Tim Anderson - Tune in Tokio

“You know what part of teaching our lessons is really starting to drive me crazy?” I ask after our laughing fit is over. “The opening questions.”

Jo nods in agreement and rolls her eyes. At the beginning of every lesson, we teachers must write three questions on the board that will dovetail nicely with what we will be covering in the lesson. If we are going to study, say, telling time, I might write, “What time do you usually wake up?” “What’s your favorite time of day?” and “Why?” If we’re studying making suggestions, the questions might be, “Where can I get some really good sushi?” “What’s the best way to get to the station from here?” and “Why?” As the lessons pile up, though, it becomes difficult to think of new and interesting questions to pose. Sure, the last question is always, “Why?” but this leaves two other questions I have to create out of thin air using only my brain.

“I feel like I’ve asked every question there is to ask of another human,” I say.

A powerful brainstorm commences, and for a few short minutes we are the funniest interrogators in the world. The possibilities are exciting and boundless.

If your mother-in-law were a prostitute, where would you go on vacation?

What’s your favorite kind of funeral?

When’s the last time you did something that brought shame to your entire family? What was it you did that upset everybody so much? Why did you do such a thing?

If you’re on the train and this balls-out pimp motherfucker is jamming out wearing his headphones and his music is really loud and totally off the hook, how would you convince the little punk that he just needs to turn that shit down?

What would you do if I called your momma a bitch? Why?

We laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. Then we stop laughing and watch the big screen on the dance floor because there are swirling paisley amoeba-type things on there and they’re soooooo preeeeetty. As the techno-trance-adelic-funk-athon continues, Jo goes to find Grant and I join Rachel on the dance floor.

Rachel and I bob and weave, bob and weave, bob and weave. Then I thread my way through the people, touching heads and shoulders, saying “konnichiwa” to people I don’t know, in my mushroomed mind knitting everyone on the floor into a giant tapestry of love, mutual understanding, and epileptic dance moves.

Then I see Hello Kiddy dancing like a cheerleader on speed. I sidle up next to her and attempt the same bob and weave that I was doing with Rachel, but she’s having none of it. She’s too busy doing high kicks and jerking her arms out and around as if she’d just regained use of them after they’d gone numb on her five years ago.

Soon tiring of dodging her flailing limbs, I decide to retire to what can best be called the Chill Out Room, a dimly lit enclave to the side of the dance floor with a bunch of black lights and couches. The room is empty, and I plop myself down on the most comfortable looking couch and assume the “chill out” position, leaning back, stretching out my legs, and opening my arms in a relaxed crucifix pose. Lifting my head and looking straight ahead, I see the only thing separating me from the dance floor is a wall of glass, so I can keep an eye on my friends and make sure Rachel’s dancing doesn’t take a dangerous turn. I start noticing that whenever people walk by the glass, they stand and stare in at me for a few seconds, often poking their friends to get them to have a look.

“Wow, this new pomade is really working for me,” I think. I briefly reevaluate the thermal top. The public seems to like it. I see Hello Kiddy join some of her friends who are leaning against the glass; they point at me and start laughing. Hello Kiddy looks in, her eyes widen, and she slaps her hands over her mouth, the glow-in-the-dark bangles on her wrists twirling around like tiny hula hoops.

Hmm. Girls crowded together, pointing at me and laughing. This is starting to feel a little too much like middle school. What’s going on?

Jo and Grant approach the glass, see me, and wave. They look above me and then back at me. They giggle.

I look behind me and realize that there is a giant photograph on the wall above the couch. What is it of? I get up and turn around to get a better look, but I still can’t tell. It kind of looks like a close-up of an old woman’s lips, like when they start growing facial hair around age eighty. Yeah, that’s what it is. Oh-my-godno-it’s-a-vagina! A huge black and white photo of a horizontal vagina. The biggest vagina I have ever seen. And it looks angry.

How did I miss this? I didn’t come out to this club looking for pussy, but still, if it’s staring me in the face…

Feeling better that I’m not the object of all the spontaneous giggling across the glass, I begin to look around me and realize to my surprise that the room is simply jam-packed with photos of vaginas of all sizes, each one dimly lit by the blue tint of the black light. I am surrounded by ghostly, luminescent vaginas. Every gay man’s nightmare. With a thrill and a shudder I gasp: I am no longer in the Chill Out Room. I am in the Vagina Room. The Vagina Room. Full of vaginas.

Vaginas.

Flushed and dizzy, I sit back down and catch my breath. Looking from vagina to vagina, I note how they differ in shape, size, and overall presentation. Here’s an impeccably kept one, the hairs tended like a prized garden or perhaps just naturally minimal. On the other hand, the one over there is a veritable festival of fur tangles, an overgrown patch of briars and brambles. All of the vaginas are wet, though, which makes me wonder what they are thinking about.

“What about him ?” one of them says.

“Hmm. Yeah, he’ll do,” another pipes in.

“Come on, girls,” says the really hairy one. “Look at him. He’s totally gay.”

“You think?”

“Oh my God, yes! Look at his nose. That is one gay nose. And see how scared he is, looking at us?”

“Every guy who comes in here looks like that,” the well-trimmed one suggests. (Brazilian?)

“Yeah, but not like this. He’s trembling. Watch this, watch this. Hey, little man,” she says to me. “Boo!”

I jump.

“What a chump.”

“Maybe he’s just really sensitive.”

“Oh please. That’s good old-fashioned mortal fear.”

“

,” a Japanese vagina agrees. “

Ha, ha, ha!!”

“Yeah, and didn’t you see him dancing earlier? No straight man dances like that.”

Wait, is that a compliment?

“Shut up, all of you,” the giant vagina bellows from behind me. I stand up and face her. “Sit down, little man.” I sit. “Give it a rest, bitches,” she continues. “Stop fucking with him. He’s obviously just curious.”

“Hey, Tim!” Rachel shouts, and I whip my head around to see her smiling face looking down at me. Apparently she’s decided to take a break from her ferocious body-rock and join me and the vaginas.

“Oh, Rachel! Thank God! Sit down! These vaginas have been talking my ear off.”

Rachel looks around at the luminous, disembodied female genitalia surrounding us.

“Wow. These are cool.”

I want to tell her that a few of them are actually quite rude, but I figure they can probably hear me, and I definitely don’t want the big one to jump off the wall and get all vagina dentata on me.

“There are so many of them,” she says, lighting a cigarette. “I wonder whose they are.”