The Stage
for Kinky
She was either insane or insanely manipulative; that I could take on faith. She (and indeed, she
was
a she; there was a femininity to her that a man could not replicate) was a seeming quagmire of contradictions as well. A flirt and a floozy, a jaded 20 year old tomboy, a
bushido
practicing tigress, a pitiless mercenary, a Soapland volunteer, a kook and crackpot, a wounded child-woman, a daddy's girl, a swinger, a Japanese Anais Nin on acid, Murasaki Shikebu in Shibuya S&M club latex, a
shikan
teaser on trains, a daydreamer, a fantasizer, leader of her own coterie, and exhibitionist and narcissist, her own greatest voyeur..
Her intellect was never in doubt, and she'd use it to disarm others; to keep them off base, to protect the space around her that she found both so reassuring and confining.
She was also dangerous and careless, and could only lead to trouble. About that, I had no illusions. Each step closer would bring me closer to the heat, like a moth to a lightbulb, and she'd not only singe my wings, but pick my wallet as I fell, mortally wounded to earth. She was capable of murder; probably the thought delighted her. But it was greater than a mortal peril she posed; indeed, she inspired a certain madness in men,a hopeless, debilitating lust that quickly consumed them, ate them alive.
Was there pity in her eyes? I doubted it, before having ever seen her. But she was also a glorious accident of nature; her beauty and guile a sweeter siren and more compelling lure and trap than any other.
The mid summer air was languid and warm in Kabukicho; salarymen stumbled along Yasukuni Doori liquored up and in search of their favorite hostess club, blond Yanki boys incongruously clad in Armani suits line the walkway in front of the cabarets and massage parlors whispering into cellphones, Iranians selling phone cards, yakuza offering Chinese girls to suckerish looking tourists. The aroma was unmistakably Shinjuku; ramen and beer, with a faint urine afterscent. After all these years, nothing had changed, or at least nothing
much
. It was still trashy and cheap, threatening and edgy, drunken and debauched.
God love it. For if she were going to rob my soul, I couldn't have chosen a better locale.
Why she had even agreed to come was yet another of her serial enigmas. Not that it was easy to talk her into it; she thought I was weak, thought I was immature, thought I was sensually deprived. It was probably the utter randomness of the encounter that appealed to her more than any intrinsic charm an my part. Sex with a stranger, randomly generated by a computer, randomly selected like a number on a roulette table, a fish from the ocean. Less personal than a blow from one of the Thai hookers lurking in the shadows of the hotel row.
In fact, I knew not her name, had not seen her face. She went by the name Kinky, a misnomer I thought, as her hobbies had transcended any appropriate word or phrase. So, she was just Kinky. I wasn't even sure she would really show up until she did, an hour late, providing neither apology nor alibi.
Nor did she need to. In the neon bathed avenue, below the enormous SONY screen, tinted in the colors of the electrified night, she was every bit as beautiful as I had imagined. Her long raven hair shone in the headlights of the passing taxis, her dark brown eyes almost translucent. She looked at me silently, studying my face, appraising, calculating.
Then, with a shrug that suggested nothing more than "you'll do", she took me by the hand. Her hand was cool but not cold, her grasp light but not limp. And she led me towards the throbbing heart of the night district.
I had expected her to lead me to one of the nearby love hotels, or, more likely, the Park Hyatt or some other plush pleasuredome, but instead she led me, still in utter silence through a darkened alley, lit only by a single purple lightbulb over an unmarked steel door.
As we approached the doorstep, the door swung open, and a couple of salarymen bumbled out, a heavy stench of tobacco and alcohol on their breath. Behind them emerged whom I presumed to be the bouncer, a 40-ish crew-cut type with a barrel chest and a streethardened face.
"No foreigners!", he bellowed at me immediately, as soon as he caught my eye. "Private club!", he barked in heavily accented English.
Kinky then whispered something to the man and his demeanor changed completely. He gave Kinky an embrace that suggested more than just a casual aquaintence, and then he looked at me and nodded. "OK" he said, giving the same little salute the cabdrivers give me in Tokyo. "No problem!", he added, giving