Chapter 8
Perhaps the most famous of the servants in modern times are the geisha girls of Japan. The geisha is a young woman who has been trained all her life to please men. This essentially is her sole function. She learns the art of singing and dancing for that purpose, and everything else she learns is for that purpose too. She then enters one of the establishments on the Ginza in Tokyo or elsewhere, and she begins to practice her art. Men come to her and she sings for them or dances for them or sits with them and drinks tea. It is her career.
For years, the intimate life of a geisha girl has been unknown. They have been a mystery and an endless source of fascination to the Western observer. In their day, they have taken on aspects of the stereotype of the "inscrutable Oriental." Yet with the end of World War II, and the subsequent United States occupation of Japan, millions of
American men come into contact with the geishas, and a widespread belief followed that geishas were "nothing but whores," a common view expressed by many returning servicemen. Thus mystery was confronted with cynicism, and the American public still was not fully aware of what exactly was a geisha.
Yet the development of communication between the U.S. and Japan following the Second World War made possible the arrival in the United States of large numbers of Japanese as students and emigres. Such a person is Chukua, or Susie, a third-generation geisha who, at twenty-and now employed in a Japanese restaurant in San Francisco, can recount tales of herself, her mother, and her grandmother. Here is one such tale:
It pertains to my grandmother and takes place before the First World War. It involves also an American naval officer, and there are times when I have become convinced that my grandmother was really Madame Butterfly. Oh, I am making jokes, because I know that Madame Butterfly was not a real person. But you have told me the interesting story of Thomas Sutpen, of whom I have read in Faulkner's works, for Faulkner is very loved in Japan, and I cannot help thinking that Madame Butterfly was real, and that perhaps my dear grandmother was the prototype for that famous character.
But let me go on with the story. My grandmother worked as a geisha girl in a very elegant establishment on the Ginza in Tokyo in a time when the Ginza also was very elegant and not garish and common as it is today. My grandmother was very proud to be a geisha, and of course in that time geishas were very respected.
Let me pause here to say that some words against the geishas are true. That is, it is true that some of them are whores. This is not so because the true geisha is a whore as such, but rather that circumstances have made geishas of whores, not vice versa. In other words, when the American men came to Japan after World War II looking for geisha girls to fuck, those who did the most fucking in Japan, the whores, paraded themselves as geishas so that the American soldier could fuck them and think he was getting a geisha. After all, a wise woman has always known that a man's imagination controls his sex life.
Perhaps that is why Pinkerton, I'll call him Pinkerton because his name is lost now in the passing of time, thought he could do what he tried to do too. I suppose the geisha has always been the subject of male attempts at seduction.
Be that as it may, he met her when he was on shore leave in Tokyo many years ago. He arrived in the company of two other naval officers in the establishment, or house, where she worked; and together with two other geishas, my grandmother, whom I shall call Butterfly if only to be literary about everything, and I am making another joke, entertained the officers. The geishas sang soft
Japanese ballads for them and plucked the tiny instrument which you've seen so often and which may remind you of a toy guitar or banjo. And they danced small steps for the officers and made those movements with their hands which, as with their counterparts among the hula girls of Hawaii, have a significance in meaning. And then the officers and geishas sat together on straw mats at low long tables while the girls poured tea to the tiny hand-painted porcelain cups; and together they all sipped tea and nibbled Japanese cookies.
It was a thrilling occasion for my grandmother, of course, for she never had entertained a foreigner before, and naturally too the uniform was exciting as uniforms so often are to impressionable girls, and their visit left her heady. Although she had often entertained Japanese warlords and wealthy Tokyo businessmen, nothing could match her excitement at serving Pinkerton and his fellow officers.
Therefore you can imagine her astonishment and further excitement when Pinkerton visited her on the following day. She was thrilled and amazed, and when he said he came especially to see her, she was truly delighted. She blushed and cast her eyes downward and she looked as if she never would breathe again; so happy and tremulous she was.
He asked her if he might spend the day with her alone. She was ecstatic. She nodded softly. "Yes," she said in the English she had learned through many years at school. "Yes, you may stay with me the day." And she nodded sweetly again.
According to tradition, as you probably know, the geisha may occupy a separate room with her guests in the teahouse. There she pours for him whatever herb he wishes to taste, and together they may sit so long as he desires to pay for her time. If he wishes to take an entire day with her, and he is willing to pay for that day, the day then belongs to him, and she is his servant throughout the hours he is there. They may merely sit together and not speak a word. It is his time, and she is with him always.
So Pinkerton and Butterfly went to a room in the teahouse. It was a lovely room with a view of a wide garden that fell away past a pleasant tiny stream behind the house. And there was a little bridge and there were colored lanterns and miniature figurines everywhere in the garden. It was a pleasant place, and everything about the view was romantic.
"You are very sweet to spend this time with me," Pinkerton said, and he smiled nobly. He was quite handsome, tall and well-formed, and his uniform was precisely cut and it clothed his frame perfectly. His eyes were such as to strike a chord of deep trembling in any young girl, and his smile was fresh and inviting. He was a remarkable specimen of gallant manhood, and my grandmother thought he was the handsomest man she ever had seen.
She returned his smile, though hers was shy, and she nodded when he praised her so. She understood his English perfectly, and she was thrilled with their communication. She shivered slightly, but controlled herself so that he did not witness what occurred. And then, on her knees before him in the flowered long kimono she wore, she poured for him the special tea he had ordered, poured it to his cup and to hers. And she gently set the teapot on the tiny tray upon that long and low teakwood table.
They toasted. He said he wanted to toast their friendship. "In all Tokyo," he said, "I don't think I ever will have such a wonderful friend again." And he clinked his cup to hers.
She smiled happily. She liked being called his friend. It made her feel wonderful. It was a nice thing to say, she thought, and she repeated his words to herself as she touched her cup to his and looked beyond the cups into his eyes.
Then they sipped their tea, and Pinkerton again told her how beautiful she was. He said she was truly the most lovely girl in all Japan. His words were heady things to a young and impressionable girl, of course. And what he said had the weight of an atom bomb, long before atom bombs were invented. He was wonderful, she thought; truly he was the most wonderful guest she had ever served.
So when he asked her to sing a certain little ballad which, on the previous day, he had also requested her to repeat after the first time he had heard it, she sang it with the voice of a nightingale. She weaved the words of the ballad with the most precious possible intonation, developing the melody with exquisite perfection, giving to the song every art and artifice in the matter of delivery she ever had learned. She wanted him so much to love her song.
Then he would have her dance for him, and she rose to do that task, rose so willingly, so eager to please him. All her years of training in the art of pleasing men, surrendering herself as she had been taught, giving herself for the man's singular pleasure, all, all were telescoped into the single instance of that sublime little dance. She performed with all the grace of which she was capable, working her tiny feet carefully, exactly as she had learned each step through years of practice. And she moved her hands and weaved her fingers with a consummate delicacy to illustrate the tiniest nuances of meaning to be attributed to the song, to be part of the passage of that music and that rendering, that infinite small act of communication.
He was delighted. He clapped lustily when she was done, and he cried, "Encore, encore." And he urged her to repeat her performance. She did. She was ecstatic. She felt he was the most wonderful guest she ever would serve in hr life.
Then he urged her to sit with him again. But now he would have her beside him, not across the small table nor even at one corner. Rather he would have her directly beside him, and he brought her down, touching her hand lightly, taking her to him. At first she was hesitant. It was not often that men desired so much of her. Usually they were content to have her company, to listen to her songs, to watch her dance, to study the movements of her hands in those dances, and simply to sip tea with her and enjoy her presence.
At the same time, too, she knew she experienced with the handsome young American naval officer a strange new feeling she never had known with any of the other guests she served. And that feeling also caused her to hesitate to seat herself beside him.
Yet she did as he bade her to do. She seated herself on the bamboo mat at his side; and when he placed his hand gently to hers as she raised her cup, she tensed but let him do that also. "Perhaps," she told herself, "that is the American custom. I do not know the customs of his land, and it would be wrong of me to refuse him otherwise. It would be an insult, and a geisha never insults anyone. After all, he is a guest in our house, and we must respect his wishes in all matters."
So she let him hold her hand even when she had again replaced her cup to the teakwood table and when she had folded her hands to her lap, she let him squeeze her hand and hold it, and she said nothing; she only smiled to him and nodded pleasantly and listened to his words about her beauty. After all, if nothing else, she was heady from his words.
Then he did something for which none of her training prepared her. He placed his hand on her bosom. Yes, he felt a tit. She was stunned. Instinctively she started to move his hand away. But he looked at her curiously, and he said, "Is it not a custom in your land?"
She stopped her action, and his hand remained. And she said, "Pardon?" Was he speaking of customs? Only a minute earlier she had been thinking of customs, and now he was speaking of them. How interesting that they should be considering the same matters.
And he said, "In my land, it is a custom to touch another when one cares for that person. Is it not so with your land?" And he squeezed her tits, first one and then the other, gently plucking her nipples through the crude brassiere and petticoat she wore beneath her flowing flowered kimono.
She shook her head. "What an unusual custom," she thought. And she said, "In our land, we only do that at a certain time." And when he asked her what time that was, she said, "After a wedding."
"But of course," he exclaimed. "How interesting that our customs should be reversed. "In my land, we do this," and he tweaked her titties again, "before a wedding. In fact, it is a sign that we wish to have a wedding." And he tweaked her boobs again.
She shivered from his work on her jugs. But at the same time, she was excited by the thought of what he said to her. After all, girls today, even I with the experience of two worlds, become excited at the hint of marriage. It is what we live for, don't you think? So naturally my poor innocent grandmother was smitten by his verbal attack upon her. And she blushed profusely.
"In our land," Pinkerton continued, slipping his hand inside her kimono now to feel her tits directly, "these are all signs that we wish a wedding." And he reached inside her petticoat and played directly at her crude brassiere.
She shuddered openly now. "Oh," she said, and gasped, "this is not so in our land." She sucked a breath, and tried to control herself. Never in her life had she felt so excited. "No, we don't do things like that before a wedding," she wheezed. "We don't do anything like that before a wedding." But she did not stop him from doing what he was doing.
And he continued to do what he was doing. He unfastened her kimono and he began to raise her petticoat. It was then she suddenly begged him to stop. "No," she cried nervously, "your customs and my customs are different, and we mustn't do this. No, please." And she fought his hands away.
But he became insulted. Or she thought he did. He looked at her offendedly, and he said, "But sweet Butterfly, why would you deny me? We are friends, are we not? And I have told you that all this must be done before a wedding. Would you not believe my intention?"
"Your intention?" she said. And she immediately was thrown back to the wild thought of a wedding. He wanted to marry her. Yes, it now was a matter positive. He was saying it flatly to her. And she said, to confirm her wildest sudden dreams, "You would wed me?" And she looked at him with wide innocent eager eyes.
"But of course," he said. "That's been my intention from the first minute I saw you yesterday, my dearest Butterfly. I have never wanted anything else. It is all I ever shall want."
She shuddered again from his words, and she did not stop him when he moved his hands now up her legs. She could only think of the wedding and of America, a land which in her wildest dreams did not seem attainable. Yet she said to him, like a little girl wanting to insure that Santa Claus knows about her, "Are you sure? You would want me to go to America with you? You would want me to go with you in your land?"
"But of course," he said. "That's exactly what I want. I want exactly that, sweet Butterfly, and nothing else. You will be my wife and I will be your husband." And all the while he moved upon her cunt with his fingertips.
Yet she had misgivings. Somehow, strangely, she had felt it wasn't so. Somehow reason prevailed in a dark corner of her fevering brain, and she would shove his hands away. "No," she said, "no. I could not be your wife. I am a geisha, and my life is to serve men. I could not be your wife."
He paused and did not pursue her with his hands now, and he said most reasonably, looking directly at her, "But tell me, how do most geishas find husbands? That is, whom do they marry?"
She hesitated, and he pursued her, saying, "Do they not marry someone they have met while they were a geisha? Is it not common for a geisha to marry well because she meets a guest in the teahouse? Tell me, is that not so?" And when she meekly nodded agreement to his words, he immediately said, "Then what is this except the same thing, dear Butterfly? What is the difference?"
She knew he was right, and yet that strange sense of reason which had emerged from the dark comer of her fevering brain made her say, "But we have only met. We do not really know each other. We-"
But he interrupted her to ask if she did not believe in love at first sight. He said, "Would you tell me that no geisha has ever met a man she loved immediately? Would you tell me that, sweet Butterfly?" And when she hesitated, he continued, "Then is it wrong if a guest in the teahouse should also fall immediately in love with the sweet geisha who loves him as well?"
His reason overpowered her reason, and he went back to work on her clit again. But then as she grew increasingly excited to his touch she made a last-ditch effort to stem the tide of his advance, and she whispered hotly, "But not here, sir. Not here in the room. Please, sir, not here."
"Call me Pinkerton," he said, "or Pinky. Do not 'sir,' me. Where then? Where can we do it before a wedding." And he looked around excitedly, and his breath was short and his face flushed.
She thought quickly and then was sure she could escape her fate, for she suddenly feared what he would do to her and suddenly did not want to break her custom in favor of his custom, and she said, "The bath. Let us go to the bath."
"The bath?"
"Yes, the bath. Come." And she hurriedly rose, fastened her kimono, took his hand and led him from the room, down a small and wide flight of stairs and then through a hall and past long swinging doors and into a wide room full with water in the fashion of one of your swimming pools. I am sure you have seen pictures of Japanese baths.
Nobody was there. She was shocked. She had been sure at least one of the other girls would be there with a guest, and she then would feel safe. But nobody else was there, and now he was saying, "Do we just go in and take a swim? Is that the idea?" And he already was peeling away his uniform.
She said that they were not supposed to swim, but that she would wash him, and she started from her kimono, and removed her undergarments. He was out of his uniform quickly, and together they went into the water, and she began to rub a sponge over his back. But of course she had seen his gigantic hard-on when he was out of his uniform, and though she stood behind him in order not to look at it, she found herself moving to either side of him, pretending to be interested in sponging his arms, but in reality stealing peeks at that lovely great cock.
Finally, when he turned to her and grabbed her quickly and thrust his lips to her lips and inserted his tongue to her mouth, she could resist the temptation no longer. She shoved her belly against that big bird of the West, the proud bird with the red head, and she knew that she was willing to do it before a wedding. In fact, when he bent his knees and started to come up between her legs, she spread her legs for him and even bent herself backward sufficiently so that he could rip her vag nicely.
They fucked in the bath. It was a beautiful fuck. They stood in the wide pool alone, the deep water high around her shoulders and his chest, and he had his dick up her cunt. In fact, she was riding on it, He cupped her ass cheeks and lifted her high, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and she rode his tall dick. "Oh," she gasped, "it is like a big bar that is so perfect in my little hole. It fills me and makes me feel so perfect. It is the most beautiful thing I know."
"Sing that song for me, baby," he whispered hotly to her ear as he sent his dick up and down her vag. "You know, the one I like so much. Sing it while we fuck." And he speared her again.
So she sang the song, and they went to town in that bath. She lightly sang the song he liked so much, and her voice and rhythm and melody reflected her heat. Gradually her singing became shorter and more strident and wilder as she grew more intense with the fuck they were in.
He dicked her beautifully. He gave her a series of wild runs that sent her off her nut. She was crazy with his cock inside her, and she was going frantic from its goodness. He kept sending that dick solidly into her hole, and she was all over his body trying to hold onto it. Finally she cried out like a firebell in the night, "Oh, Pinky, I'm coming. I'm starting to come, Pinky. I'm starting to come." And she churned madly her little Japanese cunt on his tall American dick.
So they moved down the route for their comes, and Pinkerton rammed Butterfly powerfully with his huge cock. He beat her mercilessly with it while he cupped her ass cheeks and bent low to nip her nipples beneath the water. He drove her insane and started moving speedily for his own breakthrough.
She rocked him wildly and that set him off. In her own grand come, she brought him all the way, and together they blew out their brains. She destroyed herself in a furious sudden release, and he sent loads of hot sperm up her flaming cunt. He powered all his force into her and broke out everything from his balls, spilling his white lava up her vag. He gave her everything, and she screamed from its hot feeling in her cunt.
So they rocked away their fucks, spent down their tension, relieved themselves fully with a series of last jabs to blow out all their nerves, and he poured the last of his liquid into her, and left her limply resting on his limp dick. Both of them were at the point of total collapse and she barely could hold onto his neck with her arms and his waist with her legs.
But in her mind was the wonderful feeling that this would happen again and again. Her Pinky loved her, didn't he? And this would happen again and again. She even told him that when they were done and when they had climbed from the pool. She said, as she toweled him, as she went onto her knees, dipped a hand to the bath and brought water up to wash his dick perfectly clean before she toweled that, also, "Someday in America, we will do this all the time after the wedding, won't we?" And she knelt before him and looked up at him eagerly as she toweled his dick and balls.
For a minute, she thought he looked vaguely at her, and then he said, "Oh sure. Sure, Butterfly. We'll do this all the time." And though she smiled and was glad that he said those words, yet something about them bothered her, and she didn't know what it was.
But she licked his dick when he told her to suck it, which, he said, was almost an American custom "before a wedding." And she tongued his cock perfectly and wondered about the strangeness of the American who did everything before a wedding. What did they do after a wedding?
He blew a second load in her mouth, and she swallowed it eagerly, and washed him down afterwards anew, and then helped him dress, and together they went back to the tearoom where she thought he would remain. But he didn't stay. He said he had other things to do, and that he mustn't be late, but that he would see her again soon to discuss the wedding.
He did not return, however, and my grandmother did become big with child. She cried when he did not return, and she wanted to kill herself when she knew she was pregnant. But she did not kill herself, and she gave birth to the baby, a delightful little girl with big round eyes and a pink complexion. And my grandmother called the little girl Pinky, in part for her complexion and in part for something else. And she trained her little girl to be a geisha, but with reservations.
My own father was a Tokyo clerk, and then I became a geisha girl and met my own Pinkerton who was fool enough to marry me and bring me to the States where I promptly divorced him and went to work on my own. After all, what family can believe in butterflies forever?