The Pornographers Read online

  Kanezaka’s greeting disheartened Subuyan still more. “Well, you’ve really got yourself a rival now! The whole layout method is modern and appealing. It’s a whole lot different from the usual sell.” Dealing in pornographic films was not like selling lumber or steel. Only the very best was marketable; and whether or not Banteki’s films were the great works of art he insisted, Subuyan knew that they were sure to account for a good portion of his customer’s pornography budget. He felt bitterness welling up within him, but maintained a suave exterior. “Well, Mr. Kanezaka, if there’s anything offered that strikes your fancy, fine! I think I’ve had about enough of these adolescent films myself, though. Instead, the real thing, huh? Flesh and blood.”

  Raging at Banteki would do no good now. Prudence was essential for travelers along the pornographic way. If former associates allowed their mutual animosity to get out of hand, they might go down together.

  “Hey, by the way,” said Kanezaka in an altered tone, “you were asking me before about some kind of doll, weren’t you—like you could bring to the South Pole? I think I found a place that makes them.”

  “Where?”

  “In Tokyo, somewhere in Koto Ward. There’s a factory that specializes in things like that. Usually they don’t sell them to the public. The place is supposed to be making medical equipment, and most of the stuff goes to Southeast Asia.”

  “Medical equipment, huh?”

  “Yeah. For example, this thing is supposed to cure impotency. There’s a motor in the hips, and the button for it is on one of the fingers. You press it and it gets warm and starts to rock.”

  “No kidding! And how can you get hold of one of these?” asked Subuyan, leaning forward anxiously, his heart thumping with expectancy as he thought: Maybe this doll might be just what I need to fix me up!

  “Well,” said Kanezaka, “they come pretty high—beginning at a thousand dollars, I think, three hundred and sixty thousand yen. And all that kind does is when you kiss it, it sticks out its tongue. The kind with the motor in the hips begins at about seven hundred thousand, they say.”

  “Get one for me, will you please? Make it the best kind.”

  With the future of both films and orgies highly uncertain, buying even the cheapest would have been an extravagant outlay; but if worst came to worst, Subuyan told himself, he could always sell the films of the Rokko doctor, despite the risk involved. His anticipation was at fever pitch; he felt as if he were in the throes of first love.

  Subuyan picked December 15 as the date for the second orgy. And as for women, Kabo, wholly on his own now, worked in a frenzy of dedication, spreading his nets in entertainment areas every day without exception and pulling in catches of the best quality yet. But the effort told upon him. “I don’t know how much more I can take, boss.”

  As for the guests, the pattern unfortunately would be the same as in Subuyan’s initial orgy—all of them men more than a little over the hill but still capable of rising to an occasion like this, just like declining patients who for a brief time regain their vigor under the effects of a camphor shot. And so the circumstances were far from ideal, and a somewhat unwholesome aspect was inevitable. If Subuyan could have had his way, all the men would have been movie stars or professional athletes, men like the actor Yuzo Kayama and the Giants’ first baseman, Sadaharu Oh, men with handsome faces and superb bodies bursting with vitality—each of them every inch a man, each capable of taking a woman with sure mastery, now this way, now that way, now another way. Then and only then could one have an orgy that was wholesome, refreshing—an orgy that did not leave a sour aftertaste.

  But, what the hell, brooded Subuyan, you can’t very well force guys like that to participate. And that was the problem. The women were fine, but the difficulty lay with the men. Subuyan had to make the venture pay; but still, perhaps he could draw the line somewhere. He sized up his prospective guests, therefore, much as a judge at a horse show, taking into consideration age, bone structure, and so on. As a result clients such as the potbellied steel broker and the professor with the pallid buttocks were surprised to find themselves respectfully requested to forgo this orgy.

  The setting this time was a Western-style house, equipped and with central heating, which Subuyan had rented in Itami. The nine select debauchees attending were a popular entertainer, a Tokyo comedian, an import executive, a pro golfer, a television director, a movie producer, the advertising chief of an electrical firm, a commercial cameraman, and Kanezaka. Except for Kanezaka none of them had had any previous dealings with Subuyan. He had talked with them after making contact through intermediaries and had finally picked each one with no intention in mind other than making this an orgy to remember. The participation fee was thirty thousand yen, the same as the first time.

  “But gee, boss, I just don’t know. When you think of all the expenses involved in making pickups and that, it doesn’t seem like much money. But I guess if you like this kind of thing so much, it’s okay I suppose.”

  “You think this is some kind of hobby of mine, huh, Kabo? That’s not it at all. What I want is to stage a model orgy so that the customers can see what we’ve got to sell to them. The profits will come later, you see. That son of a bitch Banteki! Orgies are dirty, he says. But what I believe, Kabo, is that only here in orgies do you have sex properly so called. The only trouble is now, even though the men are willing to dive right in, still it’s something new and strange to them, and they’re on edge and just don’t perform well. But let’s see how things go this time, huh? This time I’ve sort of given the men a little prod, stirred up their anticipation, you see? I think these are the boys who are going to come through for us and really deliver the goods.”

  “That’s just wonderful, boss. The only other thing is that some of the ladies who entertain know a whole lot about the business now, and I was thinking that maybe there could be some kind of trouble later.”

  “If it comes, it comes. I’m ready to take a year and a half like I said. So don’t worry about anything, Kabo. Just make sure you get us the best women you can. We can’t expect our guests to put out their best efforts against third-stringers.”

  Half of the women would be from the pioneer contingent and the other half would be those recently brought in through Kabo’s efforts. With neither group would the men have to carry on the tedious skirmishing and parleying necessary with blasé nightclub hostesses. The newcomers were invited under the pretext that this was merely a party; and so at the critical moment, when the veterans readily sprang into action, what sort of situation would develop with them? “Maybe a little rape would be just what’s needed,” Subuyan speculated. “Instead of being coaxed into it nice and easy and going down without a struggle, it would be better probably if a few did try to make a break for it. Grab them by the hair and throw them down! Take them by brute force! Yeah, that’s it! That would put some vigor into it, all right.”

  One day toward the end of November, the fully automatic doll that Kanezaka had promised arrived at Subuyan’s house, packed in a brown box bearing an uncomfortable resemblance to a coffin. Instructions were included; but since they were in English, Subuyan pushed them impatiently aside, feeling sure that he would catch on quickly. The doll differed from the usual department-store mannequin in that her facial beauty was thoroughly Japanese, though she did not resemble any movie star or have anything in her features to set her apart. She must have been made out of some sort of plastic, but her skin was soft and smooth. Seams were visible at her knees, hips, waist, and shoulders; but in the dark this would pass unnoticed. She was dressed in a rather soiled brassiere and white panties. When Subuyan had removed her panties, he gasped in admiration at the cunning beauty of her pubic hair, no doubt done by hand, one hair at a time. Then, probing further, he found her vulva firm to his touch, shut tight just as expected in a young girl. Subuyan found himself trembling as he touched her, intimidated somehow by the beauty of her figure and coloring.

  “Now where the hell is that switch,
I wonder.”

  He looked at her fingers, with their gleaming enamel nails, but found nothing. The English instructions were useless, but at last he found a diagram. The cord that plugged her in was coiled in her heel. Then there was no switch on her fingers but one on each breast. According to the diagram, push the left nipple, and the hips begin to rotate. Push the right one, and a contraction motion sets in.

  “This is amazing,” said Subuyan in admiration.

  Tentatively he pressed his finger lightly against her lips; and, just as Kanezaka had said, she stuck out her soft tongue and shut her eyes.

  “My God, this is something! Maybe it will cure me.”

  Subuyan plugged in the cord and then climbed hastily to the second floor, where he armed himself with a condom and then a jar of cream from Keiko’s dresser. Then back downstairs once more, and oppressed by a kind of dread, he reached out and touched the doll’s vulva once again. He felt only the slightest trace of warmth.

  “Well, what the hell! Is that what they call lifelike?”

  But a bit of patience was required, since it turned out that she warmed up gradually, like an electric blanket. Then Subuyan lay down and embraced her; but when he pressed her left nipple, he heard a sharp pop from the kitchen, and the house was plunged into darkness. A fuse had blown.

  “I’ll be goddamned,” Subuyan groaned. Getting up to change the fuse was out of the question; but as he lay there in the darkness, clutching the doll and gradually feeling her warmth fading beneath his fingertips, the dying Oharu came forcibly to his mind and his incipient lust was gone in an instant.

  He took off the doll’s soiled brassiere and exchanged one of Keiko’s for it. But since that alone would do little to stir passion, he also dressed her in one of Keiko’s sweaters and skirts. Then he placed her in a corner of the room. She scarcely seemed like a doll sitting there but rather a girl of fifteen or sixteen, her graceful body still not fully mature. Subuyan stood looking at her.

  “Keiko,” he called gently, then swallowed hard.

  Subuyan knew nothing at all about electricity, and so he had no choice but to go to Cocky’s for help. He found him contentedly drunk.

  “Banteki was around really complaining,” he told Subuyan.

  “Yeah, what about?”

  “That bastard Paul. He’s after every bit of money he can rake in. Quality doesn’t mean anything to him. He just wants to move as much merchandise as he can.”

  “Is that right? And how is their business going, the rotten bastards?” asked Subuyan, burning with anxiety.

  “Well, it seems like Banteki thought sure he was going to run the whole works, but all at once he’s no more than a flunky and Paul’s the commander-in-chief. And like I said, Paul wants to sell every foot of film they take, and so he’s trying to push all kinds of crap on the customers.”

  “The damned fool! They’ll get picked up sooner or later.”

  “Yeah, he better watch his step. And he better not try anything with me either. Anybody that has has been sorry. I’m a rough customer when I want to be, let me tell you.”

  Who wound you up? thought Subuyan, irritated; but now was not the time to give any sign of it. “Look, Cocky, I hate to ask you this since it’s so late, but the electricity’s gone out at my place, and fixing it is just not my line.”

  “You’re really helpless, aren’t you, Subuyan? Well, I’m afraid I can’t make it now.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” said Cocky, pointing at his stomach. “I want to keep my cockroaches alive when it is as cold as it is, so I wrapped them in a blanket and put it around me so I could warm them with body heat. I’d have to take them with me if I went out, but then they’d die.”

  “I never heard of anything so ridiculous! You mean they can’t get by without your body heat?”

  “Yeah, that’s about it. The fire’s no good. When it’s this cold there’s nothing that can be done but hold them snug up against you like this.”

  “Then I suppose you won’t be able to help out with the orgy either?”

  “A lot of them would be bound to die if I did. I wouldn’t mind if I only had a few, but now there’s over a hundred of them, and I got this feeling just like a setting hen.”

  “My God, Cocky, I just don’t see it! Everybody else hates cockroaches. What do you like about them?”

  “Well, Subuyan, how about you and your customers? You feel sorry for the poor bastards, don’t you, and want to help them? The same with me and these cockroaches. Their bodies are always wet, and they’re light and delicate, you know, like paper. Then when I hold one in the palm of my hand, even though it’s no more than a bug, you can tell it’s afraid. It doesn’t move a muscle—only, its whiskers are shaking. I can’t help feeling sorry for it.”

  When Subuyan asked just when this great sense of pity had arisen, Cocky told him it had all begun when he was a soldier in China. He had been stationed on a river-patrol junk; and the boat had been alive with cockroaches, its bulkheads crawling with masses of them. At first Cocky, too, had found them distasteful; but one day, on some impulse or other, he had picked one up, put it in a matchbox, and begun to carry it around in his pocket. And so an attachment had sprung up, and everywhere he went after that, his cockroaches were with him.

  “Maybe more than a pet, it was a matter of being a good-luck charm. Once a grenade exploded and killed the three men with me, and I got off with a piece of shrapnel in the leg.”

  Feeling that it was hardly proper for him to disturb an affectionate relationship of such long standing, Subuyan plodded back homeward through the darkness.

  Kabo can help me with the orgy all right, he thought. But that son of a bitch Paul—there’s going to be trouble.

  Kabo returned later, and after Subuyan had explained the cause of the blackout, he set cheerfully to work with a bent piece of wire and had the lights on in no time. But then he gaped in astonishment at the sight of the Keiko doll.

  “Boss! Wha—what’s that, anyway?”

  “Well, Kabo, you might say it’s a sort of toy for adults.”

  Subuyan gazed fixedly at the doll once more. With Kabo here now, it would be awkward to test her out. Oh well, sighed Subuyan to himself, it won’t hurt to wait. This kind won’t run away.

  Since the orgy was coming up the following week, the two of them went the next day to inspect the house in Itami in order to see what else would be needed. The first floor was one large room. There was a good fireplace there, and by heaping on the logs one could achieve the sultry warmth that so bolstered the romantic mood. The second floor consisted of four bedrooms, and Subuyan decided to rent some quilts for the beds. It was the coldest part of the winter, and he wanted to protect his customers against the possibility of catching cold.

  “We’ll use paper plates and cups this time. And since beer seems to do nothing but make them piss, we’ll get by with just whiskey this time—making it self-service with ice and water there for them. But I’d like to handle the lighting better this time. Buy about ten old lamps, Kabo, and arrange them around the room here in a nice way.” Kabo carefully transcribed all of Subuyan’s directions to a memo pad. From an appliance store, they would have to rent a sixteen-millimeter projector for the curtain-raiser film and also a tape recorder to play the mood music. Both were now lying idle in Banteki’s apartment, but Subuyan could not bring himself to go there and ask him for them.

  “Look, Kabo, I don’t have any money now, so why don’t you go to the store and get all the small stuff? I’m going to go try a little something, then I’ll take care of the rest, okay?”

  They separated at Osaka Station, and Subuyan crossed the street to the Osaka-Kobé terminal and bought a ticket to Rokko Station. He was about to make a frontal assault upon the Rokko doctor.

  The hundred or so of the doctor’s films that had escaped the attention of the police were still stored safely in Subuyan’s bank vault. He had intended to sell them one by one, but now time was pr
essing. So he brazenly resolved to request an interview with the doctor, tell him an entertaining story, and so get rid of the films in one simple operation. Then, too, Subuyan had a second motive.

  “Yes, Sensei, I was certainly surprised. I just couldn’t believe my eyes.” Subuyan began his vivacious recitation as the doctor, still wearing his white gown though it was almost evening, sat staring at him. The affair of the stolen films seemed to be far from his thoughts.

  “What happened was that I was walking along the street one day in the wholesale district behind Osaka Station, you know, when all at once this sort of shady-looking fellow grabs my arm and asks me would I like to see some interesting movies. Well, I went along with him, and then he showed me first—well, I don’t know exactly what’s the best way to say this—but, anyway, he had some very odd photos and in some of them, Sensei, there you were—and the poses were not so becoming at all.”