There were times when through the night I could hear in the close distance sounds that travelled on the humid air, and my brain could not understand. Human screams, animal fear so tangible I could feel it clinging to my skin, tossing and turning with unnatural metal scrapes and clangs. Those nights battles were scorching the earth, territory won and lost, and I could smell rust and iron in the air for hours. Edo was under siege constantly, unyieldingly, and I made my living in lust surrounding and circling those samurai's lust of a different kind like smoke from an incense. As my lullaby during the night, I would wake to those vicious sounds and sway side to side in a slow dance with them. I knew those samurai who survived the night would return to the Hanamachi in need. Their need would be me. Only I could provide release from the pain of the night.
When the dawn broke, I would follow the mist and smoke escaping on the wind through the forest trails into the clearings where those battles took place the night before. I stood in the clearing with the taste of blood in my mouth, sweat trails down my back, and droplets littering my hair. I was heavy in those moments, as if the souls seeping into the soaked ground held my feet in place. I gazed at the bodies, contemplating how they looked as they lay recently slain was so similar to how they looked in my Okiya. Could I call myself a dealer of pleasure with such a comparison, I was not sure. I thought, I could better call myself a death dealer of some kind; a dealer of the death of their dignity. How different were they now? I scoffed to myself as I imagined the dishonour they felt, both at defeat in battle, and in defeat of their weak wills that would succumb to me every time.
The sun was quickly burning away the mist rising from the humid ground, and the glint shining on the weapons began to catch my attention. The first time I laid a finger on the hilt of a katana was on the battlefield, pulling it gently from the cold grip of a samurai. I knelt on the grass beside him, let my fingers slide over his, unfeeling, and one by one curled them away from the handle. I set his hand down and watched as it touched the earth and settled there, the same as if I was slipping away from his grasp in my room. With the katana in my grasp alone, the heaviness was nearly unbearable, but holding this object of such immense power was too great a thrill. The blade of the katana dragged against the ground as I stood upright letting the hilt relax in my grip at my side. I let my gaze sweep over the field once more, unaware of what I was looking for, unaware of any of my senses except for my fingers around that katana. I retreated back into the forest trails, to my room, dragging the katana beside me, unsure of what I would do with this weapon acting as a gateway to a new type of strength. I felt myself in that moment as if I was stepping through temple gates onto sacred ground, transforming into a Kami. What would my purpose be, I wondered. What would I do with so much command on these samurai now?
In my room, I caught a passing glimpse of myself dragging the katana across the floor in the mirror. The blade skipped and hopped across the uneven lacquer on the floor, as if it was alive. I paused a moment and held my gaze steadfast on my own eyes staring back at me, as if it were some else. My body began to move separately from my mind, my feet sliding out of my geta and swiftly touching the floor, moving into the opening movement of a Nihon Buyo I knew well. I had performed this fan dance so many times that my body could move with the music in my head. I performed the dance with strength, with skill, with grace, though I knew every time I had an audience for it, they would laugh at me. The dance of a woman, they would say, but maybe with a katana in my hand instead of a fan, it would become the dance of a man.
I watched myself in the mirror as I left my body to twirl and spin as it pleased, my feet skimming across the floor. I watched myself as an onlooker, pure to the intentions behind the eyes locked on mine. It was unnatural, to watch this dance I recognized to the core of my soul being danced by another. The katana was swinging, catching and throwing the light leaking into the window. I was captive.
The dance at its last step, I came to a slow stop in front of the mirror. My hair had been whipped around by the force of my spins as I was so engrossed in the movements. The closure of my kimono hung agape only the slightest amount, but it allowed my eyes to trace the lines of my chest. I let myself sink to my knees, letting go of the katana hilt, reaching my fingers out for the floor. I crawled toward the mirror until I was touching it, and raised a hand to myself reflected there. My fingertip drew over the hem of my kimono, and I could feel my face soften as they went. "I can't touch you." I said to myself. "You're right there, and I can put my hand on you, but I can't touch you." I realized as I spoke that my voice was gaining power in my enamoured state. "My heart hurts. Does yours?" I placed my hand over my own chest, and in the mirror I did the same. "No, of course it doesn't. You are in there. I am the one of us who lives in this world." I used my hand to stroke the hair a the side of my own face, so that the me in the mirror might do it also and I could provide what little comfort I knew how to.
And the katana was raised behind the lock of hair that was tightly gripped. A moment of reason, through the rain clouds forming on the inside, washing clean the rivers where the dead flowed freely. I wanted to run. I wanted to spare that other in me the stains of my being. No matter the mutilation on this body, in the mirror, everything was perfect in the end. This tainted mind was shattered, and the purity would leak through the melting ice when the coldness was gone. I wanted to offer my wrists to the blade of my future, and cease the torment so the path would be clear for the ones to follow. There would be nothing to tangle the demons, nothing to mar their path out of my mind.
My palm began to sweat the blood and tears of my rationality, begging to be let forth on the beast that was repressed before it was allowed to surface. But the hair it held slipped through the grasp in the slickness, and the blade of katana was against that rebelling palm. My eyes stole away to the spreading warmth of the blood, and the silence was so engulfing that I covered my ears at the sound of the drip on the floor.
Limitation.
The curtain was jerked open, and I heard the tear in the seams that didn't quite give in to my violent touch. The harsh light of the day spilled in, flooding every corner, chasing away the shadows and comforting darkness. And there it was, with his palms pressed against the glass of his cage beneath my feet, plastered across the lacquer of the floor.
"I'll protect you." I won't take away your salvation, your cover of day. I'll keep you trapped inside of me, so you never have to defend yourself.
I reached down to touch his face, not quite losing him to the shadow of my back against the light. Where he remained, his eyes were unrelenting upon me, his hand over mine, and moving together in perfect unison. There was a dance in this calming embrace, a dance that was common, and we both knew when to begin and when to end, when to reach and when to pull. There was a lure of this pure being protected behind the guard of his home, the walls static and the fire of passion and rage could never enter. This being was mine, for myself, and there was only me.
"You're mine, no one else will touch you." I have to become strong to protect you. No one will fool me, no one will manipulate you away from me.
No one else would gaze upon this perfect being. No one else would soil him. No one else would know he existed. I would protect him. I would offer my body, tainted with sin and unforgiven already, so he could go to Heaven when it was over. I was a demon. I was mad with desire.
And the only way I could think to save him was the same that separated and caged him. But I would wield a sword far greater surpassing the strength of any other man to enter. My blade would be cold, my power forced through my passion, derived from my pain. I let my fingertips graze the katana before I grasped it with a shaking fist, and retrieved it from the floor. It would be my weapon, an extension of my hatred for the way of the world outside of myself, and I would trade the tainted side of myself piece by piece in exchange for the knowledge to use it.
"And you'll stay hidden away."
Because it's you and me, and nothing like there ever was before.