Rie and I met at a social event organised by our company and we knew of each other's desire immediately.
In our haste to discover each other, we fled to the nearest place available to make love in this overcrowded city. Hastily and, we thought at the time, unwisely, we found ourselves in a nearby capsule hotel.
The 5,000 Yen cost of the room, and a sizeable bribe for the man behind the desk to forget he'd seen Rie, proved to be a very small price to pay for entry to paradise.
Both wonderfully supple and eager, Rie proved to be the perfect companion for lovemaking in such a small space.
Our room - barely three feet by three feet by six - seemed dauntingly cramped at first; particularly as, unlike most hotels of this type, there was a small door rather than just a curtain at the entrance to the room.
But Rie's flexibility proved to be a revlation. The positions that we attained that first night were both surprising and various. Our mutual joy arrived quickly but our desire was not easily sated; we got very little sleep that night.
We were married within a few months but found our sexual congress in the marital bed lacked flavour. We returned to our capsule hotel and rediscovered the heights to which our passion could climb. After that, we returned to the hotel regularly, often twice in a week.
Our limbs twisted into unorthodox positions that would daunt the fittest gymnast, but our desire for each other seemed to put the impossible well within our reach.
Ecstacy was easily attainable within our love box and, every time I released myself into Rie, it seemed to eradicate our lives outside that confined space. The restraints of married life, of my position as a salaryman, and of the capsule itself, dissolved into an ocean of love. Anything was possible for us.
It would have been a particular delight to have detailed our daring positions, recording them in our own capsule hotel Kama Sutra to share our joy with all, but discretion dictates that the manual should remain unwritten.
***
We have been keeping our appointment with love for over 15 years now. It is something that has perhaps gone on for too long.
Rie suffered terrible back pain following the loss of our baby six years ago. The problems following the dislocation of my hip during a road accident last year have not faded. Our bodies are no longer as young and as supple as they once were.
For over an hour now, Rie has not spoken. Condensation and sweat have made the narrow mattress sodden and my beloved has begun to grow cold beneath me. Try as I might, I cannot untangle my limbs from hers.
We last made love at 2:30am - just after the last of the drunken salarymen retired to his room. It is now 3:50am: I have grown soft and am no longer inside Rie.
I have only enough mobility to tap feebly on the door with my left elbow. My other limbs are locked tightly in Rie's love embrace. I cannot draw sufficient breath, doubled over as I am, to be able to call for assistance.
Checking out time is not until 9am. It is possible that we will remain undiscovered until then. I cannot see how they will be able to extricate us even then; I imagine that several of our limbs will have to be broken.
I do not know which is worse; to be discovered like this, knowing the great dishonour it will bring upon us and our families, or to know that our wonderful love box will become our coffin.
Through the tiny window I can see the lights of a tower crane at a nearby building site. They waver as I struggle for breath, fighting back the urge to vomit, and my tears splash onto a patch of semen that has dried on the beautifully smooth skin of Rie's back.
THE END
