Short summary of the story "Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey" from the book, First Person Singular.

In “Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey,” an unnamed narrator remembers visiting a small inn located in Japan's Gunma Prefecture. While bathing in the inn's hot spring, he met a talking monkey who worked there. The monkey explained that he had been taken in and taught human speech by a professor who lived in Shinagawa. After he was forcibly driven out of Shinagawa, he lived briefly at the monkey park in Takasakiyama, but he was bullied by the other monkeys. The monkey further noted that he was only attracted to human women, and since he could not have romantic relationships with them, he stole their names. He did this by stealing their IDs and concentrating on the names written there. However, he said he had ceased doing this since coming to the inn. Some time later, the narrator was back home in Tokyo and having lunch with a female colleague when she suddenly forgot her own name. He wondered if the Shinagawa monkey had stolen it.