by Donna George Storey

It begins respectably enough.

My longtime colleague and friend, Koichi Shimamura, invites me to dinner at one of Kyoto's oldest restaurants. We are celebrating. He's published his second Tanizaki volume, I just got tenure. Along the way I lost a husband, too. Work kept me so frantic this past year it took a month to notice he'd moved out.

My goal this summer, I tell Koichi, is to rediscover pleasure. Not in books or dreams -- I've had plenty of that -- but in something I can savor, something I can hold in my hand. The real thing.

For the moment I've found it. We have a table on the terrace to catch the cool river breeze. The evening sky stretches over us, a bolt of violet silk fading to silver. Young waiters murmur excuses as they bring course after course: slices of sea bream and fluffy, snow-white conger sailing on a miniature boat of ice, eggplant and broiled river eel, wisps of ivory-colored noodles in chilled soy broth.

Koichi pours more cold saké into my cup. "What other pleasures shall we rediscover tonight? We're in the right part of town for it."

"I don't know. How about one of those image clubs where I can play CEO and screw my 'secretary' on the desk? Or maybe a soapland. How much would it cost to have two or three naked woman soap me up with their bodies?" The saké is clearly taking effect.

He laughs.

"Gion is for men," I remind him. "Rich men."

"Perhaps, but foreign women are the 'third sex.' Legend has it you possess magic powers."

It's true enough my status as honorary male has come in handy in my profession, but I never considered matters of the flesh. I feel a surge of warmth between my thighs as if a cock is dangling there, thick and florid. The sensation is oddly exciting.

"No magic I know can turn me into a gentleman profligate. Not even for one night."

Koichi smiles.

We drift through the canyons of the pleasure district. Signs for bars and clubs twine up dark glass buildings like neon ivy. White Box. Capri. New Seeds. Fancy Rainbow.

"Let me guess. You're taking me to a hostess bar so some cute college girl can tell me how young I look and gush over my karaoke performance of My Way. Only a man would be fool enough to believe those lies."

Koichi shakes his head.

Neon and glass give way to clay walls of rust and gold. Faint bluish light glows behind the reeds screens at the windows.

We stop before a small house, no different from the others.

"You said you wanted 'the real thing.'" He nods toward the entryway.

I know a dare when I hear one. That, more than anything, makes me follow him inside.

The young woman kneels on the glossy straw matting and bows low, first to me, then Koichi.

She is lovely.

"This young lady will perform a traditional dance for us," Koichi explains. "Her name is Ohisa."

I bite back a smile. Ohisa is the name of a character in a novel, an old man's doll-like mistress, who, even in 1928, was a relic of the past. We've both published articles on her. And now she sits before us in the flesh.

The wizened grandma in the corner strikes up a geisha love song on her samisen. Ohisa rises to her feet. By some trick of the hand, her red sash slithers to the tatami, a gaudy, sleepy snake. Her summer kimono follows, pooling at her feet in ripples of midnight blue cotton and morning glories. What's left: Ohisa in a robe of nearly transparent silk that hugs her slender hips, her small round breasts. The nipples, a pale tender pink, poke through the thin cloth.

This is no ordinary dance.

My face grows hot, my hands throb and twitch in my lap. Has it finally happened? Am I seeing with a man's eyes?

I reach into my bag and pull out my sketchpad, full of amateur renderings of a fox shrine tucked beside a tofu shop, a corner of the iris garden at the Heian Shrine. I draw quickly, the curves of her buttock and shoulder, a faint shading of aureola. The kind of sexy picture a voyeur who thinks he has talent might dash off as a souvenir.

But I also see what few men would in the proud tilt of her chin, the precision of her gestures. Ohisa -- or whatever her real name is -- is an artist.

When the dance is over, Koichi stands, flashes me a smile and disappears. The samisen player leaves, too, but not before she removes the screen in the corner to reveal a futon, the top quilt folded back in invitation. A small brigade of sex toys stands ready by the pillow, all for a lady's pleasure. Images flash into my head, cartoon obscenities. Ohisa trussed up in the dildo harness, her vein-brocaded rubber tool bobbing with each wanton thrust. Or myself, the mad professor, leering over her supine form, a vibrator wand buzzing in each hand.

I catch Ohisa's eye. We both look away. Right now this room is a foreign land to us both.

Flustered, I push the drawing toward her. My offering for putting up with Koichi's ridiculous joke.

Ohisa studies the picture. She looks up at me again. Then she smiles.

It is Ohisa's idea to pose for me. She vamps, makes silly faces. We make it our joke. Finally she kneels on the bed with her back to me, her head turned in profile. Connoisseurs claim no vision is more erotic: the contrast of pale, slender neck and rich black hair.

It's my best sketch yet.

"Nice," she murmurs.

It is now I allow myself one indulgence. I touch her. Lightly on the shoulder, then again on her cool, smooth hair. I mean to stop here -- and give her what I hope is an easy night's work -- but for what she does. She sighs. A sound of such melancholy yearning, I feel it in my own body, an ache like hunger, but lower. Suddenly I want to comfort her, give her something, even if it's selfish. I wrap my arms around her and pull her back against me. She doesn't resist.

"May I touch your breasts?" My voice is strange, deeper.

"Please," she whispers. Her chest rises in quick, shallow breaths.

In the cups of my palms, her skin is padded satin. I circle the nipples with my fingertips, feel tiny goose bumps rise. Once, as if by accident, I brush the stiffened tips.

She sighs again. My hand skates down the curve of her belly.

"May I..." I want to say "play with your pussy," but the proper words escape me.

She seems to understand. She parts the robe, drops her legs open.

"How do you make yourself feel good when you're alone?" I'm fumbling for words, absurdly polite. "Teach me. Please."

Obediently she guides my finger to a soft hollow just to the right of her springy little clit. As I strum, I flick her nipple with the pad of my thumb, the way I do when I masturbate. She moans. I drink it all in, the slurpy kiss of finger on pussy, the spice-and-seawater smell of her. Or is it me? Rubbing her in her secret place is enough to make my own cunt drool like an old drunk. I push myself against her ass and she squirms back and we're riding together on a wet spot as wide as the ocean, floating in that place where only sex can take you. No rules. No boundaries. Only pleasure.

Suddenly Ohisa's body goes rigid. "Iku, iku wa." The Japanese don't come, they "go," but I need no translation as she sways in my embrace, mewing and shuddering.

I hold her until her breath is even and soft.

The curbside door of the taxi opens as if by magic. I slide in, lean back, glide through the summer night. The whine of an enka folk song drifts from the radio.

Heedless of the white-gloved driver, I bring my fingers to my nose. In novels and floating world prints the journey from pleasure back to ordinary life is the time of contemplation. The lies I'll tell Koichi. The way I'll remember her pussy, soft as wet rose petals, when I bring myself off later in my bed. A touch of teenage-boy glee -- I made a girl come! -- though I know I didn't touch Ohisa in the way that counts.

I take a long, slow breath. A woman's pleasure. The perfume those libertines of old ruined fortunes to possess. I have it right here in my hand. The real thing.

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