Mei and I
A work of fiction
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This is part two of my "Philadelphia, Texas" story.
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Being a work of fiction, everything in this story is made up.
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Including the fictional sexual activity all of which occurs between characters at least 18 fictional years of age.
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As he walked out the kitchen door towards the faded baby blue Volkswagen, I thought to myself, "it's a good thing that my big brother Christopher lives in the State of Texas. A smaller state couldn't contain his heart."
I followed Chris out the door to our driveway and the dusty old Beetle parked in front of our garage, pausing briefly to pluck a few new weeds that had been growing inside the tiny white decorative picket fence marking our childhood dogs final resting places.
Brown Dog was a Chocolate Lab who-knows-what mix. We don't know how old he was when Chris talked dad into bringing him home from the garbage dump where he was looking for a meal. He wasn't a young dog then, and while I don't know where he came from or how he got there. Being there on that day changed his life. Brown Dog as my little brother Robbie then aged three named him... Brown Dog had six wonderful years with us. Forty-two of the best dog-years any dog could have lived. Having three loving children to play with and his own pond to enjoy on a hot summer day.
Resting in eternal peace Buddy is Brown Dog's companion. Buddy was a weird looking "Basset-Rottweiler-I-think" mix according to Doc. Johnson our vet. Chris found him on the school campus and ditched a half day of seventh-grade walking the three miles to bring him to a forever home. To save him from our assistant principal, 'Mrs. Sauerkraut,' which while not her real name was totally her real demeanor.
But yesterday, on Saturday Christopher had really out done himself. This time he had brought home a stray human. Or at least a lost one, Meiko later told me that one meaning of her name was 'lost child.' Unlike Brown Dog and Buddy she delivered herself. Robbie soon appeared and after introductions Chris took Mei to see the little apartment over our garage which was to be her new home once the spiders were evicted.
Chris had given her our address on Saturday, but he wasn't certain that she would accept, so no work had been done on the long unused space. I soon excused myself to go prepare dinner while Chris and Robbie started moving junk and sweeping. Before long I had our evening meal completed placed on the table and was back in the garage calling them in to eat it.
After our meal we politely indulged Chris' second or third recounting of the way that he had met her in the Japanese Art section of the Lubbock Public Library. Chris looking at a book on traditional wood jointing techniques because he had a barn to rebuild and Meiko looking at a book on traditional tattoo art. How she needed a place and we had that unused apartment over the garage.
Since all three of them were dirty from moving junk and sweeping years of accumulated dirt and they hadn't gotten to the bathroom yet, I invited Meiko to take a shower in the house. She returned wearing a white terrycloth robe that looked much like a kimono in my mind. Once she was in the bathroom and we heard the water running Robbie made note of the artistic quality of the Cyathium tattoo on her thigh just visible below her robe.
"So, Robbie you like that," I asked, "girls with flower tattoos?"
"Little ones like yours sis, they are OK. Most of the multicolor 'portrait of nature' stuff that I have seen is really bad. Like a not particularly talented grade school kid drew it. But that Cyathium was really cute, tasteful, graceful."
"So, I should get one?"
"That's not what I meant, you're not a flowery girl."
"I'm more of a black skull and crossbones FTW tattoo girl?"
"No, I didn't say that either... Japanese flower on a Japanese flower, that's all..."
"Oh, so I should be jealous, is that what you are saying? You think that she's cute..."
"No..."
"She's not cute?"
"No... I mean yes, she's cute. No that's not what I was thinking... Well I mean before you said it... But you said it I..."
"You won Diana..." Christopher finally speaks just as Robbie realizing that I have successfully pulled his leg for the 417th consecutive time starts to laugh.
"You are the smart one," Robbie says.
"Just remember that."
"The sexy one too," he answers.
"You should get a 'property patch' like biker girls have," said Chris, in jest.
"Yeah, whose name?" I play along.
"Both naturally," Chris says without hesitation, "but being oldest mine comes first."
"But of course you do." I said, touching his denim covered penis briefly.
"You know she's a tattoo artist."
"You know you might have mentioned that a few times, what kind of tattoo would you like, A big red heart with 'Diana' in it." I say as the water is turned off.
I Diana am your narrator, but my friends, both of them Mave and Lydia, call me Princess Diana of Themyseira, mostly because I make them. You may have gathered by now that I love my brothers, not just in the way most sisters love their brothers. I love Chris a Robbie a bit more maturely. In more of a once the day's hard work is done their reward is a blow job and a steaming hot fuck before we all fall sleep in each-other's arms until morning type of love. It works really well for the three of us.
Mei comes from our bathroom nice and clean and elegant, wearing those adorable little Dr. Scholl's wooden sandals and a flower print dress, her black hair in a bun held together with two crossed pencils.
I quickly and softly say to my brothers, "I can't let her sleep out there with the spiders."
"We got most of them," Robbie replies.
"She gets your room tonight." I decide.
"My room."
"It leaves a buffer," Chris explains to Robbie.
"It's late we can finish the apartment tomorrow," I say loud enough for her to hear, "Meiko, you can stay in Robbie's room tonight it's the first door."
After the obligatory, I couldn't, yes you can, but I don't want to be a bother, and you aren't, back and forth Meiko walked to her car to get her suitcase.
"Having someone else in the house kind of puts a crimp in our lifestyle." Robbie says.
"Then get the apartment ready." I say to Robbie.
"And you can't complain." I say turning to Chris, who in fairness hadn't. "You guys will just have to tone it down a bit when you come tonight." I say with a wicked smile as I am certain that I am louder in the throes of passion than either of them.
The next morning after breakfast which was delayed because I had to find some old clothes to wear instead of the familiar leather apron Chris made me... Gee that's a really strange feeling cooking breakfast while being clothed. After the boys went off to school in the rust and faded blue pickup... After the polite, you don't have to, it's no problem, I don't want to impose, you aren't, back and forth Meiko and I finished cleaning out the apartment over the garage.
What I said to Meiko was true, it was a chance to make a big pile of stuff to take to the dump, the one Chris brought Brown Dog home from sixteen years ago. I helped her move her few belongings into the now substantially cleaner and substantially larger space. Those belongings which taken altogether left space in her tiny Beetle for two passengers. As we did she explained the Japanese philosophy that says a person does not own inanimate objects. But rather inanimate objects by placing previously unknown demands upon you... Own you.
I shared with her the American philosophy that we were trying really hard not to adhere to. That when one borrows from the bank, it owns you and all the inanimate objects that you think that you own. We laughed realizing if the two philosophies were not siblings they were first cousins.
From her '65 Beetle we carried two beautiful wooden boxes containing her traditional Japanese tattoo needles and her inks. Her creations were made using a manual needle not a machine. Two other less elaborate boxes contained a small autoclave and her piercing supplies. The suitcase from yesterday, a backpack and a bedroll completed her meager belongings.
I told her I got my 'Gang of Four' Kinji from James at Stanley's. She knew Stanley well, but had never worked for him, his clientele being mostly students at Texas Tech. She told me how Japanese Kinji evolved from Chinese Kinji and explained the differences between them. I lifted the back of my sweatshirt to show her.
"All four of us got the same one 'go fast,'" I said.
"Uh... You do know it says 'fart' not 'fast' don't you?"