My Splendid Concubine (38 page)

The next night when he went to Shao-mei’s room, she made the same demand Ayaou made. She said that Robert should punish Ayaou by sleeping with her once a week.

He wanted to know who was feeding such ideas to his girls, so he asked.

Shao-mei replied,
“You paid for me first, Robert. That makes me the number one concubine. Ayaou should be punished. When she stops arguing, I will stop. After all, I am only defending myself.”

“
I didn’t ask for that. I wanted to know who you are talking to.”

“
I haven’t talked to anyone. What I am saying is common sense.”

To make things worse, despite his warnings that having inte
rcourse might damage the baby or risk her having a miscarriage, she started seducing him. She was loud about it too. She turned so the length of her naked back was exposed to him and moved toward him. When her buttocks rubbed against his crotch, Robert’s member stood at attention like the little mercenary it was. He was afraid he wasn’t strong enough to resist.

When Robert managed not to engage in
intercourse, she turned and brushed her lips across the tip of his erection. Fighting his desire to take her, Robert sat and pushed her head from his member. “Stop, Shao-mei.”

She refused to listen. Instead, she went down and wrapped her lips around i
ts tip. She tickled his member with her tongue. Robert felt his resolve and his sense of reason vanishing. The little wild beast stiffened into a solid root. “Shao-mei, please. We have a problem to solve.” She sucked harder. He found it impossible to think.

She came up for air, and said,
“You do not need anybody else. See, though I am heavy with a child, I can still make you happy. You want me. Your sun instrument tells me so.” She went down and took it into her mouth again.

“
Shao-mei, no.” He struggled to stay in control, but he knew he wouldn’t last much longer. “Shao-mei, we must talk.”

“
Talk as much as you want,” she said. “Nobody is stopping you.” She continued sucking.

Robert was overwhelm
ed with desire, but he resisted. “I am not a carrot,” he said. With a mighty effort of will, he managed to push her away. He put on the robe and tossed a blanket over her. With all the dignity he could muster, he said, “I must tell you, Shao-mei, I don’t like what you’re doing. I’ll deal with you later!” His voice didn’t sound convincing. “It’s wrong of you to risk your health and the health of the baby like this. It just is.”

His erection was protruding fro
m the robe. She laughed then stood and let her blanket slip to the floor. Turning, she threw one naked hip out at an angle. She stood on tiptoe and stuck her buttocks toward him. She arched her back and looked over her shoulder. She licked her tongue along her lips in an invitation that was too bold to mistake. “Look what you are walking away from,” she said. “Do you want to do that?”

Robert retreated to the larger bedroom. He found Ayaou quietly so
bbing. He climbed into bed next to her and pulled her toward him. “Let’s talk, Ayaou.”

Her hands went all over him. She saw his erection and anger flared in her eyes.
“Fine,” she said, “but I must talk my way.” She pressed her mouth on his. He tried to push her away, but she was like a leech. “Fight me off if that is what you want,” she said, “but I will not stop until I bring you to the pleasure cliff and make you jump.”

She pulled over his left hand to touch the wetness between her thighs. His mind tipped off balance and lust t
ook over. He thrust his member into her with such force their bellies slapped against each other.

Ayaou groaned and twisted her body beneath his. Robert couldn
’t do anything but dance to her rhythm. When he closed his eyes, he saw Shao-mei as if she were the one he was having intercourse with—not Ayaou. It was exhilarating. Guan-jiah was right about one thing. A woman was like a good horse, because, when a man had the right mount, he never wanted to get off.

Robert awoke to the sound of screams from downstairs. He threw on a robe and ran. The study to the left of the stairs was empty. He saw the first victim on the floor in there.

“
No,” he said, and stumbled into the room. The first victim had been a gift, a silk bag for his ink-stone. Shao-mei had made it. Ayaou must have cut it up with a pair of scissors. He’d loved that bag. Shao-mei had embroidered a pair of lovebirds on it. She’d said that the larger bird was Robert. She was the other one. They were going to build a nest together and fill it with little baby birds. Robert went down on his knees and gathered the scraps.

“
You will pay for it.” Shao-mei yelled from the kitchen. “Ayaou, I swear that I will not let you get away with this.”

“
I have warned you several times,” Ayaou replied. The tone of her voice was unkind. “This is the last warning, before I tell Robert to sell you.”

He froze with the scraps of the destroyed silk ink stone bag clutched in his hands. His stared at the doorway leading to the kitchen. He thought of the whip upstairs. Guan-jiah was right. The whip and
the pain it would deliver was his only choice, but he couldn’t make himself go up those stairs to get it.

The Angry voices in the kitch
en continued. “Do not think you are the only one with power. I have power too. I will make him sell you before you make him sell me. Do not forget that I am the one that carries his child. I am younger and prettier than you are. I have dimples that he is wild about. Every time I smile, he sees my dimples and he forgets you.”

Shao-mei
’s voice escalated into a scream. There was the sound of a blow that came from a fist hitting flesh. Robert ran into the kitchen to see the sisters scratching at each other. Ayaou threw herself on Shao-mei. She wrapped both her arms around Shao-mei and lifted her off the ground. She squeezed and Shao-mei’s face started to turn purple.

“
The baby!” he said. “No!” He took hold of Ayaou’s arms and pried them from Shao-mei. The younger sister lost her balance and stumbled back. He forced his way between them. Ayaou attempted another blow. Tufts of hair floated in the air. Shao-mei, in her blind fury, scratched Robert’s face and blood started to ooze from the wound.

After a few more blows from both sisters to Robert
’s body, both girls stumbled back. They were stunned they had hurt him. He put a hand up to stop the bleeding and looked from one sister to the other. Shao-mei’s blouse was torn. Ayaou’s face was also scratched.

“
Robert, you must sell Shao-mei!” Ayaou said, breaking the paralyzing spell that had invaded the room. “She has gone mad! I was wrong to let her in. She is ungrateful. This is how she repays my kindness. With her claws! She does not belong in this house. She belongs to Captain Patridge and deserves to be treated like a prostitute. Sell her! It is too late for her to cry sorry, because I will not hear her. Let her go, Robert!”

“
See her, Robert!” Shao-mei said—her voice filled with desperation. “Ayaou has turned evil! She has wished me sickness, and she has wished me death. She wants this child to die in my womb. She does not care that I am your concubine too. If you let her stay, she will bring you bad luck?”

No longer could Robert stand this. Anger rushed in and drove r
ational thought out of his head. “No!” he said in a harsh voice, and he was angry. The girls had never seen him this volcanic before. He took hold of Ayaou and forced her to sit on one side of the kitchen table. When he let go of her arms, dark spots showed where he had grabbed her. He looked sternly at Shao-mei and pointed at the stool on the other side of the table. His eyebrows had become storm clouds. His lips were thin blades. Ayaou and Shao-mei expected lightning and thunder to appear from his head.

After Shao-mei s
at, she hid her face in her hands. Robert wanted the look in his eyes to frighten her; that she’d seen something like it before from an executioner before a beheading. He was sure she wanted him to stop staring at her but feared saying anything.

“
Do not move,” he said in a firm, demanding tone. Then he hurried upstairs to dress in his usual work clothes. After he finished getting ready for work, he reached under the bed for Guan-jiah’s whip. When he reached the kitchen, he found the girls still sitting where he’d put them. They looked meek and shrunken. Robert unfurled the whip and cracked it in the air above the girls’ heads. They jumped—their startled expressions full of fear and uncertainty.

“
Damn it to hell!” Robert said. “I’m going to sell both of you! I’m going to sell you today, now! Pack up your things. I’ll send someone to get you. I never want to see either of you again!” He opened the front door and slammed it behind him. During the walk to the consulate, his temper subsided. He felt shame for losing control.

When Robert reached the consulate, Guan-jiah noticed the stricken look on his face. He also saw the bleeding scratch on his cheek. He made Robert sit and used a damp cloth to wash
away the blood and clean the cut.

“
I wanted to kill them,” Robert said, his voice a dull monotone. He stared across the room with dazed eyes. “I’m afraid I’m going to hurt them, Guan-jiah. I’m sleeping with my pistol under my pillow. It’s loaded. I wake at every sound worried that Ward is coming. I hear things in my sleep, but when I wake, there is only silence. I also see things that are never there when I look closer. I’m losing my mind.” He’d taken out the folded accusation letter and was rubbing it between his thumb and index finger.

Guan-jiah went to th
e table and started to grind some pepper into a fine powder. His expression was a neutral one. There was no way to tell what he was thinking. When he returned to where Robert was sitting, he spoke softly in a soothing voice. “It is all right, Master. Your anger is gone. I am sure that you have not killed them. You are here now in the consulate and there is no reason to worry.” Guan-jiah carefully applied the pepper powder to the cut. The bleeding stopped.

“
What is going on here?” Dr. Winchester asked, as he walked into the room.

“
My master cut himself while shaving this morning,” Guan-jiah said. “I insisted on cleaning the wound since it would not stop bleeding.”

Dr. Winchester leaned in close to examine what Guan-jiah had put on Robert
’s face. “What is that stuff?” he asked.

“
It is pepper,” Guan-jiah said. “It will stop the bleeding and protect him from an infection.”

“
Pepper?” Dr. Winchester said. “Nonsense.”

“
I trust him,” Robert said. “If he says it will work, I’m sure it will.”

With a skeptical look on his face, Dr. Winchester examined R
obert’s cheek. “Good Lord, it works. I cannot believe what I’m seeing. The pepper has formed a scab over the cut. I’ve never seen bleeding from a cut stop that quickly.” He pointed at a spot where the blood was still oozing. “You missed that.”

Guan-jiah carefully placed a pinch of pepper there.

Dr. Winchester squinted to see better. “Amazing,” he said. “I see the blood stopping as if you had built a barrier to keep it from flowing. You are a good man, Guan-jiah. Next time I cut myself shaving, I’ll try it.” He left the room mumbling to himself.

“
Bury yourself in your work, Master,” Guan-jiah said. He leaned in close like a conspirator. “I know that you are uncomfortable talking about your concubines when other foreigners might hear. We can leave the consulate and talk before you return home tonight.”

Robert watched Guan-jiah leave the room to attend to his chores. He worried that he was allowing the eunuch to get too close, too familiar. After all, he was just a servant, and he wasn
’t a Christian. The trouble was, Robert didn’t have anyone else to turn to. He started work.

Chapter 21

Robert didn’t know that reading Edgar Allen Poe was about to save his life.

In an attempt to find
peace of mind, he tried to sleep at the consulate, but his thoughts were filled with the girls. Since he couldn’t sleep, he searched among his books and found a collection of John Donne’s poems.

Hoping it would lull him to sleep, he started to read. His plan didn
’t work. When he reached
Love’s Alchemy
, he thought it fit his situation.

‘Ah, what a trifle is a heart,

If once into love
’s hands it come!

All other griefs allow a part

To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;

They come to us, but us love draws;

He swallows us and never chaws;

By him, as by chained shot, whole ranks to die;

He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.’

After finishing the poem, Robert felt as if it were his Cilice. He had known a devout Catholic at college in Belfast. The man wore a Cilice, a shirt woven from goat hair that was itchy and uncomfortable. He said he wore it to help him resist the temptations of the flesh.