Love in the Time of Insanity Pt. 01

A Suburb of Tokyo, 1945

This fragment of a young Japanese woman's diary, chronicling her incestuous relations with her father over a several-week period during the final months of World War II, was originally found in the rubble of an apartment building. Banned for decades, it was recently rediscovered in Japan's War Museum archives. This is its first English translation.

5 June

I have always been terrified of thunder storms. It may seem strange, or ironic, given the almost daily bombings Tokyo has suffered, that a mere thunderstorm, an act of nature rather than a murderous act of man, would upset me so, but it does. In truth, I thought it was another bombing raid at first last night. But then I saw the crackle of lightning behind the blackout curtains. Besides, by now big raindrops were pelting the windows. It was merely a summer rain storm. Merely, I say.

Gathering my nightgown up around my knees, I crept into the adjacent bedroom where my father slept. As quietly as I could I slid under the covers onto his mat. But either the claps of thunder or my frightened presence had awakened him as well. He put a welcoming arm around my back and settled me in beside him. I rested my head on his left shoulder. Almost immediately I could feel my anxiety dissipate. I felt safe. Or, if the worst must happen, I felt content. Resigned.

As I lay there in the dark I could hear daddy's heart racing. I could hear my own as well. It was a kind of muted music inside our two bodies, competing with the pelting raindrops and the occasional, but now more distant, thunderclaps. I wondered if the fierce storm would scare the bombers away tonight. Would anything ever scare them away? Was there no end to them? I also lay there thinking about daddy and me, and how we had nothing left in the world but each other. My mother had left him for an army officer some time ago, and she'd moved away with him after he got transferred. I hadn't heard from her in months. Was she still alive? Did she lie awake at night and think about me, her only child, as I often thought about her? My own husband, whom I had married at age 19 and barely come to know, had been missing in China for several years now. I kept waiting for confirmation from the government, one way or the other, but month after month none ever came. I assumed the worst, of course. Who, if he were still alive, would not write a letter to his beautiful young wife? And what kind of government did we have, that could not account for their own soldiers? To be honest, in my own heart, it was as if he'd never existed. I barely knew him. We'd only had sex three times before he shipped out.

And so daddy had no wife and I had no husband. And neither of us had intimate friends. Lovers, I mean to say. I had not had sex in over four years and I was sure it was the same for my poor daddy. For at least a year before the divorce, and probably much longer, he and mommy had slept in separate bedrooms. In fact, the room I now slept in, since my return home, had been mom's.

I don't know how exactly it happened—it was certainly unintentional—but with my body snuggled against his and my head still resting on his shoulder, I at one point shifted my position and my knee, my left knee, grazed daddy's penis. It was hard inside his pajamas. An awkward pause followed before he said, softly, I'm sorry.

I didn't know if daddy meant by this he was sorry because the presence of his daughter's warm body had made him hard, or if he was sorry because a part of his body had gotten in the way of a part of mine, as if we'd accidentally bumped together in a crowded market. His back arched, however, when I slipped my hand inside his pajama bottom and took firm hold of him.

Don't! he cried, attempting to pull my hand away.

Why?

Don't! It's wrong to do that!

Why's it wrong?

It's wrong. It's illegal!

I giggled. Illegal? Who's going to know, daddy? We're alone in our own house in the dark. Bombs are falling.

No they're not, he scolded.

He then changed his tack, but with far less outrage, perhaps because I was now stroking him. I'd only experienced a man's bare penis three times in my life, and my husband, however briefly he was that, had not even allowed me to touch his. It's unnatural..., daddy said, sounding like a man who'd grown weary of his own argument.

I sensed his head rolling off to the side, away from me, as his back once again arched. He remained silent, however, as my left hand pumped the seed out of him.

Oh god, he said afterward, what have I done?

I lay there in the dark imagining, envisioning, a tiny little white pool forming on daddy's belly. Some of his semen had gotten on my stroking hand as well. My husband, not wanting to get me pregnant before he left for China, had pulled out of me all three times. He would fuck me briefly, while I lay on my back (we only did it in this one position), then he would pull his hard penis out, glistening with my juices, and stroke it over my abdomen. I would raise my head off the pillow and watch as the thick semen shot from his body onto mine, sometimes reaching as far as my modest breasts. As soon as he was through he would button up his pants and leave the room, in apparent disgust. I, however, liked to lie there in my privacy and marvel at this magical fluid, this seed, that someday might, after the war ended, who could say, produce a child in my belly. My fingers toyed with it. It had a strange clean smell, and a subtle sweetness to the taste. It was human fruit. It was like some exotic green tea, whose fragrance and flavor were subtle to the point of near-nonexistence. I would lie there dreamily licking my fingers until nothing was left but the drying residue of my husband's wasted seed.

I'm going to lick you clean, daddy, OK? I said last night.

No! his back arching again. Please, darling. Stop this. We've gone far enough...

But I had already rolled onto my hands and knees and taken his now-flaccid penis in my mouth. After sucking it dry I moved up his belly, running my tongue through his hair to his deep navel, where some of his semen had pooled. I licked and sucked and kissed it—kissed him, his taut flesh—until I could find no more. Then I pulled off my nightgown, wiped my mouth with it and wiped daddy's belly and penis dry. Afterwards I tossed the gown on the floor. I would wash it in the tub in the morning and then hang it out to dry. It would float on the breeze like a flag. Strangely, I felt liberated. The faded gown would be my flag!

Now naked under the cover, I resumed my position with my head on daddy's shoulder. His body felt rigid and his heartbeat had slowed. Mine was still racing. The rain had fallen off to a patter. I lay there listening to it over the discordant gallop of heartbeats. I felt no guilt. Tonight I had produced, and tasted, the seed of my own conception, some 24 years before. I was in a state of quiet, private bliss.

6 June

No thunderstorms last night. I could hear distant bombs exploding, however, in the center and more eastern parts of Tokyo. None of the bombs came close enough to set off the airraid sirens, thankfully. I can't help but wonder when our turn will come. An old man in our apartment building says they will bomb us until we surrender. And if we don't surrender they will bomb us until there is nothing left but ocean. Another person—Mrs. Yamato—says that the American bombs are an act of final desperation. The war cannot be going well for them, she claims. (I am not sure I understand Mrs. Yamato's logic.) While someone else claims our ally the Germans have surrendered. And without Germany to fight the Americans can now turn the full might of their military strength on our little island nation. What chance do we have against such awesome power? I fear for each and every one of us.

Around ten o'clock I entered daddy's bedroom. With the blackout curtains drawn, he was hunched over to his right trying to read a book by oil lamplight. I felt sorry for him. Daddy had once been a professor, and a great scholar. Now there was barely enough light to read a book. I stood over him, at the edge of the mat, and removed my nightgown. I wasn't wearing panties. I wanted to make him hard before I joined him in bed tonight. I smiled at him as he watched me undress. He marked the place in his book before he set it aside. Then, quite surprisingly, before he turned out the lamp, he pulled his pajama bottoms down under the covers.

This is so wrong, he said in the dark, tossing the covers back.

As I had the night before, I got on my hands and knees. Only this time it was not merely to lick up the afterwards of sex, it was to produce the desired effect. I took daddy's hard cock in my mouth—the same cock that had penetrated my mother's vagina so many hundreds of times. He didn't resist. In fact he said, after a time, and somewhat breathlessly: Fondle my balls.

I looked back at him, wiping my mouth. Mommy used to fondle your balls?

Yes, he replied. In the old days. Yes, it was wonderful. She had this great...ability.

I'd never fondled a man's balls before. As my lips returned to his hard cock, which I held, at its hairy base, with my right hand, my left closed around his testicles. It was an odd thing. They seemed so vulnerable, hanging down between a man's legs unprotected. I'd heard, with a swift kick, you could reduce a man to helpless tears. You could drop him to his knees. As my head rose and fell I fondled them respectfully, gently. Again, it was odd. They were like two small plums enclosed in a thin, hairy sack. But however tender, and vulnerable, they were the unlikely source filling my mouth at the moment. Once again daddy had cum silently, without warning, with an arched back. This time there was no mess. I received it and I swallowed it, in stages. The subtle sweetness this time lost—engulfed—in my saliva. He tasted of that night's fish. I swallowed and swallowed, until there was nothing left.

I tried to kiss daddy afterwards but he avoided my lips, twisting his head to the side. Did I do OK? I asked.

Thank you, he said, distantly. (Why are men such strangers after they cum?)

As good as mom?

Daddy patted my naked hip. I was lying on my left side now, head again on his chest. You are my dream, he said.

I wondered what he meant by this. Was I real for him? A mere flesh-and-blood fantasy? He was close to sleep, while I was beside myself with passion. My juices were flowing. Had I been wearing panties they would have been stained with my desire. My willingness. Bombs were exploding in the far distance. I wanted a man inside me!

Once I'd read a bawdy joke. I forget where. It said, in so many words...In times of war, if your man is not around, marry a cucumber!

What? daddy said, stirring from sleep.

What?

What's so funny? Is it me?

Don't be so insecure, I thought. I stroked his graying head. It's nothing, daddy. Go back to sleep.

I, however, couldn't. As daddy snored I got up and peeked out the side of the blackout curtain. Portions of downtown Tokyo, in the far distance, were burning. It was horrific. But it was also, strangely, esthetically, beautiful. Thrilling. Haunting. Like a painting by that English artist Turner I'd seen in a book once. I watched for sleepless hours, fingering myself.