My stepmother Nanako, who had gone with my father to Hokkaido for his job transfer, came back this summer to check on me. Nanako was as beautiful as ever, and I, in the midst of puberty, was still unable to treat her as a mother and child. On a sweltering afternoon, Nanako was drying the laundry on the balcony, and the sweat running down her neck, the sweat pouring out of her armpits, the sweat soaking through her blouse, the lewd perspiration running down her entire body... I began to have an unexpected desire for Nanako, and before long I became aware of her not as my mother, but as a woman...