We snuggled up together again on the couch.

“Have you always liked girls’ juice so much?” I asked a little shyly.

“Well, to be honest, I didn’t like it much at first,” he said. “I did it first just to try. But the girl I was sucking adored what I did to her and kept begging me to do it to her again.”

“And you were a perfect gentleman,” I said giggling.

“Japanese girls are so beautiful when they come. So whole-hearted … so sincere. And they make such lovely sounds: whimpering, squealing, begging for more. So I kept trying, and then I found I loved it too. The taste … it was like learning to like Japanese food. It takes a little while.”

“Oh … can you eat sushi?” I asked, without thinking.

“Yuri-san …” he said reprovingly. “I have been here more than a few days, you know.”

I blushed at my own stupidity, and changed the subject quickly.

“Tell me more about your beginner. What happened when she was fully nude? At her first party, you were telling me about?”

“Well, we helped her take her clothes off, then she stood on a little platform in just her high-heels, and we blindfolded her, and the auction took place. We could all see how very proud she felt as she heard everyone bidding for her and wanting her so much – you know, clasping her hands, jumping up and down; then off came her blindfold so she could see her new owner at last and was given to him to do whatever he liked with for the evening.”

“What happened to the money?” I asked.

“Oh, we gave it to her and one of the older girls took her shopping and helped her choose some party clothes. You know, little microskirts, pretty topless dresses, sexy high-heels like you wear. She didn’t have any of that before. Now she’s a regular at our parties and an adorable little fuck. Still not quite seventeen and so enthusiastic!”

I didn’t think I wanted to hear any more about this lovely little fuck. I was still not quite nineteen and the new girls already seemed to be coming up so fast behind me.

“You really like those naïve little beginners?” I asked with a touch of superiority.

“All right, I know what you mean,” he replied. “I think really I prefer more sophisticated girls … like you.”

That was more what I wanted to hear.

“It’s so nice to meet a girl at a party, both of you knowing at once that you are going to fuck, but summing each other up first, finding out what each other’s preferences and skills are … but, you know, there’s something so sweet about a young beginner, so happy in her nudity, I just fondle her lightly, and at once she says, ‘Yes, oh yes, please do it to me … teach me!’ Lovely.”

Searching for something else to talk about, I said:

“You wanted to know about my colleague Shizue. She goes to a special establishment … she did tell me the name … oh yes, the Paradise Club.”

“She’s a member of the Paradise Club?”

“Yes, I suppose she must be a member. She wouldn’t tell me anything about it: she said it was a secret. What is it? Some kind of disco or night-club?”

“But that’s fantastic! She must be an amazing girl! Has no one ever told you about the Paradise Club?”

“No. Tell me.”

“It’s the most distinguished private sex-club in Tokyo. In Japan! It’s incredibly difficult to become a member – or even get invited as a guest. Only the most beautiful girls and the sexiest men get to go there. And it’s supposed to be a secret – if you are a member you don’t tell anyone, unless you are sounding them out to see if they might be suitable.”

“What happens there?”

“Well, I know only what I’ve heard. But all the girls are nude, of course, and available for absolutely any kind of sex – the kinkier the better, and amazingly beautiful.” He smiled at me. “Just like you are now.”

It was a nice compliment so I smiled back, kissed him, and tickled his balls with the tips of my nails.

“Thank you. I like the bit about being nude, and beautiful, and available – but I’m not so sure about the kinky sex.”

“Oh, come on …!”

“How do you get to be a member?” I asked, pulling the conversation back onto safer ground.

“Well, the men choose the girls, and the girls choose the men. Obviously there are tests. Girl candidates are fucked by as many men as want to try them out, and don’t get in unless they fully satisfy them all. Men candidates are tested by a sub-committee of three girls.”

“How do they do that?”

“Well, candidates have to promise never to reveal that they were being tested, and successful members are supposed to be careful too, as I said. But I understand the man takes them out to some expensive, discreet restaurant with private rooms. The girls wear clothes, of course, but the sexiest and most provocative they have. After dinner the candidate has to show what he can do by taking each girl three times.”

“In each of her holes?”

“Yes.”

“Ooh, lovely. But that’s quite a challenge. For a mere man, I mean.”

As a girl who last night had achieved a personal best of fifty beautiful fucks I felt I could afford to be superior.

“I think so. Lots of men fail. Even if they manage it, the girls report back to the others on their performance, and they may still be rejected. So I’m told.”

“You’re making me feel as sexy as anything,” I said. “Let’s play a game. You’re a candidate for this club, and I’m one of the girls testing you.”

“Right. Stand up and let me watch you walk about in those gorgeous heels. Remember I need all the stimulation I can get to pass the test.”

“You are a foot-fetishist, aren’t you?”

“Yes. A very happy foot-fetishist. Especially looking at your feet and shoes.”

It was a good game. He came copiously in my cunt, pulling out at the last moment to spray his load over my tummy and breasts; then before he could lose his erection I took him in my mouth and brought him to a very satisfactory second burst of rich cum. Then, as men so often do, he begged off fucking me a third time while he recovered from his efforts.

We lay in each other’s arms while he waited for his erection to recover. He was certainly an attractive man: his cock was not the enormous rod a girl likes to feel working its way into her holes on special occasions, but a good enjoyable medium-sized one, used with skill and understanding. The sort of cock a girl could live very happily with. The rest of him was pretty good too.

“Tell me more about yourself, Yuri-chan,” said Peter. “When did you first discover sex?”

“Oh, at Senior High School, I think. I was sixteen and a few months when I graduated from Junior High. That was back home in Morioka, of course. The change to Senior High was quite a revelation. For one thing, no more sailor-suit. The new school’s uniform was a blazer and plaid skirt.”

“But some Senior Highs still specify sailor-suits for girls, don’t they? It’s one of those traditions that make Japan so special.”

“Oh yes. But that’s changing. Even in Morioka. And I felt much more grown-up like that!”

“And discovering sex was part of that?”

“I suppose so. I soon made sophisticated new friends. We started having giggly conversations about masturbation, whether they did it and if so how. Walking with special friends with our arms round each other. Helping each other shorten our uniform skirts, hoping the school wouldn't notice.”

“How sweet.”

“Kissing; occasional little feelings and strokings. When we were changing for gym class, comparing breasts and pubic hair – a bit daring, perhaps, but somehow it began to seem very natural. Touching each other’s pussies, rubbing pussies and breasts against each other.”

“And your first boy – boys? Or was it with an older man?”

“No, that came later. A group of girls – including me – were assigned to cleaning the gym after school. We weren’t supervised, we were supposed to be old enough to do it responsibly. One day when we’d finished we sat around talking, and it developed into a sex session. Very innocent, of course; just getting nude together and discovering what lovely feelings we could have from stroking and petting each other. It became our regular thing. And one day some boys burst in. They didn’t know we were there: it wasn’t planned. But when they saw what we were doing, a few of the boldest got out of their uniforms and instructed us to stroke and pet them too. Which, being obedient Japanese girls, we did.”

“How charming. And did they fuck you?”

“No, not really. It started with stroking their cocks. That was a wonderful discovery for me. I just loved the way cocks strengthened and hardened, and were then mine to do what I liked with. And of course the first time a boy came all over my hands was a tremendous moment. I didn’t know what the liquid was, but I loved the smell and the taste. Of course that led to kissing their cocks and sucking them … I was so proud when boys said I did it best and queued up for me to do it to them.”

“And when was your first real man?”

“A bit later. He was a gaijin. I like being fucked by gaijin: they’re much more considerate … he saw me coming down the road after school and watched me. I didn’t mind, I wasn’t afraid: boys had never done me any harm. Anyway, he was quite old. He reminded me of my father. I learned later he was from Austria. Of course at first I thought he meant Australia, and he was a bit annoyed with me about that, but I made it up to him! Anyway, the next day he was there again, and we smiled at each other. And the third day he spoke to me, and my friends left us alone together, and he asked me for a date.”

“And you said yes?”

“Of course! He took me to a nice restaurant, and then he asked me if I’d ever been to a ‘theme’ hotel. Of course I hadn’t, I didn’t know what it was, and he said it would be fun, so we went.”

“And was it fun?”

“Yes! He rented a room with a Roman theme. Naturally I didn’t know much about it, but he helped me dress up as a little Roman slave, and we played a game pretending he’d just bought me at a slave-market and was teaching me how to please him. I loved it! I wore the sweetest little backless minidress – well, a sort of tunic, really – with nothing underneath, of course.”

“I wish I’d seen you,” said Peter.

I looked at him in surprise, and giggled. Here was a man enjoying an intimate conversation with a completely nude girl, and he suddenly thought he would like to see her in a dress. Well, a very sexy dress, but still … men are so strange. I leant back in the big couch and put my hands behind my head, displaying myself in a pose men usually liked. I found I was enjoying myself. These men – Peter the gaijin and Osamu – probably thought that by not letting me have any clothes they were controlling me. But I knew, as every experienced girl does, that if she is clever a naked girl can dominate the men wanting her. The deliciously nude stripper dancing and posing on her brightly lit stage controls the audience’s desire, building up the erotic tension, bringing it down again, giving them intense pleasure by playing with their lust – until at last she, and they, can stand it no longer and she ecstatically receives the tribute of all those erections: her erections, her property to do with as she likes. They weren’t there till she showed herself off nude, but they are there now and she has created them …

“So what did he do to you when you were pretending to be his slave?” Peter was asking.

“He had me three times that evening. It was lovely: my first time with an experienced man. The boys used to come just once, and very quickly. That was thrilling of course, but Kurt – that was his name – gave me much more.”

“It didn’t bother you that he was so much older than you?”

“Of course not! I said, he was like a father to me. Teaching me about a wonderful new world. He used to call me his little girl.”

“Of course Japanese girls often act younger than they really are.”

“M'm, it’s just a game, I suppose. Even so I was a bit put out at first when he called me his lolita: after all, I was seventeen by then and thought I was very grown-up and sophisticated.”

“How long did that last?”

“Only a few months. He suddenly disappeared. Much later I heard he had been deported from Japan. He was a music teacher and gave private lessons, and there was something about earning money on the wrong visa.”

“Poor man! Expelled from paradise …”

Peter shook his head, mourning over the fate of an Austrian music teacher whom he had never known.

“But it didn’t matter,” I said, trying to cheer him up. “He’d introduced me to some of his gaijin friends, so I still had lots of lovely dates with plenty of fucking. Some of his friends were visiting from Tokyo, and when I moved here and started work they remembered me. Soon I began being invited to sex-parties. That was a thrill!”

“For them too, I expect.”

“And I started to be offered escort work. I do enjoy that. It isn’t only the money. It’s wearing lovely clothes, going to the beauty-parlour at someone else’s expense, being taken to the best places and being admired. Men who can afford to pay for that are rich and powerful. I adore being fucked by men like that!”

“How do you fit all that around your job?”

“Well, evenings, weekends … I sit in the office, dreaming, planning, pretending to be busy – and longing for real life to begin again as soon as the day’s work is over! Shizue – the older girl I told you about – is so busy outside the office that we often catch her asleep in front of her computer. She’s a real Chanel Girl.”

“Shaneru?” Peter asked, picking up my Japanese pronunciation of the foreign word.

“That’s right. Didn’t you know?” I wrote the characters in the air with my finger. “‘Sha’ meaning ‘company’ and ‘neru’ for ‘sleep’. ‘Shaneru Girl’ is the word for an OL who has such a busy private life that she only comes to the office to catch up on her sleep.”

“Doesn’t your boss notice?”

“I don’t think so. There’s not much work to do and she’s clever at coming awake quickly when there is. And she flirts with him – very discreetly, but enough to put him in a good mood. Lets him look up her skirt by accident-on-purpose.”

“Like you do,” said Peter with a smile.

“That’s right.”

“Lucky man. Have you done any film or modelling work?”

“Nude photos, you mean? Sex videos?”

“Yes.”

“Well, of course I’ve been photographed and filmed at parties – you know, like you did last night – and I think the results circulate on the net. That’s nice, it gives me a lovely feeling to think that I’m being appreciated. But never professionally.”

“You’d like to, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes – I think it would be fun.”

“Right.” Peter stood up and held out both hands to me. “Come with me and I’ll show you my studio.”

I followed him obediently out of the living-room and he opened a door fitted with a push-button lock. The room was completely dark with no natural light; but after he had pressed a whole bank of switches a series of professional spot-lights came on. There was a cleared area in the centre with a small platform, surrounded by some very expensive-looking cameras on tripods. On the far wall was an X-shaped structure reaching from floor to ceiling: there seemed to be chains dangling from the four corners of the X. I wondered what it was for. (Well, I found out before much longer, but that’s another story!) Peter motioned me to the central posing area and picked up a camera. He looked at me critically as I stood there, and adjusted the lighting and reflective sheets. It felt stimulating to be bathed in light like that.

“Take your belt off,” he said, satisfied at last, “I’d like you completely nude for these shots. Except your lovely shoes, of course. Now try sitting on the edge of the platform – lean back – smile – look sexy – now stand up – I want shots of those gorgeous legs and feet – now turn and look over your shoulder at me …”

It wasn’t as difficult as I had expected. I knew the poses and gestures that made men wild to fuck me, and it was fun trying them out for Peter and his camera. After about half-an-hour he called a halt. I was feeling thoroughly aroused and hoped he was too and would take the opportunity of fucking me. But he was too professional. He went to one of the big closets along one side of the studio and hunted in a drawer.

“Now I’d like you to wear something for me.”

I looked at him in mock astonishment.

“You mean … after I’ve spent the whole morning being nude for you, you now want me to put on some clothes?”

He smiled at me.

“Not too much,” said. “Just this, to start with …”

He handed me what looked like a tangle of tiny straps in some golden material. I sorted it out and found it was a kind of bikini. Well, I don’t know if that is really the name for it … the upper part had narrow straps going over my shoulders and clipping together round my back as a bra does, but the front consisted only of more straps outlining my breasts while leaving them completely uncovered. The lower part had two straps descending from the waistband to my crotch, passing between my legs on either side of my pussy so as not to get in the way of anything I or my lovers chose to put into it. The straps were made of a sort of glittering gold plasticised material – leather is classier but plastic is easier to clean after a sex-session. The harness, I suppose it was, went nicely with my high-heels; and the whole effect, as I looked at myself in one of the big mirrors, was charming.

Glancing round as I adjusted and tightened the narrow straps I saw that Osamu had entered the studio and was holding a professional video camera. I bowed respectfully to him as I returned to my platform. He just grunted. Peter went to a CD player on a shelf and some fast disco-music began. He picked up his stills camera and smiled at me encouragingly.

I started to dance to the music. I flirted and flaunted; I touched and stroked myself lasciviously; I leant forward into the cameras smiling and pouting and offering myself. I enjoyed it enormously. The gold harness hid absolutely nothing and made me feel pretty and desirable. It had been at least an hour since Peter had last fucked me and I was very ready for more. I didn’t have to wait long. Osamu handed the video camera to Peter, pulled off his clothes and joined me.

He fucked me in the standard form of a Japanese porn video: I’ve seen it hundreds of times and so I am sure have you. He began with vigorous finger fucking, reaching my pussy easily between the straps along my crotch; then gave me his cock to suck. After a few minutes of that I couldn’t wait any longer and begged him to enter me. He let me impale myself on his shaft and ride him for a while, whimpering with pleasure; then took control. He entered me from behind while I squealed with happiness and begged for more; then turned me over and spread my legs wide Japanese-style. He pounded my cunt faster and faster, then at the last moment pulled out and came. I lay back with a look of bliss on my face, playing with the cum and licking it off my fingers. He may have intended to move up to my face and choose where to place the cum neatly in standard Japanese porn-film style, but when he at last left my cunt he was so aroused that couldn’t wait a moment longer and sprayed it in an arc which left a thin track all the way from my navel to my forehead. It was a great compliment to me, I thought, that he enjoyed himself so much inside me that he could not control himself and delayed pulling out till it was too late. At last I thanked Osamu prettily for the lovely things he had done to me, while he slouched off without a word.

“That was very nice, Yuri-san,” said Peter, putting down the heavy camera with obvious relief. “Very nice indeed. Perhaps you’d better go and clean up now.”

I left the studio and took the stairs up to the bedroom floor. In the well-equipped bathroom I stripped off the harness and my shoes, and gave myself a long shower, making the most of the sprays and their delightful masturbatory possibilities. Then at last I towelled myself dry, and used some damp tissues to clean the blobs of drying cum from the gold straps. I decided to put them on again: they felt good, looked good – and however inadequate for ordinary purposes were the only item of clothing I had been allowed to have.

When I returned to the living-room Peter and Osamu were running through the unedited video. Peter welcomed me politely: Osamu as usual said nothing. I thanked him again for the lovely fuck, but got nothing in return but one of his grunts. I gave up and turned to Peter.

“Do you mind if I keep this?” I asked, gesturing vaguely at the golden straps decorating me.

“Of course you may! It looks really good on you. Please wear it at parties … and on dates …”

“Thank you.”

“Do you dance at clubs?”

“Well, yes …” I said, wondering what sort of clubs he meant.

“We ought to get you a slot as a go-go girl. You know, dancing alone for thirty minutes at a time up on a platform above the crowd. In that – er – dress you’d be a tremendous success. And everyone would want you when your shift was over.”

“That sounds lovely,” I said, a little uncertainly.

The two men watched the video and discussed technical editing questions. I lay back on the comfortable couch and dreamed about going to parties in my pretty new outfit. I could even wear it to work under my office uniform – no one would know except those whose hands sometimes wandered over me … I imagined wearing it on a date, under a short, sexy, low-cut dress suggesting the pleasures we would share before the evening was over … after we had eaten and chatted, my lover of the evening would perhaps suggest going to a “theme” hotel for an hour and I would coyly agree. Then when we were alone together we would hold each other and kiss; then I would begin by undressing him, unbuttoning his shirt, pulling down his trousers and helping him step out of them, giving a friendly stroke to the satisfying bulge straining his underpants. Then it would be my turn. I would turn my back so that he could ease the zipper down my dress. As the dress slid to the floor he would discover my provocative underwear, his hands eagerly exploring its possibilities. As I stood with my back to him, I would look around the room. He had apparently decided on a prison cell or dungeon theme: an odd choice for love-making but no doubt he had some delightful fantasy in mind. On the far wall I could see a huge X in red-painted metal like the one in Peter’s studio … my conscious mind didn’t know what it was for; but something deep inside me knew, and shivered.

Suddenly the doorbell rang.

“Why don’t you see who that is, Yuri?” he suggested casually.

For a moment I hesitated, aware of my near-nudity. But it was obviously a challenge, and I like to accept challenges – especially sexual ones. I stood up and walked towards the front-door, trying to decide whether to pose sexily for whoever it was, or behave naturally as if answering the door like this was the obvious thing to do. I opened it before I could decide. Waiting outside were Bob, my treacherous date from last night, and a very beautiful older woman.

“Hello, Yuri-chan,” said Bob. “How are you getting on?”

“Very well, thank you,” I said in as frosty a voice as I could manage, then turned to welcome his companion.

“Yuri-chan, I’d like to you meet Megumi Kato. Megumi-san, this is the girl I was telling you about.”

We bowed politely to each other and murmured the appropriate greeting.

“You probably don’t know Megumi, Yuri-chan,” Bob continued, “but I’m sure you know her company. She runs Marucho. They make adult videos.”

“But of course!” I said, too startled to be annoyed with him any longer or worry about posing nude on the doorstep. “I love your videos! They’re really beautiful!”

“Thank you,” said Kato-san. “May we come in?”

“Of course! I’m so sorry …”

Soon we were all seated in the drawing-room. Peter greeted Kato-san respectfully, and Osamu disappeared to make coffee.

“I’ve known Megumi for quite a while,” said Bob. “She was just starting her career as a porn star when we met. She was making some wonderfully sexy videos for Marucho.”

“But that’s fantastic!” I said, really impressed.

“Now she and her husband run the company,” Bob continued.

“Do you know anything about the porn industry, Yuri-san?” Kato-san asked.

“No … that is, I enjoy the videos – especially yours!”

“That’s nice of you.”

“No, I’m not just saying it. I know people think porn is more for men than for girls, and some of it is, you know, aggressive and rather nasty. But yours is different. The girls are so beautiful, and they do such lovely things – I’ve learned so much from watching them.”

“I’m very glad to hear that. Of course most of our customers are men. But we like to think that a couple could watch our movies to get into the right mood for sex. Or a girl could show them to her lover as a way of telling him what she wants him to do to her.”

“Especially the masochistic ones,” put in Bob.

“And you used to be one of those wonderful girls?” I asked, not realising till I had said it that it sounded a bit rude. But Kato-san didn’t seem to mind.

“Oh, yes. I still do take small parts sometimes. My husband likes me to keep in practice, and of course it’s such fun. No girl who has once been fucked on camera ever wants to stop.”

I could only gaze at her, fascinated.

“The Japanese industry is the second largest in the world,” she went on. “The biggest is the American, of course.”

“I’m sure ours is better, even if it’s not the biggest,” I said loyally.

“Well, perhaps it is,” said Kato-san with a smile. “And we are beginning to make progress in the US market. We have some very good products, and a lot of American men are starting to prefer Japanese girls and their sincere and honest style of acting in sex-videos.”

“Not just American men who live in Japan,” put in Bob.

“And Mr Otani – my husband – is keen to build on this by making some really special movies targeted on the US. And that’s what I want to tell you about. But first I want to see Peter’s video.”

“What, the one he made of me?”

“Of course.”

“Oh, but … I’m a complete beginner …”

“So was I when I started!”

Kato-san smiled at me encouragingly. She was very beautiful, I thought: self-confident, elegant, poised – everything I wanted to be. If being a porn actress made you like that … Osamu came in with the coffee, fiddled with the video machine, and then squatted on the floor Japanese-style. Soon there I was on the screen, posing and showing off in my sweetly revealing costume. Then Osamu joined me. I flirted with him at first, pretending not to understand what he wanted of me, and then encouraging him to take full advantage of my pretty availability. Our sex scene had already been edited and I think it looked good – but I was terribly shy, watching Kato-san even more than the screen and hoping she was pleased.

“Well done, Yuri-chan,” she said at last. “Was that really your first fuck on camera?”

“Yes … I mean, I’ve been video’d at parties and so on, but I’ve never done it in a studio before.”

“Were you video’d last night?”

“Yes, she was,” said Peter. “She was very good.”

“How did you get on?” Kato-san asked, still talking to me.

“I had a lovely time. I was the only girl – I didn’t know that was what my friends had planned, and I was a bit surprised at first. But I’d never been fucked so many times before. It was fantastic.”

“How many times?”

“Well, I wasn’t really counting …” I said, not wanting to show off.

“We were discussing it earlier,” Peter interrupted again. “We think between us we had her about fifty times. And she was still ready for more.”

“My personal best …” I said shyly.

“Now that could be a title,” said Kato-san, turning to Bob. “Personal Best …”

“I like it,” said Bob.

“Let me tell you something about Mr Otani’s next big project,” said Kato-san, turning back to me. “Of course you know about bukkake videos?”

“Where the girl is surrounded by lots of men who take it in turns to come all over her face and body?”

“That’s right. Nice, but we can do better. We want to make a big budget bukkake-style production, except that the girl won’t just take it over her face – she’ll demand that they fuck her properly. Everywhere. Again and again.”

“That sounds much nicer,” I said, since she seemed to expect me to say something.

“You said girls like Marucho videos. I think you are right. And do you know why?” Fortunately she didn’t wait for me to try to answer. “Because the actresses are so obviously enjoying themselves. We think – Mr Otani and I – that there is an enormous untapped female market in the US. So we want our new project to star a girl who gets fucked a lot – that will please the male customers – but is also in charge, knowing what she wants and making sure the men do it to her. Do you see?”

“Yes, I think so …” I said uncertainly.

“We’d like her to become a heroine, a role-model, for American girls. Get away from all that nonsense about porn-stars being only exploited sex-objects. What do you think is special about Japanese porn-stars and their work?”

I had to answer this time. I stammered for a moment, then suddenly I saw what she wanted me to say.

“It’s like any other job in Japan, really, I think. You do it with full commitment. With your heart and soul. You never let down your colleagues, or the company you work for, or your company’s customers. Anything else would be shameful.”

“Exactly!” she said. “And that’s why the actress – like you in what we’ve just seen, for example – looks as if she is thoroughly enjoying the scene she is performing and can’t imagine anything she’d rather do. She’s not acting: she’s doing it for real.”

“Isn’t that your …?” I asked tentatively.

“Yes! Well done! It’s Marucho’s company slogan: ‘We Always Do It For Real’.” She turned to Bob. “Do you agree that it’s the sincerity, the commitment, that makes Japanese porn actresses different from many American ones?”

“Well, yes,” said Bob slowly. “But it’s also to do with Western morality. In our society acting in porn movies is seen as a bad, immoral thing to do. So porn actresses, strippers, sex workers are disapproved of. Looked down on. And so it’s hardly surprising they often look as if they dislike what they do. And dislike the men they do it with and for. No one can do a job well if they feel they are despised for doing it.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that before. But I don’t understand it,” said Kato-san. “Anyone who does a job should be respected for doing it. If she does it well. Whether it’s making porn videos like I used to do, or running a company as I do now.”

I was listening to this wide-eyed, hardly able to understand what they were saying. It was as if they were discussing life on another planet.

“The really immoral thing,” Kato-san was continuing, “is not doing your job – whatever it is – with complete sincerity and commitment.” She suddenly turned to me. “Don’t you agree?”

At last I had heard something I could understand.

“Yes, of course!” I said eagerly. “Of course that’s true! And,” I went on shyly since I did not want her to think I was being immodest and pushing myself forward, “if I am lucky enough to work for you, I promise to do my very best to satisfy you and your customers.”

“I’m sure you will,” she said dazzling me with an professional smile. “Now, for the production I described, the one we want to promote to break into the US market, we need a rather special girl. Special even by Japanese standards. Bob here helps me by looking out for talented new girls at all those parties and clubs he goes to. And when he told me about you and how wonderful you were last night, I just had to meet you.”

I could say nothing. I just sat there gazing at her with my mouth open.

“Now, if you agree, this is what is going to happen. Peter will find your dress and lend you a coat so you can leave here – yes?”

She turned authoritatively to Peter. He nodded.

“And then Bob will bring you to the Marucho offices in Shibuya. Mr Otani will want to see you; he’s in Tokyo for a few days, but he’ll be off in California again on Monday which is why we have to move fast. Then I’ll arrange for a screen-test.”

“Of course, you’ll have to make some standard Japanese-style adult videos first,” said Bob. “That way the studio can establish you, build up a fan-base here in Japan. Our American partners will expect that. They’ll resist if we offer them a complete unknown.”

“You can make the videos in your free time – no need to give up the office job yet,” said Kato-san. “We already have several OLs working for us. They love doing it, of course, and we take care their companies don’t know. But then, if all goes well, you’ll be off to America to film the big one.”

“To America?”

“Yes, the movie will be made in America. Most of the men you’ll be fucking will be recruited there. We’ll build up a story: you will be an innocent Japanese girl visiting America for the first time, very pretty and sweet, always charmingly dressed, enjoying all the sexual attention she gets, and the climax will be a big party – perhaps for your birthday, how about that? – when all your favourite lovers are invited and they all fuck you the way you like best. The way your lovers did last night. Lots and lots of times. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“It sounds fantastic!” I said. “It was lovely last night, but this would be … even better, because … there’d be even more … and on camera, for everyone …”

I gave up trying to explain. I couldn’t find the words for something so wonderful. I knew she understood, anyway.

“I’d like to call the movie Personal Best. Do you like that idea?”

“Oh, yes! My Personal Best.” I looked at Bob, and then at Peter and Osamu. “I must work hard on it. Last night was just the beginning,” I said.