SkivvyGirlPreview

       The years after WWII were extremely difficult for occupied Japan. The zaibatsu (cartels) had been disbanded eliminating thousands of jobs, and most of the male
breadwinners had been killed in the fierce battles for control of the Pacific islands leaving unskilled women to provide sustenance for the surviving families.
Hundreds of young Japanese girls trying desperately to stave off hunger and deprivation turned to the oldest profession, prostitution. They were known as "skivvy
girls" by the military personnel because of the similarity between the pronunciation of "skivvy", the word for men’s underwear and a Japanese word "sukebi" that
related to amorous individuals.
       Skivvy Girl is a memoir of one such girl, Yoshiko Matsuyama, who at seventeen became a skivvy girl "accommodating" military personnel at the giant naval base
in Yokosuka, Japan. It is also a memoir of a 17-year-old orphan boy facing a bleak future in a small rural American town, and how when he joins the navy, their fates
are inexorably intertwined. Against all odds, they become bonded by a profound love. This bond is challenged by stringent cultural differences, racial prejudice,
inflexible military regulations, and the violent forces of nature; all of which seemed to be instigated by the gods to drive them apart.

Excerpt from Skivvy Girl

Part I   Yokosuka Japan 1950
Chapter I
       Dear God, what am I doing here? What do you have in store for me my Kami-sama? Yoshiko prays silently to her Shinto Gods as she sits primly in typical Japanese
fashion with her feet folded beneath her, waiting for her first customer. I’m a skivvy girl now and must perform my duties as instructed by the mama-san of this house,
but there is so much I’m supposed to do or say, I’m afraid I will forget something. I know that if the customer is not satisfied with my service, or he complains for any
reason, I might be thrown out to solicit on the streets, a fate that I'd rather die than face. So I have to smile and pretend that I’m happy he is here, and I must help him
prepare for sex just as the other girls taught me. I know that I should not cry out if he hurts me. The girls told me that since I’ve never before accommodated a man,
I'll probably feel severe pain when he pushes into me.   Despite pain, I must pretend I’m overjoyed at receiving him into my body.
       Yoshiko is jolted from her reverie when a burly sailor carelessly slams the shoji sliding door open, reels into the private room, and glares pitilessly at the
cringing girl he has just paid the mama-san Y800 for a "short-time" of sexual pleasure.