The Traveling Pussy

Chapter 16: Ibiki’s Laundry

It’s surprisingly easy to get used to living in a basement with no windows. I guess if you tend to work the night shift anyway, you don’t miss the sun so much. Ibiki and I were in the honeymoon stage and so busy trying to fuck in every room of his apartment, on every piece of furniture, and in every position we could think of that the days sort of flew by.

Unfortunately, one can only spend so much time having sex before it gets boring even if you are in love. My vacation was rapidly coming to an end, and we had to actually talk about our lives, not play sex games all day. We were in his little laundry room. We’d had sex on the washer while doing the sheets and towels. We’d had sex on the dryer while they were tumbling about and a tub of darks was washing. I was hanging up the dark stuff that had to line dry while Ibiki was folding up sheets and towels.

“Do I still have a job at the gate?” I asked. “If I’m going to go back to work the day after tomorrow, I need to start paying attention to the clock and get into my nightshift work-sleep cycle.”

Ibiki stopped towels and said in a rather surprised voice, “I don’t know—no one thinks you’re going to attack Gaara or go missing-nin now, but will you care about watching the gate or want to write reports now that you aren’t looking for a top?”

“Did you read my reports?” I asked.

“Yea,” he said.

“I had fantasies that you read them,” I said.

“Oh, really? Maybe you should tell me about these fantasies. Where and when did you have these fantasies? We can’t have you go back on the job and just be fantasizing all day,” said Ibiki moving in between the dangling wet clothes hanging from the clothes line.

The sight of him coming up closer to me, looking suspicious and sinister, made my heart beat just a little faster. “Oh, I had a fantasy alright. I had this idea that this guy I liked wouldn’t be very interested in me. You know, he’s a pretty powerful guy, the head of a whole ANBU division,” I said watching his face.

“Really?”

“Yea, and he’s got a lot more experience than me, been through more of life, much higher rank and all, so no reason to think he’d give a mere chuunin the time of day.”

“Sounds logical.”

“Well, so I just couldn’t imagine approaching him without having some answers, you see? I had to make sure I had eliminated every other possibility, however remote. And of course, I had to actually look like a decent ninja, so I couldn’t slack off at work. It can get boring on the gate, you know.” I paused, hoping to see some emotions on Ibiki’s face. But of course, he was Iron Ibiki, and if he didn’t want me to see his emotions, I wouldn’t.

“Really?” he asked in a voice that seemed almost bored with my story.

I half expected him to yawn. But he didn’t, so I continued, “Yea, so I used to think about what this guy I liked would say if I would let someone in on my watch who shouldn’t get in or what he'd think if I got caught daydreaming or asleep on the job. That would really motivate me because he has really high standards. And he’s a pretty scary guy, too. I mean I didn’t want to piss him off before I even got a kiss out of him.”

“Hmmm,” he said, “so that last week on the job when you were late three times, left early twice, failed to accurately keep log every single day, what was your strategy then? I don’t really see it.”

I blushed and bit my lower lip. I nervously scratched my temple with my right hand, then frowned realizing I was basically busted. I had already been making all the basic body movements of the guilty, and, of course, an interrogation expert would easily read them.

“Temporary insanity due to sexual deprivation?” I suggested, trying to see if he would buy that one.

“Hmm, so if you were being fucked on a pretty regular basis, do you think you could do a good job at the gate?”

“Well, if I had a master who was going to punish me if I didn’t do a good job, or maybe even, oh my god, deny me some sex, I could probably get motivated. And if there were any reports I could write that would make my master’s life just one bit easier, if there was anything I could do that would make him have a little less to worry about, I would really, really like that.”

I was starting to breathe funny and was getting all hot and bothered again. My voice had gone husky with desire as I continued, “It’s kind of sick, but I really, really feel the need to make him happy, to please him. I just want to do anything to get that feeling that I’ve pleased him. He’s so special, so masterful, so perfect; I just want to do things for him that I wouldn’t do for anyone else. Or, well, at least not willingly and without a lot of fighting,” I added in what was probably a stupid moment of honesty.

“That sounds pretty risky,” said Ibiki, “What if this guy you like is a real messed-up guy? He might want you to do some really strange things, some things that might be painful or humiliating.”

I shut my eyes and shuddered with delight.

Ibiki moved around behind me. I heard him open the cupboard above the washing machine. I just stayed where I was, shifting my weight back and forth on my legs and rolling my pelvis a bit with desire. I was hoping Ibiki was getting something out of the cupboard that had to do with making me feel pain or humiliation, but he just said, “Do you want to do another tub of wash? I have some rope here I can string up if we need room to hang more things.”

Oh god, rope, I wanted to do something with rope all right, but it had nothing to do with wash. I turned around and just looked into Ibiki’s eyes.

“I want Morino Ibiki to be very, very happy. If Ibiki wants to me to suffer a little, to hear me cry or scream in pain, to humiliate me, I want Ibiki to get what he wants. I want him to tell me exactly what he wants, and I want to please him. I don’t have a lot of experience or self-control with things involving pain or rope or submission . . .”

I looked down, worried that I couldn’t be the sort of partner Ibiki wanted, and I got even more nervous when I realized he wasn’t aroused. I felt ashamed, depressed. I wasn’t pleasing him; he didn’t want me again. I couldn’t bear to look at his flaccid penis, the evidence of my failure, and I let myself sink down on my knees and put my head down to his feet. I kissed his feet, tears starting to run down my face because I was afraid that this was the end, that I was going back to my job and would never see Ibiki again. If he didn’t want to see me, there was no way I would ever be able to get close to him.

Then it occurred to me maybe this was his way of telling me he had serious problems. Maybe his own experience with torture had made him into a truly sick person. He should have never suffered like that. That he might have tried to cope with it by wanted to do it to someone else was a horrible thought. I stopped kissing his feet and just stood up to look him in the eyes. Tears were running down my face, but I could still talk somewhat normally.

“I can’t do torture, Ibiki, I can’t. What was done to you was evil. To let you do that to me would be wrong. I can’t love someone who would cut off pieces of me, break my bones, stab me, burn me, put holes in me like the evil freaks that did this to you. It would be wrong.” I was now staring at his mutilated nipple. The silence in the room seemed very loud. The washer and dryer were no longer making noise. My breathing seemed so loud. I was afraid to look in his eyes. He wasn’t saying anything; his chest wasn’t even rising and falling at any increased rate. I didn’t want to see if he was aroused.

I spun around, facing away from him. I stumbled forward a bit to grip the cold, wet pant legs of a pair of his trousers that I had hung on the line to dry. I clung to the pant legs and said softly, “If you need that kind of thing, you’ll have to get it on the job, baby, and let me go. I’ve loved everything you’ve done to me this past week, and I think we could go farther and have more fun with toys and rules and ropes and things. And that stuff you said about exposing me and having me service other guys, I don’t care, I can live with that if you can live with that. But I won’t eat shit, and I can’t let you cut me or break my bones. I can’t lose my nipples or my fingers or my toes . . .”

I was suddenly scared and felt the need to hug my body, to make sure I was whole. I sunk down on my knees, hands across my body, bent over, my head curled down as if to protect myself. I shivered and just tried to wait for my fate with as much dignity as you can have when you are naked, crying, and kneeling huddled on the floor. I was at least managing not to make any crying noises, to keep my tears silent.

The silence went on and on. My fear and pain went away as I started to cramp up. I felt suddenly very silly. I didn’t even know if Ibiki was still behind me. It just seemed so ridiculous to be kneeling on the floor worrying about all this. I sighed and sat up, resting my ass on my heels. I slid my butt off my heels and sat on the floor, uncurling my legs and stretching them out in front of me. “Ok, I’m back to normal now,” I said. But even as I said this, I was starting to cry again. I wasn’t back to normal; I was just convinced that it was over, just like every other relationship I’d ever had.

“Don’t lie to me,” he said.

That struck me as funny, and I smiled and let out a “ha-hummph” of bitter amusement. Just hearing him say something made me suddenly feel that maybe it wasn’t all over, maybe this wasn’t the end. I almost turned my head, but I then I chickened out, “Just do that blue thing, just pull it out of me,” I said and then lost my self-control. I started to sob loudly. If it wasn’t over yet, it would be once he talked to me there in that blue world where there weren’t any lies.

I didn’t notice that the world had gone blue until he took me into his arms and whispered, “Shhhh, you’re safe, you’re safe, nothing will hurt you here.”

I opened my eyes to look into his dark ones. We were in that weird blue world. I shook my head at him, “No, I hurt myself. As long as I’m here, I can hurt. I’ve probably hurt you too, made you hurt; I’ve probably caused you pain, you should get away from me as soon as you can. I just wanted to make the pain go away. I want to be needed, to be loved, but I don’t--I can’t want that. Love means pain; love means hurt. The people I love die. I don’t want to be the one left alive any more. I want to be the one to die.”

I pulled myself away from Ibiki. I finally just said the truth, “I’m a horrible ninja because I want to die sometimes. I shouldn’t be a chuunin. I can’t try to advance because I can’t put anyone else at risk. I don’t want anyone else to suffer. I should resign, but I’m too proud. I don’t want to be the insane one, the suicide, the chicken, the girl who was too scared to live. But there’s no one to live for, no one who needs me. Or the people that need me don’t mean anything to me. I try to care that my dying would hurt them. I try to remember I’m a shinobi, a chuunin, and to be all that means. But I’m a fake, a danger, a risk. I force myself not to be the trash I am when my team is at stake. But yet I hope that I’ll be killed; I can’t let myself take the missions that tempt me. I need to resign. And I guess now that you know, I won’t have to make the choice to resign or not. I’ve put that burden on you. I’m sorry; I guess I did finally decide—I can’t keep living this way.”

His face was blank, unreadable, distant. He knew the truth now. I whispered to him, “I’m so sorry, Ibiki; I’ve been so cruel to you. Part of me wants to die, wants you to kill me. But I can’t do that to you, you don’t deserve that. You deserve to be loved for who you are, for a man who loved his brother, who was willing to be tortured to save his life. You are a man who is everything I am not. You’re the one who isn’t afraid to live. Dying is easy; living is hard. You are a beautiful testimony of love. Every scar on your body tells of your love for your brother, for your village, for your honor, for life.”

I moved closer to him, clutching his hands, looking into his dark, sad eyes. I told him, “I love you for all the wrong reasons. I love you because I can’t believe you will die before me. And I didn’t think I could hurt you. If you could live through all that torture, how I could I hurt you? If you love me, you’ll protect me and love me and keep me safe, and if you don’t, maybe you’ll kill me. And they won’t kill you for it—surely, the head of torture and interrogation can kill a few folks, and no one will care. You can say you did it for the job, for Konoha. I didn’t want you to hurt; I don’t want to hurt you. But I don’t want you to be a killer, Ibiki; I don’t want to be something that comes back late in the night to haunt you. I want you to be happy.”

Ibiki pulled his hands away from mine and set them on either side of my face. He pulled my head close, so our foreheads and noses touched. “I love you loving me,” he said, “I want to you with me, loving me, every day I have left to live. I want both your nipples, all your fingers, all your toes, all your bones in perfect shape. I’m so angry and hurt that you think I could do that, that I could enjoy that. But you don’t want my love, do you? You want me to kill you; that’s all this is, isn’t it? You doing this to drive me mad, aren’t you? If you can’t get me to kill you, you want me to ruin your life, to demote you, to drive you out of Konoha into the arms of those missing-nins, so one of them will kill you. That’s what you really want, isn’t it? You don’t want my love, you don’t want me to be happy, you just want to die.”

“No, no, I want you, I want your love, I want to be the one to make you happy, to make you laugh, to give you pleasure. I’ve never felt anything with anyone like I’ve felt with you. I feel so loved with you, so needed, so special. I love that, I want that, I want us together,” I insisted. “Ibiki, Ibiki, please, I want to live for you. I won’t die if you want me alive; I promise I’ll do my best to stay alive for you.” As I said the last phrase, the blue world went white and seemed blinding. I cried out in pain at the harsh light, and I then I felt Ibiki’s kiss. The white light and pain faded away, and we stood in the laundry room again in each other’s arms.

We just clung to each other tightly. I didn’t want to talk or even show my face to Ibiki. It was just all too weird, too embarrassing, too ridiculously unstable—if what I’d said in that blue world was true in a way, it was also not. There were so many things left in the world to see, to hear, to taste, to smell, to touch, and I want my crack at them, my chance to live them. I’d never had had someone I loved tell me that he wanted to spend every day left of his life with me. I hadn’t felt this self-satisfied in a long time. It was that same heady flood of feeling I usually felt when I won a difficult sparring match or passed some test I hadn’t really thought that I could.

I think we were both in mild states of shock. I don’t know how long we would have stayed there, skin against skin in that little laundry room, but Ibiki’s stomach let out a loud growl and gurgle indicating it needed fed. The sound of his stomach vibrated though my own belly and face pressed into his warm flesh. It was a wonderfully normal sound that called for such simple, obvious action.

We made our way to the little kitchen with its newly repaired furniture. But didn’t sit on the chairs or at the table. We cooked, ate, and feed eat other standing up, leaning against each other, caressing, touching, fascinated by the sight of each other’s mouths and the different ways the tongue, the teeth, the lips, and the throat moved around and consumed each different bit of food. Neither one of us had said a word since we’d broken out of that illusion jutsu, but words weren’t needed.

The old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” But what Ibiki can do with one udon noodle is worth a thousand pictures.