Read Online Women of the Pleasure Quarters by Lesley Downer - Free Book Online Page B

beautiful kimonos, and learned to walk, talk, and comport themselves in the exaggeratedly feminine style of the quarter. Shimabara had its own dialect, as did the other pleasure quarters, with distinctive slang that was charmingly polite yet playfully seductive. Any child who managed to escape could thus be immediately identified by the way she spoke and sent back again. For visitors it made the pleasure quarters feel all the more like a dream world, an exotic foreign land.
    The children were the property of the brothel owner. Before they even arrived, they had already incurred an enormous debt: the outlay involved in buying them from their parents. Their food and kimono were provided by the brothel; but every grain of rice and every bolt of silk only served to increase the burden of debt. By the time they were old enough to start working, their debt was so huge that they had no choice but to work day and night in a desperate attempt to repay it.
    Initially the children worked as maids. When they were older, if they showed promise they became
kamuro
(child attendants to a courtesan). The courtesan taught them how to behave and ensured that they were trained in accomplishments such as calligraphy, tea ceremony, and music. There were many little secrets to be absorbed: how to lure men, how to wind them around their little fingers with tears or protestations of undying love, how to write love letters, how to hold men off long enough to drive them mad with desire, how to pleasure them in the bedchamber, and how to fake an orgasm while conserving one’s energy for the next customer. The key rule was to play at love but never, never to allow oneself to feel it. That way lay disaster.
    At thirteen or fourteen, when the child reached sexual maturity, there was a grand celebration accompanied by a rite of passage which the girl had to accept with gritted teeth—
mizuage,
literally “raising or offering up the waters”—ritual deflowerment, conducted by a patron who had paid mightily for the privilege. If she was uncommonly lovely she might be designated a
koshi,
the second rank of courtesan, though there were many that slipped through the net and ended up as lower-grade prostitutes, sitting patiently behind the latticed windows of the teahouses waiting to be chosen by a customer.
    At the very pinnacle of the hierarchy of prostitutes and courtesans were the
tayu,
the aristocrats of the courtesan world. Some were the concubines and courtesans of the imperial princes; unlike the lower ranks of courtesans,
tayu
were permitted inside the palace. And in their leisure time the princes went on horseback or by palanquin to amuse themselves at the famous Shimabara pleasure quarters where the
tayu
lived.
    If a man wanted to enjoy the company of a
tayu,
the first step was to go to an
ageya,
a house of assignation (the precursor of the teahouses of the geisha districts) to apply for a meeting. If he was a sophisticate, he would ask for one of the
tayu
by name; some were so popular that it might take months before a day became free in their calendar. The owner of the
ageya
would write a letter to the bordello where the courtesan lived, roll it up, and give it to a messenger. While the customer was waiting, he would enjoy the services of jesters and dancing girls and ply them with food and drink, all of which, of course, would be added to his bill.
    Hours later, the
tayu
would sweep in, dressed in layer upon layer of gorgeous kimonos and accompanied by a flotilla of child attendants and dancing girls, having progressed at snail’s pace along the boulevard with her entourage. They would while away the evening playing music, dancing, exchanging poems, and enjoying the tea ceremony and incense ceremony—exactly as if they were ladies and gentlemen of the Heian court. Sex did not automatically follow. After all, it would lower the courtesan’s worth if she were too easily available. A proprietor who owned a beautiful
tayu
would want to increase