The Duke of Yu's Daughter Read online

  Almost immediately, a blush bloomed in her cheeks, and spread quickly up to her brow and down to her neck from whence it continued to her collarbone and the upper slopes of her breasts. Bo Lien automatically tried to cover herself by laying her right arm over her breasts and using her left hand to shield her sex. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was hunched over, in a pitiful attempt to conceal her nakedness. She was the very picture of a chaste maiden stripped bare. Zhao found her exquisite modesty far more arousing than the blatant sexual offerings of Shen-Li’s other daughters.

  “Stop that at once!” he barked. “Stand properly. Place your hands behind your head, and show me what you have to offer.”

  Bo Lien’s eyes flew open, and before she knew it she had straightened up and interlaced her fingers over the back of her head, exposing her magnificent nudity to Zhao. She felt strangely constrained in his presence, as if her will was being overridden by his, and she could do nothing but what he bid. She did not believe that simple fear of the man compelled her, or at least not fear alone, although Zhao radiated a silent menace that made her legs weak. There was something more that made her feel so helpless, so submissive. He was strong, and she was weak, and perhaps that was all there was to it. Whatever it was, Bo Lien knew that if she did not somehow escape from him, she would sooner or later become not just Zhao Hua’s wife but also his slave.

  For his part, Zhao was well pleased to see how easily he could dominate the delicate girl and make her do what he willed, in spite of her obvious distaste for him. She would be easy to master and, as she was as delicate as she was beautiful, would provide the most exquisite pleasures under his whips or suspended on a rack.

  He admired the blushing girl’s superb body. Bo Lien’s flesh was as white as the flower for which she was named, and no place on her could be seen the slightest blemish or imperfection. She was slender and lithe, and every part of her body was in ideal proportion to the rest, neither too big nor too small. Her firm breasts were carried proudly high on her ribcage, and were capped by light brown, virginal areolas and long, sensitive-looking nipples. Her buttocks were smooth, round hemispheres, just right for the smooth thighs and slender calves below. The delta of her sex bore only a few straight silken hairs, which decorated without concealing the rosy lips of her girlhood. Her fingers were long and aristocratic, while her feet were small and delicate.

  Bo Lien’s reputation for beauty had been based solely on the perfection of her features, as no man before Zhao had ever been privileged to see her unclothed form, but the exquisite beauty of her face was fully matched by that of her body. Zhao did not doubt that he was looking at the loveliest woman in the Middle Kingdom (which is to say, the world). The Duke of Yu, he thought, was a fool to barter away for mere money a thing so rare and precious. Once she was his, Zhao promised himself that he would take care to extract from this Lotus Flower all the pleasure that such a unique creature could provide.

  “Now, let us continue our conversation, Bo Lien,” Zhao said. “You were about to elaborate on your previous lies concerning the reasons you did not want to marry me.”

  “But sir, I…” she began to protest.

  “Do not trouble yourself,” Zhao said, holding up his hand. “You are the daughter of nobility, and it is your duty, if not your desire, to contract an appropriate marriage for the honor and connections of your family. Were I the son of a high noble, a duke or count, from some distinguished, ancient family chosen for you by your father, you would do your duty, with some secret regrets perhaps, but without ever voicing a protest. But marrying Zhao Hua is a different matter, is it not?”

  “I do not know what you may mean, noble sir,” Bo Lien answered. “If anything, I feel unworthy of the honor of being the wife of so important a man as you. I…”

  “Enough!” Zhao cut in. “Come closer, Lotus Flower, so that I may scrutinize your charms.” As the girl tottered closer on unsteady legs, he continued. “Unworthy? A likely story! The daughter of the Duke of Yu, a descendant of the Yellow Emperor himself, says she is unworthy to marry a lowly knight, a mere businessman of no family worth mentioning. Am I a simpleton, then, expected to believe such nonsense?”

  She was now standing directly before him. “Turn around, bend low, with hands on ankles, legs open. I must assure myself you are intact before we can contract to marry.”

  Bo Lien started to tell him that she would not follow this command, and then she realized that this would sound foolish, as she had already begun to obey. Once again, her body seemed to be operating without any conscious direction from her. In a moment, she was doubled over in the shameful pose, her blush intensified by her inverted posture so that her face rapidly took on the color of a boiled beet. She gasped she felt Zhao’s fingers in her virginal womanhood as casually as if he was inspecting the womb of a pregnant farm animal, a cow or mare.

  As he rummaged around, Zhao expanded on his earlier remarks. “Since I am not a simpleton, I do not believe you for an instant. The daughter of the Duke of Yu does not think herself unworthy of a match even with the emperor’s son, O Lotus Flower of Yu. It is just the other way around… ah, I see you retain the seal of your purity, that is well…” Although Zhao had now satisfied himself as to Bo Lien’s virginity, he seemed to be in no particular hurry to withdraw his fingers. “…it is I who you think to be unworthy of you, a common knight who does not deserve a wife from so distinguished a family as yours. Confess now that I have named the true reason you wish not to marry me.” By now, his fingers had found her love button and were teasing it to stiffness with little flicks of his nails.

  Bo Lien gathered herself to protest. With a great effort, she found the strength to say, “But it is not so, Master Zhao.”

  “What is not so?”

  “My reasons…” She was having difficulty concentrating. For one thing, the head-downward position was beginning to make her dizzy. Even more distracting was the powerful sensation flowing from between her legs, as Zhao continued to toy with her. “…why I do not want to marry you…” She paused to gasp for air, as she was becoming quite breathless. “…It is not your family, nor… nor your rank, I object… I object to… you are wrong…” She stopped again for air.

  “Then why?” he asked.

  Bo Lien was now quite light-headed from being inverted for so long a time, and short of breath from both that and growing sexual arousal resulting from Zhao’s intimate caresses. She therefore was not as careful as she should have been, and spoke her mind frankly, whereas on almost any other occasion she would have offered something that would not cause Zhao to lose face. At least, this is as good an explanation for what followed as any. “It is because I fear you, because I despise you, because… (pant, pant) I know you for an evil man, filled with cruelty… Oh no!” she exclaimed when she realized what she had just blurted out. She had insulted the man who held her family’s future in his hands, the man who would ruin her father if he did not accept her as his wife, the man who…

  She sighed, and toppled over as everything went dark.

  “Stupid little bitch fainted,” Zhao muttered to himself.

  Chapter Four: The Price of Disobedience

  Zhao revived Bo Lien by sprinkling a few drops of water on her face, and then watched in grim silence as she hastily gathered the robe about herself and fled from the room. The girl was terrified that she had mortally offended Zhao when she blurted out her true feelings, and had thereby destroyed the arrangement between him and her father, by inflicting a most serious loss of face with her blunt words. She trembled to think that she might be responsible for the loss of her family’s ancient home.

  Now, it may be that some who read this are, through no fault of their own, condemned to live in some barbaric land beyond the center of the universe (that is to say, outside of the Middle Kingdom), and they may require some further explanation. Master Zhao Hua’s hard words and harsh treatment of the Duke’s daughters may seem to such persons to be far more egregious than poor Bo Lien’s unfort
unate lapse. Indeed, Zhao undoubtedly overstepped the bounds of the normal courtesies offered to a guest, and the Duke did in fact take offense, as we have seen. But the objects of his lack of decorum were only women after all, daughters of a Duke though they may have been. It was an entirely different and far more serious matter for a young girl like Bo Lien to offer such a brazen insult to a nobleman, as this entailed an unacceptable loss of face. It is no wonder then, that Bo Lien was so afraid that she had precipitated a disaster.

  When she returned to the Ducal palace, she was immediately surrounded by an anxious crowd of relatives with a dozen questions, demanding to know how the interview had gone, whether Zhao had liked her, if he wanted to marry her, and so forth.

  Bo Lien feared to reveal the truth but had no talent for lying, as Zhao had demonstrated. Her answers were therefore vague, and consisted mainly of repeating that Zhao himself would undoubtedly answer all their questions in good time.

  They did not have long to wait. One of Zhao’s servants asked Shen-Li to meet with his master less than an hour after Bo Lien’s interview. The Duke disappeared into Zhao’s residence, and reappeared a surprisingly short time later, a broad smile on his face. He embraced Bo Lien, and cried, “You have saved us, Precious Lotus. You have saved us all. Zhao was so pleased with you that he wishes to take you back to his home immediately. You will depart with him tomorrow morning, and the wedding will be celebrated at his estate in one year’s time.”

  Bo Lien was stunned. Why had Zhao not even mentioned her unforgivable conduct? Had he not heard her? Or perhaps she had only thought the words after all, and only imagined that she had spoken them aloud.

  Shen-Li had more good news. “Zhao was so pleased, he actually proposed an even more favorable arrangement to settle the outstanding debt. He will excuse repayment for one year, and there will be no additional interest charged. Then, if Bo Lien proves satisfactory after a one year trial, he will marry her and grant not a mere extension of time but full forgiveness of the entire loan, principal and interest both!”

  The entire family cheered at this unexpected good news, all except Bo Lien. She had been reviewing the terms of the proposed agreement. “But father,” she said when the shouts of joy had died down, “does that mean I must live with Master Zhao as his wife for a year without being married to him? What if he decides he does not want me after the year has ended? I will be a maiden no longer, and who then will want to marry me?”

  “My dear, sweet girl, your fears are groundless,” Shen-Li told her. “Zhao is infatuated with you. Never would he cast you aside. I have no doubt that the more time he spends with you, the more besotted with you he will become. I should not be surprised if he decides to advance the wedding date and not wait an entire year but marry you in six months, or even sooner still.”

  Bo Lien herself was far from certain about the matter, but she was forced to be satisfied with her father’s reassurances. That night, Bo Lien was the eye of a storm, as her mother, the Duke’s other wives and her half- sisters swirled around her, selecting the wardrobe she was to take with her on the morrow.

  The entire Ducal household was up by dawn the next day, loading the wagon that would carry Bo Lien’s belongings to her new home, and bidding her farewell with affectionate hugs, kisses and not a few tears. As the Lotus was beloved of her relatives, the Duke's retainers and all the children, by the time the goodbyes were complete, the sun was well up in the sky and half the morning had gone.

  Zhao’s retinue was not small. He had a company of mounted soldiers for protection on the road, and a dozen servants to provide for his needs. Bo Lien rode with her future husband in his palanquin, which was carried on the massive shoulders of eight huge bearers. It was lavishly appointed, with an intricate, expensive and thick rug covering the floor and numerous soft, goose-down pillows on the chests that served as either seats or beds.

  The caravan traveled for six hours until late in the afternoon, when it stopped for tea and to water the oxen and horses. All that time, Bo Lien sat on the bench inside the palanquin opposite Zhao, as far from him as possible. Although she knew that she would eventually have to submit to his embraces, she was happy enough to put off the moment for as long as possible.

  They did not speak until the first stop. Then Zhao said, “You are not a very agreeable traveling companion, Bo Lien. Look how you sit so far away from your future husband, wrapped in your cloak of silence. Are you shy or… oh wait, I recall it now. It is because you despise me, and you think me a cruel, evil man, is that not what you said?” There was a smile of sorts on his face as he spoke, but it was not in the least friendly or reassuring. On the contrary, Bo Lien was reminded of the expression on the muzzle of a hungry wolf about to devour its prey. His tone when he pronounced the final sentence was so cold that the words might have been carved out of ice.

  The girl paled, abruptly afraid. Zhao had obviously not forgotten what she had said the day before. She was suddenly certain that, on the contrary, her words were forever burned into his memory. Zhao Hua was not the kind of man to take slights lightly or to forgive or forget insults. He was rather the kind who would have his revenge upon any who dared to slight him, no matter how long he had to wait, a man who never forgot an insult. She did not know how to answer him, so she remained silent.

  “It was most inconsiderate of me, making you travel in such close quarters with a man you detest,” he continued. “I must do something to make amends.”

  He opened the curtains and left Bo Lien alone in the palanquin. When he returned, he was accompanied two of the massive bearers. The men reached inside and seized her in their powerful hands. Bo Lien screamed and tried to break free, but the men, huge and muscular, did not even appear to notice her efforts to escape. They held the slender girl in an iron grip, while Zhao methodically ripped away her robe, then her undergarments, until she had been stripped bare in full view of the entire caravan.

  “Please, Master Zhao, please stop this!” Bo Lien pleaded. “I humbly beg you to forgive my… awk!” She was cut short when Zhao thrust a handful of silk, part of the remains of her robe, into her mouth. He tied a cloth over her mouth to keep her from ejecting the material.

  “Never fear, Precious Lotus,” Zhao told her. “I would not leave you naked. That would be most improper for a daughter of a Duke, and undignified for my intended mate. You shall have appropriate garments.”

  Another servant approached carrying coils of rough hemp rope. Under Zhao’s direction, this man tied Bo Lien in an ingenious and most uncomfortable fashion. One loop was drawn tightly around her slender waist. Another length was knotted to the back of this loop then pulled short, cutting deeply into the vale between her rear globes and drawn cruelly up so that it pressed into her sex. This line was then brought up over her belly and tied around the back of her neck.

  A second strand was knotted around her thumbs, then wrenched up sharply and fixed in a slipknot around Bo Lien’s throat at the other end. This rope was so short that her hands were forced up almost to her shoulder blades. In order to keep this cord from impeding her breathing, she was obliged to hold her head up as high as possible and arch her back to relieve the pressure. But, because of the fiendish design of the bondage, this posture caused the coarse fibers of the other rope to press horribly into the delicate flesh between her buttocks and her sex.

  Zhao inspected the bound girl and said, “There, that is much better. Now you are clad in garments worthy of your rank, Bo Lien.”

  In addition to the pain and discomfort to which she was now subjected, Bo Lien was also profoundly humiliated. Other members of the caravan, chance-met travelers, and anyone they happened to pass on the road were all treated to a fine view of Bo Lien’s nearly nude body, and especially her delicious little breasts, which the bondage forced her to display outrageously. Zhao Hua followed behind her on horseback, nipping her buttocks with a light whip whenever her pace slowed, or sometimes for no reason at all. More than one peasant working in the fields dropp
ed his hoe and stared in disbelief as the barefoot, naked and bound Lotus Flower of Yu passed by on the road, driven along like a beast.

  That night, after she was fed her dinner by one of Zhao’s servants, Bo Lien was secured in a hog-tie, with her hands and feet all bound together behind her back, then hung face downward from the branch of a tree for the night. Zhao stroked her buttocks as he stood over her. He asked, in a voice dripping with malice, “Do you now have a more favorable opinion of your husband-to-be, dear Lotus Flower, or do you still think me an evil man?”

  She stared up at him with huge brown eyes, astonished at the depths of his cruelty.

  The next day, after walking for three hours on the stony road under a hot sun, Bo Lien threw herself to the ground and refused to go a step further, in spite of repeated and painful strokes from Zhao’s whip.

  Leave me here to die in the road, she thought. Better that than marriage to a monster.

  When Zhao knelt by her side as she lay in the dirt, Bo Lien averted her face from him. He seized her chin, and turned her to look his way. “So, would you rather stay here to die than come to live with me at Tanxi de Fangzi ?” This means “House of Sighs”, which was the name of Zhao’s estate. She nodded defiantly.