The desire to go where no human being exists has tempted me quite often of late. For a week, for ten days, for even a day, even half a day, it would be superb to lie down just by myself in a place where there are no people, where at least no human voices are audible, no, where at least I hear nothing which has any connection to me, where there is little fear that anyone will want to see me.
In order to put these thoughts out of mind, I often go to a place crowded with people—the movies. On the other hand, I also go when I have a yearning for human beings—for young women. But I can't find real satisfaction there. Only while I'm watching movies, especially those that are the most stupid and juvenile, can I forget everything by forcing my mind to revert to that of a child. But once the movie is over and the lights flash on to suddenly reveal innumerable figures swarming around, the desire to search for some livelier place, for some more exciting place, wells up all the more powerfully. There are times when I smell directly under my nose the fragrance of a woman's hair, times too when I am clasping a warm hand. But at just such moments I'm making a mental calculation of the contents of my purse. No, at that time I am considering how I can borrow money from someone! When I clasp a warm hand and smell the powerfuI fragrance of a woman's hair, I am not satisfied with that: I want to embrace a soft and warm and perfectly white body. Oh, the feeling of loneliness when I go back home without fulfilling that desire! It's not merely a loneliness stemming from unfulfilled sexual desire; it's a deep, terrible, despairing realization which forces me to see that I am unable to obtain anything I want.
When I had money, I went, without the slightest hesitation, to those narrow dirty streets filled with lewd voices.
From the fall of last year to the present moment, I have gone about thirteen or fourteen times and bought about ten prostitutes. Mitsu, Masa, Kiyo, Mine, Tsuyu, Hana, Aki.... There are some whose names I've forgotten. What I desired was a warm body, soft, perfectly white; what I desired was a pleasure that ravished both my mind and body. But all these women, some middle aged, some mere chits about sixteen years old, had slept with hundreds, with thousands, of men.
Their faces without gloss, their skin cold and rough, these women are inured to men, are insensitive to all stimuli. For small sums of money the only thing they do is rent their privates to men for a while. There is no other meaning than that. Without even untying their kimono bands, they lie down as they are and merely say, "Go ahead." And without even the slightest shame they open their thighs. They don't care in the least if anyone is in the next room or not. (This, however, is an irony of theirs that interests me!) Those genitals, which have been pounded by thousands of men, are flabby, the contractile action of the muscles gone. In them mere discharge takes place. There isn't an iota of pleasure ravishing either body or mind.
My itch for a strong stimulus was not allayed even when I was receiving that stimulus. Three or four times I stayed overnight with a prostitute.
The skin of eighteen-year-old Masa's body was as dry and rough as that of a poverty-stricken, middle-aged woman. The narrow six-by-six-foot room did not even have a light. The room was so stuffy and close that it had only the odor of flesh. Before long the woman had fallen asleep.
I was so unbearably irritated I couldn't sleep. I put my fingers in the woman's vagina and roughly churned around inside. Finally, I put my five fingers in and pushed as vigorously as possible. Even then the woman did not wake up. Perhaps she was so inured to men that her vagina had become totally insensitive. A woman who had slept with thousands of men! I was more and more irritated. And then all the more forcefully I pushed in my fingers. Ultimately my hand entered as far as my wrist. At that moment the woman awoke saying, "Mm, mm."
Suddenly she was clinging to me. "Ah... ah... ah, that was good. More... more. Ah... ah... ah!" A girl of eighteen no longer able to feel pleasure from the usual stimuli. I wiped my hand against her face. I wanted to insert both my hands or even my foot into her vagina and rip it apart. And—and I wanted to see, even in a vision, her body covered with blood, lying dead in the darkness. Men have the right to murder women by the cruelest methods. What a terrible, disgusting thought that is!
A postcard from Mitsuko telling me that she's gone to Asahikawa. No matter what she calls what she's doing, my younger sister has become a parasite living off that foreigner! In the metropolis when the cherry blossoms are at their best, her elder brother wears an old padded kimono frayed at the cuffs. And in the heart of Hokkaido, my young sister buried in six feet of snow is singing hymns!