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Today did not go well, and Rei arrives at the suite Minako is staying in while she's in Tokyo, shamed and a little defeated. The video camera Minako holds when she greets Rei does nothing to comfort her.
"I've had my picture taken enough today," Even for a lover she hasn't seen in three months, Rei isn't sure she can stand an evening of even more cameras after the photo shoot they had today.
"It doesn't work that way," Minako too, is in no mood to compromise. "First, speaking from a professional standpoint, your work was sloppy today. You looked awkward, without poise. Both Manager and the photographer were disappointed in my selection of you as my co-star."
Rei sighs. She gave up a nice, peaceful weekend for this?
"As both punishment and practice, I'm going to film you tonight until you feel more comfortable in front of the camera," Minako's look should be stern, Rei thinks, so why is she wearing such an evil-looking grin on her face?
Rei sits down at the table, folds her hands places them in her lap and stares at Minako. If the camera will not go away, then Rei will simply refuse to perform for it. She will simply out-wait Minako, who will realize soon enough that no matter how long the camera runs, she won't get a good scene out of Rei.
*
Minako knows exactly what Rei does with her stalling tactics, yet little does Rei know that Minako's not giving up. Not when even doing nothing except sitting at a table looking awkward (and running through all of her facial expressions in the "nervous" and "annoyed" categories) captures so much of the person that Minako wishes she could keep with her no matter where she goes. It's true of course, that Rei needs to get over her camera shyness before tomorrow, but in reality, Minako has another mission, one that fills an even deeper need for the both of them.
She plays with the zoom, capturing the bridge of Rei's nose, and then zooming in on the lips, and then the curvature and crevices of Rei's upper ear, and then her magnificently long eyelashes. Minako thinks that she could spend hours capturing every minute detail of Rei's face, and then lingering over it when she's alone.
Minako doesn't take the camera away from Rei for a second. "Would you like some dinner?"
"I'd like for the camera to be off." Rei says, completely unaware of how precious a record even her glowers are.
"That's not going to happen, not if you're going to refuse to cooperate. Once you're comfortable around the camera, I'll turn it off."
"I'm not giving you any footage." Rei draws her line in the sand.
Minako draws closer. "But you see," she smiles her sweetest smile, "you already are. So you might as well enjoy our evening together. Our only evening for about six months." Even Minako hesitates when she thinks of the time and distances that exists between them.
Rei just grumbles.
"Now would you prefer a Japanese supper or an Italian supper?" Minako asks casually. There is no room to debate this, she thinks, so rising to Rei's provocation is in nobody's best interest.
"Japanese." Rei doesn't look too happy, but at least now she's engaging.
"Japanese it is." Minako smiles.
*
After the meal arrives and Rei waits at the table, Minako sets the camera up on a tripod that she apparently brought in for this very purpose.
"You're going to record us eating?" Rei stares at Minako. It's one thing she thinks to capture random motion, but daily life.
"Not us eating exactly." Minako adjusts and readjusts the camera. "Can you move your hand into the frame, like you're about to pick something up?" She gives the motion of using chopsticks.
Rei takes the chopsticks, picks up a piece of tempura, and sets it down.
"Perfect. Try it from the other side."
Rei gets up, moves to Minako's seat, and does the same motion again. Minako makes a small adjustment.
"Try it again." Rei does. "There we go. Now we can eat." Minako smiles, and takes her seat at the table.
"You're really going to record us eating?"
"No." Minako says, taking her chopsticks and picking up the same piece of tempura that Rei has been using to test the camera's focus. "I'm going to record us feeding each other." Minako lifts a hand to Rei's mouth, the black beads of the bracelet sliding down her forearm. "And even then, just our hands, picking up food, and bringing it to another."
Rei takes a delicate bite of the tempura, eggplant. Not bad.
"Which would you like?" This feels awkward, Rei thinks, knowing that every motion of the chopsticks is being captured by the camera. If she drops something, that too will be on record, for eternity, or until the footage gets erased.
"Sweet potato." Minako leans in, for the bite Rei prepares for her, and takes it all in her mouth. For an idol, she doesn't look at all dignified. Before Rei can catch herself, she smiles, and it's not until well after Minako notices it that she can smooth her expression back to stoicism.
It's fine, Rei thinks. It's just the hands the camera is watching this time. As long as those behave, then Rei can smile for just a little longer.
"Would you like some plum wine?" Minako asks, "I ordered the good stuff."
"Yes, please."
Minako pours two glasses, one for herself and one for Rei. As Rei's glass goes across the table, their hands touch, deliberately Rei thinks. There's no way she's not going to touch Minako when their hands are so close together. They're alone, mostly, with no one who would stare at two idols having a moment together. One hand takes the glass, while the other caresses Minako's hand.
The camera definitely captures that, and the rest of their meal.
*
Rei is definitely getting more natural, Minako thinks after the meal has finished, and she takes the camera from the tripod, and turns back to being able to manually control the camera. The plum wine—good, strong, just what she'd expect from a top class hotel—helps a little bit, but Rei's started treating tonight like what it is, their only night together.
"I miss you," Rei blurts out suddenly to Minako, who hears and records the confession. "One or two days every few months never feels like enough. And you're always working even when we're in Tokyo."
"It's hard," Minako agrees. The camera picks up her voice, and the tremble of her hand, "but that's what separates the mediocre idols from the superstars. Work. Practice."
Rei takes a deep breath and lays back on the bed. "I just want some time where it's just us, and you're not working, and all we have to do is tear each other's clothes off and make love to each other."
Minako whole-heartedly agrees, even though she's on the verge of super-stardom, having even a day or two to do nothing but seduce her girlfriend seems like a wonderful vacation. "Do you think about that often, when we're apart?"
"All the time," Rei whispers. Her hand rests on her stomach, and Minako notices as she zooms in, that Rei's hand creeps under the waistband of her skirt. Then the camera goes back to Rei's face. "I keep remembering the first time we were together, after Usagi-chan's wedding, just how strange it felt to be under your spell like that, and how right it was, and how much I wanted to have you too."
"You had me," Minako responds, taking in every second of Rei's speech and her touching herself. "I had spent all that time wishing I could see you again. "No matter how much we put into the times we see each other, it always seems so short. I wish I could take something of you with me when I go away, something to help me remember."
"You should stop going away then," Rei says completely pretending that she's not touching herself. Maybe the liquor has had more of an effect than even Minako had predicted. "We should lock ourselves up in a shack on the mountains and just spend a few weeks making up for lost time."
"Really?" Minako laughs, though she admits, she enjoys the imagery, and so does her body, which is already screaming out in arousal. She wants nothing more than to join Rei on the bed, and bring them both into ecstasy.
Rei nods as solemnly as she can. "One day. I saw it in the fire just before I came here."
"You have visions of us?"
"Sometimes," Rei admits, "when I miss you, I need to see you again somehow." Her words come out in bursts, and Minako behind the camera is already hyper-aware of what Rei is doing, even though her shrine maiden—who was so self-conscious before dinner—now seems completely oblivious to the camera. No. Minako shakes her head, Rei looks straight into the camera lens sometimes, with a small smile spreading across her face. She's performing for Minako. The way Rei's legs shift, the way that her shirt is coming up to expose her stomach and the undersides of her breasts are all halfway deliberate moves on her part.
Minako keeps this in mind for future liaisons as Rei works herself into a frenzy for an audience of one.
Then Rei seems to wake up and realize what just happened. She rolls out of bed immediately and lands on her bare feet, and runs to the bathroom. Minako follows her. The bathroom is large enough for the both of them, and includes a nice-sized bathing tub, and the toilet in its own separate area. "Rei, listen! We can relax, take a bath, and talk about it."
"Don't follow me," Rei says as she enters the toilet room and slams the door shut. "There's nothing to talk about."
*
Rei sits on the toilet, alone, also in the dark. How could she have forgotten so easily? she wonders, before she realizes that she didn't exactly forget. Minako had lured her into playing for an audience—well, an audience of one and a camera. Rei admits, she enjoyed all of what happened on the bed, how free it felt to just be able to talk about how much she misses Minako when she's gone, and just being able to ask her to stay.
The problem is, she promised herself she wouldn't enjoy it. Minako forced the camera into this situation, and after the horrible day on the set. The photographer's directions, as if he could possibly know how she and Minako should hold each other. The way he's asking her to pretend that she's not-pretending when she's with Minako, when in reality she has to pretend that everything she does with Minako isn't completely natural, a starting point that she wants to be at.
Nothing of this is right. Rei thinks. The cameras mix everything up. The photographs they're taking for Minako's editorial are supposed to be lies. Stiff, and posed. Minako is just casting herself as being more international, more edgy in order to extend her career, and Rei's going along and helping her.
Scraping noises come from outside, the click of a tripod being set up, and the adjustment of a cursed video camera. Then the sound of water running—the bath Rei guesses. Does Minako really think that Rei is going to step out and take a bath for her amusement?
"We should talk," Minako says, when the water stops running. Rei hears splashes, the sound of water displacing, as she guesses that Minako steps into the tub.
"No."
"I just want to talk about the shoot. I know you're not usually not as nervous in front of cameras as you were today, and I want to know why."
Rei sighs. "It's different this time," she calls through the door.
"What makes it different? Is it that we're together?"
"I don't like the photographer's directions, he's always talking down."
"He cares more about names than talent, Mars. Most people are like that, I've noticed."
"It feels weird that we have to act like we have nothing out there while we're also posing ourselves like we're lovers for the whole world to see. How many people are going to see those pictures?"
"Millions probably," Minako sounds perfectly calm when she says it, "but only you and I would know the truth behind them. You'd be able to see those pictures in the magazine and remember everything we did together tonight and tomorrow. I would too. I pulled all my strings to get you as the partner for the shoot, just for the opportunity to be together."
"And how many people will see the videos you're recording tonight."
"Just the two of us," Rei hears the beat the Minako waits for, "And possibly Artemis."
Rei laughs at the idea. Artemis would probably flip out at seeing any evidence of Minako in an embrace with anybody. "You wouldn't!"
"Probably not. Come out here."
"Are you recording?"
"Yes," Minako says, "but this time it's both of us. You can turn it off if you want."
Rei opens the door and steps out into the bathroom, all lit up by candles. The camera is right in the middle of the floor, focusing on Minako, who lays back in the tub, with her hair clipped up in a messy french twist.
"Join me." Minako asks, lifting a glass of champagne.
Rei sighs and strips herself of her clothing. "If you insist." She could turn off the camera if she wanted to, as she squeezes herself behind the tripod and avoids tripping herself over the cord, but she decides against it, not when it's capturing Minako laying back, looking so relaxed and ordinary for once. If she could take that Minako home with her, and just live with her forever, the world might be all right.
Rei remains well aware of the camera watching her nakedness as she steps into the bathtub and curls up to Minako, but the smile on her partner's face and the hand moving down Rei's upper arm, make all of that slip away.
"It's just you and me," Minako passes Rei the other glass of champagne, "no pretending this time. A toast?"
Rei lifts her glass. "To us, may we reunite quickly."
"To us."
The glasses clink together while the camera watches it all.
*
"Were we like this in the past life?" Rei asks, after they step out of the tub. She wraps the towel around her naked body, and gets to work drying her long hair. The camera still follows her, but in the dimness of the room, it doesn't seem to matter so much. It's already seen her naked.
"I thought the past life didn't matter," Minako says casually.
Rei shakes her hair out. "It doesn't. I just asked."
"Do you remember?" Minako whispered. "We took vows of celibacy, you and I. But once upon a time...before Queen Beryl attacked, we were engaged. The Princess of Venus and the Princess of Mars would become bonded together, much like the Prince of Earth and the Princess of the Moon. We chose to protect Princess Serenity."
Rei stretches herself across her bed, perhaps twisting her body just a little bit to tease Minako. "It figures."
"Nice view," Minako whispers. "Very, very nice." Rei almost feels the camera lingering on every curve, one visual caress that goes from her shoulder and follows down the side of her breasts to her hips and down to her toes.
"You want to touch?" Rei rolls to her side, and uses her hand to follow the camera's trail down her body.
Minako sets the video camera down on the nightstand. "Always," she whispers as she runs her hands down Rei's body. Minako kisses Rei, just once one the cheek. "But not tonight; it'll ruin everything."
"Why?"
Just before she reaches to turn off both the light and the video camera, Minako gives Rei the evillest of smiles. "I have a plan for tomorrow. For how to override your camera shyness."
Rei lies awake half the night wondering—anticipating—what her lover has plotted.
*
When they arrive on set the second day, Rei fears the same camera shyness will hinder her performance again.
"Don't worry," Minako whispers as they wait for the crew to set up the lights, "You're going to do very well today." The words from those delicate lips sound so certain that Rei has to wonder what trick Minako has waiting for her.
She finds out on the set. Every time the photographer says something, Rei notices, Minako repeats it, and when she does, it becomes seductive. The photographer wants Rei to pretend that she's not pretending. Minako just wants Rei to be her lover, the way she was last night.
Rei feels Minako's hands pull her down by her dress. Minako's painted lips are less than a centimeter from Rei's own. "We're not kissing," Minako whispers, as one of her hands releases from the dress and captures Rei around the waist.
No, of course not, Rei thinks, sliding her hand down Minako's back. They're posing.
"When we're done with this," Minako's voice is warm in Rei's ear, sending a shiver down her body, "I'm going to drag you into the dressing room, and rip that dress off. Now tilt your head up just a little bit, and move your hand a little lower."
Stage directions make so much more sense in Minako's voice, Rei thinks. She can hear the photographer's voice, mildly approving in tone but the words are blurry against the clicks that say that every risqué pose that Minako puts her through will get permanently recorded.
Mars Reiko is just a performance, a character to be pulled out and paraded around at the whim of her lover. She smiles that no one quite recalls where she's been seen or heard. No knows that Mars Reiko owes her existence to Aino Minako. Two rivals who push each other past their perceived boundaries, and into somewhere wonderful. Rei can't make love to a camera, but Aino Minako can provoke Mars Reiko into a blind lust for the camera to capture.
"We're done."
Rei has no clue how Minako manages to act so professionally as the shoot ends, when she knows that the idol is just as desperate for release as she is. But Minako does, with little more than a smile at Rei as she absorbs and gives back tenfold the energy in the room.
"You weren't such a bad model, Mars Reiko." The photographer and stylist have finished lavishing well-deserved praise on the international superstar, and so the relative unknown gets her praise as well. Rei for her part, does not take offense at the low-key nature of their semi-compliment but rather at the delay of lavishing praise upon her lover.
Rei bows to the photographer, even as her eyes go to Minako who leans her head towards the dressing room door. The shoot is over, and professionalism only needs to last until they're alone somewhere. "Thank you for having me. Please excuse me."
*
When they enter the dressing room, Minako locks the door. Both of them know exactly what's going to happen next. "Put the music on," she commands Rei. She has a soundtrack prepared, just some thuddy dance music, the backtrack to a remix of one of her singles, but it's enough to muffle the noises of two women having sex, which is all the music needs to do. Rei does, and Minako goes to the vanity and starts the camera while her lover is distracted.
"I'm recording this." Minako whispers, as she unclasps the hooks on the back of Rei's dress, and slides it down. Minako wants to remember every moment of this. She wants to inscribe the look on Rei's face when she comes into her memory, so then when she's lonely in London for the next six months working on another single, this...this trace will remain.
Rei turns to stare at her, momentarily confused, but turns around again and exposes her back. "Get it off." Minako's lips go between the shoulder blades and down the spine, as the silk pools on top of her feet. Rei steps out and Minako kicks it under the vanity, out of the way for the time being. The heels stay on. The hairstyle, once perfectly pinned and curled unravels loosely between the two women.
"How do you want it?" Minako whispers. The camera won't pick up the sound from where it is, especially with the music, but it sees the way Minako holds Rei from behind with one arm under the bra and the other going into Rei's panties, and then the way her lips just barely graze the earlobe. In that light, the words are superfluous.
"Fingers. Rough."
Rei's wish is Minako's command, more so because Minako has no patience for anything else right now, not when she wants to feel Rei's mouth on her too. The camera will capture both of their pleasures, and at the thought of that, Minako can positively feel the juices flowing. She parts Rei's folds and fingers the clit there, not caring so much where the nails go, but then judging by the way that Rei moves against her hand, the maiden isn't objecting.
"Too much?"
"No." A gasp escapes from Rei, louder than the music. "Keep going. Doesn't the show have to go on?"
Minako laughs. It's a fine time for Rei to get a sense of humor. "Always, Mars-san." She fondles Rei's breasts. Is the camera angled to catch that, the way the flush slowly spreads up from Rei's chest like a pink flame, the way Rei begins to tremble and her knuckles turn vivid pale against the vanity's edge, and the way Minako holds Rei as much to steady her as to help push her over that edge.
Rei gives an "Ah!" when she comes. Minako smiles and pulls her hands away, grinning at how much her fingers glisten. Rei turns and leans back into the vanity, exposing herself to Minako and the back of her head to the camera. Minako smiles slyly, and puts the fingers in her mouth. Is she playing to Rei, or to the camera behind her.
Minako sits down in the chair. She swears one of the candid photographs has a picture of Rei sitting in this very chair early this morning, getting her hair pinned up into the style that came apart so perfectly. Now, Minako will be in the chair, and Rei will completely unravel her. "Use your mouth," she commands, already imagining both the sensation, and the sweet nostalgia that will come from watching this later.
Rei spins the chair around, and pushes Minako's skirt up past her thighs. "Nothing," she says in a wonderfully disaffected voice. Only of course, her sharp intake of breath betrays her arousal.
"You could have had me anytime." Minako whispers, almost regretting that their on-set seduction could have only went so far with people there. Rei's hands are warm against her thighs, and her mouth—Minako melts under what Rei is doing with her mouth. "Your fingers were just so close to my pussy, you could have just slid one in, and not even the camera would have known."
She closes her eyes and leans back. Later she'll see exactly what her eyes don't, what her eyes never could, even if she looks in the mirror. Rei knows her way around Minako's body, that one spot on the left side, and then Rei just slides two fingers inside—Minako won't see that on the camera—but she'll watch her face, the way her lips part to make way for her ragged breathing and the accompanying sounds from the back of her throat.
Minako's not even sure when, exactly, she comes, except that Rei's face isn't the only one that will be captured.
*
In London, Minako watches the videos when she's the loneliest, after the recordings done for the day, and the parties done for the evening. She's tired of the rumors that she's on the arm of this dancer, or this actor, tired of the speculation into her personal life, even to a point, tired of Artemis telling her how down she's looked ever since she left Tokyo after the photo shoot with Rei.
When the editorial comes out, a few people laugh at how "edgy" Minako is trying to be with her new image, others smile and laugh at how well the pop idol plays lesbian with the unknown model in the photoshoot, and all Minako thinks when she sees the commentary, is that her time with Mars Reiko, the idol, is perhaps the only time she doesn't play while she works.
Minako has a special project—she doesn't just watch the videos she made in Tokyo, she's also editing them, splicing them together into something new, something perhaps that can capture them, and what the private Aino Minako wishes for even as the idol Aino Minako prepares her launch towards international icon and puts her personal life on hold.
Only two people will watch the final product that's made: herself and her co-star. Minako imagines the fuss her manager would raise if the video were made public, the immediate quashing of all rumors involving her and men, the realization that the lesbian vibe in the editorial wasn't play at all, or an attempt for Aino Minako to show her maturity, despite the fact that Artemis would likely disagree.
By the time she finishes—and by that time, she can see the footage play in her mind whenever she closes her eyes—almost five months have passed, and in another thirty days, she will be in Japan again.
She can't wait.
*
The package arrives at Hikawa Temple just as Rei's watching the children run into the courtyard. When she reads the return address (London, England) and the Venus glyph drawn discreetly in the bottom right corner, she knows exactly who sent the package and has a good guess as to the contents.
It takes discipline to remain impassive, to not let everyone know what's in the package and how much Rei needs to rip the paper off and confirm for sure what she anticipates inside. But remain impassive she does, only letting in a few memories just the very idea of reliving those two days—as horrible as it started—is already making her warm.
Rei, (the note enclosed says, when she actually does open the package in her room)
It's been a long time, hasn't it. Too long. How is the weather there? Hot? Sunny? Better than England? I've missed Japan, I've missed the rest of the senshi, and I've missed you most of all. I've been working on my video editing skills when I've had the time, and I'd like to hear your opinion. It's of my new single, and while this isn't the "official" video, certainly it's the truest version, the one only for us. Please enjoy.
Your love,
Minako
P.S. I will be arriving in Japan on July 24th. I will be meeting you at the studio on that night at 8 p.m. I have the camera. Private shoot this time. Then, we'll see about the mountains.
Rei looks at the plain black scrapbook. A little pouch inside the front pocket holds the DVD, and the words, "Just something of me, for when I have to go away." Then her eyes go to the clock by her bed. July 24th is tonight. There's no way Rei thinks that's a coincidence, nor does she think she has the time to give the package Minako sent her the time it deserves and still meet their rendezvous.
Of course, that does not mean they can't enjoy it together, Rei decides as she places the scrapbook and the DVD into her overnight bag.