Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

"And then one day - a day in May, I think it was - in the middle of her lesson, she said she felt sick. I saw she was pale and sweating and asked if she wanted to go home, but she said she thought she'd feel better if she could just lie down for a while. So I took her - almost carried her - to the bedroom.

We had such a small sofa, the bed was the only place she could lie down. She apologized for being a nuisance, but I assured her it was no bother and asked if she wanted anything to drink. She said no, she just wanted me to stay near her, which I said I'd be glad to do.

"A few minutes later she asked me to rub her back. She sounded as though she was really suffering, and she was sweating like mad, so I started to give her a good massage. Then she apologized and asked me if I'd mind taking off her bra, as it was hurting her. So, I don't know, I did it. She was wearing a skin-tight blouse, and I had to unbutton that and reach behind and undo the bra hooks. She had big breasts for a 13-year-old. Twice as big as mine. And she wasn't wearing any starter bra but a real adult model, an expensive one. Of course I'm not paying all that much attention at the time, and like an idiot I just carry on rubbing her back. She keeps apologizing in this pitiful voice as if she's really sorry, and I keep telling her it's OK it's OK."

Reiko tapped the ash from her cigarette to the floor. By then I had stopped eating grapes and was giving all my attention to her story.

"After a while she starts sobbing. "What's wrong?' I ask her.

"Nothing,' she says. "It's obviously not nothing,' I say. "Tell me the truth. What's bothering you?' S o she says, "I just get like this sometimes. I don't know what to do. I'm so lonely and sad, and I can't talk to anybody, and nobody cares about me. And it hurts so much, I just get like this. I can't sleep at night, and I don't feel like eating, and coming here for my lesson is the only thing I have to look forward to.'

So I say, "You can talk to me. Tell me why this happens to you.'

Things are not going well at home, she says. She can't love her parents, and they don't love her. Her father is seeing another woman and is hardly ever around, and that makes her mother half crazy and she takes it out on the girl; she beats her almost every day and she hates to go home. So now the girl is really wailing, and her eyes are full of tears, those beautiful eyes of hers. The sight is enough to make a god weep. So I tell her, if it's so terrible to go home, she can come to my place any time she likes. When she hears that, the girl throws her arms around me and says, "Oh, I'm so sorry, but if I didn't have you I wouldn't know what to do. Please don't turn your back on me. If you did that, I'd have nowhere to go.'

"So, I don't know, I hold her head against me and I'm caressing her and saying "There there,' and she's got her arms around me and she's stroking my back, and soon I'm starting to feel very strange, my whole body is kind of hot. I mean, here's this picture-perfect beautiful girl and I'm on the bed with her, and we're hugging, and her hands are caressing my back in this incredibly sensual way that my own husband couldn't even begin to match, and I feel all the screws coming loose in my body every time she touches me, and before I know it she has my blouse and bra off and she's stroking my breasts. So that's when it finally hits me that she's an absolute dyed-in-the-wool lesbian.

This had happened to me once before, at school, one of the sixth-form girls. So then I tell her to stop.

"Oh, please,' she says, "just a little more. I'm so lonely, I'm so lonely, please believe me, you're the only one I have, oh please, don't turn your back on me,' and she takes my hand and puts it on her breast - her very nicely shaped breast, and, sure, I'm a woman, but this electric something goes through me when my hand makes contact. I have no idea what to do. I just keep repeating no no no no no, like an idiot. It's as if I'm Paralyzed, I can't move. I had managed to push the girl away at school, but now I can't do a thing. My body won't take orders.

She's holding my right hand against her with her left hand, and she's kissing and licking my nipples, and her right hand is caressing my back, my side, my bottom. So here I am in the bedroom with the curtains closed and a 13-year-old girl has me practically naked - she's been taking my clothes off somehow all along - and touching me all over and I'm writhing with the pleasure of it. Looking back on it now, it seems incredible. I mean, it's insane, don't you think? But at the time it was as if she had cast a spell on me."

Reiko paused to puff at her cigarette.

"You know, this is the first time I've ever told a man about it," she said, looking at me. "I'm telling it to you because I think I ought to, but I'm finding it really embarrassing."

"I'm sorry," I said, because I didn't know what else to say.

"This went on for a while, and then her right hand started to move down, and she touched me through my panties. By then, I was absolutely soaking wet. I'm ashamed to say it, but I've never been so wet before or since. I had always thought of myself as sort of indifferent to sex, so I was astounded to be getting so worked up. So then she puts these slim, soft fingers of hers inside my panties, and... well, you know, I can't bring myself to put it into words. I mean, it was totally different from when a man puts his clumsy hands on you there. It was amazing. Really. Like feathers or down. I thought all the fuses in my head were going to pop. Still, somewhere in my fogged- over brain, the thought occurred to me that I had to put a stop to this.

If I let it happen once, I'd never stop, and if I had to carry around a secret like that inside me, my head was going to get completely messed up again. I thought about my daughter, too. What if she saw me like this? She was supposed to be at my parents' house until three on Saturdays, but what if something happened and she came home unexpectedly? This helped me to gather my strength and raise myself on the bed. "Stop it now, please stop!' I shouted.

"But she wouldn't stop. Instead, she yanked my panties down and started using her tongue. I had rarely let even my husband do that, I found it so embarrassing, but now I had a 13-year-old girl licking me all over down there. I just gave up. All I could do was cry. And it was absolute paradise.

"Stop it!' I yelled one more time and slapped her on the side of the face as hard as I could. She finally stopped, raised herself up and looked into my eyes. The two of us were stark naked, on our knees, in bed, staring at each other. She was 13, I was 31, but, I don't know, looking at that body of hers, I felt totally overwhelmed. The image is still so vivid in my mind. I could hardly believe I was looking at the body of a 13-year-old girl, and I still can't believe it. By comparison, what I had for a body was enough to make you cry. Believe me."

There was nothing I could say, and so I said nothing.

"What's wrong?' she says to me. "You like it this way, don't you? I knew you would the first time I met you. I know you like it. It's much better than doing it with a man - isn't it? Look how wet you are. I can make you feel even better if you'll let me. It's true. I can make you feel like your body's melting away. You want me to, don't you?' And she was right. She was much better than my husband. And I did want her to do it even more! But I couldn't let it happen. "Let's do this once a week,' she said. "Just once a week. Nobody will find out. It'll be our little secret'."

"But I got out of bed and put on my dressing-gown and told her to leave and never come back. She just looked at me. Her eyes were absolutely flat. I had never seen them like that before. It was as if they were painted on cardboard. They had no depth. After she stared at me for a while, she gathered up her clothes without a word and, as slowly as she could, as though she were making a show of it, she put on each item, one at a time. Then she went back into the piano room and took a brush from her bag. She brushed her hair and wiped the blood from her lips with a handkerchief, put on her shoes, and left. As she went out, she said, "You're a lesbian, you know. It's true. You may try to hide it, but you'll be a lesbian until the day you die'."