Firefly

by India Millar

  “Yes, master,” I said. Apparently satisfied, he tucked his tree away with a grunt of satisfaction.

  “Get your supper, then.”

  I left my bandage in place and groped my way carefully to the table, holding on to the edge as I sat cross-legged on the prickly tatami. I guessed the innkeeper was the sort of man who would enjoy watching the yujo entertain their clients, and I was taking no risks. I knew I was right when I heard a grunt from the corridor and then the slap of feet moving away. I sniffed and caught a whiff of fresh semen. I had been right; he had stood pressed against the screen, watching me and pleasuring himself, no doubt in anticipation of the joys to come. I had been ferociously hungry, but now I found my appetite was dead. Just as well. I poked at the food on my plate. A whole fish, mackerel by the smell of it, and far from fresh. I ate a mouthful and then put my chopsticks down. Even had I been starving, it would have taken willpower to swallow the rank flesh.

  I tensed. There were new noises in the street. Loud voices—loud even for the Floating World. Voices raised in complaint and pain.

  Instinctively, I reached for my staff. I was about to take off my hat and bandage when, clearly as if he was beside me, I heard Yo’s voice. Don’t fight. Not unless it’s that or face death. I froze with uncertainty, and then moved quickly. I was very glad I had left most of my stinking mackerel untouched. I ripped off the oily skin and smeared it on my hands and face, and as an afterthought on my feet and legs. I gagged at my own smell and closed my nostrils to the odor. My lazy landlord had left the guts in the fish. I scooped them up in my fingers and smeared them over my black moss. With a mental apology to my own body, I shoved more inside my sex. By the time my shoji slid open with a bang, I was back on my futon, my head lowered and my shoulders hunched in fear.

  “This her, is it?” Not Hana’s boys. I was grateful for that; I doubted my disguise would fool them for a second. “Arrived a while ago, you say?”

  “That’s right. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I can’t see what you lot want with a blind anma.”

  “If we want your opinion, we’ll ask for it. Hana-san sent us to look for a man and a girl. We know they haven’t left the Floating World. The guard wouldn’t dare lie to Hana-san, so they’re both still here somewhere.”

  I head the innkeeper’s sharp breath at Hana’s name. Suddenly, his tone was oily and deferential.

  “Well, she’s the only guest I’ve got at the moment. I can’t imagine she’s the one you’re after, but I’ll leave you both too it.”

  “That’s right,” the other man said. “Get out of our way and leave her to us.”

  The shoji closed. No hesitation this time; the innkeeper was gone hastily.

  “You.” The man who had spoken first poked me with his foot. “Anma, are you? What’s your name?”

  “Nara, master,” I whispered. The name had popped into my head; I wondered if I had made a mistake when he laughed.

  “Blossom from paradise, eh? What do you think about that, Jiro? Suits her, I don’t think!”

  Both men cackled.

  “Not much point spending any more time on this one,” Jiro said. “Better be on our way.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” The other man was licking his lips; I heard the whisper of his dry tongue. “Even Hana can’t begrudge us a bit of fun, surely. And it seems a shame to waste a bit of manko when it’s going free.”

  I could feel the lust coming off both men. I turned my head from one to the other, instructing my body to be small. Humble. Afraid.

  “What do you say, anma? You wouldn’t mind servicing two big, strapping chaps like us, I daresay? You’d probably enjoy it, eh?”

  He reached down and tugged my robe apart.

  “She’s a bit flat-chested.” Jiro sounded disappointed.

  “Don’t be so fussy. As the saying goes, ‘a padded jacket is an acceptable gift, even in summer.’ You’re having her below the waist, not above it.”

  As he spoke, he reached down and yanked at my robes. The obi caught, and he cursed. I crouched into myself, like a child who expects to be beaten. Finally, the obi gave way and he and Jiro grabbed my shoulders, forcing me back on the tatami. I would wait until the first man tried to enter me. Then he would regret it. Both of them would.

  “By all the gods!” Jiro reeled back, retching. “If you want to put your tree in that, you’re welcome. But I’m not having any of it. She must have some sort of disease. She reeks. And look—her manko’s full of green slime!”

  Both men jerked back from me. I wanted to laugh, but instead clutched at Jiro’s robe.

  “Oh, no, master. There’s nothing wrong with me, I promise you. Please, don’t leave me now. It’s been days since I had a man, and I could really do with a good seeing to. I’ll be that grateful. I won’t even charge either of you.”

  I rose to my knees and shuffled across the tatami, hanging on to Jiro’s robe. He screamed like a woman in childbirth and yanked his robe from my grasp.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here. As for you, I wouldn’t touch you if you paid me, never mind about for free.”

  I heard their footsteps moving away far quicker than they had arrived and smiled to myself. Yo had been right, I understood that now. If I had fought the two men—and I had no doubt at all that I could have beaten them easily—the innkeeper would have known instantly that I was the one Hana was searching for. Although he could not have kept me, his cries would have alerted the whole street and I would have been discovered.

  Ah, Yo. I am in your debt. Come here, and I will settle that debt!

  Twenty-Eight

  When you sail upon

  The sea, I long to be a

  Wave beneath your keel.

  The bathwater was so hot, it was almost unbearable. As is so often the case in life, that subtle difference was the dividing line between pleasure and pain.

  “I thought you were never going to come and take me out of the Hidden House.”

  “Liar.” Yo smiled. “You knew I would be there. You just couldn’t contain your impatience.”

  He shimmied his hips and water splashed on my neck. I sighed with pleasure. Still, I had one doubt.

  “Hana won’t find us here?”

  “No. This house belongs to the temple, Jokan-Ji. It’s the temple where all the whores who gave their lives to the Floating World are buried. It’s not somewhere the men who visit the pleasure quarter want to know about. Quite often, the women die of neglect or disease, and their bodies are just dumped behind the temple for the monks to find and give a simple burial to.”

  I nodded soberly, feeling a knot of guilt in my belly. Just like the men who used them, I had never given a thought to all the women who spent their lives laboring for their pleasure.

  Yo smiled at my serious face and went on quietly, “The kannushi of the temple used to be a comrade of mine. We have helped each other many times in the past, until the gods called him and he renounced the life of a shinobi and ended up in Jokan-Ji Temple. He was the one who gifted this house to the temple. More importantly, he may well be the only man in the Floating World who isn’t afraid of Hana or her yakuza. They keep a respectable distance from him; he has a great deal of power and influence, even now. He knows everybody worth knowing, and they have much respect for him.”

  I relaxed. If Yo believed we were safe here, then it was so. It was a very good feeling.

  After Hana’s men had left me, I had sat silently, simply waiting. After a while, I heard cautious steps outside my room, then the innkeeper’s voice whispered through the screen.

  “Anma, are you all right? The men left very quickly. Have they hurt you?”

  “Oh.” I tried the effect of a moan. It quite pleased me, so I did it again. “Oh, master. I don’t understand it. They were both going to take me, but when they took my robe away, they both lost interest. They seemed to think there was something wrong with my manko. Do you think you should come and have a look at it yourself?”

  He backe
d away so quickly, I heard him trip over the tatami. “Not just now. I’m swamped. I have somebody who wants your room tomorrow. Make sure you’re gone by first light, anma.”

  “But how am I to know when it’s light, master?” I wailed. “You must come and wake me. Help me to dress.”

  “Just go!” he shouted as he fled down the corridor.

  I waited so very long, I thought I imagined it when I felt Yo’s presence. He took my fish-stinking hand and helped me up.

  “Stay close to me, anma.” He spoke in a normal voice, and I wondered if the landlord was hovering nearby. “I have need of your services to help cure a terrible stiffness in my neck and back. You were recommended to me by a friend as the best masseuse in the whole of the Floating World. It’s taken all day to track you down. I was beginning to think you must have been caught up in the trouble outside. I have no idea what’s going on. Do you?”

  The landlord was listening, then. I answered dutifully.

  “No, master. I heard the noise and two men came and questioned me, but I don’t know what it was all about.”

  “No matter. Come along and we’ll see what you can do for me.”

  I pursed my lips with amusement at his wickedness and followed my lover meekly.

  Now, Yo watched me, smelling my arm with obvious amusement.

  “Are you never going to be satisfied, woman?” he asked. “Isn’t it enough that I rescued you in the first place and then turned myself into a maid to make sure you were clean before you got into the bath?”

  I lowered my arm into the water quickly. Yo had rinsed and soaped me repeatedly from head to foot. I knew that I no longer stank, but a gleam of mischief made me hold out my hand to him.

  “Are you sure I don’t smell like gone-off mackerel?”

  He took my hand and sniffed it elaborately before taking one of my fingers in his mouth and sucking the pad. The sensation was exquisite.

  “You smell and taste delicious. Shall I eat you up to make sure?”

  “Yes, please,” I said simply. He moved forward and took a nipple in his mouth. I breathed so deeply it was a groan. “Yo, stop.”

  His expression was bewildered as he let go of my breast and raised his face to look at me.

  “You don’t like that? Did I hurt you?”

  “Of course I liked it. And it didn’t hurt. But…” I paused, considering my words. “I can’t forget that I owe you my life. That’s not something I can just put aside. If it hadn’t been for you taking me from the Hidden House, I would have killed the man who finally met Hana’s price and then myself.”

  “Of course you would have,” Yo said simply. “It would have been the only honorable way for you. But that didn’t happen. The gods decided that it wasn’t time for you to die. You owe me nothing.”

  I shook my head. My escape had nothing to do with the gods and everything to do with Yo. I struggled with my pride, but the words had to be said.

  “I am in your debt, Yo. I owe my life to you. It’s an obligation I can never repay.”

  “Really?”

  I stared at him incredulously. He was smiling at me as if I had said something that amused him. Could he not see that I was laying myself at his feet in total humiliation? I ground my teeth together so hard they hurt, determined the bitter words in my mouth would never leave my tongue. I began to relax as he went on.

  “Then we’re equal, aren’t we? You let me rise from the dojo when you beat me. You could have killed me, but you didn’t. You could have said nothing and watched me slink away like a hurt dog, my pride gone forever. But you didn’t. You said then that we were to be equals. But saying something doesn’t make it so. Now, I have returned your mercy. Now, we are truly equal, onna-bugeisha.”

  He leaned the short distance between us and kissed me quite hard, full on my lips. I waited for a second, searching for the flaw in his argument, but I could find none. I opened my mouth and let my tongue explore his teeth and tongue. Only for a heartbeat, all the breath was knocked out of me as Yo put his arms around me and tightened them with crushing force.

  The hot water surged around us. I thought it was angry that we had excluded it from between our bodies. Yet we had not; we were both slippery and hot with it. I pushed my knee between Yo’s legs and rubbed against his tree. It was already hard and strong, poking into my belly. I had no time for subtlety. I reached down and wrapped my fingers around it fiercely, rubbing it back and forth. His flesh was silk, as soft as any woman’s. My hand knocked against his groin and I felt a hard ribbon of flesh. I was sure that had not been on his body when we had made love on the dojo and pulled away from Yo’s embrace to look.

  “Yes, it’s new.” He took my hand away from his tree and ran my fingers over the scar. It was as long as my hand and ran from his black moss up into his belly. “I was a fool. My opponent begged me for mercy. He promised that if I spared him, he would live a righteous life. He was on his knees before me, babbling that he would change. For some unknown reason, I believed him. I turned away, and next second, he had a dagger between my legs, slashing at me. If I hadn’t been so quick, he would have opened my kintama with his knife and no doubt enjoyed watching me bleed to death.”

  “You killed him,” I said flatly. Of course he had. A dog that bites once may be shown mercy. Twice is once too much.

  “I did. I cut his throat. A merciful death compared to what he planned for me. Trust me, he deserved it. He had killed many men. If he’d had a conscience, he would never have slept at night. But it didn’t bother him in the least.”

  “And you, Yo?” I asked curiously. “Do you sleep well?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “I consider myself an honorable man. I take only commissions that seem to me to be right. I would never take another’s life unless my own life was threatened. And I pray for the soul of each and every man I have helped into the next world.” I would have let it drop there, but Yo was not finished. “You remember I told you not to fight unless you had to?”

  “I remember. And I didn’t.”

  “You should always remember that. If you had dispatched the men who came for you, the landlord of the inn would have run into the street screaming for help. Others would have come, too many for you to fight. As it was, you used your brains and survived.”

  So I had! The thought pleased me greatly. “I am onna-bugeisha.”

  “You are,” Yo agreed gravely. “And you are also my lover. Have you forgotten that, onna-bugeisha? Do I have to make you remember?”

  I laughed in delight, all seriousness gone. The laughter became breathy with excitement when his fingers slid into my sex and rubbed gently at my flesh. All thought of us being equals fled into the rising steam as I lay back against the wall of the bath and held my arms open in invitation.

  “Please do.” Fleetingly, I thought how very strange it was that the touch of his hand against my sex was so arousing when it had given me nothing but disgust when Hotaru’s would-be patrons had fingered the same place.

  “Good?”

  I had no need to answer. My body thrust forward on its own, and Yo smiled. His finger ran up and down my slit, caressing so softly it tickled.

  “Harder,” I moaned, at the same time fastening my hand over his, forcing him to rub fiercely against me. Yo had no need to be told twice. The pads of his fingers had been ribbed by the hot water and they rasped against me pleasurably. I pushed back fiercely, at the same time allowing my first finger to trace the line of his scar. It must have been tender still as he moaned, although it could have been with pleasure; we were already at the stage where pain and pleasure become intermingled so that one brings as much delight as the other.

  Yo bit my shoulder. Hard. I laughed and gripped his tree equally hard. The water sloshed around us, poking and probing like a pet that wanted to join in our fun. I opened my legs as wide as I could, and the hot water entered me in a wave of pleasure. Yo followed it with his fingers, delving and stroking me inside, making me scream out loud. Unable to stand any
more, I wriggled from beneath him and rode the water until I was facing him, the opening to my sex brushing against the hood of his tree.

  Yo’s face wavered in the steam. I felt his breath, hotter yet than the water, on my face. I opened my mouth and breathed the air from his lungs. I arched my back and allowed myself to fall on his tree, feeling it slide into me with mounting desire. Slowly at first, and then quicker. I gripped him as tightly as the water that had entered with him would allow, and as I did so, I felt his tree swell still further.

  Up and down, a fingers-width in and out each time. Yo grasped my shoulders, steadying me, and at the same time trying to force himself further inside me. I was having none of it. I was greedy. I would dictate how much and how quickly. Yo tried to use his superior strength to hurry me. In return, I gripped his tree so hard the veins stood out on his forehead as he tried to fight me. For a moment, we rocked together, neither willing to give way.

  “Remember? Do not fight unless you have to.” I leaned forward and breathed the words into his face. “Do not fight unless it is life or death.” I parroted his words back to him and watched as his mouth widened into a grin. He gave a final push, as if admitting defeat, and relaxed his body.

  I rode his tree as if it was a living thing I needed to subdue to my own will. First fast, then slower. All the time, gripping tight. Yo’s eyes were wide, his mouth gaping. I knew he was still fighting, but this time fighting to hold back the moment when he could control his body no longer and he burst his seed inside me. I was excited by the knowledge and began to move quicker and harder, thrusting my sex harshly against him, grinding his black moss into me, loving the feel of his kintama as they bumped against me. It felt as if they, too, wanted to enter me, and I reveled in the sensation.

  Finally, my mind lost control of my body. I felt my yonaki build deep behind my sex and I became still, leaning back and taking his tree from root to hood inside me, gripping it as if it was a reed and I a drowning woman. As the waves of my yonaki rolled through me, I felt Yo tense and heard him moan. His seed burst inside me, hotter even than the water that beat around us, and I gasped, feeling the intensity of my orgasm like a living thing within me.