Believing in fairy tales

I was trained in the art of poignant, unrequited desire. Fourth in a series.

By Cynthia Gralla

Jun 22, 2001 | One night I was sitting with a youngish Norwegian customer, enjoying a break from the near-constant horniness of the older Japanese men, when he suddenly nodded his head toward Louise, a British hostess. "She's very good," he whispered, his eyes filled with wonder and admiration.

I looked over at Louise. That night she had arrived with the customer we called "the Cowboy," given his penchant for droning country and western songs all night long. (Hank Williams and Patsy Cline were his favorites.) He was in the middle of "Crazy" and Louise, her hands on his shoulders, was gazing at the Cowboy in ecstatic adoration, or some perfect imitation of it.

"The way she looks at him, she looks like she's completely in love with him," my customer said in a hushed voice. "She's a very good hostess."

She was. The ability to fake love may be the hostess's most important skill. Every girl at Verdor had a minimum of one or two serious customers who either accompanied her to the club after dinner or came to meet her there on a regular basis. It wasn't hard to keep track of which customer was whose, and what he came for. Amanda's best customer was a slave to her bullying and strong intelligence; Tara's patrons were wild about her golden beauty and prima ballerina hauteur; Elise's men loved her singing voice.

A hostess has to identify her strengths and play off them, because the competition is stiff. Most clubs are notorious for fur-flying catfights, where kittenish women battle it out for customers among the fast-draining supply. Japan is, after all, in a recession, and things are getting harder for everyone.

As the weeks went by and I realized that my mama-san, Midori, fired girls who couldn't trick customers into falling for them quickly enough, I became puzzled. I didn't understand how I had succeeded where other girls had failed. (When I was an 8-year-old Girl Scout I had been voted, on a camping trip, "the hostess with the mostest" for my skills at ushering in girls at mealtime, but that couldn't have been prophetic.)

My customers enjoyed talking about literature and appreciated my sincere interest in Japanese culture and karaoke. But I still didn't understand what they were looking for in me.

I asked Mr. Kobayashi, a consultant and former politician, why he preferred me, and he replied, "When we men come here, we come to take part in a fairy tale. You believe in that fairy tale."

He had hit on something. It was true that, as a bit of a dreamer, I did relish being part of a fantasy: donning a foreign persona (the ideal beloved, the fatal temptress, the dream woman) and leaving reality at home. That is what I thought the "floating world" was all about.

And in some ways it is a fairy tale. For a few hours, an aging man -- most of the regulars were over 50 -- gets to spend time with a lovely young woman, with no complications in sight. For a few hours, the woman is paid to act as if she adores him. In this situation, even the typical lack of sex could be considered an advantage, because it makes for a more idealized, more aestheticized affair.

Next Page: She saw him outside of work for free during their affair

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