Things we do for money
While Kiyono is really only on the outskirts of the sex economy (her customers buy her vibrators and want to talk about sex all the time), her friends are more involved; Yukina, who sweet-voiced and quiet, prim and demure, accepts men's penises into her mouth for money two nights a week, Yukina who is the second most popular girl at the men's sauna, you'd never guess. One of her customers, lonely at 40, big breast fixated, terrified of vaginas, pays her two hundred dollars an hour to fondle her and talk to her and when he dies (rich, no dependents) he will give her his apartment, he promises. Kouki, self-tattooer, met Rumi on a suicide website years ago as they floated round the edges, looking in at the committed, wondering; Kouki with the kanji for death on his forehead, artist, maker without direction, helping Rumi, a girl he does not love, to become pregnant because she wants a child to stave off loneliness, to give her someone that she made to love, Kouki used to be paid to go to a love hotel with men and accept their cocks up his ass, but they all accept this without blinking, they continue their lives funded by being receptacles for sperm, and they are normal, usual, only as fucked up as you or I.
The more Kiyono tells me about her work, the more respect I have for her. It's like being an actress, a girlfriend-to-many; one of her customers is convinced she is in love with him and is planning their marriage; yet he pays her to tell him she loves him, a beautiful self-deception. I wonder if he manages to divorce the acts of talking and paying the bill in his mind. Kiyono showed me a little of her stage persona last night, gently mocking herself and her customers; wide-eyed, hanging on my every word, muttering sweet nothings. Archly, she asked me if I believe her when she talks of love and I laughed and said I get your time for free, of course I believe you. But here living independently as a woman is difficult if not impossible, and hostess work, while draining and depressing, is a way out and around the set ways of being.
While Kiyono is really only on the outskirts of the sex economy (her customers buy her vibrators and want to talk about sex all the time), her friends are more involved; Yukina, who sweet-voiced and quiet, prim and demure, accepts men's penises into her mouth for money two nights a week, Yukina who is the second most popular girl at the men's sauna, you'd never guess. One of her customers, lonely at 40, big breast fixated, terrified of vaginas, pays her two hundred dollars an hour to fondle her and talk to her and when he dies (rich, no dependents) he will give her his apartment, he promises. Kouki, self-tattooer, met Rumi on a suicide website years ago as they floated round the edges, looking in at the committed, wondering; Kouki with the kanji for death on his forehead, artist, maker without direction, helping Rumi, a girl he does not love, to become pregnant because she wants a child to stave off loneliness, to give her someone that she made to love, Kouki used to be paid to go to a love hotel with men and accept their cocks up his ass, but they all accept this without blinking, they continue their lives funded by being receptacles for sperm, and they are normal, usual, only as fucked up as you or I.
The more Kiyono tells me about her work, the more respect I have for her. It's like being an actress, a girlfriend-to-many; one of her customers is convinced she is in love with him and is planning their marriage; yet he pays her to tell him she loves him, a beautiful self-deception. I wonder if he manages to divorce the acts of talking and paying the bill in his mind. Kiyono showed me a little of her stage persona last night, gently mocking herself and her customers; wide-eyed, hanging on my every word, muttering sweet nothings. Archly, she asked me if I believe her when she talks of love and I laughed and said I get your time for free, of course I believe you. But here living independently as a woman is difficult if not impossible, and hostess work, while draining and depressing, is a way out and around the set ways of being.
posted by Doug @ 7/30/2005 04:39:00 pm
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