My first visit to Japan, nearly half a century ago now, was one of intense enjoyment. I was interested at once as I have never been interested anywhere else. Almost immediately I grasped the main fact that the people were freer of morality than even the French. I meant to stay a month and stayed nearly six. I went all the way up the inland sea and began, I think, to understand that great people. I had good help from an English captain who owned the chief English newspaper in Japan. He soon became a friend and never tired of putting me right.
The first thing that struck me wherever I went in Japan was the astonishing politeness and courtesy of the people. To enter a hotel or an inn was a real pleasureeveryone seemed glad to see you and the waitresses were smiling with pleasure and delighted to do whatever they could for you.
Japan has been called the land of flowers. It is also the land of the most tender and passionate of women. The experience that brought home to me the truth of my last remark took place only one day after I arrived. It was with one of the pretty waitresses who, from the moment I entered the hotel, did their utmost to make my stay a pleasant one.
The waitress who served at my table in the dining room appeared the next morning at my bedside with a loaded breakfast tray. I had retired late, having talked far into the night with my friend, the English captain, and I had left instructions with the desk clerk for my breakfast to be served in my room at 10 a.m.
I woke up as the curtains were drawn back. The warm sunlight fell softly across my bed and a moment later, returned to consciousness, I was aware of the pleasantly featured young waitress. She moved across to me with the breakfast tray. Her smile was so real and her whole demeanor so charming that I broke out in English: “Your country is truly the land of flowers!”
She blushed prettily and set the tray in front of me.
“You understand English then?” I exclaimed delightedly. The day before she had not uttered a word.
“Yes sir,” she said politely. “Since we have so many English and American guests at the hotel, our manager insists that all the waitresses should speak a little English.”
I nodded delightedly. The Japanese were indeed a wonderful people!
“How old are you?” I asked.
“I am nearly nineteen!” she exclaimed.
“You are very pretty,” I said with a smile, hoping to draw her out. “I'm sure all the young men must be in love with you!”
“Indeed no, sir!” she laughed, bowing her pretty head. Never once did she indicate that she desired to leave the room, not by gesture nor by expression. This I found to be wonderful and interesting, as I was naked under the covers. This must have been obvious to her, for my chest was bare and one leg lay before her eyes. She was the essence of politeness. Of course my interest was aroused at once. I'd had a good night's sleep and my first vision upon waking up was of this pretty girl with the sun shining on her pretty, neatly starched uniform.
“Tell me,” I said provocatively, “is love forbidden in your country such that a beautiful girl like yourself has not a hundred admirers?”
She laughed and shook her head engagingly.
“Perhaps it's that you have no desire for love,” I went on. “Perhaps the young men are afraid that you will reproach them!”
Still she would not speak, but her smile remained and a soft light flickered in her delicate almond-shaped eyes.
“Come,” I said, “tell me the truth about yourself! Do you never long to have the experience of being loved? Has no man ever caressed you? Have you never given yourself completely to a man's embraces?”
“Oh sir,” she said, “why should you be interested in my poor life? I am a woman. That is enough. There is no secret!”
“No secret?”
“What is secret in a woman's desire?”
“And in her body?”
“It is a body, like any other. If there is any mystery, it is in a woman's soul.”
“Will you prove it to me?”
“How?” Her dark eyes flickered softly and there was a smile on her delicate, poppy-red lips.
“By showing it to me of course!” I said with a smile.
“Sir,” she said gaily, “you can see women any day in our country, in the public baths, and in the country districtseven on the streets!”
“That is all very well,” I said, “but it is your body I want to see. Will you show it to me?”
She hesitated.
I laughed. “You see? And now I shall not believe a word you have said!”
Imagine my surprise when, without a word, she began to undress before me! A moment later she was standing, young, sinuous, radiant, and naked before me. Her body was perfect, the breasts small, firm and round with light brown nipples no bigger than raisins, her thighs slim and full at the same time, and her buttocks firm and poised tremulously beneath her narrow waist. I did not need to ask her to turn this way and that so that I might examine her more particularly. She appeared to realize intuitively that I wished to have a glimpse of her from all angles. Thus she posed for me, first facing me and then with her back towards me, and then suddenly she clasped her hands in front of me and laughed.
Without hesitation, I slipped from the bed and crossed the floor towards her. I rose naked from the bed, my erection standing out before me. She made no effort to flee from me, but waited until I had traversed the distance between us and had placed my hands on her slim shoulders.
“How perfectly lovely you are!” I exclaimed.
She laughed and swayed forward, touching her firm little tits against my chest tantalizingly. I looked down and saw the neat, small, triangular shape of her mount with its smooth plumage of blue-black hair that threaded its way delicately upwards towards her navel. I encircled her with my arms and crushed her body close. She lay against me without resisting, one of her knees raised slightly against my thigh.
I was utterly delighted with her. Was it naivete that let her to allow a stranger to clasp her in this way? I think that would be the wrong word. No, it was rather the true innocence of the pagan who is happily incapable of comprehending our Western notion of modesty. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to her to satisfy my curiosity. She rejoiced in the affirmation of her young sexuality, in the possibility of the carnal delight which, untroubled by the cataracts of morality, was a thing to be taken and held firmly while her youth was still with her.
Very gently, I reached around under her buttocks with one arm and raised her from the floor. She seemed to have no density at all. I carried her across to the bed without effort and laid her at full length on the warm sheets. She smiled up at me, passive except for the falling sideways of one thigh, which revealed between the smooth yellow surfaces the delicate pink tract of her pussy. Without haste, I leaned over her and took her left nipple between my lips. I sucked on it gently and felt it grow hard under my mouth. Her eyes flickered beneath their long, smooth lashes, and then, like delicate curtains, were closed. At the same time, she raised her knees and allowed them to fall open like loose scissors. This had the effect of distending her cunt in such a way that the hair near its summit parted to reveal the little bud of her clitoris. I moved my fingers there gently to stimulate the flow of her love-juice. At the first contact of my fingers, her pretty mouth fell open to allow her to breathe more deeply as she allowed herself to be submerged in her passion.
Soon I felt her body arch upwards in her effort to give herself completely to me. Her delicate little hands sought my head and guided it skillfully between her thighs so that my mouth came to rest on the smooth pad of hair that parted like grass under gentle strokes of my tongue.
The whole affair had been so casual, without hurry, without breathlessness, that I had perhaps more time to examine her grotto than I had hitherto had in any previous experience of that kind. I was able to examine the way each individual hair was embedded in the pulpy flesh of her mound, the way in which they had a tendency to curl towards the tips, doubtless due to the fact that she habitually wore a kind of loincloth that not only compressed the hairs but caused a delicate and not at all pungent sweat to father there. Her slit was exceedingly small, much smaller than that of any of the Chinese women with whom I'd had sexual experience during the past few months. Indeed, I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that it was the smallest and perhaps the prettiest cunt I had ever seen.
Soon I allowed my tongue to move in between the sloping hair-trimmed surfaces. Her love-juice was not at all unpleasant to taste. It reminded me more than anything else of the white of an egg, but with a heavier, human quality about it, doubtless again because of the hothouse atmosphere that was the normal condition of her private parts. I stroked slowly, worrying the little stamen of her clitoris with my upper lip at the same time as I penetrated more deeply with my tongue. By this time her hands had come underneath her buttocks and she raised herself to the length of her forearms and supported herself on twin pedestals. Her legs were astride like the shafts of a cart. How soft and satin-like her thighs were against my cheeks! I goosed her in this way for a long time, running my fingers between the mellow cushions of her buttocks until, with one of my middle fingers, I found the soft, puckered indentation which was like a button between them. It is strange how there should be such taboo in relation to this region of the human body in all the Western countries, while in the East it is treated naturally as a second instrument of the body's pleasure. I experienced no revulsion whatsoever when, without warning, her arms collapsed beneath her and her soft buttocks fell downwards onto the rigidity of my finger. As she sank downwards, she groaned and bucked slightly. Then, taking me by the hair of my head, she drew me upwards until my cock, poised at her entrance, broke softly into her pussy canal and slid, warmly coated by love-juice, in deeply to the hilt. At once, I felt my plunger and my short hairs inundated by the delicate froth of her loins. I sighed and undulated my hips gently in the motions of love.
“You darling!” I cried. “You are making me all wet!”
She answered me with a pretty smile. Then, her face growing serious, she drew my mouth down against her own. Her little tongue darted into my mouth and traced delicate filigrees behind my teeth. Our teeth clicked and we burst out laughing. I seized her thick hair which had been cut in the usual way in which Japanese women style itcut short of shoulder length and falling like a bell about the pronounced Oriental cheeksand pinned her laughing head to the bed.
“How pretty you are!” I couldn't help exclaiming. “What a marvelous time we are going to have together while I am here!”
“Be more brutal,” she said softly, her rich voice tinged with insinuation. “I want you to try to kill me by loving!”
In immediate response to her desire, I thrust violently into her with strong strokes, at the same time allowing my second forefinger to join my first so that the remaining part of my hands crushed the firm flesh of either buttock and propelled her body into a dizzy oscillation. My cock pounded into her again with such force that my balls slapped her upturned buttocks with each ramming stroke. Her belly grew wet with perspiration and her pretty mouth, the teeth bared, drove itself into my neck. I rose and fell on her, my rod tingling from tip to base, relishing the soft smacking sound which the thick, hollow flesh of our bellies created between them. She was mad with lust. She forget her English and a stream of Japanese words and exclamations burst from her lips against my neck and shoulder, her voice husky and lilting. What enjoyment I derived from the slim yellow body with its blue-black hair between the gracefully curving thighs!
As we rose to our first climax, simultaneously, we both cried out in our native tongues. My sperm pumped into her like water from a well, spouting forth uncontrollably and in a seemingly never ending stream. Only then, only at that tremendous moment, did I remember that I had not asked her whether she had taken precautions against conception. I did so at once. She shook her head laughingly. But I was serious. I had no desire that this sweet girl should become pregnant by me.
Thus, in spite of her expostulations, I pulled my cock from her with a wet popping sound. Then, her small face puckered up in mock anger, she came into my arms again.
This time I was determined to experience that other kind of love which is so highly thought of in the East. To that end I turned her gently over so that she was lying on her belly in front of me. After thinking a moment, I placed a large cushion under her belly to raise her gently curved buttocks into a better position for penetration. She appeared to know exactly what I wanted of her. Turning her head until she faced me, she laughed up at me. When I smiled back she wriggled her bottom in a delicious manner. The little pink bud between her buttocks was firm as rubber. I felt it gently with the tips of my fingers.
I decided immediately that it would be too cruel to force a path rudely without the use of some kind of lubrication, though I had already done so with my fingers. She smiled gratefully as I rose from her and went to fetch some medical oil from my case. When I returned with it, she raised herself even further so that the little budding mouth should be more accessible. I poured a pool of oil into the palm of one hand, stood the bottle by the side of the bed, and set about working the oil into the coral-colored pucker of her warm little ring. I tested it then with my fingers. They slipped in easily and seemed to cause her no pain at all.
The thought of what I was about to do had caused my prick to become reinvigorated. It throbbed and jerked between my legs, the head an angry crimson hue. Had I been more of a sentimentalist, I might have desisted, but her trust and the preparation which she had made by engineering herself into the appropriate position removed all doubts from my mind. She expected me to go through with it.
Gently, I lowered myself down towards her, placing the tip of my piston precisely on the oily bud. With my hands I drew the fleshy part of her buttocks sideways to distend the centerpiece as much as possible. There were few hairs about it. It was warm and pregnant with anticipation against my member.
At that moment, from her bent position, she flashed me a glance which was not only permissive but demanding and, having done so, buried her face in the bed in front of her. I had no right to hesitate longer. Guiding my member with one hand, I allowed myself to fall forward from the knees, surely and simultaneously longing to penetrate without difficulty or causing pain by a sudden forward movement of the hips. At the same time, she herself acted. Her buttocks rose and thrust themselves towards me with all their might and she cried out deliriously. Imagine my astonishment when the puckered ring opened like strong elastic to contain the knob of my sex. I found myself all of a sudden sucked inwards right up to the hilt!
After the initial stretching there was no further resistance. Her buttocks were warm and firm against my belly and my cock was held firmly in the tightest, smoothest, most delightful little sheath that you can imagine!
I began to fuck her ass, tentatively at first, and when she groaned with pleasure, more strongly, almost brutally. At the same time I encircled her lower torso with one arm, my wrist pressed against her belly and my fingers working in the wetness of her sex and clitoris. She uttered a long moan of pleasure which had the effect of stimulating me to further and even more brutal effort. She wished to be taken just in this way! At that point, I ceased altogether to treat the strange intrusion as an experiment. With my free hand, my forearm across her lovely shoulder blades, I grasped her by the hair at the scruff of her neck, forcing her face firmly against the bed. Then, with regular strong strokes, I was at her, sheathing and unsheathing myself madly, working her clitoris wildly with my fingers. At the same time the passion once again rose in my member and the flow of my semen moved upwards. I shot a steaming load into her anal canal, continuing my brutal motion until the tightness of her muscle had wrung me dry. But this time, when I was finished, she was not. She made me withdraw immediately and thrust me away from her. At first I thought she was angry with me. Anger is sometimes almost indistinguishable from erotic passion. This young Japanese girl was given over to it with almost religious fervor.
“Just a moment!” she cried.
Crossing the room in a few bounds, she returned with one of those spade-like, stiff brushes for clothes. This time she would have none of the bed. Setting herself on her knees on the floor, she threw herself in a rippling and naked arch backwards so that her thighs, belly, the moist smile of her slit, and her breasts were exposed to me. I was gazing from her to the stiff, straw-bristled brush which she had thrust into my hands. But her voice cut through my hesitation.
“Quick!” she cried passionately. “Beat me hard!”
I had no alternative but to do as I was bid. Quickly, to bring relief to her warm and anxious lust, I was over her. I brought the brush down with a hard thwack on the soft mound of her belly. A tremendous vibration passed through her rippling flesh.
“Harder!” she cried.
Although nervous, I took my courage in both hands and set about warming the entire front of her body. The more she flinched, the more punishment she required. Soon she was rolling about on the carpet calling upon me to continue the brutal rain of blows. Once again she succeeded in making me lose control. I found myself slashing at her cruelly as she rolled about ecstatically. My arm rose and fell with increasing vigor. The desire to punish fused in my imagination with the desire to hear her triumphant, pleading sobs and see her pale, sweat-sheened body leap upwards and sideways lustfully to meet the blows. And then suddenly, she emitted a tearful wail and hurled herself at my thighs. One of her hands grasped my cock and thrust it into her mouth. Gazing downwards at the pretty head which sought to bury itself at my groin, I was amazed to see myself once again rigid. No sooner did the realization come over me, than I toppled sideways onto the carpet. She sucked me deeply for several minutes, running her tongue over the shining expanse of my prick head and its turgid length. We wrestled and fought uncontrollably until, once again, her belly rose upwards to expose her naked cunt. I pulled her legs over my shoulders and drove my prick into her with all my might, all thought of precaution forgotten. All I wanted to do was fuck this girl senseless! She breathed deeply between her sobs and our passion caused our flesh to shudder more deeply than I can remember. By this time I had pinioned her hands on either side to the floor so that she lay as though crucified below me. I rose and fell against her, our bellies smacking together in a welter of sweat until, just as the new inundation coursed through the sensitive tissue of my meat, I felt her body grow weak, accepting the ichor of my passion. Her lovely young face, tearful and ecstatic at the same time, pleaded with me to stop.
“Oh,” she cried, “stop nowI can't bear any moreI shall die of pleasure! Please…”
Her eyes were closed and her tremulous young bosom rose and fell out of control. Her limbs were slack and spread on the floor. All possibility of effort had deserted her!
Gently, more tenderly than ever, I rose from her, lifted her in my arms and carried her to the bed.
Ten minutes later she opened her eyes. The coffee which I brought to her was only lukewarm, but it seemed to revive her and she drank it gratefully from the cup I held to her lips.
“You gave me so much love!” she said when she had drunk. “Really, I thought my body would burst with pleasure.”
I kissed her gently and told her to rest for the remainder of the day. I would explain to the manager, I said. She should have no fear of taking the rest she so well deserved and so badly needed. I kissed her, drew the bedclothes upwards over her lovely shoulders and went about my own toilet feeling that I had found at last a country in which love in all its varied beauty was accepted gratefully without shame as the most important gift in a good life.
The manager proved to be a very nice fellow. He cut short my explanations and prayed me to say no more about it. The chambermaid-waitress was a good girl, he said. He would gladly excuse her from her duties for the remainder of the day.
All through the country I had the same experience. Both love and courtesy were present to a degree unknown in Europe. Of course, I soon learned that this courtesy is developed in the home, where everyone bows to age. The grandfather and grandmother are most respected, then come the father and the mother, and then the children. And the children obey the same law: The eldest girl or boy come into the room first, the others follow in order of agean astonishingly courteous people to whom deference is a pleasure. The Japanese language, too, is full of ceremonial phrases which are impossible to translate into any European tongue. They are the politest race in the world and perhaps the most amiable.
Many scenes stand out in my memory. I remember an up-country town where my rickshaw was stopped by some naked girls and women who came out of a bathing place. They all wanted to see if I was white all over and I could only laugh and let them convince themselves. The crowd increased to half a hundred. They were of all ages and all entirely naked. When I touched the breasts of a pretty girl she seemed pleased and the whole crowd laughed as at a good joke. Unfortunately, I had not the time to ascertain whether I could make love with her. I had an appointment which I could not break.
Bit by bit I came to understand that there was not a trace of sexual modesty in Japan from one end to the other. Most of the women could not even understand what Europeans meant by the concept!
Every foreigner is eager to see geishas dancing, but usually is astonished at first to find how modest and how graceful the dances are, more like those of ancient Greece perhaps than any I can think of. But the “modesty” is purely formal. It does not reflect a Puritanism of spirit.
The geisha ya are places where the dancing girls are trained and let out day or evening to tea-houses or private parties. They are generally managed by women. Little girls are taken into these houses and trained not only in the art of dancing, but are also taught singing and samisen playing and all the etiquette of entertaining guests. The geisha is always willing to become the mistress of any foreigner who desires her and from whom she can expect a fair sum of money; but in Japan she is not looked down upon as she would be in Europe. The geisha are the pleasantest part of Japanese entertainments. As soon as the dainty girls enter the room, sometimes in gold or scarlet, and dance as though they are leaves driven by the wind, all the guests wake up. Sometimes the girls will play warrior and copy the warlike gestures of old heroes. Then, suddenly, they give up pretences and come and sit beside their temporary employers, laughing, jesting and drinking.
Soon the foreigner finds out that the geishas are really dancers and that the prostitute or joro is of a lower class altogether. Every city in Japan has its joroya a licensed quarter of prostitution. The supervision is rigid. But even these women are not looked down upon in Japan as they would be in Europe. Many of them are apprenticed in childhood to the keepers of the houses and there trained for their work. A few have sacrificed themselves freely for those they love. Many romances are written about a virtuous joro who has sacrificed herself for her loved one and finds a lover willing and eager to make her again a respectable wife and a mother of decent children.
There are theatres for men and theatres for women, but the two sexes never play on the same stage. I don't know why. The performances last all day from eight or nine in the morning till eight or nine in the evening. They were not especially interesting to me.
But the most peculiar and important entertainment is the fortune-teller. Of course they have a great deal of influence with the lowest class, but they are consulted on important occasionsmarriages, journeysby all classes.
The freedom in Japan is very interesting. I remember being asked by a court official to stay with him and study Japanese manners in his house. My friend, the captain, advised me to accept and I did so.
The first evening, my host told me in his broken English that his wife would be too old to be attractive to me and his daughters too young, but he would send me a pretty girl to entertain me during the night. I laughed, never thinking that he meant what he said.
But when I got to my bedroom, I found a pretty maid awaiting me. As soon as I entered she began to undress. She was too pretty to be sent away. I recognized her at once as the most charming of the servants who had waited on us at table.
Much to my delight, I found that she had an exceedingly small cunt that she had scented with rosewater. We fucked in every position imaginable. I took her flat on her back, with her legs upraised, on her knees in canine fashion, and even as she lay on her side. She seemed to love seeing my stiff cock shuttle in and out of her sopping pussy. She reacted passionately to every variation of embrace and reached her climax at least four times until finally her soft and sweat-lathered body fell limp in my arms. My friend, the captain, laughed when I told him and said that nothing was more usual.
Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly the system of concubinage that degrades the whole status of women in Japan. The Emperor, in accordance with the old Chinese code, is allowed twelve concubines or mekake, the samurai two. All men of the upper class are allowed to introduce these mekake into their families and naturally these concubines, though beneath the wife in position, are often more beloved than the wife herself.
In the lower classes, the wife often protests and maintains her exclusive rights, but the wife of the nobleman is not powerful enough: The nobleman is not dependent on her toil. Consequently, the position of the wife of the noble in Japan is usually unhappy and often tragic. By a recent law, no child of a concubine can inherit a legal title and this may do much to establish the upper class woman in a more secure position.
During my travels in that country I often came upon some woman or girl taking a bath. Never did I see the slightest trace of embarrassment, much less modesty. The woman would get out of the hot bath and proceed to dry herself with her little blue towel just as if there was no man within ten miles of her. I would watch excitedly as she dabbed her breasts, belly, and the generous mossing on her mount. She would proceed without concern. At the same time I have heard Japanese ladies speak scornfully of the low-necked dresses worn by English and American ladies at Court. Who will ever explain the thousand eccentricities of manners?
In many respects I found life in Japan much saner than life in Europe. But in one respect there was no comparison. If you took a geisha as a mistress and asked her whether she was healthy or not, you could rely on her answerespecially if you treated her fairly. Consequently there was far less danger of foul venereal disease in Japan than in Europe. Also, there was less danger of begetting a child, for every geisha knew how to prepare a little wad of oiled paper which she introduced into the vagina and so made pregnancy practically impossible.
In many ways, I came to regard Japan as the France of the East, not only in the disdain of ordinary modesty, but also in love of art and appreciation of artists and writers. Besides, just as there is a heroic soul behind all the flighty heedlessness of the French character, so there is an extraordinary heroism in Japan that every now and then astonishes the observer. If a wife injures her husband, or a soldier makes some blunder that brings ruin to others, each does justice by taking his or her own life. I could go on almost interminably, extolling the virtues of this great people, but try as I would, I could never, considering the shortness of my stay in the country, hope to give an adequate historical document. Instead, I shall move on at once to what I can speak of with authority, to the subject of the young woman who, more than any other person, was responsible for the longing I still feel after all these years for “the land of flowers.”
I was invited by my friend, the captain, to a festive evening. He had brought together a special corps of geishas, and they were attended by women who came and sat with us while their more exalted sisters danced. The young lady who came to me was the prettiest of the whole lot; I suppose I showed her that I admired her. At any rate, the dance was not half over when her hand began to stray against my thigh. She soon went on to bolder demonstrations of desire, brushing the stiffening bulge of my cock with her fingertips. At length I said to her, “Later,” one of the few Japanese words I knew. She pouted and then laughed with enjoyment. I allowed my hand to move softly over the silk of her tunic.
When the geishas finished their dance and came back to sit with us, I said to my host: “Is it possible for me to keep my attendant?”
“Sure,” he replied, and with a word or two made my resolve known. Never did I see such gratitude in any human face as the young lady showed to me there. I was sure that the compliment paid to her in preferring her to the more important geishas would be returned in full. I was not mistaken.
As soon as we were alone together in the bedroom, she evinced a mixture of affection and passion such as it has seldom been my good fortune to experience. She was pretty and beautifully formed and had all the wisdom of a perfect lover. She drew my trousers down and took my engorged tool in her mouth without hesitation. She swished around the mushroom head, flicking lightly over the tip, then used long strokes to lave the length of my shaft. When she arrived at my balls she gently took them into her mouth one at a time, then released them with a wet popping sound. She returned to the darkly blushing crown while she manipulated me with her hand, urging me to spend in her mouth. So relaxed was I that this was not long in coming. Yet, as my spunk rose, she gripped me tightly enough to force it down, only to commence the voluptuous cycle once again. By the third repetition I was squirming with incredible desire and raging orgasms that had been brought upon me without the release to which every man is accustomed. This was the sign of my geisha's skill and I have never met another woman who could emulate her talents. At last, seeing that my body was unaccustomed to such unadulterated pleasure, she once again brought me to the precipice and this time urged me over. I fairly exploded in her mouth while she expertly swallowed every drop, though she let some dribble past her lips and shared this with me in a long and lingering kiss. A strange thoughtful mistress, she was clever enough to cease exciting me when she knew my body was satiated, her own body a perfect instrument of love. Both by her passion and by her self-control she made the nights memorable for me.
I made the mistake of thinking that after the first night it was all over. When the captain and I met in the morning, I told him all my feelings and give him a ten pound note to convey my satisfaction to my little friend. To my wonder and his, the money was refused! The beautiful and gracious woman told me with a brave glance that she would always be willing to welcome me gratis. My friend declared that it was the first time in all his twenty years' acquaintance with Japan that such a thing had happened.
About a week later, I received a letter from the woman saying that she cared for me and if I wished she would come and be my servant until I left Japan. Thank God I had sense enough to accept her offer. Of what happened then, I shall speak now.
It was my little attendant who taught me all I know of Japan and a good deal about female nature to boot.
First of all, she showed me that the position of women in Japan among the better classes was far lower than I had ever supposed. She assured me that the boy in the family was everything and that the girl had to do what she was told. If she married, the inferiority only intensified. Whatever her husband did was good, and if his will ran counter to hers in anything, she had simply to give in or be broken. She taught me that the Japanese wife was everything to her husbandnot only a mistress but a valet as well. She takes care of his clothing, brings it to him in the morning and helps to put it on and must put away with care whatever he takes off. In the poorer families all the washing, sewing and mending is done by the wife. Every Japanese woman (excepting those of the highest rank) knows how to sew, and makes not only her own garments, and those of her children, but her husband's as well.
It is the wife who gets up first in the morning, wakes the servants and prepares the breakfast. As soon as she puts out the andon, which is the only night-light used in Japanese houses and is merely a piece of wick floating in a saucer of vegetable oil, she opens the sliding doors, lets in a flood of light and completes her hasty toilet.
Certainly a Japanese man is lucky in having all the little things in life attended to by his thoughtful wife. She is a good, considerate, careful body-servant, always on hand to bear for him all the trifling worries and cares.
Once the husband is started on his daily rounds, the wife settles down to the work of the house. Her sphere is within her home, and though, unlike other Asiatic women, she goes without restraint alone through the streets, she does not concern herself with the world. Yet she is not barred from all intercourse with the outer world, for there are sometimes great dinner parties, given perhaps at home, when she must appear as hostess, side by side with her husband, and share with him the duty of entertaining the guests.
So rigid are the requirements of Japanese hospitality that no guest is allowed to leave a house without having been pressed to partake of food, if it be only tea and cake. Even tradesmen or messengers who come to the house must be offered tea. If carpenters, gardeners, or workmen of any kind are employed about the house, tea must be served in the middle of the afternoon with a light lunch, and tea sent out to them often during their day's work. If a guest arrives in rickshaw, not only the guest, but the rickshaw men must be supplied with refreshments. All these things involve much thought and care on the part of the lady of the house.
Among the daily tasks of the housewife, one, and by no means the least of her duties, is to receive, duly acknowledge, and return in a suitable manner, the presents received in the family. Presents are not confined to special seasons. Children visiting in the family are always given toys. For this purpose a stock is kept on hand. The present giving culminates at the close of the year when all friends and acquaintances exchange gifts of value according to their feelings and means. Should there be anyone who has been especially kind, and to whom return should be made, this is the time to do it.
The Japanese mother takes great delight and comfort in her children, and the right directions of their habits and manners is her constant thought and care. She seems to govern them entirely by gentle admonition, and the severest chiding that is given them is always in a pleasant voice, and accompanied by a smiling face. Even with plenty of servants, the mother performs for her children nearly all the duties often delegated to nurses in other countries.
From my beautiful attendant I learned everything connected with sex in that wondrous country. She taught me that sexual modesty, as we understand it, is utterly unknown in Japan and China. She brought me to the geisha ya the establishments where dancing girls are trained before they are let out by the day or evening to tea-houses or private parties. She had been trained in one of these from the age of seven by the woman proprietor, and she was one of the best dancers I had ever seen.
She took me to professional storytellers or hanashika, just as she took me too to favorite spots near Tokyo to see the famous cherry blossoms in April and May. Thousands of visitors crowd to Uyeno Park for the cherry and peach blossoms, to Kameido for the plum and wisteria, and to Oji for its famous maple trees. A prize fight near London, or a horse race would hardly attract a larger crowd and would scarcely be more educative. My guide made me understand gradually that Japanese civilization was higher than the English save in the one essential of religion.
Through the knowledge of Japan, I learned what Christianity with its care for the individual soul had done for women.
The moment we spoke of sex, her revelations became extraordinary. I asked her during the first days how she had lost her maidenhead. She told me that one of the schoolmistresses had approached her when she was thirteen and had soon kissed all her virginity away. This woman had used tongue and fingers, but had also schooled her in the use of artificial means to stimulate pleasure. For instance, she had brought with her a rod of polished ivory that was masterfully worked into the shape of a man's organ, complete with balls and even a fringe of hair. When she had licked the nearly bald pussy of her young charge, and stretched those tender lips with her fingers, she had inserted the end of this device and begun to work it in and out. She fed more and more of it into the hungry maw in which it was embedded until the pleasure it elicited was so great that my lover had begged her schoolmistress to stop. That had been the beginning of her education in the mysteries of the flesh. She told me never to go with anyone in the Yoshiwara. If I wanted anyone, she would soon find out if they were healthy or not and let me know.
“But,” she said, “you are rich, you can have a lovely girl whenever you like without any danger. Why run any risk?”
At length, shamefaced, I said: “Could you find me one?”
“A dozen,” she replied laughing, “more seductive than I am.”
In the long run she brought me a girl exquisitely pretty and amiable, but no better in sexual matters than herself. From that moment on I determined to remain devoted to my little attendant, and though I was unfaithful once or twice, for the greater part of my stay in Japan I contented myself with her.
There was nothing in the way of sex she did not know. She delighted in showing herself to me and was not averse to explaining that when she liked a man, her cunt thrilled and plagued her all day long.
“Do you ever touch it?” I asked.
“What good would that do?” she replied. “When I touch it myself, I feel almost nothing, but when you touch it, I go nearly mad.”
I soon found that her pussy, like those of the others, was very small, but she assured me that this was a mere question of race.
“The Chinese,” she said, “are far larger than the Japanese.” But passion, she always insisted, was a question of temperament and not of bodily organs. In time I came to agree with her. “Often,” she said, “you make me feel so intensely that my womb comes down to meet you and the inside of my thighs quivers and is sensitive for hours afterwards. I shall be so unhappy when you go away. I would rather die than live and yet I know that you will not, cannot stay here much longer. What am I to do when I can see you no more?”
What was I to say or do? To the best of my ability I consoled her. But before I went, she introduced me to her friend, one of the most charming girls I have ever met. She was not one of the prettiest, though her figure was superb, and her face was hardly more than piquant and interesting. But she was full of tricks and whimsies of all sorts. The first time we met she told me she thought it “disgusting” when I kissed her. Kissing was a dirty Western custom, she said, but she had no other reservations and showed an individuality of feeling that fascinated me.
She told me curious things: She never wished to give herself to a man until he said or did something that won her. After that there was no resistance. “For instance,' she said, “I saw you kiss my friend's hand, and the courtesy and gentleness of it woke desire in me.”
Shortly afterwards, I took her into the bedroom. She stripped without a word, but when I had kissed her a little while she grew wild.
“I want everything,” she said, but when she got it she came back to the kissing. I fucked her hard. Perhaps this was a response to the revulsion she said she had when I kissed her. Interestingly, she had no such reservation when it came to having my cock buried in her pussy. She accepted all of me graciously, acting to heighten my pleasure as I plowed her by raising herself up to me so that I penetrated more deeply and slapped her upturned buttocks with my balls. She continued to adamantly turn her face away as I lowered mine to kiss her, even when she seemed in the throes of debilitating passion. But I did manage to clamp my lips to hers during one particularly forceful down stroke, after which she relaxed in my arms and seemed to capitulate.
“I had no idea,” she cried, “that kissing means more to girls, excites us more than anything else. You have no idea what it means to me. I feel as if I were going mad! Have you done it to any other girl?”
“To many,” I replied. “Some respond as you do, but the majority are comparatively cold.”
“Oh pshaw!” she exclaimed, “you kiss them and let them touch you at the same time and they won't want anything better in life.”
I said to her: “I want you to feel as much as you can. You are beautifully made. I want you to reach the ultimate. Tell me how.”
“Begin slowly,” she said, “and keep on till I tell you to stop.”
And so I did. After a quarter of an hour kissing her pussy and licking inside the pink lips, she began to sigh and squirm and at length she cried: “Stop, stop. I can't stand any more. I'm getting hysterical now and that frightens me!”
My chief pleasure has always been in giving pleasure to girls, for the spasm of delight of a man is too quickly over and brings with it an extraordinary weakness and tiredness that does not disappear for some time. A woman however, feels little exhaustion.
When I think of the devotion of my beautiful attendant, I am always astonished. She loved me, yet never showed any sexual jealousy. On one of the first occasions she brought a pretty geisha to me she said: “She is pretty but I don't think you'll care for her.” Then she got her to lie down and exposed her pussy. “You see,” she said, parting the moist lips, “she's not very small and she takes a long time to excite.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because I tried with my tongue before bothering you with her. But she wanted to come anyway, thinking, I suppose, her eyes would win you.” The girl's eyes were indeed very pretty.
Barring exact detail, I think I have said enough to show the extent of my debt to my little Oriental angel. It remains only for me to describe one heavenly night which I spent in her company.
To be precise, there was another girl present, another friend whom she had selected carefully for our night of love. “Look!” she said when she produced this friend. “She is really worth love! Her cunt is tighter than mine and with one touch it is all aflame!”
As I stood gazing at these two adorable creatures, each one nude, each perfect in her own way, I felt a tremendous desire stir in my loins.
“And don't think I'm going to leave you alone with her!” my lover laughed merrily. “Who knows? Both of us together may be able to keep you here in Kyoto! For I know you love me, Frank, and if what you say about your Western women is true, I don't understand why you wish to return to them. Now, use us, dear, just as you please!”
For a moment I was too dumbfounded to move! These two superb creatures with their pale, lemon-yellow skins, their neat hips, their perfect breasts, and their almost identical heads, set high on smooth, proud necks and capped by neat bells of blue-black hair. I had never before been offered so much and so delightfully! As I say, I was for a moment incapable of the slightest movement. But at last I said: “Stand where you are, close together, facing me!”
They laughed prettily and did as they were bid. Quickly, I removed my own clothes so that I stood naked before them, my cock standing out straight. My eyes were hypnotized by the twin cunts, by the neat chevrons of silky dark hairs which clung close to their lower bellies and disappeared in a neat point at the junction of their thighs, and even more perhaps by the beautiful ivory smoothness of the bellies themselves, indented neatly at their centers by the prettiest of navels. I moved over to them, and, falling on my knees in front of them, I encircled the smooth buttocks of each with either arm. The choice was before metwo pretty pussies, delicately scented after a manner in which only Japanese women know how, at the level of my doting lips!
“Taste us in turn!” my own sweet lover laughed delightedly. “Her firstshe is the guest!”
With my forehead against the warm belly of the other woman, I allowed my lips to mingle with her silky hairs, parting them with my tongue to find her sweet-smelling little clitoris.
Both girls laughed prettily and spoke in Japanese.
“What are you saying?” I said, faintly annoyed.
“Only that you will have to dig deep to find the gold!” exclaimed my friend in her lilting voice.
At that very moment my tongue, moving tentatively between the delicately fringed lips of the girl's sex, tasted an indescribable sweetness. I allowed it to slide into the slit and into the soft depths. Imagine my astonishment when a perfectly delightful ichor spread about my taste buds! The nearest I can come to the description of it is to say that it had the consistency of honey and tasted of violet and rose-leaves. At the same time I was conscious of the girl's quiver under my caress.
“You darlings!” I cried. “What have you done to yourselves?”
“An old love secret,” my lover explained. Then she added: “Why don't you take us both to the divan where we can be comfortable and relax. If my guess is correct, you will want to explore us both in this way for a long time!”
How right she was! The divan was a broad one. I lay between them with my feet towards their heads, or rather, so that my prick, rampant now with the urgency of the situation, was on a level with their mouths. I tasted first one and then the other, exploring, sucking, savoring, while they, darling lovers that they were, moved about my loins with their soft mouths, teasing my body into ecstasy. Soon both pussies became sticky and wet under my mouth, four lovely thighs rose upwards to allow deeper and more intimate penetration, and the coral lips of the young and small bushes opened like wet and loving mouths, much as flowers might, to exude the sweetest of ichors. If I had to say what liquid came nearest in my imagination to the mythical ambrosia, I would say that the natural liquid distilled in those warm ruby sheathes, mingling with the potion they had secreted there to lure me on, was undoubtedly the one. My lips were afire with lust to taste more deeply, more urgently, spreading the love juice amongst the shining hairs and onto the soft, delicately female-scented thighs.
How lovely those thighs were, loose and lascivious, falling, moving like the slow tentacles of an underwater plant. Simultaneously, my own loins seemed besieged by the gentlest attack of butterflies, with one maiden taking my member between her wet and cushioned lips and the other, patient and doting between my buttocks, tracing the delicate skin of my love-sock with the gentlest of tongues. Indeed, I quite forgot which pussy was which, so I had no opportunity of showing preference!
That was the beginning. As my tonguing became more purposeful, my upper lips working the clitoris as my tongue delved deep among the ambrosia, each in her turn rose to a frantic climax, the torso quivering in rapture, the twin sighs, and I, my hands close to the bare buttocks, drawing each warm, sweet mass of honeyed pussy hair to my face. I licked deeply, stabbing first one throbbing canal, and then the other.
In this way, over a period of an hour, I raised them each three times to the highest pitch of ecstasy. I discharged twice under their twin caress, my sperm swallowed lovingly by the girls in turn. To my dismay, I found that they were only eager for more, only eager to make a perpetual night of this almost religious adoration!
Reluctantly, I rose from between them.
“You've quite tired me out, you darlings!” I groaned. “Although I reached my climaxes without effort, I feel as though I have been drained dry of all my passion!”
My lover laughed and her friend joined her in her merriment.
“What do you wish us to do to excite you?” my companions murmured engagingly.
I laughed. And then I had an inspiration.
“Let me see you make love to one another then!” I cried.
“Of course!” the girls agreed. In an instant they were in each other's arms, their bellies pressed together and their little breasts with the superbly-shaped nipples nuzzling, rubbing into each other and causing such a friction that I had no doubt that they were both in ecstasy. Much to my surprise, they each fought to play the male role, wrestling with their thighs and arms to attain dominance. What a peculiar desire that was, that two such adorable women, taken in an impulse to make love to one another, should each seek to deny her own sex! I burst out laughing. But they did not appear to be aware of me. They fought like wildcats, each trying to mount the other, at the same time trying to pry the other's thighs apart.
In the end, it was my own lover who succeeded in bettering the other. Her little bottom was poised nearly between the other's thighs before their clitties stabbed together to awaken the frenzy of passion which lay in the depth of their wombs. At that point, the other gave way. She allowed her thighs to fall apart helplessly, surrendered herself to be taken, or seemingly so, for of course the girls were quite incapable of penetrating one another and had to be content with the high-pitched but unfinal climax which is afforded by clitoral excitement.
My thoughts returned to my first night in Japan when the waitress-chambermaid had handed me the stiff brush. The idea came to me that I could excite myself by whipping them while they were locked together in their lust, for though the spectacle interested me greatly, it had little or no aphrodisiac effect. Glancing around the room, my eyes alighted on a thin bamboo that supported a fern native to Japan which stood in the corner. I swiftly untied it from the plant and drew it out of the earth. I tested it once or twice in the air. It was supple and its resilience remarkable.
I returned to the divan where the lovers still wrestled in their mock sex-battle. I raised the cane and brought it down with all my force on the ripe buttocks of my own little darling who, poor dear, paid a high price for her triumphant assertion of manhood. She squealed and rolled aside. Without hesitation, I delivered a second blow, this time on the downy soft bottom of her friend.
At first I was not sure if they enjoyed the whipping, but it soon became obvious to me that they did. It served to increase their excitement to new and greater intensity. For one thing, it made a real battle of their lustful embrace and that they wished it to continue could not be questioned, for if they had not, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for them to break away from one another. But they made no attempt to do so. On the contrary, they goosed and kissed and licked one another all the more passionately, their encounter intensified in its passion by the competitive spirit the cruel bamboo introduced. I think I can say with all honesty that the girls would never have experienced such pleasure in one another's arms had it not been for the added element which my passion brought to it. By the time I had delivered two dozen slick strokes, my cock had swelled to enormous proportions.
I cannot be said to have thought about what I did next except in so far as I was determined to be counseled by the rules of fair play. My next “victim" the word, as it happens, hardly appliedwas to be the one who had momentarily gained the ascendancy, or, as each was now fighting to be the inferior to escape the switch, just the reverse. But, as their change of position was automatic in that it depended upon who was the recipient of the last stroke of the cane, I threw it away from me and waited a full two minutes before making my next move.
Not thirty seconds had gone by before the girls, realizing that the cane was no longer being wielded, readjusted themselves to the new situation and fought again like wildcats, each to be the male. This time, for one reason or another, it was my lover's accomplice who gained the ascendancy and her round buttocks, wealed now where she had received her cuts, was bobbing like a cork between my pretty darling's thighs. I hesitated a moment longer to see that the position was well established. Then, throwing myself on top of the girl, my fingers sought the bud between her buttocks and guided my cock to the point from where it could plunge inwards.
One more hesitation to balance myself and I thrust inwards with all my might. The pretty girl immediately tried to writhe away from between us, but her movement was forbidden by the encircling clamp of four arms. Meanwhile, my tool was sunk right up to the hilt in the grip of her anal ring. I plunged in and out, riding her as though she were a stallion. I pulled back and rammed forward again and again until my engorged shaft seemed virtually wedged in that tight canal. I felt my sperm rise as the girls continued to work on each other. By an amazing stroke of good fortune, all three of us reached our climax simultaneously.
“You were wonderful, dear!” my little lover said when it was all over, and her friend shared her opinion.
“You really enjoyed the cane then?” I asked seriously, for I wished to know for the future. I would not for the world have hurt either of these delicate creatures who had afforded me such pleasure.
“Of course, silly! Most Westerners just don't seem to realize that some of the highest pitches a woman attains are dependent upon an element of cruelty.”
“I've always thought,” her friend said in her Pidgin English, “that your Western women miss all real pleasure because they do not know the meaning of submission!”
We all laughed. During the night I made love to them both again, but separately this time. One I fucked in the normal fashion; the other let me shoot my sperm into her mouth. In the morning when her friend left, I insisted that she accept a little present of twenty pounds. We often repeated that kind of night, with a hundred other variations, but I fear there is no further time, nor perhaps need to go on with it. At last, with great reluctance, I was forced to leave Japan. When I did so, I gave my darling girl enough to make her independent. Taken all in all, she was one of the best endowed and most charming women I have ever met; to her friend, too, I was more than generous according to Japanese standards.
As I sailed out of the harbor, I indeed felt that I was leaving a part of myself buried eternally in that wonderful land.
A friend who has just read this volume tells me that one omission surprises him. “Why have you written nothing of the scenery and nothing about the great temples or works of art in India, China and Japan?” he asked. “I had thought you would have given us deathless impressions of them, but there is not one word! Why?”
“I am afraid Bernard Shaw's criticism of me is finally correct,” I said. “He wrote, you know, that if I were as good a critic of the second rate and third rate as I was of the first rate, I should be the greatest critic that ever lived. So it is with me about scenery and about great works of art. I remember the first time I saw the cathedral of Chartres: I stood before it for hours and cried like a child.”
It was one of the great moments of my life. The cathedrals at Amiens and at Beauvais impressed me, too, but Chartres had a sort of personal appeal, as if the maker was full of emotion in his own creation. The cathedral at Reims, too, made a great impression on me. I have seen them a hundred times since and always with the same admiration. But nothing in India, China or Japan gave me an emotion like this. Even Strasbourg or Cologne, or Mon Reale did not appeal to me in the same way.
I can only say that Chartres seemed to me like a hymn of joy in stoneand I must make another sad confession. I was next impressed by one or two of the great buildings in America. I think if you saw one of those buildings put in an open place, you would be enormously impressed by it, in spite of its utilitarian ugliness; there is something magnificently grandiose in it that moves the soul.
But you will say the scenery, at least in India, might have been described. It is true, I thought Cashmere as beautiful as Switzerland, and the Himalayan Mountains were wonderful again and again. But I have never described Switzerland, so why should I describe Cashmere?
It is only the strange or the ineffable that really appeals to me. I could talk about the Inland Lakes in Japan for hours. They are not only very beautiful in themselves, but always mixed up with little views of the charming, courteous, naughty people who have no morality but live beautifully.
What is the good of word-pictures of places? I always have the feeling it is impossible to give a scenery by words: One speaks of a hillside covered with golden gorse, or of a great cliff, or of snow peaks in the further distance, but to conjure up the beautiful scene is beyond the power of words.
I know nothing of natural beauty that was astonishing in China, and wish rather to forget what I did see than to remember. Japan is the only land in all the East that touched my heart, and its beauties, as I said, are always connected with the charming people.
But all that is probably my limitation. I am sure that if Ruskin had seen one tenth of what I have seen, he would have given wonderful pictures in words.
But I think more of one extraordinary person and find more wonders in one soul and heart like that of Meredith or Dowson than in a thousand scenes belauded in all the guide books. One phrase of Meredith, his laughter, the light in his eyes as he recited his own poetry gave me unforgettable emotions. Perhaps Dowson said it best:
I should be glad of loneliness,
And hours that go on broken wings,
A thirsty body, a tried heart,
And the unchanging ache of things,
If I could make a single song
As lovely and as full of light,
As hushed and brief as a falling star,
On a winter night.