Her hair fell over her right shoulder, covering that breast. Her skin was a light tan from her face to her feet. I reached out and touched the skin of her thigh, savoring it's softness for only a second before she moved in a motion too quick for me to anticipate. Before I knew what was happening she had straddled me, feet flat on the bed in a crouch inches above me. Her eyes locked with mine as she reached for me. I let out a low groan as she squeezed me. I could feel how hot and hard I was in her small hand. She shifted her weight and I was inside her effortlessly. She took her hand away and placed it on my chest for balance as she began rising and falling in a slow rhythm, keeping her feet on the bed so that I touched her only on the inside. The sensation was intense, like being teased and satisfied at the same time. She steadily increased her pace, throwing her head from side to side in waves of black hair. I could feel the crescendo she was pounding towards. I closed my eyes and held back as long as I could, opening them at the last minute as I released. She threw her head straight back and dug her fingernails into my chest then slowed her movements, milking me until I stopped shuddering.

I lay on the bed dizzy and motionless for minutes or hours, I couldn't tell. Time seemed not to exist. The lazy soft flickering light from the lanterns sang to me like a lullaby. I might have fallen asleep. She spoke first.

"Whew, that was fun," she said, getting up for the cigarettes on the dresser. I watched her get up out of the corner of my half closed eyes and caught the passing flash of green and bright orange on her back. I sat up to get a better view and rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn't still hallucinating. She stood with her back to me as she unwrapped a new pack. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it until now. It started at the top of her hips and ran all the way up to her sculpted shoulder blades, seven bright blaze-orange poppies, each about the size of my hand, in full bloom atop long spindly dark green stems. I had never seen a tattoo with such brilliant colors before. It looked like a photograph embossed directly onto her skin. The lines were so sharp and the detail so crisp that the flowers looked three-dimensional, like I could reach out and pick one right off her back.

"Where did you get that?"

"Get what?" she asked, putting two cigarettes in her mouth.

"The poppies, Poppy."

"Ah these," she said looking over her shoulder at herself in the mirror. "I got them in Osaka from an old friend of mine. He does all the work for the top Yakuza in Japan."