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| 'Comfort women' being taught how to shoot. |
Gorou and Sora became an item. Officially they were labeled together. Where once other students saw two disparate individuals, they now saw one couple. They were a couple who reflected each other and who magnified the qualities of the other. Both being bright, they were together somehow ‘geniuses. Both being reclusive, they were now no longer anonymous lonely hearts but instead secretive lovers. They were something that was more than the sum of its parts. Their separateness was now seen as something positive. It was because they conformed to romantic norms that the group was keen to re-evaluate the two, to bring them back into the fold.
Gorou saw his relationship with Sora in terms of paradox. He loved dwelling on the topic of how his one and Sora’s one made more than two. How this extra something was a quality and how quality was so hard to define mathematically. Sora enjoyed these discussions because she had just finished Robert Pirsig’s Lila, the follow up to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which dealt with the same issue. She saw quality not as a mathematical oddity but as the heart of humanism: following quality is what drove progress. Deciding what had value and what didn’t was the way and the essential benchmark for happiness. And for her, being with Gorou felt right and must be something that increased the quality of her life.
That is not to say that she wasn’t without misgivings. What irked Sora was the threat to her individuality that coupledom imposed upon her. She sometimes felt that her relationship somehow co-opted her essential self. Suddenly people looked at her and saw not the odd-ball loner, but Gorou’s girl. She loved Gorou and felt pride in this status change, but at the same time she regretted a loss of control. It was as if she no longer had autonomy because she was attached to another person whose character and actions somehow partly defined her. Was it true the other way round she wondered? Do I now partly define Gorou? She hoped so.
From their first sex by the river, the couple never looked back. Everything seemed to happen so naturally. More sex, love, more commitment. By the end of their first year at college the two of them were already discussing the practicalities of sharing an apartment in Tokyo or in nearby Kanagawa. Neither of them came from rich families, and yet they hoped that with part-time jobs they could afford it.
Gorou saw his relationship with Sora in terms of paradox. He loved dwelling on the topic of how his one and Sora’s one made more than two. How this extra something was a quality and how quality was so hard to define mathematically. Sora enjoyed these discussions because she had just finished Robert Pirsig’s Lila, the follow up to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which dealt with the same issue. She saw quality not as a mathematical oddity but as the heart of humanism: following quality is what drove progress. Deciding what had value and what didn’t was the way and the essential benchmark for happiness. And for her, being with Gorou felt right and must be something that increased the quality of her life.
That is not to say that she wasn’t without misgivings. What irked Sora was the threat to her individuality that coupledom imposed upon her. She sometimes felt that her relationship somehow co-opted her essential self. Suddenly people looked at her and saw not the odd-ball loner, but Gorou’s girl. She loved Gorou and felt pride in this status change, but at the same time she regretted a loss of control. It was as if she no longer had autonomy because she was attached to another person whose character and actions somehow partly defined her. Was it true the other way round she wondered? Do I now partly define Gorou? She hoped so.
From their first sex by the river, the couple never looked back. Everything seemed to happen so naturally. More sex, love, more commitment. By the end of their first year at college the two of them were already discussing the practicalities of sharing an apartment in Tokyo or in nearby Kanagawa. Neither of them came from rich families, and yet they hoped that with part-time jobs they could afford it.
Everything was going great until the summer holidays. The long break. The students had to vacate the dorms and find other accommodation. Most people went home. Neither Sora nor Gorou wanted to return home. Gorou was from a Prefecture in the North and Sora from one in the South. It wasn't distance that would separate them but money. High speed trains or airplanes were a luxury they couldn’t afford. The reality of having to go home and find a shitty job in a convenience store or in a cram school hung like a heavy cloud over their last few days of term. If it was just herself to consider, Sora would have made a decision quickly and would have pursued the matter with as much intelligence and resolve as she could muster. For her thought was wedded to action. But Gorou became entangled in ideas and looked so much before he leaped that in the end he never jumped. And so it was with the holiday problem – he over-thought the problem and ended up doing nothing, just going with the flow, resigning himself to going home to his family.
This led to their first row. Sora accused Gorou of deliberately sabotaging her plan for them to find a cheap apartment or even a shared apartment and to find jobs in the city to make ends meet. Gorou didn’t like the accusation and told Sora that she was being impractical, that she was being ‘too much of a girl’ by letting her emotions cloud her judgments. The row lasted two days. During that time they stopped meeting.
On the third day (and the day before the end of term), Gorou was waiting outside Sora’s lecture hall holding a wrapped present. He apologized and mumbled something about being in the wrong. The girls in her dorm had told Sora that she had to punish Gorou and that instant forgiveness and reconciliation was not playing the game. She should hint that she would take him back but that she should only properly forgive him after he had shown enough contriteness. Otherwise he wouldn't value her. As far as Sora could understand her dorm mates believed that it was obstacles that entangled a man. Obstacles to sex and obstacles to forgiveness convinced a man that a woman was worth chasing and keeping. Easy girls were not girls boys wanted to marry. To Sora this made zero sense. Delaying gratification why? Suffering made pleasure greater? Holding back was the way to get more? Weren't these all games based on bunk psychology? If you are hungry you should eat. If you want to have sex you should have sex. Why wait? And so Sora ignored the advice she was given and smiled at the sight of Gorou all wet-eyed and humble. She took the present.
“I missed you so much. I’m sorry I criticized you. It all seems so unimportant to me. What I want is you. What is this?” Sora asked as she pulled at the tape on the wrapping to open the gift without ripping the gift paper. It was a Kindle. Sora had never seen one before. She thought at first it was some type of over-sized cell phone until Gorou explained that it was a digital reader. He had downloaded 50 books onto the Kindle. Among the 50 were books by Mishima, Dazai, Kobo Abe, Oe, Dostoyevsky, Balzac, Joyce, Kafka, Keats, Shakespeare, Yeats and Soseki. She loved it and at that moment she loved Gorou more.
This led to their first row. Sora accused Gorou of deliberately sabotaging her plan for them to find a cheap apartment or even a shared apartment and to find jobs in the city to make ends meet. Gorou didn’t like the accusation and told Sora that she was being impractical, that she was being ‘too much of a girl’ by letting her emotions cloud her judgments. The row lasted two days. During that time they stopped meeting.
On the third day (and the day before the end of term), Gorou was waiting outside Sora’s lecture hall holding a wrapped present. He apologized and mumbled something about being in the wrong. The girls in her dorm had told Sora that she had to punish Gorou and that instant forgiveness and reconciliation was not playing the game. She should hint that she would take him back but that she should only properly forgive him after he had shown enough contriteness. Otherwise he wouldn't value her. As far as Sora could understand her dorm mates believed that it was obstacles that entangled a man. Obstacles to sex and obstacles to forgiveness convinced a man that a woman was worth chasing and keeping. Easy girls were not girls boys wanted to marry. To Sora this made zero sense. Delaying gratification why? Suffering made pleasure greater? Holding back was the way to get more? Weren't these all games based on bunk psychology? If you are hungry you should eat. If you want to have sex you should have sex. Why wait? And so Sora ignored the advice she was given and smiled at the sight of Gorou all wet-eyed and humble. She took the present.
“I missed you so much. I’m sorry I criticized you. It all seems so unimportant to me. What I want is you. What is this?” Sora asked as she pulled at the tape on the wrapping to open the gift without ripping the gift paper. It was a Kindle. Sora had never seen one before. She thought at first it was some type of over-sized cell phone until Gorou explained that it was a digital reader. He had downloaded 50 books onto the Kindle. Among the 50 were books by Mishima, Dazai, Kobo Abe, Oe, Dostoyevsky, Balzac, Joyce, Kafka, Keats, Shakespeare, Yeats and Soseki. She loved it and at that moment she loved Gorou more.
“Am I forgiven, Sora? I don't want to fight with you, especially tonight. This is going to be our last night together for two months. I have a little money saved up. Let’s go to a love hotel and drink cold beer and..”
“Fuck. That's an excellent idea.” Sora loved shocking Gorou with vulgarity.
Ever since losing her virginity she felt liberated. Knowing your sexuality and unashamedly experiencing it was like discovering a secret that had been unfairly hidden for years. What had she been waiting for? Softball, tennis, basketball and all the other daft after-school clubs made no sense to her. They were a waste of physical effort; whereas, sex was another matter entirely. It was a thing worthy of supreme bouts of effort. Breaking the tape at the finishing line had a thunderous sublimity; it tore Sora into a closer connection with now. Nothing was more now than an orgasm.
And knowing that pleasure had layers of intensity, layers that blurred and ran through with a dark vein made Sora consider the excitement and the possibilities; the danger and the rewards; the privacy (even in public) and the intimacy, like being encapsulated in an oil stained bubble. These entire feelings and ideas made Sora feel complete - a woman, not a girl.
Gorou on the other hand saw lust as a dark collapse into animal pleasure, as a retreat from the intellect; as a force of creation but also destruction. Sora was liberated by sex, Gorou was imprisoned in passion. For Sora it was like swimming to the surface from a great depth. For Gorou it was like possession by a force that was stronger than his will. A will that was his but wasn’t his at the same time.
The two young people sensed this difference but neither had found the words or courage to address the issue.
“Fuck. That's an excellent idea.” Sora loved shocking Gorou with vulgarity.
Ever since losing her virginity she felt liberated. Knowing your sexuality and unashamedly experiencing it was like discovering a secret that had been unfairly hidden for years. What had she been waiting for? Softball, tennis, basketball and all the other daft after-school clubs made no sense to her. They were a waste of physical effort; whereas, sex was another matter entirely. It was a thing worthy of supreme bouts of effort. Breaking the tape at the finishing line had a thunderous sublimity; it tore Sora into a closer connection with now. Nothing was more now than an orgasm.
And knowing that pleasure had layers of intensity, layers that blurred and ran through with a dark vein made Sora consider the excitement and the possibilities; the danger and the rewards; the privacy (even in public) and the intimacy, like being encapsulated in an oil stained bubble. These entire feelings and ideas made Sora feel complete - a woman, not a girl.
Gorou on the other hand saw lust as a dark collapse into animal pleasure, as a retreat from the intellect; as a force of creation but also destruction. Sora was liberated by sex, Gorou was imprisoned in passion. For Sora it was like swimming to the surface from a great depth. For Gorou it was like possession by a force that was stronger than his will. A will that was his but wasn’t his at the same time.
The two young people sensed this difference but neither had found the words or courage to address the issue.
So it was that they spent their last night together in the Triple 5 Hotel. They drank, tried new positions and had lots of baths. On their second bout of lovemaking Gorou pulled out two black silk scarves. He insisted they do it blind-folded and that he be passive. Sora loved the idea and within minutes she had straddled the young man and was using her vaginal muscles and hips to gallop with ferocity towards oblivion. She raised her head, faced the darkness and went at speed into the light. As Gorou could hold back no longer he screamed and submitted.
Images: birds and the bees from bakwaasbybiswas.wordpress.com
Comfort women : thinkersblog.net
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