We took the subway to Shibuya and had dinner at Peco, a small Italian restaurant in Nampeidai; she had been to it only a few times and she said it served the best pizza in Tokyo; the crust was indeed fresh and crisp.
The Japanese, like the Chinese, are not demonstrative. They seldom hold hands in public, but I held her hand just the same as we walked back to the train station. Had she already taken her vacation?
“What is that?”
It was almost unknown in the Japanese labor system. She was happy with her job, and she would most probably hold on to it for as long as she wanted, until perhaps she got married. So, she had some feminine ambition after all.
“And raise children?”
She nodded.
I was very pleased to hear that, to know she was not all that much of a lesbian. It was July, and Tokyo was unusually warm. She had taken off her blouse and underneath was a yellow T-shirt that revealed her shoulders, the fine down at the nape of her neck. Shibuya even then was alive with young people, the small shops bursting with goods. We passed several love motels, I was holding her hand, and I said how wonderful it would be if she would consent to go to one of them with me. She stiffened and withdrew her hand. I was not joking, of course, but I made it sound as if I was. “What is the matter with you, Yoshiko?” I asked, sounding hurt. “Can you not even take a joke? And why are you so scared of men? Of me?”
“I am not,” she said resolutely.
“Then come to Kyoto with me,” I said. And that was when I offered her so much for the trip, what she perhaps earned in six months she would make in three days. “You will be my guide, that is all. Nothing more … I promise.”
She was quiet after that. Then she said that when she was a child, her family had lived in Shibuya, in Nampeidai—they had a house with a garden and a couple of persimmon trees that bore so much fruit in the fall they had more than enough for the neighbors. But after the war, they had to sell the house and land to get a much cheaper and smaller place in Ikebukuro. “My mother is with me, Charlie. She is not well and I am taking care of her. One reason why I cannot leave Tokyo for so long …”
We reached the Shibuya station where she would take the Yamanote train. She took me to a statue of a small dog facing the station plaza. “This is Hachiko,” she said, patting the dog’s head. “Wait for me here Sunday morning, very early—at seven o’clock. Yes, I will go to Kyoto with you. I have never been there either.”
I opened my briefcase and gave her a wad of ten thousand yen notes without counting it. I asked if it would cover our tickets, and she said it was more than enough. She started counting but I stopped her. “Just keep it and tell me if it’s not enough.”
“I will make a list of everything I spend,” she said.
Even before we started for Kyoto that early morning, I had already planned what to do. She was waiting before the statue of the dog when I got there fifteen minutes early, which was usual with the Japanese. We’d have time for coffee as she had already bought our tickets and made the reservations at an inn in Kyoto. She was in a light blue summer dress and was carrying a weekender canvas bag and a plastic bag that she said contained our lunch and iced tea. We went to one of the coffee shops across the square and had coffee and toast. She had had no breakfast, other than a cup of tea. She told me the statue’s story:
Some time ago, there was this dog that went to the train station every afternoon to meet its master. Then one afternoon, the master failed to show up—he had been killed in an accident. The dog stayed on, waiting, waiting. It did not leave the station till it died. Another of those beautiful Japanese stories that soon pass into legend.
“There are other popular waiting places,” Yoshiko said. “The Ginza corner in front of Mitsukoshi department store or Waco—the jewelry shop—the ground floor before the escalator of the Kinokuniya bookshop in Shinjuku, almost all the train stations … but nothing as popular or as crowded as Hachiko.”
I asked her if she would have waited for me much longer when I was late at Takashimaya, and she smiled beautifully. “I was willing to give you an hour.…”
I held her hand impulsively across the table and almost spilled the goblet of water before her.
The bullet train was yet to come, but the old trains were roomy and comfortable. The countryside, bright with sunshine, slipped by, rice fields just planted, tiny, tidy Japanese houses, the farmers’ homes easily identifiable by their thatched roofs. Orange orchards, dark green in the sun and, always, in the distance, mountains or, up ahead, a succession of tunnels.
It is unusual that I can still remember these scenes for, in truth, during the trip to Kyoto, Yoshiko’s presence dominated my awareness: the manner in which she spoke, her gestures, all that serene beauty, inflaming my imagination, how her pristine composure would change in the unrestrained throes of passion.
Four hours to Kyoto, four hours that seemed no more than six minutes afterward. She told me about her life, reticently at first, then with confidence as she went on. I was, of course, a good listener.
“I told you about our house in Nampeidai,” she said. “It was really beautiful. I am very sorry we lost it, but it cannot be helped. My father—he was an engineer. They made him an officer and sent him to China. That was where he was killed. The war. And my two brothers—they were older. I was only a little girl then. They were both studying at Keio University. They were drafted into the army and sent to Okinawa. They did not return.”
The lilt in her voice was gone; her eyes had misted.
“You don’t have to tell me these things, Yoshiko,” I said. “I know what war is like.… Remember, we were occupied by your soldiers.”
She turned to me. “I have heard they were brutal, that they made people in the occupied countries suffer so much …”
I simply nodded.
She was silent again.
“My mother had to work, and shortly after I got out of school, I had to work, too. I never finished college, Charlie. We couldn’t afford it, and our house now, I would like to invite you there—you are so good—but it is so tiny …”
I understood, realizing that my own Japanese partners seldom invited me to their homes. We always met at some classy restaurant or bar in Akasaka. Twice I did get invited, once in Chiba, and still another time in Meguro—substantial, middle-class-looking houses in Manila, but to the Japanese, they were manorial.
We reached Kyoto station in early afternoon, sweltering, hotter than Tokyo, and boarded a cab. The inn was by the Kamo River. Yoshiko, right at the foyer, objected immediately to the arrangements. I understood, of course, what was going on but I stood there dumbly, as if I didn’t know a thing. She must have another room, no matter how small. But the receptionist, in a light blue summer kimono, explained that all the rooms were taken and, besides, what was wrong with being in the same room? We were such a good-looking couple, and it would be cheaper, too.
I asked what the trouble was, but she said it was all right, we would share the room.
“Oh, like an old married couple,” I bantered.
She looked at me and blushed. “Not on the same futon, Charlie. And please, no jokes.”
There was not much to unpack, and after we were through she called for a cab that would take us on a tour of the city. Temples, more temples, narrow streets and old houses of wood. I still never really paid much attention to them, or to the explanations she faithfully recited from the thick guidebook that she had been desultorily reading on the train. At dusk, with a surfeit of temples, I wanted to have dinner in any of the restaurants listed in her guidebook—a restaurant that specialized in Kyoto cuisine. But she said breakfast and dinner were provided by the inn, and we were not going to waste money.
We went back and realized that the inn was truly full—more than three dozen girls in blue school uniform were there, noisy as a flock of ducks.
“Senior high,” Yoshiko said. “A very exclusive girls’ school in Tokyo.”
We had dinner in our room, served in
those beautiful lacquered trays, tiny portions of pickled vegetables, fish, rice and what else—the food so neatly arranged, like carefully executed pictures, it was a shame to eat it.
After dinner, we went out again. I wanted to stay in our room, to be with her, but she said the night tour was already paid for and, besides, she said with a mocking smile, it should interest me because it included a tour of the entertainment district, and we would see some old-style Japanese courtesans.
“Whores,” I said under my breath.
“What did you say?”
“Never mind,” I said.
The tour bus was full. As I looked around, I was surprised to see that I was the only foreigner. Some noisy old ladies, and quiet old men. Yoshiko had brought along her guidebook and translated what the tour guide said. The evening tour was for Japanese only, and Yoshiko said it was authentic, nothing touristy about it. I let everything bounce off my consciousness, interesting though it was, the geisha quarters, the taiyu—that was what the courtesan was called—in a kimono with the sash worn in front, her traditional wooden clogs almost six inches high.
We returned to the inn shortly before midnight. She had enjoyed herself, seeing that part of her society that was shut off to so many Japanese.
The maid had prepared the bath and she said I should bathe first.
“Why don’t we bathe together?” I asked.
She smiled. “No.” She was firm. “You first.”
I did not soak in the tub, stayed only long enough to melt the tiredness in my bones.
My futon was a meter away from hers and I was tempted to draw them closer but desisted.
I was almost asleep when she emerged from the bath and, in a short while, she lay down, too, in her summer yukata.
“What will we do tomorrow?”
“Go to Nara and see more temples.”
“I am fed up with temples,” I said.
“The tour is already paid for.”
There was no avoiding it. “I would like to see some interesting places,” I said. “Like bars where homosexuals go, both men and women.”
“Not in Kyoto,” she said. “I don’t know any place here. But we can do that in Tokyo. I know a couple of places there.”
“Are there a lot of homosexuals and lesbians in Japan?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” I said. “I do not condemn them–if that is their choice. Me, I have always preferred women.”
She chuckled. “I know.”
“And you?”
She mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I didn’t ask her to explain.
Nor did I tell her that I had seen her and the black woman holding hands. Maybe I was wrong. But I did tell her that women who turn to lesbianism do so because they have never experienced a man’s embrace, that once they have had that experience, they would never seek sexual pleasure again from women.
“That is the entire difference,” I said. “As for men, it could be a different point of view and there are, to be sure, men who are ambivalent—AC/DC we call them in Manila. They usually make good hairdressers, couturiers and even artists.”
After a while, she said she was sleepy; we could talk about it some more in the morning.
I turned to her; she had closed her eyes. Although there was no light, the evening glow filtered into the room and I could make out everything clearly, the low lacquered table where our meals were set, the cabinets, the scroll and the vase with artificial silk chrysanthemums. The faint mustiness of the tatami mats pervaded the room, some lingering fragrance of Japanese incense; from our right, through the shuttered window, the murmur of the river as it followed its course, some giggling from the girls in the other rooms. I was not sleepy, I was not going to sleep—I had plans and would soon act on them.
Past midnight, the whole inn was quiet. Yoshiko had not covered herself with the sheet. The fan at one corner of the room was not on and it was no longer warm; in fact, it was quite cool. I did not rise—I merely crouched and crawled over to her side. She was breathing rhythmically, quietly, in her sleep. I bent over her and kissed her gently. When she did not wake up, I kissed her again, this time forcing my tongue into her mouth. She woke with a start. I think she knew at once it was me but she did not push me away. Her eyes were now wide open, but my eyes were more used to the darkness. I spoke to her gently, quietly. “I am going to rape you, Yoshiko. You can struggle and scream any way you like, I do not care.” I meant every word. I held her wrists and mounted her, my yukata open at the front. She had nothing on under her yukata and, soon enough, her breasts greeted me. I bent over and kissed them, then kissed her again.
She finally spoke. “I should not have come with you,” she said. “Do what you like, I am not going to scream—what is the use?”
But though she did not struggle, I could feel her body stiffen. With anger? With tension? I was in no hurry. I decided to put her at ease first. I started the old ritual, caressing her, petting her until I knew she had relaxed completely and was even enjoying my ministrations.
I mounted her then and, cooperative at last, she spread her legs. Perhaps I was too anxious, but I slipped in slowly, glorying in the feeling of being welcome. And when I finally fully entered her in one quick thrust, she screamed, “Itai!”
I had thought that it was sheer pleasure that had elicited that cry. She tensed again.
“What did you say?”
“Ouch,” she said, translating what she had uttered. It occurred to me then to ask, “Is this your first time?”
She nodded, her eyes closed. I did not move for a while. I kissed her instead. Now she responded with passion, her tongue probing my mouth. When she was finally relaxed, I started moving again, slowly, and, at first, she lay still; then she picked up the rhythm of my exertions, and she began thrusting her hips upward to meet me. She soon started to moan, and embrace me tightly, and I could feel the spasms, the contractions, but I went on pumping steadily. Her back arched; and when she came, she let out a cry that I am sure was heard in the other rooms. I did not stop, and again, her moaning, her wild embrace …
“Yoshiko,” I said, “you are very noisy.”
“What did you say?” She was oblivious to the world. I could only think of the high school girls in the other rooms, all of them awake, all of them listening eagerly, and I said to myself, To hell with them all.
We went to sleep in a leechlike embrace and were awakened by the maid, who wanted to serve us breakfast. I looked at my watch—it was past ten! There was no latch to the door. Yoshiko said we would have breakfast later. She embraced and kissed me. “Thank you, Charlie,” she said, her eyes shining with gratitude.
I kissed her hungrily. “This is the breakfast I like,” I said, mounting her again and, once more, those moans of pleasure which, by now, I had become used to.
The morning sun caressed our room, sparkled on the shoji screen and brought a sheen to the red lacquered table. Exhausted, Yoshiko lay on her stomach, her face half-turned toward me. Her eyes were closed as in sleep but she was awake, her lips parted in a smile of full contentment.
I moved closer to gaze at her profile. Such sweet repose. Her hair cascaded on the other side, baring her nape. I’d read somewhere how Japanese males regard a woman’s nape with its fine growth of hair as an object of erotic admiration. I immediately understood.
Her back glistened in the morning light, the graceful curve of the spine, the narrow waist, the gentle humps of her buttocks, and those sculpted limbs tapering from her flanks. A woman cannot see her back, the buttocks that darken a little as they slope into her thighs. The skin is coarser here, the pores bigger, but with Yoshiko, it was clear, smooth as peach skin.
Of all Asian women, it is perhaps the Japanese woman who has the most beautiful skin, so unlike that of Caucasian women; it is only when they are in their teens or early twenties that their skin is tightly drawn and smooth. But as Caucasian women age, their skin thickens and is rou
gh to the touch, particularly where there is an abundance of skin hair. The skin then becomes lax, flabby and coarse. Not that of Oriental women, least of all the Japanese woman. And her complexion—they commingle there: the orchid petal, the polished ivory, the pink pearl.
I turned Yoshiko over. Slowly, she lay on her back, revealing that ineffable glory, that face in full dulcet symmetry, those luscious lips slightly parted. I leaned over and kissed them. She responded warmly enough to tell me she was, indeed, fully awake. My finger wandered down the graceful line of her jaw, to the soft fall of her shoulders, the hair in her armpits. She shivered a bit when I bent over to kiss them, exuding not that odor of sweat for which reason many Western women shave. It was the lifting aroma of a woman, wholesome and newly scrubbed.
I licked the creamy mounds of her breast, traced with my tongue the light red aura that encircled the nipple, darker and rigid now in my mouth and tasting of honeyed salt. My tongue wandered down to her navel and, below, the brown patch of pubic hair, so soft, so downy, at my touch. A quiver, a tiny moan, then she sat up to enfold me in her arms.
When we finally got up, I noticed the specks of red on her yukata. I pointed them out and she smiled. “It was painful only in the beginning.” She did not bother to wash it—the maid would probably think it was her monthly and not the immaculate evidence of what she gave up for me.
The three days in Kyoto became a glorious, impetuous week; we went to Nara anyhow because the tour was already paid for, but we did not finish it; halfway through, when wandering around the deer park, we slipped away from the group and headed for the train station to Kyoto, just in time, for the girls in the other rooms were trooping in. They looked at Yoshiko and me impishly and with knowing smiles, which, at first, Yoshiko could not understand until I explained to her. Again, one of those beautiful blushes reddened her face, even her ears.
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