The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria (10 page)

These were facts he could have learned in Yoshiwara today, and Reiko seemed so absorbed in the case that she didn’t notice his agitation. “Then Wisteria probably has no family in Edo,” she said, “but since she’s a popular
tayu
, her business must be the subject of much talk. I’m sure I’ll find someone who can tell me about her.”

Reiko embraced Sano with an ardor typical of happier days. “I’ll help you solve this case, and things will be as they were before.”

Sano held his wife, hoping that their bad experience on the Black Lotus case wouldn’t repeat itself, and Reiko need never learn more about Wisteria than would benefit the investigation.

6

Unbroken snow covered the empty streets of Edo. Shutters sealed the windows and storefronts of buildings. Stray dogs cowered in alleys, where puddles glazed to ice as the night’s cold deepened. On the banks of canals, itinerant beggars slumbered beside smoldering bonfires. Starlight shimmered along the black curve of the Sumida River, and boats moored at wharves stood as if frozen. Night had paralyzed most of the city, but in certain areas of the Nihonbashi merchant district, life flourished most busily after dark.

A ramshackle building situated between a public bathhouse and a noodle stand housed a nameless gambling den. Inside sat peasants and samurai, gangsters with arms and chests covered by tattoos, and even a few priests in saffron robes. They dealt, shuffled, and flung down cards. Shouts and laughter accompanied the games. Piles of coins shifted, while slovenly maids served sake. Tobacco smoke from the gamblers’ pipes filled the room with an acrid haze that wreathed the ceiling lanterns.

Beyond a curtained doorway, in the dim back room of the gambling den, Lady Wisteria sat on a straw mattress. Her head was wrapped in a blue kerchief, and her lovely eyes gleamed with anxiety in the light that shone through the curtain. She shivered beneath her cloak as she listened to the clink of coins and the men’s raucous voices. Whenever arguments and curses erupted, she winced. Her fearful gaze roved the bare rafters, the sake urns that lined the walls, and the barred window.

A day had passed since Wisteria had left Yoshiwara, and she’d traded one prison for another. This pause between her old life and new seemed almost harder to bear than had the prospect of years in the brothel. Impatience unfurled in her like a growing thistle plant. Her solitude frightened her, and she puckered her sensuous mouth in an ironic smile. How often had she yearned for solitude! She’d not anticipated how defenseless she would be.

The silhouette of a man appeared on the curtain. Alarmed, Wisteria shrank into the corner. Then he flung aside the curtain and entered the room, carrying a large bundle tied in a cloth. He was short but powerfully built, his shoulders broad beneath his cloak, and his calves knotted with muscles in his leggings. His neck resembled a stone column, and his face was all hard lines and angles: slanted brows that met over a bladelike nose; chin and jaws hewn; hair in a topknot crowning a slab of a forehead.

“That’s a poor welcome,” he said, striding toward Wisteria with a quick, animal grace. His eyes, dark gashes in his face, looked everywhere at once, watching for threats, calculating his next step. “Something wrong?”

Wisteria breathed easier, though not quite in relief. “Lightning,” she said. “You startled me, that’s all.”

She rose to meet him, feeling the attraction that his strange, mercurial beauty inspired in her, and fear of his edgy temper. “Where have you been?”

“Out,” he said curtly, his brows slanting farther downward. “I had business to take care of.”

He didn’t like accounting for himself to anyone, Wisteria knew. “I’m sorry for asking,” she said. “It’s just that you were gone all day, and I’m afraid to be alone.” In the outer room, a brawl had started; the sounds of punches, crashes, coins scattering, and loud cheering clamored.

Lightning laughed. “You’re safer than you were last night.”

Wisteria wished she could believe him. Though she’d traveled far away from the room where Lord Mitsuyoshi had died, life outside the walls of Yoshiwara promised new hazards. The police would have begun looking for her by now. And while she’d escaped her brothel master, she was now at the mercy of Lightning, nicknamed for the way no one knew what he was going to do until it was too late.

“What’s the matter?” He regarded her suspiciously. “You don’t like it here?” Hurling down the bundle, he advanced on Wisteria. “Don’t like the company either? Miss your fine rooms and fancy friends?”

“No, it’s fine,” Wisteria said, stumbling backward from the menace in his voice. “I’m happy to be here, with you-”

“Do you know what would have happened to me if I’d gotten caught smuggling you out of Yoshiwara?” He seized her wrist, and his painful grasp provoked a yelp from Wisteria. “I’d have been arrested, beaten, maybe even killed. I risked my life for you, and you ought to be satisfied with whatever I give you, and not complain.”

“I am satisfied.” Wisteria hastened to placate Lightning. “I thank you for all you’ve done for me.” Lowering her eyelids, she smiled provocatively and dropped her voice to a husky whisper: “A man as strong and brave as you can satisfy me in every way.”

Years of practice had made her adept at coaxing men, and as she grazed her fingertips across Lightning’s cheek, lust replaced the anger in his eyes. “That’s better,” he said.

“Please let me show my appreciation by satisfying you.” Wisteria didn’t have to pretend eagerness, for Lightning’s touch, his strength, and his flashing gaze awakened in her an urgent need for him.

His sardonic smile acknowledged his power over her. Releasing her wrist, he said, “Later.” He squatted and opened the bundle. “I’ve got food here, and I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”

He’d brought cooked rice, smoked eel and salmon, pickles, grilled prawns, steamed dumplings, and different kinds of sweet cakes. Wisteria had spent much of the day sleeping, and the rest too nervous to eat; but now the sight and smell of the food made her ravenous. She and Lightning sat on the floor, gobbling with their fingers, gulping sake between bites. This seemed the best meal she’d ever eaten, with no need to mind her manners as a
tayu
should, and no brothel master tallying the cost of what she ate and adding it to her debt. Giddy with pleasure, she laughed. She fed morsels to Lightning. He grinned and sucked her fingers.

When they finished, he took the remaining, largest package from the bundle and tossed it in her lap. “Here’s a present.”

Wisteria opened the package and found a kimono of crimson satin, lavishly brocaded with waves and swimming carp in rainbow-hued metallic thread.

“How beautiful!” she exclaimed in delight.

“Sure it is.” Lightning smiled proudly, but his tone distrusted her reaction. “It’s as nice as anything those other men have given you—isn’t it?” He was jealous of her high-class lovers, who often brought her expensive gifts.

“Yes, yes,” Wisteria assured him. Stroking the kimono, she didn’t ask where he’d gotten it; knowing how he earned his living, she could guess. Yet she didn’t care, because the kimono was hers now, a promise of a brilliant future.

“You can show me your appreciation now,” Lightning said.

Lust gleamed in his eyes as he swept aside the remains of their meal. He tore off her garments. The cold raised bumps on her skin, but Lightning opened his own clothes and pulled her against his warm flesh. Wisteria moaned, overwhelmed by desire for him. Lightning was her own age of twenty-four, instead of decades older, as were most men who could afford the services of a
tayu
. Caressing him, Wisteria reveled in the feel of him, so firm and strong instead of pudgy or emaciated like her typical client. His hands on her breasts, her buttocks, and between her legs caused her pleasure instead of disgust. When Lightning climbed atop her, his manhood was erect. No over-refined, impotent gentleman was he!

“I want you inside me.” Gasping, Wisteria wrapped her legs around his waist. “Take me now!”

Lightning reared up from her in sudden anger. “Impatient, are you?” He slapped away her hands and wrenched free of her. “I’m the one who says when and how, not you!”

In her passion, Wisteria had forgotten that he never liked being told what to do. “I’m sorry,” she said hastily, for last night had proven his contrary nature and shown her the peril of trying to impose her will upon him. “Please forgive me.”

His face blazed with bestial rage and desire; he was panting and perspiring, literally steaming in the chill air. He roughly turned Wisteria over on her stomach. His hands jerked her hips upward and pushed her face to the floor. Frightened, though aroused by his brutality, Wisteria cried out in protest.

“Don’t you dare resist me,” Lightning shouted as cheers and laughter exploded in the gambling den. “You’re mine, and I’ll treat you as I wish.”

Mounting her, he yanked her buttocks against his loins; his manhood entered her with a friction that drew moans from them both. “Did Lord Mitsuyoshi take you this way?” he gasped out. He began thrusting deep and fast into Wisteria. “Did you enjoy it with him?”

The floor’s rough planks scraped Wisteria’s knees and forearms. Her pride rebelled against this mistreatment, and she hated that the gamblers would hear her degradation. Her inner flesh swelled with excitement born of pain and pleasure.

Lightning abruptly withdrew from her body. Unable to bear the cessation, Wisteria gave the answer he wanted: “No. No!” She knew he’d hated Mitsuyoshi more than any of her other clients. She wriggled backward, trying to regain him.

“Did you want Lord Mitsuyoshi?” Breathless, Lightning shuddered with his own passion, but he held her away from him while she struggled. “Did you love him?”

“I didn’t want him. I didn’t love him,” Wisteria said, sobbing in her desperation to have Lightning. “Please—”

He reentered her, and as she keened in joy, he said, “Tell me you love me.”

“I love you!” At this moment, with him moving inside her, and the world reduced to the two of them, Wisteria did love Lightning passionately, truly, devotedly.

“Tell me I’m the only man you’ll ever love.”

“You’re the only one,” Wisteria cried. Eyes shut, she concentrated on their climb to pleasure. She lost awareness of the rough floor, the cold, and the other people nearby.

Thrusting harder and quicker, Lightning growled like a wild beast. “If anyone else dares look at you, I’ll kill him. And if you ever shun me or betray me—if you ever cross me in any way—I’ll kill you, too!”

His threats terrified Wisteria, for she knew he spoke the truth. Terror increased arousal, and her climax struck her in waves of ecstasy. She screamed. Lightning’s growls culminated in a triumphant roar, and she felt him release inside her. They collapsed together in heaving exhaustion, and Wisteria’s spirits slid into a black pit of distress.

She realized that her liberator had become her captor, and one more prone to cruelty than any brothel master. Wisteria had extricated herself from financial debt, but she now owed Lightning, whom she must repay in flesh and blood. She’d hoped to harness his strength and daring to further her own aims, yet he was untamable. Last night marked the point at which her control over her destiny had shattered.