Blade Of The Immortal Fan Fiction ❯ Abstinence Education ❯ Part Three ( Chapter 3 )
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Squick warnings: Sex in various forms, including quasi-incestuous themes and a 16-year-old female paired with an adult male. Violence will eventually rear its head as well; hey, you have to separate at least one body part from its owner in any BotI story.
Abstinence Education
by Madame Manga
Part Three
“Uh…that looks kinda uncomfortable.” Rin put a hand over her mouth and stared at a woodcut illustration in the book that sat open on her lap. A man and woman lay among tangled clothing and quilts, their limbs equally tangled and their sexual parts highlighted in sharp detail. “He really has to put it…um, his henoko…all the way inside her bobo?”
“Yeah, that’s the general idea.” Manji snorted and puffed out a cloud of tobacco smoke. “Though I gotta admit the pictures make a dick look a lot bigger than it is.”
“Oh. That’s good.” She gulped and turned the page. More acrobatic positions, more sweaty, transported faces with open mouths. “Is the woman supposed to be enjoying herself?”
“…Yep.”
“It doesn’t hurt? She likes it when he’s inside there?”
“Maybe she does. Doesn’t much matter to a man—it feels the same to him either way.”
Rin looked up from where she sat on the ground at the back of the little hut. Manji lounged on the porch above her with his back against the wall, his legs crossed one over the other. He had his head tilted upwards with his pipe in his mouth and an abstracted look on his face. “Just the same? Doesn’t a man care if a woman likes it?”
“Depends on the man.”
“But…you would care, wouldn’t you?”
He snorted again. “Maybe, if I wasn’t too drunk. But if I buy a woman, she’s there to make me happy, not the other way around. Some guys preen themselves on making whores moan—like working girls are hard to please, or something.”
“Didn’t you ever pillow with a woman who wasn’t a, um, professional?”
“Sure, housemaids and so on. I’d slip ‘em some cash, though. It’s understood.”
“Then…you were never with a woman just because you wanted to please her…?”
“Nope.” He snapped it out short and knocked the ashes from his pipe.
“Oh.”
“Look, I was never married, or even promised. There ain’t no point in taking pains with a serving girl, and a samurai woman doesn’t do it before her wedding night. You know that.” He smirked at her while tamping in a fresh pinch of tobacco. “And even if I’d been hitched, there’s not too many guys who put a high priority on making their wives feel good in the futon. Get her screwed, get her pregnant, let her raise the brats and continue your family name. That’s what marriage is all about, darlin’.” He re-lit his pipe with a coal. “The only gals who can demand satisfaction are high-class courtesans and geisha, and you’ve got to be rolling in koban to afford one of those for a lover.”
Rin’s illusions began to crumple like wetted paper. “But my father and mother… They loved each other so much. Don’t you think my father would have…?”
“Hey, I never knew your folks, so that’s hard to say. Though I guess…” Manji looked down at her. “They raised you, after all. If you believe in true love and all that shi—uh…maybe it’s because you saw it right in front of you.” He briefly put a hand on her shoulder, got up and walked off a little distance, smoking.
Rin shut the pillow book and wiped her eyes, which were filling with tears. Manji leaned against one of the trees near the cabin with his back to her and finished his pipe.
After a while she approached him again and sat on the ground next to the tree, studying the book again but asking no questions. Manji put his pipe away and watched the sun decline in the sky. “Well…it’s about time to try some fishing.” He folded his arms and didn’t move. Rin looked up.
“So…you don’t think I ought to do things like this before I’m married.” Rin indicated the book.
“Nope, I don’t. That’s just my opinion. Like…what your big brother would tell you, if you had a big brother.” Manji rubbed his nose. “Can’t say it ain’t your decision, though—I guess you’re old enough to make up your own mind.”
“So my big brother would say I ought to think about my…reputation? Because I’m from a samurai family?”
He laughed slightly and shook his head. “If you want to. Not what I’d call the main objection in your case, though.”
“Well, if I shouldn’t do it with a man unless I’m married, maybe I could marry…you.”
Manji suppressed a sigh, scratching his ribcage under his clothing; obviously he had been expecting this. “There’s no way on earth you can marry an outlaw, Rin. He ain’t allowed to get hitched, and he’d be arrested just for filling out the paperwork for the license. But what I was talkin’ about is the basic problem with having a husband in the first place—that is, rug rats.”
“Children? Oh…”
“Cramp your style as a kenshi, wouldn’t they?” He chuckled.
“Yes, I guess that would mean the end of my vendetta.” Rin bit her lips and looked away. “OK, I get your point.”
“Sorry.”
“No, don’t be. You’re only telling me the truth. I wasn’t thinking this through…I guess I am just an idiot.”
“Naw, little sister, you’re no dummy. You got it quick.” Manji tapped her head in a reassuring way. “You just need the facts, and you put two and two together.”
“So I’ll have to stay a virgin until Anotsu Kagehisa is dead.”
He flinched slightly and rubbed his neck to cover it. “Uh…that’s one way to put it.”
“Yes, but…” Rin flipped to a page in the pillow book that had intrigued yet confused her and handed it up to Manji. “Look at this picture.”
“Huh?” He took the book and squinted at it. “What about it?”
“What’s she supposed to be doing? She’s got the same look on her face as all the other women in the book, but there’s no man with her. What are those things she has all over the floor, and that one in her hand?”
Manji laughed out loud, though with an underlying sense of embarrassment. “Uh…those are…ahem…harigata.”
“What are they for?”
“Just like you see.” He made a vague gesture. “She’s more or less doing a demonstration.”
“You mean…it’s supposed to be a substitute for a man?”
“Yep.” He cleared his throat again and chuckled. “Maybe an improvement on a man, all things considered. It never stays out too late drinking or upchucks on the tatami!”
“But does that feel good? When it’s just a tube made out of tortoise shell?”
“How the hell would I know? At least it’s always stiff.” Manji raised a brow. “Frankly, this looks like an ad for the whole line of toys that place sells…” He turned the book sideways and whistled. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”
“Think of what?” Their eyes met; she knew perfectly well that they were thinking along exactly the same lines. “You mean I should try one of those if I’m curious to know what a man feels like?”
“Up to you.” He tossed the book back to her. “Far as I know, lots of women use harigata.”
“That does seem sensible, since it can’t make you pregnant.” She tilted her head. “But it can’t hold you or kiss you, either…”
Manji made a choking sound, bolted to the hut to retrieve his fishing pole and jogged down the hill to his favorite spot by the pond.
Continued…