Blue Moon by James King

a woman’s vagina is explored by a man’s penis. A high price is usually exacted for this privilege by the geisha’s pimp.”
    â€œBy her mistress in the geisha house,” my mother primly remonstrated.
    I was startled. “Why do you ask?”

    My mother was not usually coy, but on this day a rather hesitant smile crossed her face. She drew her breath in slightly. “Well, Evelyn dearest, you are not making much at the telephone company. What if you were to offer your services here in Hamilton as a sort of geisha?”
    â€œThey’re whores.”
    â€œThat’s a rather harsh word, dear. They are companions to men of wealth. Intercourse is rarely part of the exchange.”
    This conversation took place early in September 1941, a few months before Pearl Harbor, but there was already a great deal of anti-Japanese sentiment in the press. “Mother, this is not the time to be imitating the Japanese.”
    â€œYou are such a literalist, dearest. I’m simply making a suggestion. We could make a simple adaptation of an old custom.”
    â€œWhat are we reduced to when you try to turn me into a prostitute?”
    â€œA woman of pleasure, my dear. The bare truth is that we are in exceedingly difficult circumstances. Funds from dear Lady MacLean are in short supply. Your father has quarrelled with her. If you and I are to survive, we have to be inventive.”
    â€œWhat you are suggesting is immoral and disgusting.”
    Usually Mother would become blindly angry in response to such sauciness. Realizing she had overstepped the boundary, she backed down. “Just think about it, dear. It’s not such a bad idea.”
    A few days later, my mother resumed her discussion. “Dear one, I did pay a lot for those cosmetics and a whole new wardrobe. Shame to let them go to waste.”
    â€œI had no idea why you bought all those things.”
    â€œAn investment in
our
future.”
    â€œI am not a sexual being. The whole idea of sex with anyone is repulsive.”
    â€œExactly. That is why you might be excellent at such a profession. You would have the necessary detachment. Besides, the men who visited with you would be more interested in intelligent conversation than sexual congress.”
    â€œMaybe. But I would still have to do ‘it.’”
    â€œOccasionally. Every little once in a while, sweet bairn.”

    A few days later, she returned to the subject. “We could rent a splendid flat, perhaps on James Street. You would have the most wonderful clothing. You would meet the best people. This would be the entry into society you always dreamed of.”
    â€œThat you always dreamed of.
More a hostile invasion than an entry.”
    â€œStill, you would have the company of some extremely intelligent men. Learn about the world”.
    Mother was skilled in Chinese water torture and slowly but surely my stone-like reserve gave way. I still do not completely understand why I went along with the whole preposterous scheme. I was bored. I was lazy. Still, most women suffering from those conditions do not become
belles de jour. I
suspect I was looking for excitement, some way of rebelling, although, God knows, the best form of rebellion might have been to say no to my mother. Nevertheless, I became her accomplice. When I agreed to the whole undertaking in a muted way, she nodded her head in sage agreement. “I’ll take care of everything, sweet one.”
    Why did I really go along with Mother? Even today I ask myself that question. In those days I was an uneasy witness to my own life, very much like the movie-goer who stares uneasily at a grim happening on the screen but is utterly powerless to do anything, for instance, to prevent the nasty man from killing the heroine’s fiancé.
    A prostitute who hates sex? Some days I still make that apparently paradoxical query of myself. And yet who makes a better lady of the night than the woman who is