There are no wines half
so rich as blood nor women
so pleasing to see
I.
In those days, few names inspired as much fear as Red Rin. Rin was a bandit of the worst kind. He was known to ambush passersby, leaping from the grass to cut them down where they stood or else picking them off at a distance with his bow. Despite only having one eye, Red Rin was quite the marksman; rumor was he never missed his target. Wayfarers and traveling merchants carefully avoided the pass he was said to haunt, going hours out of their way lest they encounter the one-eyed murderer on the road.
Yes, Rin was a menace.
Was.
For now he lay dead at Oda’s feet.
The samurai flicked the brigand’s blood from his katana and returned the weapon to its sheath, disgusted. Their battle was brief. A movement in the tall grass by the roadside caught Oda’s attention and his hand went to the shark skin hilt of his sword.
“Show yourself!” Oda barked.
His command was answered with an arrow. The projectile zipped past his head and buried itself in a momi tree on the other side of the road, the shaft reverberating on impact. Oda smiled grimly and drew his katana, charging into the grass to confront this would-be assassin.
Oda found Rin just as the highwayman pulled his own sword from its scabbard. Oda knew this brigand was the infamous Red Rin by his eyes. Eye, rather; Rin glared cyclopean from above acne scarred cheeks. The two swordsmen circled each other crabwise, both searching for a weakness in their opponent’s stance and angling to get in closer.
Their swords met only once before Oda delivered the killing blow; a brutal two handed slash that opened Rin from his left shoulder down to his navel. The thug gasped like an airsick carp as his steaming entrails poured from the wound, trying in vain to hold them back with shock palsied hands. Rin fell to his knees, then forward onto his face, and died. His head wasn’t worth taking.
Another disappointment.
Oda stalked back to the road.
Tokugawa’s victory over the Western army made brave warriors like Oda unnecessary. There were no more great battles left to fight, nor were there any worthy foes left to vanquish. Now there was only time… and the occasional pimple-faced brigand. The policy of sankin-kōtai, political hostage taking, ensured that. A rogue daimyō was far less likely to act on his treacherous notions when acting meant receiving his wife’s severed head in a box. Peace, it seemed, would last so long as the daimyōs loved their wives as much as their mistresses.
Many others of Oda’s caste had taken to writing haikus and drinking tea to fill their empty days, but such pursuits did not satisfy Oda; for he had no ear for poetry and much preferred hot rice wine to tepid green tea. Instead, he wandered the countryside; slaying whatever criminals, demons, monsters, ghouls, and spirits that crossed his incarnadine path to prove what he knew to be true:
The shogunate still needed samurai.
Would always need samurai.
And so, Oda traveled on.
The road he walked passed through desolate country and had fallen into disrepair. Most of the cobblestones were either cracked or missing altogether, giving more the impression of a route than the genuine article. After a short distance, a creek descended from the hills to run parallel with the road. The stream ran shallow yet strong, scrabbling over rocks and frothing around the emerald reeds that grew up from its muddy bed. It was obscured by growths of sickly orange bamboo at intervals; but even when he couldn’t see it, Oda knew the creek was still with him by its susurrant gurgling. Oda thought of the creek as a fellow traveler, and was much cheered by this.
His quest was a lonely one. For a time, Oda had traveled with an entourage of footmen and retainers, but it soon became clear not one of them could match his zeal and he quickly dismissed them all. Oda had been alone on his journeys since then.
The road, such as it was, followed the river to its end; a placid lake fringed by softly swaying maples. The water looked inviting, though one could never be too sure. Kappa could be anywhere, and if they could drown a horse, they could certainly drown a samurai. Oda removed a single cucumber slice from his knapsack and tossed it into the lake, just to be safe.
With this done, Oda removed his armor and underclothes and piled them up on the sandy bank. The lake was cool with the promise of the coming winter. He waded in to his waist, cupping his hands to sluice the bracing water over his head and shoulders. The accumulated sweat and blood of the preceding days ran down his body in grimy rivulets, revealing the carefully sculpted muscles beneath.
Oda studied his reflection in the water. No scars marked him as a veteran of combat and his features retained a certain boyishness he couldn’t quite banish. His face was framed on either side by well groomed sideburns, studiously maintained with a straight razor.
On the far shore, Oda saw the gently curved roof of a temple rising above the yellowing trees. The scene was doubled on the lake’s surface, with the temple appearing to sink into the depths as far as it actually rose into the heavens. The effect was faintly blasphemous, but with darkness fast approaching and no inn in sight, Oda resolved to petition the monks for a night’s lodging. He dressed, reslung his scabbard, and set out for the temple.
II.
Reaching the temple was far more difficult than Oda first anticipated. The road, already a tenuous thing, deteriorated even further as it wound its way around the lake before it disappeared altogether. Oda was forced to hack his way through the undergrowth with his short wakizashi, and marveled at the monks’ commitment to isolation. They must be ascetics of the highest order to ensconce themselves so far from civilization, he thought.
By the time he reached the temple, night had fallen. Two large bronze braziers blazed on either side of the stairs, smokily revealing the entrance. Oda took the stairs slowly and with reverence; it wouldn’t do for the monks to think him overeager or desperate. He knocked on the door, and a moment later it slid open.
Oda expected to be greeted by a painfully skinny bald man in simple robes, bowing and asking him what he was doing at the temple so late at night. Instead, Oda was met with a dark haired woman wearing a sheer kimono stitched with a lattice of pink lotus flowers that did little to conceal her plump body. Her face was a dimpled cypher. She stood limned in a halo of soft reddish light from the hall within, appraising the errant warrior.
“Yes?” she said.
“I am Oda. A samurai.”
The woman slammed the door shut on him.
He knocked again.
The door slid open a crack.
“Go away. You have no business here.”
“All I ask is a room for the night.”
She eyed him suspiciously through the slit.
“You’re not with Lord Go’s men, are you?”
“No. I serve Lord Sato.”
“Show me your colors.”
Oda produced a stained handkerchief from his pack. Oda, despairing of an opportunity to fly his crest in battle, had fashioned it from a war banner some years ago and used it to clean his sword instead. The rag was emblazoned with the black and white image of a bull’s head, tilted forever forward as if always about to charge.
She studied the rag.
She opened the door.
“I apologize for my reticence. I am Tama. Please, come in.”
Oda removed his sandals and Tama conducted him through the entryway into the main hall, at the center of which crouched a golden Buddha nearly four times the size of a natural man. The statue smiled down serenely at Oda, one fat hand resting on his round belly and the other raised in what might have been a greeting. Ghostly tongues of incense swirled about the Buddha, half concealing his cherubic countenance in a sweet smelling fog. Around the statue several red lanterns burned dimly, illuminating a strange and sensual scene:
A dozen of Tama’s sisters, her equals in both size and beauty, reclined on silk mats. Some picked at plates of sushi with bone white chopsticks, while others sipped sake from enameled cups. One devotee puffed on a silver pipe, sending up billowing plumes of gray smoke. Others still drank from their sisters’ lips; their hands disappearing into the secret folds of their fellow adepts’ kimonos.
Oda stared.
His mouth went dry.
“This is unlike any temple I’ve seen.”
“I should imagine so. There are precious few like it. Our order’s members are the only true followers of the Hotei,” Tama said, gesturing to the towering Buddha statue. “The Hotei taught a gospel of enlightenment through indulgence: ‘Emptiness through fullness and fullness through emptiness.’ Thus, we have dedicated our lives to the pursuit of pleasure in all its many forms: laughter, song, food, drink, sex, opium. Please, sit.”
Oda did as he was told and sat opposite Tama on an embroidered silk mat. Tama’s kimono parted around her belly as she sat down. Oda pretended not to see, out of politeness or a shame of desire he himself wasn’t sure. A lithe servant girl appeared from somewhere with a bottle of sake and two glasses and melted back into the shadowy recesses of the temple. Tama filled them both and offered one to Oda, who drank deeply and requested another. Tama smiled and continued.
“There are some who do not accept our creeds and brand us as heretics. Lord Go is the worst of these. He would have us killed and our temple razed. That is why I was so hesitant to allow you to enter. And that is why our order settled here, to get away from Go’s inquisitors.”
“I have no quarrel with you or your teachings. Though, in truth, I don’t think I understand either.”
“Come, I will show you.”
Oda finished his third sake and rose to follow Tama. His head swam in a rice wine sea, and he stopped to steady himself before continuing on. Every niche, it seemed, was occupied by a monk engaged in some description of masturbatory meditation. Here, a pot-bellied cenobite guzzled amber whiskey from the bottle. There, another ate dumpling after dumpling, hardly stopping to breathe between bites. Oda blinked. Finally, the pair reached Tama’s chambers.
The room was lit by guttering candles suspended on chains from the vaulted ceiling. By their faint and unearthly light, Oda saw a large bed buried beneath a mound of satiny pillows. Tama closed the door and they were alone together in the semi-darkness of the chamber.
No sooner had the paneled door slid shut behind them did Tama begin to undress. It didn’t take long; she simply shrugged off her kimono and was nude, the garment laying in a silken puddle about her ankles. Oda followed suit, placing his weapons on the floor and hastily removing his robes.
Tama clambered onto the bed and opened her legs for the samurai. Oda’s world contracted around Tama’s body. The arches of her feet had collapsed, though it was clear from her unblemished soles her own weight was the only strain they’d ever known. The thought excited Oda. Here, lying naked before him, was his exact antithesis; the very embodiment of leisure and sensuality. He kissed her foot, starting at the heel and working his way up to her toes. Tama giggled as he darted his tongue between each digit. It tickled.
Oda knelt to run his tongue down her calf to her thigh, stopping to pepper it with kisses. Tama whimpered and spread her legs wider for Oda, pulling her soft belly back with her pudgy fingers to give him easier access to her sex.
He licked her.
Slowly, at first, gradually picking up speed as her moans increased in intensity. When he started to suck her clit, Tama closed her legs around Oda’s head, threatening to crack his skull like a walnut between her massive thighs. He thought madly of jigoku, the crushing hell, and all the lucky sinners there. The darkness, the heat, the pressure, was so complete he thought he might disappear entirely. Oda had almost resigned himself to this fate when Tama’s voice brought him back.
“I want to feel you inside me.”
Oda brought himself up to his knees and found the fit. He entered her tentatively, easing himself inside until the length of him had disappeared into her sex. Tama moaned and tightened around him.
It was almost over before it began. Oda held his breath and thought of anything he could to distract himself from the overwhelming sensation; the smell of the incense, the golden Buddha, Red Rin’s dead eye… anything. It worked.
Oda regained himself.
He started to thrust.
His every move was redoubled in Tama’s ample flesh, so that each thrust in and out, in and out, sent waves rippling across the great lakes of her belly and breasts. The whole of her seemed to come more fully alive beneath Oda, bouncing and jiggling as he penetrated her. Tama’s eyes rolled back and her mouth fell open in a silent scream, her ruby red tongue lolling out from between her lips.
“Oda!”
Oda pulled himself from between Tama’s legs at the last possible second and emptied himself on her stomach, moaning her name as he did. He fell back to the floor, spent.
Blank.
His initiation was complete.
Oda understood.
III.
What began as a single night of divine debauchery soon stretched on for two nights, then three, and then on and on for weeks; so that Oda quite forgot just how long his stay at the temple lasted. Time, Oda’s greatest enemy, seemed to vanish between Tama’s thighs. They spent hours each day and night joined in every configuration imaginable, stopping only briefly to indulge their other vices.
The cellars and outbuildings of the temple were well stocked and the ovens were always kept hot, such that their every appetite could be sated at a moment’s notice. The monks, and now Oda, needed only to alert a servant of that instant’s desire to have it met… and met with a demure smile. Great quantities of sushi, noodles, dumplings, and other delicacies entered Tama’s chamber; only empty plates left.
Oda transformed.
His muscles melted away beneath a layer of squishy fat, and his stomach bore crimson stretch marks; evidence of his godlike gluttony. Oda’s face, too, changed greatly. Stubble accumulated about his chin, and his cheeks grew ever rounder. He softened.
But what did Oda care? His nation had no use for warriors and his aimless wanderings in search of nonexistent foes seemed foolish to him now. The Hotei had it right: “Emptiness through fullness and fullness through emptiness.” His body was merely a vessel for his virtues, and there was no higher virtue than pleasure. Besides, Tama liked him better that way.
More to love.
And then came Lord Go.
He arrived with the first snow, trailing four mounted samurai behind him. Oda would’ve slept through their arrival, had Tama not shaken him awake.
“They’re here!”
“Who?”
“Lord Go and his assassins! Oda, you must do something!”
Oda rubbed his temples, hungover. Do something? He struggled to remember the last time he’d done anything more strenuous than screw. Yet he knew he was honorbound to defend these heretics who had fed, clothed, sheltered, and indulged him.
To defend Tama.
And so, sweating sake from every pore, Oda rose from his bed. Where was his armor? His katana? Bloodshot eyes scanned the room. There! His gauntlets, chestplate, and greaves sat piled in the corner, his horned helmet perched atop the metallic mess. Tama watched as he stumbled across the room and began pulling the mail shirt over his bedclothes. Oda got it over his breasts before it became clear it would go no further. His gut was too big.
Tama went to him then, playing koshō and trying to pull the shirt down. It was no use. Oda’s stay at the temple had warped and distorted not only his mind, but his body. Oda gently pushed her aside. All that fit him now was his bull horned helmet. He put this atop his head, grabbed his katana from the floor, and met Lord Go and his band of would-be murderers at the temple’s entrance.
Oda was met with laughter.
Lord Go’s men had dismounted and arrayed themselves on either side of their master; two on his left, two on his right.
“This is the champion of the Hotei?” said one.
“What did you expect from these witches? Musashi?” said another.
“This guy looks more like Musushi to me!” said the third.
“I didn’t know pigs could--” the fourth samurai began. But before he could complete the insult, Oda’s blade opened his throat in a fountain of blood. The jester’s head lolled back and his lifeless body fell to its knees, then to the frozen earth. The second, third, and fourth fell soon after; clattering to the ground with a sound like something out of the temple’s vast kitchens.
Oda panted.
Oda used to be faster.
Oda was out of shape.
Lord Go dismounted.
Lord Go drew his katana.
Lord Go charged Oda.
Their swords met with a musical clang, and the couple began to dance.
Oda fought Lord Go back, back, back to the lakeshore until, finally, his last remaining opponent stood with his back to the water. The two men stared each other down in silence for what seemed an eternity and might actually have become one had Oda not noticed the ripples forming on the lake’s surface.
A creature something like a beaked crocodile with a sloppy chonmage haircut on its head and a turtle shell on its back exploded from the water and clamped its massive jaws around Go’s midsection.
Go shrieked.
He clawed at the sandy beach, then at the cold water, in vain as the monster dragged him deeper and deeper into the depths of the lake. Soon all that remained of Lord Go was a crimson lilypad on the water’s surface.
Oda smiled.
This killer, for Oda would not grant such a beast the title of Lord, had forgotten the old ways and neglected to make the proper offering to the spirit of the lake, to the kappa. And he had paid the price. But how different was Oda? Had he not also abandoned his own principles these last few… Weeks? Months? He thought of hara-kiri.
“Oda!” Tama called.
Oda blinked and turned toward her voice. Tama stood at the top of the temple’s stairs. She cradled a bottle of sake in her soft arms like a green baby. Oda knew if he looked at her any longer, he would soon find himself mounting the stairs… and mounting Tama soon after. But with Go dead, Tama and her sisters would be safe. There was no reason for Oda to stay, other than to betray himself.
He would leave the temple.
He would leave Tama.
And so, Oda turned once more to the road and traveled on in search of an honorable death in nothing more than his helmet and his underclothes.
-- Hawādo Robāto, translated by Dawson Alexander Wohler.