The first time that I saw Takuho, a young, good-looking Japanese exchange student was in the summer of 1985 when he had come to Topeka, Kansas to attend college. My parents owned an old two and a half story house in College Hill just a few blocks from Washburn University. I went bounding up the stairs to the third floor and startled this Japanese man who sat up in bed, clinging to a sheet to cover his bare chest. Unbeknownst to me, our foreign exchange student had arrived very late the night before at the Kansas City airport and was attempting to get some much needed shut-eye after his international flight.

You see, I didn’t live at home with my parents. I am the older of two siblings and had gotten married a few months earlier. My brother was a student at Washburn where I, too, had attended until I became pregnant. I may as well come straight out with it. My brother, Josh, was on a football scholarship. Some of the jocks were quite attractive, macho men, whom I had gotten to know pretty well because of my brother. Chad and I hadn’t dated long when I found myself in a compromising position in a parked car.