The Art of Seduction: Serial Online Novels in &#8220;Blook&#8221; Form

I’m 35 today! So fucking what. I don’t really care about getting older - I’m only a day older than I was yesterday. But I invited Natsumi out with me to celebrate; I tried to set it up last week but she didn’t want to go because she was going to a play today that was starring one of her college friends. She didn’t seem to remember that it was my birthday but when I mentioned it she invited me along. It felt like a mercy date. Anyway the play was pretty good even though it was all in Japanese; it ended about 8:30 and she went out with her friends, and I went out to the bars and drank alone. It really surprised me how bad I felt just because she sort of blew me off. What’s the big deal? Sometimes I really mystify myself.DOWNLOAD “WARRIOR POET” HERE!

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Time Out: 101 Things I Wanna Do Before I Die

June 27th, 2008

1. Write an article entitled “101 Things I Wanna Do Before I Die”.

2. Orbit the Earth.

3. Knock somebody through a plate glass window.

4. Climb the tallest unclimbed mountain in the world and plant a Jolly Roger flag on the summit.

5. Date a sexy Pygmie girl and make out with her in a thatch hut somewhere in Africa.

6. Give a speech in Mandarin Chinese in front of an audience of Chinese people.

7. Talk my girlfriend into tattooing my name on her butt, and then break up with her.

8. Have a beautiful woman invite me home to spend the night with her, and turn her down.

9. Tell my lover, “Every time I look at you my whole body aches with the passionate desire to make love to you”, and mean it.

10. Talk someone out of committing suicide.

11. Be the first to discover a mathematical mistake made in a work published by Stephen Hawking.

12. Jump out of an airplane and free-fall for at least 90 seconds.

13. Face down the devil, and win.

14. Write a song so beautiful it makes people cry.

15. Attach a note bearing my address to a helium balloon, set it aloft, and receive a letter from a far-off place.

16. Live on the beach in India for at least a year.

17. Meet the bullies who used to torment me in high school, and laugh at them.

18. Learn how to feel high all the time without taking drugs.

19. Dunk a basketball without the assistance of a ladder.

20. Convince a family member or a close friend that I’ve gone legally insane, and then laugh at them.

21. Look into someone’s eyes and see their soul.

22. Bite the head off of a live chicken.

23. Successfully defend myself against a shark attack by gnawing it to death.

24. Get punched or slapped, turn the other cheek, and walk away the winner.

25. Become the Women’s Middleweight Professional Wrestling Champion of the World.

26. Walk into a honey-tonk, stand on the bar, shout “REDNECKS!!!”, and live to tell about it.

27. Get listed in the Guiness Book of World Records for something, even snail eating.

28. Walk into an unfamiliar business office wearing a fancy suit, fire the manager, and get away with it.

29. Apply for a job, not get hired, come to work the next day anyway, and keep the job because the boss is impressed with my perserverance.

30. Have a near-death experience without coming near death.

31. Master the art of lucid dreaming.

32. Participate in a real live exorcism.

33. Be the victim of black magic that somehow doesn’t work against me.

34. Write a song so energetic people can’t stop dancing to it.

35. Set foot in Antarctica.

36. Ride in a submarine and set down on the bottom of the ocean.

37. Passionately kiss my lover in an elevator.

38. Make love on the beach.

39. Read the great philosophers and discover that they’re all idiots, and be able to say why.

40. Live for at least five years continuously in a foreign country and become fluent in the language.

41. Drive a Ferrari, run out of gas in a bad neighborhood, and have to walk to the nearest gas station.

42. Learn to scuba dive in the Phillipines.

43. Stand perfectly calm as someone twice my size tries to body-slam me against the wall, and have him back down an inch short of my chest.

44. Get caught with my lover in a sudden unexpected downpour, retreat to a dry spot under a tiny awning, and make out with her until the rain stops.

45. Get falsely accused of a terrbile deed by a malicious liar, have everybody think I’m guilty, and then vindicate myself with dramatic evidence.

46. Invent a household appliance that runs on static electricity.

47. Take a slow boat to China, get thrown overboard when we cross the International Date Line, and then be treated to a bottle of champagne to celebrate with.

48. Have my photo taken naked standing in front of the flag that marks the South Pole.

49. Take a photo of a real live Yeti.

50. Win the Nobel Peace Prize for discovering a cure for PMS.

51. Find proof that God exists.

52. Prove to a dyslexic that there is no such thing as Dog (but maybe WE’RE the dyslexic ones…).

53. Discover why I was ever born in the first place (I’m not satisfied with “defective condom manufacturing”!).

54. Eat 50 eggs at one sitting and not vomit.

55. Go whitewater rafting at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

56. Get attacked by 3 big guys and take them all out using nothing but a packet of soy sauce.

57. Cuss out a state trooper without ever taking the Marlboro out of my mouth (credit: Jeff Foxworthy).

58. Get stalked by a love-struck supermodel.

59. Write a truthful autobiograpy, get it published, and have the public treat it as fiction because there’s no way all that stuff could have really happened.

60. Bench press 300 pounds.

61. Build a mini-castle with a moat and alligators, and present it to my lover as a surprise birthday gift.

62. Eat dinner with a Mongolian family in their yurt.

63. Backpack around the world for an entire year and write a book about it.

64. Spend 24 hours hallucinating in a sensory deprivation tank.

65. Look in the mirror, see my own soul, and make radical changes in my self-image based on what I see.

66. Have a picnic on the bottom of the sea wearing scuba gear.

67. Have an angry person point a loaded gun at my head, and not be afraid.

68. Make a lot of money for doing something completely silly.

69. Get a holographic tattoo that automatically hypnotizes anyone who looks at it.

70. Go to law school, excel, and then not become a lawyer.

71. Walk into the wilderness butt-naked with nothing but a buck knife, and survive for 6 months.

72. Put on a Superman outfit, go skydiving, have my photo taken before the chute opens, enlarge the picture to poster size and put it on my living room wall.

73. Master the art of mumblety-peg.

74. Swim halfway across the English Channel, decide I can’t make it, and swim back.

75. Learn how to scratch an itch by simply thinking about sandpaper.

76. Smoke a pipe filled with catnip in the presence of my cat.

77. Eat a dinner of mutton on the roof of a house in rural Morocco.

78. Catch a fish bigger than my fishing boat, and have to tow it in quickly before the sharks get it.

79. Accumulate a lot of political power, and send all my enemies off to the countryside to slop pigs for 5 years.

80. Lure a UFO into landing in my front yard with strange computer-generated music.

81. Execute a coup de-etat, become the absolute dictator of a small third world country, call for elections, and lose.

82. Found my own religious cult and build a group of fanatical followers - then give them back their money, tell them I was just kidding, and admonish them not to be so gullible in the future.

83. Discover a way to build a remote-controlled nuclear weapon out of common household items, and put it in my front yard next to the “No Trespassing ” sign.

84. Climb to the top of the Sears Tower using suction cups, then escape the cops using a hang glider I previously placed on the roof.

85. Secretly become fluent in Italian and then confuse everyone by suddenly refusing to speak English for an entire month.

86. Explore an underwater cave using scuba gear.

87. Pay someone to make a life-sized wax replica of me so I can see what I look like in non-mirror image.

88. Have an insurance actuary calculate my life expectancy, and then pay a watch manuafacturer to make me a wristwatch that will count down my remaining time in years, days, hours, and seconds. Wear it everywhere I go.

89. Accomplish something I honestly didn’t think I could do, and savor the rush.

90. Hire a barbershop quartet to follow me around for a month and repeat everything I say in a catchy tune.

91. Win a game of Nine Ball on the break.

92. Learn to sing “Country Roads” in Japanese, and then perform it at a honkey-tonk.

93. Spend the night in a closed coffin meditating on how short life is.

94. Win the Nobel Prize in Economics for developing a mathematical formula proving that Time = Money.

95. Successfully recruit an all-volunteer harem that does nothing but fan me and feed me grapes all day.

96. Look in the mirror and see a man staring back at me.

97. Go a full year without telling a lie or breaking a promise.

98. Write a will in which I instruct that beautiful actresses are to be paid to cry at my funeral.

99. Fake my own death, attend my funeral wearing a diguise, and then buy a metal detector and secretly retire with my lover to Bora-Bora to live the rest of our days on loose change we dig out of the sand.

100. Make good on every bad thing I’ve ever done that hurt someone else.

101. Face my death with courage, joy, and immense satisfaction.

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Chapter 9: It’s Only a Dream?

June 26th, 2008

Saturday, June 21, 1997

Pillow talk. Natsumi’s eyes clouded ominously a millisecond after I asked why she had chosen Turkey. “I had a Turkish boyfriend.” She was speaking in Japanese, as she always did when the topic was serious or when she was in one of her somber moods.“I thought you went to Turkey alone.”“I did. He was angry when he found out.”“Where is he now?” I hoped Natsumi would forgive my obvious probing.“I don’t know…” Tears welled up in her eyes and the despair I saw behind them punctured my heart like a knife, completely disarming the jealousy that had been slowly taking root. My heart had been so savaged by life that I sometimes felt that it was held together by nothing more than paper clips and chewing gum, but the terrifying depths of despair swirling in Natsumi’s eyes was completely alien to me. I quickly changed the subject, frightened for her.

2:47 a.m.

Nothing left to burn that’s the way it goes
I slumber cold in mortal illness
Hiding from the glance that knowsHer voice rang in my ears, louder this time. She was kneeling beside my bed in a nightgown, pleading eyes locked on mine. Strange - she hadn’t brought a nightgown with her… itsonlyadreamonlyadreamonlyadream… I opened my eyes and the music faded to the steady rhythm of Natsumi’s breathing.
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Saturday, March 15, 1997: The Ides of March

June 25th, 2008

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Same setup: ALTA, dinner and a movie. No billiards this time - Natsumi was careful to make the last train. She stepped into the last car, turned, and extended her hand through the doorway to me for a good-bye handshake. I took it but wouldn’t let go, pulling her back onto the platform just before the doors closed. Damn - missed the last train again.Ten minutes later we were in Lawson’s on Ome Avenue, browsing the cooler in the back of the shop were the soft drinks gestated. And the Oolong Tea. Our eyes locked and we simultaneously burst into laughter at the memory it triggered. 2:47 a.m.My bedroom was filling with smoke and Natsumi was writhing like a snake between the sheets, her eyes still closed. Her mouth was shut in a tight grimace but I could hear her voice somehow. She was singing. Why are my eyes like open tombs for you?
Leading you into my spirit stillness
Under frozen skies so blue I sat bolt upright in bed. The air was clear and Natsumi’s chest rose and fell peacefully beside me. Sweat drenched the sheets on my side of the bed.

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Monday, March 10, 1997

June 24th, 2008

10:15. Late again. I wasn’t angry; on the contrary I found myself worried that she might not show as I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket.“Moshi moshi.” “Natsumi? It’s Jake.”“Huh?” She sounded confused. Perhaps I had awakened her?“Jake. I’m at Machida Station.”“Oh! OK, sorry! I’ll be there in ten minutes. Sorry!”She showed up looking unlike someone who’d been asleep a mere fifteen minutes ago. Her demeanor was uncharacteristically nervous and she spoke not a word as I followed her to the optometrist’s office. Twenty minutes later I was willingly shelling out the equivalent of nearly two hundred bucks for her new contacts. Natsumi was still silent and nervous as she walked me back to the Machida Station; she looked almost embarrassed. I wanted to invite her to lunch but she didn’t seem to be in the mood so I dropped the idea, pushed my way through the turnstiles and turned back to wave good-bye. But she was already gone.

I did not yet realize the significance of what I had just done, because at the time I could not imagine that Natsumi might doubt that she was worth two hundred dollars.

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Sunday, March 9, 1997: The Morning After

June 23rd, 2008

Natsumi was in the shower, and with the morning light streaming through my window I realized what a mess my bedroom had become. I hadn’t expected any guests, and in any case it hadn’t mattered the night before in the darkness. But today was a different matter so I got busy. I abruptly aborted my efforts when I heard the bathroom door open, as I would have been embarrassed to be caught cleaning my room for her. She was already fully dressed - damn. I was hoping she would reappear wrapped in nothing but a towel. She made a beeline for the nightstand and then frowned.“Hey, where are my contacts?”“Huh?” I was playing dumb. The moment she had gone for the nightstand I remembered.“I put my contacts on the table last night. Remember? They were wrapped in tissue.”“Oh, shit. I must have thrown them away.”I knelt down in front of my wastebasket feeling like a fool, and began to search. It was a formality, of course. I took out my trash about once a fortnight, and one could have lost a small South American country down there and been none the wiser. Since the tiny lenses would have found their way to the bottom of the basket in short order, I knew I had at least forty-five minutes of searching ahead of me even if I dumped all of the tightly-packed garbage onto my bedroom carpet. It wasn’t the meticulous searching that I dreaded, it was looking like an dork in front of Natsumi that my pride couldn’t bear. I was sure she understood this, but nevertheless protocol absolutely demanded a token effort.Natsumi’s eyes looked more sympathetic than angry; she understood. “That’s OK, I need to get home. You can find them later and call me.”I was relieved. “OK. I’ll look for them this afternoon. But if I can’t find them, I’ll buy you a new pair.”Natsumi smiled with bemused surprise. Why was she surprised?“Tell you what…” I continued. “Let’s set a time to meet at your optometrist’s office later this afternoon. If I find them before then I’ll just bring them to you.”She looked uncomfortable. “The office isn’t open on Sunday…”“OK, then how about Monday morning? If I find them before that, I’ll call you.”“Don’t you have to work on Monday?”“Not until the afternoon.”Natsumi’s eyes told me she didn’t believe me, but it was true. We made arrangements to meet near her home way out in the Tokyo suburbs at ten Monday morning. I walked her to Shin Nakano station and we parted, her eyes full of sorrow as I kissed her good-bye. Back home for a boring, lonely Sunday. I should have been searching for Natsumi’s contacts but a rare flash if intuition strongly counseled otherwise. Inexplicably, I followed the hunch and dumped my wastebasket into the dumpster outside.

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Online Novel Chapter 8: Nine Ball in the Corner Pocket

June 20th, 2008

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Saturday, March 8, 1997

It took one hundred percent of the capital in my usually overdrawn Patience Account to refrain from calling Natsumi the following weekend (cf. Law No. 8: Tease Them Like Crazy). I was hoping that she was waiting for my call so that I could disappoint her, thus building up some delicious anticipation for a rendezvous that I was already looking forward to more than most. I had called her the following week, secretly a bit nervous that she might have forgotten me. She hadn’t, and since like most Tokyo residents neither of us owned a car, we arranged to meet at seven the following Saturday evening in front of ALTA Department Store, a well-known landmark near the Shinjuku subway station. Natsumi was late, as I knew she would be. Touche!, her absence seemed to whisper. ‘That was for waiting so long to call me.’ It was a quarter after seven when I finally checked my watch. I knew she would show sooner or later, but if I waited much longer I would risk looking like a lovesick puppy, never a good idea on a first date. Then again, there was always the possibility that she was hiding somewhere nearby with a pair of binoculars. Five more minutes passed and I reluctantly followed protocol by walking back towards Shinjuku station for the trip home. I considered it no coincidence when Natsumi exited the station at just that moment, walking straight towards me after I crossed the street. She had probably been watching me through the window to find out how long I would wait.“Osoi da yo! You’re late!” I wasn’t the least bit angry, but I put on my best stern look anyway.“Gomen nasai!” she apologized, looking at the ground demurely and then furtively back at me.I pulled out a fist and put it a quarter of an inch under her nose. “Now you’re in trouble!” I said, arching my eyebrows.Natsumi responded by lightly kissing my knuckle, sending my heart fluttering.“Is that one of your ninja moves?” I responded with a warm smile. “Cause it just about knocked me out.”

She grinned but said nothing, she probably hadn’t understood my English, so I turned around and she followed me back towards ALTA. Why was she walking three steps behind me? Ah, Japanese women…

“OK, OK, I forgive you. As long as you remember to always walk three steps behind me.” And suddenly she was at my side, beaming at me with a challenging air. I looked her over out of the corner of my eye, knowing full well that she was watching me watch her.

She was wearing a pair of tight, carefully faded jeans and a red-checkered button-down. Her straight, shoulder-length hair appeared to have been washed and cut earlier that day, always a good sign. She looked causal but stunning without even a touch of makeup. Even in a pair of ratty tennis shoes - a nice rebellious touch.

Conversation remained mutually witty but superficial through dinner at the Bombay Palace. It was spicy and irresistible to me - but then again, I would have enjoyed a clump of topsoil as long as it was smothered in curry. But as much as my tongue adored spicy food, my skin did not - the sweat began pouring from my forehead from the first bite and Natsumi began to giggle.“Are you having heart attack?” She picked up her cell phone as if to dial 911 (actually 119 in Japan).“Almost. You’re SUCH a hot date, Natsumi.” She opened her mouth and stuck her index finger inside as if to say “gag me with a spoon.”She looked a bit reluctant when I ordered a Singha beer for each of us after the meal, and a couple of minutes later I found out why when her cheeks turned bright red. I had read somewhere that forty-five percent of Japanese lack the enzyme that metabolizes alcohol in the body.“Are YOU having a heart attack?” I was teasing again.“Yes!” was all she said, her demeanor suggesting that her red cheeks were now just as much the result of embarrassment as alcohol.“I have that effect on women…” I replied in a facetiously deep voice, blowing on the fingernails of my right hand, polishing them on my shirt and regarding them with mock vanity. They reminded me, too late, that I had forgotten to clean them. But Natsumi was looking at my eyes as she smacked me lightly on the shoulder. Her touch was electric.

Done with dinner; now it was time for Courtship Routine Part 2: The Movie. Phenomenon it was, starring Joe Travolta (subtitled in Japanese, of course).“It’s the perfect choice…” I boasted, “…if I do say so myself!” continuing my mock arrogance routine. Indeed it was close to perfect - romantic enough to stir a woman’s interest, but exciting enough not to put me to sleep. Despite crowds outside, we had a row all to ourselves because Phenomenon had been out in Japan for several weeks already. Another fringe benefit of careful planning. Natsumi’s head was glued to my shoulder for almost half the film, but I wisely kept my hands to myself and said nothing.

Natsumi hadn’t eaten much at the Bombay Palace and now she was hungry again, so after the film we sat on the second floor of Mosburger, Japan’s answer to McDonald’s, with a window-front view of Shinjuku’s neon jungle. She became more talkative, first telling me a bit about college life in Japan and then about her adventures backpacking in Turkey a couple of years earlier. I was surprised how much of her Japanese I understood. She never mentioned her age to me, but she did let it slip that she turned nineteen while in Turkey, which would make her twenty-one now. File that away. As the story continued it became obvious that she had flown to Turkey all by herself with nothing but a passport, a backpack, and a little bit of money. At eighteen years old. “This girl is MINE!” I thought to myself with sudden conviction, awe-struck. I was so impressed that I was even able to choke down most of my McSushi.

My eyes subtly glanced down towards my watch. I didn’t want Natsumi to think I was bored, but it was almost eleven. The trains stopped running before midnight, no problem for me since my apartment wasn’t far away. But since Natsumi lived about an hour out of central Tokyo, if she missed the last train then the only way home would be by taxi. That would set her back the Japanese equivalent of about a hundred bucks, a sum that I doubted a college student would be carrying. Natsumi was looking down, obviously having caught me glancing at my watch.

“Let’s play pool!” she abruptly suggested. It was what she didn’t say that made my pulse begin to race.I won the first game easily. But then I taught her Lights and Shadows, a technique for lining up your shot based on the point where the reflection of the overhead lighting bounces off the balls. Big mistake - she quickly and mercilessly defeated me the next two games. 11:30. Then she suggested we switch to the adjacent ping-pong table. To that I was amenable, because I had been playing ping-pong since childhood and considered myself something of a virtuoso.

“Teach me to play!” she said, smiling coquettishly.“You’ve never played before?” I was surprised.Natsumi answered with a shrug of her shoulders that seemed to say “No.”“I thought all Asians knew how to play ping-pong.”“I am Japanese, not Chinese. If you want to play sumo wrestling I teach you.”“OK, let’s play ping-pong.”Big Mistake No. 2, and she proceeded to clean my clock to the tune of 21-14.Damn, I was impressed. “Natsumi!”She turned her whole body to face me with a shit-eating grin, and I was back in mock sternness mode.“Are you a hustler??” My eyes were boring holes in hers but I was busting a gut trying not to laugh.“Huh?” Ah, she didn’t understand the word “hustler” in English.“Hass-sooh-lah?” she queried with a twinkle in her eye, pronouncing the word the way the Japanese had mangled it when they borrowed it from English.

She would neither confirm nor deny the accusation, so I switched to mock wounded pride mode and pointed an index finger in her face.“I LET you win. Yeah, that’s the ticket, I let you win, yeah…” my voice trailed off as if I’d been caught in a lie, hamming it up for her. No way I would have let her win and she knew it.

But yo, just then something interesting entered my peripheral vision. A wall clock reading 11:52. And Natsumi wanted to play another game of pool. I wondered if I should say anything. Naah…The game was Nine Ball, loser’s break. Please God make me look good. Break. Only one ball sunk - nine ball in the corner pocket. Game over. Natsumi did a double take at that one. Thank you God!

I played it cool as if to say “I meant to do that.” 11:53. A one-minute game. Game Two: Eight Ball. Loser’s break again. One ball in. 11:53. Scratch. 11:54. My shot, twelve ball in the corner pocket. Fourteen ball in the side pocket. Miss. 11:56. Natsumi’s shot, thirteen ball in – hey that was my ball, thank you very much! Scratch. 11:58. My shot, ten ball in the corner pocket. Still 11:58. Miss. 11:59. Second had circling, Natsumi aiming for the two ball…10…9…8…7…two ball caroms out of the corner pocket. 3…2…1…YEAH! My pulse was racing in earnest now, and exactly on cue Natsumi accidentally on purpose glanced at the wall clock.“Hey! It’s midnight! The last train-” She was trying to look surprised but she was a lousy actress. I grabbed her hand. “Let’s run to catch it!” I was a lousy actor.“No, no, it’s too late!”She sat down and hung her head. It was a pose of dejection, but her face was out of view and I was sure it hid a smile.“What can I do now?” she said as if to herself, staring at her lap.“Well, you can stay at my place if you like. I promise to be a gentleman.”Natsumi, composure recovered, lifted her head and pretended to mull it over.“Well, OK then.” She was frowning, but her eyes were shining as brightly as I had ever seen them. “But let’s finish this game first.” I said. Law No. 11: Don’t Appear Too Eager.

I hadn’t written the book on seduction, but I knew it cover to cover, it was written on my brain by experience. Although the Laws didn’t guarantee success, breaking them almost always guaranteed failure. But they were designed for slow, delicious anticipation, not vulgar one-night stands. More infatuation junkie than playboy, I had originally planned to wait a few dates before bedding Natsumi. But nothing about tonight had seemed vulgar, and I knew already that one night wouldn’t be enough for either of us.

Neither of us spoke during the ten-minute taxi ride. I motioned to the driver and he stopped on Ome Avenue, just across from the winding alley that led to my apartment and right next to Lawson’s, an American-style convenience store. Ten minutes later I was unlocking my front door, key in one hand and a plastic bag containing two bottles of Oolong Tea in the other. Once inside I provided Natsumi with an oversized T-shirt that hung almost to her knees. She carefully wrapped her contact lenses in tissue and placed them on the nightstand, reminding me not to carelessly throw them away. Was the fact that she had forgotten to bring her contact lens case with her a silent message that she hadn’t originally intended to go home with me? Or was it crawling around in her purse somewhere?

I wondered what had clinched the deal. Maybe the nine ball? If that was it, then I reckoned I must have sunk it without any divine assistance. Although my theology was certainly unconventional, I couldn’t imagine God helping me lay Natsumi on the first date.

‘Stop philosophizing!’ I silently scolded myself as I ushered Natsumi to a seat. My bed was the only piece of furniture in the room; indeed there hardly would have been space for anything more. I was true to my gentleman’s promise, keeping my hands to myself as they lay on my bed sipping bottled tea. Natsumi finally made her move, laying her head on my shoulder and pulling my arm around hers. I responded by carefully placing the open bottles of tea on the head of my rickety queen-sized bed, and took it from there. 56 Minutes LaterThe experience had grown progressively seismic, rickety-rick, and both bottles of tea came tumbling down to douse us just as our passion peaked. Natsumi shrieked in surprise, hesitated for a moment, and began laughing. I began laughing too. 45 Minutes After ThatMy insomnia was no less severe than usual as I lay awake watching Natsumi sleep. It was a trick I had learned long ago, to watch someone when they’ve forgotten the world and let their social mask slip off. I could always get a feeling about someone that way, and in the past it had always proven accurate even when I had ignored it. I hoped this feeling wasn’t right, though, because Natsumi’s face was twisted in torment and despair. I could feel it too, as if a dark cloud surrounded her. If she was dreaming now she was probably running from shadows.

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Chapter 7: The Mickey House

June 19th, 2008

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Saturday, February 22, 1997

A year was about how long it took to get financially and socially established in Tokyo. After completing the program at Temple University Japan I had returned to the US for a couple of months, long enough to cram for a few weeks and take the California Bar Exam. I hadn’t even bothered sitting for the Kentucky Bar Exam, since I had never planned on practicing in that barnyard of a state anyway - and if I was going to work in Japan, I could imagine the snickers of Japanese attorneys wondering why I would bother obtaining admission to a bar association named after a fried chicken franchise. Fortune had smiled on me and I had a part-time job waiting for me as a “Foreign Legal Advisor” at tiny Satori Law Office as soon as I returned to Japan. Not that it was anything worth crowing about. Sure, I could tell all my hillbilly friends back home that I was an “international lawyer” now. Indeed, my firm did practice international maritime law, and its clients were mostly corporations from a variety of Western nations. But my function consisted mainly of drafting client correspondence and polishing the broken English in maritime documents drafted by Satori into a professional-looking final product featuring the finest in American Legalese. International English Rewriter would have been a more apt description of my position, although I would never have had that printed on my impressive-looking bilingual business card.

My job was part-time in the afternoons, so nearly every evening my home was Roppongi, a massive bar district halfway across town that catered largely to Western men and the throngs of Japanese party babes who wanted to meet them. Yeah, there was prostitution in Roppongi, but any Western man under fifty who was forced to resort to it was either pig-ugly or unaware of just how easy it was to pick up there. Singles bars ruled the Roppongi scene, and I was no stranger to them. What I found there surprised me only slightly, because it was the same way everywhere in Asia with the exception of Hong Kong. Hordes of Asian women preferred Western men to Japanese men for reasons yet unknown (although certain jealous local men seemed to favor an anatomical explanation), and there were more local babes than there were Western men to go around. It all resulted in an extremely favorable social situation for men like me.And an extremely lonely situation for Western women in Japan unless they were either drop-dead beautiful or attracted to Japanese men, and most of them weren’t. It was a raw nerve in the raging gender war among the Westerners who lived in Japan - the women noted (quite accurately) that dweeby Western men who couldn’t get laid in a whorehouse back home were walking around Japan with inflated egos because they were dating Japanese supermodels. These were the original Charisma Men, a sarcastic term coined by the venom of jilted Western women that was truly intended as a barb not toward the dweebs themselves but towards the men who could get dates back home but couldn’t be bothered with the bitter, femi-nazi, hairy-arm-pitted Western women who chose to make Japan their home.

That was the way I saw it, anyway, even as I secretly feared that I, too was nothing but a dweeb posing as Charisma Man. There was no way to be sure, because except for law school I’d been in Asia for most of my adult life, and I hadn’t dated in law school even after my divorce. With one long-ago exception, I had never had a Caucasian girlfriend.It had surprised me a bit that Western men were just as popular in Japan as they were elsewhere in Asia. Although the competition had been just as intense when I taught English in Taiwan for five years before going to law school, I had assumed that Taiwan’s relative poverty and uncertain political situation were driving Taiwanese women into the arms of American men in the hopes of obtaining the almighty U.S. Passport, a well-known fringe benefit of marriage to an American. It had certainly proved to be the ultimate motivation for my ex-wife Mei Hua’s 1990 marriage to me at City Hall in downtown Taipei. The first couple of years of married life in Taiwan had gone tolerably well, but it had taken her a full three months after arriving in Kentucky for her to find a pickup truck-driving, tobacco-spitting supplement to my affections, a relationship that she had begun to flout openly only after receiving her green card in the mail courtesy of Uncle Sam. I still remembered clearly the day my father told me he had spied the pair sitting together in a movie theater at the Turfland Mall. “I can see he really cares about her”, my Dad was saying, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “After all, he took her to a Dollar Movie.” It had provoked the only smile I was able to muster that year. I had waited until after I completed my brutal first year of law school to file for divorce over Mei Hua ’s screaming objections. But Japan was a rich, politically stable country, and few of the comely Japanese women chasing me these days had any particular interest in obtaining a US passport. So what was it they wanted anyway?

Devastated by Mei Hua ’s betrayal, I had dumped her in 1993 but was too proud not to greet her civilly whenever I passed her on the UK campus where she was an undergraduate. It had been years since the last drop of love for her had evaporated from my heart, but here it was 1997 and I was still in post-divorce mode. Too lonely to stay home at night but too timid to risk my heart on anything more than a one-night stand unless somebody special showed up, and no one had. So Roppongi it was, chasing a need I wished wasn’t there but just couldn’t beat. Yet despite the hours upon hours of loneliness in the drunken crowds, only once had a woman stepped through the threshold of my one-room rabbit hutch in Nakano ward. Night after night I would will myself back to Roppongi to search for comfort in a warm body, and night after night I would sabotage my own efforts just when yet another willing young thing would press against me on the dance floor. It was a game I played with myself, pretending that I wanted something I didn’t, pretending to be somebody I wasn’t. I knew that in my moments of clarity. But the only alternative that I dared chance was sitting alone in my tiny apartment every night watching Japanese TV commentators drone on about watermelon prices and the like. I was at it again tonight. The ‘Mickey House’ was nominally a coffee shop, but was marketed as a place where Japanese could practice their English language skills with the many Americans who frequented the joint (hence the corny name). In a sort of reverse discrimination, the Japanese paid a stiff cover charge while Westerners got in free. Predictably, most of the Japanese customers were young women, while most of the Westerners were men. It was essentially an international singles bar like the ones in Roppongi, but tucked away all by itself in a quiet neighborhood. The most popular beverages were coffee and tea, and it was only once in a while that someone would get drunk there. The girls seemed nicer, although most of them were not as beautiful as the ones in Roppongi, just as most of the men were not as handsome. The Mickey House functioned as a quiet player in the minor leagues of the Tokyo singles scene, full of naïve young Japanese women and desperate Westerners who were to ugly, too old, or too boorish to pick up in Roppongi – forty-five year-old men who had come to Japan decades ago for sexual motivations and had stayed ever since teaching English to Japanese kindergarteners, that sort of sad sack. I knew it as ‘Loser’s Roppongi’. As if there was a Winner’s Roppongi somewhere out there.
But there she shone, a light in the darkness, illuminating a corner table talking to some Japanese guy. Young, slender, medium height with shoulder-length black hair, she was strikingly pretty, maybe a nine. Best-looking woman at Mickey House by a mile, but then again I had seen better, had even dated better. It wasn’t her beauty that caught me. It was her smile, her gentle laugh…and those eyes. Damn, those radiant eyes. Deeper than subterranean pools, one glance and they told a story that could fill a library. Exuberant joy and childlike mirth chased by a shadow of such profoundly vulnerable despair that it made me want to pick her up and hug her. My attention thus arrested, I inquired of a nearby American man whether or not the Japanese guy across from her at the table was her boyfriend. The guy didn’t think so but then again, how would he know? He was probably right, though, because couples didn’t often show up at the Mickey House. I began scheming. Two Minutes LaterMy heels seemed to click sparks on the checkerboard tile as I strode across the floor. “May I help you?” I was smiling as I sat down.“Excuse me?” replied the Japanese guy.“I’m your waiter. I’m here to take your order.” I was deadpanning it, only the twinkle in my eyes giving away the joke. The Japanese guy looked confused, but when my peripheral vision spied a hint of an amused smile playing on the lips of Her Highness, I immediately knew which one of the two was smarter. The guy looked tongue-tied though, so I proceeded to brazen it on out.”I highly recommend our Hamburger Pizza. It comes with a free bottle of champagne.”“Can I just order the free champagne then?” Ah, now he knew the name of the game. Not so dumb after all. I executed a sharp wolf whistle and turned my head towards the bar.“Yo, Kazu!” Kazu was the pint-sized owner/bartender who knew me from previous visits. I tilted my head but didn’t look surprised, already familiar with my antics. “Can I get a bottle of champagne for the gentleman and the lovely lady?”“Coming right up!” replied Kazu with a smile and a thumbs-up gesture. Mickey House didn’t serve champagne, so I wasn’t worried about ending up with an unexpected bill. Now she was grinning like one of those smiley faces, so I carefully ignored her, knowing full well that she would appreciate my streetwise observance of Primary Law of Seduction No. 2: Approach Indirectly. Not that anyone was being fooled, of course – no doubt they were both fully aware who my real target was.“By the way, my name’s Jake.”“My name is Takereu. Nice to meet you.” Takeru handed me my business card with both hands in formal Japanese style, and I returned with my own impressively misleading card.“This is Natsumi”, continued Takeru, graciously affording me the chance to pass her my business card as well.“Hello Summer!” I replied without hesitation. Natsumi’s expressive eyes widened with surprise. “How do you know my name means ‘summer’?” she asked.“I didn’t know. You just look like a really warm person, that’s all!” I was smiling mischievously, swallowed by her eyes. My own eyes displayed quite clearly that what I had just told her was complete bullshit.“Bull-chit!” replied Natsumi, clearly amused. “You are liar.”“That’s right! In fact I’m a professional liar – I mean lawyer!” That much was evidenced by my business card, but it never hurt to drop it into a conversation - in Japan they actually respected lawyers. “What do you do?”Natsumi hesitated so I blew right past it. “Let me guess – you’re a Ninja!”“Yes. I am Ninja. You lie to me again I kick your ass.”“You kick my ass I sue you!” I pointed my finger at her in mock fury, imitating her slightly broken English.I turned up the charm with ever more inane conversation, and eventually won a bet with Natsumi that, according to its terms, entitled me to her telephone number. When I rose to leave a few minutes later I slyly pretended to have forgotten about it, and to my delight she obliged me by pulling out a ballpoint pen and attempting to write her number on my palm. She didn’t get very far because it was salty wet, so I offered a napkin instead. And reminded my bad self not to offer her my own number, thus observing Law of Seduction No. 19. After she wrote it down I folded the napkin into quarters and opened my wallet to insert it behind my business cards. Some sad sack was shoving my way past me at that moment, jostling my elbow, when out of my wallet popped a flat plastic package. ‘Plop!’ it seemed to say with a nasal twang as it hit the floor, and as I reached down to pick it up I realized to my horror that it was my emergency condom. My hand moved smoothly and oh, so quickly. But quickly enough? Anyway, I hoped that if indeed she did recognize it that she would also notice how well-worn it was, having sat lonely and useless in my wallet for almost six months.Nothing was said about the matter and Natsumi returned to illuminate her corner as I walked out of Mickey House with what I already considered a prize.

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Sunday, April 28, 1996

June 18th, 2008

Miss Japan was all over the floor. Accordingly, I found myself suddenly and mysteriously unable to perform a correct repetition on the rowing machine, and thus it became my turn to be lavished with her ever-loving attention. Her itty-bitty hands were all over me like the wings of a humming bird - straightening my spine, re-positioning my body, enthusiastically spouting instructions at me in rapid-fire Japanese. I grinned stupidly but understood not a word except when she told me that her name was Saiko. I particularly liked women who were unafraid to show their interest in a man, and the idea that she might have earned her salary by doing just that was not a thought that my ego was inclined to entertain. My attraction to her would grow each time I exercised, but hey, I knew where she worked so I was in no hurry. Besides, I had bigger fish to fry.

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