97 - Final Tale of the Japanese Cemetery - The Return of the Slit-Mouthed Woman

"Our game nears its end," Miu said, as she picked up her final candle. "But legends live on. For my final tale, I wish to revisit the oldest horror in this cemetery, one that still remains. So let me tell you about

THE RETURN OF THE SLIT-MOUTHED WOMAN

It was a moonless night, and Katsuki had her lantern in hand, making the midnight round. As caretaker of the cemetery, it was up to her to chase off would-be lovers looking for a frolic amid the tombstones, or coyotes looking to dig up a grave. She felt bad for the animals, who were only hungry. Her soft sandals tread almost soundlessly over the close-cropped grass...and then she saw her.

A tall woman, dressed all in white, stood near the northwest corner of the cemetery. Katsuki frowned. Many of the stories in the Japanese cemetery clustered around that portion. Tales of ghostly lovers and suicides, strange murders and necromancies. Katsuki's free hand went to the pistol at her hip as she approached the tall woman, holding the lantern out away from her so as not to be blinded by the light.

"The hour is late," Katsuki said in English, and then repeated herself in Japanese.

The tall woman did not turn. She seemed to be regarding a particular grave, a fan in front of her face.

"Mourners should come during daylight," Katsuki said, and her step trembled on the grass. The closer she got, the more she could see how tall the woman was. Easily the tallest woman that Katsuki had ever seen.

The woman turned to face her. The fan hid her lower face, but the eyes locked and held her own. The back of them reflected the lantern light, as a coyote's would, and for a moment Katsuki was rooted to the spot. The tall woman stepped forward and closed the distance between them in a single gigantic stride, and now she loomed over Katsuki, blocking out stars, easily eight feet tall.

"Am I beautiful?" the kuchisake-onna said, for now, too late, Katuski remembered the old tales and knew who and what this was. Though why she haunted this corner of the cemetery on this night, the caretaker did not know. Not yet.

"Lady, I cannot say," Katsuki said, and her hand trembled as it gripped the butt of the pistol. An old Colt Navy, well-polished and maintained. It may as well have been rusted shut, for she could not tug it from her hip.

The fan snapped shut.

The face above the lips was beautiful, painted white, softly rounded and without wrinkles. Below the lips, the ancient wound stretched from ear to ear. Katsuki could see every tooth set in those bloody gums, and how the flesh peeled away to droop along the jaws, the muscles and ligaments that should have kept them in place severed. A warm wind blew from the slit-mouth woman, redolent in spices that Katsuki had not smelled here in the United States. A single warm tear trickled down Katsuki's cheek, as she recalled a restaurant in San Francisco that served food that was exactly the same as in Japan.

The slit-mouthed woman saw the tear. The fan disappeared. One long-nailed finger reached up to catch it. Brought it to her mouth. The slender, almost delicate tongue lapped at the salty droplet, and the tall woman trembled.

"Am I beautiful?" the kuchisake-onna asked again, and Katsuki, unable to think of an answer, merely said:

"Am I?"

The scissors came up with the tall woman's left hand. A single, precise swipe and snap cut belt, pants, and shirt in two. Katsuki shivered in the cold night air as the tall woman hunched over her. The right hand fondled the caretaker's breasts, noted the dark nipples, swollen in the chill; the scars on her stomach, from the pregnancy that had never come to fruition; lingered against a bullet-hole, from a grave-robbery that had gone wrong. Then finally, the cold, soft fingers found Katsuki's slit. They cupped and held her mons, the black hair pressed against the base of the wide palm.

"Not as beautiful as I," the kuchisake-onna said. "Lie down on the grass. Open your mouth."

In all of her life, there was nothing Katsuki wished to do less right then than open her mouth. She was afraid of what the kuchisake-onna would do to her if she did so. Was more afraid, perhaps, of what the spirit would do to her if she did not. So fighting every instinct, Katsuki down on the glass, her lantern just within reach, and opened her mouth.

The great iron scissors cut down, so that the points pressed into the earth on either side of Katsuki's head. She felt the twin lances of pain as the blades sliced her cheeks. Her teeth bit into the iron. She was pinned, trapped, stapled to the earth.

The slit-mouthed woman's cold hands ran across Katsuki's inner thighs. The caretaker shivered as she felt a warm breath against her slit, which trembled. Something delicate and soft, impossibly gentle, touched her clit. Traced a line down one labia. In her life, Katsuki had never experienced oral sex. It was a pleasure, a sensation, utterly unknown to her. The caretaker's body trembled at this unexpected feeling, helplessness mingling with horror and realization at what was happening.

Softly, very softly, the tall woman continued her efforts. Slowly, Katsuki's horror receded a little. Her labored breathing slowed. The pleasure that blossomed inside of her was nothing like her former husband's mindless rut, the tireless pronging away that left her slimy and unsated. It was closer to what Katsuki herself did, in private, on long, lonely nights when the wind howled and she felt that familiar ache for someone else...when her thoughts turned to sights of women bathing in the nude, and burlesque shows, and a certain old whore who had once told her, in a whiskey-sodden voice, of how she had to train the young women that came to her from the farms before they were worth a cowboy's hard ride and paper dollars.

A sense of anticipation grew in Katsuki's belly, spreading out from her loins, that almost made her forget the pain of the cuts on her face. She couldn't move her head, but she could moan, and her hips wiggled on the grass, as that soft tongue lashed her clit again and again, and...

The scream that issued from her throat woke the priestess who lived behind the shrine. By the time she rushed over to the caretaker's side, the kuchisake-onna was gone. The wounds on her cheek would heal into two scars. Another part of her would heal very differently.

The caretaker remained with the cemetery all her nights. Sometimes, on moonless nights, she would see the kuchisake-onna. Always the same question. Always, the same answer. Always, the same result. It became a ritual with her, and when she died, Katsuki was placed in a grave next to the one the kuchisake-onna had always visited. From then on, it was the priestess who would visit on the moonless nights, and be marked as she was.

"Marked how?" Asenath asked.

Miu pulled up her skirt and revealed she wore no underwear underneath. With legs spread wide, she moved the candle down, so everyone could see.

The labia had been cut, horizontally. The wound had healed oddly, so it almost looked as if two vaginas crossed and intersected each other.

"For the kuchisake-onna," Miu said. "All mouths are slit."

So saying, she plunged the candle into her exposed crevasse. There was a hiss, and the light went out.