White Butterfly : Chapter 14
As Aya got stronger then so did Rukia's lessons change: She taught him everything she decided that he needed to know. Some days he would spend hours practising the correct way to pour tea - the way to hold his kimono when he held out his arm; how to dress in both men's and women's clothes; the art of calligraphy he learnt with Fuji who taught him how to paint; he learnt sword care with Tezuka because he really wasn't strong enough to learn the forms yet. He both trusted and admired her because she was strong and brilliant and lovely. When he looked at her he often forgot that she was a tiny thing because she had the ability to fill a room.
Whilst she trained him she encouraged that he not spend any time with his master, where before they had eaten together to ensure that Aya ate, she now shared her meals with him, and told him far fetched tales of what she had done as a princess from a foreign land in the distant lands of Europe. She told him about France and Spain, about Germany and Italy. She showed him things she had brought back with her and how of the envoy of nearly thirty that was sent only three returned and how sometimes she felt blessed. She told him of the courtesans of Venice whom she had befriended before she realised that they were not the wives of the courtiers. She told him how they were considered the wonder of the western world and how she would train him to be both, to be a Japanese princess and an Italian whore.
He spent hours with Schuldig and Yohji learning the arts of court, he learnt innuendo and literature in equal measures. He learnt of Crawford's allies in court, and Rukia's for they were not the same. He learned who could be trusted out of honour and who couldn't. He learned descriptions of all the major lords that he could recognise them later. He learned many things but when Schuldig went to teach him go Rukia stopped him. That, she said, Crawford had insisted that he would teach the boy.
He had, in those days, little time to himself, only through the long walks in the evening with Kimi and Sano, because through it all there was Sano, because Rukia thought it best that he keep his friends and the two of them had been dear friends indeed. Often they didn't talk, just walked along the lakeside with the puppy on a leash and watched the setting sun. Yet for as odd as it seemed, it was comfortable, apart from what he was sure was a pair of avaricious eyes on his back that he knew belonged to his master.
Crawford had been explicit in his laws concerning Aya, “If you take a lover I will kill them, to remind you that you belong to me. You will make yourself available to me as and when I wish, be that for sex or company.” He knew that Crawford would honour that, his prolonged sickness was example enough of that, but he also knew from his teachings, that Crawford was a witty man and Rukia, who adored and loathed him in equal measure, wanted to give him an equal. Aya knew that if Rukia thought that then he must be a fine gentleman indeed, no matter what he had shown to him.
Rukia was ruthless in her lessons and though Aya might have been hard pressed to admit it, even to himself, it was obvious to everyone else who knew him that he loved them.
He sat quietly cross legged on the cushion of the music room, the room in which Rukia preferred to give him his lessons because they were less likely to be disturbed on the second floor, and wondered why instead of all the usual spectators there was only the servant boy, Ken, who was being equally trained in different ways to be Aya's companion and servant, and the twins. Farfarello sat outside the door. Rukia had a small wooden box on her knee and the most innocently evil smile. The twins on the other hand looked like they might, at any moment, burst into giggles. Despite the cold they both dressed like Nagi in a short kimono that was open around a tight pair of hanzubon and a wrap around their breasts. Their legs were bare and their hair secured in tight tails at the back of their head with silver clips. Where Rukia looked like a child about to reveal some dastardly scheme in which to spend the day- they looked positively dangerous.
Ken had been stripped to his fundoshi and clutched the table edge over which they had arranged him.
“I will not call this your last lesson, because you will spend the rest of your life in learning, but this is the last lesson I will directly give you.” She smiled to herself. “My husband has been very explicit in how he wanted this lesson to go, hence we have Ken here.” Her smile was wicked and cruel, “and we are going to show you how to please him, but you, my dear Aya no bara,” she had a way that made it sound like a pet name and insult at the very same time, “can only watch, Crawford was very explicit in that.”
Ken had a rather fine musculature made of years working as a servant for the Takatori in attendance to their son. His skin was a pale gold that came of working in the sun and there was already sweat gleaming in the hollows of his back. He had powerful thighs and well rounded calf muscles. His arms were stretched to show the cords of his biceps but there was a pretty flush on his powerful shoulders and neck. Rukia handed the inlaid wooden box to Maya, and with a bow excused herself.
“Two pretties from our master,” Saya said with a laugh, “he does spoil us.”
“One to play with,” Maya added, “and one to watch us, you'd think it was our birthday.” Aya knew then why Ken was scared.
After a quick game of Jan-ken-pyon they decided that it would be Saya who would give the vast majority of the demonstration with Maya explaining what she did. There was gooseflesh forming on Ken's back as Saya pulled him upright. “You must learn to please the master, we will show you what he likes, and what it means to be his chosen, to be the one who receives his love.” Maya sounded as if she would burst into laughter. “He says that you do not like to kiss, so we will not teach you that.”
Aya stumbled out of the room and without looking fell straight into Tezuka, feeling the heat of his hands, Fuji was just beside him as Tezuka helped him to his feet. “I,” he stammered, “Sumimasen,” and he took the opportunity to flee.
He hammered on Crawford's door until Crawford opened the door, “master,” Aya gasped, “I, I,”
“Aya, what is wrong?” Crawford asked leading him into the room. “You look fevered.”
“Master,” he stammered, though he had said he would stop calling Crawford that, “I,”
“you must tell me, Aya, I cannot read your mind.”
Aya bit his lip, but he burned. “I am yours.” He said and undid the tie at the front of his kimono, “please, help me.”
Crawford frowned and pushed shut the neck of Aya's simple kimono. “Ah,” he said, understanding, “tell me.”
“They,” he started, scratching at his neck, trying to release the fire, he wanted something, he just didn't know what. “They tried to teach me.”
“Ah,” Crawford said again. “Is it that you want to show me what you have learned?”
“I,” he was leaning forward against the floor on his hands and his knees, leaning towards Crawford, “it burns, and no one can solve this but you. No one can help me but you.”
“You could touch yourself, like they showed you.”
Despite the heat that raged through his body Aya blushed. “You said I could not.” He protested, “and…” he lost the words after that.
“Is that why you want me, so that I can relieve the fire in your belly?” Crawford sounded amused rather than outraged.
“I,” Aya protested, crawling across the floor to Crawford, putting his hands on his shoulders and pushing him back. “Please.”
“You don't know what you want,” Crawford said as his back touched the floor, and then with a quickness he turned them over so that Aya was above him, his weight between his legs and Aya arched his hips and rubbed his erection against him.
“Please.” He said, “please, you said that it was the master's responsibility to watch over those in his care, to protect them. Please, help me.”
He was rubbing against him, but Crawford only felt a kind of amusement at seeing the boy like this. He had not Seen it, and he wasn't sure he liked it.
“Please, master, please.”
Crawford was only human and he took a deep breath of the boy's hair. He smelt of soap and lust and lingering incense, there was also a hint of the stink of sex about him. His hands found the way to the neck of Aya's kimono and yanked it open, undoing his Hakama and pulling them out of the way to bare his erection.
He wasted no time in preliminaries, because Aya could not have withstood them, he wetly licked his palm and brought it to him. A few quick jerks of his wrist and Aya came with a low cry and then turned his face away. He took a few minutes to collect himself and then gathered his clothes about himself and would not look him in the eye.
When Crawford reached out to touch his cheek, he jerked away with a muttered “Sumimasen,” and clambering to his feet to went the opposite way from the door and pushing against the wall, revealed a passage into the doll room that was his own. Crawford looked at the wall for a few moments in amazement because he had not known the passage was there, but knew that it meant that he could visit his concubine without the whole house knowing and smiled.
Glossary
Ameratsu – The Sun goddess of Shinto
Aneki – older sister
Bikiko - Hel
Dairai – imperial court
Daimyo – a landowner or lord.
Danna – a patron
Doitsujin - German person
Ecchi – pervert
Edo – another name for Tokyo
Fundoshi – a wrapped loincloth worn by men
Gaiden – legend
Gaijin – Foreigner
Gei - art
Genkan – small area in front of the door where shoes are kept
Genki – chipper
Geta – a type of sandal, named for the sound they make
Hakama – split culottes
Hanzubon – shorts
Hikarin – Schoen
Horimono – Japanese tattooing
Iki – sense of style.
Juni Hitoe – Lit twelve layers
Kaasan – Mother
Kawaii – an exclamation of something’s cuteness.
Kimi – she who is without equal.
Kimono – a decorated robe
Konketsu – half-breed.
Kyu – the lowest ranking in Go
Minarai – a time of learning by imitation
Mizuage – a deflowering ceremony
Moku – two corresponding lines in go – marks one area
Monogatori – lit: story of a person; romances or stories
Nagajubon – a light white kimono worn under the more ornate robes
Natto - fermented soybeans
Nigiri – a pressed rice ball
Nihonjin – Japanese person
Noh – a type of drama performed with masks
Obi – the wide belt used to fasten a kimono
Okaasan - mother
Omemie - Neu
Omusubi – wrapped rice balls
Onmyoji – sorcerer
Ouji-sama – your highness.
Seppuku – ritual suicide by disembowelling
Seppun – the act of pressing mouths together- the worst of all perversions.
Shibari - the art of rope tying
Sumimasen – the most formal way of apologising
Tabi – split toed socks
Takoyaki – fried balls of octopus and flour
Tansu – a Japanese chest. This is a distinct style
Tanto – a short bladed sword, usually used by women, part of a set
Tatami – a mat, rooms are measured by tatami
Tayu – a very high-class courtesan, also called an Oiran
Usagi - Todt
Yukuta – a light cotton kimono worn for sleeping or festivals
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