My Splendid Concubine

by Lofthouse, Lloyd

  She mumbled strange noises. After a while, she told him she was speaking English and was saying, ‘I love you.’ He told her in Chinese that he loved her, and he meant it for the truth was that he loved both his concubines.

  He begged her to change back to Chinese. “Let me make you happy tonight, Shao-mei.”

  Her face glowed. She said, “I miss my sister. Could Ayaou join us?”

  “No!” He pulled the blankets over them. “I’m not ready for that, and I don’t know if I ever will be.”

  Her hands moved down the length of his body—exploring, while he explored her.

  Then Robert lost control. Gasping for air, he slid down to sit on the floor. He’d excited himself to the point that he’d had an orgasm. His member, which he was still holding, had turned flaccid. He held up his hand and examined it. His fingers were sticky. This cannot be happening, he thought. He groaned and rested his head against the wall.

  He concentrated on naked images of Shao-mei to get the mood back. It was no good. He yanked at his member to excite it. That didn’t work. His Irish side was marching Christian armies into his brain to do battle with his Chinese desires.

  With a sinking heart, he looked down the dark well that was the stairway and decided to get dressed and take a walk. He had failed. His upbringing was too powerful. He couldn’t overcome his British breeding. He couldn’t love his two women in all the ways that word implied. He wiped his slimy hand on the robe. He might as well be going down that stairway straight to hell.

  As Robert took the first step down the stairs, a grunting, retching noise came from Shao-mei’s room. He turned and rushed into her room. She was on her knees hanging over her chamber pot throwing up. At first, Robert thought it was because she was disgusted with him. She knew about his fantasy and orgasm in the hall.

  Seeing him, she jumped to her feet. She was naked. Slime was hanging from her mouth. It wasn’t the vomit that caught his eyes. It was the changing shape of her body. He hadn’t seen her naked since the day Patridge sold her to him.

  How could he have been so stupid? As a boy, he’d been around his mother when she’d been pregnant. The Chinese banker had seen right away, but Robert hadn’t understood. The headaches, the moodiness, and the nausea all made sense.

  “Who did this to you?” Robert said, feeling a rush of jealousy and anger. Had she gone out and slept with another man because of him? If he had done his duty as she would have expected from a Chinese master, this wouldn’t have happened.

  Sweat beaded her forehead. Her eyes glazed over. She burst into tears and swayed on her feet. Robert made sure the door was closed and took her into his arms. Her skin was clammy and cold. He led her to the bed and made her get under the covers. He sat beside her.

  “Have you told Ayaou?” he asked.

  She pulled the blanket up to her eyes and shook her head saying no. Her tears started to flood. She sobbed and trembled. Without taking off his robe, Robert crawled under the covers and held her. She shivered violently inside his arms. “I’m sorry, child,” he said, believing he was somehow responsible for what had happened.

  It took several minutes for her to calm down. Robert took her face between his hands and turned it toward him. “Who is he?”

  She stared at him without saying a word. Fear filled her eyes.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. If I had been the master you expected, this wouldn’t have happened. Tell me who he is. Did you meet him in the market?”

  She shook her head but still did not speak. She attempted to turn from him. He wouldn’t let her. Robert held her face firmly between his hands. She had to look at him. “I am your master,” he said. “You have to tell me.”

  “He said he’d hurt us.” Her voice was small, almost a squeak. She looked fragile as if she were one of those thin bone China dishes.

  “If you love him, I will arrange for him to live with us. You will be his wife,” Robert said. “He’ll have no reasons to make threats and fear me.”

  Her expression twisted into something else, something horrible. “I hate him!” She spit out.

  Then Robert understood. “You were raped?” Rage smashed into him like a tsunami. “Tell me who did it? If you don’t, I will beat it out of you and kill him. If I have to, I’ll get Ayaou to pry the name from your lips.” The sound of his voice was frightening.

  She tried to move away from him, but the bed was too small. She didn’t answer. Her expression said everything.

  “It was Patridge!” Robert cursed. “That bastard didn’t keep his word!” Then he was elated because it meant the devil’s contract had been broken. Laughter welled up inside his throat mingled with anger. He was free. He broke out laughing. It was a wicked sound. It looked like he wouldn’t be corrupting Chinese with opium anymore.

  She was calm now. The wild look in her eyes had faded. She shook her head and Robert knew. “It wasn’t Patridge,” he said. “It was Payne Hollister.” The fear rushed back into her face telling him the truth. His laughter died a reluctant death but the anger remained.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He said it was his revenge.” She squeaked. “And if I told anyone, even Patridge, he would come back and hurt me and kill Ayaou and you.”

  An ax blade twisted inside Robert’s stomach. It was because of Me-ta-tae. He had caused this with his uncontrolled lust. It was his fault. He was the monster. “I’m a bloody fool, a damned bloody fool.” He said it with such acid that Shao-mei started to cry.

  Robert couldn’t bear to look at her. His temples throbbed. His head hurt. He had to relax and think, but there was nothing he could do but feel helpless. Hollister had sailed to England in his sloop. He was thousands of miles away on his yearlong journey. Robert hoped the ocean swallowed him before he made it home. After all, his sloop was small.

  “Listen to me,” Robert said, as he had an idea. He forced himself to look into her eyes. This had to work. “You will tell Ayaou the baby is ours. No one has to know that it belongs to Hollister. We will raise it together. You will always belong to me. I will never sell you.

  “Tonight I am going to sleep with you, but we cannot have intercourse since you are pregnant. If we did, it might cause a miscarriage. If you had a miscarriage, there would be danger that you might die. I’ve heard of so many women dying in childbirth that it frightens me. The younger the mother, the more risk and danger there is. I don’t want to lose you, Shao-mei.”

  “You don’t want to lose me?” she said. She stopped sobbing and hiccupped. She looked innocent and harmless with wide-open eyes.

  This caused his heart to feel as if it were swelling in his chest. His member stiffened with desire. He didn’t want this intrusion now. Why couldn’t this incessant ache leave him alone? He found some relief at the consulate when he was working, but even that wasn’t assured. “Yes, I don’t want to lose you.” His voice was shaking. He looked at his hands. They were trembling.

  “But why? If I died, you would still have Ayaou. Isn’t that what you have wanted all along?”

  “I have been confused. In my country, living with two women would make me a bad man. Everyone would condemn me as a degenerate. That would injure my father deeply, because he believes strongly that such behavior is wrong. I love my father. I don’t want to hurt him.”

  “Then if I died that would solve your problems. So why not use me? I will die for you if it will make your life easier. Take me.” And her hands reached for Robert like a greedy, hungry child wanting candy.

  “No, Shao-mei.” He pushed her away. She looked hurt. “If you died, my heart would break. Recently, I have come to desire you and love you as much as I love Ayaou. I never realized that a man could love two women equally.”

  She slipped her arms around him and pulled herself against him until her naked body was against his. “Then why not make love to me? You must desire me. I know my body burns for you.”

  “I want to,” he said.

  “How do I know that you are not lying
to make me feel better?”

  “I am sure that Ayaou explained to you what this means,” he replied, and guided one of her hands to his member. She gasped when she felt it.

  “It is so big,” she said in wonder and pulled the covers back to stare. “It has become a giant.” She grasped it and squeezed. “It is cute. It looks like a little man who needs my help, because he has no arms.” She leaned down and kissed it.

  Robert groaned. “Stop, Shao-mei. I am going to explode. I could lose control.”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “Maybe the danger is if you fill me with your seeds. Maybe you would make me pregnant again. The babies would fight inside me. When you are ready to shoot and give me your seeds, you could pull out. That way there would be no danger.”

  “No, Shao-mei. I don’t want to risk it.”

  “Are you sure there would be danger to the child and to me? How do you know this? I want you to touch me and to make me your woman. Hollister laughed at me and said I wasn’t enough of a woman for him. He said that I had the body of a child. That it disgusted him. He said my breasts were like smashed mushrooms. Because of what he told me, I believed the reason you haven’t taken me was because I was ugly.”

  “That’s not true. You are beautiful. Your breasts are works of art. I have trouble not staring at them. And your legs are perfect. They are smooth and long, and whenever you are not looking, I admire them. The reason I fear for your safety and the baby’s safety is because my mother had twelve children. The family doctor lectured my father on the dangers of having intercourse with her while she was pregnant. Tomorrow you still have to tell your sister that we were intimate anyway.”

  “But why? Why should we not tell her the truth? I don’t understand.”

  “Because, it is important she thinks the baby is from me. If we don’t make love tonight, I cannot be the father.”

  “Oh.” She grew quiet and thoughtful.

  “Listen carefully. I’m going to tell you what to say so she believes that it happened—that we made love. Then I will start coming to your room regularly. We will sleep together but cannot be intimate. Do you understand?”

  Her eyes were bigger than Robert had ever seen them. They were stained red too. She nodded. The tears had dried on her cheeks. “After the baby is born,” she said, “you will still come to my bed. Then you will take me and show me the pleasures Ayaou told me about?”

  “Yes, of course,” he replied, and hoped that he’d be able to overcome his culture’s morality by then. If he could not have these two women and have peace of mind at the same time, Robert didn’t know what he was going to do.

  Hollister must have taken her in late September and now it was December. She was more than three months pregnant. Robert hated the man for what he had done. “Wait for four weeks. Then we will tell Ayaou you are pregnant. Now I want you to repeat what you are going to say to Ayaou, so she will believe that we were intimate. I do not want mistakes.”

  Shao-mei smiled and cuddled against him. He kissed the top of her head.

  “Wu Hei Nee,” she said in the same tone of adoration she had used before. That was when Robert knew he was cured. The moral anguish had vanished. He would have no problem performing when the time came after the child was born. The guilt that had influenced him for so long did not control him any longer. It was gone. He was ready to love the sisters equally.

  Robert listened to the sound of her voice as she repeated his instructions. He continued to hold her even after she had fallen asleep. He imagined what her lips would feel like when he kissed her and what her body would feel like when his hands were free to explore without the restraints he had brought with him from Ireland.

  The innocent child inside her didn’t deserve to grow up treated like an outcast. Robert resolved to do whatever it took to make sure that never happened. He worried that he wouldn’t be the father this child deserved. Somehow his knowledge that the child wasn’t his might spoil everything. He might resent it, because its father was Hollister.

  No, that would never happen. He was strong enough to make sure it wouldn’t. An innocent child was not going to suffer because of his weaknesses. Robert would turn to God for strength and work hard to make sure there was always enough to make life comfortable for his family. Instead of working ten and twelve hour days, he’d work sixteen to twenty hours. If possible, he would give up sleep. His love for these two Chinese boat girls was so strong that he was willing to do almost anything to make their lives better and safer.

  There was one person Robert felt safe enough to trust this secret with. He pulled Guan-jiah aside the next day and told him what had happened. His servant surprised him with his reply. “You are learning, Master. If the child grows up thinking it is a bastard that would ruin your life. There would be no pleasure.”

  “But—” Robert started to say.

  Guan-jiah held up a hand to stop him. “In China we know how to eat and enjoy life. To do anything else is uncivilized. Most Westerners know nothing about enjoying life. Most never do what you are doing—to accept this child as yours and to hide the truth. To do anything else would be a horrible loss of face and a disaster.

  “If it were common knowledge that this child was a bastard, there would be no enjoying life in your household. Your concubines would lament and walk about with sorrowful faces, because the outside world knew the truth. Gloom, sorrow and anger would smother all three of you. Shao-mei might even hang herself. The child would grow up hating everyone and become a criminal.

  “I admire what you have decided to do, and your secret is safe with me. The pleasures of life are merely matters of the senses—food, drink, your house, the garden, your family and your friendships count. That is what life is about. You are demonstrating wisdom.”

  Guan-jiah pulled on one of his Buddha like earlobes. His face took on a thoughtful expression. “When the child is born, I will always be willing to help. If you have decided to adopt this child, I will do the same. I can be its adopted uncle.” He smiled.

  Robert opened and closed his mouth. He couldn’t think of a response. Guan-jiah was happy that Shao-mei was going to have this child. What Robert saw as a tragedy, Guan-jiah saw as an opportunity. Robert remembered that his servant was a eunuch. He could never have children of his own. How could he blame Guan-jiah for wanting to be this child’s uncle?

  To remind himself how fragile life was he touched the pocket where he kept the anonymous letter—the one that accused him of being a thief and using his two girls as prostitutes. Maybe it was a good idea to have Guan-jiah as the adopted uncle.

  Chapter 18

  Shao-mei was still sleeping when Robert opened his eyes to a dark room. He heard Ayaou downstairs making breakfast with more than the usual noise. There was no clock. Since the heavy window covers kept out the light, he had no idea what time it was.

  It took a moment to overrule the desire to stay under the friendly blankets with his second concubine. Her smooth skin was warm like toast from the oven. When he felt his member sprouting, he groaned, slid into the bone-chilling cold, put on the robe and walked across the hall to the bedroom he shared with Ayaou.

  While slipping on his trousers, Robert felt Ayaou’s frigid hand on his bare shoulder. He jumped at the shock of her icy touch. Twisting around, he found her examining him with shrewd eyes like a naturalist examines a specimen. Robert wanted to learn how last night had affected Ayaou’s emotions. He remembered all the misery and jealousy between the wives and concubines in The Dream of the Red Chamber. He was afraid the same thing was going to happen inside his house.

  It didn’t matter that Ayaou had urged him to cross that hall and spend the night with her younger sister. It didn’t matter that nothing physical happened with Shao-mei. The important thing was how Ayaou felt. If misery and jealousy were stirring inside her, the harmony he desired could vanish like fog under a hot sun.

  Her hair looked different—more stylish and sensual. She’d spent time clipping it up and leaving a few
strands before the ears, which accented her high cheekbones and leaf shaped eyes. It stirred his desire.

  “Shao-mei had fun last night,” she said.

  It was obvious Ayaou was struggling to keep her voice calm. There was something in the tone that caused Robert to shiver. It was wild and unpredictable. It frightened him. He didn’t want them competing for his affections. He didn’t want them to hurt each other. It wasn’t fair. He’d conquered his moral guilt only to discover that jealousy might take its place to ruin his life.

  Robert wanted to laugh but his ability to see the humor had evaporated. The irony was absurd. He was a man who had achieved most men’s fantasies. He had never dreamed of living like this. He had two women he loved that loved him back, and he was worried.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, afraid of her answer.

  She turned away so he couldn’t see her eyes. “It’s cold this morning,” she replied.

  Robert took her chin and turned her face to his. The look in her eyes revealed her emotions—she didn’t like sharing him with her sister. Jealousy was stirring. She didn’t know what it was going to do to her, and he wondered if there was anything he could do to stop it. Maybe if he showed more interest in her that would help.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked, and shivering from the cold that was soaking into his bones, he reached for a shirt and pulled it on.

  “I didn’t sleep,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is that why you were cooking so early?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Look at you,” he said in a lighthearted tone, attempting to kill the threatening mood. “Your apron is loose.”

  “Tighten it for me.” A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She turned around and lifted the apron.

  “Christ! You haven’t anything on underneath!”