Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

Up the spiral staircase with its metal banister that ascended from the entrance with its vaulted ceiling, there was just one large bedroom, with a toilet and bath attached. The room contained little more than a vanity mir- ror and chair, an oak sideboard, and a double bed spilling over and occupy- ing the rest of the space. Mrs. Tsugane turned down the bedspread and light blanket and, standing firmly on the rug, legs set apart, took off her skirt, shrugged off her silk slip, and let it drop to the floor. After carefully remov- ing her stockings, she was taking off her panties when a faint smile spread lines from her flushed eyelids to her cheeks. Ogi didn't like that particular look, which was directed at him, but not to be outdone, he enthusiastically sloughed off his clothes.

Only three minutes into sex, as Ogi was moving vigorously up and down, his passion rising, Mrs. Tsugane pushed up her slim arms against his chest. Ogi was annoyed, but she modestly explained that she felt she was going to come first, and wanted him to get off her. She turned around, face down, hoisting up to a comical height the two white globes of her rump and the reddish slit between. She had all the seriousness of purpose of a little girl absorbed in play and Ogi, once again in a good mood, couldn't suppress a smile, feeling proud that such an intelligent older woman would openly show him such passion.

Ogi enjoyed remembering their sexual activities for many days there- after. Even when he was taking care of the inquiries related to Patron's name list-and the number of replies they received exceeded a hundred-he'd be possessed by fragmentary mental pictures of Mrs. Tsugane's body, and of her fingers, and of his as they moved over her. He made out a schedule of visits to the university town Mrs. Tsugane lived in, taking care of all the business at hand up to the last possible moment-sending out Patron's letters, getting in touch with people by e-mail, fax, and, when necessary, by phone. For her part, Mrs. Tsugane, with her insatiable desire and stamina-at least from the view- point of an inexperienced youth-responded to Ogi's every need. What's more, she displayed the kind of good sense appropriate to an older woman.

One day between bouts of sex as they lay sprawled out, resting their weary bodies, Mrs. Tsugane, puffing on a cigarette, said, sounding less like she was addressing Ogi than reciting lines from a one-man play, "Please don't tell anyone about what's going on between us. After my husband gets back from abroad, we won't be able to meet as frequently, and we'll both have time to do some soul-searching. In my experience, even if you try very hard to ana- lyze a physical relationship, one that's just begun, you'll find it meaningless to do so."

Innocent, and at the same time moralistic, Ogi listened to her, dead se- rious. A moment later, though, as Mrs. Tsugane, lying face down, slid up and reached out for the ashtray, Ogi's attention was riveted by the red lines on the outer part of her small buttocks attached to thick thighs, and by her anus, like a dried jujube-tree fruit, the only part of the sweaty flushed inner flesh of her skin that wasn't soaked, like an ornamental button amid the pubic hair surrounding it.

In the end, innocent young Ogi put these words of a most discreet and experienced older woman on a back burner and didn't pursue their implica- tions. After three weeks of bliss, though, the day came when he had to face an inevitable reality, on the heels of which he was ambushed by jealousy and ended up angry and miserable: Mrs. Tsugane's husband was coming back from Europe the following day.

Ogi learned that they wouldn't be seeing much of each other since she was going to take some time off from her job and spend a week with her husband at their cottage in South Izu before he reported back to his design center. When he heard this, Ogi felt like breathing a sigh of relief for his penis, which had never had such a workout. Perhaps eager to reward him for the time they'd have to be apart, when Ogi arrived at her refuge on this final day Mrs. Tsugane had laid out a plastic sheet on the rug at the foot of the bed, as well as a professional-size bottle of body lotion Ms. Asuka had given her.

Ogi had heard that Ms. Asuka worked in "adult entertainment," but it was only when he saw this bottle that he fully understood what this meant.

According to what he'd heard, the Our Own Moosbrugger fellow had used some of Ms. Asuka's contributions to pay a visit to her massage parlor.

They spread the lotion over each other's bodies and went through the same routine they normally performed on the bed. But this time Mrs. Tsugane didn't let Ogi pin her down; instead she got up on his chest and straddled him, facing away from him and bending over. As he knew it would, his penis trembled from this new workout as her head bobbed up and down on it.

Thinking to return the favor, Ogi stuck his neck out like a turtle, but with the rapid movement of her tight little rump, his tongue couldn't quite reach the red slit right before his eyes. He grabbed on to her glistening white butt, a hand on each hemisphere to hold it still, and relaxed his neck. But as Mrs.

Tsugane became more absorbed in performing fellatio, the bobbing move- ments of her head led her butt to rise and fall; Ogi touched his right index finger to the jujube fruit between her buttocks, and it slid in smoothly. As if to encourage the movements of his fingers, her rump gracefully slid down deeper and the young man's finger came to rest on a soft cocoon like a tiny ball of finely dried hay… After he returned to his apartment, Ogi finally realized what that had all been about. A few days before, as they took a break in bed, Mrs. Tsugane had mentioned that her furniture-designer husband had an interest in sca- tology and had shown interest in her urine and feces. Once it was out of the body it was dead, as far as she was concerned, and though she had urinated on him once, she didn't let him touch anything else, she said.

Mrs. Tsugane had given Ogi the body lotion bottle to throw away in the garbage cans outside the station on his way home, but as she did so she poured the remaining lotion into a small bottle of a generic brand of make-up, and put the apparently new container in her purse. Now when he recalled this he understood he'd been nothing more than a guinea pig in an experi- ment prepared for her returning husband's new sexual proclivities. And this became the trigger for the jealousy that consumed him the following week.

After a truly miserable week alone, when Ogi showed up at Mrs.

Tsugane's office she was on the phone, speaking slowly and deliberately.

She motioned to him to take a seat. Apparently she was talking with the PR department of a company regarding travel funding for a Polish avant- garde troupe that was scheduled to appear at the drama festival sponsored by the Culture and Sports Center the following spring. She had on a beige suit and, around her neck, a scarf of horizontal light green and grass-colored stripes. On his trip to Europe to the awards ceremony, Mrs. Tsugane had told Ogi proudly, she'd asked her husband to attend a famous scarf designer's show of his new collection.

As he listened to her endless phone call, Ogi remembered that long-ago summer day, her tank top, and her lush heavy hair cascading down her back.

Her hair now, bangs as well as the hair down the nape of her neck, was thin- ner and piled up on top of her head. He had learned that the wrinkles that ran from her eyes to the upper part of her cheeks grew darker as she got sexu- ally aroused, but now they were merely an indicator of aging skin; in her profile, as she quietly but persistently made her case over the phone, Ogi could see exhaustion seeping through.

She finally finished her call and hung up, a self-deprecating look on her face at having someone else witness her struggle over the phone.