The Blonde Samurai

Are you shocked? Insulted? You’re a young woman of good breeding, I hear you say, modest, shy. I’m Irish-American and proud of it, though too often my fiery race is dismissed with a cutting glance meant to be a public snubbing by stony-faced termagants suffering from the social disease of snobbery. I ignore them. I don’t care about their political citadel with its perfunctory restrictions and bloodless debutantes in their swinging crinolines keeping their suitors at arm’s length. I grew up riding bareback, my hands and face often gritty from digging into the wet, soggy bowels of the earth to feed our empty bellies before my father made his fortune.

I come from a hardworking, God-fearing family and never had it in my mind that I’d live in a posh house. But here I am, Thomas O’Roarke’s daughter, Katie, hiding and holding her breath as she watches the intoxicating scene played out before her in this Mayfair town house. Not what I expected married life to be when I attended Miss Brown’s School for Young Ladies, where I was bred to become a grand lady by the headmistress herself, Miss Herminone Tuttle. I wanted to please my mother (who so desperately wanted one of her daughters to make a successful marriage), so I dabbled in the folly of silks and corsets, gossip and scented notes, singing and drawing lessons, all necessities coveted by a girl of my nouveau riche status to furnish her female arsenal. Day after day Miss Tuttle lamented about my chatty nature, spurred on by my insatiable curiosity to question everything. Not wise, I discovered, for a girl born in a white frame house in the Pennsylvania woods, a plain girl with more brain than bosom who linked her dreams with her emotions and sensibilities. No wonder I was rejected by every eligible bachelor approved by the Knickerbocker Society matrons.

But it was my mother, dear soul that she is, who established my power base of teachers and dressmakers and embarked with me to London with one goal in mind: husband hunting. She emphasized to my suitors I had money and plenty of it. (My father is a railroad tycoon, a self-made man with more guts than schooling. He’s a grand da, always encouraging me to be the inquisitive lass that I am. “Katie, me girl—” my father is fond of saying when we spar over a political issue “—you have more fighting spirit in you than any man I’ve met.” How I love him.) But I had no real path, no realm laid out to pursue my dreams. I often asked myself, What is to become of me? We Irish often find ourselves taking up the more unsavory professions, such as following the life of an actor, or worse yet, a writer. ’Tis the gift of words bestowed upon us by the rulers of the heavens, and I be no exception. I find myself more oft than not in trouble because of it, but I can’t keep my thoughts to myself. I speak before thinking, making my observations with a keen, dry wit and at times without tact, which is why I kept neither beau nor my mother’s faith I’d ever make a match. No amount of primping and lavender water could take the smell of horses and hay out of this girl who crossed the Atlantic to find a husband among the British aristocracy.

To my mother’s dismay, more than one London suitor complained I was too quick with the sassy remarks and too eager to express my opinion. She chided me for my boldness, emphasizing that eligible males were more interested in the sway of a girl’s body than the wit of her words. Here again, I failed the test. I was taller than the fragile English girls paraded around the circuit for three months out of the year. Thin as paper doilies they were and each one cut from the same curlicue pattern. I was fair-haired and blue-eyed and cut a good figure with a small waist, though I had boyish hips.

Then the forces of nature took it upon themselves to present a delicate rearrangement of destiny (also known as the exchange of a great deal of money), and I received a proposal of marriage. As was more the custom than not in these hasty marriages, I went to the altar knowing little about my husband, save he had a title and a manner of looking at me that made my pussy burn with longing.

My hunger for romance proved to be my undoing when I allowed myself to be wooed by this deviant aristocrat with wild black hair and a slight limp. His chest and shoulders were broad and strong, his head held high as was his ego. I noticed the wide dimple in his chin deepened when he set his mouth in a grim line. Lord James Carlton was as handsome as a prince of the realm and he knew it. He exuded charm, though I would later discover this show of assuredness and sybaritic demeanor concealed a different side of him that when challenged erupted into a dark, decaying soul.

I knew none of this when I accepted his hasty proposal of marriage. Trying to hide my surprise as well as my girlish pleasure, I fancied myself in love with him and could not admit that what I felt was mere infatuation. What did I know about love? Nothing. What I didn’t know I concocted into stories, romantic tales too often centering around an idealized heroine created out of an alchemist’s bottle.

And now this display of bare skin and beautiful breasts and round buttocks askew before my eyes, what God himself had designed to covet the devil’s lust, made my mouth drop. How can I explain to you the emotions racing through me? I was a young girl, barely nineteen, and though I rarely admitted it, I was rather naive about the ways of the world save for what enticing books I’d read in this house, their salacious descriptions never matching the rise of anticipation playing out before me. I couldn’t take my eyes off the girl’s buttocks. Red streaks crisscrossing her cheeks. Long, straight marks. A wild craving hungered deep within me, something I never expected, as if my dark alter ego was enjoying the pleasurable lashing. I never dreamed so innocent an item could induce such a look of pleasure on a young woman’s face. Eyes closed, plum lips parted, jaw slackened, head back, glorious red hair tossed to and fro over her pale nude shoulders, her expression could only be described as saintly, as if the blows from the crop erased her sins from her soul and she floated toward the heavens in a state of spiritual ecstasy.

Hail Mary, full of grace…

I envied the freedom she possessed to accept the shadow of her other side, something I dared not do. Though I prided myself on my independence and my modern view of a woman’s place in society I was, through no accomplishment of my own, Lady Carlton, wife of Lord James Carlton, his lordship born to Braystone House, a fifteenth-century limestone goliath situated somewhere in the Midlands and unknown to me.

As was this side of my husband.

A mischievous giggle escaped my lips. Who ever dreamed his lordship fancied a taste of the whip for his pleasure?

Settling in, I’d had little time to accustom myself to his persona since I was a stranger to this new reality, but this display of flesh and depravity took my breath away and evoked a different feeling within me. A feeling that both puzzled and delighted me. Sniffing the sweet, odorous scent between my legs off my fingers, I smiled and accepted it as a sign of my readiness to abandon my virginity for pleasures promised. I pulled the thin wrapper closer around me and in doing so, awakened a family of dustballs from their slumber. I couldn’t deny my ego was as fragile as the ball of dust I crushed beneath my bare foot. It was obvious my husband took no interest in the fact that his bride yearned for his embrace and had performed a succulent toilette for his benefit. Hours ago I had wiggled into a cocoon of peach silk and fancy ribbons, insisting the maid loosen the lacings on my night corset, then peeled down my white stockings and attempted to do the same with the constrictions of my staid upbringing. I was determined to enjoy this night, asking him to “Touch me here, milord, and there. Yes, I like it. Do it again.”

I was at this moment without words. Dry lips parched, I could only stare at the scene being played out in the dimly lit room in the five-story house in London’s Mayfair district near Berkeley Square. Flanked on either side by equally elegant facades, I had been impressed by the crest of arms upon the gate piers nearly obscured from view by the rich foliage surrounding the mansion. No doubt so was the ribald behavior of its occupants.

Cramped, I continued to watch my new husband wield a riding crop with a dexterity that not only slapped the pink rump of the willing girl with inviting sounds, but clearly indicated his familiarity with both the pretty subject and the leather instrument. Calculated, solid blows. Each perfectly aligned and making the girl cry out. Breathy whimpers at first, then rising sounds both shrill and anxious, accompanied by the fast, constant cracking of what I perceived to be a very ordinary-looking riding crop.

Ordinary? I shook my head. Nothing here was ordinary, I protested inwardly, knowing far more than skin and flesh was revealed here. I saw a man who craved power, who must conquer, dominate. Such a man intrigued me, but I was too innocent to see the treachery inside him that would eject me from my ordinary world and into a place where temple bells sounded to announce the changing of the winds, monks uttered incantations to keep demons away and the echo of a man’s voice reverberating in a hidden valley urged me homeward. As you can see, I find it difficult to pull myself away from what has become so familiar to me in Japan, but I must because it is important you understand the unique happenings on this night that sent me upon that journey. Curious thoughts pricking at my mind. Odd murmurings nudging me not to turn away, but watch, listen. Sigh.

I couldn’t look away.

Strange stirrings awakened deep within me, the same sensual, wiggly feelings I’d experienced only when I rode through the woods on my mare, my pubic mound pounding hard into her flanks. I didn’t resist the stream of pleasure overtaking me. I imagined should anyone gaze upon my shocked face, they’d see me wide-eyed and incredulous, then a slight smile, my lower lip quivering, turning into a look of amazement then awe that such a thing could make me wet.

Very wet. Yes, I detected a stickiness between my legs similar to what I’d noticed on more than one occasion when I was near Lord Carlton. James, he insisted I call him. When we first met, my mother doted on him when she discovered his father was a duke, then shooed him away when he revealed he was a second son. It wasn’t until his lordship made his business connections known to her that she convinced my da he was a proper match and our marriage banns announced. I had no idea then the marriage would set the course for a great adventure that tugged at the transparency of my youth and made me realize the life I led was as fruitless as rich, fertile earth without a plow to penetrate her, nurture her.

But at that moment, hiding in a closet like a rag doll teetering on a shelf, I could think only of what my new husband was doing to the redhead and how much she enjoyed it.

’Tis not a sight for a girl of your station, I could hear my mother saying. Look away, Katie, before the devil himself claims your soul.

But he already had. And what games he played in what I perceived to be a spanking room by the looks of the nefarious items I saw tossed about on the floor, strewn on the table, thrown across padded chairs. Wooden paddles, thorny evergreen brushes, a cat-o’-nine-tails, leather straps and restraints, manacles attached to wooden beams, a black hood, a high-back wing chair, even birch canes standing in a china vase filled with water to keep them pliant and green. I had read about such items, but I had never been privy to seeing them.

I perceived here a woman desirous of a spanking, whipping, birching, scourging or prickly brushing could get her bellyful. The thought was scandalous to me. My eyes, wide with curiosity, stared and stared. I tried to swallow, but my struggle against what I was seeing and what thoughts it provoked in me tightened my throat muscles, nearly choking me. The idea of my new husband as master of such items altered my perception of married life and changed it from a light romantic flight of fancy and awkward physical coupling to a sensual, highly erotic, naughty union of flesh.

Would he lay the crop upon my bare backside?

No, he wouldn’t dare take such a liberty. I was his bride, not a woman of the streets or a spritely maid with a taste for domination, a pawn in the game known as the English vice.

Flagellation.

Was this what the two maids chirped about whenever I hovered near this room, this den of decadence? Dressed in shiny black polished cotton and white lace collars, cuffs and caps, the younger miss, Lucie, and Campbell, her older counterpart, made no secret of their curiosity of me. My American ways, my wardrobe from Paris, my light-colored hair bleached a pale gold from sun-drenched days astride my mare. They stared and stared, their sturdy low-heeled boots banging on the wooden floors as they scurried back and forth all day to make our rooms ready for this night…

Though I wasn’t involved in the daily ministrations of this London town house, earlier I had overheard the two maids chattering about a night dark and decadent where his lordship might “fancy a lick or two with the belt on a mott’s pretty haunches before he found the keyhole to her ladyship’s door.”

When I confronted them and asked what a mott was, Lucie blurted out that such a person was a prostitute from a lowclass neighborhood. She was quickly rebuked by the older woman, a portly soul who wore her white lace cap on her head as straight as a ruler, and sent away, leaving the rest to my imagination. Campbell apologized for the girl’s insolence and insisted she was fresh from the country and knew nothing about what she spoke, then attended to my toilette, offering me no further explanation. I pretended to dismiss the incident, since I was certain the maid believed I had aligned my expectations about marriage with the puritan ideal that the wedding night was a dreamlike state consisting of whispers and rustlings in the dark. Nothing more. I dared not change that in her eyes lest she discover my secret.

What I had found in the town house library.

While Mother spent her time fretting about my white satin wedding gown from the House of Worth, the arrangements for my marriage at St. Peter’s Eaton Square, and the newspaper coverage following my every move, I yearned for something else to read besides the English Lady fashion magazines or domestic guides she deigned I should acquaint myself with before my marriage. I was hungry for heartier literature, though I had no reason to suspect what I’d find in the library would be of a salacious nature.

Upon entering the room, I was pleased to observe that the top-floor study had a clublike atmosphere: wood paneling, oil paintings, leather armchairs and chandeliers made from Venetian glass. Its sensual energy overwhelmed me when, and to my delight, I discovered the owner of the town house entertained a most interesting collection of rare books. Very rare. And quite scandalous.

Hiding several slim tomes under my skirts, I secreted them to my rooms, where I devoured the reprint of The Decameron of Pleasure, along with Lascivious Gems and A Night in St. John’s Wood. Dog-eared copies showered with brandy stains and cigar burns. A gentleman’s retreat that I have no doubt had never seen the delicate step of a lady’s fine leather boot. Until mine. And stamp my footprints upon its polished floor I did. Many times. I inhaled the erotic literature as if it were an overpowering perfume that opened the door to the secret life of this British nobleman.

Lord Penmore.

It was his house where we resided and his library.

After our engagement was announced, James had insisted Mother and I enjoy the privacy and comfort of the elegant West End residence owned by his friend and associate away on business in Japan. Poking about the library, I also discovered a cache of letters of a most dubious nature written by Lord Penmore to my husband. Accounts of his visits to a disreputable quarter in Tokio known as Yoshiwara with brilliantly lit streets, people eating and laughing, bony fingers plucking a tune with no beginning, no end, the discord of life forgotten in the dark corners where young girls beckoned him with sweet smiles and slender bodies wrapped in white silk kimonos. He also wrote of turmoil and dissent among the military men he called samurai. Burly, hard-drinking soldiers who, according to Lord Penmore, wielded their swords at whoever insulted them. I shall neither confirm nor deny his reports, for I fear revealing too much will raise such disbelief in you that you will return this book to the shop where you purchased it and demand your funds returned.

I retreated back to my books, lost in the lurid details of French courtesans and lords engaged in a pleasing act known as soixante-neuf. I had hoped to engage in this robust position with my new husband, head to tail, his cock within reach of my lips, his tongue busy at my pussy, licking and sucking, exploring the sweet juices oozing from my folds. As I read, each word dripped from the pages and into my psyche as easily as the morning dew settled onto a thirsty flower petal. I failed to acknowledge that I had not yet blossomed under a man’s touch. Such hopes I had, since this elegant town house was also where I was to spend my first week of married life before embarking on a honeymoon to Paris.

So you can understand why I smiled when, after the lavish wedding reception, my mother kissed me on both cheeks and whispered in my ear I could loosen my night corset but not remove it. And if I lay very still, she assured me in an even voice, it would all be over quickly.

My father glanced toward me but said nothing, though I saw a grim look on his face that troubled me, as if he hadn’t accepted the idea his daughter was a married woman and subject to the erotic whims of her new husband. What would he say, I wondered, if he knew Lord Carlton had a penchant for riding crops and plump bottoms?

I turned my attention back to the scene playing out before me, knowing I was trapped inside the garderobe, dust up my nose, the scent of snuff adding to the precarious teetering of my psyche. A bride living out her fantasies and creating a world where she was merely a voyeur instead of a player. A little voice reminding me we’re trapped by our deeds only if we choose to be. I couldn’t deny I was curious to see what happened next, as I believe you are, too. You wouldn’t be reading this far if you weren’t. I assure you, by the time you arrive in the land of the samurai with its scattered pine woods, crimson foliage and the floorboard that sings when the head of the samurai clan approaches, you will be perspiring (yes, ladies do perspire), your chemise unbuttoned, the lacings on your corset loosened. So pray, do not lecture me, telling me I should have leaned back in the closet, fallen asleep and waited for them to leave, since curiosity has been known to skin the pubic hairs of even the most careful pussy. I should have. But I didn’t. And I would pay the price for my folly.

“Please, my lord, more, more…” the girl yelped.

“I shan’t disappoint you, wench, though I can’t wait much longer to fuck you.”

To my horror, though jealousy was a more descriptive mot for what I was feeling, I could see James kissing her buttocks; then he drew the riding crop through his fingers, caressing it and making it shine with the sweat of his palms.

“I’m ready for you, milord,” the girl said, cooing.

An unseen female voice laughed, then said, “His lordship won’t have enough energy to fuck his new bride if he takes us both.”

Who else watched the intrigue being played out here?

“Mind your mouth, Sally,” the other girl said, her voice breathless. “Lord Carlton has enough rod to please both of us and his new bride.”

“Who said I intended to bed the American?” said Lord Carlton, rubbing the back of the girl’s bare thighs. “I dare say I imagine the twit is asleep, though I should wake her. Observing a good whipping might open her eyes to what’s expected of my wife, eh, Bridget?”

How dare he speak about me in such a manner!

“Begging your lordship’s pardon, but who needs her?” Bridget laughed. “You can whip me arse for as long as you like.” She wiggled her buttocks, then parted her fleshy cheeks with her small hands, exposing the puckered hole for his lordship’s visual delight. “And make use of me back stairs for your pleasure.”