The American girl’s response was unhelpfully vague, but at least she spoke fluent Japanese. Jun doubted he would be able to converse well in English while his mind was so slow. Perhaps she hadn’t even understood his first question. Or, maybe she expected him to know what he was doing already. In her line of business, she probably saw dozens of men in a week, all of whom would have been far more experienced at this sort of thing than Jun was. He found it ironic that he was apparently more innocent than the so-called “Innocent Beauty,” herself. Well, this was embarrassing.

Desperate not to look like a novice, Jun approached the bed and stripped off his jacket, letting it fall to the floor at his feet. He started unbuttoning his shirt next, a process which took some time with his clumsy, alcohol-depressed hands. His heart was racing. In spite of himself, he felt a twinge of excitement to sleep with such a gorgeous American girl. He wanted to blame the feeling on his intoxication, but maybe he was giving himself too much credit. Koji and the others came to places like this often. Wasn’t there even a proverb about attracting others like oneself? Maybe he was more like them than he realized. The thought was unnerving.

“I command you?” Jun said, returning to his native tongue. He let his shirt fall to the floor with his jacket, and then hesitated, standing at the bedside. The whole situation still felt strangely surreal to him. He never dreamed he would find himself in a place like this, with an American prostitute like her. Why was he even here, again? It had been Koji’s idea, but he normally would have declined the offer… had he been in his right mind, that is. He suddenly put two and two together and realized why the others had taken him to the bar first. They must have planned the whole night out. Unfortunately, it was too late to back out now.

“Take that off,” Jun indicated the kimono the girl was wearing. It felt unnatural to order the girl around like that, even though she had told him to do so. He had to remind himself that she was used to this. It was her profession. It wasn’t like he was taking advantage of her or anything. She slept with men for a living, and he was just one of many. Yes, that was all this was.