by Jina Bacarr
And so it became a pattern, James’s accusations, his glee at discovering our investment in the railway was making money (I had received news from Mr. Fawkes that wealthy native merchants were becoming stockholders), and his philandering and drunkenness.
I’ve no doubt it would have continued had James not made the mistake of taking a riding crop to an unwilling bare bottom in the local brothel.
I was in high spirits on this fine morning, swearing it was one of those days when the sun could coax the wild irises up from the earth with nothing but a smile. I ignored the dark clouds at my back and visited the curio shop, again asking the old swordsmith for help, telling him I feared trouble was brewing for Shintaro.
Showing no expression, the swordsmith refilled my teacup, then opened tiny compartments in a small lacquered chest and pulled out what I believe were dried pine and withered orange blossom. Wrapping the fragile items in a silk banner, he handed them to me, smiled then bowed. I thanked him and left, eager to be on my way, but excited. I was certain this was his indirect manner of telling me what I wanted to know. I remembered riding through a grove of pines high in the thickly wooded mountains about an hour’s ride from the settlement, a place where I swore I’d smelled the scent of orange blossoms but found none.
I rode out there again this morning, galloping away from the settlement. I urged the young mare up the vibrant green hillside, my face perspiring, my arm aching from pulling on the reins, my arse bobbing up and down, my boots slick with horse sweat. I must be close. The scent of orange blossoms was so strong here in the grassy hills covered with pine where the ridge dropped abruptly. A steep escarpment led down into a deep-cut valley, dense foliage and weathered rocks hiding whatever was below from my view.
I looked upward to get my bearings. The noon sun yawned, as if bored with my futile exploits, then feisty dark clouds covered her face, sending the day into a familiar grayness. Their bellies bulbous with rain, the clouds descended, drawing nearer and nearer until horse and rider were enveloped in a thick fog, forcing me to turn back. I was so close, but I feared what would happen if my horse lost her footing.
Showers came fast without warning, raindrops splattering my face, my back, yet a fever burned within me. It was the fever of consuming desire to find my samurai, burning so intensely inside me I pulled hard on the reins, ready to keep searching. Only the voice of reason I somehow still possessed made me return home, my clothes drenched, my hard nipples pointing through my wet black velvet jacket. For that indiscretion, I would pay dearly.
“Where have you been, my dear wife?” I heard James bellow in a slurred voice when I came through the front door, my clothes wet and heavy, my spirits sinking.
“I’ve been out riding—” I began, wondering what had happened to the native groom assigned to me. I couldn’t leave the mare standing outside in the rain.
“Get over here,” he ordered. “I’m lonely.”
“I have to see to my horse—”
“Isn’t your husband more important?” His eyes searched out my hard nipples pointing through my wet jacket.
“Please, James, the mare needs me.”
“I need you more,” he said, the hunger in his voice disturbing me. I stiffened as he reached for me, his hand closing over my arm. His grip tightened, making me grimace, but I refused to let him see that he hurt me. I turned away when he tried to kiss me, the smell of cheap brandy on his breath nearly suffocating me.
“You’re drunk again.”
“And you’re beautiful.” He ripped open my jacket and fumbled under my damp chemise until he found my breasts, laughing at my futile attempts to stop him. “More beautiful than those native cunts with their insidious bowing and skinny arses.”
“You’re hurting me, James, let me go.”
“That’s what she said, the bitch, when I bound her to the posts then laid my crop upon her nude buttocks. I can still hear her wailing and shrieking like a streetwalker as I trailed the leather across her spine, taunting her with more licks to come. I brought the crop down harder, then harder, until the angry red welts crisscrossed her bare arse with marks, my mark. Lord Carlton. I’m the son of the duke of Braystone…how dare she spit at me…the whore!”
I tried to cover my breasts as he poured himself another brandy, ranting on about the Chinaman who’d sold him phony liquor, the bottle badly corked without a seal, how he’d see him hang for trying to cheat a lord of the realm. I was more concerned with this frenetic mélange of threats and blows upon my person after months of his tendency toward detachment. Why now? He was dangerous. I had to protect myself.
I raced to my bedroom, opening the cedar chest, pulling out my intimate garments, searching everywhere for—
“Looking for this, my dear wife?”
I stiffened, hearing James behind me. Slowly I turned and saw him holding up my dagger and toying with its sharp point.
“I found it when I was looking for letters from Mallory.”
“Give it back to me, James. It’s mine.”
“No.” His eyes narrowed. “Who gave it to you?”
“No one. I bought it in a curio shop in Yokohama.”
“You’re lying. You intended to kill me.”
“You’re insane. It’s true I hate what you’ve done to me, to our marriage, but I’m not a fool.”
“There’s something different about you,” he said, running the point of the dagger along my rib cage, snagging the ripped velvet. “A private glow of satisfaction in your eyes.” He grabbed my crotch through my wet clothes and squeezed it, hard. I grimaced. “As if you’ve been fucked, your pussy tightening around a man’s cock, your heart pumping while he thrust into you.”
“You—you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know that look. Womanly and sensuous, no longer chaste and innocent, but knowing. Who is he, Katie? Who is he?”
“I swear there’s no one.” Lie, lie. By the holy saints, I felt my face redden like a harlot caught with her knickers down with the local vicar. What could I do? Tell him I’d given myself to a samurai, a man far better than he?
“I’ve noticed how you draw back when I try to touch you, how you sneer and laugh at me. Like the girls at Madame Dumonde’s in Paris, laughing because I couldn’t fuck them because he was there, watching, waiting, the switch in his hand. Not even when he struck my naked buttocks with the rod could I get hard enough to fuck the girl in the fancy whorehouse.”
“Who, James? Who was watching you?” I begged him. His eyes took on the look of a man much younger as he relived a painful time in his life. I couldn’t believe this was my husband looking so compellingly vulnerable, a man’s whose dark side cast shadows over our marriage from the beginning and now doused what small glimmer of light we may have had forever.
“My father…the bastard.”
The words rushed out of him, how his father, the duke, had beat him for years, taking the strap to him, as had so many of his professors while making him recite irregular Greek verbs. The duke subscribed to the notion that flagellation promoted the release of male secretions, an ungodly one at that, but the upper class believed that surviving a whipping at school brought with it a certain cachet and membership in the exclusive Eton Block Club. (Ask his lordship, dear lady reader, if he survived Eton without a whipping and I dare say he did not.)
When James was sixteen, the duke insisted the boy accompany him to a Paris brothel, where James was so humiliated by the older man’s flailing actions with the switch, he fled out into the night, his eyes blinded by tears, where he was run down by a carriage, his leg caught under the wheel.
He survived, but with a limp.
The duke never spoke of the incident and James never forgave him. He took out his revenge by squandering his fortune and spending his time in whorehouses, whipping the buttocks of pretty girls to get back at the prostitutes who had mocked him, shaming them first before he fucked them. But tonight he had gone too far in the brothel, taking a riding crop to a si
ngsong girl, scarring her so badly the madam cursed him for soiling her goods and banned him from her establishment, then had him escorted home.
Where he waited for me, his dear wife, so he could finish his sordid game.
Blinded by inconsolable rage, James struck me across the face, cutting my lip. I tasted blood, but I wouldn’t allow him to berate me. I realized I was up against a man of such single-mindedness that nothing could vanquish his anger toward me. We had both come to this union as damaged souls, him more than I, at the core of his tirade the issues of trust and betrayal. I can’t deny I was guilty by giving myself to another man. I have not the time nor inclination to explore the moral issues I faced then. Judge me if you must, dear lady reader, but had James not driven me to it? It was no excuse, I see that now, but you can understand what an irredeemable man I had married.
I had to get out, go anywhere, it didn’t matter. He’d kill me if I didn’t.
“I’m leaving you, James,” I said, grabbing my reticule to pack some clothes, personal items. “Our marriage is over.”
“So you can go to him?”
“There’s no one, I swear.”
“You’re mine and I demand you show me some respect.”
I had no time to react when he pushed me and I staggered across the room, dropping the valise. I had misjudged him, so fierce was his desire to possess me. With a swiftness I wouldn’t have believed, he ripped my skirt, my petticoats, then grabbed me by my hair, pulling off the black ribbon, and yanked my head back so far I thought he’d break my neck.
“Let me go, James, you’re mad!” I screamed, my arms flailing about as I nearly lost my balance. I tried to pull away, disgust and loathing for him making my stomach churn. He laughed at my helplessness, my eyes disbelieving, my breasts rising as I struggled with him, pain radiating across my back until I couldn’t stand it and I collapsed onto the floor. James stood for a moment, legs spread apart, looking down at me with a strange surge of excitement on his face as I lay there, choking, then he was on top of me, grabbing at my breasts and waving the dagger around in circles.
“Don’t force me to disfigure your beautiful body, my dear wife, for I shall if you resist. Spread your legs so I can fuck you.” He got to his feet and fumbled with the buttons on his breeches, releasing his cock, holding it with one hand and brandishing the dagger in the other.
“I shall never submit to you, James.”
“You will do as I command, whore, or I will cut you.”
Fearful for my life, I pulled up my torn skirt, my petticoats, my hand shaking as I opened the slit in my drawers. His eyes widened when he saw my naked pussy, pink and moist, but I had no intention of allowing him to fuck me. I had to act now. As he leaned down over me, I brought my knee up in a swift kick to his groin, making him yell out in pain. He sliced through my silken drawers with the dagger and cut my thigh as he toppled onto the floor, mumbling. A slithery red stain drizzled down my leg like a trail of fire, burning hot. Forget the pain. Before he could stop me, I ripped the lacy ruffle hanging off my petticoat and wrapped it around my leg, then I ran out of the house and slammed the door behind me. I found my horse still standing in the rain, snorting, shivering. James must have released the groom, planning for us to be alone. I tried to calm her, knowing it was madness to take the mare out in a storm like this, but I couldn’t stay here. I would not, could not allow my husband to plunder my soul as well as my body with his debauchery. I pulled myself up onto the saddle, dragging my bleeding leg over the mare’s flanks, and took off into the mountains behind the settlement.
I was in full revolt against my husband, my womanly emotions sickened by his belligerence and humiliation of my person, my spirit. Yet I could not forget his words, knowing as he did I had given myself to another man. I knew the echo of my torment would never leave me. Yet I didn’t turn back.
I must find Shintaro.
I rode for hours, the horse’s hooves thundering over the terrain through bamboo thickets, the tension building inside me, the mare never letting up though I could tell she was chafing at the bit, yearning to run free. We slogged up the grassy hillside, me reining her in around tight curves then opening up when we came to the summit, the wind in our ears, my hair whipping at my face, the mare’s breath strong and rhythmic, giving me hope. We wouldn’t fail in our mission. We splashed through a stream, a fallen tree limb lay in our path, the horse taking the jump low and easy, then pounding over the ridge, a cloud of fog obscuring my view, a bluish-gray mist threatening me from all sides.
I headed for the pine groves, the driving rain stinging my face, throat, arms, until horse and rider found ourselves near the end of the cliff, nothing but a tortuous hillpath leading down into the steep valley below. The mare whinnied in alarm, veering sideways and tossing me onto the sticky brambles. I cried out as I landed, the needles pricking my bare skin, my legs shaking, wobbling so hard I couldn’t stand up. I dragged myself under the lee of an overhanging rock to rest, a rich darkness beckoning me to go farther into the natural cave, but I couldn’t. Bleeding, exhausted, my clothes soaked with rain and creek water, I lay on my back, panting, gasping for air. I must stay awake…couldn’t…it was no use. I closed my eyes, the scent of orange blossoms filling my nostrils, knowing Shintaro must be near, that thought bringing me so much pleasure it was a sin.
I awoke to find a young samurai leaning over me, his hand touching my face, my throat, the swell of my breasts. The sight of him took my breath away. He was not simply a man, but the most beautiful young man I’d ever seen, the light streaming under the rock turning the sweat on his bare arm muscles into a delicate oil that dramatized its sensual contours. I brushed my fingers against the side of his face, smooth, so smooth I imagined he wasn’t real, but he was. Top knot pulled back, divided trousers, shoulder armor covering his left arm and forearm, leaving his chest bare, two sheathed swords at his waist. I leaned closer, infusing my senses with his beauty so that I could savor this moment, so sweet yet intense, a shiver rattling my bones with an ancient curse when I looked deeper into his eyes. What I saw there frightened me. Desire. Formed by the urgency of our youth, two young buds newly blossomed.
I believe at that moment I stood at a crossroads, my fate decided upon whether or not I went forward or backward. I wouldn’t know until later where the strange feelings I had for the young samurai would take me. For now, I uttered the words that proclaimed my destiny, words that would wash away the taste of fear in my mouth.
“Take me to Shintaro.”
13
Time for self-confession, dear lady reader, while my body heals during its restful abandonment, the emotional wounds mending along with the flesh, each like silken threads entwining in a pattern old yet new, for nothing is ever the same. Scars heal, but they are reminders of deeds done that cannot be undone.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…I fucked a man not my husband…I ran away from his lordship…and I’m not going back.
Shameless? Yes, but having come this far with me on my journey, we have reached a place in the road, which will determine where we go from here, you and I. You can accept my decision to ally with my samurai and experience all that I did with him and not judge me. Or we part ways here and I shall not judge you for your unwillingness to go further into the story with me. For what I shall reveal henceforth will indeed make your pussy tingle with such a rare pleasure no Occidental woman can read it without experiencing an erotic reaction that will leave you questioning your own sexual pursuits. Be forewarned. The remainder of my story is not for puritanical souls and faint aristocrats whose sex lives are cloaked in secrecy, rarely discussed or ignored completely.
I understand that by writing this memoir I am bound to put forth the truth of what happened to me, while allowing myself the freedom of a writer to entertain you. Consequently, I am careful of the words I use, wishing to express myself in English while also being true to the interpretation of the Japanese language as I understood it. Be mindful, my proficiency in the n
ative tongue was more than enough to make myself understood and I attained another level during my stay in the samurai village. Yet ’tis not my intent to place myself in a position to divine every nuance of the native culture and engage you in historical repartee, but instead to make you understand what a magnificent creature was Shintaro, a man with the power and sensuality to engage my soul and torment my body with such pleasures I would have died for him had our places been reversed.
Now that we’ve settled our discussion and you are still with me, I shan’t keep you in suspense about what happened to me the day I found myself in the arms of the handsome young samurai. Akira. A young man whom I discovered adopted a chivalrous way of speaking around me to match the knightly purity of his flowing robes when he bade me learn the way of the warrior, hoping to bring me under its potent spell and his. I don’t deny he saved my life. He found my lacy ruffle stained with blood and curiosity led him to find me under the lee of the rock where, for two days, I lay in the limbo world I’d been warned about by the good sisters. A place between heaven and hell where wandering souls gather to account for their sins. Or if you are Irish, to cajole and plead before your betters to be allowed to return to earth.
