How to turn off a Japanese girl
“The ryokan I stayed in that night was an unusual one… Before I took a bath, the very attractive twenty-three-year-old daughter of the ryokan went with me for a stroll in the elegant garden, where we watched the black carp swimming about in their pond and netted the one I was to dine on. Later on, in the bathroom, I noticed a black carp staring glumly at me from out of a glass tank set into the wall. It struck me as a perverse idea to have the dinner survey the diner like this, and although I couldn’t absolutely swear it was the same fish, I spent less time wallowing in the tub than I might have if the tank had contained a couple of tiddlers.
But there was another reason for skipping smartly back to my room: the daughter had promised to serve me dinner. We sat with the screens ajar, she in a sleek dark dress, me in the ryokan’s extra-large yukata, and talked for a long time… We drank a good few cups of sake as I nibbled my carp, and by the time the girl had cleared away the dishes, had seated herself again on the soft cushion opposite me, and resumed the story of her life in a voice that grew more melodious the more sake I sipped, I had begun to sense the possibility of a tasty sequel to the meal.
Woe to that carp (since I am convinced now it was the occupant of the bathroom tank that I had been blithely dipping in mustard sauce)! Because that half-digested creature chose this extremely critical moment–this delicate irretrievable moment of deciding how to maneuver a mattress out of a wall cupboard without appearing overly forward–to have his own back with a vengeance.
‘Isn’t it quiet,’ I murmured to the girl and farted louder than I have ever farted in my life. The girl dissolved in helpless giggles and disappeared rapidly in the direction of her sitting room. I hurled my own mattress down onto the tatami. Her brother served me breakfast.”
(Alan Booth in The Roads to Sata p. 168-169)
