White Curls

A darkly romantic story of avarice, violence, and ambition.

As with my previous short story, “The Hollow,” this is the result of a further fiction trade between

Kathrine Elaine

and myself. This time around she gave me a choice of three prompts, and I opted to combine the first two: an intimate scene that’s spicy but not graphic, and a story based on the song lyric, “Am I just living in the space between the beauty and the pain?”

“White Curls” is what I’ve come up with for this. Given the nature of the prompt, I feel it fair to warn that yes sex will be involved, though not explicit. Violence is to be expected as well, likely more explicit. Those of you who’ve kept up with The Jarl’s Son will already have an idea on how I handle these things, so if you’re read up on that, you more or less know what level to expect. Regardless, I hope you enjoy.

“Have another, Western Man.”

Delicate fingers held the skinny silver pipe out for him. Curls of pale smoke slithered languidly from its small bowl. It smelled earthy and pungent, not unlike the tobacco he knew. This oriental variety was milder, though. He still wasn’t sure if it was truly any different to what was grown in South America or if it was down to the preparation. The fine hair-like texture of this kizami, as these Japanese called their style of tobacco, resulted in a smoke every bit as delicate as the pipe in which it burned, which in turn was every bit as delicate as the lovely hand holding it.

Tsuma held the pipe with the mouthpiece pointed toward him. Had he still been in the colonies he would’ve taken the pipe himself and sucked deep, but that wasn’t how Tsuma did things. He’d quickly learned that during his first time with her. To lay with her, a man was expected to comport himself in a particular manner. She was to serve in all the ways she could, right down to holding his pipe for him as he smoked. At first this made him feel powerful, as if he held command of her every whim. In time, he came to understand it as the surrender it truly was.

Understand, and accept.

Leaning forward, he slowly breathed the pale smoke in. Holding it in his mouth, he sat upright again, then swallowed, and finally opened his mouth to breathe out. The pale plumes made him feel like the dragon etched onto the silver pipe. To him, the serpentine dragons of the Orientals were reminiscent of cats. The backs of their long bodies were often arched in their depictions, and they usually had a forelimb extended as if stretching. Of course there were also the whiskers and the lion-like manes, to say nothing of the blunted, antler-like horns that always seemed to emerge in the exact spot a cat’s ears would sit. Yes, those beasts were decidedly feline, not at all like the terrible flying lizards they were depicted as back in Europe.

“Ignacio,” he said as he breathed out.

Tsuma replied with the slightest smile as she turned the mouthpiece toward herself. “I like ‘Western Man’ better,” she hummed, the smoke slipping out from either side of her red-painted lips. “It sounds bolder, more suitable for you.”

Both spoke English, though Tsuma spoke it better. Before Tokugawa closed off trade with Europe, port cities like the one Ignacio found himself in - for the life of him, he never could pronounce its name - used to bustle with European activity. English traders were a common sight, and so the language gained some ground. Though rivals in their imperial pursuits, a working command of the language proved useful for Spaniards like Ignacio.

That was doubly true now. After legal trade was shut off and the overwhelming majority of Westerners were cast out, piracy and black market dealings became the only means by which the West could continue to profit off of Japan. Ignacio had taken the former approach. A naval sailor turned pirate, he was eager to take advantage of what were relatively untapped waters.

His ambitions were short lived. After a half year of disastrous results, his crew mutinied and was set to keelhaul him. Dumb luck was the only reason he lived; the rope they bound him with was badly frayed. When they tried dragging him under the ship, the barnacles snapped it before they could tear into him. Angered and confused, the mutinous crew scrambled to find him. He kept out of sight until the commotion died down, then scaled back up to the deck, burned the main mast by shattering a lantern against it, and stole a rowboat to make his escape.

He’d been living off banditry and the remains of his stash since then; a decent sum of money and some backup equipment he’d hidden a short ways off the coast. An important contingency for just such a situation. Food had become the primary goal, but anytime it was possible he made sure to save up what coins he could to spend on Tsuma’s company. She was the finest around at what she did, and she’d already become his favorite girl to visit back when the country was still open.

Now she was the closest thing he had to a friend. A goddamned prostitute. How pathetic.

Granted, she wasn’t just any prostitute. Her handlers sold her like she was, the damn fools. They had no idea who they had on her hands, no concept of just how elegant, just how delightful, or just how skilled Tsuma was in her crafts.

“They waste you here,” Ignacio grumbled as she daintily poured him a dish of quality saké. “You could be serving royalty as one of those…”

“Oiran,” she finished for him as she held out the alcohol laden saucer.

“Oiran,” he repeated as he took it, watching closely as she poured her own. The kimono she wore, lotus pink with golden flowers and a bright white trim, helped to lend her a look of demure and girlish innocence as she lifted the saké to her lips. A clever illusion which played into her youthful features, such as those slightly round cheeks, soft lips, and button nose. An illusion which was rather artfully undone by the knowing sparkle in her eyes, and the way her loose fitted garment allowed him easy peeks at her luscious curves.

Ignacio tipped the saucer back, draining it with a single loud gulp. “They waste you,” he continued as she poured more for him. “You could be an oiran, serve lords, and take them for all they’re worth.”

“I have enough,” Tsuma replied, passing him the newly filled dish.

“Liar,” he scoffed, once more taking it in a single gulp. “You Japanese always lie to sound polite, but I see through it. You’re not satisfied, you’re leashed.”

He struck a nerve. Expert that she was, Tsuma didn’t let it show on her face. She masked it with a demure smile as she tapped the pipe against the ceramic ash pot to empty its spent contents. That smile never reached her eyes, though, and Ignacio saw the spark of anger in her glare. Yet she didn’t once let that anger control her. A master in her field, as he always believed.

“Perhaps Western Man will cut my leash one day,” she said as she repacked the pipe.

“Maybe I will,” he replied as he watched her gently press a gummy substance into the smoking bowl. Opium. He smiled as she passed it to him after lighting it, indulging in the euphoria that came over him as he breathed it in. “Maybe when I reclaim a ship I’ll take you from here, bring you to the colonies. Show you what it’s like to live in luxury.”

Tsuma chuckled, vaporous opium smoke wafting from her lips. Unlike the carving on the pipe, she appeared as a proper dragon in Ignacio’s eyes.

“Western Man enjoys indulging in fantasies,” she cooed as she started crawling over to him.

“And you don’t?” he countered. Already he could feel his head becoming light.

Tsuma slowly shook her head. She straddled him. Slipping her hands underneath his own plain and dirty kimono, she slid it off of his shoulders and caressed his firm, barrel-like chest before moving on to his lustrous brown hair.

“I’m not meant to indulge in fantasy,” she whispered into his ear. Her lips were so close he could almost feel their touch. “I’m meant to make them reality.”

He could resist her no longer. Placing his large hand at the small of her back, Ignacio pulled Tsuma into a firm kiss which she met with equal vigor. By now he’d laid with her a dozen times, maybe more, yet it still impressed him how easily she met his vigor. Her slim but shapely body, with her apple breasts, crane neck, and honey smooth skin, always seemed so delicate to him. A porcelain doll, easily broken. That’s what she reminded him of when he looked at her.

Yet when he lay with her, she proved herself nothing short of a tigress. Fierce and svelte. Flexible and unrelenting. Seeing her now, writhing atop him as she pressed her hands into his chest as if holding him into the ground, he felt convinced that she was one of the feline dragons of her people wrapped up in a woman’s form.

He wanted her. Not just for the release of the now, but to keep for life. He wanted her for his own, to be the Western Man to her Oriental Dragon. He wanted to take his montante¹ and cut the invisible leash that bound her to this city and nation, that they might steal a ship and carve out the luxurious life they deserved in South America. He wanted to bed her every night, to breed her as he indulged in her grace and ambition. He wanted to fulfill every request of tradition she asked of him, secretly serving her whims all while she carried on the act of serving his own. She was the only pocket of substance remaining in his otherwise meaningless life, and he yearned to immerse himself in it.

He wanted all this and more, but tonight he would only find bloodshed.

Ignacio heard the men coming well before he saw them. Even lost inside his opium haze and Tsuma both, he always remained somewhat tense, always stood on edge. This was why. He was a Westerner in Tokugawa’s Japan. Worse yet, he was a pirate and a brigand. Ambushes like this were merely matters of time, and this was the second to happen in Tsuma’s pleasant company.

By the time the warriors threw the sliding door open, charging in with their tapered swords drawn and cries of “Gaijin!” upon their lips, the blue steel of Ignacio’s montante already flashed in an arc of motion.

It cleaved the clavicle of the first samurai. Were they samurai? They were uniformly dressed in red kimono and wielded samurai swords. Ignacio didn’t know enough about their culture to say for sure, though, and he certainly didn’t care enough to learn. All that mattered was these men were trying to kill him, and that his sword was bigger.

The one he struck in the clavicle crumpled under the impact of the swing. Bright red blood gushed from his neck in spurts. His artery had been severed, and his crimson spray stained Ignacio’s tawny, naked flesh.

Two more of the samurai rushed in. Wrenching his sword free, the Spaniard kicked the first in the stomach, then used his momentum to bring the montante cleaving down across his back. The blade of the second bit into his arm, but it was shallow. Ignacio was quicker than most expected for a man of his size, and the adrenaline filling his veins made him that much faster as it burnt through the hazy effects of the opium and saké.

Gripping his sword both above and below its guard, Ignacio skewered the Japanese who’d cut him, running him through the gut. The man wailed and burbled, hands quickly bloodying as they gripped fruitlessly at the blade which speared him. He was still moving, still screaming, when Ignacio used his body like a ram to bowl down the next pair who charged through that wide-open door.

Three more waited in the hall, struck dumb by the shocking sight. A naked tower of a man, drenched in the blood of their allies, had just stormed out that door like a rampaging bull. Then, with a sword that seemed as massive as he, the barbarian brutally stabbed the two men he’d knocked prone over and over to ensure their deaths.

Ignacio faced the remaining three. His naked body was slicked with gore, and he regarded the men with a ferocious scowl. One of them trembled. He could hear the metallic rattle of the boy’s sword, its tang loose inside the hilt. That boy muttered something then, his voice every bit as shaky as his hands and sword.

“Oni!”

The Spaniard didn’t know what it meant, but he assumed it was an insult. He grinned like a madman and gripped his sword in both hands. Then he roared, his deep voice a booming bellow, until it suddenly wasn’t. His breath had been taken, forced out of him by an impact from behind. Then there was another, and a third. Burning pain creeping up his back, Ignacio stumbled forward and looked back.

Tsuma stood there. Her body was every bit as naked as his own, though her petite figure no longer seemed fetching to him. The apple breasts and peach-shaped rear which his hands and eyes were usually drawn to went unnoticed next to the red knife in her hand. His lady Dragon had bloodied her fangs, and she bit him to do so.

Rage surged in him. Where he once saw a delicate prize, his last earthly love, now appeared a spiteful little traitor. Roaring in outrage, he clenched his fist tight and threw all his weight into a backhanded blow. Tsuma weaved to avoid him, but couldn’t do so entirely. He caught her in the side of the head, and she stumbled over the trio of skewered bodies he’d left on the floor. Looming over her like a giant, he gripped his sword in both hands prepared to give the treacherous bitch the same treatment.

Pain racked Ignacio’s body, then vanished as quickly as it came. A dull feeling of coldness came over him, broken only by the liquid warmth which seeped from his mouth and his midsection. He dropped his montante. The hefty weapon clattered and rattled as it bounced against the wooden floorboards. Looking down at it, he realized there were three fangs piercing his midsection from the back.

No, not fangs. Swords. Clever Orientals, they must have planned this from the start.

As the trio of samurai pulled their swords from Ignacio’s back, Tsuma climbed back up to her feet. The giant fell a moment later, his hazel eyes rolling back as his naked body landed face down on the floor. She looked down on him with open disgust, resting a hand against her svelte belly. Fortunately he hadn’t finished this time. She wouldn’t need to worry about bearing some half-blooded beast child into the world.

One of the samurai, the young and trembling one, brought her kimono to her. “Are you all right?” he asked, his tone low and loving.

She rested a hand on his as she took the bundle of clothes. “I am. Thank you, Masaru.”

The young man, Masaru, helped her dress as his two remaining compatriots dragged Ignacio’s corpse outside. Tsuma glowered at the body as it disappeared from sight. Shivers ran down her body, and not just from the snowy cold wafting in.

“Come with me, Masaru,” she said, leading him by the hand down the hall of the once ostentatious house where they laid their trap.

Masaru rambled to her as they walked. He had an awkward way about him, something which his swordsmanship training was never able to fully rid him of, but he was sweet as well. Gentle, kind, easy to be around. After a few moments, he finally asked, “Where are we going?”

“The baths, so I can be clean of that beastly man,” Tsuma said. Glancing back, she noticed the flush creeping across his cheeks and smiled coyly as he clumsily made polite objections. “Do you not want to help me bathe?”

“It’s not that,” he stammered. “I just…”

She silenced him with a gentle press of her lips, then led him into the baths. For his part in helping to orchestrate the execution of the Western bandit, Masaru and the other surviving samurai were to be given generous stipends from their lord. This would place him as one of the better paid swordsmen in his lord’s service. Paired alongside the purchased freedom her own involvement earned her, Tsuma would find herself well positioned if she stayed at Masaru’s side, and there were certainly worse options out there.

When the other two samurai returned after dumping the body in the sea, Tsuma and Masaru where nowhere to be seen. In life, the pirate Ignacio thought of Tsuma as his Oriental Dragon, a cunning creature wearing a beauteous guise. In death, he’d think of nothing, his body fit only to feed fish and sea birds. Never would he truly know how right he was about the porcelain treasure which he refused to surrender.

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“In the Giant’s Shadow” follows the wandering warrior Gaiur the Valdunite as she finds herself embroiled in the supernatural conspiracies of the small farming town, Jötungatt. Lured into their dark dealings by an ominous white raven, Gaiur must survive long enough to unravel Jötungatt’s hidden mysteries in a tale of survival, ritual murders, and very real nightmares.

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1. Large two-handed sword.