Choto Temple Ch. 10

The diary continued for quite some pages. I was looking forward to reading more later. But there was a schedule to keep. I grabbed my notepad and recorder and headed toward Zerzinski's place.

"The thing is," Zerzinski said matter-of-factly, "if I heard some of the things I have said to you when I was younger, I would have thought I was an asshole."

"Even if you understood the context?" I asked.

He smiled. "I was a pretty ideological guy, before... I don't know. I'd like to think with enough context, I'd have understood. I'd like to think other people could, too, for that matter."

"Earlier you were talking about the clients that worked out and the ones that didn't. When you ran your clinic in Portland."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking of."

"Tell me more about that...?"

"Well, what if you were, say, a guy in his forties. But you were only attracted to 18-year-old girls with big breasts and blonde hair.

"Most people seeing that - including me, for the most part - would think that guy's a sexist jerk. Or at the very least, very much playing into patriarchal ideas of sexuality. And someone who should try to widen their horizons a bit. Analyze themselves, stuff like that.

"So me, when I was younger, I had my preferences. My fetishes, perhaps. But I was broad-minded. And I had girlfriends who didn't meet most of my ideals, in terms of sexual attraction. But I could always kind of fudge it.

"I could fantasize about sexier women I had been with before. Or dream up new ones. Or if I'm in a typical kind of life situation where I'm having sex once a day or less - usually less - then I could work up an appetite regardless, most of the time.

"And I looked down at guys who, under similar circumstances, were unable to do that. Like a friend of mine who was only attracted to women with long hair. And he'd meet some really cool woman who really liked him, who he really liked, too. But then she'd go and cut her hair and he wouldn't be at all interested in her anymore. Lame, right?

"Well, most of the time things went fine at the clinic. But I guess about 10% of the time things didn't go fine. Oftentimes things not going fine meant me not being able to get it up. And every time that happened, it was a situation where the client was not going along with the program for one reason or another."

"Did that happen every time someone went off-script?" I asked.

"No. In fact there were a lot of times when things went way off-script, but I still managed to give them what they came for anyway. Other times not. I'm sure I could have done better if I weren't already having sex with someone - and more to the point, coming - at least twice a day. But as that was the situation, despite my best intentions, I just got pickier and pickier as the thing went on."

"What kinds of things would happen?"

"Well, what really gets me off, generally, are beautiful women who want to please me in specific ways. I'm open to different things, but definitely if they can play into my fetishes for denial and rougher sex, that will turn me on a lot more than just about anything else.

"The only thing that might surpass that kind of bedroom scenario is a virginal teenage bombshell lying nervously in front of you. Naked, waiting for you to penetrate her. Visibly wondering how that was going to feel. And whether she could handle it without crying. That one always works, too."

"So the Purification and Choto Temple models both make a lot of sense."

"Yes." He paused. "That would be an understatement, in fact."

"Can you give me some examples of what would go on?"

"Sure. When things went wrong, they generally fell into two categories. There were those who would try and fail. And there were those who wouldn't try in the first place.

"See, I didn't want to be the guy who only fucked virgins. I could have only done virgins and still had plenty of clients. But I wanted to be more open than that.

"So I thought if the women could just pretend they were porn actors for one day, and could come in and follow a script that would turn me on enough to keep this - it - up on a very, very regular basis, that would be better. More moral or something. I don't know.

"Oftentimes they thought the script was just a guideline. Or they didn't really have to follow it so closely, because they were somehow exceptional. The wealthier Americans tend to think they're exceptional. About everything, including sex appeal.

"So sometimes they'd think they could do the edging thing for me. And they'd be feeling all awkward about it. Which would be obvious. And then rather than really eating me, they'd sort of kiss my dick, put the head in their mouth. And then stop, and look up at me, like, 'what do I do next?'

"And I don't know at that point what to say. I mean, sometimes they just don't understand that they are actually responsible for turning me on. Like, I'm going to try to work with them, but they can't just say 'I tried but it didn't work, now can you just get on with it' or something. It doesn't work that way. I'm not proud of that, necessarily. It's just the way it is. Contrary to many opinions."

"So how would things go in those situations?"

"Sometimes I'd manage to find inspiration somewhere, and give them what they came for. Sometimes I had to say I'm sorry, this isn't working. And then they'd generally get really pissed off. 'I paid $5,000 in order to be humiliated?!' That kind of thing.

"They'd get their money back in those cases, actually. But it still sucked for everyone.

"Other times - and this happened quite a lot, probably the most common thing that would go wrong - they'd come in prepared for following the script. They'd understand the deal. But then when they'd be edging for me, they'd come. Sometimes repeatedly. They'd be like, 'oops, I couldn't stop, it was feeling too good.'

"And I'm thinking, gosh, I understand that you like to come. Most people do, in fact. I used to make women come all the time. Because they like it. Sometimes I'd make them come because I was so turned on by the fact that they hadn't yet come, that I'd want to make them come in order for me not to come myself.

"But this wasn't one of those times. This time, they're supposed to be trying to make me come. By following a script that will hopefully turn me on. And then they go and do this thing which they have already been informed is exactly the thing to do if they want the opposite of the intended result."

"Do you think it's just a lack of self-control?" I asked.

"Sometimes. Mostly, I think these are basically fairly innocent women who just don't believe that anybody could be different from them. It turns her on, it turns on her boyfriend. So of course it'll work for this guy, too. Unfortunately that's not how it is.

"Other times we'd get through the 'foreplay' segments, and then they'd say something like 'please be gentle with me.'

"'Please be gentle' is a perfectly reasonable thing to say to someone you don't know, who you've decided to have sex with. When you're trying to guide the situation so that the sex will be to your liking. I.e. gentle, if that's what you want.

"But when you're explicitly supposed to be following a script that involves edging, fellatio, and rough sex, you don't get to the rough sex part and say 'please be gentle.' I could be really gentle and just not fuck you at all, but that's not what you've come here for, is it?

"OK but then, thoughts like that last one, if I think of the earlier me hearing me now say stuff like that, fuck, I'd be shocked. It's shocking, probably. But now I can't even tell. I'm just so thoroughly depraved at this point that I have no moral compass left, I guess."

I don't know if he was hoping I'd reassure him that he did, in fact, have a moral compass. Fairly obviously, actually - one prone to frequent agonizing. Instead, I just asked another question.

"And what about the ones who just didn't try at all?"

"Well," he said, with an air of authority, "there's a level of cluelessness among the rich that is really special. I think what happens a lot of the time is a rich woman says to her secretary, 'get me an appointment with that guy in Portland.'

"The secretary dutifully sets everything up, explains to her boss what's involved with the whole thing, or maybe sends her a memo or something. Which in any case gets ignored. And then it's time for the appointment, and the woman shows up in my room.

"I come in. She's fully clothed. And looking impatient that she was kept waiting a few minutes. And she wants to know what's going on.

"'Presumably,' I say, 'you're here to have sex with me.'"

"They don't know? Seriously?"

"Seriously," he said, without hesitation. "One time, the woman stormed off. Ranting to anyone in earshot as she left the building, and people were laughing at her. I mean the level of cluelessness can be really impressive sometimes."

"You were quite a well-known person by then," I noted.

"Yeah, well, I didn't know who most of the celebrities were until I became one, either," he said. "I still don't, actually," he added.

"When did you start getting so many clients from Japan?"

"Pretty early on there were some. They weren't coming on scholarships like the ones from the Chernobyl area. But they were always just as impressive. When Japanese people decide to do something, they tend to do it really well.

"But it was after the Fukushima disaster that the Japanese started coming more often. At first I didn't know what was going on, in terms of anything systematic. I just knew that every few days I'd have another Japanese client.

"And I started to notice a pattern. They were always teenagers, barely legal adults. They always came accompanied by an older woman. They were always so good at following the script that it seemed like each of them had taken a course in porn acting. Which it turned out they had.

"They were consistently the ideal clients. The kind that just made me think this I was living the dream. Rather than once again in the room with another self-important rich lady who's making half-hearted attempts to go through the motions in order to get what she came for. All the while obviously detesting me for making her work for something for once in her life."

"Is that how it was most of the time?" I asked for clarification.

"No. Like I said, most of the time it was great. But when it goes wrong on one out of ten occasions, well, it can go pretty wrong. And that can really suck.

"You got the media saying you're a sexist piece of shit. And then you got one in ten of your clients walking out, saying something similar."

"That sounds hard."

"Yes. It could be. So then," he said, picking up his story without prompting from me, "a whole delegation of Japanese people came, unannounced, and asked my staff if they could talk with me.

"At first the secretary was trying to put them in line with the rest of the media wanting interviews, until she was informed that one of the members of the delegation was the governor of Fukushima prefecture. Then she realized this was something she should actually talk with me about.

"When we met the next day, that was the first I had heard about the temple they were starting up."

"You were still in the US when they were starting it?"

Robert gave me a look that said, don't you do your research? I responded with my best lost puppy imitation. He said nothing, and just answered my stupid question.

"Yes, I was in Portland, and they were sending these women across the Pacific once or twice a week. They would have sent more. But there was no room in my schedule, as it was set up.

"But they came in order to have a meeting with me. And they made this proposal."

"Their proposal being this place, essentially?"

"Yes. Minus the Choto Temple. That came later. But they had already started the Purification Temple. Training these girls from Fukushima and sending them over. But only so few, compared to now.

"And they just basically proposed that I come live in Japan. They made the case that the young women of Fukushima were both the neediest in terms of their risk for ovarian cancer, as well as the sexiest. And I'd have my own mountainside to live on, and would never have to worry about money again."

"And you said yes right away?"

"I wanted to. But I waited a day, trying to be reasonable and think it over. And then I told everybody at the clinic that we'd be closing soon. They were bummed out. But I made sure they were well taken care of, anyway.

"I knew I'd miss the Russians though. I still do, sometimes."

"They were really special, eh?"

"They were. And also just the circumstances made them even more special.

"See, I'd go outside in disguise a lot, but it basically was risky to be me. I lived between home and the clinic much of the time. And for most of the time I was in Portland, being home meant having a stunning, generally very friendly Russian or Ukrainian around pretty constantly."

"How did that work?"

"It was sort of an organic process. When we were offering the scholarships to women from the Chernobyl region, they also needed a place to stay while in town. And I had a big place. So they stayed with me. We'd get them tickets so they'd arrive on a Monday, have their appointment with me on the following weekend, and then leave the following Monday."

"Were they expected to do anything in particular in Portland during that week?"

"No, nothing. But what most of them did when they weren't seeing the local sights, was to hang out with me when I was home. Lots of good memories. At the clinic, a standard Tuesday question when I came in was 'who's the Russian of the week?'"

"Any especially fond recollections?"

"Many. But Tanja, the woman with the flash cards, was particularly fun and educational."

"Was she working on her English or something?"

"Well, in the cover letter that came with the cards, she explained that she spoke almost no English. So it was actually that which inspired her to make the flash cards. In order for us to be able to communicate more easily about some things.

"But for me it turned out to be a bit of a revelation. It was like a little peek into my future. Here with the Choto girls."

"How so?"

"Well, in the past, my desires to explore my sexual fantasies were pretty well tempered by empathy. I'm endlessly inspired by causing and witnessing a beautiful woman to go to the very ends of desperation, and unfulfilled desire. That's definitely a thing for me.

"But if I'm the one directing, it's only going to go so far before I figure this girl needs an orgasm already. Regardless of how much her desperation is turning me on.

"Or maybe like now that she's just said 'ow' for the twentieth time, I really should stop fucking her so hard."

"You're very considerate," I joked.

"It's all relative," he said, not joking. "With the Choto girls, responsibility is taken away from me. It's their trip.

"It may be based on my fantasies originally. But now it's more than that. And I'm not responsible for the suffering they and their rules impose on themselves. It may be a logically slippery slope, but I'm sticking with it."

"Fair enough," I said, perhaps uncertainly. "And Tanja's flash cards?" I reminded him.

"Yes. See, these were her flash cards. Her game, she made it. The rules were clear and simple, and she explained them in her cover letter."

"What were the rules?"

"During the week of her visit, I should feel free to show her any of the flash cards I wanted to. And she would then go about accomplishing the task involved with that particular card, until the task was accomplished. Or until I showed her a new card."

"It sounds like you're still directing to me," I commented.

"Well, yes and no. I am, but it's in the context of her game. It's not a logical thing, necessarily. Though I guess that depends on how you're looking at it. But for me, it was liberating and exhilarating, anyway."

"What was on the cards?"

"There were sort of general things. And then there were things that indicated either that we shared the same sorts of interests. Or, at least as likely, she had come up with them based on the information she had about me when she applied for getting the treatment.

"So there were things like 'make food,' 'make coffee,' and 'clean the house.'

"Then there were things like 'cuddle,' 'full body massage with oil,' 'full body massage without oil,' 'shoulder massage,' and other massage-related variations.

"Then there were cards that all began with 'sexual services' and included 'intercourse' and 'fellatio.'

"Then there were the cards that all began with 'solo erotic performance' and included things like 'dildo play,' 'the full orgasm,' 'the ruined orgasm' and 'finding the edge.'

"She showed me those cards soon after she got to my place. And I was horny all week. Despite the fact that I was having sex with two clients every day before I'd get home to her at night."

"Did certain cards get used more than others?"

"Um, yeah. Some of them got kind of ignored, and others got used very repeatedly.

"I'd say I'm a reasonably active kind of guy, but having this pandora's box of cards to draw on, it was just addictive. Not having to choose specifically from my own fantasies, so much as just draw a pre-conceived one, that someone else gave me. I don't know. It's different. Much easier.

"Anyway, I'd start the day with the 'make food' card."

"Not coffee?"

"No, never that one. I'm a coffee snob. I didn't want to take that chance. But the food one, and the full body massage. And then I was off to work.

"And when I came back, she'd be there.

"Not being one to pass up the opportunity to watch somebody edge on command, the first night that she was there when I came home from work, the day after she got to town, I thought I'd see what 'finding the edge' would look like.

"The whole performance was just amazing. If you've got my particular thing. It was just a model."

"What does the model look like?"

I probably asked the question mostly to indicate that I was still paying attention. But it was also asked with genuine interest. Maybe I'm just impressionable. But the more he talked about this sort of thing, the more I was finding the attraction of it.

"Well, to begin with, she was stunningly beautiful. That combination of muscles and voluptuousness that only eastern Europeans seem to be able to achieve. She undressed slowly. Deliberately. Maintaining eye contact the whole time.

"The eye contact was so much of the turn-on. Especially once she started touching herself. She started slowly and built up the intensity, like bringing water to a boil. Smoothly but with real purpose.

"When she started getting really excited, she just turned up the volume. Rather than backing off and making it last longer.

"When she hit the edge, it was with a real crash. She was right there. She had obviously done this before. She looked slightly panicked. Perhaps in pain, as she took away her finger, spread her legs apart.

"And maintained eye contact the whole time. Usually at that point, almost anyone would look away.

"And then she recovered her composure so quickly. And stayed there in that position, looking at me. Waiting for me to draw the next card.

"Kind of like the hottest wind-up toy you could imagine. She had completed her assignment, now she was waiting for the next one.

"So I drew the dildo one.

"She calmly walked into her bedroom and brought back two dildos. She held them both out to me. I picked the larger one. It was big, but not completely outrageous.

"Then she held up the dildo card in one hand. And with her other hand, next to the dildo card, first she held up 'finding the edge.' And then she held up the cards for 'ruined' and 'full' orgasms.