We soon came to another small, one story building set off by itself. However this one wasn’t painted in garish colors, and there were no signs at all and no one outside. The “door” was just two strips of paper hanging down. We walked in.
At first I couldn’t see anything—it was quite dim inside, lit only by a few candles. After my eyes adjusted, I noticed a woman standing behind a podium, like a maître d’ at a fancy restaurant. I couldn’t see much of her though, just a glimpse of her shiny black hair and face covered in white makeup. She greeted us, and began talking to Akari.
“What is this place?” Vera asked. I had been just about to ask the same question.
“It’s… a place to relax and have fun. Sort of like the host club, but without any male hosts.”
“What!” Vera got angry. “But I wanted guys!”
“Yes, I know… I’m sorry. I do not think any of the host clubs here would let you in. They are rather strict. But you’ll have fun here, too. You can eat, drink, gamble, as much as you like.”
Now Vera seemed interested. “Really? We can party here?”
“Yes. It is much like a host club, but without hosts. Just female hostesses, but they are quite skilled at their job and will make sure we have fun. It is also cheaper.”
Vera seemed disappointed, but went along with it. It all sounded great to me, though! All-female hostesses who would guarantee that we had fun—what else could a guy ask for?
We paid a small fee for admission to the maître d’, and she led us to a small private room inside. It was hidden from the hallway by thick paper curtains and beads. Inside was a table surrounded by padded benches. The room was softly lit by hanging lanterns, and decorated with flowers and glass beads. It was painted black, which made it feel very cool but somewhat sinister.
A few minutes after we sat down, a new woman entered the room. And not just any woman—one of the most gorgeous women that I’ve ever seen. She was a classic Japanese beauty with long black hair and a slim figure, but strikingly large and plump breasts. I couldn’t help but notice them because of the way they popped out of her outfit—a very tight fitting red silk dress with a deep v cut in the center all the way down to her belly button. She was also wearing white makeup and red lipstick, which somehow seemed very elegant on her tiny mouth. Her hips swayed from side to side as she walked in, and I almost stopped breathing as I watched her walk in.
At first, she ignored me. She sat down next to Akari, and they began discussing something. “You wanted food, right?” said Akari.
“Uh… yes.” I stammered.
“And alcohol! And music, and gambling!” said Vera.
Akari relayed all this to our hostess. She smiled, bowed, and left the room. She continued to shake her hips as she walked out, and with the way her tight dress clung to her body, well… it gave me amazing view of her lower backside.
“Just so you know, she will not sleep with you,” said Akari.
“Huh?” I stammered. “Uh, why would you say that?”
“This is her job. She’s a professional entertainer. I noticed the way you were staring at her, and I think maybe you have the wrong idea. Her job is to make customers spend as much money as possible. When a lonely men like you enters, the easiest way to accomplish that is to make you fall in love with her, but she will not sleep with you no matter how much you spend. I thought I should warn you.”
“Haha! Dumb cherry boy here is already in love!” Vera laughed at me.
“Uh, no I’m not… don’t laugh at me…” I wasn’t in love, but it was hard to deny the effect that hostess had on me, even from just a brief meeting. It was like she was a succubus with a magical aura of seduction. I thanked Akari for the warning, and told myself to stay in control.
The hostess came back ten minutes later, pushing a small trolley. It was covered in food—fish, noodles, rice, fruits, and fried vegetables. All of it looked (and smelled) delicious, even enough to distract me from the incredible hotness of the hostess. There were also several liquor bottles, a set of dice, and a stringed musical instrument.
“Woo! Pop the bottles and serve it up!” yelled Vera.
The hostess smiled, and knelt in front of the table. She carefully arranged the plates of food, and began serving some to all of us. As she handed me my plate, she looked me in the eyes and winked, just for one second, and I felt my heart melt. Then my stomach rumbled, and she giggled.
“I think we are all very hungry” said Akari. “Should we eat first?”
“Yes, but first—a shot!” said Vera. The hostess poured each of us a class of the liquor, which turned out to be sake. “To a successful cruise!” said Vera. We all clinked our glasses and took a shot, including the hostess.
Then we all started gobbling down the food. I tried to be polite and eat slowly, but everything tasted so good that it was hard to stop. The hostess didn’t eat anything, she simply sat in the corner and played a sweet melody on her instrument while we gorged ourselves.
When we were finally done, the hostess put the plates back on the trolley. She offered us the liquor bottle again. “Oh yes!” Vera was very enthusiastic, so we all did another shot. And then a third. The sake wasn’t as strong as the Western liquor I was used to, but three shots of it were more than enough to make me tipsy.
The hostess pulled out a cup and some dice, from somewhere inside her dress. How had she hidden that inside? But before I could think too hard, she slammed it on the table.
“Yeah! Gambling, woo!” screamed Vera. “I want high stakes!”
The hostess said something in Japanese. “She wants to know if we know the rules,” Akari explained.
Vera and I shook our heads no, so the hostess explained, with Akari translating. It seemed to be a pretty simple game, basically we would each take turns shaking the dice in the cup, and try to beat her role. A tie counted as a win for her, so there was a house edge. And it seemed to be totally luck, with no skill involved at all. I didn’t really want to play, but Vera was very enthusiastic.
They played for quite some time. It was just Vera and the hostess, alternating dice rolls, while all of us periodically drank shots of the sweet sake. Vera also drank a lot of sake on her own own. The game itself was quite boring, but Vera never seemed to get tired of it, and I was quite happy just to watch the hostess shaking the dice cup in her sexy little dress.
After some time of this, Vera passed out in the corner. I guess she had really drank a lot. Akari and I were tipsy, but sober enough to continue. The hostess seemed unaffected, even though she had also drunk a lot without eating anything.
She moved, and sat down next to me. Now I could see her close up, and it only magnified the power of her beauty. I could also smell a flowery perfume coming from her—it was subtle, but very distracting.
She smiled, and said something to me. I smiled and shrugged. “Sorry, I can’t understand.”
“She wants to know your name,” said Akari.
“Oh. I’m Eddie.”
“Eddie,” she said. “Eddie…” she pointed at me, then at herself. “Nozomi.”
“Hi Nozomi!” I wracked my brains for something to say, and suddenly remembered a phrase from anime. “Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu!”
She giggled, then said something to Akari. Akari translated again for me: “She says that you’re handsome, and wants to know if you have a girlfriend. She’s just saying that so you’ll drink and gamble with her more, so don’t let it go to your head.”
Logically I knew that Akari was right. But with this incredible beauty sitting so close to me, plus the alcohol, my head was spinning. “Thank you… arigatou… uh, no, no girlfriend.” I pointed at the sake. “Drink?” She smiled and poured us another drink.
Then she hit me with the big guns. She took my arm, and slipped it around her waist, pressing her body up next to mine. Her warmth and softness completely melted my brain, as I vaguely heard her ask something.
“Eddie—she wants you to gamble with her,” said Akari.
“Fine! Sure! Whatever she wants!”
Nozomi smiled, seeming to understand my answer, and she took out the dice cup again.
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“Do you even know how to play?”
“Not really, but it seems simple enough.”
“OK, if you say so. But just so you know, it’s $5 per throw, and the odds are against you.”
“Ok… wait. Hold up.” $5? I had won a lot of money from Vera on the ride over, but that was still a lot of money for me.
“Maybe this game is too expensive…” I tried to back out. But as I was saying that, she leaned in closer, pressing her breasts against my shoulder and shaking the dice cup in front of my face. “Uh… yeah I’ll play,” I said.
Nozomi smiled.
Akari sighed. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you… baka.”
Nozomi and I each rolled the dice. There were three dice in total, so the highest possible roll was 18. On the first roll, I rolled 14 and she rolled 11. I won!
“Yatta!” I said. Nozomi cheered and clapped—she seemed genuinely happy that I had won. I took the coins she offered me with great satisfaction.
She shook the dice cup at me, and I quickly got caught up in the game. I played again, and again, and again… and got three straight losses. That put a dangerous dent in my wallet, which kind of put a damper on my mood, so I decided to stop playing.
Nozomi pouted a little when she understood that I was quitting. Then, she moved over to talk to Akari. To do this, though, she didn’t get up and walk around the table in a normal way. Instead, she slid over me! Her butt was less than an inch away from my lap, and it was driving me mad. She paused there for a second, and it required all my willpower to not move up slightly and make contact with her.
But too soon it was over. She was now on the other side of me, facing away and talking to Akari. She no longer held my arm around her waist, instead she was totally ignoring me. I felt a surge of jealousy.
“I want to drink more!” I said. Nozomi dutifully poured me a drink, then returned to her conversation with Akari.
I tried to put my hand around her waist. She let me do it before, right? She even put it there herself! But this time she stopped me. Without even pausing to stop her conversation with Akari, she expertly blocked my clumsy attempt to put my arm around her.
I was becoming quite annoyed now. This woman was so nice to me before, but now she was literally giving me the cold shoulder, while I was totally excluded from their conversation. I was also rapidly becoming drunk, and still overwhelmed by the hotness of this girl sitting next to me.
So… I did something a bit degenerate. I put my hand on her thigh. Not my proudest moment, I’ll admit, but this woman was a professional, right? And her thigh felt so soft, and warm, and firm, and exciting…
Well, for about two seconds it did. Then she slapped my hand away. She also said something rather cold, which Akari translated:
“She says that she doesn’t like men who lose their nerve for gambling after just a few losses. She says that, if you want her to like you, you should prove your manly courage by gambling more. I’ll remind you again, though, that this is just her way of extracting money from you. My suggestion is that we order more food, instead, and enjoy her music and conversation.”
Akari was correct of course, but I was in no mood to listen. My mind was a haze of alcohol, adrenaline, and horniness. “Noone questions my courage—I’ll do it!” I cried. “Bring me the dice!”
Nozomi seemed to understand. She beamed at me, and hugged me tightly. I think I heared Akari grumble something like “It was a mistake to bring you two here… I underestimated your idiocy.” But I didn’t care, all I could focus on was Nozomi’s body hugging me. Her thigh rubbed against my leg while her boobs pressed against my side. I put my left hand down around her waist and this time she let me hold her there. Heaven.
We each rolled the dice again. And I won! Nozomi and I yelled in celebration, while Akari sat silently. I called for another drink and drank it down. “Kampai!” I yelled. Neither of the girls drank with me, but I didn’t care at this point.
We rolled the dice again. Another win! “Yatta!” I screamed. I was really feeling it now—Other than the cold strategy of online poker, I’ve never really enjoyed gambling, but this rush was incredible. Between the alcohol, the company, and the game, all my hormones were going crazy.
“Another drink, and another game!” I demanded. And I couldn’t resist slipping my hand lower and giving Nozomi a little squeeze on her butt cheek. She squeaked in the cutest voice—”kyaaa!” and jumped away from me a bit. I felt guilty, but also incredibly turned on from her girlish reaction.
She said something firmly to Akari, who again translated: “She asked me to remind you that she is only an entertainment professional, not anything else. I think the rule is you can touch her above the waist, but not below.”
“Right. Sorry,” I apologized to Nozomi. “Now let’s play!”
And so we did. She snuggled back next to me, and we played some more. Three straight losses—that brought my mood down again.
“Uh, I think I need another drink.” I said. Nozomi instantly had one ready for me.
“No, I think you need to stop,” said Akari. “This will not end well.”
Nozomi said something harsh to her, then turned back to me. She lifted the cup and poured it into my mouth, then started tracing small circles over my chest. She slowly moved her hand lower, and whispered something incredibly sexy into my ear.
“Uh… what did she say?” I asked.
Akari scowled. “She said, ‘I wonder how big your balls are’.” Nozomi smiled mischievously at me.
“Big enough!” I said. “More gambling!”
And so we did. For about 20 more rounds, I continued gambling. My luck swung up and down, with Nozomi cheering my victories and consoling me while I lost. Akari kept telling me to stop, that I was an idiot, etc, but I ignored her. My intelligence at this point was at caveman levels. The closeness of Nozomi’s incredible body and her soft, sexy voice cheering me on were causing all the blood in my body to rush down to my crotch, starving my brain of oxygen.
But in the end, my luck ran out, and the unfair nature of the game caught up to me. I started to lose more and more, and finally ran out of money, losing my last $5 on a tied roll of 10 each.
Nozomi cried—she seemed genuinely sad that I had lost all my money! What a sweetheart. But she quickly scooped up the last of my coins, and left. I had one last touch of her body as she slid across my lap to leave, and she even gave me a light kiss on the cheek… then she stood up and left the room.
“Where did she go?” I asked.
“She left, of course. She took all your money. Her job here is done.”
“But… I wanted to play with her more…”
“I’m sure if you earn more money she’d be happy to entertain you again. Until then, you can’t see her again.”
“But I thought she really liked me….”
Akari laughed. “No. But she is an excellent actor. I enjoyed watching her performance”
I knew she was telling the truth—I think I knew all along that Nozomi was only pretending to like me. But it still hurt. I slumped down and sighed.
“Why did you like her so much?” Akari asked. “You only just met her, and there are many other women you could pursue instead. Why do you choose the one you can’t have?”
“Sometimes it just hits you instantly,” I replied. “Her face, her neck, her hair, her voice, her mannerisms, her smell, her figure… that dress really shows it off. The way she walked in that dress, and moved her body… Sorry, I guess I was being an idiot. And I’m pretty drunk. But her hotness just overwhelmed me.”
“Hmm… interesting.”
I laughed. “What’s so interesting?”
“It seems you have a very strong hormonal response to mere physical details. Even to the aspects that are artificially contrived to deceive you.”
“What do you mean?” My head was spinning, so it was very hard for me to understand Akari’s strange way of speaking.
“She applied makeup, shampoo, and perfume. And she wore a tight fitting dress while exaggerating her body movements around you. I thought these things were silly and pointless. But it seems they had a strong affect on you.”
I sighed. “Yeah… I guess so. I’ve always been a bit of an idiot around girls.”
“You have never been in a romantic relationship before?” She asked.
“No.” I paused, thinking for a bit about one girl in particular. “There was a girl I liked, once. I liked her a whole lot, actually. But she rejected me and went out with someone else. She didn’t do anything wrong, but it still hurts. Since then I’ve never been much interested in dating.”
Akari gazed at me steadily. “Would you be interested in dating Nozomi? If she actually liked you and wasn’t just performing a job?”
“Um… I mean, sure, but didn’t you say I couldn’t?” I hadn’t actually thought seriously about it. Nozomi hardly even seemed real.
“Does that mean that you didn’t want a romantic relationship, but that you only wanted to have sex with her?”
She said that without the slightest change in voice. I was pretty embarrassed, but I answered as honestly as I could:
“It’s tough to admit, but… yeah. If I’m being honest, that’s all I wanted. I’d like to go on a date and get to know her better, but right now I don’t really know her, I just felt this instant, overwhelming attraction to her. Is that wrong?”
Akari shook her head. “No, that is human nature. That’s how I feel about you, too.”
“You… what?” In my drunken, exhausted state I couldn’t quite process what she had said.
“I don’t know you very well. And from what I do know, I don’t like you very much. I find you childishly naive, plain-faced, lacking in all practical skills, and very smelly.”
“Hey!” Her words stung. “I’m doing my best, OK? I’m a newbie, and I can’t change the way my face looks, but I do try to wash every day. It’s just hard when there aren’t any proper showers here.”
Akari ignored my objection and continued speaking: “Nonetheless, I find myself thinking about you more than normal. I find that, for some reason, your body odor doesn’t offend me. In fact, I even find myself enjoying the smell. I also find myself curious about the male organ you have hidden under your clothes. I think it must be the ugliest, smelliest part of your body, but for some reason I would like to experience it directly. This also has a powerful effect on my hormones when I think that way.”
What a girl. She said all that in the same cold, emotionless voice that she always used. But there was just a hint of blush on her cheeks I think. I couldn’t quite decide whether this was a love confession or just her way of messing with me. I did my best to respond.
“Akari. I’m flattered that you feel that way about me. But like I said… I had a bad experience with love, and I’m still trying to avoid anything like that again. I acted like a fool tonight, and I’m sorry you had to see that. But I think for now I should be mature and focus on my job and organizing my life.”
All of that was the truth, but there was also something else I didn’t tell her. Despite my boorish behavior tonight, I still felt very warm feelings towards Summer, and I felt that if I were to date anybody, it should be her.
Akari seemed puzzled by my response. “I am not offering a romantic relationship,” she said. “I simply thought you might enjoy sexual intercourse with me. I have never experienced it, but I wished to try it with you.”
“Yeah… but I don’t think it’s that simple. I think it would mess with our feelings. Our hormones, like you said. I don’t think we can just be regular coworkers after, uh, doing it.”
“Very well,” She nodded. “I understand.”
That seemed remarkably easy. But I could never read this girl’s emotions. Was she really OK with getting rejected like that? And I felt terrible that she had been watching me flirt with another girl in front of her if she had feelings for me, even just physical ones.
“Um… I’m sorry,” I apologized again, awkwardly.
“Do not apologize. You are simply an idiot, and that cannot be helped. Perhaps I am also an idiot.”
“Yeah… maybe so,” I laughed. “Anyway, I’m getting really tired. Is it OK for us to spend the night here?”
“Yes. You two spent a great deal of money gambling, I’m sure they will allow us to sleep here.”
“All right. I need to sleep now.” I lay down on the padded bench, which luckily had plenty of room for all three of us to lie down. Vera was still lying on her side, snoring away. The bench wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it would do. “Goodnight Akari. Thanks for all your help.”
“Goodnight.”
And then we all slept that way: Vera, Akari, and me, each of us lying on our own bench.