He put clean sheets on the bed-not the right size ones, it turned out- and she began to, painfully, kiss his penis; he twisted to one side and began licking her strongly fragrant genitals; then, as he tried kissing her slightly reddish, cute little anus, Naomi called out in a small voice. After intercourse she told him about how her alcoholic ex-husband, when he did want sex, which wasn't too often, usually wanted anal sex. Taking this as a cue, Kizu tried it himself for the first time. She pulled apart her generous reddish but- tocks to help him, and Kizu, although his penis wasn't quite hard enough, was able to penetrate her. Afterward she told him, happily, that it was all so intense she wasn't even sure if she came or not. After they got married, though, their sex turned more solemn, and never again did they stray like this into forbidden fields.

In the taxi, Kizu remembered the way Naomi's fingers moved and be- came possessed by the idea of doing the same thing for Ikuo. He fantasized about being penetrated by Ikuo's penis in a similarly intense way, positive that if the two of them weren't able to reach that level of feeling, until the day death came to take him he never would.

If such thoughts were motivated by the fact that he had a clear case of cancer, couldn't this be seen as a positive response to his illness? But Kizu couldn't help feeling he was being silly about the whole thing and laughed at himself for acting like some doddering old geezer. Still, he couldn't shake the notion from his mind.

2

Ikuo was kept busy after the memorial service, and it was a week before he was able to return to Kizu's apartment. He came with Dancer to express their thanks to the building superintendent for allowing them to use the facilities, and the two of them went together with Kizu to the man's office.

The super was in a good mood, since the meeting place had been left so spic- and-span he didn't have to pay an extra fee to their regular janitorial com- pany to clean up.

Dancer left, so Kizu and Ikuo were able to lounge on the sofa in Kizu's atelier and talk. Perhaps concerned because they hadn't seen each other in a week, Ikuo tried to humor Kizu.

"Patron told me what you said to him: that you don't know what direc- tion his movement will take but as long I stay with it you'll stick with him."

"That's right," Kizu responded. "I really am interested in his new move- ment. You've helped me enter a new world I never would have found alone."

"That seems especially true since you came back from America."

"After all the trouble I'd taken to make a life over there, it wasn't easy giving up my home. I'd gotten far, I thought, but it didn't feel as if my life had taken a completely unexpected path. After coming back to Japan I felt really excited; for the first time in my life I didn't know what to anticipate.

At my age, though, such positive emotions are always counterbalanced by a sense of unease. At any rate, I'm not going to back down."

"I can sense that."

"Those feelings, though, don't guarantee I'll do a good job of succeed- ing in Guide's position. He was one of a kind."

"It's like there are two people inside Patron," Ikuo said, "one who has visions, the other who interprets them. Guide's role was to make that second person inside Patron speak. As I was listening to Patron at the memorial ser- vice, it came to me how much he had suffered after Guide's death. And I wondered whether, as he suffered, the person inside him who interprets the visions may have taken on a diflerent form. Taking that a step further, I began to wonder whether Patron might not be able to put his visions into or- dinary language now, without any outside help. If he can, maybe Guide's death was necessary for Patron to begin his new movement."

Kizu felt something was wrong with this and brought up a point he'd noticed a while back. "It's logical, what you said. Not that I mean you've been illogical up till now, it's just that the logic you're using here is different. I'm wondering whether some of the radical faction's way of thinking has rubbed off on you as you worked with them."

Ikuo gazed back with a watchful, penetrating gaze, as if staking out some prey he was about to pounce on.

"I've learned a lot by talking with them," he said. "Working with them at the memorial service taught me how capable they are and how strongly they feel their convictions. Patron's movement has been able to take shape through proposals that the Kansai headquarters has made, and there's been discussion about including them in the new movement in order to firm up the support base-along with the group of women we visited. It would be hard to make a go of this new church relying solely on the participation of individuals. This will mean, though, that the list Ogi compiled of contributors after the Som- ersault won't be of much use-"

Ikuo stopped speaking, no doubt thinking that he'd gotten too far ahead of himself, and stood up.

"I've been too busy to take a shower these days, so if you don't mind-"

Ikuo's smile seem to be humoring Kizu, as he'd done before. But some- thing welled up within Kizu, a thrill just like the day when, as a child, he'd first walked along the seashore and spotted a manateelike lump on the beach.

The same rush of excitement he felt the first time he and Ikuo had sex. His throat felt parched.

Kizu took out the sheets he'd gotten back from the laundry and made up the bed. He went in to take a shower himself, passing Ikuo, who was wear- ing a dressing gown as he came out of the bathroom. But how should he bring it up to Ikuo? He racked his brain as he thoughtlessly scrubbed himself too hard and felt his body tighten with pain. Since the clear signs of cancer had appeared, Kizu had been careful about touching his belly, but now he'd forgotten.

Broaching the subject turned out to be easier than he had thought. "Let's try something a little different this time," Kizu said in an experienced tone, half playfully, and Ikuo, as casually as a chess player making a necessary stra- tegic move, said that he'd already had a bit of experience playing the man, if that's what Kizu wanted.

With an eager movement out oí keeping with his age, Kizu flipped him- self over on his belly and, as Naomi had done, propped himself up on his chin and shoulders as he added some spit and pulled aside the folds of his buttocks.

Ikuo struggled to penetrate, and Kizu felt a sharp pain that nearly made him cry out, but all for naught. Kizu remembered how it felt when, as he stroked the milky, flushed skin of Naomi's buttocks, he playfully had inserted first one finger and then a second as he roughly spread her sphincter. But he couldn't tell Ikuo to do the same, and he didn't have the nerve to do it himself.

Finally, as if the energy level he'd strained to keep up proved too much, Ikuo collapsed. Kizu sat up and noticed tears forming in Ikuo's large, sunken eyes. Kizu took Ikuo's still-engorged penis in his mouth to console it for all its struggles, but Ikuo remained passive and couldn't come.

After Ikuo went home, Kizu thought about the tears in Ikuo's eyes and how he'd instinctively turned away to try to hide them. What kind of tears were those? As he and Ikuo had talked that day he tried not to worry about the new situation with his cancer. With Patron's new movement beginning, he'd have to talk with Ikuo about his illness, now that it had taken a sudden turn for the worse, but it didn't seem fair to bring it up just as he was attempt- ing to get their sexual relationship to enter a new phase.

Kizu wondered whether the sexual behavior of an old man, uncon- cerned with appearances, might not, in the eyes of someone much younger, go beyond the ugly and comical to arouse feelings of pity and sorrow. But late that night, as he once again climbed into bed and touched a wide, wet spot on the sheets, the thought struck him that he had been so hard on the young man he had made him cry. Shocked, Kizu tried to brush the thought aside.