At the time I heard them from Charles Putnam, my reaction was to become even more bitter. “Then it was all for nothing," I said. “All the killing. All the innocent people dead. A harmless cab driver. A young girl. The sheikh. The waist-gunner. All died in vain!"
“I’m afraid so, Mr. Victor." Charles Putnam was sympathetic, but he wasn't about to offer me any false hope. "I'm afraid so. We do what we can, but we don't always succeed. Events escape our grasp. And frustration is perhaps the most common penalty we pay in our work. When all the shooting's over and the adventure's a thing of the past, too often we're left with nothing but a sense of our own futility. I'm sorry, Mr. Victor, but that's the way it is."
“That's the way it is," I echoed, sighing. I stood up and shook hands with him then, getting ready to leave.
“Is there anything I can do to make your stay in Tokyo more pleasant, Mr. Victor?" Putnam asked.
“No. I don't think-— Wait a minute. Yes, there is. Do you happen to know where I might find Victoria Winters?"
“Hotel Togura.” He smiled slightly. “Room three-oh-nine."
"Thanks." I left him then. "Hotel Togura," I told the cab driver. I had some unfinished business with the Iron Virgin of Albion. Thinking on it, I began to feel a lot better.
At the hotel, the spy-games of my recent past proved to have given me a certain slyness. After I checked in, I had a talk with the head bellhop. Money changed hands. For my yen I got the key to another yen-—which is to say the key to Vickie Winters’ room. I wanted to surprise her; it was part of my plan for taking the Iron Virgin of Albion by storm.
So, fortified with a bottle of champagne under one arm and two dozen roses under the other, I let myself into room three-oh-nine. It was past midnight and I figured Vickie would be asleep. The idea was to wake her with a fervent kiss, ply her with champagne and eventually break down her British cold-wall. It was a good idea, but—-
In the first place, when I let myself into her suite, she wasn't asleep. She was awake, curled up on a sofa in the sitting room with the ceiling light blazing over her. She was wearing a transparent black nightie that contrasted seductively with her disarrayed red hair and sparkling green eyes. She sprang to her feet when I let myself in, her body was magnificently taught against the gauze of the nightgown. I stared for a long moment at the silhouette of those magnificent legs-—now planted firm and wide apart—-at the revealed flesh-curve of her hips, at the full, straining bust with its quivering dark red tips made even darker by the sleazy black stretching over them.
In the second place, she didn't come across as exactly delighted to see me. Her eyes were indignant and her body quivered in a way I found very exciting at the intrusion. “Steve! What do you think you're doing here?" was the way she put it, not what you'd describe as overwhelming me with the pleasure of her greeting.
“I have come to conquer Albion!" I said grandiosely, reaching for a lightness which somehow eluded me.
"You might call a girl first! And besides, it's the middle of the night. Anyway, wait a minute. I want to get a robe." She vanished into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
Impulsiveness brought me to the third place. I followed her. I flung open the door and my dream of conquering the Iron Virgin of Albion was shattered. I was too late. The walls had been scaled, the ramparts breached even as I'd been formulating my battle-plan. There, in her non-virgin bed, naked as a jaybird and smiling a weak smile of greeting, was none other than Alan Foster of the C.I.A.!
I tossed him the flowers. I tossed him the champagne. “With my compliments!" I said, determined to be the good sport to the bitter end. I didn't wait for them to thank me. I left.
I went to my room and dressed. I went downstairs and cornered the room clerk. “How do I get to the Yoshiwara?” I asked him bluntly. The Yoshiwara—translation: "whores' quarters"-—is the world famous Red Light district of Tokyo. He gave me directions.
I hadn't saved the world. I hadn't gotten the one girl I'd wanted. But I still had my work. The business of O.R.G.Y. had to go on.
O.R.G.Y. The Organization for the Rational Guidance of Youth. As I said, many people are disturbed when they learn the full name, possibly because I deliberately chose it to obscure the real subject of my research as much as possible. After all, some people do find it hard to think of sex as a scholarly subject, and I didn't want to have doors slammed in my face. And my researches will provide rational guidance when they are published—-rational guidance to sex, that is.
Also, O.R.G.Y. has a more personal, private meaning. To me, it means Obtaining Research Grants, which was the original idea. And the Y? Y is the Fourth of July. A childish joke, but also my birthday, remember?
Anyway, I still had my sex survey to finish. So I picked out a girl to my liking and followed her to her room. I stripped off my clothes and soon I was clad in nothing but my working uniform. I took the girl in my arms and started to make love to her.
It was good to be back on the job again.
Notes
[←1 ]
LGBT, or GLBT, is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the term is an adaptation of the initialism LGB, which was used to replace the term gay in reference to the LGBT community beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s.
[←2 ]
The Ring of the Dove (Arabic: Ṭawq al-Ḥamāmah) is a treatise on love written ca. 1022 by Ibn Hazm. Normally a writer of theology and law, Hazm produced his only work of literature with The Ring of the Dove. Although the human aspects of affection are the primary concern, the book was still written from the perspective of a devout Muslim, and as such chastity and restraint were common themes. The book provides a glimpse into Ibn Hazm's own psychology. Ibn Hazm's teenage infatuation with one of his family's maids is often quoted as an example of the sort of chaste, unrequited love about which the author wrote.
[←3 ]
The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Hindu text written by Vātsyāyana, believed to have been composed between 400 BCE and 200 CE. It is widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behaviour in Sanskrit literature. A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sexual intercourse. It is largely in prose, with many inserted anustubh poetry verses. "Kāma" which is one of the four goals of Hindu life, means desire including sexual desire, the latter being the subject of the textbook, and "sūtra" literally means a thread or line that holds things together, and more metaphorically refers to an aphorism (or line, rule, formula), or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manual. Contrary to western popular perception, the Kama Sutra is not exclusively a sex manual; it presents itself as a guide to a virtuous and gracious living that discusses the nature of love, family life, and other aspects pertaining to pleasure-oriented faculties of human life. The Kama Sutra, in parts of the world, is presumed or depicted as a synonym for creative sexual positions; in reality, only 20% of the Kama Sutra is about sexual positions. The majority of the book, notes Jacob Levy,] is about the philosophy and theory of love, what triggers desire, what sustains it, and how and when it is good or bad.