television, examine the delivery menus from local restaurants, test the light switches at the head of the bed, and check the contents of the minibar.
“The owners are friends of mine,” Keiko said. “I had them get their biggest room ready. It is a love hotel, but don’t let that bother you. You’re not bothered, are you?”
“Not at all,” Komura said.
“I thought this would make a lot more sense than sticking you in a cramped little room in some cheap business hotel by the station.”
“You may be right,” Komura said.
“Why don’t you take a bath? I filled the tub.”
Komura did as he was told. The tub was huge. He felt uneasy soaking in it alone. The couples who came to this hotel probably took baths together.
When he emerged from the bathroom, Komura was surprised to find that Keiko Sasaki had left. Shimao was still there, drinking beer and watching TV.
“Keiko went home,” Shimao said. “She wanted me to apologize and tell you that she’ll be back tomorrow morning. Do you mind if I stay here a little while and have a beer?”
“Fine,” Komura said.
“You’re sure it’s no problem? Like, you want to be alone or you can’t relax if somebody else is around or something?”
Komura insisted it was no problem. Drinking a beer and drying his hair with a towel, he watched TV with Shimao. It was a news special on the Kobe earthquake. The usual images appeared again and again: tilted buildings, buckled streets, old women weeping, confusion and aimless anger. When a commercial came on, Shimao used the remote to switch off the TV.
“Let’s talk,” she said, “as long as we’re here.”
“Fine,” Komura said.
“Hmm, what should we talk about?”
“In the car, you and Keiko said something about a bear, remember? You said it was a great story.”
“Oh yeah,” she said, nodding. “The bear story.”
“You want to tell it to me?”
“Sure, why not?”
Shimao got a fresh beer from the minibar and filled both their glasses.
“It’s a little raunchy,” she said. “You don’t mind?”
Komura shook his head.
“I mean, some men don’t like hearing a woman tell certain kinds of stories.”
“I’m not like that.”
“It’s something that actually happened to me, so it’s a little embarrassing.”
“I’d like to hear it if you’re OK with it.”
“I’m OK, if you’re OK.”
“I’m OK,” Komura said.
“Three years ago—back around the time I entered junior college—I was dating this guy. He was a year older than me, a college student. He was the first guy I had sex with. One day the two of us were out hiking—in the mountains way up north.”
She took a sip of beer.
“It was fall, and the hills were full of bears. That’s the time of year when the bears are getting ready to hibernate, so they’re out looking for food and they’re really dangerous. Sometimes they attack people. They did an awful job on one hiker just three days before we went out. So somebody gave us a bell to carry—about the same size as a wind-bell. You’re supposed to shake it when you walk so the bears know there are people around and won’t come out. Bears don’t attack people on purpose. I mean, they’re pretty much vegetarians. They don’t have to attack people. What happens is they suddenly bump into people in their territory and they get surprised or angry and they attack out of reflex. So if you walk along ringing your bell, they’ll avoid you. Get it?”
“I get it.”
“So that’s what we were doing, walking along and ringing the bell. We got to this place where there was nobody else around, and all of a sudden he said he wanted to . . . do it. I kind of liked the idea, too, so I said OK and we went into this bushy place off the trail where nobody could see us, and we spread out a piece of plastic. But I was afraid of the bears. I mean, think how awful it would be to have some bear attack you from behind and kill you when you’re having sex! I would never want to die that way. Would you?”
Komura agreed that he would not want to die that way.
“So there we were, shaking the bell with one hand and having sex. Kept it up from start to finish. Ding-a-ling! Ding-a-ling! ”
“Which one of you shook the bell?”
“We took turns. We’d trade off when our hands got tired. It was so weird, shaking this bell the whole time we were doing it! I think about it sometimes even