SEVEN

1.

The Seppuku Princess

I finally fell off my saddle on the banks of mighty Kinugawa River.
The horse was gone.
I would not blame it.
It had gone through so much with me, and now it had carried me out from the field of slaughter. I was more than grateful.
Falling off the saddle from here, even if I did not die of the gunshot at my waist, I would finally fall victim to the pursuing enemies or the peasants who would hunt down defeated warriors for their arms and armor.
I should have died!  Why did they not finish me off with a direct cut? Even having my head taken and displayed on the rack would be better than being chased like a dog with master.
Maybe we all harbored a strong desire to live; even for a warrior… even for a female warrior.
I was dying for a cup of water.  The river was beyond my power to reach although it was so close.  I no longer had the strength to climb down the slope of the bank to have a sip.
“Seppuku!” a voice inside me urged.
I sobbed with my face between my palms. I was not afraid to die. But how I wished to see my mother again, if only for one more time.
“Hitomi, prepared to die bravely,” my father had said to me before I sallied out for battle.
My mother had just looked at me, her eyes filled with held back tears.
Everyone knew we were throwing eggs against a rock.
We had less than two thousand men under arms, the enemy had more than ten thousand. And they had ten times more guns than we had.
I was wounded by one of the those guns.
“Alright. I will commit seppuku.”
Once decided, I became more calm.
I struggled off my black lacquered body cuirass, the battle skirt and then my jinhaori, the exquisitely woven riding shirt. The left side of my jinhaori had been dyed red at the waist by my blood. Actually the amount of blood lost was not excessive.  It was however enough to incapacitate me from continuing to fight. I had to resign myself to meeting my end.
I slipped my hand under the lapel of the jinhaori. The wrapping cloth around my breasts was sticking to my skin due to the sweat, and my breasts rose and fell under my palm.
After my seppuku, my head would be taken by the enemy. How would my body fare?  Would it be consumed by wild dogs?
But it was beyond my control.
I took my white waist band down and tied my left thigh and leg together tightly so that later, when I made my cut, I would not topple over due to the pain.  Then I pulled out the tanto and placed it in front of me. The white undershirt under the jinhaori was pulled down to my waist and the wrapping cloth, which I had hesitated whether I should remove, was also taken down and placed aside.

I looked at my own breasts. “What a pity! You have never been caressed by male hands.” I said to them.
If I was not a female warrior, I might have been married into the family of a daimyo. I knew my pretty look could win the favor from my husband. But I had chosen to follow my father to ride into battles by his side, and my marriage was put aside.
I gently caressed my own breasts to say farewell to them.
Then I let down the long hair which I had combed and tied into a pony-tail. “I will die as a woman.”
I regulated my breathing, took out the rice-paper to wrap around the blade of the tanto for me to hold.  Although I could commit seppuku by holding the hilt of the tanto, a direct grip on the blade would give better control, especially when the blade reached the spot past the navel which would b so painful that some might not persist in carrying out the whole ritual.  The rice-paper had been prepared since the first day I marched off to war. And hence, I was ready for this from the beginning.
“Farewell, father… mother.” I prayed and then resolutely plunged the blade into the chosen spot.
“Argh…” In intense pain, I guided my hand dragging the blade towards the right side of my body.
My pulse raced feverishly. I could hear my heart beating like drums and my hand, pulling the tanto, did not stop and inched towards the right.
“Argh…so this is what death is like.” I finally understood.
There was no ecstasy, no sense of being a courageous martyr or anything like that, just a relief that “I had finally done it.”
And he appeared at that very moment.
He was a samurai, belonging to the Date clan.
The bird-in-bamboo the banner behind him told me that.
He was not a senior commander, but a common scout
“Come, my head is yours.” I said.
He looked at me, admiration and pity on his face.
“Ojosan, should I kaishaku for you?” he asked.
I shook my head.  I did not mind his taking my head as trophy. But I did not want my spirit to be his, as we believed kaishakunin would have that by right.
“Can you….wait… for …a while?” I asked with my dwindling strength.
He nodded, got off his horse and sat to my left side.
I continued with my seppuku; the blade had now reached the right side already.
Without the help of a kaishakuini I might survive for still some time during which I had to endure the greatest pain.
I looked at the increasing thickness of the blood stain on my belly. The abdomen part had been dyed completely crimson, and I knew it would not be long when my intestines would flow out.  Could I persevere?
If I pleaded to him to decapitate me, my pain would end…
“No!” I shook my head, the hair which I had taken down wiped to the left and right with my head movement and lashed at my face.  He probably understood the reason for my obstinacy.  In pain and persistence, I began to have fantasies: he stripped off all my remaining garments, used his hand to touch every part of my skin…when he placed his hands on my breasts, I moaned…I spread my legs to let him enter my virginal body…
PAIN!
I woke from my reverie…he was still sitting there.
I smiled at him; would my face contorted by pain be unpleasant to look at?
He smiled back and slightly inclined his body to express his respect.
“How lovely…” I thought.
I decided not to let him wait too long.
The cross cut which demanded reversal of the blade and taking it back to above the navel for a vertical cut would not be considered.  Although this would hasten death, it was too bad-looking for a female warrior.
So I pulled out the tanto and moved the bloodied blade towards my left tit.
He stood up, his hand on the hilt of his tachi, the sword carried by mounted warriors.
“Wait till I expired…then…behead me…”
He nodded again.
With all my remaining strength, I plunged the tanto into my chest…

(Aftermath)

He kept his promise and waited till she drew her last breath before cutting off her head.  Then he departed and the body without its head remained there in the sitting position.  When evening came, the peasants who lived nearby discovered her and stripped off all the remaining clothes she had before pushing the naked body with the dripping intestines down the bank.  Her neck was submerged into the running water, the diluted blood dissolving into the river like hundreds of earthworms.  On the following day when the peasants came again, they could no longer found the body.  It had most probably fallen into the Kinugawa and was carried away…

2.

A girl condemned to beheading

They back-tied my wrists before I emerged from my cell.
I knew the reason of course.
It was time.
For speaking out on behalf of the peasants who rose in revolt against the oppressive rule of the daimyo, I was sentenced to be beheaded at the execution ground.
The execution ground was actually just outside the jail-house. There, a large rectangular hole had been dug out on the ground to wait for my headless body.
“Farewell, Kotai.” I said my last goodbye to the one I had secretly loved silently.  Last year he had married my sister. I was so lost then: I was prettier than my sister and clever too, but he chose her over me.  It was only later I learned that he had not chosen me precisely because I was too pretty. He did not think he was worthy to be my husband.
I, Hitomi, eighteen, would leave this world in my youth and beauty, and if he had married me then, I would be desolate.
“Treat my sister well,” I had told him when he came to visit me.
He had cried. I kept my cool and sobbed only after I returned to my cell.
Step by step, I walked towards the end of my life.  The prisoners in the adjacent cells stuck their heads out to look at me.
“It is Hitomi-chan!” “Hitomi-chan!” the wailing rose and fell.
I slightly inclined my body in response. The wailing became even more audible.
Once out of the jail-house, I saw the pit and the mat woven out from bamboo leaves, and the samurai with his long sword.
The undertakers were also ready.  Soon, they would cover my semi-naked body with the mat and then have it rolled down the pit while my head would be sent to the entrance of the jail-house to be hanged high as display.
Ah, the hair-style I had chosen to comb into this morning was perfect for the occasion.  The hair-pin carved out of tsubaki wood would hold up my hair so that it would not obstruct the down coming of the blade.  They said my neck was slender and long, and that it was also compatible with the beheading.
I had put on a yukata for the early autumn: dark blue with red dragonflies on it. “Dear Dragonflies, will you carry my spirit towards the open sky?”
I stood on the mat; knelt. They put white rice paper to cover my face, not because they cared about the possibility of my fright but that when the blade descended the rice-paper could stop much of the blood. It would make their cleaning my head with the prepared bucket of water an easier job.
White…
Once more, I forced myself to feel how it was like to be able to breathe.
The lapel of my yukata was pulled down, my breasts exposed.  Would the sword-wielder be distracted by the shape of my breasts?
The sound of the samurai drawing out his katana was so crisp.  He placed the blade diagonally in front of me. I could not see but I could feel its coldness.
“Onegai,” I said, thanking him.
He raised the katana and brought it down…

(Aftermath)

Her head fell and rolled, stopping at the edge of the pit.  The blood spurted out and dyed red the rice-paper. The body toppled, and the undertaker removed the rice paper. Her face was as beautiful as before her demise, and there was an additional air of tragic beauty on it.  The head was washed with the water in the bucket and then taken out to be displayed.  Her half naked body was covered with a met and placed in the pit. Then the pit was filled with earth as if she had never existed.

3.

The Cherry-blossom of Kawanakanojima

Under the urge of the war-drums I lead my thirty female riders out into battle.
We staked everything on it.
The enemy had crushed our right wing; our whole army was in peril.  Only by using the last reserve could we hope to stop the attack on the main camp and let our detachment many miles away to return in time to turn the tide.
“Hitomi, die bravely!” Lord Shingen said to me before we moved out.
“Hai,” I responded with resolution.
As his favorite concubine I was ready to die for him.
He could afford to lose Hitomi; the Takeda clan could not afford to lose Lord Shingen.
“Mai!” I pulled out my tachi and the thirty riders surged forward.
We did not pray for any miracle to return alive.  Actually, the time gained by sacrificing thirty onamusha was insignificantly short.  But even if the chance was slim, we had to try.
Uesugi’s cavalry approached us from the front.
I cut three of them down.  Now I appreciated the demanding lesson given by my swordsmanship sensei, Yamamoto Kensuke.
“General Yamamoto must have been slain in battle by now,” I thought to myself.
We had planned out our strategy for this Battle of Kawanakajima.  We would take them by surprise by sending a detachment in the mist to attack their camp. But Uesugi had his own plan, and instead we were surprised when he led his main force from Saijoyama to the plain, achieving temporary superiority. We were forced to be on the defensive and many famous commanders lost their lives. General Yamamoto volunteered to lead a counter-attack which he knew would be suicidal in order to atone for his disastrous judgment leading to our predicament.
I beat back the first wave of riders. But among my thirty onamusha, only half survived. The others had all left their young bodies on the Hachiman Plain.
“Alert! Ashigeru ahead!” my second in command, Ayano, shouted.
Ashigeru, the common foot-soldiers mainly drafted from the peasants and armed with a spear made of bamboo and wearing little armor.  They were no threat to us normally.  But this was not normal.  We had only around ten and they numbered in the hundreds.
“Charge!”
I knew this was insane, but there was little else we could do.
My tachi parried off a few thrusting spears and bringing it down, I cut some of them down.  The rest dispersed.
Only eight of us were left.
Another line of riders were charging towards us.
“Ayano, Lord Shingen.”
She turned her head and looked. “The Banner F?rinkazan still stands!”
F?rinkazan: Swift as the wind, Steady as a forest, Raid like fire, Unmovable like a mountain!  It was the main banner of the Takeda army.
We were dressed in fiery red.  We were the fire.  As fire, we could only attack, attack and attack!
I saw them now, getting near; their leader had a kind of white turban round his head.
Ayano charged before me.
“Argh!” Only one slash and he cut Ayano down like a leaf.
‘Kenshin!” It was Uesugi Kenshin. Behind him his famous banner with the character representing the war-god Bishamonten!
“Aye!” I spurred my mount towards this war-god of the Uesugi army.
If I could kill him the tables would be turned, though I knew the chances of success were almost non-existent.
I guessed correctly.
He cut me on my cuirass.
I felt a heavy thud on my chest and swayed in my saddle. Then two ashigeru snatched the rein of my mount and brought horse and rider down. I sprang up and slashed out with my tachi, but it was the last of my blows.

Two bamboo spears found the gaps between the scales of my red armor and were plunged into my chest. I braced at a stand-still and felt another cut by a tachi wielding rider on my back. The cuirass split open and as the two spears in the front were withdrawn, my cuirass fell onto the ground.
The jinhaori could not cover my prominent breasts.
“An onamusha!”
I took off my helmet and let my hair dance in the wind.
I saw Kenshin glare at me and for a moment I thought he would turn back to take my head.  Then I would gain a little time for the lord.  But I was disappointed. Kenshin turned his mount towards the main Takeda camp.
I knelt down as my knees weakened.
I saw the warrior with the long naginata charging at me.
‘Come, take my head.”

I closed my eyes and held out my neck…

(Aftermath)
They cut off the head of Hitomi and then stripped her of all garments, letting her lie stark naked on the battlefield.  Uesugi charged into the main position and almost killed Lord Shingen.  But at the very last moment the detachment of 8,000 men of the Takeda army returned just in time, time bought with the lives of the thirty onamusha.  The Uesugi army retreated.

In this battle, neither side could claim victory.
They found the naked body of Hitomi, but the head was gone…

4.

Double Executions on a sand-dune.

The village was burning.
Dead bodies littered the ground: men, women, the old, the young.
I never killed those who were defenseless, but my mates never had that restraint.
The Ming people called us “Wokou”; the kou denoted that we were robbers or pirates. Wo derived from the belief we were born shorter than them.
We were not; at least I was not.
We were also not born wokou. A few years ago some of us were even local lords or samurais.
Defeated in the war on land, if we were not killed, we had to find a living on the sea.  And since we knew not how to fish, we had to rob.
If we raided the area round the Seto Inland Sea, Toyotomi would flush us out with his warships. So we could only raid the Ming coastline.
Ming’s army was not our equal.  We could beat them with less than a fraction of their numbers.  Sometimes they even fled without giving a fight.  After we were gone, the Ming soldiers would come back to raid and kill one more time so that they could report a victory with the heads of its own people to their superiors.
The people of Ming hated their soldiers, but they hated us even more.  If we fell into their hands we would die horrible deaths.
This time I only took a handful to raid.
Winter was coming. The time left for raiding was very limited.
So my father and I split our forces and headed for different areas.
My team was composed of thirty five.  Lan was of course with me.
Lan was no wokou.  She was from the land of the Ming, a few who were captured during our raid and not sold nor killed.  The reason was: she knew about medicine And Wokou could get sick as any man, or become wounded.  So we needed a doctor.
Later Lan became my woman, a woman who belonged to another woman.
She hated me at first, for I had killed her husband.
But as the days lingered and I protected her from many unpleasant incidents, she became nice to me.
After she became nice to me, I came to know that her husband had not been nice to her.
In the land of the Ming, a woman was not supposed to possess any knowledge: the more ignorant, the better.  The use of medicine was also a kind of knowledge.
Lan never killed anyone. She saved many, including Wokou.
To the Ming people she was a traitor, helping the enemy.  To Lan she was saving lives, Wokou lives were also lives.
After taking down the village, Lan had saved seven or eight kids.  Without her they would have been slaughtered. We decided to rest her to restore our strength.
We had news of approaching Ming forces, but we were not unduly worried.  We knew only too well the fighting prowess of the Ming soldiers.
But this time, it was different.  It was the forces from General Qi Jiguang.
In the following battle, we finally came to learn the fighting skill of the special formations organized by General Qi.
Each formation was composed of twelve men into two columns. The one in the fore right was the captain; the one bearing the long shield would be on his left. Another round shield bearer would also be there. Behind them were four men with long spears. At the rear were two men holding firearms.  There would usually be one man in reserve. When they attacked, the shields would lead, followed by the rest. They used the shields, the firearms, the daggers and long strong tree brushes with branches. The ones holding long weapons would cover those with shorter weapons.  The formations were flexible, but did not kill villages for their heads, hence winning the trust of the people.
We feared the ones with the tree branches most as these made our katanas useless and we lost our earlier superiority.  They also did not run.
And we lost more than ten of our men.  Lan and I were captured.  The rest of my mates fled.
I knew I would surely die.
“To them, you were only forced,” I told Lan in our language. “You saved the children, they might not kill you.”
Lan shook her head. “I lost my husband, I could live on; without you, I would rather die.”
So they sentenced us to the cruelest of all executions: the thousand cuts.
Our outer garments were removed.  I was left with the wrapping cloth around my breasts and a fundoshi, while Lan only had a sky-blue dudou and her black underpants.
This would be our last night. Under the gaze of the soldiers we knelt face to face and masturbated.
“Argh…” Lan screamed her pleasure out.  I pounced upon her, removed her dudou and kissed her breasts.
A soldier tried to intervene but his comrade stopped him, saying these two would be dead bodies the day after. If the Qi army was not well-disciplined, Lan and I would undoubtedly be slain after being raped.
We caressed each other until daybreak.
The sun finally rose.  Lan and I were hog- tied to poles and carried to the sun-dune facing the open sea.
Two stakes had already been hammered into the ground, long poles too, not far away, for hanging our heads after they were cut off.
We did not struggle when we were tied to the poles.  From the first day of becoming a wokou, I knew this would be my fate one day.  Either I would be killed in battle or be slaughtered if captured.  I looked at Lan but she did not show any sign of fear.
The two responsible for carrying out the executions came finally.  They cut away my wrapping cloth and Lan’s dudou.  Our tits were exposed.  We knew they would cut our tits away first.  Lan had already told me what it would be like.  When she was very young, she saw it once.  It was a woman condemned for killing her husband.

The executioner would cut our flesh up to hundreds to thousands of small pieces, one by one. Usually the condemned would take hours before he or she expired.  For a woman, before she expired the executioner would thread up her vagina, disembowel her and pull out her intestines and internal organs, and after her demise, dissect her until only a skeleton would be left.  The head would be hanged high as display.  In order not to let our long hair get in the way of the execution, they had hammered a nail on the upper part of the pole and tied the ends of our hair around it. This would also make it convenient for them when they hanged our heads high as the hair would be made to go through a metal ring first which was designed to keep the head in an upright position without facing down.  In this way the heads would make a far better exhibit for the people.
They finally began.
The first cut was the nipple on my right
I bit my lower lip so as not make any sound.
The left nipple was cut off too. My tears were running down my face but I still held on stubbornly.
But when I saw Lan’s executioner beginning to cut her breast, I wailed. “No! Please!”
The executioner laughed.  They did not understand my tongue and thought I was scared by what I saw.
I was scared but not for the prospect of my breast being cut down. I did not have the heart to see Lan’s breasts being taken off her.
There were times that I had found shelter among those breasts.
But my wailing could not stop what was bound to happen.
They cut off our breasts, then the muscle on the chest. Piece by piece of translucent flesh was placed on a large wooden plate.  Smaller bits were fed to hungry village dogs which gobbled them up.
After the chest it was the arms, the backsides, the thighs and legs.
I could no longer stop my body from shaking…
“Lan…Lan…” My throat could only make the single syllable of her name.
“Hitomi, Hitomi” she responded.
Suddenly I no longer felt the pain. I had forgotten about it. I laughed aloud. “Lan…” and she responded.  Before they cut out our hearts, they were already linked together, inseparable no matter how sharp the knives were.
Our abdomens were cut open…
The intestines came out…stinky…
Then they sewed our vaginas up, thread after thread.
“Argh…” Lan’s moans had become so weak.
“Die, Lan! Die! Let me suffer the rest!”
And the heavens must have heard my prayer.
Lan breathed her last.  She no longer suffered.
I saw them put her hair through that metal ring and then cut off her head.  Afterwards it was hoisted up the long pole.
“How beautiful!” I saw her head with the long hair trailing behind it as if beckoning me.
“Come! Cut me!”
Perhaps they could see the smile that had frozen on my face during the last moment…

5.

Yuri lovers on the cross

In the deserted school they stripped us of our sailor-style senior high school uniforms.
Both Ryoko and I were wearing white brassieres.  I was a bit let down for not having chosen a panty that matched the white color but had worn a pink one. How disgusting the match! Ryoko was faring no better.  Her panty was light blue.
“So, aren’t you lovers?” Mayumi shouted.
She was leader of her gang of four. I knew she had a crush on me, but I loved Ryoko only.
“What do you want to do?”
“Oh, look at our Hitomi! How courageous! Ryoko, you should be proud of her.”
Ryoko kept her silence.
“Make love! Quick! Right in front of us!”

“We will not!” I said.
“It is not up to you. If you do not do it, I will strip her completely naked and cut her face with broken glass.”
“No!” I knew this bitch would do exactly as she threatened.
“Ryoko, do not be frightened.” I pulled my body towards her and began to kiss her.
“Hitomi…”
“Ryoko, we must not show weakness.”
I helped her to take off her brassiere.  Her breasts were not too big. But they were beautiful, and could move others to affection upon seeing them.
My own brassiere was also removed, then our panties.
Very soon the empty school echoed with the sound of our love-making.
“Ryoko, I love you.”
“I love you too, Hitomi.”
From the corner of my eyes I could see the rage of jealousy of Mayumi reflecting in her pupils.
There were four of them and they were more strongly built. We were dragged out.
“Take them up to the rooftop of the chapel!” Mayumi said.
I felt fear for the first time.  What did Mayumi had in mind?
The chapel had a flat roof, and right in the middle was a huge wooden cross.
“What are you going to do?”I shouted.
Mayumi did not respond. She snatched Ryoko away from me and pointed a penknife at her face.
“Tie her up on the cross! Hitomi, if you dare to resist.” She waved the knife in front of the face of Ryoko.
There was nothing I could do, and I let them tie me up on the cross with ropes and bicycle chains.
“Let Ryoko go!”
Mayumi laughed. “How loveable. You do not even care for your own predicament.” Then she turned towards her girls and said “Tie her up there too.”
So, Ryoko was tied to the cross with me, back to back.
The stretching out of our arms made breathing difficult.  I knew most people crucified did not die of bleeding, but suffocation.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing much really.  We are going for lunch.  When we come back, we will bring some reporters and let them see how our beauty-queen looks naked on the cross with her lover.”
“You are sick!”
But she did not seem to have listened, and went away with her girls.
–
“Hitomi, I am scared.”
“Don’t be,” I said.
But I was scared too. To let other people see us in this state would be embarrassing. But I knew if Mayumi came back later than we expected her to, we could get ourselves killed. But I had to pretend to be calm.
A wind rose.
Our naked bodies felt even colder. Once we lost body warmth, the risk would rise.
Our arms felt heavier and heavier.
How much time had passed?  There was no sign of Mayumi.
Now I would rather she really bring the reporters!
A long time passed. The sky was turning dark.
We would not be spotted from kilometers around, and with darkness it would not be possible at all.
“Ryoko…”
“Hitomi…” Her voice was so weak. “Hitomi, I am dying.”
“No! Don’t die!”
“Hitomi, I love you…”
“I love you too.  I am sorry to get you into this…”
“No, I am happy…Hitomi.  With you, even if I die, I am happy…”
“No! Ryoko1 We will not die…”
But she had become silent.
“Help! Save her!” I screamed at the top of my voice.
Only the sound of wind…
I felt colder and colder
“Ryoko…Ryoko…”

(Aftermath)

Mayumi did not really mean to kill them. But their car had an accident.  All four were hospitalized: one died later and all the others went into shock and coma.
When one of them came to, it was two days later.
They found two naked corpses on the rooftop of the chapel; both of the girls having died of suffocation.  The one called Hitomi had also lost her control before death as there were signs of urination on her thighs.
Mayumi and her girls were sentenced to five years of imprisonment each.
Hitomi and Ryoko were cremated, and with the consent of their respective families, their urns were put together in a temple.

6.

The hanged woman

It was the eighth time that he raped me in the cell.
I had given up all hope to return alive to my grandfather’s place; he would not let me leave here alive.
I was taken hostage into their van five days ago, in the early hours.
The bar I worked for closed for the day, and as my flat was not so far away, I decided to walk home.  Unfortunately I ran into them trying to ram the jeweler’s shop with the vehicle.
They would not let me go; I had seen all their faces, all five of them.
Actually one of them wanted to shoot me once they got back to this underground cell. But he stopped him.  He seemed to be a leader, though not a dominating one.  There were all many-time convicts.
He did not let his accomplice shoot me, probably because he had designs on me.
That night he came in and tore open my white blouse, put his hands over my black brassier and held my tits.
“Don’t you dare shout!  There is no use shouting anyway.” He told me that when he tore away the tape that they used to seal my mouth.
Then he took my bra off and nodded when he was satisfied with my firm and ample breasts.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Hitomi.”

“Good name.” he commented.
Then he raped me then and there.
I did not resist. Although I hated being raped, he was the least wicked among them. He looked handsome and was certainly an old hand in carnal sport. Under his fondling, I could not resist the urge to utter my slutty moans.
“Slut!” he said with a laugh. May be he was right.
I had slept with many men; that was what being a bar girl was supposed to do: anyone who was willing to pay the right price.  Added to these were the cops, and sometimes guys from the underworld.
He would not think I was a Joan d’Arc, right?
After he had me he did not let me put my blouse back on. I was left with only my black bra and panties.
Besides him, there was one other guy who also raped me.  I hated that one.  There was a very unpleasant smell on his body.
Other than being raped, they did nothing to mistreat me.  They talked among themselves, not using Japanese for that matter.  They did nothing to guard me because they knew I was a dead woman walking, and only in the cell.
Later, we became wilder in our sex.  I once even made love to both of them at the same time.  They laughed and said I was a born slut.
After making love, I asked for my lipstick and they gave it back to me.
So in the next sex, I put on my lip-stick and sucked their cocks.
They were so high.
Of course they were not concerned about the possibility of my biting their things off.  They had warned that if I dared doing that, I would die ugly; they would destroy my pretty face.
I did not want to die that way, though I knew by this time they would kill me.
This should be the last time we made love.
They were going to leave tomorrow.  I knew as I watched them packing things up.
I was right.
After making love, he brought me to a room on the upper floor and let me watch him throw a loop over the beam. I got my lipstick out applied it to my lips.
He laughed. “Why do you do that? Don’t you know you are going to die?”
I said, “I do not want them to find my body looking white as a ghost.”
He laughed again, no longer paid me any attention, and continued with his preparation.
He got it right, pulled me to the stool and had my wrists bound behind my back.
I had only the black bra and the panties on me.  When the police discovered me, I concluded they would find a real sexy corpse.
“Where is the lipstick?”
“I threw it away.  I won’t be needing it anyway.”
He got me on the stool and put the noose round my neck.
Before dying, I could not stop weeping. I was only twenty-eight, and I had not even gone to the Spain I always dreamed of going.
He was unmoved and kicked the stool away under me.
“Argh!” I could only utter half a scream; the rope tightened.
“…” I could no longer breathe; my feet kept kicking wildly.  He just laughed and so did everybody else as they had all come up to watch.
My eyes must have opened so wide.
The tongue had stuck out…did I look bad?
Then, a stinking smell…
My urine dripped down from my panties to the floor.
Everything blurred.

(Aftermath)

The police found the body of Hitomi wearing only a bra and panties two days later.  The reporters got there first and snapped pictures of the sexy corpse for their front-page before they could be stopped.  The culprits were arrested in a funeral parlor in Sendai on the same day; one of them smelled strongly of preservative.  The police had found what Hitomi had written with the lipstick in a corner of the room: a telephone number in that city and the word “preservative.” She learned it from their conversation.  They did not know one of her former lovers was also Vietnamese…

7.

The bodies

Bang! Bang!
I fired two shots at the cops surrounding us and saw a young policewoman put her hand over her chest as she went down.
“Li Xiao-wan, are you ok?” I shouted at the top of my voice
“Can do!” she replied.
We belonged to the same underground organization with a mission to start a revolution overturning this cruel junta.
In the past half year we had carried out five successful missions… until this time.
We were betrayed. There must be a turncoat in the organization.  We were foiled and found ourselves trapped on the eighth floor of this building surrounded by hundreds of cops.
“Wakayama Hitomi! Li Xiao-wan! You are surrounded.  There is no escape for you.  Come out with your hands over your heads and surrender!”
I knew the chance of getting out alive was close to zero.
“Hitomi, don’t let me be taken. I cannot stand male hands roaming over my body.  They rape prisoners.”
“Wan, do not worry. I give you my word you will not be raped.”
Xiao Wan and I were partners… and lovers.
I knew the size and shape of her breasts, every curve of her torso and her cries of abandon when making love. I also learned that she was born hairless down on her pubic mound. This was a secret only known to both of us. I knew she would rather die than be raped by men.
We had less than twenty rounds between us.
“Are you afraid of dying?” she asked.
“Not if I die with you,” I said.
“Then, let us give them hell!”
“Good!”
She rushed out to the balcony and started shooting randomly. I saw her body being riddled with bullets. Her black leather jacket was wide open in the front, and the connecting part of her black bra snapped as a shot drilled into her, exposing her fine tits.  She made a 360 degree twisting turn and over-hanged by the railing on the balcony, eyes wide open, her long hair swaying with the wind.
I knew the meaning of her accusing gaze.  She was trying to ask why I was so cruel to let her die alone.
I wouldn’t, of course.
I rushed out to the balcony, a gun blasting on one hand as I grabbed her waist with the other.  She was still alive and could see a hole being made in my breast.
Then I took her body and jumped.
I had promised her not to let any man rape her. And I did not believe many men would be interested in the bodies of two women whose brains had splattered onto the pavement, no matter how beautiful they had been.
Before our heads hit the ground, I saw her smile…