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"One more thing," said Mr. Moriyama. "Do you have boyfriend?"
    "That's a bit intrusive," I said. "You're not allowed to ask questions like that over here."
    "Is important cultural point for nyotaimori," he insisted.
    "No," I said, "I don't do men." I don't think he understood.


    "Cultural?" said Janice, looking at the closely typed page of instructions. "They're out of their minds. God, Boo. Are you sure you want to do this?"
    "The money's wonderful. I mean, one evening, and I get as much as the art school gives me for a week. More."
    "They don't ask much though, do they? Look at this. No make-up — "
    "Well, that's not a problem." I don't use much, except for mascara.
    — "unperfumed soap and shampoo, no body lotion! 'If your skin is dry, you may add unperfumed, food-grade almond oil to your bath water!' For fuck's sake!"
    "Greece," I said, putting my arms round her. "A few days of scrubbing up like a surgeon, two evenings of mindless tedium, and we can go on holiday. It's just life-modeling with added fish."
    "I hate it," said Janice. "What if there's funny stuff?"
    "Sweetheart. There won't be. Just think how much trouble I can make for them. I've got evidence. There's the card they put up at the art school, and this list of instructions. They must be breaking about a million food hygiene regulations. Okay, it's my

word against theirs, but if they get any hassle off of me, I could probably close them down. They won't risk anything."


    When we went to bed that night, Janice produced a bowl of cucumber slices.
    "What's that in aid of?" I asked.
    "Lie back."
    "Ow. That's cold."
    "Is very culturally significant ritual," she insisted. She was making a line of overlapping cucumber slices on my tummy. They felt cool and moist as she put them down, like a row of wet kisses, and I started to go all runny. She put the last bit down just where my hair started, and surveyed her handiwork.
    "Now what?"
    "Now I'm going to eat them, one by one."


    In spite of my brave words, when I rang the bell at the service entrance of the most expensive Japanese restaurant in West London, I felt like running away. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and I was dying for a cup of tea. No chance. I wouldn't get a chance to pee till after midnight; I'd been warned about that. It was like when I had an operation once. You know, they put a notice on the end of the bed, Nil By Mouth? And there you are, thirsty and tense, for hours.
    Someone let me in and took me to the chef. "Hello," I said. "I've come about the fish."
    He greeted me with a grunt. No name. I don't think he liked plates talking back. Then he showed me the way to a tiny shower room. "You wash now," he said. I seemed to have done nothing but wash for days, but I stripped off and got under the shower with the mega-

hygienic stuff they gave me. While I was in there, a hand came round the door with a white cotton kimono, a pair of terry slippers and a new comb. I came out, all warm and pink, and slip-slopped back down the corridor to the kitchen.
    "Okay," said the chef, "you get on there." "There" turned out to be something out of The Addams Family; a sort of gurney draped in starched white linen, with a zinc bucket of flowers standing beside it. It was slightly padded, I was pleased to find; I've sat on model's thrones which were like something out of the London Dungeon.
    "Fine," I said. I slipped out of my kimono and lay down. There was a porcelain neck-rest, surprisingly comfortable, and another rest to help me keep my feet in position. The chef combed my hair down so that it fanned smoothly out around my head. His breath smelled of mint and whisky. He leaned over to the flower bucket and handed me a trumpet lily, dark pink.
    "Put between legs," he said. I tucked it into my crotch. The cool tube of flower flesh was just resting against my labia. It felt very strange there, and I kept wanting to tense my inner thighs.
    "Does that look right?" I asked him.
    "Is okay," he said.
    So that was my job over, it seemed. I just had to lie back and relax. I could hear a knife being sharpened, but I couldn't turn my head to watch him work because of the neck-rest. I can usually go into a sort of trance when I'm modeling, but this was different, alien. I heard footsteps; the chef going away, coming back with the stuff, I supposed, since after a bit he started laying down sticky slivers of fish, cool, moist kisses against my warm, dry skin. Odorless, of course; everything must be the freshest, the best; with what Mr. Moriyama must be charging the punters for this oh-so-cultural experience, the least they could ask was really good sushi.
    I began to see why they'd wanted me at four. Around me, I could hear the kitchen starting up; clattering pans, yelling, all in Japanese, smells of garlic and ginger and seaweed stock. I used to like Japanese food, but I wondered if I'd ever be able to face it again. My stomach was completely covered in overlapping scales of raw fish. The chef laid, I think, some more leaves and flowers fanning out over my groin, but after that he put lines of fish art down my thighs almost to the knees, and started working on my breasts. I was beginning to feel seriously weird. There were maybe a dozen people in the room, mostly men. What the hell did they think about seeing a girl being covered in raw fish? Nothing? Was it so "cultural" no one paused to think this is strange? Or did they not give a shit, since it wasn't them? I wanted to sit up, to say, "Hey, guys! I'm really here! D'you think I'm a natural blonde?"