Firefly

by India Millar

  As I wait for you

  “It’s all right for you. And Emiko as well,” I said enviously. I was watching Isamu practice in the courtyard with his curved sword, the traditional samurai katana. Even though it was an inferior weapon—used only to hack at a wooden figure balanced on a swivel that moved at a touch and helped to improve the warrior’s aim and sense of balance—the katana’s blade was still wickedly sharp. I could feel my body twitching as it followed his movements. I memorized every curve of his arm, every turn of his body. Isamu finished his graceful movement before he spoke, standing back and sliding the katana carefully back into its scabbard before he turned his attention to me.

  “What’s all right for me and Emiko?” he asked cheerfully. In spite of the vigorous exercise routine he had just finished, he was barely out of breath. He walked to the edge of the dojo area and took a dipper of water from a barrel. He offered me the dipper courteously. I took a drink even though I was not thirsty, grateful for his kindness. He slaked his own thirst and then poured water over his head, shaking the drops away like a dog coming out of water.

  “Everything is,” I said simply. “You’re the man of the family. Father loves you. As far as he’s concerned, you can do no wrong. Emiko is beautiful and graceful and enchants everybody she meets. And she’s going to be married to Soji-san, so her future is bright.”

  “Feeling sorry for yourself today?” Isamu said brutally.

  I felt tears come to my eyes. Did even my adored brother not understand that I had less than nothing? That in our house I had as little status as a lowly maidservant? I knew that I would never marry. I was doomed to live at home as a burden on my family until death gave me release from my useless life. I ripped at my fingernail with my teeth, disappointed that he had not understood my feelings instinctively, without me needing to tell him. That he had made me feel even more depressed.

  “I’m useless,” I said finally. “Father’s never going to be able to find anybody to marry me. Nobody is going to want me when I look like this. I’m going to die an old maid, unwanted and uncared for. It would be better if I died young, with at least the hope of some sort of future.” I raised my head and stared at him defiantly. I drew a sharp, indignant breath as I saw he was grinning widely.

  “Great-grandmother looked like you, and she found a husband,” Isamu pointed out cheerfully. “She must have done or we wouldn’t be here. I’m sure Father will find you a suitable husband. Do you want me to talk to him about it? Would that make you feel better?”

  His good-natured dismissal of my problem made me feel even worse. I frowned at him and shrugged my shoulders sulkily. If Emiko knew great-grandmother’s story, then surely Isamu also knew. And if he knew, then he must know perfectly well that it was out of the question for me to marry down as she had done. And if I could not do that, then what was there left for me? Emiko had been betrothed to Soji-san when she was no more than a child. I was deeply envious of her good fortune. He not only came from an excellent family and was rich, he even appeared to be very fond of her. I was only two years younger than she was, and Father had never mentioned trying to find me a suitable husband. I thought about Isamu’s words. Was that really what I wanted? What alternative did I have? Of course I wanted to marry and have many boy children. It was the summit of any well-born woman’s ambition. Knowing that, why did my tongue stumble and refuse to find words as I watched his smiling face?

  “What else could I do?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. Nothing. It was have a suitable husband found for me or live out my life as an old maid, treated as no more than a servant by everyone in our household. I felt a cold emptiness in the pit of my stomach as I realized that neither alternative appealed to me in the least. If Soji-san had been available, now that would have been another matter. But he was not. And I could not believe that I would ever feel about another man as I felt for Soji-san.

  “You can stop feeling sorry for yourself, for a start,” Isamu said briskly. I glowered sulkily at him. “You don’t have to get married, you know. Or end up as an old maid. There is another alternative. Have you never heard of the onna-bugeisha?”

  I looked at his smiling face and threw my head back and laughed out loud at the absurdity of his question. I laughed so long and hard that tears came to my eyes. I wiped them away and apologized quickly. It was unutterably rude of me; had I been talking to anybody of a noble class apart from my dear brother, I would have been struck for my dreadful insolence. As it was, Isamu simply shook his head in mock severity.

  “Are you surprised Father hasn’t bothered to find a husband for you when you dare to laugh at somebody who is trying to help you? Have some respect for your elders and betters, sister!”

  “I am sorry, brother.” Even though Isamu had spoken lightly, I hurried to apologize. “I assumed you were making fun of me. Of course I have heard tales of the onna-bugeisha. But that is all they are, fairy stories. Noble warrior women who fought alongside their men could never really exist. All samurai are men, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “You think so? Wait a moment until I put my robe on.” He glanced at his costly robe, strewn casually on the wall of the well, and I hurried to fetch it for him. He slid his arms into the sleeves with casual grace and knotted the sash elegantly without bothering to glance down at it. Finally satisfied, he nodded at me. “Come along with me, little sister. I have something to show you.” He walked away from me without a backward glance.

  Hobbled by the tight skirt of my kimono, I had to scurry to catch up with him. I noticed sadly that I had grown taller; even allowing for the height of my wooden geta, I guessed that now I was barely shorter than my brother, and he was quite a tall man. Yet another flaw in my tragic make up. Not for the first time, I longed to be tiny and feminine like Emiko.

  Once inside the house, I immediately heard Emiko scolding her maid for some trifling error. I noticed that my sister always spoke to me in exactly the same tone.

  “Never mind about Emiko. Nothing ever really pleases her. Whatever you did for her would be wrong,” Isamu said shrewdly. “If she has any sense, she’ll be married before long and out of our way. She hasn’t any sense, of course. More’s the pity.”

  His words seemed odd to me, but I could not quite decide why. I followed him into his apartment and at his gesture sat on my heels on the tatami, watching him delve into a cedarwood chest. After a moment, he came and sat beside me. He had a bulky package in his hands shrouded in a bag of very fine white silk. He undid the ties and pulled the mouth of the bag open very carefully, sliding his fingers inside and drawing out a large, leather-bound book, which he held out to me. I looked at it warily, the sight of it immediately bringing the memory of a long-forgotten event back to me.

  I had deliberately pushed all thoughts of the incident away and done my best to forget all about it. That made the sudden recollection of it now all the more horrifying. Isamu obviously did not notice anything was wrong; his attention was all on the book in his hands. He stroked the leather binding delicately. My brother was not greatly given to daintiness, so I knew that this book must be very special to him.

  I stared at it in revulsion. I was sure I had seen the book before, in different hands. I wanted Isamu to put it away. To slide it back in its cover and hide it back in the cedar chest where it belonged. I did not want to look at it. Isamu turned his head and looked at me curiously. I managed a smile. I was mistaken. It could not be the same book. Still, I closed my eyes in instinctive horror as Isamu very carefully lifted the front cover back.

  Three

  On sand, our footsteps

  Vanish with the tide. Memories

  Linger forever

  Several years before, a friend of my brother named Choki had stayed with us. I did not like this young man at all. Perhaps he recognized my dislike and decided to punish me for it. Or perhaps he had taken a fancy to me. In any event, he invited me to his room—and politeness dictated that I had to go. He sat next to me, far too close for c
omfort, and showed me a book whose cover looked to me exactly like the one Isamu had in his hand now. Very smooth, fine-grained leather. Light grey, so pale it gleamed in the light that filtered through the shoji screen.

  “Keiko-chan,” he said breathily, “I wonder if you have ever seen anything like this before?”

  I shook my head. The book was beautifully bound. I ran my finger over the binding appreciatively. He seemed to take my gesture as approval and flipped the book open quickly. My mouth fell open in astonishment and I jerked back. Unfortunately, Choki was so close to me that my head hit his chin. I apologized wildly, desperate to cover my seething embarrassment. To be so close to any man I did not know very well would have been deeply uncomfortable. But in Choki’s case, it was even worse. His odor was so rank I tried to hold my breath in an effort not to smell him.

  “Do not worry about it. It is nothing. A blow from your delightful head could never be painful to me.” His courtesy was so false it raised the hackles on the back of my neck. I knew he was mocking me, and I hated him for it. “Now, Keiko. Do look. Is my shunga not the most beautiful thing you have ever seen? Just look at the craftsmanship that has gone into executing the illustrations.”

  He was breathing heavily, and I knew he wasn’t in the least interested in the skill of the illustrator. Before I could respond, he flipped a page over. I moaned out loud in mortification, trying to look anywhere but at the book. But Choki was having none of it. He put his fingers on my chin and forced my head around and down until I was looking squarely at the pages of the book. I could have clamped my eyes shut, I suppose, but what was the point? He would never let me leave until I had taken a good look.

  I knew what it was. I had heard of such things. “Shunga” was the word for erotic art. But to call this book shunga was glorifying it. This was no more than a pillow book, a collection of sensual prints that lovers would use to arouse themselves. But we were not lovers. I was just a young girl, and Choki was my brother’s friend. And although I longed to stand up and march out of the room, because Choki was both my brother’s friend and a guest in our house, politeness dictated that I stay and tolerate his behavior. If I did not, I had no doubt that he would complain to my brother that I had been rude to him. Courtesy dictated that Isamu would believe the guest he had invited into our house. After all, I was nothing but the youngest girl child in the family. My status was barely higher than that of the servants.

  To make matters even worse, I loved my brother dearly and would never wish to cause him shame. So, I sat, rigid with embarrassment and looking but trying not to see Choki’s pillow book.

  “It is beautifully done,” I said tonelessly.

  “Isn’t it?” Choki had moved closer to me. I could feel his stinking breath on my cheek. “Have you ever seen anything like this before, Keiko-chan?”

  “No,” I muttered. Even as I spoke, I felt my gaze drawn to the illustration. As my initial embarrassment began to lessen, I almost laughed in disbelief.

  The picture depicted a young woman, squatting down with her kimono raised so she could pass water into a stream. Hardly anything erotic about that! Then my gaze slid to the left and I saw a man, hidden behind a fence and watching the woman intently through a gap. His enormous tree of flesh was grasped firmly in his hand, and even in my innocence, I understood that he was excited by watching the woman pee and was pleasuring himself vigorously. I blushed deeply, my thoughts whirling in confusion. How could anybody be aroused by the sight of a woman carrying out her natural functions? Would I find it stimulating to watch a man urinating? Hardly!

  “This one is by the master Utamaro,” Choki said throatily. “The next one is by Harunobu.” He turned the page as he spoke. “Do you like it?”

  I stared in fascinated horror at the print, which depicted a nude woman lying on her back, her arms thrown wide and her fingers clawed. Her mouth was wide open in apparent ecstasy, her eyes clenched tightly shut. A large dog was crouching between her thighs, obviously enjoying intercourse with her. His impossibly huge tree of flesh was halfway withdrawn from her black moss, as if he was about to plunge back in fully at any second. His kintama were drawn in loving—if exaggerated—detail. His tongue lolled from his mouth. Insofar as a dog could be said to have an expression, his said that he was enjoying himself immensely.

  I shook my head violently, feeling sick. “I don’t want to see anymore,” I managed to croak.

  Choki laughed. “Oh, come now. No need to be shy. I’ve been told that for a woman to copulate with a well-endowed dog is to find heaven on earth for them. I understand that a dog has one great advantage over us mere men. Even when they have burst their fruit, their trees do not shrink like ours do. Instead, they swell even more so that they cannot be dislodged from their heavenly position for many minutes more, sometimes as long as an hour. Hence the delighted woman can achieve many more yonaki. I’m sure you would enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”

  I shook my head, mute with sick disbelief. Choki shuffled forward and put his head on my shoulder. The book fell from his hands and for a brief moment, I was deeply relieved. Then I felt him shuffling his robe about and realized he was touching his tree. I stared straight ahead, as much to avoid his breath as to hide my fear and humiliation.

  “Come, dear. Just you put your fingers around that. I know it can’t match up to the shunga, but then again, this is flesh and blood and not just a drawing.”

  I tried to pull away, but I was held fast. Choki had trapped one of my arms against his body. He grabbed my free hand and pushed it hard against his tree. I had no idea at all what he wanted and simply left it still and rigid against him. He sighed deeply and put his own hand over my fingers, forcing them to wrap around his tree, at the same time moving my hand up and down. His flesh was hot and faintly moist. I felt sick.

  “That’s right. Now isn’t that lovely? Would you like me to put my tree in you? I would give you very great pleasure, I assure you.”

  His mouth was against my ear. “I think I should go now,” I managed to whisper.

  “Go? When we are just getting to know one another better? Don’t be silly.” He licked my ear, shoving his tongue deep inside. It felt sticky and altogether unpleasant. With dawning amazement, I realized this was supposed to arouse me. “Have you ever been with a man before, dear?”

  “No.” I swallowed convulsively. My heart was beating so fiercely I was sure he would hear it and would no doubt think I was excited. “Please, I would like to go now. I’m sure I heard Isamu shouting for me just now.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. He told me he was going hawking with your father. I would have gone with them, but I have no real taste for the sport of takagari. Apart from anything else, the dust from the birds’ feathers always makes me sneeze. And I rather thought it would be nice for us to have a little time to ourselves. And don’t worry about your sister. She’s gone shopping and took her maid with her. There’s just the two of us left in the house, I promise you.”

  In a reflex action, I clenched my hand fiercely and Choki moaned with pleasure. Innocent as I was, I mistook his groans for pain and gripped his tree still harder, hoping that I would hurt him so much that he would push me away.

  “Delicious,” he whispered. “Quite delicious. You obviously have hidden talents.”

  I tried to take my hand away from his tree, but Choki was far too quick for me. He immediately put his fingers very firmly around my hand, forcing me to rub his tree up and down. I froze in shock as he used his other hand to force its way inside my kimono, thrusting aside my robes and underthings as though they were barely there. In the next moment, his fingers were delving inside my black moss. I shrieked in pain and fear, and he cackled.

  “All you women are the same. The more you want it, the coyer you pretend to be, which wouldn’t be a problem if we had more time. But as it is, I suggest we get down to things. Lie back. Give my tree a nice long suck and I’ll seek the seed with you. That’ll get your juices running good and proper before I match
the bird to the nest.”

  I closed my eyes tightly. This couldn’t be happening. Choki pushed his fingers into my dryness, pinching me hard, and I knew that the reality was that he was going to rape me. Here, in my own home. And there was nothing I could do about it. I was alone with him, and he was far stronger than I was. And if he did succeed in taking me, what then?

  If I found the courage to tell Isamu his friend had taken me against my will, would he believe me? No doubt Choki would say it was all my fault. That I had enticed him and he had been unable to resist the lure of sex with me. Even Isamu would no doubt think it was perfectly understandable that his plain, neglected sister had been driven to desperate measures to satisfy her lusts. He would probably apologize to Choki for my behavior and never speak to me again. I could never complain to Father. He would never believe I was without fault. He would be so ashamed that he would immediately sell me to a brothel somewhere far enough away for me not to be known. Emiko, I knew, would accuse me of trying to make myself important and be furious with me.

  Perhaps Soji-san might believe me? The thought gave me a tiny measure of courage. Surely, he would stand by me. I took a deep breath and winced as Choki fumbled inside me. It felt as if he was trying to push his entire hand in there and was clearly becoming impatient with me. I summoned the image of dear Soji-san’s face to my mind and my fear lessened slightly. If I had somebody who believed me, then I could find the courage to resist. I would not simply allow this to happen to me. I took a deep breath and tried to relax.

  Choki raised his head and grinned at me approvingly.

  “Ah, I can see you’re enjoying that.” His mouth was ajar, and a thread of saliva connected his teeth. He flicked it away with his tongue. I tried not to flinch away from his breath. “I saw how excited you were with my pillow book. I knew all along you were not as innocent as you pretended. Tell me, how do you like it best? Do you want me to put my tree into your manko and match the bird to the nest or would you prefer me to split the melon with you?”