she’s different from everyone else

I count the ways she is unique here.  She doesn’t wear clothes or shoes.  She has no friends or acquaintances.  She’s the only Ama.  Her skin is dark, and theirs is pale.  And there’s something else about her -- I don’t want to use the word “savage”, but she seems outside their “civilization”.  Her bare body itself seems like a rebuke, or an intrusion, into this modest, conservative culture.  To begin with, in a country of notoriously flat-chested women, her breasts are gigantic, standing clearly out from her body, not sagging despite the lack of a bra.  Maybe the cold air does it, or the salt sea water tightens her skin.  They are even browner than the rest of her, with chocolate-colored nipples, big and dark and hard, thrusting out in front.  The sun and the wind and the cold and the water have toughened them, coarsened them, enlarged them, as if they are savagely poking into the eyes of the soft, pale, civilized, docile townsfolk.

        Also I notice her body hair.  On her head her hair is tied back in a knot without the aid of any string.  Her pubic hair is very “bushy” (sorry, I can’t think of any other word -- I don’t have an internet thesaurus handy).  It sticks out; I’d call it “fluffy” if it weren’t so gritty with sea salt.  Being exposed to the open air all the time must make it grow.  Her armpit hair is so abundant that I can see wisps of it sticking out even though her arms are at her sides.  She also has noticeable leg hair, unshaved, and a light covering of hair on her arms, almost as florid as a man’s.  Her feet are tough and broad, strong toes spread out, toes that help her perch on rocks and gunwales.  It hardly needs saying that her fingernails and toenails are unpainted.  They seem not clipped but filed down as if she uses a pumice stone.

        Her butt cheeks are taut, muscled, as are her shoulders.  I wouldn’t call her “bulky”, but she is a big woman, at least by Japanese standards.

        A chill breeze brushes over me and I shiver.  Despite her no doubt thorough conditioning I see that it affects her too.  Goose bumps rise on her butt, on her shoulders.  And on her breasts, and around her nipples.  I’m pretty sure I see her shiver like me, though I get the feeling she’s trying to suppress it.

        I suddenly realize what she has been looking at.  It’s a clothing store, and her eyes have been caressing the warm sweaters in the storefront, fondling the fluffy blouses, nuzzling into the gloves and the leather boots.  Her eyes seem to be longing for them.  A horrible thought hits me.  Maybe she’s not allowed to ever wear clothes!