After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

at all
for two years now?” 
“As far as I know.” 
Aomame frowned slightly. 
Am I going crazy? I just saw a policeman wearing the 
old-style uniform and carrying an old revolver this morning. I’m sure I never heard a 
thing about them getting rid of every single revolver, but I also can’t believe that 

---

60
these two middle-aged men are wrong or lying to me. Which means I must be 
mistaken
. 
“Thanks very much. I’ve heard all I need to about that,” she said to the bartender, 
who gave her a professional smile like a well-timed punctuation mark and went back 
to work. 
“Do you have some special interest in policemen?” the middle-aged man asked 
her. 
“No, not really,” Aomame answered, adding vaguely, “It’s just that my memory 
has gotten a little foggy” 
They drank their new Cutty Sarks—the man his highball and Aomame hers on the 
rocks. The man talked about sailboats. He moored his small sailboat in the 
Nishinomiya yacht harbor, he said. He took it out to the ocean on holidays and 
weekends. He spoke passionately of how wonderful it was to feel the wind as you 
sailed alone on the sea. Aomame didn’t want to hear about any damned sailboats. 
Better for him to talk about the history of ball bearings or the distribution of mineral 
resources in Ukraine. She glanced at her watch and said, “Look, it’s getting late. Can I 
just ask you something straight out?” 
“Sure,” he replied. 
“It’s, uh, rather personal.” 
“I’ll answer if I can.” 
“Do you have a decent-sized cock? Is it on the big side?” 
The man’s lips parted and his eyes narrowed as he looked at her for a while. He 
could not quite believe he had heard her correctly. But her face was utterly serious. 
She was not joking. Her eyes made that clear. 
“Let me see,” he said, speaking earnestly. “I’m not really sure. I guess it’s pretty 
much normal size. I don’t know what to say when you spring it on me like that.” 
“How old are you?” Aomame asked. 
“I just turned fifty-one last month, but …,” he said. 
“You’ve been living more than fifty years with a normal brain, you have a decent 
job, you even own your own sailboat, and still you can’t tell whether your cock is 
bigger or smaller than normal?” 
“Well, I suppose it could be a little bigger,” he said with a degree of difficulty after 
giving it some thought. 
“You’re sure, now?” 
“Why are you so concerned?” 
“Concerned? Who says I’m concerned?” 
“Well, no one, but …,” he said, recoiling slightly atop his bar stool. “That seems to 
be the problem we’re discussing at the moment.” 
“Problem? It’s no problem. No problem at all,” Aomame declared. “I just happen 
to like big cocks. Visually speaking. I’m not saying I need a big one to feel anything, 
no no. Or that I’m okay with anything as long as it’s big. All I’m saying is I tend to 
like ’em on the big side. Is there something wrong with that? People have their likes 
and dislikes. But ridiculously big ones are no good. They just hurt. Do you see what I 
mean?” 
“Well, then, I might be able to please you with mine. It’s somewhat bigger than 
standard, I think, but it’s not ridiculously big, either. It’s—shall I say?—just right …” 

---

61
“You’re not lying to me, now?” 
“What would be the point of lying about something like that?” 
“Well, all right, then, maybe you should give me a peek.” 
“Here?” 
Aomame frowned while struggling to control herself. “Here?! Are you crazy? 
What are you thinking, at your age? You’re wearing a good suit and even a tie, but 
where’s your social common sense? You can’t just whip out your cock in a place like 
this. Imagine what the people around you would think! No, we go to your room now, 
and I let you take your pants off and show me. Just the two of us. That much should 
be obvious to you.” 
“So I show you, and then what happens?” he asked worriedly. 
“What happens after you show it to me?” Aomame asked, catching her breath and 
producing a major uncontrolled frown. “We have sex, obviously. What else? I mean, 
we go to your room, you show me your cock, and I say, ‘Thank you very much for 
showing me such a nice one. Good night,’ and I go home? You must have a screw 
loose somewhere.” 
The man gasped to see Aomame’s face undergoing such dramatic changes before 
his eyes. A frown from Aomame could make any man shrivel up. Little children 
might pee in their pants, the impact of her frown was so powerful.