Had he asked her to slide the door shut, she would not have done it. It was as if she enjoyed the feel of cold water droplets hitting her naked back, slithering across the nape of her neck, sliding down her bare breasts. This piece of land the Mongolians had given him was battered by the rains and the strong winds of the plains. It was no place for her. And yet, here she was, seated in front of him. In nothing but a skirt.
A strange skirt. Not one the Mongolians wore, not one the Han wore. In this solitude of theirs, she could afford to go against the pre-established orders of the conqueror. This large skirt she favored was tied tightly around her hips and stomach. There was no pleasure greater than slowly unraveling the ties, having that snow-jade snake waist twisting and seeing the fabric falling down to her small feet. In this silence, she was his resistance, she was his rebellion.
This large skirt, remnants of her childhood in Goryeo. Her heavy black braid against her white skin. Everything was as far removed from both the Hand and the Mongolians as could be.
And thus, she was seated on the rotting wood floorboards. That skirt of hers was blooming around her, her bust exposed to his insistent gaze. His hand flew across a scroll while the smell of paint pervaded the air around him.
Who would have ever thought that these rough hands, used to wielding swords, would have been able to hold a fine brush? Let alone to paint. But Su Seduo, though he, as well as his father, uncles, brothers, grandfathers, had been nothing but a little garrison commander under the Song Dynasty, was an educated man.
Three hundred years ago, the Song Dynasty had made his family of celebrated generals fall to the lowest of military ranks, barely above that of simple privates. However, the Su clan had not lost its love of achievement.
Officialdom had been forever out of their reach. Too volatile by half, the men of the Su family. When the Song officials had decided to reform the military system by reserving all the higher ranks for scholars, the Su generals had been chased off their positions like dogs, condemned to be garrison commanders for generations to come. However, poverty, humiliation, the loss of the ancestral homes had not been able to impede them from learning to paint and favor books over food. A Su man could condemn his family to starvation, he could not condemn it to mediocrity.
And now that the Song Dynasty had finally crumbled under the pressure of the Mongolians, the last of the main Su bloodline had ended up as a mere soldier, having been given a sort of military land, some oxen and this strange creature that wantonly let him paint her in the most intimate manner.
"Huanxiang", he softly called out.
Had he whispered, had he screamed, Su Seduo knew she would not have paid him any heed. Nonetheless, he still spoke. If only not to lose the ability of using his tongue. This world he lived in with her smelled of damp, rotten wood and sounded of supreme silence. But he did not mind. He did not mind that she lived an existence that would not, could not include him. And that his own reality was out of reach to her. However, as if out of sheer kindness of heart, she turned her head at that instant. Shooting him a satisfied look. Reminding him that although their worlds could not collide, there still was something that connected them.
The young woman was quite charming. The Mongolians valued these Korean women the most. Their white skin, their faces of a perfect oval, everything about them was viewed as pleasing. And thus, being given a Korean slave was viewed as an act of great condescension. Had Su Seduo not been valued the least bit, this woman would never have been his. However, it would have been wrong to believe that the Mongolians had chosen her for him. He had chosen her himself. The very instant his eyes had fallen onto her, he had known she was the one he would bring back with him.
Women, land, cattle, all these had been given to the Southern Song soldiers who had abandoned their weapons and willingly let themselves be incorporated into the Yuan Dynasty. It had been a way to soothe their humiliation. However, Su Seduo had not been willing to be soothed. He had felt the shame of being a soldier of Song, he had felt the shame of joining this Mongolian army called "The Newly Submitted Army". And thus, he had taken this abandoned beauty for himself. This woman had been trampled underfoot by other men. If he were to live in abject slavery, he would willingly touch the bottom. And who would have thought that this bottom he had touched in the form of Huanxiang, his all-conquering Korean wife, would be more comfortable to him, dearer to him, than the highest peaks.
Huanxiang was a woman who could easily shut him out of her life. But who did not bear to be shut out of his. Seeing him so engrossed by his painting, she pouted with her small red lips. Slowly extending her feet from under her skirt, she rose a knee and made the fabric slide down to her thigh. She was trying to provoke him. Her husband was, after all, a full-blooded soldier. Who better than her to know what he could and could not withstand. Yet, Su Seduo ignored her wilfully, only ever lifting his eyes to take in her appearance and transpose it onto his painting.
He was infuriating. And she … She was terribly jealous by nature. She could not bear the thought that there would be something, anything, to engross him more than her in this household. She already had to share him with the Yuan Dynasty, to share him with the army, she would not share him with books and art. She herself was a passionate painter. However, she only ever painted in her boredom, ruining expensive ink stones as she went. But she was never bored when Su Seduo was home.
Settling her temple against the door, she shivered as a gust of cold hair hit her naked back. The candles in the room trembled for a split of an instant, playing shadow games across her skin. But Su Seduo did not react. It was his revenge for the solitude she made him bear. However, Huanxiang had her ways. If her fine, white leg, could not entice him, there were always other methods to curry favor with him. Thus, she stood up, her skirt falling to the ground.
Su Seduo had no other choice but to look up, his eyes carrying a question. She simply smiled with ease. Truly, she was a beautiful woman. Her dark skirt contrasted with her pale skin, giving off the impression that she glowed. Her breasts were round and small, their pink nipples arrogantly pointing forward. Su Seduo wanted to cup them up, squeeze them softly and see the desire pervade her dark eyes. His fingers tightened around the brush. Only a monk would have been able to undergo such torture without as much as batting an eye. A muscle jumped in his jaw. And yet, he willed himself to tear his stare away from her.
Making her pout some more. This was a game he liked to play. He wanted to prove to himself, and to her, that her childish willfulness would have no effect on him and that she could not expect for him to let her get away with grotesque behavior simply because she was his wife. And she, she wanted to prove him wrong.
Thus, she took a step forward. And one more. And yet another. Until she was standing by his side, towering over him. The sliding pane had remained open, letting the rain enter the room without constraint. Yet Su Seduo neither motioned for her to go close it nor looked up. Thus she had to stoop to his level and let herself fall, in a flutter of her heavy skirts, to his side. She looked down at the painting he had so diligently worked on.
A beautiful spectre of a woman seated in the darkness of night, droplets flowing down her exposed chest and losing themselves into her skirt. This was not the type of vulgar erotic art soldiers carried with them to encampments. And Su Seduo would never have carried this painting with him anywhere, lest it ended up in the wrong hands. No, this was a work of desire, of longing … One would have thought it might even have been a work of love.
Huanxiang might have had no education, being a slave, a woman and a foreigner. However, she had feelings. And could recognize the feelings of others. She felt anger overtaking her. That woman in the painting might have been a proxy for herself, but she hated her nonetheless. Who was that paper creature to dare rob Huanxiang's husband?! Slowly, the woman lifted her hand, brought it to Su Seduo's cheek and turned his face to look at her. Leaning in, she pressed her breasts against his resting arm, knowing full well that the thin fabric of her husband's night robe would do little to numb the feeling of her chest against his body.
She was a jealous little thing, Su Seduo knew. He had wanted to bring a maidservant in at some point. The poor girl had been chased with ignominy. He had asked for a handful of eunuchs to be brought him so he could choose himself a manservant. Huanxiang had thrown a tantrum, silently glaring at him and going as far as dropping a cup of hot tea onto his thigh. Had she dropped it any closer, a certain part of him might have been damaged beyond repair. Where she had learned of the debauchery that could happen between men, Su Seduo did not know. He did know however that he had not felt very gratified by the idea his wife believed him able of such acts.
And here she was, even refusing for a paper woman, a copy of herself, to enter their household. But Su Seduo did not mind. In fact, it relieved him, this horrid possessiveness of hers. It was better, much better than indifference. As she looked at him, there was no disgust for the scar that bit into his flesh and travelled from his right temple to the corner of his left lips. That scar alone would have ensured he would never have gotten married in this life, condemning the Su household to fade into oblivion. The Yuan Dynasty did not permit for the aristocracy to meddle with commoners and albeit the Su household was nothing but an empty shell, they nonetheless were aristocrats. Had Kublai Khan not have granted these soldiers Korean wives, many would never have had the chance to sire sons. What girl of aristocracy would have wanted to marry an animal like Su Seduo. Dark-skinned, muscled and scarred. He had nothing of the softness Han women favored. And to boot, he had neither riches nor position. Better be the concubine to a lowly official than the wife of one Su Seduo.
Huanxiang however looked at him with adoration. In fact, even at that instant, pressing herself deeply into him, distracting him effectively from his painting, her eyes held nothing but a flame of desire. The hand that had grabbed his face slowly travelled across his scar, exploring its texture under Huanxiang's fingertips. Her lips found the corner of his own. It was a slow, leisurely seduction.
While her mouth that travelled down his jaw and landed on his neck distracted him, her other hand plunged into his robes without warning and seized his awakening manhood. The fingers holding the brush trembled as Su Seduo's breath got caught in his throat. He had no choice but to close his eyes, relishing the feel of a soft hand caressing him slowly, cruelly, while small teeth bit into the crook of his neck.
Huanxiang did not hear her husband's pained moan, she did not react to his growls of excruciating pleasure.
Huanxiang was deaf. Her world was one of silence.
But, from the corner of her eye, she could see how the brush had been dropped onto the painting, wasting precious ink and ruining a perfectly fine image. She felt joy at the idea that this copy of her had been destroyed. And that joy was translated into her peeling her lips from her husband's skin and lowering her head slowly until her soft breasts pressed into the muscles of his thigh, her heavy black braid resting against his knees.
This was yet another night between a husband and his wife. A night where pleasure intertwined with pain.
Before this night, there had been many more. And after this night, there would be many more. Because the only song Huanxiang could hear was this Song of Pleasure and Pain.