Those words served as the signal, and men and women threw themselves together. The woman started kissing the man in front of her. She wanted to call to the leader: Fuck me. We’ve started. I—we—want to, too. Leader.
The room pulsed with movement. Men and women sucking each other’s genitals, devouring them. A man offering his finger, and a woman accepting it inside herself. She twisted and moaned, wrapped tenderly in this man’s strong muscles . . . The woman watching was jealous. Leader. Leader. The leader’s finger moved silently. It touched her chest. He woke for me. The leader. The particles in front of her were reacting frantically. Her breasts weren’t very large. She wanted him to like them, though. As he touched her chest, she squeezed her arms into her sides to create more cleavage, hoping he didn’t notice the trick.
“Ah . . .” she cried. The middle finger of her right hand was in his mouth. “Leader . . .”
She was wet. His mouth was moist, and shrunk around her finger. He sucked it forcefully. This feeling . . . It was what her finger felt like when she did it by herself . . . Her body suddenly grew hot. She hadn’t been able to wait for Monday, and yesterday . . .
“Ah! Ah . . .”
She felt the sensation inside her even though he was just sucking her finger. His mouth was mimicking what the inside of her body feels like. A feeling he knew so well. Next, he sucked on her ring finger. Her body had turned to liquid.
“Go.”
“What?”
“Do it with those men.”
Countless hands reached for her body. They pulled her away from the leader. They ripped the bath towel from her body. She was naked in front of the leader. Countless hands reached for her and touched her body. They played with her like she was a toy. Who were they? Their faces were beautiful. They kissed her. They smelled sweet. One of their tongues moved in her mouth. She accepted it. She wrapped her arms around the neck of the man kissing her. She was kissing one man, and another was sucking on her breasts feverishly. They were all mad for her body. She cried out. There were fingers inside her. Whose fingers? Why was he so good? They were moving inside her. Gently, but persistently.
“Ah . . . Ah!”
“You’re wet,” the man playing with her pussy whispered in her ear.
His fingers moved inside her as if he were searching for something. No, no, she cried. If he kept going, she was going to squirt in front of the leader. The noises were so embarrassing. Her body was quaking. Ah . . . Ah!
“I’m going to come . . . I’m going to come . . .”
“It’s all right. Come.”
“No! Ah!”
Liquid gushed from her pussy. It wouldn’t stop. She felt so ashamed. But she wanted that man to finger her more. The women around her were watching and commented—“Amazing,” and “Wow”—in their thin voices. No! She didn’t want other women to see her pussy. Did she? The more she thought about it, the more she actually wanted to be seen. Ahh! Ahh! It was too much. The leader was watching. I give everything up to you. I offer myself to you as a sacrifice. This pleasure, the squelching coming from my pussy, everything, I give it to you. Ahh, ahh! I want to be embarrassed! I want to feel more! She whispered to the man gently sucking her nipples, “Do me.”
“Hm?”
“Put it in my pussy.”
His penis entered her. She gushed liquid again. He moved inside her violently. She couldn’t think anymore.
“Ah, ahh, ahh!”
“You’re so wet.”
“Ahh, this is too much!”
“It’s amazing inside you.”
“My pussy . . . Do you like it? Do you like my pussy?”
“Oh, I’m going to . . .”
The man humping her closed his eyes. She felt tenderness for this man in the throes of pleasure. She kissed him. Until a moment ago he had so much energy, but now he was already going to come. How cute, she thought. This man is so cute.
“Come. You want to come, right? You want to come inside me, right?”
“Ahh!”
He came inside her—he couldn’t help it. Even though he was so strong, his body was shaking. And it was because of her pussy . . . Leader, I give this to you as well. This pleasure will also be joined to the master through me. The leader’s nerves will tremble. Us, our pleasure. The exhausted man pulled himself from her, and the next man’s penis entered her. “Wait, stop,” she said, even though she didn’t want him to stop. She was smiling. She was glad he started right away. She still hadn’t come. He flipped her over and pierced her relentlessly. There was another penis in front of her, which she took tenderly into her mouth. She made loud sucking sounds for him. The man behind her kept going. It felt good. She screamed. She could feel the shape of his penis, that’s how tight her pussy was wrapped around him. Her legs went numb. This man can probably make me come. Ah, she was going mad. She couldn’t think. She’d always been a perverted girl. She remembered realizing how much she liked the climbing poles in elementary school. She’d begun masturbating by rubbing up against furniture. She used to only be able to come when she masturbated. She’d been scared of coming in front of men. Mm. Mmm. Does the leader feel something? Does some small fraction of his nerves connect to this feeling? Ahh! Ahh! I give this to the leader. This terrible pleasure. I give it all to the leader, and we will become one great being, a great being. My sex. I give him my sex. Ahh!
She was going to come. She vanished.
“Hey, are you gonna come again?” she asked the man on top of her.
Watching another woman squirt, she had begun to feel it rising inside her again. She might be a little bit of a lesbian. She was cute, that girl. But now the woman was looking up at the desperate face of the man above her as he fucked her.
“Ah! . . . Hey, do you think you’re gonna come again?”
“. . . I’m sorry!”
“. . . You left your job and your family to join this religion, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you must be at least twenty years older than me. Mm . . . And are you . . . Mm . . . planning to come twice . . . inside a little girl half your age?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
He kept humping her. She didn’t know why, but suddenly she thought of the girl who had killed herself because she had stolen her boyfriend. She had showed up at the girl’s funeral like nothing happened. That useless man had blamed her, made her out to be the bad one, to try and erase his own feelings of guilt. She hadn’t cared about that man, she just hated that other girl. She’d had no interest in him after she stole him from her.
The woman thought now that she’d probably actually been interested in the other girl. She’d probably loved her. That’s probably why she’d done it. But then why wasn’t she sad when the other girl died? She’d lit a cigarette off the incense in her funeral offering. Like she was making fun of her death. What had she been trying to get out of it all? Cruelly killing the person she loved?
“Are you going to come? Inside a little girl?”
“Oh! You’re so wet . . . Your pussy is so wet.”
“It’s you! Mm! You made me this wet. Are you going to come again? Mm. Are you going to come in my pussy?
“Yes! Oh, I—”
Her eyes met the leader’s. When she’d first seen him, she’d felt the kind of shock that could change someone’s whole being—a complete change of heart. She’d reacted the moment she saw his face. The evil in her could never compare with what was in him. What she’d done, it was just a tiny fraction of what he was capable of. No one here would run from her. There was no one here like her father, who took her virginity and then told her she had to go to school. Did he think it was normal for him to fuck her just because he could? Even though he had a wife and children? His evil was nothing. He was strict with her because he didn’t want to think her failure was the result of his own crimes. If his crimes hadn
’t been so trivial, she might not have killed him. She hated that the men who had ruined her life were all so pathetic.
She had been working in a brothel when she was scouted by the believer who brought her here. Here, she would never be rejected. The murder she had committed was erased by the leader’s evil.
Her eyes met the leader’s again. That instant, she was on the verge of coming. He was the person who had changed her. She used to hate sex. She was shaking.
“Mm, mm, mm. You’re so rough. Do you want to come that badly?”
She started to smile. My vices will be swallowed up by the leader. They will melt along with the pleasure I feel, and I will give them up to the leader. They will become part of him. It felt good. She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to think about anything. She wanted to be part of the great being.
“Hey, are you going to come? Are you?”
Ahh. I came. Her body quaked. She was reduced to the sensations of her body. Ah, ah, ah! Her body was falling . . . Her mind went blank.
There was something on top of her. It was dark, and there were people around her. Ahh! She was having sex. Her pussy was tingling, and she was moaning. The motion of the man’s hips grew more violent. It felt good. It felt good. Even when she came, he didn’t stop. He licked her nipples and kissed her roughly as he moved his hips. Her body was being devoured by him. She felt like she was going to come again. The smell of this man. The intervals between orgasms were getting shorter. There was no end. He pierced her again. He squeezed her tight, and thrust his hips roughly. He kept hitting somewhere deep inside her. Over and over and over and over. The tingling heat made it up to her head. Ah! She came again. She lost her mind. She vanished.
“Ah! Ah! Ah!”
“I’m going to—”
“No, no! My pussy! Mm. I can’t take anymore.”
“Ah! Ah!”
She died. Her pussy—her pussy was so happy. It came again. I’m so vile. I’m so vile. I’m, I’m—
“Ah! Ahhh!”
“Ah!”
“Are you still coming? Mm. You’re still coming. That’s amazing. Still coming . . . Mm. I’m going to come again . . . Ah, ah!”
Someone collapsed on top of her. Their body, wet with sweat, moved up and down as they breathed. Her mind was blank. Her body was still trembling.
“Was it good?” she asked, smiling. She could feel the warmth of his cum inside her. When he pulled his dick out, another wave of pleasure ran through her body.
“Mm . . . It’s great, right? To do whatever you want.”
She petted his head and kissed him gently. Their tongues met. His was soft and warm. Even though they were surrounded by vice—no, because they were surrounded by vice—she wanted to treat someone kindly.
“After we take a little break . . . We can do it again. Let’s do it as many times as we can . . . I love you.”
What is this?
Takahara was looking down at Yoshioka’s corpse. On his neck were several vertical red lines, as if he’d scratched his throat. There was blood and skin stuck to the tips of his fingernails.
“If this were suicide, why is there a second glass? Someone else was in the room,” Sasahara said quietly, looking at the glass left on the table. The glass that Yoshioka seemed to have been drinking from lay on the floor.
“Maybe he tried to make his suicide look like murder. Suicide is forbidden here. But still . . .”
Adachi was in the bathroom throwing up. Could someone have pressured Yoshioka into suicide? Takahara wondered. He had an important job. Sasahara was looking at him with confusion and concern. Maybe I look too calm, standing in front of a dead body. He couldn’t tell them he was used to it, or that he’d seen people killed in far more horrible ways. If he said that, he’d have to explain. His head began to hurt. It was worse than usual.
“Does anyone else know about this?”
“I don’t think so. Today is Monday, so everyone’s in the hall. Adachi and I only came here because we had to talk to Yoshioka about the trailers—we can’t just leave them there . . . And he was the only one with a license for large vehicles.”
“And the door?”
“It was unlocked.”
“I see.” Takahara felt his heart leap when he looked at the ashtray. His body reacted faster than his mind could process things. “These butts are Yoshioka’s, right? He always smokes these.” But no, Takahara thought to himself. It was Yoshioka’s brand, but there was too much ash for that number of butts.
Yoshioka always cleaned out his ashtray with water. He was a meticulous man. He would never just pick out the butts and leave the ash. But why would an intruder take the trouble to remove their cigarette butts but leave their glass on the table?
His head hurt. Yoshioka had obviously been murdered. But why? And by whom? Was this the doing of the person who’d caught wind of their plan? Even if that were the case, why kill Yoshioka?
“I’ll report this to the leader,” Takahara said, his voice trembling. “Don’t say anything to anyone—and make sure Adachi knows not to, either.”
“But . . . we leave his body here?”
“We have to get it out of here. There must be something in the basement . . . Something we can put it in . . .”
“It?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m upset. Something we can put Yoshioka in.”
Corpses are such trouble, Takahara thought. Living humans are bothersome, and so are their dead bodies. I wonder if there’s anything as hard to deal with as a dead body?
“Is it too dangerous to take him outside?”
“We can’t. What would we do if someone noticed? Remember, we’re hiding from the Public Security Bureau.”
“So . . . There are planters. We can fit him in one. We could cover him in dirt. But . . .”
Takahara’s thoughts were swirling. The leader can’t learn about the body. We can’t let anyone else find out. “Right, we can’t leave him for long. Let’s hurry. We don’t even have three hours until the party is over.”
“. . . And the leader?”
“I said I’d tell him!” Takahara exploded. The situation had gotten to him, even though he had vowed to remain calm no matter what.
This is it, Takahara thought. This is it. We’ve used up all the time we had to sit around. We have to go through with the plan. Even if we have to force it to happen.
2
“You need to think about your breathing, Narazaki-kun.”
Narazaki was sitting on the mansion’s veranda, smoking a cigarette and recalling one of the last conversations he’d had with Matsuo. The two of them had been alone, preparing for Matsuo’s last talk. He’d been sitting cross-legged on a cushion, poking Narazaki’s shoulder with his backscratcher.
“That’s the Zen way of thinking, anyway. In Zen Buddhism, breathing plays a very important role. When you feel uneasy or have evil thoughts, you take slow, deep breaths and focus only on your breathing. Imagine you are nothing more than a vessel that inhales and exhales.”
Narazaki nodded uncertainly. Matsuo’s backscratcher was irritating him.
“The main point is not to suppress your unease or your evil thoughts. Suppressing them means you’re taking them too seriously. Don’t chase unease or evil thoughts with your mind. Just let them flow away. And then focus on only your breathing. Breathing is a quiet activity. If you do that, your unhappy thoughts will vanish. You’ll stop being conscious of them.”
Suddenly Matsuo stopped poking his shoulder.
“This is the first step in Zen. From there, you try to reach enlightenment . . . You know how in Zen you sit cross-legged? That’s called zazen. You focus hard on that posture, your left and right legs crossed together, focus on the fact that you have one right leg and one left leg, that they make this shape that shows you that you have two legs. That’s the first step to enlightenm
ent. You saw the DVD where I talked about the Buddha, right? ‘Not one who imagines the world as it is, or imagines the world wrongly, nor one who does not imagine, nor one who has obliterated his imagination. Those who can understand this will obliterate form.’ That’s what the Buddha said. These words can’t be understood just by reading them. They can’t be interpreted logically. ‘Not one who doesn’t imagine, nor one who has obliterated his imagination.’ What’s that? One is one, and two is two. But you can’t understand this sort of thing through our normal thought patterns. It’s like saying one is one, and one is also two. Just like your legs when you practice zazen. And I also want you to think of it like the particles in the vacuum at the start of the universe, popping in and out of existence. Speaking in terms of physics, they’re ‘neither nothing, nor something.’ Like how light is a particle and also a wave . . . The further we force ourselves into this micro world, the more things deviate from the logic of words, even if that’s the most accurate way to explain them scientifically. The truth of the universe is probably somewhere in this seemingly illogical space . . . Through Zen, humans can distance themselves from the logic of words and melt into the true form of the universe. Enlightenment, or ‘nirvana,’ is probably the ‘peace’ we feel at that moment.” Matsuo regarded Narazaki for a moment. “Why did I tell you that?”
“I don’t know, why?” Narazaki asked, surprised.
“I have no idea. Don’t ask me!”
Just as Narazaki wasn’t sure why Matsuo had brought up breathing, he had no idea why he thought of it again when Mineno began undressing. He thought she was beautiful. He didn’t feel so much romantically attracted to her as he felt a primal, immediate desire to have sex. Whenever Narazaki saw her, he was overcome by feelings of sexual desire. Sometimes he even stole glances at her when he was sure she wouldn’t notice.