Mario Puzo - Fools die

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Like everybody who has seen films about the Orient, I had fantasized about a night in a geisha house: beautiful talented women devoting themselves to my pleasure. When Cully told me that we were going to be entertained by geishas, I expected to be taken to one of those crazy-cornered, gaily ornamented houses I had seen in movies. So I was surprised when the chauffeured car stopped in front of a small restaurant housed in a canopied storefront on one of the main streets of Tokyo. It looked like any Chinese joint in the lower part of Manhattan. But a mitered led us through the crowded restaurant to a door that led to a private dining room.

The room was lavishly furnished in Japanese style. Colored lanterns were suspended from the ceiling; a long banquet table, raised only a foot above the floor, was decorated with exquisitely colored dishes, small drinking cups, ivory chopsticks. There were four Japanese men, all in kimonos. One of them was Mr. Fummiro. He and Cully shook hands, the other men bowed. Cully introduced me to all of them. I had seen Fummiro gambling in Vegas but had never met him.

Seven geisha girls came into the room, running with tiny steps. They were beautifully dressed in heavy brocade kimonos embroidered with startlingly colored flowers. Their faces were heavily made up with a white powder. They sat on cushions around the banquet table, a girl for each man.

Following Cully’s lead, I sat down on one of the cushions around the banquet table. Serving women brought in huge platters of fish and vegetables. Each geisha girl fed her assigned male. They used the ivory chopsticks, picking up bits of fish, little strands of green vegetables. They wiped our mouths and faces with countless tiny napkins that were like washcloths. These were scented and wet.

My geisha girl was very close to me, leaning her body against mine, and, with a charming smile and entreating gestures, make me eat and drink. She kept filling my cup with some sort of wine, the famous sake, I guessed. The wine tasted great, but the food was too fishy until they brought out platters of heavily marbled Kobe beef, cut into cubes and drenched in a delicious sauce.

Seeing her close, I knew that my charming geisha had to be at least forty. Though her body was pressed against mine, I could feel nothing except the heavy brocade of her kimono; she was swathed like an Egyptian mummy.

After dinner the girls took turns entertaining us. One played a musical instrument that was like a flute. By this time I ‘had drunk so much wine that the unfamiliar music sounded like bagpipes. Another girl recited what must have been a poem. The men all applauded. Then my geisha got up. I was rooting for her. She proceeded to do some astonishing somersaults.

In fact, she scared the hell out of me by somersaulting right over my head. Then she did the same somersault over Fummiro’s head, but he caught her in midair and tried to give her a kiss or something like a kiss. I was too drunk to see really well. But she eluded him, tapped him lightly on the cheek in reproach, and they both laughed gaily.

Then the geisha girls organized the men into playing games. I was astonished to see that it was a game involving an orange on a stick, that we had to bite the orange with our hands behind our backs. As we did so, a geisha would try the same thing from the other side of the stick. As the orange bobbed between male and female, the two faces would brush each other with a caress which made the geishas giggle.

Cully, behind me, said in a low voice, “Jesus, the next thing we’ll be playing spin the bottle.” But he smiled hugely at Fummiro, who seemed to be having a great time, shouting at the girls in Japanese and trying to grab them. There were other games involving sticks and balls and juggling acts, and I was so drunk that I was enjoying them as much as Fummiro. At one point I fell down into a pile of cushions and my geisha cradled my head in her lap and wiped my face off with a hot scented napkin.

The next thing I knew I was in the chauffeured car with Cully. We were moving through dark streets, and then the car stopped in front of a mansion in the suburbs. Cully led through the gate and the door opened magically. And then I saw we were in a real Oriental house. The room was bare except for sleeping mats. The walls were really sliding doors of thin wood.

I fell down on one of the mats. I just wanted to sleep. Cully knelt down beside me. “We’re spending the night here,” he whispered. “I’ll wake you up in the morning. Stay here, go to sleep. You’ll be taken care of.” Behind him I could see Fummiro’s smiling face. I registered that Fummiro was no longer drunk, and that set off some alarm bell in my mind. I tried to struggle up off the mat, but Cully pushed me down. And then I heard Fummiro’s voice say, “Your friend needs some company.” I sank back down on the mat. I was too tired. I didn’t give a damn. I fell asleep.

I don’t know how long I slept. I was awakened by the slight hiss of sliding doors. In the dim light of the shaded lanterns I saw two young Japanese girls in light blue and yellow kimonos come through the open wall. They carried a small red wood tub filled with steaming water. They undressed me and washed me from head to foot, kneading my body with their fingers, massaging every muscle. While they were doing this, I got an erection and they giggled and one of them gave it a little pat. Then they picked up the redwood tub and disappeared.

I was awake enough to wonder where the hell Cully was but not sober enough to get up and look for him. It was just as well. The wall fell apart as the doors slid back again. This time there was a single girl, a new one, and just by looking at her, I could tell what her function would be.

She was dressed in a long flowing green kimono that hid her body. But her face was beautiful and highlighted exotically with makeup. Her rich jet black hair was piled high on her head and was topped with a brilliant comb that seemed made out of precious stones. She came to me, and before she knelt, I could see that her feet were bare, small and beautifully formed. The toenails were painted dark red.

The lights seemed to become dimmer, and suddenly she was naked. Her body was a pure milky white, the breasts small but full. The nipples were startling light pink, as if they had been rouged. She bent over, took the comb out of her hair and shook her head. Long black tresses poured down endlessly over my body, covering it, and then she started kissing and licking my body, her head giving little determined shakes, the silky thick black hair whipping over my thighs. I lay back. Her mouth was warm, her tongue rough. When I tried to move, she pressed me back. When she was finished, she lay down beside me and put my head against her breast. At some time during the night I woke up and made love to her. She locked her legs behind mine and thrust fiercely as if it were a battle between our two sexual organs. It was a fierce fuck, and when we climaxed, she gave a thin scream and we fell off the mat. Then we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

The wall sliding back woke me up again. The room was filled with early-morning light. The girl was gone. But through the open wall, in the adjoining room, I saw Cully sitting on the huge brassbound suitcase. Though he was far away, I could see him smiling. “OK, Merlyn, rise and shine,” he said. “We’re flying to Hong Kong this morning.”

The suitcase was so heavy that I had to carry it out to the car, Cully couldn’t manage it. There was no chauffeur, Cully drove. When we got to the airport, he just left the car parked outside the terminal. I carried the suitcase inside, Cully walking ahead to clear a path and lead me to the baggage check-in desk. I was still groggy, and the huge case kept hitting me in the shins. At the check-in the stub was put on my ticket. I figured it didn’t make any difference, so I didn’t say anything when Cully didn’t notice.