13 - Second Tale of the Japanese Cemetery - The Corpse Bride

Miu's small, delicate hand slid out of the sleeve of her kimono to pick up another candle.

"It was difficult, the first years here. The Japanese population was small, and mostly young men. There was **** when the young men looked at the white women, or at the Black women who came up from the South after the war. A man had to be clever, with a bit of money, to find and keep a wife. For those who had no such luck, desperation grew and grew...and such is the case for tale of

THE CORPSE BRIDE

Akira was not the name he had in Japan. Yet it suited him here, where no one knew him. Even so, he had to be careful about the lies he told. If he said he was from Kyoto, and a man came from Kyoto, who knew the streets and accents better than Akira did, his carefully-crafted web of lies would fall apart. So he told no stories of where he was born, though he found it easy to tell stories of where he had been, of women he had loved, angry husbands he had left behind. Those drew laughs from the other bachelors, and from the husbands...well, Akira kept well away from other men's wives.

It can be a lonely existence. Lust can be an aching, throbbing need that demands release. Akira could not afford a home of his own, but slept and ate at a bunkhouse on the unpaved main street that ran from the train's loading down southward. The East Side of town was, by common if unspoken decision, where the white people settled. There the first bars and bank and houses went up, the first church and cemetery. The Japanese and Black people built houses and businesses on the West side, where this cemetery and the brothel already were.

One night, Akira passed through the torii gate into this cemetery to masturbate. The northern corner was then free of graves, and there was a young willow tree he could lean against, taking his prick in hand to roughly spurt his seed on the ground. It was not the first time he had undertaken that lonely occupation. In his mind was a catalogue of images. A plump housewife in little more than a shift, wet and soaked with sweat, her soft breasts jiggling and fat ass swaying with every step as she hung the wash on the line. A slim teenage whore blowing a hairy Scottish engineer for a sip of whiskey on the passage to America. A tent show that had passed through, with a pale geisha, her face painted white, dark hair in a bun—who parted her brightly-colored kimono to show a pale white boyish cock, the balls shaven, the little dick jerking to the jeers and cheers of the horny and disgusted men.

The Japanese man had just freed his prick with one sun-tanned hand when he became aware of another figure in the cemetery with him. She was small, and plain-looking. There was no makeup on her face, and she wore a floursack dress, the rough cloth hugging a body that was thin and strong. Her hair was long, and her face had a curious aspect in the moonlight, as if the jaw was a little too large, and the lips barely covered the teeth.

"Sir," she said in Japanese, and walked towards him on bare, silent feet. "If you may permit, I could assist you in this matter."

It is a hard life for Japanese men in that remote country. Akira had a small savings, and he got by with a small patch he farmed, and coin earned from loading and unloading the train as it passed, but he was not and would never be rich. A whore was an expense he could ill afford, if he wished to sleep and eat. So do not think too unkindly of him when he asked:

"How much?" he answered in the same language.

She smiled, with just her lips. Never showing any teeth. Her eyes did not reflect the moonlight, but she said.

"Sign my family registry, and I will be yours tonight and every night, so long as you wish the pleasure of my body."

To that, Akira started. It was a line from a fairy tale. He felt ridiculous, his prick still in hand, staring at this woman with the homely face in her poor dress, barefoot and with such strange speech. Still, the merest presence of a woman, like that...he began to stroke his prick as he spoke to her.

"Miss, I am a poor man. I cannot afford a wife for more than an evening! As much as I would like to marry you and enjoy your charms for a long time, I have no dollars enough for a house or farm with which to keep you."

At that, the woman raised her chin. Her eyes were not on his hand that moved over and over his hard shaft, but on his face.

"If you wish money, I can show you where gold may be found. Not a fortune, but enough for what you desire. Only you must promise to sign my family registry, tonight, and be my loyal husband," she said.

Akira did not stop stroking. In fact, his arm seemed to move on its own. But at length he asked:

"What is your name, miss?"

"Chie."

"Chie. If the gold is where you say, I will sign anything you wish, and be such a husband to you as to never raise a complaint from your lips!"

His arm did not stop the endless motion, and Akira's balls tightened as she took his free hand and guided him over to the wall, where a large black stone had been placed. She instructed him to roll it aside, and placed one cold, dry hand on his prick. His balls shivered a little at that touch, but as much by effort of will as lust, his rod did not falter against that strange sensation of an alien hand that ran over and over his glans, Chie's wrist making elegant little motions so her thumb played ever over his tip.

Beneath the stone was a cloth bag. It clinked heavily. Union gold dollars. Jesse James, they say, once stopped in Dagon's Hollow. Whether that was part of his loot, or the treasure of some dead soldier, none may say. It took both of Akira's hands to lift the bag, and still stroking him, Chie guided him toward the shrine. Vaguely, he was aware of people around him in the dark, though they spoke not, because he could hear their shuffling steps, and from the corner of his eye seem them gather and follow.

There was a black veil had been draped across the white stone inhabited by the kami, and at its base a book lay open, showing the names of a family. In the dim light of the moon and stars, Akira could not make out the names, except the very last: Chie.

There was no priest to purify them. Two cups of sake had been left out, and these they sipped, Chie holding the small Japanese-style cup up to Akira's lips, for he was still holding the gold, and she had never ceased tugging at his cock. The words of the vow of commitment came easily from his throat, reciting from memory the words he had heard an ocean away, in another time and under another name.

When the last syllable came out, an electric thrill seized him. His cock spasmed, the veins stood out. His heart seized in his breast and black spots clouded his vision. Through dim, pain-slitted eyes, he saw something hot and black as ink spurt from his prick...and onto the registry, his name appeared beside Chie.

With the gold, Akira bought a farm and a house. Men glimpsed his wife through the window, from time to time, in a store-bought dress. Hard work made the land prosper, and Akira seemed content. He never again visited the brothel, or told tales of chasing other men's wives. No later than moonrise, he was always back in his own home, and when he rose the next morning at cock's crow, it was with a grim and haggard look.

The neighbors in the fields saw him, one hot summer day, seven years later. Akira clutched his left arm and fell. They carried him inside...and they stared at the shriveled corpse of the young woman in his bed, in her store-bought dress. Her lips had peeled back to reveal long black teeth like fangs, the gums receded. When men handled her, they said her body was dry and hard as old wood.

"Chie...Chie..." he said.

They had the story out of him, before he died. And because there seemed nothing else to do, their ashes were put in the same plot, in that north corner by the willow tree. You may still see it there, a testament to desperation...and, perhaps, a strange fidelity.

So saying, Miu blew out the candle, and set the cold stub by the other.