CHAPTER IX
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
