Her Husband Didn’t
First her ear, then her eyebrow, then . . . One by one the various parts of
Kiriko’s already-married body drifted up before Junji, filling his head. He
was thinking his way through the sequence of kisses he would give her that
evening.
It takes about an hour to go by train from North Kamakura to Shinbashi
on the Yokosuka line. There was enough time for him to imagine a number
of different sequences if he liked, and various methods of kissing.
Though Junji and Kiriko both lived in North Kamakura, they met in
Tokyo as a rule—Kiriko worried that they would attract attention if they
were seen together in their own small town. They took the added
precaution of riding in on different trains. Each time they arranged to meet,
Junji suggested that he be the one to take the earlier train and wait. Kiriko
never even had to ask him to do this. Junji was young, still a student. He
seemed to fear that he might discover some flaw in her body.
First the ear. . . . Junji started with Kiriko’s ear because he still regretted
the disappointment he had felt the first time he touched her earlobe—
because he was still sorry that it had not excited him. His disappointment
had been so acute on that occasion that even the color of his face must have
changed.
“Hey.” Kiriko had opened her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
He had pulled his finger back from her ear the instant he had touched it.
No doubt that, too, seemed strange.
Junji took Kiriko’s ear hurriedly into his mouth. His face was hidden in
the hair at the side of her head. The smell of hair engulfed him.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
Junji caught hold of her head as she tried to pull away.
