Brad awoke when the sun had risen more two full finger's breadth above the horizon. He was usually up before dawn in order to shower and prepare breakfast for Izumi. His head-shaking chagrin at over-sleeping was quickly dispelled by his sudden recollection that today was not like other days.

He proceeded to the bathroom, did his business and brushed his teeth. Then he turned on the water and stepped into the shower. He closed his eyes and luxuriated in the steaming hot water and aromatic soap that Izumi so loved. He simply stood there and completely lost track of time.

When he emerged from the shower stall, she was standing there, holding a fluffy white towel. For an instant, he thought that he saw disapproval in her beautiful dark eyes or perhaps a hint of censure in the set of her luscious lips. Suddenly, he was all too aware of his many failures and shortcomings. He fell to his knees, naked before her, and pressed his head against the towel, against her well worn jeans, against the place where her thighs met. More than life itself, he wanted her approval. He felt her soft, warm right hand against the side of his face. In the comfort of her hand, he found the courage to look up at her. He looked up at her and she looked down at him and smiled.

Only then he remembered. "Must it be today?" he asked in a quiet voice, barely more than a whisper, wishing that he might remain forever in her company. At once, he sensed the disloyalty and betrayal inherent in his question. He knew his words betrayed his abject weakness as soon as he said them. Izumi's face revealed no such confusion or lack of resolve. Today was "Boys' Day,' the culmination of the Golden Week. Sometimes words do not suffice and are not sufficient. The answer, unspoken but unambiguous, was "yes, it must be today."

"You are to eat nothing," Brad, Izumi said plainly. "Don't forget. Everything is in order," she reminded him and left him alone with the bath towel and his thoughts.

Brad dried himself off and padded naked into the kitchen. Izumi was talking on the phone and drinking her morning coffee. "I know we're having eleven people tonight, but Lisa and Ashley are helping. I've more than enough. You needn't bring Michael - not today- unless he wants to wash dishes." An even number of guests would be unlucky. She looked up and saw his Brad's large form and smiled. He stood a half meter taller than she and outweighed her by fifty kilos.

Brad stood silently and waited for some sort of sign. Izumi raised her hand gracefully and pointed to a neatly wrapped, white bundle on the kitchen table. Not a single word was exchanged. The time for words had passed.

Brad saw the bundle, took it from the table, and walked out into the garden. He sat on a bench amid the beautiful, fragrant, flowering plants and warm, life-bringing sunshine of the spring morning. Koinobori, carp banners and windsocks, snapped smartly on their flag polls. He untied the red ribbon and unfolded the stiff, white paper. Inside, he found a small, sharp kitchen knife, wrapped in a red and white headband.

He tied on the hachimaki, the headband that kamikaze pilots wore to war and students wear in exams, to demonstrate their dedication and resolve. He examined the unassuming kitchen knife - a distant, domestic cousin of the proud short and long swords, Izumo used in her practice of kendo. It was terribly sharp, despite its humble origins and well suited to its practical purpose. He pricked his finger and smeared some words on the white paper.

He placed the knife and the paper on bench and stood. He looped the red ribbon around his sex so that he would not lose his urine, then retrieved the knife. He walked over to an open place in the garden and knelt. He paused to savor the moment. The gentle wind carried the perfumed fragrance of the many spring flowers. He heard the whispered buzzing of bees and the urgent chirping of the birds. Faintly, he heard the sound of Izumi playing her shamisen. He thought again of her and his love.

He steadied himself with his left arm on the ground. With his right hand he drew the keen blade across the left side of his neck. He felt hot blood pour over his arm, shoulder, and back. The sweet, iron smell filled his nostrils. With his last strength, he dropped the knife and threw himself forward. His head and chest lay motionless on the verdant ground that greedily drank his life's blood. Oblivion.

"Wow!" said Lisa stepping out of the shadows. "And Izumi didn't even want to watch.

"Brad was willing to die for her and I can't even get my boy friend to put the toilet seat down after he pees," Ashley marveled.

Lisa snorted, quite an unladylike snort. "I'm happy enough when my boyfriend actually pees in the toilet. I'll go get her. At least she can help us now."

"I've gutted and butchered a deer, but I've never handled this sort of beast," admitted Ashley. "I don't imagine that it's all that different."

"It's really not," Lisa reassured her.

Lisa went into the house and soon returned with Izumi and the tools that they would need. Ashley had already dragged Brad from where he lay and laid him out prone on the grass. As she had guessed, death had loosened his bowels. She found the garden hose and washed away the blood and fecal material. Izumi and Ashley helped spread apart his meaty buttocks so that Lisa cold cut a wide circle around his anus and tie off his rectum. They helped her drag him to cleaner place and they laid him out supine. Lisa went into the house to wash her hands.

"You should have seen him," Ashley gushed. "Cool as a cucumber or make that a daikon. Look at his face. He really looks peaceful."

Izumi looked at her Brad and said nothing. She smiled, though, when Lisa returned and knelt beside him. She hefted his penis and scrotum, the red ribbon still in place. "Look at these thighs, rump, and loins," she said. She pinched off his scrotal sac between her thumb and first finger and severed it cleanly. "Plenty of good eating." Lisa then made a shallow cut opening the skin from his pubis, up to the point of his chin. She then cut deeper, opening his abdomen and sawed through the cartilage on either side of his breast bone. She held up the breastbone for the others' inspection before tossing it into the bushes. Then she extended her incision up through his neck. She identified and tied off his windpipe and esophagus.

Izumi joined in and cut around his diaphragm enabling them to remove his organs en bloc, pulling his penis and anus up through his pelvis and his lungs and heart from his chest. Lisa sawed off his head, then Izumi, pried his jaws open and removed his tongue as close to its root as she could.

Ashley hosed down the decapitated carcass once more and they proceeded to skin him. Lisa showed Ashley how to make a circular cut around his ankles and wrists and a long incision along the inside of each arm or leg. Lisa was able to flay both legs in the time that it took Ashley and Izumi to flay their respective arms.

Lisa watched them struggle fecklessly and laughed. "Don't worry, you won't hurt him!" Soon the skin, hung in loose sleeves around his limbs. Lisa peeled the skin from his trunk with no more difficulty than one would have removing the snow suit from a toddler. In the center of the skin of his back was tattooed Izumi's Red Peony badge.

Lisa took up the saw again and halved the carcass, cutting on either side along the spine. Then she quartered it, cutting through the spine at the level of the 12th rib. Each woman took a quarter and went inside. Ashley came back for the remaining quarter. Meanwhile, Izumi and Lisa hosed down the messy place where he had end his life.

Inside, the work preparing the banquet had just begun.

The dinners were seated around the table. Lisa passed a tray of oshibori, hot towels for the guests to clean their hands. This task accomplished, Lisa took her seat next to Izumi.

Izumi, wearing a saffron yellow kimono with the image of a large red peony over her left shoulder and sleeve, filled Lisa's sake cup, called an ochoko, to her right and passed her the bottle of warmed premium tokkyu sake. In turn, Lisa filled the cup of the person sitting on her right. Meanwhile Izumi turned to Ashley on her left and filled her cup and Ashley, in turn, filled the cup of the woman sitting on her left. Three pots of boiling water graced the table and four trays of slices onions, green onions, mushrooms, tofu, rice noodles, and greens. Each dinner had two small bowels of condiments, a citrus-sesame sauce and a ginger soy sauce for the vegetables. The room hummed with the quiet conversations of the excited dinners. The evening promised to be quite memorable.

Izumi stood and lifted her cup. The room became silent. She looked at the ceiling for a long moment and said,

"Sun is setting

Stomach growling

Fare awaits us.

Time now for feasting!"

A perfect 17 syllable haiku.

"Kampai!" Everyone called in unison and raised their glasses.

"Itedakemasu!" Izumo replied.

The first course was grilled chunks of saddle, barbecued to perfection on skewers, yakitori style. Tiny sweet onions separated the cubes of marinated meat. The offering melded the flavors of the exquisite flesh and the aromatic wood

Lisa and Ashley disappeared into the kitchen and quickly returned with three large serving plates covered with paper thin slices of meat. The slices of tenderloin, each about 3 cm in diameter were about 1 mm thick and weighed less than a gram. All conversation ceased. The dinners first put the onions, mushrooms, and greens to boil. Then they boiled the thin slices of delicious jacques. The cooked meat was dipped into the sesame flavored sauce and the vegetable accompaniments in the citrus flavored sauce. Both were eaten with enthusiasm.

When the platters were stripped bare of meat, the dinners added the noodles and tofu and converted the cooking liquid into soup. The soup was drunk with noisy enthusiasm and then table was quickly cleared of all hot pots, platters, dishes, and sake.

The third course was thin slivers of tempura-fried testicle served with tempura- fried sea oysters, slices of green olives and slices of hard boiled egg. Izumi had placed beautifully colored, interestingly shaped stones on each plate as gifts to her guests.

When the dinners had finished with their exotic fare, Lisa and Ashley cleared the table once more and Izumi passed out simple bowels of plain white rice. The guests began to eat their rice. Ashley reached for the soy sauce. Lisa stopped her in time and saved her from anything more than a disapproving glance from Mariko.

All eyes were upon her when Izumi produced a blood stained scroll from the sleeve of her kimono and untied the red ribbon that held it closed. She stood and read the thick red writing.

"Awe-inspiring

Her loveliness;

Unending is

My heart's devotion!"

Everyone was silent for a long instant. Then someone applauded and then everyone followed. Mariko shouted "Gochiso-same destita," and everyone joined in. A perfectly marvelous dinner and a perfect seventeen syllable haiku. Izumi turned from her guests and looked out of the window into the night, deep in thought. She held the stone from her first course in her palm and squeezed it until the stone made an impression in the palm of her hand.

"I can't think of a better way to celebrate Boys' Day," offered Lisa.

"Neither can I," responded Ashley and no one disagreed.