Cult X

  Confused, the man said, “Yes. Both the women and the men who sleep with them.”

  “Mm.”

  “Six of them have actually died . . . We’re not sure how.”

  The leader exhaled. What sort of feeling was he expressing? He didn’t seem to be sighing or laughing.

  “That’s simple. Their god killed them.”

  The leader approached the woman. The man panicked and forced the woman in the box to stand. She struggled and fell over.

  “I’m sorry. I should have put her to sleep.”

  “What for?” the leader asked.

  What for? The man didn’t understand. Two men entered the room. Where did they come from? Was there a door somewhere? The woman struggled as they carried her to a reclining chair like a dentist’s. There were unpleasant-looking pipe stirrups attached to the chair. The men untied her, and then used the rope to bind her to the chair. They tied each leg to a stirrup, forcing her to part her legs. The woman struggled, but the men’s expressions did not change at all. When they were done securing her in the chair, the men vanished back into the shadows. It was too dark to see where they went.

  “What is the name of your god?” the leader asked the woman. She glared at him, but the leader’s expression did not change at all. “What is your god’s name?”

  She didn’t answer. The man answered for her. “He has no name. He simply protects his followers.”

  “How boring.”

  The leader laid his hand on the woman’s long skirt and pulled it up. For some reason, the man in white felt as if someone were watching him from above. What if, he thought. What if their god really exists? Not only will this woman die, but won’t the leader die as well?

  This man used to be in the same cult as this woman. He had since joined this religion and learned that everything he had believed was false. He had had sex and he hadn’t been struck down by their god. But deep in his body, a feeling he couldn’t completely erase was returning. What about this woman who still believes? Six believers have died—actually died. Six idiots who had made their vows to their god, but secretly indulged in debauchery. What if? he kept wondering. What if? Even people who don’t believe in god don’t go around kicking over other people’s family shrines.

  The woman screamed. She was crying. The leader had pulled her skirt all the way up. The man could see her white underwear. He looked away.

  “No! No!” the woman was yelling. He took off her blouse, revealing her forbidden skin. He touched her underwear and bra. She tried to pull away, but the ropes restrained her. He ripped off her bra and underwear. The lights from the high ceiling lit her sweaty body. Though her cult believed there was no need for them, the woman’s breasts were supple, overflowing with life. Her nipples were on the larger side. What a body, the man in white thought. This is what her body looks like under her clothes . . . He realized he had been watching the whole time.

  The leader sucked on her breasts.

  “Please stop! We’ll . . . We’ll . . .”

  “You’ll what?”

  “Oh, god!”

  The woman looked up at the lights. Her hair was a mess. It looked lewd. Her thin eyes glistened with tears. From where he was standing, the man in white could see her vulva between her long legs. The leader stuck his finger in her. He moved it gently.

  “God . . . god . . .”

  “What are you moaning about?”

  “. . . Why?”

  Liquid ran down her legs.

  “You,” the leader said.

  “No.”

  “I’m right. This is the kind of woman you are. It’s been a long time, so you can really feel it now.”

  The leader bowed over her and stretched his tongue to her genitals, like a bug lapping up its food.

  “Ah . . . Ah!”

  “Mm?”

  “God!”

  “Yes, god is watching. Death is near.”

  The sound of her puddling wetness filled the room. Can she hear that? the man in white wondered. Death, it’s in this room. The leader ran his mouth over the woman as if he was thirsty and wetting his throat with a glass of water.

  “Ah! Ah!”

  “Are you going to come? You should come.”

  “No! I . . .”

  “Show your god.”

  “I’m sorry! Please forgive me! Ah . . . Ah . . . Please forgive me!”

  “Mm?”

  “God! God!”

  “Do you like it when god watches?”

  She raised her hips. She screamed.

  “No! Ahh!”

  Her body began shaking violently. But the leader didn’t stop. She screamed, “Stop! Stop!” Her body convulsed again. She squirted disgustingly far. Drops of liquid reached the feet of the man in white.

  “Ah! Ah! Ahh!”

  Her body continued to convulse. She twisted in pain, and her chest heaved wildly. The leader undressed, then put his own genitals inside her writhing wet body.

  “No!”

  “I think death is supple and round . . . What about you?”

  The leader moved his body. Pierced, the woman could only make indistinct noises. Does she feel it? the man in white wondered. Mysterious tears fell from his eyes. How awful, he thought. It had always been hard for him. They said he’d lost his parents because of his ancestors’ desires. He had joined a reclusive group of women and lived for years deep in the mountains in a small hospital-like building. He lived under their strict precepts, and their ban on desire. He had spent his days feeling the presence of god.

  The woman clung to the leader as if she didn’t know what to do with all the pleasure she was feeling. Her legs were spread awkwardly wide. You should cling to him, he thought. Cling to him. Cry out with your disgusting voice, and cling to him. Nothing we do is forbidden. It doesn’t matter what people think. None of it matters. He felt god watching him. If you’re going to kill me, kill me. We are only human. If you’re going to kill me, do it.

  The leader continued to move his hips, and stuck his tongue in the woman’s soft mouth. The leader was quite fit for his age. He was beautiful. As beautiful as water, the man thought for some reason. Beautiful liquid.

  “Ah, ahh!”

  The woman was licking the leader’s tongue.

  “Ah, ah, ahhh!”

  The woman shook again violently, and the leader’s body also trembled slightly. Existence is trembling, the man suddenly thought. The leader is coming inside her. The man was struck by the look that passed through the leader’s eyes. He should be in the midst of pleasure, but he’s distracted by something. What is it? What?

  “You will live on the twenty-first floor,” the leader said softly, pulling out of her. The woman nodded. Her cheeks were red and her eyes wet with tears. She was beautiful. The look of a woman filled with sperm, the man thought. Her body is filled with sperm.

  “You do her too,” the leader said to the man in white. The man nodded so naturally he surprised himself. This isn’t good, he thought. She and I, all we’ve done is leave one mess for another. But, he thought, it’s not bad, either. All the leader did was have sex with her.

  The man in white stood before the woman with her legs spread. Their eyes met. At that compound she had been like a sister. I never thought of her as such a beautiful woman.

  “Excuse me,” the woman called to the leader.

  “Mm?”

  “Please watch. I want you to watch.”

  The woman looked at the man as if challenging him. She stared straight at him and smiled. Her lips were wet. She was beautiful. She had been set free. This wasn’t good or evil. This had nothing to do with good or evil at all. We’ve been set free. We . . .

  The man touched the woman’s cheek gently.

  16

  The room was dark. Another day with no time to spare.

 
Takahara stared at the believers gathered there. There were sixteen people counting Takahara, in the twenty-five-square-meter space. They were all looking straight ahead. Their eyes were full of dedication and hope as they waited for Takahara’s words.

  They are happy, Takahara thought. I want to be like them. But is the one who betrayed me here? I’m not sure. Will the leader see through me?

  “Conditions report. Sasahara?“

  “Yes, sir,” Sasahara said solemnly. He seemed to be barely suppressing his anticipation. There must have been some progress. “The exchange of the PPSh-41s which I reported on last week will be carried out next Tuesday. The gang members have already received the weapons, so we just need to make the exchange.”

  “Where will you make the trade?”

  “In an apartment. They took out a weekly rental.”

  “Any possible risks?”

  “I cannot say there are none, but I don’t see how it would be strategic for them to attack us.”

  Takahara thought. As if in response to Takahara’s silence, Sasahara continued to speak.

  “If they were to attack us during the trade, it would either be to take our money without giving us the PPSh-41s, or because they do not have the guns and simply plan on stealing our money. For that reason, five of us will go to the rendezvous. I’m certain that this much money will not be worth the hassle of having to clean up five bodies. Of course, there is the possibility of them stealing the money without killing us, but our associates are well known in the underworld. I assume they wouldn’t leave any evidence of making an unfair deal.”

  Takahara kept thinking. Would they really be okay? That wasn’t what Takahara was worried about, though. What if this was a trap set by the police or Public Security? No one could be sure that it wasn’t.

  “And in the case that this is a Public Security Bureau trap,” Sasahara said, ready to address Takahara’s concerns, “we plan to say we belong to an extreme leftist group. We will likely be arrested, but that doesn’t matter. The other believers will continue our mission.”

  The five men who were to make the trade looked hard at Takahara. Their expressions were entranced and fulfilled. Takahara couldn’t help but be moved by them.

  “I see. I won’t forget your dedication.”

  Their eyes shone. A collective noise escaped from the crowd, as if the joy inside them had leaked out. Their bodies swayed, and their breathing and voices merged in their sense of elation. They were becoming one. Inside they were all screaming in rapture.

  “We are the elite.”

  “Yes.”

  “We are the chosen ones.”

  “Yes.”

  He could feel the heat of their bodies seeping into the air. They were all looking at Takahara. They were lost in their desires, and filled with forceful passion.

  “We will need to train to use these PPSh-41s. I’ll leave that up to you,” Takahara said, looking at Yoshioka.

  Yoshioka nodded gravely. He had once been a member of the Self-Defense Forces. “You don’t need much skill to use an automatic rifle.”

  Takahara climbed up the freezing stairs.

  The sound of his shoes echoed, making him feel like someone was following him. He stood before the leader’s door, the previous elation still lingering in his body. He couldn’t imagine that one of them had betrayed him. He couldn’t believe that one of those men with such pure faces could be the informant. All he could imagine was that there wasn’t an informant, that he had been found out by the leader himself. But how?

  Takahara took a deep breath and knocked on the door. An indistinct voice came from inside. When he opened the door, the leader was lying on a couch, sadly petting a woman.

  Monster, Takahara thought.

  There was a hell inside the leader. But instead of resisting that hell, he let himself sink into it. How can he hold women like that, with those gloomy eyes? He might as well not sleep with them, but still he reaches out for them as if out of habit. Unmoved. Like an insect licking sap from a tree.

  “Leader, you called?” Takahara asked quietly. This bastard, Takahara thought. Even though he’s a bastard, I’m still nervous in front of him. It’s because he’s a monster. His mind has failed, but his expression doesn’t show it.

  “I didn’t call you.”

  The leader wasn’t looking at Takahara, but rather at the space between them. Were his eyes even seeing? What could he be looking at?

  “I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  “You’re not disturbing me. Oh, you mean her.” The leader slowly stretched his neck out toward the woman next to him, and seized her tongue with his fingers. She did not resist. She let him do what he wanted to her. Takahara waited, tense. There are people who type text messages to one person while talking to someone else. This bastard has sex. Takahara felt himself about to smile.

  “That woman, the Cupro girl . . . she tried to come for confession. She said she had personal contact with you.”

  The leader spread open the woman’s legs and studied her genitals as if he were looking at a stain on her clothing. Takahara let out a small sigh. Was she so jealous that she’d lie like that? Just because he hadn’t slept with her?

  “I sent her to counseling.”

  “You aren’t going to punish me?”

  “Mm?”

  Takahara could hear a wet noise coming from between the woman’s legs. She started taking heaving, short breaths. Takahara knew the leader wouldn’t punish him for this contact with the Cupro girl. But he wanted to know something else—whether the leader had found out about his plan or not. He looked at the leader’s eyes. He couldn’t see any indication one way or another there.

  “I wouldn’t punish you. My successor.”

  Liar, Takahara said in his head. Why hadn’t he ever made this cult an official religion? It wasn’t just to hide from the Public Security Bureau, was it? You’re planning something. You must be planning something.

  The leader moved his fingers as if it were a great hassle. Like he was playing with a loose button on his coat. The woman, twisting in pleasure, shot Takahara short glances. Was she embarrassed at the wet sound coming from between her legs?

  “I sent her to counseling. I’ll try to make her want you more.”

  “So you won’t bring her up here?”

  “Mm.”

  This man could probably even lap at a woman who was madly in love with another man, Takahara thought. He could probably find a way to sleep with a woman even if she was calling out my name instead of his. Just like he was licking sap from a tree. Without a single smile. Sadly.

  He was a different breed from Shotaro Matsuo. People flocked to Matsuo. It certainly seemed like people flocked to the leader as well, but it wasn’t him they were drawn to. It’s like some viscous liquid is pouring out of him. People are drawn to that liquid. Then their darkest secrets dissolve into that liquid.

  The wet sound grew louder. Was the woman trying so hard to close her legs because she was embarrassed, or because she was about to come? Takahara’s mind went blank as he watched the woman’s thin body rise. She grabbed the sheets she had soaked. Her long hair glinted in the white light.

  It couldn’t have been Ryoko, Takahara thought. Ryoko certainly noticed something, but she doesn’t have evidence. But no, that’s why he’d told her to leave. If I do the negotiating, she could get out. Probably.

  There’s no need for us to be together. For her to be involved in my life. This irreparable life.

  17

  Narazaki wound up helping set up for Matsuo’s lecture.

  The organization had no official registry, but there were plenty of people who left contact information so they could be notified next time there was an event. The people who left their email address were easy, because they could all be sent the same message, but calling everyone who left a phone number took quit
e a lot of effort.

  “Does this flyer look okay?” Mineno asked Matsuo.

  “Aren’t you going to put a picture of my face on it?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “I mean, my face is pretty moving, right?” Matsuo said, and stared at Mineno seriously. A tangerine came flying at him and Matsuo batted it away with his backscratcher. When Matsuo threw the tangerine back at Yoshiko, she caught it, and tossed it again. Matsuo batted it down again with the backscratcher. Yoshida stepped between them to get them to stop.

  “Get out of the way, baldy,” Matsuo told him.

  Yoshida got mad. “I’m not bald, I’m a monk.”

  “Liar! Your hair fell out! Isn’t that right? You just became a monk because you went bald!”

  “Are you really going to say that?” Yoshida challenged. “Are you?”

  “Yeah, I said it. You went bald! You can’t change the fact that you lost your hair!”

  Narazaki and a woman named Komaki still needed to sort through the folding chairs they’d line up in the garden and remove the rusted ones. As he tried to leave the room the tangerine struck his back.

  “Yes?”

  “Where are you going with Komaki-chan?” Matsuo asked, angry.

  Narazaki didn’t understand the anger. “We’re going to sort out the chairs.”

  “You’re just going to fool around, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to go fool around with Komaki-chan, right? Cozy up in the corner of the storehouse? You’ll whisper things to each other like, ‘Oh, we shouldn’t! Everyone’s right outside. Oh no!’ Right?”

  Narazaki was shocked.

  “Is that why you asked me to help?” Komaki asked.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Is that what you’ve been thinking about me?”

  “No. Don’t be stupid,” Narazaki said to Matsuo. “Please, give it a rest.”

  “Well then, answer this honestly,” Matsuo said. He pointed his backscratcher straight at Narazaki. “Have you really never, not once, thought about Komaki-chan sexually? Even just for a second? If you lie, you get the candy punishment. I’ll put my dentures in your mouth like a piece of candy!”