text: Sugiyama was resting on the veranda of the lavish inn, the only place he could find, when the courtesan entered with her train. She had an exquisite white face highlighted by the red on her lips. Her hair was built into the large hairdo that was becoming popular and there were gold pins stuck in the hair, attesting to her professional success. Her attendants included a muscular young man armed with a short-sword, a maid, and an elderly male who was obviously responsible for the baggage. They were all dressed in pilgrim's dress: white clothes and bloused pantaloons, leggings, and wide sedge hats. On the courtesan the plain pilgrim's garb looked a mockery: it was of the finest silk and she wore her clothes with an ineffable air of elegance.
  
  Sugiyama idly wondered what she cost, then thrust the thought from his mind. The inn was taking the last of his money, and he could not be bothered with anything pecuniary: it was beneath his dignity. The courtesan sent her attendants hither and yon, attending to her needs, the young man she called Matsuo doing most of the running. Sugiyama sniffed in displeasure at the man's dog-like devotion to his mistress: women were for serving men, not the reverse. He rose and sauntered off as dinner, in lavish lacquered trays, was brought from the inn's kitchens to the courtesan's room. The inn owner, who apparently knew the woman, begged an interview after dinner and expressed his appreciation to the famous Osatsuki for honoring his establishment.
  
  The manservant came suddenly out of the dark, bent on an errand. He slammed full tilt into Sugiyama. Sugiyama slid back with the blow and his sword hissed from its sheath. All unknowing, muttering a perfunctory apology, Matsuo hurried on to his mistress's apartment, Sugiyama raced after him on silent feet. He raised his two-handed sword and struck just as the manservant slid open the shoji door looking onto the garden.
  
  The full cut slammed into the roof beam above Sugiyama's head. He cursed and tugged wildly at the hilt. The servant cast one horrified look over his shoulder and leaped into the room, fumbling for his own weapon.
  
  "No, Matsuo! Run, run!" the prostitute cried, seeing Sugiyama's face. "He will kill you. Quick, through the back!"
  
  Matsuo started to argue but the look on Sugiyama's face convinced him and he slipped rapidly through the door. Sugiyama, managing to release his sword, was about to give chase when the woman rose and threw the hem of her outer kimono high. The cloth sail checked Sugiyama's charge and obscured his intended victim from his sight. Matsuo promptly slipped out the back. Sugiyama glared at the woman, then at the shoji behind her. It would be useless to chase the base creature now. He turned on the mistress and raised his sword.
  
  "You will die!" he called, angered.
  
  "If I must," she said calmly. "I am Osatsuki."
  
  He advanced a step.
  
  "You do not even have the courtesy to introduce yourself?" she said coldly.
  
  "To my equals, not mean people," he sneered.
  
  "My former name was Gojo-no-Satsuki-hime of the kuge nobility, and we did not even talk to mere samurai," she answered formally.
  
  Her response and the hint of superiority in her voice fanned his anger. And seeing the perfection of her throat, his lust as well. He resheathed his sword and took a step forward. She regarded him calmly. Sugiyama grabbed the lapels of her robe and tore them apart. He stood at arms' length and admired the delicate pale body that was exposed to his gaze. She had just come from her bath and her skin was smooth and delicately scented. She tolerated his gaze for a moment, then turned to go. He held her forcefully and a grin appeared on his thin lips. Without a word he forced her down to her knees.
  
  Satsuki did not bother struggling against the lout. She merely allowed herself to be forced down and sat on her knees passively. When he exposed himself she examined his cock with professional interest. It was erect and inflamed with lust and he jerked his hips at her as if to intimidate her with its size or the hint of violence it included.
  
  A boor, she decided, and one who must needs be taught a lesson if possible. Let him think he was raping her. Her turn would come soon enough. She resisted his hand and he forced her head roughly to his cock.
  
  "Bite me and I'll make you regret it!" he warned, and a thin steel kozuka appeared suddenly in his hand.
  
  Satsuki shrugged mentally and applied her red-painted lips to the erect member. She licked at it rapidly, using only the tip of her tongue, then applying only her lips, finally absorbing the entire member into her trained mouth. He forced himself as deeply into her mouth as he could. Her throat muscles worked on the fleshy tip and there seemed to be no end to her depths. His hairs brushed roughly against her makeup and she regretted the need to remake her face before he could see her again. He tried to withdraw and with an exercise of will and muscle she managed to overcome his peak. His come erupted into her willing mouth. Gobs of hot fluid flooded her mouth and disappeared down her throat. She made a perfect oval of her lips to ensure that none of the milk dripped in an unseemly fashion down her chin.
  
  Sugiyama withdrew from Osatsuki's mouth and pushed her down on the floor. She sighed in exasperation at his crudeness and did as he bid, trying to channel his energy in productive ways. His movements were more controlled this time, driven less by lust and more by pleasure. She touched him in the appropriate places, raising his pleasure gradually, offering him different parts of herself in a planned design. He nibbled at her breasts, then found his hands being directed to her ass, to the small of her back. She twisted in his arms, assuming different postures, never detaching his stem from her flower. Without knowing precisely how it had come about he found that she was controlling their movements and the speed of their lovemaking. It was easier to fall in with her directions than to perform as brutally as he normally did. Following her unspoken directions he explored her glorious body thoroughly. Nothing he did aroused opposition, everything he started ended as she wished it. As his lust was fanned, as it grew in his loins to a major explosion, he found that she was the most receptive female he had known, unconquerable.
  
  His cock stabbed into her unplumbed depth for one final time. One of her feet was stroking his shoulder, the other supported them in a tangle of limbs. Her mouth was on his, sucking his life out just as her cuntal muscles were sipping delicately at his rampant cock. Sugiyama gave a groan of mixed defeat, relief, and satisfaction and flooded her interior with his sperm. He bucked heavily into her as her fingers stroked the last of his lust out and into her ever empty insides.
  
  "Lie with me for a while," the courtesan said. Her hands stroked his brow and the small of his back, relieving the small muscular cramps. Unheard by him in the darkness she wiped his flaccid cock and her own sopping cunt with her special paper which always lay by her side for the purpose. One never knew, she had told Osei her junior partner, when one might need it.
  
  Sugiyama lay staring at the ceiling, his smooth muscular breast rising and falling peacefully. For once, he realized, sex had given him some modicum of peace. And for once, too, he found that he had met a professional he could respect: one who in her own sphere of endeavor was as technically competent and as naturally gifted as he was with his sword.
  
  Satsuki lay beside him contemplating his profile: he was a boor, granted, and vicious to boot, but there was a hint of promise in him. Perhaps, she thought, he needed a lesson in humility more than anything else. She felt something dig into her back and was about to move away when she realized what it was.
  
  Her hairpins were scattered on the quilt beside her. She brushed idly through them until she found the one she wanted. It was enamelled and topped by a bunch of azalea blossoms: her namesake. But the shank was steel, sharp as a razor and pointed like a needle, made for her by her friend Okiku, a former ninja assassin. She grasped it carefully and moved to act.