In her latest weekly installment in Nikkan Gendai (Aug. 12) the pseudonymous Shoko Harano, a divorcee who has spent three years working at the front desk of a Tokyo love hotel, relates a wacky incident in which she was involved.
Such hotels do not have restaurants on their premises; but as sexual activity tends to give some people a ravenous appetite, it’s common for customers to phone out for food. So as part of her duties, Harano is required to deliver snacks or meals. (Payment for food is added onto the room bill and usually made at checkout. The hotel then settles with the restaurant when their delivery staff comes to collect the dishes.)
This time, when Harano buzzed the room, a grinning young woman, about age 20, swung the door open. She was naked as a jaybird but shyly used both hands to conceal her secondary sexual characteristics.
“Actually seeing naked customers is not so unusual,” writes Harano. “Maybe three or four times a year it happens that I’d catch a glimpse of a male or female customer in the buff. Well that’s what they’re here for — so it’s nothing to get embarrassed about.
“But this time, the girl had swung the door wide open, and I sensed something suspicious. Standing behind her was a man holding a video camera, recording both of us.”
If such an episode were to take place out on the street, the couple could be charged with public indecency. But their being inside a love hotel, where customer anonymity is the general rule, blurred any legal distinctions.
“In love hotels, sometimes it happens that a woman will open the door undressed to receive a food delivery,” Harano explained. “The daytime staff at our place is all female, but a man handles the front desk after midnight. He told me such things occasionally happen to him sometimes as well. For instance, when you buzz the room, the occupants might just be getting out of the shower at the moment the food arrives. (Or in the middle of having sex.)
“The rooms are provided with bathrobes and normally they will put one before opening the door, but there are times when they don’t.
“But what really teed me off,” fumed the furious Harano, “was that it looked like they intentionally wanted to capture the surprised expression on my face in the video. That’s taking things too far, dammit!” (K.S.)
Source: “Zenra josei no ushiro kara video ga jii,” Nikkan Gendai (Aug. 12, page 19)