The Pornographers Page 17

  “I’ll wait here, see? What you do is pick up some women and bring them this way. Ask them if they’d like to have as cup of tea or something with you. And then if I go like this”—Subuyan touched his hand to his somewhat bald head—“that means okay. If I don’t do anything, that means it’s no good. If I give the okay signal, you can entertain them for the rest of the night. But don’t rush things, whatever you do. Invite them to a nightclub or a dance hall if you want. But all the time you’ve got to conduct yourselves like sons of good families. The important thing is the long-term tieup. So be sure that you find out their addresses and telephone numbers and whatever you can about their schools or jobs.”

  Kabo’s name was to be Takii and Paul’s Kadoguchi. One was a television director, the other a surgeon. Subuyan had admonished them both to concoct appropriate histories for themselves and to make the noises appropriate to their professions.

  “I don’t think I’m going to be so good at this,” Kabo protested weakly.

  “You just leave everything to me. All you have to do is stand there and show them what a lover you are,” said Paul reassuringly. So, the matter thus resolved, the two went into action.

  Subuyan had specified girls of about eighteen and certainly no older than twenty, girls who were not thinking about marriage but out for a good time, girls, in other words, like Keiko and her friends, filled to bursting with avid curiosity about sex. These were the ones, then, girls who wanted to have some fun with boys and so were just a step away from the bedroom. These office girls and students had to be given a taste of pleasure and luxury such as—on their fifteen-thousand-yen salaries or seven- or eight-thousand-yen allowances—they had hardly dared dream of. And at the same time, Subuyan would be worming himself deeper and deeper into their sensibilities, subtly forming them bit by bit into call girls who excelled in every particular.

  “Well, when you want to get their attention, what do you say? ‘Hello’?” asked Kabo fearfully.

  “ ‘Hello’? What do you think, you’re on a telephone? I used to do this all the time when I was in college in Tokyo, down on the Ginza. I never thought that pickup experience would have professional value someday,” replied Paul, looking over the bustling holiday-like crowd with practiced eyes as the two loitered in front of a department-store show window.

  “Hey, there we go!” he said suddenly, pointing at a group of three girls dressed in bright kimonos as though returning from a party.

  “But, but there’s three! The numbers don’t match, do they?”

  “C’mon! It’s better this way. Two and two and they get cautious.”

  They quickly caught up to the girls, and Paul addressed them nonchalantly.

  “Pardon me, but would you girls like to have a cup of tea with us?” he said, displaying a surprising command of standard Japanese.

  The three girls glanced at Paul and Kabo, who stood behind him, and then, with prim expressions, kept on walking.

  “Please, just for five minutes! It wouldn’t be any trouble for you, would it? Three minutes, one minute even, would be okay,” pleaded Paul, like a salesman in front of a shut door. At last the trio gradually began to slow their pace. The two nearest Paul looked at each other and dissolved into giggles, having evidently made up their minds. The third, however, took great pains to look in another direction and drummed her heel against the pavement. She happened to be the ugliest of the three.

  “How about this place here?”

  With consummate poise Paul turned and walked toward a nearby tearoom, obviously sure that the girls would soon follow. Kabo, however, was at a loss as to what he should do and so instinctively went into his “jun, jun, jun!” routine, unknowingly conveying an impression of carefree gaiety.

  “It’d be okay, wouldn’t it? Let’s let them treat us,” said one girl; and so the first pickup was achieved.

  Once the issue had been decided and they were sitting together in the tearoom, the ugliest one turned out to be as friendly as the others; and the ice was broken as they sat and chattered gaily over their tea.

  “What do you say we go somewhere else?” suggested Paul, having just got the okay sign from Subuyan, who had been on pins and needles watching his boys’ initial venture unfold. “How about the Arrow Club, say?”

  “The Arrow Club! Oh boy! I’ve never been there.”

  “I wonder if these kimonos’d be kind of funny?”

  The girls were overcome with naïve excitement, and everything was falling into place.

  Two of the girls called up their homes; and so in line with Subuyan’s dictum “If she’s not the kind of girl who will at least take the trouble to call up her home, she’s not the kind of girl we want,” one of them was immediately eliminated from future consideration. And the rest of the night was conducted in accordance with his general instructions: “Once you see that they’re the type we’re looking for, then take as much time as you like—take them bowling, to Nakanoshima, take them dancing, wherever’s good. Pick up as many as possible and let me get a look at them. And don’t get any other ideas about them. Right now is the time for work.”

  Meanwhile Banteki’s team was hard at the task of devising some revolutionary story lines. Hack pushed his creative energies unremittingly. The village maiden wrestling with the samurai on the stream bank. The Tokyo housewife and the vacuum-cleaner salesman squirming on the floor of her modern apartment—with maybe the husband worked in, too. Hack struggled with various combinations and all sorts of elaborations, but when he brought his scenarios to Subuyan—“They don’t ring true. The same old stuff! I want something that gets them right here in the chest, pow, and knocks the wind out of them. The kind of scene that any man would give his eyeteeth to see! Show me that. You know that we’re dealing with a sophisticated clientele. All you have to do is show them the usual samurai-rapist, and where the ordinary guy would get all hot, they just laugh and say: ‘Hey look! We’re going to see a historical movie!’ They’re not easy to get to, the bastards. So you’ve got to write something that smashes them from the first scene and rivets them to the screen. While you’re writing, don’t forget that for one moment.”

  “A scene any man would give his eyeteeth to see, huh?” muttered Hack in dismay. But Cocky had a suggestion.

  “How about the first night of the honeymoon? Wouldn’t that grab them?”

  “Honeymoon? That’s it!” cried Subuyan in enthusiasm. “How orthodox can you get! Still and all, nobody has ever tried it in a pornographic film.”

  Banteki, too, saw possibilities there. “I know what we can do. We can go to a marriage hall and film the wedding of the prettiest bride we can find and use that for the opening scene.”

  “And when we put in the sound,” said Cocky, getting carried away in his eagerness, “I can chant the nuptial blessing!”

  “Okay, I got the picture,” said Banteki, sketching a plot right on the spot. “We start out with no gimmicks at all. We shoot a plain, ordinary wedding and then the start of the honeymoon trip and so on, right up to the bed scene. Then maybe we can have the bridegroom wondering about whether she’s a virgin or not, and so he does all kinds of investigating.”

  “Okay, then,” said Subuyan, getting up. “I’ll leave it to you. I’m going to go to bed. I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain. I’ve got to be a sort of rush-hour guide.”

  “Huh? Rush-hour guide?”

  “Yeah, on the train, you know. There’s this guy who would like to see how you can make a sandwich with a couple of girls.”

  Before the last session of anecdotes at which he was to perform at Kanezaka’s invitation, Subuyan had happened to read a magazine article dealing with the activities of mashers on rush-hour trains and had decided to embellish it liberally and base his performance on it.

  “If you pay enough, there’s nothing to stop you from checking the feel of the hips of a cabaret hostess, and maybe you might even
be able to probe farther. However, take a young untouched schoolgirl, take a tender little wife—the feel of hips like that, of breasts like that—no matter how much you’re willing to pay, you’ll never get a taste. That is, except for one thing. That’s the morning commuter rush. Just think about it for a minute, gentlemen. There in the crush will be a man and woman, face to face, squeezed right together like a couple of marshmallows. Now isn’t that something? Their legs are all tangled. And no matter how much they look in opposite directions, they’re right front to front. Oh, my! But I imagine a gentleman like you, sir, a member of the board of directors of Fuji Chemicals, could hardly begin to imagine the situation on a train at a time like rush hour. Now these schoolgirls—their skirts are full of pleats, and that makes it easy to roll them up, I should think. And if your umbrella just slipped in between the legs, and you prod a little, what then? And if you slip a finger around her back and take advantage of a chance to loosen the hook on her brassiere, then what kind of look will she have on her face?”

  Since Subuyan was self-employed, he had only the most meager experience of rush-hour trains. However, as he had warmed up to his story, even he had been startled at his gift for improvisation. I’m a sort of genius, he had thought. And then he had gone on, growing more eloquent by the minute.

  “It’s a funny thing, that folding umbrella. It resembles a whole lot that thing we all come equipped with, don’t you think? All kinds of interesting things can happen. Here the train’s swaying back and forth, and you’re jammed right up against this woman with her back to you. And so up it jumps all of a sudden. And she realizes it, too, and starts squirming around. Well, it’s not so nice maybe, but you got to admit there might be some fun in it.” And he had kept on, his creative zeal unflagging.

  The keyed-up Kanezaka had jumped to his feet and stood facing the alcove post. “Look, you stand like this and move your hand around in front of you. The back of your hand brushes her tits, and that’s grade one.”

  “Grade one?” the puzzled director had asked.

  “Yeah, like the grades in shogi and go. That much is grade one.”

  And grade two was to apply both palms, not disturbing the woman. And grade three and grade four demanded still more.

  “Hey! Then what do you have to do to get to be a master?”

  “A master, eh? To achieve that, you’ve really got to bring your technique to the highest pitch. Suppose there’s an old lady, huh? Well, you’ve got to get her so worked up that she pisses right there in the train. I’ve got a friend who did it!”

  The director had heaved a great sigh of unfulfilled longing as Subuyan had gotten to his feet, collected his ten-thousand-yen fee, and respectfully departed. Not long after, however, Kanezaka had called him.

  “You know that member of the board of directors at Fuji? Well, he told me that he’d like to start training.”

  “Start training?”

  “Yeah, in masher technique. He wants you to be his teacher. Actually, he’s a very versatile sort of fellow, and he stays with things. He’s grade four in go and grade one in shogi. And besides that he’s qualified to teach nagauta* and he has a handicap of twelve in golf. And the same with this rush-hour-masher thing; he’d like to get up to maybe grade three at least. Otherwise he feels he never could rest easy.”

  This is the damnedest thing I ever heard of, Subuyan had thought, utterly nonplused. His only experience of rush-hour commuting had been uniformly depressing. True, while jammed in between two men, the thought had occurred to him that it would be nice if they were women. But beyond this he had never indulged in any lascivious calculation in this particular area. But he had trapped himself, and now the day that had been deemed propitious for the executive’s initiation into the art of rush-hour mashing was the following one.

  Subuyan was familiar with Moriguchi Station, and he has asked the executive to meet him there. So at seven thirty that morning Subuyan was waiting in front of the station when the neophyte got out of the cab he had taken from his home in Negawa. He bowed to Subuyan with polite formality.

  “I’m here to learn and hope to profit from your kind instruction,” he said, beyond a doubt dead serious about the parallel with go, shogi, and the rest.

  “We’ve got to keep our eye out for the door that’s the most crowded. Before we take a single step we pick out this one spot in the car and then plunge right in.”

  “If it is at all possible,” said the executive earnestly, “could we—uh—aim at one of those little girls in middy blouses?”

  “The trick is,” explained Subuyan, “to be perfectly at ease. Then you’ve got to be determined. If you shilly-shally in the least, the girl will get up her courage and she’ll complain and start pinching.”

  “Really? That certainly would be awkward.”

  “But don’t worry. I’ll be right there beside you. And if anything should go wrong, you can depend upon me to rescue you,” Subuyan assured him with a laugh.

  “I see. It’s just like having a temporary driver’s license,” muttered the executive, looking about goggle-eyed in search of prey.

  “See that one over there?” said Subuyan, pointing at a heavily made-up woman in high heels, apparently an officeworker. “Steer clear of that type. She’s been through this every morning and isn’t a bit backward. Lay so much as a finger on her and you’re in for trouble. We’ll find something more in our line.”

  As they spoke trains came and went without letup, and human waves repeatedly crashed and broke against their sides as the doors slid open, swirling masses of men and women. Subuyan searched about prudently despite the uncertain footing, and at last settled upon a schoolgirl of about fifteen or sixteen.

  “That’s for us. Check the neck of her middy blouse. See how it opens kind of wide? That shows she’s eager, and, then, too, she’s at that easily embarrassed age. So that no matter what you do to her, she’ll just grit her teeth and do nothing else. C’mon, we’ll go right in after her.”

  Their prey, however, turned out to be fully acclimated to the terrain, and with the ease of a chipmunk darting through a clump of brush, she sprang agilely forward and vanished into a tangle of commuters. In contrast, Subuyan and the executive lumbered in as best they could to find themselves, instead of snug against their victim, oppressed on all sides by robust male commuters.

  There was nothing to do but admit defeat and break off contact at the first opportunity, Kyobashi Station. There they got off and immediately boarded a train headed back toward Moriguchi.

  “This time stick close to me. We’ll make it yet.”

  They got off at Moriguchi and plunged in afresh. Subuyan spotted a likely prospect just entering and pushed the executive in after her, as the bell rang and the doors snapped shut.

  There! We hit it this time, Subuyan thought as he twisted his body around to ascertain the situation. Somehow the woman had edged off to Subuyan’s left and to the right of the executive. Not quite, he muttered to himself. It would be all right if he and the executive could switch places, but that was out. Well, we’ll just have to make the best of it, Subuyan decided; and he reached out to grasp the executive’s hand and draw it stealthily into a position where it could at least work over the woman’s rear.

  But suddenly, somewhere near Moriguchikoji Station, the motorman hit the emergency brake; and the jammed commuters lurched forward. When things were sorted out again, Subuyan was appalled to discover that another man had insinuated himself between him and the executive. Failure again! It’s no go, thought Subuyan in despair. I suppose it would be asking too much for the railroad to set aside a special car for novice mashers.

  But at this point, he suddenly became aware of a hand fondling his right buttock. He twisted his head around and at last picked out what seemed to be the face of the executive; yet its expression was one of total, rapturous bliss. A distant memory recurred to Subuyan, and he heard Oharu speaking. “Your rear is plump like a woman’s,” she said, slapping it playfully. “It’s a
lot more tender than mine.”

  “Well, well, thank you very much indeed. And the nasty expression on her face—that was the best part of it,” said the executive, wiping the sweat from his forehead and bowing to Subuyan on the platform of Yodoyabashi Station, where the caressing had had to stop. “And that plump roundness! I can still feel it right here in my fingertips. All kinds of things are possible in a crowd packed together like that, and there’s nothing the women can do. Why the way these young fellows complain about how tired they are from coming to work in crowded trains! It just goes to show that they lack spirit. They don’t know enough to seize the opportunity right in front of them.”

  “Yes, of course, sir, I see. But, granted that there are all kinds of opportunities, still, just to get in a touch here and there, and that on the outside of a coat or dress—would a gentleman of your experience really find that so exciting?”

  “Yes, I must admit I do. To tell the truth, women haven’t stirred me much at all lately. Geisha, bar hostesses—it’s always the same, and I’d gotten rather fed up with the whole business. But then I heard what you had to say, about taking advantage of the rush hour to get your hands on some of these young women, and not only that, to do what you liked to them whether they wanted to go along with it or not and even—once you really got good at it—maybe to feel some of that fuzzy hair under your fingertips. When I heard that, I got hot for the first time in I can’t remember when. I could just see the face of a schoolgirl gritting her teeth and bearing it while I kept on prodding and probing without mercy. Oh! Believe me, did that stir me up!” The executive passed a ten-thousand-yen bill to Subuyan and bowed politely. “Thank you again, and until I’m good enough to go it alone, I’ll be depending upon your guidance.”

  “You see, for an old guy like that, the ordinary thing just doesn’t turn him on. Unless there’s some new angle every time, he just can’t be bothered. It’s something to think about, all right,” said Subuyan that night, as he related to the once more assembled pornographers the results of the executive’s debut as a rush-hour masher. “For example, get a whole bunch of these big wheels, who never have to ride the train to work, and pack them into a certain car filled with women—there you’d have some real excitement.”