Burning Tigress

by Jade Lee

  When she pulled back to draw breath, she glanced nervously about them. "We're out in the open. Anybody could walk by."

  "It will be full dark soon. No one will come by."

  "But—"

  "Trust me."

  She looked back at him, her eyes full of yin power and her expression completely open. "I do."

  The two words rippled through his spirit. He stepped back and stared at her, seeing her for the first time.

  Sweet Buddha, she was a Tao master!

  How could this be? She had no Buddhist education beyond the little he had taught her. She was a barbarian female! And yet she stood before him, fully centered in the Tao. He knew that without question; he felt it in her every gesture and word. She trusted completely and loved openly. Wasn't that the key to all Taoism?

  She smiled sweetly at him and took a deep breath. "The air is so clean here," she said. Then she let her head fall back to look at the sky. "And so beautiful."

  He watched the long white expanse of her neck and tried to focus his thoughts. Was this why her qi was so strong? Because she openly embraced everything and everyone that surrounded her?

  It wasn't that she was an untried innocent. Far from it. She had raised William almost from infancy. She understood the difficulties of an adolescent boy without the brain to restrain his baser instincts. And if she didn't comprehend the bestial from her brother, there was always her father. She'd seen her father's character. She knew of his mistresses and his dealings with opium. After all, the man had brought his partners into their home on several occasions.

  She knew about carnality in most of its forms, and yet whenever Ken Jin touched her, she felt open and innocent. She had experienced cruelty on behalf of her brother, felt betrayal from her father and casual neglect from her mother, and yet she could trust him openly with her well-being. These were all marks of a true master. His own abilities paled in comparison. He had never been that trusting, not in a household with three sons competing daily for food and attention. He wondered if he ever could.

  He reached out and stroked her cheek. "I want to practice with you." That wasn't what he had intended to say. In fact, he had resolved not to be with her again in any way. And yet, she was smiling at him in a way that made him feel strong and alive. "With you," he murmured, "my yang expands and I become whole again."

  She straightened. "I promise you, Ken Jin, you have no missing parts."

  He traced his finger across her lips. "You bring all my scattered pieces together."

  Charlotte sucked his finger into her mouth, and his yang surged so hard that his whole body trembled. Then she spoke around his finger.

  "Teach me, Ken Jin. I want to learn everything."

  He should be saying that to her. He should be begging her to show him how to be so innocent, how to hold to joy even when one was penniless and disowned. But he kept silent, his spirit too small to embrace her largeness, and in his shame, he looked away.

  "Ken Jin? What's wrong?"

  "Nothing," he lied. "We must make ready before dark. I have food and bedding."

  In truth, it took very little time to arrange themselves. The weather was warm enough without a fire and clear enough to show the stars. There was grass enough for the donkey to eat, and privacy on the deserted track.

  They shared a pair of dumplings; and though he worried at the meager fare, she never complained. Indeed, she seemed happy with his Chinese food. She sat on the back of the cart, kicked her feet as she ate, and stared at the stars. "I wish this night would never end," she said.

  "You lie." He spoke without accusation, but she flinched nevertheless. "You are thinking of your home," he guessed. "You wish you were with William."

  She shook her head. "I am worried about William, but the only one I want to be with is you."

  He couldn't accept her honesty, and it made him all the more surly. "You have never slept on a hard floor, much less an open cart. You are used to five times this much dinner. Your clothes must itch and your bottom ache. You cannot want to be here; you must be wishing for a hot bath, your own clothes, your—"

  "My family?" she interrupted. "My father? For all the things of my life that are now gone?"

  "Of course."

  She sighed, and he expected to see the shimmer of tears in her eyes. He didn't. He saw only starlight and a strange quiet. "I do miss them, and I am worried about the future. What will happen to me? What will happen to William?" Her voice trailed away as she lifted her face back to the sky. "But I'm not afraid, Ken Jin, not when I'm with you. And not here, where everything is at peace."

  She slowly straightened. Her gaze left the heavens reluctantly to land upon him. "It's not me who lies, Ken Jin, but you. You say you want to practice, but you don't touch me. You say you want to travel to Peking, but you bought the slowest donkey in China. You are surrounded by peace and beauty, and yet you try to pick a fight with me. Why?"

  He stared at her, his mouth open in shock. He tried to shut it, only to have harsh words tumble out in accusation. "You make me feel too much!"

  She didn't move; she didn't even blink. She just stared at him as one would stare at a lunatic. And he stared back, wondering if he had truly lost his mind.

  "Is that possible?" she finally asked. "To feel too much? I can't imagine it."

  "Can't you?" he challenged. "Wasn't Heaven too much?" He'd been overwhelmed when they'd begun to ascend yesterday, and they hadn't even made it to the first chamber.

  "It was incredible," she whispered, and he could almost see the lantern antechamber in her eyes. "I cannot wait to go back."

  "What about how you felt when William threw his tantrum in church? Or when he cut your clothing with scissors?"

  She smiled in memory. "I was embarrassed, yes, and angry. But William would not be William if those things were changed. The only way to feel less embarrassment or anger or frustration would be to love him less, and I won't do that."

  Ken Jin nodded, knowing she was right. "But what about when your father threw you out? When he sent you to the mission in disgrace? There must be pain. You must feel—"

  "Of course there is," she snapped. But then she continued, her words slow and careful. "But I think... there is relief, too." She took a deep breath and set her feet to swinging again. "I never realized how freeing disgrace could be." She flashed him a weak smile. "I'm a fallen woman now. I could have saved myself in the mission, but not now—not here alone with you."

  Her smile faded, and he could see the reality of her situation slowly sink into her consciousness. Even though he had brought these thoughts to the fore, even knowing he had made her see the truth, her sudden cloak of sadness brought tears to his eyes.

  "I'm a fallen woman," she murmured. "No respectable man will want me, and no dignified woman will accept me. Good little girls will be told to curse and spit at me; little boys will be free to tug on my hair or clothing and their parents will just laugh." She shuddered. "How cruel the righteous can be."

  "You can still go back. I will take you to the mission. You can—"

  "Become one of them? Forswear everything I feel to become a nun?" She turned to him, and he was stunned by the fury in her eyes. "I will have to swear that you are an evil man, Ken Jin. I will have to confess that what we did together was an act of depravity. You will be vilified. I will be castigated."

  "Don't think about me. I will be—"

  "I know where you'll be!" she snapped. "You're going to have your dragon cut off in some insane act of self-destruction, and so you think I should too. That I should become a nun, deny everything we did, and make it into something heinous."

  "No!" How quickly his temper rose to match hers. "What I plan has nothing to do with you!"

  "Are you so sure?"

  "Of course!" But then he fell silent, wondering if he spoke the truth.

  She must have sensed his weakness. Or perhaps, as a Tao master, she saw when he left the path of truth. "It all works together, Ken Jin. You cannot pretend one ac
tion doesn't touch another, that one part of you isn't a piece of the whole."

  He looked away. Or, more accurately, he looked down. He did not want to think too deeply about what he intended. He did not want to dwell on the slice of the knife or the painful three days afterward. Three days when he would not be allowed to eat or drink or urinate. Would his dragon still be part of him then? Would...

  "I'm not talking about your castration." Her voice trembled on that last word, but she did not stop. "I'm talking about everything. Your family threw you out."

  "I survived. Tan Shi Po took me in."

  "Until she and Kui Yu were taken to prison."

  He closed his eyes, feeling the weight of yet another failure.

  "Your employer's daughter pursued you, and you lost everything. Again."

  "It was my choice as well."

  "So, we are both at fault. Both—"

  "Disowned. We are both disowned." He lifted his gaze to hers, regardless of the hot burn of humiliation in his face. "Why do you press this? What do you want, Char?"

  She shook her head, obviously struggling with her answer. "I want you to be whole, Ken Jin. I want—"

  "There is no whole for a disowned man! Do you not understand that? Without my family, I am a broken piece of an altar decoration, a thread cut off and discarded from the full tapestry. I am nothing!"

  "But don't you see?" she countered, grabbing his hands and holding him to her. "You aren't broken, and you aren't discarded. Not unless you want to be."

  He stared at her, and he could see she didn't understand. "A Chinese man is not just himself alone. His ancestors watch over him; his descendants care for him."

  "So, since you don't have one you will cut off the other?"

  "Yes!" he snapped. "It was my destiny thirty years ago, and I used treachery to avoid it. I told my brother that I was going to a fair without him. I pretended to brag, saying I would eat sweets and see a great magician. Then I let him sneak in the cart in my place and pretend to be me. I let him walk into the surgeon's tent expecting a show instead of the knife."

  "You were eight years old!"

  He shook his head. "I knew better." He straightened. "And now I return to the path I should have walked."

  "You can't," she pressed.

  "I can."

  "You can't!" she repeated with more force than he'd ever heard from her before. "You can't become an eight-year-old boy again. You can't ignore what you have learned and done and been these last twenty years."

  He meant to argue. He meant to claim that he could indeed be what he once was, but she was right. He was changed, and not even castration could erase the last two decades. He sighed. "I must return to the middle path. I must find peace."

  She reached for him, stroking his arm. "Perhaps to be whole, you must look ahead instead of behind. Forget the past. Forge ahead to a new future. Create your own clan and your own ancestors."

  He almost laughed at her silliness, but refrained because she would be insulted. "I cannot simply make up new ancestors."

  She smiled. "Of course not. But you can create your own family altar. Write down the names of the people who still love you."

  He snorted. "Ancestors are not so easily accepted or discarded."

  "Then neither would their descendants be. Surely someone loved you. Someone would still claim you."

  His grandmother. He knew this but did not admit it. Charlotte must have seen the thought inside him, though, must have sensed the softening in his heart at the memory of his father's mother.

  "There is someone, isn't there?" she pressed.

  "A woman does not go on a family altar."

  "Says who?"

  "Says me." And all the ancestors before him.

  "Well, you're wrong."

  This time, he did laugh. It was a clean sound, bursting from him. It brought lightness in its wake, and peace—a small, beautiful measure of peace. Then his laugh faded and they sat once again, side by side in silence.

  Finally she sighed. "You're still going to Peking, aren't you?"

  He nodded. "Unless you wish to go back to the mission."

  "No. You'd just go on to the Forbidden City without me, and then we'd both be miserable."

  He felt a smile tug at his lips. "I have no desire to see you miserable."

  "I have no desire to see you castrated."

  He laughed. "You need not watch."

  "You need not do it at all."

  Silence again settled between them, but it was not so heavy this time. Especially when he turned his hand palm-side up and her hand slipped into his. As always, their qi quickly harmonized.

  "Will you still teach me?" she asked.

  He smiled. How could he deny her anything? "If you still wish it."

  "I do."

  He was silent a moment. "How much do you wish to practice? Do you want me to take your virginity?"

  She hesitated. "I've lost my reputation now. Everyone will expect that I'm... that I'm not..."

  "But what do you want, Char?"

  She sighed. It was a quiet exhale, a breath that he felt rather than heard. "I want to keep that part of me pure right now."

  "Very well," he said. Then he gently disentangled their hands and drew his fingers up her arm.

  Her body was exquisite, her trust in him divine. The moonlight made her skin glow like the finest pearl, the stars sparkled in her eyes, and the evening air became perfumed with her sweet scent. She was the evening: the moon, the stars, even the sweet water that trickled nearby. When he touched her, he touched the world. When he kissed her, he kissed eternity. And when she began to vibrate with yin power, he knew he could bring her to Heaven.

  And with every caress, every kiss, and every gasping moment, he felt eternally blessed.

  In this fashion, they passed every day and night until they arrived in Peking.

  * * *

  Triple Happiness! Great fortune!

  A son is born to Wen Gao Jin!

  Joyous celebration! Heaven's blessing!

  (Attached, a bill for expenses dated November 19,1895. It includes expenses for the midwife, child's clothing, and the fourteen-day birth celebration, already completed one week before.)

  Acupressure can be used as an adjunct therapy in the treatment of migraine pain and the underlying cause of this physical disturbance. First, massage your head as if shampooing your hair. Second, place your thumbs underneath the base of the skull on either side of the spinal column. Tilt your head back slightly and press upward for two minutes while breathing deeply.

  www.holistic-online.com

  ICBS, Inc.

  Chapter 16

  Charlotte had never been in Peking. She'd never seen the dragon tiles that decorated the Forbidden City, never even conceived of the huge pagoda temples that punctured the landscape, but she recognized wealth when she saw it. And she knew the neighborhood they drove through had to be one of the very best.

  "Who lives here, Ken Jin?" she whispered from beneath her coolie hat.

  "Wen family son number one," he answered in the Chinese style. When she frowned, he elaborated. "My older brother, Gao Jin. Not the acupuncturist."

  The eunuch, then. "But I thought they all lived inside the Forbidden City serving the Emperor."

  "Most do. My brother was honored for exceptional service."

  She remembered. "For killing those missionaries—"

  "No," he corrected, though his tone remained cold. "For bringing the news."

  She rolled her eyes. As if any simple messenger would be so honored. "Is he a Boxer?" She had heard stories of those revolutionaries. Joanna saw them as the Chinese form of freedom fighters, but Charlotte wasn't so sure. They seemed to have a great deal of antiwhite sentiment. It could be dangerous for her to—

  "I will keep you safe." His quiet words soothed her even before she realized she was worried.

  She smiled and took his hand. He returned her grip, and they continued riding behind the slowest donkey in China. "So, your br
other was given permission to live outside the Forbidden City," she said after a few minutes.

  "He was given an honorary bride and a son."

  She started. "A son? But how? If he's a eunuch..."

  "A member of the family assisted on his wedding night."

  She twisted to stare at him. "Assisted? As in... as in took over the marital rights?"

  "Yes." His voice was very stiff.

  It took her a moment. They had spent the entire trip learning about one another, and she had done all but surrender her virginity as they explored every detail of each other's bodies and souls. But even so, Ken Jin was still a hard man to read. It was harder still for Charlotte to accept this new truth.

  "You did it. My God," she breathed. "You have a son."

  "My brother has a son. I merely..."

  "Assisted." She didn't know how she felt about that. She'd known Ken Jin for a decade, and yet every day she discovered something new. A son! Despite the discomfort, some part of her softened at the thought of a baby Ken Jin with bright eyes and those cute, chubby little fists. "I bet he's wonderful," she said. "And you have an heir."

  He turned to stare at her, his expression cold. "My brother has an heir, as is appropriate. He should have—"

  "Enough with the should haves." She couldn't help rolling her eyes. "You can't spend your life making amends for something that happened when you were eight."

  "In China, generations can pay for the actions of a single man."

  She let out an exasperated sigh. "And I felt burdened by caring for William every day," she muttered. "You bear the weight of generations. No wonder you never smile."

  He was busy turning the donkey down another lane, but still managed to shoot her a hard look. A month ago, she would have thought his stare disapproving, but now she saw the sparkle in his eye and the slightest curve to his lips. He wasn't annoyed with her, he was amused but too restrained to show it. "I never smiled because I didn't know you," he said.