By Takeshi Tsujimura
Namiko Murata
Just as Kawabata’s repetitive style was finally starting to grate on me, among the five women who responded to our magazine’s call for models, there was one who stood out from the rest, a self-proclaimed Shochiku actress, and it was none other than her.
She’s not much of a talker, but once she gets going, she’s surprisingly chatty. Since she claimed to be a former actress, I asked what kind of roles she’d played, only to be told she’d appeared just once as a stand-in.
It was for a Shochiku period drama, a medium-length film, where she walked down a highway with a male actor W (she didn’t give his name, but I suspect it was Eiji Wakasugi?) In a road-trip-style scene. That was the only time her back was ever filmed.
Apparently, the lead actress, T.F.-san, had an accident at the time, so they pulled her out of the extras, since she had a somewhat similar build, to serve as a stand-in. Even though her screen time was barely thirty seconds, she said it took her nearly half a day to film it, so she must be a genuine former actress after all.
As you may know from bondage photos, her heir was cut short, though since “Roman Holiday” hadn’t been released yet at that time, this was before Audry Hepburn, so it would be more accurate to describe it as a shaggy, ragged cut. You might say it resembled Keiko Tsushima’s hairstyle in “Seven Samurai.”
Even big stars get tied up, don’t they? Take your favorite Michiko Saga, for example, or Yumiko Tsukioka, or Hizuru Takachiho, scenes where they’re tied up are a staple of movies. So, you could say these bondage photos of ours are for the sake of art. I’m sure the poses you strike while tied up will come in handy someday when you become a star.
I let the first session pass with just a simple nude shoot, but when I explained it to her, with such clever reasoning during the second session, she agreed without hesitation.
Since it was right after I’d performed a daily intense bondage session on Kawabata-san, and with my own delicate sensibilities still somewhat numbed by the experience, I immediately set to work on a bondage setup at the intermediate level from the start. She didn’t resist at all and let us do whatever we wanted. This was a real find. Her movements were somewhat slow and clumsy, and her lack of intelligence was directly proportional to that, but she had a substantial figure, and above all, her virginal innocence made her a model I could really warm to. If I had to point out a flaw, it might be that her face was a bit large for her body.
Thus, the editor-in-chief named this new face Namiko Murata, a rather ordinary name, and featured her for the first time in the July 1953 issue’s frontispiece under the title “An Expression of a Bound Female Body.” In the August 1953 issue, titled “A Study of the Bound Female Body,” he used the entire four-page frontispiece to debut her with five rich poses of bound nudes.
Subsequently, in the frontispiece of the October issue of the same year, she appeared in “Outdoor Bondage Photography.” In the November issue, she graced the opening pages with a color-printed frontispiece of bondage nudes, as well as in “Bound by the Mountain Stream,” where her delicate form was well-received. A trio bondage session with Sugi-san and Sakaguchi-san. Since I’ve already touched on this regarding Fumi Sugi, I’ll omit it here to avoid repetition. (See the December 1953 issue, “Three Women’s Bondage Show.”) She was the most reliable, moving obediently and silently from start to finish. In particular, during the photo shoot for the frontispiece of the December 1953 issue, specifically the pose on the final page where she was “bound on her back, completely naked, in the ticket,” she didn’t mind that her sweat-soaked body was covered in sand. While exposed to direct sunlight, she kept adjusting her pose, saying, “No, not like that, try this instead.” Given that she was bound with her hands behind her back, I was truly grateful for her cooperation.
Her only flaw was that her lack of punctuality, she never once arrived at the agreed-upon time. Because of this, even during the aforementioned group bondage shoot, though we hadn’t originally planned to shoot with three people, I ended up contacting various people out of concern that we might be in trouble if she didn’t show up. That’s why, when everyone gathered, things turned out the way they did.
She seems to have rather thick skin, but if I had to point something out, perhaps she has a slightly masochistic tendency. Even when I tied her up quite harshly (crucifixion, suspension, etc.), she never once showed any resistance. However, this isn’t the kind of masochism found in someone like Kawabata, who has a strong yearning for the act of bondage itself. It would be better described as the ecstasy she feels when imagining the bondage scene of the great actress she dreams of becoming in the future.
It was around mid-May of 1953.
On a whim to shoot outdoor nudes, editor-in-chief Minoda and a party of four traveled all the way to Kasagi on the Kansai Line, and from there took a bus another half-mile or so further into the countryside, venturing deep into the wilderness in search of a place far from civilization near a hamlet called Ari’ichi.
Incorporating the flow of the Kizu River, the images of a naked woman in the gorge, several of the photos in her November 1953 issue of “Bound by the Mountain Stream,” were taken during this trip.
It is here that I have a terrifying memory, once that will stay with me for the rest of my life and that I feel shortened my life by ten years. Fortunately, since we had avoided a holiday, there were almost no people around, and we felt safe using our cameras in the valley. However, on the outskirts of the Ari’ichi hamlet, with Mount Kasagi in the background, my eye suddenly caught sight of an unoccupied watermill.
The waterwheel turned with a clatter, spraying water as it spun, carried by the sluggish stream flowing down from Mount Kasagi. What came to mind at that moment was a scene I had once seen in an erotic print, a beautiful woman bound to the waterwheel, her black hair whipping about as it turned, writhing in agony with each reversal.
“This could work,” I whispered immediately to Minoda-san. “Very well,” he agreed to my proposal without a moment’s hesitation.
With her still in her gown over her naked body, we made our way through the crevices of the massive rock formation and finally reached the spot. Peering inside the hut, I was certain no one was there. We had the place to ourselves. After using the waterwheel, I planned to subject her to every form of torment this hut had to offer, and I quickly scanned the surroundings. It was around two in the afternoon. The area was dead quiet, with no sign of everyone else. The thicket of trees provided good cover, so there seemed to be little risk of being seen from the opposite bank or the Kansai Line tracks.
This is incredible art. If a filmmaker saw this, they’d surely be amazed by what we’ve created. A naked woman tied to a waterwheel, isn’t that just romantic. Hey, Minoda-san…
As usual, I egged him on. “I mean, she’ll be spinning around upside down while tied up, right? Her eyes will be spinning too. Don’t worry. If we block it off properly like this, the current will bypass the waterwheel and flow into the ditch on the side. So, I’ll go ahead and block it off then.”
Having apparently convinced him, I rolled up my pants and, with a splash, grabbed the ditch. I pulled the dam back hard to divert the flow into the ditch, then urged her on.
The waterwheel’s rim was made of iron, but the paddles and the wooden backplate riveted across the axle were made of wood. Paying no mind to the slimy moss, I suppressed my rising excitement, pushed her up onto the axle to make her stand, raised her hands, and had her place them on the paddle. Like a crucifixion, I wrapped a rope around the wooden frames of the paddle’s arms, separate from one another, and tied her tightly in place. At this point, the butterfly clasp was actually getting in the way, so I quickly removed it as well. As I did, her legs slipped right off the axle, and the weight of her body fell onto her hands. She stretched out limply, looking as if she were in pain. With a little patience, I positioned her legs so that they rested on one side of the halo, and just as I was about to slowly tie the rope around her ankles…
It was truly a bolt from the blue for us. Flustered by this sudden appearance of an intruder, we untied Murata-san and helped her into her gown.
Just a moment later, four or five middle-aged men and women passed by us. Unfortunately, we had to cancel the waterwheel torture, but since Minoda-san suggested we go further upstream, our group got ready and followed after them. After climbing a steep slope covered in thickets for about five cho, we came upon a waterfall about three shaku high, roaring loudly. At its base, a woman in white was praying while being pelted by the falls.
Holding onto the shrubs, we made our way to the top of the waterfall. A river about a meter wide was rushing violently through the rocks. In a place like this, it was absolutely unthinkable that anyone would ever come here.
A camera was set up on a rock on the opposite bank. To put my idea of placing a naked woman tied to the base of the waterfall into action, I tightly bound the model’s hands behind her back with a cotton rope. “How about around here?” Tsukamoto-kun san. I had her stand on the rock and returned to the camera position. Minoda-san, holding a light meter in one hand to cover the shadows, was busily adjusting the reflector. “Move a little further to the left,” I had just requested when the model’s foot slipped on the mossy rock, and in the blink of an eye, she fell into the river, stuck like a stick. Since her hands were tied behind her back, she had no way to brace herself, and the dull thud of her butt hitting the rock seemed to reverberate deep into my gut.
Once Murata-san had plunged fully into the river, she was pushed by the current to float sideways, revealing her upper body, which was bound to the base of the waterfall. I can still feel my shock just as vividly as I did then. My face went pale, and my heart pounded like a rapid drumbeat. But in the very next instant, I shoved the camera to the left and slid headfirst into the river. I grabbed her leg, who was halfway down the waterfall, and was so startled that I couldn’t get back up for a while.
If that bound, naked woman had fallen over the waterfall with it, she would almost certainly have lost her life. It would certainly have made for a perfect newspaper headline, but just imagining it was a moment that shortened my life expectancy. Minoda-san and Tsukamoto-san tumbled over to my right side after me. The three of us peered down at the roaring pool far below, where the water crashed against the rocks. We lifted Murada-san up, cut the ropes with a jackknife, and pulled her up to the bank.
“Oh, thank goodness,” I sighed with relief, and asked Murata-san if she was hurt. She said she’d only hit her bottom and it hurt, but otherwise she was fine, so we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, I had no desire to continue any further. For one thing, I was soaked to the bone, and the focusing screen on the camera, which had fallen while still attached to the tripod, was shattered into pieces and completely useless. I did have the Leica I’d brought along as the editor-in-chief’s assistant, but I simply didn’t have the energy to set it up for any more shots.
Murata-san, having dried her wet hair with a towel, looked surprisingly unfazed and even struck the same pose as before with a comforting expression. But our hearts were still pounding, so we dried our clothes and retreated, barely able to stand. It seemed we’d been punished for the three of us peeing together at the top of the waterfall.
Toshiko Sakaguchi
I have a funny memory of the day I first met Sakaguchi-san.
As usual, I received a phone call from the editor-in-chief, and on that day, I remember it was around May of 1953, and unfortunately, it had been drizzling since morning, I waited at the agreed-upon meeting spot, the ticket gate at Namba Station on the Nankai Line. We had agreed to meet at 10am, but I arrived at the gate just before 9:30.
As usual, I had a lot of appointments to keep. With nothing better to do, I looked around, sizing up the women waiting there and wondering who they might be waiting for. Beside me stood a woman in a bright red sweater who, like me, had been there for a while, looking restless and clearly growing impatient. Every now and then, our eyes would meet, and she would look away awkwardly, glancing between the station’s large clock and her own watch. Waiting in the same place with a stranger for someone who will eventually show up is truly embarrassing, and the longer the wait, the more strangely one begins to feel a sense of inferiority and humiliation shared among fellow waiters.
I was casually observing her from the side. Perhaps sensing my presence, she looked up, and when our eyes met again, she blatantly averted her gaze and, with a determined air, started to stride briskly out of the station. She glanced back briefly on her way, but when she realized I was staring intently at her, she quickened her pace even further and walked away.
Right on time, Minoda-san appeared, accompanied by Tsukamoto-san.
“Oh, she hasn’t arrived yet, has she? I wonder what’s going on… I’ll go look around for a bit, so please wait here and don’t move.”
Scanning the campus in a fluster, he disappeared into the crowd.
Five minutes, ten minutes,
My heart was racing with a mix of anxiety, impatience, anticipation, and the thrill of the nude scene.
“Hey, sorry to keep you waiting. Let me introduce you. This is Sakaguchi-san…”
We exchanged greetings with strangely shy, complicated smiles, and it felt like quite a coincidence. But come to think of it, it wasn’t particularly strange at all. Minoda-san had simply designated the same meeting spot for both of us at the same time, so it was only natural that we would run into each other. The fact that we didn’t recognize each other’s faces, even though we were waiting right next to one another, and perhaps both of us had suspected as much, meant that, given the unusual nature of our encounter as a nude model and a bondage artist, we hadn’t been able to bring ourselves to speak to one another.
From the very first impression, I felt strangely intimidated. Perhaps because of that, even on the way to our destination, Hagoromo-so, the conversation didn’t flow naturally, and I found myself at a loss with these jumbled emotions.
In response to Minoda-san’s repeated entreaties, she finally undressed behind a screen and timidly emerged. I must admit I was captivated for a moment by her well-proportioned figure. The swell of her full breasts, her narrow waist, the gently curve from her hips to her lower back, her firm, well-toned physique, overall, she must have been the top model. Yet, on the other hand, her flaws were equally extreme.
The unattractiveness of her lips. Above all else, this was fatal. Because of her buck teeth, her lips were slightly pointed. And there was one more thing. She was hairy.
At some point, we began to refer to her by the nickname “the gag beauty.” This was because when she wore a gag, she suddenly radiated a vibrant energy, transforming into a strikingly beautiful person, almost like a different individual. Even after we began photographing her frequently, I made a point of avoiding shooting her bare face from a direct side angle.
(Because her lips looked pointed.)
They say that the hairier a woman is, the more passionate she is, and from my own past experience, I can certainly relate to that. Perhaps if Sakaguchi-san were to leave this modeling profession and engage in a private relationship, she might turn out to be someone capable of burning with an unexpectedly intense passion. Moreover, that plump, white skin, those full breasts, that firm waist, her nude figure is thoroughly sensual, and as a beauty of the voluptuous type, she is undoubtedly a perfect ten.
When I first bound her at Hagoromo-so, I fantasized about all sorts of compositions, some almost sinister. Nevertheless, contrary to my expectations, her feelings toward such things were virtually nonexistent.
As we had agreed from the start, I immediately began the bondage process. Sure enough, she let me tie her up and move her as I pleased, but, “What on earth is so fun about doing this, tying her up and rolling her around?” An expression of indifference, tinged with a hint of derision, was captured by the camera’s lens.
Moreover, she was quite resistant to embarrassment. She frequently asked when we would be done, as if eager to be released, and every time the film was changed, she deliberately acted overly exhausted. When I urged her on, she would reluctantly agree.
“She wasn’t all that, was she? Such a shame, considering she had such a great body.”
After we parted ways, Minoda-san muttered with a hint of disappointment. For us, who were trying to capture something new, something beyond the run-of-the-mill model, Sakaguchi’s aloof, insolent attitude left us feeling unsatisfied and wanting more.
A few days later, when I was shown a letter from her addressed to Minoda-san, written in surprisingly elegant handwriting , I couldn’t help but rub my eyes in disbelief.
It claimed that she, that expressionless and indifferent woman, had been deeply moved by thebondage that day and had felt intense joy. She repeatedly pleaded for us to do it again, and the letter was written in a bold style rare for women.
We took a fresh look at her, feeling as though we had found a way forward, and immediately wrote back to her.
Unfortunately, the second time around, it was the usual trio of Sugi and Murata tying her up, so it was difficult to be certain of the true nature of her feelings.
When we shot the scene with the sadist and the masochist, Murata-san and Sugi-san were so awkward in their roles that their hesitation and difficulty were clearly evident, but she, with her characteristic boldness and impassive expression, did exactly as I asked, mercilessly tormenting and kicking both Murata-san and Sugi-san.
Perhaps she might be suited for the role of a sadist. This was before the appearance of Rumi Kasuga-san, and since I was constantly on the lookout for a woman to play the sadist role, I heard that Minoda-san, taking advantage of Morihide Amatsuchi’s visit from Tokyo to Osaka, paired her with the masochist actor Hirao Kodata and produced several works. (As seen in the frontispieces of the May, June, and August 1954 issues) Wielding a whip in her riding boots, she tormented one man after another, and through acts such as “foot-wiping,” “human horse,” and “spanking,” she even seemed to display a dashingly sadistic demeanor.
Whether it was these bondage sessions or those involving the opposite sex, two or three days later, she would invariably send a lengthy letter. In it, she would write things like, “This time, I absolutely want you to photograph me alone,” or “Even if you do as you please to your heart’s content, it will only serve to increase my pleasure all the more.” Reading such words, I found myself increasingly unable to discern what exactly she was hoping for.
Apart from Kawabata-san in her final days, I had never before received such letters from a model.
“If she’s on board with it, why don’t we push her a little further? I always assumed she was just a sadist…”
Minoda-san looked thoroughly unconvinced, yet on the day she said she would visit, he gathered more ropes than usual and prepared logs, ladders, and square timbers.
The shoot began. Determined that today would be the day, I enthusiastically tied her up in various bondage poses, but contrary to my expectations, she remained reluctant at every turn. Her sense of shame was as strong as ever. After being tied up, she rubbed her arms, as if they were in pain.
I grew weary of it. Seeing how she disliked being tied up, perhaps she really was a sadist, just as Minoda-san had thought. Even so, that letter…
It felt as if I were being made a fool of. Even Minoda-san, who usually showed such forceful determination, looked disheartened and cut the session short in a hurry.
It felt as though I had distanced myself from her for a while after that, yet despite that, she continued to send me letters one after another. Each and every one was blatantly filled with masochistic desires, written in a style that was probably even more explicit than Kawabata-san’s, and many of them were filled with a venomous quality reminiscent of Satan’s whispers. For example,
“…When I sit alone, thinking about what happened back then, I can’t stand it anymore. If I were bound as tight as possible, I, gagged so tightly I could barely breathe, hung up, and whipped in turn by Minoda-san and Tsujimura-san, I’m sure it would feel so good… I am a foolish woman. I keep thinking ‘this time for sure,’ but whenever the moment comes, another part of me hesitates, and I always end up making you angry. But next time, I’ll definitely be a good girl, and just as you once said, I’ll submit quietly to candle torture and enemas.
And this is my request. Just once, I want you to tie up only my hair and hang me from the ceiling. I always dream of myself in that state. Ah, just writing this makes a certain part of me ache again. Looking forward to the day we meet soon, I will sleep here alone on the second floor tonight, having put a gag in my own mouth and tightly bound my hands and feet, until morning…”
And so on, more or less in this vein, she sends me long letters every week or so, containing things I’m too shy to write here. Not a single one of these letters contains any sadistic desires. If that is the case, then what on earth am I to make of that arrogant figure of hers from back then, calmly whipping a man and placing her riding boots on his head?
Moreover, despite longing for it so intensely, the filming turned out as I mentioned earlier, I cannot tell you how much of this is her true feelings. Which is her true self?
She is probably the only model who made me feel the urge to peel back her layers completely.
Yet, when I consider the outcome of that voluptuous body and the passion lurking within, a lingering attachment I cannot simply cast aside wells up inside me.
When will the day come when she throws off every veil of shame and confronts me with utter candor?
[Addendum] When Tsujimura-san consulted me about writing “The Quality of Bondage Models,” I warned him, “Don’t write too much of the truth, the model might bite you.” In fact, even after the manuscript was completed, I kept toning things down to the point of being overly cautious. So if there is anything lukewarm about this piece, please know that it is not Tsujimura-san’s fault, but the editor’s responsibility. The other day, I received a sudden phone call from Tanako Kawabata-san, and we had a pleasant chat for several hours. I hadn’t heard from her in a long time, but it seems she’s been reading “Kitan Club” every month at the bookstore. In any case, I’d like to let her fans know that she is doing well.
(Editor)
