California First Times Pt. 3

Cynthia and I were hunting, stalking our prey at Stanford Shopping Center one of the only unenclosed shopping malls probably in the entire U.S. The layout was very elegant and famous for their luxurious almost hedonistic plantings of flowers throughout the entire complex. Cynthia was one of the few people from my past I had kept in touch with after moving to Japan. She’d had three kids and two husbands in very close succession but now was a serial dater of extraordinary ability. My prey that day was a dress for the funeral – hey I’m a girl, any excuse for a new dress works for me. Cynthia had accompanied me as a beater. Traditionally a beater’s job is to drive the game towards the hunter; in shopping a beater’s job is to drive the hunter towards exciting purchases. These items may or may not be on the list.

During the hunt beaters beat the bushes, blow horns, smack drums and make a lot of noise. In shopping the beater is also required to make noises but like this: “Hey THIS is cute. Oh, oh look at that, that is so sexy! Let’s go over there, the color of that blouse is hot right now, I mean REALLY hot. I see it, I see it, the perfect thing! Come on, come on, COME ON!” And so forth, drawing the hunter towards the prey.

Cynthia was not fulfilling her beater’s role. In fact she was being very quiet. Instead of cooing over little velour sheaths she turned to me and said, “Jesus Sacha you are such a slut!”

This was not exactly the comment I had been expecting, “I beg your pardon?”

“You, girl, are a slut. A SMILE slut. You really are. Always smiling at everybody, perky, perky, perky. And you’re so polite! You don’t even think about if people deserve it. You just throw out those smiles like a prostitute shaking her tits at passing cars. I know what the prostitutes are looking for but just way are you hoping to get back?”

I put both hands on her shoulders saying earnestly, “If you ever drink another triple espresso latte, I will slap you.”

She gestured towards the racks of clothing behind us, “Look, look you just did it again when we squeezed by those people blocking the aisle. You even say excuse me when they are in your way.”

“I was just being polite.”

Cynthia began to sort aggressively through a rack of sherbet colored silks, “You, my dear girl, are too polite. You’re always apologizing for things and smiling at people.”

“And what’s wrong with being nice?” I said shoving my way through some flower patterned linen skirts.

“Nothing if it’s genuine but lately I see you after about an hour of being nice in public and your smile looks like its going to crack from the strain.”

“It does not.”

“I assure you it does.”

“Listen woman, I was brought up to be polite in those long ago years before my mother was kidnapped by aliens and replaced with this malfunctioning doppelganger. If we all go around behaving like assholes then the world will go to hell even faster than its current rate of descent.”

Grabbing a tangerine colored shell with a hideous polka dot pattern just for spite I was sure she snarled, “That’s the capitalist running dog response. Now give me the real answer.”

I turned to a display of Junko Shimada dresses, “You want a real conversation here, is that what you’re saying.”

“Yes a really real conversation right here, right now.”

“I’m basically a very nice person,” I said to a vanilla chiffon tunic. “I am so polite, more polite than ever, because I think I might explode out of frustration, anger, sexual longing, you name it. My marriage is a sham, my husband gets a hard on from a new shockwave plug-in for the computer not from me.”
 
Cynthia turned and walked towards the dressing rooms. Dragging my finds I followed.

The big zip up and zip down began.

I stood looking at myself critically in the mirror. Cynthia was struggling into a pair of grass green capris commenting, “Don’t worry if you hate your thighs. All women hate their thighs, it’s in our genetic programming, I saw a special about it on the Discovery Channel.”

I slumped onto the dressing room stool, “I don’t hate my thighs, I hate my life.”

“Then change it.

“That easy?”

“You know, it really is. Honestly. I was terrified when I divorced my first husband, two kids under three. I decided I had the right to be happy and I stopped hating myself and  him and whatever, instead whenever I got depressed I made a list in my head of everything I was grateful for – everything. Stopped bitching, stopped complaining, just got on with things and looked on the bright side. I have never looked back.”

“That easy.?”

She nodded, “You have to start loving yourself and putting yourself first, the rest will follow. I know you can’t help being friendly but be friendly because you really want to not because you feel obligated. And buy that sky blue silk sheath, you look fabulous in it.”

 We waited while the sales lady entered our purchases and card info into the computer. I felt I should be ringing her up; the sales lady was dressed far better than either of us in a Prada suit worth at least two grand.

Cynthia was right and that shopping trip helped me realize I had been blaming my husband for my own unhappiness, hiding in my work. Ultimately I had to take responsibility for that and move out of the Twilight Zone and back into the dimension of fun.

The dimension of fun proved somewhat elusive over the next few days at my mother’s but I did not lose hope. Finally it was the day of the memorial service.

“What’s going on?”

I was standing in the back most pew of the Congregational Church close to the entry doors. Cynthia was right, the sky blue sheath lookede stunning onme, showing off my slim waist and subtle curves. I was not wearing black for the dog I had told my mother who was not plesed with my attire. I had paired the dress with beaded slingbacks in gold and blue. My black Gucci sunglasses were pushed up on my head, keeping my hair out of my eyes. Most of the guests had already assembled down in front. I turned my head to answer and saw a man in a black T-shirt and jeans. His face was flushed and his eyes were blink-blinking trying to adjust to the dim interior of the church. It was September, probably the hottest month of the year in Northern California.

“It’s a funeral,” I said.

“Oh,” he turned away.

He had wavy brown hair brushed back over his ears and a little mustache and goatee professionally trimmed. I decide I did not want him to turn away.

“For a dog,” I said.

He turned back, “A dog?”

“Yes, a dog.”

“A beloved dog?”

“No, a sock burying Lhasa Apso rat dog.”

It was hot in the church, I sat down and scooted over making room for him.

The man sat down, “I’m Scott.”

“Sacha.”

“Sacha,” he said my name with remarkable slowness. “Are you perhaps a Russian spy, or the daughter of Russian spies?”

“You know the answer to that,” I said in mock seriousness.

Laughing he said, “If you tell me you’ll have to kill me?”

“Exactly.”

He paused then asked, “Are you from Palo Alto?”

This was a good start. It is very important in the social ethic of the Bay Area to establish as quickly as possible in polite conversation with strangers if you were local; how local you were; and what high school you had attended. High school, not college. Northern Californians felt instantly at ease with other locals. Women, especially, had to be careful in these dangerous times. In the macroworld of the Peninsula, if you were born and raised in Palo Alto it was even safer to talk together because it practically precluded you being an axe murdering psycho. The reason for this  was that Palo Alto – home of Stanford University, Stanford Medical Center and the aforementioned Stanford Shopping Center – was very expensive to live in. Very. Therefore you either bought your house long ago before property values went stratospheric and were much to old to swing an axe with any proficiency or you were young and had just bought/rented/remodeled your parents house and were therefore much, much too busy working in an effort to pay off the mortgage/rent/loan to have any energy left for such a time consuming hobby as  murderous body dismemberment.

“Hometown born and raised. How about you?”

“Me too,” he said. “My parents moved here before I was born, they live a couple of blocks over on Northern California Avenue.”

“What high school did you go to?”

“Gunn.”

“Yea? I went to Paly.” That was the local nickname for Palo Alto High.

“Are you living here now?”

“I live in Tokyo and please don’t say ‘isn’t that interesting’. I came for the dog’s funeral. Why are you here?”

“The Pastor, Mr. Groom? He’s friends with my dad from the golf club, he asked my dad to ask me to help them wire up the offices and put together the church’s website.”

“You do that sort of thing?”

He nodded,“So Sacha, are you part of the family?”

“Are you implying canine or human?”

“Whoever’s underwriting this,” he waved towards the bouquets of flowers on the altar and assembled guests.

“He was my dog.”

The man’s face did not change. Not even the flicker of an eyebrow.

“Timmy, that was the dog’s name. Timmy was my dog but this,” I sighed. “This was my mother’s idea.”

He looked at the group in front of us, “Which one is your mother?”

I pointed, “The fat one in black with the sunglasses on.”

He followed my finger with his eyes, “There are two.”

“The fatter one with the bigger hat, the one who isn’t leaning on the altar because gravity is starting to shift.”

“Ah.” Was all he said.

The service was beginning. Mr. Groom shook hands with my mother who sat with Violet and Brian in the‘family of the bereaved’ pew. I stayed where I was. Mrs. Petersen on the organ began to play Amazing Grace.

“Personally,” I said, “I would have chosen ‘How much is that Doggy in the Window’.”

Scott smiled.

There had been a good turn out, at least 25 or 30 people were there. I knew virtually none of them aside from a couple of childhood friends of my sister and Mrs. Worth from the house on the corner who rivaled my mom in reclusive behavior and rotundity – they were good friends. Mr. Groom droned on and on. Normally anything to do with dead or dying doggies made me cry but here, it all seemed like part of an extended Monty Python routine. Instead of John Cleese we had my sister for comic relief. At a motion from Mr. Groom Violet rose and walked up, very carefully in that way drunks walk when the tectonic plates are shifting just for them, to lay a bouquet of flowers down by the picture of Timmy on the altar. She sank to her knees and began to sob loudly with a disgusting snorting sort of sound. The bottle of Stolichnaya she had downed earlier in the morning must be making her morose. Vodka always had a Dostoevsky/We die tomorrow comrade effect on the woman.

Mrs. Petersen played ‘Rock of Ages’.

I turned to look at Scott. Local Scott from Gunn High. I looked and considered my options. My loyalty to my husband was less from a moral sense of obligation than a lack of opportunity. All the men I seemed to meet were either through work and Japanese – no longer even an option in my mind – or married and invariably in the company of their wives. This would not have deterred my mother. Long ago, around 150 pounds ago, she had made a specialty out of affairs with married men. We had been raised in the art of duplicity my sister and I, learning the code names for her various lovers by the time we were six and eight respectively – we had an endless parade of relatives from her side of the family and it was important, we were told, to keep things confidential. Thus her lover John’s code name was ‘Betsey’; Russell’s code name was ‘Barbara’; and Steve’s codename was ‘Martha’. There were others but these guys were long time lovers for my mom and the only names I remember. It worked like this, my sister or I would answer the phone and if someone else was in the house we would shout “Mom, Betsey’s on the phone,” or whoever. Our live-in housekeeper only spoke Spanish, she would pick up the phone but if it was not my mom or one of us girls – my mother was fluent in Spanish, as was my sister, I spoke it only just – she tended to hang up. 

Scott was middle-sized with a nice compact build. Strong shoulders, not exactly handsome but he gave off a wonderful mélange of pheromones that extruded guy-ness.

“You want to come to the wake?” I asked in a rush.

“Me?”

“Yes, do you want to come?”

He twisted around in the pew to face me better, “You’re having a wake for a Lhasa Apso? Where are Lhasa Apsos from?”

“Tibet. They’re from Tibet.”

“I thought Wake’s were Irish.”

“The dog’s full name was Timothy Clancy O’Brian. We gave him a nationality transplant as a puppy. My family name is O’Brian.”

Scott smiled, “What are the O’Brians doing in a Congregational church? I didn’t think there were Irish Congregationalists.”

“We’re not. Congregationalists that is. My mother said Father Murphy refused because the dog hadn’t been christened nor had Holy Communion.”

“Bound for hell,” he said nodding his head solemnly.

“As are we all. What do you do when you’re not in Church?” I asked.

“Like I said, I’m a web designer.”

“Right,” I blushed. He had said that. “Successful?”

“Very.”

I gave him the two thumbs up sign, “I’m a journalist, emerging enterprises, net-based businesses, telecom, stuff like that.”

“Is this going to be a real Irish-style wake?”

“Well,” I crossed my legs and considered the question, “I don’t know what you define as real. We didn’t stay up all night as tradition demands trading stories about what a scamp old Tim was, though I think my sister kept vigil over a bottle of Gilbey’s till about 2 a.m., however, food has been prepared and non-alcoholic beverages will be consumed. If you want the hard stuff you’ll have to go through my sister’s chest of drawers which doubles as the liquor cabinet.”

“I’ll come.”

Cynthia was right, change was that easy.

California First Times cont.

I stood with my baggage outside SFO International arrivals. Despite the diesel fumes trapped in the terminal overhang, the air in California has a wonderful scent, a living scent of rain and oak trees and wild wheat. Air in Tokyo, as much as I love the city, is a dead thing. I was awaiting the arrival of the pre-air bag Pontiac and my mother. Parking, even in the handicapped zone, and coming in was just too much perceived exertion for her so she just drove around and around the airport circle for half an hour or so after my plane’s scheduled arrival.  No joyful family reunions at the exit doors for Sacha.

Eventually my mother pulled up, handing me the keys so I could unlock the trunk and stash my bags. I slid into the front seat, gave mom an awkward kiss and lied that I was happy to see her. There were times when I hated myself for being self-conscious whenever I was with my mother in public. Half of me said it wasn’t supposed to matter how people looked on the outside but the other half, the one in the little short red skirt and very little else, stabbing at the air with a pitchfork, snarled “Bullshit!” Despite the blue license plates mom was not handicapped – physically. She was horribly fat because she had emotional problems up to her bulging wrinkled brow and the only therapist she would consult was Colonel Sanders. I hated how people stared, wondering why this slim, well-dressed woman with the Vuitton luggage and Chanel sunglasses was getting into a pre-air bag Pontiac. It was embarrassing goddamn it and I just couldn’t seem to come to terms with my mother’s degeneration from the fashionable playgirl of my childhood to this. In California, I thought placing my suitcases into the trunk, if you were going to have a neurosis you should at least have the courtesy to your family of choosing one that keeps you thin.

My mother pointed out various buildings to me on the way home. Does anyone else’s mother do this? In case in my absence across the vast and turbulent waters of the Pacific I might have forgotten the turn for the Hillsdale Mall, the Sheraton that looks like a castle, Mervyns, and other fascinating landmarks on the way to our turn-off at Embarcadero.

“We’ll just pick up Brian and Violet and drive over to the Vet’s. I know you must be anxious to see poor Timmy.”

Actually what I was anxious for were two Extra Strength Bufferin and a double espresso over ice.

We pulled into the old homestead, a white Eichler, real collectors item for software millionaires lusting after 60s architecture. Mom’s three bedrooms was worth at least 1.5 million in the current market. Fools. No one who has ever lived in an Eichler would  want another. Read from “Bauhaus to Our House” by Tom Wolfe http://www.tomwolfe.com/Bauhaus.html for the all the dirt but the gist is these type of houses were designed with the East German proletariat in mind who needed neither light – hence small windows and dark overhangs – nor privacy since there is no possible way to be physically sick in an Eichler without every single person in the house and the neighbors knowing. It’s a humiliating way to live but people love them! http://www.eichlernetwork.com/

We picked up Brian and my sister who I think, was marginally sober, seeing how it was just 10 a.m. Her auburn hair was short and puffy just like the rest of her body – a side effect of cirrhosis of the liver apparently. Brian, her ex, was a pointless life form and if I had been a Vulcan I would have nerve pinched him into a bottomless coma. My mother continued to support him despite the divorce from my sister as the spineless toad kissed up to her shamelessly calling her Mom and offering to drive over to Taco Bell for Burrito Supremes and Soft Chicken Tacos with extra sour cream any time of the day or night.  Thanks to disability checks – since when is drug induced insanity paid for by the state? – and my mom he drove a Trans-Am and kept his wardrobe stocked in kid suede loafers.

The lesson I learned from this was that even stupid bastards can live well.

The hospital did indeed have my dog hooked up to tubing of Escher like complexity. http://www.mcescher.com/

Later in the waiting room the doctor brought out his collar, the black worn away with the years, little tags jingling. My sister and my mother reached for me but I backed away. I took it and walked out to the parking lot. He certainly was a stupid little dog but I couldn’t help it and cried huge heartrending sobs completely smearing my Dior Show Waterproof Mascara (they lie!) and Chanel pink eye shadow into great dark smudges. Damn it, I didn’t want to feel this way about anything anymore, least of all a brainless Lhasa Apso. Stupid dog. Stupid family.

After awhile we piled back into the Pontiac and headed for Baskin Robbins. My mother declared the sugar would do us all good. Fuck sugar. By this time I had progressed beyond the aspirin and espresso stage to needing a drink.

We sat at one of the tables outside, me clutching Timmy’s worn collar and they their spoons of hot fudge and vanilla cream.

“I’m going to have a memorial service,” my mother said staring into her double-scoop cup of pink and white.

“For the dog?” I asked, just to be clear.

“It’s only proper.”

This actually did not take me totally by surprise. As much as she liked anything without carbohydrates, she enjoyed funerals. We’re Irish on both sides and funerals are a big deal. It would give her a chance to interact with people other than cashiers at McDonalds.

“I’m thinking of having it at the First Congregational Church across the street. Very convenient for the wake.”

The wake?

“Mom, for one thing we’re Irish Catholic not Congregationalists and for another, the First Congregational Church is not going to have a memorial service for a dog.”

“Oh you know those Congregationalists, anything for a donation. Mr. Groom had a service there when Plume passed away.”

Mr. Groom lived three houses down and was pastor at the church, Plume his German Shepherd

“What do you mean passed away,” I asked. “When I came home at Christmas I saw Plume sitting in the front window like he always does.”

“They had him stuffed Sacha. You know those Congregationalists.”

Perhaps not as well as I thought, I reflected.

First times/California Flashbacks

It had taken some time to get over the shock of Thomas and his love hotel rendezvous. James was anxious to get together and to tell the truth I was beginning to like him. He promised to take me to the Roppongi Hills Club on the 51st floor of the Mori Tower and I was hugging that to myself in anticipation.

Thomas though, I would have to confront him and soon if I wanted Miriam to stay. She was having the movers in for bids next week. Pulling a ‘Scarlet’I declared I would not think about it today, I’d think about it tomorrow or maybe next Monday.

A few days before the Love Hotel denoument I had taken Miriam back to Natsu-san’s lovely gallery for another look at the crystal – and him. He was waiting for us, I had called to prearrange the time – and walked Miriam through the entire exhibition

After about an hour he sat her down in a little side alcove on leather chairs and got ready to serve chilled white wine. I manufactured a phone call and excused myself on business. As much as I wanted a wild night of illicit passion for Miriam and Natsu-san — at least at that time — I was having a lot of trouble – even with my hyperactive imagination – picturing it. She had never been with any man except Thomas. Never fondled, sucked, masturbated or inserted any cock but his. For a woman that is a very embarrassing thing to admit. A woman like that has no idea how to get a man not only into the bedroom but even to know if he wants to have sex or not, and most importantly with her.

I’ve met other women like Miriam and they are quite frankly terrified of wandering through the vast erotic unknown.

I remember the first time I strayed, the first time since my  marriage I made love to another man besides my husband. It was too bad the dog had to die for it. However in the aftermath I couldn’t help reflecting that it had been a worthy sacrifice on his behalf.

We’d been married six years at that time and for a year and a half we had barely touched one another. In fact the only time I seemed to solidify into a human being was when I stepped in front of the TV blocking his view of baseball or the news. The rest of the time he was either at work or on the phone or smashing away at endless emails and I was completely invisible.

Over the last few years his attitude towards sex had become stranger and stranger with foreplay going the way of all flesh, dieing a death mourned only by me apparently. The man became unable to get an erection except in our own bedroom and unable to reach climax until it finally degenerated into whole scale impotence. A fact that did not seem to bother him. WTF. What the Fuck? Right? How can anyone not want to have sex on a regular basis? My attempts to suggest Viagra, counseling, penile implants for christsake anything were met with silence.

 Finally our marriage had become like the highlights in my hair, touched up at the roots but basically a darker color underneath.

All form; no function.

I am a high maintenance kind of a gal and I was not making a lot of money as a writer. Enough but not a truckload.  I was neither young nor naïve enough to believe life would be welcoming if I returned to the US. What I really wanted – I was selfish in a different way then, I’m still selfish now you understand but different – was to come into an inheritance. I know, I know how could I cruelly wish family members to die to benefit me. If you knew my family you would wonder no more. 

I lived in hope that my mother and alcoholic older sister would somehow contrive to die at the same time in some sort of accident leaving me a happy orphan. A quick accident. No lingering. ‘Death Instantaneous’ on the coroner’s report. Preferably the scenario would play out like this: My mother’s stare would be fixed over the steering wheel, her heavy arms resting directly on her enormous stomach, he eye blink-blinking at the click-click of the windshield wipers. The windshield wipers would be on. They were always on.  I believed correctly or not that my mother’s depression was so dark in her own mind she believed the clouds had manifested themselves physically in the atmosphere and it was going to rain any minute. Thus the windshield wipers were necessarily turned on in anticipation of this event –barometric pressure and atmospheric conditions notwithstanding. In the passenger seat my sister would be either going to or coming from the emergency room in mom’s mistaken belief that falling down drunk necessitated a $400 trip to nearby Stanford Hospital’s ER for a prescription sober up.

At this point in my daydream, speeding down the 101 in her pre-air bag second-hand Pontiac with the blue and white California handicapped plates purchased intact from Mr. Wong down the street, the solid concrete wall of an overpass would leap out at them and mom, sis, and the California Department of Highway Construction would mix molecules. It would be such a satisfying resolution to two hopeless lives. I could inherit the family homes – one on the peninsula one at the beach –and go back to America forever. Leaving my husband to evolve into the perfect corporate insect he longed to be.

Unfortunately despite advanced age and cholesterol levels on the one hand and lack of sobriety on the other, the two remained damnably accident free.

What set my love life back in motion was a phone call. A phone call from my sister’s psycho ex-husband Brian. When I picked up the phone and realized it was him, HIM, calling ME, a mantric litany chanted within my subconscious: Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please.

“Um, Sacha, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

OH PLEASE!

Sacha? I’m, I’m just going to say it. It’s Timmy. Timmy is, oh gosh, he’s in a coma.” 

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh FUCK.

“Timmy? You called to tell me the dog is in a coma?”

“Yes, I, we know you’ll be shocked and upset.”

I was neither. Timmy was a 16 year old Lhasa Apso without a brain in his hollow head. That he had enough brain cells to even cogitate a coma came as news to me.

“Your mom called me up. She wanted me to help take your sister to the ER for a sedative. She was in hysterics. Your sister, not your mom. You know, after she found him. She was hyperventilating.”

I moaned, “Why didn’t you just put a bag over her head – preferably a tight plastic one with a drawstring?”

“What?” He sounded confused. Given the amount of acid the man had consumer in his youth and alcohol in his adulthood it was not difficult to confuse him. “Is that what you’re supposed to do? Your mom wasn’t sure.”

“So now you’ve told me.”

“Yea, yea. Your mom wants to know if you want to come back. Oh wait, here she is, I‘ll give the phone to her.”

“Sacha dear, it’s mom,” she whispered. This was a martyred little tone she used when she was forced into an action more strenuous than walking between the kitchen, refrigerator, microwave and TV.  “I’m sorry, dear, I just couldn’t face breaking the news to you.”

“Mom, it’s okay. I’ve been away from home quite awhile now. The dog and I are not that close.”

“Yes I know but Timmy was always your dog. Always. He dug that little hollow under your window to curl up in and he slept there every night. And it was always your things he used to take out and bury in the garden. You know he did, poor, poor little dog.”

Yes、the burying part was such an endearing trait.

“We have him on life support at the Vet’s you know the one on El Camino? They have  wonderful emergency care.”

It took a moment to process this. My family can be very strange but even this was a new level of weirdness. “You have the dog on life support?”

“Yes, the doctor says we can keep him like this indefinitely. That way you can fly home to be with him when he passes.”
 
I wanted to say, ‘Mom you’re crazy’ but what good would it do?

“We need you to come back as soon as possible Sacha dear. Not that I don’t trust the doctor but I would hate for little Timmy to slip away before you get here.”
 
I made a strangled sort of noise which she took for acknowledgment.

“Now don’t worry about the cost. I’ll arrange a ticket through United.” This was before e-tickets became the norm. “Here, your sister Violet wants to speak with you.”

I hung up.

Of all the members of my family, only Timmy had been loyal enough to lock onto the telepathic messages of death I had been beaming back home and kick the bucket—or nearly so.

Why not go? My husband was stretched out on the couch with his laptop watching baseball.

I stood in front of the TV so I could materialize into solid form momentarily. It wouldn’t last long, I had timed it with a stopwatch over the past few months and the longest I had been able to hold his attention was three minutes at a time. The average a mere 60-seconds before his eyes glazed over and the sales figure from work started running across his corneas.

True to form he said, “Move, I can’t see.”
 
“I’m going to the States for a couple of weeks,” I said.

“Why?”

I moved away from the screen knowing I would fade into nothing but background noise for him, a petite blonde buzz of not distraction but annoyance. I murmured, “Somebody died.” It was near  enough to the truth.

 The truth and I had never been the closest of friends anyway.

Spy Girl / Love in the Afternoon

“You go in after them and see which button they push,” I whispered to James pushing him to the love hotel entrance.

“What do you mean ‘which button’?”

“Christ haven’t you been to a Love Hotel?”

He shook his head.

“All the rooms are displayed on an electronic photo board. Below a picture of the room are two buttons and two prices: one is just to stay for a few hours; the higher price is for all night. Pushing the button alerts the clerk behind the screened-in desk to ring up the price, pull the key and flip the switch on the lighted number above the room. It blinks to show you that room is yours.” I pushed him towards the hotel, “Now go!”

He blinked rapidly a few ties at this rush of information on the nuances of the Japanese love hotel system, “Oh.” He said and trotted off.

He came back out shortly, “302.”

“Now we go in and get a room,” I pulled him along with me. Please god let there be one left.

Since it was still early in the lunch hour shagging frenzy there were still several rooms to choose from including one – thank you God — on the third floor. Oh yea, the powers that be wanted me to track Thomas.

I punched 310.

A little sign by the receptionist said, “No room if you cannot speak Japanese”. I speak Japanese just fine. I paid the clerk who BTW sits behind an opaque shield blocking out all but a view of his/her hands. Of course the same anonymity is not reserved for guests bent on shag fests since the lobby in every love hotel in town had several closed circuit TVs filming all who pass through their soiled hallways.

I had had several days of aimless wandering with Thomas and my GPS phone before striking gold today. It had been frighteningly simple to slip the GPS traceable phone into a side pocket of his bulky canvas business tote. In a black plastic cover I had found for it the thingwas practically invisible.

Around lunchtime Monday I had established an operations post in a coffee shop near his office, triggering the phone a couple of times an hour and checking where he came up on the map. Being your own boss had its advantages – I never had to answer to anyone for my time – and being able to take your entire office with you in a laptop PC had major, major advantages for fledgling spies like myself.

Monday and Tuesday he never left Marunouchi, his office was in one of the office blocks near Tokyo Station. Tuesday he went out with a bunch of friends from the office drinking, and drinking, and drinking at Paddy Foley’s Irish bar in the basement of the Roi building in Roppongi.
http://www.paddyfoleystokyo.com/
I went nearby to Gas Panic Club – not the Club 99/Cafe, the other that re-invented itself as a lounge — where I knew I could hang out indefinitely for 400 yen Cokes. Around midnight I got tired of being hit on by investment bankers and Nigerian pimps wondering if I was an eastern European hooker on the lookout for a new sugar daddy and decided I didn’t love Miriam enough to stay there any longer and went home to bed.
http://www.gaspanic.co.jp/*web_04out.html

The next day I spied the smart way, staying home and checking the GPS every hour so I could concentrate on finishing a story I had researched last week on the cell phone-activated lockers at Tokyo Midtown. Coin lockers at the complex were accessed through a touch screen (Japanese or English) and your cell phone: first you specify if you want to put things in or retrieve your stuff from a locker. Button pushed it asks if you want to use your cell phone or a bar code (that is accessed through the camera and bar code reader built into Japanese cell phones) choose ‘cell phone’ and a number pops up, dial the number and wait. The screen gives you your number back (with several digits blacked out for security) say ‘yes, that is my number’ deposit your coin into the slot (100 yen for the first three hours) the locker pops open. Put in your stuff, shut it and it locks electronically. Very  Midtown. Very Tokyo tech. 

Anyway, I just checked occasionally on his whereabouts which were much the same until evening when I tracked him down to the big Nishi-Azabu Gonpachi with a group of clients. They might have been heading to a hostess club or someplace but I wouldn’t be able to follow there and that wasn’t the dirt I was looking for. http://www.gonpachi.jp/en/nishi_azabu/home/location
Thursday seemed to be a favorite day to meet for affairs that and Tuesday. I speak from experience, here. Fridays were so often family or client nights out. I figured if he was going to play that would be the day. For my plan to work I needed a partner in crime. You can’t just walk into a love hotel by yourself and get a room, you need a partner. This was a two person job.
James from Pasadena and I had met for lunch a few days before. He had said he was looking for adventure on this trip. Adventure was my middle name or it should have been. I called him on his cell and arranged to meet in front of his office building Thursday morning.

“What’s up?”

With some hesitation I outlined my plan asking if he might be able to get a long lunch hour on short notice to accompany me to a love hotel.

Contrary to what I expected he thought it was hilarious I was doing this. As he told me later, “I didn’t look at it like a male/female thing but a best friend thing. If it had been my best friend I would have broken my ass to help him as well.”
James was turning into a stand up guy. Who would have thought a casual remark at Fujimama’s and my lack of morals could have brought us into a fledgling friendship. Not that it would last, they never lasted and besides he would be back in LA in another month.

Just as I had predicted, Thursday was the day. We tracked him to Shibuya– James was amazed with my spy toys — and I knew from many past experiences which group of love hotels in the hilly streets near Tokyu Department Store Thomas the man whore must be heading for.

As we made our way out of the love hotel elevator to 310, I pretended to take a wrong turn and gosh I tripped, spilling my purse’s contents right in front of 302. On cue James came over to pick the things up, from my pocket – I was wearing a really cute trench coat from Comme Ca, I pulled out the palm-sized cell phone activated spy camera I had written about for my tech column last year. God knows why these things were not illegal, there was no legitimate purpose to put something like this to. I slapped it onto the wall – my back to the corridor, I didn’t see any cameras but that meant nothing — with some white tape to camouflage it. Leaning down to ‘help’ James I slid the thin voice activated microphone and recorder into the corner, it was only a few inches across and in the dim light of the hotel hallways the thing was invisible.

Sacha, tech commando. 

We entered our room at the opposite end of the corridor.
I left the camera up and running, the batteries could go several hours. Service time at the hotel was three hours (only 3,680 yen a bargain!) which meant they would be out no later than 3 p.m. and that was being pretty generous. According to Miriam Thomas was a 20-miute kind of guy.

James seemed to be having a great time. Contrary to my expectations he did not try to come on to me, make suggestive remarks or watch the porno channel. Instead he found a samurai drama on the super wide screen TV and was making up hilarious dialogue for the characters. Creating insane sub stories to movies and TV is something my childhood friends and I had always done, I joined him and pretty soon we were both doubled over with laughter at our efforts.

I had my cell phone in my hand – the camera synched with it via software you install at set-up — and I kept glancing at it. A flicker of movement caught my eye at about 2 p.m. Someone came out with Thomas. Not the person he had gone in with. Not at all. Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus, Joseph and Mary. 

Jumping up off the couch I said, “We’ve got to go!”

He made a face, “Oh Sacha, no. What about our story? We haven’t resolved the issue of Sakura’s deep and abiding love for the master Samurai’s horse?”

I grabbed him by the sleeve, “Come one you!”

The cell screen showed Thomas a short time later leaving with the girl he had entered with. Giving them time to enter the elevator I dashed over to 302 to retrieve my equipment. We took the stairs, waiting while they cleared the receptionist. We didn’t have to worry about acting suspiciously this was a love hotel, it was impossible not to act suspiciously. I gave him a few minutes to clear the receptionist — all you need to do is hand over the key and walk away after all. Coming out of the recessed entryway I screeched to a stop, they were only a few yards away.

Waving James back I crouched in the arched entryway while Thomas and the woman stood, heads together. James took a separate set of steps and waited out in the street – most hotels had several entrances or paths through to the main entrance. Several guys passing by looked at me knowingly, figuring I was waiting for a client. One, a foreign guy approached and I hissed, “For god sake just fuck off!” with such menace he turned tail.

With a kiss on the cheek, Thomas and the girl finally separated walking off quickly in different directions. I counted to ten then hightailed it after the girl clattering up the hill in my Python pumps. (Japanese girls had taught me that it is indeed possible to run at very high speeds in heels it just takes the same kind of reckless ‘mountain biker on a rocky trail’ courage.)Doubling my speed I ran around and stopped dead in front of her.

“That was my husband you were with,” I said in Japanese. She made a move to go around me, her head down.

I said very quietly and very clearly, “Listen woman. I already took your picture, if you don’t want it on posters around Shibuya with the words ‘prostitute’ written across your pretty face you will stop now and tell me one thing. How much did he pay you?”

She looked at me, obviously mortified.

“I just want to know how much and you can walk away.”
After a few moments more she said, “10,000 yen.”

“Jesus girl,” I said in English to her retreating form, “You come cheap.”

Back at the foot of the hill James waited.

“Did you get what you wanted?”

Taking a deep breath I said, “I guess I did.”

Suite and spicy

I had taken my computer to my local Chinese restaurant. Hell I was going to have to take it with me everywhere even the bathroom over the next 12 hours if I was going to get my stories—two, count them two 1200 word pieces with identical deadlines –  filed on time. One was fluff, a fashion piece on trends for fall (I know it is the end of March but we have a three month lead time for this monthly).

I hade a large glass of beer, steamed pork and cucumbers in a spicy vinegar sauce and I was waiting for the bok choy and mushrooms. It was a little hard to concentrate as my mind kept wandering to my plan to keep Miriam in Japan. I kick started it last Saturday by a trip to Akihabara. There were a few, admittedly very few, perks to being a telecom correspondent. One of those small benefits was a subsidized basic subscription to DoCoMo, Au and Softbank telecom services – the three major cell phone players in this market. At the electronics stores I sleuthed out the GPS phones targeting terrified parents of small children. A spate of child murders had spurred development of GPS phones with built in tracking devices linked to the parents’ handset. You could actually remotely trigger the child’s phone to show his or her present location via a pop-up map display.

I decided to go for DoCoMo’s kid’s ImaDoco phone line (‘Imadoco’ means ‘where are you now?’) since the remote GPS system could be turned on and off by the parent I had a better chance of tracking my target without the batteries wearing down to nothing midway through the day. Since I already had a DoCoMo cell number it was matter of a few hours work and a few thousand yen to get the second line up and running, Miriam’s happiness was worth that and much, much more. 

I should have been tapping away at the more difficult of the two pieces – a story on how the marketing initiatives to bring TV to cell phones was being received – but my mind kept wandering onto my various plans of entrapment. I envisioned Thomas purple with rage snarling, “Sacha you bitch, you conniving, scheming little blonde bitch,” as I flung a handful of blackmail photos in his face.

My cell phone buzzed and I jumped.

I was in a corner booth in the back so I quietly took the call.

Caller ID said Bill.

Bill?

No fucking way.

Bill from Singapore who never shuts up but is richer than god and who had not called me in two months and who I figured had gone back to his air hostesses in Chicago and Hong Kong.

“Hello Bill、no fucking way is this you,” I said.

He laughed so hard it was a few heartbeats before he could say,

“Oh god Sacha, you are the only person who talks to me like that!”

“That’s cause I’m the only one of your women who is not impressed with your position or wealth.” Which was a lie, I was actually awestruck by how much money he had.

He laughed more, “I meant to mail you.”

“You liar, no you didn’t,” I said around a mouthful of spicy pork. “What happened? Did Janice’s flight get cancelled and you remembered our nights at the Conrad?”
 
Janice was one of his air hostesses. He knew I had other lovers just as I knew about his.

“Oh god Sacha, you are so hot, it’s true. Not about Janice – why do you even remember her name? No, about remembering you. You were like a $2000 hooker, I always feel I should pay you cause you are so far beyond any other woman I sleep with.”

“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment because I am not really sure. Besides, a $2000 hooker would let you tie her up and you know I won’t let you tie me up.”

“I keep hoping,” he moaned. “Would you let me tie you up if I actually gave you $2000?”

“You are such a dominating bastard.”

“I know, I know. It’s just imagining you tied up gives me such a hard on.”
 
He had a dark side, I’d learned. Actually he had told me. 
I remember he had been on top – it was the second time we made love — thrusting like mad and he whispered ‘Have you ever been hog tied? I want you hog tied with my cock in your mouth.”

I very nearly wiggled out from beneath him ready to flee naked into the luxuriously understated, deeply carpeted Conrad 28th floor hallway. I actually pushed him away when I saw his face change – in a good way – saying contritely “Shit I didn’t mean to scare you. I’d never do anything you didn’t want me to.”
 
“But you like SM.”

“I won’t lie, I do.”

“Not with me.”

“However you want it Sacha just don’t leave.”

That was then, this was now.

“Oh Sacha baby, can you meet me?”

“What? Are you in town?”

“I will be in a few days, I’m in Osaka right now.”

“Osaka? What are you doing there? You are so not  an Osaka kind of a guy.”

“I know, I know.”
 
“Look why don’t I meet you for a drink when you come to town.”

“In my room?”

“No,definitely not in your room. Let’s go look at cherry blossoms – if any are left by then, otherwise we can look at cherry leaves.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Last time you were here – a long time ago –you promised to replace my Juicy Couture heart charm bracelet because you were going to New York.”

“I know I haven’t forgotten.”

He had two teenage daughters – one in junior high, one in high school — and paid attention to fashion, unlike most men I had met. It always surprised me. I mentioned I’d lost the bracelet matching my big Juicy Couture gold chain charm necklace. He had immediately declared his intention to replace it. That was months ago.

“You don’t really have it. And if you do remember I’ll pay your for it.”

He laughed in that indulgent rich guy way. Like it was so cute I was offering him money. “No I have not forgotten. Can you meet me at the Conrad lounge at, say, 6 p.m. Friday?”

“I can.”

“I’ll see you then. Good night.”

“Good night Bill.”
 
Maybe I should introduce Margot to him. Bill’s libido always ran full throttle. No repeat of Taki. Of course I didn’t know that the first time we made love, in fact it turned out to be very disappointing.
We had gotten to know one another through my pimp of choice – Metropolis.co.jp online personals.

He traveled throughout the region coming to Tokyo every three weeks or so. That could work out very well I thought. No high maintenance, both happy to see each other when the occasion arose. He was probably just a dog like most of the other guys I meet but there are chases and chases. For a highly placed executive with an expense account the size of Montenegro it could be a worthy pursuit.

He, of course was all fine wine and roses, here’s a sample email;
“I have a distinct sense of how to build a relationship
with an elegant lady who is confident in her femininity, if allowed I will take sincere pleasure in spoiling you with sincere attention, humour and rich imagination. Let us come together and meet, allow me to wine and dine you at one of my favorite distinctive five star restaurants – I promise a memorable evening of sincere, attention, and indulging conversation.”

See what I mean, just darling. Of course I didn’t believe a word of it though I am sure he was in his own manly way being sincere.

My past experience with this sort of date had been a one shot deal (see ‘why all men are dogs’). He was only going to be in town three days so I would have to work fast if I was going to enjoy him this time around. Otherwise it would be several more weeks of seeing if he was worth a ride.

I arrived at the Conrad, in Shiodome. Dark, subdued, a quiet ambiance I liked immediately. No flash, just understated beauty. Bill’s hotel of choice. I had arranged to meet him in his suite and order room service — he had wanted to go out. There are only so many hours in an evening and I did not want to waste them. I will ‘put you at your ease’ he said to my suggestion. ‘We can close the doors to the bedroom so it will be like you’re just visiting someone’s apartment,’ he’d continued. I had my own plans about that. If I did  not have his hands in my french lace underwear in an hour and a half I was not the woman I thought I was.

 I felt like a call girl, I really did, arriving at his door sight unseen in  a chocolate brown turtleneck sweater dress (like I said, I really, really like sweater dresses), and matching brown suede high heeled boots with little brass rings on the side that jingled when I walked. In my hand I carried my classic quilted Chanel bag and a cute woolen tote  — stuffed not with sex toys like a real call girl but my iPod and little but powerful, rather like myself, portable speakers.

He opened the door, very tall, very slim in what must be a 5000 dollar suit. Narrow face, thin lips, high cheekbones, very short brown hair, bright eyes. He had described hijself as ‘Executive good looks’ and he certainly had those. And much more. Later he told me, hadn’t I noticed? One look at me and he got a raging hard on that pushed through his extremely well cut trousers.

I said no I had not noticed since, being polite, I looked into his eyes as we exchanged greetings not his testicles.

He ushered me in taking my coat and bags making polite noises as did I. Seeking to put me at my ease which was so funny since I was the one orchestrating the whole thing.

Then I saw the room.

The room.

28th floor.

Conrad Hilton.

Shiodome.

Tokyo Bay and Odaiba filling the floor to ceiling windows in the living room and bedroom both.

When I go to heaven I am going to ask God for a room just like that.

He had a beautiful bottle of champagne ready and waiting. We sat on the couch after I set up my iPod and started the music ordering steak filets from the room service menu. It took awhile for the food to come. He was upset as I was not drinking much but I simply cannot drink on an empty stomach and there were no snack items – besides him – and I knew exactly what he was longing to put in my mouth.
 
Well, you can guess the next hour – food, kissing, certain strategic items of clothing removed, a bit of posing to the music and across his lap so he could admire my trim self in garter belt and Victoria Secrets lingerie. More kissing and fondling to some great music from my main playlist – I had figured this for a full evening and that playlist has hours worth of good tunes. Maybe I should have played him differently, let him take me out, indulge in the long game, but I sincerely did not believe a word he said. Trust is not something I have in reserve for men.

He was a man that liked women. I mean really obviously liked them. He had paid attention in his marriage and with his affairs enjoying and admiring the little details that set women apart from men. His wife had not worked, he believed it his job to provide her with a beautiful life, women needed to be cherished and protected. I thought he was adorable, like a museum exhibit that had come to life. I knew men like him existed; I just had never met one. It was real Discovery Chanel Special stuff. The women he knew were ladies who lunch and did charity galas.

I was no less an oddity for him — someone who scrutinized business trends for a living. I don’t think he ever dated a woman who wasn’t an air hostess or in the hotel business. We were talking about Tiffany – I was wearing some silver pieces – and mentioned that after Avon bought them I thought the image became slightly tarnished but the brand had really transformed itself with some fun pieces and they had won me back. He was astounded. I knew the corporate identity of the brand and about holding companies.

See what I mean? He was just the cutest thing. 

I finally let him think he had turned me on enough to move from the couch to the bedroom and get him out of the rest of his expensive tailoring. It took long enough. He was a pursuit guy, no mistaking that.

He had a beautifully muscled body, perfectly sculpted like a track and field athlete – he ran a gajillion kilometers ever day. Obviously he ran those kilometers slathered in sunblock. He was alabaster white all over, even his cock. Honestly. I’d only ever seen one other man with a white cock. It was a little disconcerting frankly.

We were having a good time. Every once in a while he would reach over and take a sip of fine malt whiskey then lean over to put his tongue in my mouth. I loved the taste of the drink on his lips, smoky and dark. After awhile I had manouvered him into the position I know I wanted him to be in, urging the rhythm with my hands on his bottom tipping up my hips.

I was coming once then going on to twice when inexplicably — at least in my previous experience — I could feel him shrink and pull away. Looking up at him staring down at me, his eyes very dark.

I said with a pretty smile, “Usually when I make those noises men push harder.”

Things did not go so well after that. He could not get it back up, he made excuses, he wasn’t used to wearing a condom, whatever. I knew what it was – he had figured out — as I grabbed him harder around the buttocks urging him on — he had figured out just who had seduced who.

It was probably the first time in his life that a woman had controlled the evening so masterfully as I had arranged – all the while making it seem like he was in control. I had not come of age in Asia for nothing.

Still, I had not expected him to catch on. I learned later he was very conscious of when he allowed a woman to climax. So in the end he had the last laugh that evening. We tried for awhile before giving it up, a lost cause, and talking a bit about what was going on. He made the mistake of saying something to the effect that he hadn’t expected me to be so experienced.

I slid out of bed at that and still watching the beautiful view retrieved my bra and very shortly had my dress back on as well. I’d worn the garter belt and stockings and boots all the way through. I couldn’t find my underwear –a really nice black lace thong.

I said, “Listen Bill I like sex and have had some very good teachers. I don’t have to apologize for being a really, really good fuck. Now help me find my underwear.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he stammered coming to stand by me, his soft white skin pressed up against my dress. “Don’t be angry. , I just, I just…”

“You thought you were in charge,” I moved away flipping up the pillows trying to find my underwear. “You like to be in charge.”

“Sacha, baby, you are the sexiest thing I have ever had in my bed. You’re so flexible and your petite little body. I’ve only every been with tall women. I never knew what I was missing. And your music, my god. When we were kissing on the couch and those songs came on, it was the most romantic thing in forever. This has been such a great evening for me. It’s just you are more than I thought you would be. I thought it was going to be about lust but I started having these romantic thoughts and then I, I don’t know. Don’t go away mad. Don’t go away at all. Stay all night.”
 
“No.”

He produced my underwear. Holding it up out of my reach.

“Where was it?” I said trying to pull it out of his hand.

“I want us to be together again. Come back tomorrow. Let me keep your underwear and come back tomorrow for it.”

I stared at him, “You’re holding my thong hostage?”

“I’m going to sleep with it under my pillow. Please?”

“Is this something you do with all your women? Do you have problems with women who skip out on their underpants never to be seen again?”

He laughed, “Sacha you are amazing.”

He really was adorable. Besides it is so hard to find a man who appreciates the nuances of clothing and sex – especially one who understood the eroticism of sex in boots, stockings and nothing else. I love sex with stilettos or high heeled boots resting on the guy’s back.

Men only need to be naked to excite a woman.

Women, I believe, should be naked by degrees.

“Fine, okay.” I moved into the other room to pack up my music.

He hurriedly pulled on some clothing saying, “Wait, wait. I’ll walk you down and put you in a taxi.” Then he tucked my thong in his pocket.

I decided then and there to give him another try.

At the Chinese restaurant the bok choy and mushrooms had arrived. Oh god I was starving. He really wasn’t like any man I had every made love to. I kept coming back just to observe him, like an alien species.

Tokyo Midtown/Ugly Fashion/Pretty Women

Japanese lingerie designer Atsuko Kamio, the signature designer for Wacoal Dia was pulling out creation after creation from the racks and shelves showing us the flower patterned lace confections she had designed herself.
http://www.wacoaldia.com

Tulle petticoats, camisoles that seemed spun from spider webs, bra and panty sets, they made me tear up for someone really special to appreciate them. I was having a great time talking underwear with her; ah lingerie let us worship at the altar of its power.

Deidre and I were at Wacoal Dia on the second floor of the brand new, just opened, lip smacking, credit line draining, Roppongi Tokyo Midtown retail and dining, office and residential development that was set to transform Roppongi into more than the meat market/pimp daddy/watering hole it was and had been for so long. Deidre was a pal, a writer like me though much, much better connected. Peddle to the metal she could go zero to sixty through names of Tokyo based writers and photographers leaving me choking on the exhaust. 
http://www.tokyo-midtown.com/en/index.html
Actually if I wrote a bit more diligently perhaps I could drop a few more names as well as afford to buy some of the lingerie confections Ms. Kamio was so kindly showing us. Actually I had been very good and spent the day scouting for articles, chatting up shop staff. Tonight was for fun though not business.

After bowing our way out of Wacoal Dia we walked around looking at more clothing we could not afford and restaurants that we could if they had not already been booked several days in advance. That was okay we were happy to be part of the oohing and aahing crowd admiring the beautiful bamboo floors, warm wood paneling and the two storey tall bamboo groves in several wings of the big complex. Bamboo was the theme of choice here creating an ambiance so New Tokyo that jaded Japan hands like Deidre and I were impressed at the scale. Even the interlacing steel girders in the towering arch of the main entrance reminded me of bamboo branches entwined in a forest. A huge bamboo installation tumbling along one entire wall of the basement by Reiko Takenaka had held me spellbound blocking foot traffic earlier in the day.

Deidre wrote about fashion. Not the pop culture fluff I did as a sideline but the high end couture brands that made so many women look so very hideous for so much money.

“Deidre,” I moaned. “You’re always showing me clothing that looks like bags, generally in colors of swamp mud, or urine green. They are hideous . I mean look at this.” I pulled out a boxey  jacket in a bulky linen weave (I didn’t know you could make linen bulky except for ship sails), a style that was everywhere this spring. Reaching over she took it out of my hand and spun it for inspection.

We were at Chloe, which makes very cute bags but did not seem to believe women had waists. Everything at this particular Tokyo branch at least was cut straight up and down.
http://www.chloe.com/version_en/

She gave me a slightly pitying look and summed it up like this, “Women in the fashion industry whether mainstream, hangers on, or journalists like me, dress for OTHER WOMEN. We want those women to know that we know something they don’t or at least can afford it.”

Looking at the jacket I pointed out, “If you wore that you would effectively totally camouflaged not only the curve of your waist but your breasts. Dressing for other women means denying you are a woman effectively, yes? Am I catching on?”

“Right, thus illustrating my theme that women in fashion dress to impress with their knowledge, it’s other women who dress for men.”

“By other women I assume you mean me?” I pushed her hand holding the boxey jacket away, “I don’t dress for men, Deidre. I dress to celebrate the fact that I am a woman and most positively do not look like a man. There is a huge psychological difference there. I love the fact that I have breasts, a small waist and curvy little butt. I work hard to keep this body looking very much like a girl. Fashion trends are fun –you know I gleefully admit to being bourgeoisie – but only so far as they make me look thinner, prettier or sexier. Those are my three cardinal rules of fashion. Really you are so ‘Devil Wears Prada’.”

She laughed and we went to look at some equally flat leather lace- together shoes that Johan the Bard and his lute in Renaissance Germany would not have wanted to wear let alone a woman.

“Besides,” I said with a sly smile as we exited the store, “Which camp do you think is getting more sex?”

Midtown was so much better than nearby Roppongi Hills both of us agreed. This new development had incorporated cafes, gathering places for food, conversation or just people watching throughout the entire structure. One of Roppongi Hills biggest drawbacks was its lack of anything similar – of course given the wind tunnel quality of life blowing you from West wing to East you can hardly blame people for not wanting to linger outside. Just walking across the main plaza could be a hellish ordeal.

Backing up the complex was a wide open grassy park dotted with sculptures, cherry trees currently in full bloom, a gallery and restaurant.

Midtown was really an excellent achievement unlike Roppongi Hills which never failed to disappoint.

It was nine o’clock at night, we were hungry and most of the restaurants weren’t even open to the public today. We went to a place I had seen earlier that afternoon, Okawari.jp (Okawari in Japanese is ‘another serving’). The place had a bar and two dining areas spread out in a great melee of food and drink. We found a table but no chairs. Actually it was at the entrance displaying a beautiful bouquet of flowers and sample menus but it was a table damn it and I was desperate for a drink.  http://okawari-jp.com

Deidre turned on the charm and considerable Japanese skills asking one of the wait staff if he couldn’t please scrounge us some chairs. There is a lot of cache in being a foreigner here in Tokyo. Japanese can be very hospitable if you make a bit of effort. He went the extra mile for us vowing to find two chairs or die trying – or words to that effect.

I got wine for Deidre and beer for me but there was very little food to be had, locusts of visitors had cleaned the pantry out by this time. All we managed were two tiny dishes of ratatouille and a couple of marinated artichokes. At least there was plenty of alcohol.

We were chatting with one of the floor managers. While Deidre saved the table I had asked him if he couldn’t help me find some food. Lovely guy. We walked around the place talking to the cooks and begging and having a lot of fun together. He spoke good English and had great people skills. We didn’t find much in the end but I promised everyone we met Deidre and I would come back.
Bringing over a tray of tiny tidbits one of the cooks had put together he told us about Happy Hour from 5-7, with champagne and beer and what ever. We declined the tidbits – which were, after all, like 500 yen a bite — but said he would see us later this week for Happy Hour and champagne. “And food,” he promised me. “We will have more food then!”

Deidre was talking about the unhappy lives of some of her friends – why are so many women here unhappy? Japan is a cool place but it is romantically unsatisfying in some cosmic way, everyone has unhappy friend stories. Into my second glass of beer and the last sip of Deidre’s wine, we saw him.

It was Thomas the man whore.

Miriam’s husband.

With a woman.

A woman that very obviously was not Miriam unless she had a nationality transplant since yesterday and was now black haired and svelte.
 
There are many reasons why he could be out with a woman: colleague, client, whatever. He need only walk over and introduce her as such. No one least of all me, asks men and women to be monogamous, what you do is observe the proprieties so you don’t embarrass your spouse. That’s all I ask of myself or anyone.

I smiled and actually had ‘hello’ coming out of my mouth when with his face firmly and stonily averted the bastard walked right by pretending not to see me. That put the kiss of death on it. Our little table dominated the entrance. I was under a spotlight. It was bouncing off my shiny blonde hair bathing me in illumination, I was a freaking Caravaggio spotlight. It was impossible –especially in Japan where all us foreigners notice each other whether we choose to acknowledge it or not – impossible not to see me.
They could not find a table and the waiters were not as accommodating with them as they had been to us, forcing both to stand at the bar directly in my (and his) line of sight.

Deidre made a face and looked at me, “Wasn’t that Thomas the Man Whore?”

We all called him that when Miriam wasn’t around.

Both of us started laughing choking out, “I can’t believe it–”
“Walked right by–”
“What an idiot–”
And other words to that effect.

I’m not a hypocrite. I had not been true to my husband when we were married but that was only after we stopped having sex. Before that I never strayed. I didn’t care what Thomas did in his free time as long as he kept Miriam happy. Which he didn’t. In fact he was taking her away from all of us, forcing her back to the States so he could have more time with his bitches.

I pulled my cell out and flipped to camera mode. I was armed with 3 megapixels and knew how to use them. Walking over I stood right in front of Thomas. Right in front. He continued to say nothing. The woman looked at me curiously, delicately arched eyebrows drawn together. Flipping it up I took a picture of the both of them and walked away.

 I was getting an idea about how to help Miriam.

Spartans, texts and tears

“For gawdsake Margot, stop behaving like a child and act your paycheck.”I ran my hands through my hair in a nervous gesture I had never been able to cure myself of.

Margot had been furiously texting her lover all through our lunch. He had been sending messages back equally livid with rage. Margot, a robust 5ft 10 is not someone I think of who loses her cool in public but she was sitting opposite me at French Kitchen in the Grand Hyatt at Roppongi Hills with the tears running down her face, her fingers flying over the tiny keyboard. http://tokyo.grand.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp

We were on one side of what I thought of as the ‘catwalk’ — the entrance that bisected the place — and in glorious view of all the diners. She hadn’t been crying when we sat down or I would have requested a table on the terrace — despite the lingering cold.

The waiter was very concerned and brought over a warm towel for her to wipe her eyes. I smiled and then shooed him away.  The Japanese at the tables near us were equally concerned, the foreigners, mostly European, amused. I waived my glass in the direction of one of the staff. Christ I needed more wine.

The problem was her lover. It fucking always is, isn’t it? God in heaven. For all of us.  Besides not being sexual enough – we had danced around that issue a couple of weeks back at Fujimama’s following Noriko’s boutique opening – the real reason things were going from bad, to worse, to past tense as in ‘my former boyfriend’ is that he was just not smart enough for her. Margot was a biochemist, PhD biochemist, I have mentioned she worked for a huge European pharmaceutical company, but she had a rich and varied curiosity about cultures, art, society, individuals. It wasn’t that he could not keep up with her verbally, Margot spoke excellent Japanese, much better than me in fact, and switched happily back and forth. He hadn’t a clue to the building blocks of her conversations. Just the other night we had met up for a drink – not, not, not at Les Hydropathes. Though it was still a bloody Belgian place, this one called Belgo across from the police headquarters by Shibuya Station. I swear if I meet any Belgians I will shout at them “Stop building goddamn Belgian Bars in Tokyo!” They must put something in the beer that keeps certain susceptible people – mostly Europeans of my acquaintance– coming back. What really amazes me is I have not met one Belgian at either of these places. They probably all go to the Irish pubs which is where I would rather be as well.

Lisa, Margot, Me, and Margot’s man Taki were together. We gal pals usually did not bring men along on our outings; there was an unspoken agreement that if at all possible meetings be girl only. She had asked though and we could not think of a nice way to say no. Don’t you hate that?

We were joking about the Spartans –Sparta is very much in vogue due to the film “300”’s huge and unexpected success.
Margot and I were raving on about the film. I had been in LA just recently and seen it in Pasadena (of all places) and Margot had apparently watched a highly illegal bootleg from the Internet. We were explaining to Lisa about the insanity and inherent cruelty of Spartan society plus its overwhelming Gayness.

“Jesus,” I laughed. “In the Spartan army ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ would have applied to straight guys sneaking off to have sex with women.”

We all roared.

Except Taki.

Margot did some smooth translating of our talk just in case he hadn’t understood, though he spoke excellent English.

Lisa said 300 sounded nearly as Gay as Troy.

“Ohmygod!, Much worse!” I said.

 We all laughed more.

“What’s Troy,” asked Taki.

“You know,” I said quickly. “The movie Troy with Brad Pitt as Malibu Achilles and Orlando Bloom as Trojan Barbie?”

Margot was doubled over with laughter.

Taki looked blank.

“Troy. The Trojan War. The Trojan Horse,” I added,
“Trojan condoms…”

Taki gazed out blankly from his black brown eyes. He was good looking, a little shorter than Margot. High cheekbones accentuated by his close-cropped hair and fashionably short beard and moustache– sort of like several more days growth than Jack on ‘Lost’.

Margot said ‘Trojan Horse’ in Japanese it was I don’t know, something, something ‘Makiba’.
 
Taki said again, “What’s the Trojan Horse and why was it in Sparta?”

You know it wasn’t like Taki was a moron Margot had picked up solely for his sexual prowess. He worked in international acquisitions for a huge Dutch investment firm. I guess as long as his acquisitions did not involve history, art or culture then it was two thumbs up for the man.

We had all been brought up politely so no one stood up and shouted ‘you fecking idiot, you make 100 million dollar deals for your company how can you not know what the Trojan Horse is?’ Even though I know I wanted to.

Instead there was the smallest heartbeat of a pause in the conversation before Lisa asked him if he had seen any films he liked recently. I could tell Margot was appalled.

I know. You don’t have to say it. We are all elitist snobs. I admit it. It comes with the college education and the ex-pat lifestyle. Whatever business you are in, if you are in the global marketplace you meet a lot of smart people and you had better damn well be smart yourself to keep up with the conversation or  you would find yourself making small talk with the maid in the kitchen.  Ah but what about Miriam, you might be thinking. Miriam was a ‘homemaker’ and could cook like a Kitchen Goddess. When they entertained people from the office everyone was much to busy stuffing their mouths with her excellent meals to be concerned about IQ levels.

Margot and Taki had been together two years now. Ignorance of the Trojan Horse is not break-up material, you might think. Not something to end a relationship over. Who gives a fuck about Trojans or Spartans?  Well, Margot was French. The French like to argue and talk and expect you to keep up your end of any encounter or they grind you into the ground. Frankly I never had understood what she saw in him but that’s often the case with your friends’ partners isn’t it?

So there we were at the very overpriced French Kitchen the day after she had picked up her toothbrush, La Prairie moisturizers, Chanel compact, various undergarments and cleared out of Taki’s apartment. They didn’t actually live together; they sort of vacationed at each other’s places. It was not going to be an amicable split.

Waving the wait staff person back I cancelled the wine order and asked for the bill. A  short time and 7000 yen later I steered Margot still crying and texting madly out of the Hyatt and into the main plaza area of Roppongi Hills over by the giant steel spider – that horrific sculpture dominating the entire plaza and stood her under it.

“Why are we here,” she growled. She hadn’t finished her Poisson du jour when I pulled her out of the restaurant but she’d already over-salted the dish with her tears.

I said, “Since I am sure you are going to go all black widow on me I thought you might as well stand here and absorb spider vibes.”

“What do you mean going black widow, what are you talking about Sacha?” Though with her accent it sounded more like: ‘whadddyuumeengoiinngblackweedooow…’ all slurred together. At least she hadn’t said, “wwhadddyuumeengoiinngblackweedoooow… Sacha you bitch.” Which always comes out very clearly for some reason.

The wind was howling through the steel and concrete black hole tunnel the Mori Tower had created with the high rises. My hair kept attacking me. Brushing it desperately out of my lip gloss I said, “My darling Margot you have been crying and texting for over an hour now, plus you look very menacing and remember how you put Maurice in the hospital? I didn’t want you to leap up and start throwing plates at the wall.”

That’s actually how we met. Not because she threw plates at me. Because she had thrown them at someone else. We shared the same lawyer and met in his offices.

She had brained her then husband Maurice after being informed by one of the secretaries at his company that he was sleeping with the receptionist and the translator and, I believe, his boss’ secretary. There may have been more but I lost count. I don’t know about the rest of the world but office politics are much better at sleuthing secrets than any private detective agency, at least in Japan.

Maurice collected Japanese pottery. Really pretty expensive Japanese pottery from places that seat you, bring tea and cakes and unwrap the pots, bowls or whatever from velvet lined boxes.  Margot had broken every bowl she could get her hands on, a number of the more valuable ones over his head. Luckily they had been married in Japan, not France so they were not bound by arcane French divorce laws over the settlement. Besides Maurice was having trouble with his short term memory if not his conscience and wasn’t quite sure why he was being divorced. The pain medication made him very mellow which had been an added plus.  He was also sleeping with his lawyer (a woman), my lawyer told me, and she apparently wanted the divorce sewn up neatly and quietly and Margot — who is very pretty — firmly out of the picture.

I was going through my own divorce when we met. Lawyer/client confidentiality was apparently a very Western concept because he told me all about her divorce and I am sure, shared all the juicy details of mine with Margot. She brained her husband for being too highly sexed. I ditched mine for not being sexy enough. We were so simpatico very soon she was an integral part of the group.
“Really Margot, you have been talking for three months about ditching Taki. You have said again and again,” (and again and again and again…) “How he just wasn’t smart enough for you, that you were carrying the whole relationship and he couldn’t relate to you.”

She practically snarled, “So what, maybe I didn’t mean it. Did you ever think of that?” She tried to snap her fingers under my nose but they were so numb from texting they just sort of cramped in mid-snap. Instead she waved them around in front of my face in what she hoped, I am sure, was a sarcastic manner.

“Margot, you have been behaving very unlike a woman with a PhD in biochemistry, a six figure income and  balls — metaphorically speaking – the size of Michelin tires.”
 
Her face scrunched up and she looked very unhappy.

Oh Jesus, I had said too much.

“But I don’t want it to be over.” The tears flowed anew.

“Because you still love him?” I asked incredulously.

“No Sacha don’t be so stupid. Because I don’t want to have to find another steady man. Not again.”

Well there was no answer for that. None at all.

I rammed my head against that wall sometimes once a month it felt like. That charming pathological aversion to any sort of possessive relationship I had developed from being married to my ex condemned me to a series of short term – though no less sexually exciting – affairs.  I was always on the hunt for the next guy.

Poor Margot. I might be used to this but I was damned if I could be so sanguine about her. Why couldn’t Taki be horny enough and smart enough?

4400 reasons to go out/ Pt.2

4400 reasons to go out/ Pt.2

I was talking Cricket World Cup with a tall blonde Englishman in his shirtsleeves, Robert. Over bites of shrimp we traded adjectives about the upsets in the Pakistan and Indian teams, the triumph of the Irish, betting scandals, the murder of the Pakistan team coach and the probability that Australia would take it all. I had yet to make it over to the gathering buzzing around the artist here at Natsu’s gallery. We’d been talking about soccer first with a really adorable buzz-cut little round Frenchman, no taller than me who was saying bitterly he would never forgive Zidane for his behavior at the World Cup last summer.

“Never!”

We had chatted more about the poor level of play at last years matches – I had been in Frankfurt for several Games and had scored tickets to the Final in Berlin through my Ex — before the Frenchman went in search of beer and talk changed to Cricket.

I was really enjoying talking with Robert. I liked discussing sport with men, it always made them relax. They are delicate creatures and frighten easily – though it’s supposed to be the other way around, isn’t it. Talking about sport with a woman was lovely for them as it combined two obvious interests.

Formerly I did not have the respect for Cricketers I do now. I was dating a rough and tumble British fellow from the Midlands who reminded me of Sean Bean in his gangster roles. Despite the tough demeanor and swagger he was actually very kind and a tireless lover. During pillow talk he told me all about his cricket days showing me the stitches in his scalp where he been bowled over literally by the ball. That was when I began to follow international cricket. Being Irish American of course I root for the fledgling Irish Cricket team.

I should probably move on though. Is it just me or do other people find it difficult at social events to figure out how long to talk to someone you’ve just met?

Of course I had another problem. Groups of people at parties terrified me. Not all the time, but sometimes. None of my friends could believe I had a low key social anxiety disorder — not somebody who liked casual sex as much as I did.

It was true, though, the anxiety disorder not the sex, though that was true too….

I remember years ago hiding in the bathroom at the American Club or the Okura Hotel or the Imperial trying to get the courage to walk into yet another luncheon sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce. I was okay once it was time to sit down at the table, slip into introductions and shop talk. I have a lot of confidence in my work and when there’s an entrée, like mass introductions or a press conference, I am fine. It’s just inserting my small self into large unknown groups of people in that limbo time where everyone is standing around.

Sometimes when I just couldn’t bear it I would pretend I had a call on my cell phone and have imaginary conversations until they started to drift to the tables. God I hated myself when I did that.

I was doing pretty well tonight, probably because I knew I could go hang out with Miriam and meet people she was talking with.
Speaking of Miriam. I excused myself reluctantly from the Englishman and walked over to hear her telling an extraordinarily filthy joke about an ant and an elephant.

She must have had more champagne. Once that woman had alcohol in her you never knew what was going to come out of her mouth.
Thomas said they went everywhere at least twice, ‘once to visit, the second time to apologize’.

The artist was from Iceland originally, though now living in Copenhagen.

After the joke she asked, “So tell me, do people live in houses in Iceland?”

Oh god, I thought, here she goes. Her understanding was not great, as I have said. Miriam’s solution to this lack of knowledge was to ask people she met questions about themselves and where they came from. For a child these would be very understandable questions. In an adult who did not – at least obviously — look like a graduate of Special Education, they were, ‘odd’. And since she inevitably forgot half of what any one told her within about 15 minutes – less depending on her blood alcohol level –the conversation could become difficult.

With a slightly frozen smile the artist said, “You mean as opposed to living in caves?”

“You don’t really have cave houses do you? “

Everyone laughed, somewhat nervously.

Miriam laughed too, “No I mean what sort of houses do you live in?”

“Houses with roofs,” said the artist. “Roofs, walls, eletricity, all that.”

I couldn’t bear it and stepped over to admire one of the pieces, all the colors of the sky and ocean flowing in a huge circular, cavernous, bubbly whirlpool. It was so beautiful I wanted to bend time and space and just mix my molecules with the colors. There was nothing brown in it that could be interpreted to be a whale so I was okay.

Natsu stepped over and I said all the appropriate things about the exhibition and the gallery.

He glanced at Miriam with a look that I can only say was ‘enraptured’.

“Your friend is very charming.”

I gave a nervous glance back hoping the artist wouldn’t pick up the sculpture and brain her with it. Some people loved her artlessness others did not. “Isn’t she though?” I said smiling hugely. “You know, Natsu-san, there are so many people here tonight, it’s wonderful for you but perhaps Miriam could come back and look more closely at the pieces on another day? To really appreciate them.”

Oh yea, I was pimpin’ for Miriam. Pimp Daddy Sacha.

“That sounds like a good idea. Besides I believe each time you view these pieces they have some new color or angle to delight you.”

His English really was phenomenal – International School-good or perhaps he grew up overseas. I would ask when he was not so preoccupied playing host.

“I agree, I just want to swim inside the huge blue spiral there,” I pointed to the piece I had been contemplating.

“I feel the same way,” he laughed making a diving motion. “Jump into it!”

A woman approached and said something softly to him in Japanese.

“Will you excuse me?”

“Oh Natsu-san,” I put my hand on his arm. “Maybe I could have Miriam call you and see when it would be convenient to come by?”

Nodding he said, “That would be very nice.”

Score for Pimp Daddy Sacha.

I’m not exactly sure what I expected to happen, maybe I just wanted a little excitement for Miriam before she returned to America, something just for her. Something that was not battery powered.

She had dragged me off to look at sex toys last week and that was without a drop of alcohol in her system. She rang my doorbell at 10 in the morning and asked, “Sacha, do you know where any sex shops are?”

I think I used a very Japanese expression “Ha?” Which translates to ‘Say what??!!’

“Sex shops,” she said again standing there all cute and plump, her auburn highlights shining in the morning sun. “I don’t know where any are.”

“I’m not surprised. One, that you don’t know where any are and two, because they aren’t exactly on every street corner. Anything particular you’re searching for Miriam?”

“A dildoe.”

There she is standing in my front doorway asking me if I know where to buy a dildoe.

I took her arm, pulled her inside and shut the door. “Funny you should ask. I think the best place to go is Don Quijote’s in Roppongi.”

She was not familiar with the retail mayhem that is the 24 hour shopping chain Don Quijote – the company spells it that way to avoid any copyright infringement. Donki (as everyone calls it) http://www.donki.com/index.php has the selection of a superstore compressed into tiny aisles crammed nearly ceiling high on several floors with everything priced way below other places. I went there to buy cute underwear – they have a large stock of tie-on thongs, a personal favorite — priced at only 780 yen (try 2000 yen at lingerie shops) plus pretty stockings for garter belts, etc. again at half price. I also knew they had a large erotic play section — a given since Roppongi was home to many hostess bars, strip clubs and East European prostitute rings run by very large Nigerian men.

“I need to go to Shibuya, though,” she said. “I have to pick up some gifts for Liz’s friends to thank them for the going away parties. At Body Shop, I thought.”

Body shop was practically across the street from Donki.
The problem with the sex toy section at Shibuya was that it stood on the second floor, in the main aisle in front of god and everybody.

Miriam didn’t mind. She had that Gaijin ex-pat mind set that Japan was just sort of BGM (background music) to her life, what others saw her doing did not really matter because they were not really there.

She was totally in to it from the moment we arrived, taking the dildoes down – the samples in their see thru plastic packages — and asking me questions about them.“Ooo, look at this,” she pointed to an odd protuberance midway up one neon purple sample.

I said it looked like the ovipositer from ‘Alien’.

She turned the box over in her hand, “Can’t you switch them on.”

“No,” I sighed. Thank god.

She just kept taking them down and looking at them and commenting on each. The rest of the customers and staff were enjoying this endlessly. Two foreign women chatting in the sex toy section. Made their day, we did. One guy kept cruising back and forth in my peripheral vision, just sort of randomly piling things into his shopping basket so he wouldn’t have to leave. The actual dildoes were in small boxes and wrapped in non-descript paper so customers could take them down to the cash register without total character disintegration.

“Sacha, what are those?”She pointed to the portable vaginas.

The man looking at jigsaw puzzles – he was very absorbed in them — directly behind us, made a small choking sound.

I said, “Those are for men. They simulate the real thing.”

“You’re joking.”

“No, very common. They can be quite expensive. High end models, pardon the pun, are actual casts of porn stars’vaginas.”

“No, really? Oh my goodness.”

In the end she declared most of the dildoes were too small or too oddly shaped – I couldn’t argue with her there. Perhaps it was in deference to Japanese men’s size, or lack thereof. And so we left for the Body Shop, much to the disappointment of everyone on the second floor.

Natsu the gallery owner was not battery powered plus he was very charming. Whether he was big enough I could not say but at least he was biological and interested.

4400 reasons to go out

4400 reasons to go out

I was stretched out on the bed, my computer balanced between my open knees because I couldn’t be bothered to rest it on a pillow though the bed is littered with them. I had season 2 of the 4400 on the DVD player as background while I worked on a story about yet another lineup of cell phones – virtually indistinguishable from the previous lineup. I didn’t really like the 4400, I just wanted something in English in a format that would not drive me screaming to bounce off the walls while I pulled this stupid article on phones together. Something that wasn’t Jag or MacGyver or Nip and Tuck or any of the other mind numbingly boring series they broadcast in English on cable here.

Speaking of mind numbingly boring, I’d had lunch with a famous foreign photographer the other day who said his favorite TV series was ‘Jag’ I nearly choked on my Brazilian barbeque. That and Walker Texas Ranger are one of a small group of horrific shows that seems to show up on my TV no matter what country I am in. It’s like an electronic haunting. Jag? How could this photographer have fabulous aesthetics but no taste?

Anyway.

In the name of God, the thesaurus, and the holy ghost, I had used every adjective in the English language that could be applied to cell phones over the past year and half as a telecom coorespondent. There was just nothing left to say.

The Guinness jingle sang out on my cell phone.

“Hello Gorgeous!”

Miriam.

“Hey Miriam, how are you?”

“Fine, fine. I was wondering are we still going to that gallery opening tonight?”

“Yes of course, what time is it?” I checked my watch. “Getting dressed pretty soon shall I ring your doorbell at 7?”

“That would be great. Isabelle is at one of her little friends, Katy is having a sleepover here and Liz is going out for another going away party.”

Liz is going out to get wasted in Roppongi, is what I thought. A few months ago I would have said ‘to get wasted and have random sex with sailors’. After several long months of family therapy regarding her behavior Liz had decided she was a lesbian and now she was only interested in touching girls. This was, I pointed out to Miriam when she told me about various overheard conversations between Liz and other girls in her class, an improvement.

“At least you don’ｔ have to worry about her getting pregnant,” I had said.

“Great, you’re all set. See you soon.”

Screw the cell phone lineup.Time to decide what to wear.

Luckily for us Thomas was on a business trip in Dubai from today off to negotiate gazillion dollar contracts for his company and $500 hookers for himself. So we did not have to come up with an excuse for why we did not want him to come.

With no Red Hot Chili Peppers concert to entertain us Miriam, Thomas and I had ended up at the Bamboo Bar in Xen the other evening on the 5th floor of the West Walk at Roppongi Hills.http://r.gnavi.co.jp/fl/en/a384153/ For me that meant an externally cheerful but internally awkward few hours. He kept looking at me. You know, look, looking! At least the food was good, though small compensation for the lack of concert going.

I had not brought James from Pasadena. I like James. He had potential. We’d walked over to the Starbuck’s at Palette Town adjacent to the Nomadic Museum after spending a couple of hours at the Ashes and Snow exhibit. I thought he might even be one of those very, very few guys who made me lean against the subway walls every once in a while and sigh. My current man, the big one, had me doing that. The problem with him was he spent most of the month tearing around the world for his investment bank employer. I was lucky to see him once every few weeks. A girl needs attention. With him I was mostly sighing against the subway walls out of frustrated sexual tension.

Tonight though was the opening of the new exhibit of glassworks at Natsu’s gallery in Harajuku by some European artist – who cared what his/her/its name was. That was not why we were going. We had met Natsu at Noriko’s Boutique opening and I could see how much he enjoyed talking to Miriam.

The days were counting down to her banishment back to the US in April – I did not want to think about that – and I was hoping some attention from Natsu might give her self esteem a small boost.

If you threw a duck into the air on Venus — forget the physics of it just imagine — okay, if you threw a duck into the air on Venus and watched the crushing gravity of that planet smash the bird down into the Venusian rock you would have some idea of the relative level of Miriam’s opinion of herself. She seemed to think Thomas’ man whoring ways were some how her fault. It drove me, hell it drove all of us, fucking crazy.

An hour and a half later we were each armed with a glass of champagne and a big smile. I had on a matte black jersey dress with short fluttery sleeves and ruffly hem. I paired it with my mock-crock stilettos, a couple of gold chains and two strands of pearls. Miriam liked very feminine colors and flowery prints in light airy materials. She looked very nice. Cuddly pretty, her eyes sparkling bright.

Everything was sparkling and bright inside the gallery, the lighting bouncing off the glass sculptures and cascading from the walls onto people’s faces. The center of the gallery was dominated by a bristling starbust sculpture the color of orange coral that towered up at least ten feet.

Natsu had seen us come in. He walked over and held out his hand to Miriam and then me to shake saying in his very excellent English, “Hello again. I am glad you could come!”

“This is fantastic,” I breathed.

Miriam nodded, “Lovely.”

Natsu bowed us towards a group of people gathered in one corer of the room, “Come meet the artist.”

I noticed the gallery owner was wearing a different scarf but still one of Noriko’s signature designs.

Sipping my champagne I followed slowly behind scanning the room for interesting faces.

Ashes and Snow

Ashes and Snow/dating pool/swimming with whales/

Ashes and Snow.

No, not an analogy for my love life.

You know.

Dead and cold.

Though god knows there have been weeks.

No. Ashes and Snow http://www.ashesandsnow.org/ is the title of the amazing Gregory Colbert photo and video installation touring with the Nomadic Museum now in Odaiba by Tokyo Bay and running until June 24th.

I was getting to know this exhibit very, very well. Not that it wasn’t worth several viewings. I had gone by myself one afternoon soon after it opened when I needed some time away from the computer and various deadlines just to think. For an imaginative person like me the exhibit hit all the right buttons and I spent several hours spinning stories in my head looking at Colbert’s mystical pictures of people and animals.

James from Pasadena was hightailing it out here by cab from the Shiroganedai offices of Sony Music to visit the exhibit with me. Again for me, first time for him. We were having a date. He’d called me earlier that morning.

Driving back from the Garden Center I was stuck in a patch of slow traffic. Family mart and 7/11s stretched down the highway an endless procession of convenience. I had been to the Garden place on the way to Kawasaki, there on Dai Ichi Keihin past the drive-thru McDonald’s. Out in this part of town the shrubs and trees had faded to the color of concrete and bleached asphalt, what greenery was left looked as though it was being absorbed into the Gray Collective its biological identity leaching out like a Borg conscript in Star Trek. My cell launched into the theme from my favorite Guinness commercial I had converted into my ringtone. Guinness was my special friend.

“Hello?” I said warily since the number was not on my list and it is against the law to talk on your cell phone in Japan while driving. I glanced quickly in the rear view mirror. No motorcycle cops in sight.

“Hello?” said a man’s voice I didn’t recognize right off hand.

“Hello,” I said again.,
“
Sacha?”

“Yes.”

“Hi Sacha this is James.”

“James?”

Wasn’t this just a sparkling exchange.?

“We met briefly at Fujimama’s a short time back, you gave me your card.”.

“Oh, James from Pasadena, right?”

“That’s right.”

I had liked him so switched on the charm.

“You’re still here? How are you? Any more thoughts on my theories on the sexlessness of Japanese men?”

He laughed, I liked his laugh, it was deep and throaty. “No nothing earth shattering. Actually I went home to LA for about ten days. I’m back now, obviously, and look to be here probably for a month and maybe more. I was wondering if maybe, um, maybe you could suggest someplace interesting to go? Me being a visitor here and all. I have the afternoon free today.” He of trailed off in what I had to admit was a rather charming manner.

Running at super speed through my head my little travelogue of ‘things to do in town’: temples/Harajuku/Shinjuku/3-chome/clubs/Museums/Asakusa/Onsen bathes/river cruises/Tokyo Tower. The travelogue screeched to a stop. “Do you want tourist places or pop culture or what?”

“It doesn’t have to be tourist stuff. Something, I don’t know, maybe quiet?”

“There’s a great exhibit over on the other side of Rainbow Bridge, It’s from the States but pretty cool. The venue itself is by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Ban Do you know him?

“Nuh uh..”

“He does amazing things with paper – not like origami and stuff – big things, pillars, houses. Very cool durable, strong objects you would not think could be constructed from paper. He did those paper houses for the Tsunami victims.”

“Sounds good.”

“Actually it was in LA a while back but maybe you didn’t catch it. The building is amazing you won’t believe how visually exciting metal containers, black sheeting, grey stone and paper pillars can be. The place is like a cathedral.”

Sitting at my computer I brought up the website, “Give me your email and I’ll send you a map of how to get there.”

There was the slightest pause. “I was thinking, um, you know, that maybe we could go together.? I know it’s short notice and all but are you free this afternoon?”

He wanted to go someplace together, someplace that apparently did not involve immediate access to food, drink or sex – which was sort of my regular pattern of dating. Personally I felt the only reason to go out with men was if there was sex involved at some point, you have your gal pals for everything else that matters.

Well, it could be fun. I had not been on this kind of date in awhile. What the hell.

“I have to be somewhere at 7 p.m., but I’m free until then,” I lied.

Actually the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert I was supposed to be attending tonight with Miriam and her man whore husband Thomas had been cancelled at the last moment. One of the peppers got sick. Bastards. And we had such good seats at the Tokyo Dome arena. We were talking about going out for dinner, maybe to Bamboo Bar at Roppongi Hills instead.. I was still feeling uncomfortable about being out with Thomas, over and above his man-whoredom and decision to remove my best friend Miriam to several thousand miles distance – there was the whole sex fantasy thing Miriam had told me after too many G&Ts. When we were at What the Dickens. Plus Miriam and I really just wanted to go out together so we could talk about him behind his back.

My lie to James gave me an out in case I decided he was no fun at all. If he was a great guy I might bring him along but that was doubtful. I preferred to keep my men and my friends on very separate planes of existence.

“Great, where should we meet?”

“Could we meet there? Would you mind taking a cab or the train?”

“No, I can take a cab. No problem.”

“Okay, tell him to take you to Odaiba Kaihin Kan station on the Yurikamome line, I’ll spell it for you better write it down.”

I did and he did.

“You’ve got my cell number; call me when you get across the bridge. I’ll drive over and park.”

“Great see you soon. I’m leaving now. That’s okay isn’t it?”

“Jeez give me like an hour. I need to drop off some plants at my house, I was at the garden center. Okay?” I also needed time to change into something a little more feminine. I was in my Skinny jeans, v-neck navy merino wool sweater, layers of silver necklaces, big bangle earings, and white Lacoste down parka with the racoon fur trim. When I meet guys I like to wear a dress or skirt.

“Oh, okay, no problem.”

Driving like a mad woman home then on to Odaiba I managed to keep him waiting only a few minutes. We walked through the unimposing little doorway into the Nomadic Museum. I let him pay for the tickets since it was his invitation. I am no Feminazi and perfectly happy to let guys pay. They make more money than I do anyway.

Though it’s mid- March the day felt very wintry, cloudy with a chilly wind snapping at my calves. I was wearing a soft, fuzzy black turtleneck sweater dress that I know showed off my butt and narrow waist plus boots – the cavernous museum is unheated and freezing cold. Inside the boots I slipped my secret weapon, the little oxygen activated heating pads made to slip in shoes– which along with my Cashmere coat and gloves I trusted to keep some of my body heat inside. My lack of body fat looked great in clothes but left me prone to hypothermia if I wasn’t careful. Really.

“Tell me you’re impressed.” I nudged him in the arm as we paused at the start of the wooden walkway winding throughout the exhibition between the islands of grey stones and huge photo canvases of rice paper.

“Jesus Christ.”He gazed at the long nave, photos on either side with the altar way at the end broadcasting one of the two nine-minute films that were part of the installation.

“Jesus Christ,” he said again.

“Bet you never thought plastic sheeting and metal containers could be so awe inspiring.”

“Never in a million years.”

We slowly walked along pausing at every picture, going back to several. My favorite was the one of three elephants in the water and a woman in a sari, standing in front of them, the water up to her breasts gazes into the distance.

He had spent time in India and Sri Lanka – two countries I had yet to visit.

“The main film is 60 minutes long, I forgot to warn you,” I whispered as we turned the corner into the next hall.
His eyes got wide, “That’s like practically feature length.”

“It’s worth it though; I’ve seen it through so if you get bored just say so.”

If you come in at the beginning Colbert is swimming very artistically with a woman and manatees – I think, it could be a Dugong, I am no expert on the differences – and later in the film with whales. When the whale scene emerged I physically cringed, shrinking down into my coat.

“What’s up,” James whispered, his mouth close to my ear.

“For years,” I whispered back. “I had recurring nightmares I was swimming in a clear blue ocean, shallowish with dark rocks and overhead humｐback whales were passing over.

“Always humpback?” He asked.

“I think so, sometimes blue whales if it was really bad. Their giant bodies pressing me back into the rocks. I was so scared, not of drowning, because I could breathe underwater, but being crushed. Looking up I could see the sun shining through the clear water and I wanted so much to swim up to the surface.”

He edged a little closer, the seats were round flat wooden barrel shaped things of differing heights. Slipping his hand in mine he said, “Close your eyes I’ll tell you when it’s over.”

And I did.