One of the tackiest and quaintest features to be found in Japanese towns are the small local cinemas, that manage to stay in business by showing re-runs to people too poor to own a VCR. Admission is a fraction of the cost of seeing a first-run film in a big-city theater.
These establishments are too shoddy to warrant the description "retro." They are relics of the 1960s, some so pathetically decrepit as to resemble haunted houses in amusement parks, with pockmarked floors, fraying upholstery and the moldy smell of decay. Most are one-man operations, with tickets sold by vending machine.
Writing in Uramono Japan (May), a 35-year-old company employee in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, submitted this account of a visit to once such place. So sordid was his tale, he could not bring himself to put his name on the article, so we'll just refer to him as "Mr. A," for "anonymous."
A's article was written in response to an earlier article in the same magazine about an elderly woman who lurked in the sleazy Shinsekai theater in Osaka. For an outlay of ¥500, she would remove her dentures and, during screenings, provide male theater patrons with oral sex.
"Well, I've got something that beats that," writes A. "In my hometown we've got a theater where a woman sneaks in and goes all the way with you for ¥1,000!"
The name of the establishment, he says, is "Cinema House Shinei Gekijo," located close to the Matsuya department store, a 10-minute walk from JR Hamamatsu Station.
Most of the films it shows are B-grade porno flicks, and two current blockbusters were being featured: "The Sexual Desires of a Female Proprietress Who Shamelessly Flashes her Panties" and "The Diary of My Lover--Make Me Come as Many Times as I Can!"
The seedy theater moved to its present location five years ago, but has a long reputation for being a "hattenba"--a place where the horny, either gay or straight, can get together for a quickie. Sometimes these services are performed by men in drag.
"It's one of those guys in drag, right?" Mr. A asks his friend skeptically.
"No, no, it's really a gal," he insists. "She's beautiful too. We call her 'the Goddess.'"
It seems the theater's third floor has "recreation rooms" equipped with reclining seats, where pairs of men could be seen in acts people from the U.S. state of Kansas would probably rather not think about.
Around 10:00 p.m. on a Friday evening, our writer entered and met the gaze of a young woman in the theater's foyer. Her face vaguely resembled that of actress Isako Washio, and the lack of an Adam's apple in her throat strongly suggested she was, in fact, a genuine female.
Is this, Uramono Japan readers must surely be wondering, the alleged "Goddess" that everyone's been talking about?
She exchanged a shy smile with A, who entered the darkened theater and found a vacant seat. Minutes thereafter, a husky but distinctly feminine voice from directly behind him whispers, "Pssst! Hey, give me ¥1,000 and I'll let you have something nice."
It was her! He grunted his consent.
She straddled A's lap and, hands looped behind his neck, gave him a deep kiss. He feels her nipples harden through her blouse. Almost magically she slips down his trousers and her excellent oral skills soon instruct his soldier to stand at attention.
Thus prepared, she slips him inside her and begins grinding her hips, breathing quickly and making little grunts of pleasure until groaning, he spasms.
After it was over, A marvels at his good fortune. Why, he ponders, would such a beauty prowl sleazy theaters seeking sex with strange men?
"Well, I'm really a man," she tells him.
"WHAT!?" A exclaims. "How's that possible? You had one of those ... and it was wet inside!"
"I had a sex change operation, and my penis was inserted inside out in my pelvis to form a hollow tube. When I get sexually excited my Cowper's gland emits excretions."
Oy.
It seems the stratagem of the "Goddess" is to ask for ¥1,000 because men tend to be suspicious if a woman offers to do them for free.
Yet when viewed under the lights, our correspondent writes, this depraved deity is even more desirable than a real woman. At a sleazy cinema in Hamamatsu, he continues his quirky quest for theatrical romance.
