The Open Saki (Fiction, 2005)

It was dusk when I walked into my Tokyo hotel room and saw a shadowy figure of a woman  across the room.

“Yuki?“ I called from my hotel door.
“Konbanwa,¹ I let myself in.”

She walked toward the middle of the room and stretched out on my divan, her kimono carelessly open, partially exposing her lithe, naked left thigh. She patted a corner of the divan, and asked,

“I heard you were in town Yem, I thought I’d stop by. I’m sure you don’t mind, do you. Ogenki desu-ka?”²

No I didn’t mind and her rhetorical questions needed no reply. The enigmatic Yuki queried,

"Would you like a little Saki?"
I thought for a moment,
"When in Tokyo..."

But expectantly replied in my worst Japanese,
"Doumo arigatou gozai-masu."³
She laughed remembering my hopeless attempts to learn her native tongue.
“Let’s stick with English okay?”

She then sat up and poured a small amount of Saki from a delicate looking volume:
"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "In the meantime you must try and put up with me."

This sip wasn't enough to cause inebriation but it left me wanting.
"More?" I asked.

"Of course, Kochira koso."4 she tittered, "But you must remember that moderation is the foundation of our relationship."

She was as beautiful as ever and my thoughts on moderation weren't preeminent right then.
"Of course moderation my dear," I replied, figuratively crossing my fingers behind my back.

She poured again from The open flask,
"Out through the window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their days shooting. They never came back."

Her words were tart, yet mysteriously sweet. Very pleasant to the palate, with just a touch of mischievousness and... irony. I wanted her to pour me the entire content of that volume and she clearly saw the glare in my eyes, if not the rising flame in my tone of voice,
"I must have more, Yuki, pour another!"

However, she teasingly denied my imploring words. She was such a coquette, this captivating, young geisha. Her voice touched a place in me that exposed yet enraptured; an emotion that I wanted addressed and fulfilled.

After a few agonizing moments, Yuki slowly wet her beguiling lips with the tip of her tongue and poured,

"I hope Vera has been amusing you," she said.
"She has been very interesting," said Foreman.

Was it the Saki or Yuki's caressing voice bringing on this fire? All I knew was, I needed  release! "Yuki!"

Trained in the ways of pleasure, she understood my need. She came close to me, looked deeply, longingly into my eyes. I could feel her warm, desirous breath titillating my lips. She, without looking away recited,
"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!

Pleasure that bordered on madness coursed through my body, infinite recesses of desire were delighted by those climaxing words, "Oh yes, Yuki, yes!" Restraint was beyond my means as the torrent began its crescendo.

The fires slowly died to their embers; fully released of my abandon, I lay back on the divan, completely spent. I saw Yuki from the corner of my eye, she looked away pretending  modesty, but I could see a glint in her eye, and the telling lines that creased the corners of her unhindered lips. She wore my contentment as a plume upon her allure.

She rose from her sitting position and began to walk toward the front door. Her hips swayed in an exaggerated, but none the less, assured manner;  a woman certain of her charms. Breaking away from her rhythmic sway, I noticed that she carried the Saki in her right hand,

"Yuki, the Saki, could you leave it here?"

"No Yem, I shall keep the Saki until...tomorrow. Shall we say, "Tobermory?" She opened the door and walked out, but glanced back and whispered,
“Mata ashita.”5

Romance at short notice was her specialty.+

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1. Good evening

2. How are you?

3. Thanks a lot.

4. The pleasure is mine.

5. See you tomorrow.

+ The reading sections by Yuki and the final line of this story are from H.H. Munro's (Saki) "The Open Window."

www2.tokai.or.jp/yuki/japanese_words_and_phrases.htm