The Japanese summer was a relentless inferno, but for eighteen-year-old Kai, the woman next door, Reiko Tashido, burned far hotter. Forty, exquisitely mature, and the mother of a neighborhood boy, Reiko was a silent obsession, a dangerous fantasy wrapped in the mundane routines of suburban life. Her scent, a tantalizing mix of soap and sweet perfume, haunted his waking thoughts and fueled his most illicit dreams. A forgotten mathematics workbook becomes Kai's unwitting excuse to step inside her cool, quiet home, a world away from the oppressive heat and the prying eyes of the neighborhood. Ryunosuke is out. Her husband is at work. Reiko, fresh from her shower, is a vision in soft, pale blue cotton loungewear – an attire so innocent, yet so devastatingly revealing on her voluptuous, unrestrained curves. What begins as a polite inquiry soon dissolves under the weight of unspoken loneliness and Kai's consuming, youthful hunger. Her knowing eyes, the humid air thick with unspoken invitations, and the soft whisper of cotton against skin... it's a spark in the tinderbox of a long, solitary afternoon.