<I>The early summer of 1892 brought a heavy rainy season that year in Japan. </I>Plum Rain,<I> the Japanese called it, because it comes when the fruit bulges with ripeness and promise. Like a young girl reaching womanhood.</I><P> <P><I>A girl like me.</I><P> <P>In the ancient Japanese tradition of beauty and grace, sex and erotic fantasies are hidden secrets that only a select few may learn, and which are forbidden to foreigners. But when a threat to her father's life puts her own in jeopardy, young Kathlene Mallory is sent to live in safety at the Tea House of the Look-Back Tree, where she is allowed to glimpse inside the sensual world of the geisha.<P> <P>During the years of her training in the art of pleasuring men, Kathlene's desires are awakened by the promise of unending physical delights, and she eagerly prepares for the final ritual that will fulfill her dream of becoming a geisha&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;the selling of her virginity. The man willing to pay for such an honor, Baron Tonda, is not the man for whom Kathlene carries a secret longing, but he <I>is</I> the man who will bring ruin to the teahouse, and danger to Kathlene, if he is disappointed&#133;.