Sachiko

"My name is Sachiko," she introduced herself.

"The 'Insect Woman'?" he asked facetiously, referring to the actress who had starred in Imamura Shohei's famous film.

"Eeee. . .oo," she laughed, displaying a particularly enticing embouchure, "you know about Japanese movies?"

At closing time they left together.

Upon stepping out the door, like in the over-used cliché of Edo Period romances, they found themselves huddled under the eaves of the roof seeking cover from a rainstorm. She giggled as he drew attention to the elegiac quality of the night.

Emote! oh, ye Elysian fields,
After-death place of ideals.
Pearl-like, fall the drops in the night;
Pebbly, the atmosphere with hallucinatory light.
Cuddling for warmth,
A hand she takes and slides through the silk
To clutch a breast peaked and sending shivers to the sacred space.
Hamadryad is a nymph inhabiting in life those in whom she dies.
Munificent of the muse's sediment, she is;
So praise her, praise her, ye murrain of mummers.
When it became certain that the cold drenching downpour would pelt for sometime, they reconciled themselves to a damp walk. Her house was only four or five blocks away, located on a fringe of Atsugi. Remnant rice fields caught amongst suburban sprawl, like calm minds in the middle of a panic, were visible in the distance through the mist and the rain. A bit smashed, they tip-toed and then stomped, Squelch-squish-squelch! closely sheltering under her bamboo and oiled-rice-paper umbrella, through narrow puddled back streets, Ubble-gubble! Moji-moji! An occasional lantern hanging from the eave of a house added color to the dim glow cast by widely spaced street lamps. Silence was injured only by the sounds of water in motion, Pit-a-pat-pat! Bil-bil!