Having more or less completed her trawl of the Bond Street and South Molton Street shops on Tuesday, Stephanie decided that on Wednesday she would investigate Knightsbridge and Sloane Street. She got the Cadillac to drop her off at Harrods where she browsed happily for an hour before walking down to Harvey Nichols, telling the chauffeur to wait at Montepeliano where she intended to have a light lunch.
As she walked through Knightsbridge, looking in shop windows but not bothering to go into any of the shops, she had a strange, unaccountable feeling: that she was being followed. Standing in one of the shop doorways she pretended to be looking at the clothes but glanced instead behind her. There was no one who looked remotely interested in her. A burly ginger-haired man in a suede blouson walked past her and up the street without giving her a glance and a small sprightly woman in her sixties, carrying a miniature poodle, did the same. No one dived into a shop to hide, or turned and walked in the opposite direction. No one appeared in the least interested in her. She looked both ways. The ginger-haired man had disappeared.
It was a bout of paranoia, Stephanie decided, though what had caused it she couldn't imagine. She walked on, glancing back over her shoulder from time to time but never once caught anyone who could properly arouse her suspicions.
In Sloane Street she wandered into one or two shops and tried on various items: skirts, blouses, a suit. But whether it was because she could find nothing to her taste, or just not being in the mood for shopping, she bought nothing. She felt an odd sense of foreboding and whatever she did she couldn't shake it off. The entirely irrational prospect of being followed had raised a spectre in her mind that she had never been able completely to lay to rest. After all she had been drugged and kidnapped from the castle only months ago, held in a cellar, naked and cold, for days. Though she had managed to free herself and get her revenge on the perpetrator, the experience, not surprisingly, had left its mental scars on her. If it hadn't been for her own guile she could have been there still. The thought chilled her, and for a second she stood in front of a row of clothes and shivered.
'Are you all right, madam?' A rather matronly assistant asked, seeing the colour drain from Stephanie's face.
'I'm fine,' she replied. 'Thanks.'
She walked past the concerned woman, out of the shop and strode purposefully towards Montepeliano. What she needed was a drink and something to eat, then she would feel better.
And she did. Seated in the bustling Italian restaurant with a stiff vodka martini in front of her and her chauffeur seated outside in the car, she felt her confidence return. She damned Gianni, her kidnapper, and was able to smile to herself at the thought of what she had done to him by way of revenge.
She ate some grilled prawns and a green salad and drank most of the bottle of vintage Barolo, which didn't go with the fish at all but which she ordered because she wanted something warm and full-bodied.
It was the cold in the cellars in which she had been trapped that had left the deepest mark on her psyche and whenever she recalled the experience it took her some time to make herself feel warm again. A large double espresso helped too.
Feeling better, she got the Cadillac to take her to the top end of the Fulham Road where she had read of a clothes shop she particularly wanted to see. The chauffeur indicated where he would wait for her and she ventured into the highly decorated shop, its exterior hand-painted in a marble effect of black and green. The interior continued the same colour scheme, the centre of the shop very dark but the clothes arrayed on rails that were bathed in pools of light from overhead spots.
The clothes were certainly unusual but so outrageously expensive that, even on Devlin's budget, Stephanie blanched. It was not only the money. The styles were so outré it was difficult to imagine a single occasion she could wear them on. They were definitely not clothes that would turn Devlin, or any of Devlin's guests, on.
Disappointed, she wandered out and was thinking about going home when she noticed a small shop window opposite and a few doors down from the pretentiously marbled emporium. The absolutely plain but beautifully cut black dress in the window was in such contrast to the over-elaboration of the clothes she had just seen that Stephanie liked it immediately.
The old-fashioned bell above the door tinkled as Stephanie entered the shop. It was small with only two rows of clothes, one on each side of a narrow space. There was a small counter at the back and a curtain behind which was what Stephanie took to be the changing room. As she browsed through the first rail of clothes a woman appeared from behind the counter.
'Can I help you?' she said, smiling and coming round into the centre of the shop. She was an extraordinarily striking woman. Her hair was long and very blonde, her strong face beautifully balanced by high cheekbones and a long but slender nose. Her eyes, edged with eye-liner and shadow, the lashes thick with black mascara, were very large and very blue. Her mouth was big too, her fleshy lips in a shade of lipstick that could accurately be called jungle red. It matched the nail varnish painted on her long, manicured fingernails.
'I'd like to try on the dress in the window,' Stephanie said.
'Of course.' The woman went to the rack of clothes opposite and extracted a black dress. She held it up. 'This is your size, I should think.'
She took the dress and went to the curtain at the back of the shop. Stephanie followed her. The woman wore very high-heeled black court shoes and a black skirt that hugged the curves of her large but shapely buttocks. Above the skirt she wore a white silk blouse through which Stephanie could see the lace of a white teddy. Her long legs were sheathed in black nylon with a fully fashioned heel and seams running up the dead centre of her slim calves. Though her body was attractive it didn't quite match her face. There was something angular and a little awkward about it. Even her breasts, which were not large, appeared to jut out rather than flow from her chest.
She held the curtain aside and hung the dress on a hook just inside the entrance. The changing room was not the usual cubicle size. It was more like a small room with a reupholstered Victorian chaise longue and a large full-length mirror on one wall. The ceiling had been tented with a rich red material which had also been used in panels on the walls. The thick carpeting was in a light pink.
'This is pretty,' Stephanie said.
'I always hated those little telephone-box changing rooms. Can't relax in those. If you need anything I'll be outside.'
The woman let the curtain drop and Stephanie unzipped the light grey jersey dress she was wearing and tried on the black. As she had suspected, it was sexy and flattering, its cinched waist emphasising her full breasts and the curves of her hips. She whirled in the mirror, then went out into the shop.
'Oh, that really suits you,' the woman said.
'I think so.' Stephanie looked at herself in the mirror at the front of the shop in natural daylight.
'What's this material?'
'Unusual, isn't it? Moiré taffeta.'
The material made patterns of shade in the clinging black.
'It's beautiful. I'll take it.'
'It's my own design.'
'Really?'
'Everything in here.'
'Well, congratulations. It's great.'
For the next hour Stephanie tried on almost everything in the shop and ended up buying three dresses and a yellow suit, all beautifully tailored and cut. She had looked at the lapels which all read: VIVIENNE ELSON. Vivienne Elson, Stephanie decided, was a clever woman. She was definitely going to make this shop a regular stop whenever she came to London.
Stephanie had watched Vivienne through the gap in the curtains as she'd changed into the various outfits. Vivienne had a pose and grace about her as she walked around the shop straightening clothes here, rearranging the flowers there, generally fussing over detail. There was something unusual about her and it was an unusualness that Stephanie found very attractive.
She supposed it was natural, considering the life she now led, but to Stephanie a sexual agenda always seemed to be very close to the surface. Even the chill she had experienced this morning had not apparently cooled it. Of course what had happened with Kanjii still burned in her body and mind vividly - if she cared to think about it she could still feel his spunk shooting into her - so, she supposed, it was not surprising that her response to this obviously very talented woman should be, at least in part, a sexual one.
'Could you help me?' she called. The zip on the last dress she had tried seemed to be stuck. Or was that just an excuse? She could have worked it free on her own.
'Of course.'
Vivienne pulled the curtain aside and entered the changing room.
'The zip...' Stephanie turned her back so Vivienne could see for herself.
Cool fingers freed the obstacle and pulled the tongue of the zip down into the small of Stephanie's back, making the zip sing.
Stephanie stepped out of the dress and replaced it on its hanger. 'I think you're very clever,' she said, then turned to face Vivienne. 'And very attractive.'
'Thank you,' Vivienne said, blushing slightly. But she did not move. 'So are you.' She took the hanger from Stephanie and their hands touched. Immediately Stephanie kissed Vivienne on the cheek, feeling a sudden rush of excitement as she did so. Seducing women was not something she'd done often.
'What was that for?' Vivienne asked, her eyes looking at the rich contours of Stephanie's body, covered now only by a deep blue three-quarter cup bra, matching tanga panties and grey hold-up stockings whose welt was so high they practically grazed Stephanie's crotch.
Stephanie paused before she said, 'I find you very attractive.'
'You mean sexually?'
'Yes. And let's say I don't believe in repressing my feelings any more. I've learnt not to. If you find the idea unacceptable then we'll forget I ever said it.'
'Are you a lesbian?' Vivienne made the word sound like some sort of medical disorder.
Stephanie laughed. 'I like sex. I enjoy it. Men and women. As far as I'm concerned it all comes down to the same thing.'
'I like it too,' the woman said with a wistful tone that Stephanie didn't understand.
'What does that mean?' Stephanie asked.
'Nothing.'
Stephanie took a step forward, wrapped her arms around the white blouse and pulled Vivienne into a full-blooded kiss, pressing her tongue into her mouth. Vivienne did not resist. She kissed back tentatively at first and then more firmly, wrapping her arms around Stephanie in turn.
'Can you close the shop?' Stephanie said when their mouths parted.
'Now?'
'It's nearly five.'
'Look, I think there's something I should tell you...'
'Just lock the door.'
Stephanie sat on the chaise longue, putting one foot up on the seat and leaving the other on the floor so her legs were apart and the flat plane of her sex, covered by the tight-fitting blue panties, was exposed. Her thick pubic hair under the material made her crotch look as though it had been padded.
Vivienne hesitated, then walked into the shop. She returned seconds later and this time, with no hesitation, knelt on the thick carpet in front of Stephanie's open legs. She bent her head and kissed the knee of the leg that rested on the floor, then worked her mouth up the stocking to the welt that held it in place. It was as though she had made a decision and wanted to carry it through quickly before she could think to change her mind.
Her mouth slipped onto the open crotch of Stephanie's panties, sucking on them, sucking through them to Stephanie's sex. Her mouth felt incredibly hot. Stephanie moaned. Again with no hesitation, Vivienne's fingers delved under the leg of the panties until they were pressed into Stephanie's labia, and then, straight up with no impediment, into her cunt.
'Is that what you wanted?' Vivienne asked as though proud she had proved something to herself. Her voice was much lower in tone.
'Yes...'
Stephanie had got what she wanted again. She had aroused Vivienne's interest. She had no idea if Vivienne had ever done this with a woman before and didn't want to ask. Of course, she should never have started this. It was crazy. The last thing in the world she needed was another sexual experience, not after Venetia and Kanjii and everything else. What was wrong with her? Was it like a drug, the more she got the more she wanted? Or was it just that her sexual temperature was so high at the moment it was simply irresistible?
She should have apologised to the woman, told her it was a mistake and gone home. Or arranged to meet at another time when she was next in London. But though that was what she should have done, it was not what she had any intention of doing.
Instead Stephanie wriggled herself down onto the two thick fingers that probed her cunt, feeling herself juicing around them.
'Is this what you wanted?' Vivienne repeated, pushing a third finger up alongside the other two while her other hand went into the high-cut leg of the panties and searched Stephanie's pubic thatch until she found her clitoris.
'Yes...' Stephanie moaned.
With no delicacy or finesse, the tip of Vivienne's finger started to wank the clit from side to side, vigorously pressing down on it at the same time.
'And this...'
The finger worked harder in time to the thrusts of the others in Stephanie's cunt. Stephanie wanted to reach out and hold her back, stop her being so fierce, but at the same time she was enjoying - if enjoyment was the right word - the lack of subtlety. There was something basic about what Vivienne was doing to her, like someone who had not done something before or at least had not practised it for a long time. Either way the energy was exciting and Stephanie didn't want to spoil her enthusiasm.
Besides, it was only seconds before Stephanie lost the ability to do anything consciously. For some reason she suddenly smelled the strange aroma from Kanjii's black box and it kicked her body into a higher gear, making her juice copiously, opening her body like a flower, allowing Vivienne's fingers deeper on their inward thrust.
Vivienne could feel her response. Remorselessly she wanked at the hard knot of her clit while her fingers imitated the action of a cock. It had been a long time since she'd done this. She shouldn't have been doing it now. She should have ignored this woman's provocation and done nothing. But she couldn't. There was something about her, something too profound to ignore. It was beginning to hurt her, as she knew it would, and hurt her a lot, but she was determined she would finish what she had began.
Stephanie felt her body climbing to the brink. She looked at the woman kneeling between her legs, a stranger, a stranger minutes before, now doing the most intimate things to her. It was a power she seemed to have, a directness and honesty. It would never have occurred to her before but now it was a trait people responded to. It was power.
Her nerves sung, the different chords came together and became one harmony, her body vibrating in unison and pitching her over into the black abyss where there was only absolute pleasure.
Vivienne sensed that the climax had passed. She pulled away gently, but remained on her knees. She looked awkward and embarrassed.
'I'm sorry. I didn't... I mean it was too hard to...' she said, not finding the right words to express her confused feelings.
'Shh...' Stephanie said.
'I just haven't...'
Stephanie slipped down beside her on to the soft carpet, putting her arm around Vivienne's shoulder. 'Now it's my turn,' she said, caressing her arm.
'No,' the woman said in alarm.
'Why not?' Stephanie said, moving her hand to Vivienne's breast. Strangely it felt cold.
'You can't.'
'I can.'
Stephanie kissed her on the mouth. At first Vivienne resisted. But she was weak. She allowed Stephanie to push her back onto the floor until she was lying on her back with Stephanie beside her. She allowed Stephanie's tongue between her lips, though even then she was mouthing the words 'no, no, no,' as Stephanie's hand unzipped her skirt at the side and delved beneath the waistband. But Vivienne did not make any attempt to stop her: she had accepted the inevitable.
Stephanie's hand felt a suspender belt holding up the seamed stockings but there was something else under the white teddy. It was a pantie girdle, a very tight pantie girdle. She wormed her hand under the teddy and on to the elasticated girdle, down to Vivienne's crotch, at which point Vivienne broke the kiss.
'I tried to tell you,' she said as she felt Stephanie's fingers feeling around the shape and weight of her cock and balls, heavily strapped up under the unyielding crotch of the pantie girdle but obvious nevertheless.
'You're a man?'
'Yes. I'm sorry. I should never have...'
'Then fuck me,' Stephanie said simply.
'What?' Vivienne looked astonished. She had expected distaste and disdain, but not this reaction.
'You heard.' Stephanie was looking down into Vivienne's big, heavily made-up eyes, and feeling tantalised by what she saw. The idea that this beautiful woman, as feminine and lovely as any she'd seen, also had a cock was exciting, wonderfully exciting.
Vivienne could see she was serious that she meant what she said.
'Give me a minute.'
She got to her feet, walked through the curtain and out into the small office that was tucked behind the shop counter.
Stephanie watched her through the gap in the curtains. She pulled off her blouse and the skirt. A tight white bra held spongy, flesh-coloured artificial tits in place under the white teddy. Vivienne unhooked the crotch of the teddy and pulled the heavy pantie girdle down her hips. Quickly she unstrapped the cock from the tiny belts that held it down. It erected immediately, pushing up inside the lace of the teddy, framed by the long fingers of the white suspender belt.
Vivienne's hands were trembling. She adjusted her hair in a little mirror on the office wall and adjusted her stockings. The crotch of the teddy hung down between her legs like a tail. She debated taking the teddy off altogether but the bra that held her tits in place was so ugly on its own. Taking a deep breath, she walked back into the changing room.
Stephanie had taken off the deep blue panties. She was fingering her labia through the thick pubic hair, feeling her own excitement. She wanted to be fucked by the strange vision that stood in front of her.
'You've made me very hot, Vivienne.'
'No one's ever seen me like this.'
'You're beautiful. You're a beautiful woman with a cock. It's the best of both worlds. All the softness and femininity of a woman, all the hardness of a man.' It was true. In an odd way the cock seemed not to belong to Vivienne. It was a thing apart, an afterthought, an appendage.
'Shall I keep the teddy on? It looks strange undone like this.'
'Just come down here and fuck me, Vivienne,' Stephanie said, emphasising her name.
Vivienne knelt in front of Stephanie, the cock still entangled in the white lace. The fluid it had produced made a wet mark on the front of the teddy. Stephanie pulled the material away and circled the phallus with her hand.
'Fuck me,' she said.
Vivienne slid down on top of her. The cock slipped between her legs and up into her labia, as nylon stockings rasped together at the top of their thighs. Stephanie bucked her hips to position it at the opening of her sex and immediately skewered herself down on it. Vivienne moaned. The cock felt big and hard and hot. Stephanie wanted it badly. The whole image of this 'woman' had turned her on. Her hands caressed Vivienne's thighs deliberately feeling the welts of the stockings and the long white suspenders. She brought her hand up to Vivienne's chest to squeeze at her bra. The strange rubbery filling underneath felt sticky and gelatinous but Vivienne moaned as though Stephanie had squeezed a real breast.
'You're so wet,' Vivienne whispered in her ear. 'It's you, you're turning me on, all this...' she fingered the bra to indicate what she meant.
Vivienne began to move her cock in and out of Stephanie's liquid cunt. It felt so good, so welcoming. She was turned on too, turned on by this woman's acceptance of her, of what she was. She pummelled faster and harder.
Stephanie raised her head to look down over Vivienne's shoulder and watched her buttocks plunging in and out between Stephanie's thighs. She could see the white suspenders and stockings pulled taut, she could feel the silky teddy against her, she could smell the perfume Vivienne was wearing. She was being fucked by a woman, not with a cold plastic dildo but by a hot hard cock.
She could feel Vivienne coming, the cock swelling, the rhythm increasing. She wanted Vivienne to come because she was coming too, her body trembling, a long slow build-up as the cock moved in her cunt and she felt the familiarity of a woman's body against hers and, at the same time, the unfamiliarity of the woman fucking her like a man. Her hands caressed the white teddy, the suspenders, the stockings, their feel turning her on more, emphasising the oddity of it all.
'I'm coming...' she moaned, wanting Vivienne to know, wanting her to be free to spunk too. But it was not before Stephanie's body had bucked and trembled and locked, not until her orgasm had flooded every nerve, not until she had felt herself falling into a pit of absolute pleasure, her eyes rolled back, her body transported to another plane and then relaxed, that Vivienne's cock slowed then spasmed, jetting spunk out into the place it had found in Stephanie's willing sex.
The dinner was served in a Western-style dining room sitting at a table, not kneeling, as Stephanie had expected, on the floor. But the food was Japanese and served with elaborate ceremony by two of the geishas dressed, this time, in the traditional heavily embroidered brocade kimonos and traditional wooden sandals, their waists bound in the wide white silk 'obis', the padded cushion worn, as Kanjii explained, at the front by girls in training, and at the back by those geishas who had learned all the secrets of their profession.
Stephanie wore a tight black strapless dress, its bodice wired to hold her breasts in a deep cleavage, the rest of its length clinging to her body almost as though it had been painted on. Its skirt was very short, revealing most of her thighs. Apart from sheer Lycra tights and dark blue high heels Stephanie wore nothing else. She had put her dark hair up into a chignon and her neck was bare too: it was long and shapely, its tendons prominent, the hollows of her throat deeply defined.
Each Japanese dish was a painting, arranged on various coloured plates, all shaped differently - squares and rectangles as well as round - as if a still-life composition for some oil painting. Even the soup arrived in delicate bowls with little lids on square plates, all colour-coordinated to make an impression of a carefully constructed work of art. But as well as the visual aspect the food was delicious, the soup a lightly flavoured consommé, the sashimi with green mustard, fresh and light and the beef teriyaki - cooked in front of them by one of the geishas - a wonderful combination of tastes unlike anything Stephanie had eaten before.
They drank warm sake and Kanjii talked about Japan. But it was Stephanie who brought up the subject of the Seven Samurai.
'So tell me about tonight's ritual?' she asked when the meal was over and the geishas served green tea in large earthenware mugs with no handles.
Kanjii smiled. 'I will show you but I will not tell you,' he said.
'It is a ritual, like the ones you showed me before?' Stephanie's body shivered slightly as she remembered the single flower.
'Oh yes. All these things are passed down from generation to generation in the geisha houses.'
'They are like brothels?'
'Yes and no. Yes, men pay for the attention of women. But it is not always with money. A man may help a geisha house in many ways, according to his ability. And once he is associated with a particular house it becomes a tradition of the family. I took my son. He will take his son. It is passed on in this way.'
'And it's not dying out with Western influences?'
'Oh yes, it is. Now it is mostly for rich men like me. In the old days all Japanese men went to geisha.'
'And their wives?'
'The wives would come to geisha house too. It was not a secret for men to go there. It was honourable.'
'But your geishas don't belong to a geisha house?'
'No. The house my family used was going out of business. I took it over. For my exclusive use. I will pass it on to my sons. All the old traditions will die eventually.' He looked sad. 'Not yet but soon. It will no longer be honourable profession for women.'
They walked through into the living room and Kanjii offered more sake. Considering what lay ahead, Stephanie asked if she could have a brandy instead. Kanjii poured a good measure from a bottle of Janneau Armagnac into a crystal brandy balloon. He poured one for himself too. Stephanie did not sit down. She sipped the liquor as she looked out at the view, the lights of the city sparkling against a very black and starless sky.
'One Western custom I find totally acceptable,' he said, touching his glass against the side of hers.
The golden liquid was wonderfully smooth and Stephanie felt a buzz of excitement that the time she had so eagerly awaited had almost come. Her imagination had run riot in the last two days in trying to picture what the ritual of the Seven Samurai might involve. If she cared to think about it, she could still feel the way she had been laid open on the futon and stretched by the geishas before she had been closed and bound around Kanjii's cock: it was the combination of having the nerves in her shoulders and hips so tortured by being pulled taut while her clitoris was laid open and exposed and then being bound into a tight neat package, unable to move, unable to do anything but feel. It was like going from cold to hot. It was not something she could ever have imagined but being held like that, stretched on a human rack, then forcibly held down on Kanjii's cock had made her feel ten times more sensitive. She shivered again as she remembered how distinctly she had felt Kanjii spunking inside her. If the Seven Samurai was another ritual of this sort, it was definitely something to look forward to.
'It is time I think,' Kanjii said, finishing his brandy. Stephanie did not finish hers. She set the glass down and followed Kanjii to the garden door.
They crossed the wooden bridge. It was a beautiful clear night and the sound of the waterfall and the chill of the autumn air made Stephanie shiver slightly in the very scanty dress. The garden was illuminated at night by carefully placed floodlights and the water splashing up from the fountain glistened like diamonds as the drops created tiny rainbows of light.
Kanjii opened the door set in the grass bank and Stephanie stepped inside, her heart beating faster. In the white paper hall two of the geishas, the eldest one who spoke English and another one Stephanie had not seen before, stood waiting, both dressed only in the white cotton knickers they had worn before. At Kanjii's arrival they put their hands together, finger to finger in an attitude of prayer and bowed deeply. He bowed too.
The eldest geisha opened the sliding panel and the geishas led the way into the bathhouse. Their pert bottoms looked alluring in the tight white cotton that fitted snugly over the cheeks of their arses as they walked ahead.
Four geishas waited in the stone-clad bathhouse, all in just the white cotton knickers. Three of the girls gathered around Kanjii - after an exchange of bows - and three around Stephanie. She felt the zip of her dress being undone and the black silk peeled from her body. Her tights were pulled down her legs and her shoes levered off her feet. Kanjii too was being stripped.
After the chill outside, the bathhouse was warm. The six geishas led Kanjii and Stephanie over to the sunken bath and down the steps into the waist-high water. Hands covered their bodies with soap and rinsed it away. As Stephanie felt her sex being rubbed with soap she saw Kanjii's cock, already starting to erect, being lathered by two hands under water. Fingers delved into the cleft of her arse and the crease of her labia, washing every crevice.
The washing done, Kanjii led Stephanie up out of the bath and they stood together while the geishas dried them with small white towels, each geisha holding one towel. Kanjii's cock was fully erect now but other than drying it thoroughly - an enterprise undertaken by the eldest geisha - they made no attempt to touch it.
As soon as they were dry their bodies were powdered with a sweet talcum applied with the softest of brushes, the powder dusted up between Stephanie's legs and over her breasts. Next one of the geishas dripped a strong musky perfume from a bottle all over Kanjii's body, repeating the performance with Stephanie's. The aroma reminded her slightly of the scent the black box had produced, though it did not have the same intoxicating effect.
Kanjii said something in Japanese and the girls disappeared, filing through one of the sliding panels one by one.
'They go to prepare. Now I must prepare you,' Kanjii said, looking straight into her eyes. He took her hand and led her across the bathhouse to a small alcove she had not noticed before, set back from the main room but stone-clad like the rest of the room. The alcove contained a large, rather low black table about the size of a small double bed. But it was no ordinary table. In the bottom third a large oval had been cut from its surface, the edges of the oval padded and bound in leather. The rest of the surface of the table was covered with a thin futon mattress into which had also been cut an oval hole to match exactly the one underneath.
'Intriguing,' Stephanie said.
'Lie here please,' Kanjii said, but as Stephanie began to mount the table he corrected her. 'Your head the other way.'
She swung round and lay back on the table until her head rested comfortably on the mattress. With her legs open the hole was positioned between her thighs. As Stephanie gazed up to the ceiling she saw the starless sky. The alcove's ceiling was made from glass. As she looked, one or two stars came into view, the heavy cloud of earlier beginning to clear slightly.
The eldest geisha returned first. She wore a red silk Kheong-Sam split so high on the thigh that it was obvious she was wearing nothing other than the shiny white tights that sheathed her legs and the white court shoes. Immediately she came to the top of the mattress and began unpinning Stephanie's hair, which they had been careful not to get wet as they bathed her. With a small brush she had brought with her she combed the hair out, draping it over the edge of the table. Then she pressed her finger to Stephanie's lips, as she had done before, to indicate the need for silence.
The other five geishas returned together, each in different-coloured Kheong-Sams, each wearing only tights and shoes. One joined the eldest at the top of the table by Stephanie's head, two stood at the foot of the table and two on either side in the middle. Kanjii stepped back to the wall and pressed a small switch, and Stephanie heard the whirr of electric motors. Suddenly the night sky and the few stars disappeared and a startling image replaced them: the glass ceiling had been turned into a mirror and Stephanie stared back at the image of herself lying on the futon surrounded by the geishas, their jet-black hair shining in the light. The sight sent a shudder through her body, a pulse of pure pleasure centred on her sex.
Kanjii spoke in Japanese. The two geishas at her feet each took an ankle and spread her legs apart until her feet were at the corners of the table. Each then began massaging her foot, the arch of her foot, the instep, her toes and ankles, kneading them with strong powerful fingers. Most of all they seemed to press their knuckles into the balls of her feet which produced a sensation Stephanie had never experienced before. It was as though her feet had suddenly become not just sensitive but sexually sensitive, sending waves of sensual pleasure up her legs to her already-throbbing cunt.
Kanjii issued another command. The two geishas halfway up the table reached forward with both hands to grasp Stephanie's breasts, kneading and moulding them, pinching and pulling at her nipples with just the right degree of pressure, treading a careful line between pain and pleasure. What was extraordinary was that their action was perfectly synchronised; each movement, each caress, each pinch exactly mirrored on the other breast. And so was the action on her feet. The pleasure seemed to be rising up her body, the sensations from her feet amplified by the pleasure in her breasts. Stephanie moaned.
For the third time Kanjii issued instructions. The two geishas at the top of the table began stroking Stephanie's neck on either side. That alone, in combination with the other hands, made Stephanie tremble helplessly with pleasure. Then the geishas moved to her ears. Again with perfectly synchronised movements their fingers circled the outer surfaces, around the back, around the edge, then plunged a little finger deep into the delicate inner whorls. Stephanie had known her ears were sensitive but nothing like this.
The six pairs of hands working on her body seemed to add up to more. Even though they never left her feet or breasts or ears, Stephanie had the curious sensation that they were everywhere, all over her, that the feelings they were provoking somehow joined up to make her whole body feel like it was sensuously alive. She looked up at herself in the mirror, watching the hands moving on her breasts and ears and feet. She moaned loudly, wanting to see her mouth move in the mirror.
She had lost sight of Kanjii. She looked for him in the mirror but she daren't move her head for fear of disturbing the exquisite rhythm the geishas used. She could see it all in the mirror, in unison, a harmony of movement, each stroke, each circle, translated in different movements but feeling nevertheless the same, as though all six hands belonged to the same body.
In the mirror she suddenly saw Kanjii's head, his dark hair, appear between her thighs. He had knelt under the table and pushed his head through the oval aperture.
'The Seventh Samurai,' he said proudly.
The geishas moved as one again. In exactly the same second, Stephanie felt a hot wet mouth descend on her toes, her nipples and into her ears. In exactly the same second she felt tongues licking at her flesh. In exactly the same second she felt Kanjii's tongue plunging down on to her clitoris.
It was as though she was suspended, as though she were floating, her only contact with the surface the seven mouths that touched her body. But that was not the most extraordinary feeling. Kanjii's tongue manipulated her clitoris but it was as though she had seven clitorises. She could not distinguish between the feelings from her ear or nipple or toes. They were all the same, the same intensity, the same sensitivity, the same aching sexual pleasure, the same throbbing pulsing sensation. She could not concentrate on one. They all demanded her attention.
To say she was coming was an understatement. She was exploding, her whole body on fire and her mind, because if she could hold her eyes open - and it was hard not to let them roll back with pleasure - she could see in the mirror the most exotic sight she had ever seen, her prostrate body ministered to by six women and one man - the Seven Samurai.
'Oh God...' she screamed as loud as she could, wanting to hear the vibration of the sound. It matched the whole vibration of her body, trembling out of control. The seven clitorises they had created produced seven times the intensity of feeling. As her orgasm broke over her she could not tell from where it came, from her breast or toe or clitoris or in her head where two tongues artfully probed so deep in her ears she thought they would touch her brain. If it broke anywhere it was there in her head, there over the two hot tongues that seemed to go deeper than she would ever have believed possible, there in her fevered mind. But then she felt new waves gathering from her nipples and toes and clitoris and new orgasms erupted over and over again until, after a very long time, she was capable of feeling no more.
Slowly the geishas left her, not all together this time, but slowly one by one. Each departure felt as shattering as if a cock were slipping from her body after intercourse. Each produced a little aftermath of shock. Kanjii was the last to take his mouth away.
She must have slept, exhausted by the intensity of emotion, because when she opened her eyes the geishas had gone and only Kanjii remained in the alcove, sitting in a small wooden chair and watching her. Above, the ceiling had turned back to glass and more stars had appeared in the sky.
'Are you all right?' he asked, seeing her awaken.
'I think so,' she said, sitting up on one elbow.
'It is a new experience, I think.'
'Very. This has been going on in Japan for centuries?'
'Oh yes. Of course not for the women. It was designed for men. In Japan a man's wealth was measured by the number of geishas he could afford to keep. For most men the Seven Samurai would represent exceptional wealth. But it is not the ultimate.'
Stephanie swung her legs onto the side of the table and got up a little unsteadily. There was a small jug of water and two bright yellow beakers on a little side-table.
'Is this water?'
'Yes.'
She poured herself a glass and drank it thirstily. 'What is the ultimate, then?'
'The Thirteen Samurai,' Kanjii replied.
'Thirteen?'
'Two geishas for the toes, the nipples, ears, knees, fingers of both hands, and one mouth for each of the balls. Naturally enough the Thirteenth Samurai is for the cock.'
'My God...' Stephanie tried to imagine it. They sometimes had twelve slaves at the castle so it was something she could try on Devlin. Kanjii had taught her a lot of lessons she intended to apply at the castle.
'So now you have experienced the Japanese way.'
'Where are the geishas?'
Stephanie stood in front of Kanjii, her naked body inches from his face.
'Why?'
'Don't you think you'd better get them back in here?' She pressed her navel into his face.
'For what reason?' he said, pulling back to look up into her eyes.
'The Seven Samurai is for men.'
'I don't...'
'I'll be the Seventh Samurai this time.' She stroked Kanjii's face. 'Or don't you think I have enough experience?'
'I think it would be most exciting, but I...'
'Just get them back.'
It didn't take long for the geishas to file back into the alcove while Kanjii lay back on the low table. Stephanie found the switch which converted the ceiling glass into a mirror and watched as the image of Kanjii came into view.
Kanjii was not erect. But as soon as the two geishas began to manipulate his feet his cock unfurled rapidly. By the time the third and fourth geishas touched his nipples it was fully erect and throbbing visibly.
The same pattern they had followed with Stephanie, they used on Kanjii. Every detail was the same, a time-honoured ritual. The eldest geisha nodded to Stephanie when it was time to take her position. She slipped under the table and emerged with her head between Kanjii's thighs. As the geishas' mouths sucked and licked at his toes and ears and nipples, Stephanie sucked his big hard shaft into her mouth.
Kanjii's whole body was trembling just like Stephanie's had done. He was looking at himself in the mirror, watching his geishas and Stephanie's long black hair flowing over his thighs as she bobbed up and down on his cock. Her mouth was expert. Had she been a geisha she would have been trained to synchronise her rhythms with the others, but her lack of expertise in this direction was compensated for by her total expertise in the way she licked and sucked and drew his cock back and forth in her mouth.
Stephanie felt his spunk rising. Kneeling under the table, she felt her own sex pulsing again, reminded of how it had been made to feel. She pressed her legs together as she felt a gush of juices on her thighs. Her body was expressing its needs too. The Japanese arts of love were all very well but her body demanded something a little cruder and more direct.
Quickly she crawled out from under the table. The geishas, though not taking their mouths from their allotted tasks, looked astonished. Kanjii raised his head to see what was happening but the ritual forbade him to speak. Stephanie was climbing on the table. With no hesitation she straddled Kanjii's navel, groped with her hand behind her for his cock and held it tightly at the slippery nest of her cunt.
'You want it, don't you?' she said.
Kanjii nodded, making the geishas on his ears temporarily lose their stroke.
In one movement Stephanie dropped down onto Kanjii's cock, impaling herself on him. It took her breath away. It was hot and very hard. Kanjii lowered his head. This was not the tradition but it was exciting. The geishas found his ears again, their tongues inserted deep, taking up the rhythm of the mouths on his nipples and toes.
He moaned as Stephanie began to move up and down on him, her hands pressing down on his navel, bucking her hips up and down. She wanted her own pleasure and ground her clitoris against his hard pubic bone over and over again until her mind was filled with sex, until it replayed images of her stretched out on the table, of her in the other room drugged with scent and fucked, of her now, her whole body beginning to pulse with pleasure as she felt her orgasm break, as her cunt convulsed around the hard shaft deep inside it and she screamed with the sharp ravishing sensations that flooded every nerve.
It was only as she came down from her high that she realised Kanjii hadn't come. She felt his hard cock still inside her. She knew instinctively what he wanted. It was tradition, ritual. She had suggested it after all; she should be prepared to finish it. She had succumbed to pure selfishness; now it was time to do her duty. Quickly she scrambled off the table and knelt under it again, thrusting her head up into the oval aperture. She took Kanjii's cock, sleek with her juices, and sucked it hard. Watching the eldest geisha she tried to match the motion of her head to her own motion, tried now to be the perfect geisha. She felt her own juices leaking from her sex and running down her thighs, and tasted them on Kanjii's cock. But she tried to concentrate. It was not easy. Her mind was still full of images, of everything that had happened to her in the penthouse, all the ways the geishas had washed her and fingered her and held her.
As she felt Kanjii's cock swelling in her mouth she remembered how it had felt as it had swollen inside her, bound tightly inside her so it could not move, how she had felt his spunk spraying from his body. She suddenly thought of what that would be like with Devlin, with Devlin's monstrous cock spasming inside her. She shuddered, trying to put such thoughts aside and think only of what she was doing.
Kanjii's cock twitched hard in her mouth as she timed her movement to coincide with the sweep of the tongues she could see at his ear. She knew what he was feeling. She knew how those tongues felt, hot and wet and so close to the brain they felt as though they were inside it.
It swelled up one more time, Kanjii moaned, a low animal moan, a sound produced deep in his body, and his cock began to spasm, jerking against her tongue and her lips as it spat spunk down into her throat, his moan continuous, his body rigid.
There was too much spunk for Stephanie to swallow. Some escaped from the corner of her mouth and dribbled down into Kanjii's pubic hair.
The geishas withdrew one by one until they were alone again. Stephanie finally released his cock from her mouth and came out from under the table.
'I spoiled it,' she said, standing looking down at him.
'No. No. It was wonderful. Wonderful. I think I make it part of the ritual for the next four hundred years.'
'Do I get to be an honorary geisha?'
'Of course. I will confer the honour myself.'
'And no doubt that involves another ritual.'
Kanjii laughed. 'Oh yes. A long and arduous one, I fear.'
'But not tonight.'
'Definitely not tonight.'