Why are there so many couples everywhere? Why am I the only one without a girlfriend?
      That's how I was feeling one Sunday as I boarded a train on my way to visit a strip joint outside of Tokyo. The club was only a two-minute walk from the station. I stopped to look at the poster outside to see who was performing. It said "Special Guest Eri Kikuchi!" I had met Eri Kikuchi, a porn actress, five years earlier on a photo shoot when I was working as a magazine editor. So little Eri was still hanging in there, was she?
      Feeling a little bit better, I climbed up the stairs to the ticket booth and told the old woman, "One, please."
      She impatiently replied, "6,000 yen" (about fifty dollars). The price made me flinch, but I slapped down a 10,000 yen note, picked up my change and opened the door into the theater. The sour odor of a strip joint wafted into my nostrils. I looked around.
      To my astonishment, the place was packed. It wasn't a large room, but there were well over a hundred men crammed into it. All of them were staring breathlessly at a Japanese woman dancing on the stage in see-through negligee. There was no place left to sit, of course; nearly everyone was standing. I suddenly felt happy. I wasn't the only lonely guy in town!
      I bought a beer from the vending machine in the corner of the room and, taking a swig, scrutinized the girl swaying in the spotlight onstage. The cold beer tasted good in the feverish atmosphere of the club.
      I took a breath and gazed around the room again. To my amazement, foreigners made up nearly a third of the crowd. Some were white, but a majority were Middle Eastern. Most of them seemed to be part of a group. Perhaps that was why they were not behaving at all like the Japanese customers, each of whom had come alone as I had and clapped earnestly while they stared intently into the space between the dancer's legs.
      Instead, the non-Japanese men smiled, chatted and looked nonchalantly at the girl. Most of them had probably come to Japan to make money as day laborers.
      Eventually the girl finished dancing and the announcer picked up his mike and said, "Now it's time for our no-holds barred manaita (chopping block) show. Those of you who would like to participate, please raise your hands!"
      At this, eight Japanese patrons hurriedly raised their hands and began a scissors-paper-stone elimination contest in complete silence. The winner, a middle-aged fellow, climbed onto the stage. Even at his age, would he be returning to an empty house too?
      I have seen countless manaita shows at strip joints, but they never fail to amaze me. I find it incredible that someone can get up on a stage, under floodlights, and engage in sex in front of a room full of onlookers.
      After the show, it was time for Eri Kikuchi. "And now, the moment you've been waiting for," declared the announcer. "Please welcome the porn queen of the century Eri Kikuchi!" While the emcee was still speaking, Eri Kikuchi appeared onstage in bondage attire. I nearly burst out laughing when I heard her described as the "porn queen of the century," but everyone else was staring at her so seriously that I stifled my laughter with a swig of beer.
      Next up was a performance by an AV ("adult video") girl I hadn't heard of. When her dance was over, the AV girl disappeared into the wings and reappeared, stark naked, carrying a Polaroid camera. "I'll strike any pose you'd like," declared the girl in a cute little voice that didn't match her ample body. "Only 1,000 yen a shot!"
      One of the swarthy foreigners standing in the back raised his hand. The girl smiled winsomely at him and said in broken English, "Okay, please, 1,000 yen!" The man wound his way through the crowd and up to the stage, handed the girl a 1,000 yen note, and said to her in broken Japanese, "Souvenir photo, together with you, okay?"
      The girl nodded and passed him the camera, which he passed to another man, presumably a friend of his. Then he took off his shoes and ascended the stage.
      "What kind of pose would you like?" asked the girl.
      "Clinch, clinch," replied the man, who was now sitting cross-legged on the stage. The girl smiled, sat down in his lap and opened her legs wide. The man grinned and grabbed her breasts while his buddy snapped the picture.
      "He'll take that photo back to where he came from and show it off to everyone," a forty-ish man next to me muttered to no one in particular as he observed this spectacle.
      After the Polaroid show came another manaita show, this one featuring an attractive young white woman. This time over ten men (all Japanese) stood up to engage in another round of scissors-paper-stone. The winner was a well-groomed gentlemen in a brown suit, probably around fifty. When he climbed onto the stage, the girl removed his trousers, slipped a condom on him and began performing fellatio. Then, at the girl's urging, he mounted her and began going at it with piston-like thrusts.
      As this was happening, the announcer's voice suddenly boomed across the room. "Customers who wish to enjoy our private room service, please pick up a card at the ticket booth and line up by the vending machine."
      Abruptly, the foreigners who had been chatting and laughing went silent and collectively rushed the ticket booth, where they received numbered cards and, as instructed, began lining up by the vending machine. Next to the machine hung a curtain, beyond which, I surmised, was the aforementioned "private room."
      In other words, by paying a certain sum of money, you could have sex with one of the strippers in private. Of course, this probably didn't apply to Special Guest Eri Kikuchi. Still, the result was an interesting spectacle. Out on the stage, the winner of the Japanese men's competition was banging away at the white girl to the strains of the popular song "Sake Yo!" ("More Sake"). Meanwhile, the foreigners were standing in line and humming along to "Sake Yo" as they waited their turn to have sex with a Japanese girl in the back room. There were no Japanese men in the queue.
      The onstage festivities finally came to an end. A club employee came out with a cardboard box and announced, "Here's your chance to purchase a rare, triple-X, underground video for only 8,000 yen!" The Japanese patrons crowded around the stage to get a peek at the merchandise in the box. The foreigners continued to stand in line. I noticed that one emerged from behind the curtain every five minutes or so.
      Even after all this time, there didn't seem to be any vacant seats and I was growing tired of standing, so I decided to leave. As I passed the ticket booth, I asked the old lady, "How much is the private room service?"
      "Four thousand yen," she brusquely replied.
      Looking at my watch, I realized it was past seven. At this very moment, lonely young women all over Japan were watching the popular TV show Chibi Maruko-chan, while in an anonymous strip joint, lonely men of many nations were paying 6,000 yen to view naked women and another 4,000 yen to have sex with them.
      For some reason, this thought gave me solace. I entered the bar next to the strip club. As I sipped sake and nibbled on a boiled potato, I engaged the bar owner in conversation.
      "I was just at that strip club next door. I was surprised how many foreigners there were."
      "Well, a lot of foreigners have moved into this town just in the past year. They sometimes come here, too, but I have to turn them away, even though I feel bad about it. But I can't really take care of them, can I, if we don't speak the same language . . . "
      A balding fellow sitting next to me spoke up. "They offer private room service there, don't they?"
      "They sure do. The foreigners all stood in line for it."
      "That's because it's so much cheaper than going to a massage parlor. We need places like that, you know they keep crime down."
      A light rain was falling as I stepped out of the bar. It was cold. Would I make it back to my Tokyo apartment without committing any crimes? As I pondered this, I watched my breath form white clouds in the air, then disappear.
      Just as I turned down the street toward the station, an ambulance roared by with its siren wailing and pulled up in front of the strip joint. What could have happened? I considered sticking around to find out, but thought better of it and resumed walking. Knowing what had happened would only make me feel lonelier.