Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 10:18:22 +0900
From: Andrej Koymasky <andrejkoymasky@geocities.com>
Subject: Destiny 01

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IF SOMETHING CALLED DESTINY EXISTS...

Andrej Koymasky Copyright 1998
Written on June 5 th 1994
Translated by the Author
English text kindly revised
by Nick

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USUAL DISCLAIMER

"IF SOMETHING CALLED DESTINY EXISTS..." is a gay story, with some parts
containing graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land,
religion, family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be
better not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU
don't care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be
my welcomed guest.

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(NOTE -- Each chapter has at its beginning an original haiku written by
the Author. The story is set in the seconf half of the 19th century and
beginning of the 20th.)

I - The initiation

All is forgotten,
even being far away:
the change of clothes!

If it really exists something called Destiny, I met mine thanks to my
father when I was fourteen. It is a destiny whose name is Happiness, now
I can say so, even if at that time I really thought exactly the
opposite. But not always looking at the way ahead one can understand in
what direction the road will bend, even if you are travelling on it, or
rather, mainly if you are travelling in it, possibly even unwillingly.

I was fourteen years old and I was the third of the four sons of Fujita
Monzaemon. The elder was Heizaemon, who was then nineteen years old;
then there was Zenbei, seventeen; then I, Shigehide; and last Yasuhide
who was twelve. It was a period of great changes, of great novelties,
but also of great uncertainties.

Our father, a lover of culture, wanted all us four son to study and
therefore he paid, generously, several private teachers, who came to our
home to teach us. He choose them from amongst the best living at those
times in our area. He could allow that, thanks to the wealth accumulated
by generations of our ancestors and wisely administrated by them and by
our father. In particular, I loved very much studying and wanted to
become a real man of letters. I was particularly attracted by the
Chinese studies, but also by our past literature, especially the fiction
of the Genroku period. Or perhaps, looking back, I liked my teacher, and
therefore, what he taught me.

This teacher vas a man twenty eight years old, the son of a lesser
samurai of our fief, whose name was Ishiyama Hirosato. His father was a
close friend of our father, notwithstanding his inferior rank. I ask
myself if, when they were young, they weren't by chance lovers. Sure is
that I liked very much Hirosato-sensei, and not just as a teacher. He
was a virile man, and yet he had a fascinating gentleness. Moreover he
had a body, to say little, perfect, and that was quite unusual in a man
of letters, or in a learned man, who is inclined to laziness and not to
care for his appearance or his body. It was not so for Hirosato-sensei.
To make short a long story, I fell madly in love with him. In my mind
and in my heart rose a determination - I wanted to became his thing.
Only and forever his. And it was right the study of Genroku literature
that gave me the opportunity. We were studying a book where there was
the story of the love between a young samurai called Shigetsugu and a
boy page of his lord, whose name was Yukichi.

"If Shigetsugu was handsome like Hirosato-sensei is, I too could have
done nothing but to fall in love with him." I suddenly said, without
even understanding where I could find the courage to unveil him my
sentiments, and neither daring to look at his face.

The silence that received those words of mine, seemed to me endless. I
felt like I could hear the deafening sound of my heart, similar to that
of the horses launched to gallop in the matsuri of our family temple. I
was holding back my breath, my body trembled.

"And if Yukichi was beautiful just the half of Shigehide-dono, everybody
would be moved and proud to welcome his love." my teacher murmured at
last, barely brushing the hand with which I was holding the book we were
analyzing. I looked at that hand, I put down the book, then I put my
hand on my teacher's hand in a light caress.

"But their love ended in a tragic way." Hirosato-sensei said, with a
sweet voice.

"It surely was worth it, I think."

"Yes, even if it was to last just only one day instead of one year.
Shigehide-dono, are you aware of what you are asking me?"

"Sensei, this boy in front of you would like very much to belong to
Hirosato-sensei, to be all and only his thing."

He has been my first man. He picked me like if I was a precious flower,
with extreme delicacy but with a warmth that even today doesn't abandon
me. It has been him that transformed me from a little boy barely post
puberal in an adult man, in a complete man. His love and his passion.
And that taught me all the subtle arts of love between men. And I became
completely his.

Our relationship didn't last just one day but, unhappily, neither a full
year. Anyway it represents in my life one of the most brilliant,
luminous, full of warmth periods. The intimacy hours with
Hirosato-sensei has been the most beautiful, intense, sweet of my
adolescence. When he welcomed me in his strong arms, each time he took
me and made me his, each time I could feel his virility dancing inside
me, to me nothing else existed.

I would have shouted to everybody my happiness in those wonderful days,
my joy for that marvellous love that I had discovered, that filled me,
that I was experiencing day after day. If I did that, possibly, we could
still be together. Or possibly not - how much power do we really have to
turn our life in the direction we desire?

My father one day summoned us all. When we entered his room and saw his
two swords displayed in the tokonoma, we understood that he had
assembled us for a very important reason.

"The Fujitas have a long history. Starting when Kichizaemon entered the
service of the Maeda family, fifteen generations ago. History that
always went on with honour. Because our forefathers succeeded in uniting
two essential qualities - loyalty and farsightedness.

We are living in great changing times. Our Emperor decided to move the
capital to Yedo. A new Japan is taking shape and who will be able to
stand by His Majesty's actions in this moment, will mould this new
Japan. And the Fujitas, as ever, have not to be a lesser part of all
that. Therefore I decided that you four have to move to Yedo. You will
go to live in the house of one of our far relatives, Mori Arinori, who
is well established in the world of the new politics. Mori promised me
that he will help you Heizaemon, to enter the political field, you
Zenbei in the new army His Majesty is shaping. About you, Shigehide,
considered the growing importance that the relationship with foreign
countries will have for the development of the new Japan, will enter the
Imperial School for Western Studies, and will learn the German language.
And you, Yasuhide, will enter in the Court as a page for the noble
Konoe. So, from now on, we Fujitas can give with honour our contribution
and, at the same time, to maintain high the destiny of our family, of
our name, also in the new Japan."

To me this was a terrible stroke. First of all I didn't want to be
parted from Hirosato-sensei, and anyway I was not at all interested in
the studies of the "Southern barbarians", how the westerners were called
in olden times. But I couldn't find the courage to tell about the love
binding me to my teacher, and all the excuses I could bring forward to
persuade our father to allow me to remain, not only didn't have any
effect, but rather made my father remarkably vexed toward me.

I made projects of disobedience, of flight, of... But Hirosato-sensei
dissuaded me. "I could not continue to love a man who refuses to
accomplish his duties, to take on the responsibilities that his family
assigns him." he said, and just his evident sadness in saying these
words let me understand that to him also our parting was a high price to
pay. That day I heartily hated my father.

Today I cannot but thank him.

At the end of the month of March we reached Yedo, or to be more exact
Tokyo, that is the East Capital, how it has been renamed for a little
less than one year.

The Moris' residence was a new building, very wide even if not yet
completed, standing in the area of Akasaka, and was surrounded by a wide
garden. My family was rich, but the Mori were much more wealthy than us.
Mori Arinori had six children amongst whom just one was a male, Ryoichi,
who was then eighteen years old. I at once almost disliked Ryoichi: he
was very haughty and made weight on us the fact we were coming from the
province. He mocked our accent, our way to dress. But he was the son of
Mori, so we had to show him respect. Heizaemon studied at the same
school with him, but I luckily was in another school. Here, for the
first time, I saw the western way of dressing. In fact everybody,
teachers and students, had to wear those weird clothes. I too had to
have the uncomfortable school uniform made for me.

At least in part, my idea about the western clothing, to which I'm now
somewhat used, has today changed. But at that time those clothes seemed
to me really weird and queer. And really uncomfortable. Today I think
that the western fashion has merits and faults, as after all also our
traditional clothes.

Kimono is a more comfortable kind of dress. Our body in it feels more
free, at ease. Moreover, wearing a kimono, the body shape has no
relevance, or very little. What becomes important wearing a kimono, is
the gait, the way of moving. Furthermore, just as it makes less evident
the body shape, wearing a kimono it is the face that becomes more
important, and the face is the only trait really individual in a man, or
a woman wearing a kimono. And last but not least, in a person wearing a
kimono there is a remarkable elegance, because it makes all the moves
more fluid, soft, graceful.

The western clothing, on the contrary, underlines much more the shape of
the body of the person wearing it. If the person wearing it has a nice
body, it can surely be agreeable to see him in a western attire, also
because if it is a man, it allows to guess particularly that part of his
body that always attracts my eyes. But I realized that just in a second
moment. At the beginning I just found the western clothing uncomfortable
because it swathes, ties and constrains the body, and makes it less
elegant.

When I wore the western attires, I felt like in a masquerade, or to
better say, like a naked puppet.

At the beginning I felt too sad for having had to part from
Hirosato-sensei and to be forced to live in that alien ambience, and
therefore possibly also for that I was not able to appreciate at once
the several novelties that my new life was offering to me.

I suffered very much, I terribly missed my man.

I missed his presence, his voice, his glances, his warmth, his body, his
hands on my body. I missed the intimate hours with him. The continuous
demonstrations of his love for me. I missed the possibility to give him
my love, to give myself completely to him, to welcome him inside me. And
I felt almost like I was once again just a little boy, without him at my
side. Well, I still was just a boy, but he made me feel an adult.
Confident. Happy. Now on the contrary, because of my father's ideas, I
was unhappy, insecure.

Even if I didn't show it, in that enormous and alien house, amongst
these people so peculiar.

The Moris, parents and children, were incredibly in love with all that
was western. They always wore western clothing, ate western food, and a
big part of the house was also furnished in western stile. When I had to
sit on these tall, narrow and strange chairs, I felt terribly awkward. I
very much preferred my little traditional room, my kimono, to sit on a
tatami.

When I was back home from school, I immediately pulled out those alien
clothes and wore my more comfortable traditional clothes. I had very
much to study, therefore I spent the most of my time inside my little
room. And I was happy for that, because I didn't tie up a great deal
with the Mori family. I felt well when I could be alone in my room. A
part my nostalgia for Hirosato-sensei.

The nostalgia for Hirosato was possibly what pushed me to accept the
courting of Saburo.

Saburo was a young servant of the Mori. He was twenty four years old and
a handsome young man. I did notice from the beginning that he had
special attentions towards me, but I just thought that his master had
ordered him to take care of me in particular, and that he was just
carrying out his duty in a good way. After all, in the Mori household,
servants were not missing, for sure. Saburo had an open and likeable
smile. And I didn't have the time to express a desire that he did not
immediately go out of his way to grant it. Each evening he spread my
futon and put it away each morning. He changed my candles before they
were too short. He never made me miss fresh fruits in my room. He called
me when the water of the bath was warm at the right point, and he also
poured water on me when I had to rinse away the soap.

When, a few months after I was guest of the Mori, one day that we were
in the bathroom, he offered to wash my back, I thanked him and accepted.
His hands on my body were gentle and strong, likeable. To tell the
truth, even too much likeable. So that he noticed that and smiled at me.

"Fujita-sama does like the way I'm washing his back?" he asked with a
warm and gentle voice.

"....."

"If Fujita-sama would allow a simple servant as I am, I could wash all
his body." he added and, without waiting for my answer, his soaped hands
passed lightly on the front of my body in a kind of long, agreeable,
exhausting caress. That in a short while, made me lose my head.

"Fujita Shigehide-sama is really very handsome. He seems more mature
than his fifteen years. It is an honour for me to be allowed to service
him in this way."

"....."

My eyes were staring at the swollen and palpitating fundoshi of the
young servant, in fascination. He noticed that. He said nothing. He
simply, with just one move, untied them and let them slide away softly,
slowly drooping on the floor. My eyes, my hand didn't have any more
obstacles. Notwithstanding I felt uncertain about the opportunity of
doing such things with a servant of my hosts, in their house, and that
anybody could have entered the bathroom at any moment, I let myself go
and he promptly answered.

So my relationship with Saburo begun. Just a relationship, not love.
After each time we made love, I promised to myself it would have been
the last, but when he touched me, I was at once filled with a strong
desire to do it again. What restrained me was not the fact that he was a
servant, but just the fact that I was still deeply in love with
Hirosato, and each time I felt like cheating on him. But Saburo was far
too attractive, and he was able to make love in a far too good a way, so
I was not able and could not resist him. His hands on my body did
accomplish marvels. And I needed so much these cares to be really
willing to resist him.

What partially lessened my guilt sensation, some months after the
beginning of my relationship with Saburo, was the news that Hirosato had
married. I was pained by this news even more than if I was informed he
had another boy. And yet I was still in love with Hirosato.

I don't think Saburo was in love with me. Or at least nothing ever made
me think so. He simply liked me very much and he was able to show that
to me with all his strong and lean body.

During the daytime he behave like any good servant, devoted, respectful
and thoughtful.

But when, in the full of the night, he silently slipped in the
accomplice darkness of my room, waking me up with sweet caresses, then
came under my sheet, naked against my naked body, and we started making
love, then he was hot and passionate like a true lover. While he was
taking me, he whispered me sweet, very beautiful words. Even though he
was illiterate, in him there certainly was the soul of a true poet. I
really enjoyed being under him, feeling him move on and in me. And each
time, after our good, long union, Saburo cleaned me with delicate care,
thanked me, then slipped away, silent as he came.

No, I would not have been able to say him no. After all I needed him. I
needed his body, his warmth, his sex. But, differently than with
Hirosato, with him I didn't feel like being a man, but just the boy I
was. Afterwards I often asked myself the reason of this difference, but
I never had been able to give me an answer. Or perhaps the answer is in
the fact that between me and Saburo there was no love. Possibly it is
really the love that makes you feel a man. The fact to be able to give
love and, above all, to receive love.

My relationship with Saburo lasted around two years, that is until he
was sent by Mori to work in the house of Mori's eldest daughter that had
just married. So, again, I was alone, as after all I had been for the
most of my life.

Solitude never frightened me. Every human being after all is born alone
and alone dies. As the poet says: "We go from the womb's tub to the
grave's tub."

I immersed myself more than ever in my studies.

German didn't seem to me a difficult language. Our teacher was an
austere professor coming from Berlin, whose name was Herbert von
Steiner. He was around forty five years old. The most conspicuous thing
in his aspect was his thick beard and mustache that gave to his face an
sullen expression. He spoke Japanese in a funny way, but sufficient to
make himself understood, but he used Japanese less and less as we were
able to use German.

The more I was learning to understand and to read German, the more I
became curious about the literature of that people. It was then that I
started to think that after all the "Southern barbarians" weren't so
barbarous. They had an ancient culture, worthy of all the respect.

Including Herbert von Steiner.

I didn't tie up so much with the other students. A part from the normal
school relationships, we didn't meet out of the school. I was not
interested in any of them. As I had to study something different from
what I would have liked, I tried to apply myself to the studies so that
I could progress rapidly and get them out of my way as soon as possible.

My school fellows seemed all so enthusiastic for that new language and
literature and for the culture under them, that they seemed eager to
transform themselves in to Germans as they were. Not I. Even if I
started to appreciate the literature and the culture, I was and I felt
more and more Japanese. And yet, in a short while, I became the best
student of my course. It seemed that I had a natural talent for German.,
I was studying it night and day, with all my energies. Also because I
had nothing better to apply my energies to.

So, at the end of the course, having passed all the texts with full
marks, my school got me a special scholarship from His Majesty the
Emperor, who personally awarded it to me in a ceremony at Court. That
was the first, and has been the last, time I was in front of the Emperor
in person. Useless to say that I was deeply moved and impressed. Also
His Majesty the Emperor had a beard and moustaches in the Western
fashion, and wore a uniform in Western style. It was almost as He wanted
symbolize the "modernization" of our land, quite wanting to show to the
Western Powers and to the Japanese people, that we were no lesser than
anybody.

The scholarship consisted in the fact that I entered to be part of the
group accompanying the Govern Mission that was going in Germany to
negotiate again the treaties, expecially about the extraterritoriality
of foreigners in Japan. But then, I and the other student who got a
scholarship, would stop in Germany for at least two years, to deepen the
knowledge we had about German language and culture.

Also about that I was not so happy but, in some ways, it was quite the
Emperor's order, therefore I could just obey... and be grateful to Him.

I went back home for a short period, to prepare for my long and
adventurous journey. My father and my family, of course, were very proud
of me.

I met again Hirosato-sensei, and had my last disappointment. He behaved
with me like with a dear former student, but not as his lover as I was
expecting from him. I wanted to ask him the reason of that, but I lacked
the courage. Frozen by his formality, I prepared for my journey. And I
understood that I really was alone.

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CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 2

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In my home page I've put some of my stories. If someone wants to read
them, the URL is

http://www.geocities.com/~andrejkoymasky/

If you want to send me feed-back, please e-mail at

andrejkoymasky@geocities.com

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