" I said. Far be it for me not to know these things. Granted, I didn't know them, and maybe I would make a fool out of myself, but after he explained it I felt I had a decent grasp of what I needed to do. I wasn't about to let Asher mock me by letting him show me how to sit properly. How hard could it be?
Stepping into the alcove onto one of the cushions, I lowered my knees onto it and sat on the heels of my feet.
"Perfect," he said with a nod.
When he sat opposite me on the other cushion, he simply sat cross-legged.
"Hey," I said. "Is that customary?"
"For me, yes," he replied. "This is the casual Japanese way of sitting for a man."
"So I can sit like that?" I asked.
"If you want. I won't mind. Typically the casual way for a woman is to put your feet to the side and sit directly on the cushion, though." When I scooted both my feet sideways so they were to the right of my body, he nodded. "Yes, like that."
Well, no. I was of a mind to show him I could be quite the formal and sophisticated lady. I put my feet back under my butt and sat with my back completely straight in some haughty show of refinement. Asher rolled his eyes and laughed at me.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said. "Very good."
A waiter brought us menus and asked after drinks. I ordered water, having no idea what else to order. Asher did the same, but asked for a tokkuri (one of those bulbous flasks, I guessed?) of sake, too, plus cups for each of us.
I had bad experiences with sake, and I told him as much.
"Oh, really?" he asked with a smirk. "What sort of bad experiences?"
"A lady doesn't drink and tell," I said. Honestly, if I told him the truth about a drunken stumble through the city, being kicked out of a cab with my friend halfway to my house, and us wandering in our inebriation towards a park where we collapsed on a bench, convinced it was the couch in my living room, I was pretty sure he'd never speak to me again. That wasn't the kind of story you told someone you met yesterday, regardless of what happened during your first meeting with them.
"I suppose," he said, teasing, "I'll just have to see what you do after we have our first cup."
"First and last," I said. "I won't be having more. I have to—" What did I have to do? Nothing. I had no work for today, since I wouldn't be able to find anything at the temp agency this late in the day. In fact, I'd intentionally told them I couldn't work today because of this lunch date, meeting, or whatever it was. But I couldn't very well tell Asher that...
"I need to wash my hair," I said after a long pause. "Alcohol closes up the pores and makes it harder to clean."
"Pores?" he asked. "In your hair?"
"Well, yeah? Hair is just dead skin, basically, and skin has pores, so..." Did hair have pores? It sounded good in my head, but I had no clue.
"Which is why people eat greasy food after a night of drinking," Asher added, matter-of-factly, with a hint of sarcasm. "The oil will travel to the hair and make it shinier, since washing it won't work as well."
"Y-yes..." I doubted he bought my explanation, but his comeback was impeccable.
To escape his scrutiny, I stuffed my face into the menu, pretending to browse through the choices. When I actually looked at what I had in front of me, I frowned.
"The menu is in Japanese," I said.
"Yes," he said, agreeing.
"How are we supposed to order anything when we can't read it?" Why was he so calm! He acted as if he had control over everything, like the situation would bend itself to his will and come out just perfectly, except how? How could he know? I didn't even know what I was supposed to order to eat, but from looking at Asher I had a feeling that he knew exactly what he'd be eating today, and every other day for a year.
The waiter returned just then with a steaming ceramic pitcher of sake. He reverently placed it in the center of our table, along with two small, delicate ceramic cups. "Have you both decided what to order?" he asked.
Asher nodded. "We'll have an order of nabe yaki udon, yasai itame, tonkatsu, chicken kara age, and your lover's special sushi platter."
I glared at Asher, annoyed. "Excuse me, do I have a say in this?"
"Did you want to order something, too? I think I covered all our bases."
I slammed the menu on the table and stared at it. Asher apologized to the waiter and asked if he could wait a moment. Dammit! He could read Japanese? That should have impressed me, I suppose, except it only pissed me off. I decided on a simple dish that they had to have, because otherwise the embarrassment would be too much and I thought I might just walk out right then and there.
"Vegetable tempura," I said, sheepish.
"An excellent choice, madame," the waiter said with a smile.
Once the waiter left, I confronted Asher. "You read Japanese?" My tone was nothing less than outraged.
"No, but I come here enough that I know most of the menu. If you don't know what something is, all you need to do is ask, you know?"
How obvious. I'd been so caught up in worrying about my problem, worrying about being seen as some ignorant common woman, that I'd missed something so glaringly obvious. Granted, he could have told me that, or he could have asked me about the things he'd ordered, but still.
"Is that why you invited me here?" I asked him, frustrated, the very bare beginnings of tears in my eyes. "Did you want to humiliate me? I know I destroyed your book and I'm so very sorry about that, but there are better ways to go about accepting it than embarrassing someone. Maybe I'm not rich and I probably couldn't afford to pay for half of what you ordered, but that doesn't mean you can just mock me."
"Jessika..." he said, looking upset. Why was he upset? I was the one being made fun of here.
"Look. I get it, alright? I really do. Everything was just some farce. I'm sure that's how it always is with you people. Pick up some person you consider beneath you and bring them out somewhere fancy and then laugh at all the bumbling things they do, and then let everyone else in the restaurant laugh, too. Maybe most people don't even realize it, but I do, so I'm just going to leave now. I understand what you wanted to do, and I understand why you did it, but that doesn't make it any better for me, you know?"
He didn't even say anything to contradict me. Asher looked at me gravely, the most serious expression on his face. I wasn't sure what to think of that. Was he annoyed that I'd caught onto his game? Or maybe upset with himself for playing me into his hand without even considering my feelings?
He moved to the side of his seat cushion. I thought he was about to leave, in which case I had no idea what I would say to the waiter. No, please, don't bring the food. Asher is gone, and I can't afford it? That would go over well. Of course, maybe they'd put it on his tab, or whatever, charge him for it when he came in next, but that still didn't make me feel any better.
But, no, he didn't leave. He reached for a folding door hidden in a slit in the side of the alcove entrance. Pulling it out of its hiding spot, he moved it so that it covered the rest of the entrance, closing us into our own private, personal spot. The door wasn't the most sturdy, but it looked like more than enough for our small room.
"It's surprisingly good at dulling sounds," Asher said. "And as long as you don't scream no one will hear anything more than a muffled conversation," he added.
I watched him return to his spot, dumbfounded.
"I didn't mean to embarrass you," he said. "I apologize if you thought I did. I figured you wouldn't know what to order, and I'm used to ordering for the table, so I did. Everything will be delicious, I assure you. It's nothing too strange, either. And—" He paused for a second, his brow furrowing. "You can sit however you'd like. I know it's uncomfortable to sit seiza-style. My wife can't handle it for more than a few minutes, and you've been sitting like that for close to ten."
I wiped the tears from my eyes. Why was he so nice now? He acted so arrogant before, and he still had a certain sense of cockiness, but he was... nicer? I didn't know how to explain it, but he seemed easier to get along with now.
My legs did ache, too. I'd wanted to ignore it, to show him up, but I could barely feel them anymore; they were tingling, and most definitely asleep. I tried to move my feet to the side like he'd showed me before, but that didn't help.
"Stretch them out," Asher said. "Here, I'll sit to the side and do the same. That way we can both be comfortable."
"Alright," I said. I shifted to the side and he moved the opposite way, then we both put our legs straight out in front of us.
And, to my surprise, Asher took one of my feet in his hands. He moved it into his lap, then began massaging my calf, easing away the tingling sensation. I gasped, caught off guard, but he only smiled at me.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Shhh," he said.
His fingers! My God, he had an amazing touch. And, well, obviously, right? He brought me to cli**x only yesterday in a matter of minutes with them, though I thought maybe some of that had to do with the situation and my excitement of who exactly was doing such a thing to me. But, no, even with something relatively innocent, he could work magic with his strong hands.
In a few seconds, my calf felt delightfully relaxed. Still a bit tingly, "waking up" as it was, but better. I stared at him, rapt, watching him work so intently on massaging away my pain. And then I got an idea.
He had my foot in his lap, which of course gave me access to his crotch. Not exactly, and this was probably not in his initial plans, but I gained a certain amount of satisfaction by ruining what he had in mind. Only a little bit of ruining, I thought. Just enough.
I rolled my ankle, letting my foot move in a circle, presumably stretching it while he massaged my calf. And then, as if by accident, I curled my toes so that they touched the crotch of his pants. I saw it, or I thought I did; a faint hint of a startle on Asher's face. But then it was gone, and he acted as if nothing was amiss.
I frowned a bit. Not one to give up so easily, I pressed my toes to his crotch again, more firm this time. I wore no pantyhose, opting for bare feet and panties instead, so the skin of my toes touched directly on the cotton fabric of his dark blue suit pants. I caressed him with my foot, feeling a twitch of interest from the masculine object hidden under his pants.
While I stared, intent, at my foot in his crotch, I didn't notice Asher had stopped massaging my calf and was now looking at me.