This happened while I was visiting Japan last summer.
I was travelling solo at the time. I’d gone through most of Asia, visiting cities like Shanghai, Bangkok, Hanoi, Seoul, etc. The last place on my list was Tokyo.
I spent the days sight-seeing, eating as much sushi as I could handle, and spent the nights wandering the streets, drinking with locals, and hitting any club that looked interesting.
I was having the time of my life.
I found myself in a more out-of-the-way club on my second-to-last night there. It wasn’t some extremely obscure place or anything. Just less-tourist heavy than the others. More populated with locals, I suppose.
It was an interesting place. It gave off a grimier vibe, with its harsh lighting and aggressive techno music. It was my kind of venue for sure.
At some point, I found myself sitting with a couple of locals – Teiji and Shin. Their English was pretty solid, so talking to them was easy enough.
“Can’t believe I’m headed back soon,” I said, downing another Asahi. “Back to boring old America.”
Teiji laughed. “Stay anywhere long enough and it becomes boring. Japan is no different.”
I suppose I agreed. Perhaps I just didn’t want to go back to my ordinary life. I turned in my seat and scanned the club, eventually spotting a woman dancing by herself near a corner.
She was… beautiful. Her dark shoulder-length hair flowed seamlessly with her movements, and her facial features looked like they were carved out of stone. She was also wearing a tight, purple dress that just about revealed every aspect of her voluptuous physique.
I couldn’t believe that every guy in the club wasn’t all over her.
“Hey,” I looked back at Teiji and Shin. “What’s a good Japanese pick up line? Not too complicated, though.”
Shin grinned. “Ah, good-looking guy like you doesn’t even need it. Just dance your way in. Where’s the lucky lady?”
I gestured over my shoulder with my beer, towards the woman in the corner.
Shin’s face dropped upon seeing her. He pointed at her, before whispering something to Teiji. His face dropped as well.
Shin looked back at me. “Hey, I know this great place about a kilometer away. You wanna head there?”
I furrowed my eyebrows and laughed. “Oh, c’mon,” I looked back at the woman. Still dancing. Still as beautiful as ever. “You don’t want me hitting on her? You’re planning on taking her for yourself huh? You guys are slick, I’ll give you that.”
Teiji shook his head. “No, man. Are you not wondering why nobody’s talking to her? Why she’s dancing alone?”
“I… I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “Is her boyfriend Yakuza or something?”
Shin sighed.
“I’m sorry, maybe that was insensitive.”
“No,” Shin replied “You’d be safer if she was dating a Yakuza.”
That certainly got me confused.
“I… I don’t… what’d you mean?”
Shin looked down. “I don’t how to explain it to you. She doesn’t appear often. But her being here really makes me want to leave. Will you come with us?”
They seemed pretty serious about it, so I relented. We left, and spent the next few hours getting completely plastered. We said our goodbyes sometime around 3AM and I started making my way back to the hotel.
On the way, I passed the same club where I’d met them. The club with the dancing woman. It still seemed to be open, so I walked back in, more curious than anything. The place had cleared out a bit, but wasn’t empty by any means. I scanned the dance floor once again.
She was still there. Still in the same corner. Still dancing. Still alone.
What would you do in this situation? In my drunken state, I began convincing myself that Teiji and Shin were just fucking with me. That I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to talk to a woman as beautiful as her.
I didn’t stop to ask myself why she was still dancing in the same corner of the same club nearly 3 hours later.
I walked onto the floor and began bopping my head to the techno. I was no dancer by professional standards, but pretty solid by drunk club standards. I noticed that was I getting weird stares as I made my way over to her. I think I even saw some guy starting to walk towards me, only to be pulled back by his girl. Looking back, all the red flags were there. But at the moment, I couldn’t care less.
I got within a few feet of her before trying my atrocious Japanese on her.
“Hey,” I said. “You sure like this place, huh?”
She looked up at me and smiled. She was even more stunning up close. A little too stunning, in retrospect. As if she were computer-generated or something.
Yeah, now that I really think about it… she hardly looked real at all.
She didn’t really say anything. Just gestured over for me to dance with her, which I obliged. It went pretty normal at first. I was kinda nervous, so I wasn’t sure if I should grab her waist or not.
Soon enough, she made that decision for me. She grabbed my wrists and wrapped them around her hips. I remember her grip being tight, nearly uncomfortably so. However, my mind was so clouded with the prospect that I might actually get to sleep with her that I just let it happen.
Her face began getting close to mine. My heart started beating hard as I matched her movements, leaning in myself. Soon enough, we were making out.
My heart started beating even faster as ecstasy coursed through my system. But that feeling wouldn’t last so long.
I started tasting blood as her tongue swirled around in my mouth. A lot of it. I pulled back and stared in horror as red dripped down her lips. She gave me a ghastly grin before leaning in again.
I tried stepping even further back, but her iron grip didn’t let up. In fact, her fingers began digging into my flesh. The taste of metal inundating my senses was disgusting. I spat blood onto the dance floor, before seeing something wriggling within it. I nearly puked.
The woman forced me back towards her and looked me dead in the eyes. They’d become a deep, swirling black. As if I were staring into some obscure abyss. At that point, I did the only thing I could think of.
Using all of my strength, I bashed my head into hers three times consecutively. It hurt like hell for me, but she barely flinched. Nevertheless, it still caused her to loosen her grip. I fell backwards, reeling from the pain. Nobody else in the club seemed to notice, though.
Or… they were just pretending not to. I could see their expressions illuminated faintly by the grimy lights. They were moving their bodies as if nothing had happened, but their faces were telling a different story. They all looked horrified.
I looked back at the woman. She was still standing in her corner, glaring at me with an expression saturated with pure malice. And then she grinned. A wide, bloody grin.
I wiped the residual blood from my mouth, bolted up, and ran the hell out of the club.
I spent my last day in Tokyo locked up in my room. I tried convincing myself that what happened wasn’t real. That I’d been… drugged or something. Yet, the wounds on my wrists and the cuts on my tongue and insides of my cheek pretty much confirmed it was real. At the very least… something had happened.
Now, I don’t know if I’m going crazy or what… but I swear I’ve seen glimpses of her since.
Sometimes, it’ll be a familiar purple dress sticking out in the crowd. Other times, I think I’ll see somebody dancing alone in a corner for a split-second before disappearing.
It's not only in clubs, though. It's everywhere I go. I could hear shuffling in my basement last night.
Sometimes, I’ll cough up blood, only to see something squirming in the sink.
I really hope I’m just going crazy.
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Credits
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