TOKYO ____ The Powerbook Duo 280C freezes again. Some bug in the Netscape software. Yeh, surfing the net in these pioneer days has its perils. I need a break anyway. My vision is getting blurry from peering at the postage stamp size images that are a fixture of most Web sites. I want to get as far away from crashing computers and that little glowing screen as I can. So I head to Kabukicho.

It's not a total escape. Tokyo's red light district is slowly immersing itself in the multimedia world. A few clubs advertise that you can come twice in 30 minutes for ¥12,000 with their two-way video sex channel. All it is really is a naked woman in the next room sitting in front of a closed-circuit TV camera. Yawn.

Then there are the Japanese porn purveyors operating out of yakuza-run joints in Kabukicho. They are beginning to hawk their wares on local members-only bulletin boards.

I figure that in a few months one of the legion of former Israeli Army computer soldiers who've invaded Tokyo will team up with the yaks. They'll devise the appropriate pimping software to allow Japanese johns to choose the Colombian hooker of their choice for delivery to the nearest love hotel.

I may be a Tokyo gaijin guy of the 90's, but I like my vices in a traditional manner.

I find a new club on the outskirts of Shinjuku called Papaya which has just opened. Its signs plastered all over the 'hood reveal no high-tech gimmicks, just a mention of "All Time ¥8000" and a sexual menu including "SM and 3P."

Call me old fashioned, but I don't go for the kinky stuff. Living in Japan can be enough of a sado-masochistic experience without paying for a woman wearing black leather and spiked heels to take a whip to your backside. And 3P, what the Japanese call the menage thing, is just too busy. I'm always afraid somebody will get left out and it might be me.

Papaya offers the normal treats and better yet, the man at the door doesn't utter "Japanese only" when I move to make my way inside. Of course, there's nothing going for ¥8000. That just allows you in the door. I pull out my American Express plastic and ask how much the normal course is.

"¥16,000" is the answer.

I flinch and hand over the card. This is Japan, there's no bargaining.

He takes me around the corner to a cordoned-off plastic sofa. No private rooms here. Not a good sign.

He comes back and asks if he can put the card surcharge on the card. It's a violation of American Express policy for any merchant to charge the customer extra for using the card, but I know complaining at this point will only get me shown the exit.

A smiling woman in a one-piece, extremely revealing black outfit returns with my plastic and asks me to sign. She's not bad-looking, looks like one of the local porn stars five years past her prime.

She returns and sits down on the sofa real close and immediately places her hands between my thighs.

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