text: The fully armored warrior lay on the ground in a sea of red. A lance pinioned the figure to the ground. The sword lay far from the outstretched hand. Arrows transfixed various parts of the anatomy to the loamy earth. The warrior's face was hidden and the disarray of the gilded armor exposed the sprawled figure's back, where cords had been cut.
  
  Ito Shinichi approached the sprawled figure and addressed it with the long poem from the most recent play about the Soga brothers. He was naked and just risen from the bath. He stopped his chant and bent, tugging at the warrior's bloodstained loincloth. Crouching, he spread the buttocks and gazed for a moment at the exposed anal button and the mossy cleft beneath it. His penis grew hard and strong from its nest of wiry hair. He moved his hips forwards, then stabbed into one of the holes, then the other. Out again, and repeat.
  
  Under him, the young girl gritted her teeth. The first penetrations were painful, and the weight of her master's body made the fake armor cut into her skin. Gradually the heat of his body, and the slick feel of his long thin prick began to penetrate the pain. Her breathing quickened as the knobby stick caught gratingly at her entrances, penetrated, then withdrew again. She caught herself in time from responding to the thrusts, allowing herself to move just a liny bit as her insides were flooded with his sticky come.
  
  Before the mansion and lower in the bowl-shaped valley the lights of Miyako, formal capital of the Land of the Sun's Source, came gradually alight. The sun stroked the hills in one last fond farewell. In distant Edo, capital in all but name, greatest city in the world, the Shogun conferred with his counselors. Beyond the seas mysterious pale barbarians moved about their own affairs, affairs that were not to affect Japan to any great degree for two centuries.
  
  "My dear, may I interrupt?" The voice spoke over Ito's shoulder. He looked back at his wife with disfavor. "Do you want to have her?" he asked.
  
  "No," she said pragmatically, barely looking at the concubine. "Mr. Uemura is here to see you ... Isn't this the armor you received from Abbot Saishiden of Saionji? Do you think it wise? It is probably very valuable, and the holy man could probably see you from here, you know." She pointed to the barely visible gables of the temple that rose above their garden wall to his left.
  
  Ito looked at his wife patiently. She was much younger than himself. Her arms were slim and her heavily made-up face unlined. Moreover, she had no inhibitions and supported his personal sexual quirks with a devotion that was commendable. If she had a fault it was her coldness, which displayed itself, among other things, in excessive caution and a tremendous greed for money. "The estimable abbot can only see me if he climbs up onto the eaves of his temple. Besides, he and I are both men of the world. He is hardly likely to object to the use I make of his gift."
  
  Ito's hips jerked and his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he felt his climax overtake him. He grasped the girl roughly, pulling the soft mounds of her ass back at him as the white milky fluid blended their pubic hair to a sopping mass. His eyes closed for a long moment of pleasure, then he turned back to look casually at the girl before him. Something attracted his attention and he peered at her back thoughtfully.
  
  "Mr. Uemura is waiting," his wife reminded him. He rose and shook his penis absently while examining his wife's face sharply. Ito Haruko recoiled slightly at the unusual scrutiny he gave her.
  
  "Uemura, you say? What does he want?"
  
  "You know!" she said in exasperation.
  
  "Do I now!?" He looked at her sharply as before, then looked at the armor again. An unusually sharp look stole over his face. He walked past her and into the house. Exasperated, Haruko followed. Her face was a frozen mask underneath her makeup.
  
  Uemura Sonzaemon was a fine young dilettante. He had been sent to Miyako by his family to study, and was nominally a ward of Ito's, who had known Uemura's father. He was dressed in the latest fashion. His hair was briskly brushed into a smooth topknot, his shaven pate glimmered. His clothes were all of fine silk and his sword furniture, though impractical, was decorated with gold leaf. Only the hard look in the eyes and around the mouth spoiled the impression of languid good looks.
  
  "I wonder, Ito-sama," he said as soon as the polite preliminaries were over, "whether you could advance me some trifling sum ..."
  
  "My dear boy. Of course that is out of the question. Your father has entrusted you into my care and I would hardly dare exceed his instructions ..."
  
  Ito's unctuous old-fashioned phrases left no doubt in the young man's mind that there was no chance of squeezing extra money out of the old crow. He politely made his farewell. The effort was worth making, however slim the chances. He would have to fall back on a more certain resource, and possibly on another avenue altogether.