Check-in

The walk to the hotel takes only five minutes. Hana on my right, holding my hand, Reina on my left, holding my other hand. Both talking nonstop, laughing, sometimes bending forward or backward so they can talk to each other around my body. I try to look at them, but the basecaps hide their faces most of the time, and they don’t look up at me. Mom’s walking in front of us. Brisk pace.

The hotel is at the corner of the next block from the warehouse. A small neon sign, the windows at the entrance are dark. I can see the guy from the warehouse standing in front of the main door, smoking. There’s a dark, narrow alleyway right next to the hotel, and mom takes a sharp turn, makes a ‘come here’ gesture to the guy and walks into the alley.

He follows us. Neither Hana nor Reina welcome him, take his hand or anything. They stay with me, and I have a feeling this might become a problem later.

We walk up a metal staircase on the outside of the building. It creaks and shakes when we climb to the third story. Mom opens a metal door with a small key from her purse. The hallway is dark; only a few emergency lights are on, and they are more like waypoints than illumination. We go to the end of the hallway, another key from the purse. Mom lets all of us in before she turns on the light.

A small room, like a combination of kitchen and dining room. Functional. Not quite run-down, but not new or modern either. It looks like something from the last century. And it looks like something which doesn’t need to look better. Three doors to adjoining rooms, one slightly ajar, the other two are closed.

The twins run to a metal container, about the size of a small shoebox, on the drab kitchen table. It has a keypad and a display on top. They jump up and down and yell at their mom, who replies with a stern tone — and they are quiet, but still keep their hands on the container. Mom says something, they both turn around, away from the table, and mom enters a 6-digit code on the keypad. A click, the twins turn back around, open the box and fish two phones out of it, both in pink covers, one with kitty ears, one with bunny ears.

They throw themselves on the kitchen bench along the wall and the next 10 minutes are furious typing, showing each other things on their screens, more typing, plings and beeps and ding-dongs and short snippets of kid’s songs, like ringtones. Very annoying ringtones.

I sit down, too. Mom leaves another laminated card with a QR code on the table. Scan. 250k. This time, I get a text message from my bank, telling me that I have to reply with the word “BEVESTIGD” (all uppercase, Dutch for ‘confirmed’) to release the funds. This is new. I reply, it takes a few minutes, then mom’s phone beeps, she checks it and nods at me.

We all sit around the table, all busy with our phones. I send a brief message to Hans telling him that I won’t come home tonight and that I don’t know when I will be back tomorrow. Two minutes later: “you ok?’ — “yes, all good…’ — ‘be careful — and have fun’, together with a rocket emoji, I reply with another halo smiley. I’m glad he doesn’t know. Or does he?

The other guy is also on his phone. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look up. If you told an AI to generate a picture of ‘middle-aged Asian man’, it would probably produce something like him. He’s so nonde***********, I can’t find a single adjective that fits, besides superficial attributes. Black pants, white shirt, short crew-cut, clean-shaven, glasses. That’s really it. His facial expression varies between ‘bland’ and ‘annoyed’.

Mom says something and the twins jump up, and it looks like they are going for a race who gets to me first. Both almost bump into me and stand in front of me with big grins. The other guy’s face definitely is in the ‘annoyed’ state now. Another stern command from mom. The twins grimace, and then it seems they play something like the Japanese version of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”. Two rounds and Hana wins both. Reina gives her a bit of a look, shrugs, turns around and walks to the other guy. Before I can see what she is doing, Hana is sitting on my leg, like a kid would. Sideways, her butt on my thigh, her legs dangling between mine.

She puts her hand on her chest and says: “Hana”. Then she points at me.

“Heiko.” Hana snorts and has to put her hand in front of her mouth.

“Heiko?”

“Heiko.”

Her smile is so big I can see that two of her buckteeth are missing.

She points at herself, then at Reina, then at her mom. “Heiko.” Then she points at the other guy and at me. “Heiko.” — and shakes her head.

I understand. Heiko is a girl’s name in Japan. Damn. Now I know why Hans’ and Ikio’s kids always giggled when they said my name.

I smile at her and shrug. She puts her hand on my cheek and looks into my eyes.

“Heiko” and kisses my neck. Another harsh command from mom, Hana shrugs and smiles. I can still feel her lips on my neck.

She raises her hand, palm pointing at my face. Wait.

She jumps up, runs to Reina, whispers into her ear and points at me. Reina bursts out laughing and looks at me. “Heiko” and makes a heart with her hands. The other guy grunts something and grabs her arm and turns her back to him. Hana walks back to me. She lets a bit of spit run out of her mouth and sucks it back in. Mom didn’t see, and Hana is back on my lap. Now she’s straddling my leg, moving back and forth, slowly. “Hana. Heiko.” and she puts her head against my chest. She can probably feel that my heart is beating like crazy.

We sit like this for a while. Hana on my lap, moving slowly, so slow and so little movement that her mom doesn’t even notice it. Reina is on the other guy’s lap, he’s still looking at something on his phone, and she gives Hana and me a couple of very bored looks, rolls her eyes and sighs.

Hana turns to her twin sister, makes a heart with her hands and I try the same, but mine looks more like a dented triangle.

Another bellowed command. Does their mom ever talk to them in something resembling a normal tone? Like a mom would talk to her daughters? So far: no.

They both get up. Hana kisses her index and middle finger and presses them against my cheek. That smile… no, there’s nothing that could possibly get hard or excited, but it still sends a wave rolling from my balls up to the tip of my cock. I look down, there’s a faint wet spot on the leg of my pants. Hana.

The twins push against the door on the right, the one that’s half-open, and walk inside. Close the door behind them. Mom, now back to her polite, customer-facing tone, says something to the guy, he gets up and walks to the door on the left. She looks at me, nods. I get up and follow him.

Clean



The bathroom. Or more like: something between a locker room and a mini-spa. On the wall across, a big, open shower stall with three shower nozzles, spanning the whole width of the room, like a group shower. On the left, a big whirlpool for four people, in the shape of a cloverleaf. Two massage tables in the middle of the room, shiny chrome and black leatherette. And a few lockers and a washing machine and dryer on the right side.

Mom points at a laundry basket between the two massage tables. Says something and makes an ‘unbutton shirt’ gesture towards me.

She leaves and closes the door behind her. I look at the other guy, he doesn’t look at me. I start undressing. It feels awkward. It has been years… no: decades since I have undressed in front of another man. T-shirt, pants, socks and… I cringe. My boxers are starched with semen, not even spots, the entire front is like cardboard. The inside… don’t even ask. My dick is red and looks… wrinkled. My balls didn’t just feel like they were twice their normal size. They are. And this is… unsettling. No more action from these puppies.

We throw everything in the laundry basket. I head for the shower, but the bland guy yells something, he sounds like a drill instructor. Or like the cliché of one.

I stop — and then we stand there and wait. I lean against one of the massage tables because standing and walking is still a bit of a challenge. A shower sounds like an excellent idea. Shower. Bed. Sleep.

Hana. Reina. Hotel. Sleep.

The door opens. Mom walks in, and I instinctively cover my private parts with both hands. The bland guy just stands there. I haven’t looked at him yet, but if stereotypes are any indication, he’s probably not packing. And doesn’t seem to mind the woman in jeans and blouse bending down next to him.