After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

CHAPTER 23 
Aomame 
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING 
Aomame and Ayumi were the perfect pair to host intimate but fully erotic all-night 
sex feasts. Ayumi was petite and cheerful, comfortable with strangers, and talkative. 
She brought a positive attitude to just about any situation once she had made up her 
mind to do so. She also had a healthy sense of humor. By contrast, Aomame, slim and 
muscular, tended to be rather expressionless and reserved, and she found it hard to be 
witty with a man she was meeting for the first time. In her speech there was a subtle 
note of cynicism and even hostility, and in her eyes an equally subtle gleam of 
intolerance. Still, when she felt like it, Aomame gave off a cool aura that naturally 
attracted men. It was like the sweet, sexually stimulating fragrance that animals or 
insects give off when necessary. This was not something that could be learned 
through conscious effort. It was probably inborn. But no—she might well have 
acquired the fragrance for some reason at a certain stage of life. In any case, this aura 
subtly aroused not only her sexual partners but also Ayumi, adding color and a 
positive warmth to their evenings. 
Whenever they encountered suitable men, first Ayumi approached them with her 
natural cheer. Then Aomame would join them at an appropriate moment, creating a 
unique atmosphere that was part operetta, part film noir. Once things got to that point, 
the rest was simple. They would move to an appropriate place and (as Ayumi bluntly 
put it) “fuck like mad.” The hardest thing was finding suitable partners. Preferably, 
they should be two men together—clean, and reasonably good-looking. They had to 
be at least somewhat intellectual, but too much so could be a problem: boring 
conversation could turn the evening sterile. They also had to look like men who had 
money to spend. Obviously, the men paid for the drinks and the hotel rooms. 
When they tried to hold a nice little sex feast near the end of June, however (in what 
would turn out to be their last team activity), they simply could not find suitable men. 
They put a lot of time into it, changing venues several times, always with the same 
results. In spite of the fact that it was the last Friday of the month, all the clubs they 
tried, from Roppongi to Akasaka, were shockingly quiet, almost deserted, giving them 
no real choice. Maybe it had something to do with the heavy clouds that hung in the 
sky, as if the whole of Tokyo were in mourning for someone. 
“It doesn’t look good today,” Aomame said. “Maybe we should give up.” It was 
already ten thirty. 

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Ayumi reluctantly agreed. “I’ve never seen such a dead Friday night. And here I’m 
wearing my sexy purple underwear!” 
“So go home and get carried away with yourself in the mirror.” 
“Not even I have the guts to do that in the police dorm bathroom!” 
“Anyhow, let’s just forget it. We’ll have a nice, quiet drink, then head home and 
go to bed.” 
“That may be the best thing,” Ayumi said. Then, as if she had suddenly recalled 
something, she added, “Say, let’s have a bite to eat before we go home. I’ve got an 
extra thirty thousand yen in my purse.” 
Aomame frowned. “Extra? How come? You’re always complaining how little they 
pay you.” 
Ayumi scratched the side of her nose. “Actually, the last time, the guy gave me 
thirty thousand yen. He called it ‘taxi fare’ and handed it to me when we said good-
bye. You know, the time we did it with those real estate guys.” 
“And you just took it?” Aomame asked, shocked. 
“Maybe he thought we were semi-pros,” Ayumi said with a chuckle. “I bet it never 
crossed his mind he was dealing with a cop and a martial arts instructor. Anyhow, 
what’s the difference? I’m sure he makes tons of money in real estate—more than he 
knows what to do with. I kept it separate, figured I’d spend it with you on a nice meal 
or something. I mean, money like that you don’t want to use on just regular 
expenses.” 
Aomame did not tell Ayumi how she felt about this. To have taken money for 
casual sex with a man she didn’t know—she could hardly comprehend the fact that 
such a thing had occurred. She felt as if she were looking at a twisted image of herself 
in a warped mirror. Ethically, which was better—taking money for killing men or 
taking money for having sex with men? 
“Tell me,” Ayumi asked Aomame uneasily, “does the idea of taking money from a 
man bother you?” 
Aomame shook her head. “It doesn’t bother me so much as make me feel a little 
mystified. But what about you? I would have expected a female cop to feel reluctant 
to do anything like prostitution.” 
“Not at all,” Ayumi insisted cheerfully. “I have no problem with that. You know, a 
prostitute is somebody who agrees on a price and gets her money before having sex. 
The first rule is ‘Pay me before you take your pants off.’ She couldn’t make a living if 
guys told her, ‘Gee, I don’t have any money’ after it was all over. But when there’s no 
prior negotiation of a price, and afterward the guy gives you a little something for 
‘taxi fare,’ it’s just an expression of gratitude. That’s different from professional 
prostitution. There’s a clear distinction between the two.” 
What Ayumi had to say made a certain kind of sense. 
The men that Aomame and Ayumi had chosen the last time were in their late thirties 
or early forties. Both had full heads of hair, but Aomame was willing to compromise 
on that point. They said they were with a company that dealt in real estate, but 
judging from their Hugo Boss suits and Missoni Uomo neckties, they were not just 
ordinary employees of giant conglomerates like Mitsubishi or Mitsui, whose 

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employees were bound by finicky rules, tradition, and endless meetings, but rather 
they worked for a more aggressive, flexible company with a cool, foreign-sounding 
name, a place that looked for individual talent and richly rewarded success. One of 
the men carried keys to a brand-new Alfa Romeo. Tokyo was short on office space, 
they said. The economy had recovered from the oil shocks and was showing signs of 
heating up again. Capital was growing ever more fluid, and soon it would be 
impossible to meet the need for space no matter how many new high-rise buildings 
they put up. 
“Sounds like real estate is where the money is,” Aomame said to Ayumi. 
“That’s true,” Ayumi said. “If you have anything extra lying around, you ought to 
invest it in real estate. Huge amounts of money are just pouring into Tokyo, which is 
only so big. Land prices are bound to soar. Buy now, and there’s no way you can lose. 
It’s like betting on horses when you know you hold the winning ticket. Unfortunately, 
low-ranking public employees like me don’t have anything to spare. But how about 
you, Aomame? Do you do any investing?” 
Aomame shook her head. “I don’t trust anything but cash.” 
Ayumi laughed out loud. “You have the mind of a criminal!” 
“The thing to do is keep your cash in your mattress so in a jam, you can grab it and 
escape out the window.” 
“That’s it!” Ayumi said, snapping her fingers. “Like in