"But we were boys. You watched while we spoke about women and compared our... assets?" His body was flushed all the way down to his toes.
"If you recall, that was my brother's idea." She spared a moment to give him a grin. "Yes, he claimed he was the most manly among you." Then she snorted in laughter, as she had so long ago. "As I said, I do not trust my brother to tell the truth in such an endeavor."
"But..." Again, her husband seemed to have lost his composure. "But if you were there, then you would know..." He reached down and stopped her hand from stroking him. "You knew I was not... I am not..."
"The longest or largest?" She laughed.
He nodded, his confusion apparent, and she shook her head.
"Only men think bigger is better. We women know a man's dragon must match his wife's cinnabar cave. Too long, and it is uncomfortable. Too short, and it is useless." She gently removed his hand from hers. "My husband, I knew even then that our fit was nearly perfect."
He frowned. "You knew this? Even then? But you were a child. We all were."
She bit her lip, the old tears feeling very close, but she made sure no sign reached her face. "You knew I was not... typical, even before our wedding night." She slowed her stroking. "Does it bother you now?"
She did not look at him, shame keeping her gaze low. It was silly to be ashamed of something that had happened so long ago. An act that allowed them to marry, that had begun the life they now enjoyed. And yet, such was her irrational nature that shame was a constant companion.
He startled her with a single caress of her chin.
"I have always valued your uniqueness. I will not disparage you for it now or ever." There was no softness in his voice and he gave only a brief caress, and yet she felt comforted. His eyes surrounded her with happiness and his yang power enfolded her in strength.
Her insides quivered, and her yin cauldron bubbled over. Such was his power that he drew this most potent response. How had she forgotten he could do this to her? And how would she defend herself if he refined his yang? How would she keep herself safe when his every breath exuded awesome strength?
"I have lost count of the strokes," she murmured. Never in decades of practice had she lost count!
"Eight," he answered.
She scrambled to cool her yin. "Then I shall begin at nine."
But before she could begin the task, before she could fight the weakness in her fingers, he reached down, slowly uncurling her hand. "Perhaps I should finish."
She released his dragon in an unsteady jerk, mourning the loss of his heated flesh. She said nothing, pressing her lips together and trying to appear critical and instructive. But she had no idea if he held himself correctly, if his hand was firm and powerful, stoking the yang fire without causing it to blaze over. She saw only his eyes, for his gaze enfolded her. She knew nothing but him. Her body heated with his every movement. Her breath shortened until she matched his soft, tight panting. She moistened her lips, and her womanly juices flowed. His gaze leapt to her mouth, and his eyes grew hungry. She knew his yang churned hotly, but no more than her own yin. Truly, they were well matched as partners.
But he was her husband, not her true partner in her religion, and so she did her best to cool her ardor. As mates they had too many ties, too many earthly connections to attain immortality together. That was why she had chosen Ru Shan—her husband's competitor—to partner her so many years ago. There could be no tie to such a man, and therefore no impediment to leaving his side for Heaven.
With Kui Yu... She could already tell that the smallest act would multiply her earthly binds. All he did was stroke his dragon, and her body responded as if his hand were on her cinnabar cave.
Suddenly, he stopped. His hand stilled for two breaths before he finally opened his fingers and released his organ. She blinked, not comprehending.
"Forty-nine," he said, his voice thick and low.
She nodded. "Again," she whispered. "With the other hand."
She was watching his face, unable to break the connection of his gaze. Nevertheless, she saw him raise his other hand, bringing it not to his dragon but her cheek. She meant to pull away, but she could not force herself to move.
He extended his index finger, brushed it across her lips. Fire exploded there. Yin and yang combined to make an explosive heat. The alchemy was powerful, producing not actual flames, but a tingling current that flowed directly to Shi Po's womb. Kui Yu's dragon jerked, and emitted a single white pearl.
Shi Po's body continued to charge. She produced more and more yin to react with his yang. She felt the power draw up from her womb as a physical ache—a low and deep throb—that preluded the yin crest.
Without thought, she opened her mouth and extended her tongue to wet his finger. A streak of light shot through his eyes: the yang fire blazing unchecked. It would take very little to cause his yang release. All she needed to do was give in to her own desire, draw his finger into her mouth, caress it with her tongue...
"No!" she exploded, pushing away from him.
He staggered, but she fell, her bound feet numb from being tucked beneath her. She landed hard, her teeth rattling from the impact. Fortunately, the pain helped cool the fire in her mind.
"Shi Po!" her husband exclaimed, reaching for her. She pushed his hand away, scrambling backward in terror. Not from him, but from the reaction his touch would create in her.
"We cannot do this. We cannot be partners!" She gasped.
He stilled, his cheeks darkening. "You find me unworthy? Repulsive? Weak?"
She shook her head.
"Then are you saying it is you who are at fault? Are you a bad tutor? Do you renounce your Tigress name?"
Again she shook her head, but her misery joined with his reflected anger, both fighting for dominance in her mind.
Suddenly he was kneeling before her, his expression abruptly gentle. Even his voice became a caress. "Then perhaps we have exposed the root of your problem."
Her anger won out, breaking through her control with words that cut. "My problem? This was your exercise."
"But you are the one who faltered. Is it because your training has not the strength to sustain you?"
She shifted to her knees, then pushed up onto her aching feet. "You were the one who put his finger to my mouth. You were the one—"
"I am not the one who is afraid." His voice was quiet—a gentle summer breeze. And with the diminishment of his anger, her reflection of it faded as well, leaving her no defense against his sweetness.
"I am not afraid," she whispered. But as she spoke the words, she realized how much she lied. She was afraid. She was terrified. But not in the way he thought. She did not fear the alchemical reaction between the two of them.
"I fear the hold on you," she admitted, only half lying. "Attachments are inevitable between husband and wife, Tigress and Dragon. How will you feel when I go to Heaven without you?"
She watched her words penetrate his thoughts, saw him grimace then grow quieter. Sadder.
"Can you not stay, Shi Po? Put aside this quest for immortality, return to being the wife who was. I miss the woman who mothered my children and cared for my comfort." He straightened and extended a hand to draw her into the circle of his arms. "You could continue to teach, continue to help your girls—"
"Cubs," she corrected, as she stepped close to him.
He shrugged. "Whatever the name, they are your students and you should not abandon them."
"How can I teach what I have not myself done?"
"The same way you have taught for many years now. Why must that change?"
She closed her eyes and listened to the steady beat of his heart. In the early years of their marriage, the harsh days of little money and ceaseless toil, she would often lay her head on his chest and listen while he slept the deep quiet of total exhaustion.
She remembered that sound now, the beat like the distant bellows of a dragon's breath. That sound had comforted her in those early days. It was the pulse
that had told her he still lived, whispering that she need never repeat what she had once done.
Until that pulse failed her, and she'd been forced to embrace what she hated, to accept what she had once reviled. His heartbeat, his dragon strength, could not save them from starvation. He was not at fault. Not for the building's collapse that nearly beggared them, nor for what she'd done to make money. And Fate had long ago decreed that she grow into a Tigress. But now she realized that she had always blamed him for not having the strength to accomplish everything on his own. For not being a god, but only a man. And that condemnation had been the first log on the yin fire that created who she was.
She pushed away from her husband, struggling with her thoughts. He released her, and she stumbled as she tried to stand. "My thoughts are twisted," she confessed. "Earlier you gave me another option. Now I cannot think for the questions and possibilities you throw at me."
"Shi Po—," he began, but she shook her head, unwilling to listen to more dragon logic, more words from a man.
"You tell me I must return to the beginning," she said, "to tear away the foundation of my practice and begin again correctly. Very well. Because you ask it of me, I will do it. You are my husband and worthy of whatever obedience I can give you." She straightened to her full height. "But I will not take you as my partner. That work would bind us too tightly together, and then I would be unable to leave—even for the glories of Heaven."
She meant to leave then. She turned away and headed for the door. But bound feet were never meant to rush, and besides, without Kui Yu to reflect, she felt empty and cold. So she was slow to move, slow to leave, which gave him time to speak one last time.
"What if I sought to go to Heaven with you? What if I wanted to become an Immortal too? Would you then be my partner?"
She looked back over her shoulder. His face held shock, as if he didn't believe what he'd just said. "Do not reach for what is beyond you, Kui Yu. The scrolls say it takes a man many times more effort than a woman, a year of practice to do what she can accomplish in a day. You cannot achieve immortality in the time it would take me to climb the stairway from the very bottom. No man is that strong."
"I wish to try," he said firmly.
She sighed, forcing herself to speak the next words. "I will assign you a suitable partner in the morning."
* * *
A partner! Kui Yu glared at his wife's retreating back. A child, she meant. A girl who needed a husband to honor and guide her as a man ought. That's what her students required. Not her stupid religion. Just like he himself didn't need her religion; he needed a wife and a mother to his children. If he had wanted another pubescent child, he would have succumbed to pressure long ago and married more. Most men of means had four wives. He had contented himself with one. And now she sought to partner him with a lost and frightened little girl!
In a single, swift movement, he threw Shi Po's vial of poison against the wall. The tiny porcelain container shattered, hurling shards and liquid that flashed like lightning into the darkest corners of the room. But all too soon the pieces fell, and he was left with a pounding headache that filled him with dread.
Yet, he had won; She had promised to delay her immortality. She would begin again from the beginning, and he did not even have to go through this wretched quest with her. He did not have to delay his yang release until his balls burned and his dragon became a constant curse, flaring to life at the slightest accidental movement.
Yes, he had tried it once. After sneaking a peek at her sacred scrolls, after listening behind a tapestry as she taught her class, he had decided to see if he could accomplish what Ru Shan could, to see if he could be man enough for his wife to respect. But he had failed. He could not ignore his yang hunger. He could not delay and delay and delay his release with no hope of relief. Ever. So he had put her scrolls away; he had turned his back on his wife's profession, and he had left home searching for new ways to provide for his family. At least he'd learned he could do that, and do it well.
Until now. Until General Kang had burst into his home and he—the master of this household, the patriarch of the Tan family—had been nowhere to be found. Why? Because he had been with a white woman, taking his pleasure as he practiced his English and spread her milky-white thighs. That was what he had been doing while his wife and her cubs were threatened by soldiers; while his home was searched, their possessions violated, and his wife calmly decided on suicide to end her suffering.
His failures sapped his spirit and weakened him further. What did a man do when his wife sought only Heaven? When she disdained her husband and offspring? What could he do?
No, he would not take up with any child she pushed at him. He would not return to the forgetfulness that waited in the body of a whore. And he would not sit idly by while his wife found another lover to stimulate her yin.
No common man was strong enough to walk with her to Heaven? Perhaps not. But a husband could. And the father of her children must be. This he swore.
He would hold in his dragon fire, he would trap the yang roar inside until his balls burst and his eyes rolled back in his head. He would do these things while he stroked and petted her lotus petals, bringing Shi Po's yin to its crest. And then, together, she would finally see what kind of man he was.
And she would know he was too precious to leave behind.
February 15, 1878
Dear Lun Po,
I am pleased your sister enjoyed the carved ivory. It was very difficult finding one with fifteen moveable balls, one inside the other. You are, of course, the most thoughtful of brothers. I was more startled to learn your father invited prospective bridegrooms to New Year's dinner. Shi Po is so young and pure in my mind I can hardly believe she is of marriageable age. But, of course, she is fifteen now.
Tell me everything. I confess to great curiosity as to who was invited and how they performed. Indeed, I can well imagine how your sister felt, trapped behind the women's screen, her tiny pearl teeth no doubt biting her lower lip in fear. Whom would her father choose?
I shall make a bargain with you, Lun Po. If you tell me all the details of your sister's courtships, I will share everything about my foreign boss's daughters. How strange these ghost women are, tittering behind their fans, baring their white bosoms while attaching huge wire contraptions to their hips and behind. Indeed, whenever they turn away from me, I cannot help but think of the hind end of a water buffalo.
What makes them think they look attractive like that? But then I see the white men panting after them, their eyes huge as they follow the large shift and sway of fabric. The women cannot move quickly, of course, and their every step is accomplished with short breaths because the wire contraptions are so tight. I suppose it is no different from the way our women bind their feet. But in this I think the whites have it worse. They can neither sit properly nor breathe. Our women are fortunate in being naturally small of shape. They have no need of such tight bindings to appear delicate.
Ah, how I long for the company of my own kind. Though I am learning a great deal about white business—counting with symbols instead of beads, lists of inventory and bills of lading—I ache for the quiet creak of our old tutor's bones, the feel of a scholar's brush, and the smell of freshly pressed rice paper. And, of course, the lively discussions we two once shared whenever we caught sight of a tiny foot or glimpsed a slender ankle.
Did you know the white foreigners speak exactly as we once did? They compare shapes and sizes, how white and how full. Apparently ghost people appreciate female beauty. And yet, I was shocked when I heard them discuss the huge, bulbous breasts of one woman. As if anything larger than a chrysanthemum bloom was desirable rather than grotesque! They are definitely barbarians. Me, I prefer petite and demure, with tiny feet and a sweet smile.
Write me soon and tell me more about your sister's prospects. I am vulgarly curious to know her future. Indeed, if you do not, I have half a mind to attend your next bridegroom dinner. With my new position, I am e
arning money like water. It drips into my hands as fast as I can catch it.
Your soon-to-be-rich friend,
Kui Yu
Zheng Guang, a pirate from Fujian Province, was made an officer after he gave himself up to the government. Known for his verse, his colleagues implored him to write a poem. He wrote this:
"Different from other officials and officers
On at least one point:
Your Excellencies became bandits after your promotions,
I got my promotion after being a bandit."
Chapter 4
Dinner was quiet and stilted, but Shi Po made sure it was accomplished as all their meals were: with Confucian decorum. She and her husband spoke of little things: the weather, his health, her clothing. And though Kui Yu tried to press for more intimacy, Shi Po refused to answer, her gaze shifting to point out the maids who served them. She would not talk in front of them. Eventually he understood and lapsed into silence.
Until her aunt arrived.
Sung Mei Ting did not wait for a servant to announce her. She burst into the room, her bound feet hitting the floor hard while the wood butterflies in her dyed hair slipped lower and lower. Shi Po rose immediately, startled by her aunt's rare display. Usually, Auntie Ting would never appear perturbed in front of any man, much less her niece's wealthy husband. Kui Yu also rose to his feet.
"What has happened?" he demanded.
"Oh!" cried Mei Ting, her gaze fluttering between the two. "So sorry, so sorry," she murmured. "I had not thought you home this early."
Kui Yu bowed. "Today has been most unusual."
"Yes," Mei Ting concurred. "I came immediately once I heard. I feared for your safety."
Whatever her aunt feared, it wasn't for Shi Po's safety. Shi Po said nothing, merely gestured for her aunt to join them at the table. Meanwhile, Kui Yu pushed away from his food and said the expected words.
"I have business to attend." Then he turned his piercing gaze to Shi Po. "Unless you wish me to stay. I could—"
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