ANUARY 30

SHIBUYA: WA (?), ¥10,000

SHIBUYA: FOREIGNER, ¥3,000

Zhang’s a big liar. A piece of shit. And a murderer! I placed my can of beer, packet of dried squid, and bottle of gymnema pills on the counter at the convenience store and thought about him.

“Hey!” Someone poked me in the back. I realized I’d cut in line but I didn’t care, I stood where I was and placed an order for oden stew.

“I want fish cake, radish, and konnyaku—one of each. And fill the bowl up with broth, will you.”

The man behind the counter gave a snort of annoyance, but the female clerk—who was used to seeing me there—went to the cauldron of oden and picked out what I wanted without any expression at all. The two young women standing in line behind me mumbled something—either an insult or a complaint—so I turned and glared at them. They looked intimidated. It amused me. I’d taken to staring people directly in the eye—in the office, at home, wherever. I am a monster. Everyone treats me like I’m special. And if you have a problem with it, just try to be like me!

I went outside and quickly slurped the broth. The smooth warm liquid slipped down my throat. I knew the heat of the liquid would shrink my stomach. It would grow smaller and smaller. A train rumbled passed on the Inokashira Line tracks. I straightened up and watched it pull into Shinsen Station. I wondered if Zhang was in it.

More than half a year had past since Zhang and I clung to each other that rainy night. It was now January. We’d had a mild winter so far, which made things a lot easier for me. Whenever I got to Shinsen Station, I always looked for Zhang. Once, as I peered up through the fence from the road, I thought I saw a man who looked like him standing on the platform. But I hadn’t run into him since that rainy night. That was just as well. He was nothing to me. I put all my energy into my night work. Zhang will continue to live in this country, forgetting that he’s killed Yuriko.

That night we’d both been desperately sentimental. But still, I had had to burst out laughing when I heard Zhang’s ridiculous little soliloquy.

“I loved that prostitute. The one you said was Yuriko.”

“Oh, give me a break! That’s not really likely, is it? I mean, you had just met her. And Yuriko wasn’t anything more than a shabby whore. Besides, I doubt even she would have believed you. She hated men, you know.”

Zhang grabbed me by the throat as I squirmed in laughter, as if he was going to strangle me.

“Oh, so you think it’s funny? Well, how about I do you the same way? You stupid bitch.”

The orange light illuminating the entry to the staircase reflected in Zhang’s eyes, making them glitter. He looked possessed, creepy. Frightened, I slapped Zhang’s hands away and stood up. The rain struck my cheeks. I raised my hand to wipe it off and realized it wasn’t water, it was Zhang’s spit. Sperm, spit: a woman receives what men excrete.

“Get lost.” Zhang waved me away, and I rushed down from the roof. I scrambled down the slippery staircase, kicking the wet garbage aside as I went. What was it about Zhang that I wanted to try to escape? Even I wasn’t sure. As I got to the front door of the building, I collided with a man who was dashing in from the outside. His body, damp with rain and sweat, emitted a peculiar odor. His black T-shirt was soaked, revealing a slender build. It was Dragon. I adjusted my wig and called out to him.

“Hello!”

Dragon did not reply. Instead he riveted me with his needle-sharp gaze.

“Zhang’s on the roof,” I informed him. “Do you know why he’s hanging out up there? He’s running from something.”

I had planned to tell Dragon that Zhang had murdered Yuriko, and that was why he was on the lam. But before I could, Dragon surprised me with an explanation of his own.

“He’s running from us, the asshole. He’s cheated us out of all our money, and until he pays us back we’ve told him he’s not welcome to come back.”

The night I had slept with Chen-yi and Dragon one after the other, Dragon had been kissing Zhang’s ass. But tonight, Dragon was arrogant.

“Yeah, well, he killed a prostitute, you know. He killed a prostitute in Shinjuku,” I said, smirking at him.

“A prostitute? Let him kill all the prostitutes he wants. They’re easily replaced. But money, that’s different!”

Dragon shook the cheap vinyl umbrella he was carrying, sending raindrops scattering in all directions.

“Well, don’t you agree?”

I nodded, yes. He had a point. Money was definitely more valuable than life. But then, when I died, my money would be meaningless. My mother and younger sister would end up with it. The thought irritated me, but what could I do? I was disgruntled by the fact that I couldn’t figure out something so simple. Dragon looked at me and laughed derisively.

“Do you believe what that asshole tells you? Zhang’s a liar, you know. No one here trusts a thing he says.”

“Everyone lies.”

“But nothing that loser says is true. Oh, he acts like he’s such a hard worker, talking about how he left his village to seek his fortune in the big cities back home. But the fact of the matter is, he bumped off his grandpa, his older brother, and the man who was supposed to marry his little sister and he had no choice but to skip town. He says he forced his sister into prostitution when he got to Hangzhou and he started running drugs for a gang. He pretends that he was kept by some politician’s daughter to cover his tracks. He’s an asshole. Hell, the only reason he came to Japan was to escape the police.”

“He told me he killed his sister.”

Dragon looked up in surprise. A look of bemusement flashed across his eyes. “Well, well. I guess the son-of-a-bitch does tell the truth now and then. That seems to be true. I heard it from another guy who made the trip on the same boat with Zhang. He said he pretended to grab for his sister’s hand, but it looked to the guy like he’d pushed her overboard. Well, whatever happened, the bastard’s a criminal. And he really screwed us over.”

Dragon headed for the stairs. I saw the muscles in his back ripple under his wet T-shirt.

“Hey, Dragon?”

He turned back to look at me.

“Do you want to party with me?”

Pure loathing washed over Dragon’s face as he eyed me up and down.

“’Fraid not. I’ll keep my money for a woman who’s better than you. Besides, I like a woman with a little more meat.”

“Motherfucker! You know you enjoyed sleeping with me.”

I picked up the umbrella that Dragon had left by the doorway and hurled it at him, but it landed halfway up the stairs. Dragon burst out laughing and turned to continue up to the roof. Motherfucker! Goddamn motherfucker! I had never used such filthy language before in all my life, but I couldn’t help myself. I hope they all die. Motherfuckers! I remembered their dirty apartment. I’d told myself then that I’d never go back. So why had I propositioned Dragon? It must have just been a moment of weakness brought on by the embrace I had enjoyed earlier on the roof. Or maybe it was as Yuriko predicted. Maybe it was because whores like us expose men. I’d exposed Zhang’s weakness and Dragon’s maliciousness. I was so furious with myself that I intentionally broke the cover to the mailbox slot for unit 404.

I wondered what had become of Zhang. That’s what was on my mind as I trudged off to the Jiz statue, the plastic grocery bag dangling from my hand. I had an appointment to meet Arai there. It had been a long time: four months. Both Yoshizaki and Arai had invited me out to dinner in the past. But now they just wanted to meet in hotels. First it was twice a month, then once, and now about once every two months or so. To make up for the infrequency, I was determined to try to get more money from them for each session.

When I reached the alley that ran in front of the Jiz statue, I saw Arai’s rounded back. He was lurking in the shadows in front of the statue, wearing the same shabby gray coat he had worn last year and the year before that, his shoulder weighed down, as always, by the strap of a black vinyl bag. And, as always, a weekly paper poked out over the edge of the bag. The only thing different was that his hair had grown thinner and whiter than it had been two years ago.

“Mr. Arai, have you been waiting long? You’re early, aren’t you?”

Arai frowned when he heard my high-pitched voice, and he brought his finger to his lips, signaling me to be quiet. No one was around. Why did he have to be so nervous? I wondered if he was ashamed to be seen with me in public. Arai said nothing but turned and headed off to our regular love hotel. The ones in Murayama-ch were the cheapest around, ¥3,000 for a short stay. I hummed as I strolled along, making sure to stay a few feet behind Arai. I was in a good mood. I was pleased that Arai had decided to call me. It had been awhile, but I felt things might be returning to the way they had once been, when I felt I owned the Shibuya night. I may have been a lowly street-corner prostitute, but I still didn’t want to die. I wasn’t going to end up like Yuriko.

When we got to the hotel room I turned the hot water on in the tub and scanned the room for anything valuable to take. I decided to help myself to the extra roll of toilet paper that had been put there. I might be able to use the night-robe sash for something. And then of course there were the condoms by the pillow. I noticed that they’d only provided one tonight. Usually they leave two. I called the front desk to complain and had them send up one more. I would leave one there for Arai and pocket the other.

“You’ll have a beer, won’t you, Mr. Arai?”

I opened the grocery bag I was carrying, pulled out the can of beer and the snacks I’d bought earlier, and set them on the rickety table. The oden was my evening meal, so I ate it without offering him any.

“God, you like a lot of broth in your oden,” he said with disgust.

This was the first time we’d seen each other in I don’t know how long, and this was all he had to say to me? I didn’t answer. Oden broth is diet food; anyone knows that! It fills you up and then you don’t eat a lot of other stuff. How come men don’t know simple things like this? I drank the rest of the broth. Arai looked at me in annoyance and headed to the bathroom. He used to be so hesitant about saying the wrong thing in front of me, so conscious of his own small-town manners: Mr. Arai from a chemical company in Toyama. When did he change? I sat there for a bit, staring blankly into space, while I thought it over.

“I want this to be our last session.”

Arai’s pronouncement caught me completely off guard. I stared at him in shock, but he avoided my gaze.

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to retire this year.”

“So what? Does that mean you have to retire from me too?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Company and prostitute were one and the same? That would make me a company employee both day and night. Or, maybe it’s the other way around: I’m a prostitute both night and day!

“No, that’s not what I’m suggesting. It’s just that I’ll be home all the time and it’ll be hard to get away. Besides, I doubt I’ll have many complaints that I’ll need you to listen to.”

“Okay, okay. I get the picture,” I said impatiently, as I held my hand out in front of Arai. “Then give me what I’m owed.”

Arai went to the closet where he’d hung his wrinkled suit jacket and sullenly reached into the pocket to pull out his paper-thin wallet. I knew he only had two ten-thousand-yen notes inside. He always brought just enough to cover my charge of ¥15,000 and the ¥3,000 room fee. He never walked around with anything more than the amount he needed. Yoshizaki was the same way. Arai placed the two bills on my upturned palm.

“Here’s your fifteen thousand yen. Now give me five thousand in change.”

“You’re short.”

Arai stared at me. “What do you mean? This is what I always pay.”

“That’s just my salary. If I’m an employee in your nighttime company, you need to pay my retirement allowance.”

Arai stared at my open palm but said nothing. Then he looked up at me, clearly growing angry.

“You’re a prostitute. You have no right to that!”

“I’m not just a prostitute, I’m also a company employee.”

“Right, right, I know: G Corporation, G Corporation. All you ever do is brag about it. But I bet you’re an enormous burden to your firm. If you’d been employed at my company, you’d have been let go long ago. The era of your debut is long past, you know; you’re no longer the flower-faced office lady you used to be. You’re really weird, to tell you the truth, and you get weirder by the minute. Each time I sleep with you, I ask myself what the hell I’m doing. I can’t figure it out. You disgust me. But then, each time you call, I feel so sorry for you I can’t help but agree to meet you.”

“Oh, is that so? Well, then, I’ll just take what you’ve given me here for the time being. The additional hundred thousand yen you can deposit in my bank account.”

“Give that back. You bitch!”

Arai grabbed the bills from my hand; I couldn’t let him take them. If I lost that money, I’d lose myself. But Arai struck me hard across the face, sending my wig flying.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“That’s what I’d like to know! What are you doing?”

Arai was breathing heavily. “Here, bitch,” he hissed as he threw one ten-thousand-yen note at me. “I’m leaving.”

Arai yanked his suit jacket on and folded his coat over his arm.

Once he hoisted his bag onto his shoulder, I shouted at him. “You have to pay the hotel costs too. And you owe me seven hundred yen for the drinks and the snack.”

“Fine.”

Arai reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change. He counted out the coins and threw them on the table.

“Don’t ever call me again,” he said. “The more I see you the more you terrify me. You make me sick.”

Look who’s talking, I wanted to say. Who was the one who always wanted to get me off with finger play? Aren’t you the one who had me pose for Polaroid pictures; who tied me up and got off on S and M play? And who was the one I had to suck on until I was nearly blue in the face because he couldn’t get it up? I did all this for you—I freed you—and this is the thanks I get?

Arai opened the door and addressed me curtly. “Sat-san, you ought to be careful.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got the shadow of death over you.”

With that he closed the door. Once I was alone, I looked around the room. Well, thank God I hadn’t pulled the tab on the beer can! Funny, that’s all I could think of at the time. I was more offended by Arai’s claim that I was tantamount to a corporation than I was by his sudden change of heart. A man’s work and prostitution are the same? If a man has a retirement age in the corporate world, then should he also retire from buying prostitutes? It was the same as the lecture I’d been given long ago by that woman in the Ginza. Well, enough of that! I stuffed the beer and snacks back in the plastic bag and turned off the hot water.

I returned to the Jiz statue. There was a man standing there waiting for me. At first I thought Arai might have changed his mind, but then I noticed that the man was taller than Arai and was wearing jeans.

“You look well,” Zhang said, breaking into a smile.

“Really?”

I opened my trench coat as wide as I could. I wanted to seduce Zhang. “I’ve been hoping to run into you.”

“Why?”

Zhang brought his hand up to my cheek and stroked it softly. I quivered. Be good to me. I flashed back to that rainy night. But I wasn’t going to say those words again. I hated men. But I loved sex.

“I’d like to do a little business,” I told him. “What do you say? I’ll give you a good price.”

“Three thousand yen?”

Zhang and I started walking. I keep a record of the men I have liaisons with in my prostitute’s journal. But the marks that I’ve used in my journal tonight are in reverse order, aren’t they? They’re backwards. This time I’ve marked Arai, WA, instead of the foreigner, with a question mark. This indicates those men with whom I will probably not have sex again. In other words, it marks the men I think are rotten.

Zhang and I linked arms and walked from one dark alley to the next. Past the kitchen assistant, who threw water at me and told me to get lost; past the man who told me no one does that anymore, when I tried to exchange beer bottles for money; past the sake shop owner who treated me callously; past the convenience-store clerk who refuses to say a word to me, even though I’m constantly buying stuff in her store; past the punks who shine their flashlights on me and burst out laughing when I’m in the empty lot having sex. I wanted to shout at them all, Look at me now! I’m not just some street-corner whore, some bottom-feeding slut. Here I am walking for all the world to see with a man who was waiting for me in front of the Jiz statue. A man who is good to me. I am the sought-after, the desired, the capable: the queen of sex.

“We look like a pair of lovers!”

I squealed in delight. I’m with Zhang. I’m an employee of G Corporation. My article won a newspaper prize. I’m the assistant office manager. How come I was never able to get by without saying all these things? Was it simply that I wanted to say them to customers? No, it was more than that. I had to say what I said because if I didn’t I would feel they were making fun of me. I had to be the best at everything I did. It was important to me as a woman. And that made me want to show off. I wanted men to watch me, to appraise me. Moreover, I wanted them to approve of me. That was me in a nutshell. In the final analysis, I was really just a sweet girl who needed approval.

“What are you mumbling about over there?”

Zhang peered at me. His eyes were wide and awash with uncertainty.

“I was talking to myself. Could you hear?” I asked Zhang, surprised by his question. But he just shook his balding head.

“Are you feeling okay? I mean, mentally?”

Where’d he get off asking such a question? Of course I was okay! Nothing wrong with my mental abilities! I got up on time this morning, boarded the train, changed to the subway, and worked like an aggressive career woman in one of the biggest corporations around. At night I transformed into a prostitute sought out by men. Suddenly I remembered the argument I had had earlier with Arai and stopped short. I’m a company employee day and night. Or is it that I’m a prostitute night and day? Which is it? Which one is me? Is the area in front of the Jiz statue my headquarters? Then was the Marlboro Hag the chief of operations before I took over? That thought amused me so much I burst out laughing.

“What are you doing?”

Zhang turned around to stare at me as I stood there laughing. When I looked around me, I saw that we’d arrived in front of Zhang’s apartment building. I put my hands on my hips and declared, “Tonight, I’m not doing a whole host of men!”

“Don’t worry, none of them want to sleep with you anyway,” Zhang said. “No one but me, that is.”

“Do you like me?” I asked Zhang, reeling with excitement over his last words. Say it! Say it! Say, “I like you.” Say, “You’re a good woman. You’re attractive.” Say it!

Zhang didn’t say anything. He fished around in his pockets.

“Where are we going? To the roof?”

I was afraid the roof would be too cold. I leaned against one of the walls and looked up at the night sky. But then, if Zhang was good to me, I wouldn’t mind the cold. Suddenly I was seized with doubt. What did it mean for a man to be good to you? Did it mean he’d give you lots of money? But Zhang didn’t have money. More likely he’d try to haggle over the ¥3,000. Was it something that you felt, then? But I was afraid of feeling. I mean, for a prostitute it’s supposed to be about work.

“Did you hear what I just said?”

Zhang walked past his apartment building and stopped in front of the one next to it. It was a peculiar building. There was a bar in the basement, and I could see orange lights leaking out onto the asphalt from windows that were at street level. When I peeked in the windows, I saw customers seated with their drinks, their heads about level with our feet. The building was three stories tall, but it looked to be only about as high as a two-story building. The top of the basement windows were at street level, and the first floor started just above that. The boisterous noise coming from the basement bar seemed oddly incongruous with the quiet loneliness of the surrounding buildings. I found it a little unnerving. Even though I’d come to Zhang’s apartment any number of times, I’d never once noticed this shabby apartment building that was right next door.

“Has this building been here all along?” I asked.

Zhang looked taken aback by the dim-wittedness of my question. He pointed up to the top of the building.

“It’s been here all this time. Look over there; that’s my room. I can see this building from my window.”

I looked up to the fourth floor of the other building and could see two windows that opened out above us like eyeballs. One of the windows was dark, the other was bright with a fluorescent lamp.

“You’ve got a direct view.”

“That I do. I can see if someone’s in or not. The super of this building sometimes gives me a key to one of the apartments.”

“Then, if I lived in this apartment, you would know exactly what I was doing at any given time.”

“If I wanted to.”

The idea made me happy. Zhang looked puzzled. He swung his head down. He stopped in front of the apartment at the end of the other shabby building—Number 103—and pulled a key out of his pocket. The apartment next to it was pitch-black. It didn’t look as if anyone was living there. It looked as if there were vacant units on the second floor too. Three grimy-looking mailboxes were tacked to the thin Sheetrock wall at the entryway. Above these was a sign that read GREEN VILLA APARTMENTS. Condoms and leaflets were strewn across the concrete floor. I shivered. The filth in the apartment foyer reminded me of the garbage on the roof of Zhang’s building and the stench of his bathroom. I sensed this was a place I shouldn’t see and shouldn’t be visiting. I shouldn’t do this.

“Hmm, I wonder if I’m doing something I shouldn’t?” I asked Zhang, without thinking.

“I doubt there’s one thing in the world that fits that category,” Zhang answered, as he opened the door.

I looked inside. It smelled like an old person’s breath. It was pitch-black inside; the odor that greeted me seemed to have risen out of a vast emptiness. We could do it in here and no one would know, I thought to myself. Zhang left me standing there and disappeared into the darkness. It seemed he knew his way around. He’d probably brought any number of women here already. Well, I wasn’t going to let them get the better of me, I thought, as I slipped quickly out of my high heels, causing them to shoot off in both directions.

“There’s no electricity, so watch your step.”

Brought up to be a polite young lady, I turned around and straightened my shoes neatly in front of the entry step. The step was cool on my feet. And even though I was wearing stockings, I could tell it was covered in dust. Zhang was already sitting on the tatami in the back room.

“I can’t see. I’m scared,” I called out in

a syrupy voice, hoping Zhang would hold out his hand. But he didn’t come to me. I groped my way to the back room. The apartment was entirely bare, so I had no reason to fear bumping into anything. It didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Light from the outside filtered in through the kitchen window, so it wasn’t pitch-black. It was a small apartment. I could vaguely make out Zhang sitting cross-legged at the back of the six-mat room. He held up his hand to motion me over.

“Come in here and take off your clothes.”

I pulled off my coat as I shivered in the cold. I stripped off my blue suit. I took off my underwear. Zhang sat there fully clothed, wrapped in his leather jacket. I lay back on the tatami and looked up at the ceiling. Zhang looked down at me.

“Haven’t you forgotten something?”

“What?” I asked, my teeth chattering against the cold.

“Why did you take your clothes off before you got your money? You’re a prostitute, aren’t you? I’m here to buy you, so you ought to make sure you get your money first.”

“Well, give it to me then.”

Zhang placed three thousand-yen notes over my body. One on my chest, one on my stomach, and one on my crotch. A measly three thousand. I wanted to scream, I want more! But on the other hand, I would have been happy to do Zhang for nothing. I wanted to experience normal sex. I wanted to be held tenderly. I wanted to make love.

Zhang said, as if reading my heart, “You’re not worth more than three thousand yen. What do you think? Do you want the money? If you don’t, you’ll become a normal woman, not a prostitute. But you know I’m not interested in normal women, so I don’t sleep with them. So what will you be, a whore who’s worth no more than three thousand yen or a normal woman I don’t want to touch?”

I collected the thousand-yen notes off my body and clung to them. I still wanted him to hold me. I could hear Zhang pulling the zipper down on his jeans. And in the dim light I could see his erect penis. Zhang put his penis in my mouth and began moving his hips. His breathing grew labored.

“I can’t do it with a woman unless I pay for it. Even if it’s just a paltry three thousand.”

Zhang lay down and entered me. He was still dressed, and it was only where he entered me that he was warm. It felt strange. His leather jacket was cool on my skin, and every time he moved the friction of his jeans rubbing against my thighs hurt.

“You like prostitutes because your sister was one?”

“That’s not it.” Zhang shook his head. “It’s just the opposite. I liked prostitutes, so I made my sister become one. I didn’t do it because I wanted to sleep with my sister. I did it because I wanted to sleep with my prostitute sister. There’s nothing in this world that’s off limits. But people who get duped wouldn’t understand.”

Zhang gave a high-pitched laugh. He began to move on top of me. I wanted him to kiss me. I stretched my face up to his, but he turned his head away, intentionally avoiding my lips. Only our lower bodies touched, moved, machinelike, methodically. Was this really what sex was? I felt so empty, like I was on the verge of going crazy. The other time he’d been gentle. And I’d felt like I’d never felt before. What would happen today? I heard Zhang laugh. He was growing excited, breathing heavily. He was completely alone now, wasn’t he? That was sex.

I heard Yuriko’s voice. I saw her sitting on my left. She was wearing a wig with hair that fell to her waist. Her eyelids were painted blue, her lips bright red. A prostitute dressed just like me. Yuriko began to tickle my left thigh with her slender fingers.

“Go on! See, I’m going to help you. I’m going to help you come.”

Slowly, softly she began to massage my thigh.

“Thanks, you’re so nice to me. I’m sorry I bullied you in high school.”

“Silly, the one who got the worst bullying was you. Why didn’t you see it? You never could see your own weaknesses.” Yuriko spoke ruefully. “If you’d known, you might have been happy.”

“Maybe.”

Zhang had begun to thrust into me violently. He was getting heavier, pressing down on my chest so hard I couldn’t breathe. Zhang didn’t even notice the woman who had to bear his weight. Most of the men I took as customers were like that. Did they think I was going to go on forever without noticing their contempt? The stunt with the money really brought it home. Was that really my worth? Not likely! Not for an employee of G Corporation who pulled down a salary of ¥10,000,000 a year.

“There are customers out there who are attracted to a woman like me without a breast. Pretty odd, wouldn’t you say?”

I remembered that voice. I turned in surprise to my right and saw the Marlboro Hag sitting there. She was wearing a black bra with a wad of material where her breast should have been—the breast she’d lost to cancer. I could see the bra through her flimsy nylon jacket. The Marlboro Hag massaged my right thigh. Her hands were dry and calloused but strong. The massage felt good. It was like it had been in Zhang’s apartment when I was doing Chen-yi. Dragon was on my right and Zhang on my left, both stroking my thighs.

“Don’t think about anything. You think too much! Give in to your body, relax, enjoy life!” The Marlboro Hag laughed. “I gave you the turf in front of the Jiz statue because I thought you’d do a good job—a better job than you’ve done, anyway.”

“That’s not true!” Yuriko shouted at the Marlboro Hag. “You knew all along that Kazue would turn out like this.”

The two of them continued talking, completely oblivious of me or Zhang. But they never stopped their hands. They continued stroking my thighs. Zhang was nearing orgasm. He let out a loud cry. I wanted to come too. I heard a voice above my head.

“Your foolishness wounds my heart.”

It was the crazy woman with the Bible. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I was so confused, I started to scream in the darkness.

“Save me!”

Zhang came just as I screamed. Panting heavily, he finally rolled off my body. At the same time, Yuriko disappeared and then the Marlboro Hag, and I was alone in the room, lying by myself on the tatami, naked.

“You’re talking to yourself again!”

Zhang opened my handbag without asking, pulled out a packet of tissues, and used them all on himself. Then he caught sight of the crumpled ten-thousand-yen note that I had squeezed out of Arai.

“Don’t try to steal it. That’s mine.”

“I’m not going to steal it.” Zhang laughed and snapped my purse shut. “I don’t steal from prostitutes.”

Liar. Didn’t he just say there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t do? I suddenly felt cold and got up to dress. Lights from a passing car raced across the walls of the room. In that burst of light I could see that the walls were spotted with stains and the paper room dividers were torn. How strange that someone with as good an upbringing as I would end up in a room like this. I tilted my head to the side. Zhang opened the window in the kitchen and threw his spent condom outside. He turned back to look at me.

“Let’s meet here again.”

I’m home now and have opened my notebook. I think it won’t be long before I have to bring my journal writing to an end. It’s supposed to be a record of my activities as a prostitute, but I’m having more and more days without customers. Therefore, Kijima-kun, these notebooks are for you. Please don’t send them back to me like you did with those love letters in high school. Because, you see, what you’ve read in these journals is another true side of me.