Grotesque

by Natsuo Kirino

  “Look at me! It’ll turn you on!” Zhang shouted gleefully.

  I opened my eyes reluctantly and saw Zhang’s white socks and Chen-yi’s bare feet.

  The one named Dragon had not taken a bath in weeks. He reeked. It was all I could do not to throw up, just guiding him into place. Instinctively, I covered my nose with my hand. Dragon didn’t seem to notice or else he didn’t care. He was too busy flailing about on top of me. I squeezed my eyes shut, held my nose, and lay there as cold as a stone Jiz. That’s the way it always was. I never felt a thing. I would lie there while a man stuck his thing in me and all I had to do was be patient. It wouldn’t take long. And that was it. Sometimes I would put on a little act of my own. But there was no need for that here.

  I knew Zhang and Chen-yi were right there watching, but by then I didn’t really care. If I hadn’t gotten excited, like Zhang said, then I would not be embarrassed or even angry about doing it in front of them. But to do two men for two thousand yen? I did the math in my head. There was clearly no profit in it, only loss. Then why did I agree? That’s when I remembered that I had come to Zhang’s apartment because I wanted to use his toilet. How could I have forgotten something like that? Had I become completely numb even to my own feelings? Or perhaps even more aware? I couldn’t decide and my thoughts became a jumble. I had enjoyed my time with Zhang up on the roof. That was the first time I had felt such pleasure, and I wondered if it would happen again. Each time sex seemed the same, even though it was with different men. Sex certainly was strange. Ever since I ran into Yuriko, I’d felt uncertain, as if I were drifting around in a dream, and it felt good.

  Dragon grabbed my shoulders roughly and let out a sharp groan. Then he came. Without really thinking anything much at all, I gazed up at the ceiling, which was covered here and there with brown stains. On the roof, right above where we were now, was where I’d had sex earlier with Zhang. I recalled throwing the condom and watching the semen leaking out over the roof. Perhaps it had seeped down into the ceiling here. Perhaps it was what had made those stains.

  From time to time I find myself amused by the paucity of semen a customer will spew out after all that panting and moaning. And it’s for a puny product like that that a man will buy a prostitute like me? My nighttime self always excels my daytime self. If it weren’t for my nighttime self, what would become of my customers and their lame products? Tonight, for the first time I experienced joy that I was not born a man. Why? Because I thought men’s desires trivial. And because I had become the entity that acknowledged those desires.

  I felt I could finally understand Yuriko’s freaky calm. Ever since Yuriko had been a little girl, she brought the world to her feet by using her sexuality. In her treatment of male desires of all kinds, she had built a world entirely out of men—even if only for the briefest of moments. It made me bitter. She didn’t have to study; she didn’t even have to work. She was able to bring the world to her feet by one method and one alone—because she was able to make men ejaculate. Now I would do the same. For a brief second I was drunk with the feeling of mastery.

  I heard an exchange in Chinese and opened my eyes. Zhang and Chen-yi were sitting down by Dragon and me. They were staring right at me. Chen-yi, who didn’t look like he was older than his mid-twenties, was blushing and pressing his hands between his legs. Did you feel it? I wanted to ask. How’d you like it? I gazed over at Chen-yi from where I was on the floor. Chen-yi averted his eyes from my face as if he were angry and turned away.

  “Chen-yi’s next.” Zhang gave Chen-yi a nudge.

  Chen-yi looked reluctant to have sex in front of an audience and glared sulkily at Zhang as if in protest. But Zhang would have none of it. For a mere two thousand yen he had taken me and Dragon and Chen-yi and had us bending to his will. I could see I had not yet come to terms with Zhang’s world. I was going to have to conquer Zhang. I raised my arms and wrapped them around Zhang’s knees.

  “You next.”

  But he just brushed me aside and pushed Chen-yi over to me.

  “Go on. Hurry up.”

  Chen-yi reluctantly began removing his track suit. When Dragon saw Chen-yi’s erect penis, Dragon said something. I pulled a condom out of my bag and handed it to Chen-yi. Unaccustomed to them, Chen-yi was awkward, but he managed to put it on; then he took off his glasses and set them beside him on the tatami. What a jerk. Dragon snatched up the glasses and put them on, like a fool. The condescension and bitterness had faded from Dragon’s expression and I noticed that he looked relaxed and gentler. I expect my expression was similar.

  Chen-yi embraced me, and then he started planting sloppy kisses on my face, which completely took me by surprise. Zhang had done the same thing. I opened my eyes and looked up to see Zhang staring down at me. My customers never kissed me. We just fucked. That was true even of my regulars like Yoshizaki and Arai. None of them kissed me, and none of them wanted to. Zhang urged me on with his eyes. I remembered having my first orgasm with him on the roof. If I could have more, I could master my own world. I wrapped my arms around Chen-yi’s back and began to kiss him back, writhing together with him as if our bodies were one. I felt Zhang’s hand on my left thigh, rubbing. His hand was warm. Dragon followed suit, touching my right thigh. I was being teased and touched and fondled by three men. I couldn’t have asked for more. I was a queen! God it was great. At that moment Chen-yi and I both came; for me, it was the second orgasm of my life.

  Zhang put his hand on my head, brought his lips down to my ear, and whispered, his voice rough with excitement, “Did it feel good?”

  I sat up and retrieved my wig, which had found its way to the other side of the room. Chen-yi looked back at me shyly, then quickly got dressed. Dragon sat there staring at my body while he smoked a cigarette. I put my wig back on and anchored it with a pin, then I started getting dressed.

  “Let me use the bathroom.”

  Zhang pointed to a set of veneer doors by the entryway. I was dizzy when I stood up. I guess that’s to be expected. I mean, that was the first time that I’d serviced three men one after the other like that. So many firsts in one day had worn me out, and I staggered to the bathroom door. It was filthy. The floor was wet with urine. Why do men have to be such pigs? It made me retch. The toilet, the trash on the stairs, the gunk in the seam of the tatami—they were all the same. I guess that’s why I began to feel a new sensation welling up inside me, a feeling of wretchedness I couldn’t shake. Fighting back the tears, I finished my business as quickly as I could.

  “Want to do me again?” Zhang asked, as I came out of the bathroom.

  I shook my head. “No. Your toilet is so filthy I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

  “Well, welcome to reality.”

  Was this reality, a place like this? Then what were the orgasms I’dhad? And that momentary taste of control? The feelings I had earlier welled up again. But why? Welcome to reality. That’s precisely why I wanted to live forever in the dream where I get to rule the world.

  “I’m going.”

  I put myself back together and glanced back into the room as I slipped into my high heels. Not one of the men looked at me as I left.

  It was eleven-thirty when I got back to the Jiz statue. Yuriko would be coming around soon. I looked at my watch and I scanned the street for signs of her, but she didn’t turn up. Cold, tired, and irritated, I started to head for the station. And then I heard Yuriko calling to me from behind.

  “Kazue, how’d it go tonight?”

  She made her way slowly down the hill, dressed exactly like me: long jet-black hair, white face powder, blue eye shadow, and bright red lipstick. I felt I was beholding my own ghost, and a cold shiver went up my spine. Rock-bottom whore. A woman who exists only for the benefit of a few lousy cc’s of sperm. Monster. I deflected the question.

  “What about you?”

  Yuriko held up one finger. “One. A sixty-eight-year-old man. He said he saw a sex flick at the Bunkamura and got a hard-on. It made him want t
o go out and buy a woman—the first for him in ten years, he said. Kind of cute, don’t you think?”

  “How much did you get?”

  Yuriko resorted to hand gestures again, this time holding out four fingers. ¥40,000? I felt a rush of envy.

  “Lucky you!”

  “Hey, it was only four thousand yen!” Yuriko laughed as if she weren’t even referring to herself. “I’d never done a customer that cheap. But he said that was all he had, so I agreed. Can you believe it! When I was in my twenties I’d pull in three million, just in one night! And look at me now. Why is it that the older you get the less you can make? Even when you’re young and beautiful, the man is still after the same thing. I can’t figure why people make such a fuss over youth. You end up having sex the same way whether you’re young or old, don’t you?”

  “So long as you’re not ugly, I don’t see why it matters if you’re old.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Yuriko shook her head solemnly. “It has nothing to do with looks. All men care about is whether the woman is young.”

  “I guess. Hey, I’m curious. How’d you turn out to be so ugly?”

  My nasty comment didn’t so much as provoke a blush out of Yuriko.

  “Hmmm. I guess it was just fate. I was never that aware of my looks anyway. It was always the people around me who made such a fuss. It’s a lot easier this way, though.”

  Yuriko pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her shoulder bag and asked, “So what kind of customer did you have tonight, Kazue?”

  “Three foreigners. They were Chinese. I got thirty thousand yen for each, so I came away making ninety thousand.”

  I lied through my teeth. Yuriko exhaled a sigh of cigarette smoke.

  “Ah, I’m so jealous. If you find good customers like that, you should introduce me.”

  “No way.”

  “I’m not jealous because you made some money. It’s because if those men are willing to pay that kind of money to you, Kazue, they must be the type who like monsters. I mean, you’re ugly too. If some kid came across you in the dark, you can be sure he’d burst into tears. And you don’t have much of a future. You’re just going to keep falling lower and lower. You’re going to have to quit your job at the firm before long because no one’s going to be able to bear looking at you.”

  Yuriko’s eyes glittered. I may have been a rock-bottom whore but the thought of slipping even lower frightened me. According to Yuriko’s prophecy, at some point a monster-loving man would appear and kill me. I wondered if I’d be killed by Zhang. I remembered the humiliation I’d felt when he tossed me aside after sex. He hated me. He hated sex. But he liked monsters.

  A strong wind blew up, and I clutched the front of my trench coat closed, wishing I could peer inside Zhang’s heart. He might have spoken gently, but his world was a sordid one, full of lies. And yet I felt only joy at having been admitted to that sordid world. I was much more terrified of Zhang’s impenetrable nature than I had been of Eguchi.

  “Hey, Yuriko, what do you think of your older sister?”

  Yuriko smiled faintly at the Jiz statue.

  “Tell me.”

  I gave Yuriko’s fatty shoulder a squeeze. At least a head taller than me, Yuriko turned slowly around. Her gaze was unfocused, a glimmer of suspicion in her eyes.

  “Why do you want to know about my sister?”

  “Zhang, my customer, prattled on and on about his younger sister, which reminded me that you had an older one, that’s all. She died—Zhang’s sister, I mean. He seemed to have been crazy about her.”

  “My sister was madly jealous of me from the minute I was born. It was almost as if she were in love with me. I was completely negated by her.”

  Oh, God, Yuriko was getting ready to go off on another one of her philosophical jags. Her ramblings confused me. I was in no mood for thinking on such an abstract level. All I wanted to do was cover my ears and hope she’d shut up. But Yuriko kept on going.

  “Sisters? Ha! We didn’t get along then and we don’t get along now. My sister and I were two different people, but we were really one. She is a virgin, too timid to take on a man, and I’m the opposite: I can’t live without men. I was born to be a whore. We’re like opposite ends of the spectrum. Interesting, huh?”

  “I don’t think it’s interesting at all,” I spat out. “Why is it, in this world of ours, that women are the only ones who have a hard time surviving?”

  “Simple. They don’t have delusions.” Yuriko let out an earsplitting laugh.

  “So we’d be able to live if we had delusions?”

  “It’s too late for us, Kazue.”

  “Oh, really?”

  I had worn away the reality of my job at the firm with my delusions. In the distance I heard the sound of the train on the Inokashira Line. It wouldn’t be long before the last train had gone by. I decided to stop by the convenience store and buy a beer and drink it on the way home. I left Yuriko standing there, stamping her feet against the cold.

  “Well, work hard!”

  This was Yuriko’s answer: “Death awaits.”

  I caught the last train. When I got home, the chain was on the front door and I couldn’t get in. They’d turned all the lights off and latched the door, clearly to lock me out. That made me so furious I rang the doorbell over and over. Finally I heard someone pull the chain out of the latch. My sister stood in the doorway, looking pissed off.

  “Don’t you dare lock me out again.”

  My sister lowered her gaze. She must have been sleeping. She had pulled a sweater over her pajamas. Her gaze had brushed up against something deep inside me, and it irritated me.

  “What the hell kind of look is that? You got something to say to me?”

  My sister didn’t answer. She shivered slightly as the cold air—and the depravity I had brought home with me—swept in from behind. While I slipped off my shoes, she returned to her bedroom. Our family was falling apart. I stood in the chilly corridor, petrified.

  • 7 •

  JANUARY 25

  SHIBUYA: A DRUNK, ¥3,000

  I hit a patch of bad luck after running into Zhang. Two weeks ago I went to a hotel with a guy into bondage and sadomasochism, and he beat my face pretty badly. I had to take a week off work as a result. Once I finally healed, I still had no luck getting customers. The sadist was someone I’d picked up after a five-day drought. I’d called Yoshizaki any number of times to get him to see me, but he told me he was too tied up with entrance exams to get away. Then I tried Arai, but apparently he’d been sent to the main office in Toyama and wasn’t available. So I spent my nights in vain, standing silently in front of the Jiz statue waiting for customers who never came. I began to feel impatient with the hopelessness of my situation. In the cold months, there weren’t many men loitering around. So I decided that tonight I’d walk through the brightly lit Dogenzaka entertainment area.

  My night work was strictly cash-based. The money I made had a completely different feel from the salary that was deposited directly into my bank account. I loved the touch of the paper bills so much I could hardly stand it. Every time I put them into the deposit slot at the ATM, I felt such a flicker of sadness as I watched them disappear that I frequently called out good-bye! But no customers, no bills. And if I couldn’t earn money, I wouldn’t be able to continue my life on the streets. It was as if I were being completely negated as a human being. Was this what Yuriko meant when she said, “Death awaits”? I was terrified of finally meeting that day.

  I rushed down to the Ginza Line subway platform. I needed to get to Shibuya before the other prostitutes grabbed up all the customers.

  “No way! I can’t believe she’d be doing something like that!” It was noisy down on the platform, but I could hear what two office-lady types were saying as they stood in front of me waiting for the next train. One was wearing a fashionable black coat, the other a red one. They were both carrying name-brand handbags and had their faces made up prettily.

  “One
of the guys in the business department said he saw her hanging out around Maruyama-ch. Said it sure looked like she was trying to pick up guys.”

  “You’re kidding! That’s disgusting. And her? I can’t believe any guy would actually pay money to sleep with her.”

  “I know. It’s incredible, but it seems to be true. She’s gotten even more repulsive than usual lately. Everyone avoids using the toilets on the eleventh floor because she eats her lunch in there. She drinks the tap water straight out of the sink faucet; she doesn’t use a glass. That’s what I heard.”

  “Why haven’t they fired her?”

  They were talking about me. I stood there stunned, my head whirling. So I’d become the focus of attention. But with all the men and women standing in proper formation—three lines to a door—waiting for the subway as they gazed down the dark tracks, the two took absolutely no notice of me. It made me feel calm but somehow disappointed. But I hadn’t done anything wrong! I tapped the black-coated office lady on the shoulder.

  “Excuse me.”

  The woman turned around and stared at me, stunned.

  “I’ll have you know that I correctly perform all my work in the research office. I’m the assistant manager and, what’s more, a report I wrote won a newspaper award. There’s no reason why I should be fired.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The women stepped out of line and rushed from the platform. That felt good! Stupid bitches. No way I’d be dismissed from work. Every day, all day long, I busily clip articles from the newspaper. The office manager said nothing about the purple bruises on my face from the beating I took the other week. All anyone in the office has to do is look at me and they admire my work. Ha! I stood there humming happily to myself as I waited for the train to glide into the station.

  I put my makeup on in the bathroom of the basement of the 109 Building. The bruises were still faintly visible around my cheekbones. I covered them with a thick layer of foundation. Then I brushed blush over my cheeks. The false eyelashes I attached to my upper and lower eyelids made my eyes look bigger. With the wig as the finishing touch, I was done. I smiled at myself in the mirror. You are pretty! Perfect! I noticed that the young women nearby were all gaping at me. I shouted at their reflection in the mirror without turning around.