Buch lesen: «The Blonde Samurai»
Praise for Jina Bacarr’s the Blonde Geisha
“The Blonde Geisha far surpasses Memoirs of a Geisha, bringing to life the scents, sights and sensual sensations that are uniquely ‘geisha.’ You will swear you saw cherry blossoms, tasted sake from a tiny, porcelain cup and felt the touch of a lover’s body on your own. Jina Bacarr does not merely tell a sensual tale, she invites you to partake in a pleasure that is exquisitely erotic and utterly unforgettable.”
—Aysel Arwen
“Ms. Bacarr is well on her way to being an extraordinary writer.”
—Erotic Romance Writers
“The wordplay is extraordinary…Ms. Bacarr’s voice is like a songbird; many will fall under its sensuous currents. [A] remarkable book.”
—A Romance Review
“Erotic romance fans should be prepared for lots of teasing!”
—Publishers Weekly
“An astounding, wonderful debut novel from Jina Bacarr, an author not to be missed!”
—The Mystic Castle
“Bacarr’s debut novel is a rich reading experience, especially for those interested in Japanese history and culture. Its language is lovely, even poetic, and the atmosphere has a rare and pervasive sensuality.”
—RT Book Reviews
The Blonde Samurai
Jina Bacarr
MILLS & BOON
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To my husband, Len LaBrae, whose steadfast loyalty
and belief in me makes him my perfect samurai.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have always believed Japan is a land of contrasts. Reserved, quiet and silky on the one hand. On the other, erotic, adventurous and mysterious in the sensual ways of the Far East.
It is also the land of samurai. Bold, dedicated fighters who followed the way of the warrior known as Bushidō: loyalty, duty, self-respect, honor. The samurai are well-known in the West and recently we have seen female samurai celebrated in pop culture. I applaud this retelling of historical fact in a modern context since samurai women were also schooled in the way of the warrior and often fought alongside their men in battle.
To my knowledge, no female gaijin, foreigner, has ever become samurai. The word itself is gender specific and refers to trained male warriors. The idea of a western woman entering this world may be off-putting to some, but the thought has always intrigued me. Would she have the strength and fortitude, both physical and mental, to undergo the rigorous training required to become samurai? Could she peel away the outer layer of samurai life so often portrayed in books and films as strife and rebellion and see the inner beauty and passion that it takes to become a warrior? I have tried to answer this question in The Blonde Samurai.
As is the way of the Japanese, this story came about as a group effort. I wish to thank my wonderful editor, Susan Swinwood, for believing in me and encouraging me to take a bold step forward and tell the story of the blonde samurai.
And thank you to my dearest friend and agent, Roberta Brown, who sparked the idea of this book with her keen sense of story and her undying faith in me.
PREFACE
San Francisco
15 September, 1876
’Tis not an easy task I have, dear lady reader, to respond to the vicious gossip spread about me through Mayfair drawing rooms since I returned to England. Whispers of euphoric nights with not one but two men pleasuring me; mysterious items to soothe a woman’s burning need for clitoral touch and fill her with orgasmic bliss; the erotic game of domination with girls strapped down and flogged upon their bare buttocks. Did I take part in these wild imaginings? Or are they merely tales fabricated by a besotted male scribbler to sell his stories and make his fortune?
You be the judge as you continue to read, and I hope you will, for pages and pages of erotic delights await you. What is undisputed is that I ran away from my husband and disappeared. Some say I went mad and was confined to an asylum. Others insist I entered a convent. Neither is true, but the scandal I provoked shook the standards of bland respectability and sobriety that govern the upper class and started nonstop discussions about what they deemed to be my outrageous behavior and what should be done about it.
Done about it? As if they alone exist on a lofty plane and rule all those below. I subscribed to no such rules and they shunned me for it. I will shock you further, for I shall begin my story with a confession, one that will titillate you and give you another reason to speculate whether what you’ve heard whispered about me is true. ’Tis a fact that I, a spirited daughter of Erin by way of America, came to London in the summer of 1872 seeking a titled match. Be it known my looks were plain and my opinions brash, sending my marital prospects into discord among my suitors, though for reasons I shall make clear in these pages, I married well. Yet the first man I took to my bed after my wedding night was not my husband—or yours—but one of the most mysterious, elusive and enigmatic men in all Japan. A samurai.
His name was Shintaro.
I shall never forget the moment the tall, muscular samurai swept into the room, his heavy walk making the wooden floor tremble, his presence commanding, electrifying, his melodic, deep voice speaking to me in his native tongue about waterfalls and flowers and the gods as if he was a poet and could produce an alchemy of words to create harmony between us. I burned with such desire I could not catch my breath. All I wanted was him. Bold, handsome he was, and as persuasive as the wind nudging a morning glory up the vine with his heated breath, exposing her to the sun, then seducing her to open up to him and live her vivid, unspoken dreams in his arms.
I knew Shintaro as a man with a deep passion for everything artistic and refined, including the grace and repose of the erotic “spring drawings.” He took great joy in demonstrating to me the sexual acts depicted upon these woodblock prints, down to the most exquisite, savory detail. Yet as a member of the warrior class, he harbored an intensity for warfare and honor and adhered to their strict sense of personal loyalty with a readiness to fight and die without hesitation; he also possessed a readiness to make love to me with the same vigor, his need for me burned indelibly into his soul. When I was with him, my spirit was as light as a cherry blossom floating slowly to earth, its pure fragrance scenting the passion of our union with a fresh innocence, yet hiding no thorns under its petals like the English rose.
Then a great tragedy came upon us and I was forced to leave Japan and return to London. Not an easy venture for me, dear lady reader. I harbored a profound uncertainty that I had assimilated so deeply into my life there that coming back to England would be unsettling and difficult. Had I known what scorn and ridicule faced me, I would have changed nothing, for I am destined to write this memoir and be faithful to the tale as I have lived it. I admit I have crafted my story in an enchanted world owing much to feminine perception and fancy, but ’tis my belief my memoir will evoke a response in you that will have far-reaching consequences beyond the telling of this tale. My hope is you will discover another side of your intimate self as I have, a side which will tempt you to deviate from the prevailing standards and expectations in your romantic life and allow you to enjoy the sexual act with his lordship to its fullest—or with any gentlemen you take to your bed.
To allow you to do so, I have chosen to write the story of my adventure as an Erotic Tome for Young Ladies. I came upon this idea because of a certain incident known to many readers of this book that occurred on the twenty-fifth of April 1876 at the London town house of the Viscount Aubrey. An evening of fun and gaiety was in play until I entered the room and all heads turned. Curious, questioning, some envious, for arousing tales about my powerful and masterful samurai lover had preceded me. Word passed quickly among the sanctimonious ladies of Mayfair. “That Carlton woman has arrived,” they whispered. They couldn’t take their eyes off me, scrutinizing my gown, my figure, my jewels, for I had dared to leave my husband and seek my own life among the samurai. In the eyes of the British aristocracy there was no greater sin.
I shall not spoil the story if you are unfamiliar with the newspaper accounts of the scandal, but suffice it to say I’ve left unnamed those of you living in London who are innocent of any wrongdoing. And though the exclusive upper class is well represented in my story, be advised their names have been changed. ’Tis a spicy tale, dear lady reader, replete with the words and phrases known to and used by the male sex. Before we begin, you may wish to open your reticule and remove your smelling powders. You will need them. I warn you, you may be shocked by my story, but never bored.
Tomorrow I sail for Yokohama from the port of San Francisco aboard the SS Oceanic. By the time you read this, I will be home, for that is what Japan is to me now. Hearth and home. There I have known the joy of a passionate love, the pain of suffering a great loss and the importance of duty if one is to survive. I count the heartbeats until I arrive back in Japan, but first I shall send off these final pages by post to my solicitor in London, Mr. Robert A. Brown, to give to my publisher. I wish to thank him for his unending support during these long months of writing and deliberating over whether or not I should pen this memoir. He has given me the courage to do so and made it possible for me to secure a contract with the best publishing house in London. In many months hence, this book will be in your hands. Then it will be up to you, dear lady reader, to decide its fate. I realize your fascination with reading my memoir lies in making your heart beat faster by recalling with me my romantic interludes with my handsome samurai. Fear not, in due course, I shall set into motion the frightening incident in Japan, which thrust me into his arms. But first I shall sketch the previous acts of the drama that make up the fabric of my story, beginning with my wedding night and what followed so you shall understand all the events that transpired, be they sensual, provocative or tragic.
If when you come to the end of my story you accept my words as truth, then I have succeeded. Shintaro will live not only in these pages, but in your heart, as he does in mine.
Lady Carlton née Katie O’Roarke
1
Mayfair, London
26 August, 1872
My extraordinary journey to embrace the way of the warrior began in a posh town house in Mayfair.
On my wedding night.
It was a London society affair replete with the trappings of engraved wedding invitations, cascades of floral abundance adorning the church pews and lavish gifts whose glitter dared not be anything but gold. And me with a diamond tiara atop my head ornamented with so many pear-shaped stones I creaked my neck trying to sit like a swan, though I was more the Yankee ugly duckling. Did I mention we had a bishop among the clergy presiding?
I can hear you groaning at my description, ready to toss the book aside before we land upon the silken earth of the Orient, fearing you have chanced upon the prim meanderings of a young matron lost in romantic illusions before she takes to her bed while her husband visits his mistress. I assure you this is no such missive. ’Tis fire and passion I reaped when I dared to abandon a life of privilege and taste for the way of the warrior. Riding the wind to meet the gods, slashing through the rain, my arms bending from the weight of the heavy steel sword in my grasp, a dirk nestled between my breasts near my heart. But I’m allowing my passion for this life to raise a fever in me and deliver me from the memory of what happened on my wedding night. It was a different instrument of pain that made me twitch and moan. An item worn and smooth and without the sharp point of the sword but just as accurate to reach its mark.
A black riding crop.
I shall never forget what should have been a night woven with satin threads and romance, wanton kisses and honeyed sighs. Instead, I was shocked to see my new husband racing up the stairs after a saucy redhead and whipping her plump backside. I ran and hid in a teak garderobe that smelled of whiskey and snuff and mold. A strange desire awakened in me, making me want to know more about this suggestive, mysterious world that disturbed me, stimulated me.
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.
