It was the first week of December when Sayuri realized she was late.
Not just a few days late; almost three weeks.
At first she thought it was stress from the divorce, or the excitement of moving into Kai's farmhouse permanently, or the fact they'd been making love three, four, sometimes five times a day since the papers were signed.
Then the nausea hit. Then the tenderness in her breasts became almost painful. Then the home pregnancy test showed two bright pink lines so fast the stick nearly slipped from her trembling fingers.
She sat on the edge of the bathtub and cried; happy, overwhelmed, terrified tears; until Kai found her twenty minutes later.
"Sayuri… baby, what's wrong?" He knelt in front of her, panic in his eyes.
She couldn't speak. Just pressed the test into his hand.
Kai stared at the little window. Looked at her. Looked back at the test.
Then the biggest, most beautiful smile she had ever seen broke across his face.
"We're having a baby," he whispered, voice cracking. "You're pregnant."
Sayuri nodded through fresh tears. "I'm forty-two, Kai. It wasn't supposed to be possible anymore. The doctors said after the twins my chances were—"
He silenced her with a kiss so tender it stole her breath.
"I don't care what the doctors said. This is our miracle."
That night they didn't have sex.
They made love; slow, reverent, worshipful.
Kai laid her back on the futon, kissed every inch of her body like he was memorizing her all over again. When he reached her still-flat belly he paused, pressed his lips to the warm skin, and whispered, "Hello in there, little one. Daddy loves you already."
Sayuri sobbed and pulled him up to kiss her.
He entered her gently, almost afraid, but she wrapped her legs around him and guided him deeper.
"Love me like you always do," she breathed. "I'm pregnant, not fragile."
So he did.
Long, deep strokes that had her gasping his name within minutes. He kept one hand splayed protectively over her belly the entire time, as if he could already feel the tiny life they'd created. When she came it was soft and rolling, her whole body trembling around him.
Kai followed right after, burying himself as deep as possible and filling her with slow, pulsing waves; marking her, claiming her, loving her in the most primal way.
Afterward they lay tangled together, his hand never leaving her stomach.
"We're keeping it," he said simply. Not a question.
Sayuri turned to look at him, eyes shining. "Of course we are. This baby is the proof that everything we went through was worth it. Our love made a life, Kai."
He kissed her forehead, then her lips, then the tip of her nose.
"I want to marry you," he said suddenly. "Not because you're pregnant. Because I can't imagine a single day without you as my wife."
Sayuri laughed through happy tears. "Ask me properly later, farmer boy. With a ring and everything."
The next morning they told Keiko over breakfast.
Kai's mother took one look at Sayuri's glowing face, the way Kai's hand kept drifting to her belly, and started crying before they even spoke.
"A grandchild," she kept saying, hugging Sayuri so tight it was almost comical. "My boy is giving me a grandchild."
The village found out within hours (nothing stayed secret in Hanami).
Reiko brought homemade umeboshi and a tiny knitted cap.
Mika showed up with fresh eggs and a list of the best obstetricians in the prefecture.
Even Aiko from the shrine appeared with fertility charms "just in case the next one needs help too."
Sayuri floated through the days in a haze of joy and hormones, her hand never far from the slight curve that was only just beginning to show.
And every single night, Kai made love to her like she was the most precious thing in his world (because she was).
Sometimes slow and emotional, whispering "I love you" with every thrust.
Sometimes playful, her riding him while laughing about baby names.
Sometimes desperate and deep, when the hormones made her insatiable and she begged him to fill her again and again.
Nine months later, on a warm August morning surrounded by rice fields heavy with harvest, Sayuri gave birth to a perfect little girl with Kai's dark hair and her mother's smile.
They named her Haru: spring.
Because that's what she was; the new beginning they never dared dream of.
And as Kai held his daughter for the first time, tears streaming down his face while Sayuri watched exhausted and radiant from the hospital bed, he knew one thing with absolute certainty:
Every neglected field he'd ever planted in had finally borne the sweetest fruit.
Their family was just beginning.
Haru was three months old when Aiko finally came to collect.
Everyone in the village knew Aiko.
Fifty-one years old. Widow of the old shrine priest who died a decade ago. Keeper of Hanami's tiny Shinto shrine on the hill. Tall, elegant, with silver-streaked black hair she wore in a long braid down to her waist. Always in traditional clothing: white kosode and scarlet hakama that somehow made her look both holy and sinful.
She had the kind of body that made men (and women) forget how to speak.
Breasts so full and heavy they strained every obi she tied. A narrow waist that flared into wide, fertile hips. And an ass so perfectly rounded it looked sculpted by the gods themselves.
For years she had been untouchable.
Celibate. Devoted. Pure.
Until Kai moved in.
Aiko had watched him from the shrine steps every morning as he worked shirtless in the fields. Watched him carry Sayuri (belly swollen with his child) across the yard like she weighed nothing. Watched him kiss her under the persimmon tree like she was the only woman in existence.
And every night, alone in the priestess quarters, Aiko had touched herself to the thought of what that thick cock must feel like splitting her open.
Now, with Haru finally sleeping through the night and Sayuri glowing in new-mother happiness, Aiko decided the gods had waited long enough.
She arrived at the farmhouse on a crisp spring evening, carrying a lacquered box of sacred sweets and wearing nothing beneath her miko outfit but skin.
Sayuri answered the door, Haru on her hip, and took one look at Aiko's flushed cheeks and dilated pupils.
"Ah," Sayuri said, smiling knowingly. "It's your turn."
Aiko bowed, cheeks burning. "If… if Kai-san would have me."
Sayuri laughed softly and stepped aside. "He's in the bath. Go claim him, Aiko-san. He's been wondering how long you'd make him wait."
Kai was soaking in the wooden ofuro when the door slid open.
Aiko stepped in, closed it behind her, and without a word began to undress.
The white kosode fell.
The scarlet hakama pooled at her feet.
She was breathtaking: skin like porcelain, breasts heavy and pendulous with wide, dark areolas, nipples already stiff. A soft belly from years of shrine life and good food. And between her thighs: a perfectly smooth, glistening pussy that had clearly never been shaved for anyone but herself.
Until tonight.
"I have waited ten years," she said, voice trembling with need. "Ten years without a man's touch. I can't wait another minute."
Kai stood, water cascading down his muscled body, cock already rising thick and heavy at the sight of her.
Aiko's eyes locked on it and she actually whimpered.
He stepped out of the tub, cupped her face, and kissed her: slow, deep, reverent. She melted against him, hands roaming his chest, his back, finally wrapping around his cock with a desperate moan.
They didn't make it to the bedroom.
Kai lifted her onto the wide wooden counter beside the bath, spread her thighs, and devoured her.
Aiko came in under a minute: back arching, braid whipping against the wall, a broken cry echoing off the tiles as she flooded his mouth for the first time in a decade.
He didn't let her recover.
He stood, lined up, and pushed inside with one long, slow thrust.
Aiko's eyes rolled back. Her pussy was molten silk: impossibly tight, untouched for so long it gripped him like a fist. She sobbed his name, legs wrapping around his waist, heels digging into his ass to pull him deeper.
Kai fucked her right there against the bath counter: deep, steady strokes that made her massive breasts bounce and slap against her chest. Every thrust nudged her cervix and drew another broken moan from her throat.
She came again on the twentieth stroke: hard, squirting so violently it splashed both their thighs.
Only then did he carry her to the bedroom.
They made love for hours.
Missionary first: slow and face-to-face so he could watch every expression as he filled her again and again.
Then doggy: her on all fours, braid wrapped around his fist, pounding her from behind while she screamed into the pillow.
Then she rode him: hips rolling like a woman possessed, shrine bells still tied in her hair chiming with every bounce.
When he finally came, it was with her on her back again, legs over his shoulders, his cock buried to the root as he pumped rope after thick rope straight into her womb.
Aiko clung to him, tears streaming down her temples.
"Thank you," she whispered over and over. "Thank you for making me feel alive again."
Kai kissed her softly.
"Stay the night," he murmured.
She did.
And in the morning, when Sayuri found them tangled together: Aiko's head on Kai's chest, his hand protectively on her belly: she just smiled, kissed them both, and whispered, "Welcome to the family, Aiko-san."
The shrine widow blushed crimson.
But she didn't leave.
She never really left again.