Chihiro listened to frogs croaking out in the darkness, her chest tighter than she’d felt in years. The little building was set behind the shrine to Tenryuu, and was usually used as storage, its walls filled to the ceiling with boxes, garments, and more. Except for a night like the night she found herself in. Her white kosode lightly rasped against her hakama as she breathed, her extremely substantial bust pulling the fabric with each breath. Behind her she could feel the presence of the other occupant of the temporary room, his breathing stiff with indecision.
Things weren’t supposed to go this way! she thought.
The village of Sanrioka was beautiful in the late spring, the mighty Tenryuu river that cut through the mountains having made great wide open spaces, perfect for the horses that were the village’s claim to fame. Many of the warlords surrounding the village desired the stallions as studs for their own herds, but their mutual suspicions allowed a wary peace to form in Sanrioka. A peace that allowed the ancient traditions to continue as they were supposed to.
And in Sanrioka, the great horse race of the third month was a great celebration. Held every year, the race was a ritual meant to bring rider and horse together into one spirit in honor of the mighty, unceasing beating of the river’s god. But the race was not the end of the ceremony. To great fanfare and the beating of drums, the winning stallion would be paraded around the village and solemnly mated to mares of the various herds, ensuring that no one farm monopolized the strength and endurance in him.
As for the rider… the miko of the village drew lots to see who would be the human mare. In the small shrine building, for one night, the miko and the rider were in a separate world. Whoever they were outside mattered nothing. Once the miko put on the ancient wooden mask, she was no longer herself. Strong taboos covered the pair, and the occasional child born in the 12th month was always known to be under the protection of the deity.
Shuffling behind Chihiro, the rider of the day came closer to her. She trembled, knowing that to deny him would be to dishonor the river that gave life to the village, but also unable to completely deny the identity of the rider, panting behind her. She could feel that he, too, was as beset by thoughts as she was. Her fingers touched the oval-shaped mask over her face, trying to reassure herself that there was a shield to protect her.
This was not the first night she had been chosen by divine favor to lay with the winner. She had embraced the rider in his different guises many times over the years – from rough and bulky to refined and gentle. And each night the two of them had been able to slip into the sacred roles demanded of them, until they descended once again into their lives in the village the morning after. Each time she had let the masked priestess indulge every feeling of desire in her body.
And yet, t hose nights had always lingered on the edge of her memory, of ecstasy that she had tried to place on the shoulders of that other woman, who only looked like her. H er son, Ryuutaro, had been born after one of those nights.
But taboo or no, her husband Heitaro had left her to fight in the wars when Ryuutaro was still young, disappearing into the black smoke of conflict. Life for Chihiro since then had been strenuous, requiring mighty effort on her part to see the farm survive, but from an early age Ryuutaro had done everything in his power to help his mother. The sight of his head of black hair bouncing up and down with the power of his running strides was a common occurrence in Sanrioka. With his help, the two had been able to feed themselves without selling any of their horses by necessity.
Chihiro may have lost her husband to sacrilegious jealousy, but her beauty had only grown as the years had gone on. Many times the men of the village had begged her to wed them, and their reasonings had been as varied as them – economic necessity, security for her and her son, or simple sexual agreeableness. She had been honest with all of them, and had considered the merits of each on their own terms. But from a young age, she knew that Ryuutaro would have hated any man who we dded his mother.
I t did not stop her from allowing some of the men of Sanrioka to help her when her loneliness was at its most terrible. That her most frequent partners had been the winners of her races was a coincidence she tried to not recognize.
A hand brushed up Chihiro’s back, disturbing her long black hair, lightly tied near the bottom, and Chihiro’s mouth opened in nervous response. The hand moved up to Chihiro’s shoulder, resting too lightly on it, as if the rider were afraid of Chihiro bolting like a scared mare herself. A part of Chihiro wanted the rider to get it over with, so they could once again become human beings and forget this night.
My son! she wailed in her mind.
Chihiro had been chosen by lot to be the presiding priestess, and under a blue sky that matched the color of the river, with clouds swifter than any steed, she had donned the antique mask, a naive drawing of a woman’s face charged with sacred power. With her new face, she had sent the racers off on their course.
The whole village watched the event, most from the shrine, but some from their houses along the route, which went south from the shrine, then across the river Tenryuu, back north, to cross a second time, before the final dash back to the shrine. The whole course was almost 2 ri long, a grueling affair that tested the endurance of both members of the race.
From her elevated seat, Chihiro had watched the racers as they’d sped south, galloping down the roads through the fields, and her heart had been set in her throat as she’d watched Ryuutaro make the most reckless decisions. He jumped streams that could have broken the stallion’s legs or his neck , he turned corners at speeds the other racers found terrifying, he did everything he could to gain distance on the other riders.
Watching his performance made everyone excited, but Chihiro could only feel the terror of a mother for her only child in self-made danger. Unable to say anything out loud, already in her guise as ritual-mare, she had gripped her hakama with white knuckles as those with the best eyes and ears relayed information from others further down the course.
“Ryuutaro’s at the river!”
“Mitsutani’s pulled ahead at the willow tree!”
“Genkuro fell into the river! Tadano stopped to help him from drowning!”
Every report made Chihiro’s heart pound harder. Everything she saw told her that Ryuutaro was going to every length to ensure he won the race, that he would put himself into terrible danger if he had to. But why? The possible answer to that question had settled in Chihiro’s stomach and had made her throat dry.
Clouds approached from the west as the two contenders for the prize thundered along the dirt roads. On the wooden tower next to the shrine two men pounded on the giant drum. And there, neck and neck, were Ryuutaro and Mitsutani, one of Chihiro’s most persistent suitors. Watching her son, for a moment Chihiro did forget his identity, and she was amazed at the way he rode the stallion, not as a commanding general, but as a fellow creature of the land, exerting himself for the sheer joy it produced.
“How handsome Ryuutaro has grown! He must find a wife soon to take his energy, or he will run off like his father,” one of the older crones commented. And Chihiro had to admit he was handsome. He was growing into his frame, and his face was growing well-defined, with high cheekbones and a sharp nose.
“Mo-… Priestess,” came the voice behind Chihiro, and the woman tried to stop her mind. The rider was right – she wasn’t Chihiro in that room, she was a priestess. She nodded stiffly, and her hands went to the belt holding her kosode and hakama tied together, but when her hand reached it she found she it hard to untie. The rider’s hand touched on hers and helped still her tremors. With his help, she pulled on the fabric belt, and in a moment the strong spring breeze blew through her top to help open it.
The breeze had helped whip the dust away from Ryuutaro and Mitsutani as they’d approached the finish line. At the end, as it seemed that Mitsutani would win by a hair, Ryuutaro did the unexpected. Sliding down to cling to the side of the stallion’s body, he reached out as far as he could, and grabbed the twisted rope that served as the entrance to the sacred enclosure of the shrine grounds and as the finish line of the race, his outstretched hand barely a shaku ahead of Mitsutani’s steed.
Grabbing the rope, Ryuutaro fell from his steed, rolling to a stop as everyone watched with open mouths, before he thrust his proof of victory into the air with a shout. “I win!”
It was a spectacular move, and all the village erupted in shouts and congratulations at the unusual victory. Even Mitsutani himself accepted his loss with grace when he realized what had happened, twirling his mustache in real mirth, happy to be part of what everyone knew was going to become a legend in Sanrioka.
Everyone congratulated Ryuutaro the rider, but when he looked up from the crowd around him to Chihiro the priestess, the implications of his victory finally hit her. She led the rest of the rites in something of a daze, and every time the stallion mounted a mare to the claps and drums of the village folk, she dared not think to that night.
But now she could put off the moment of action no longer. Her son, Ryuutaro, as the divine rider, encircled her body from behind with his arms, and kissed her neck. She could feel the blood pounding in his veins, the barely-contained need of his body. He had made his preparation, and Chihiro knew that for Ryuutaro now, she was not his mother, but a mare for him to mate with.
His hand reached up to Chihiro’s exposed chest, and he grabbed at her breasts with a painful strength. His fingers squeezed into her soft flesh, the nipple stiffening under his palm from both the chill breeze and his movements, and Chihiro knew there was no stopping the rider now. And part of her had no intention of stopping him, either.
The rider’s hands moved over Chihiro’s breasts, kneading them, weighing them in his palms, testing them with his senses. He kissed again at Chihiro’s neck, clumsily, but with his heart in the right place. Unlike the stallion, he didn’t want to just pump himself into his mate for a few moments before moving on. But it was clear he wasn’t sure exactly what to do, and would need to be shown.
“Pull on my nipples, rider…” Chihiro guided him. As he did so, Chihiro let out a girlish moan that made the young man behind her inhale deeply. He squeezed at her fat nubs of sensitive flesh, pinching them between his thumbs and forefingers, feeling how thick they were.
Chihiro began to allow herself to be pulled along with the young energy behind her. Everything that she had, she knew the rider had seen in some way before. But not like this. And that change of perspective had revealed the priestess as a mystery for the rider to plumb the depths of. Another kiss on her neck, near her cheek, and Chihiro began to relax into Ryuutaro’s arms.
After a few minutes of her moaning at the attention he paid her breasts, Chihiro finally turned her head to face him. She saw in his eyes an excited hunger, and she wanted to let him have his way with her. Looking through the eyes of the small mask, Chihiro saw he was staring at her exposed lips. Before she could say anything, h e kissed her energetically, painfully mashing their lips together. She was stunned by him for a moment, before her lips opened and began guiding his.
The frogs croaked in the dark grasses behind the shrine, and the divine couple entwined their bodies together. The rider turned the priestess away from the narrow ledge, and straddled her leg as he kissed her. As he continued to play with her breasts, Chihiro sent her hands to his crotch, and gasped into his mouth when she felt his hardness.
Behind the taboo, feeling the erection through his rough clothes, she knew she’d seen this before, but like him the situation forced on her a different perspective. Breaking the kiss, the two looked into each others’ eyes.
“I want you, Ryu-… rider,” Chihiro said, her body speaking before she could stop herself. She saw the young man swallow in his dry throat, but he nodded. Getting to their feet, the two undressed completely. Their stances were so different – Ryuutaro with his legs spread, hands on his hips, only slightly shorter than the priestess but still growing. And Chihiro, her full figure finally feeling gravity as her bust sagged slightly, her thighs slightly shiny with her own wetness.
Ryuutaro’s eyes went all over Chihiro’s body, and she dropped her arms to her sides. She knew he was seeing everything through a fresh pair of eyes – the mole on her breast, her tangle of pubic hair, her love handles. But as he looked at her, she looked at him, and especially at the feisty erection that stared directly at her womb.
Stepping forward, Chihiro brushed at Ryuutaro’s face, noticing another angry red line on his face where some errant branch had whipped at him in his mad dash. “When did you get so tall…?” she whispered, before he pulled her into another kiss. His cock pressed at her pubic mound, and she felt her body prepare her for what was meant to happen.
But she could help. Taking on of his hands, Chihiro guided it between her legs. “Here rider,” she panted.
“Do I…?” he explored her flowery outer lips with his fingers, before his middle one found her hot, damp hole. He rubbed it gently with the pad of his finger. “Is this…?”
“Y-yes,” Chihiro nodded, letting him explore between her legs with his hand.
The farm boy was not wholly ignorant of the mechanics of animal reproduction. He’d just seen his stallion perform admirably with a half dozen mares that very day, and throughout his life he’d seen various couplings of animals, and heard village people whisper about the gossip of others’ amorous adventures and talents. But when it came to the mechanics of human reproduction, he only knew the vague outline of how things happened. As Ryuutaro’s fingers played at Chihiro’s hole, he wondered how he could enter her without hurting her. Wholly engrossed in the mechanical question, feeling the wetness beginning to smear across his fingers, he didn’t quite notice the reaction Chihiro was having.
Chihiro had always been weak to fingering. It had been the little secret told to the winners of the race in her years by the other priestesses, to ensure that she enjoyed the night as much as the glory-flush champion. The young man didn’t know what he was doing to her, she could see it in his expression, which seemed to stare through her chest, his face morphing in response to the sense impressions his hands had. But even if he didn’t know, Chihiro couldn’t withstand it for that long. Her body trembled, her mouth dropped open into slovenly panting, and her hands gripped the rider’s shoulders to keep her standing.
“Haahhh… Nngghh…. R-rider…!” she grunted into his ear. “S-stop teasing me, please!” She surprised herself with the vehemence of her voice, and she saw that it was her tone of voice that snapped Ryuutaro out of his problem-exploring frame of mind.
He whipped his eyes back to hers, blinked a few times, and nodded with a sheepish smile. “Sorry mo-” he caught himself again, “priestess. I just…” he trailed off, finding it hard to put into words what was going through his heart and mind.
Ryuutaro had always watched his mother with a more adult view of her than other sons. He knew why his father had left, and why some of the successful farmers helped his mother. He knew it when he saw her messed hair, or smelled the squid-stink clinging to her legs and seeping through her frayed yukata. He might have hated the older men, but they were almost all as quiet about it as possible, and they never looked down on Ryuutaro.
Instead, Ryuutaro had watched his mother, and wanted to know what she was like in those intimate moments. He knew it wasn’t what he was meant to want, but as he’d grown into a young man, his heart had let the seed of the nameless desire bloom into something he dared not put into words – I’ll become the man she goes to for relief.
That night, feeling the priestess cling to him, her legs shaking, Ryuutaro’s erection was harder than ever before in his life. Letting her pull him down onto the futon, he found his body moving almost on its own. He didn’t know exactly how to do what he needed to do, but his body knew most of it. Not being old enough to distrust his body, Ryuutaro let his limbs work. He spread Chihiro’s legs, lowered his hips, and pressed forward.
His first thrust missed entirely, his dick sliding over Chihiro’s pubic mound, scraping her clitoris, and making her moan in such a way that Ryuutaro’s heart almost stopped. Seeing the surprise in his face, Chihiro smiled at him to show that he hadn’t made a mistake. She reached down between their bodies, and guided his tip to her hot and panting hole. When he felt it spread around his tip, the young man’s realization at how he could enter her was plain to see on his face.
“No need to be shy, rider. I’m your mare tonight…” Chihiro panted, and she brought her legs around his hips, to help pull him a little closer. The feeling of him barely entering her was driving her crazy – she wanted him to either pull out and let her use her mouth, or pound her into the futon.
Ryuutaro obliged her. He leaned over her, and buried himself into her hole – not in a single, powerful thrust, but a slower, revelatory movement, as feelings he’d never experienced engulfed his rod. In a few seconds though, he was as deep in the taboo opening as he could be, staring at the mask that was the sacred division that allowed this coupling. And yet underneath it, he saw the full lips of her mouth moving in unfamiliar ways, and he knew that there was an expression there that he would do anything to see again.
Chihiro herself was finding it hard to keep herself focused on the young man above her, who was so thoughtful in expression, when his dick was buried so deep in her, and he wasn’t moving. The mismatch between what she realized Ryuutaro would be capable of as a lover and how little he then knew was suddenly a terrible thing she would need to solve. “R-rider…” she panted, “you need to thrust in *and* out, darling.”
Her words again broke the young man out of his fugue, and he gave her the big grin that he always did when he knew he’d been caught doing something naughty. With that little bit of encouragement, Chihiro felt him pull out, the sensation of his mushroom head scraping her g-spot making the words she was forming in her throat turn to vague, animal panting.
Ryuutaro’s body, suitably aimed, took over from there. His hot young blood pumping through his veins, he embraced the older woman under him, and in a minute his hips were rising and falling, creating soft slapping noises. Chihiro and Ryuutaro as well were reduced to vague, lewd noises, with only scattered words and syllables coming out of their throats in between sloppy kisses and animal groans.
“There!”
“Yes!”
“Don’t stop!”
Outside the temple grounds, the last late night party-makers could be heard clapping and singing on the wind, but the pair could hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing outside of their joining. Chihiro’s legs wrapped around Ryuutaro’s waist tightly, and Ryuutaro attacked Chihiro’s face around the mask, her neck, and her breasts with his lips.
The priestess came first, her muscles contracting tightly on the animal organ inside of her, a squeal in her throat muffled by Ryuutaro’s kiss. When he broke it, she grunted with such abandon, a total loss of propriety that Ryuutaro had never imagined her capable of, that he came. Chihiro felt the slap of his ejaculation against the depths of her tunnel, and shivered at what could come of it.
Their sweaty bodies joined together, Chihiro took Ryuutaro’s face in both hands and planted a soft kiss on his lips. “If you need to clean yourself…” she started, thinking of the older men who needed time between orgasms. Ryuutaro was not at that stage. His dick, still inside Chihiro, still mostly-hard, grew erect again in her tunnel, and Chihiro felt it happen. “...Oh.”
“The stallion went six times, priestess, I have to match him at least!” Ryuutaro panted in excitement.
“Wait, rider, I need a little time…” she started, but Ryuutaro was at it again, pumping himself in and out of her with wild abandon. When his cock came out from pulling too far back, he took two or three thrusts to re-orient his attack, before sliding his slick rod back into the soft, wet hole.
“Nnnhhoooo!” Chihiro squealed, not entirely unhappy with Ryuutaro’s forwardness.
After this second orgasm, Chihiro was able to get Ryuutaro to at least roll off of her so she could get the two of them some water from the pot in the corner of the room. What she didn’t expect was for him to follow her and, spreading her legs and pushing her against the wall, fuck her standing.
The noises Chihiro made were undignified, unrefined, and yet sacred all the same. She found herself thrusting her hips back into the rider’s pelvis, the wetness of their mixed juices sliding down her thighs to puddle on the pounded earth floor below them. When he came in her that time, she nearly broke a sacred gohei with her feet.
Embracing her from behind, Ryuutaro’s hands clung to her breasts, his chest pressed on her back, their breathing coming together in a similar rhythm. He didn’t notice that each time he came it meant he had to work harder to cum again, but Chihiro had. And with each attack on her drawing more orgasms from her than the last, she knew that the night was not going to end like the others. She wasn’t going to be able to fold her shrine garments, or comb her hair, or wash herself with some water to help be as presentable as possible.
And she didn’t. Ryuutaro kept her up all night. He had her show him some of the positions she’d learned – he especially loved laying on her back, pawing at her breasts while he pounded her. Chihiro obliged him, in his rutting feeling like she was twenty years younger herself.
It will only be tonight , she told herself, surely I can teach him these things to make his future wife happy?
The pair emerged at daybreak, the wind cool and refreshing on their heated bodies, their total dishevelment seen only by the most intense of the worshipers, who clapped and thanked both for their service for the village. Surely, they were told, the river god would bless all of Sanrioka. Alone, Chihiro went into the main shrine, and with trembling fingers, took off the mask.
The wooden oval, cracked and worn, stared back at her, its painted face of a divine lady so different from Chihiro’s expressions when she wore it. When she put it back into its safe case of paulownia wood, she let out a shivering sigh. It was over. She was a mother again, a woman with social ties to the rest of the community. She had not lain with her son, had not gasped with joy as he’d filled her inner depths with his seed.
It had been the masked priestess, not her.
When she exited the building, she saw Ryuutaro being positively pelted with handfuls of purifying salt, his laughter filling the courtyard of the shrine. Shaking off what he could, a few stray clumps of white clinging to his messy hair, he bowed and thanked everyone. When he turned back to Chihiro, he flashed his wide grin, and she felt his energy, boundless even after a sleepless night.
The walk back to their home was in silence, only a few polite waves at the greetings of other farmers, awake early. Ryuutaro, walking next to his mother, brushed a strand of loose hair from her cheek as they walked, and saw her close her eyes with a smile on her lips. In that moment, Chihiro’s heart betrayed her.
She knew, without being taught, why the taboo of the rite was so important. Such an event, even with its divine imprimatur, could tear the community apart unless it were strictly separated from the everyday life of the village. Ryuutaro’s father had been unable to separate the realm of the gods from that of mortal life, and his memory was excoriated by the people of Sanrioka.
But when Chihiro watched Ryuutaro work with the horses, his stringy muscles bulging under his skin, his thoughtful look as he examined a mare, the loud voice with a laugh that could be heard halfway across the valley, she couldn’t stop from remembering the ritual night. And each time the memories intruded on her vision, she pushed them out of her mind as forcefully as she could.
It was even harder when his body was close to hers. Sleeping on their poor bedding, next to each other, Chihiro found sleep terribly difficult. She found herself watching Ryuutaro as he slept, and ever so quietly touching herself as she did so. It was the most shameful thing she’d done, impious even, but after three weeks Chihiro could not stop her memories from becoming fantasies.
Ryuutaro himself had found it difficult to separate that special night from his everyday life with his mother as well. He wanted to just sneak up behind her and hold her, wanted to stroke her hair, wanted to feel her body naked on his. It was so painful, he had to rush up into the forested hills around the village at times to stop himself from yelling in anger.
Ever since the race, the marriage market had opened up for Ryuutaro. Every major family with daughters near his age were now considering him as a possible match, and Ryuutaro had to deal with a dozen flighty, vacuous young ladies who didn’t care about him, but what he could bring them, constantly trying to talk with him, to try and attract him.
None of them did. Not when he thought about the night in the shrine building, and the masked face that he knew slept next to him every night.
The question of Ryuutaro’s marriage vexed Sanrioka. Some urged immediate marriage, others said it was fine if he waited. When Chihiro was approached now, it was Ryuutaro’s marriage prospects that were usually being spoken about, instead of hers. Ryuutaro hated the talk, and would scowl darkly in ways no one had seen him do before during it.
“He never got so mad before, did he?”
“No, that young man’s always been the laughing type! I wonder what’s gotten into him?”
Chihiro’s period didn’t come. When it had happened before, Chihiro could remember the joys and surprise she’d felt. In that springtime of her life, she’d even thought that Heitaro was as happy as her about the blessing they’d been given. She thought about the poisons she could ingest to try and end the pregnancy, but to reject Tenryuu’s blessing so terribly would harm the village and her. She tried to hide it anyway, but it grew difficult as summer began.
“Are you trying to make enemies, Ryuutaro?!” Chihiro had finally snapped at him one night. She stared at him across the pot with their dinner in it, cooking above the sunken hearth. “You made Hanako weep in public! You humiliated not only her, but her whole family!”
Ryuutaro stared back at Chihiro, chewing a blade of grass intensely. His eyes were as shadowed as his father’s had been before he’d left. “She’s a brat who thinks she’s Princess Kaguya and that I’d go find the Jeweled Branch for her. Well, I’m not a servant to be ordered around, and I told her that! If her father is so humiliated then he can go slice his belly open if it’ll make him feel better.”
Chihiro opened her mouth in shock. She’d never heard Ryuutaro speak like that, but his father had often insulted others in the exact same way. The double-impression she saw terrified her. Was she going to lose her son as she’d lost her husband? Was blessing the village always going to end with Chihiro herself being hurt?
“And what if I told you to go find the branch for her?” she said. His jaw stopped his incessant chewing.
“I’d do it then,” he said simply.
The question on Chihiro’s lips begged to be asked, but terror gripped her heart. She knew what the answer would be, and knew that on hearing that answer, she would fall into the same impiety Ryuutaro’s father had.
The sound of the hearth and the boiling rice was the only noise in the small room. And yet Chihiro felt like she was naked. Her mind frantically tried to find something, anything else to say except that terrible question – why?
“You have to get married sometime,” she gasped. Even as she said it, she felt no force, no authority, behind her voice. The thought of Ryuutaro bedding some young, ignorant flower, and forgetting her, made her feel ill. Unable to bear his stare, she looked away.
That night, Ryuutaro was unable to hold himself. When he thought Chihiro was asleep, he watched her sleeping face and masturbated. He did not notice that she was still awake, and when he finally slept, she did the same thing.
On a summer day, the two took a small lunch along a small tributary of the Tenryuu, following it up into the hills where it was slightly less humid and muggy than the valley floor. It was a yearly event for the two, and every year before it had been fun and light. This time, it felt like there was lead on both their chests.
Tying the horse they’d brought to carry their lunches to a tree, Ryuutaro cleared a large, flat rock of the leaves and sticks that had fallen onto it since the year before. The pair liked coming back to the same place. Ryuutaro led Chihiro to it, but the thong on one of her sandals broke as she took a step, and he reached quickly to keep her from spilling.
He saved her, his arm across her belly, her hands gripping his haori, and that was when he noticed the stiff bulging of her insides.
“You’re pregnant!” he said, the words cutting through the noise of the cicadas in the trees. Dazed, he sat down on the stone. Chihiro, on the verge of tears, sat next to him, all appetite gone.
The two sat like that for a minute, unable to articulate their feelings in words. Finally, her throat dry, her despair overwhelming, Chihiro coughed. “If… if you want to leave Sanrioka, please just don’t go without telling me.” The words were wrenched out of her heart, and she covered her face and began sobbing.
“Leave…?” The word hit Ryuutaro like a bullet. In a moment, he understood his mother’s fear. That his despising of marriage with the local girls was a way to get ridden out of town. And when he thought about his behavior, wasn’t she right? Hadn’t he been trying to make her angry at him, so this impious connection between them could be cut?
But it was impossible. Ryuutaro could no more consider abandoning Chihiro than abandoning his own flesh. Seeing her weep forced him into action. Gently, gently, he took her hands from her face, and when he saw her tear-stained face, her eyes puffy and red, her nose running with slime, he remembered seeing her like this after his father had disappeared, and he was angry with himself for having hurt her.
“Mother,” he said directly to her eyes, “I’m not going to get married to one of the maidens of the village.” Her lip trembled, a wail about to leave her throat as all her fears were confirmed.
“I wanted to marry you that night,” he whispered. “I still do.”
Feeling his hands grip hers, Chihiro let out a panting bark – a mixture of relief, disbelief, and a dozen other emotions. “B-but…”
“I ran that race to win it because it was you, mother! No one else! I love you, and that night it wasn’t just as my mother, but as a woman too! I still love you!”
A heavy sniffle from Chihiro, then a weak hiccup. Then before Ryuutaro knew it, Chihiro had her face buried in his chest, her arms holding him as tightly as she could, wailing. “I love you tooooo!” she sobbed.
When she was done, a half hour later, Ryuutaro’s haori was damp and stained, and he had to take it off and hang it on a branch to dry. Chihiro, still on emotionally choppy waters, leaned against his naked shoulder, letting him stroke her cheek. She held her arms around him, as if to assure herself that he was real, that this was flesh and blood and not some trickery of dreams tormenting her.
Remembering the food, Ryuutaro grabbed the box and pulled out the various rice balls Chihiro had made that morning. They nibbled together in silence, but a silence with a different quality than before. When they were done eating, Chihiro took a deep breath, but instead of saying anything, she just started laughing. When Ryuutaro looked down at her, puzzled, she leaned up and kissed him, surprising him like he’d surprised her that night.
It didn’t take long for her light kimono to slide off her shoulders, for her to straddle Ryuutaro’s lap, pull out his eager erection, and plunge it into herself. On the stone where they’d made so many memories before, of Ryuutaro searching for insects, or Chihiro squealing at getting splashed, they made more. Chihiro buried her son’s face between her breasts, and his hands squeezed all over her body. When he ran them over her belly though, there was a thoughtfulness in his movement, where she knew he was already trying to feel any movements inside her womb.
“Later, dear. It’s too early yet,” she told him, kissing the top of his head. The relief she felt was indescribable. “Don’t worry though, you’ll feel the little one move too,” she said, then after a moment adding “…husband.” The word made Ryuutaro as hard as he’d been that night in the shed, and Chihiro ended up squealing in a much lewder fashion than she had when Ryuutaro had splashed cold water on her.
The couple couldn’t keep their hands off each other after that moment. Whenever they were alone, it was with bodies touching, lips meeting, needy panting whispers behind sheds or in the dark. As Chihiro’s belly grew, Ryuutaro’s desire for his mother grew ever more ardent. She teased him for enjoying her ugliness, but he just kissed her, and made her feel beautiful. When they walked through the village, sometimes he would just pull her behind a building, and finger her on-display pussy until she nearly screamed through her hands, clamped over her mouth.
Talk about Ryuutaro getting married began to peter out as the months went by without him showing any interest in the families asking for him. Especially when quiet rumors of how the two lived now began to spread. It explained the animal noises that came from their home at night, muffled and inexpertly hidden. It was wrong, all agreed, but Chihiro had conceived from the Lord Tenryuu’s visitation. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.
And if some voyeurs enjoyed watching the incestuous pair from a distance, they got some fun out of it as well.
Chihiro gave birth to her and Ryuutaro’s first daughter just before the turn of the year. The husband and wife wanted to try for more, but worried about what others would think if Chihiro got pregnant again without a good excuse.
That 3 rd month, Chihiro was again given the task of becoming the masked priestess.
Ryuutaro won that race handily, as he would all the others where Chihiro was the prize.