Love and Other Strangers

JUNKO HAS SCARS marring both arms.

Curious why such a beautiful woman in her line of work would choose to openly show off such an apparent defect, I ask her what they are from.

“Oh,” she says, lifting her delicate eyebrows and nodding her head. “I had tattoos removed.” She smiles as she almost looks me in the eye.

I stroke the raised area, the first time I’ve touched her since she sat down close on my left, her bare thigh rubbing against my jeans, and nod. These scars are jagged and mean. They aren’t from any sort of tattoo removal I’ve ever seen, and I should probably just drop the subject, but I continue.

“Then why do you still have the one here?” I ask, touching the small red heart on her wrist. “You still like tattoos?” She smiles, a bit more uncomfortably now, but she remains bright and positive—and changes the subject. “You want more drink?” She pours from the half-finished bottle of Remy on the table. A small giggle and more smiles all around.

I’d ended up at the “geisha bar” on a Thursday night because my friend Sam was in town visiting an old fraternity brother. Sam is 50 and openly gay, but he still values the link he has with these college guys and their yearly bonding rituals of golf, drinking and fancy dining. So after he and I had a drink, his pal Ronnie showed up. “I’m taking you to my geisha bar!” he informed us, as he hailed a cab while standing in the middle of Park Avenue.

“Where is it?” I ask. He laughs at my question, a puzzled look on his face, as if I were being intentionally obtuse: It didn’t matter where it was. It just was.

I hopped into the backseat with my middle-aged friends and took off uptown to what looked like a dumpy karaoke bar in the East 40s. A glance at the menu, however, revealed a caliber of clientele able to pay $750 for a bottle of cognac or plunk down a black AmEx for champagne that runs more than my weekly salary.

“I was kind of a little too drunk here the other night,” Ronnie admits. “Let’s see if they give me a hard time.”

When we enter a small cheer goes up.

“Oh, Ronnie-san!” one stunning young woman in a sexy short-sleeved suit greets Sam’s pal.

“Hi, Sally,” Ronnie says with a grin.

“You’re not mad? I wasn’t too bad the other night?” “Oh, you so baaaad!” Sally in the suit says. She continues to beam and walks us to an upholstered corner. It’s flanked with screens to block the view to the bar.

Otherwise, the place is nearly empty except for the young women clustered around the bar, three of whom decide to partner with us. Junko sits beside me. Sam gets a shy girl named Kimi. Ronnie has Jenny. These women aren’t dressed in some outlandish geisha attire, they’re just pretty, high-end call girls.

“You like my suit?” Sally, the hostess, asks, positioning herself at the head of the table.

“Yes, very much,” Ronnie answers. “It’s Bebe,” she says, sliding her hands down her sides, over the tight-fitting jacket that only barely conceals her sharp hipbones. “I like this suit very much.”

“It’s very nice,” Ronnie answers. “But why are all you girls here? It’s Thursday night! You should be out with customers before they leave for the Hamptons tomorrow with their wives. I’ll never make any money!” He’s chiding them but it’s also obvious that he’s half serious. One of the girls brings over a nearly empty bottle of Remy Martin XO with a tag hanging around its neck labeled: Mr. Ronnie. No. 125.

Sam and I are curious about the way the place operates so Ronnie fills us in. He’s part owner in the operation, “And I personally interview each of them,” he explains, with a cheerful leer. He points at Sally: “I fuck her.” Then at Jenny: “I fuck her.” He’s a proud prince showing off his harem.

“But what if someone walks in and they don’t understand what this place is?” I ask.

“If they come in off the street, someone will politely show them the menu. Once they see the prices, they usually start to get the drift.”

Most of the clientele are Japanese or Korean businessmen, and they seem used to the idea that there may be a bar with expensive bottle service and beautiful, submissive women to cater to their whims. Turns out the Korean guys come for the karaoke, so there are two rooms in the back. As a few bustle in, laughing and yanking on each other’s sleeves good-naturedly, they head to the rooms and two of the other girls who have gathered nearby politely excuse themselves. An older Japanese gentleman enters the room and takes a seat near the piano, where a plain-looking woman, her hair in a ponytail and wearing little makeup, sits and picks out easy-listening tunes. His bottle tag reads No. 5. He’s obviously been coming here for some time.

“There’s no sex on the premises,” Ronnie says. “If someone is found having sex here, she’s fired. Immediately.”

Well, at least we know there are some sort of standards. Having worked for years at newspapers that carry advertising that cater to the seedier sides of men’s fantasies, I have tried to maintain a level of magnanimity and when it comes to the brothels and the happy ending massages offered, believing people should be able to negotiate freely for what they desire—as long as no one gets harmed.

“What do you all know about me?” Ronnie asks the gathered girls.

“That you are very rich, Ronnie-san.” Now it’s starting to feel a little creepy. “You, what’s your name?” Ronnie begins to interrogate Kimi, who has thrown in her lot with Sam. But Sam has been unresponsive and she’s not sure what she’s done wrong. “What is it?” he asks again.

“Kimi,” she says, and she lowers her eyes. “Oh, Kimi is a very good singer,” Junko pipes up.

“You are?” Ronnie isn’t backing down.

“Why don’t you sing for us if you’re so good.”

“No, I don’t know any songs.” She is being demure, and I wonder if she is seething just below the surface.

“She is professional singer,” Junko says.

Is she trying to deflect the attention away from herself? Because she’s just thrown her gal pal under the bus.

“Oh? You’re a professional?” Ronnie probes. “How often do you practice?”

“I don’t know. Not very often,” she responds.

“Then you must not be much of a professional. If you want to be good, you have to practice every day. Tiger Woods, he practices seven hours a day or more. You have to have commitment.” Ronnie obviously worships that strain of American exceptionalism that has profited him in life. If you work hard, you’ll excel. He’s made millions doing whatever it is that he does. He’s on his second wife I learn (both Asian) and has kids that have been tucked into their cozy beds in a penthouse somewhere.

He begins to bully her more, telling her how she’ll never amount to anything if she doesn’t try harder. Sam tries to defend her, but I can tell he’s feeling a bit too exposed. My liquid courage has kicked in from an earlier bottle of wine and the bottomless cognac, so I finally try to break it up.

“I’ll go sing. If I sing, will you sing, Kimi?” She looks at me as if it’s some sort of trick. And I wonder if I’ve trapped her in a geisha girl fib. Maybe she’s only supposed to pretend to be a singer? She walks with me to the piano, and we begin to rifle through the scores. Most are popular tunes with Japanese characters written above the English lyrics. I’m searching for something that I won’t massacre too terribly and finally find “Let It Be.” The microphone is handed to me, and I begin to sing. Kimi supports me by clasping my right elbow and making sure I keep the microphone held up close to my mouth. Ronnie isn’t interested in a drunk guy belting out a Beatles hit, so he’s moved on to the new woman seated next to him.

When we return to the table, it’s only a moment before Ronnie swivels to Kimi and says, “So now it’s your turn to sing.”

She lowers her eyes and tries to beg off. But a deal’s a deal and eventually she slinks back to the piano, tracks down a song, chats with the pianist and begins to sing. I recognize that it’s a Carpenters tune, but then the lyrics kind of shift. Sometimes they sound English, sometimes Japanese. I’m not sure what exactly she’s singing about, but Kimi hasn’t lied: She does have a lovely voice. When she’s finished, Sam and I applaud and she returns, triumphant, to the group.

“That was very good, Kimi,” Ronnie says. She basks in his approval.

By now, a new gaggle of women has appeared and they make their way to our sides, but they are just as confused that Sam and I are not pawing at them. In fact, we both have our hands tucked politely between our legs, careful not to touch the ladies.

“You guys are wild. My friends, usually, they’d be all over them by now,” Ronnie says and chuckles. It’s like he’s seen a rare pachyderm and it’s the first irrefutable evidence to support the fact that some men really aren’t interested in women as playthings. Or women at all. Sam’s been here before, and is familiar with Ronnie’s antics. He explains how he turned off their other friend. “We were in geisha hell and Chris just thought you were being cocky,” Sam says. “He thought you just wanted to be the biggest cock on the block.” Ronnie doesn’t care. “He was just being a pussy.”

Having made the rounds, Sally is back to check on us. And it’s time for Ronnie to have some more fun.

“You know, Sally, my friends here are gay,” he says, nodding his head in our direction. “They’re into other guys.” The drink has finally gotten to Sam, and he’s now slumped forward, his eyes closed. At the moment, he’s not much into anything.

“No!” Sally says, shocked. “They not gay!”

“Yes, they are.” Now I really feel like some sort of rare species of freak, but I nod my head in agreement.

“Really?” Her eyes are wide; her glossy lips in a beautiful bow that must make many men squirm in anticipation.

Jenny leans in to me and explains softly.

“Sally is not very sophisticated. I don’t think she even knows what gay means.” Jenny has been snuggled up close to Ronnie for some time now, and I see that she has a pride of place amongst the women. She’s a sad beauty: long black hair parted down the middle, draping her face in an oldfashioned way, her lips turned down in a teasing scowl. She speaks English fluently and without much of an accent, while some of the women struggle with each syllable. But Sally must have understood because she has dragged the only male staff member, a bartender, over and pushed him down across from me.

“You like?” she asks me.

“What? Umm. What?” I babble.

“Sally, what are you doing?” Ronnie has stopped whispering in a woman’s ear. “No, Sally. He’s not here for that. He doesn’t understand.”

“Yes, I ask him,” Sally says.

“Sally, take him back to the bar. Sally, do it. Now.” This must be how Ronnie talks to his kids. Stern. No nonsense. You do what Daddy says or else.

Sally frowns, but she obeys. She takes the young Japanese man with his shaved head (he is indeed attractive) back to the bar. Jenny finds the entire episode hilarious. “She’s the hostess,” she explains. “She just wants to make sure everyone is happy, that they have a good time.”

Ronnie continues to scold her for the assumption that everything is for sale—for a price. “But I asked him, and he said it was OK. He liked,” she says.

“Oh. Well. In that case, bring him back.” Ronnie seems surprised, like it’s only now that he realizes that it’s not just the dude who can pay for the chick that makes the world go round.

He and I get into a heated argument about the whole affair, one that somehow shifts to how he raises his kids. “You have a problem with money,” he tells me. As if it’s some righteous indignation that keeps me from understanding that money isn’t dirty, it’s what enables everything. If you have it, you get what you want. “My kids are going to be great. I’m sending them to the best schools. I’m giving them the best that money can buy. And I love them!” His logic astounds me, as if he hasn’t paid attention to countless TV, book and movie plots that suggest that you can never control what your children will be, how they will turn out, when they will reject you and your way of life. His flummoxed reaction makes me realize that few people disagree with him. Money has insulated him from insult. All these women are so obedient, but I imagine they wish they could stab Ronnie in the heart if they could. I know I do.

We move off the subject, however, when a shy, petite Russian joins us. She’s the only woman working the room who is not Japanese or Korean and, although her English is halting, we’re told that her Japanese is impeccable. A recent college graduate hailing from Siberia, Janna is visiting on a tourist visa. She’s been in New York for a month and somehow found her way here.

“Do you like it?” Ronnie asks. “Are you enjoying yourself?” He obviously didn’t “interview” her.

He expects a positive response, but Janna has the spleen of a Russian and can’t suppress her melancholy. “No. People are very bad.”

I’m elated and urge her on, coaxing her to be honest and brutal in her summation. “You need to cheer up,” Ronnie tells her.

“No, more, more. I love it, she’s so Russian.” I’ve now had to put my palm over the rim of my glass to keep any of the women from filling my glass. We’ve finished the original bottle hours ago and have already made it halfway through the second. Sam, long snuffled into his chest, only wakes now to join the fray.

“You don’t get it. She needs me. She needs this place,” Ronnie says. “What sort of opportunities does she have back in, where was it? Siberia?” He snorts. “Have you ever heard of a female executive in Russia? What would she amount to back in Siberia?”

I know he actually has a point, but I hate that he could be proven right. I realize that Ronnie feels some white man’s burden to help women. By fucking them. His imperialist twinge means he’ll conquer as many soft female bodies as possible, and in the process raise them up from the proverbial muck. Why work at changing the way the world works? It’s his form of charity—just remember to wear a condom.

“Men are evil,” Janna hisses. And my heart leaps. I love her in that moment, wish I could jump across the table and hug her. She has courage that these other docile women don’t exhibit, and they seem nervous that Ronnie may snap.

“You know why my friends won’t marry a Russian girl?” Ronnie asks. I hear the malice in his voice. “You may be the most beautiful women in the world. You are very beautiful, Janna. But a Russian woman will marry you. She will love you. Until the day after she is safe, has her papers. And then next day, she will divorce you. And take half of everything you have.”

Ronnie is proud of his pronouncement, having summed up the problem with all the greedy gals in the world. Janna sneers, and I can almost see her twisting the dagger deeper. But Ronnie doesn’t like to be cruel, he’s the nice guy, and soon he’s turned the charm back on. People are smiling again and Janna is no longer the focus.

Soon after, I overhear a conversation and hear tenderness from him as he whispers to Jenny, the sad beauty, still at his side. “You seem sad. You don’t like this place anymore do you?” Jenny looks at him, not like an obedient servant, but as if she wants to discern if she can trust him. She nods in agreement. “I can tell: You don’t want to be here. Don’t worry. I have a good lawyer. I’ll get you papers. I’ll get you out of here. All you need is a good lawyer and you can do anything.”

It’s a cynical pronouncement, but as we gather our things, pay the bill and say our good-byes—hugs on the sidewalk as if we’re old friends who will see one another someday soon—I wonder if Ronnie may, unfortunately, be right.