The Duke of Yu's Daughter Read online

  “Do not trouble yourself to create new fabrications in aid of the earlier ones,” Zhao snapped. “You will only earn yourself additional punishments.” He took a sheaf of her long, black hair and led her by it to a low table of rough wood. He threw her face downward, and then pulled her forward until her head was projecting over one side of the table and her neck was resting in a semicircular cradle of wood. This became a full circle when Zhao closed an identical piece that was mounted on a hinge, over her neck, and locked it. Bo Lien was trapped, her head on one side of the hole, her body sprawled out on the table on the other.

  She had not seen the cold-blooded Zhao angry before (or, as here, affecting to be angry), and she was terrified of what he might do to her. “Please, Master Zhao, I spoke no untruths!” she called with desperate intensity. She twisted her head about, hoping to meet his eye and so persuade him of her sincerity, but he was now directly behind her, where the pillory would not allow her to see. “I beg you, sir, I… uhhh…” Bo Lien spoke no more, as Zhao unexpectedly appeared and jammed block of wood deep into her mouth, then quickly fitted a leather mask over her chin and jaws, fixing the block in place and effectively silencing her.

  When he was done, he lifted her chin to face him, and said, “I will listen to no more of your lies, whore. Before you leave this table, I will have the truth out of you.”

  Bo Lien screamed, “You have it! All I have told you is the truth. There was no one before you!” Between the obstruction filling her mouth and immobilizing her tongue, and the mask which kept her from opening her jaws, this emerged as a soft jumble of noises: “Aaaah, huhhh, gggggg…” and so on.

  Lights exploded in her head, when Zhao’s big hand cuffed her across the cheek. “Silence,” he ordered. “Before I begin your correction, you will learn that, as with everything else in this house, this will be done in the way I desire. Your feet must be well apart, your legs straight, and your bottom high and presented for punishment.”

  Bo Lien did her best to comply with these instructions, but her first attempt failed to satisfy Zhao’s strict requirements. She heard something whirr through the air and then felt it cut into the softness flesh where her buttocks joined her thighs. The spankings she had received at his hands during the long journey from Yu had not prepared her for the sudden burst of agony produced by the stroke of the bamboo rod (for that was what he had struck her with).

  Bo Lien screamed to express her pain, but gagged as she was with wood block and leather mask, she managed only a muffled “Mmmmmm!” Her lower body bounced from side to side as her legs performed a frantic, uncontrollable dance.

  The first stroke of the bamboo rod was followed by a rain of blows on the Lotus’ delicate flesh, accompanied by a lecture from Zhao. “When I give an order…” swish, whack! “…I do not accept partial obedience…” swish, whack! “…nor obedience in quarter- or half-measure…” swish, whack! “…I expect complete obedience…” swish, whack! and so on, until the former smooth expanse of white skin on her bottom globes and the backs of her thighs had turned to an field of burning red welts atop more welts. To Bo Lien, it felt as if her flesh was being flayed from her body. She bounded wildly about under the attack, while alternately pleading for mercy and promising better obedience, but with a mouthful of wood, it all came out as a series of animal sounds: “ggggg, aahhhgh, errrr…” and the like.

  Bo Lien continued to twist madly for a time after Zhao ceased to castigate her, for her punished flesh still throbbed mightily for a long time, even after the blows no longer fell. After a time, the pain lessened enough that she was able to take note of something else. She saw Zhao standing before her, the bamboo rod in his hand.

  He knelt so that their eyes met. When he saw he had her attention, Zhao asked, “Is the proud daughter of the Duke of Yu now prepared to take direction from a mere knight?”

  “Yyyyy!” Bo Lien answered, bobbing her head rapidly to show her heartfelt desire to obey him. She was at that moment no longer the proud daughter of anyone; she was no more than a suffering bit of flesh, a creature with but one purpose: to avoid further pain.

  “Let us hope so,” he said. “I should dislike having to remove all the skin from your bottom simply to obtain your compliance with this simple order. I will now instruct you in the proper position. Your belly should be pressed down on the table and your back curved upward in an arch. Your legs must be straight, and your feet fully extended.” Zhao tapped each of the body parts named with his rod as he spoke.

  Bo Lien instantly shifted her position to comply with these instructions. She realized that her breasts and belly had been penetrated by a number of splinters from the rough unfinished wooden tabletop while she had been writhing in agony under the beating, and she had only just now noticed it. The position required by Zhao caused her to rub the front of her body on the wood, so that the splinters dug into her breasts and abdomen in a way that made her wince and groan in pain, but she nonetheless obeyed.

  Zhao examined her efforts and was still not satisfied. “You will stand straight…” here he cut up between her thighs with the bamboo rod to raise a pink ridge on a previously untouched area, across the mound of her sex, causing Bo Lien to shriek and jump a foot in the air, “…and hold your ass high…” This time the rod found the little brown flower of her anus, and she twisted like a maddened beast, “…or I will flay you like a rabbit. Do you understand now, pampered child of privilege?”

  These last two strokes were more terrible than all the ones that had gone before. Bo Lien had never imagined such torment existed. She nodded her head so rapidly that her hair flew about, hiding her face in a black cloud, and glittering tears sailed into the air in all directions. With all that remained of her strength, the Lotus forced her feet and legs higher until her hamstrings and the tendons on the backs of her ankles stood out beneath her porcelain flesh, and the bunched muscles of her thighs and calves could be plainly seen.

  “Pllllll, nhhh huhhh,” she begged softly but fervently, meaning, “Please, no more.”

  Zhao ran the bamboo rod lightly up the backs of Bo Lien’s straining legs and over the fiery mounds of her hind-globes, then grudgingly said, “That will do, for now. Remain exactly as you are until you are given leave to move, if you value my good will.”

  “Yyyy, ahh uhhh,” Bo Lien promised, rolling her eyes at him, hoping that he understood her attempt to say, “Yes, I will.”

  “Good,” he answered. “Now, watch and listen well while I speak with Chao-Xing, before I punish you for your attempts to mislead me.” He strolled back to the other girl, who had been waiting helplessly during Bo Lien’s correction.

  “This is Morning Star,” he said, speaking to Bo Lien, “the young daughter of the Count, who I acquired along with this estate. Despite all of my efforts, she persists in performing her duties with insufficient enthusiasm, and I am constantly obliged to provide encouragement.”

  The beautiful daughter of the late Count of Xang-Chi protested, “ Nnhhhh, nhhhh!” and shook her head. As she was wearing a great ring gag, this action dislodged a pool of spittle that had gathered in her mouth and sent it to flying out of her obscenely open jaws to spatter on the floor and spangle the out-thrust cones of her breasts. Bo Lien interpreted this to mean that Chao-Xing denied Zhao’s accusation that she had performed her duties unenthusiastically

  He ignored her, and stooped low to lift one of Morning Star’s lovely breasts in his hand, displaying it for Bo Lien. “You will note this small device on her nipple. I purchased it during my most recent visit to the Kingdom of Wo. It is called, in their ugly tongue, mesu kuranpu. I am told it means ‘bitch clamp’. The people of those islands are barbarians, naturally, but it must be admitted that they have, in a few things, surpassed us. The dwarf bandits know a great deal more than we about the proper way to handle females, and they have developed many clever devices to control their own bitches, devices that are not known here. This, for example.” He flicked a finger at the little object that was clamped
over the base of Chao-Xing’s nipple, and she yelped in pain.

  “It is a very simple thing, really,” he said. “It is just a twig of some very springy wood, perhaps half a chi …” (about 3 inches) “…long, which has been split endwise up half its length. To use it, one spreads the split ends open, and then lowers it around whatever part desired and allows the ends to draw back together again. Morning Star is wearing one on each of her buttons…” He took the devices in his fingers and gave them each a playful tug, drawing a screech from the helpless girl. “…and, as you might suppose, she is not finding them to her liking. Do you enjoy playing with my toys, little one?”

  This last question was directed at Chao-Xing, who answered by shaking her head, again flinging strings of shiny drool into space, and moaning, “Nnnnn!”

  “You will note how swollen the ends of her buds have become,” Zhao continued, now addressing his remarks to Bo Lien. “I should think they must be more than a little tender by now. Shall I investigate?”

  Chao-Xing shook her head again. “Nahhhh! Ohhhhnnnn!” the girl answered in a desperate shriek.

  Zhao chose to interpret this as her consent. “Good, then we shall proceed.” He took the two dark bulbs at the tips of her nipples between the sharp nails of his thumb and forefinger of both hands, and pinched into the swollen flesh. Morning Star screamed wordlessly and thrashed wildly, flinging her torso from side to side to the extent allowed by the strict bonds holding her. Her head was thrown far back in her distress, and the cords in her slender neck showed forth in sharp relief.

  “And now, my fine young slut, you shall have the chance to demonstrate the extent of your devotion to your master,” Zhao said. He opened his robe to reveal his stiff manhood. It was at least, Bo Lien estimated, a chi-and-a-half long, and perhaps a quarter of that in diameter. “Does my jade stem impress you?” he asked the staring Lotus Flower.

  As she had never before seen a man’s erect turtle head, Bo Lien was not so much impressed as she was frightened and disgusted. What did he intend to do to poor Chao-Xing with that vile object? she wondered. More importantly, what did he intend to do to Bo Lien with it?

  Zhao Hua now introduced the end of his organ into the open mouth of Chao-Xing. “Caress it with your tongue, whore,” he demanded. “Lick it, suck it, make it welcome in your worthless mouth.”

  She did wrap her tongue over the end of his rod as he directed, although to Bo Lien’s eye it looked as if she might as easily have been trying to fend off the monstrous object as attempting to please him. Whatever Morning Star intended, the result was the same: he advanced inexorably into the open cavern of her mouth, and she could do nothing but accept him.

  Zhao again took hold of the wooden clamps on her nipples, twisting and pulling them sharply. At the same time, he pressed his stiffness deeper, filling Chao-Xing’s mouth completely and invading her throat. Her shrieks of pain Zhao felt as exciting vibrations on the head of his rod.

  For Morning Star, this experience was an almost unendurable nightmare. Each twist of the little devices embedded in her sensitive flesh sent flashes of blinding pain through her body. Meanwhile, Zhao’s pole was burrowing deep into her throat, obstructing her breathing and simultaneously making her want to retch. She was certain that she would die of asphyxiation before he was done. As her vision grew gray and steel bands clamped around her chest in token of her need for air, Morning Star actually began to see this as an improvement. At least then she would no longer feel the pain from Zhao’s painful treatment of her nipples.

  An instant before the ring of darkness closing around Chao-Xing’s brain gathered her in, Zhao pulled his manhood out, gave a great bellow and, holding his rod pointed at her, discharged his essence on her.

  “That... is the proper… way to blow… the master’s flute,” the red-faced Zhao Hua panted. “You will perform this task exactly this way henceforward.”

  Green eyes stared in disbelief from the lovely, humiliated Morning Star as she desperately gasped air into her starving lungs. Not for the first time she prayed silently to her ancestors for the gift of a painless death. As always when she so prayed, there came from her ancestors no response.

  Chapter Seven: A Dutiful Wife

  After having his way with Chao-Xing, Zhao relaxed for a time in his chair, recovering his strength and mentally comparing the charms of the two girls who displayed their nude bodies for his pleasure. Although they had been born only a few months apart, he decided that the more curvaceous Morning Star appeared to be a mature woman, perhaps five or more years older than her actual age. The Lotus, on the other hand, with her great, innocent eyes and exquisite, almost boyish figure, looked very much younger but could have been almost any age.

  The hardheaded Zhao was far from certain that he believed in such things as spirits and magic, for in his experience, all magicians were frauds. Nor he had ever personally witnessed any sort of spirit, either the allegedly malevolent kuei or the supposedly benevolent shen. But somehow, he was unable to completely dismiss the unsettling feeling that Bo Lien was not wholly of this world. Indeed, she did not appear to be a creature of flesh and blood only, but seemed to be composed of materials not found in nature, like a cloud-spirit, or some similar being of the supernatural realm. In short, Zhao was a little afraid of the Lotus’ almost unnatural beauty, although he did not admit this to even himself, and very possibly did not even consciously realize it. But it did result in an urge to treat the girl with even greater harshness than he did his other sex toys, both to prove to his own satisfaction that she was only an ordinary human being after all and also to punish her for causing him discomfort.

  He untied the string holding the leather mask that stretched tightly over Bo Lien’s face, then helped her to work the spittle-soaked wooden block from her jaws. “You will answer all my questions with absolute candor, and you will keep no secret back from your future husband. This, along with perfect obedience, is most important attribute of a dutiful wife,” he told her.

  He walked around behind her, noting with silent approval that she was still holding the position in which he had left her, although her legs were beginning to tremble badly. He did not think she would be able to continue to stay up on the tips of her toes very much longer, but she had already maintained the pose for far longer than he would have expected. This was enough to demonstrate to Zhao the extent of Bo Lien’s submission, for now.

  “You may place your feet on the floor,” he told her, “but you shall remain as instructed otherwise.”

  Grateful for even this small concession, Bo Lien relaxed the cramped muscles of her legs, lowering her heels to the ground.

  Zhao now reached one hand up between her legs to spread her wide and slip two fingers inside her warm, silken pocket. As he had been standing where Bo Lien could not see him, she did not know that he had coated those fingers with cream from a jar he had taken from the pocket of his robe before he inserted them inside her sex. This cream was another product of the Kingdom of Wo, which Zhao had acquired on one of his trading expeditions to the islands. It had the effect of sensitizing and inflaming the female sexual parts to such a degree that a normally functioning young woman would be quickly become very highly aroused when it was applied to her erotic areas. Zhao hoped that on Bo Lien, who he had discovered was rather more easily excited than usual, the cream’s effect would be extraordinary. He silently massaged the greasy salve into her, then took control of her love button and rubbed it between his fingertips. As he had expected, she responded immediately, undulating her hips in little circles as if following the motions of Zhao’s fingers. Her pulse grew steadily faster and her breathing more shallow and rapid as he continued.

  “You claim to be chaste, yet you roll your hips like a common slut the moment I touch you, and your untouched …” he gave the word heavy, ironic emphasis “…channel runs like a river,” Zhao said at length. This was nothing less than the truth: moments after Zhao fingers had invaded her girlhood, she was highly aroused. “Expla
in to me then, how this can be, or else admit that you are no less a slut than your half-sisters, and accept your punishment for your fabrications.”

  As she had in fact been both chaste and truthful, Bo Lien had no explanation to offer. She was confused and ashamed of the way her body reacted so readily and uninhibitedly to Zhao’s caresses, and in any event she found it increasingly difficult to think or to carry on even a simple conversation while the great waves of sexual arousal flooded her young body and beat at her brain. She tried her best, stuttering, stopping and starting as Zhao’s clever caresses made her thoughts scatter like a flock of doves overtaken by the shadow of a hawk.

  “I… I cannot say… say what… oooh… I mean to say, why I am… ahh, honorable sir, when you touch the way you do, I… ahhhh! I cannot help myself …” the distracted Lotus babbled.

  Zhao smiled grimly. Precious Lotus was more apt to his hand than even he had hoped. Never had he known a female so easily brought to such a state of excitation. He dipped more of the salve on the fingers of his free hand, then reached down and forward toward the supine girl.

  “Bend your back, chest up, belly down!” he snapped. Bo Lien was as lithe as a young sapling and she responded immediately, raising her upper torso to shape her body into a graceful curve, and thereby offer her delicious little breasts to his hands.