text: It was a glorious morning. Rosamund awoke and stretched. Her friends were around her, sleeping deeply. She poked bits of bare skin experimentally. There was no response from female or male except groans or grunts of sleepiness. Annoyed, she fingered her glowing golden fur. She was just ready for another round, but none of these weaklings could supply her, she decided. She rose quietly from the tangle of limbs and knelt by the toilet table. Her face shone at her from the silver travelling mirror. Her hair was a golden cloud framing her large blue eyes and blooming cheeks to perfection. Idly she brushed her hair. The strands crackled with suppressed static electricity. She felt the same, still tensed up from last night's events.
  
  She smiled wickedly and moved the brush downwards. With steady strokes she brushed her golden bush. The sensation was titillating but not sufficient. She pushed harder, then sighed with frustration. Being the mistress of a rich and important lord had its disadvantages. The brush, for instance, was soft and smooth for a lady but too soft for her needs, which at times, like now, were violent. Her companions were still asleep, so she hastily dressed, not bothering with undergarments. A white robe and over it the violet cloak and hood of her disguise would suffice. She tucked her manryukusari chain in her robe and slid the shoji doors open. She closed them quietly and turned to face the glorious world without.
  
  The enormous cedars towered around her, their tops hidden in mist. The roofs of the houses were likewise wreathed. The mountain rose beside her, covered with forest and mystery. Not really thinking about it, she turned her steps to the slopes and starting climbing, wishing to exorcise sleep from her bones.
  
  After a stiff climb she could no longer see the roofs of the small hamlet below her, nor of the headman's house where her lovers lay sleeping. She turned and breathed deeply of the scented air. The sound of a small brook came to her through the mists. Suddenly thirsty, she headed for the water. The stream was small and deliciously cold. She followed it up to a small widening in the course. A waterfall fell from the cliff above.
  
  She stripped and slid her hands caressingly over her body. Her nipples stood erect in the cold, puckered slightly. Her thighs were white and firm. She spread her legs and bent forward to examine the rose on her inner thigh. Kissing a finger she said, "Poor little rose, no one has kissed you for ever so long," and put the digit to her mossy grove. Then she plunged into the pool.
  
  The cold bit into her like a knife. Her nipples puckered more than before, painfully. She gasped with the pain, finding in the freeze an element of pleasure that raised inner warmth even as the external cold raised goose bumps on her flesh.
  
  She paddled to the end of the pool near a large bush which grew from the rock and pulled herself up. She shook herself, then noticed a small niche behind the bush. She peered into the darkness. Something glittered on the rock. Heedless of the scratches, she forced herself through the bushy barrier. On a rock before the niche rested a lacquered wooden bowl and a short metal handle with two diamond-shaped ends. The joining handle would have been well covered by a man's fist. She had just bent to pick it up, when something loomed out of the darkness of the niche. She suppressed a scream. The figure in the gloom of the niche was Daisangyoja, leader of the yamabushi.