Culture & Lifestyle

Sanae Masuda (a pseudonym, as are all the other names appearing herein) is a 28-year old office lady. When the blossoms were in bloom last year, in keeping with the tradition of "o-hanami" parties she and eight co-workers departed the office after work and headed out to the banks of the Sumida River, which flows through in central Tokyo, for an evening of eating, drinking and making merry.

And it just so happened that two months earlier, Shukan Taishu (4/14) reports, Sanae had begun an illicit affair with her immediate superior, a Mr. Sato, age 34. Who also happens to be married.

"Actually I wasn't that fond of him," she relates. "But he was great in the sack. Naturally we went to a lot of trouble to make sure no one suspected anything. So even when we went for o-hanami, we were careful to sit apart."

Instead, Sato wound up seated beside the comely Rumiko, age 24. It soon became clear this young lady could not hold her booze. And, as Sanae simmered in feminine fury, an increasingly risque Rumiko started becoming a bit too simpatico with Senor Sato.

So when Sato staggered to his feet to visit the nearby public lavatory by the riverbank, Sanae followed, with the aim of confronting him.

"Hey, do you think I can't see what's going on between you and that little wench?" she exclaimed, pulling him behind the small brick edifice, where they were out of other's view.

"Huh? You mean Rumi-chan?" he countered. "Oh come on -- you're not jealous, are you?"

"I guess it was a combination of jealousy and the booze, but anyway, I shoved him into a small crevice behind the building and kissed him on the mouth. And then I began rubbing his thing through his trousers."

"We can't do this here..." he sputtered. But she yanked down his zipper and drew out his stiffening member.

"I turned my back and rubbed against him to arouse him," she says. "His resistance collapsed and he yanked down my panty hose and took me from behind.

"Listening to people laughing and carousing under the trees just a few yards away while we did it was a tremendous turn-on," Sanae tells Shukan Taishu.

"We're planning another gathering this year," she chuckles in lecherous anticipation. "I wonder if we'll be able to pull off another quickie that way."

Last spring Manami, a 41-year-old wife of a business executive, had planned to spend a weekend at the family's country house on the Izu Peninsula.

"Our daughter was on her graduation trip, so it was just supposed to be me and my husband," she recalls. "But he got called back to the office for an urgent meeting."

In the yard was a lovely cherry tree in full bloom, and because the area was bathed in sunlight, she decided to air out the futon (bedding), which had become a bit musty in the cabin.

"I was just stretched out on the futon, watching the petals fluttering down -- it was like a dream."

Just then, the son of the handyman who Manami's husband employed to look after the house and yard drove up. He was 26, and a good-looking young fellow.

"I'd seen him maybe twice before," Manami recalls. "He was much better looking than his dad, and anyway I offered him a beer."

Soon the two were sipping and exchanging smiles, seated side by side on the futon, and looking upwards at the fluttering blossoms. Stretching out horizontally and looking upwards, he remarks, "When you take in the blossoms like this, they look completely different."

"Oooh, they are lovely, aren't they?" she exclaims, lying down beside him on the futon.

She gave off a little shiver of anticipation.

"Are you getting chilly? Here then," he says gallantly, reaching for a upper futon and pulling it over her. The two snuggle beneath in mutual yin-yang attraction.

"You married?" Manami asks him.

"Right now I'm not even going with anyone," he replies. On the spur of the moment, she raises her leg over his hip and pulls him towards her. Soon they had stripped and were issuing the pants and moans consistent with a couple conducting a crazed carnal coupling.

"A year later, it all seems like a dream," Manami recalls with a nostalgic sigh. "You know, cherry blossoms really are amazing things."

The seductive lure of sakura (cherry blossoms) and sake (rice wine) ... What is it, wonders Shukan Taishu, that makes them such a potent love potion for women? (By Masuo Kamiyama, contributing writer)