The Blonde Samurai (12 page)

The irony of my dear husband coming to my rescue didn’t prevent me from speaking my mind.

“You were hoping to find me with a lover?” I asked, my sassy mouth returning after nearly being buried alive. A shudder went through me. I ignored it.

“If you
did
have a man here,” he said, smirking, “he’s a damn coward, leaving you alone to die.”

“I expect you didn’t have similar thoughts in your mind?” I couldn’t resist asking him. “That would have been so convenient for you.”

“Why would I wish to see my wife perish in this strange land when she has so much to offer me?” He picked me up in his arms before I could protest and carried me outside the bungalow, the coolies smiling and bowing before James shooed them away.

I beat my fists against his chest, trying to ignore the smell of brandy clinging to his fine broadcloth coat. He was drunk. Dangerous, unsteady. “Take your hands
off
me, James.”

“I have to make certain you’re not injured.” He put me down but stood so close to me, our shoulders touching, I was filled with an irrational fear when he ran his hands up and down my arms, my breasts, midriff, hips, all encased in silk. I had reason to be afraid. With the skill of a man who knew the pleasure of women’s flesh, his hands roamed freely over my body, pushing my chemise up above my thighs. “Your skin is so soft, so pure—”

“I told you to leave me alone.” I pulled away from him so
quickly the loosely stitched kimono ripped at the seam. “Go,
now.
What if the servants come back—”

“They won’t,” he said crisply.

“What? They weren’t hurt, dear Mother Mary…
no.
” I put my hand to my mouth, sending upward a silent prayer for them, hoping the two had found safety and were simply too afraid to return.

He looked me in the eyes, amused with what he perceived as weakness. “So my dear wife has feelings after all. I never would have believed it.”

“Why do you torment me so, James?” I asked, trying to see his face in the pale light. “You have what you want. Money, women.”

“I want you to come to me willingly.” He shivered, whether it was from the emotion welling up inside him or his inebriated state, I couldn’t tell. He intoned the words in that appealing voice of his I knew so well, but without the sarcasm, the shadings of his upper-class sheltered life gone, replaced by the haunting need of someone very vulnerable. Wanting, withdrawn.

In that moment I almost felt sorry for my husband, the pain in his eyes replacing what I often saw as a man who lived a narrow life, the low, throaty sound of his voice sputtering like a wounded animal’s. But he was like a fox caught in the trap. Cunning and cruel. The memory of our wedding night washed away any sentiment clinging to the edges of my heart.

“I will never come to you, James,” I said, determined not to be taken in by his sudden performance of spiritual courage for my benefit, acting like a jilted husband. “Any man who needs to whip and flog women to stimulate him doesn’t know how to make love to a woman.”

I didn’t realize then how close I was to discovering his well-
kept secret when he slapped me across the face, startling me. I put my hand to my burning cheek, but I refused to cry.

“Don’t you ever say that to me again,” he yelled.
“Ever.”

I was grateful we were alone. I was shaken but unhurt, a few scrapes and bruises, but I could still defend myself.

“Get out of here and leave me alone,” I demanded, my fists along with my Irish dander rising. “Or I swear I will throw you down the hill myself.”

“This business between us isn’t over yet,” James stated flatly. “I always get what I want.” Then he turned on his heel and left me standing in the debris as clouds of dry dust filled my eyes, the irritation making them wet. For it couldn’t be tears burning my eyes, could it?

The sting of his hand on my cheek stayed with me over the next few days, his threatening words more ominous than ever. He was planning something, but what? I didn’t have time to reflect on it. I thanked every saint I could think of when Fusae and Yuko returned, laughing and crying when they saw me (I’ve discovered the natives tend to laugh in any situation where they are uncomfortable, even in a time of crisis). The two women had raced down the mountain road, down broken steps, facing danger from falling evergreens breaking and toppling onto the road to find his lordship and bring help. Together we salvaged what we could from the house, packed my bags and off I went to stay at a small hotel in the settlement. That’s where Mr. Fawkes found me, his grand presence blustering and upset when he sat down with me for tea in the small hotel dining room.

“I feel responsible for what happened, your ladyship,” he said, sipping his tea clouded with a light milk. Fortunately, the seaport of Yokohama had suffered little damage except
on the Bluff, where a few foreign residences like mine that had been built quickly and without a strong foundation had been hit with the most force. When I asked him if the natives suffered many losses, Mr. Fawkes explained how they keep their valuables in a fireproof warehouse known as a godown, which is covered with mud plaster. “I should have had you on your way to Tokio before the earthquake struck.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said, laughing, “unless you possess a dragon’s tail.”

“You wear your American humor well, Lady Carlton,” he answered, wiping his face with a paper tissue. “I would have returned sooner, but urgent business with a lady kept me away.”

“And what is her name?” I teased him.

“I will tell you when the time is right,” he said, smiling and looking very sure of himself. “Until then I have good news.”

“Yes?” I asked, curious.

“We leave for Tokio in the morning.”

T
he
clickety-clack
of the train steaming down the tracks from Yokohama to Tokio brought tears to my eyes as I sank down in a plush maroon seat in the first-class English-built carriage, thinking as I was about my da and how excited he would have been to see how the natives had embraced the iron horse. The eighteen-mile double track ran smooth and fast for the hour-long trip and I could see my father inspecting every detail, whistling as he did so, tinkering with every wire and screw, figuring how to make the ride smoother, the engine burn fuel more efficiently. He loved to talk to the men who worked the tracks, loaded the mail, drove the big engines. Pulling on his suspenders like a proud rooster, he never let anyone forget he had started at the bottom and worked his way up and so could the next man.

The train trip passed pleasantly, the scenery outside the window taking an interesting turn when I saw bare-breasted native women wading in knee-deep water, gathering rice.

When I pointed this out to Mr. Fawkes, he never looked up from his newspaper, instead commenting about the sun playing tricks on my eyes. No doubt he had never met a western woman who dared speak her mind.

I didn’t see a conductor during the entire trip (passengers show their tickets
after
they leave the train at their destination). When we arrived at Shinbashi station in what is now called Tokio—only foreigners call it Yedo, according to Mr. Fawkes—I had a slight mishap when my bustle caught in the turnstile in the stone terminal. After delicately extricating my silk behind, he wiped his face with thin papers he called “tissues” then tossed them away in a receptacle (I was surprised to learn the natives have used these disposable items for hundreds of years) and collected my luggage. It wasn’t until then I set my resolve in gear and broached the subject of my husband’s philandering. (James had seen Mr. Fawkes and me off at the railway station, reminding me he’d be coming to Tokio later in the week after he concluded his business with Lord Penmore. No doubt he meant the spring racing season, but I retained my ladylike posture and never mentioned my trip to the bank. Why tip my hand?)

I admit I embellished my meeting with the bank manager, adding a flourish about how he personally escorted me out of his establishment with his boot, which made Mr. Fawkes laugh, his rotund belly bouncing up and down like apple jelly as we got into the waiting
kuruma.
(Hundreds of jinrikishas and horse-drawn carts waited for the horde of third-class native passengers clamoring out of the train in their three-inch wooden clogs.) I believed James chose to do business with a German bank to hide his tracks, I told him, but I assured the Englishman he wouldn’t get away with it.

“And what does your ladyship intend to do about his under
handedness?” he wanted to know as we rode through the streets of Tokio, my eyes taking in what was a changing city, the curio shops filled with bangles and silks, scrap and rag dealers, struggling to stay alive among the places catering to westerners. Milk parlors, barbershops and the new Uyeno Park.

“I can’t get back the monies his lordship has already lost through gambling,” I said when we reached the little house with the latticed front on the narrow street I would call home—a one-story dwelling with a garden and a gray tile roof. “But I
can
prevent him from losing more.” I overcame any fear of overstepping my position and laid my gloved hand on his forearm. Not in an intimate manner, but in friendship. “With your help, Mr. Fawkes.”

His forearm tightened, but his voice remained steady. “How can I be of service, Lady Carlton?”

I explained to him how I wanted him to post a letter to my father for me on the next steamer back to the U.S., changing the details on the letter of credit so James needed my signature as a cosigner to approve his expenditures on any bank in Japan.

“I’m convinced something bigger than gambling debts are at stake, Mr. Fawkes,” I said honestly. “What it is, I don’t know.”

“I’d say hundreds of miles of railway track, your ladyship, and the new businesses generated along the way,” said Mr. Fawkes without a trace of humor. “The natives have embraced the railroad like a new god of commerce. I’d venture to say in twenty years, they will have built more railway lines than anyone in London dreamed possible. They’re an imitative lot, these Japanese, and your husband and his friends see an opportunity to make a fortune by importing raw materials into this country at a rapid rate.”

I grabbed the Englishman and hugged him, making the older man smile. “Mr. Fawkes, you’re a saint. My dear husband isn’t
losing
the money by gambling. He’s transferring the funds to Lord Penmore to invest for him and cheating my father out of the profits. The bastard.”

“Your ladyship—”

“I married an English lord, Mr. Fawkes, but I cut my teeth on a Pennsylvania farm, the daughter of a hardworking Irishman and I’ll be damned, but I’ll
not
let him get away with it.”

Full of fire and bluster I was that day, vowing to stop James from swindling my father. I had no idea then what unique set of events would make that possible, nor could I have known what surprise Mr. Fawkes had in store for me.
He had news,
he said, about the mysterious woman he mentioned in Yokohama.

“Is she pretty?” I wanted to know, prying. I couldn’t help myself since curiosity is one Irish trait we never seem to find depleted and is as natural to us as believing in holy stones and spirits.

“Yes,” he said coyly.

“What is her name?” I asked.

This time he laughed heartily. “Haruko.”

“Are you certain she wishes to meet me?” I found it odd he wanted to introduce me to a native woman. From what I understood about the culture, men didn’t mix business with pleasure.

He nodded. “It’s a royal decree, Lady Carlton, from Haruko, the empress of Japan.”

The empress.
I couldn’t believe my ears. I was about to enter a world others only dreamed about, talked about, fantasized. And you, dear lady reader, shall accompany me.

The day I, Katie O’Roarke, met the empress of Japan, was also the day this Irish lass collided outside the palace walls with the most difficult, egotistical, pragmatic man I’d ever laid eyes upon.

Shintaro.

Since that moment I’ve been shadowed by his haunting presence, this mysterious and philosophical master of my fate, a man who possessed my soul when he whispered erotic poetry in my ear while his hands traveled up and down my nude body pleasuring me. I once laid my trembling fingers upon the sword hanging from his belt and, by the holy beads of the sisters, I swear the white heat emitting from its blade burned my flesh. I paid dearly for my forward indiscretion when he tied my hands behind my back with damp hemp, then encircled the silken rope around my breasts before drawing it taut over my belly and down between my legs. Its twisted fibers cut into my glistening pink folds and rubbed against my innocent clitoris, swollen and hard, bringing me such intense pleasure I spot my drawers now with a fresh stain as I write…

Be patient, dear lady reader, for ’tis true I often get lost in the rich, erotic telling of my story and seek to regain the discipline to pay attention to my craft as a memoirist and not dwell on my sexual adventures. I do not use a metaphor on the page to describe his well-formed cock. I speak instead of the steel weapon that defined him, as it did all samurai, an embodiment of his spirit and a means to avenge an insult or cut down an enemy. I could set down many examples about his skill as a swordsman, but I shall tell you one I witnessed with my own eyes. It was a time, when to check the temper of his blade, I stood a chopstick on end and Shintaro severed
it in two as it fell. You find that too timid? If I may be allowed a second indulgence, I shall repeat a story I heard but did not witness that further illustrates his unsurpassed swordsmanship. I must advise you, if your constitution is of a delicate nature, this may be difficult to read. No, it is not a sexual passage, so if you wish to skip it, please do so.

I shall proceed.

According to an informed source you will meet later in my story, a feared enemy of the samurai clan tried to assassinate Shintaro. My samurai saw through his disguise and lay in wait for him to pass behind the compound. When he did so, he raised his sword and, with speed and accuracy, decapitated the swine so adroitly his head did not fall from his shoulders until he turned the corner. Amazing, but true, but everything about Shintaro was not of the ordinary. My samurai was a tall man, well above the average height of natives and westerners, and possessed a strength known to few men. I state without embarrassment that I enjoyed looking at him nude, his presence filling my soul as it did my eyes, tracing my finger along the hard ridges of his stomach, the bulging muscles formed on his upper arms, his strong thighs, the wide breadth of his cock.

I must wipe the perspiration from my face since I can no longer contain myself, my longing to relive that day when the scent of this man stamped itself in the primal part of my brain. When I needed a protector, he was there to shield me from the devil’s doing. I also saw a vulnerable side of him that shut out the combative world around him to reflect on the beauty of a single blossom, a part of him he was forced to suppress as a samurai, so he built walls around himself. Still, he let me into his dark yet passionate world. Erotic, mysterious, a carnal, earthly paradise of emotions and smells and pleasures so acute
the only way I can soothe this unending ache in my heart for him is to continue with the scene as I remember it.

I’ll never forget scurrying up the stone walkway toward the Imperial Palace with the loyal Mr. Fawkes behind me, my small red hat held in place by a luxuriously soft black satin ribbon tied in a big bow under my chin, my waist cinched, my long train picking up small pebbles in its red velvet folds, my heart racing. I shan’t make you wait any longer to meet the man who pleasured my body with such delights I quiver now at this writing, reliving that pagan flaunting of his desire for me that blew like a wild wind from the cold gray sea and into the warmth of my waiting arms.

Shintaro.

A man with the force of an angry god raced through the great gate leading to the pavilion on the grounds of the Imperial Palace, the lacquered scabbard of his long sword poking my bustle when his massive frame brushed by me with all the force of a tempest whirling in a riot of color. Vibrant blue, uncanny red, burnished gold. I’d never seen a man wearing such striking colors before, their intensity magnified by his tall stature and the aroused, demanding look in his dark, forbidding eyes alerting anyone who got in his way to beware, that he plied his trade as samurai somewhere between good and evil.

“Who do you think you are?” I yelled at the man, gathering up my skirts and facing him, chin up, shoulders back with all the fire of a martyred saint in me. “Not looking where you’re going, like a chicken hawk in search of his prey.”

He grunted loudly, his forehead beaded with sweat, his hand on his sword, but it remained sheathed, the startled look in his eyes so gripping I had no time to pull back, react. I’ve no doubt in a different time, different place, he would
have drawn his sword and I’d have lost my head, since a bared blade claimed the right to draw blood. He yelled words in the native language not found in my guidebook nor did I care. I stared at him openly, my anger turning into something I dared not put into words then but I shall now.
Desire, heat.
A conscious burn in my pussy as I focused all my energy on him and all my senses—ears, eyes, smell, touch—became inflamed like the bold red of a setting sun as I yearned to show him an independence far beyond what the females he took to his futon exhibited. I
wanted
him to touch me, rip my Paris silk trappings from my body with the tip of his blade until I stood naked before him, quivering with need for him…

Instead, this giant of a man breathed heavily, his eyes never leaving mine, holding back something I didn’t understand then, a pain he didn’t share with me.

Mr. Fawkes did his best to temper the situation, wiping his forehead with a tissue and panting as he struggled to catch up to me, the long walk up to the gate difficult for him, bowing and calling out in the native tongue when he was but a few feet from this bellowing samurai.

The samurai grunted again then barely nodded, his lack of a low bow no doubt indicating his superior status to me, a woman. I mimicked his gesture, making his eyes spew fire at me then turned my back on him. Not a wise move. I started through the gate, shaken by this encounter with the barbarian warrior yet also thrilled by the majesty of his manly presence. The sheer sexuality of his stance, the intensity of his stare stripped me naked. Tremors of a delicious nature I’d never experienced ran through me, imagining as I did what he would see, taste, if I bared myself to him and he dared to brush his mouth against my pussy lips, the moist pink folds pouting at the intrusion but wanting more—

I stopped, a sharp pull making me lunge backward and nearly lose my balance. I dropped my parasol and it clattered down on the hard ground behind me. I turned to see this man I would know as Shintaro laughing, his hand firmly grabbing the end of my train. He held on to it so tight I couldn’t move. Now I was
his
prey firmly caught in his snare. I pulled and pulled but my train wouldn’t budge, though I could hear the silk ripping.

“Release me at once,” I yelled, hands on my hips, then I yelled an Irish expletive that made Mr. Fawkes sputter something in Japanese before I could continue my tirade, fanning himself with his hat and praying under his breath. The samurai laughed, grinning as if he enjoyed watching me helpless, in his power. I couldn’t allow him to get away with his game, though I couldn’t deny a humming in me that made me feel connected to him in a strange way in spite of him making a fool out of me.

Using all my strength, I pulled harder to show him I wouldn’t give in to him, but it was he who let go, as if giving me permission to proceed on my mission. Picking up my parasol, I raced through the black wooden gate with Mr. Fawkes close behind, the sound of the samurai’s raucous laughter following me, taunting me.
How dare he.