The Pornographers Page 24
“It was me, you say?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. You see I’ve lived right here in the neighborhood for a long time and I’ve had the honor of seeing you often.”
As the doctor glared at him incredulously, Subuyan stared back guilelessly.
“Tch, tch, Sensei. Think about what this could do to your reputation. A respected doctor engaging in the production of movies like this, and even appearing in them! Just think if it should ever come out—the patients who trust and revere you—”
“You! Do you dare to threaten me?” The doctor sprang to his feet, waving his glasses furiously.
“Oh no! No! That was the furthest thing from my mind, I assure you. But here’s the situation, Sensei. It just so happens that I have some contacts among persons of this sort. And I also happen to know, incidentally, about that young gentleman who worked in your office and took the films instead of his pay, but that’s neither here nor there. The main point is, should by any chance you be interested in buying back these films …”
The doctor sat down again, regaining his composure to some extent.
“That would depend upon the price,” he finally replied.
Subuyan asked for five hundred thousand yen. He realized that had he put more effort into it, considering the doctor’s natural regret at losing his films and above all his fear of public exposure, he would have been able to wring one or even two million yen from a man who owned a hospital of this size. But all Subuyan was concerned about now was getting enough money for the orgy.
And so the affair was settled. Subuyan would return the next day with the films and in exchange receive five hundred thousand yen, which would put an end to the matter. But just as Subuyan was going out the door, he stopped and turned. Then, muttering softly, he essayed the classical gangster tone for the first time in the interview.
“That young gentleman who worked for you—no grudges at all, huh? I know just where to find him. Suppose something nasty happened to him? Would that break you all up?”
The doctor looked up, startled.
“No, no, I don’t want anything like that! But—uh—I would like to know how things are going for him. So if you would give me his address, I’d appreciate it.”
Paul had told Subuyan that this doctor was involved with one of the Kobé gangs. He treated their wounds without reporting anything to the police, and in exchange he enjoyed himself free of charge at a cabaret in the Sannomiya district. And since the doctor had every reason to hate Paul intensely, it was a safe assumption that he would call upon his friends for a small favor. Things were at last going Subuyan’s way.
That smart bastard, he thought. He talked pretty big, didn’t he? Now I’d like to hear what he’ll have to say. He’ll learn how easy a business pornography is when they smash him flat and make him beg for mercy!
He stopped off at Itami on the way back from Rokko and left a projector and tape recorder at the house. Then, anxious that all be done in fine style, he bought some scotch, ordered roses at a hundred yen each, arranged for the rental of an electric organ and hired someone to play it, and finally ordered a huge supply of wood for the fireplace.
These orgies are fine, thought Subuyan, but the preparation certainly takes a lot out of you. Then, since he was sure that he would be up all the following night, he decided it would be well to relax tonight; and so he went to the Turkish bath and steamed himself like a gentleman of leisure. It was late when he returned home, and there he discovered Kabo in bed with the Keiko doll.
Kabo had stripped Keiko—or rather the doll—of the velvet dress that Subuyan had recently put on her for New Year’s in place of her everyday wear; and now, unaware of Subuyan’s return, he lay on top of her, groaning and pumping his buttocks in frantic rhythm.
“Get off her, dammit!”
Kabo caught a furious kick from Subuyan, but he clung fast, knocked a bit to one side but still undislodged. He had apparently pressed her left nipple, for she kept rocking her hips in abandon. Subuyan grabbed Kabo by the shoulders to lift him off, but he was locked on too tight for that. Finally, on a sudden inspiration, he kicked out the plug, and the doll’s hips finally ground to a halt. And as they did Kabo groaned and all the strength seemed to go out of him, an opportunity Subuyan seized by driving home another fierce kick, one which finally knocked him loose. And as Kabo slid off, his penis trailing, a white liquid spouted from it, once, twice, as though from a spring.
“Damn you, Kabo! Look what you done to my—” Subuyan caught himself before “Keiko” came out. “Don’t you know enough to keep your hands off things that are for the customers?” He stared at the doll. Her vulva, once so clean, tight, and firm, now gleamed with a slimy wetness, a distasteful redness visible through its wrenched-open lips.
“I guess, boss, you got rid of your virginity as early as you could, huh?” said Kabo, recovering a bit from his dazed exhaustion. “Well, to tell the truth, I never felt much like doing it at all until I saw this doll here.”
Subuyan stood quivering with anger, still staring intently at the result of Kabo’s ravages.
Were you my Keiko, I wonder? This thing can’t do anything for me now. If it were a person, it’d be all right. Virginity doesn’t mean anything in a person, but this is just a doll without any heart, and once it’s used, it’s nothing but a secondhand thing. Kabo beat me to it once and for all, and that’s all there is to it.
Subuyan shook his head and turned to Kabo. “You simple little bastard! You could at least have had the decency to use a rubber.” But Subuyan was so stunned he could do nothing more to Kabo than grumble at him.
“Gee, I’m really sorry, boss, honest I am. But you know that doll, she can really go. I was really thrilled,” said Kabo, blissfully unaware of any grave sin.
“That’s just fine,” said Subuyan wearily. “Go ahead, take her. Love her up every night if you want.” He felt like a father who has lost a daughter.
The orgy began at six o’clock on the evening of December 15. Subuyan gathered the nine women together in the kitchen for a pep talk before sending them out into the game. “The whole purpose of tonight’s party is to give you an opportunity to enjoy yourselves with well-known men from various fields.” This much was certainly true; for in the next room popular celebrities such as the television entertainer and the comedian mingled casually with Kanezaka and the others.
“Now, ladies, all of you are adults, I know. So please don’t be shocked at or interfere with anyone else’s behavior, for that would ruin the whole spirit of the evening. So don’t be a wet blanket and just do what seems to be good fun according to the inspiration of the moment. In other words, what we want to do tonight is to live a little, to kick up our heels, and to enjoy it to the full.”
The men had all been blindfolded, supposedly to allow the women to have the choice for the first dance. But Subuyan’s ulterior motive was to use this as a means of arousing masculine passion. For now the men had no other means of ascertaining the looks and shape of their partners than by a bit of manual exploration, and they could be expected to exploit the excuse of their blindness to the full. Furthermore, the women, complacent in the enjoyment of free vision, were far less likely to take exception to such inroads.
A woman wearing glasses sat playing the electric organ, looking around as she did, obviously fascinated by her exotic surroundings. The fireplace was a scarlet glare of flame. The softened brilliance of kerosene lamps, skillfully arranged by Kabo, filled the room. Subuyan’s roses carpeted the floor. Black velvet blindfolds covered the faces of the well-tailored men. All in all, the scene had achieved a bizarre splendor.
“All right, now let’s have all the gentlemen be kind enough to start walking forward just as you are. And the first lady you happen to touch, please give her and yourself the pleasure of dancing with her. And should you get tired dancing, the ladies will lead you over to the table, where we have a tremendous stock of whiskey on hand. And for those young girls who have been carefully brought
up, we have of course provided brandy and saké as well.”
The men began to move forward, though with a certain amount of confusion because they stumbled against one another. The women, however, came nimbly to the rescue. Fortunately the blindfolds blotted out the identities of the famous entertainer and Kanezaka alike, and so there was no struggle of any consequence among the women. Soon nine couples were neatly paired off and had begun to glide across the floor.
“Hurry up with the ice, will you, Kabo?”
Armed with an unfamiliar ice pick, Kabo was struggling manfully with a huge chunk of ice in the sink. Subuyan happened to look out the window. The moon was brilliant in a clear sky, and the lights of a large plane coming in for a landing at the nearby airport flashed red and green. But the sound of its engine was drowned out by the electric organ.
“Are you having fun?”
“Well, it’s just getting started, so it’s hard to tell. But things look good so far.”
“Gee, Mr. Yoshioka, I never thought that I’d be getting a chance to dance with you.”
An executive’s daughter from Teizukayama, making her debut, was chattering happily with the entertainer as she fixed him a drink.
“No, no, honey! I’m the lucky one. I can’t see now, but I’ve just got the feeling that you’re a real beauty.”
“Oh, you’re awful smooth! I’ll bet you fool all kinds of girls that way. I’d be happy if you just couldn’t see me all evening.”
“Well, maybe I can’t see you honey, but …” As Yoshioka slipped his hands around her waist and embraced her, she giggled mischievously, offering not the least resistance.
The women who had been through the first encounter wasted no time in manifesting a cooperative attitude. They were already exchanging kisses with their partners and dancing with hips thrust forward. When the rookies saw this, they looked hastily away at first; but then their gaze drifted back in fascination; and finally they began to eye their own partners speculatively.
The first couple to make the climb to the second floor were the comedian and one of the new faces, a twenty-four-year-old IBM programmer, the prettiest girl at the orgy. No one else paid any attention to their exit; and so Subuyan, deciding that now was just about the time, paid the organist two thousand yen more than her promised three thousand as a means of ensuring her silence and sent her home. Then he turned on the tape recorder for mood music. Soon after the pro golfer and one of the old faces, a beautician, began to climb the stairway. But just then there was a woman’s noisy scream; and the IBM programmer, her blouse gone, came running down the stairs hotly pursued by the comedian. He caught her by the shoulder at the door, swung her around, and slapped her across the face. She covered her cheeks for an instant and then, looking for protection, tried to throw herself into the arms of the woman at her right, an office-girl veteran of the first orgy. This woman, however, pushed coldly back toward the comedian; and at that point the IBM programmer’s resistance collapsed. The comedian picked her up lightly in his arms and started back up the stairs; and as the others watched, rooted to the spot, he grinned happily to them.
Then, as though this was the signal, all the men threw off their blindfolds and went after the women. At this crucial moment the veterans among the women urged on the flurried rookies. Wrapped and tangled with men themselves, they reached out to drag in the new girls nearest them. One new face, the daughter of a cosmetics dealer in Shinsaibashi, kept chanting, “Marry me, please! Marry me, please!” like a conjuration formula in the ear of the movie director whom she was wrapped around; and when he was replaced shortly after by the cameraman, she did the same, rhythmically caressing the small of his back. Among the new faces one who fought to the bitter end was the daughter of a temple priest from the south side. “You won’t get me! You won’t get me!” she yelled, gritting her teeth fiercely, as she stretched and twisted her torso, trying to squirm out of the grasp of one of the old faces, who held her by the legs. But then down she went, as two men seized her from either side, each gripping her tightly by a bared breast and running their lips over everything within range.
The men did not seem to be able to get enough. Some sat with their backs against the wall and manipulated their women like puppets into the posture supposedly favored by the goddess Benten. Other women thrashed about on the rug floor, as the men above them delved for the fragrant chrysanthemum. In one corner a woman lay on her back panting in exhaustion, arms and legs flung wide, as her triumphant companion sat beside her, exultantly grasping the mighty weapon that had put her down. The room had in an instant become a montage of men stark naked and women who for a time had twisted brassieres and torn slips clinging to them, only to have these too torn away to be replaced by nothing but the shreds of the crushed rose petals that carpeted the floor. Torn undergarments lay scattered about the room, their variegated color lending a still more bizarre note to the decor.
By now the moist crevices exuded the same throbbing heat as had quickened and firmed what was poised above them. The moment had come for the snapping turtle to stir himself and to raise his head. And so they locked and unlocked without respite in poses that showed more variety and ingenuity by the moment—now the climbing-wisteria position, now the feathered robe, here the pillow of waves, there the spinning wheel, over there the clustered leaves, and so on.
“When did you lose your virginity, honey?”
“As soon as I could.”
“Who was better, me or the comedian?”
“You’re just terrible, you are!”
“I feel thirsty.”
“I’ll get you something to drink.”
By now all reserve had fallen away, and each couple lay open completely to each other, each pair shut fast in a world of their own, utterly uninhibited, willing to do and have done, shrinking from neither the valley plunge nor the wheel climb. A steady sonorous thump like the ringing of the sunset bell, cries like the sporadic sobs of maudlin drunkards, and after a while, nothing to disturb the hush but whispers faint as the song of dying insects.
Subuyan had extinguished all the lights long before, and the room was lighted only by the flames in the fireplace. And in the fitful red glow that unevenly bathed the floor, nine pairs of bare bodies lay writhing slowly. Subuyan picked his way carefully through them like a farmer inspecting his crop.
“How are we doing? Everybody still breathing? Just like a fountain pen, eh? Use it again and again, and it’s as good as new. Go to it! Unh! Unh! Unh! You’ve got to stick with it. Step on the gas, pour on the horsepower! You’ve still got a long ways to go tonight.” Then, in the singsong tone of a sutra: “All in this life gives way, save only your prick. Stay locked with another all your days. What is heaven, what is hell? Give it one whang for me. One for my prick, too.”
Subuyan shook his head. All the gods and buddhas together haven’t wind enough to whistle up a single fart, he thought. The way of the gods? The way of the warrior, the way of tea, the way of the bow? None of it means a thing. Nothing’s real but the way of sex. Lose that and the world ends for you. And so the man goes “Unh!” and the woman goes “Ooh!” Unh-ooh! There’s a nice tone for you. The strong, hardy penis—till the moss overgrows our works and we fade forever—long may it stand, happy and upright!
Subuyan turned to Kabo and attempted to communicate some of his fervor to him. “Look, Kabo! Look! Here’s an orgy for you. Here’s naked men and women for you—no shame, no pretense. They know that the only time they have is now when they’re young, and they’re putting all they have into it. The women are crying just because they’re loving men and are being loved by men as it should be done,” said Subuyan, but Kabo had other things on his mind.
“I guess you don’t need me for anything else tonight, huh, boss? If I come early tomorrow to help clean up, that’ll be okay, won’t it?”
“What? You’re going home? Look how late it is.”
“Yeah, boss, but I can get a taxi.”
“Oh c’mon, Kabo, stay.”
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“Well, I’d like to, but the kid is waiting for me. I want to plug her in and then lay down with her and just feel her getting all nice and warm. I’m afraid she must be awful cold there alone.”
After Kabo had gone, Subuyan walked into the chill kitchen, which was beyond the heat of the fireplace. Suddenly he sneezed as he stood in the bright moonlight pouring in through the windows. Kabo’s lucky, he thought. Maybe she’s only a doll, but at least he has a woman. But as for me, I wonder if I really could call myself a man any more. I watched them rolling around out there on the floor, and it didn’t affect me a bit.
Subuyan dropped his pants reflectively and took himself in hand. Perhaps the cold of the kitchen offered some excuse, but at any rate, there it was, shriveled up like an acorn. However much those of the men in the next room differed from one another as to size, shape, and bent, each one was poker-hard and flame-hot. And how could someone who could boast of nothing more than a weary little penis like this claim to share the same manhood as they? But there it hung, pinched and puckered, bathed in a beam of moonlight.
“Impotency—” muttered Subuyan. “I suppose it’s the pornographer’s occupational disease. No, wait a minute! Maybe it’s no disease at all. Maybe impotency is the culmination of sex.”
As Subuyan squatted quietly in the kitchen with the brilliant moon his only companion, bit by bit a sense of contentment began to seep through him, as much as if he had quenched his passion at the hair-ringed hole itself. Impotent or hot with lust, it all came to the same, did it not? A tranquil, composed mood settled upon Subuyan. Some haiku of Basho came to his mind, ones which he had read years before in the Waseda lecture notes that he had bought to wrap fish.
Shrunken penis, wan
Beneath winter moon,
And across my navel,
Shadow of bare branch.
Lusty night,
Inn at Itami,
Staunch my penis,
Wide your eyes.
Stripped of loin cloth,
Stripped of obi,