The Duke of Yu's Daughter Read online

  “Such is not your choice, Little One,” he said. “Perhaps you will be permitted to die, if you prove unsatisfactory as my wife or I weary of your company, but that decision will be mine alone. Until I am done with you, you belong to me and I will have obedience.”

  Bo Lien was so weary of body and ready to die that Zhao could not overmaster her will at that moment. But her body was only that of a weak girl, and she was no match for Zhao, master of all the varied ways of pain. He consulted with one of his servants, and then remained by Bo Lien’s side until the man returned a few minutes later bearing a smoldering branch of wood.

  Bo Lien’s eyes widened in fear when Zhao waved the smoking end of the branch before her face. He blew on the smoldering tip, making the red charcoal glow more brightly. “This may be quite unpleasant,” he told her. “Now, would you like to discover exactly how unpleasant?”

  The terrified girl shook her head and began to rise from the ground. Zhao grasped her slender neck with his free hand and pushed her back down again, pressing her face into the earth.

  “You obey, but you have not yet paid the price for your disobedience,” he said. “You owe me a debt still, and debts must be paid.”

  She closed her eyes as he touched the glowing end of the branch to the back of her thigh.

  Bo Lien’s screams were stifled by the silken rags that filled her mouth, and her frenzied thrashing was easily controlled by the powerful hand that held her down. The agony seemed to go on for hours, pulsing in waves from her tormented haunch. She had an overwhelming urge to rub herself with her hand, an urge that the ropes binding her did not permit her to indulge.

  A long, painful time later, she heard the hateful voice of Zhao say, “Now you have discharged your debt to me, and you may demonstrate your obedience. Rise and begin walking, for we still have a long journey ahead. Unless, of course, you would first have another taste of fire.”

  She exclaimed, “Nnnn!” and scrambled to her feet, assisted by Zhao, who pulled her up by her hair. The fear of fire had conquered Bo Lien, and she was ready to do almost anything rather than face it again. She did not know that she had only begun to make her acquaintance with pain. Zhao knew a thousand ways to punish girl-flesh, some even harder to bear than fire, as the innocent Lotus was soon to learn for herself.

  Chapter Five: The House of Sighs

  After ten days of travel, Zhao’s party finally arrived at his estate. Bo Lien was carried for the final eight, as two days on the stony, unpaved roads had left her feet in a condition that rendered walking impossible.

  Instead, she was tied hand and foot and slung face down over Zhao’s horse like a blanket roll. In this position, her naked buttocks formed a tempting target, one of which Zhao did not fail to take advantage. Indeed, he seemed almost unable to leave her delightful rotundities in peace, so that if he was not spanking Bo Lien, he was usually stroking, squeezing or pinching the girl’s firm twin bottom globes, unmindful of her pleas and cries of pain. At the end of a long day at Zhao’s hands, Bo Ling’s bottom cheeks were invariably as swollen and red as ripe cherries, and her face was sodden with tears.

  Bo Lien was astounded by the size and beauty of Zhao’s estate. The main house (really a palace) was painted bright yellow and sat atop the highest place in the region, so that the upper stories, with their many large windows and decorative carvings along the rooflines, could be seen, even over the high wall that enclosed the property. The large, impressive main gate was made of gilded iron, cast in the shape of dragons.

  Inside the wall were extensive gardens containing a bewildering variety of flowers, trees, and birds, some so rare and unusual from lands so far away, that even the Duke of Yu’s gardens, famed throughout the Middle Kingdom, did not contain their like. In the branches of the trees perched strange, exotic and colorful birds, some trailing red tails like tongues of flame, others with long feathers gleaming like emeralds sprouting from their heads. Bo Lien wondered how a mere knight had come to own such a fine property, which looked as if it should be the home of a member of the high nobility.

  “Do you approve of my humble estate, Bo Lien?” Zhao asked as they passed slowly through the gardens. “It was the long the ancestral home of the Counts of Xang-Chi. I acquired it from the most recent and last Count. I will tell you the story as we ride along. You may find it instructive.”

  Unlike Bo Lien’s father, the Count of Xang-Chi had no difficulty producing a male heir (he had two sons and two daughters). Nor did he share the Duke of Yu’s unusual appetite for women; he was content with one wife and a single concubine. But like Shen-Li, he did have a besetting vice, one that led to his ruin in the end. The Count of Xang-Chi was a gambler.

  The Count gambled excessively, uncontrollably, constantly on horse races, dice, chuiwan (a kind of croquet or golf) matches and almost any other sort of contest or competition. He played go and xiangqi (a form of chess) for huge sums of money, although he was a mediocre player at best, and when he was not playing himself he would bet on matches between other players.

  The Count was neither lucky nor skillful in his wagering, and as a result he inevitably reached the point where he was forced to borrow money to cover his enormous gambling losses. Like the Duke of Yu, he fell so deep in debt that he could find only one man with both the funds he needed and the willingness to lend them. This was, of course, Zhao Hua. But, as might be expected, Zhao required security for every last copper huan he advanced. Over the course of time, the Count was obliged to pledge first his properties, then his wife and concubine and last of all, his children as security, hoping for a lucky streak would win him enough to break free of his indebtedness to Zhao. Alas, the Count of Xang-Chi remained unlucky to the very end. Unable to make payment when the loans came due, he threw himself from the highest tower of his house in despair, leaving Zhao to collect his estate and other properties, and to seize his wife and children, and sell them into slavery.

  Actually, Zhao did not sell all of the Count’s family. He retained the youngest daughter, Chao-Xing (“Morning Star”) by name, for his personal use and trained her as his bed slave. This unfortunate girl was still his sex toy when he returned from Yu with Bo Lien, a slave in what had once been her family’s home, her only purpose in life to attend Zhao and satisfy his unnatural appetites.

  The estate had formerly been known as Xingfu Huayuan (“Happy Garden”), but Zhao disliked the name and had changed it to the one it currently bore. When Bo Lien was led in, she immediately saw how appropriate the new name was. The big house was dark, damp and uninviting. Zhao’s barefoot house servants were so silent that the only sounds were the creaking of rafters and the sad sighs of wind through cracks, as if the ghost of the Count of Xang-Chi remained still, perpetually lamenting his fate and unable to find peace even in death.

  Bo Lien was handed over to a pair of pretty female servants who looked to be not much older than herself. The servants led her away to be prepared for Zhao’s bed that night. The ropes in which she had been confined for so many long days were finally removed, and she was lowered into a great marble pool of steaming-hot water where the two servants gently scrubbed away the filth of the road from her body with soft sponges until her skin was as pure white as snow on the mountain, and washed her hair until it shone like a black silken waterfall.

  “I am in fear of Master Zhao,” Bo Lien told the servants. “He hates me, and I know he intends to torment me even more than he has done already. Will you not take pity on me, an innocent girl, and help me to escape his cruelty?”

  “We do pity you, lovely one,” said one of the women, “as we pity all the victims of our master’s cruelties, including ourselves, but we can do nothing to help you.”

  The second servant opened the front of her robe to show Bo Lien a pattern of thin, white lines that had been etched by a whip or bamboo rod across the pale flesh of her breasts. “My body bears the signs of Master Zhao’s affections. We are his slaves, and subject to his malice no less than you or his other playmates.�
��

  The first servant spoke again. “That is not altogether so, Xiu Mei.” (Beautiful Plum). She turned to Bo Lien. “He chooses the most beautiful girls to serve him in bed, and these he treats more harshly than the rest of us. Indeed, the more beautiful they are, the harsher is the mistreatment. My heart breaks when I consider what he will do to you, for surely you are the loveliest flower ever to brighten this sorrowful house.”

  “Then, will you not…?” Bo Lien began, hope kindling in her breast as she heard these words of understanding and sympathy. She trailed off when she saw both servants shaking their heads.

  “It is as Shushun…” (Fair Purity) “…has said,” Xui Mei answered. “It will rend our hearts to see such gentleness and beauty used so cruelly, but we have been broken to his will. We could no more oppose Master Zhao than could the horse upon which he rides. There is nothing we can do for you.”

  Bo Lien looked in their faces, and saw that any further pleas would be wasted breath. Thereafter, she was silent as Xui Mei and Shushun completed the tasks of bathing Bo Lien and shaving her body (both under her arms and the little patch between her legs). Afterwards, she stood passively as the two women entwined bright red blossoms in her hair on either side of her head and dabbed lilac scent on her lips, nipples and on her bare sex.

  As the last step before they dressed her, the two servants closed a shining collar of silver around Bo Lien’s slender throat, and then added bands of metal around her wrists and ankles. Then, while Shushun held her in place, Xui Mei secured these loops with a tool that sealed them shut with an iron bolt, so that the only way to remove the collar, bracelets or anklets would be to saw or file them off. Bo Lien’s hands were brought behind her back and locked together by linking together a pair of cunning little catches on the bracelets.

  Last of all, before she was taken to Zhao’s bedchamber, a beautifully embroidered robe of shimmering blue silk (it had once been the property of the Count’s wife) was settled over her shoulders. Then she was marched away, with one servant on either side.

  Zhao’s servants had neglected to provide a belt or any other closure for Bo Lien’s robe, so the insubstantial material flapped open as she walked, exposing her unclothed form to all she passed in the corridors of the great house. A week roped and naked in the caravan had not destroyed Bo Lien’s sense of modesty, for she could not even see who was looking at her while she was slung over Zhao’s horse, and was in any case too weary and too battered to care. Now, she blushed as her body was exposed to the eyes of the charcoal burner, the pot-boy and the rest of Zhao’s retainers, down the most lowly.

  “Xui Mei, will you not provide a belt or some other thing to close my garment?” Bo Lien asked. “I know that I am to be Zhao’s toy, to torment and humiliate as he would, but must my shame be displayed to common porters and the peasants who dispose of the night soil?”

  “Know, little Lotus Flower, that you are accoutered exactly as our Master has instructed,” the woman replied. “You will soon find that very little happens in this house that is contrary to the will of Zhao Hua, and that anyone who fails to please him in every particular soon learns her mistake.”

  “And vows never to displease him again,” added Shushun.

  Thereafter, Bo Lien fell silent again, and did her best to ignore the stares of the household servants. She could not control the reactions of her body, however, and her cheeks were hot with blood when she was delivered at last to Zhao Hua’s bedchamber.

  Chapter Six: Morning Star

  When Xui Mei knocked on the elaborately carved door, a voice from within bade them to enter. When Bo Lien was taken into the room by her escorts, she saw her future husband doing something to a nude girl who was kneeling on the floor at his feet.

  The girl was young and beautiful. Bo Lien could see this in spite of the distorting iron ring that turned her mouth into a gaping cavern, and the painful and bizarre position into which her body had been forced. She straddled a wooden frame whose clamps around her lower legs kept her on her knees, while her arms were drawn straight back at shoulder level and held there by means of rings set on either side of a vertical post of wood. Her head was held in position by a short metal rod projecting horizontally from the front of the same post, which was attached to a catch on the back of a metal collar identical to the one on Bo Lien. Another, somewhat thicker metal rod extended from the post a little lower down. This one ended in a padded piece of wood that pressed into the girl’s spine between her shoulder blades, forcing her to arch her back dramatically and force out her chest at an unnatural angle. The posture exaggerated the size of her fine but not extraordinarily large breasts, and also emphasized the girl’s unusual elasticity. She rolled her green eyes at the newcomers in mute appeal.

  Zhao fixed something on the tip of one of the girl’s breasts, and then looked up at his visitors. He scowled as he inspected Bo Lien, and she felt the grip of the two servants tighten with fear for a few seconds. Then Zhao’s features became more tranquil and he nodded in approval. The pressure on Bo Lien’s arms relaxed instantly.

  “You may go,” he said, and with soft sighs of relief Xui Mei and Shushun released Bo Lien and quickly left.

  Zhao approached the girl, circled around and stood at last directly behind her. Under Zhao’s scrutiny, Bo Lien’s will fled, leaving her trembling and afraid. As nearly always when she was in his presence, her thoughts became scattered and foolish, her mind nearly vacant.

  He slid the robe over Bo Lien’s shoulders and let it fall like a mist to the ground at her feet. He rested his hands on the soft curves of her hips, then slowly, very slowly, slid them upward over the pale softness of Bo Lien’s skin, then reached around to cup the perfection of her breasts from below.

  Zhao had spanked Bo Lien during the endless trip to the House of Sighs, and he had seen her naked but for a few strands of rope every day. But, until now, he had refrained from handling any other parts of her wondrous body, even when she was trussed up like a lamb for slaughter and hanging naked from a tree at night. He had promised Bo Lien that he would make up for lost time once they arrived at his home, “…when your unquenchable lust can finally be sated,” as he put it. This phrase, spoken in the most suggestive tones and accompanied by a smirk and a leer, never failed to bring a blush to the innocent Bo Lien’s cheeks.

  The Duke’s daughter was already so dominated by Zhao (or was she simply intimidated? It mattered not, as the result was precisely the same) that she could not bring herself to make even an attempt to fend him off. She hardly moved as he took possession of her breasts and captured the pink buds of her virginal nipples in his strong fingers. As Zhao tugged and twirled the delicate little heads into stiffness, she made a feeble protest.

  “Please… please, sir,” she breathed in a voice only a little louder than the soft draughts that sighed through the bamboo window shades. “I… I pray you… I am not… ahh…” Her protest, such as it was, came to an end as one of Zhao’s hands slid down her back, slipped between her legs, and probed her newly-shaven mound. He was pleased to discover that, virgin though she was, the Lotus of Yu responded well to having her nipples handled. There was no doubt that she was already aroused.

  She reacted even more strongly when he began to cleverly tease and stroked her. Zhao smiled when Bo Lien closed her eyes to shut out all distractions, so that she would be better able to lower herself into the warm pool of pleasure and forget all else. Under the guidance of Zhao’s experienced fingers, Bo Lien began to move her hips and torso in a lithe and erotic way that would have done credit to a trained temple dancer, although she was altogether unaware of it. Nor was she cognizant of the quiet sounds, somewhat resembling the purr of a cat, that she was producing deep in her throat. It would not be inaccurate to say that Bo Lien had fallen into a kind of sexual trance under the influence of Zhao.

  She became aware of her surroundings again when his fingers suddenly withdrew from her and she felt his hot breath on her cheek. He said, “Perhaps the Precious
Lotus is not so pure as might be thought. At least, I have never before seen an untouched flower come to blossom as swiftly as you. Could it be that you succeeded in deceiving me where your half-sisters failed, and that you were no more chaste than the other whores spawned by your father? How many men have you permitted to stroll through your peach garden before me? Surely no virgin who ever lived has reacted as you.”

  Bo Lien’s forehead and cheeks took on the color of a ripe apple as she heard his words, and considered what she had been doing a moment before. “I… I do not know what you mean, Master Zhao… I have never… no one but you has ever caressed me… down there. In no way have I deceived you…” She trailed off, thinking how unconvincing her words must have sounded after the lewd performance she had just given.

  In truth, Zhao Hua did not believe himself to be a victim of deception. He had no doubts about either Bo Lien’s chastity or her honesty. He was, on the contrary, very pleased to discover how ready to his hand she was and how easily he could arouse her. It was his pleasure, however, to make a pretense of suspicion, so that he could enjoy her shame and humiliation at the way her body responded when he handled her, and also to create an excuse to chastise the blameless girl.