Maki Kashimada: Touring the Land of the Dead: Two Novellas

Moeko. I’m not the innocent one. You are. That’s what I muttered to myself, deep inside my heart. An embodiment of pure pleasure. That’s how I think of her.

This one’s good. Why don’t you watch it, and try playing with yourself? Moeko said, lending me one of her videos. I bought it at that second-hand bookstore near Dangozaka. I just walked right up to the clerk and gave it to him, like I was buying an ordinary paperback. He put it in a paper bag. I must have looked too confident, maybe that’s why he reacted that way, she laughed. You’re much better off buying them there, from that second-hand bookstore, rather than going to a video rental place. They’re cheap, and maybe this is a matter of taste, but the older ones are better. The actresses are all so ugly in those old videos, don’t you think? I love those ugly actresses. It makes the sex look more realistic.

Late one night, I watched it alone in my room. Thinking about Moeko masturbating to it, a strange and sacred feeling came over me as I knelt reverently on the floor in front of the screen.

The video depicted a woman, dressed in a sailor-style school uniform even though she was obviously in her twenties, being violated by another woman wearing a leather dress. When you think about adult videos, you normally imagine a man violating a woman, so I sat there immersed in it, like I was looking at a priceless artwork. I racked my brains trying to understand why Moeko liked watching women violating other women. I mean, she isn’t a lesbian or anything. And after a few minutes, it all made sense. Unlike those videos that practically reach the finishing line when the man inserts his penis, in this video, the one that Moeko had given me, the actresses kept on playing with each other’s breasts. The video was clearly suited for women too, what with that way that the actresses were stimulating each other’s erogenous zones. And it made me so happy when I realized that Moeko’s erogenous zone was probably her well-shaped breasts.

The memories came flooding back to me. Every now and then, Moeko likes to grab me from behind and hug me tightly. Her soft, warm breasts pushing against my back. It’s such a gentle feeling. And the reason why she does that, the reason why she likes hugging me, another woman, so tightly from behind—it has to be because her breasts are her erogenous zone. That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it? I wanted to ask her. And if I did, she would probably just answer with a plain, decisive: Yes .

Moeko is like the clitoris in our family. She’s erotic, a central, vital figure who can’t be neglected or ignored. Always innocently saying such lewd things, always laughing in that loud voice of hers, always the center of the conversation. And we always find ourselves deferring to her.

“Why do you have that?” Meiko screamed.

“It’s fine, isn’t it? I’m just borrowing it,” Moeko retorted.

“You two, cut it out!” Even Mom was starting to get angry with them both.

They were fighting over S. S again. He had given Meiko a tube of lipstick. And of course, she was busy gloating about it. Maybe he’s in love with me, don’t you think? she said. And then Moeko had gotten jealous, and had secretly used that tube of lipstick for herself.

My sister gave it to me when I went home a while back. Apparently S had said something along those lines to Meiko. She didn’t want it, but it’s brand new, so she thought I might as well give it to someone else, you know?

“What’s the problem? He gave it away so it could be used!” Moeko said.

Indeed. One of you can use it, right? That was what he said, when he gave it to Meiko. So maybe it did belong to all of us.

“But he gave it to me . So it’s mine.”

“Only because he bumped into you at the library, right?”

Meiko was honest to a fault. All she had to do was say that he had given it to her as a present. That’s probably what Yōko would have done. No—Yōko would have probably kept the whole thing to herself. But Meiko had wanted to boast about it. I’m sure of it. When I went to the Hongō Library today, right, I bumped into S there. What a coincidence, don’t you think? He was looking at the display for the novelist of the month. And when I went to say hi to him, he gave me this. Here. That was what she said as she waved that tube of lipstick around.

When I heard that he had been hanging around the novelist of the month display, I couldn’t help but think that he sounded like the kind of literary snob who goes on about how he’s studying novels. But in the eyes of my sisters, his enthusiasm was something to be admired.

You or your sisters can use it, he said to me. So if you want to try it, I’ll let you borrow it. But you have to ask first. That was what Meiko had said. So basically, it was never only hers, and it should have been fine for Moeko to use it too.

But Moeko has always been a sore loser, and the way that Meiko had explained it all must have really grated on her nerves. And so she had gone and used it without uttering a word to anyone.

“You thief!”

“What? It isn’t yours!”

The two of them lunged toward one another.

“You two, stop it!” Mom screamed.

I glanced across the room, my interest suddenly shifting to Yōko. She was perfectly composed, busy occupying herself with the brie cheese and Earl Grey tea that Mom had bought from the Queen’s Isetan department store at Koishikawa. She had remained silent the whole time, simply enjoying the food and drink.

Yōko. Maybe it was Yōko who had used the lipstick. But it looked like that possibility hadn’t even occurred to Meiko. At times like this, Moeko is always the one who gets blamed first. She can be pretty tactless, and she doesn’t have Yōko’s innate sense of cunning, so if she were to use it without saying anything, it was obvious that she would end up getting caught out.

“Why…? Why…?” Moeko began to cry. “It isn’t even yours! He only gave it to you because you ran into him at the library, that’s all!”

But that wasn’t all, was it? Moeko understood that better than anyone. If he was going to go to the library, why didn’t he bump into me there? Maybe he would have given me that tube of lipstick, and then I would have had an excuse to talk to him.

That’s what happened, isn’t it? That’s what she wanted to ask Meiko. Moeko was so jealous, so envious, that she couldn’t even understand her own feelings anymore.

That’s what happened, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Meiko? This month’s novelist is Kawabata Yasunari, right? Are you a fan of his? That’s the kind of conversation you had with him, isn’t it?

This had probably all occurred to Moeko only subconsciously, but she was so paranoid about Meiko and S having just such an exchange that the mere possibility of it only ended up fanning her jealousy.

Yōko, her expression perfectly composed, continued to sip at her tea, as if savoring the flavor.

Meiko, Moeko, Yōko. My three bewitching sisters. Please kill me. Mess me up. The visions kept on coming. I could see them playing with the phallus that I shouldn’t have. And then, when I finally became one with them, there I was, melting away into nothingness. Maybe this is what it means to feel in love, I wondered. I had never seen anything particularly charming about S. That was why I didn’t have much reason to fight with my sisters anymore after he popped up. I was on neutral ground.

But, I thought, it was without a doubt thanks to S that my sisters had become even more enthralling.

Ever since that S moved here, Meiko and Moeko have really fallen out, Mom said to me one day. Even Yōko’s holed herself up in her room ever since the two of them started fighting. What on earth has happened to those girls? I wish that man had never come here.