by Lacy Danes
Steve explained how short-term hotels for privacy and sexual pleasure were later known as tsurekomi yado, rendezvous hotels. The love hotels so popular today developed out of the curfew rule back in the 1960s, he told me, which barred women in men’s hotel rooms after 9:00 p.m. It was a common practice for a businessman to meet a bar hostess and take her to a Western-style hotel.
“What happened at nine o’clock?” I asked, envisioning a quickie, Japanese style.
“The businessman became embarrassed when he was subjected to the gaze and smirks of the desk clerks and other couples who knew why they were there. So he had to find an alternative to satisfy his sexual urges—and keep his secret.” He grinned, his sexy smile promising an equally sexy answer. “And the love hotel was born.”
No reservation needed, Steve explained. Popular with singles as well as married couples, love hotels were open twenty-four hours a day: lunchtime, after work, before a late movie, anytime you and your partner were in the mood for a few hours of fantasy and sexual thrills.
I jumped into his car, fascinated by his knowledge of this unique Japanese phenomenon. I’d heard Japan was a sexual supermarket, but I never thought I’d have the opportunity to explore it firsthand.
We drove to the other side of town near the railroad station, cruising into a seedier part of the city, a neighborhood of small wooden houses and closed backyard gardens. I wondered why he’d brought me here until I saw the word Hotel lit up in blue neon with blinking red and green stars. Perched like a beacon atop a high-walled cement building, it looked more like a prison cell block than a pleasure palace. An uncomfortable wetness made me rub my thighs together. What had I gotten myself into?
“Most love hotels are identified only by a simple sign,” he said, reading my mind as our car sped down into the underground parking garage. “Although some love hotels, like the famous one in Yokohama shaped like the Queen Mary, boast outlandish landmarks.”
“Don’t people object to having a love hotel in their neighborhood?” I noted the number of cars in the garage. More than I would have guessed for a rainy afternoon. On closer inspection, I was surprised to see the license plates had been covered up to protect the owners and their guests from prying eyes.
“Love hotels outside the city are often shaped like castles or spaceships,” Steve said, “but in the city exteriors are understated to fit in with the surrounding shops and houses.”
With a resounding echo the steel door slammed shut behind us. I shivered. The anticipation of spending the afternoon with Steve made me flush with excitement, though I was torn between guilt, apprehension and curiosity.
“What now, James Bond?” I asked, getting out of the car and looking around. I half expected to see Japanese co-workers racing from their cars into the hotel to avoid being seen. Instead, I saw no one. We were alone. I didn’t find out until later we were being watched on video cameras and no one else would be admitted through the gate until we were inside the hotel and out of sight.
“Your elevator awaits you,” Steve said.
I grinned. “Then what are we waiting for?”
My attention was on the handsome man standing beside me in the tiny elevator pulsing with flashing lights, but I was having difficulty treating this like a regular afternoon meeting. The warmth of Steve’s body next to mine created a giddiness I hadn’t felt since I mislaid my bikini panties in the back of a limo at the senior prom. I struggled not to become lost in my anticipation of what lay ahead.
“I’ve heard Tokyo boasts more than four thousand love hotels,” Steve said, bringing my mind, but not my hormones, back down to earth. “They’re so popular on Saturday nights and weekday afternoons they’re called gokiburi hoihoi.”
No translation needed. I knew what that meant: cockroaches in a box, something gaijin learn quickly about in a land infested with the ubiquitous creatures.
Then where is everybody? I wondered, my eyes darting left and right, my mind working overtime as we walked through the bright pink hotel lobby. If you could call it a lobby. No doorman, unless you counted a gilt copy of the Venus de Milo winking at us. Not even a front desk. Just a closed cubicle with a mail slot in it.
We stopped in front of a large display board with checkerboard squares showcasing backlit photos, each depicting a Disneyesque fantasy, with the dark squares denoting rooms already occupied. Mickey does Minnie any way you like it, I imagined. Old West, Hello Kitty playroom, French bordello, hot-air balloon, boxing ring, spaceship, medieval torture chamber, harem, race car, jungle, even a room with a heated swimming pool.
And the beds. Revolving, vibrating, massaging, tanning, water. Filled with Evian, I hoped. Shaped like hearts, pineapples, jet planes, spaceships, even a 1959 Cadillac, complete with chrome fins and taillights.
Two prices were listed under each room. The cost for the average length of stay, half a day, was around $200. Double for overnight. Unlike hotels back in the States, we weren’t asked for a credit card on check-in, but I found out later some love hotels have yen meters to keep you informed of how much all this pleasure is costing you.
“What’s your fantasy?” Steve asked, squeezing my hand.
“You mean like the image clubs?” I’d read about the upscale clubs where Japanese businessmen engaged in sexual fantasy role-playing.
“No, this is better,” he said. I detected a challenge in his voice. “Here you know your fantasy will come true.”
Our eyes met and he attempted a smile, allowing me to choose the room, but he didn’t fool me. His jaw was clenched, his eyes dark and serious, like storm clouds rumbling, eager to shake free their heaviness. He was counting the minutes—or was it the seconds?—until I made my choice. I knew without a doubt it didn’t matter what my fantasy was, he intended to make sure we had a good time. Unlike most men I’d met on business trips, Steve recognized my feeling of isolation and had gone out of his way to help me, translating documents and encouraging me not to be hesitant in dealing with Japanese clients.
Breathing hard on the back of my neck, Steve again reached down and slid his hand up and down my thigh. I didn’t resist. Why should I? We were alone. No one could see us. His hand slipped under my skirt, but I didn’t move away as he tugged at my panties, this time inserting his fingers inside me. I pretended not to notice, though I was aroused and couldn’t help but let out a soft groan when he found my hard bud and stroked it back and forth in a slow but steady rhythm.
I didn’t speak. Instead I moved my hips in time to the silent beat we both heard in our heads. I enjoyed the pleasure he gave me with his fingers and I didn’t want him to stop, but I had to choose a room. Fast, before I lost control here in the lobby.
I tapped my finger against my lips, thinking. I always wanted to play Annie Oakley, and popping off Steve’s hot pistol sounded interesting, but since he was an avid boxing fan I opted for the knockout.
“Put on your gloves,” I challenged him, pointing to the boxing ring photo, “and we’ll spar a few rounds.”
“You got it, babe.”
Removing his fingers wet with my juices, he didn’t wipe them off but let the sweet smell drift between us like magic mist. Breathing in my own scent with Steve watching me was a total turn-on. I couldn’t stand still, shifting my weight from one foot to the other while he pushed the button under the photo and a key popped out into the tray below. I expected a bag of potato chips and a chocolate bar to follow.
Giggling like two teenagers ditching school, we followed the miniature lights on the floor that lit up to guide us like a yellow brick road through the darkened hallway to our room. I asked Steve if they checked IDs.
“If you’re old enough to pay,” he quoted a local saying, “you’re old enough to play.”
Play was an understatement. I was astounded at the room, furnished with every conceivable toy and designed solely for sexual pleasure. Besides the lavish bed decorated in red, black, and white satin like a boxing ring, I counted mirrors everywhere, a forty-two-inch plasma T
V stocked with porn DVDs, a camera and equipment to make your own videos for instant replay, a karaoke machine, and a refrigerator stocked with coffee, green tea, beer, and Bang cola. Erotic pictures of naked women with their genital areas covered hung on the wall. Nearby stood a vending machine stocked with condoms in neon rainbow colors, dildos, French ticklers, and a string of pearls known as anal love beads.
And an open bathroom.
No door.
I was surprised to discover the love hotel steeped in privacy everywhere except in the room itself. I thought this strange, since the whole concept of the love hotel grew out of the lack of privacy in the typical Japanese house. Imagine, only thin shoji or paper walls separating you from your in-laws in the next room.
I turned and looked at Steve, his breath fast and shallow, perspiration beading his brow, and his teeth clamped together with the effort of waiting for me to undress. I smiled at him. My spirits were too high and the bulge in his pants too big to spend time contemplating Japanese architecture.
I kicked off my shoes and started to unbutton my blouse.
Steve shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
“You want to watch a DVD first?” I asked, disappointed. I was hot and didn’t need any prelims to get me started.
“A Japanese girl waits for the boy to undress her,” Steve said, unbuttoning my blouse and sliding my slim skirt down over my thighs. I stood there, mesmerized. What was wrong with the lighting? It changed colors every time we spoke, from blue to orange to yellow to purple. Before I could adjust my eyes to the sound-sensitive lighting, dimming and changing color at the command of his raw, sexy voice, he unhooked my bra, then pulled down my panties. He grinned when he noticed the tattoo on my left cheek. He slapped my butt and I moaned, enjoying the pleasant sting of his palm on my hot flesh. He said, “I like the way it wiggles.”
“My butt or the tattoo?”
“Both.”
I looked straight into his eyes and asked, “Now that you’ve shown me what the boy does, what does the girl do?”
“She lets him know what she wants by her actions.”
“Like this?”
I sashayed over to the black marble Jacuzzi, tossing my hair over my shoulder and letting it ripple down my naked back. I knew Steve was watching me as I turned on the jets. I wiggled my big toe in the gurgling water, then sat down on the edge of the tub. He joined me and was soon busy soaping up a sweet, redolent lather. He rubbed the green foamy stuff all over my body, around my breasts, down to my stomach, and between my thighs.
Waves of pleasure rushed over me, his touch arousing me. I groaned. The smell of the exotic soap was almost overpowering, along with his hands sliding all over my body. My skin tingled, my muscles relaxed, my pussy throbbed. I began to writhe under his expert touch then shivered when his fingers slid in and out of me, exploring the depths of my body, making me groan louder when I let myself go and my pussy tightened around his fingers, drawing him deeper into me.
“Think of this as your own private soapland,” he said, removing his fingers, then, using his muscular chest as a washcloth, rubbing, sliding, and stimulating my nipples with his rhythmic up-and-down movements.
“Isn’t that just for men?” I asked, trying to regain my composure. The Turkish-style baths included young women using their bodies as a sponge to help the customer reach orgasm.
“Not anymore,” he said. “I’ve heard the soapland service for women includes biting their toes.”
“Lucky you,” I said, lifting up my pink-polished toes and resting my feet against his chest. “I just had a pedicure.”
He laughed, then sucked on my toes, licking all around them and tickling more than my fancy. So titillating was his tongue, I couldn’t fight the tingling sensation rushing up my ankles, my calves, my thighs, all the way up to my pussy. Laughing, I begged him to stop, then before he could grab me, I eased my body into the tub. He followed.
We splashed each other, laughing, then sank down into the hot, steamy water with only our chins showing, and soaked. I closed my eyes and the fragrance of ginger and sandalwood filled my head. Sitting in the hot water, my mind drifting, I felt the probing touch of Steve’s hands pushing my legs apart and sliding his fingers into me again. Twisting, stroking, he took me on a sensation-filled journey. The pleasure was so intense, I cried out with joy.
Before I could catch my breath, I felt my whole body being lifted up out of the water. Steve held me in his powerful arms in midair, then sat me down gently on top of soft, fluffy white towels. Water dripped from my heaving breasts and the inside of my thighs were slippery. He dried me off with a towel, taking his time and chafing my nipples with the looped cotton until they peaked hard and brown. Then he rubbed me all over with the towel, his hands massaging and stroking my shoulders, my hips, the insides of my thighs. His touch made me shiver and I didn’t protest when he wrapped me up in a short, red silk kimono. The slippery fabric hugged my curves and its soft touch radiated over my body like a thousand fingertips in constant motion.
Eyes closed, my body warm and comfy, I relaxed. His hot skin brushed against my bare legs when he lay down beside me, his hard chest smashing my breasts as he turned my face toward him and kissed me. I could feel his teeth through his lips, then his mouth opened and his tongue darted inside mine, tasting, exploring, depriving me of air with his passion until I couldn’t breathe. I opened my eyes and seeing me gasping, he slowed down, his lips touching mine with a gentle kiss, whispering to me that the Japanese considered kissing to be foreplay to sex.
I wasn’t fooled. Steve was telling me in that indirect way I was beginning to know so well what was coming next.
After slipping on a neon blue condom, he parted my legs and slid into me, pumping his cock into my pussy. The hot steam surrounding us blurred our images, but I could feel his long, hard thrusts sending me into an orgasmic spiral that felt never-ending. Deeper and deeper he pushed into me until I thought I couldn’t take it any longer; I was so close to crashing in a shuddering orgasm, my cries mingling with his loud grunts. Then he pulled out and it was more than I could bear. Desperate for him, I arched my back, pushing my hips upward and gyrating like a tigress clawing at a fiery dragon.
“Steve…” I whispered, reaching out to pull him into my arms. “Is something wrong?”
“I have a surprise for you,” he said, moving our lovemaking to the bed where I discovered the real erotic Far East. He produced two metal balls, shiny and heavy. Where did he get them? I wondered, but I didn’t ask. I was more curious about what he was going to do with them.
“Japanese women have been using rin no tama for hundreds of years,” he said, inserting the two metal balls into me. I swayed my body back and forth, the balls producing gentle and persistent vibrations as they knocked together, sending a range of sensations throughout my body every time I moved. It was a pleasurable feeling, and I giggled every time the balls clicked together.
Then he entered me again. Gently rocking back and forth, he gyrated his lower body with interesting twists and turns in perfect timing with the clicking sound of the ben-wa balls inside me. I could see his eyes light up with excitement when the tip of his penis touched the metal balls. But he was holding back, waiting for me.
He didn’t have long to wait. I cried out with such passion the voice-sensitive room lighting glowed a fiery red. I shuddered over and over again, still the force of Steve’s impending climax threatened to overtake mine, so powerful he was, snorting and bucking like a wild man. He filled me up, pushing into me, hips shaking. My sugar walls vibrated with pleasure, both from his thrusting cock and the metal balls hitting each other. I thrashed about, my body trembling, my legs shaking, as the spasms peaked again and again, his thrusts driving me mad until his body jolted and he let go with a final shudder before he went limp.
Our passion spent, we muttered a few subdued moans and the room lighting mellowed to a soft blue. Showering me with kisses on my cheeks, my nose, my lips, my breasts, Steve collapsed next
to me, his breathing ragged, but with a smile on his face. He reached over and cradled me in his arms. I squeezed his hand and sighed. Time to go back to the office.
We slipped the money through the slot in the cubicle in the lobby but we never saw anyone, although I heard the soft shuffle of feet as we left. Probably the maid preparing the room for the next customers.
It was still raining when we left the love hotel, our car streaking out onto the sleek, wet streets. The blue neon sign blinked at us as if to say, “Come back again.”
We did. Many times. So many we won a trip to a famous Tokyo theme park by staying in all the rooms of the hotel within a six-month period. It wasn’t difficult. Steve and I worked together many hours in the love hotel, coming up with ideas for goofy ad campaigns in spite of the shrinking budgets of Japanese advertising agencies. Snuggled up in our vibrating pineapple bed or our bondage dungeon or our rocket ship with smoke that came out of one end when we rocked the bed hard during lovemaking, we orchestrated some of the best commercials on Japanese television.
I’ll never forget my time in Tokyo. And I’ll never forget Steve. My samurai in the bedroom.
When I returned to the States, I brought back several souvenirs, but the ones everyone asks me about are the intriguing paperweights sitting on my desk: two metal balls the size of quail eggs.
I don’t have to say a word.
I just smile.
Postscript: I just got a call on my cell. Guess who landed at LAX ten minutes ago? Steve. He’s here in L. A. to do a job for the agency.
I grab the metal balls off my desk and rush out to the parking lot. I’m leaving the office early to pick him up and take him back to my place. My bed doesn’t vibrate or revolve or have smoke coming out of it, but I don’t think he’ll mind.
Do you?
The Well-Tutored Lover
ALICE GAINES
CHAPTER ONE