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      I lay on my back, my head resting on a black satin pillow shaped like an oversized boxing glove. Comfy, cozy. And naked. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, spreading my legs and exposing the tender lips of my pussy, hot and moist.

      “Let’s get ready to rrrrrumble…” I said, twirling my Rs like a professional ring announcer.

      The nude man watching me grinned, then joined me on the bed, which was square-shaped like a boxing ring with ropes and stanchions. I reached back and grabbed onto the golden ropes surrounding the bed, parting my lips in anticipation and surrendering myself to the expertise of his bare hands.

      They were everywhere at once, caressing and stroking me, sliding over my thighs, then gently untying the thin silk belt holding together my short red kimono. I tightened my stomach, muscles straining while I pulled on the golden cords. Tingling, gripped with a hunger for his touch, I pulled harder. He sensed my need and rubbed his palms against my hard nipples, sending me into a dizzying spiral, somewhere, everywhere. I loved the feeling. I wanted more.

      “Ready for the next round?” he whispered, never letting up with his hands.

      “Yes…yes!” I cried out.

      Kissing, fondling, massaging all over my body, this was only the beginning of the game. A game that rocked my world and sent me to new heights of sights, sounds, and smells, not to mention great sex.

      It was called the love hotel.

      I learned about the intimacy and excitement of the love hotel on an extended business trip to Japan. It was a typical can-the-Nikkei-go-any-higher day Americans working in the Land of the Rising Sun know all too well. After a long morning of “yen highs and dollar lows,” Steve, a tall, ruggedly handsome American coworker I’d met on my first day in Tokyo, suggested we go out to lunch.

      Why not? I needed a break. Working for a big advertising company handling talent for Japanese commercials wasn’t all glam. Did you see Lost in Translation? Then you know what I mean. I was the liaison between the actor who wouldn’t-be-caught-dead-in-his-skivvies-on-American-TV-but-in-Japan-anything-goes and the Japanese director with the hard-on for every blond ingenue I sent his way.

      Speaking of hard-ons…

      I noticed Steve eyeing my rear when he thought I wasn’t looking. I returned the favor. The man had a set of buns that made my sex-o-meter soar up higher than the Nikkei. Here was a man who knew women admired him, and understood all too well the raw lust in my eyes. I welcomed him being the object of my imaginings, and by the time he brushed up against my breasts and promptly uttered, “Excuse me,” my body was yearning with the most delicious hunger, my pussy wet and ready, begging for satisfaction.

      Arm in arm, we headed out to lunch, leaving the office behind. It had been a difficult morning; the Japanese director was upset because he hadn’t been advised of a change in the shooting schedule to accommodate the lead actor’s request to go deep-sea fishing in Thailand. His long, straight black hair flying around his face, his eyes blazing behind his dark glasses, he had ranted on for an hour, frightening the young OL or Office Lady who worked for me.

      Enter Steve, calming him down and giving me pointers on how to deal with him. Standing close to me, his hot breath on my neck making me shiver with a pleasant tremor that extended down to my pink-polished toes, he had explained the director was behaving in a manner expected of him to save face, similar to the way Japanese workers scurried around the office, always in a hurry even if they weren’t. Giving the appearance of urgency, he said, was an important tradition in a Japanese office.

      Steve was a veteran adman, having lived in Japan for several years, and he knew how to handle the difficulties of the job. But what impressed me more was that he took the time to help me. I’d always considered what I did in my job an art—coordinating the production, being on location during the shoot, then following through with postproduction. Steve helped me take it one step further by showing me how to break down the barriers I’d faced since coming to Japan. I respected him, but I was also wildly attracted to him. Did he feel the same way about me? Although he was gaijin, a foreigner like me, he followed the ways of the Japanese. Taking his time, not acting on impulse, conferring with the team before making a decision. Did he also follow their ways in the art of love?

      Was he unattainable?

      I was determined to find out.

      Light perspiration dampened my sheer white silk blouse and a sweet smell wafted up from between my legs. I took a sniff and a scent of another kind made my heart beat faster. A pleasant musky smell, the scent of a man, so unlike the rose menthol odor all the rage among the men in my Tokyo office. It came from a gum that made them smell like roses after they chewed it. Seemed Japanese women preferred men who smelled like an indoor flower garden. I, on the other hand, favored raw male pheromones to rev up my libido. And Steve’s did the job to the max.

      He sensed my hunger and smiled. “You smell good,” he said, taking a whiff of my hair.

      “So do you.”

      He grinned, then gave a playful tug on my long strands. “We’ll continue this discussion at lunch, if you’re game.”

      “I am. By the way,” I said, baiting him with a verbal hook, “I’ve noticed the Japanese are great game players.” I referred to their obsession with video games and pachinko, a noisy pinball game. I pushed out my breasts, then wet my lips with my tongue. “I’m curious to find out what kind of player you are.”

      “Don’t worry,” he teased. “You will.”

      I smiled, aware that the mere suggestion of becoming intimate with him ignited a flicker of pleasure low in my belly.

      Once outside in the cool air, I tried to quell the slow fire building within me, but the closeness of Steve’s body pressed up against mine made my temperature rise. We stood huddled together under my umbrella to keep out of the rain. A soft, steady, dewy rain that rolled off my umbrella and fell at my feet like silky, liquid petals.

      The rain didn’t stop the Japanese from crowding the streets, I noticed, though it wasn’t all salarymen and OLs rushing out for a quick lunch. I saw Goth girls in their black garb vamping through rain puddles with their huge black and white polka-dotted umbrellas, as well as tough-looking guys with auburn-dyed hair wearing square-toed boots and long black jackets that extended down over their hips. I drew in my breath when I observed a beautiful woman in a mauve kimono with delicate white blossoms embroidered on her obi or sash, text messaging on her cell phone as she got into a limo. A geisha? I wondered. Her presence reminded me I was living in a land of make-believe, where nothing was what it seemed.

      Though I found Tokyo intoxicating, it made my head spin as I tried to traverse my way through a world so foreign, a world where anything goes: from pulsing neon lights everywhere to heated toilet seats to the vivid colors of Kabuki and men playing women’s roles.

      I also had to deal with Japanese coworkers who nodded their heads and said, “Hai, yes,” when what they really meant was, “I understand.” A polite way of saying “no.” Showing what they called tatemae, face, instead of honne, their real feelings. The Japanese have a saying, “Face is more powerful than money.” To the Japanese, yes. For me, trying to live and work in a culture I didn’t understand was making me lonely.

      Very lonely.

      And Steve was just the magic pill I needed. I could already taste him on my tongue. Hot and salty. I imagined my lips and tongue working along his shaft, sucking on him, around the head, my tongue diving into the little hole on top, before bringing him to a climax as pleasure overtook him.