Chesha Neko (Cheh-SHA neh-KO)

Jada Versailles was an easy woman to hate. Her hair looked like she got up early to wash, blow-dry, and curl it. Her nails weren’t chipped. Her clothes looked expensive. How could she walk in heels that high all day? She appeared, to most people in New York City, like a beautiful, professional woman of exotic ancestry who had never suffered any hardship in her entire life and never would. 

Her father had been Japanese and her mother was Brazilian. Jada’s skin was a light tan color, which darkened during many trips to the beach in the summer. She had long black hair that she liked to wear down in waves. People asked her if she was Filipina or Native American all the time. It was probably her eyes. Her eyes looked sort of Asian but they were green. Yes, she’d say, Latinas can have green eyes. In 1997, people in the States were more politically correct and culturally aware than in the eighties, but she still got a lot of strange questions about Latin culture and Brazil. Gisele Bundchen was emerging as a popular model, inadvertently helping to spread the existing stereotype over time that all Brazilian women were sex objects.  

Parts of her appearance couldn’t be helped, or at least, weren’t meant to inspire envy. Without shoes, she was five foot nine. She was fit because she actually liked the exercise she did. She had been doing capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art, from an early age, having found the dance groups too catty and the sports groups too teamwork-oriented for her taste. The expensive ensemble, though? Part of her knew that expensive things were just things and that money should be spent on necessities because of all the poverty in the world. She knew this better than most, growing up in Brazil. But another part knew that beautiful people were treated better and she had had enough maltreatment in her lifetime. 

When she was younger and saved up enough to buy the right shoes and the right clothes, the tourists, police officers, store owners—everyone—treated her like a person. If she tried to take a shortcut home through the grounds of a nice hotel while wearing her work clothes, someone would invariably shoo her away. Out-of-towners would give her that simpering smile while thinking, “poor thing.” Her mother spent her spending money on nice clothes, too. Even when they could use a new stove or it was the second notice for the electric bill. Jada and her mother knew that a new stove might make cooking easier, but they would still be in their social caste—the working poor who were scraping by. Brand name clothes, purses, and jewelry, that was how to make it feel like they weren’t constantly struggling to live in their neighborhood.

Jada had discovered clothes as a status symbol by fashion show photos in Vogue Magazine. She considered her life at home with her mom in their cramped apartment to be behind the scenes, like backstage at a fashion show. When she left, she had to project an image to the world that she was happy, confident, and not poor. Some people in her life would be able to see the goings-on backstage, but most would not.

And television! Television was also an effective way to be taken out of the neighborhood. It sucked having to plan her walk home from school to avoid things like gang members, drug addicts, or thieves. She loved to escape into romantic telenovelas or joyful singers on the stage. This is where she learned how to behave around people. Her mother wasn’t exactly negligent, but she was very interested in finding a husband most of the time, leaving Jada to develop her own ideas about men and sexuality and everything else. But the example was clear—men are important. Do everything for them so they don’t run away, like her father had.

Her father used to swear up and down that he was going to marry her mother. That was, until the Japanese members of his family threatened to cut him off financially if he married “the Latina”. Apparently, when given the choice, a child out of wedlock was preferable to a Latina in the family. A combination of her mother’s emotional distance and her father’s guilt got her sent to the best boarding school in Brazil at age fourteen. She got into a reputable art school in New York City, in os Estados Unidos. All these environments and factors were what constructed Jada’s idea about how to look, act, and date.

Sometimes, Jada wanted a boyfriend so badly, above all else. Other times, she sort of stumbled into these things. She vamped because you were supposed to vamp. She wore risque outfits because that’s what starlets wore. And if a man wanted to fool around with her, she may as well go along with it. She could say no sometimes, but she had hooked up with guys that she had no interest in. How she felt about the guy wasn’t as important as the innate masculine authority he possessed. Jada was so accustomed to having her feelings ignored that she often didn’t take them into account when making decisions.

As an adult, she ran a successful art gallery. She could tell you how much most paintings in the gallery were worth off the top of her head, or what the latest Van Gogh sold for at auction. When she was bored on the subway, she would guess how much people’s shoes and purses cost. She knew the value of a lot of things, but she gave herself away too often because of the exchange rate: the right kind of love and affection from a man was so valuable to her that she would pay almost anything offered in exchange. If she had to deal with her partner’s difficult family, their financial problems, advice on what to wear—anything like that, it was worth it. Love was the only thing she wanted; the rest was gravy. 

Women disliked women that looked like her, but her disadvantage was that she had no idea what was acceptable behavior from a loved one. Men got away with a lot. She had intimacy problems with her friends, too. In art school, her closest friend was her roommate, Grace. Grace walked in on Jada naked with another woman. They had been dating for months. Why hadn’t she told Grace? For Jada, everything was on a need-to-know basis. Her guest star father off in Japan was so secretive, it made Jada secretive, and assume everyone else was being secretive as well. Maybe sneaking around was thrilling, or just a guarded practice of not putting all her eggs in one basket. No one person should know everything about her, right?

There were more secrets. Being the boss at the gallery gave her a lot of flexibility in her schedule. Sometimes, by night, she was known as Chesha Neko. She wore a mask and cowl, green armor, and advanced weaponry. The alias “Chesha Neko” referred to the green smoke she could summon from devices on her wrists and disappear like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. The smoke was always a different kind of poison and almost never fatal. When gangs in her neighborhood talked about gunshot wounds, Jada had always heard about trying to scare a guy and shooting him dead by accident or an enemy escaping with just a slug in the arm. Guns were clearly too unreliable. Poisons, when well studied, were predictable. 

At her father’s funeral, an uncle she had only met in passing approached her about looking after her now that her father was gone. This uncle was always referred to as a chemist, and maybe he was, but it was also apparent that he was involved with organized crime. It was only after her gallery was struggling that she took her uncle up on his offer. He helped her to create Chesha Neko.

The Chesha Neko identity was a criminal one, designed mainly to supplement her income. Jada would be damned if she was going to struggle financially ever again. She carefully researched valuable items to steal and sell—or collect for herself. As a fighter, she was a force to be reckoned with, but lately Jada had lost one too many encounters with other criminals and law enforcement. This training had taken her as far as it could; she would need to update her skill set if she were to continue in her new secret life as a criminal/collector.

UMBRELLAS

Tokyo, 1983 

A ten-year-old girl named Jada Luciana Martines Kaneko ducked behind a vending machine at a Tokyo subway station. Peering around the corner, she saw that she wasn’t being pursued by anyone. Trying to appear cool and collected, she grabbed her heavy pink and white shopping bag and walked to the platform to take the train home. 

After she entered the gates of her father’s estate, Jada went off the path into a wooded area a few meters away. She emptied the contents of her bag into a trunk behind a gardening shed: five different umbrellas. They joined dozens of others. She had been visiting her father for two weeks now; she had plenty of time to discover a way to act out and get good at it. Naturally, Jada didn’t need dozens of umbrellas, but children begin to steal or shoplift during times of significant emotional upset.

Jada’s father was dating a Japanese woman and thought he had concealed this from Jada. No such luck. She was sharp. Posing as just work friends, Yamashiro Kaneko and his colleague Mariko spent little time in the same room together when Jada would visit the office. However, when Jada and her father were walking his dog, they ran into Mariko and stopped to chat. As the wind picked up, Yamashiro lectured his daughter about zipping her jacket. When she fumbled with the zipper, he handed the dog’s leash to Mariko without a word to help Jada with her jacket. If they had really been work friends, he would have politely asked “Could you hold this leash for a minute, Ms. Sumi?” The fact that he just handed it to her suggested a level of familiarity that he had not displayed with any other female Jada had met. 

It was no surprise to most people that Yamashiro would be dating. After all, he and Jada’s mother, Aurélia, had broken up nearly seven years ago. But Jada saw this woman Mariko as a threat to her fleeting closeness with her father. She only got to see him once a year—maybe twice—since she lived far away, in Brazil. When he went out for the evening, she knew he was out with her on a date. 

And what was she supposed to do with this information? Her mother had been so heartbroken when she understood that Yamashiro was not coming back to Brazil and was not going to marry the mother of his child. Jada was too young to remember that, but Aurélia really only mentioned Jada’s father as the man who broke her heart. Aurélia had also been dating for years now, but Jada felt like she was carrying a secret that would upset her fragile mother. 

She was split between two worlds and didn’t feel safe, secure, or loved in either one. Acting out and inevitably getting in trouble would only make her life even harder, so she found ways to express her frustration. She would do “bad” stuff, both praying that she wouldn’t get caught and hoping she would. 

In Japan, kids took the subway by themselves all the time. People were sort of expected to do the right thing there, but Jada started stealing things from people. Umbrellas proved to be the easiest thing to snatch and she might not get in too much trouble if she were caught. She was hooked, becoming enthralled with the sneakiness of her daring conquests. 

This time, when she came back to her stash, her father’s younger brother Tanjiro had seen her and approached from behind.

“What are you up to, Jada?” he asked in Japanese. She jumped.

“I… I found them…” she stuttered, wishing her lie weren’t so lame. Tanjiro kneeled to look through the trunk and smiled. 

“You should try stealing bicycles. Better resale value,” he told her, standing up once more. “When I was your age, I’d steal bicycles. I got pretty good at it.”

“Are you going to tell my dad?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’m going to tell your dad to get you some Judo lessons to keep you occupied. If you got caught doing this, he would not be pleased. It would bring him great shame. You don’t want to do that, do you?” he asked.

“No,” she conceded.

“Let’s go back to the house, Jada,” he said, taking her hand even though she considered herself way too old for hand-holding. Didn’t he know anything?

Over the years, Jada would see her uncle even less frequently than her father. If Tanjiro’s visits to Yamashiro’s house coincided with Jada’s visit, he made a point to spend quality time with her while everyone else was fawning over Yamashiro and Mariko’s new babies. Those stupid half-brothers got so much attention and they were 100% Japanese, not half Brazilian like her. They were always treated better in her mind and occasionally in reality. 

Tanjiro encouraged her to keep going with Judo lessons and praised her progress in capoeira, a martial art she did back home in Brazil. Her uncle didn’t spend all that much time with her, nor did he make an extraordinary effort to be kind to her. The little he did was enough to make a meaningful impression because, in the area of male affection, Jada was low-hanging fruit. 

Yamashiro died young, at the age of forty, from a heart condition that he told no one but Mariko about. It was even more evidence for Jada that they weren’t close. Jada was only twenty years old, still just a student at an art school in America. At the funeral, Tanjiro took Jada aside for a talk. He rolled up his sleeves. His arms were covered in Yakuza tattoos.

“Do you know what these are?” he asked her, now an English speaker, too.

“Yakuza?” she guessed. Everyone in Tokyo knew about the Yakuza, even little girls that only visited once or twice a year.

“Have you thought about your future? Your career?” he questioned her.

“I’m in school,” she said dismissively.

“Very few people make a living doing paintings, Jada. If you ever need guidance, some career counseling, come see me. I will always take care of you,” Tanjiro told her. It seemed like a decent, noble offer at the time, but Jada said she’d think about it. At the reading of her father’s will, Jada received a large amount of money from her father. It was completely surprising. Tanjiro was the only extended family who showed an interest in her well-being before he knew about the money. 

Jada used the money to buy an art gallery in New York City, where she had been attending art school. It became successful, but Jada wanted every hour of every day to be packed with something. She had a hole in her soul. She needed projects, goals, hobbies, relationships, anything to stay busy. If she stood still for too long, the grief would catch her. The loneliness would catch her. What else could she do?

One night, after a few drinks, she called Tanjiro to take him up on his offer. For the next few years, she did jobs for her uncle. She wasn’t Yakuza, per se, but rather a liaison between Yakuza and organizations that require a beautiful young woman to access. Some projects were in Tokyo, but most were in New York City as she kept the gallery running. Eventually, he developed an alias for her thieving interests: Chesha Neko. She got a costume and learned about poisons. He helped her become an excellent thief capable of defending herself in dangerous situations. 

Jada didn’t harbor any delusions of Tanjiro being a good person. She just knew it was an opportunity to develop skills and work for a powerful man who would never try to sleep with her and that was good enough. The jobs she did for him were highly exciting, dangerous, and illegal. She harmed people all the time and always criminals. No one innocent. Only on one occasion did Jada have to kill someone. Tanjiro was there for her, helping her hide the body and telling her about his first kill and the distress it had caused him. It wasn’t an altogether terrible experience for her. After all, it was the first time an adult male spoke to her about her emotional experience.  

For the two years that she worked for Tanjiro, he warned her constantly about getting romantically involved with the Yakuza. 

“If you accept a date, accept a gift, accept a kiss with one of them—you will be theirs. You will either be disposed of in a dumpster when he is done with you or you will marry him and all of your little boys and girls will be Yakuza, and their children after them. As your oyabun, some have asked me if they can court you and I have said no. Please, if you must disobey something that I tell you, don’t let it be this,” Tanjiro told her. Jada did not make a habit of dating in Japan. 

After working with Tanjiro for two years, he released her. She could go on however she chose. Tanjiro had taught her how to hide money, too, so she was living a comfortable life in New York City without the government taxing her very much. Her gallery was immensely successful, but her income was nicely supplemented. But also, while in Tokyo, she had discovered some very unusual Japanese artists. At this time, many young American men were reading manga and ogling geisha girls—Japan was hot. So was her gallery. 

Reflecting back on her time in Japan, Jada had no regrets. She was sure that some of the projects she helped with resulted in bad things and people getting hurt, but she also helped with disaster relief and public works. If Tanjiro had not released her, she knew she would have been trapped in the Yakuza life forever. Organized crime wasn’t all bad and wasn’t all good, it just needed to be no-strings-attached for her to get involved. When she chose her independent criminal projects, she was mindful to ask herself, “How bad is this? Will I ever be able to get out once I get in?” This philosophy would take years to seep into her personal life. 

RAZ-NEVA

It was the end of winter in 1997. Jada’s gallery was getting more successful each year and her other life as Chesha Neko was getting really exciting. She had been robbing small museums, the homes of private collectors, and corporate offices that displayed art that was a little too appealing. During these heists, she had encountered superheroes only three times. And, while she managed to escape some heroes without too much trouble, her encounter with others was a sobering experience. One woman, a member of a formidable superhero team, was a martial arts expert and had nearly apprehended Jada. So, she decided that her skills needed a little upgrading. She wanted something obscure that these cape-and-mask assholes wouldn’t see coming. 

Over a few months, she started to hear about many different martial arts and training techniques through her faceless acquaintances on the internet, capoeira class, her gym, elite cocktail parties, and not-so-elite parties with rich college students. Everyone always claimed that their class or retreat was life-changing, but one caught Jada’s attention. She ended up choosing an athletic retreat in Marseilles, France after exploring many different options. Young and old, rich and well, less rich: all of Jada’s acquaintances said that this “Health and Power” retreat was totally life-changing. 

The professional instruction in swimming, running, acrobatics, and martial arts was appealing. If she didn’t like one class, she could jump to another. And if they were all bad, she’d be in the south of France. Although she hadn’t heard of it before, their featured martial art this year was called Războinic nevăzut, or Răz-nevă. It meant “unseen warrior” and it was practiced in tournaments around the world, although it originated somewhere in Eastern Europe. The idea was to disarm and surprise aggressors with elements of many different fighting styles.

For six weeks, she would learn with thirty men and women from a local entrepreneur of some sort who had studied it for years and won a few championship belts. The retreat seemed to be marketed toward bored, rich adrenaline junkies with whom she hoped to blend in. The workouts would be challenging enough for her and the setting was fabulous enough that wouldn’t be too unusual for an art gallery owner to attend anything there.

She arrived on a cool, clear Sunday in April. The airport was so white and clean. No one seemed as excited as Jada felt. But, all of the people had a lethargic, blase demeanor so she made sure to hide her enthusiasm. A hired car brought her to the hotel resort where the retreat was being held. The Mediterranean ocean was sparkling flawlessly as the sun slowly sunk into it. Others were arriving out front as they pulled up, all of them looking impressed with the hotel. It had sand-colored stone with ornate carvings around the windows, some nude cherub sculptures as base relief in the facade, and light blue glass windows which added an updated touch to the dignified establishment. 

After unpacking in her private suite, Jada joined everyone on a large terrace for the cocktail mixer. The view almost made her melt—the whole thing looked out onto the sea coast. It looked like the hills were piling up on top of each other to catch the view as well. There were palm trees in terracotta pots every few feet, as well as small tables with white tablecloths to hold all of the drinks and appetizers.

The crowd seemed a bit conspicuous in her opinion. She had chosen to wear a little black dress, an amber necklace, and black high heels. Most of the others wore several thousand dollars worth of designer clothes. With her glass of white wine, she mingled with a retired basketball player from the U.S., a Mexican soccer player staying in shape for the off-season, a non-profit organization owner from England concerned about her safety while traveling, the heir to a large Romanian natural gas company, and other surprisingly ambitious people. When she had finished her wine, she set the glass down on a table and decided to leave. The other students (or would they call them clients?) were unexpectedly interesting, but she felt drained after a day of travel. I’m not here to make friends, she thought to herself, then laughed to herself because she sounded like the renegade contestant on a reality show.  

Before she could go, she noticed one of their hosts moving about the terrace, greeting and thanking everyone. He was striking—tall, slim and muscular, and graceful... like a bullfighter. He wore his black hair tied back and his facial hair formed about eighty percent of a goatee. His cheekbones could cut glass. He wore a dark plum collared shirt, wrinkled, with the top three buttons undone and black leather pants. When he spoke to some of the women on the terrace, they would stop him from walking away three or four times before he could move on to the next person. The word “fawning” came to mind. Jada was still watching him when she noticed she hadn’t left yet and he was walking towards her.

"Hello, I'm Ayano Ilanescu. I will be teaching you here, should you choose Raz-neva. Can I get you another drink?” he smiled, shaking her hand. He was unapologetically handsome, with palpable charisma. His Eastern European accent tickled her ear.

“Oh, I’m, uh, Jada Versailles...” she responded rather sheepishly.

“Jade... with amber necklace...” he gently touched the pendant on her collarbone and looked up, directly into her eyes. “Can I...?”

“Can you...?” she stammered. She never stammered. 

“Get you another drink?” he clarified. He had been pointing to her empty glass and she hadn’t noticed, as she could not get her eyes to stop taking in every detail of this gorgeous man. 

“Oh, yes. Yes,” she said as she collected her thoughts. “I liked the pinot gris.” 

Internally, she was kicking herself for being caught so off-guard. How gauche, she thought. He had to be at least in his mid-thirties, but he made her feel even younger than the paltry twenty-four years she had. They gave each other brief autobiographical accounts and then he was off in the crowd to dazzle some other poor woman. 

She stayed for the rest of the evening, although she was quieter than usual, still not recovered from her lackluster introduction to Ayano. Many in the group stayed to listen to his thoughts on the techniques of Răz-nevă, its noble history, why it was important to be engaged in a combat sport for personal development... The glow from the string of lights across the building’s walls created warmth on the cold stone walls. Ayano listened to stories about their lives and enthusiastically responded to how each one of them would make a difference in themselves and become more effective human beings! Everyone seemed to be enthralled with Ayano, like he made them all feel special in some way.

Before it got much later, he told everyone to get a good night’s sleep. The last group of men headed upstairs to their hotel rooms and only a handful of heterosexual women lingered behind. Jada became aware of this dynamic and felt like it would definitely turn into a reality show if she stayed much longer. Besides, she had embarrassed herself enough for one evening. She took a furtive glance behind her as she ascended the stairs. He waved at her through the other women, as if he knew she was going to turn around.

LESSONS

Ayano taught a morning session and an afternoon session. The attendees were allowed to come and go as they pleased. It didn’t matter which classes they stuck with as long as they were all happy. Ayano’s lessons started at six in the morning and went until lunch. The time went by quickly and enjoyably. After three days, Jada had sparred with each woman in the group and a few of the men. She was getting better by the minute, she thought. Ayano led almost all of the lessons, with two men assisting him: a Russian in his forties named Sergei and a younger-looking Romanian named Dumitru.

Sergei was six foot four, making him look like a human watchtower. He had long, straight brown hair and wore glasses. He might have been good-looking, Jada thought, if not for his soulless eyes and hypervigilant, shady demeanor. While the average person might not notice it, he surveyed the room constantly and it made her nervous, as if something was going to burst in at any moment. He had several prison tattoos, although some were fading or he might have been trying to have them removed. As far as Jada could tell, his job was instructing Răz-nevă, whispering stuff to other employees, taking phone calls, and looking contemptuous at all times.

Dumitru might have been five foot eleven or so, and much skinnier than Ayano or Sergei. He wore his dark hair very short with long sideburns, small mustache, and a five o’clock shadow on his face. He wore a gold chain and a brightly colored red polo shirt with big jeans with one leg rolled up. Did he even know that it was a signal for drug dealers in the States? When he went from place to place, it seemed like he was always in a light jog, bouncing quickly to deliver a message or run an errand. He could not have been older than twenty-six, she thought, and he was probably an apprentice of some kind.

After two weeks in Marseille, Jada had developed a good rapport with everyone. In the afternoons, she was alternating between yoga classes and meditation. There were people from all over the world at the retreat, but only a few who were from cultures like Jada’s, which wasn’t strict about punctuality. Jada and four other students were chastised daily for being late and they would have to do extra drills to make up for it. It was a deterrent but did not stop their lateness entirely. On the tenth day of classes, for example, Jada had been only twelve minutes late.    

OUT AT THE BAR

She was still not immune to Ayano’s charms, but she had been able to put aside her attraction and be business-only, just learning from him. Socializing was for fellow students. Occasionally, the group would have a sit-down dinner together but most nights, they walked into the town square and found something simple to eat or spent time at one of the pubs. Their second Friday together, Jada was having a few drinks with the younger male and female students of the group. The Romanian energy company heir, Marku, had poured her a strong local drink called palincă from his flask. Palincă was a local plum brandy of various proofs—this one was strong. 

The soccer player, Josue, was telling them about the time he had to play in the World Cup Finals while he was still drunk from the night before. The table erupted into laughter, then Jada excused herself to buy a pack of cigarettes at the bar. She only smoked during a night of hard drinking but her athletic prowess would not allow her to do either very often.

She bought the pack of cigarettes and opened them up, only to realize the busy bartender hadn’t given her any matches. Trying to get his attention, she stepped on the brass foot rail to make herself taller. It was going to take a while for him to notice her. She turned around and was face to face with Ayano, or rather, the extra height put her exposed cleavage directly in front of his face. Ayano blinked for a moment and looked up at her face.

“Oh, sorry, I… didn’t see you there!” she laughed, finding her repeated awkwardness with him funny for once as opposed to mortifying. She stepped down.

“Do you need a light?” he asked, seeing the cigarette in her mouth.

“Yes, thank you. Sorry, I’m a little drunk. I had some palincă,” she said, leaning her cigarette into the flame he provided. 

“Oh no. Who got you that?” he laughed.

“It was Marku,” she said, feeling like she was snitching to their teacher.

“Be careful, some men in Romania go hunting for foreign women,” he warned lightly. “Usually because our women won’t have them!”

“Yeah, but I think he’s harmless.”

“Famous last words! But you seem like a woman who can take care of herself,” he commented and ordered a few drinks for him and his friends at another table. “You’re doing very well in the sparring matches. Very light-footed, yet very strong.”

“Oh, thanks. I love it here.” She stopped, feeling she was in danger of gushing.

“We love having you,” he said, winking at her. “If Marku won’t leave you alone, tell him plimbă ursu.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means ‘go walk a bear’,” he said. Ayano got his drinks from the bartender—with no discussion of money—and gave her a mildly flirtatious look before rejoining his friends. 

Jada smiled to herself. Would she sleep with him if he tried something? He was the teacher. It would be unprofessional. Her rational, responsible self said, “Nah.” But she could hear someone else in her head whisper, “Fuck yeah I would!” 

When Jada returned to her group, the gadabout Italian woman named Madlena had seen her talking with Ayano.

“Aren’t men like him the worst?” she lamented to Jada.

“What do you mean?” Jada asked innocently.

“The ones who know how good-looking they are!” she giggled.

“You know what they say about him, don’t you?” Stoyan chimed in, using a conspiratorial tone. He owned a chain of the nicer hotels in central Europe.

“What?” Madlena leaned in.

“He’s in the mob... sells drugs and guns on the side. You see how his guys are,” Stoyan gossiped. “The people in office aren’t the ones with the real power in his country.”

“That can’t be true. His mining company is doing great. The price of copper has been very high lately,” Marku added. 

Jada sipped her drink slowly, considering their rumors. Maybe they were just jealous men trying to make Ayano seem less appealing to the available women, but if the rumors were true… well, Jada knew a lot of questionable characters in New York  City and maybe would be considered one herself. She decided it wasn’t a deal-breaker if he did have criminal involvement. It would depend on how organized the organization was and how criminal was their crime. Then again, it could also just be rumors.  

TRAINING

On the following Monday, she was preparing to spar with Josue for the last round when Ayano tapped him on the shoulder.

“Go on and work with Dumitru,” Ayano instructed Josue. Ayano held up the pads for her to practice hitting. “Come on, Jada Versailles. Roundhouse, jab, jab, uppercut, then sweep.”

She tried not to stare at him, but he was in great shape. Since he wasn’t wearing a shirt, his chiseled abs and pierced nipples were hard to miss. Convincing herself she could still spar with a man this attractive, she put aside the tape she was using on her knuckles and faced him. Every time she made eye contact with him, she felt her face getting warm. He clapped the pads together, telling her it was time to start. She could keep up with the pace he demanded for the first few minutes but then fell behind. They took a break.

“You have done capoeira?” he guessed, taking the pads off his hands. Dumitru came over, jogging lightly, and handed him a bottle of cold water.

“Yes, I grew up near São Paulo. And New York City,” she said, drinking from hers.

“It is a beautiful art, also involves deceit, but Răz-nevă is a little more aggressive. We’ll do it faster; I’ll show you.” He came across the sparring area to guide her through the movements more efficiently. He was holding her arm, demonstrating an uppercut, when he noticed her hands. “Your tape. You’re going to hurt yourself. Let me fix it.”

Jada felt a bit like a kindergartener getting her shoelaces tied, but she also noticed a strange sensation she got around him. His masculine scent, the rhythm of his accent, those dark piercing eyes beneath those dark hawk-like eyebrows—they made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She watched a bead of sweat go down his neck onto his bare chest. For the briefest moment, she imagined grabbing him by the back of his head and kissing him deeply.

He looked over at her and grinned. 

“Let’s go,” he said and went back to his corner. Thank god they weren’t working on holds that day, she thought. Any more physical contact would be treacherous. He had her repeat a series of movements again and again, each time moving the pads higher and faster.

“C’mon, a few more,” he said, only slightly out of breath.

“I can’t,” she panted. If she hadn’t been sparring with Ayano, she would have taken a break five minutes ago. She knew she was no slouch, but this guy was intensely fast.

“You’ve got to make it a long con. Let your opponent think you have nothing left or—better yet—never had anything to begin with. Răz-nevă is about impressions and deceit as much as the movements. They see what you let them see. Come on. Show me.”

Jada took another moment to regroup and slowly started back up again. Suddenly, she sped up with a few rapid jabs. He cheered her on and when it seemed like she had run out of steam again, he lowered the pads. She surprised him with one last quick jab, nearly landing it on his rib cage.

“Ha!!” he exclaimed, dodging her. “That’s it! Take five, then we start again.”

Ayano worked one-on-one with her a few more times during the week. On Thursday, she noticed that she was the first person he spoke with and she glowed for the rest of the morning. Sometimes they sat together during meals, getting to know each other bite by bite. She learned that he developed new uses for metals in technology; a metallurgist, and traveled to New York a few times a year, even owning a home there.

“I set up some of the business in the States after my wife died, I didn’t want to be in Romania all the time,” he mentioned. 

“Oh. I’m sorry for your loss,” she told him. 

“It was years ago. But thank you. Whereabouts in New York are you?”

They talked about her art gallery, Ayano revealing an impressive understanding of modern artworks. She also told him about her upbringing between Brazil and the US, with summer trips to Japan to visit her father. The widower thing, though, she thought. He’s single, but complicated. How intriguing.  

Another evening at the pub, they were drinking out on the patio. They had arrived with different groups but quickly found each other to chat. In her mind, she fantasized about sneaking around back with him to tear each other’s clothes off. But Jada was trying to do an impression of somebody that didn’t have a massive crush on her instructor. Getting into character, she spoke as if she were aloof and tried not to fidget. They were about to part ways when one of the women—a slender blonde who had been after Ayano for weeks—gave her a withering look as she passed them. Jada rolled her eyes.

“She just glared at me,” she complained.

“Jealousy doesn’t look good on her,” Ayano remarked.

“Well, there isn’t anything to be jealous of yet,” she replied with a little smile.

“I was talking about your talents in Răz-nevă,” he claimed and gave her a poignant look.

“Were you? Maybe she thinks I’m a teacher’s pet,” Jada quipped, meeting his gaze with equal intensity. Maybe she wanted there to be something to be jealous of. 

Neither one of them wanted to be the first to look away, but Jada turned and went back to her table. She felt like the particles in the air around her were highly charged and she was certain he was still looking at her. In fact, every time she looked in his direction for the rest of the evening, he would be looking at her without even trying to hide it. At the end of the night, it took all she had to leave with the other students and not initiate something with him. The effort could be read on her face.  

The next day was an extended staring contest, a game of chicken. Jada could not keep her eyes off of him but she also couldn’t bring herself to approach him. Fridays always moved slowly, the fifth day in a row of training, but this one seemed endless. She wanted to know what he was thinking, if he was going to talk to her, and if he was, what was she going to say? What did she want from him? Concentrating on sparring was difficult and sometimes impossible.

At the end of the afternoon, Jada was paired with a Greek woman who was more muscular than she was but with half the skill and speed. As they began, Jada noticed that Ayano was coming nearer to observe them. Naturally, this shook her up. She could block many of the Greek woman’s swings, but was too frazzled to land any hits. Ayano stood at the sidelines with his arms folded across his chest and shouted a few words of advice, directed at her and her opponent. The match ended with a devastating throw—the Greek managed to throw Jada over her shoulder and onto the mat with a loud thump. 

Ayano congratulated the woman for the win and dismissed her for the day as Jada lay there with the wind knocked out of her. She was lying on her back, sweaty and flustered. Her loose tank top was no longer covering her sports bra and her chest was rising and falling rapidly to catch her breath. Ayano stood above her, watching her with thinly concealed desire.

He offered her his hand to help her up. When she rose, he didn’t let go.

“I want to see you tonight,” he said calmly, pulling her towards him slightly. Her eyes scanned the room to see if anyone was watching. Everyone was involved in their training.

“Okay,” she said and held his hand tightly. “I’ll come down to the lobby around seven.”

JADA’S ROOM

He released her and she went up to her room quickly. In the shower, she was lost in thought. Where were they going? What was she supposed to wear to this? Did it even matter that the small group would probably see them? She got out of the shower and towel-dried her hair. With her bath towel wrapped around her at the bust, she walked towards the bureau when she heard a knock on the door. Through the peephole, she could see it was Ayano.

She instinctively wrapped her towel around herself more tightly and opened the door. Ayano stood there, still sweaty from the day’s training. He looked like he was bothered by his thoughts.

“You’re early,” she said, mildly disturbed, but more nervous. She had a very good idea as to why he had come up here. 

He approached her with a hungry look in his eyes. Without saying a word, he pulled her towards him and kissed her on the lips. She felt him breathing deeply as he continued to kiss her, slowly coaxing her tongue to come out to play. She heard him subtly shut the door behind him without a backwards glance. Their kiss was intoxicating; she almost forgot that she was standing in a towel in a French hotel room. He shouldn’t be in here, she thought. Any moment now, there would be a lull and she would… she would tell him… Fuck! They weren’t slowing down at all, their hands too eager to explore, touch, and unwrap each other after the days and weeks of tension. Her fingers were so excited to feel the muscles in his arms and feel every part of him her mind had imagined feeling. 

He backed her into the wall, the intensity of his intentions nearly overwhelming her. One hand was clutching her towel close to her body but Ayano tore it from her, never breaking contact from their kiss. She made a gasping sound and heard herself say “Wait a minute!” in her mind but something made her stop short of saying it aloud. She told herself this was a bad idea and shrank back a little bit to slow things down as they kissed. Then, she felt his hand on the small of her back, the other cupping her breast. Soon, he was kissing her chest and her tits. His lips admired her nipple and then he bit it gently. She cried out in pleasure and her body stood up straight, offering itself to him despite the objections of her mind. Now, she was making out with him. She ran her fingers through his hair and grabbed the back of his head. She demanded control of their kiss, her other hand on his face.

She felt his fingers run up her back, caressing her spine, her shoulder blades. He was kissing her as if drawn by a magnetic force, making low, erotic sounds. His mouth moved its way down her body, from her nipples, between her breasts, on her belly… he gently bit her rib cage and began to kiss her breasts again. She was scared of what he would do to her next, but she also knew she would not stop him, whatever it was. Her stomach had that weightless panic to it when someone misses a stair on the way down. Her pulse was going so fast and she felt her clit starting to throb.

He placed a hand on each of her hips and kneeled in front of her. She felt her body tense up against the wall. “Oh my god, he’s not going to…” she started to think. He was breaking the rules: everyone knows you don’t fuck a person until at least the third date. He spread her labia open with his fingers and sucked on her clit. Jada was outraged that this man she barely knew was putting his mouth on her private parts. But she felt such a rush, knowing that this was happening way too soon and there were a thousand reasons she should stop. His warm, curious tongue pressed against her clit as he worked a finger into her pussy. He licked her again and again, reaching every tender nerve. 

How dare he do this to her?! He grabbed two handfuls of her ass and pulled her hips toward his tongue. She cried out again and the sound she made drove him wild. If he hadn’t been so good at this, she might have stopped him. 

Ayano sensed she was literally getting weak in the knees so he tore himself away from her soft, wet pussy. He took her hands and walked backward to the bed, pulling her on top of him. She felt his hard bulge underneath her and it triggered a mindless lust that immediately silenced any more internal questioning. Reaching beneath her, she pulled out his cock from his workout pants. She admired how thick and long he felt in her hand. She pumped his shaft up and down a few times and he made a primitive, animalistic groan. They both rushed frantically to get him inside of her, with no mention of a condom. The head of his cock found her wet pussy. She exhaled as she took in the rest of his cock and whimpered in relief. He thrusted upward and grabbed her ass, guiding her to ride him hard.

“Oh fuck!” She leaned forward to kiss him roughly some more while she bounced on top of him. His sweaty body against hers and his hands clawing at her everywhere created a savage excitement. “Oh fuck, just like that!” she moaned as his cock kept hitting a sensitive spot. It was so strange to notice she hadn’t even hugged him before they started fucking today. His presence was still foreign to her, with no time to gradually adapt to each other.

She leaned back to ride him upright, their hips moving together in expert synchronicity. He reached forward to rub her clit with his thumb. He felt her quiver. She moaned and told him “Slow down...”

“You can cum now, I’ll make you cum again,” he promised. Jada absolutely believed him. He kept rubbing her clit until she was right about to climax. Then she collapsed forward onto his chest and held him as she came, her hand gripping his shoulder as she cried out.

He clutched her ass again and growled, “You’re so fucking sexy.” He flipped her over onto the bed and got the rest of the way undressed. On her back, Jada was writhing in anticipation. Ayano got next to her and whispered into her ear.

“You had enough?” he asked gruffly, grabbing one of her tits.

“No,” she breathed nervously.

“You want me to stop?” he tantalized her as he ran a finger up and down her stomach and chest.

“No.” Jada felt a rush of desire and grabbed his dick, coaxing him closer. “You’re so fucking hard!”

“Yeah?” he asked, waiting for her to say something. 

“Keep fucking me,” she said, arching her back. “Don’t fucking stop.” 

He spread her legs wide and plunged his cock inside of her again, hard and fast, watching the beautiful expressions of elation on her face. She pulled him on top of her, her fingernails digging into his back. It made him moan. He looked at her wickedly. He thrust harder each time he felt her nails. Then, he lifted one of her legs onto his shoulder and stroked her clit again as he plowed into her. He lifted the other leg and she pivoted her hips, making her pussy feel smaller and tighter.

“Right there, right there!” she gasped. She never wanted him to stop. Any thought that wasn’t about him flew away.

“I wanna cum inside you,” he panted and kept going, loving every sensation.

“Cum inside me, oh god!” Her whole body shuddered as she came again. He grasped her thighs as he came inside her. She didn’t care, she was on the pill. Good enough. As he caught his breath, he wiped sweat off his brow and lay down next to her again. They felt too overheated for postcoital cuddling, so they faced each other in a loose embrace.

“I owe you so much more romance than that,” he told her, giving her a kiss.

“I don’t need romance,” she lied. “But if you weren’t such a good lay, I’d be mad.”

“I’m so sorry. I am a weak man. And I was so sure you would come to me first,” he said, his handsome features forming a pout. 

“You did seem pretty sure.”

“I was thinking about you all the time,” he confessed, tracing the shape of her collarbone with his finger absently while he gazed into her eyes. “About you coming up to my room. Or maybe, approaching me at the pub one night and sneaking off together…”

“There’s still time for that.” She smiled.

“Good. I want every second with you I can get,” he told her. His gaze was so direct. A vacation fling, she thought. This was going to be so hot.