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Continued from Part One
Chapter 2: The Black Orchids
Kiyoto dashed down the Imperial Palace steps, Tokyo's lights sparkling to every quarter against the warm evening. She'd allowed the English ambassador, a captive toy to the amorous Empress Nabuki, to be spirited away by two rival black orchids. Another black orchid, the one she'd bound, tormented and left to the servants, had tearfully told her that the raiders were fleeing the city to the east. That mean she still might be able to overtake them. Her honor demanded nothing less.
Near the palace lay the Imperial docks, situated on a canal. Here lay the pleasure barges and lay-about-junks, over-rigged vessels suitable for gentle afternoons of pleasures and persuasions. But at the far end lay the craft Kiyoto needed, the clockwork dolphin.
The Empress, in an effort to appear modern, had purchased this strange craft from the Germans a year back. Fortunately Kiyoto had demanded instruction in its use. Without delay she was aboard, tossing the lines off and pressing the chrome release lever forward. With a whir, the craft's coiled energies engaged, shooting the low dart-like vessel forward. Regulating the clockwork engine to best speed, she swung out into the channel, racing east for the Iku Bridge, the primary access route to the eastern rice fields.
She clattered past gaily-lit rice-paper homes, those of the well-to-do ladyships. Through panels slid open to capture the cool evening air, Kiyoto glimpsed visions of opulence. Here, a manni slavetoy trussed to a central post, his pleasure-package secured in a leather bag, awaiting his mistress. There, three servant girls who had displeased their household, trussed in tight bundles on the back decking, shamefully naked for all to see and enjoy. And again, a woman of the house lovingly trussed and atop the shoulders of her loyal servant girls, being borne to her opulent futon for a night of restricted pleasure. Half of the pretty boats she passed had girls bound across their bows, living figureheads, the current vogue of the rich.
In the depths of her heart, Kiyoto felt envy. Had she chosen the dark path of the black orchids, she too would have been wealthy. She would have had enough servants that half of them could always lull in bondage, tormented by the other half. She would have had a manni slave of her own, a bound little toy always ready for whatever passionate whims might arise. But no, she'd chosen the sunlit path, that of the white orchids. Duty, not money. Yet there were times when the greed that lay in every woman's heart would speak of doubts and regrets.
Her sensei would have hung her by her heels for such admissions. Clips would have been fixed to her nipples, clockwork dildos inserted fore and aft. She would have been isolated for long hours in her mistress's inescapable ropes. And in that, she would have found the peace of distraction.
Perhaps she would seek out the old yet voluptuous instructor, once this was over. She could remove her kimono, kneel before her, admit her sins. The ropes would come, and with them, the pleasures of punishment.
But first she had recover the captive and regain her honor.
She whizzed around a corner, spying the Iku Bridge. A small party rushed up its western approach and some instinct told her these were her adversaries. She had no time to dock. Rather, she whipped a hookline overhead as she swept between the bridge's pilings. There was a split second for preparation and then the line went taunt, whipping her upwards into a high arc. She looped overhead, ignoring the crash of the boat's destruction, up and over, dropping down to land cat-like in the center of the bridge.
The two black orchids had just cleared her landing spot, whirling as the avenging figure in white seemingly dropped from the sky. The leader's hand grasped a leash of the still-naked, still-trussed ambassador. They'd freed her legs but left the remainder of the Empress' ropes in place, adding a leather hood to conceal her identity and a bright red ballgag to seal away her pleas. She could just be another slave being led off to service as far as any passers-by would assume. Only Kiyoto, with her attention to detail, spotted the gunmetal-gray eyes that shimmered through the holes of the hood.
The black orchids were likewise concealed with leering theatrical masks. But there was no doubting the intent when the leader snapped her finger, gesturing at Kiyoko. The second black orchid, a large and powerful woman, shifted to intercept. Meanwhile the leader dashed off, towing her hooded prisoner.
Kiyoto gauged her larger foe. She wouldn't risk getting within reach; she might end up overpowered. She snapped out a long scarf, one she began to spin before her, a blurring shield. Meanwhile, the other woman deployed a long line, one that whistled over her head as momentum built. Its orbital radii increased, seemingly reaching out for Kiyoto's body as if hungry to bind it up from head to toe.
Kiyoto put her back to one of the lampposts that illumined the bridge. If her assailant tried to lash her up with the line, she'd risk fouling the post. As a countering move, she whirled up the scarf, letting it fly, a blurring gyrocopter blade that floated forward at walking speed. Any woman unlucky enough to be hit by it would be bundled up in short order.
The woman dodged it, retreating back along the bridge, her line still whirling. Kiyoto rolled foward, coming up under her swirling scarf, plucking it out of the air while keeping it spinning, edging along the railing, darting post to posts, dark eyes on her opponent.
A sizable crowd had collected to either end of the bridge, women highborn and low, all watching the combat with interested eyes. What could rival a fight between a white and black orchid?
Kiyoto found herself wondering what would happen if she lost. What would it be like to find herself pinned facedown in the road, a sharp knee in her back, her wrists being corded tightly behind her, her ankles trussed, her freedom lost? How would the humiliation taste, to be lifted up over this woman's shoulder while the citizens watched with glimmering eyes? To be borne along, a hand over her buttocks, her lips pursed beneath a white silk gag. And what then? To lie at the foot of her victor's futon, trussed and stripped, waiting for the woman to come and claim her spoils in the form of gasping shudders and a flickering tongue. Would Kiyoto be passed between the dark orchids, a new mistress every night, her existence that of a house manni, every night trussed, every night used?
Or perhaps, she thought as she drew back to throw, she would claim the black orchid as her own, to hang trussed like a fowl in her own small quarters, to sate her every desire before being passed off to the randy servant girls.
Again her scarf floated forward, a whirling snare. The crowd oohed in approval. The black orchid fell back, yielding more bridge. Yet Kiyoto had to finish this quickly. Every heartbeat let the leader drag the ambassador further away.
Kiyoto had rolled to pluck her scarf out of the air when the other woman struck, the line humming forward, wrapping around Kiyoto's slender ankles, bringing her down. Even as she hit the bridge planking, she managed to keep a grip on her scarf, arresting its spin. With one hand, she grabbed a low beam of bridge railing.
Her assailant gripped her snare line with both hands, keeping up its tension, trying to pry Kiyoto from the railing. If Kiyoto lost her grip, she would be reeled up like a fish, into the reach of the larger woman. Then she'd be tied and carried off to whatever humiliations awaited her.
The surrounding onlookers leaned in, one or two fingering nipples discreetly through their kimonos, stimulated by the fight and Kiyoto's coming trussing.
Now Kiyoto held the railing with both hands, her bound legs trembling like a bowstring, her taunt belly straining with the tension. It was like she was being racked. She thought back to when her sensei had tied her across the back of a stone lion, her back arched, her belly warmed by the overhead sun. The older woman had settled across the stony haunch, jade eyes gleaming in amusement, fingernail tracing the quaking pink belly. For all her efforts, Kiyoto could not keep from laughing, shaming herself with hysterics. This had earned such a tickling that she'd humiliated herself even more by peeing on herself. And there she'd been left, to endure a driving rainstorm and hours of slow drying, all while bound back so painfully across the unyielding stone.
She wasn't sure what the lesson had been. Perhaps her sensei had been playfully horny that day.
But that was the past. This was now. And she was within seconds of losing her grip.
Her dark eyes judged the situation with cool appraisal. Then, sacrificing one hand, she whirled up and threw the scarf with committed accuracy. She managed to point her pretty toes so that the silk passed over them with a brushing caress, one weighted end catching the line, the other maintaining its whirling momentum. And like a propeller blade, it spun its way up the line. The black orchid could only gasp as it spun up to her, whirling around and around her clenched fists, trapping her wrists as completely as if they'd been bound by a slavemistress. Stunned fingers opened, giving Kiyoto all the slack she needed. With a kick, she tossed her feet free, catching the end of the line in her own hands. Before the black orchid could react, she tossed the line over the end of a lamppost crossbrace, hauling down with all her might. With the line still snared amongst her scarf-lashed wrists, the other was winched up nicely against the pole, her hands overhead as if she'd been shackled up in Empress Nabuki's dungeon. Kiyoto ripped away her captive's kimono sash, cording the slippered feet neatly to the base of the pole.
She'd lost too much time against her opponent. She needed to know where the ambassador was being taken. Reaching up, she snatched away the leering mask.
And nearly dropped it in her surprise. At her back, the crowd of women gasped.
It was a manni! The black orchids had trained and employed a manni! This was confirmed even further as the unbelted kimono wafted open, exposing his gender to the widening eyes of the onlookers.
It made sense in a perverse way. Mannis were bigger and stronger. But usually they were cowed, easily manipulated and bundled by even the slightest of servant girls. Kiyoto figured that perhaps this one had been trained in combat, something so... wrong... that it surpassed her darkest assumptions of the mercenary order. When Empress Nabuki found out, she'd have the entire order out of their dark robes and into hemp ropes.
The manni whinnied something about not talking. But the courage that had allowed him to face a white orchid in combat was draining away. Trussed open and exposed before the glowering Kiyoto and a ring of female observers, the manni could only pull helplessly against his bonds.
She wanted to punish the manling for daring to raise weapons against her. But now was not the time for retribution. She needed information, quickly.
And so she knelt down before the trembling manni, her slender fingers taking his sex into her hands, gently stroking it like she would a dove. He cried out something about his mistresses and vengeance and such things but Kiyoto could see his true reaction in his swelling member. Her sensei had taught her how to manipulate these creatures. For days they had practiced together with a peasant manni they'd spirited out of the fields, his body a sensual blackboard, his gagged moans a confirmation of effectiveness. How the fellow had wept as she'd sat over him through the long nights, tracking his sensitive fleshy pathways with an exploitive toe, her dark eyes absorbing his quivering reactions. In the end, they'd left him trussed up on his mistresses' doorstep, to receive whatever punishment she'd dole out for his apparent wanderings. It would be only right, of course. He shouldn't have allowed them to kidnap him.
The manni hanging helpless before her now had fallen silent, no doubt trying to image cold mountain streams and such. To counter him, Kiyoto concentrated on his hardening staff, judging her efforts by its swollen weight and burning temperature. Tracing her fingernails directly beneath its purpling head gained the most reaction, making the manni shift and whimper.
"You are one of the white orchids," asked a highborn lady at her side. Kiyoto noticed that the ring of mesmerized female onlookers had tightened. The heavy scent of excited womanhood hung in the air. The woman looked from the hanging manni to the warrior kneeling before him.
"Do you serve Empress Nabuki?"
Kiyoto nodded.
"I am a royalist. My daughters will assist you."
Behind her stood two kittenish maidens, finely dressed, gawking at the manflesh so openly presented. Kiyoto nodded then gestured. With delighted enthusiasm, the two young noble ladies slipped forward as directed, each placing her hands on the manni's heaving chest, leaning their heads forward to pucker their lips over the sensitive nipples.
The manni quivered as the maidens gnawed, shuddering at the attention. In her hand, flesh grew as stiff and weighty as iron. The manni could knock a door down with his ram now. But Kiyoto kept a firm grip on him, monitoring him. There was one way he could escape, one avenue of blissful flight, and she guarded that pass with attentive care. In her palm, his pulse was racing faster and faster.
A burst of patriotism gripped the onlookers and many more heroically volunteered their services. Kiyoto gestured them into place. Looking up from the brushing cradle of hips and legs that surrounded her now, she saw how the manni seemed to have been fully enveloped by the pressing thong of womanhood. His ears were troubled by wiggling tongues and nibbling teeth. Kisses brushed across both cheeks. Hot palms covered his eyes. Three sets of hungry lips alternated across his own. Hands explored his chest, his belly, his legs. Fingers played across to tops of his feet. And his buttocks were kneaded by many sets of exploring hands.
The black orchid hung from his bonds, moaning into the kisses, flinching before the caresses, staggering from the overload. And kneeling before him, Kiyoto felt him building, gushing towards a titanic release. With a crisp motion, she signaled her heated legion. As if trained at the task, the woman - somewhat reluctantly - stepped back. Kiyoto clamped around the thick root, strangling the passionate explosion in its cradle. The manni canted back his head and bellowed in anguish. Only when he'd calmed did she signal again. Through his tears, the manni watched as the women pressed around him again, the pouting lips and pinching fingertips reseating over his throbbing flesh. And down low, Kiyoto began her stroking again, dragging him again into the spotlight of passion.
Three times did they haul his battered sexuality forth, and three times they checked it. Kiyoto looked up from her merciless grip, smiling cruelly at the moaning manni. The throbbing rod before her glistened with pre-cum which she licked clear with a tiny pink tongue.
"No more," he croaked. "No more. I cannot stand another moment. Follow the road east. Just as it leaves the city proper, you will see a small trail to the south. Follow that. The big-breasts are there."
Kiyoto's eyes flew open. Big-breast barbarians! Foreigners! Here in Japan? Had they commissioned the black orchid raiders?
Suddenly it all made sense. She shot to her feet and cut through the crowd, running at full tilt down the east road.
Behind her, a half-hundred women, excited to fever pitch, turned their attention on the manni hanging from the lamppost. His wails of satisfaction cut long into the night.
27.09.09
story continues in Gai Shift - Orchid 3: Olivia Hammersmith
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