EROTIC STORIES :

GAIJIN
© remittance girl, 2006

Jennifer awoke to a dull throbbing pain in her chest. She opened her eyes to blackness and felt an immediate flare of panic. She wasn't at home; this wasn't her room, her bed. The pain in her breasts, a hot, pulsing, generalized ache, was all that distracted her from the strangeness she found herself in. Someone, something had hurt her.

Instinctively, she tried to pull her arms up to cradle her chest, but her arms wouldn't move. They felt frozen and useless, numb, behind her back. Another bright bloom of panic surged up her throat and exploded in her head and, this time, no amount of pain could stop its eruption. Jennifer rolled onto her side and screamed into the darkness.

She thought perhaps her own scream had rendered her deaf, for in the moments after the echo of it died, there was nothing but deep silence, as deep and empty as the blackness. Then a short, low grunt breached the stillness. She heard the creak of wood and a click. The room flooded with light. Her face was inches from a blank, white wall.

Many things happened at once. Jennifer rolled onto her other side, and backed herself against the wall. It was then she realized that the deadness in her arms had nothing to do with the way she had slept; they were caught behind her back, tied into a neat, folded package. As she moved her fingers, they brushed against her elbows.

Her eyes, stinging and watering in the sudden onslaught of light, cleared enough to see the source of the grunt. A big, squat man in a badly rumpled suit sat staring at her from a low, beaten-up armchair. She pulled her knees up to cover herself, to make herself small.

"The gaijin princess is awake," he growled. There was sarcasm and disgust in his voice. The grin he gave her was unkind, and his eyes narrowed.

"Who...who..." she began pathetically, but even as the question came out, she knew the answer. She recognized the man in the chair but did not know his name. He'd been the one who had ordered twelve bottles of single-malt; one of the many invisible, servile men who ran about making sure their bosses got what they wanted, whenever they wanted it.

At the club , for the last couple of days, he had pestered her to leave the table she was booked to serve and join the crowd of fawning hostesses at Shindo's table. They'd frequented the club for more than a week, demanding attention, bullying the other customers and generally throwing their weight around. This wasn't an unusual occurrence at the Blonde Chicks bar. From time to time, some jumped-up, arrogant bunch of Yakuza pricks would monopolize the club's facilities, but sooner or later, they'd always get bored and leave.

She had told him, politely but firmly, to piss off. This little shit, who couldn't afford an hour of her time on a good day, who sat in front of her now, sneering, had obviously decided to get even. The panic returned, swimming through her gut like an eel. She'd heard stories - she'd always assumed they were urban myths - of Western hostesses getting snatched and murdered, but she'd never really believed it.

The realization that she was probably going to become just another urban myth struck her as, somehow, pathetic. A pathetic end to a pathetic year; long gone the romantic notions of the mysterious orient, of tea houses and geisha, of Shinjuku Gyoen and the wannabe rock gods in Harajuku and Yoyogi Park. Six months on, if Jennifer never saw another bowl of ramen, it would be too soon. The cramped apartment she shared with four other western hostesses, the groping on the subway, and the nasty calls of "Patsukin " in the street. The job at the Blonde Chicks was all she could find. She figured that four months of good solid tips, and she'd have her ticket back to London. Not now.

Wriggling herself into and upright position against the wall, she looked at him. "Look, I'm sorry I was rude. But I was busy with another customer. Is that what this is about?"

The man in the chair sneered. "Yeah, that's it."

"Well, I'm sorry. Really sorry." And as the words came out of her mouth, she knew she meant them. Because she was bloody sorry now. A couple of hours of pouring drinks, ignoring the groping, and buttering up this fuck-head's boss, and she would have been safe and sound in her shoebox of an apartment.

He rose, grunting again as he pushed himself out of the chair. Jennifer thought he was going to close the distance between them, but he stayed put. "It's too late for that," he said, and left the room. She heard him lock the door with a key, and then male voices, muffled and distant.

* * *

It was a shabby room, like a cheap, long-stay hotel room or a bed-sit in one of the poorer districts of Tokyo. A woven burnt orange curtain covered the window, but she knew from the lack of noise that it was like so many other windows in this city - a window to nowhere - it looked out onto an airshaft. Of all the filthy, lousy places to die, there was something bitterly ironic about getting murdered in a room that, given half a chance, she might commit suicide in anyway.

A year in Japan had taught her a lot about not showing her emotions, and even now, as she pulled up her knees and lowered her head to have a good cry, it felt like a pointless, alien act. That's when she remembered the pain, as she pressed her chest against her thighs, little daggers rose above the dull ache and made her look down at herself. A small gold ring pierced each of her nipples. They glinted in the light and she could she faint traces of blood where one of the rings entered the dark pink flesh.

It didn't shock her as much as she imagined it should. But then, in view of what she was sure awaited her, it was nothing. And yet there was something ridiculously perverse about it. Who in their right mind kidnapped someone, pierced their nipples and then killed them? What was the point? That was, of course, assuming that the asshole who'd snatched her was actually sane - a stupid assumption. Nonetheless, the glint of those little gold rings made her wonder.

She knew nothing about the Japanese male psyche. A year of flattering them hadn't given her any insight into what made them tick, really. All she knew was that, at some level, they were all insane; the outrageous lengths they would go to, just to avoid having their pride hurt, their "face". Face, she didn't understand it. She only knew that their whole world practically revolved around it. And how would piercing her nipples and then killing her save anyone's face?

She cast her mind back to the club, trying to remember everything, but nothing really stood out. She'd hostessed until almost two a.m. and had received a very generous tip for her efforts. She'd gone to the staff room to change her shoes, and get her coat and purse. Katrina, the Czech girl had boasted about the tip she'd received from the Yakuza boys, and bought everyone a drink in celebration. Jennifer had sat at the bar, with the rest of the girls, chatting and sipping her drink and felt... tired, really tired.

She took a deep breath, and then she heard the sound of the lock.

* * *

The light beyond the door was so bright, the man at the threshold was unidentifiable, but she knew he was taller and thinner, than the man from before. Relief washed through her like a mainlined drug.

"Please, please. I don't know who you are, but please help me. This crazy man... I don't know... drugged me and...can you help me? Please!" Her voice had crept up in volume until she was yelling out the last of the words.

"Help you? Yes. I can help you," said the man in the doorway.

But even with her beginner's Japanese, he didn't sound right. She shook her head, and began again. "Please can you untie me? I need to go... I need to go home. A man... he hurt me. I think he wants to kill me."

The figure moved into the room and the light. The face was smooth, skin stretched taut across sharp cheek and jaw bones. The impassive expression it wore seemed all that was possible on a face so smooth. The suit was dark and just a little too shiny to belong to a businessman. The jacket was open and the shirt beneath it was white and tieless. Jennifer froze in recognition. It was Shindo - the Yakuza boss.

"How did he hurt you?" His voice was clipped and dry.

"He..." she looked down at her chest, unable to remember the word for 'pierce' in Japanese, if she had ever known it at all.

"Oh... those. Those are not his," Shindo said. "They're mine. Don't you like them?"

The image of this man, touching her while she was unconscious, doing this to her breasts, flooded into her head. What else had he done? No, she couldn't think about that. Not now.

"Why? Why Shindo-sama ?"

"Why didn't you come to my table? You chose to serve that salaryman , Asuagi, four nights in a row, but not me. You thought you were too good for me, did you?"

Face... there it was. Jennifer shook her head wildly. "No... it wasn't like that at all. I'm just a hostess! I just do my job, for whoever hires me...serve drinks... make small-talk...please!" Her mind raced to find something to make him happy, to make him change his plans. "I'm just a foreigner. Just a stupid gaijin. Please, forgive me if I've offended you."

He was on the bed in an instant, her hair wrapped around his fist. He gave it a sharp tug, pulling her head back until it felt like her neck would snap, and she had no choice but to look up at him.

"I've watched you, I've seen how you behave. Don't try that 'I'm just a foreigner' excuse on me." Shindo's tone was dry and calm, but she could tell it was hiding immense rage.

"Please," she whispered, "listen to me, Shindo-sama. I'm a stupid, rude foreigner. Please accept my apology." She used the most formal, obsequious language she could remember.

He bent down until his face was inches from hers. His breath stank of expensive scotch and cigarettes. She could smell the sour tang of sweat on his skin as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

"I accept your apology, yariman . And I accept your indenture."

Jennifer almost thanked him, but stopped and thought. She tried to speak very softly, very respectfully. "I'm sorry. I don't understand."

"You will serve me." The fist gripping her hair jerked her head back further.

"Yes, yes, of course. Next time you come to the club, I will sit at your table. I promise, Shindo-sama!"

He gave her a little smile, and grunted something like a laugh. "No," he said, smearing his thumb over her lips. She felt him pull the remnants of the evening's lipstick onto her cheek. "You will serve me here, now."

Jennifer's throat went dry and her stomach clenched. "I'm... I'm not a prostitute, Shindo-sama."

The thumb that had smeared her lipstick drew a line along her jaw. "I know. I asked about you. That's why I wanted you."

She could feel his thumbnail slide slowly down the side of her neck, onto her chest. Fingertips moved to surround her nipple, closing on the little ring. She braced herself for the pain that did not come. Instead, she felt him flick the ring. It made a dull click against his fingernail.

"You said you were sorry, but I see you're not."

"I am...I am very sorry," she whimpered. "Please." Hot tears trickled out of the corners of her eyes and over her temples.

He released his grip on her hair, and smoothed a hand over her face, trailing his fingers through her tears. She noticed that the tip of the very last finger was missing. "Perhaps you are. Show me."

Jennifer sobbed. "How?"

His hand left her face and went to the fly of his suit trousers. He unzipped himself and pulled out the most deformed penis she had ever seen. It was semi-erect, thick and veined, circumcised and studded with large, evenly spaced bumps, all the way around the shaft. Even as she thought to hide the look of shock on her face, he saw it and laughed.

"You think it's ugly now, but you'll change your mind," he said, flatly.

"It looks... like a disease."

"It is, gaijin. It's the disease of being Yakuza. One pearl for every year in prison." His fingers slid along the deformed shaft with an owner's pride. "Now show me how sorry you are. Suck it."

She felt the fingers on her breast move, and slide into the hair at the back of her head, pulling her face closer to his cock. There was no way out of this that Jennifer could see. There was no fighting him, no running away. She could cry and make a fuss and then he would hurt her and have what he wanted anyway. She took a deep breath and nodded.

"Good," he sighed.

She parted her lips as the tip nudged against them.

"Wet your lips, or they will hurt."

Her mouth felt like a desert, but she nodded again, trying to gather what saliva she had onto her tongue, and licked her lips. "Okay," she whispered.

But she needn't have bothered; he was looking down at her.

"Now, like that," he said, as he eased his cock into her mouth. "Suck."

She enclosed strange thing in her mouth and tentatively began to suckle it. It was the oddest sensation in the world. He didn't move, but she could hear his breathing quicken. The hard, round nodules under the skin moved a little as her tongue pressed against them, and despite herself, she found her tongue pushing at them, toying with them, as she sucked.

Maybe, if she just got him off, he'd be happy and it would all be over. He would feel he'd been properly "served" and she'd be called a couple of names and then he'd let her go. The more she thought about it, the likelier it seemed. It wasn't as if this was the first time she'd gone down on someone she didn't particularly like.

Slowly, she began to move him in and out of her mouth as she sucked, taking him a little deeper each time. The pearls slid over her lips making it hard to form a vacuum. She been expecting him to shove himself down her throat, but she realized that he couldn't do that without taking the risk of cutting himself up on her teeth. The hand at the back of her head rested lightly, fingers playing through her hair.

"You've got a nice, hot mouth, gaijin," he muttered, once she had taken him in completely.

The tip of his cock pushed into her throat. Squeezing her eyes shut, her nose nestled into the wool of his trousers, she fought the need to gag. A panic, a sense of being trapped, engulfed her as he held her head. She had no hands, she couldn't push away from him if she couldn't breathe, a frightened sound slid up from her throat, opening it, and she felt him nudge in further. Then it closed around him and she heard him grunt.

'Don't be stupid,' she thought. 'No one ever died giving head, so just calm down. The quicker he comes, the quicker it will be over.'

The problem was, he didn't seem like he was in much of a hurry. He eased the tip in and out of her throat slowly, as if he were teasing himself. She could feel him swell, the pearls pressed and rolled against her tongue and the roof of her mouth.

She tried to look up at his face, but she couldn't see it; he was stooped over her. But she could hear the pleasure in his breathing as his hips moved in little thrusts. Now both of his hands were on her head, fingers laced through her hair, controlling her.

"Swallow."

And her jaw ached to do just that, she relaxed her body, letting him guide her, and swallowed around the head of his cock.

The first time, he shuddered. The next, he made a little sound and jerked. It only took a few more swallows until he grunted, his hands balled into fists around her hair, and he erupted into her throat.

The initial spurt caught her by surprise and made her gag. Salty, hot fluid flooded into her mouth as he pulled out of her throat. She let it seep from her mouth around his cock while he kept coming.

When he was finished, and he pulled himself away, she looked up at him, hoping to see less anger there, perhaps some good humor. But he didn't look at her. Instead he got off the bed, turned away, and tucked himself back into his trousers, as if he were suddenly embarrassed by what he'd done.

"Do all white girls suck that way? Like whores?" There was no trace of joy or satisfaction or friendliness in his voice.

"Didn't you like it?"

He turned and looked down at her. "Answer the question."

Suddenly she knew it wasn't over. He wasn't going to have a little joke and let her go. There was something, some tension beneath the strange currents in the room, that made her sure this wasn't going to end the way she hoped. And suddenly she was angry. Angry at everything he'd done to her, angry at his arrogance and at the wafer-thin, brittle thing that served as his pride.

"I don't know. Do all Yakuza need to kidnap girls and tie them up to get sex?" Jennifer snapped back.

He stared at her for a moment and then slapped her so hard she fell off the bed. She heard the door slam and then lock.

* * *

Someone picked her up off the carpet and put her back on the bed. There were voices and a cold sharp thing that slithered along her arms and then the glorious feeling of being able to bring them up around herself as she curled into a tight little ball on the bed.

When she woke she remembered these things. A wan light filtered through the burnt orange curtains. The dull throb in her breasts was still there, as if she had felt it all her life. Her mouth tasted foul, and she coughed.

"He doesn't often hit women. Whatever it was you said to him, it was the wrong thing, stupid." The short, fat one was back, sitting in the same chair as before. "It would have been better if you'd pretended you couldn't speak Japanese."

Jennifer pulled the sheet beneath her around her body, feeling bruised as she moved. "I'm thirsty. Can I have some water?"

He didn't answer her, but he stood and left the room, returning a moment later with a plastic tumbler. She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest, snatched the glass from him and drank it down in one gulp.

"You were thirsty," he said, redundantly.

"Can I have some more?"

He took the plastic cup from her and left the room again. This time, she listened to hear if he locked the door. He didn't. She scanned the room desperately to see where they'd put her clothes. She'd gotten as far as trying to tug the bottom sheet off the bed and wrap it around herself when he came back and handed her the second glass.

She took it from him and thanked him this time. He shrugged and sat back down on the old armchair. "Don't waste your time."

"What?"

"Don't waste your time trying to escape. You won't make it down the corridor."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Hey, I do whatever my boss says."

"Why is he doing this, then?"

The bulky man shrugged again. "You should have come and sat down at our table like a nice little hostess, when I asked."

"It can't be just because he felt offended."

Another shrug. "I don't ask questions. I just do as I'm told. If you did the same thing, it would be better for you."

"I live with three other girls, you know. Sooner or later, they're going to start to wonder where I am."

Privately, Jennifer knew this wasn't true in the short term. Each of the girls she lived with had, from time to time, gone out on the tiles for a couple of days. None of them had batted an eyelid. She estimated that it would take a week before they noticed she was missing. Her work was another matter. They would notice their own inconvenience, and fire her in absentia. She had a booking for tonight with another regular... they'd just be angry, not worried.

There was a knock at the door, and it opened. A man Jennifer had never seen before poked his head in the room. "Is she ready?"

"I guess," said the shrugger, getting up.

The door opened wider, and three men and a woman came in the room, Jennifer looked at the woman, who gave her a very Japanese type of smile, thin and utterly fake. It scared her more than anything else that had happened; she backed up and huddled against the wall.

"Please, miss. You have to tell them to let me go. I just want to go home. I won't tell anyone about any of this but please, just let me go."

The woman sat on the mattress, the stupid smile still pasted to her face. "Of course, we are going to take you home now."

But even as she said it, one of the larger man grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from the wall and towards the sitting woman. "Don't worry about anything. We are going to help you get home, but we need to make sure you won't cause any trouble."

The woman nodded at the two men closest. The one who had a painful grasp on her arm put a hand on the back of her neck and pushed her face down, into the mattress. Jennifer yelled and kicked out at emptiness, squirming around to see what was happening.

"Hold her down and keep her still," said the woman. Then she bent down to look into Jennifer's face. "We're going to give you some medicine to make you calm. Stay still."

Out of the corner of her eye, Jennifer saw one of the men hand the woman a syringe, which she uncapped. She felt someone tugging at the sheet, pulling it up over her legs.

"I said 'hold her still', stupid."

Hands grabbed at Jennifer's legs and held them immobile against the mattress; then, she felt the needle sting as it pierced the skin at her hip. Ice-cold fluid pushed it's way into her muscle and she screamed.

"Don't let her go yet. It takes a while to work. He doesn't want her looking like a little white junkie with bruises on her arm, so this is how we have to do it."

"Why's he even bothering with this piece of gaijin garbage anyway?"

"Who knows? Maybe she's got a rich daddy."

"I don't!" wailed Jennifer. But they were ignoring her completely.

"Grab that dress. We've got to get some clothes on her, if we're going to move her."

Slowly, the words got stranger, and disjointed. Jennifer noticed when they stopped holding her down, but it still felt like there was a thousand pounds strapped to her back. They pulled her upright and took the sheet away from her, and someone slipped a blue dress over her head. It was navy blue with large white dots - they bounced and swam and then made puddles in her lap. It was very hard to keep her head up. Someone had balanced an anvil on top of it and it wanted to tip over very badly.

Suddenly, the woman with the fake smile was inches from her face, still wearing the fake smile. "There! We're feeling much better now, aren't we?"

"No." Jennifer recognized her own voice, but it was far away. "I'm full of... concrete."

* * *

In the first few minutes of consciousness, Jennifer wondered whether the woman hadn't actually been telling the truth. She could feel the dress against her skin and her arms were drawn protectively against her chest. But when she opened her eyes, she knew things weren't right. She was queasy and her head had been transected by something rusty.

She sat up and crawled to the edge of the bed. This was a bigger room, with floor to ceiling windows. Beyond them the streetlights were winking on though a fine flurry of snow. She had to be more than fifteen stories up. She stood gingerly and walked to the glass, looking out over the city, hoping to find some landmark that would give her some clue as to her location. But there was nothing familiar. Either this was a part of Tokyo she'd never been in, or it wasn't Tokyo.

Turning back, she realized that she was alone. She was all by herself in this weird, minimalist room. What little furniture there was - the bed, a desk, a two-seater sofa - were all the sort of thing she'd seen in the windows of showrooms she couldn't afford to walk into. Across a carpet that could be called stone coloured, was the low wide bed she'd been sleeping on, with some other stone coloured linen on it, and past it was what looked at first like a glass maze, but on closer inspection was a bathroom.

Everything that wasn't glass was stone and everything that wasn't stone, was the colour of it. She ran the water in the granite sink and washed her face, drying it on a neutral coloured towel. It was actually an aesthetic shock to see herself in the mirror. Whoever had designed the place would have kicked her out for being too colourful.

She stared at the navy blue, polka dot dress. It was practically infantile. The collar was white with rounded lapels that met demurely at the front over a little sailor bow. On her feet were white, oversized knee socks that puddled at her ankles. She was a character out of some afternoon anime for kids. She shuddered and lifted the hem of the dress to see what she was wearing beneath it: little white panties with pink bows at the hip. The whole outfit was perverse.

She stood at the sink and thought. It wouldn't do to dwell on the fact that, for all appearances, she was caught in the middle of a minimalist anime nightmare. She concentrated instead on the fact that she was not dead, and that was a good thing. Then a nasty thought wormed it's way to the front of her brain: what if she was dead and this was some sort of purgatory?

Only the sudden and urgent need to pee saved her from continuing down that path. She reasoned that never had she heard of anyone mentioning bodily functions in the afterlife. The urge to pee was proof of her continuing existence. She pulled down the absurd underwear, sat on the toilet and felt relief on several levels. It was, however, short-lived.

"You're awake." Her captor, Shindo, stood leaning against the glass wall of the bathroom, jacketless, with his hands in his pockets.

Jennifer froze in mid-stream. Her bladder protested. "Do you mind?"

"You're less trouble when you're asleep."

"No. I mean, would you please let me go to the bathroom in private?"

His mouth twitched into a sneer.

"Please!"

He gave her no response.

Getting up and finishing later simply wasn't an option. "Jesus..." she spat, and, lowering her head, tried to pretend he wasn't watching her and let her bladder go. She scowled at him as she wiped, flushed and pulled up the stupid panties.

"My parents have no money, you know. You've kidnapped the wrong girl."

He laughed. "I don't want your parent's money. I could buy your parents."

"Then what the hell am I doing here?"

"Paying for an insult."

He was blocking the doorway, and she was hesitant to get too close to him, so Jennifer sat on the side of the stone bathtub and crossed her arms.

"Please, that doesn't make sense. You can't be that sensitive and be a Yakuza boss."

"So now the little gaijin is an expert on Yakuza? I'm not oyabun, stupid. I'm waka-gashira."

"Whatever. I just don't believe it's about an insult."

"Perhaps you're right. You westerners are so fucking smart."

"Then what is it? What's all this about?"

"I saw something I wanted and I took it."

Jennifer looked at him and waited for some sign that he was joking.

"No... come on. You could have just asked me out."

"Would you have accepted?"

"Sure, why not?"

"LIAR!" he roared. She stiffened.

As he stalked into the room, she was sure he was going to hit her again. She crouched down and covered her head with her arms.

"You are a fucking LIAR!" Grabbing a handful of her hair, he used it to pull her to her feet. "Do you know what we do to liars? Do you?"

"No... I don't know." She whispered the words, terrified.

"We cut their lying tongues out."

He dragged her from the bathroom and shoved her onto the bed. Jennifer buried her head under her arms and began to squirm away.

"Don't tell me you would have accepted because it's not true. You look at guys like me and all you see is lowlife. Look at me!" he demanded, pushing her onto her back. "Look at me and tell me the truth... before I slice off your tongue."

"No," she whispered.

"No what?"

"No, I wouldn't have accepted." Her voice broke as she started to cry.

"Why?"

"Because... I'm scared of you."

Lying there, pinning her down with his weight, she could feel the rage coursing through his body, and see it beneath the impossibly placid mask of his face...a feint ruddiness of skin beneath the eyes. He might choose to open or close the door to the furnace, but it was always burning white.

"So you should be." His voice was quiet, suddenly almost calm. "You should be scared of me."

He sat up, straddled her hips, and began to unbutton his shirt. Jennifer turned her head, fixing her gaze on the snow beyond the window. Now it was dark, all she could see was the flurry of white particles, illuminated by the light inside, brushing chaotically against the black pane.

Life was like that, she thought as she heard the fabric of his shirt rustle, sometimes you got elected president, sometimes you got raped. Life was mindless chaos.

"Look at me."

It was hard to drag her gaze away from the window. There was something stupidly Zen and comforting in the fact that she hadn't done anything to get here. She was a snowflake that had brushed up against a plane of black obsidian.

"Look at me!" he barked.

She did, not really knowing what to make of what she saw. In the middle of a room so empty and colorless it could masquerade for death, was an insurrection of color. From just beneath his collarbone, over the entire surface of his chest, to the black band of fabric at his waist, was a garden, a zoo, a kaleidoscopic riot. Across one shoulder and down the right arm, almost to the elbow, flaming peony petals rippled against the wings of Luna moths. On the other side, fat gold carp swam over his bicep in a sea of waving blue-green pondweed. On his chest, a storm of cherry blossoms engulfed a geisha, despite her parasol.

All the images that had drawn her to Japan, the mysteries and aesthetics, were etched on his skin. Her eyes pooled with new tears at the stupidity of it all. The bizarre idealization of a culture encapsulated on the flesh of a thug. She wasn't an innocent, a blameless snowflake, at all, but a willing participant in the pornographization of an entire culture. And now, she would get what she deserved.

He misinterpreted her tears. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," she answered simply, because it was. It wasn't real, but it was beautiful.

He got to his knees and turned to show her his back. One Kabuki samurai fought another in the foreground, while dragons in blue and tangerine did battle in the heavens. An epic struggle on both the spiritual and mortal plane, this was air and earth. Below, she assumed, the battle continued in fire and water.

"It's beautiful," she repeated, as he turned around again. She hoped it was what he wanted to hear.

"It should be. There was a lot of pain involved."

He bent over her and began to unbutton her the top of her dress. She didn't attempt to stop him; it would be a waste of energy.

He pulled the edges of the dress aside and surveyed her bared chest. "Everything that is beautiful hurts."

His finger flicked at the small gold ring in her left nipple. It stung a little as the metal slid through the newly made wound. "Perhaps I should have waited to give you these once you were awake. You'll never fully appreciate their beauty, because you didn't suffer for them."

"Why didn't you?"

He cupped her breasts and squeezed them gently; his gaze didn't stray from them. The pressure made them throb dully. "I was thinking only of myself. That's my right."

He lowered his face to her chest and nestled against the swell of one breast. He inhaled deeply, opened his mouth and pressed it over the nipple and the ring. As he began to suck, the pain grew acute. Jennifer stiffened and balled her fists, turning her head toward the dark wall of windows.

He sucked rhythmically, and with every suck, the ring pulled against the raw wound. At first she tried hard not to make a sound, knowing instinctively that he would like to hear her pain. But gradually it seemed that silence wasn't a battle worth fighting for, and she gave a little sob of pain, and then another, with each tug of the ring.

When he switched breasts, she felt him shift, and then the heat of his hand on the bare skin of her thigh.

The rhythm of the pain was hypnotic. At first it was sharp and localized, but as he continued, it bloomed and spread over a wider area, like a city pulsing light. No matter how hard she tried, it was impossible not to fall into it. She was aware he was touching her. Down, between her legs, he rubbed her through her panties. But all she could feel was the lake of pain at her chest. Bright, blinding flashes ebbed away. only to be replaced by others. They would never, ever stop.

Until they did. She heard a pop as his mouth released.

"You're wet."

No. That couldn't be true. This wasn't sex; it was something else. It was torture. She shook her head. "No."

He laughed a tight little laugh and removed his hand from between her legs.

"Yes," he said, laying wet fingers over her lips and smearing her with her own juices.

Pulling apricots and new cut grass into her lungs with each breath, even as flakes of white struck and melted against the glass outside, she heard him undo his belt, and then his zipper.

He pushed her legs apart with his own and moved between them, and she felt him pull the crotch of her panties to one side. As the tip of his cock nudged between her outer lips, she knew it wouldn't hurt. It was an awful humiliation to realize how wet she actually was, and how easily he would enter her. It was rape, regardless.

She turned her head to look at him. She had to say it. She had to make it clear to him that she was, despite any evidence to the contrary, not a willing participant in this. It wouldn't make a difference, she knew, but she had to say it anyway. "Please, don't..."

Thin, rigid veins on his neck and at his temples stood up above the surface of that taut skin. Though he was looking at her, she was sure he was seeing something else, beyond her or the room, beyond her imagination. "Say it again. Like you mean it."

Even as he spoke, he pushed himself into her. Not roughly, but in a controlled, even way. She felt the first of the pearls, past the head, test the resistance of her passage and win. Then another and another.

"Stop... please, stop," she sobbed.

He grunted and bent over her, one hand encircling her throat. "Gaijin, I don't believe you. You love it."

The grip on her throat tightened a little and she shook her head to try and get him to let go. What did he want her to say? She'd say whatever he wanted to hear if he would just let go of her neck. The last of the pearls popped into her and he lay still, embedded.

"If...if I asked you to stop, would you?"

"No... but I like to hear it. Say it." It was the first unguarded thing he'd ever said to her.

"Why?'

For a moment, she thought he might give her an answer, but he growled instead and moved inside her. The sensation was strange, it made her muscles twitch. The fingers tightened at her neck. "Do what you're told."

She considered ruining his fuck. It wasn't part of her nature to pursue pointless strategies, in any case. Then, feeling the constriction at her throat, she reconsidered.

"Please stop."

He began to fuck her, with slow, calculated thrusts. "Convince me." The pressure at her throat grew. "You can do better than that."

The blood began to pound in her ears, rushing through compressed arteries. The sound, the feeling scared her. "Shindo-sama... please, don't do this."

"Better," he panted. "Try again."

She was beginning to fight for air. Her pulse thundered in head. "Stop...I beg you. Stop it!" she squealed.

"M-mm. Fuck, yes. That's good."

He removed his hand and the pressure on her throat was gone; she gulped air and moaned. Spreading his legs as he thrust, he rose above her and slid his hand between their bodies, his hand resting on her pubic bone; his thumb searched and found her clit.

"Don't!" she screamed out in English. She thought she could bear anything, but not for this to feel good. "No.... please... God... DON'T!"

He grunted in satisfaction, burying himself. "Yesss..." The pressure on her clit grew, and he ground his hips into her.

A pulse of pleasure spread over her pelvis and up her spine. She fought it and moved beneath him, trying to dislodge his hand. "Stop it! Don't touch me," she spat.

He smiled - his first real smile. It melted away as he thrust into her again. "I know you now, gaijin."

"No," Jennifer moaned, "you don't." He didn't let up, or stop his attentions to her clit. She could feel her juices flood around him, her cunt fluttered. "You can't make me..."

"Oh... I can. I am."

"No." It was just a word. It had no meaning at all. She arched her back as she started to come. "No..."

He gasped when she clamped down around his cock. Bending over her, taking her face in his hands, he stared into her eyes as the orgasm blinded her. The last thought she had before her brain emptied was that he'd watched people die the very same way.

"I made you, gaijin."

"You did," she whispered numbly.

A look of triumph washed over his face before he strained and stiffened. Inside her, his cock swelled and twitched, then he sighed as it erupted hot and dark within her. On the outside, it seemed for a moment that the shell of his body had emptied, leaving nothing behind but a colorful wrapper.

He rolled off of her and lay back panting.

TBC (maybe)