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Tora

By: Old.Lady.Sofia



A light snow fell on the red lanterns and cobbled alleys of the Yoshiwara, the pleasure quarter of Edo. Ice broke thinly beneath the high, damask sandals of the courtesan as she swayed silkily past the raucous tea shops and restaurants, the gaudy posters of kabuki actors, and the many strolling men. They lowered their eyes when she boldly appraised them. She recognized a priest despite his merchant disguise. Rice brokers and silk traders and saké brewers or their sons argued drunkenly over where they would spend large amounts of money next, and called out lewdly to the street women in robes so loose they exposed the shoulders, sometimes a breast. Some of the men were disheveled, too, their drab cotton clothes revealing the brilliant lining of silk that the aristocracy could no longer afford and that the merchants could not display under the sumptuary laws. A lower-ranked prostitute, little more than a waitress, pulled at the shabby sleeve of a young man and offered her services for free. The courtesan recognized him as a striving writer, a hanger-on of one of her patrons, a celebrated poet whose image was in many a woodblock-print shop. She smiled and drew her short coat closely around the layers of her kimono.

It was the late 17th century. The 18-year-old Emperor was sequestered in Kyoto, and the Shogun ruled from Edo, casting a net of steel and spies over the land. In this era of peace and unmatched wealth, merchants enjoyed a life of pleasure and art thanks to the underclass of actors and courtesans. Officially disdained by polite society, they were richer, more self-indulgent, and freer than the fading aristocracy and the ascetic, Confucian samurai, and even the merchants. This was the floating world—the ukiyo.* A word that once evoked the sad impermanence of earthly things now meant all that was fashionable and nouveau. The strains of drinking songs and bits of ribaldry hovered in the cold air, and the courtesan lifted her smooth face to the snow, feeling it on her eyelids, grateful that she lived in this floating—if fleeting—world of color, luxury, and excess.

The drunken men dared not accost her. They knew who she was and where she was going. At the edge of the pleasure quarter was a quiet alley and a teahouse different from all the others. It appeared dark and quiet. It did not even have a split curtain over the gate announcing its name—just a stone lantern that cast short shadows on the snow. It was the Tora—the Tiger. An unusual name for a teahouse, but it was an unusual teahouse.

A guard slid opens the wooden gate, and the courtesan stepped into a silent stone courtyard. Another door and another slid open. Suddenly she was in a world of brilliant lanterns and song and samisen music and drunken merriment. Leaving her sandals on the stones, she stepped up to the creaking wooden floor in her white split-toe socks, carefully gathering her many skirts. A servant took her coat, and she smoothed her long, wide sleeves. 

She was the only courtesan of the Tora, in the whole of Edo, in fact, whose hair was not elaborately sculpted and lacquered. Her hair flowed, stopped loosely in the middle of her back by a black silk ribbon, and flowed again to below the waist, a long, thick ink stroke against gold and purple. She shook the snow from her hair and the tendrils brushed her cheeks. She was also the only courtesan in Edo who did not mask her face in white powder; her features were accented, not disguised.

The Tora's Master, her business partner, had requested her presence. The occasion was special and she would work for free. She could not decline, nor did she wish to. It was part of an arrangement—one that brought in no direct profit to the Tora but allowed it to prosper. 

The highest-ranking generals of the Shogunate regularly came to the Tora. Here they did not suffer the indignity of wearing a disguise but arrived proudly on horseback, their crests emblazoned on their uniforms. The Shogun himself had graced the Tora, and the courtesan entertained him then, interpreting for him and a Portuguese emissary. Educated like a male, she was prized by the Tora for her language skills and the ease with which she could converse with playwrights and military strategists, painters and bankers. 

Her privileges were extensive. She need not shed her clothes, for she could decide upon whom she would bestow earthly pleasure. She could decline the Shogun himself despite the sheer power and intelligence he exuded as he sat silently, taking in much through his hooded eyes. He was, in any case, more interested in her translation skills than her charm, and valued her opinion when he asked for it in private, usually at the Castle. The other courtesans provided the generals with sensual entertainment. Some generals, however, were escorted by young, beautiful warriors—the ones that her patron Saikaku described in The Comrade Loves of the Samurai—seeking only a place that looked kindly upon their unnamed love and offered luxurious diversions.

The letter she received that day from the Tora's Master simply said that the guest was a general and an adviser of the Shogun. That was not unusual, but the name was strange, and the letter said that the general was a gaijin, a foreigner. Why, she wondered as she soaked in her bath, would the Shogun have a barbarian in his inner circle? The Tora's Master hinted that the general was skilled in European weapons and was helping the Shogunate train the samurai in their use. He also said that the general was learned in various healing arts. She had never heard of such a combination of skills. She had never even heard of the general's land. Was it, perhaps, an unknown province of China? A new kingdom in Europe, that land of endless tribal warfare? 

She had dressed carefully, holding her arms up patiently as her servant wound the wide green sash around her several times, tight enough to keep the layers of silk together but loose and low enough to allow the lapels to fall open if necessary. She hoped that he was not Dutch, who were permitted to live in Nagasaki. She had no wish to be in the company of the pale-eyed, who, it was said, urinated like dogs, one leg lifted, and did not bathe.

Now she stood outside the Room of Clouds. Her eyes cast down, she slid the door open to enter, and closed it. She sank to her knees, placed her delicate fingertips on the straw matting, and bowed deeply. 

When she raised her head she was unable to speak. In the dim, warm light, he sat cross-legged beside a low table, drinking saké, leaning on a black-lacquered armrest. His eyes were dark and sharp, his hair and goatee almost black. His robe was a deep-crimson silk, with small, white, embroidered crests—a bird of prey that she did not recognize and unlike the usual stylized flowers of the samurai. He was a barbarian, yet at ease and proud. A man who looked like a hawk, whose head and face were unshaved. A man so large that she felt like a doll. For the first time in her career, her limbs froze in mild panic. She was staring and her silence becoming rude. Blushing, she bowed deeply and found her voice. 

"General Da Ka of Gor?"

*

2

"Aye," DaKar replied, lifting the small cup to half-smiling lips. "And you," he said, "are Sayoko, the 'the blossoming night girl.' Greetings."

He had not quite known what to expect: there were no courtesans in his land, only free women and slaves. The sight of the small, bowing woman pleased him: she was surrounded by the petals of her robes, which were similar to a free woman's, yet suggested what lay beneath and seemed to be easily shed. 

Sayoko was startled by his command of the language but also by the strange and direct way that he used it. She joined him at the low table. He towered over her. She bowed, not as deeply this time. "I do hope," she replied formally, "that you will look kindly upon me."

She poured saké from a jar that seemed to float in her small hands, into the tiny brown-glazed cup he held out. "Welcome to the Tora, General," she smiled warmly and raised her own cup to him. "I apologize for my earlier rudeness. I did not expect a foreigner in samurai garb."

"I am a guest of the Shogun," he replied easily. "And I understand that you will be teaching me your country's ways as well as entertaining me. To what extent was left unsaid. But I assume that it will be to any extent I wish."

"With all due respect, General," she said in her most polite language, "I am afraid you have been misinformed. I do entertain, but the extent to which I do depends on what I wish."

"Well," he laughed, "you will wish to serve me as I see fit." He put his empty cup on the table in a playful rebuke of her neglect. She blushed as she poured more wine, flustered by yet another faux pas and by the arrogance of her admittedly handsome patron. She recovered quickly and gave him her most brilliant smile. "I understand," she said, "that you are training the samurai to use European weaponry." 

Her composure fully restored, she performed her courtesan's duties. She made sure that his cup was never empty and she discussed the benefits of the country's closed-door policy. Serving girls brought in small plates of raw fish, bean curd in sauces, seaweed, and shrimp. He was amused and pleased. Serious discussions with the Shogun's inner circle were tedious, the Castle dreary, and women seldom seen. But then, he knew, the Tora existed to give the generals and state guests pleasure, including the company of witty, risqué women, while protecting the dignity of the Castle.

Now she was brazen enough to examine him as she would a scroll or a sword. His size alone made him exotic, and he was even more imposing in the wide-shouldered uniform. She wondered, trying to crush the thought, if he was large in every way. 

He smiled at her boldness. He had already decided to take her but knew he must first open something within her, by breaking it if needed. She was flower-soft, but an invisible brittleness lay between them.

She ended her lecture and he slipped the robe off her shoulders to her elbows, baring her small breasts. She was genuinely surprised, then indignant. As she tried to twist away, he pressed her arms hard to her sides and forced her back on the tatami, smiling at her astonishment. His violence parted her robes.

She turned her head to avoid his eyes but gasped as he forced her smooth thighs apart. He pulled her sleeves down roughly and she winced. Only her hips and mound were covered by the silk. He held her wrists above her head with one hand and stroked her thigh, breast, and face with the other. He took her chin and forced her to look at him. She saw the certainty in his eyes and smelled his clean skin, and she felt a rush of heat from her core to her breasts. She arched her back and tried to twist her wrists out of his grip but only appeared to offer herself. He took a small, dark nipple between his lips, running his tongue over it, then biting it gently, then hard. She was shocked to hear her own moans as she straddled the realms of resistance and submission. 

He pulled at the silk scarves and cords holding her sash in place, undoing the damask structure. Her mound was shaven but for a tiny tuft of black hair and she was naked in the midst of the brilliant silk. He parted the lower half of his robes. 

She moaned as she felt him at her lips. She could not move or keep the probing tip from discovering her moisture or stop her moans. He took a soft cord from her sash, turned her over roughly, and tied her wrists together behind her. He slowly molded her neck, back, and ass, memorizing their shapes. She closed her eyes, trying to resist his strong strokes, glad that he could not see how he had warmed her. When he turned her over to face him, her breasts, raised by her arched back, invited his touch. 

He coiled her hair around his fist and roughly pulled her head back. He licked her parted lips and her surrendered neck. He bit her nipples hard, even as she cried out in pain, for he knew his abuse wet her. He gazed cruelly into her eyes and cut into her flesh, crushing her petals.

She cried out, but as his strokes continued, she softened, and her moans became longer and lower, pulled from her depths. He forced her into submission and now guided her through its terrain. He released her passion, and her hips rose to meet him. Her moans became high, fast gasps. Her skin glistened and her legs strained to offer him more of her heat. Still he held her down by her hair. "No!" she cried desperately. Her heat inflamed her breasts and limbs. 

He withdrew and roughly turned her on her belly and pulled up her hips. Her cheek pressed against the straw matting. Her hair lay in soft, black confusion across her face and shoulders. His hands traced her shoulders and back, and the tiny, dark-green tattoo below the right shoulder; it was her name, in Sanskrit. He held her firmly, drawing the tip of his hardness through the wetness, up and down, probing lightly. She started to breathe fast and to moan. He pierced her again, grinding against her, sometimes so fiercely she cried out in pain. 

Before she could complete her pleasure, he stopped. He would take her again and his own satisfaction after he marked her. He allowed her to sit on her heels and drew her knees apart to see the bruised, wet flower. She did not resist and sat unmoving, her small palms resting on her thighs, as he slowly sipped his wine. Her back was straight and proud, pushing her breasts out, but her eyes were glazed with her need to be possessed. He smiled. He had broken open that secret, ineffable part of her. She was sweeter now, like a crushed flower. He untied her wrists.

"Prepare the bath," he said. 

«to be continued» 

Tora Pt. 02



3

Sayoko rose from the silken disorder and slid open the pillow room's paper-and-wood door, which glowed like a lantern. Cloud-like futon lay on the pale tatami in the severe candle-lit elegance. She slid open another door, of milky glass and wood, and disappeared into the steam.

The sound of her hand in the water sent a sharp, almost painful image swiftly through DaKar's mind: a small, pretty slave of his land, who loved the bath as he did, tearing off her collar and throwing it at his feet, sobbing as she fled. He winced and shook the image away. 

Sayoko emerged, her hair now coiled on top of her head and held in place with red-lacquered pins. Damp tendrils framed her face and clung to the back of her neck. She led him into the pillow room where she undressed him, pressing her soft body to him, her touch lingering over his strong shoulders, chest, and back. His skin was an odd, pleasing shade not seen among the Dutch. The scent of his face and neck stirred her, and her lips parted but he did not kiss her. 

In the bath, the steam curled in the light of many candles. He sat on the long bench outside the large, deep cedar tub, and she poured warm water over him with a bamboo dipper. As the water flowed down his harsh face, an unbidden image startled her: she was bathing with a warrior she loved deeply, but in an unknown, barbarian realm where fur, not silk, warmed the body; he pushed her away roughly and she wept. A dream, she thought, just a dream, shaking her head, and the stab of pain passed.

They were slick with soap. She brought her fingers firmly down his slippery neck and across his broad shoulders, pressed her breasts into his back, and drew her hard, dark nipples languorously across his skin. Her hips undulated sensuously against him.

He molded her body and curled the tuft of hair around a finger. She was surprised but did not resist when he pressed her down on the bench. Her feet were on the floor on either side of the bench, the lips of her heat drooping and open. He pinned her wrists to the bench above her head and soaped between her thighs. He reached for a razor and she stiffened with alarm, then froze, fearing the blade. The metal glinted and glided across the her smooth lips and mound, and cut the first hairs, the sound soft and exciting. She closed her eyes as the cool blade shaved the rest, leaving her completely unadorned. 

"This," he said, "is how you will be from now on." He teased her nipples with the dull edge of the razor. He drew a finger between the naked lips and smiled as it emerged warm with her moisture. She swelled from the touch of metal and flesh and she moaned and lifted her hips. He bent over her and she felt his tongue on the hard nub, then between the lips, probing the tiny mouth. Her cry echoed in the steam. He stroked her until she whimpered and then gasped softly. He stopped and gently raised her. 

"We have time," he said. She was still trembling on the edge of pleasure when they sank up to their chins in the hot water of the tub. She ran her hands underwater over his sinew and muscle and skin. She straddled his lap, encircled his neck with slender arms, and tried to kiss him. He laughed and kept his mouth out of her reach. He closed his eyes, savoring the smoothness of her palms. He stroked her firmly, slowly, down her back to her ass and thighs, and up to her small breasts. He traced their shape with a finger and pulled the nipples. She strained to press her heat against him, any part of him. He held her hips still and she groaned. He lifted her from his lap and they rose from the water. She dried his skin, her cheek pressed to it, her touch lingering and sensuous. 

In the pillow room, a low table was covered with various implements of pleasure and, he noted with satisfaction, pain. He lashed her wrists together behind her with a soft cord. He forced her to kneel and secured the rope that bound her to a hook in the post. Her shoulders were pulled back, offering her breasts. The red pins fell to the tatami and he coiled the black river of her hair around a fist, pulling her head back sharply to part her lips.

He will kiss me now, she thought. But he placed the tip of his hardness against her mouth. Startled, she tried to rise, but the pain shot through her arms. He violated her mouth, guiding her head firmly. Her mind was a jumble of indignation and confusion. While she knew that her duty was to please him as a state guest, she was also used to more deference. If she chose to dismiss the attentions of a patron, no amount of cajoling or cash could change her mind. Patrons ignorant or drunk enough to threaten to tell the Tora's Master suffered the humiliation of her laughter, for she partly owned the Tora and enjoyed this privilege, whoever the patron—merchant or, although unlikely, the Shogun himself. And now, in one evening, she had been ravished, shorn, and tied to a post by one who did not ask her permission. While she pleasured men with her mouth, she had never been unable to protest. One patron who had made the mistake of releasing his passion into her mouth was banned from the Tora forever.

Now she knelt in the candlelight, her hair in disarray in his hands. She felt the ridges along his whole length slide across her lips, and the large velvet cap press her tongue. Her skin warmed and the moisture gathered between her straining thighs. She fought this unwelcome pleasure, pulling at her bonds, thrusting her breasts against his legs. She groaned as her arms stretched and twisted. 

He pulled her head back, hard. Then her mouth became soft and caressing, and although she tasted him in her mouth, it was as if the hardness were also cutting through her heat. He became rougher. She could not move. Then she felt the warmth in her mouth, salty and sweet and sharp, and she felt it flow down her throat and heard him groan as his fist tightened around the rope of hair.

He unhooked her wrists from the post, pulled her roughly to unsteady feet, and threw her on the futon on her belly. He twisted her around and, finally, his tongue parted her lips and he kissed her long and violently and sweetly. The kiss possessed her more than the shearing, the binding, or the penetration, for, whether she knew it or not, she had wanted it since she first bowed to him, and it occurred only after he had shown that he could take anything of her at all and make it his.

She fell into a warm darkness, lost and helpless. He pushed back the soft hood of her clitoris and drew his fingers across it, dipping into the hot moisture, stroking her until her hips rose to meet his hand, gathering all the fire of her body until her flesh clasped his fingers and until her sobs filled the golden light of the pillow room. He leaned over her, staring into her languid eyes, half smiling, for he had shown her that he could reduce her to mindless rapture with a mere finger.

Much later, the general awakened in the gray dawn to the sight of the courtesan, smooth-faced and combed, kneeling primly on the tatami. Her black silk under-kimono barely covered her breasts, and the side slits revealed her thighs. On the black-lacquered tray beside her was a teapot glazed with mountain mist. She offered the sleepy DaKar a cup of tea and a peeled tangerine on a tiny, translucent plate. How strong he is, she thought, how large, skilled, and dangerous. And, she reminded herself, irritated yet warmed by recalled pleasure, how utterly arrogant and certain of everything.

As she helped him dress, she examined the white crests scattered over the dark-red silk of his uniform. It was woven and sewn in Edo, but the bird of prey resembled, yet was not, a hawk or a falcon or an eagle. He drew his longsword from the scabbard to inspect it. She studied the steel; it was remarkably similar to the swords of the samurai, with both hard and flexible steel beaten together. She knew it must be virtually unbreakable. The name of the maker was etched in a barbarian script. 

"Where," she asked, "was the sword made?" 

He was amused by her directness and interest in weaponry, and drew a finger along the blade as she dressed. "Torvaldsland. In Gor," he said. Satisfied, he sheathed the blade and strapped it across his back.

She glided three paces behind him to a courtyard where grooms scurried about. One helped DaKar into his helmet, armored vest, and gloves. As they waited for his mount, she bowed to him and formally expressed her gratitude for his presence at the Tora. When she straightened, she turned pale. He was stroking the bronze feathers of an enormous bird with a large leather riding crop. He leaped upon the glinting beast and issued a sharp command in an unknown tongue. The bird's powerful wings stirred whirlwinds of dust. Sayoko pressed her back to a wall, lifting her wide sleeves to her terrified face. She did not see DaKar smiling down at her before he turned his eyes to the clear, cold sky.

4

It was early in the afternoon. DaKar strode down the corridors of the Castle, his wide-shouldered scarlet robes flying, his steps setting the "nightingale" floors to singing. The loose floor boards were laid so as to warn the guards that someone was walking about. Young, helmeted samurai let him into the Map Hall. 

He bowed low in the doorway. The Shogun silently nodded his acknowledgement, the seven other generals returned his bow, and Sayoko placed her fingertips and forehead on the tatami. She was seated behind the Shogun to his right so she could whisper in his ear. They all sat on dark silk cushions around a large, low, square table. All except Sayoko had a lacquered arm rest. 

Large silk screens depicted famous battles. Reverent displays of ancient weapons evoked the bravery of their legendary owners. Scrolls of poems rendered by Edo's best calligraphers extolled the beauty of a life cut short by war. A stark arrangement of wood, stones, and flowers stood in an ancient vase in an alcove. 

DaKar did not look directly at Sayoko. He was still surprised but not displeased that the Shogun required her presence at some conferences, especially the most important ones. In his own land, females were generally either shrouded and free or naked and enslaved, and had no role in the business of war except as bounty or hostages.

He hid his amusement. Her stiff, high-necked kimono had white cirrus clouds floating against a dark-gray background, and black, white-streaked rivers wending between them. Her obi was like ink, and held together with black cords. Even if she might wish to spread her thighs, which he required of her when she greeted him, the armor of her robes would keep her in this most formal of positions, betraying no softness, not a single feminine line.

He placed his sword on a frame and took his place on the Shogun's left. He felt her presence like a fire. The meeting began.

Sayoko drew the men's attention to the European-made maps on the table and indicated how and where the barbarians could attack the island country. Besides the external threat, she continued, was the danger of internal subversion, particularly in Nagasaki, with its small but growing Christian community. A thick leather-bound book lay on the table. It was the repository of Christian dogmas, she explained. She pointed to a stack of paper beside it. "My humble translation of parts of The Bible," she said. "Particularly those containing ideas that might threaten the social order, such human equality." The Edo generals stirred, their jaws and eyes suddenly hard; the Shogun remained completely still, watching, his deep eyes and angular face revealing nothing. 

"The Shogunate," she said, "is grateful to General Da Ka of Gor for his help in developing the weapons industry. Although his own barbaric land possesses but primitive weaponry, he is learned in the nature of metals, and his skill in using the Dutch guns is impressive. In his own land, he is both a warrior and a physician and, therefore, skilled in matters military and chemical. He has analyzed Chinese gunpowder and determined that it may be manufactured here." She paused and then said, ill-concealing her contempt, "Unlike the effete Chinese mandarins, my lords, we will use it for national defense rather than firecrackers."

All bowed to DaKar. Soon the hall was filled with rising and falling voices as the generals pored over the maps and translation, leaning on their armrests, crossing their legs, sipping tea, and tapping their folded fans on their palms. The Shogun did not even nod. Then he declared the meeting ended and instructed Sayoko to continue discussions with DaKar.

It was nearing sunset when the generals filed out of the hall after the Shogun. DaKar gazed long and freely at Sayoko's proud face, full lips, and bold eyes. Then he felt a surge of violence in his loins, greater than any he had ever felt at the Tora. He sat still, hiding his desire, the better to feel it soar. Yet, he wondered, was it her presence alone that excited him? She was, after all, the same woman he ravished at the Tora, and the beguiling softness she displayed when she laughed and reclined there was absent here. 

As the tea warmed his tongue, he realized an important truth. Although the Tora's purpose was to pleasure men, which it did to perfection, it remained the realm of the courtesan—a delightful, fragrant realm to be sure, but a secret, feminine one, where men still required permission to take their pleasure, although this fact was carefully concealed from them. 

The paper panels of the sliding doors facing the western garden glowed red and orange. The hall was suffused with gold, and the fires of war blazed on the screens. The general and the courtesan were now in his realm, one devoid of femininity and softness, where even the flowers were austere. In his realm, death was ever present—in the code of honor, the paintings, the scrolls, the poetry. In his realm, his senses were their sharpest, as if the cold, unscented air cleared the mind to prepare it for danger and violence.

Her face was a golden mask, but she felt his fierceness searing her through the stiff silk. She trembled. She was not at the Tora where she was protected as if by a womb. Here, his power was absolute. 

For the first time, he thought, we are alone in my realm. 

She sensed his strength coil beneath his robe, and her cheeks burned with fear. Almost clinically, he noted that his desire was measured by the fire in his blood and skin, and that if at the Tora the flames were as dazzling as the torches there, here they were fiercer than the infernos depicted on the screens. 

Fixing her eyes with his, he forced her delicate shoulders down so hard and swiftly that the tatami shuddered and she gasped. He smiled at her astonishment. Her face was flushed beneath the black cloud of her hair. She twisted beneath his palms and breathed hard. His body was ablaze with his own power and he groaned with pleasure and impatience.

One hand imprisoned her wrists above her head. Another undid her sash, jerking the layered robes aside. He wished to savor her surrender and to impress upon her how useless her armor was against him. The silk that had hidden everything female about her was now in sensual disarray around her shoulders and breasts and her straining, graceful neck. He bared her thighs and drew his hand hard across the firm flesh up to the smooth mound, uncovering the still-closed lips of her heat. 

"General!" she whispered furiously, mindful of the guards outside the door. But it was the very nature of the hall—public, open, official—that incited him. And it was here that he wished to take her, without ritual and without permission.

He straddled her and pinned her arms beside her head with his shins. He parted his robes and released the shaft. She shook her head wordlessly. With both hands he held her roughly by the hair. He brushed the cap against her mouth, gently parting the lips, teasing them, watching the softness yield even as he felt her arms resist him. Her torso lifted, indignantly, then voluptuously. Her nipples were as hard as tiny dark stones.

He raped her mouth, holding her head still, breathing hard as her lips slid helplessly across the ridges and veins, as her tongue swirled across the cap. Her eyes were closed and she moaned as he invaded and withdrew. She stifled a moan and silently begged the throbbing between her thighs to stop. The moan escaped, deep and guttural, and the moisture seeped through the swelling petals. Her torso and hips undulated, golden as the sun set. She did not know if she lifted her body in protest or offering; all she knew was that she could not stop.

The warm softness began in her belly and she cursed and fought it. As he became more forceful, she moistened and her thighs strained. He felt a white-hot line of fire forming in his groin, flowing into his veins and along the length of his hardness. Each swirl of the tongue, each pressing of the lips, each grazing by the teeth, all brought the fire closer to the velvet tip, until it spilled out. He groaned and held her head hard, thrusting into her mouth when the spasms began. Then he pulled out, and the cloudy stream flowed onto her lips and jaw. Breathing hard, he spread the seed slowly over her neck and between her breasts, and to her cheek where his hand lingered. His thumb parted her lips and explored her mouth. 

She moaned as his seed warmed her skin. She rubbed her cheek sensuously against his palm. He was marking her again, forcing his essence into her skin. She offered her heat. It was slick, swollen, and parted.

He released her arms and cut through her thick sash with a dagger. She was naked, moist, and breathing hard beneath him. He folded her arms above her head so that her palms cupped the opposite elbows. He twisted her waist-long hair into a rope and wove it around her arms. Her scalp stung and she moaned as he showed her how he could subdue her using her own body, which betrayed her with a pleasure as deep as it was forbidden. And he showed her that he needed nothing more than her own hair to restrain her.

She fell into the swoon so familiar to her at the Tora. But here, with him—he still in full regalia and armed, and she completely naked and bound—it was deeper and darker and filled only with his name. She was surprised to hear herself, as if her moans did not come from her own depths, for he had not even touched her heat.

He bent down to her breast and pulled the dark, hard nipple with his teeth, passing his tongue over it, crushing it between his lips, until she arched her back. Her loins shuddered. He caressed the other nipple, forcing a long moan from her. Armor clinked in the hallway; the guards tactfully signaled that they could hear the sounds of the encounter. She desperately tried to suppress her voice. The more she did, the warmer she became, and the more frantic her silent pleas to stop, to touch her, to take her. 

He was unconcerned about the young guards. He drew his mouth down to her thighs and forced them apart. In this hall, the dark wet flower was not the center of her pleasure as it was at the Tora. It was spoils, and it was only fitting, he smiled to himself, that he take it in a hall dedicated to war. In this realm of distilled violence, he wished to impress upon her the extent of his privilege, which included indifference to her pleasure. 

He grasped her hips and roughly turned her on her stomach. She moaned, waiting to be pierced, lifting her ass to him, showing the wet, pink mouth. He drew his fingers between her thighs, separating the petals. Please, she begged silently, rape me. His fingers drew her moisture to her tight entrance. She had been stroked lightly there by some favored guests at the Tora, and although the caress admittedly intensified her cries of pleasure, the caresses were never allowed to proceed further.





Tora Pt. 03



6

The Tora's relationship with the Shogunate was a discreet one. The Tora provided amusement that would be inappropriate at the Castle, and provided it for free to the highest-ranking samurai and state guests. In return, the Shogunate exempted the Tora from all tax and entertainment laws. 

One of the Tora's perquisites had to do with the theater. The Shogunate banned women from the stage after it observed that orgies erupted too often after performances. However, the orgies continued even now that the women's roles were played by men, and the might of the Shogunate was less than absolute before the power of desire. The Tora had its own theater—perhaps the best in Edo—and playwrights vied to mount their works there, for they could employ actresses without fear of molestation by the authorities, who also turned a blind eye to the post-performance excesses. 

This late afternoon, Sayoko sat with DaKar in the theater with a hundred others, all looking forward to the blood and passion of yet another double suicide of a courtesan and a married merchant. She had invited DaKar to the play for a reason other than his cultural edification and the fact that he had asked her about the custom—bizarre to him—of men and women killing themselves for love.

That morning, she had been in the company of the Shogun in the Castle's eastern garden. After skimming through her translations of the history of the warring tribes of Europe, he became unusually avuncular and asked her to arrange some flowers. She gathered grass, twigs, and blooms, and twisted and tied them into the shapes prescribed by the ikebana school of which the Shogun was the master. "Do you always adhere to the same aesthetic precepts?" he asked. She nodded. He said, "It is not among the feminine arts, but you excel in it. Your creations are consistently pleasing and varied." She bowed and protested that she was but an amateur. He continued, "They would be even more pleasing if contrasted with another style, a completely different philosophy, for then their qualities would be accented." Listening carefully, she murmured, "My lord is perceptive and I learn much from him." "And the one who views the arrangements," he said expansively, "sees the beauty of both and is doubly pleased, for they enhance each other." She bowed, dissecting his words.

"General Da Ka has been in Edo for one season now," the Shogun mused. "He must have noticed that the scrolls and flowers in the alcoves have been changed to welcome spring." 

Sayoko had understood.

She returned to the Yoshiwara and searched for the playwright Chikamatsu, her friend and patron, and found him in a teahouse, inebriated. It was his play that would be performed that afternoon at the Tora. "I understand," she said, "that the actress who plays the courtesan is beautiful and talented." He laughed, "And I modeled her character after you." Smiling, Sayoko stroked his sleeve and said, "I would like to meet her after the play and introduce her to General Da Ka." He downed another tiny cup of saké and slurred, "She is excellent on stage."

Now Sayoko, in her orange and gold finery, escorted DaKar, dashing in a dark-blue military outfit rather than his customary scarlet. They sat on silk cushions before a low table, and as she peeled pears and oranges for him and poured tea, she felt the half-hidden admiring glances he drew from the women and was pleased. 

The musicians tuned their instruments and tightened the skin of the enormous drum on the right of the stage. It was empty save for a ramp that spanned it. From it extended a long, narrow platform, like a pier in the midst of the audience. 

The play began. The mind turned the ramp into a bridge, a castle wall, a mountain. The actors lured the watchers into their world from the main stage and entered the watchers' world from the pier. Sayoko was immediately entranced and, like the other women in the audience—courtesan, mistress, and even the occasional stylish wife who followed the latest in courtesan fashion—wept when it became clear that the lovers were doomed. By the time the merchant had slashed the courtesan's neck and hanged himself, the women's muffled sobs mingled with the men's appreciative cries, which were, however, elicited purely by the writer's and actors' skill. And this afternoon, Chikamatsu and his troupe had outdone themselves. 

While Sayoko sighed and wept, she discreetly observed DaKar. Two actresses were outstanding. Although the long-suffering "wife" was undoubtedly beautiful, she was also suitably drab. The "courtesan," however, was not only beautiful and refined, but vibrant and convincingly passionate. It was at her that DaKar had gazed the longest. 

The audience began to stir and the musicians shifted to a more risqué repertoire. Trays and trays of saké jugs appeared and ribald laughter filled the theater. The sadness of love was forgotten and replaced by cravings induced by the play's vivid erotic scenes, so explicit that they astonished even Sayoko and the other courtesans. Now the men bared the shoulders and breasts of the courtesans, exposed the thighs of their mistresses, and pushed their wives down to the tatami to give them a taste of licentiousness before they returned to their respectable homes.

Sayoko and DaKar picked their way through the tangled limbs and moaning heaps of brightly colored silk. In the Room of Clouds, she kept his saké cup full and served him raw oysters, paper-thin slices of horse sashimi, and tendrils of seaweed on tiny, thin plates. Soon, the Tora's Master slid the door open, and behind him was Yukiko,? the "snow child," her face clean and unmasked, eyes long and luminous, lips soft and pink. Her hair, lacquered into a complex structure for the stage, was now soft on her shoulders and flowing down her back. She was radiant in a confection of pink and green gauze. The Tora's Master wished them a good evening.

Sayoko was delighted with the girl's translucent beauty and DaKar's surprise. After the pleasantries and the toasts, however, she began to sense something amiss. Yukiko was courteous and suitably dazzled by DaKar's celebrity, but she was not what Sayoko had expected, which was what she had seen on stage. Yukiko was behaving like a serving girl. Her speech was a bit coarse, not at all the polished, complex language of the courtesan. Sayoko attempted to engage her in the clever, literate repartee any courtesan would be expected to master, and was greeted with perplexed giggles. DaKar's eyes glazed over and he rubbed his brow. Sayoko was at a loss and wondered how she would tell the Shogun that she had failed him. 

Chikamatsu's drunken words come back to her: "She is excellent on stage." Very well, then, Sayoko thought, Yukiko will perform under direction and not be expected to stimulate the general in any way other than physically. If it pleases him, it will please the Shogun.

"It would amuse the general if you would do exactly as he says," she said to Yukiko, again surprising DaKar. Sayoko waited for him to dismiss her for the night; she was expected at Chikamatsu's party in the Room of Chimes and looking forward to a disorderly night of wit and laughter. But DaKar merely smiled broadly at her, his torpor gone. Savoring his saké, his eyes glittering, he appraised Yukiko. 

"Stand and remove the layers of your clothing," he began. "One by one. Slowly." 

Sayoko was startled. She did not think he would begin so directly. Yukiko was taken aback, but his voice and eyes compelled her. Under his command, she blossomed into the enthralling actress that she was. Her eyes and skin glowed as her soft hands passed languidly over her robes and bare neck. She caressed her small feet and elegant calves. Sayoko was spellbound by the exquisite creature and knew that DaKar's loins must be on fire. 

His deep voice floated in the candlelit room, stroking the shadows. Under his spell, Yukiko undid the white cords of her sash and uncoiled the pink damask. Her outer then inner robes fell like whispers. A sheer white under-kimono skimmed her curves, the light-brown nipples, and tiny wisp of dark hair on her smooth mound. She was warm with a desire that she did not recall ever having felt while being directed in a play, even during an erotic scene. She passed her hands slowly over her breasts and rolled the nipples through the thin silk, her gaze both bold and yielding.

Here, she was not the actress who could enchant from the heights of the stage. Here, she did not control her audience. And now his voice enfolded her in a haze of desire as she languorously stroked her skin. The warmth of her own palms and feel of the silk excited her. She dropped the robe to show her powdered shoulders and full breasts. Her fingertips stroked her nipples. She let the last robe float to the floor and stood naked in the candlelight.

He commanded her to sit on her heels and part her thighs, upturned palms placed lightly on them. She drew a finger between the swollen brown-rose petals and stroked the red nub slowly. She closed her eyes and breathed hard.

Sayoko swayed, faint with lust. She was as moist and flushed as Yukiko, whose hands she seemed to feel on her own skin. Suddenly the clothes she had chosen so carefully and worn with such pride this afternoon were hateful and she wished she were naked, too. A vision of DaKar's limbs entwined with Yukiko's enveloped her in a searing wave of jealousy. Surely, she thought grimly, he will dismiss me now. 

To Yukiko he said, "Prepare the bath." With a courtly bow he directed Sayoko to follow, and laughed at her uncomprehending stare. He finally took her hand and led her into the pillow room where he undressed her, gently stroking her face and body, kissing her deeply, calming her heart until the pain left her eyes. She undid his clothes, aroused to aching by the textures of his clothing, by his scent and his eyes. When they stepped into the bathing room, which was full of steam and gentle flame, her delight in Yukiko's ivory beauty returned.

The women piled their glossy hair on top of their heads with long lacquered pins, baring graceful necks and gleaming backs. With trained fingers they explored every part of him, smoothing him with soap. They glided across his skin, their breasts soft and lingering against his back, chest, and legs. Yukiko knelt before him and took his shaft between her large breasts. Sayoko embraced him from behind and rubbed her small breasts and her groin sensuously against him. He closed his eyes, imprisoned in their warm, wet flesh and their soft sighs and moans. The Way of the Warrior, he smiled to himself, is not always a harsh one. 

After the women rinsed him he sat in the cedar tub, his limbs floating, soothed by the fragrant steam. As women do in baths everywhere, Sayoko and Yukiko took turns scrubbing the other's back. But their strokes were not the purposeful scouring that was part of the gossipy, merry public bathing ritual. In this dim, luxurious refuge, Sayoko and Yukiko were immersed in the other's beauty—the curve of the breast or mound or hip, the sweeping line of the back, the smoothness of a thigh. 

DaKar watched small hands fondle soft breasts, parted lips travel over shoulders and necks, pink tongues harden brown nipples, slim fingers explore drooping, swollen petals and moist folds. The women brought their faces close, and shyly, then frantically, touched tongues but not lips. Then they kissed deeply, crushing the other's mouth. The hands wandering over ivory and gold skin, loins pressing hard against each other, straining thighs—all taunted DaKar with a passion that excluded him. He groaned with a desire that was painful.

Yukiko lay Sayoko down on the gleaming tile and licked her neck and breasts and bit her nipples, pulling them taut. Sayoko moaned as the pleasure flowed to her heat. Yukiko stroked Sayoko's thighs and pushed them apart. Sayoko lifted the wet lips to her. Yukiko parted them with the hard tip of her tongue and flicked the shiny tip of the clitoris. Sayoko sobbed and pressed Yukiko's head to her loins long and hard.

Yukiko twisted around to move her groin above Sayoko's mouth. She licked Sayoko's clitoris in long, firm strokes and felt her tremble. Sayoko moaned into Yukiko's heat, sucking her clitoris and flicking it rapidly. They were frantic and their muffled whimpers became spiraling, desperate cries that echoed against the damp walls. With a will of steel, DaKar stopped his seed from spilling.

The women lay in a tranquil tangle of limbs and hair. Their curiosity in each other satisfied for now, they turned their sensual attentions to DaKar. He leaned back as their hands and mouths wandered across his skin. They stroked him with their bodies, a mouth on his mouth, a tongue in his ear, lips on his neck, palms enclosing his erection underwater. He felt near spilling again and clutched their flesh, bruising it as he fought to contain his desire.

In the pillow room they massaged him with fragrant oils, releasing the remaining tightness in his muscles until he groaned with pleasure. Then the women stroked each other, making their skin shimmer. He saw every nuance of motion, how they gazed at each other as a man would. So, this is what he sees when he loves me, they thought, my beautiful neck and breasts. How soft my lips are and how moist I am. And how lovely my voice. His veins were on fire as the women knelt, Yukiko behind Sayoko, and as the smaller Sayoko lifted her lips to Yukiko's, gently stroking Yukiko's cheek. Sayoko lay Yukiko down and pulled the pins from her hair, spreading it like a shawl. Sayoko loosened her own hair and leaned over Yukiko. Through the black silken waterfall DaKar saw the women's tongues dart at each other.

Sayoko straddled Yukiko and lashed her wrists to a slender bamboo rod above her head. Startled, Yukiko breathed hard as Sayoko bound her ankles to another rod, forcing her legs wide apart. Yukiko arched her back and moaned, no longer the famous actress who held her audience in thrall, but only a helpless toy at the mercy of her watchers.

Sayoko moaned softly at the sight of Yukiko forced open, of her breasts heaving, of her petals swelling moistly. In Yukiko's eyes were fear and excitement, and she gasped and whimpered, rolling her hips. Sayoko straddled Yukiko's head and lowered her petals to the woman's mouth. Yukiko tongue reached up to part Sayoko's flesh and flick her swollen clitoris. She took both petals in her mouth, swirling her tongue around them, sucking them until Sayoko moaned. 

Before she began to spasm, Sayoko rose and sat on a cushion near the futon, saving her pleasure for later. DaKar's blood and flesh were aflame at the sight of Yukiko's bound limbs and her wet heat. He crouched over Yukiko, took a handful of hair, and kissed her mouth roughly. Sayoko's loins warmed as he bit Yukiko's nipples. When he licked her petals, Sayoko seemed to feel his tongue on her own heat. She parted her thighs and stroked her own clitoris as Yukiko moaned.

Aroused so long and relentlessly, DaKar roughly pierced Yukiko, groaning as he sank into her hot moisture, as her folds clasped him, and as she moaned uncontrollably. Sayoko watched him rape Yukiko and continued to stroke herself, as excited as if it were she violating her. His muscles hardened and he strained to reach Yukiko's deepest parts. Her hips rose to meet him. She whimpered, moaned, whispered filth. So, Sayoko thought, moaning, that is what he looks like when he takes me. And that is what I look like when I am taken—soft and wet and surrendered. 

DaKar gazed down at Yukiko, at her bound, slender wrists, at her moist skin and mouth and her fevered eyes. Her soft breasts were crushed beneath his chest, her thighs strained against his, her hips pushed against his groin, and her heat clasped him. What raged through him was primal and he was barely aware of it.

Yukiko submitted to the onslaught, fearful and enraptured. DaKar was strange to her—the color of his skin and hair, his massiveness. Yet her bonds released an uncontrollable fire that spread beneath her skin and rushed to her heat. When Yukiko finally sobbed long and helplessly and DaKar groaned deeply into her hair, Sayoko's body was seized by powerful spasms, and she swooned, moaning. She dreamed that DaKar cradled her and laid her gently on the futon.

When DaKar awakened the sun was bright on the tatami. He stretched long and luxuriously, and then put his arms around the fragile shoulders of the still-sleeping women. They nestled against him, seductive even in sleep. His erection rose. He stroked their backs, asses, and heats, which, however, remained closed and dry. The women stirred then burrowed back into the futon, pushing his hands away, trying to find their dreams. When he persisted, they sighed and rose from the clouds of warm silk, unsmiling, and went about the rituals of washing and dressing. Seated before round mirrors in their filmy under-kimonos—Yukiko in white, Sayoko in black—they brushed each other's hair and exchanged oils and herbs for the skin, ignoring him. Before they dressed they helped DaKar get ready for the day. As they held his robes open for him and tied his sash, they gossiped about the brothels and teahouses of the more fun-loving and cultured cities of Kyoto and Osaka, and which courtesan had won the heart of which tycoon, chattering and giggling as if he were not there. Well, DaKar sighed, amused but annoyed at the loss of his erection, the women are not, after all, so different. 

He strode through the Tora's hallways to the stables, the renowned actress and the celebrated courtesan, now both mercifully silent, gliding proudly behind him. The looks of open envy from some of the richest, most powerful men in Edo, also on their way to find their mounts, compensated for any earlier irritation DaKar may have felt. His step became easier and his gaze more arrogant, and he barely suppressed a smile. 

In the courtyard, Yukiko stifled a scream when the grooms led out DaKar's bronze-feathered tarn. As he rose swiftly into the brilliant spring sky, Sayoko smiled radiantly at him, her eyes filled with an emotion that was banned at the Tora.



Tora Pt. 04



7

It was midmorning. The Tora's Master padded quickly through the maze of alleys of the Yoshiwara to Sayoko's house. His bulk filled the narrow paths and he gasped for breath. One of Sayoko's maids had sent an urgent message begging him to come. He sighed, patting his large cheeks with a cotton handkerchief. He was fond of Sayoko, as much for her wit as for the fact that she filled the coffers of the Tora. Of course, he thought crossly, she partly owns it, so why shouldn't she? He felt a mixture of affection and irritation. How can someone, he thought, be so arrogant and engaging, so self-absorbed and charming, so irrational and brilliant at the same time? But he was not about to question one who was not only an excellent business partner but also a political adviser of the Shogun.

The weather was warming and the cherry blossoms were glorious. The whole of Edo—merchant and farmer, warrior and aristocrat—was sitting beneath the pink and white petals, reciting poetry and singing bawdy songs, eating rice and pickles from lacquered lunch boxes, and, of course, drinking a great deal of saké. Except me, he thought. No. I have to attend to a ranting woman who has kept Da Ka waiting for over an hour! Da Ka, who arrived at the Tora with a gift for her! Probably a kimono worth the rice harvest of a village. Why can't women be more like men?

Sayoko's tiny, young maid was waiting anxiously outside the gate of the modest house. She led the Tora's Master into the sitting room where he plumped down on a cushion. He noted that nothing in Sayoko's house—the scrolls of poetry, the Chinese paintings, the shelves of books—suggested that a woman lived there. For one who loves baubles and clothes so much, he thought, her taste in everything else is strangely masculine. He sipped the green tea the maid placed before him.

Sayoko did not appear. He went out into the hallway, cautiously approached the door of her pillow room, and coughed. 

"Go away!" Sayoko screamed.

He slid the door open and peered into the dimness. A teacup smashed against the wall beside his head. Sayoko threw herself face down on the tatami. Her black under-kimono had come undone. Her freshly washed hair was disheveled and she snipped the ends with a pair of tiny scissors. 

"I will enter the nunnery! Shave my head! Take leave of the vanity of this world!" she sobbed, then blew her nose.

He knelt by the doorway, glad that her patrons could not see her now. The closest she had come to being a Buddhist nun was to dress up as one for the Abbot, a regular patron of the Tora, whose visits were incognito and whose tastes were exotic. 

The Tora's Master laughed too heartily. "What a waste that would be," he chuckled. "Now, get dressed. The general has been waiting for you, and he says he has brought you a gift."

"What would I do with another kimono?" she shouted, pounding the tatami with her small fists. "We are all going to die anyway!" Her body heaved with sobs. 

The maid interrupted them, her face pale. "General Da Ka is here," she announced. Sayoko seemed not to hear, but the Tora's Master was dismayed by this major breach of protocol. A patron should not have to fetch a courtesan.

DaKar had found his way thanks to a small army of boisterous children who had brought him to Sayoko's gate and run off after inspecting the black tarns on his light-gray uniform. He was struck by the severity of the sitting room, which opened to an austere rock garden, and wondered if he had come to the home of a scholarly samurai rather than a successful courtesan.

The Tora's Master greeted DaKar and put his forehead tightly to the tatami. "Sayoko was not feeling well earlier, but she will be ready soon," he said.

"Is she is ill?" DaKar asked. "Perhaps I should examine her." Before the Tora's Master could stop him, he was on his feet and in the hallway. He heard Sayoko blowing her nose and slid open the door to her pillow room. He was appalled by the sight of the unkempt courtesan and broken teacup. His physician's eye could tell that nothing serious ailed her, but he was amazed that her histrionics were tolerated by the Tora's Master and wondered if the Shogun put up with them. But then, he thought, she would not dare lose control in front of the Shogun. Well, she must learn that she dare not lose control in front of me.

He slid the door shut behind him. Sayoko stopped crying and sat up, her translucent black under-kimono barely covering her small breasts. The fine silk fell off a smooth shoulder, and the skirt parted, revealing a thigh. Her hair lay in damp strands across her face and shoulders. She stared at him sullenly.

"Greetings, girl," he said pleasantly. She said nothing. Irritation grew behind his placid façade, and his jaw hardened. There is something to be said, he thought, about the certainties of Gor. 

Silk was strewn about the dim room. At least here, he thought, there is some evidence of femininity. But when he realized that the rainbow-colored chaos was the aftermath of a tantrum, he sighed, unimpressed by her Edo training, which had obviously concentrated only on her intellect. He gathered sash cords, snapping them taut. He tied them together, forming a long rope and a short one, and then tested their strength. Sayoko winced and began to crawl to the door.

He reached out with a long arm, ran his fingers through her hair, and pulled her head back sharply. She gazed into his hard, amused eyes, and the pain kept her still. He bound her wrists in front of her with the short rope, pulled her roughly to her feet, and threw the rope over a beam. Now she rested on her toes, her arms taut. He ripped the shoulders of her robe and the silk slid down her skin. Her hair swaying against the curve of her back, her straining thighs, her suppressed cries, her face furrowed with pain—all inflamed him, and he controlled a desire to cut her down and take her roughly, swiftly on the floor.

He wound the longer rope around her waist twice, knotted it, and brought it between her thighs. He placed the rope between the inner lips and against her clitoris. The rope was soft, but against her most sensitive skin its touch was rough and unrelenting. Unexpected pleasure streaked through her loins, and her hips pushed uncontrollably. Her throat held her moans. How dare he! she thought furiously. 

The rope heightened her skin's softness. He wove three diamonds in a row, from the mound to below the breasts. They were now more exposed than if merely naked, for the rope wound around them, cradling and offering them. He looped the rope around her neck and back to keep the harsh, elegant structure in place. 

From his sleeve he took a silver chain with jade insect-like clamps on both ends. She stared up at him, frightened and angry. He gazed at her with a mixture of benevolence and menace and rolled her nipples between fingers and thumb, rubbing the surface, smiling when she closed her eyes and pressed her thighs tightly together. When he attached the clamps to the skin around the pebble-like nipples, he waited for her cry, and it spilled from her throat, filling him with a sharp joy. He pushed his fingers through her hair near her neck and pulled her head back, forced her mouth open, and kissed it long and roughly. Then he stood back, his sex hard. 

DaKar courteously informed the Tora's Master that Sayoko's condition would be cured with a few herbs and that she could be treated at home. Relieved and eager to return to his drinking party, the Tora's Master took his leave.

Sayoko's skin was moist and flushed. DaKar circled her and traced her soft mouth with a finger. He cradled the back of her head in a strong hand and forced her mouth open with two fingers, invading it as a man's sex might. The fingers then followed the rope's path to her neck and breasts. "Let me go," she hissed. His fingers reached the rope between her thighs and she shook her head violently. The rope was damp. He tugged it upward and she moaned and bit her lip. The edges of the pain from the clamps blurred, sending a terrible pleasure to her heat.

From his sash he took a small, new riding crop. "This was to have been given to you later, but we can test it now," he said, bringing it smartly against his palm. She flinched. He placed a scarf across her eyes. "No!" she whispered. In the silken darkness, she felt the rough, hard leather, a caress that a flick of a wrist could easily turn into pain. But the expected lashes did not come. Just the braided leather awakening her skin, subduing her as surely as a flogging. A long moan escaped her and a spasm wet the rope between her thighs.

As the crop traveled the arcs of her spine and ass, he surveyed the room and saw what he needed. On top of the black-lacquered chest of drawers was a small carved ivory ball with a hole bored through it. He threaded it with a slim cord and, anticipating her violent protest, held her firmly by the hair as he secured the ball between her lips. He tied the cord around her head. She tried to scream but could only mew. 

The crop crept down her inner thighs, between her buttocks, across her tortured breasts. Blind, she could not anticipate the crop's trail; silenced, she could not beg him to stop. He stroked her soles and heard her muffled moans. 

The crop landed hard on her ass, but her scream, blocked by the ivory ball, turned back on itself. The crop lashed her again and again, and the unreleased screams sounded like a long moan of pleasure. Her welted body began to move with the crop's strokes, as if absorbing the force and pain and turning them into rapture. Her protests, the twisting, the straining, all were erotic in their futility.

Sayoko floated in clouds of pleasure slashed by lightning bolts of pain. He showed her that he could turn her body against her, that he could ally himself with it to force her to do what her mind rejected, and that he could do it without touching her with his hands. 

The wave began to build in her groin, hot and strong. She no longer felt a mixture of pain and pleasure, but rather pain that was pleasure, that forced her hips forward, as if she were meeting a man's thrusts, that wrenched moans from her throat. The wave crushed her. The ivory ball turned her cries inward, and they twisted her body. Her tremors were deep and inexorable.

DaKar cut her down. He ripped off the blindfold and unfastened the ball. He towered over her moist, heaving, gasping body, leisurely stripping off his gray uniform. He knelt and forced her mouth apart with his hardness, holding her head firmly. Her tongue was worshipful and her hips rolled as she moaned around the shaft.

He stroked her thighs with his dagger and cut through the soaked rope. Her lips were dark and slippery, drooping around the tiny, pink mouth. He drew the dagger's dull edge between the lips and across the crushed, swollen clitoris, up and down, slowly. She shook her head, moaning, lifting her body to the cold metal. He unfastened the clamps and waited for her sobs when the blood rushed back into the bruise, and when the cry came, liquid fire streaked through his shaft. Her moans invited violence, and he forced her thighs apart, hooking his arms behind her knees. 

He pierced her roughly, groaning as her heat clasped him, as she moaned in his ear. The rope harness lost its shape under his assault. His fierceness flooded her body. He raised himself on his hands, watching her face intently, and she saw his cruel, warm eyes, his powerful shoulders and arms, his groin crushing hers, and the large shaft forcing through her flesh. She trembled and her cries were guttural. The knowledge that she could not stop him, that her body welcomed the violence, sent his desire surging into her. He groaned deeply as her folds gripped and released him over and over. "Master," she whispered. "Master."

Later, he instructed her to wear a riding outfit, for he wished to view the cherry blossoms in tranquility outside Edo. In blue cotton trousers and tunic, her hair tied back tightly, Sayoko looked like a handsome, young squire. Before they set off for the Tora, he tucked the crop he had used on her into her sash and slipped onto her hand a glove of thick leather that reached up to her elbow. He whistled and a falcon flew from the tree in front of her house and alit on her leather-clad arm. Sayoko cried out in delight, and all the way to the Tora admired the bird's deadly yellow eyes and metallic beak. So this, she thought happily, is his gift. How wonderful! How chic! 

As they neared the Tora's stables, she feared that they might not be riding horses after all. When a groom led a tarn into the courtyard, Sayoko shrank, ashamed of her fear. The tarn was smaller than DaKar's, and its feathers were a lighter bronze. "A female," DaKar smiled down at Sayoko. "Yours."

Sayoko blanched, but DaKar lifted her onto the beast and mounted it himself, settling comfortably behind her, giving her the reins and guiding her. When the tarn rose into the spring sky the falcon followed, never leaving Sayoko's side. The swift ascent made her stomach turn, but then they soared above the riverbanks where people moved about like dolls, and circled the majestic Castle. Rice fields and farmhouses looked like toys, and the cherry blossoms spread beneath them like pink snow. She nestled against DaKar, enveloped in his warmth, learning to guide the beast, and she laughed with delight.



Tora Pt. 05



8

DaKar was in fighting stance, his body tense as he squinted and aimed the new rifle at an archer's target from five hundred paces. The sound of the shots cracked against the foundry courtyard walls, and straw from the target exploded into the hot late afternoon air. Five quick shots, all within the bull's eye, and only two holes. The foundry workers shouted and applauded. The Shogunate no longer needed the Dutch traders. DaKar and his artisans did not merely copy the weapons but improved them by making reloading unnecessary.

DaKar handed the gun to a young samurai and, bowing formally, congratulated everyone. On a black horse he made his way, at his leisure, back to the city. His mind was not on weaponry. Something was afoot at the Castle. Sayoko was more often seen there than at the Tora, and she did not even come to his quarters in the evenings. For the past two days and nights she was ensconced in the Map Room with the Shogun and the Master of Intelligence. Yesterday afternoon DaKar was invited to report to the Shogun on the progress of the work at the foundry and the training of the samurai. As the door to the Map Room slid open, hard voices fell silent. The Shogun nodded to DaKar, the other general bowed deeply, and Sayoko put her fingertips and forehead to the tatami. The tableau recalled the contrived beauty of a flower arrangement. 

In the past few weeks, with Sayoko either at the Castle or at home in her study, DaKar's evenings were filled with the beauties of the Tora. Now, as he passed peasants tending the green rice fields, he smiled at the thought of the more debauched nights. All who passed through his hands emerged in the morning with smooth mounds, and shaving had become the height of courtesan chic. The fashion spread to the other brothels of the Yoshiwara, then of Osaka and Kyoto. The latest novels and poems referred to "naked orchids," and wood-block prints for sale showed giant, hairless oysters peeping out of luxurious silk. Chikamatsu's latest double-suicide play, starring the snowy Yukiko, had her fall artfully to the stage floor to reveal her smooth thighs and the glossy, blushing petals between them. The orgy that followed in the theater was violent, as was the coupling after her private command performance for DaKar in the Room of Bamboo.

Less successful as a trend was the short, diagonally striped tunic that left one shoulder bare. DaKar had requested the Tora's Master to provide the courtesans with such garments as a playful reminder of the slaves of his land, but only the most long-limbed dared wear them. All, however, had the best Edo jewelers fashion silver collars and anklets, which the women kept on after the last under-kimono had slipped to the tatami. The barbaric ornaments made the women appear more lewd, more naked than naked, and they crazed the patrons. Also thanks to DaKar, the women had further refined their sense of pain and now begged their other patrons to use the whip more often. The women's newfound passion for floggings aroused the patrons, who returned to the Tora again and again.

DaKar felt his sex harden as he recalled the mouths and tongues that set his skin on fire, the soft breasts crushed beneath his chest, the cries of women in sweet pain. The horse broke into a trot as DaKar's legs tightened around it, and he recalled the soft, moist parting of flesh, the moans of resistance, and the gasps of women unable to stop his invasion or the pleasure he forced on them. Many of the courtesans now preferred to be bound with chains rather than silk. The chicest referred to "slave rape" and "slave orgasm" in their banter. The Tora's Master noted the courtesans' sudden interest in DaKar. They dropped broad hints about wishing to be assigned to him and asked every evening if he would be dropping in.

DaKar sighed happily at the thought of the baths—the steamy, candle-lit baths with three women at a time, their limbs floating and languid, their hands sliding across his skin, two tongues on his shaft, their lovely moist faces, damp black tendrils against creamy necks, and laughter floating in the mist. He whipped his steed to a gallop, breathing the summer air.

While he could remember events, however, he could not remember faces or names. The delightful women merged into a single erotic mass, and after weeks of excess he felt as if he had drunk goblets and goblets of honey. His tongue sought the bitterness of wine.

The horse galloped up the slope to the enormous Castle gate, which swung open to a courtyard where grooms were waiting. DaKar strolled to the western garden to watch the sun set. His mind, however, was not on Mount Fuji, which towered over the enormous Kanto Plain like a god on fire. At the Castle, nothing had changed on the surface, but a current of tension ran beneath it, sensed but undefined. He sipped the tea brought in by a valet and contemplated the Castle walls, which burned orange. 

The faint laughter of the feudal lords' children playing in another garden wafted up to him. The merriment, DaKar mused, did not alter the fact that the Castle was a prison. During the war to end all wars, through a series of crafty, temporary alliances, the young Shogun—a mere samurai—had brought the numerous lords to their knees, one by one, until he had united the country under a military government. For good measure, he kept the lords' wives and children in apartments in the Castle. The lords were required to visit their families in Edo twice a year. The journeys drained the lords' coffers and took them away from their fiefdoms for a few months. Besides holding the lords' families hostage, the Shogunate employed an elaborate system of espionage, intrigue, and assassination to keep the aristocrats under control, for beneath the calm were the grudges and resentments of a former ruling class.

The sky darkened. The garden was filled with the humming of crickets and the clicking of lizards. Bats streamed out of the Castle's eaves. A larger figure circled the Castle. DaKar knew it must be Sayoko on her tarn with her falcon escort. She guided the beast to the other side of the Castle. He rubbed the roughness of the tea cup against his lip as the sun disappeared.

He made his way back to his quarters, deep in thought. The long meetings in the Map Room, the rush to develop the arms industry, Sayoko's coolness, and, always, the disturbing, invisible current beneath the calm—what did they mean? The Shogunate was troubled. But by what? The country was an island fortress: no threat came from abroad. Merchant wealth was trickling down to the artisans and peasants. Even if the peasants were restive, the feudal lords would crush an uprising with ease. Then it dawned on him: the Shogunate had uncovered the beginnings of an aristocratic rebellion. Poorly armed, disorganized rabble would be a minor problem, but an alliance of lords with armies of unquestioning loyalty was another matter. The Shogunate was preparing for war, DaKar realized, and a thrill surged through him, warming his blood.

In the dim hallway to the state official apartments, he saw Sayoko's small form several paces ahead of him, like a moth in her gauzy summer kimono. He approached her swiftly and silently. She heard nothing until he placed his large hands on her shoulders and roughly yanked her robes down her arms. She gasped in fright and groaned as her back hit a stone wall. DaKar's sharp features emerged in the gloom. She could not move. With a quick act of violence, he had cleared her mind of all else, even affairs of state. 

Her world now was the darkness, his hands roughly parting her skirts, then her thighs, his hands lifting her ass, and the sudden, almost painful piercing of her heat. Then her moans as her petals swelled and moistened around him, and her writhing as he forced her flesh open. The thrusts that crushed sobs out of her. And the weakness that filled her as he showed her that he could take her anywhere he wished, without the protocols of either the Castle or the Tora.

And now he took her roughly against the wall, savoring her helplessness, her softness, and the fragrance of her hair. She fought him at first, then she moaned and clutched him. She threw her head back, crying out when he hurt her. They kissed deeply. All that was taut within her loosened. She had not been touched by a man for too many days. It had been too many days for him, as well. The beauties of the Tora were delightful but eventually cloying. He missed something, and it was this: the pure form of the joining of two halves, recognizing no law or morality. The joining was always violent. He could guide it and force her surrender to it, but neither of them could resist it.

Her whimpers told him she was close, but she tried to twist away from him, afraid that she would cry out too long and too indecently. He held her still and waited for it—the long, indecent cry that echoed in the hallway, heard by the hidden guards. The Shogunate allowed DaKar full freedom and, since he came to Edo, Sayoko's passionate sobs had been heard in the Castle's public places more than once. The guards envied DaKar's privilege and desired Sayoko, and her cry inflamed them now.

Her breathing slowed and her body softened. Her head rested against his chest. DaKar withdrew slowly. He swept her up in his arms and strode to his quarters. Sayoko was still in a delirious half-swoon when DaKar laid her on the futon. He tore off his robes and then hers, and her groin lifted to him. He was not interested in her heat, and turned her roughly on her belly. From a black-lacquered box he took a vial of clear oil from Gor and poured it between her buttocks and held her down by the neck as he rubbed the liquid into the crease.

She strained against his grip as his finger explored her, lightly around the rim, which made her heat spasm, and then deeper. She cried out in pain yet felt the lips of her heat thicken. "No!" she sobbed into the silk quilt, but shuddered as the pain softened her and turned into a terrible pleasure. She felt his sex probe her and bucked against him. He pinned her wrists beside her head and pushed slowly into her, pleased by her groans and her resistance, and then by her surrender when her body obeyed him and she moaned his name. She came quickly. Her cries were guttural, and her spasms brought him to his.

Later, they were quiet in the candle-lit bath, legs entwined in the deep tub, eyes peaceful. And later, for the first time in several weeks, they both slept long and dreamlessly. 



Tora Pt. 06



9

DaKar soared above the assembled might of the Shogunate. His helmet bore the fearsome steel beak of a tarn and he wore the etched armor of his land. His rifle was slung across a shoulder, his longsword across the other. The sun was just rising, turning the early-autumn sky pink and blue, glinting on the metal of the battalions and battalions that shielded Edo. Spies had determined that the armies of five clans planned to march on the city, overthrow the military government, and restore the Emperor, whom the Shogun confined in Kyoto.

DaKar swooped down to a southern hilltop where large panels of indigo cloth bearing the Shogun's cloud were are hung on frames, forming billowing walls around three sides of a tatami platform. From here the Shogun and a dozen advisers observed the movement of men on the plain below. As usual, Sayoko sat behind the Shogun to his right, her falcon on her left shoulder. All the men were in full armor, and even Sayoko wore a breastplate over her dark-blue riding uniform. Before DaKar reined his tarn sharply upward, he saluted the Shogun and saw that Sayoko, for the first time since he arrived in Edo, bore the cloud crest, on her breastplate and sleeves.

The Shogun nodded to Sayoko and she was soon on her tarn, a rifle across her shoulder and a sword at her side. Her falcon circled her. Her crop whistled sharply and the tarn rose and the wind from its wings flattened the long grass below. She flew to DaKar, surveying the ground, burning the details into her mind for her report to the Shogun. Ants, she thought. Steel-fanged poisonous ants. 

Soon, she and DaKar were riding side by side. They inspected the medical tents, the benefits of which DaKar had persuaded the Shogun. They honored the proud rifle-bearing warriors, the perfect formations of swordsmen, the straight rows of archers. Some were veterans of the last terrible battles that united the territory. Some, like Sayoko, had only heard or read of war. But the night before, all of them had written what they expected to be their last poems, and their eyes were pure with the expectation of a noble death. 

The air rushed against DaKar's face as he guided his mount as close to Sayoko as he dared. Laughing, he pointed to her rifle and shouted: "Do you suppose you will be able to use that?" Her glance was withering. After months of lessons forced upon her by the Shogun, she had, despite herself, become a fair, if reluctant, marksman. 

"Askari Hodari!"? she hissed, using a phrase he had taught her in gentler times when he spoke of his land. She snapped the reins and sped away from him, tossing her ponytail. He raced after her, grinning, his blood warmed by the scent of war, which he missed so much since leaving Gor, and by Sayoko's hauteur, which was the iciest he had seen. They circled the city twice, then saw dust rise in the distance. With small mirrors they sent a glitter of signals to the generals and the Shogun's party. 

The red, yellow, and black banners of the insurgents emerged from the forests and blossomed across the open plain. Infantries marched and cavalries galloped toward Edo, doomed even before they saw their enemy. Bullets ripped through the vanguard's armor as if through silk. Men and horses trampled the fallen. The survivors of the second devastating volley of bullets now crossed swords with the Shogun's forces. 

DaKar flew beyond the reach of enemy archers but he could hear the shrieks of beast and man, the crash of metal on metal. He saw the blood on the ground and the torn faces and broken bodies. Later, on the fields and in the medical tents, he would find that bushido gave way to a more basic emotion: warriors did not die with the name of their lord on their lips but cried out for their mothers.

Sayoko fought for calm, desperately memorizing the cruel images. She watched numbly as the sparkling codes that she and DaKar sent helped fell rows and rows of advancing rebels. But it was the sound of suffering that made her tremble. The ethereal poems that likened the death of a warrior to the falling of a petal had not prepared her for the horror below and she was sickened.

DaKar flew low and slew two enemy swordsmen with bullets to the neck, saving an Edo general from death. Sayoko saw DaKar's face, flushed and virile. Her falcon sped along beside her, screaming with joy. I am not, she thought miserably, made for war. 

DaKar was still flying low, and three enemy archers trained their weapons on him, tracking him carefully. Sayoko gripped her mount with her legs, aimed her rifle, and watched, her heart deadened, as one archer after another fell in torment from her bullets. DaKar turned his hard face to her. "Askari Hodari!" His lips formed the words silently. Her throat filled with bitterness, but she saluted him and, knowing he was safe, raced away to complete her grim task.

The hell on earth painted on the screens in the Castle's Map Room had failed to capture the obscenity of what Sayoko saw. Her jaw ached and she rested her forehead on the tarn's neck as her body heaved with disgust. 

By mid-afternoon, the rebel forces had withdrawn, leaving the fallen in the dust and crushed grass. Only the Shogun's artillery had saved Edo. Sayoko knew that the Shogun would order the generals to prepare for a more formidable assault. She guided her tarn high enough for it to be mistaken for an eagle. As she suspected, an even more powerful force was mustering beyond the western forests and behind the northern hills. She flew back to the hilltop.

Kneeling before the Shogun and his advisers, she made her dreadful report—the number of dead and dying and wounded, the enemy's movements, and the probable force with which the rebel armies would attack again. The men sat in silence, their faces like glowing stone as the sun set. The breeze no longer carried the sound of swords and pain or the smell of burning and gunpowder, and she was glad that the evening hid her tears. 

The Shogun finally dismissed her and she stumbled down the hill to DaKar's tent. Her falcon roosted in a tree. In the dimness of the tent DaKar stood, enormous in his armor, his helmet and weapons resting on racks behind him. She was silenced by the sight. She had seen him smolder with lust in the fragrant rooms of the Tora and the Castle, but now he blazed with the exhilaration of battle. The Shogun, Sayoko thought, was dispassionate about war, for it was merely a means to an end, and the warriors were made fierce by duty. But DaKar's eyes had neither the frost of one driven purely by the will to power nor the serenity of one trained to die. The glint, she realized, came from the sheer delight in battle, as primal as her falcon's bloodthirsty joy.

When he gripped her wrist hard and brought it behind her back, she knew that he was not the same man she entertained with her sensuality and erudition. He unbuckled her breastplate and let it fall to the ground. He ripped off the silk ribbon that tied her hair back and ran his fingers through her hair. His kiss was rough and his armor pressed hard against her.

Here on the battlefield, she was not protected by layers of protocol. Here there was no wine or refined ritual, no candle-lit bath or silk quilt. A man she hardly recognized stripped her, and the cruelty in his touch made her throb. In the floating world of the Tora and even in the unsentimental halls of the Castle, Sayoko had lulled herself into thinking that DaKar was of Edo. But now she knew she was mistaken, for beneath his elegant, laughing surface he was, after all, of Gor, that land about which she knew little except that it was crude and violent.

The blood and steel of the day had warmed him as he had not been since his arrival in Edo. His former self had been reborn in battle, and in his Gorean trance the woman moaning beneath his hands was neither courtesan nor soldier. She was spoils.

He imprisoned her wrists in leather bands and hooked them together behind her back. These were not the finely crafted cuffs of the Tora but restraints for slaves. He strapped her elbows together. He smiled as pain crossed her flushed face. He forced her to her knees on the cotton futon on the wood platform and doubled her over her shins. 

He coiled her hair and let it spill forward, baring her back and nape and hiding her face. His war-drugged mind was filled with merging images of slaves—captured after battle, awaiting the slaver's kiss, displayed in the markets, coffled, whipped, thrown to the furs and raped.

She strained against the straps, and her open heat moistened with the excitement of fear. He towered over her and she heard the metal and leather fall to the dirt. Her moans—half protest, half desire—inflamed him. He knelt beside her and drew a warm hand slowly from her curving ass to her slender neck. 

His fingers parted the wet lips of her heat, dipping into the tiny, hot mouth and drawing the moisture up to the pucker between the cheeks. His fingers lingered there, passing over the ridges, probing the tightness, then stroked the smooth, swollen clitoris. She felt a violent current flow through her, as if what had transported him to another world had now swept her away, too. The shock was unlike the passion she felt in civilized Edo, so strong that she groaned as if in pain. She was intoxicated, and his captive. 

He knew that his touch maddened her and that he alone would decide if she cried out in pleasure or pain. His eyes were like flint and his shaft hardened against his belly. He moved behind her and held her hips still in both hands, rubbing the shaft across her back, tracing the crease, grazing the lips. He moaned softly as she writhed and as he breathed her scent.

He probed her heat and withdrew, dipped and pulled back, slid down to her clitoris and up to her anus, again and again until her moans grew long and she was near sobbing. He held her hips still and finally thrust roughly into the soft tightness of her heat. Although the violence gathered in his groin, his strokes were deliberate. Her cries were unlike any heard by the walls of the Tora or Castle. He had often taken her to the sharper edge of pleasure, but tonight she sensed danger. He had always allowed her to move when he took her, whether he restrained her or not, as her writhing aroused him. But now, with fewer bonds he kept her still. In this shaming pose she felt a yielding deeper than any swoon, and the humiliation became desire.

DaKar groaned as her flesh parted helplessly for him, and a feeling beyond joy filled him. She strained against her bonds and shook her head defiantly, yet her body acknowledged him. Her heat did not passively accept him: it clasped him desperately. He kept her near ecstasy, denying it to her. She moaned, feverishly thinking, Use me... please use me... let me... She refused to say the words and despaired as her body obeyed him. 

"Please," she whispered finally. "Please let me, Master." Her ass ground against his groin. He reached beneath her and drew a finger long and sensuously between the lips and across her clitoris. She whimpered and her body rose and fell. She had addressed him as Master since he arrived, but he had never heard her say it as she did now—with full acceptance of its meaning, not as a courtesy, but as a need. "Master," she groaned. "Please let me." 

"Not yet," he said. She convulsed with the first wave. He stopped stroking her. "Please!" she begged. "Let me, Master, please!" He drew the finger across her clitoris one long last time, and commanded her, "Now!" She cried out with a pleasure deepened by complete surrender. He felt her convulse around his shaft and he groaned. 

He coiled her hair around a fist, lifting her face, radiant with submission. He rubbed the wet cap of his shaft across her soft lips. They parted for him, and her tongue darted out, tasting herself. He moaned as her tongue swirled around his shaft. Holding her head with both hands, he used her mouth as he did her heat, but with more pleasure in this violation. His thrusts were slower, harder, and his groans longer. He spilled into her mouth, crying out. The sharp saltiness coursed down her throat.

His eyes pierced her as if for the first time, and she felt desire on her skin and in her groin. He unbound her. In cotton robes and bearing lamps, they made their way to the baths, simple affairs of wood frames and straw walls, with simmering water in metal vats and cool water in wooden ones. The floor's slats allowed the water to drain into a canal. Water was mixed in wooden buckets and poured over the body with dippers. There was no soaking tub. 

Yet, in this rough structure she stroked him with a sensuality he had never felt at the Tora. Her being poured into him as she moaned and rubbed her breasts and cheek against his slippery back. He placed her hands on the rim of a wooden vat and bent her over. Her ass gleamed, and he soaped it until the lather was thick. She groaned as his finger pushed into her tight entrance, gently, relentlessly. He kept her hips still and placed the tip of his shaft against the slick crease. He guided the hardness up and down, brushing her anus, which now pulsated gently, seeking the violation. As he eased into her, she cried out in pain yet did not ask him to stop. A stab of heat formed in her groin and spread beneath her skin. She shuddered as the pleasure rose. She did not beg or resist: she accepted it, accepted that he was taking her, that he was forcing pleasure into her body, that he could make her cry out even as she tried to stop. Her release was so strong that her head snapped back and her hair loosened from the pins. As the orgasm wracked her, he heard a new, yielding lilt in her voice as she called him, and he felt the white-hot thread rip through his shaft, and he pulled her roughly to him, groaning as his fire poured into her.

**********

Later, they emerged from the bath, steam rising from their hair. He took her to a hillside and lounged on a rock like a tiger as she stood before him. The light of the second full moon of the month softened his features but not his eyes. 

"Shed the robe," he said. 

Surprised, she said, "Perhaps when we return to the tent." 

"It is not," he said softly, "a request." After the din of battle and the violent possession of her body, his voice bound her more securely than slave cuffs. Her thick cotton robe fell to the grass. 

"Lie on the kimono," he said. She obeyed and the moonlight made her closed thighs gleam. When he said, "Offer yourself," she moaned softly and her hips lifted and fell of their own accord. She shook her head, unable to stop her body's assent. Her arms were thrown above her head. Then she felt a cool trickle of oil on her chest and belly and thighs, lighter than the oil he used to ease his passage into her, and with a hint of jasmine. His voice soothed, yet commanded. 

"Rub the oil into your skin, your breasts," he said. She breathed hard as her hands spread the oil, lingering over her breasts, pulling the nipples until she moaned in pain. Her palms pressed firmly on her belly and thighs. Her fingers probed her heat. 

"No," he said sharply. "I will say when you may touch." She withdrew her hand, feeling her core tighten and torment her now that it was forbidden to her.

The oil and moonlight made her glow. His voice mesmerized her, and she was barely aware of his words. Yet, her hands obeyed when he commanded her to work the oil into her breasts and to make her nipples stand. She had never touched herself for another's pleasure, and she felt shame and fear and anger along with the ache of need. His voice stroked her, controlled her pleasure, showed her that he could use her without touching her. Her anger ebbed as her need deepened and she moaned, unable to stop. Her power over her own pleasure slipped away; he was taking from her what had allowed her to hold sway over her patrons. For the first time, she feared him.

The moonlight found the swollen lips of her heat as her thighs parted. Her hands were rougher now, hurting her nipples, raking her flesh. She was delirious with need for release. And still his voice stroked her, finding secret nerves, awakening cravings.  

"Part the petals," he said. Her oiled fingers obeyed him, and even in the gentle light he could see the red of her inner folds. She drew a finger slowly over the erect nub, back and forth, until he commanded her to insert a finger, then two, into the soft mouth. His eyes were hot and cruel, and she saw herself through them: her hair wild, lips parted, breasts heaving, hips rising, fingers probing her heat, and she moaned as the current coursed through her like a drug.

She pleaded silently at first, whispered, and then sobbed, begging him. He did not wish to release her. He enjoyed her desperation and her pleas. Finally he permitted her, and she shook to her core, calling him over and over. When the last tremors died, she lay shuddering, gazing into his pleased eyes.

The next morning, the battalions were in tight, deadly formation, awaiting the rebels. After yesterday's blood and his conquest of Sayoko, DaKar was even more warlike. Sayoko was calm, all the knotted tightness within her gone, and she was as sharp-eyed as her falcon. She and DaKar flew above the armies and hills and sent their mirror signals to the generals. Swooping low, they did not see the waiting archer in the woods. An arrow pierced DaKar's hand and the poison flowed swiftly through his blood. Sayoko saw him slump and screamed a command to his tarn to follow her.

The tarns landed near the Shogun's platform. Soon DaKar was surrounded by the healers he had trained. Sayoko was near fainting as he fell unconscious. The Shogun's hand on her head revived her. "They will come for DaKar," he said. "And you will go with him and bring him back when he is well. You will learn all you can while you are there." She nodded, not understanding. Who? she wondered. Who will come for him and where are we going?

While the Shogun's forces decimated the rebel armies, Sayoko knelt beside DaKar, gazing at his face and the bound, wounded hand, willing him through her tears to awaken. A brilliant column of light fell on them, and the world went black.

The Shogun watched serenely as Sayoko and her falcon and DaKar floated up into the column of light and disappeared into the bright, silent, hovering vessel.