Pervert

I was twelve when I met my first pervert. He got me while I was browsing in the bookstore in Kichijoji Station, on my way home from school. I'd had to stay late because I was president of the biology club, and we were making an ant farm for the Science Activities display at the school festival. Everybody in the club was supposed to meet behind the school to collect ants for the farm, but I was the only one who showed up.

I hunted alone in the dirt for an hour and a half, stirring up ant tunnels and tracks, grabbing ants one at a time and stuffing them in a jar. Face damp. Head pounding from the sun.

I hate ants.

Shiny black harvester ants. Their clear fluid squirting out on your fingers when you squeeze too hard. Ant nests have queens, workers, and males, but all I could find were workers. All I'd expected, of course. The queens they keep hidden away, feeding and licking them while they produce eggs. The rare male mates once and dies after a short life.

I'd stopped at the bookstore on my way home to visit the Mystery Corner. As I browsed, all I was thinking about was going home and changing (yes, out of my sweaty underwear), turning up the aircon, and reading Agatha Christie. I'd read seventeen of her 121 published works, which meant plenty of murder and mayhem to go. I was anxious to get on with it.

As I was reading book jackets, a small, fat salaryman wandered past. He pulled up to the shelves about ten feet to my left, and squinted at the books directly in front of him. Then he turned his eyes on me for a moment. I glanced at him and quickly looked away.

Shabby, polyester suit, wrinkled collar. Just a fat, balding, middle-aged guy, somebody's uncle or father. The type who eats garlic for breakfast, chews sloppily, and swallows his natto in big, wet gulps.

I moved further into the Mystery Corner and buried my nose in whatever Agatha book I was looking at -- I think it was Five Little Pigs, or perhaps The Moving Finger.

The salaryman was an odd sort of browser. As he worked his way along the rows of paperbacks, he tickled the spine of each book, wiggling and twitching his fingers like they were antennae. He hummed slightly too as his fingers ran along -- hnnn, hnnn, hnnn -- and at the end of each row he gave a little bow and caught his breath. Hnnn.

He was browsing full throttle. Searched only the middle two, chest-level rows. Four or five shelves had separated us when he joined me at the back of the store, but in no time at all he drew himself up beside me.

Now his fingers were wiggling just left of my shoulder. Hnnn, hnnn. I turned away slightly to avoid his eyes if he looked at me. Hnnn. Razor stubble. The fingers twitched, wiggled, and -- hnnnNNNnh! -- swooped as he turned to me. Groped my poor half-grown left breast. Two firm, rapid squeezes, and then he fled. Up the aisle, out of the store.

I stared after him.

The imprints of his fingers lingering on.

And that was it. He'd marked me -- they will mark you, these perverts -- he'd sprayed his thick pheromones all over me for others to sniff out in the crowd.

The next one got me during rush hour, on my way to school. As usual I got on the train at Kunitachi, where my family lives. All the seats were taken, but there was room to stand. I was still too small to reach the straps, so I took hold of a pole near the door. Didn't see any other schoolgirls. Just me in my plaited navy skirt, white blouse with square, blue-trimmed collar, and pigtails -- the standard-issue sailor get-up.

The doors slid open at the next station and a bunch of office workers pressed in. Now it was really crowded, shoulder to shoulder, and I was shoved up against the pole. Still half-asleep, not paying much attention to anything. A stop or two later I noticed an elbow sticking into the small of my back. Pushing at me.

Now that sort of thing can happen at rush hour. But the owner of that elbow didn't mumble "excuse me." Didn't try to remove his elbow from my back like any normal person would. And it was a little too small for an elbow. I twisted my arm up behind me to push it away. For a moment my hand closed on it. Knobby. Rubbery. Not an elbow. It was a dick. The knobby, rubbery head of a dick. Yaaaa! -- I squirmed away. Looked fearfully back over my shoulder.

And saw my enemy.

Not the pervert -- I couldn't tell which one he was. There were workers everywhere. Salarymen in blue and gray suits of varying quality, briefcases poised at dick-level. Office Ladies in royal fashion, skin thick with foundation, eyebrows penciled in. I saw their tense faces. Their accustomed pattern of circulation -- home, work, home -- had been perturbed. I had perturbed it. Their eyes froze in studied blankness, or darted about, nervously avoiding my own. Avoiding me.

At the next stop I pushed through to the doors and got off. My jaws were clenched hard enough to hurt. My first handful of dick. Had they all seen it?

On the platform I joined the queue of people waiting for the next train. We were lined up behind the marks which show where the train doors open. An identical line of people waited a few feet over, forming a corridor for passengers exiting the next train to pass through.

My stomach was churning, but I pasted the usual bored, impassive look on my face. If these people couldn't be bothered to notice perverts molesting twelve year old girls, why should I show them my weakness? As I waited there I swore I would never again cry out like a weak girl to be ignored. My lips were sealed. Let the perverts do what they wanted.

Which, of course, they did. Once a week on average, for the rest of middle and high school. Sometimes more often, sometimes less. A month would go by and nothing would happen. Then a flurry of perverts would descend like bats. Once, two got me on the same day.

The easiest way to deal with it was just to move to another car. If a pervert was bold enough to follow, I'd whip my head around and stare at him coldly. Perverts can't take direct eye contact.

In my case, they never got more than a quick, filthy little grab. But there was worse they could do. One day during homeroom class, about ten minutes after the bell, a girl burst into tears and went running for the bathroom. Her friend took off after her. About ten minutes later they came back. There was a big water spot on the side and back of the girl's plaited skirt.

After class, her friend told one of my friends what had happened, and my friend spilled the beans to our group at lunch. A pervert had come on that girl, had shot his sticky little pervert load into her skirt. She hadn't noticed until that moment in class. We all nodded. Nobody said much of anything.

The next year, when I was sixteen, a boy named Kenji was put into my homeroom class. This boy was really something. Cute, sure, but it wasn't just that. I couldn't eat for the first two weeks of the term. At night I had to gorge myself on Pocky chocolate sticks just so I could get to sleep. Kenji was nothing like the obviously attractive, popular boys. He wore frayed, antique Levi's and a biker's jacket -- like some of them, sure -- but he didn't care about clothes. He smoked, but didn't care about being cool. Didn't harass the weak kids, insult the teachers, moan about exams. Didn't care what the other boys tried doing to him -- which wasn't much, because they were afraid of him. When I finally got him to myself, he never talked about those other boys, those boys with their preening and bullying and clowning, always trying to get away with whatever they could.

But Kenji needed every bit as much attention as any of those boys. He was famished; you could see it in his face as he dragged on his Mild Seven and stared at me, trying to hide it. Nothing mysterious there. No hidden schemes. Just desire. I was his first girl, and we didn't have to talk about it. Whatever he was feeling just came out: not in words, but in his hands, lips, etc.

But why am I telling you this? Kenji doesn't figure into the pervert story until later, when he was gone from my life. Back to the perverts.

Let's recap pervert manoeuvres encountered so far:

? Breast maul. Pervert employs chest, shoulder blade, shoulder, or -- if no one is around -- hand. Pervert wants to know that that breast has some meat to it, that it's not just a cartoon breast like the ones he masturbates to.

? Dry hump. Depending on the boldness of the pervert, this can range from a barely perceptible swaying, a brushing back and forth of polyester trousers against your hip, to raw dick burrowing in the folds of your skirt, blouse, under your arm -- wherever he can get at you.

And here are a few other popular manoeuvres:

? Ass-rub. Popular on train. Pervert will usually employ hand. May settle for back of hand, arm, hip, thigh, or the end of a briefcase.

? Pussy-rub. Usually employs briefcase, or on very crowded trains, thigh. Pervert pretends to be jostled such that the only possible position for him to stand in is with his foot firmly planted between your legs. Then, when the train hits a bump, the pervert leans right in. Kneels that thigh or briefcase right in. Rocks up and down on his toes and backs off immediately. Pretends nothing has happened.

? Panty snuffle. A man approaches you and offers 1000 yen for your used, randy sailor-suit underwear -- your sailor bloomers. The man wants to put them in a vending machine to sell to other perverts. The pervert who buys your bloomers snuffles them while masturbating, or masturbates with them directly, or whatever. Makes tea out of them. If you are small enough, the pervert may knock you down and snuffle the panties where they lie, then run away.

If you are a pervert, perhaps this gives you some new ideas. Great story, eh? You probably liked that last manoeuvre best, the panty-snuffle. Especially the last part, about the pervert knocking the girl down and sticking his nose in her crotch.

Sorry, but that part is a lie. I made it up. Even the boldest pervert is an abject coward, and there'd be a real risk if you knocked a girl down. You couldn't count on the crowd to support you if you did that. They might think you were a rapist. But you have a job, a wife, maybe kids. You're no rapist. Rapists are criminals! Rapists get their pictures in the paper. Go to jail. Oh, once in a great while you'll see a pervert's name in the paper -- goodbye job, wife, kids -- but it takes quite a fuss for a crowd to take notice of a pervert. And you're no rapist, nor a pervert either, are you? You just can't resist, every once in a while. Those perky little school girls, so hot and horny for it, right?

But you do like to think about it, about rape, don't you? Well, sorry, but I'm not going tell you about how I got raped. That's a different story. I didn't tell Kenji about it, so why should I tell you?

Oh, perverts sympathize with rapists well enough. Rapists want to devour you, murder you. But while the pervert understands this feeling, he is in a separate class, quite distinct from the rapist. He can inseminate you like a rapist, sure, but that's not where the pleasure lies for him. Perverts are neuters, busily slipping back and forth through the tunnels, hard at work on their assigned tasks. Their little forays to one side of the tracks or the other -- the gropes and rubs and grabs -- these are just the pervert's method of marking the boundaries, the edges, of showing how easily he might swerve off track into the tunnel wall. But the pervert's thrill is not in crashing. To pull back from the verge of disaster at the last minute, to merge back into the crowd, savoring the close escape -- that is the pervert's pleasure.

No, I won't tell you about the time I was raped. But I'm going to tell you what I saw a few months after it happened.

I saw a beautiful woman. She got on the train in Ogikubo. She had long, long legs, lush, full lips -- like Cindy Crawford. I think she was probably half-American. Or British. Almost certainly half-British. A young, sophisticated Marple-Bond, sleuth type. She moved with such power, such self-assurance, yet she was consummately feminine in her Agnès B. culotte and vest suit over a white silk blouse.

All the seats were taken. The woman had to stand in the aisle. She chose a spot just opposite where I was sitting, turned her back to me, and reached up to take hold of the strap with her left hand.

At the next stop, a man -- the pervert -- positioned himself immediately to her left. A short, greasy-haired businessman. Slightly better suit than average. With his left hand, he took the strap next to hers. He really had to reach for it. He was a head shorter than that beautiful woman.

No briefcase, I noticed. His right hand, free as a bird, just naturally dangled down in the neighborhood of the beautiful woman's ass. As I watched from behind, that free hand slowly turned outward from the man's hip. It crept out... out... tentative, tremulous -- and there! Lightly cupped her ass.

I tensed in my seat. Froze. The beautiful woman did not react except to stare more resolutely straight ahead. The man shifted his weight slightly, perhaps to try for a pussy-grab from below. But suddenly -- almost casually -- that tall, beautiful woman let the strap go, cocked her left arm back, and jerked her elbow down hard into the pervert's neck. Once, twice, three solid elbow strikes to the neck and side of his face.

The dull thud of her elbow pounding into his flesh.

Amazingly the pervert didn't cry out, didn't make a peep -- just grunts of air as the blows rained down. He folded himself around each impact in silence, like a slug around a good dose of salt.

Somehow he kept his feet throughout the attack, and when it was over he just waited, hunched over in a twisted bow, as the train slowed for the next stop. The doors slid open and he limped off. No doubt to await the next train.

The beautiful woman never looked at him. Never looked at the crowd, either. At the silent faces. If she had, she would have seen what those people were thinking, something it astonished me to see. Many of those faces were blank. Several were angry, or uncomfortable. But more than a few were awed. Nobody said a word, of course. I didn't say a word. I hadn't said a word from the beginning.

I realized that I'd stopped breathing, that my hands were balled into fists. I forced myself to take a slow breath. I hadn't said a word.

The beautiful woman rode on for four or five stops, then got off at Shinjuku without a glance right or left.

The fondle-to-train-ride ratio dropped off a bit after that. Perverts have sensitive antennae, and I may have picked something up from that beautiful woman which they could sense. Or perhaps the perverts backed off because I wasn't so interesting without my sailor suit -- I'd finished high school and didn't have to wear it anymore. And there was one more thing which may have dampened the perverts' ardor: Kenji.

He'd broken up with me earlier this spring, just before graduation. The silences had gotten longer and longer, and one day he just cut me off. Wouldn't talk to me, see me, return my calls. The trouble had started when I passed the entrance exam for Tokyo University. I guess it was my English ability. I told Kenji I was planning to go. He had failed his exams, so he was going to Seikei University, the parent school of our high school. I'd been carrying our breakup around in my head all day -- day after day since graduation -- so I probably wasn't looking my best for the perverts.

But I was still young, and (yes) pretty. They couldn't keep away for long. The next one made his move on the Chuo line. I was on my way to Hongo for the first day of classes. My first day as a university student.

Still thinking about Kenji. About what kind of fool could have loved a guy like that -- a guy who would break up with her because she got into a better university than he did. Had Kenji been like that from the start? I knew he hadn't. Maybe all those exams had done something to him. I'd given myself to that boy. Mind, heart, body, the works.

It was something to think about. And that's how Kenji finally makes it into this pervert story: in my thoughts. In the frame of mind they put me in that morning.

The train was rocking from side to side -- the tracks are a bit uneven along the canal through Iidabashi. I was standing by the door, which was as far in as I'd been able to get, it was so crowded. Somebody bumped into me slightly from behind -- once, twice -- but I didn't think it was a pervert at first. I wasn't in my sailor uniform, as I've mentioned. Just a simple white Viva You cotton one-piece, to look lively for that first day.

Then I noticed that an Office Lady a few passengers over was looking at me with concern. She was frowning. Just your basic O.L., early 30's, neck-length hair, heavy make-up. I was bumped again from behind, hip-level. The O.L.'s brows furrowed. She was sneaking glances at someone behind me, someone who was now rubbing himself into the curve above my left buttock. The O.L. looked at me mournfully.

The train hit a bump and it dawned on me: how could she not say anything? How could anyone, much less another woman, not say anything? How could I not have said anything, sitting across from that beautiful woman? I'd never said a word. Was the pervert's thing out, or what? Was he going to come on me, on my new dress? The O.L. was overflowing with fellow-feeling. How unfortunate, her eyes said.

When the train stopped at Ochanomizu, the pervert backed off. I was supposed to transfer there for the Marunouchi line. One more stop to the university. The doors opened, and the crowd shoved the pervert up against me once again, pushing both of us forward and off the train.

Over my shoulder, I saw that the O.L. had stepped aside as people exited -- she wasn't transferring, apparently. Her eyes followed me with concern. She raised her hand, palm out beside her chin, and gave a little wave. A princess wave, encouragement to bear my sorrows well.

That wave stopped me in my tracks. Right in the middle of the stream of passengers. The pervert, caught unawares, came up short against my back with a final bump.

I turned to face him. He was thin and small, not much taller than I was. My fists balled up, and the pervert's sad, narrow face started to crumble.

The rush of passengers had parted around us, their glances darting nervously in as they squeezed between me, the pervert, and the lines of people waiting to board on either side of the door.

I looked back once more at the O.L. She was making a fist now too, but it wasn't a real fist. It was just something to put in her mouth, something to bite in helpless anxiety.

With a grunt I thrust out at the pervert's chest, connected, shoved him back. Passengers from the train caromed off to either side. Somehow that did it. I lunged at him.

And down he went. Flat on his ass, right in the door of the train.

The pervert looked up at me, stunned. Tears beaded in the corners of his eyes. He held his hands up -- they were trembling, his fingers twitching in the air. How his eyes begged, begged me to allow normalcy to return.

I opened my mouth. What would come out? What did that pervert expect me to say? I hadn't said a word to Kenji since he broke up with me, or to the O.L. on the train, or to getting raped, or to seven years of perverts molesting me as a matter of course. After all this time, what was there to say?

"Pervert," I said.

The pervert convulsed.

By now the queued passengers on either side of the door had broken ranks, crowding around behind me in a semi-circle. The passengers still waiting to exit the train had stopped pushing and clustered around behind the pervert. A circle of people.

The pervert rolled onto his side. His eyes focused on a point far away, beyond the crowd gathered around him. He lay square between the sliding doors, half on the platform, half on the train. That train wasn't going anywhere. Everybody just stared down at that skinny little guy in his blue suit, his shiny black hair. Stared down at him, not even looking at me.

"Pervert," I said again.

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