The five men sat in a circle upon the tatami floor, each with his glass of beer.
“Well, Subuyan, everything went off just as you planned it,” said Banteki in congratulation. “I’d really like to get a scene like this on film. Color would be out, of course, but with lights just a little brighter, black-and-white would be okay.”
But Subuyan had a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. “Thanks, but I don’t know. I’ve got the feeling that it fell short somehow. An orgy should be one great explosion of torrid passion and lust, men and women finally stripped down to the naked essentials. But tonight they just didn’t seem to go at it in the right spirit.”
Still wondering how he might have failed, Subuyan went back to the main room again. The forty-two-year-old Mikage realtor had a twenty-one-year-old office girl pinned down, her bare legs sticking out on either side of him, kicking frantically. The fifty-one-year-old securities executive was similarly joined with a twenty-seven-year-old factory girl. The president of the record company lay embracing both a beautician and an office girl. The latter had her back to the other two and her hands over her face, the skin of which showed fiery red between her fingers. Mixed with sounds of puckering and sucking were moans of women and sporadic grunts and snorts of men such as no pornographic tape had yet captured. In the tatami room, the thirty-five-year-old steel broker seemed to have just finished with the other beautician. For as she lay on her back panting heavily, legs spread wide, the schoolgirl beside her was trying to arrange her in a more modest position. The study was the setting for a perhaps overextended sandwich, the forty-year-old scenario writer and the thirty-eight-year-old Kyoto professor teaming up to embrace the twenty-year-old dancer, an eighteen-year-old factory girl, and a seventeen- and an eighteen-year-old high-school girl. The factory girl had burst into tears, and now the scenario writer grabbed her and rolled her deftly to his left away from the pile. At the same instant the girl’s legs kicked upward, flailing desperately and scattering coats and raincoats to all sides.
As he stood staring at the scene, Subuyan squatted on his heels. “That little bare ass a man has—up and down, up and down it goes. It makes you sad just to look at it.”
“If our guests keep on going like this, won’t they die of heart failure?” Kabo asked fearfully, as Subuyan returned to the kitchen. “Do you think I should go around and ask if they want a drink of water or something?”
“Don’t worry about it, Kabo. If they want any water, they can help themselves,” Subuyan reassured him.
At just that instant, the kitchen door slid open with a thump, and a stark-naked woman—one of the beauticians—lurched heavily in; and, laboring under an unfortunate misconception, she squatted down; and the next moment, with the force of a bursting dam, a stream of urine shot out and splashed noisily onto the floor.
VI
THE FOLLOWING MORNING the men were driven to Nishinomiya Station three at a time, just as they had been brought the night before. After that Subuyan and the others woke the women, who were still sleeping soundly under cover of a variety of overcoats. They stumbled into the bathroom, and there was a long, tedious wait while they prepared themselves with make-up to face another day. Subuyan wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible, since nothing more could be done until they were gone; he was anxious to put to rights the ghastly disorder of the villa. Not one of the women seemed to pay the least attention to the devastation of the night before. It was no concern of theirs—this heaped-up debris of shredded paper, garbage, and clogged ash trays, which littered the room from one end to another.
“What bitches! No sense at all of anything like civic responsibility,” he brooded, thoroughly disgusted. Still, he did not dare to hurry them.
It took more than an hour to clear out the women. Subuyan gave each of them ten thousand yen, and then Kabo dropped them off one by one at Nigawa, Sakasegawa, Mondoyakushin, and the other stations along the Takarazuka branch line. The idea was to use every means available to prevent any sort of contact among the women. Divide and rule was Subuyan’s principle.
Then everyone pitched in for the cleanup, a gigantic effort which, among other things, turned up forty-one hairpins, two fountain pens, two lighters, one pair of glasses, three bottles of cologne, two jars of face cream, and—behind the sofa—one pair of panties with evident traces of menstrual blood upon them, two of the same without, and one falsie.
“No sense of shame whatsoever!” Subuyan muttered, shaking his head.
Subuyan had charged the men thirty thousand yen each for a total of two hundred and forty thousand. Of this one hundred and ten thousand had gone to the women. The villa rental was fifty thousand, food and drink eighteen thousand, microbus rental five thousand, and, finally, miscellaneous expenses were twelve thousand. The total profit was forty-five thousand. Considering the great efforts Subuyan and the other three had gone to, this was hardly the sort of work to build a fortune on. But on this point Subuyan was undisturbed.
“We’re still in the pioneer stage. As long as we don’t end up in the red now, we’re okay.”
What concerned him more was that the glorious orgy of his dreams—a tumultuous outburst of youth, gaiety, and color—had somehow in its realization turned out to have its unsavory side. There had, in fact, been something messy about the whole thing. Why was that? Was it that the women were substandard? Or was it due to the shortcomings of the men? Or had Subuyan skimped too much on setting and atmosphere? “I don’t know just what went wrong,” he said, “but anyway, live and learn. Next time we’re going to put on a better show.” The next orgy was already taking shape in his mind. “Just like you’ve got these Olympic athletes in Tokyo now, we need orgy athletes. And now while we’re pioneering, we’ve got to find out what it is that makes for a champion. If a woman doesn’t have it, she’s off the team. ‘Champions only!’—that’s our goal. So Paul and Kabo, when you’re out making pickups, what I want you to do, now that you’ve gotten some experience, is to get so you can tell if a woman has what it takes to excel in orgies.”
“That’s asking quite a bit, don’t you think?” Paul protested. “You can tell if she likes men or not, but as far as her orgiastic potential goes—I just don’t know.”
“Well, see what you can do anyway. Once we hit, the money will roll in.”
About a week after the party, Banteki came over to Subuyan’s place. Subuyan expected to hear that he had an inspiration for a new film, but the matter turned out to be something quite different.
“I hate to say this, Subuyan, but I don’t like this orgy business. I think it’s too risky,” he said, speaking with pained embarrassment.
“Too risky? Why?”
“If one woman opens her mouth, we’re dead. She could get pregnant, then tell somebody the whole story.”
“That just shows, Banteki, you haven’t been paying attention. You think I’ve been sleeping at the switch? And don’t you realize how ashamed a woman would be? This isn’t the usual thing of letting some guy slip it to her in a weak moment, something she might tell anybody with a little encouragement. No, she has to say: ‘I was in this orgy at Nigawa and was had by one gentleman after another.’ Do you actually think any woman would say that? And even if it should come out, what then? Who’s going to catch the full brunt of it? Me! I’m ready for a year and a half sentence right now. Something like this has to happen eventually. And there’s no need for you to worry about what happens after that. I’ve been grooming Paul all this time, and while I’m a guest of the government, none of you guys will have to worry about pocket money. And then once I get out, I’ll be able to start in again right away. Why? Because I’ve recognized the necessity of laying a firm foundation.”
“Yeah, yeah, I see that. But still—these orgies. Maybe it’s just me, but—well, they’re dirty.”
Dirty! This was the unkindest cut of all. Subuyan sat up straight.
“Dirty? What’s dirty about them? Dirty? Then everything people do must be dirty, huh? And who is i
t that’s calling things dirty? Banteki, how have you been paying your bills all these years?”
“You don’t understand. Okay, I switch faces on pictures, I make pornographic films. But when I do I always keep this in mind: what’s absolutely the best way to excite, to stir up, those guys who’ll be seeing the film. That’s been my big concern.”
“Of course. What the hell else? Otherwise they wouldn’t sell.”
“Yeah, yeah, but—what I’m trying to say is that my motives have always been artistic ones.”
“Artistic?” Subuyan stared at Banteki’s tense, earnest face. He had been on the verge of saying, “Who the hell are you trying to kid?” But now he reconsidered. “Okay, okay. Just how do you mean, though?” he finally said.
“Well, the purpose of our business, with these pornographic films and pictures and books, is to hit our customers and make it spring up on them, right? Our job is to make them feel like they’re really living. That’s what you yourself said, Subuyan. Now that’s the spirit that Hack had. If a scene he wrote didn’t heat him up, it was no good. So he masturbated as he wrote. I think there’s something fine about that. I think that that’s the spirit a pornographer must have. And then he offered up all his works for the soul of his dead mother. For the spiritual consolation of his poor, frigid mother, he drove himself night and day depicting women in rapture. And because he had such motives, then, I believe that Hack’s pornographic books are works of art.”
“Your theory is great, Banteki, but really now! That shitty, ridiculous stuff of Hack’s?”
“Okay, maybe the words are dirty, but it’s the spirit behind those words. He felt that these were just the words he had to put down. So he took up his pen burning with a desire to write them. And it’s the same with me when I make a film. It’s not the customer who’s telling me how to use my camera. The scene’s got to be filmed as I want it filmed. And I’ll fight to the death on this point. And whatever you say, the customers go for my films. Why? It’s because the passion I put into them radiates from the screen, and they soak it up. In other words, what I do is put my heart right there on the screen, and I let the customers feel with me. And this for an artist is the greatest of thrills.”
“Well, I don’t know. But look, Banteki, don’t you think you’re kind of running on about this? Do you want a raise or what?”
“You just don’t understand, do you? Subuyan, don’t you see, all you’re interested in doing now is pulling every kind of trick to recruit women and then supplying them to the customers. What we want to do is stop short of that. We’ll get it standing up for the customers, but once it’s erect, they’re on their own.”
“On their own! Dammit, Banteki, they don’t know what to do with it on their own, and that’s why they need my help. Get it up for a guy and then leave him in the lurch, huh? Do you want to drive him crazy?”
“Let him go crazy, fine! I want the guys that see my films to get wild, to go crazy. That’s my whole purpose.”
Subuyan gaped in disbelief. What a cold-hearted bastard this guy is! he thought.
But there was no reasoning with Banteki. From now on he wanted to be on his own, he told Subuyan.
“Okay, if that’s the way you want it, be on your own, I don’t care. Only, Banteki, if you have trouble finding somebody to sell these artistic masterpieces of yours, don’t come crying to me. Maybe you could arrange to have them shown in school auditoriums.”
“I won’t have any trouble. Paul is coming in with me. He hasn’t been so happy either, doing nothing but going around and picking up women and acting as a pimp. He says it’s beneath the dignity of somebody who’s dropped out of college.”
“What?” This unexpected disclosure stunned Subuyan. “In other words, you’re double-crossing me?”
“It’s nothing like that. You’ve got your way of doing things, Subuyan, and we’ve got ours. We’re artists and you’re a humanist.”
At this point Paul himself appeared and gave Subuyan a cool, perfunctory bow. “Don’t worry, Sensei, we wouldn’t think of doing anything to undermine your organization. Thanks to your patient kindness, I’ve learned a great deal. My job will be to find new customers, and Banteki will act as manager,” he said, handing Subuyan a sheet of paper on which was a detailed list of all the film stock and equipment on hand, a clear indication that the schism had been well planned. “All the films made up to now, we turn over to you. As for the other stuff, the sixteen-millimeter cameras obtained through me as well as the equipment that goes with them, Banteki and I will take with us as a remembrance of our long and happy association with you.”
As Paul nonchalantly went on, Subuyan, already exasperated by Banteki’s theory of art, felt his anger mounting. So this former hospital clerk thinks it’s so easy to be a pornographer, eh? He thinks it’s something he can just step right into? he thought bitterly.
“All right! All right! Give it a try, see how it goes! Only remember this: once you’re on your own, if ever they get their hands on you down at Sonezaki Police Headquarters, you don’t know anything about me, see. You better make sure you understand that.”
Paul was not intimidated. “Let’s just go on, Sensei, bearing our mutual burdens.” He smiled, revealing the malice he had hidden up to then.
A voice suddenly called from the street in front. When Subuyan went to the door to look, he found a tiny, bent-over old lady standing there, with a kerchief-wrapped package slung over one shoulder.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
“Yessir. You know the man that lived over the paint shop in Sekimé—Tamotsu Abé—well, I’m his mother.”
“Tamotsu Abé …?”
“Yes! You remember, sir, when he died. You and your friends went to such great trouble. I just don’t know how to thank you for what you did for my boy.”
The man who died over the paint shop in Sekimé? That was Hack. But Hack’s mother had become bedridden and died a long time before.
“You didn’t turn your back on him. You did everything possible to give him a proper burial. Thank you, sir! Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” The old lady bowed again and again.
Naturally there was no point in explaining that they had stuffed her son in an old tea carton and played Mah Jongg over him during the wake. So Subuyan dissembled with a mumbled acknowledgment and invited her into the house. Banteki and Paul had heard what she had said and now exchanged looks of amazement as Hack’s shrunken little mother sat down with them and began to tell her story with tears in her eyes.
“He was just an unfortunate child. I split up with my husband and later married somebody else, taking him with me. Then when he got bigger, he just wouldn’t behave. He ran away from home all the time and never kept a job. Then I thought he had died or something, I didn’t hear for so long, and I just about gave up.” Then about a year before, a money order for twenty thousand had unexpectedly arrived at her home, together with a note from Hack: “I now have a job writing things. So sometimes I’ll send you some money and you can use it as you like.” From then on, every other month twenty thousand more would come. “I thought to myself,” said his mother, “my son has finally become a man.” Then, the previous spring, she had made a trip to Sekimé to see Hack, but he had met her at the station. “I’ve got a wife now, Mom,” he had told her, “and she doesn’t know about you. And so if you came all of a sudden like this, it would be a big shock to her. So give me a chance to get her ready, then you can meet her the next time.” So he had not brought her to his room but instead had bought her lunch at a corner barbecue. Then when she had come a second time, she had been told that he was dead. “I just couldn’t believe it. They told me that some of his friends took care of the wake and funeral. So today I went there again to ask where you lived, sir. What I wanted to do was find out all I could about my boy and take his ashes home. So that’s why I came.”
This story was so radically different from the one Hack had told that no immediate response was possible. The three men
could do no more than nod foolishly in unison.
“Did he suffer much at the end? And what about his wife? They told me that he was living alone there.”
Banteki stepped into the breach and lied comfortingly—perhaps motivated by the esteem he felt for his late fellow artist—telling her that her son had died peacefully in his sleep and that the apartment had been merely his work place and his wife had lived elsewhere. After the consoled mother had departed, Subuyan turned triumphantly to Banteki.
“Hack was quite a storyteller, eh! Out of reverence for his frigid mother, huh? That old lady there, she might be a bit shriveled up now, but I got the feeling somehow that she must have gone for it in days gone by.”
“Hack must have had reasons of his own for what he did. It’s not up to somebody else to criticize. His work stands on its own.”
“His work! Always the same goddam scene over and over! Just like you said yourself. You call that talent?”
“All right then, let’s drop the subject. We gave you fair warning, Subuyan, and now Paul and I are going to start in with our own films. We’re going to get at men through art, and you can stick to your humanism. Art and humanism—should we see which makes better pornography?”
“We’ll see, all right! Get the hell out of here!”
After the two had left, Subuyan turned to Kabo with a scowl. “If you want to go too, now’s your chance.”
“No, no, boss. I’m happy like I am. I’ll keep on going out making pickups, and I’ll do better than Paul did.”
“How about art and humanism? Which do you think is the most important?”
“Gee, I don’t know about that, boss. But I guess the most important man in the world is President Johnson, huh?”
When Subuyan went around visiting his customers the next day, he discovered that Paul had been ahead of him with a declaration of independence. “Our movie section is now on its own. And we’re going to have all sorts of movies ready to distribute at cost price,” he had announced to everyone. Subuyan picked up a handbill designed like a dinner menu: “The five-thousand-yen course: two color films, one black-and-white. The ten-thousand-yen course: one color sound film, two color silent films. The fifteen-thousand-yen course: one sixteen-millimeter color sound film, one eight-millimeter color sound film. The rental period for all of these lasts from two in the afternoon until noon the following day.” There was a variety of other attractions. The possibility was offered for do-it-yourself pornographic movies, an idea Banteki must have gotten from the doctor in Fusé. After the customer had approved a plot outline, a scenario was worked up and presented for his inspection, then the film was made incorporating his annotations. This could be done in twenty days, and the price for this exemplary service was one hundred and fifty thousand yen for an eight-millimeter color film, higher if done with sound. Then there were miscellaneous items offered for sale, such as pornographic tapes and various types of sexual apparatus. Paul’s hand was apparent. Subuyan could tell at once from the style of printing and the distribution that all this had not been done on the spur of the moment.
The Pornographers Page 22