“That’s a good question, Ken. I really think it has to do with the vicissitudes of the publishing industry, particularly in my home country. It is still very hard for a female writer to break into the male-dominated publishing establishment in Japan. It’s a little like Lee Krasner playing second fiddle to Jackson Pollock. I’m also practicing my English so I can get more American customers who don’t skimp on reality. I’m saving up so that I can come to the States. My great dream is to be a whore and writer in New York. You know, Breakfast at Tiffany’s was really a novel about prostitution. I bet you didn’t know that Audrey Hepburn was actually a well-known streetwalker before she became an actress. Lots of prominent women were once hookers: Eleanor Roosevelt, Marie Curie, even Martha Washington. At least that’s what they taught us when I was growing up in Japan.”
Were it not for the lack of underwear and the leather micro-skirt that failed to hide her wisp of jet-black pubic hair, Tiffany would have looked like one of the geishas she was writing about, with her doll-like features, her demure composure, and the heavy white pancake makeup she wore on her face. She had the look of one of the actresses in a traditional theater performance I attended on a trip to Japan during my junior year in college. I was more than ready for this kind of exotica, but for a Tiffany to provide me with the attentions administered by a typical geisha could take longer than a staging of a classic Noh drama. Ironically, Tiffany turned out to be more interested in sex than I was, particularly since I was hoping to save some of my vital fluids for my assignation with Suzanne. Alas, since her primary motivation was to make money as quickly as possible to finance her immigration to the United States, this Noh-drama Tiffany showed little interest in any drawn-out sexual theatrics. I couldn’t bear the sadness that came over her face when she realized that she was going to have to spend more time on preliminaries than she had reckoned on. I finally caved and let her take her clothes off and give me a quick blowjob, if only to make her feel like a productive member of Rio’s sex-worker community — with the proviso that I didn’t want her to be offended if I refused to come.
I ended up with a case of blue balls that was only palliated by the taste left in my mouth after sampling her delicacies, which eclipsed the finest sashimi served at New York’s famed Nobu. I gave her a good dose of reality before sending her off to pursue her publishing dreams, but I still had some time to kill. I turned on the television to one of the local educational channels, which featured a program with English subtitles about whether or not the Virgin Mary was a virgin, using some stains on a burial shroud to argue its point.
Having enjoyed a late-afternoon snack, I fell into a comfortable snooze. By the time I woke up, it was almost time to see Suzanne. I had given her my room number, so all I really had to do was wait in bed for her, but I realized it might be best to hop in the shower to wash away any residual smells. After rinsing off, I decided to wander down to the lobby, which was beginning to resonate with all kinds of nostalgic associations, even though I’d only been staying in Rio for the better part of a week. I felt a little like the aging professor in Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, who reminisces about his past life and loves. I walked through the lobby and out onto the Copacabana, enjoying the spectacle of a beautiful beach packed with whores. As I sauntered back into the lobby, I noticed that Suzanne was no longer behind the concierge’s desk and understood that the moment had come for me to savor the pleasures of what I imagined to be one of the finest whores Rio had to offer. Life was becoming almost poetic in its simplicity. All it would take was a good dose of reality and I would be on my way. After that, I would fly back to New York, to another kind of reality — the reality of my life.
Perhaps I had been lulled into complacency. I thought I would simply return to my room to find Suzanne the sex kitten waiting for me under the sheets, but that didn’t exactly happen. I did go back to my room, and even rang the bell on the off chance she had let herself in and was in the process of douching in preparation for my arrival. But she wasn’t there. I started to worry that perhaps she’d already come and gone. She might even put a charge on my hotel bill for missing an appointment without prior notice. I had seen my share of Tiffanys during my stay in Rio, but I was disconsolate to miss out on Suzanne’s services. I felt a little like an alpinist who’s spent months preparing for an ascent, only to have the expedition called off due to bad weather. Suzanne possessed the only mountain range I really wanted to climb, and I was so frustrated that I was on the verge of going into the bathroom to jerk off when all of a sudden there was a ring at the door.
In astronomy, there is a phenomenon called syzygy, which occurs when the sun, moon, and earth are all in alignment. As Suzanne walked through the threshold of my suite, throwing her shoulder bag down on one of the plush loveseats, her nameplate popping spontaneously off her chest, I knew some kind of cosmic synchronicity had taken hold. She didn’t even ask for a dose of reality, so intent was she on her transformation into Tiffany. She unbuttoned the blouse of her uniform to reveal perhaps the sexiest bra I had ever seen on a whore. To describe it as a mere black French bra with delicate lace fringe does not do it proper justice. It was a bra for a woman whose breasts have long since declared their independence from support of any kind, as India did in 1948. That is to say, it was a bra in name only. Rather, it was a monumental allusion to that point in the history of feminine attire when breasts were accorded a new kind of opening curtain — one that came off rather than going up at the beginning of an act.
Like a hypnotist snapping her fingers to bring me out of my trance, Suzanne told me to unhook her peerless brassiere. My hands trembled as I circled her nervously, as transfixed by the dorsal view of her nakedness, the arch and small of her back, as I was by the prospect of laying my eyes on her breasts, which were now just a glimmer, albeit a colossal one, in my imagination, a vision beyond the grasp of my engorged senses.
Adam and Eve covered themselves for a reason. It was not simply the temptation of sin that brought shame. It was the recognition that the advent of consciousness necessitated an added bit of showmanship in the sexual act. The hoopla accorded to the covering of the genitals, especially for women, was in fact naturally selective. It was what gave sexuality its mystery and encouraged procreation. Only the conceit of a great metaphysical love poem, like Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” could capture the mind-body chasm that was bridged as I feasted my eyes on Suzanne’s perfection.
I was willing to pay anything to have sex with Suzanne. The fact that I could blow caution to the wind and max out my credit card was part of the thrill. When I am in the presence of a delicious, half-undressed Tiffany like Suzanne, I am like a gambler at the high stakes table in Las Vegas. I was ready to throw in my chips and go all-or-nothing.
Suzanne quickly wriggled out of her skirt and panties. In all my years of visiting whores, I had never seen secondary sex characteristics like the ones I now witnessed. Her areolae were soft and golden brown and her nipples stood at attention like they were singing the Marseillaise. The breasts themselves recalled the words of another metaphysical poet, John Donne, who had said about one woman’s body, “Oh my America, my new found land.” Suzanne’s tits had cosmological significance. They were like the most beautiful celestial body, like Venus spied through a telescope as it orbits in space. But this was no comparison to what lay below. Looking between Suzanne’s legs reminded me of visiting the famous garden created by Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst. I had seen some dramatic landscaping the last time I was in England, but nothing compared to the resplendent nature, the shooting tangle of dark growth, the topiary, the great looming hedge that festooned the smoldering estate that lurked between Suzanne’s thighs.