by Cynthia Dane
I look to Kathryn, who is likewise approached by Fujiko Isoya with that same girlish look that she had last night when she interrupted us in our room.
So this is a gendered party? Fine. I can play this game. I’ll be back in Kathryn’s company by daybreak. We’re going to spend a couple more days here in Tokyo playing tourist before heading back to America and…
“Here you are, Mr. Mathers.” Valerie interrupts my thoughts when she hands me my work cell phone. “Have an enjoyable night.”
I really, really don’t like how pale her complexion has become as of late. It started before we came to Japan. I hoped to speak with her about it after we got back, but after her nausea last night, I’m thinking we should discuss it sooner.
As if she’s reading my mind, she says, “If you’re available tomorrow, Mr. Mathers, I’d appreciate a brief meeting with you to go over something.”
“Everything all right?”
She smiles. “It will be. Go on. Enjoy your night. I’ll be returning to my room after getting some dinner if you need me.”
I wave her off with another inquiry to her well-being. She assures me once more she’s fine before disappearing down the hallway. After that, I’m in Kunihiro’s hands.
And his uncle’s, but the magnanimous chairman (who still manages to be magnanimous even with his short height) of the family business isn’t going to touch me outside of a handshake. That would be silly.
Instead, he’s going to treat me to how rich Japanese businessmen party in Tokyo. You think you’re prepared, but you never are.
***
Image is everything in Japan. This is especially true if you represent a powerful company that stands to lose face if you act like a git in public. I have a distant cousin who taught English here right after college. The big topic at that year’s family reunion was how her company expected her to be on her best behavior even when she was off-duty from work. The fear was that some parent would complain about seeing their kid’s lovely English teacher getting drunk off her ass with her friends and lose the school a bit of business.
Obviously, these things can translate in America as well, but for the most part, people don’t worry about harmless things they do outside of work getting them fired. Now, amplify this in Japan to a million (for every dollar spent that night) to represent the kind of pressure the higher-ups of a company like the Nippon Royal Hotel were under.
So we were not going to hit up the local bars that most business peons went to on Friday and Saturday nights after work. Nor would we touch Kabuki-cho, land of middle-management playtimes… because then there might be rumors that the Isoyas were friends with unsavory yakuza types that are said to own half the neighborhood. We’re also not going to Roppongi, which is where the foreigners love to party… for a lot of the same reasons. Nope. We’re getting in the back of a private car to head back to Ginza, which is where respectable people of Tokyo’s upper echelons entertain their business associates after a long, grueling meeting.
It’s the three of us. Me, the stoic chairman who looks like his idea of fun is reading the newspaper, and the nephew who is around my age but is too deferent to his uncle to be anything more than a helpful guide as we journey to an upscale gentleman’s club in Ginza.
This is gonna be great.
I don’t dare text my girlfriend to see what she’s up to. That would be rude in present company, even though Akihiro Isoya is glued to his phone, rattling off in Japanese. I think he’s firing someone on the other side of the company until I hear his voice briefly soften in a way I would around my girlfriend.
His wife, hm? Or maybe his mistress? Hey, the things I hear around here…
A Japanese man in a tuxedo awaits us at our destination. He welcomes the Isoyas with superfluous Japanese before saying, “Welcome, sir. Allow me to show you up.”
We go to the top of a tower overlooking the downtown core of Tokyo. From our lofty, transparent elevator, I can see every bright, twinkling light of a city built on sounds and colors. Down below is the rabble of millions of people going about their business with friends, associates, and lovers. As usual, I find myself pining for a simpler life, even if for a night, while I’m stuck on the top floor of some multimillion dollar building hoping I don’t make an ass out of myself. There’s a reason Katie and I had so much fun in Vegas that we accidentally got married.
If only she were with me now. Nothing sucks more these days than going to new places and experiencing new things without her. If this were another jaunt to Vancouver, Canada, that would be one thing. Going to a place like Tokyo, that I barely get to see even with my money and access to a private plane? I should be spending at least part of this night with her.
The gentleman’s club is most assuredly men only. Not counting the women who work there, of course. Gorgeous, talented women who hail from all corners of the earth and dress like the millions of dollars their sugar daddies surely push into their bank accounts. Kunihiro is quick to nod to a Russian beauty who flashes him a dazzling smile that is a mix of careful practice and genuine affection.
A middle-aged Japanese woman dressed in a simple black dress – although those diamonds around her neck are far from simple – approaches us with a respectful bow. Her light, airy voice says something I don’t understand, but I quickly ascertain that she’s either the owner or the manager of the establishment. The other women, at least, treat her with immediate respect whenever they’re in the same vicinity. Sometimes so much so that it comes off as disingenuous.
“Welcome,” she says with an accent I can’t place. “We have a VIP room for you.”
If you think we’re alone in this VIP room? Ha!
I knew the old man in my presence had a semblance of a dick on him, because he and his nephew must have hired the company of every woman in the establishment. From the moment I enter the spacious VIP room furnished with leather and subdued with blue lighting, I’m greeted with Russian, French, Italian, Middle-Eastern, Indian, and even Canadian accents, all speaking nearly perfect English. It feels like a night in New York more than it does a night in Tokyo, a city infamous for its homogeneity even with its foreign population.
“Drink up,” Kunihiro says as a bottle of Cristal flows thanks to the dexterous hands of a blond British woman. “Tonight we relax and enjoy our spoils.”
The only one not pretending to have a good time is Akihiro, who I believe is actually working on his phone in the far corner of the room. That leaves Kunihiro and me, the two thirty-somethings stuck with the wonderful pleasure of entertaining a bevy of international beauties who can’t keep their hands off us.
Kunihiro is in heaven. I don’t see a ring on the guy’s finger, but that doesn’t mean anything. He could still be married. Nevertheless, I share a toast with him and drink Cristal.
I also immediately begin fending off more than three pairs of feminine hands as they come for me with a mission.
Now, I would never say these women did certain things on the side to make some extra money, but I would not be surprised in the least if I found out that I could purchase the seedier services of every one of them that night. If I wanted, I could flaunt my billions of dollars and get them to do things to each other for my own amusement. Most of them had looks on their faces that insinuated they didn’t mind. Hey, I know how this works. This place isn’t so different from the Chateau back home, although the madam here has nothing on Monica Warren’s levels of untouchable sophistication.
“No thanks, ladies.” I sit in a chair and hope it’s enough to deter them from putting their hands where they are not allowed. While they’re not going to touch me anywhere but my shoulders, arms, and maybe my knees, I don’t need that kind of temptation tonight.
Now hold up!
Don’t give me that look. Don’t even mutter to yourself that I would ever in a million years be untrue to the woman I intend to make my wife one day. I’ve never cheated on her and I don’t intend to. Kathryn is more than enough woman for this bozo, which is probably
why the image of three beautiful women coming straight for me with sex on their faces is not something I’m into anymore. Three years ago this would’ve been one of the best nights of my life, but now? No way. I can’t even imagine keeping up with all three of them now!
“Drinks are fine.” I cross my legs and contort my torso so one woman can’t graze my ear with her fingers. Damn, are they working overtime? Did the Isoyas pay extra for these women to go hard on me? Or did their manager promise them I was a billionaire looking for a Tokyo girlfriend? “Just drinks, thanks.”
They go away, pouting. Another woman in a bright pink dress enters with a plate of carefully crafted sushi that she brings to the three men in the room. Sure, I’ll take some gourmet sushi while I’m at it. Booze, food… maybe look at the hot women? Hey, Kathryn and I have established that looking is more than fine. It’s the touching that rankles the both of us.
Because the thought of her being surrounded by men like I am by women right now? Testing me.
These thoughts spur me to pull out my phone and attempt to text my girlfriend while simultaneously eating sushi.
“This party is nuts. There are half naked women everywhere. Just FYI, there are half naked women all around me. None of them are as beautiful as you.”
I expect any type of response beyond the one I actually do get.
“I need God to intervene right now because I think I am partying with two of the biggest perverts in the country.”
Wait, what? I need more details than that. So why isn’t Kathryn replying to me anymore. One, two hours later, I’m still waiting to hear back from her ass that is probably already drunk. Which wouldn’t be a problem if she weren’t apparently in the hands of two of Japan’s biggest perverts… whatever the fuck that means!
I think this is going to be a long night. Hell, it might be a long trip depending on whether or not that rumbling in my stomach is from this food or from whatever Valerie might have given me earlier. Either way, I’m probably fucked.
Chapter 3
KATHRYN
I’ve been to some pretty crazy after-parties around the world. We’re talking men getting fellated at the bar and women twirling around naked with their nipples on fire. (Not kidding. Actual nipple fire.) So much cocaine you’d think it was snowing inside. Men and women tonguing one another before the husbands switch wives for the night (and then pretend it never happened in the morning.)
This party? Well, it’s not the craziest I’ve ever been to, since the Japanese are so opposed to drugs, but it is up there, and totally unexpected.
I knew with the likes of Fujiko Isoya it was not going to be dowdy party. The brief background check my assistant did on her revealed she’s basically the Pacific version of my future mother-in-law: middle-aged, rich as shit, and not afraid to date a string of boy-toys from here to Rio de Janiero. In fact, based on what I heard from multiple sources, both Fujiko and Caroline Grant-Mathers have probably dated the same male models over the years.
Still has not prepared me.
We take a cab to nearby Shinjuku to get wasted on booze and half naked men. I knew about the booze part beforehand. For every drug they detest, no matter how benign, Japanese businesspeople will get absolutely fucked up on some of the hardest alcohol you’ve ever burned your throat on.
Nobody prepared me for the men.
It wasn’t a strip club. Those are barely available even for the straight men. For straight women? The best even the rich can accomplish are what they call “host clubs.” Hostesses are infamous throughout the world, but their male counterparts? I admit I had never seen anything like it in my life, and I had seen some pretty shady shit in parts of Europe and Southeast Asia.
Not a single guy – all of whom are either Japanese or Russian – speaks a lick of English outside of some stock phrases. They all, however, attempt to kiss my blond ass the moment I step through the narrow door with one of the biggest sugar mamas around. Fujiko Isoya air-kisses half the men in the room and smacks one on the ass. These men, in their dapper and sometimes ill-fitting suits, treat this like it is the best payday of the month.
“Is it okay?” the younger Junri Isoya asks me. I’m standing near the entrance, drinking in the sight of all these good looking young men with different hairstyles and mannerisms, wondering how the hell I’m going to get through the night when we don’t even speak the same language. Hell, Ian would take this better than I am. He’d find it hilarious and probably try to buy me a lap dance so he can take a picture of my mortified face.
“I’m fine.” I don’t know if that’s the right thing to say or not, for Ms. Junri already looks like she’d rather be anywhere but a location of her aunt’s choosing. I take it this is not her thing.
She keeps a perfect poker face as she slips her briefcase beneath her arm and texts someone on her sleek Softbank phone. “My apologies if my aunt has overstepped her bounds,” Junri says. “She jumps at any chance to take business associates out to places like this.”
“Seems like a weird place to take one’s niece.” A man with moppy blond hair gestures for us to follow him to a private corner already prepped with snacks and expensive alcoholic drinks. “Or any member of one’s personal family.”
Junri shrugs before following the young man in a bespoke navy suit. “You get used to it.”
I could see someone like Caroline bringing me here, but my own mother? One of her sisters? No fucking way. I have no idea if this is a normal thing in Japan, but I think it’s a train I can avoid taking.
Fujiko is definitely the center of attention tonight. From the pouring of the first drink, she’s already slurring her speech and acting like someone’s lecherous grandmother as she implores her favorite young man to give her a kiss and pour her associates drinks.
“We must cheer,” she insists, holding up her margarita. “To forever being the best women in the world!”
Junri and I clink our glasses with hers, but not before we share a look of this is happening, huh? At least I have one compatriot here. It will help me from drinking too much and making too much of an ass out of my American self. (Not hard to do. At least I’m not as bad as I used to be when I was younger. Absolutely shameless.
If I had any doubts that this place wasn’t also a boyfriend-for-hire bar, I’m oh-so-humbled to find two men fighting over me within ten minutes. Oh, they’re not doing it in English, although they both claim they can speak it, but I can tell from their body language and the way they keep nodding their heads in my direction that they’re challenging the other to a bet about bedding me. I feel so special. Nothing makes a woman and a professional Domme feel good like two pretty guys snapping at each other over little ol’ me. They know I’m rich as fuck and it’s only a matter of time until I betray the pretty promise ring on my right hand that says I’m beholden to a man even richer than myself.
I can’t help but notice a ring on Junri’s left ring finger. Fujiko I know is single, but Junri? She’s a mystery. No woman, whether in Japan or America, wears an elegant ring like that and doesn’t have a lover she’s committed to. Yet she mustn’t be married, because one thing I do know about Japanese culture is that women are heavily pressured to take their husband’s last name, and Junri still very much represents herself as an Isoya.
Curious. I’m allergic to ever changing my name to Mathers, so I can understand.
One of our randy hosts slyly slides across the back of Junri’s chair and whispers something in her ear. She furrows her brow before brushing him off. I don’t know what she tells him in Japanese, but it’s curt and gets him off her ass in fewer than five seconds. He takes a moment to bow at her. He doesn’t even look at me when he takes off from the room.
“Mou, Jun,” Fujiko scolds her niece. “Don’t scare off the nice young men here.” Is she speaking in English for my sake, or because she’s already so toasted she doesn’t realize she’s speaking a foreign language? “They only want to say hello and get in your pants for a price.”
Junri fini
shes her drink. I’m on the same wavelength as her.
“Kyasarin!” Fujiko tossed her empty glass into some man’s lap once she remembers I’m here. “Don’t be shy! The men here are very friendly and don’t often get to talk to American women. You’re super popular.”
“Actually,” I say, careful to choose my tone so it doesn’t sound like I’m monumentally uncomfortable and therefore ungrateful for Fujiko’s hospitality, “I have a boyfriend.”
She holds her finger up to her lips. “Shh! It’s a secret here! Nobody cares.” Fujiko smacks her niece on the arm. “You don’t tell, I don’t tell.”
I send her niece a silent plea with my bright blue eyes. Come on, lady who also looks as uncomfortable as a mouse in an impending trap, help me out here.
“You enjoy yourself, Auntie. Ms. Alison and I will enjoy your enjoyment.”
That’s one way to put it. Regardless of whether or not we want to partake in all the beefcake filling our corner of the club, Fujiko is going to enjoy herself, all right. She’s going to start by announcing a game to the men her company has rented for our amusement tonight: they must make us feel like the goddesses we are without daring to touch us. “Surely it is okay?” She’s referring to the fact that I have a boyfriend. She knows it’s Ian, right?
In my defense, the woman said treat us like goddesses, and that’s the fastest way to get me to agree to anything… especially if it includes men acting submissive in my general vicinity.
