Off the Record
When Tokyo’s after hours turned into a fever dream of feathers, luxury and uninvited propositions.
Life got a lot easier once I started working in the VIP bar. In the hostess club world, that’s like moving from coach to first class. You’re still on the same flight, but now someone brings you fancy snacks and pretends to care about your day.
With VIP came more access to clients and a closer look into hostess culture. Less of the performative sparkle, more of the strange, glitter glued reality. One night, I was invited on a Dohan basically a preclub dinner date with a client. Think of it as an appetizer before the full course of overpriced drinks and heavy pours of ego.
The dinner guest? A wealthy construction magnate. Think highrises, not highways. I went with two Japanese hostess friends and one other hostess I didn’t know as well. We met at a moderately fancy Italian restaurant. In Japan, Italian food was seen as classy, probably because pasta kind of resembles noodles. The logic tracked.
Dinner started out stiff and formal, all polite bows and measured laughs. But as the wine flowed and the plates emptied, something shifted. The hostesses usually reserved and precise started teasing each other, sharing little side glances and knowing giggles. The client began to lean in, his tone lighter, his laughter looser. Even I, the token foreign wildcard, felt like I was slipping into some secret, glitter drenched improv theater where everyone knew their part and no one was quite sober enough to care.
After dinner, we were invited to a wine bar.
Now, this wine bar was the kind of place that didn’t want to be found. Down an alley, up some sketchy metal stairs, to a door with no handle. Just a buzzer and a soft amber light that whispered, “This is either an art installation or out of your league.” It was a hangout for the rich and famous, the kind of place where people pretended to hide while secretly hoping someone would recognize them. Our client pressed the buzzer, murmured something in Japanese, and the door slid into the wall like we were being welcomed into a Bond film villain’s den. Inside: a dim coatroom. Another hidden door opened and we entered a space lit only by candles and faint runway style floor lights. It was mood lighting that deserved its own agent.
We were led to a booth in the corner overlooking the street. Our host ordered a few bottles of wine. And when I say it was the best wine I’ve ever had, I mean my taste buds tried to write a thank you note. This wasn’t Two Buck Chuck or the stuff I used to swig pretending to be Bukowski. This was drink with your pinky out wine that made me question all my past life choices. To this day, I can still taste it a deep, velvety swirl that coated my tongue and made me pause. It wasn’t just wine, it was my first real taste of luxury. Not just money luxury, but sensory luxury. Like my mouth had finally gotten an invitation to the big leagues.
Two bottles in, and the room felt soaked in velvet and secrets. The hostesses were glowing, leaning into each other, laughing with a touch of mischief. Our client, now equal parts wealth and whimsy, whispered to Koji, who then turned to me like a man about to introduce a cult.
“You want to see something... different?” he asked.
I did. Of course I did. Everything about this night already felt like a dream someone else wrote.
We walked through the darkened room, guided by those floor lights. Koji pressed a hidden button on a blank wall, and another door slid open. Inside: a two level room, dimly lit. And yes about a dozen glass enclosures, coffin shaped, each with a woman lying inside. Hands and feet poked out through openings in the glass. Soft light hovered above each one like halos.
It felt like stepping into a surrealist painting with a big budget. The women inside were flawless and still, like porcelain dolls midnap. Their faces were serene, their poses deliberate. Around us, other men moved reverently, like monks in a cathedral of strange desires.
We descended the steel stairs. A woman in a traditional kimono greeted us and led us to one of the enclosures.
Inside was a woman in delicate lingerie, perfectly still, eyes closed. A drawer opened. Inside, a single, large white feather.
Koji took the feather and began gently caressing the woman’s hand. She didn’t move. At all. Around us, men kissed feet, massaged hands, whispered things to glass. It was erotic, but clinical. Intimate, but impersonal. Koji motioned for me to join.
“Watch,” he said. He was practically giddy.
He feathered the woman’s feet. No flinch. “Sugoi,” he whispered. “Very good.”
There was something haunting about it this absolute control, the submission performed as art. I didn’t know if I was supposed to be fascinated or horrified. Maybe both. The hostess with us gave me a little side eye smirk. I wasn’t the first foreigner to walk into this hall of softly lit WTF.
We lingered, and Koji stood proudly beside me like he’d just introduced me to his most sacred hobby. Then, back upstairs we went, into the swirl of wine, laughter, and anticipation.
We returned to the club. Our client told Xavier I’d be his guest for the night. Xavier gave me a look that could frost glass. It was the beginning of the month. Payday energy. The room pulsed with coke, cash, and whatever passed for glamour in a fog of cigarette smoke.
Koji was now very drunk. Very red. And very focused on me. His eyes had that glossy sparkle of someone with a plan, but no clarity. He started talking about his wife. His kids. His job. And then, without warning, he changed the channel.
“I’m not faggot. OK?”
“OK,” I replied, now locked in a polite panic.
“If I’m not faggot, and you not faggot, it’s OK?”
“...Sure?”
“I want to fuck with you.”
Here’s what they don’t tell you in guidebooks: in Japan, the moment alcohol hits the system, the rules drop off a cliff. Salarymen cry in bars. Executives nap in train stations. And men like Koji reveal truths that daytime would never allow. It’s off the record. It’s out of character. And it’s coming for you whether you’re ready or not.
“Koji, that’s flattering, but I’m not interested.”
He smiled like he hadn’t heard me. “It will be funny. We’re funny. Just one time.”
At first, it was awkward. Then it turned. His eyes locked on mine with a desperate intensity. I laughed nervously, shifting in my seat, looking for an exit that didn’t exist. I wasn’t flattered anymore. I was prey in the wrong part of the forest.
He offered money. ¥50,000. I declined.
He leaned in again, voice hushed. “We have apartment. Nearby. Just us. It OK.”
I was officially trapped in the Koji Zone. No amount of polite smiles or gentle refusals was going to dislodge me.
Thankfully, one of the hostesses, seasoned in the fine art of rescuing unwanted advances, swooped in. She tickled him. Literally tickled him. Laughed like it was a joke, like none of this was real. And somehow, it worked. He pouted, muttered something unintelligible, and passed out within the next ten minutes.
The next day, I gave my two week’s notice.
Time to move on.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that this bizarre double life was just getting started. Nights like that one surreal, intoxicating, a little terrifying were becoming the norm. But by day, I had stepped into an entirely different world: Wieden+Kennedy, one of the most iconic advertising agencies on the planet. Yes, by daylight I was working at the ad agency. We will get into that in the next post; by moonlight, I poured whiskey and dodged feather wielding creeps in glass coffin speakeasies. And somehow, for a while, both of those lives made perfect sense. I even brought the hostess to W+K one morning after realizing that after a long bender of a night I had left the keys to my flat at the office. Another story. Another time.
Also, thank you to everyone who sent over your visa run recommendations. Much appreciated. I’m off to Thailand next, to catch up with some old friends and reconnect with a film school buddy I haven’t seen in over 20 years. You know I’ll be documenting the weird, the wonderful, and the deeply questionable.
Thanks, as always, for reading, encouraging, and inspiring me to keep getting these stories out of my head and onto the page giving them a bit of oxygen and maybe, just maybe, a little life outside the chaos they were born in.
I am truly grateful.
LOVE & LIGHT
MM
Reminds me of my gallery days in Chicago in the 80's. Safe travels in Thailand! Look forward to your next post
Amazing