text: Momoe was staring ruefully at her red and painful hands when a commotion in the small fishing hamlet caught her attention. The women were clustering around a stranger. He was dressed in the clothes of a merchant. Simple cotton kimono, hiked up for travel, and a plain sash. On his back he carried a large basket which, as Momoe watched, he swung from his back. He squatted in place, a plump man whose muscular short legs showed in the sunlight. He chaffered with the fisherfolk, dispensing small knickknacks as he talked. He laughed uproariously at crude jokes and the shy fisherfolk followed suit.
  
  He was obviously a townsman and Momoe, curious, felt compelled to put on the ragged robe 'Cho had given her. The fat man looked at her as she approached. He whispered something to one of the old crones, and she cackled and whispered back.
  
  "Ah, young lady. Never seen you here before, have I? Not a fisher are you?"
  
  Momoe smiled shyly at the familiar accents of Miyako. "No," she said in a low voice.
  
  "Here's something for you then," he grinned and handed her a cheap comb.
  
  "Kind of you," she murmured.
  
  He laughed at the common Miyako politeness. "Miyako girl are you then? Intending to stay here?"
  
  Momoe indicated her indecision by bowing her head. "Why not come with me then? I could use some help in my business."
  
  "Yes, go with the man," the crone urged her. The other villagers whispered and smiled at her good fortune. "Yes, go with him. Take ye t'the city he will ..."
  
  Uncertainly, she nodded, and when he smiled broadly, nodded agreement more emphatically.
  
  He sounded kindly but there was something insincere about his offer that made Momoe want to refuse. On the other hand, her hands were blistered and she was exhausted from the days with the fishermen. And 'Cho's nightly demands were taking their toll too. She nodded silently, not really caring. The portly man laid a proprietary hand on her back and stroked the roughening skin.
  
  "She's coming with me," he called out cheerfully to the group of fisherfolk. Only the fisherwife seemed to pay any attention. She ran over to Momoe and hugged her, then shyly handed her a small worn bag. "Some needles. It's all I got t'gi' you."
  
  Momoe bowed her thanks, choking back her tears as the portly man led her off, back in the direction of the capital.
  
  "My name is Yukio," the portly man said. "I make kamaboko, and you will help me."
  
  Momoe nodded dumbly. She could see from the glint in his eyes that that was not the only thing he had in mind for her. Oddly enough, the thought was not displeasing. Suddenly she discovered that the pleasures of her body were the only things she had left. She was no longer a respectable daughter of respectable parents in a respectable occupation, but rather was as free as the winds. And the portly man, though not comely, was not displeasing. There was a certain animal delight about him, and a sly mystery that made her want to see what he had in mind.
  
  "I am fortunate," he said to her later, as they reached his establishment on the outskirts of the city, "that my work is also my pleasure. I love kamaboko you see, and as I make it as well, I make it to suit my own taste." Indeed, most of the fish he had ordered from the fishermen were suited for the making of the bland-tasting fish paste which was featured in many dishes.
  
  The morning work started early. There were fish to boil, bones and all, and their flesh to filter with other ingredients to create the right consistency. It was hot in the shed in which they worked. Yukio's operation was a small one, but Momoe saw that it would grow. The plump man was indefatigable, hopping from place to place, supervising and managing the cooking and filtering. The hired help left towards evening and Momoe, exhausted, slumped in a corner. Yukio still bustled about, tasting the finished product, seeing that the packages were ready for distribution.
  
  "You are tired," he said, bending over her and helping her to her feet. His words and actions were both solicitous, but Momoe sensed there was more to it than the words. "Let me help you restore your energy," he whispered. "Here, come here." There was an undercurrent of excitement in his voice, and as she brushed against him Momoe could feel the erection that bulged his loincloth.
  
  They were both naked from the waist up, and suddenly he was holding her, clutching at her rounded breasts. Momoe tried to resist but she was too tired, and in any case, ready herself for the feel of a male. His tongue sought hers and as his hands stripped off her underskirt, he rubbed blunt thick fingers through the soft hair between her legs. She swayed as she stood there, half from lust, half from sheer exhaustion.
  
  "Ah, you are tired," he murmured in the steamy heat of the shed. He led her to a cutting table on which the rolls of finished product were packaged, now scrubbed clean of work and smelling faintly of fish and cedarwood. "Come, lie here and I will help you. I and kamaboko." Beside the table were several vats with kamaboko paste that had not hardened yet to the desired consistency.
  
  He took a handful of the paste and rubbed his bare chest, then approached her and squeezed a generous handful between her legs. She moaned encouragingly, and he took another handful and rubbed it carefully through her hairy mound. It was hard for her to elevate herself much in her spread position on the low table but she pushed up as well as she could. He grinned and fisted another gob of the white paste. With great sweeping motions of his hands he began coating her entire body, until nothing but her head showed above the paste. His eyes glowed with lust and she wiggled and anticipation, making the paste shimmer whitely. His hands, coated with the white substance, roamed her body. His fingers explored her insides, slipping easily between the portals of her lower lips. Her nipples responded, peeking perkily out of mounds of the paste, like reverse mountains: the flanks snowy, the peaks brown. She floated off into a reverie as the kamaboko-maker's hands massaged her tired muscles. Gradually the tension left her limbs and entered into one hot spot, concentrating at the pit of her stomach, causing her to sound with lust. Shudders overcame her as his fingers, still coated with the paste, dug deeply into her salty interior.
  
  "I'm hungry," Yukio complained, and he lowered his head to the pasture of her cunt, sucking and licking the paste up in great gulps.
  
  Momoe cried out and almost sat erect. She had never felt the like before. The demanding touch of the man's lips and tongue on her sensitized cunt was almost too wonderful to bear. She cried out and clutched at his head, driving the searching tongue deeper into the sweet folds of her own flesh. Yukio obliged and drove his tongue like a vibrant miniature cock deep into her quim, carefully licking out every trace of the bland kamaboko paste and the salt of the girl's juices. She shivered and tossed her kerchief-wrapped head in the throes of an orgasm. Her heavily lidded eyes closed and her hips and bottom moved silkily, slithering on the slick table. At last the tremors subsided. Yukio looked down at her, then climbed onto the table between her legs. Her golden skin, tanned by her days with the fishermen, glowed against the snowy white of the paste.
  
  Momoe noted that his erection was stiff as an iron bar. He found it difficult to bend it to her entrance. She aimed it for him and he slid into her, shuddering uncontrollably at the pleasure of it. He could find no purchase to jog into her and she soon discovered that the only way was to rotate her hips under his weight and clench internal muscles she did not know she had to increase the friction in her cunt. He gobbled greedily at her breasts, her chin, her belly, arching his body comically.
  
  He burst into a powerful orgasm inside her and she tried to clutch his slippery form to hers. White sticky liquid oozed out from the pressure of their two bodies. His semen and her juices blended into the fish paste. Idly she ran a finger down their clinched bodies and examined the white paste that collected there. She gulped the gob, and it was the best kamaboko she had ever tasted.
  
  The morning was like any morning in her new life. The kamaboko-maker made no sign that they had enjoyed the pleasures of the night before. The delivery men came and went, taking orders. She cleaned the vats and utensils, ran minor errands.
  
  "Yukio-san," a breezy voice called from outside the shop. The kamaboko-maker left the vat he was examining and opened the door.
  
  "Ah, the person from Sakamotoya. Welcome, welcome."
  
  "We are having some guests. Special customers from the country. Could we have a special order?"
  
  The two men chaffered for awhile, and Yukio made up the order. "Shall I have it delivered? It is rather a lot."
  
  "If you can send it on right now ..."
  
  "All I have is one female assistant ..."
  
  "Send her then, by all means ..."
  
  Two hours later, a laden basket on her back, Momoe was on her way to the Sakamotoya: a store famous throughout the city for the quality of its service and the worth of its goods. It was one of the new stores in which the customers had a wide variety of goods to choose from in the greatest of comfort and elegance.
  
  "Yes?" a clerk inquired as Momoe hovered uncertainly at the entrance.
  
  She explained her mission and he directed her through the wide opening into the interior of the store. Momoe tarried a second by a bolt of silk stuff. She examined it with a critical eye.
  
  "Well? What do you want girl?" a sharp voice interrupted her. "Get on with you. Miyako Tamba silk is not for the likes of you."
  
  "Oh?" Momoe said coolly, angry at the hatchet-faced chief clerk's rudeness. "I would have thought it is countrymade Tamba, not Miyako-made."
  
  He looked at her in disdain. "Ha. As if Sakamotoya would sell such low-class goods ..."
  
  "Then Sakamotoya has been badly misguided." She bowed perfunctorily and hoisted her basket.
  
  The kitchen was warm and busy. Maidservants and cooks were scurrying about, preparing food for the expected customers. She was relieved of her burden, offered a bowl of udon wheat noodles with a pounded rice cake by way of thanks, and hurried off on her way back to work. She crossed the large courtyard and passed through the main store again. The hatchet-faced clerk was off in a corner talking to an elderly man in rich-looking clothes. Other assistants attended patiently to customers. They would send messenger lads off to the storerooms with the customers' requests. The boys would stagger back loaded with bamboo baskets full of the desired merchandise. The chief clerk looked up and saw Momoe's passing figure. He muttered something in an undertone to the man beside him. At a word from the elder he hurried after Momoe.
  
  "Miss. Excuse me, miss."
  
  She turned with asperity, and the old man rose and joined them.
  
  The clerk bowed slightly and said, "The master would like a word with you ..."
  
  "Could you look at the bolt you saw earlier?" the old man asked her politely. He indicated a pile of silk bolts on one of the mats.
  
  Momoe unhesitatingly identified the poor-quality material. "There is another one there of the same make," she added offhandedly.
  
  The old man sucked air in through his teeth. "And how did you know that?" he asked.
  
  "I have worked as a weaver for many years," Momoe explained, conscious of his careful scrutiny.
  
  "And now you are of Yukio, the kamaboko-maker's household."
  
  She shook her head, bowing in negation. "No. Merely temporary help I'm afraid."
  
  "Would you like a job here?"
  
  Her eyes lit up and she fell to her knees in gratitude.