Hara - Kiri

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“Would you like to go outside?”

Usagi turned toward the soft voice, surprised by the question. His brown eyes with a deep frame of thick black lashes turned shyly to the face of the speaker. Tenshi waited, admiring the pretty concubine. Tenshi was Master Tsuki’s most trusted ‘business associate’, and a common presence in his house…around his slaves.

Usagi and Yami, like matched bookends, were their Master’s most loved and jealously guarded possessions. Usagi was male, and Yami female. Both were in their late teens, and although seemed happy under the ownership of the crime lord, they had come from very different pasts, with dreary backgrounds in the city’s strife flooded streets.

Yami was not as clever as Usagi; indeed there was some doubt to her intelligence. She was content to play for hours with kittens, or nap indulgently on her Master’s bed. Usagi displayed more emotion in his still face and slight form, often restless or bored, fidgeting for lack of anything with which to put his mind to.

In the house, during the day, with the window veiled or heavily covered, he tended to be most uneasy, pacing and sweating, fighting with the hood of his full body covering that his Master required both his pets to wear, and wore himself.

It was said, that Tsuki was so jealous, he would not even share his beauties with the sun. But this was not precisely true. Tsuki was a very superstitious man, and had lived long enough to form his own superstitions. His name meant moon, and from that, he believed his power came. From this belief sprung the idea that for any member of Master Tsuki’s house to go out in the sun, or let her look upon them, was very bad luck.

That is why the question surprised Usagi so. Tenshi knew that it was forbidden, particularly for those so close to Master Tsuki. But Tenshi was his own Master, and could walk out in the sun if he so chose.

It was a long moment before the slender, pale boy answered. “Yes.”

Yami, reading across the room, comfortable in her black cloak; had not heard the heresy. It was hardly more than a whisper, anyway. Even Tenshi had to strain himself to hear it slip softly from Usagi’s sweet lips.

Those changeable brown eyes shifted to Tenshi again, to see what he would do. More cleverness than it took to be a whore, Tenshi saw there. Much more. Perhaps…too much.

“You must keep your cloak on very tightly. And it will be hot.” He warned.

Usagi’s brows furrowed slightly at the test. “But you will not tell?”
“No. I will not tell.”

Usagi gazed at him for a moment, then glanced about. “What if he came, and I was not here?”

“Are you not permitted to relieve yourself without his permission?”

The lashes lowered. “I am.” Usagi admitted.

Tenshi walked to the garden doors, covered with heavy dark cloth and locked. He unlocked them, and swung one open. Yami looked up in alarm. Usagi motioned her to keep silent by putting a finger to his lips.

Yami mirrored the motion, but as always, Tenshi was unsure how much she understood.

Usagi’s soft sandals whispered across the floor with determination. Like a shy bird, he paused just beyond the pane of sunlight spilled across the floor. Tenshi waited. Those eyes sought him again, far too intelligent for a creature of his station. Only a stupid, lovely being like Yami was meant for this kind of service. And perhaps not even her.

Tenshi put out a hand. Warm sunlight coated it. Usagi’s own hand rose shyly, gleaming in the sunlight, and lay in his palm; soft, dry, and a little cold. Tenshi pulled Usagi forward against his chest, heart pounding. Usagi’s lips were moist, wetted nervously at his daring. Tenshi’s knuckles nearly caressed the smooth cheek as he adjusted the black hood.

Usagi gave a small cry when Tenshi pulled him out onto the patio, setting his feet off the path, in the thick grass. He had been here before, yes, many times, with his Master. But never, never in daylight. He trembled, afraid. Mistaking his shaking for cold, Tenshi stepped closer, pressed warmly against his back. His hands cupped the bony shoulders in front of him.

Tenshi was a tall man, and Usagi came to his shoulder in height. Yet he still seemed so small in stature, so slight. Usagi’s cheeks flushed with conditioned response to the man’s closeness, and he lowered his eyes nervously, feeling every aspect of this forbidden moment. With a shh sound, the wind blew, shaking the trees, and startled by the changes in all the light, Usagi fled backwards indoors. Caught by surprise, Tenshi was pushed before the boy, and felt that here really was muscle on the lad, quite a bit. Wiry bone-deep strength, that didn’t show.

Usagi lifted a leg and kicked the door shut. After it slammed, his panting eased, as his eyes adjusted to the familiar indoors again. Yami peered at him, decided he was fine, and went back to her book. Tenshi stepped away from Usagi, vividly aware of the other’s warmth.

Usagi remembered himself, and his manners. “Thank you.” He said.

*****

That evening, at dinner, Tenshi couldn’t help but watch Usagi. The change in him was immediate. He seemed to be lost in a dream more and more, and if Yami didn’t remind him to eat, he forgot his dinner; and the formal table with Tenshi as guest, completely.

Tenshi was very good at hiding what he was really looking at, and commented on the beautifully carved wooden table more than once. Master Tsuki seemed pleased that his good taste was noticed, and ignored Usagi. Usagi was always looking distant to him, he saw no change. Indeed, Tsuki rarely looked past his beautiful face and form anymore, although when he had first gotten Usagi he had tried to win his affections.

Yami got more of his interest than did Usagi, probably because she couldn’t take care of herself. As a courtesy, so as not to stir up jealousy, Usagi had the same number of servants to care for him as did Yami, but he was not likely to get jealous of her. He looked on her as a little sister. She loved him, but since she didn’t understand family concepts too well, she wasn’t sure what she loved him as, but she did love him. And her Master too, in her own way. He had been kind to her, after all.

Master Tsuki had a habit that annoyed Tenshi, but he was too polite to ever mention it. Tsuki liked to give things his own names, mainly Usagi and Yami. He called Usagi Shiro, and while this shouldn’t have annoyed Tenshi any more than Tsuki calling Yami Nezumi, it did. But who was he to tell a man what to call the servants of his own house? Tenshi kept his mouth shut, as was proper.

Near the end of the meal, Usagi seemed to awaken, for Yami was holding her teacup to his lips. She always liked to give him the dregs of her cups, a practice that dated back to when he was new to Tsuki’s house, and so bitterly starved he could accept little other sustenance.

After pleasing Yami, Usagi sipped his own tea, then set it aside and reached for his Master’s cup of hot sake. Tsuki smiled indulgently, and let him have it. When Usagi had drained it, Tsuki permitted the servant to give him more. Tenshi ate his own meal, and ignored Usagi getting quietly drunk.

After the meal, Master Tsuki took Yami’s hand playfully, and led her away. To Usagi, he said, “Go to your bed, my Shiro. Perhaps I will have you another night.”

Usagi nodded miserably, feeling rejected, and finished his last cup of sake before trailing out of the dining hall. Tenshi followed him.

In the corridor, Usagi paused, and turned his head to watch Tenshi approach out from under his lashes, listening. “What is it?” Tenshi asked.

Usagi glanced about then turned to face Tenshi. “You follow me.” He took a step toward him. “You watch me.” His gaze flickered over Tenshi’s body, and he pressed close enough that Tenshi could feel the wind of his breath. “You want me.” Every word was formed with delicate precision, gripping Tenshi’s libido like velvet. And yet it struck him still to the core, because it was true.

Usagi’s impossible lashes rose, and his chin, bringing the tiny moon of his face up into the meek starlight. His lips parted. “Kiss me, Tenshi.” He whispered, inviting.

Tenshi hardly knew what he did, it felt surreal to lower his face to kiss those soft, full lips, to feel slim hands in his hair; for Usagi’s response was immediate, welcoming, and wanting. His own hands slid around the slender waist, and he reversed their positions to push Usagi against the wall, to feel his body, to kiss him with hunger.

Their kiss broke when he felt Usagi curiously sucking air from his mouth, and when they parted; he himself was out of breath. Usagi’s hands slid down his arms from his shoulders tentatively, eyes turning down, hesitant.

“Would you refuse me?” Usagi asked.

“Yes.”

“Would you refuse me twice?”

“Yes.”

Softly, “Would you refuse me three times?”

“I could not.” Tenshi admitted. Once for duty, once for honor. And then he would be lost to his desire.

Usagi spread his hands wide. “Have me.”

“I cannot here.”

Usagi took his hand in reply, and resolutely led him to his bedroom, a full wing apart from Master Tsuki’s quarters. He shut the door behind them, and opened the blinds halfway, to admit the silvery blue light of night.

“Take me.” He offered again, untying his gown and letting it drop at his ankles. Tenshi looked at him, in sheer pants open to the whims of breezes, bare chest silhouetted by the light, and said, “I cannot.”

Usagi untied the pants, and let them fall, then turned and stepped onto the wide window ledge, his body striped by the slivers of thin light. “Please.” He begged.

Tenshi’s mouth was dry. “Yes.” He said.

He strode to Usagi, and since his head was even with the younger man’s belly, bent his neck and took the small, ornate cock he found there into his mouth. Usagi’s pubic hair was all trimmed smooth, but his male smell was there, if slight. Shaking hands found their way to massage his scalp, even as Tenshi’s tongue sought at the slit, probing, and found the rich flavor he desired, a tantalizing little taste at a time.

Usagi’s breath was hitching, and he moaned when Tenshi moved off him, away. He reached out blindly for the other man’s shoulders, even as Tenshi put his hands around the little rib cage, at Usagi’s waist, and lifted him down. Usagi’s eyes shone in the dim light wetly, devotedly, as Tenshi kissed him again.

Their groins pressed together, and Tenshi’s cock surged and reared at the contact, hungry. Usagi’s left hand cupped him, drawing an eagerness Tenshi had never known before out of him. His right hand clawed gently for the tie to his pants, and finding a clasp, undid it. Then Tenshi was free, and he toed off his shoes to press himself to Usagi once more, removing the pants as well. His hands cupped Usagi’s small, firm buttocks, and kneaded and squeezed hungrily. Usagi’s hands made quick work of his buttons, and like his jacket, Tenshi’s shirt went sliding off his shoulders to the floor.

Usagi reached next for Tenshi’s hair tie, that held his long hair away from his face. It fell free in long black strands, and Tenshi leaned forward under this curtain to kiss Usagi. He reached for a long hairpin, pulled it free. Slightly mussed, Usagi’s long black hair fell to his waist in scented waves, still a little damp from his pre-dinner bath.

For a long time, Tenshi stood wondering in the starlight and simply stroked Usagi’s skin, every inch of it he could reach. Usagi’s own hands explored, and his body he made completely available to the roving hands of his lover, holding nothing back, nothing. Their lips slid damply together, teeth clinked, tongues rubbed.

Tenshi glanced for the bed, and began backing Usagi onto it. Usagi felt it against his calves and fell back, hair falling sleekly about him. Tenshi leant over him, and crawled up, even as Usagi crab crawled on his back to the middle of the bed. Tenshi ducked his head, and loved Usagi’s neck, and was treated to a moan, and feverishly clasping hands on his back, lean thighs clamping about his hips eagerly as he settled into position.

He paused to kiss Usagi again, finding the way and making it ready as gently as he could, as Usagi would let him. Usagi was eager, the muscles in his stomach tight. It would not take long for him, Tenshi knBut But he knew also, that he would not last long. Usagi rolled to his belly, and lifted his buttocks, inviting. Tenshi’s cock seemed to gain new weight, straining as if it had a life of it’s own.

Usagi waited, trembling, as Tenshi knelt behind him, and traced the tattoos Tsuki had put there. He was eager, and his spine flexed as Tenshi leant down to kiss it. Usagi groaned as he entered, braced himself, lowered his head and swallowed him up, to the very root. Tenshi bit his cheek until the blood came, and began to thrust when Usagi began to rock.

For what seemed and endless moment, they moved together, and then Usagi cried out and lowered his head and arched his back, coming. Tenshi moaned, but he was not close. Usagi, luckily, was generous in his abandon, and patiently and responsively waited, until Tenshi’s second wind came to an end; Tenshi pushed deep, tilted his head back, and went still, his hips moving in little jerks inwards without pulling out. He came down gently, slipping free to lie on his side with Usagi in his arms. Sleepily, Usagi made a comforted noise, and sank into blissful slumber, putting off thoughts of consequences for another time.

Tenshi waited until his lover slept, then crept down to lay his head on Usagi’s thigh, and held the other to his chest. Usagi’s toes twitched, but he did not wake. Tenshi pulled the covers over them both.

*****

Master Tsuki rose early, before noon, and left his little Nezumi sleeping in her nest of pillows on his bed, and went to see to Usagi. The boy would probably have a headache; he might bathe him to make him feel better. Tsuki needed a bath, himself, anyway.

The first thing he saw when he entered Usagi’s rooms was sunlight. Angrily, he said, “Shiro, you forgot to close the blinds, you stupid boy!” Pulling his hood tight, Tsuki closed them himself, and turned to Usagi, who was blinking dazedly, his brows drawn together.

“Shiro!” He shouted angrily at the boy. Usagi flinched, and then, suddenly awake, stared at his master in terror. Tsuki’s brows knit, and then he smelled the scent of sex. Usagi was not one to pleasure himself. There were clothes on the floor too big to fit Usagi.

Tsuki grasped the covers and pulled them off just as Usagi pulled the string on the blinds and jerked the curtain down from its hangings. Tsuki screamed and backed away, shielding his eyes from the bright light. Angrily, he turned and stumbled down the hall, unable to see Usagi’s escaping suitor.

“He’s going for his sword!” Usagi said in terror, himself unused to the light. He let down the blinds again.

Tenshi snatched up his clothes, and kissed Usagi’s cheek one last time before going out on the veranda and leaping from the low, decorative balcony. Usagi watched him go, terrified. His head hurt so badly, it was hard to think. He laid down a moment – he could not escape his Master’s wrath, anyway.

Master Tsuki stormed back in. “Where is he?” He demanded of Usagi, but looking at the balcony door, which was ajar. He stormed to it, and peered out, but saw no one. He whirled back on his slave, and grasped the unresisting Usagi by the hair. “Tell me! Tell me who it is!”

Usagi struggled, and fell on the floor, but Tsuki held on to his hair, his face red with rage. “Tell me!” He demanded again.

When Usagi did not answer, he raised his sword. Usagi closed his eyes, long lashes fanned against his cheeks. The sword swung, and Usagi fell to the floor. When he realized he was still alive, his breath was gasping, soblike. From Tsuki’s hand dangled many years’ growth of hair, raven black and shining. Usagi was marked with shame, now.

Tsuki reached for one of the hair ties on the vanity table, and tied it around the bundlhen hen he set it high on the wall, and put his sword through it, pinning it there. With a glance at Usagi, who lay facedown on the wood floor, Tsuki said, “I will find them.”
Then he stomped out.

Servants meekly reappeared in his wake – Usagi’s usual team of hand slaves. They usually cared for his hair, his clothes, his baths, his rooms. None of them said anything about the scandal – just went about their duties. With them was Yami, looking frightened.

“I heard yelling.” Shid, id, standing over him. “I scared. Usagi? Are you all right?”

She went gracefully down on her knees as he sat up, fighting off the urge to sob. “I’m fine, Yami. See?” He faked a smile. She petted his shoulder, knowing he was distressed, and he leaned his brow against hers. “It’s just my hair.”

Yami just then seemed to notice, and she gasped in horror. Her fingers went through the rough, uneven strands, so pitifully short. “Oh, Usagi…your hair. What happened to it?!”

Wordlessly, he pointed at the wall, where the sword still rested. Yami looked at it, but it was plain she didn’t understand. She turned back to him. “I fix it. You see, Yami fix it, ok?”

He didn’t answer, but didn’t protest either, when she was handed scissors by one of his hairdressers, and began cutting. He bit his lip as locks drifted past him, to the floor. At last, Yami seemed satisfied. “There, see? Yami fix.”

Usagi was handed a mirror, and he looked into it. His lip was pink from where he had bitten it, and his hair was so short. Yami’s hands rubbed over his shorn scalp as he watched ie mie mirror, and she babbled about it looking good, and tweaked it, and played with it. He let her, his eyes captured by their unblinking, red-rimmed reflection. He looked pale, he noticed.

A guard entered the room, and all paused, or slowed, to listen to his message. The guard shifted uneasily, and averted his eyes from Usagi. “The Master wants them dressed. Separately. After she dresses, he wants her to come to him. He will call the other when he is ready.”

Yami obediently left, and Usagi permitted his slaves to bathe him, and dress him. There wasn’t much to be done with his hair, he knew. When the preparations were at last done, the servants exited, leaving him alone.

Usagi rose, and quietly went to the window. Pulling aside the curtain, he looked out at the daylight everywhere. It was no use now, whethe dhe did or not. Tsuki was going to kill him, he knew. A yakuza’s life is short, but even shorter when one serves little purpose. Usagi did not want to die. He wanted Tenshi, and to live, even if he never saw the sun again. He had brought bad luck, Usagi thought to himself, by going out in the sun with Tenshi.

His mind searched desperately for a way to buy back Tsuki’s favor. When he thought of something, he wrung his hands, unsure. It was a very old tradition, and it might do him no good. But what did he have to lose, now?

He went back to sit at his vanity table. He thought it over; and making a decision, opened up the little drawers on the table, and drew out a piece of ribbon, his sharp dagger, and a handkerchief. He inspected the bones of his littlest finger, felt the joint. Then he kissed it farewell, and tied the ribbon just below the joint.

Laying his hand flat on the table, and taking up the dagger, Usagi had to pause and take several deep breaths to calm himself, with his eyes closed. Then with a dull thud, he struck, and the dagger buried itself in the table. The pain was intense, and he wrapped the kerchief about it. It was not bleeding too much, because of the ribbon, but still it bled, and it hurt. On the table lay the last digit of his finger, the neatly manicured nail still garishly pristine and intact. When the finger had ceased seeping, Usagi delicately laid the kerchief over it, and left it for his attendants to clean up. Perhaps it would stain the wood forever after he was gone.

Usagi decided he would like that, as he wrapped the injury in a fresh cloth, after loosening the ribbon. He wasn’t sure if he should take it off right away or not. He held the wound on the table still, being careful not to get blood on his clothes, or smudge his makeup with tears.

In the quiet, he could hear someone’s TV. Tsuki didn’t liVs, Vs, and he had never let Yami and Usagi have one. He was afraid they would get big ideas, and be unhappy with him.

Usagi hadn’t needed TV to be unhappy.

The pain eased some, but his head still ached fiercely, and the whole hand throbbed angrily. If he lived, it would heal, Usagi assessed.

It was nearly two by the analogue clock on the wall when someone was sent for him. Usagi followed submissively behind the woman, who vanished as soon as they entered the dining hall.

Master Tsuki sat at the table, but Yami sat in Usagi’s usual seat at his right hand. Shamed, Usagi lowered his lashes and waited to be commanded.

Tsuki seemed to notice him. “Come here, Shiro.” He said almost gently. Warily, Usagi’s eyes flicked at his Master, but he did not obey.

Silence reigned. Yami’s downcast eyes flitted nervously.

“USAGI, HERE!” Tsuki thundered.

Yami flinched, and slowly Usagi shifted his weight onto the closer foot, and then took a step forward. Soon he had crept up to his Master’s chair.

“Kneel.” Tsuki commanded. Usagi did so.

“Give me your right hand.”

Warily, Usagi moved it away from where he held it protectively against his chest, and noted it might be bleeding again. Tsuki’s eyebrows flicked in surprise at the sight of the bandage. He knew what it meant. He glanced at Usagi, but the boy was looking down, and he only saw his shorn head.

“Yami.” Tsuki said softly. She handed him a tiny cage with a cricket in it, meekly. Tsuki pulled a pin from his sleeve, and picked up the creature between his thumb and index finger. Usagi’s hand gripped Tsuki’s chair arm in fear, instead of just laying on it submissively. Tsuki pressed the insect against the back of Usagi’s hand, and very swiftly, stabbed the pin through it and into Usagi, saying angrily, “You are MINE!”

Usagi gasped, and his eyes teared, for the smallest hurts are felt worst of all. Yami’s eyes widened as she looked at the squirming cricket, but she did not weep; for she had never had thought to give little creatures compassion.

“Both hands.” Tsuki commanded, taking from Yami her belt of slender black silk ribbon.

Hesitantly, Usagi laid both hands on the chair arm. Tsuki bound his wrists tightly, yet decoratively. Then he leaned forward and kissed Usagi on each eyelid, which fluttered shut obediently.

Then, from his own plate, Tsuki selected a choice bit of food. “Are you hungry?” he asked, even though he knew Usagi had not eaten in hours.

Usagi’s eyes closed submissively, and he opened his mouth.

*****

After the meal, Master Tsuki instructed Yami, “Take him back to his rooms.”

Yami helped Usagi gently to his feet, and he held his wounded and bound hands against his chest. She slipped an arm around his waist and led him off, even though he knew the way as well as she.

Inside the dim quiet of his rooms, with the homey warm sunlight coming in the slitted blinds on the honey finished pine, Usagi relaxed a little. Yami helped him to his vanity table, where her nursemaid stood, lips pursed with disdain. She held in her hand the bloodied kerchief, and with some disgust handed it to the maid cleaning the table.

When she reached for him, he flinched, but Yami quieted him. “Let her clean and dress it.” She said, sensing that there was hurt, and pain. “Megumi, make him tea. The kind that make hurt go away.” The nursemaid curled her lip, but would do as requested. Usagi permitted the woman to unwrap and clean his wound, sensing that she would be gentle, despite her disapproving bluster.

Yami seated herself on a footstool and spoke to him, her usual thoughtless babble. “They are saying in the halls that you have brought bad luck on Master. They are saying that his house is cursed. He told me that we would be moving in a few days, and that he would look a long time to find a new Shiro. Will the new Shiro be as nice as you, Usagi? Will he be as nice to me? As pretty?”

Usagi winced as she stroked his short hair, and didn’t answer. The hope that had flared in his heart when Tsuki rebuked, then kissed and fed him began to die with her words.

The nursemaid was nearly finished when a soft knock came at the door. A servant quietly opened it, and a young man entered, his face entirely hidden by a vase loaded with cherry blossoms. Usagi’s eyes widened as they were set on his vanity near him, and the boy gave him a piece of paper before bowing and exiting as softly as he had come.

Yami leaned close to see the paper, and on it there were simply three marks, one of which was cut into the paper. Usagi crumpled it in his fist, and when Yami pawed at his closed hand, he gave it to her to play with.

The nursemaid finished her duty, and led Yami out by the hand, still with her ball of paper.

The room was silent when the door shut behind them, but Usagi knew at least one attendant was still present. He was being watched, guarded.

He sat deep in thought for some minutes, reflecting on Tenshi. Had the other yakuza escaped? He sighed, and supposed it didn’t really matter. Not to him, anyway. His fate was decided.

A second knock came, and in entered an old man, with a fine silk gown in his hands. Pinned to a sleeve was a second piece of paper. Usagi knew what was on it, without looking. Nevertheless, he had been handed it, and his curiosity was not satisfied unless he looked at it. Three marks, two eaten through the paper with acid. Usagi crumpled and dropped the paper on the floor. It rolled up under his seat.

Usagi ignored it, and waited for the third gift to arrive. While he did, he looked down at the cricket pinned to his hand, watched it’s legs twitch. It was very nearly dead. He sighed when another knock came, and no one answered the door. Were the attendant and guards dozing?

“Open the door.” He said lowly, and it sounded loud in the quiet. The attendant appeared from behind the tapestries and scurried to answer the door.

This time it was a young woman, just past her flower of youth, yet not middle aged. In her hands she carried an easel, pencils and paper. She eyed him, and looked around the room. Then she set up her easel and papers and pencils, and came to arrange him. He glared at her.

She adjusted the cherry blossoms first, after handing him a third paper, this one with three lines burned into it. He sighed and dropped it to the floor, as she was offering to support his elbow to help him stand on the vanity chair, with the big ornate mirror behind him. The artist tugged at his clothes, decorated him with paper butterflies and chrysanthemums, and toyed with his hair, all in a very businesslike way.

He rolled his eyes at Tsuki’s sense of drama. A final portrait? Really, the honor was too much. Usagi was restless, but did not dare fidget. The artist stood behind her easel and began to work, and he sighed and resigned himself to enduring. The tea forced down him by ungentle hands was helping; the pain was not nearly so much now.

Motion beyond the artist in the doorway caught his eye, and Usagi looked up through his lashes to see Master Tsuki there. Seething quietly, Usagi fixed him with a dirty look, and held this glare as long as Tsuki was willing to meet his eyes. Tsuki looked a touch amused by this, but there was an air of sadness about him as well.

How dare he be sad? Usagi was quietly furious, well beyond angry. He was likely going to be dead by dawn tomorrow, and that bastard dared grieve when it was all his fault? Usagi had never asked to be the bed warmer of a crime lord. He certainly would never have chosen it. He was snatched right out of his admittedly poor life for his beauty at a tender age, just past puberty, all because he suited someone’s fancy.

The scratching sound that had faded into background noise ended, and Usagi’s tunnel vision broke. Tsuki looked away, and walked into the room to admire the drawing. “Show him.” He told the woman.

She glanced up at Usagi, and then turned the easel to face him. His own face glared back, gaze steadily on a person dimly reflected in the mirror. Usagi scowled. Surely he wasn’t all that pale. Yet he said nothing – it was not his drawing.

Tsuki seemed pleased with it, however. He stepped up to Usagi, and looked up at his slave. He plucked Usagi up by the waist, and set him on the floor, careful of his bound hands. Usagi remained stiff, and lowered his eyes, hiding them behind a thick black veil of lashes. “I want you to wear the gown tonight.” He ran a finger along Usagi’s jaw, and untied his hands, instead affixing the ribbon, leash-like, about Usagi’s throat. “Come to my rooms.”

Almost gently he unpinned the still twitching cricket, and laid it on the table. Then he stepped away, and left. Usagi breathed a sigh of relief, and went to go lie down, irritated by the man. It was some time before would be proper to go to Tsuki, not even dusk yet. He drowsed a little, a plan forming in his mind.

When he woke, it was to his team of attendants, wishing him to begin preparing to go to Master Tsuki tonight. Apathetically, he permitted them to bathe and dress him, then lead him to his Master’s chas. Ns. No one disturbed the leash hanging down his chest. There they left him.

Usagi opened the door hesitantly. All was dim within but for a few lone candles about the room. Tsuki was sitting up in the bed, watching him. Usagi shut the door behind himself. Tsuki spoke. “Come to me.” Usagi obeyed, and Tsuki took the leash’s tail in his hand.

“There is a gift for you, there.” He gestured toward a low table, atop which a delicately woven basket with an intricate pattern was set.

Usagi approached the basket warily as Tsuki fed out the leash, expecting everything from knives to dead doves. What he did see, when he lifted the lid, he was completely unprepared for. He gasped in horror and dropped the lid back on, then backed away. His wide eyes flicked to Tsuki uncertainly.

“If you wish to see the rest of him, look out the window.” Tsuki said calmly.

Usagi closed his eyes and swallowed hard, trying to exorcise from his mind the sight of Tenshi’s head in that basket. He had no wish to see Tenshi’s headless body proudly displayed.

Usagi startled when he spoke again, eyes flying open, wide once more. “I do not tolerate men who steal from me. Admittedly, I should have only cut off his hands; but his hands were not all that stole from me.” Tsuki’s voice was dark with innuendo.

Usagi closed his eyes grimly.

“Come to bed.” Tsuki encouraged, pulling the leash insistently.

Usagi obeyed, being led to the side of the bed, where Tsuki kissed him and ran his hands over his body, groping him as if to reassure himself that all was still in order with his pet.

He untied the leash and dropped it on the floor, then motioned Usagi to climb up. Usagi did so, and sat as directed on his Master’s lap, facing him. Tsuki slowly removed the gown, and his garments, and only his hands gave gentle touches; not his mouth or his lips. Usagi remained stiff, unresponsive, and finally in frustration, Tsuki shoved him over into the middle of the bed, and arranged him on his belly. Then the man mounted and mated him, still gettno rno response.

Usagi was half hard when his Master finished, but his attitude was as cold as the mountain winters. He endured his Master lying atop him, and shifted to bear the weight better. Annoyed, Tsuki turned Usagi onto his front. He eyed the angry young man; the tight line of his lips and the fixed set of his eyes. He wanted a response from the boy, and so reached down and masturbated him, watching his face.

The only real reaction was tensing of his eyebrows, and a flicker of his lashes, when he spilled over the back of Tsuki’s hand. Disappointed, the man wiped off his hand, blew out the candles, and went to sleep.

Usagi lay awake a long time after. When he was sure all the house was quiet and Tsuki asleep, he sat up gently, and slid the pillow out from under his own head. Sitting tentatively on Tsuki’s chest, he pressed the pillow over the man’s mouth and nose firmly.

Tsuki woke when he could not breathe, and struggled. Usagi waited quietly, his last Master had not struggled very long. It had been too easy. Usagi suddenly yelped as a surge of strength threw him back, Tsuki getting free and very angry.

He caught Usagi by the throat, and Usagi knew fear. His old Master had been drunk, and he was a very old man. Tsuki was young and strong, and he did not drink. Usagi realized he had made a grave mistake, misjudging his enemy.

Tsuki also seemed to be putting two and two together. “That’s why they gave you to me, didn’t they? Proof of good will indeed – you are to smother me in my sleep!”

“No. I hate them. I would not work with them!” Usagi spat vehemently, remembering how they had locked him up and starved him after he killed his Master, the other servants and slaves.

“I do believe that; you would only work with them by accident. You killed your old Master that way, didn’t you?” Tsuki shook him, hard. “Didn’t you!”

Furious, terrified and grieving, Usagi screamed loudly into the night with the full force of his lungs, enough to wake the entire house, “YES!”