Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

"What do you mean "How come?'?!"

"Just that. How come you were thinking of me?"

"Maybe because I like you, that's how come! Why else would I be thinking of you? Who would e ver think they wanted to be with somebody they didn't like?"

"But you've got a boyfriend," I said. "You don't have to think about me." I took a slow sip of my whisky and soda. "Meaning I'm not allowed to think about you if I've got a boyfriend?"

"No, that's not it, I just - "

"Now get this straight, Watanabe," said Midori, pointing at me. "I'm warning you, I've got a whole month's worth of misery crammed inside me and getting ready to blow. So watch what you say to me.

Any more of that kind of stuff and I'll flood this place with tears. Once I get started, I'm good for the whole night. Are you ready for that? I'm an absolute animal when I start crying, it doesn't matter where I am!

I'm not joking."

I nodded and kept quiet. I ordered a second whisky and soda and ate a few pistachios. Somewhere behind the sound of a sloshing shaker and clinking glasses and the scrape of an ice maker, Sarah Vaughan sang an old-fashioned love song.

"Things haven't been right between me and my boyfriend ever since the tampon incident."

"Tampon incident?"

"Yeah, I was out drinking with him and a few of his friends about a month ago and I told them the story of a woman in my neighbourhood who blew out a tampon when she sneezed. Funny, right?"

"That is funny," I said with a laugh.

"Yeah, all the other guys thought so, too. But he got mad and said I shouldn't be talking about such dirty things. Such a wet blanket!"

"Wow."

"He's a wonderful guy, but he can be really narrow-minded when it comes to stuff like that," said Midori. "Like, he gets mad if I wear anything but white underwear. Don't you think that's narrow-minded?"

"Maybe so," I said, "but it's just a matter of taste." It seemed incredible to me that a guy like that would want a girlfriend like Midori, but I kept this thought to myself.

"So, what have you been doing?" she asked.

"Nothing. Same as ever," I said, but then I recalled my attempt to masturbate while thinking of Midori as I had promised to do. I told her about it in a low voice that wouldn't carry to the others around us.

Midori's eyes lit up and she snapped her fingers. "How'd it go? Was it good?"

"Nah, I got embarrassed halfway through and stopped."

"You mean you lost your erection?"

"Pretty much."

"Damn," she said, shooting a look of annoyance at me. "You can't let yourself get embarrassed. Think about something really sexy. It's OK, I'm giving you permission. Hey, I know what! Next time I'll get on the phone with you: "Oh, oh, that's great... Oh, I feel it... Stop, I'm gonna come... Oh, don't do that!' I'll say stuff like that to you while you're doing it."

"The dormitory phone is in the lobby by the front door, with people coming in and out all the time," I explained. "The dorm Head would kill me with his bare hands if he saw me wanking in a place like that."

"Oh, too bad."

"Never mind," I said. "I'll try again by myself one of these days."

"Give it your best shot," said Midori. "I will," I said.

"I wonder if it's me," she said. "Maybe I'm just not Innately."

"That's not it," I assured her. "It's more a question of attitude."

"You know," she said, "I have this tremendously sensitive back. The soft touch of fingers all over... mmmmm."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Hey, why don't we go now and see a dirty film?" Midori suggested.

"A really filthy S&M one."

We went from the bar to an eel shop, and from there to one of Shinjuku's most run-down adult cinemas to see a triple bill. It was the only place we could find in the paper that was showing S&M stuff.

Inside, the cinema had some kind of indefinable smell. Our timing was good: the S&M film was just starting as we took our seats. It was the story of a secretary and her schoolgirl sister being kidnapped by a bunch of men and subjected to sadistic tortures. The men made the older one to do all kinds of awful things by threatening to rape the sister, but soon the older sister is transformed into a raging masochist, and the younger one gets really turned on from having to watch all the contortions they put her through. It was such a gloomy, repetitive film, I got bored after a while.

"If I were the younger sister, I wouldn't get worked up so easily," said Midori. "I'd keep watching."

"I'm sure you would," I said.

"And anyway, don't you think her nipples are too dark for a schoolgirl - a virgin?"

"Absolutely."

Midori's eyes were glued to the screen. I was impressed: anyone watching a film with such fierce intensity was getting more than her money's worth. She kept reporting her thoughts to me: "Oh my God, will you look at that!" or "Three guys at once! They're going to tear her apart!" or "I'd like to try that on somebody, Watanabe." I was enjoying Midori a lot more than the film.

When the lights went up during the intermission, I realized there were no other women in the place. One young man sitting near us - probably a student - took one look at Midori and changed his seat to the far side.

"Tell me, Watanabe, do you get hard watching this kind of stuff?"

"Well, yeah, sometimes," I said. "That's why they make these films."

"So what you're saying is, every time one of those scenes starts, every man in the cinema has his thing standing to attention? Thirty or forty of them sticking up all at once? It's so weird if you stop and think about it, don't you think?"

"Yeah, I guess so, now you mention it."

The second feature was a fairly normal porn flick, which meant it was even more boring than the first. It had lots of oral sex scenes, and every time they started doing fellatio or cunnilingus or sixty-nine the soundtrack would fill the cinema with loud sucking or slurping sound effects. Listening to them, I felt strangely moved to think that I was living out my life on this bizarre planet of ours.

"Who comes up with these sounds, I wonder," I said to Midori.

"I think they're great!" she said.

There was also a sound for a penis moving in and out of a vagina. I had never realized that such sounds even existed. The man was into a lot of heavy breathing, and the woman came up with the usual sort of expressions - "Yes!" or "More!" - as she writhed under him. You could also hear the bed creaking. These scenes just went on and on.

Midori seemed to be enjoying them at first, but even she got bored after a while and suggested we leave. We went outside and took a few deep breaths. This was the first time in my life the outside air of Shinjuku felt healthy to me.

"That was fun," said Midori. "Let's try it again sometime."

"They just keep doing the same things," I said.

"Well, what else can they do? We all just keep doing the same things."

She had a point there.

We found another bar and ordered drinks. I had more whisky, and Midori drank three or four cocktails of some indefinable kind. Outside again, Midori said she wanted to climb a tree.

"There aren't any trees around here," I said. "And even if there were, you're too wobbly to do any climbing."

"You're always so damn sensible, you ruin everything. I'm drunk 'cause I wanna be drunk. What's wrong with that? And even if I am drunk, I can still climb a tree. Shit, I'm gonna climb all the way to the top of a great, big, tall tree and I'm gonna pee all over everybody!"