A Crac in the Glass

Author’s note. This is an entry to

“Pink Orchid 2025: Story Event for Women-Centric Erotica”

. It’s also partially a travelogue set in Japan. It might add additional context if you have a map at hand, but that’s completely up to you. All characters are over 18 and also legally able to drink. Please enjoy, and don’t forget to vote and comment if you make it to the end!

“So that’s the castle and the volcano done, and we’re on a bullet train. And we’re all agreed that Japan is rather nice. What have we got left to do?” asked Lucas in his plummy English accent.

Our host, Himari, gave an eye-roll. After working with us for the past month, she’d relaxed enough to drop her exquisite politeness and puncture any pretension. Particularly Lucas’ airs and graces. He was very much ‘to the manner born’, and enjoying the attention from giggly young women that his blue-eyed good looks and blonde hair got him. I was from humbler stock, and as a brunette I didn’t get the equivalent Japanese male attention to match. But he knew his job well enough and we all got on just fine.

We were both here on a company exchange program. We worked for a global shipping company with a policy of ensuring that staff respected and worked with their colleagues around the world by sending us for three-month placements. Lucas had come from London. I was from Brisbane, Australia and we’d been placed in Fukuoka, the largest city in Kyushu, the large island that forms much of southwest Japan.

Himari, a petite and attractive young local staff member about our age, had been tasked with babysitting us. I’d loved spending time with her. She was much more outgoing than me, although that wasn’t hard given my conservative religious upbringing. Her black hair was done in a short bob with subtle bronze highlights added. She was slim, sporty, spoke English well, and laughed a lot: if I had been into women, I would have had quite the crush on her. Not that I would have acted on it, of course. I’d never been brave enough to be intimate with anybody.

“Well, Master Lucas,” she said to answer his question, “even just in Kyushu, we have many more beautiful volcanoes to visit now that we’ve seen Mt Aso. And since we saw Kumamoto castle, you could take this

shinkansen

line back down to my home city of Kagoshima to see where Saigō-san died at Shirayama after his siege in Kumamoto. Surely you’ve heard of that American film, The Last Samurai? Saigō-san was the

real

last samurai.”

“But,” she continued, “you could also pay your respects to the dead in Nagasaki, which as you know was the second city to be bombed with the atomic bomb, but was a wonderful multi-cultural trading port before then and is a beautiful city again today.”

“Or you could just stay in Fukuoka and take some cooking classes,” she ended with a polite smile. “I understand that you have a great amount that you could learn. Don’t you have a girlfriend in London? Surely you will want to impress her when you return.”

I chuckled. I knew that Lucas hadn’t attempted to make any meals here other than breakfast, and even for that he was relying on their awful sweet bread and cereal rather than traditional food. But I had a hesitant suggestion of my own.

“Himari? I…”

“Yes Helena, sister of light?”

It was a little joke between us. My Greek-origin name meant ‘shining light’. Himari’s name meant ‘sunshine’. And Lucas means ‘bringer of light’. It was funny how cultures collided.

“While Lucas is at his cooking classes,” I said. “I was wondering… could you come with me to an onsen? I’m too nervous to go alone.” An onsen is a Japanese bathhouse.

I expected Lucas to snigger at this, but he actually gave me a look of understanding, and then he surprised me by dropping his swagger.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I’m too nervous as well.” And he looked down, embarrassed.

Himari was taken aback. “Really! But of course, you don’t have our culture of bathing, do you?”

“We like to swim in Australia,” I said. “But I’ve never even worn a bikini in public, let alone bathed naked. My family is very, um, conservative.”

“My family in England is just old and stuck up,” said Lucas frankly.

“Of course I can help you, Helena,” said Himari. “Perhaps one day after work this week?” She turned to Lucas. “I’m sorry, but it would just be women in our group. But I can ask a male colleague to show you, if that’s okay?”

He nodded gratefully, flushing a little red. Perhaps he wasn’t quite the Lothario that I’d pigeonholed him as.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On Tuesday, Himari and I went together to an onsen in the city. It was in an old, traditional neighbourhood. She explained that this was one of the nicer ones, and also was far enough away from our workplace so that we probably wouldn’t see anybody else that I might know. I had nervously packed some togs in my bag, but when we got to the changing room, Himari saw them and laughed at me.

“Helena, sorry, but we are not

allowed

to wear swimming costumes here.” But then she added, more kindly, “Don’t worry, you will be okay. And you will have a towel for your modesty.”

She handed me a towel, but it was very small, not big enough to wrap around myself. I was feeling queasy and seriously considered abandoning the effort. If I’d been alone, I would have. But Himari smiled at me, and without further ceremony took her clothes off, casually turning to stash them in her locker while stark naked. I was trying not to stare, but of course I looked. She had typically skinny Asian hips, and when she turned back around, I could see that she had small but perky boobs and a well-trimmed patch of pubes. She was compact and lovely, and I felt like a lump of lard next to her.

By this time I was nearly shaking in terror, but I took a deep breath, and took my blouse off, and then my skirt. I faced the wall determinately, and then fumbled behind me for my bra catch, but my fingers weren’t obeying me. To my enormous embarrassment I was struggling even just to get undressed.

“Helena, please let me help you,” Himari said gently in my ear, and took over. I was mortified, but relieved as well, because now the decision was out of my hands. She finished undoing my bra and helped me take it off, but then stepped back to allow me to do the final step. I managed to remove my knickers without stumbling, and put them in the locker before quickly picking up the tiny towel and holding it in front of myself. This was the first time I’d been fully naked in front of another person as an adult. Fortunately we were alone in the locker room, or I don’t think that I could have done it.

“Helena,” she said. “Just to let you know… it’s bad etiquette to stare in the onsen. But it’s not so common to see white women here, so some ladies might forget themselves. Let me know if you get uncomfortable.”

I swallowed. “Okay,” I said shakily. “At least I’m not much to look at.”

She looked really surprised. “Helena! You’re beautiful. Didn’t you

know?

You have lovely skin, an hourglass figure and such a nice smile. And I love your hair too. Maybe you could wear it in different styles to show it off, but please don’t dye it: it’s a nice colour and it’s natural.”

I was really taken aback. “That’s lovely of you to say. I’m not sure I believe you though. Nobody’s ever told me that I’m ‘beautiful’.

You

are beautiful, Himari.”

She looked at me, frowning, her hazel eyes focused on mine. “You said that your family life was difficult. Do you still live at home?”

“Yes,” I said quietly. An image flashed into my mind. My mother in the kitchen, tense and anxious. Frequent migraines, retreating into their bedroom to escape. My father in the armchair in the loungeroom, barking commentary at the news. My older siblings finding excuses to be absent, to move out of the house earlier than they needed to. I lived at home, but I lived with aliens.

“My family are not very warm people,” was all I said aloud.

The Japanese are not much given to touching, but she reached out and took my hand, squeezing it lightly. “Let’s talk about that sometime soon.” She let go of my hand to gesture towards the entrance to the onsen and I followed her, towel clutched over my chest.

Inside, it was well lit, warm and very humid. The room was done mainly in lovely cedar panelling, with stone accents and little Japanese garden features worked into the mostly wooden floor. There were two pools of water, looking clean and inviting, and an area to the side with a scattering of low stools, taps and wooden water bowls. There were several women of various ages in the pools, but it wasn’t too crowded. They were all totally naked. Although they had modesty towels, some of them had left the towels on the side of the pool, and the rest had them wrapped around their hair. Nobody had their towels under the water. I wasn’t sure where to look.

Himari led me to the area with the stools and bowls. “We always wash and rinse ourselves first,” she explained. “No soap is allowed to enter the water.” And she showed me how to use the equipment, sitting facing the wall so that we each had some privacy as we cleaned ourselves. After a minute of awkwardness, I soon got into the groove

“May I wash your back?” she asked when she had finished. I hesitantly nodded, and she moved her stool behind me and washed and rubbed up and down my spine. It felt divine, and I was already starting to feel more relaxed. I wasn’t picking up any kind of sexual vibes from her. Even if it was way outside my comfort zone, I had to admit that this just felt nice and natural.

“Can I do you?” I asked, timidly, when she was finished. She smiled and we swapped positions, and I did my best to give her a nice back rub as I washed up and down her spine. Her skin felt soft, her muscles relaxed, and she seemed to enjoy it. I had never touched another woman’s back before, but I thought I was doing okay.

After a little while, she stood up and led me over to the first pool, which she explained was a bit cooler. She put the towel in a bun over her hair, and I copied her, although conscious that I was facing the other Japanese women in the pool and totally exposed. But they had obviously picked up what was going on, and some of them gave me encouraging smiles. Nobody was leering at my body.

I slipped into the water with a grateful sigh. It was warm, but not ridiculous, and it seemed very clean. I realised why there was so much emphasis on washing the body away from the water but in public: if anybody didn’t wash themselves properly, they would hear all about it from the others.

For a few minutes we just sat quietly. The other women were quiet too, and it seemed like this was a place for quiet reflection and relaxation rather than loud gossip. I felt the warmth seep into my tired bones. This was bliss.

After a little while, one of the other women spoke to Himari in a friendly tone. I only knew a few words of Japanese, but to me her voice sounded very refined and sophisticated compared to most of the girls at work. She looked like she was a middle-aged matron from a wealthy family: although without any clothes on, I only had the cues of her voice, skin and beautifully groomed fingernails and hair to judge by. Himari replied in a similar style, and I realised that I wasn’t just being shown a bath house, I was being shown another side of Japanese society. I decided to not embarrass Himari by asking for a translation: she would tell me later what she wanted to tell me.

There was another woman nearby who looked older. She was also fit and well groomed, but had a slightly sour expression. She interjected in the conversation in a slightly different tone. It still seemed polite, but I caught the word

”gaijin”

(foreigner) and I realised that she was talking about me. Himari answered her politely enough, but the first lady (who I started thinking of as “the nice one”) was looking uncomfortable and the conversation petered out.

Shortly after that the older lady moved to the hot pool, and Himari started talking to the “nice” one again. She seemed to be offering suggestions, and I heard some place names mentioned, including Himari’s home town of Kagoshima, Kumamoto (where we’d just been), and Beppu, which I knew was a volcanic hot springs resort town. Was that what they were talking about? The best hot springs to visit? I started to feel excited. Now that I’d popped my “onsen” cherry, I felt that I would be able to do it again.

Sure enough, Himari turned to me with a grin and explained what they were discussing. “Our new friend here has been telling me about her favourite onsens and telling me which ones I should take you too. Of course I’d like to take you to Kagoshima, and I think I still will, but she says that I should also take you to Beppu, which is a bit of a ‘party town’.” She gave a little giggle. “There’s a famous outdoor mud bath there, which has

konyoku

bathing, or mixed bathing. Don’t worry, the mud hides things.”

“Very good for skin,” said the friendly woman, smiling. Her English was obviously good enough to follow the conversation, and unlike many Japanese she was confident enough to test it out.

The older woman in the other bath had been frowning more deeply as she heard us speaking English, and abruptly she got up and left, scowling and muttering something.

“Gomenasai,

” said our friend to us, politely giving a slight bow in the water. “I am sorry. She has some…” and she then she broke into a quick side conversation in Japanese with Himari before turning back to me, “… some difficulty accepting foreigners.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “It is the same in Australia sometimes.” Of course I knew that there was still a Japanese nationalist movement here: I had seen their trucks with loudspeakers strapped to the top, shouting out slogans while cruising around the streets. It wasn’t exactly welcoming, but I couldn’t say that it was unique to Japan. When my father was muttering at the TV, he sounded just like these people.

We moved to the hot pool and our new friend came with us, introducing herself as “Chiyo”.

“Old name,” she said. “Not popular now.”

We couldn’t stay long in the hot pool: it was just too hot for me. But it still felt wonderful. After another soak in the other pool, we finally got out to rinse off and get dressed. I could not ever remember being so relaxed. And yet I wasn’t wearing a stitch, and I was in a room with a workmate and strangers!

Chiyo got dressed alongside us, and kept chatting, mostly in Japanese but with some English for my benefit. Just as we were leaving, she got out her

keitai

, her mobile phone, and I could see that she was politely offering to swap numbers with Himari. And now that she was dressed, I could see that her clothes were exquisite. They were modern but beautifully tailored business wear and probably cost half of what I was earning this year as a junior.

As she escorted me home, Himari confirmed my impressions. “Helena, that was a difficult conversation, and I’m sorry the other woman was rude. But Chiyo is a very good person to meet, and we would not have met her if we didn’t come here. The onsen is great for social mixing.” She giggled, rarely for her. “And now we have her number! She said she felt bad about what the woman said, and will call me tomorrow.”

“What did the other woman say?” I asked, curious.

She blushed. “

Sumimasen

. Excuse me… I’m not going to translate. I’m embarrassed as well.”

I didn’t pursue the subject, and instead thanked her profusely for an amazing experience.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

At home that night, I stripped and forced myself to look in the mirror. I couldn’t see myself as “beautiful”. I had long brunette hair that had never been styled, and I normally wore it in a braid. My face was kind of thinnish and lightly freckled, and the freckles extended down my chest and over my breasts, which I guess were shapely enough, but not particularly large. My nipples did stand out a little, which I suppose was okay if you were a guy and liked that kind of thing, but otherwise I found embarrassing. I tried to wear extra padding there to cover them up. My naval looked like any other, although I did have to admit that I thought my tummy was kind of cute. My hips flared out like any other skinny woman with normal-sized hips, and I had some pubic bush that wasn’t particularly hairy compared to the others that I’d seen today and wasn’t too sparse either: I didn’t like the thought of shaving or waxing too heavily. I hadn’t spent any time looking at my vulva, but as far as I knew it looked roughly how it should. I had been told by a friend at university that my “arse was cute” when she saw me wearing jeans once. I usually wore a full-length skirt.

Overall, I conceded that I might look okay in an ordinary, girl-next-door-raised-by-zealots kind of way. Not “beautiful”. Not by a long shot.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lucas and I swapped notes the next day, both a bit awkward but excited by our experiences. Lucas had been taken by several male workmates to a place close by, where they had had a bit of a rowdier time than me. Like me, he was blown away by how quickly he got comfortable getting naked with a bunch of locals. Unlike me, he had been taken out on the town a bit afterwards for some traditional Japanese boozing and karaoke.

“Then we went off to a hostess bar, but I didn’t stay,” he explained, his face red. “It’s not really my scene, and I can’t keep up with Japanese drinking anyway. I don’t think that

they

can keep up, to tell the truth.”

Looking around the office, I could see that some of our male colleagues did indeed look very seedy, and weren’t showing much evidence of being productive. God help anybody who had an urgent shipping transaction today, or they might find that their valuable Seoul-bound consignment ended up in Pyongyang, never to be seen again.

As we were packing up at the end of the day, Himari came up to us both, looking very excited. “Guess what? We have a very special invitation!” She turned to Lucas and started explaining about our meeting Chiyo, until I cut her off by indicating that I’d briefed Lucas. So she immediately jumped to her news.

“The three of us are invited to accompany Chiyo and her husband for an onsen tour to Beppu this weekend! We would be their guests. This is an amazing opportunity: I hope that you are free?” She was flushed, looking at us apprehensively as she waited for our response.

“Of course,” we said in unison, and then laughed at each other. Clearly Lucas and I were starting to work in synch.

We discussed arrangements, and emphasised to Lucas that he would need to bring some nice clothes, although there was no way I could afford to match Chiyo’s elegance.

“It’s okay, she will not expect that. And don’t forget, she met you when you were nude as well,” said Himari with a slightly saucy smile and a wink. This was a bit weird, but it seemed to be part of sexuality in Japan, and she was doing it to tease Lucas. The onsen hadn’t been sexual… but that didn’t apparently mean that they didn’t have dirty minds! Japanese businessmen in particular are infamous for their schoolgirl and anime fantasies, which frankly I found a bit off. But then, I was still a blushing virgin, and I wasn’t going to tell that to

any

Japanese man here.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We left for Beppu on Saturday bright and excited. Chiyo picked us up with her husband Kenji driving what seemed like a luxury people-mover. There were all kinds of cars in Japan that I’d never seen before, and I had realised that what we saw in Australia was just a part of their export market: a lot of their more interesting designs never got exported, and tax incentives meant that new car sales were kept strong. Chiyo sat with us in the back, while Lucas was put up front with Kenji. It seemed a bit sexist, but I also realised that it was so Chiyo could get to know Lucas before taking him to the onsen in Beppu.