Ondo San?

"Kondo San?" I asked her, before proceeding. She shook her head, smiling. She trusted me, and was probably taking the pill. Surely, however, she wanted the big and tall gaijin male to ride her rough.

It hadn't been so clear early on that she wanted to be ridden. At least, not at first glance. She'd caught me in a critical situation, at that crossroad, with a map in hand that was proving to be tragically useless. It was Saturday morning. The streets were full of people, but the only sounds I could hear was the trumping of feet and the noise of the traffic. No one was talking to anyone. And for some reason, no one wanted to talk with me. At least, not in English.

That wouldn't have been a problem, if I hadn't only just been starting the first steps of the intermediate course of Japanese language that I'd enrolled for, there in Tokyo. Yes, I had a good pronunciation, they all said. That is a good Japanese pronunciation for an Italian, with all the related handicaps; tonic accent, congenital indifference to the length of the vowels, etc. But I was not yet ready to use the language "operationally". In a bar, maybe; but in the middle of a busy road, not at all.

"Sorry, where do you have to go?" Said a voice behind me. Behind and a little below.

I turned around and at first saw no one, except a hand. As I looked at it I saw it was a pretty hand and let my eyes wander down the naked, slender arm, and then at her. And she looked at me.

Her age was uncertain, somewhere between 18 to 26 years at a guess, as often happens with the Asians girls. Her long, beautiful jet-black hair hung down around breasts which were well proportioned to the rest of her, with the tips perking upward slightly beneath her white blouse. Letting my gaze drop for a moment I noticed her dark skirt, which completed the look perfectly. Not just the cosplay of a schoolgirl, a Kogal from some manga, but something very similar. Or better.

In the manga that I had peeked, nobody smiled that way, shy but with interest. Or maybe, in those manga, where almost every character had large round eyes, worse than if they had been smoking... yes, THAT kind of smoke.

"Sorry, where do you have... to go?" She was repeating, her tone a little unsure as though she doubted of her own English language.

"Subway... Cikatetsu!" I said, remembering what I thought was the Japanese term. I thought.

"I can accompany you to the 'metorò' station. But, do you read ideograms well?"

"Hmm, no, not so much yet," I confessed.

"Well, then... Where do you want to go exactly?"

I had some addresses it would have been not proper to tell a girl (a 'sopurando" where poor strangers could have been accepted, and other similar places, you know) so I told her something more social. She seemed enthusiastic.

"Do you like photography? Do you know... Araki-san?"

"Yes, a bit..."

"Well, it's better I accompany you all the way. If this does not bother you."

"If this does not bother YOU!" I muttered, very surprised. She wanted to escort ME, to accompany ME all the way. How could I be bothered by that?

"No worry, it's Saturday, I'm free... My friends are on a journey abroad, so... nothing to do..."

I was going to ask her if she had a boyfriend, if she did he was a fool to leave such a girl unattended, but I stopped in time. It was not my business and I was in the land of tactfulness, after all.

"Where have your friends gone?" I asked, with a neutral voice. Friends, girls, beautiful Japanese girls. Where have all the flowers gone?

"Italy," she sighed.

I was surprised. "I come from there!"

"Really?" she wondered. "I thought you were American! Or even Russian," she added, giggling.

Yeah, my accent perfected on the vinyl records of the "Boss", noticeable stature, short blond hair, baritone voice like a Red Army choir soloist...

"No, I swear to God," I laughed, "I'm pure thoroughbred 'spaghetti'..."

"'Spaghèti'! 'Fettucìne'! 'Tiràmisu'! 'Cappucìno e Mascarpòne!'" she laughed, hands folded like a child.

"Your Italian is better than my Japanese." It was the truth, more or less: she had just erred a few accents and some double letters, but it was hardly enough to worry about.

"I tried to study it," she giggled again, "but it's hard to practice Italian, here."

"Is there not a course, or a school?" I wondered.

She looked at me. "School? How old do you think I am? I do not go to school anymore. I work. Not enough time and money to attend a course. I use DVD, but... " she shrugged.

"Well, as long as I am here... 'Io aiuto te, tu aiuti me'."

"Sorry?" she said, perplexed.

"I help you, you help me... Okay?"

"Maybe this is too much bother? 'Troppo... disturbo... "

"No bother, 'nessun disturbo'," I said. I started explaining here, in Italian, that I was on holiday too and had time, and it would have been a pleasure for me. It wasn't until she waved her hands in front of me that I realised her quickly I was speaking, too fast for her to keep up.

"'Yuk-kùri'... slowly, please... 'piano, per favore'," she said, a bit embarrassed.

With a gently sigh I started from the beginning again, telling her the same things at subsonic speed as she nodded.

"Okay... 'Ho capito'," she smiled.

"Well, then... 'Andiamo'. Let's go... "

She smiled again, and led me towards the nearest subway station. That is, back to the one I have left half an hour before.

When we arrived at the station, I realize that the "sopurando" I was looking for was close to the station. I saw the sign (in Japanese, of course) on the other side of the little square. Had I got off the station using the left instead of the right stairway, I had found it in a wink. And I would have passed that half hour between between the arms (and the legs) of a smiling, naked Japanese girl... For a price, of course. So what?

Oh, well, I thought. I will go there next time...

And I followed my nice guide in the subway.

I had heard that Italy was in fashion in Japan, and while we were travelling she confirmed it to me. Not only food, but music, style, design, everything. That was the reason why many people, especially young ones, were studying my language. Nothing necessarily practical, it was just 'cool'.

As we sat in the train wagon I looked around, seeing the people trying not to stare at us. Then I remember another thing I had heard.

"Aren't you embarrassed to be seen with a gaijin?" I asked her.

"Not particularly," She said, after a while. "In the small centres, in the countryside, it is something strange, even weird. Many people don't like it. But here in Tokyo... It's a metropolis, you know... "

" 'Nobody knows you in America.' "

"America?" She wondered

"West Side Story. The musical."

"Ah... it's quite old. I've seen it, on TV, when I was a child. I did not remember all the songs."

"Indeed," I nodded.

There were ten years, between me and her. Almost fifteen, maybe. Sure, this did not make of me a paedophile, but... Hey, I was NOT thinking to go to bed with that girl! Really!

"However, you're right," She smile after a while. "Nobody knows you, so... You do what you want!" she chuckled looking at me. Maybe SHE was thinking something weird? Keep it cool, killer...

We were going to an exhibition dedicated to a famous Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. It was some anniversary of his, and the exhibition was rich and well organized. I knew him by fame, and I was curious to see whether what I knew about his style was correct. It was.

For those who don't know him, and the Japanese culture in general, Araki's style could be puzzling, or embarrassing. Kimono-clad girls (not so clad, indeed), often bound by ropes, sometimes head down, hanging from the ceiling, with their most beautiful parts (very intimate, sometimes) quite exposed... and almost always with the faces not very impressed with the whole situation.

She too was looking at the photographs calmly, unflinchingly. That kind of bondage was a tradition in Japan, and held far fewer social taboos than in other countries. It descended by the art of binding and immobilizing the prisoners with ropes, instead of using handcuffs and other iron tools, since iron was a rare and valuable commodity usually reserved for more important uses. Swords, things like that.

It was a real martial art, frequently practiced by samurai, and became an erotic art as time went by. Usually only women got tied, with their own consent. It was not exactly sadism; pain was not the spirit of the game. Not a torture, or something physically dangerous, if all was done correctly. If not... well, it could be.

"Did you know that the works of Araki-san had these subjects?" She asked, her tone tranquil as we stood together in the gallery, virtually alone.

"Yes. I hope that doesn't make you think badly of me?"

"No," she giggled, "You are a man. It is normal that a man likes to see beautiful girls, exotic for him... And photographed with style."

And almost naked too, but that was self-evident.

"I am a bit perplexed," I said, looking around me.

"About the Shibari? The Kimbaku? "

"Yes, about that too," They were Japanese names for the bondages I had seen. "I know that this is traditional here, but..."

"It's a matter of trust. Not submission, not masochism, just trust. I trust my man, so I allow him to tie me so. I know he will not hurt me, not even when I will be at his mercy. That's the game. Do you understand?"

"And when the woman is all bent and bound, what does the man do?"

"He plays with her. He can kiss her, touch her, grope her, taste her, sniff her... spank her," she giggled, looking at me.

"Take her?"

"Eventually," she shrugged. "He can do to her what he wants. And she just has to let him do it to her."

"And if she does not want?"

"It means she has chosen the wrong man," she shrugged. "When you let a man bind you, you belong to him. You have to choose well to whom you want to belong."

"But if a woman wants a man, he can take her even without ropes. Couldn't he?"

"Of course, he could," She shrugged. "But for some people, men and women, it is less exciting."

"What can be exciting for a woman in all of that? To be bent? Bound? Immobilized?"

"To be completely in the hands of his man, defenceless, you can take it as a proof of love. I love my man, and I let him tie me. I put myself in his hands, like his prey. He can take me how and when he wants, do to me all he wants, hurt me, if he wants, when I'm bound. I can just let him do, anything he wants. THIS can be exciting. And he shows me that he is worthy of my trust. He plays with me, but he does not... take advantage of me..."

"And if he takes advantage of you? If he takes you? Even... as he never did before?" I asked.

I imagined a man bending her, tying her on all four and after some foreplay sodomized her, with some tools or with his own dick. She would have had no escape; the man could do it even against her will...

Maybe she understood what I was thinking, but she kept smiling.

"If I love him, I can accept to be taken. Even in, say, unusual ways. And that's where the fun is. How far will he go, knowing that he can do everything to me? All that he wants, I can't stop him. What will he do to me? Where will he touch me? Where will he kiss me? Will he beat me, and how, and how strong? I can only wait. I'm in his hands.

"He can even do nothing, just watch me, take picture of me. Of every part of me, even spreading my legs and taking pictures of my sex, if he wants. He can caress me as he likes, from my face to my feet, from my breast to my sex, till I come, watching me, shooting scenes of me as I lose control... without taking me, even if I beg him to do it. He can spank me till my butt become red. Or pinch me where he likes, and enjoy my wailing, without harming me seriously. And THEN unbound me and take me... "

"Unbound you and... "

"Sure. Many times, kimbaku is just a foreplay. A woman can get aroused playing the slave, feeling that strength, the power of his man on her, just as men can get aroused playing the Master. And when the man frees his woman, she is more excited when she makes love with him. And even if he takes her without freeing her, nothing bad. If I love a man, if I am aroused by him, I can accept that he takes me, no matter how. And if he wants to play, I can let him play. He can do as if he rapes me, he can even fancy to rape me, to take me just because I'm tied. But I know that it's not so, and that he takes me because I want him, because I accept him. It's a game. Do you understand?"

"And would you like to do it? Did you do it?"

"I never did," she shook her head, smiling. "Maybe I didn't find a man to trust enough yet, but if I would find the right man... Once in a lifetime, maybe... or even more... "

"And if this man is a nerd, about ropes and knots?"

"He could learn it. I could teach him that... ", she smiled at me. She had understood I was just so.

Since the ice was broken, I asked her more about the ideas about sex in Japan. I know that the concept of sin was quite unfamiliar there, as the Shinto considered chastity a madness, but I know there was the sense of shame. That is why Japanese never kiss themselves each other in the street, not even married and loving couples. Kissing is not a sin, but it's something too intimate to do it publicly, I had heard.

"Yes, it's so," she said. "You know, before the War, when they brought to Japan the famous statue of Rodin, 'the Kiss', for an exhibition, there was a real scandal. Not because the man and the woman who kissed each other were naked, but because they kissed each other. Someone proposed to cover the heads of the lovers with a towel. Only the heads, without caring of their bodies. But the final decision was to cancel the exhibition. The statue was shown to a Japanese public only after the War."

"I have heard another story. There was a Japanese actress who went to USA for a movie or two, and she learned some American attitudes... And when she went back to Japan, she sent kisses to her fans and the public from the airplane gangway. It's a normal thing in America, but she was severely reproached on the press, it was virtually the end of her career. They judged her as if she had shown her panties to the people"

"Oh yes, I know that fact too. It was a real culture shock!" She smiled.

We walked looking at the pictures silently for a while, until she stopped to ask me something. "Is there something in Italy the people are ashamed of? I mean... about sex, or something like that?"

"Well..." It was hard to find that 'something', at least within a heterosexual ambient. Kissing in the street? At your pleasure, provided that both agree. "Generally it is not advised to try and go to bed with a girl the first day you met her. And the girls are not advised to accept sex so early from a stranger. Both things give you bad reputation, you know. Bad manners."

I did not expect a reaction from her, but I saw her shoulders lowering and relaxing, and I heard a sigh. Or maybe a snort. It seemed that that thing amused her.

"So you should not try and go to bed with me, today?" she said with an almost childish tone, articulating the words.

"Hmm... no," I shrugged, spreading my arms a bit. She snorted again.

"Is it Christian... Catholic education?"

"I don't think so," I shrugged again. "A real Catholic should never try and go to bed with a girl, if he has not married her before." She chuckled again. I went on. "I think it is a way to show self-control. To show that you are not a... male chauvinist pig..."

She burst out laughing. She was definitely too young to know the origin of that expression, in the 60s, but she liked it. She turned around and pointed a finger on me, with a very, very harsh face.

"You male chauvinist pig!" she said. Then she giggled, coming closer to me. "No, I don't think you are so..."

We left the photographic exhibition and wandered here and there. The Imperial Palace (from outside, of course), her university, the place where she was working, a garden, and other places.

She was really well informed. How a Japanese university works (and how it does not work: an interesting insider view on the limit of the celebrated Japanese educational system), how her firm was organized (there was even a wedding agency inside, only for the employees, men and women), what they did in the parks (even heavy metal, but strictly by the timetable, and then clean up the square, please).

The evening came, and we were both tired, so I did not object when she said she preferred to go to dinner at home, alone. She added that the morning after she would have come to the tube station close to the place where I lived.

"What do you want to see tomorrow?"

"Well... a Shinto temple, if possible. I have read many things about that religion, but I never saw a temple. I can't imagine how it is. Especially inside."

"No problem," she smiled. "And after that?"

"As you please," I said, with no hidden intentions. She smiled more, wished me "Buona notte", (good night) and left.

I got the happy impression her smile was not just for politeness.

After that I spent a quiet night, without even wondering too much what might have happened if I had gone for it right away. Had I really missed some chance? No, for this kind of things it takes "orecchio", "ear", intuition, as with music. And as I thought back over what I had said and done, I could not see any blunder. I had been polite, able to speak about many things, funny, never out of tune, neither vulgar nor intrusive. In a word, perfect.

Yes, the questions about the absence of the sense of sin could seem a bit kinky (she could have understood it as "is-it-true-that-you-get-laid- quickly?") But I had stopped there. Apparently, it did matter more 'how' you did something rather than 'what' did you do. It takes style, style...

Seriously, sin or not, could I try and score, so soon? Kimi wa ecchi o shitai, I want to have sex with you. I didn't learn that phrase at the course, I found it on the internet, along with many others. But really, could I tell her that, toss it there, just so, d'amblet? And when? How? Where?

At the photo exhibition, too soon. On the street in front of the imperial palace, with all those tourists and passers-by, too indiscreet. On the Ginza, in the middle of traffic, too much noise, I would have had to shout. A little coarse, ain't it?

No. If she had agreed to escort me again, it meant that I had made a good impression as I was. 'Be yourself, no matter what they say.' She could invent a hundred thousand apologies if she had been disappointed in some way. But no, "Where are you going tomorrow?" She wanted to see me, to be with me. Clearly she felt at ease, not in danger, not forced to do something unpleasant, something she was not convinced about. It couldn't have gone better than that.

I did not 'touch' myself, not even with a finger, thinking about her. But I dreamed about her. A very eventful dream, and a very pleasant one.

Next morning she showed up punctually at the metro. She told me that before she took me to the main Shinto temple, she wanted me to see the shrine where she usually went. It's very nice, she said. And indeed it was.

I don't know if you know what a Bodhisattva is. In a nutshell, he (or she) is a Buddhist saint. Buddhism, like Hinduism from which it comes (like Christianity 'comes' from Judaism), believe in reincarnation and in the "karma". Roughly speaking, if you behave well, the next time you will be born better, otherwise, it will be better for you not to be reborn at all, because there is plenty of lives very worse than the worst human life, and what you get you get. No complaints accepted.

Incidentally, the 'non-rebirth', the cancellation of himself in the Nirvana is the ultimate prize, the goal of the game. No more life, no more pain (no more problems and nuisances, if you are not melodramatic.) But there's no hurry. After all, once you have enough good karma to keep being born and reborn beautiful, rich and intelligent, Nirvana can wait, right?