by Jade Lee
It was a lie. She knew it to be one of the greatest—and most common—of men’s lies. She knew it, believed it, and yet, when he slid his hands up her forearms to cup her elbows, she could not fight him. She wanted to believe—even for these few moments—that she was his beloved wife, cherished and adored, just as she had pretended to the other women.
“I am your adored wife?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. She felt his hands slip to the clasps above her left breast.
“Of course,” he responded, his low voice creating a shiver that started at her neck but traveled down her spine until it encompassed her whole body.
“And what will I be in the morning?” she asked.
“Well loved,” he answered.
Her heartbeat skittered at the word “loved.” Her breasts tingled even as the tight silk began to peel away. Lies, she told herself, and yet what was her alternative? A night spent sweating, mouth dry in hunger for a smoke? If she could not have forgetfulness that way, she would take the other path.
“Then make sure,” she challenged, even as she allowed her neck to drop backward, lifting her breasts to him, “make sure I think of nothing but you.”
She felt his lips pull into a smile against her skin. She was arched backward, his hands on her elbows. But at her words, he bent down and wrapped his hands around her hips. Before she could do more than open her eyes, she felt him lift her up. He was carrying her, easily shifting his weight so that she fell forward over his shoulder.
She squeaked in surprise, then gasped in shock as he slipped one hand underneath her tight skirt. He could not go far, but his hand felt very hot and very large as it slipped between her thighs. She tightened against him, halting his fingers’ progress up her legs. It gave her something to focus on rather than the heavy jostle of movement as he carried her out of the room.
His strides were long and efficient as he moved out of the room. He barely even paused when Wife Number Three—surprised in the hallway—stopped weeping long enough to gaze in shock at him.
“Lead me to my bedchamber,” he commanded.
She nodded mutely, then abruptly scurried forward. He followed with his smooth stride, but his attention—and Anna’s—remained centered on his hand between her legs. She held his fingers pinned between clenched thighs, but he could still move a little. He twisted his hand, he squeezed her skin, and he wormed the tiniest bit higher. She found herself breathless with the game. Could she keep him out? Where would he touch her if she could not?
He rounded a corner and grunted a quick, “Thank you,” to Wife Number Three. Then he was through the door and heading for a large bed in the center of the room.
Anna managed to lift her head enough to see Wife Number Three still staring at them from the doorway, her mouth open. But what startled Anna the most was the need in the woman’s huge eyes. As if she drank in the sight of Anna flipped over the mandarin’s shoulder and would hold the image close to her heart for all of her days.
Anna might have said something then. She might have screamed out the truth—that this was all an act, that Zhi-Gang was no different than any other man. But at that moment, he flipped her upward and over so that she practically flew from his arms to bounce on the large bed. The only sound that left her mouth was a squeak of surprise and a gasp, because despite her movement, he still kept that one hand between her legs.
Indeed, as she flew through the air, her legs had separated enough for his hand to slide nearly all the way up. Then, while she still bounced on the mattress, he used his knees to separate her further. She felt the silk skirt strain, then rip, as he followed her down to settle heavily against her thighs. She felt his organ, thick and heavy inside his pants, as he settled between her legs.
Then he looked down at her, his eyes glittering in the darkness.
“Shut the door, please,” he called to the woman behind them. He didn’t move, clearly waiting to hear the door settle into its frame. Wife Number Three took a long time doing as she was told, and so Anna had a long moment to stare at Zhi-Gang, feeling her legs open wider until her sex was fully exposed to the hot press of his belly and the rough abrasion of the fabric between them.
Finally the door shut, and Zhi-Gang smiled at her. “You must remember to scream,” he murmured to her. “They will be listening at the door for noises.”
Anna blinked in confusion.
He shook his head. “Never mind. I will make sure all is done to their satisfaction.”
It was happening too fast. Anna could not think, could not catch her breath. She couldn’t even comprehend his words beyond the low tremble of sound that vibrated between his chest and her belly. But that was all to the good, she realized.
He shifted between her thighs, gliding his hot organ upward and across her sex in a way that made her squirm. Then she felt his hand against her thigh. Had it been there all the time? She didn’t know. She didn’t care. The truth was undeniable now. She wanted this. She wanted him.
He lifted slightly off her and she gasped at the sudden caress of cool air. But then his hand replaced his groin as his fingers pushed upward to touch her intimately. She felt her buttocks clench in withdrawal, but then her back arched, pushing herself more fully against him. Sensation shot through her spine all the way up through her brain.
It was fire, it was lightning, it was everything she wanted and more.
In the gloom, she saw him smile. “Excellent,” he murmured.
She lifted her head to look him in the eyes. She took a deep breath, realizing in that instant that she wanted him as fiercely as she had once craved opium. She wanted him to touch her, to open her, to overwhelm her. She wanted everything he could give her and more, over and over and over until she dropped exhausted into sleep.
She lifted her chin in challenge. “You will have to work hard, Zhi-Gang Tau. I will not scream easily.”
“Yes,” he said, his expression smug. “You will.”
April 19, 1882
To the Mother Superior of the Shanghai Mission on behalf of the Kent family, England
Dear Mother Francis:
It is with some consternation that I received your letter. It is my sad duty to tell you that Mr. and Mrs. Kent will not help in the matter of Anna Thompson. In truth, if it were not for another soul of my parish, I would not even know that the Kents had a daughter. They steadfastly refuse to speak of the child who ran away so precipitously. When I put your letter into their hands, it was immediately returned to me. They said, “We have no daughter or granddaughter in China!”
Though I have tried often to change their minds, their hearts remain closed. Please understand that they were very hurt by their daughter’s defection. Though all are precious in God’s sight, the Kents have ample grandchildren who visit them often. I fear they will never pay for their missing granddaughter’s voyage home. In short, Anna has no family here.
In sad regret, Father Stanton
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge from “Kubla Khan: or A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment”
Chapter Ten
Anna closed her eyes and gave herself up to the experience. She didn’t want to think at all, so she sought that half-floating, half-mystical feeling of an opium dream. Let him do as he will, she thought. I know nothing. I feel nothing. I am nothing.
She couldn’t find it. Without the smoke, she could not float. Without the floating sensation, she could not blunt the other things—the touch of his hands on her thighs as he slowly spread her open, the heat of his breath as it branded the skin just below his hands, or the caress of cool air across her most intimate place.
She shivered, her belly and shoulders shaking first, but then the wave expanded through her whole body. It felt
so good and so… new. She could feel him smile against her thigh. She thought she remembered what came next. But he wasn’t moving, wasn’t doing anything, and she frowned in confusion.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, his voice a low murmur near her belly.
She opened her eyes. He had raised up on her body, though he kept her legs spread. “I—I am wondering.” He arched an eyebrow in question, and she stammered out an explanation. “I don’t… I mean, what do you… I mean, what happens next?”
He paused. “You have never done this before?”
She shook her head, her eyes blurring with tears of shame. “I have. I just… I mean… “
“You were smoking and you don’t remember. Did you even agree?”
She closed her eyes, wetness slipping down her cheek. How to explain? “I don’t remember,” she finally confessed. She didn’t know why she told him the truth. It was all part of the strange hold he had over her. She wanted to talk to him, to challenge him, to… do things with him. Why was he so different?
He twisted, shifting so that he sat beside her, and his gaze was infinitely gentle. Though one of his hands abandoned her, the other slid to the outside of her thigh to rest there, to warm her skin, to remind her of what was to come.
She should have hated his hand there. She was certainly very aware of it. It felt proprietary, as if he would brand her with his large palm high on the outside of her right thigh, fingers spread, gently wrapping around her leg toward her hip bone. She should have hated it, but she didn’t. She liked the way he touched her: a simple presence, without pressure or demand. It linked the two of them, created a connection for whatever moments they had together. In truth, it felt… loving; and she found herself raising up to look at his hand and her thigh.
“Relax. Enjoy. I promise you will remember tonight.”
“I… “ How to tell him she didn’t want to remember? Except, looking at his hand, large and strong on her thigh, perhaps she did. She lifted her gaze until she met his eyes. His expression was gentle. More important, it was steady. His eyes didn’t flicker, his hand didn’t tremble. He simply looked at her, waiting. For what, she wasn’t sure. But within moments, she was smiling at him, anticipating what was to come, not dreading it.
“I do not think of opium when I am with you.” She spoke the words with surprise.
He grinned. “That is most excellent.” Then he leaned forward to place his mouth on hers.
She met his lips with her own, feeling a tingle of fire spread through her mouth. She inhaled on a gasp, but didn’t pull away. He extended his tongue, stroking across her lips in a single long caress.
She remembered other kisses: fumbled, wet, off center and of little interest. This was different. She felt a shiver of delight and the slow spread of desire. Her belly clenched, her toes curled, and she wanted to know more.
She pressed forward, opening her mouth to his invasion. She felt her lips thin against her teeth and she arched her neck to give him better access. But he did not deepen the kiss. Instead, he simply rubbed his lips across hers.
The tingling was fading, replaced by the heat of friction and her own confusion. Was she doing this wrong? He gave no clue until impatience made her bold. She extended her tongue to touch his lips, to push into his mouth, to… To be sucked and tugged on by him. Surprise had her pulling back, and he narrowed his teeth to slightly abrade her tongue as she withdrew.
They separated enough for her to stare at him, her thoughts spinning wildly. He merely grinned and waited, but words would not coalesce. In the end, she merely lifted back to his mouth, wrapping an arm around his shoulders to draw herself higher—closer—to him.
Their mouths met again, and this time she did not hesitate to push her tongue out, to stroke it against his teeth, to thrust and toy. Soon she was sitting upright in her pursuit of him, and found she liked meeting him on an equal plane. Or perhaps not so equal as she pressed even further forward, raising herself higher than him.
He allowed it for a time, playing at submission, teasing her with his tongue even as she plundered him. Then he began working on another front. She felt his free hand working the clasps at her shoulder and neck. He started at the top notch of her collar, slipping a finger beneath the tight silk. She hadn’t been aware of the restriction of fabric too small for her white chest, but she was now. She wanted it off, she wanted to breathe fully, she wanted to know if he could set her whole torso to tingling.
With the thought came the result. Her nipples tightened, and the fire in her mouth spread—she was dimly aware—to her breasts. She broke from his mouth to undo the frogs that fastened her chong san. Her fingers moved quickly, her hands steady, and she stopped a moment to stare at them. Her hands were steady. She was in complete control of her body and her mind!
She looked up at him. He too had stopped, his gaze intent on her face. This was significant—this total control—but why? She didn’t want to answer, but how to stop her thoughts?
He caught her right hand in his and slowly drew it to his mouth. While she watched, he curled his tongue around her finger, straightening it, then sucking it in. He still held her hand, his thumb slipping inside her curved fingers to rub circles across her palm. And all the while he sucked on her finger, pulling it deep into his mouth before using his hand to draw it out. Or nearly out. And then he would suck it back in again.
In and out, in and out.
She knew what he simulated; she understood that much of the sex act. And yet, she felt her whole body tighten with sensation. Her thoughts were gone, lost in the circle of his thumb and the wet slide of her finger.
His hand left her thigh to release the last clasps of her blouse, this one down by her waist. His hand stroked across her belly, opening the fabric to allow air to flow in a narrow channel from her navel up between her breasts all the way to her chin. At last she could breathe. She inhaled deeply, feeling the silk rub against her breasts. Simultaneously, she moved her finger across his tongue, brushing the texture there. He mimicked the action with his free hand as he brushed the blouse open. He widened the channel from her belly upward, fluttering strokes from the center outward as the fabric fell away.
Her belly quivered as she imagined his caress to be the gentle stroke of a Chinese brush. He was writing things on her skin; he was marking her as his, he was… Then he pulled his hand upward, between her breasts. His fingers widened as he painted fire across the top of her breast and upward over her shoulder.
The fabric of her clothes peeled away as he moved, but he could not draw it past her bent elbow. He returned to the beginning, at her belly, and touched her other side, pushing away the fabric there.
The tight silk pinned Anna’s arms behind her, making her arch her back, lifting her breasts to him. She expected him to look down, but he did not. His gaze remained locked with hers as he sucked her finger deep inside his mouth one last time. Then he slowly pulled it out.
Cold hit her finger, and the wetness glistened in the candlelight. Then he drew her hand down. She broke away from his eyes to watch what he did with her finger. He drew it down to her own breast, pressing it to her taut nipple. He moved her finger to stroke and flick there.
Her breath caught as lightning streaked from her nipple to her womb, but he did not stop. He continued to move her finger across her own nipple, circling, flicking, even pressing the edge of her nail into the tight edge. She stared, mesmerized. He was making her hand a brush, just like his had been. He made her write characters into her skin, her own words, as if he helped her create herself.
“Do you remember when you touched yourself in your bath? I was watching,” he said. “Never have I seen anything more—”
He said a word in Chinese that she did not know. She echoed it.
He shook his head. “I do not know the right word in English,” he murmured. “Sensuous. Beautiful.” Then his other hand lifted to cup her other breast. She felt his fingers extend, support, touch. His thumb drew a line from her breastbo
ne up to her nipple. He rolled his thumb there, flicking, scraping, even pinching against his forefinger while she closed her eyes to better appreciate the sensations he created.
“Tell me what you feel.”
“Everything,” she answered, awe suffusing her soul. Everything was so… present and so different.
“Tell me,” he pressed.
“T-the one side is cold,” she stammered, struggling to form words. “The other… so full. You make it feel light, and hot. And… “
“Good?”
“Great.”
“Keep talking,” he said. “I love the sound of your voice.” Then he bent his head to her right breast to put his mouth on it.
She felt his hair first, the soft brush of black silk. It was tied back in a Manchu queue, but the thick braid fell forward to stroke her shoulder where his breath had not touched. Then that sensation was lost amid the wet of his mouth, the stroke of his tongue, and the gentle pulsing suction on her nipple.
Then he pulled back. “Tell me!”
She shook her head. “There’s so much!” But she tried nevertheless. “My chest… my breath… it’s so tight. My heart is beating and beating.”
He lifted his lips off her breast to press a kiss against her throat. “Here?” he whispered, and she imagined her pulse trembling against his lips.
“Yes,” she whispered. “But my nipple is cold again. My breast feels blank without you.” The words made no sense, but he somehow understood. He returned his mouth to her breast and began sucking again.
She spoke without prompting, her thoughts rambling but exciting. They clarified what she felt, narrowed her thoughts to him and her. To what he did.
“The suction… it is like the beat of another heart. Your heart. Strong, it draws me in. It takes me to you. All of me. I feel each pull in my breast. In my belly. Even my toes curl with what you’re doing.”