I’m fine thank you and you?

On Saturday I got a call asking if I wanted to go to karaoke. I was in Nagaokakyo, about 100 miles from my town. The call was from a woman I had met the previous weekend. I didn’t think she had my number. She was rude, but funny, the last thing she had said to me was “Give me sex.”

This time she asked if I remembered her; where I was; what I was doing; all sweetness.

I had been drinking in a bar near my house the previous Saturday. Locazzitta is an unusually eccentric drinking spot. It smells like incense, looks like the inside of a kaleidoscope, sounds like psychedelic dub, and is the most delicious nap location I have found.

I was with my friend Lyle. There were two other customers, a cute girl and her friend. They were sitting at the multi coloured bar, we took up residence in the arm chairs.

All was sleepy - the music and drinks numbing the start of the weekend. The hazy atmosphere in this bar can overcome, more than once I have succumbed to slumber there, but not this time.

As soon as they walked in the atmosphere changed. The one guy looked drowsy but the two women were wide awake. Dressed loudly and talking noisily they immediately increased the volume and upped the vibe.

One of the women was particularly boisterous. She introduced herself straight away in English, a rarity in Japan – especially in the rural parts. She couldn’t speak English but interrogated us sporadically in Japanese. She asked the usual Japanese foreigner questions: Where from? Why Japan? What job? Japanese food?

A guy from the ramen shop next door came in to give her some food; she dismissed him rudely and began eating gyoza. She offered us some and insisted that we eat from her chopsticks. Gyoza are fried Chinese dumplings, and spicy by Japanese standards. She told us that Japanese food was too spicy for us and asked for another pair of chopsticks. She didn’t want to use them after the foreigners.

She was talking more at us than with us – rapidly approaching drunk. Lyle tried to converse but his attempts were met with mild insults and admonishment for being poor at Japanese. It was quite funny.

I sat in my seat, enjoying my drinks, watching the fun. I wanted to tell her that Japanese food, while good, was the blandest I had tasted – and this coming from an Englishman. I didn’t. I joked with Lyle, or listened to her joke with him. Her male companion sat facing the bar, laughing occasionally. The other female in their group sat at the end of the bar not saying much, but an alert presence nonetheless.

While I kept my mouth shut my eyes were talking freely. From my prime corner spot I could see everyone in the bar. The eye contact was flowing with the quieter woman of the loud group and the cute girl of the original twosome, who were now thoroughly interested in the rest of the bar. She seemed to be making excuses to look in my direction. The looks were fleeting - a good sign.

I stood up to go to the toilet. The whiskeys and coke I had been supping all night seemed at that moment to spread around my body. I could feel the JD pulsing through my veins. Awareness of state at such times is a sure sign of being on the edge, I was nearly there. When I returned to my seat my memory clouds.

The quiet woman from the loud group is kneeling at my feet. We are talking. We exchange numbers clandestinely. The conversation now involves the whole bar. All is raucous.

It is passed 2am. No more taxis. A cold 40 minute walk home. Talking to the cute girl and her friend. The friend is driving and wouldn’t she mind dropping us at my house its on the way. And she doesn’t want to but the cute friend convinces her. And they are leaving so we pay and follow them out. ¥8,000 a big bill for two. And as we leave the loud woman says give me sex. But we leave. She is wearing a corset under a white blazer and is bulging out front and back.

We pull up at my house. And I look for one last time in the cute girls eyes. It is the look of an approaching, when your eyes seem magnetic. But the friend says something and the moment passes, we touch and they drive away.

I woke up with a slight hangover. No headache, too much drink and not enough sleep. I check my phone and see a message from the quiet woman from the loud group: “Keiです(embarrassed smiley).” I check my phone book for sign of the cute girls details. They are not there and my hangover worsens.

Two days later I received an email from her.