Middle Men

Hachiko was the only easy reference point in Shibuya. With every red traffic light, the rows of people waiting to cross the two major arteries of the intersection multiplied. More faces than the Vatican gathered in Saint Peter’s, an endless army of perfect soldiers rhythmically expelled by the five exits of the subway station. They stared at the last vehicle to clear the path and hemorrhaged out in every direction at a tranquil but determined pace until what seemed to us an infinite cycle repeated. The first three rows of Shibuyans—as we had named them—were already there even before the light turned red, peacefully ignoring the loud words coming out from the belly of the buildings all around. We were the only ones still gaping at the out-of-proportion screens, among the few left who couldn’t make sense of the strings of beautiful Japanese words flowing like miniature Shinkansens.

The bronze statue of Hachiko felt instead familiar to us, more accustomed in Rome to small corners of vegetation and metal busts. Ovidio and I had watched the movie dedicated to the faithful dog the night before leaving for Tokyo and commented our puppy Fausto would never wait for us for so many years if we happened to disappear as the university professor did.

“I don’t really remember his face,” Ovidio shared when we realized there were too many guys around Hachiko to decipher which one was our friend. Back in the hotel room, Machiyo had sent us his face picture together with a couple of breathtaking nudes in front of the mirror. But now away from our laptop, his features had faded in our minds and we were left with his last sentence: “I will see you guys at 5:00 P.M. by the statue of the dog.”

“Behave!” Ovidio sometimes treated me like a disobedient son. Always preoccupied that my impulsivity could cause us troubles, he told me that if we didn’t like Machiyo in person the signal was to talk about the Tokyo Tower and then say we had to go meet the rest of our group.

“Fine!” After ten years together, I still got mad when he scolded me like that. I put on my serious face and turned to Hachiko. He pretended not to see me. All the researching, the chatting, the organizing of the how and when was left to me, but now that the real thing was happening with all the common sense and caution it implied, Ovidio wouldn’t accept any detour. His words were law.

“Hello!” Ovidio picked up from there and gently guided the conversation to a steady comfortable point. Eliminating all the introductions and specifications the situation required, it was agreed Machiyo would take us to this izakaya he loved not far from Shibuya Station, because we were all hungry and willing to have a beer even if it was only time for a hot green tea.

“It’s just across the street. Follow me.” It was our turn to dive into the flesh river, diagonally dissecting the intersection of Lost in Translation. Parting the solid column of people advancing in the opposite direction was officially my new pastime. It felt like the center of the universe. For a few seconds, you were given the chance to see it all at once: an unprotected look at the world as it is. Why was I the only one in ecstasy?

“Alessandro! We are over here.” Deeply taken by their conversation, Ovidio and Machiyo were on the other side of the polygon formed by the tangle of streets. I took the opportunity to study our new friend from behind, noticing that his jeans announced an even better ass than we’d seen in pictures. He had a small frame that made all his moves and gestures seem agile and smooth, reinforcing the stereotype one of the guys in the chat was trying to sell us. We were expected to believe that since sex was perfected in Asia, the love Asians make had nothing to do with the race to orgasm we were used to.

“We were talking about the cat cafés, remember?” Ovidio rapidly briefed me, knowing I was in my own world—galaxies away from their conversation. On the plane, we had read about these very special cafés where you can drink your coffee while caressing one of the many cats living there. It was the ultimate relaxation technique the Japanese had come up with.

“This sashimi is like cream on my tongue. Thank you for taking us here. Let’s cheer to our new favourite izakaya!” I broke the silence. After the fourth beer our conversation had slowed down a bit, but we’d grown more intimate. While telling us about his university career, the little village he moved to Tokyo from and the fact he’d never left Japan yet, Machiyo never complained about all the flirting. Ovidio kept pushing his knee in between our new friend’s legs and I more than once put my drunken hand on his thigh discovering it was all muscle. We didn’t have a plan. It was probably the second or third time we let another guy in on our game. It was just a good vibe, and as long as it felt safe for our relationship, why not? I shared life with Ovidio, was sharing his body with another person really going to change anything? We didn’t think so. When I looked at my boyfriend, I felt his blood flowing in my veins, his thoughts penetrating my mind, every centimeter of his skin hurt like mine. When I looked at Machiyo, my mind switched to vacation, learning something new.

“How about we leave Shibuya lights for Shinjuku futons?” Ovidio burst when we were all looking at each other. We’d heard about a sauna place in Shinjuku where you could go, relax and even sleep the night if you wanted too. It was a multifloor complex known to be the major hub of gay life in Tokyo. “We wanted to check the 24 Kaikan saunas. Do you know where it is?”

“He’s a good size!” I told Ovidio when we were all naked in the locker room. The place was a spectacle. You walked up to the second floor of the building, took off your shoes, entered the sauna, got your ticket at the machine and finally spoke to the person who was in charge of simply giving you the key to your locker.

We took a shower as requested before entering the hot pool. Sitting on a short stool, in front of a steamy mirror, we observed how carefully the guy—that only minutes earlier governed hectic Shibuya—soaped up his torso and his legs, without ever blatantly touching his genitals. The whole ritual of the bath was an elegant sequence of acts so erotic that Ovidio and I had to fight our erections back. The soap navigated down his chest into his cock and gently off the wooden stool. Then his hands rinsed his legs and his arms. He was ready. He stood up and turned to us, showing us for the first time his whole body.

“Let’s go.” He took our hands and accompanied us into the hot pool. The temperature hurt our skin a little at the beginning, but after the first moments it soothed every discomfort due to all that walking. We put him in the middle and held his hand for as long as we could resist. We knew that under the loud turmoil of water we hid our hard-ons, and we wanted to feel them. I was the first one to escape the chain and explore.

“You guys are big,” our partner complimented us, once he started using his hands too. Ovidio and I moaned at the same time, when he worked a pressure on our heads with his four fingers in a way that felt like a blow job.

We picked the ones on the right and repeating the formula we’d used in the tub, we positioned Machiyo in the middle to make him understand we wanted everything equally parted. We immediately dove into a three-way kiss, respecting turns in fucking each other’s mouths with our tongues. When we laid our naked bodies on the fresh futons, we distinguished the moaning coming from the far end of the room. Intermittent, pungent and monotone, it projected onto our minds images of sexual acrobatics we desired.

It was a totally different experience than we’d ever had before. All the tension and erotic aggressive charge that one perceives in such places in the Western world, was completely annulled. In its place, waves of pleasure and tides of smooth desire invaded our bodies from inside, to the point I started wondering whether it was possible to have sex and sleep at the same time because that was how I felt.

A quick change of design left us with Machiyo’s legs across our chests and his head at our waist level. He swapped position and commenced to blow us almost at the same time. I could finally kiss my love and explore together with him the depths of the turgid ass not far from us. We pushed our fingers into him, slowly dilating his entrance with the indispensable aid of the thick saliva produced by our kisses. The energy kept flowing correctly.

“Stop that, please...” we implored when our friend took us both to the verge of orgasm with such lingual virtuosity we weren’t able to comprehend. “It’s time for us to taste you.” This time we used him the way we wanted. I started eating his ass from behind while Ovidio helped me keep the hole exposed, and then we switched. He enjoyed in silence, and even in that delicate position he managed to bring the pleasure one notch up by rotating his hips and increasing the pressure when our tongue was on the right spot.

Our futon slowly attracted more customers—who, careful not to intrude, joined the sexual voyage only with their expert hands. Suddenly, I felt countless fingers traveling all over my body and activating positive fluxes from everywhere. The faraway moaning continued.

“You both need to...” Machiyo pushed our heads closer to him, kissed us and slid in between our chests. “I want to serve you both...” He finished as he took me in. Penetrating him was the only right thing to do. I felt in place, with the whole world around me supporting me. I realized we didn’t know much about him. Machiyo hadn’t directed the attention to his person the way Ovidio and I had done. Regardless, we felt close to him. The language he’d used was different but had obtained the same results.

“It’s up to them...” He confessed he didn’t have any control either. Someone’s expert fingers helped him make his way into Machiyo and assisted the first movements. We hugged. A strong, stable hug that went from my heart through the perfect body we were fucking, straight to Ovidio’s embrace. I was in love with my boyfriend and he loved me back.

“Thank you for this...” Our mentor whispered in our ears as he kissed us incessantly. Our bodies formed a single block of flesh now. The soft futon under my knees balanced all our twisting and pushing in the attempt of getting more. The dozens of hands on our skin followed us without interfering, recalling to my mind the multi-handed Buddha we had seen in Kyoto.

The first jet of cum was Machiyo’s, all over my chest. Then came ours, when the sex magician released us from his ass and played with our cocks to give us the final orgasm. Both his hands manipulated our pulsations and facilitated the imminent explosion. Ovidio and I kissed again and inundated his thighs.