From nowhere, came sound of shamisen. I had fallen asleep around the dawn, tired like mud, when all my customers went home. Suita suisen sukareta yanagi no... Thats Sister Luciles voice... She was murmuring a hamauta to the shamisen... I opened my eyes and noticed the broad daylight. Sister Lucile was a geisha before coming here. As a geisha, she fell in love with a bad guy and ended up in such a whorehouse. The guy still haunts Sister Lucile for money. The quick-tempered Sister Paula has once snapped and shouted at Sister Lucile.

I wondered why I was not afraid. Maybe it was because Take-san, who scared me at first, had become the only person I was related to. Somehow I knew that he was not evil at heart. Even if he was, I had to trust him; no one else fed or took care of me. When I was ready, Take-san said, "Okay, lets go. Follow me Listen, hold your tongue whatevermay happen. Right?", putting my pair of wooden sandals neatly at my feet. The sandals had a dust cover in the same color with my kimono.

I couldnt but obey his stern order. I timidly stood up and began to untie my obi. I had stripped in front of countless men, day after day. To make my life, I had been accustomed to it. I had thought I was finally getting out of it... I got naked in sobs. The fear and shame made me hide my breasts and cunt... "Listen. From now on, you cant wear anything in this house.

Bite the rope." Take-san struck a match and lighted a red candle. I was scared! Fire...scared me!! "Hiiii!!!" I screamed. Fire...fires horrifying... Long ago, my home was burnt in a fire. Dad, mom, my two sisters, and my baby brother were all killed in the fire. I was not home because of my apprenticeship at a local whore bar. The fire made me an orphan, and I was sold. So...fire scared me..

After all of this, I was in Yokohama. I never wanted to come here, but the debt gave me no other choice. I moved out of the geisha house in the early morning to avoid the eyes of the others. Only the mistress saw me off. The whorehouse was named "Fuji Hausu." Just as I had known, an okiya and a whorehouse was as different as the moon and a tortoise. The difference of "the sisters" astonished me.

George-san caught the leash and led me out of the room. I came across many maidservants on the hallway. They were all trying not to see me... I painfully kept up with George-san on my all fours. I was dying with shame, but there was nothing I could do... When I fell behind, he tugged the leash and made me choke and cough. I was helpless...I have to follow him with all my strength, or Id be suffocated... We reached the hall. So ashamed, I could not look up. I saw a lot of peoples feet. Leather shoes of Westerners and grass sandals of Japanese.

My foster parents sold me when I was eight. The women trader took me to an okiya in Fukagawa. As a geisha apprentice, I was given every kind of small chores in the house. In the morning, I got up before dawn and cleaned the yard and street. I prepared everyones breakfast. Around noon, when I was through with the laundry of "the sisters," I prepared lunch. Afternoon was spent in lessons in shamisen and dance at the masters places.

"Well hammer this memory into you, so that you may never dream of escaping!!" Craaaacckkk!! CRACK!! "Ngguuu!!!" My thighs were all red in no time. My tears came out at every throb of the sore. The rag in my mouth did not let me beg for forgiveness. "You spoiled slip of a girl!! Who in the hell do you think you are?" Unable to stay on feet, I collapsed. ".....