Love Castle - by Elina Garone

Love Castle

by Elina Garone

I once lived down the hall from a woman who owned a love hotel. Her name was Madam Ono and Mother hated her very much. She was seventy-two, short and square, more or less the shape of an eraser. Her favorite eyeshadow shade was purple and she liked to wear graphic tees printed with English phrases she couldn’t read, like “Lovely Girl” and “Live Fast. Die Young.”

For every 7-Eleven in Kinshicho, there are fifteen love hotels waiting to set the stage for affairs and rendezvous. That morning I was there with a boy from math class—it was always on school mornings, so Mother wouldn’t question where I was. Besides, room rates were cheaper in the morning.

“The number of love hotels around here must be related to the phallic imagery of the nearby Sky Tree,” he remarked, turned on by his intelligence. “There’s an undeniable eroticism about the tallest building in Japan dominating your line of sight and… penetrating the skyline.”

I should have told him how stupid he was. That day, though, I was distracted by the purple blisters on my feet. I was wearing Mother’s high heels: patent leather, slick like the body of a leech. I took them without asking and the shoes hated me for it, digging into my skin in retaliation. They remembered the feel of Mother’s flesh, flaring up with hives in the late afternoon, nervous in her stride, scolding me for “talking about the menses” outside of home.

We strayed off the main road and into Hotel Row. An overstuffed trash can dripped beer onto a salaryman, asleep next to the half-churned contents of his stomach—last night’s dinner—yakisoba? A suited man and a masked girl passed by us, arms entwined. Newly in love? Apparently not: when they reached a corner, the girl gave a curt bow and walked away. I usually let the boy pick the place. Partly because I didn’t want to scare him by coming on too strong, but mostly because I liked watching them try to hide their nervousness. After a time he stopped in front of a sign printed with medieval lettering: LOVE CASTLE II. Terrible taste. Very good. I love having sex in tacky rooms—it makes me feel trashy.

The hotel lobby smelled of stale carpet and cigarette smoke. A plastic suit of armor collected dust in the corner, lit by a chandelier coated in chipping red paint. Behind the front desk, in bright purple eyeshadow and a dress to match, Madam Ono swirled her finger in a circular fish tank. A blue guppy followed it with an open mouth, mesmerized by her violet nail polish. Our eyes met for a moment; I saw a glint of recognition. She said nothing.

“She’s what I would call an avant-garde whore,” Mother once said about Madam Ono. “I heard she walks her dog in nothing but her panties and brassiere. Think of the children! You’re a little older now, sure, that’s no influence for a young woman.”

The boy fumbled with the key as I yanked my feet out of Mother’s high heels. The room was lined with thick red curtains, just large enough for a modular bathroom, a large bed, and a minifridge. I opened the fridge: beer, chocolate milk, a bottle of red something labeled “Love Power.”

We sat on the bed. He touched my arm and I touched his. His skin was cooler than I expected. Somehow this annoyed me, so I pinched him a little. He moaned.

Touching someone is easy and nice; being touched is a little scary. Like being eaten up, bites being taken out of you. He felt his way around me in the illiterate way one feels their way through an unlit cave, and I held in the urge to urinate.

Mother must be teaching her etiquette class right now. Today’s lesson: “how to eat escargot like a lady.” I always thought escargot looked like fat snot. “Imagine,” she’ll say. “Your future husband is watching. Are you going to use your hands?” A girl who’s a sloppy eater is sloppy in other ways too, she’d tell me. I thought of her middle-aged pupils, their plump bodies swaying with pearls and scarves and a surplus of time. As he touched me I began to imagine myself dangling naked from Mother’s delicate silver fork and tossed into her lipsticked mouth.

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