The Russian Concubine

by Kate Furnivall

  After a moment of thought she rolled away from him out of the bed, felt her way over to the small green lamp on the table, and switched it on. When she returned to the bedside, she stood quite still for a moment, gazing down at him intently. Slowly she slid the nightdress up over her head.

  She saw his black eyes fill with desire.

  She lifted the sheet and lay in the bed next to his naked body. He was warm. Like silk all down one side of her skin. She stroked a hand gently over his bandaged chest and down his thin ribs to his hips. She knew his body so well, each bone and muscle of it.

  But suddenly, stupidly, she felt awkward. She didn’t know what to do next. Her heartbeat was thudding in her ears and she was frightened he would hear it, but just when she was thinking she’d made a complete fool of herself by climbing into his bed like a common slut, he lifted himself up on one elbow and studied her face with a dark, serious gaze. So intense it stripped away her fears.

  Slowly his lips found hers. Tentative at first. Small lingering kisses on her mouth, on the tip of her chin, the corners of her eyes and the sweep of her cheekbones. They made her whole body surge with something that felt almost like pain, it was so fierce, a burning heat. It swept from her lips to the tips of her breasts and rushed down between her legs. Her nipples ached. She heard herself moan in a soft mewing sound she had never heard before.

  ‘Lydia,’ he murmured as his mouth claimed hers again. His hand caressed her naked breast and slid in slow teasing circles down the slope of her slender stomach.

  It was as if her skin became something other than skin. It grew so alive it leaped out of her control, rubbed itself against his body, her hip pressing against his, her hands touching, searching, stroking, seeking out each bone of his back, his flat wide shoulder blades, the curve of his buttocks. Her lips opened to his and the unexpected sensation of their tongues entwining sent such a shiver of delicious shock through her body that it made him stop, lift his head, and gaze at her with concern.

  But she laughed, almost a purr, and wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him back to her once more. His lips explored her throat with open-mouthed kisses, as if he would eat her up, and his tongue started to lick her breasts, tasting her, discovering her, making the lines of her body melt until they moulded perfectly to his. It amazed her that two bodies could do this. Become one.

  As he bent his dark head over her breast she let her own tongue trail along the back of his neck, twirling the short hairs and nuzzling each bone of his spine. His skin. It smelled of herbs. But the salty taste of it set her loins throbbing. When he took her nipple into his mouth the heat inside her seemed to explode in her chest and the need for him became unbearable. Her hand reached down to where she could feel his penis thrust hard against her thigh but when her fingers curled around it, it startled her. This was not the penis she recognized, the one she had cradled in her hand before. This was different. Big. Too big. How could anything be so hard and yet so soft?

  He moaned the moment her hand touched it. It twitched between her fingers as if electric shocks were sweeping through its blue veins and she felt a fierce choking desire to hold it, keep it, protect it, own it forever. It was as if it were a part of her. As he was a part of her.

  Abruptly she could hold back no longer and she took his good hand, placed it between her legs. Instantly he lifted his head so that his mouth and his tongue could merge with her own, and his fingers started to caress the moist heart between her legs, gently at first, then firmer, harder. She moaned, and under it she heard a low breathless growl that was him. She lost track of time. A minute or an hour, she had no idea. She wrapped a leg up over his hip and felt his penis tight against her cleft, the pulse of it hot and needy.

  And suddenly he was above her. His lips kissing her eyelids until she opened them and found his dark gaze looking down at her with an expression so tender and so full of longing that she knew she would carry it with her till her dying day. His mouth moved against her own.

  ‘My sweet love,’ he breathed. ‘Tell me this is what you want.’

  For reply she bucked her hips so that the tip of him slid inside her and she heard his quick intake of breath. His teeth bit down on her lip. Slowly, gently, with infinite care he entered her. At one point a sharp pain made her cry out but he held her close, murmuring, whispering, eating her up.

  She could barely breathe. All thought ceased. Her whole world became this one moment. A fierce pounding heat that crashed over her body, burning new pathways through her flesh. Through his flesh. Through their flesh. Moulding it into one flesh. And when the final shuddering climax tore through them both, she thought she was dying. Literally dying. And that Chang An Lo’s gods had carried her to a new afterlife.

  No nightmares. Not that night. She had banished them.

  Chang An Lo could not take his eyes off her, even in the dark. Her head lay curled on his shoulder as she slept and he brushed his cheek against her hair, just to feel it again, to touch its flames. His mind kept rushing ahead, twisting and turning around the hidden coil of the future, but he drew it back. Back to the present. To this moment. This now. This perfect point of time.

  He struggled to centre his mind. Focus his senses. But all he could feel was the joy of her, the physical wonder of her, the sweet smell of her. His fox girl. He relived each second in his head as he lay awake in the hours before dawn. Heard again the little yips of pleasure. Felt her teeth on his collarbone. The strong muscles inside her. That moment of certainty when . . .

  No. He dragged his mind away and forced it to be in the now. Not in what had passed. Nor in what was to come. But now. To breathe each breath completely and not think about the next. The gods had granted him a treasure few ever come close to experiencing in this life. He would not waste it by fearing that some thief would come and steal it from him tomorrow or tomorrow’s tomorrow. He touched her forehead with his lips and kept them there against her skin. It was warm and musky with sleep. His eyes held on to the shadowy tangle of her hair, and he listened to her breathing. He had to clear his brain. To think what was right for her.

  ‘Are you tired?’ Her eyes were huge. Great amber pools of light.

  ‘No.’ He smiled at her as she lay beside him on the pillow in the darkness. ‘I feel better. Much better. Strong inside again.’

  ‘Good.’

  He kissed her ear. ‘You have perfect ears. Priceless curls of porcelain.’

  She laughed and wrapped her leg lightly over his body. Instantly he was aroused. He touched her breast and felt the muscles spring to life under her skin. This time she made it easy for him. She sat astride him, rocking with an urgent rhythm while his hand caressed the soft swell of her breasts, firm and taut and infinitely inviting to his tongue. He watched her face. It was so mobile. It showed so much. He painted the picture of it into his head the way an artist paints a delicate portrait on a porcelain plate.

  The freedom of her passion as she threw her hair forward and seized his lips with hers, arching over him with open longing, was something new to him, and it fired his need for her to even greater intensity. But it moved him too, deep down inside where no one else had ever touched before. And he wondered, as he danced his fingers down her sides and saw her tremble, whether he was the one who was the virgin.

  43

  Lydia lay very still. She didn’t want to disturb the darkness.

  Everything had changed. Even her pillow smelled different. Her body felt as though she had swapped it for a new one overnight and she had to familiarise herself with it all over again because this body knew things and did things instinctively that her head could only observe with amazement. This body had no shame. In fact it revelled in these extraordinary acts of intimacy. And she was astonished that it knew no bashfulness in its nakedness, not even under the gaze of a man.

  Not just a man. A Chinese man.

  What would her mother say?

  She smiled and a bubble of laughter escaped into the silent room. She pictured Valentin
a’s face if she walked in now, her eyes and her mouth round with shock, then narrow with fury, but oddly none of it had the power to touch her. Not now, in this wonderful new body. This desirable body. This shameless body. She flexed its limbs, stretched its toes, clenched the newly awakened muscles between her legs and in the lowest part of her abdomen, felt a dull ache down there. Not a pain exactly, just a delicious ache that reminded her of what had happened to her. As if she could forget.

  A virgin no more. The thought brought nothing but a shiver of pleasure even though she knew her mother would rant and rave and say that no man would want her now that she was spoiled goods.

  That was such rubbish, she couldn’t suppress a grin. She had been transformed from dreary back-of-the-shelf stock into shiny new goods. Glossy and glowing, inside and out. And who cared about what other men might say? She shivered with disgust at the very idea of another man’s touch. It was Chang An Lo she wanted. No one else.

  She put her ear close to his mouth to make sure he was still breathing. She didn’t quite trust his gods. They might want him. But she wanted him more.

  ‘Time for breakfast, my love. I know it’s not even morning yet,’ she laughed and waved a hand at the black window, ‘but I’m starving.’

  He felt the warmth of her body disappear from his side.

  ‘I want to eat only you.’ He smiled.

  ‘No. Boiled egg and toast for you today. Got to keep your strength up. You never know when you might need it again.’

  She abandoned him with a mischievous chuckle, turned on the light, and trotted off to the bathroom. He was impressed by such luxuries in Western houses. He could hear her running a bath and singing to herself. He smiled, but knew he had to prepare her.

  ‘Tell me about your childhood.’

  She was perched cross-legged on the end of the bed eating yesterday’s bowl of something she called trifle. Every now and again she leaned forward and slipped a spoonful of it into his mouth. Secretly he found it teeth-grating in its sweetness and was astonished she could relish it so, but he gave no sign of that.

  ‘My childhood,’ he said. ‘It was very grand. Tutors, servants, and slaves. My father was a great mandarin. A peacock feather in the hat and gold-coloured tiles on the roof as a mark of superiority. He was a trusted adviser to Empress Tzu Hsi, but after Sun Yat-sen . . .’

  ‘My rabbit?’ She grinned.

  ‘ . . . after the true and noble Sun Yat-sen brought the end to the Ching dynasty in 1911, my family escaped death. Only because the new central government needed my father’s financial skills. But,’ he felt his face grow stiff and expressionless, ‘the warlords slit each other’s throats and came for him.’

  ‘And your family?’

  ‘Dead. Each one of them. Beheaded in Peking. By order of General Yuan Shi-k’ai.’

  ‘I’m sorry. So very sorry, my love. To lose everyone . . .’

  He shook his head, as if he could shake out the image from his mind. ‘I escaped. I had chosen to live with monks to learn a simpler way of life. In a temple up in the mountains north of Yenan.’

  ‘A temple?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I thought Communists didn’t believe in religion.’

  ‘You are correct. But it is not a simple task to root out superstition from the human mind.’ He reached over, drew her to him, and let his tongue lick a smear of custard from her lips. ‘Or love from the human heart.’

  ‘Is that what has happened to us?’ Her eyes were solemn.

  ‘Escape?’

  ‘No. Love.’

  He stroked her chin and slid his unbandaged hand inside her blouse to where he could feel her heart beating strongly. ‘Can’t you feel? Here.’

  ‘I feel a pain.’

  He laughed gently. ‘I love you, my beautiful fox.’

  Her eyes widened and focused on his, a small pulse vibrating at the base of her throat. ‘I love you, Chang An Lo. I won’t let anybody part us.’

  A sharp pain erupted in his own chest. ‘Let us live now, my love. Nobody can ever part us from now.’

  ‘It’s time to move.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To the shed.’

  ‘Why now?’ she asked. ‘It’s only Friday and not even morning yet.’ The first glint of dawn was fingering the curtain. ‘They’re not due back until tomorrow, so we still have today and tonight to . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry. I must move now. Today. Before it grows light.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To be prepared. To be prepared is to stay alive. If they return early? They will summon police at once.’

  ‘Please. Don’t.’

  ‘My precious love, you cannot keep me in a cage the way you keep your rabbit.’

  ‘But I want you safe, to give time for your body to heal and grow strong again. You are still feverish.’

  ‘I know I am weak.’

  ‘Not so weak last night.’

  ‘No. You see how you give me strength.’

  ‘Please, Chang An Lo. Wait till tomorrow.’

  She moved everything in the last shreds of darkness. Sheets, blankets, medication, bandages, candles, food, and water. Together they made their way down the stairs and out to the shed, his arm across her shoulders, and he was shocked at just how weak he still was. He said nothing, but her face kept turning to him with concern as he dragged his feet over the icy lawn and his nods of reassurance were not as convincing as he meant them to be. The cook and his wife were lazy good-for-nothings while their master was away and were still in bed, so there was no danger of discovery, but his fear was that he wouldn’t even make it as far as the shed.

  What then? Could she drag him?

  ‘You should have waited till tomorrow,’ she said crossly when he at last stumbled through the doorway and collapsed on the floor.

  He crawled to the wall and propped himself up next to Sun Yat-sen while she made a rough bed for him on the wooden boards. His head was buzzing and his legs shaking. But he loved to watch her. The way she moved. Efficient and full of energy.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said as she helped him into the pile of blankets and tucked a hot-water bottle under his feet. ‘Do not be angry.’

  ‘Hush, my love, I’m not angry. Just frightened you are leaving me.’

  ‘Look at me. Do I look strong enough to leap over your roof and fly away?’

  She laughed, generous with her energy. ‘Go to sleep now.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I’ll go to the market as soon as it opens. To buy you some clothes.’

  He clung to her hand as her face slipped in and out of focus. ‘Peacock feathers and gold slippers would be nice.’

  She smiled. ‘I was thinking of a topper and tails.’

  He had no idea what she meant, but he raised her fingers to his lips.

  She smiled at him. ‘And don’t go holding any wild parties in here while I’m away.’

  Someone was rattling the padlock. Silently Chang rolled out of the blankets. The long-bladed knife was already in his hand. He crouched to one side of the door.

  ‘Missy Lydia? Missy, you here? Wai want you.’

  It was the cook, Wai. Chang breathed more easily. The man must be a piss-head if he couldn’t see that of course she wasn’t inside the shed if the padlock was fastened outside. The shed had no windows, just a small skylight in the roof, which meant no one was able to look in. He heard the cook move away, muttering about the cold wind, but Chang remained where he was. He forced the cobwebs from his mind. He needed to be alert. He listened for other footfalls but none came. Around him the air was dim and musty but he was aware of sunshine trickling into one corner, picking out the dust motes and sending a cockroach scuttling into the dark.

  Gradually the light changed. Chang judged time passing by the speed with which the rectangle of light crept across the floor, brushing Sun Yat-sen’s nose, then sliding over a huddle of wood lice and settling on his heap of blankets as though exhausted. Somewhere among the burlap sacks t
hat leaned against one wall, a mouse pattered. With quiet concentration Chang observed a spider as it spun a web from one shelf of paint pots to another, and he would have given another finger to have the agility of its legs at this moment.

  Because he sensed danger. How or when, he had no idea, but he could taste it. It was in the air.

  When the sunlight finally sidled from inside the shed, he began to worry about Lydia. He pulled one of the blankets from the bed and wrapped it around himself and placed a handful of the medicines in the cloth case that was meant for the pillow, ready to move if he had to. With his right hand he carefully unbandaged his left. The time for cosseting was over. He studied both hands. The right was healing well now, but the left was still ugly and swollen, oozing pus from the hole where his smallest finger had once been. The sight of them offended him deeply. The balance was gone. They were lopsided. Even healed, they would possess no centre point.

  Rage reared up from where it lay curled deep in his stomach, but he controlled it, breathed slow, exhaled long. Steadily and unremittingly he began to exercise his fingers.

  ‘I’m sorry I was so long. You mustn’t worry about me.’

  She had taken one glance at his face and seen beyond the welcoming smile he gave her. She bent and kissed his mouth. ‘What are you doing over here by the door? You should be in bed, resting.’

  ‘I have finished resting.’

  She gave him a look but made no comment. Instead she unwrapped her packages. Her wide grin filled the dingy shed with warmth and vitality, and he could feel it seeping into his own veins.

  ‘They’re not new, I’m afraid, but they’re good.’

  She held them up. She was right, they were good. He was touched that she must have gone especially to the Chinese market in the old town because they were not Western clothes. A pair of loose peasant trousers, a quilted tunic, and a thick padded jacket, and in a separate parcel a pair of stout hide boots. A leather satchel, scratched and battered but still intact, pleased him most because it reminded him oddly of himself. Except he was no longer intact.