Sunflower by R. Mendosa We have to hang around the base for a whole week before we are let off. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we have a lot of clearing in to do. In that first week, we don't do much of anything in our new outfit. Usually, we report in the morning to let them know we are there. Then, we take off walking, going everywhere on the base. We trudge all over, miles, getting people to sign off our clearance forms. It is hot and muggy. Occasional sprinkles cool us off, but wrinkle our fatigue uniforms. I suppose that part of it is just orientation. Some of the stuff is significant, like supply, where we get our flight suits and equipment. But, most is candy-ass stuff, like the Chaplain, and the Library, which are important, but don't have much to do with doing our new job. We go to a verbal orientation also, at the base theater, with a hundred or so other newcomers, where we are briefed on a lot of military stuff as well as what to expect off base. That gets us excited because that's where most of us want to go - off base - and we pay attention to the talk about money exchange, the black market, VD and other down-to-earth stuff. We become members of the enlisted men's club. The Zanzibar, that's the strange name of the club, offers us food, booze, and entertainment at dirt-cheap prices. There is no age limit to drink. Actually, there is, but it's eighteen, so in effect, for most GIs, there is no limit. At the Zanzibar, we examine the girls that some of the other GIs bring there as their dates. Some are nice looking; a few are knockouts; those who wear kimonos I find especially interesting. Others are strange; that is, I don't understand why anyone would want to be seen with them. We wonder why anyone would date some of the really ugly ones. But, we are young, except for Riddell, who is 26, and we want beauties. The Zanzibar proves to be a training ground for our drinking. We drink almost every night the first week there, usually beginning around 5 or 6pm, after we are through for the day and showered up. But, because of the eight hour time change, we usually do not last too long, at first, and some of us fall asleep at the table, or just simply, we give up and stumble blearily back to the barracks to sack out. The barracks is not an attractive place. It has rooms on the bottom floor for the titless WAFs, and for the aircrew members like we are going to be. The rooms upstairs are larger, small bays really, where mostly maintenance men live. All of us new guys are double-bunked into a room with eight other guys, all flyers. It is a tight fit which makes the Zanzibar an attractive alternative to our room, which is good primarily for sleeping and card playing. After a week, we receive our passes. We are jubilant. We head for town. We try to follow the advice of the older guys, who tell us what to expect from the "mooses," and what the prices of stuff was, and how to deal with taxicabs, and what would be the best time to go downtown, and other stuff. We don't pay too much attention as we discover. When we arrive downtown, too early, about 7pm, and get out of the cabs, after only a bumpy two-minute ride, we are overwhelmed by an array of bars. Where to go first!? There are bars almost everywhere. We walk up and down the streets, discovering that the town, the GI part, runs out at the strange looking train station. We had heard about street walkers before we shipped overseas, but there aren't any here that we notice. There are some girls hanging out around the entrances to some of the bars, but those bars are the least attractive, and so are the girls. They all seem to work for the bars, and are acting like shills, calling out to us, "Welcome, GI," and "Come in, dozo," etc. Fussa is about six blocks long and maybe three to four blocks wide. Most of it is bars, and other small businesses that cater to GIs, like restaurants, pawn shops, hotels. Reportedly, there are over 90 bars in the town. In some parts of the town, the bars are adjacent, as many as five or six bars, with nothing in between them but walls. The side streets seem to be the most appealing, especially after we have walked around for half an hour. The bars there look cleaner, newer, better lighted, with some styling, with "atmosphere." We turn into an alley, walking past bars named Metro, Doll, S-Bar, Sunflower, Raiders, Sakura, and a couple of others. We choose the Sunflower. We enter like a bashful gang, glancing here, staring there, looking dumb. Our timidity is obvious. Several of the girls immediately approach us and begin to cadge us for drinks. It is the first time that I hear the soon-to-become very tiresome request, "Buy me drink." By the time I leave Japan, almost three years later, I will be repelled by that phrase. But, for now, we have been instructed, by more experienced GIs, on how to resist buying the girls drinks. Still, it is difficult not to buy a drink. The obligation to buy a girl a drink is compelling. We know that is the way they make their living. We are Americans; we are used to paying for girls' stuff. And since our VO and waters cost only 100 yen, just 28 cents, it seems the right thing to do. Of course, when we learn that the prices of girls' drinks are double to quadruple the prices of our drinks, we quickly become cynical and learn that one has to be selective. The girls at the Sunflower are not all that attractive to me. There is a dark girl that attaches herself to me right away. She seems nice enough but she is not my idea of what I want in a Japanese girl. There is a taller girl that Paul is interested in but she turns out to be almost non-English speaking and that turns Paul off because I don't think that he is much turned on by Japanese women. The only girl that I am interested in, one about 5 feet at the most, and probably less than 100 lbs, is paying attention to Barkley and I am not going to contest him for a bar girl. But, she is cute, even pretty. I like her looks. Her skin is flawless white; she wears a one-piece yellow dress that flares out from the waist and tops off at her knees. I make a mental note of her just in case Bark does not want her. With the Sunflower not looking so hot, most of the guys decide to try another place. I say goodbye to the dark girl and go with them. Paul, Kidder, Muller, Riddell and me peek in at the Raiders bar next door. It is a dark little bar, but it is packed. The place is clamorous. The GIs are boisterous. It is that kind of place, where men talk like men - loud - and the women shriek. The Raiders is a rectangular shaped room, with booths along the wall, immediately to the right of the door and the bar, parallel to the booths taking up the other side of the room. The mamasan behind the bar is a disreputable looking thing with a rough, grating voice. It is a dive. The Raiders girls are okay looking, but there are only six or seven that I can see, most of them gathered around us. Muller gets quickly attached to a dark, big-eyed, sweet looking smiling girl with flowing hair down to her shoulder blades. Her name is Joanne, she says. Joanne is about 5'2, 120, a little bit chubby, but she has womanly hips and breasts. Again, I miss out on another girl that physically appeals to me. I lack aggressiveness with women, I know. Kidder also gets cornered by a nice looking girl who speaks reasonable English, leaving the other three of us flying solo. Riddell seems more interested in drinking beer than in pursuing girls, so Paul and I leave those three there and we set out to roam other pastures. We head back up the alley toward the main street. We pass the Hideaway, a bar that Donovan reportedly frequented, and decide to check it out. Donovan isn't there but a couple of the other guys from our work section are. They greet us loudly, clapping us on the shoulders, ordering beers for us, and introducing us to the mamasan, who seems a very nice lady compared to the uncouth mamasan at the Raiders. Paul and I drink a couple of beers in the Hideaway and then we decide to explore some more. We had seen a bar across the street called the Cest si Bon and make that our fourth choice of the evening. When we enter the Cest si Bon, which is larger than the other three bars we have been in, we hear the sounds of rhythm-and-blues. I have not heard R&B like that since high school. The record is Jerry Ward's Dominoes singing Have Mercy Baby. Immediately, I like the feeling that it gives me. It is the appropriate music for the booze and broads environment. More music follows. The selections continue to surprise me. I hear Fats Domino, the Clovers, the Five Keys, Charles Brown, Lloyd Price, Ray Charles, and on and on. How can an obviously white GI bar have such "race" music in their collection? It is odd. Despite the quality of the music, the records they are playing are very worn and scratchy and the sound system is late 40's, non-hi-fi. But, to my ears the raucous sounds are bliss and their scratchiness adds to the lowdown atmosphere. Paul and I settle in to drink and listen and bullshit until almost ten-thirty, when the bar maid hollers out "last call." Paul decides that he will head back to base; but, I tell him that I am going back to the Sunflower to see the dark girl. It seems like my last hope. I get in the door of the Sunflower in time to order a beer. The dark girl is gone, but Barkley's girl, the pretty little thing with the heart-shaped face and nice small shape with flaring hips in the yellow dress approaches me and asks if I'll buy her a drink. That is all right with me, so I buy. She drinks it quickly since it is just about closing time. Her name is Keiko, she says, which sounds like Kay-Ko to me. At closing time, she tells me to wait outside. I stroll out into the damp night, and watch the goings-on in the alley while I wait. There are drunk GIs strolling and staggering all over; some are trying to pick up the girls who are leaving the bars, and about half, it seems, are succeeding. Other GIs are already encumbered, some with girls as equally drunk as they are; some guys are with downright pigs, but they are so drunk that they probably do not care what the women look like. Keiko emerges, and alleviates my anxiety, wondering if I was going to be stood up by a bar girl. We go to a hotel. We have to take our shoes off at the front entrance. Keiko, knowing she has a novice on her hands, instructs me. I hesitate about leaving my shoes at the mercy of anyone who wants to take them, but she assures me that they will be okay. I have not yet learned about the honesty of Japanese people and continue to worry about my shoes. Still, if worse came to worse, I will just walk back to base without any shoes. We put on slippers. Mine are too small, and my toes just barely squeeze into them. But, we slipper-slide down the shiny lacquered floor to our room. The mamasan leading us there opens the door and I walk in onto a light brown matted floor. I hear Keiko saying something about "tatami," and I notice that she is instructing me to remove my slippers and leave them in the hallway. I am getting tired of removing things from my feet but I do as I am told. "You give mamasan 600 yen," Keiko orders me. Fair enough, I think. I hand the mamasan six one-hundred yen notes; she bows to me and backs out of the room. Then Keiko asks me, "You give me two thousand yen." I am taken aback because I remember what Donovan had said, so emphatically: "The price of pussy is fifteen hundred yen, no more, no less." But, I am here and he isn't. I reach for my wallet and pull out two one-thousand yen bills. I give them to her and she puts them in her purse. Well, I am five hundred over, but that's not even a couple of bucks, so why worry? There are two light kimonos and two thin small towels waiting for us on the bed on the floor. I am not interested in them and after quickly disrobing, I climb onto the bedding and wait for Keiko. She doesn't come to bed. Instead, after taking off all of her clothes, she puts on a kimono over a luscious young body, takes the towels and hands me the other kimono. Again, another ritual! But, "when in Rome." I follow my new dream girl down the hall. We enter a steam filled room with a sunken bath and a wooden bucket on the floor. Keiko takes off her kimono and stands there totally naked in front of me. She exhibits no particular awareness of her nudity and steps over to me to help me off with mine. I look at the tub at our feet, with the steaming water and move as if to get in but Keiko stops me. "First, wash," she tells me. She fills the wooden bucket with water, takes a wash cloth, dips it into the water, and lathers it with a bar of soap which she took from a container on the floor. "Sit," she orders, pointing to a small stool, apparently available for western giants like me. She hunkers behind me and begins to wash my back. I am extremely pleased at the attention she is giving me. She washes me all over, including my dick and balls, and then does the same to herself. When we are both all soapy, she dips the bucket into the hot water and then pours it slowly over me. I jump at the hotness of the water, but it is tolerable although hotter than anything I have ever experienced. She pours several buckets of water over us until we are thoroughly rinsed off. She steps into the tub. I notice that she enters the water slowly. This is a warning that it is extremely hot. Being a fast learner, I decide that I will also go slow. But, as soon as my foot dips into the water, I pull it out. It is fuckin' hot! It takes some time, and a little bit of urging from Keiko before I finally am able to immerse myself up to my neck. I learn that if I sit extremely still, the heat is more bearable, so I sit still. I look over at Keiko and begin to appreciate her Japaneseness. I am in Japan. Sitting in a Japanese bath. Naked, with a cute young Japanese girl. I am feeling extremely satisfied to be doing what I am doing and I begin to consider staying in Japan for the rest of my life. But, the bath comes to an end. We get out. I expect to be cold, kind of like getting out of a swimming pool on a cool day. But, no such thing. I am toasty. My skin is super heated from the hot tub. Keiko takes a small towel, wets it, squeezes it out, and begins to sponge off my skin. I take the other towel and do the same to her, loving the feel of her body on my hands. This is what I have come to Japan for! In a few moments I will have her in my arms and I will be enjoying my first Japanese fuck. I am very happy. In our room, Keiko turns out the lamp. There is still enough light to see and I am glad for that. We disrobe and get into bed. I reach for her and she comes into my arms smelling clean and wonderful. I am in heaven! I kiss her lips, then her breasts. I run my hands all over her smooth skin. I finger her tight pussy. I feel her feeling my cock, gripping it in her small hands, and I maneuver myself for her to play with it. "Too big," I hear her say. I suppose that I should be flattered, but my reaction is that I am not going to get to fuck this little Japanese girl. Chagrined at my bad luck, I decide to assert myself and roll over on top of her. She spreads her thighs and I try to jam my cock into her pussy. She is really tight. I am surprised at how tight she is; I can't get in! "You wet," Keiko instructs me, pointing to her lips and then down to my cock. I spit into my hand, pull out my cock from her pussy and wet it down with spit. Then I stick it into her. This time it slides in easily and I begin to understand that she is not all that hot. Still, I am hard and I am not going to be denied even if the woman I am with is not all that enthusiastic. She wiggles underneath my weight and I feel her legs spread wide underneath my hips. It feels like I am going to split her in two, she is so small. I go to my hands so that I can see myself fucking her. It is a beautiful sight. My cock is going in and out of her dark hairy bush. Her stomach is super flat, and her very pale skin rises up to be topped off by two lusciously small tits that are more cup-like projections than weighty glands. I like the idea that I am fucking a very small girl who weighs less than a hundred pounds. In a few minutes I feel myself get rock rigid and my cock begins to throb. I can not stop my orgasm and I gush into her, feeling the wetness around my cock as my full load of young man's semen fills her up. I collapse on top of her. I fall asleep. When I wake up, early in the morning, Keiko is gone. I check my wallet and all my money is still here. I feel better. Now the only thing left are my shoes. I dress and open the door to the hallway. The slippers are there waiting for me. I pad down the hallway looking for the way out and my shoes. The mamasan finds me and, padding ahead of me, guides me to the exit. She slides open the doors. My newly shined shoes are waiting for me.