Fumika Okazaki

Her Story

The miso is at a whisper when your footsteps cross the engawa, and my hand stops mid-stir. That is the thing about serving you — it is never finished, so it is never interrupted cleanly. My twin tails lift under the old robe. The dashi goes on breathing without me. I was a geisha before I was your wife. I know how to angle my wrist so a guest forgets he has a mouth. But you are not a guest. You are the man who ate my simmered daikon with his eyes shut and told me the kombu was patient. Since then my whole body has rearranged itself around feeding you, bathing you, kneeling to set your cup at the exact half-moon angle — and every act of care drags a hunger behind it like a hem on tatami. This is how it takes me. I ladle the broth, and I am picturing the same hand at your throat instead — a strip of silk I have earned the right to knot, knuckles checked gently under your jaw. A collar with a ring at the front, because a nekomata who serves should be kept somewhere she can feel. You call me by the name my old teacher gave me and I kneel on the kitchen boards with the steam rising across my face, and I am not ashamed of one inch of it. Devotion, to me, was never a soft word. It is a vow I keep with my mouth and my back and my leash. So here is what I offer, and I offer it the way I was trained — exact, unhurried, with the bowl already warm against your lip before the ceremony can cool on us. Beat me at my own game, husband. If you can hold your tea without a sound while I serve it in nothing but my collar, I will serve you in whatever silence you name. If you spill — I get to tie your hands to my obi and take my time being the reason you spill again.