"No," I say.

"Me neither. Shouldn't have had that coffee. That was dumb." She switches on her bedside light, checks the time, then turns the light off. "Don't get me wrong," she says, "but if you'd like to come over here you can. I can't get to sleep either."

I slip out of my sleeping bag and climb in bed with her. I'm wearing boxers and the T-shirt. She has on a pair of light pink pajamas.

"I have a steady boyfriend in Tokyo," she tells me. "He's not much to brag about, but he's my guy. So I don't have sex with anybody else. I might not look like it, but when it comes to sex I'm pretty straightlaced. Call me old-fashioned. I wasn't always that way-I used to be pretty wild-but I don't fool around anymore. So don't get any ideas, okay? Just think of us as brother and sister. You understand?"

"Gotcha," I tell her.

She puts her arms around me, hugs me close, and rests her cheek on my forehead. "You poor thing," she says.

I don't need to tell you that I get a hard-on right away. Big time. And it couldn't help rubbing up against her thigh.

"My oh my!" she says.

"Sorry," I tell her. "I didn't mean to."

"It's okay," she says. "I know what an inconvenience it is. Nothing you can do to stop it."

I nod in the darkness.

She hesitates for a moment, then lowers my boxers, pulls out my rock-hard cock, and cradles it gently in her hand. Like she's making sure of something, the way a doctor takes a pulse. With her soft hand touching me, I feel something-a stray thought, maybe-spring up in my crotch.

"How old would your sister be now?"

"Twenty-one," I say. "Six years older than me."

She thinks about this for a while. "Do you want to see her?"

"Maybe," I say.

"Maybe?" Her hand grasps my cock a little harder. "What do you mean, maybe? You really don't want to see her that much?"

"I don't know what we'd talk about, and she might not want to see me. Same thing with my mother. Maybe neither one of them wants to have anything to do with me. No one's searching for me. I mean, they left and everything." Without me, I silently complete the thought.

She doesn't say anything. Her hand on my cock loosens a bit, then tightens. In time with this my cock relaxes, then gets even harder.

"You want to come?" she asks.

"Maybe," I say.

"Again with the maybes?"

"Very much," I correct myself.

She sighs lightly and slowly begins to move her hand. It feels out of this world. Not just an up-and-down motion, but more of an all-over massage. Her fingers gently stroke my cock and my balls. I close my eyes and let out a big sigh.

"You can't touch me. And when you're about to come let me know so you don't mess up the sheets."

"Okay," I say.

"How is it? I'm pretty good, huh?"

"Fantastic."

"Like I was telling you, I'm very nimble-fingered. But this isn't sex, okay? I'm just-helping you relax, is what it is. You've had a rough day, you're all tense, and you're not going to sleep well unless we do something about it. Got it?"

"Yeah, I get it," I say. "But I do have one request."

"What's that?"

"Is it okay if I imagine you naked?"

Her hand stops and she looks me in the eyes. "You want to imagine me naked while we're doing this?"

"Yeah. I've been trying to keep from imagining that, but I can't."

"Really?"

"It's like a TV you can't turn off."

She laughs. "I don't get it. You didn't have to tell me that! Why don't you just go ahead and imagine what you want? You don't need my permission. How can I know what's in your head?"

"I can't help it. Imagining something's very important, so I thought I'd better tell you. It has nothing to do with whether you know or not."

"You are some kind of polite boy, aren't you," she says, impressed. "I guess it's nice, though, that you wanted to let me know. All right, permission granted. Go ahead and picture me nude."

"Thanks," I say.

"How is it? Is my body nice?"

"It's amazing," I reply.

This languid sensation spreads over my lower half, like a liquid floating to the surface. When I tell her, she grabs some tissue from the bedside, and I come, over and over, like crazy… A little while later she goes to the kitchen, tosses away the tissue paper, and rinses her hand.

"Sorry," I say.

"It's all right," she says, snuggling back into bed. "No need to apologize. It's just a part of your body. So-do you feel better?"

"Definitely."

"I'm glad." She thinks for a while, then says, "I was thinking how nice it'd be if I was your real sister."

"Me too," I say.

She lightly touches my hair. "I'm going to sleep now, so why don't you go back to your sleeping bag. I can't sleep well unless I'm alone, and I don't want your hard-on poking me all night, okay?"

I go back to my sleeping bag and close my eyes. This time I can get to sleep. A deep, deep sleep, maybe the deepest since I ran away from home. It's like I'm in some huge elevator that slowly, silently carries me deeper and deeper underground. Finally all light has disappeared, all sound faded away.

When I wake up, Sakura's gone off to work. It's nine a. m. My shoulder hardly aches at all anymore. Just like she said. On the kitchen table I find a folded-up morning paper, a note, and a key.

Her note says: I watched the TV news at seven and looked through the entire paper, but there weren't any bloody incidents reported around here. So I don't think that blood was anything. Good news, huh? There isn't much in the fridge, but help yourself. And make use of whatever you need around the house. If you aren't planning to go anywhere, feel free to hang out here. Just put the key under the doormat if you go out.

I grab a carton of milk from the fridge, check the expiration date, and pour it over some cornflakes, boil some water, and make a cup of Darjeeling tea. Toast two slices of bread, and eat them with some low-fat margarine. Then I open the newspaper and scan the local news. Like she said, no violent crimes in the headlines. I let out a sigh of relief, fold up the paper, and put it back where it was. At least I won't have to run all over trying to evade the cops. But I decide it's better not to go back to the hotel, just to play it safe. I still don't know what happened during those lost four hours.

I call the hotel. A man answers, and I don't recognize his voice. I tell him something's come up and I have to check out. I try my best to sound grown-up. I've paid in advance so that shouldn't be a problem. There are some personal effects in the room, I tell him, but they can be discarded. He checks the computer and sees that the bill's up-to-date. "Everything's in order, Mr. Tamura," he says. "You're all checked out." The key's a plastic card, so there's no need to return it. I thank him and hang up.

I take a shower. Sakura's underwear and stockings are drying out in the bathroom. I try not to look at them and concentrate on my usual job of thoroughly scrubbing myself. And I try my best not to think about last night. I brush my teeth and put on a pair of new shorts, roll up my sleeping bag and stuff it in my backpack, then wash my dirty clothes in the washer. There's no dryer, so after they go through the spin cycle I fold them up and put them in a plastic bag and into my pack. I can always dry them at a coin laundry later on.

I wash all the dishes piled up in the sink, let them drain, dry them, and place them back in the shelf. Then I straighten up the contents of the fridge and toss whatever's gone bad. Some of the food stinks-moldy broccoli, an ancient, rubbery cucumber, a pack of tofu well past its expiration date. I take whatever's still edible, transfer it to new containers, and wipe up some spilled sauce. I throw away all the cigarette butts, make a neat stack of the scattered old newspapers, and run a vacuum around the place. Sakura might be good at giving a massage, but when it comes to keeping house she's a disaster. I iron the shirts she's crammed in the dresser, and think about going shopping and making dinner. At home I tried to take care of household chores myself, so none of this is any trouble. But making dinner, I decide, might be going too far.