Yes, it had been world-changing, he decided, revisiting it in his mind. The intensity of it had faded somewhat, but he was certain it wasn’t a dream or his imagination running wild.
The sex had started after the third 8mm reel, Murashita on a futon with the short-haired woman, Tomohiko on the bed with ponytail. The two high school boys did as they were instructed, as their partners led them through the first sexual experience of their lives. (It was after they left the apartment that Murashita had confided to Tomohiko that he, too, had been a virgin.)
Tomohiko came twice inside ponytail. The first time he hadn’t really been sure what was going on. But the second time he’d gained enough distance from the act to fully appreciate it. The energy of a release he’d never felt masturbating blasted through his entire body and he felt as though he must have drained himself of semen by the time it was over.
Part way through the women had discussed swapping partners but ponytail hadn’t seemed that interested, so it never came to pass.
It was Ryo who suggested they wrap things up. Tomohiko glanced at the clock and saw that exactly three hours had passed since their arrival at the apartment.
Ryo hadn’t participated. Nor had the women invited him to, which made it seem as though this had already been established beforehand. Yet he did not leave the apartment, either. While Tomohiko and Murashita were busy entwining themselves into sweaty little piles of limbs, breasts and buttocks, Ryo sat at the dining room table. After Tomohiko came the first time he had looked towards the kitchen in a daze to see Ryo in the dim light, staring at the wall, quietly smoking a cigarette.
Once they’d left, Ryo took them to a nearby café where he handed them eight thousand five hundred yen each. The boys protested almost in unison that they’d been promised ten thousand.
‘I deducted expenses. You had beer and pizza, right? You got off cheap at one thousand five hundred.’
Murashita agreed this was reasonable, so Tomohiko couldn’t really protest. That, and he was still flying high after his first experience with a woman.
‘So,’ Ryo said, a gleam in his eye. ‘You boys have a good time? If you’re interested, this could be a regular gig. I expect to hear from the ladies again before long.’ He beamed with satisfaction for a moment, then his face hardened and he added, ‘Just one thing: I don’t want you meeting them on your own, got it? We need to do this businesslike to avoid any accidents. Get any funny ideas and try to solo this, and I guarantee you things will go badly. I want you to promise me right now you won’t meet either of them on your own. Deal?’
Again Murashita promised right away, which made it hard for Tomohiko to even feign hesitation. ‘Fine. No meeting them on our own,’ he had said.
Tomohiko could still see the way Ryo’s lips had curled in a satisfied smirk.
He stuck his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a piece of paper, which he laid on the desk in front of him. It was a telephone number, with a name written beneath it: Yuko. Ponytail had slipped it into his hand just before they left.
Namie Nishiguchi was a little drunk. She wondered how many years it had been since she had been out drinking alone and couldn’t come up with an answer.
That’s how long it’s been.
No one had so much as tried to hit on her.
She went back to her apartment and turned on the lights, catching her own reflection in the sliding glass doors that opened out on to the veranda. She’d left the curtains open, she realised. She walked over to the doors, acutely aware of her reflected denim skirt and jacket and red T-shirt. None of it matched and it looked terrible on her. She could pull out her old clothes all she wanted in an attempt to look younger, but the result was painfully inadequate. Those high school boys, she was sure, would agree.
She closed the curtain and tossed off her clothes. Down to her underwear, she sat in front of her dresser, seeing a woman’s face looking out of the mirror at her. The lacklustre skin, the eyes devoid of any sparkle that she could see. It was the face of a woman who lived without purpose; aged without purpose.
She reached over and grabbed her handbag. Fishing out cigarettes and a lighter, she lit one and blew smoke at her dresser mirror. The smoke cast a gauze-like veil over her face for a moment and she found herself wishing she could always wear a veil like that. It would hide the wrinkles.
The film she’d half-watched in the apartment flickered in the back of her mind.
‘C’mon, you should try it! Just once can’t hurt!’
That had been Kazuko Kawada, her co-worker, two days earlier.
‘You won’t regret it, I mean that. Anything has to be better than the usual humdrum, right? Don’t worry. You’ll have fun. Women our age need to be around boys every once in a while or we get stuck in a rut.’
Normally, she would have refused on the spot. But there was something pushing at Namie’s back this time. The idea that she was ready for change – that she had to make a change, or she’d regret it for the rest of her life – had been growing on her recently. Hesitantly, she accepted the invitation, much to Kazuko’s apparent delight.
And yet Namie had fled. She’d stood on the threshold to another, bizarre world, and found herself unable to step in. Meanwhile Kazuko and the other woman had practically been oozing pheromones in front of those boys. It made her want to vomit.
She didn’t think what they were doing was bad. In fact, she understood how, for some women, what they were doing could be genuinely refreshing. She just wasn’t that kind of woman.
Her eyes went to the calendar on the wall. She’d wasted her day off. When she imagined her boss and the other women needling her, asking her if she’d gone on a date, she felt her stomach sink. I’ll go to work early tomorrow, get there before anyone else does. That way I’ll be working when they come in and they won’t talk to me. I’ll just set my alarm a little earlier than usual…
Namie ran the brush through her hair two or three more times before her hand suddenly stopped. My watch! She opened her bag and dug around inside, but couldn’t find it.
Great!
Namie bit her lip. That apartment was the last place she wanted to leave her watch.
It wasn’t a particularly expensive watch, which was why she never thought twice about where she wore it. She always imagined she wouldn’t care if she lost it, but after years of failing to lose it, she’d grown attached to the thing.
She remembered taking it off after going to the bathroom. She’d been washing her hands at the basin and taken it off from force of habit.
She reached out for the phone to call Kazuko. If she didn’t know where it was, she’d have to call that Ryo kid.
She knew Kazuko would get on her case about her walking out that afternoon, but she had to do something. She checked the number in her address book and dialled.
Fortunately, Kazuko was at home. ‘Well, well,’ she said, more chiding than surprised.
‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ Namie said. ‘I just… I just couldn’t get in the mood.’
‘It’s OK, really,’ Kazuko said. ‘It was a bit much for you, I understand.’
Which means you think I’m a coward. Namie swallowed her pride and told her about the watch.
‘Sorry, we didn’t find anything,’ was Kazuko’s reply. ‘I’m sure the others would have told me if they had.’
Namie sighed over the phone.
‘Are you sure you left it there? Should I get someone to check?’
‘No, that’s all right. You know, maybe I left it someplace else after all.’