by Jina Bacarr
My first day in Japan included trekking up a steep hill road to the Bluff, what the natives call Root Bank Mountain. I may not have been so eager to agree to Mr. Fawkes’s invitation to take up residence here had I known our mode of travel. I balked at riding in a crude imitation of a palanquin (a contraption resembling a shallow basket with a high back slung from a pole and carried on the shoulders of two natives). It required its occupant to sit on their feet with their knees doubled under them while they rocked back and forth. I elected to ride on horseback, taking the time to let the animal get to know me before mounting him.
I followed our native guide up the mountain with Mr. Fawkes trailing behind us, grumbling that only a Yankee woman would insist on such a breach of female conduct (I imagine he rather enjoyed the view of my rump bouncing up and down). My trunk and portmanteau followed us on packhorses led by coolies pulling them along with long cords. I can’t tell you how exhilarating it felt to be astride a mount again, the air crisp and cool, the feel of the reins in my hand, the hard flanks of my horse rubbing against my inner thighs and stimulating me with a throbbing and burning against my clitoris with every beat of my heart and causing me to shudder in a very unladylike manner. Do you think Mr. Fawkes noticed? And if he did, did he turn his eyes away? We shall never know, dear lady reader.
Along the way, the Englishman pointed out the sights to me, including the race course, the various consulates and the foreign cemetery, including the graves of the brave souls buried there who had their heads cut off by rebellious samurai ravishing the area and slashing telegraph lines. (Had James put him up to frightening me with such wild tales? I wondered.)
What induced the natives to such vile tactics? I begged to ask him, questioning the logic of my journey if at any moment I could be attacked by samurai. Mr. Fawkes smiled, assuring me I had nothing to fear. British soldiers had been posted on the hill to protect foreigners, he said, but there was no need for that since the mikado’s government had reduced the status of the samurai and removed their power. An occasional disgruntled samurai might cause a ruckus, he continued, but what outsiders didn’t understand was that these brave warriors had followed a code of loyalty and obedience for centuries and were defending their way of life.
As we continued our journey, I couldn’t forget his words. Something in his voice, in the way he said it, stayed with me. A deep respect for these men and the “way of the warrior,” as Mr. Fawkes explained it. Strange how his words caught in my mind and hung there unseen, only to reappear again at the oddest moments months later in the samurai village.
I believe it was then I began to see Japan differently. The reverberation his words set off in my mind was like the roll of the drum one hears at the native fertility festivals, where giant phallic symbols feed the human need to procreate. Its primitive rhythm set the tone for what you are about to read in these pages, its repetitive musical pattern impossible to erase from your mind, as Shintaro is impossible to erase from mine.
When we arrived at the Bluff residence assigned to me for my short stay in Yokohama, a charming native woman called Fusae met us at the entrance, kneeling, her forehead to the mat, bowing and mumbling words I could not decipher. Mr. Fawkes indicated I should say nothing, then motioned for me to remove my shoes and leave them in the tiny foyer. He clapped his hands and a young maid appeared from nowhere. Her name was Yuko. She bowed many times before helping me into a pair of thin slippers, then Mr. Fawkes.
“After you, Lady Carlton,” he said, taking my hand and assisting me up the small steps to a polished platform. I followed him down the hall to an airy receiving room furnished with a low black lacquer table, a vase with a single white lily placed in a recessed alcove and two large black silk ottomans. I put down my reticule and removed my gloves, my eyes lingering on the cushion. The idea of resting my sore buttocks upon that lovely silk was irresistible.
Too stubborn to ask for help, my Irish pride and my bustle got the better of me when I sat down and slid off the cushion and onto the matting, my legs flying up into the air, my layers of petticoats and skirts covering my face. I was a sight to behold sprawled out on the floor, laughing, with poor Mr. Fawkes trying to pull me up without grabbing the wrong part of my anatomy. Yuko joined in and together they pulled me to my feet, all three of us laughing. Before I could thank her, the girl hid her face with numerous bows, her forehead to the floor. When I asked Mr. Fawkes why, he said it was customary for a servant to put herself in that humble position to show respect. Fortunately, Fusae found a collapsible stool, providing me with the means to sit with my dignity and bustle intact. I am pleased to report I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon drinking foaming green tea and eating cakes, the stool allowing me to save face as well as my saddle-weary arse.
That first night on the Bluff in Yokohama was cold but strangely quiet, the grass-crickets showing their respect by silencing their chirping and incessant cries at an early hour. I shooed the maid out of my room after she helped me unpack, grateful the previous occupant was a pampered Englishman who preferred sleeping in a four-poster than on the floor. I snuggled under the silk maroon futon spread out on the bed, wearing nothing but my thin muslin chemise, its sensuous touch as smooth and subtle as a man’s hands caressing my breasts, belly and thighs. Daring? Yes. I may as well have been nude since a lady’s chemise is regarded by many as provocative as it’s worn next to her skin.
Soon after I closed my eyes, the silence gave way to what I thought was heavy breathing, as if someone had slipped into my room unannounced, his presence arousing but dreamlike. Clutching the silk up to my chin, I waited, listening intently. The breathing stopped. Shivering, I listened again. Nothing.
Exhausted, I fell back to sleep, but I woke up more than once, convinced a man was in my room, standing at the foot of my bed, watching me. His powerful presence overwhelming my senses with a strange desire that heated my groin, made my nipples hard. A samurai. Tall, powerfully built, a warrior come to strip the filmy chemise from my body, his need as wanton as mine. In the chilly darkness his hands became his eyes, tracing a delicate pattern over the fullness of my breasts then down over my flat belly to the gentle rise of my mound, parting my legs and winding his fingers through the silkiness of my pubic hair before teasing my lower lips with playful touching. He eased them apart and explored the moist pink folds with the fleshy pads of his fingers until I felt a warm wetness gathering, then trickling down the insides of my thighs. Before I could say, do, anything, he slid two fingers inside me and probed me with a surety that made me tremble, then cry out when he found the tiny bud never before pleasured by a man’s touch. He rubbed it vigorously over and over until an erotic sensation surged within me, my muscles contracting and sending me into a heady spiral of ecstasy, giving me the release I needed, I craved—
I sat up. Awake. Panting, bathed in sweat, my body writhing in pleasurable contractions, my emotions soaring into a fantasy of my own creation. Was it a ghost? Perhaps. Yet his image was so real to me I could smell the muskiness of his scent lingering upon my chemise wet with perspiration. I reasoned my mind had acted upon everything I’d seen, heard, touched since arriving in Japan. The excitement on the pier, the trek up the mountain, the wild stories about samurai. No wonder I retreated into a dream.
Yet a truth revealed itself to me that night, dear lady reader, one that would dictate my outrageous behavior in the weeks to come, for I no longer found satisfaction in the particular delight a dildo afforded me. I hungered for more.
I needed a man and needed him badly.
The next morning I awakened to discover those wonderful roaming fingers were neither human nor ghostly. Insects crawled around my futon, vile little creatures with squiggly legs and ugly, round bodies. A cry of horror escaped from my lips, bringing Yuko scurrying to my room, bowing. She quickly remedied the situation by sprinkling what she called sho-no over my bedding, a powdered camphor.
Taking a bath proved to be a more difficult chore, with the maid insisting she wash me
with a small white cloth before I could enter the round cedar tub with steaming hot water. I shook my head no. Neither of us would relent, so we compromised. I allowed her to wash my back and arms with soapy water from a small bucket while I sat on a low stool. As I sat astride the stool with a hole in the middle, I imagined the maid washing the previous occupant, a staid Englishman. I tried to put my foot through the hole, but the maid giggled and motioned it was for the man’s genitals to hang down through.
I must add I insisted on wearing my cotton chemise both in and out of the tub, much to the maid’s dismay. I have to smile at my modesty since later I would strip nude without shame. Don’t be so prissy. Cover these pages with your fan if you’re squeamish, dear lady reader, for what I’m about to reveal to you may be disturbing. Aboard ship, I overheard a fellow passenger telling a shipmate he was anxious to visit a Tokio public bathhouse where men and women bathed together. (Eavesdropping is a habit of mine; though not necessarily an Irish trait, we’re better at it than most.) Tiled establishments with wooden vats heating up the water to extraordinary hot temperatures, he said, with nude women washing themselves outside the tub in full view of the men.
“Sorry to spoil your fun, old chap,” I remember his shipmate saying, laughing. “But the Tokio baths have since installed a railing between the men and woman, shielding the other sex from view.”
Shocking? At the time I thought so, as well, dear lady reader, but that would change, eager as I was to shed my brand of innocence, eyes open, ears peaked. In the hot summer months, I would stand nude under a crashing waterfall with my samurai, our bodies touching, keeping me breathless, my nerves bristling with anticipation, his hands searching for my breasts, pinching my nipples before parting my legs and sliding his cock into me. Not an easy feat, I assure you, but it happened, as you shall see in a later chapter.
When I finished my bath, I faced a new challenge: who was going to lace up my corset? Most likely when you find yourself away from home, you have but to ring the bell to secure a competent ladies’ maid. I was not as fortunate. A lady’s toilette, as you know, is a never-ending barrage of buttons, fluffy petticoats and cruel lacing to attain a wonderfully cinched waist. I can publicly state I have never found wearing a corset to my liking. Think about it: your ribs crushed and hurting, the corset ribbons pretty and soft yet pulled so tightly you can’t get your breath. And if you dare to allow your emotions to well up inside you, you can’t regain your composure, making you act like the overwrought heroine in a very bad play.
I would soon discard this confining mode of dress when I ran through fields of tall flowers wearing nothing but a thin cotton kimono tied with a sash around my waist, my breasts and limbs free from constraint. I see you shaking your head, having heard the exaggerated stories told by male explorers about native women in hot, tropical lands who go about bare bosomed, and how their breasts hang down, shapeless. I assure you, after living in the samurai village for nearly two years, my breasts remain firm, my nipples pointy. I shall add that the constant stimulation of my breasts by strong male hands no doubt help them retain their shape.
But at this moment I needed help lacing up, and neither the native housekeeper nor the maid could assist me in the task. I tried to demonstrate to them how to pull the long, long ribbons through the buttonholes and hook them around the steel clasps, but they were more interested in snapping my garters adorned with perfect satin bows. Embarrassed, I sent them away and threw myself across the four-poster. I couldn’t stop the tears from welling up. It wasn’t lacing up the corset that generated such melancholy in me. It was the enervating effect of finding oneself alone and frustrated, deprived of masculine company and inhabiting a world without their stimulating pleasures. You know what I mean, dear lady reader. His smell when you crush his shirt against your face, the timbre of his voice calling you, the sudden squeeze of your bottom by his eager hand. I imagine you’re familiar with that state of mind that comes over you when your husband is called away to his country estates or abroad. You suffer from a coldness in your soul for want of a man to hold you, touch you, caress your shoulders and wind the loose strands of your pinned-up hair around his fingers, his lips brushing the nape of your neck and sending a rushing fever down, down through your lower body to your hard bud burning with such heat you can’t stop yourself. You move against him, pressing into his groin, moaning, not resisting when he pulls your leg up around his waist to give him better access into you. Waiting, aching to feel his cock buried inside you, the moment of feeling him inside you so quick, so forceful you cry out in surprise, your voice guttural, your need primal. You close your eyes and let him take you, the sheer pleasure of his cock thrusting into you making you shiver when he pushes himself in deeper still…
Yes, fan yourself, if you must. ’Tis true I have a sassy mouth and a tendency to say what others are merely thinking. No doubt you told Lady——that when she caught you reading my memoir at your dressmaker’s, telling her you picked up this book to learn more about Japan, being that everything Japanese from porcelain to silks to lacquerware is fashionable in Mayfair drawing rooms, and not to be sexually stimulated. I warned you.
Pacing up and down in my bedroom, my arms aching from trying to pull my lacings, I realized that since I was determined to live a separate life from James, I had to do the lacing myself. (As much as I respected Mr. Fawkes, asking him to perform a husband’s duties was out of the question.) After several tries, I learned to do a decent job of it by reaching behind me and tying the long lacings to a slender bedpost, then walking away, one step at a time, to pull them taut, then untying them and wrapping them around my waist before they slackened too much. Not perfect, but satisfactory.
By the way, don’t you dare tell Miss Tuttle at the school for young ladies about my corset indiscretion. It will make her wet her pantaloons.
I settled into a daily routine on the Bluff quite unlike anything I was familiar with in London. Yuko rose at dawn, opened the wooden shutters and heated the water for washing, giggling as she did so. Soon after, I sat down to breakfast, which consisted of cooked rice, miso soup (a native specialty, sour but good), roasted fish and tea. At first, I used the silver utensils provided, though with practice I found success maneuvering the unsplit pair of wooden chopsticks sitting next to my plate at each meal.
After breakfast, I tied myself to the bedpost and pulled my corset lacing tight, then dressed and waited for visitors to call on me. After days of putting myself through this exhausting regimen with no visitors (I blamed it on the rain, but I discovered James had spread the word that his wife was “sickly” from the sea voyage and couldn’t receive visitors. The scoundrel), I abandoned western dress and began wearing nothing but a robe over my chemise. A silk kimono as bright as a daffodil with white flowers embroidered on it and trimmed at the bottom with a thick padding. I abandoned my corset (yes, I know, one scandal after another, but bear with me, please) and allowed the native housekeeper to wrap a wide obi, or sash, around my waist then show me how to use the wide sleeves hanging down to the floor as pockets. I twirled around in circles as Fusae wrapped the yards of silk around my waist, pretending a lover embraced me, but it was no substitute for a man’s arms.
Wearing my kimono, I was at peace each morning as I sat on the veranda drinking tea and writing, absorbed in the act of what I called “pasting pictures onto the page.” Words took on the job of color, shape and line, giving life to the visions I had seen, smelled, touched, as the cold, misty days continued with a late-winter rain making the road icy. I put off my trip to the settlement since I didn’t wish to venture down the mountain alone until the rain stopped. I had received a post from Mr. Fawkes informing me he would be in Tokio for the next week, setting up meetings for James with railway officials and stockbrokers as well as finding a house for us to live in. I was on my own, so I continued my travel writing, hoping to charm the reader with my picturesque descriptions of the well-kept gardens on the Bluff with tall, lush flowers towering over bunches of
moon-faced blossoms and the graceful ferns with willowy tails surrounding the trim houses spread out along floral-decked lanes.
Watch your step as you climb up long flights of crumbling stone steps, I wrote, your head bending to admire the overhanging vines of blooms saturated with the overpowering smell of Oriental spice.
I explained how the reader would be delighted and surprised by how many foreign residences were nestled up here together like dollhouses, each one bearing a house number out of sequence since they were numerated by their building date. I was Number 23 Lady. I must admit, I became attached to my little bungalow with its embroidered panels of silk stretched on the doors and the bamboo blinds on the windows threaded with colored beads. They sparkled like iridescent raindrops whenever I opened or closed them. Stretched embroidered silk covered the ceiling, while an eight-sided lantern enveloped in painted silk gauze hung from the center, casting a warm, soothing light over the main receiving room.
I wore only light slippers in the house since the floor was covered with straw matting, but I was fortunate the previous occupant preferred western furniture such as tables and what my mother called the commodities of conversation: chairs. I was grateful for this small luxury since I hadn’t yet perfected the Oriental art of sitting on my legs for long periods of time without them falling asleep.
