I HAD NEVER BEEN to one of these kinds of parties. If such an occasion can be called a party. Parties usually have music, don’t they? And food and drink? Parties also usually have a reason to be celebrated. Maybe it’s someone’s birthday, or someone graduated from college. Maybe.
But this party, if it can still be called a party, only existed for one reason: for a group of mostly strangers to gather in an uncomfortable place and have sex with each other. Yes, it was a swingers’ party, as they are called, and it was held in an apartment in downtown Tokyo. Don’t ask me where exactly, or in what prefecture. I can’t even begin to tell you how we arrived there, only that it was night and that it was raining. The neon lights of the business district were blinking, there were crowds on every corner, and we squeezed into a tight elevator.
I didn’t even know what was going to happen, until I saw what was happening. At once, a woman dropped to her knees and began pleasuring one of the other guests through his jeans. Then two people began rocking away right there on the carpet. It was a Roman scene, except in Japan. Tojo was there, and so was Elspet. Tojo took off his shirt and showed off his muscles. He was strongly built and must have been working out. I took it that he was the organizer of this impromptu group shagging. The apartment itself was stale, used up, an unhappy place. A dusty air hung over its furniture and its walls. The shelves were lined with compact discs.
It looked like an abandoned radio station.
There was a Spaniard nearby, breathing heavily into his partner’s ear, and a woman who looked just like Snow White stretched out beside me. She was even dressed like Snow White. Maybe she worked at Tokyo Disneyland? She was at least attractive, and also seemed kind of dazed, as if she also didn’t know how she got there. Who were these characters? How did I get here? I didn’t know what to do. I got down beside Snow White and we embraced anxiously.
north! 