Avarice Blacksteel Book 2

Kinbaku

She had been amusing to him at first. Intoxicating even. However, as the days passed the chains and bars of his close captivity had worn on him. Aran had also begun to wonder of his purpose here?

He had dined well considering his status as a prisoner and was for the most part treated with respect even if it was of a curt kind. The golden warrior had become well aware the small woman with no more than the stature of a doll treated him like a possession.

Dahlia guarded her two little daughters closely from his gaze. Though he was to learn their names, Koemi meaning little laugh, who was only three, and Kokoa - love of the heart who was no more than seven years of age.

Dahlia herself watched him constantly from afar with slit-eyed scrutiny.
Though at times, mostly late evenings after the little ones were in bed and the intrusions of the day were past, she would deign to sit close to her captive and speak to him, while she sewed. Aran would watch the needle with mesmerizing accuracy puncture the rich silken fabrics and embellish them with fabulous color and design.

Dahlia fascinated him, her creativity and composure were something he had not credited to a woman before. He had seen Maya fashion very serviceable garments, however this was something magical and way beyond anything he had witnessed from what he deemed an inferior woman's mind.

Part of him wished to treat her with a certain contempt that he had always shown for a female, as though she were some kind of a lesser creature, incapable of any kind of noble action or high thought. Though he found himself wary to openly do so.

The smell of incense drifted to him, however to his acute senses honed by years of hard survival it did little to dull the scent of her. Aran's mind wandered to places of carnality as he watched on through the bars of his prison.

Dahlia shifted restlessly as though well aware of her captive's intent, demurely covering with the red silk of her kimono, the accidentally inviting curve of a breast. Pinning back a strand of errant black hair that had somehow slipped the confines of the tight knot at the nape of her neck. Then continuing with the embroidery she had been so engrossed in. It was of a white fox in snow, on an ice-blue background.

Dahlia would often speak quietly to him during this creative time by candlelight. In between sips of green tea and silent contemplation of her creations. She spoke of her husband Thorne, the man who brought her from Japan when she was no more than a teenager. She had revealed to Aran that she had feared him much at first and that he had been before his death the leader of a vicious biker gang the Finks. Whose motto was proudly displayed on the men's leather jackets and in banners that hung about the compound stating 'Attitude Violence'.

She spoke of life in the compound at Thebarton in the inner city suburbs, the police raids, and the rival gang wars amongst the Banditos and the Hells' Angels. The shootings and the crime, of heroin busts and drug use. She would cease her labors on occasion to look ahead to a place it appeared only she could glimpse, then tell her captive of the long motorcycle rides into the unknown. Of the fear of the everyday folk as the gang rode into their quiet and remote little towns, bent on causing trouble.

Aran could remember the rumblings of disquiet before the war, though he had only been in his early teens. The out-of-control factions and the biker gangs. The endless reports of violence and discord. The police became ineffective as the masses in their disquiet rose up to buck the system. A government that clearly trusted its allies against the greater suspicions of the people railroaded.

However it was too late, the countries' fate had been sealed. The attacks had come, and cities leveled. A country brought to its knees with less than ten well-placed nuclear strikes, by one who was thought a friend.

Aran's thoughts were often mirroring Dahlia's own as she spoke softly in reflection. Events she recalled triggering long-shelved memories of his own. Some he cared not to revisit. The chaos of the war and the flight to escape the city in the terror of the bombing attack that had completely rent the fabric of civilization. Events that had shaped him into what he was today for good or ill.

Dwelling on her words he realized that he was only one of the many seeking to find his way. Few had done it better than others; and looking at Dahlia, though he had wanted by virtue of her sex to discount her; he realized she had done more handsomely in life than he had. The realization stung.

She spoke of her husband's sudden and violent death in trembling words. It was still quite obvious she fiercely loved him. Of the birth of her daughters, her plans, of revenge, and unusually of her loneliness as a widow, bound in spirit to a powerful man in death.

At first, Aran had found Dahlia difficult to understand with her heavy accent. However as the days wore on he grew used to her nuances of speech, and the things she described had become more clear to him. He found himself often listening avidly being caged as he was with little distraction.

Being a creature of the wild there were times Aran's chains weighed on him and he would fidget or pace the confines of his prison. Dahlia would not look up, though during those times she would cease to speak her memoirs and continue her embellishment in silence.

Evening after evening Aran waited and hoped with all the patience of a predator that Dahlia would make a mistake. That she might sit too close to the bars lost in her creations, that he may overpower her and regain his freedom. It was the only hope he had. To that end, he smiled at her often and tried his utmost to appear congenial and inviting. Not easy for a savage such as he.

However, pint-sized Dahlia was not fooled. Small prey has an innate sense of survival and a woman's intuition was indeed impossible to compromise.

The cat and mouse game was played skillfully. If Dahlia needed her captive attended to she had many strong and willing men at her disposal, the remainder of the Finks who swore allegiance to Dahlia and her departed husband Thorne. Men who handled Aran as forcefully as was needed to gain his compliance to her wishes.

She was rarely in attendance during these painful and punishing interludes. Either they bothered her, or perhaps she was just protecting herself should something go awry? Either way, Aran remained captive and frustrated, a slave who was no more than an ornament to a woman he could easily crush in his hands.

As the days passed he began to get further and more desperately impulsive leading to some agonizing beatings and punishments.

The worst punishment by far seemed to be the most innocuous. Aran had begun to fear being bound in rope for long periods in very uncomfortable positions. Which upon release left him all but crippled and hurting for some hours afterward. However, after he had recovered the drive to escape often found him facing recurring debilitation. Kinbaku or Shibari Dahlia had termed it.

Aran remembered the use of the word vaguely, something his brother had said when they were looking at dirty photographs of naked women tied in provocative poses years before. He had found this rope work both arousing and amusing as a young, uninformed teenager. However, after tasting such immobilization he was truly beginning to fear it.

After one such episode tonight, Aran rested on his stomach, arms, and legs bound viscously behind his back at unnatural angles. Rope about his neck and shoulders pulling so tightly he fought for air. The more he fought the hemp that imprisoned him the worse he fared. He could feel the rough rope burning his flesh where it was tied as he struggled and chafed himself red and raw.

"You are so like him, my Thorne." Came Dahlia's voice tainted with sadness and praise. Aran felt an appreciative caress as his gold hair was pulled back from his face. Dahlia looked down at him, features unreadable as were her dark eyes. Aran growled like an animal, the sound deep in his throat. The rope cutting into his windpipe and his broad shoulders as he fretted at the discomfort of his bonds.

Seemingly oblivious to his discomfort Dahlia sat. Aran had always been told the Japanese could be the most subtly cruel. Some sixty years after World War Two he could still hear his countryman's derision of Dahlia's people. Phrases like cruel, heartless bastards, those bloody slopes. The seeds of racial hatred had never truly been extinguished on these shores.

Now he was her prisoner, and those long-ago words were running in his head. She was so much closer than she had been to him at any time previously. The tiny woman began to stroke his hair softly until he fell quiet. It was then Dahlia began to speak, while she continued to stroke her captive's bronzed flesh with rhythmic calmness. Pretty fingers running over the various scars that adorned his strong frame.

"In my country Japan everyday life is somehow tied together. Think of the Kimono, which has neither buttons nor hooks, but is closed by ritually tying long strip of fabric around one's body. Military armor the same, made of lacquered wooden panel, elegantly tied together. Gifts also are intricately wrapped and elaborately tied, and this custom holds true even today among my people."

Aran was not much enjoying the cultural history lesson, the comparison was lost on him. He tried to flex his ankles that were tied across one another to no avail, the rope that passed between his toes thwarting all manner of movement. He groaned and again lay still, one cheek pressed to the cool of the polished wooden floor.

Dahlia mercilessly continued. "The art of Japanese bondage has long tradition and has been perfected over many centuries. It serves not only as binding but also as body adornment, the pressure made by cords can employ Shiatsu techniques. Shibari is built up of many ropes, each one with its purpose."

She tugged at one particular cruelly placed binding as she said this, and Aran felt more than just a tightness down below. Her point made she continued. "Each one contributing to the total effect. Every knot has its historic significance, and all of them have to do with the roots of Shibari in Hojo-jutsu, the martial art of restraining captive. There is even a form of bondage for noble captive where actual knots were not used at all, and the prisoner was on his honor not to escape."

Nice to know he was not considered noble. Aran thought somewhat sarcastically. Being immobilized in this way while Dahlia touched him so delicately was not his idea of heaven. If Dahlia knew what she was doing to him, she did not pause in the deliverance of her lesson.

"Originally Shibari started out as a form of incarceration in Japan from fourteen-hundred to seventeen-hundred. During that era, the local Keisatsu and Samurai used this kind of restraint as a form of imprisonment." Aran was trying not to imagine how terrible a long stint like this could be. Perhaps it was only his struggles against the bonds that made it so terrible, or was it her teasing caresses? He sighed heavily.

"The honor of ancient Samurai warriors was rated on how well they took charge of their prisoners, and the technique used to tie the prisoner showed the honor and status of that Samurai. There were four rules of Hojo-jutsu: The first was not to allow the prisoner to slip his bonds. Second, not to cause any physical or mental injury. Third, not to allow others to see the techniques, and lastly, to make the result beautiful to look at.

I think you are very beautiful to look at." She said almost playfully. Her hands went beneath his torso and traced his nipples teasingly. Aran closed his eyes willing his desire to leave him.

She paused then. The room fell into an acute silence, however it did not endure long. Dahlia had motives that needed to be expressed. "I guess I need to state my intentions to you though you are only property. I know you were a pit fighter and you were sold to me against the wishes and advice of my henchmen. They told me my fancy to own a man such as yourself was foolhardy, and perhaps it was. However a lesser man would for me never do. After Thorne I know I could not remarry, yet I am young and wish a paramour and company, even if he is only a slave."

Aran craned his neck to look at her then. Dahlia returned the gaze cooly. She smiled slightly, perhaps it was her captives' helplessness or something other that fueled her small admission to humor. Aran could not guess at her motives.

"Your eyes are rare shade." She countered to his fierce look. "Green of sea. You are strong and precious, yet you are slave." Aran glowered at her for her last remark thinking if I escape these bonds you will see rightly here who is the slave. However, his tongue remained mute, as her dainty hand traced along his side to his thigh. Fingers coming to rest on the neat indentation of the eternal triangle branded there.

"This marks you slave." She said simply.

He could neither detect compassion nor mockery in her tone. "I know you think it does not matter, that this is just a simple scar. I do not think you truly understand. This is currency of a slave. Once branded it is your lot no matter how mighty you are. You will be forever dishonored and vanquished."

The diminutive woman's words bothered him. Perhaps it was because they came from her? Would he have taken them better from what he deemed a worthwhile adversary? Would his brother reinforce this statement she had made? If Sven did he was not sure how he would take it?

"I am no one's slave." Aran found the will to say finally, as though the statement could banish all the doubts that were running through his head. The confinement was truly a bother to him now as he wriggled and twisted to be free of the ropes. He was already fretting he would remain in this state for the duration of the evening, something he was striving to avoid.

"You are wrong, slave. This is where you belong now." Dahlia's voice had become clipped and hard. "You are mine and I will do as I please, and you will well learn it well, and become domesticated."

Dahlia rose then and walked across the room kneeling before the small altar where incense always burned as an offering to her gods and departed family. There were photos of a rugged, bearded man that Aran surmised was none other than Thorne, and other images of what he presumed were her family from Japan.

Dahlia sat there in silence for some time, oddly letting the silk of her garment slide from her shoulders revealing the wondrous spill of tattooed blooms of her namesake that cascaded in glorious profusion down her right shoulder and across her back.

It was as though she were wrestling with something profound. A decision perhaps that was a crossroads in her life. After long moments, made longer by Aran's discomfort she picked up the photograph of her late husband, kissing the glass gently, eyes closed. She whispered something to the image as she set it back in place, and bowed in subservience before the family altar before she rose.

As the woman stood Aran was captivated by her perfect, miniature beauty. Dahlia raised her hands to pluck the traditional bone ornament from her raven hair and it fell from its restraining knot to the curvature of her perfect thighs. The crimson kimono slid from her narrow waist, and she came toward Aran without the least hint of shame or desire.

"I know I cannot free you, but I will take my pleasure from that which I own, and any other gift the makers bestow upon me." Her words were almost delivered in the manner of a sacred vow. Aran knew those words were not really intended for him but perhaps for another beyond the grave.

She knelt beside him and with a deft movement loosed the bonds that held his ankles tightly anchored to his throat. However, Aran was far from free, though his breath was less constricted without the pressure of his ankles tugging at this windpipe.

He momentarily thought about kicking her, it would not be entirely impossible for him to do so. However his arms and wrists were still tied in a painful array across his back, and freedom would not likely be accomplished by those means.

So he allowed her to push him over onto his back. The warrior was now almost as naked as she was. With only the smallest scrap of a covering to conceal his modesty. Not that Aran had ever felt the need to be overly coy. His shoulders smarted with the pressure that his own weight exerted on his arms, though he was glad at least to have his cramping legs at last straightened even if his feet were still bound firmly with the ankles crossed.

She was light this petite woman, barely a burden at all, like the fall of fragrant flower petals, or a discarded bird feather left to flutter on the breeze. Aran felt a little discomfort as she added her body weight to his own, further pressuring the bindings on his arms and wrists behind him. He grunted but was lost in the vision of her straddling his abdomen, the cascade of shining black hair, and the allure of her scent. He lay back needing little goading in her unspoken request of pleasure.

It was like a dream; then starkly he recalled such a similar dream of before, of being bound, powerless, taken by a woman. He tensed at the dream becoming truth, and Dahlia stopped for a moment in her pleasure-seeking, leaning forward to lay her soft hands gently on the sides of his face. Looking deeply into his eyes, assessing. However, she did not speak.

Aran felt a pang of fear wash over him, it was not Dahlia as such, or even the fact this was an act that he felt required him to lead. It was the simple idea she did not enquire of his discomfort, and for the first time in his self-assured life, Aran felt recent words strike home. 'This marks you slave. I know you think it does not matter, that this is just a simple scar. I do not think you truly understand. This is currency of a slave. Once branded it is your lot no matter how mighty you are. You will be forever dishonored and vanquished.' Aran averted his eyes and looked away.

He could hear her shortness of breath as she took what she desired. The little gasps and moans, breath and pleasure taken between clenched teeth. He could feel her shudder with each movement and clench him hard. He was fighting not to become also completely lost in the carnality.

The golden warrior lay beneath her and waited, part of him irritated that his body no matter what troubles were in his mind still responded to his jailer's wishes. It did not seem to matter to Dahlia what troubled him. Only that if she required pleasure he presented it.

Aran had always thought in intimate relations the man had been the one to drive the direction of such pleasures. This was new to him, though he had been told by his brother in some situations it could happen otherwise. Still, Aran had never seen that otherwise, and now he had he was not sure he liked it. He simply closed his eyes and waited for her to be finished.

One single tear, Aran felt the droplet hit his abdominals, opening his eyes.
Dahlia was still astride him, he was spent but remained embedded in her warm mystery. Above him, in the aftermath of his stolen ecstasy, Dahlia's face swam light like the moon against the frame of her midnight hair. Yet his sharp gaze could see clearly the trail of tears, the way they ran down her delicate nose, pausing at the nostrils, to drip languidly onto the ruby red of her full bottom lip. He did not know what to think.

Prone and in discomfort Aran watched Dahlia rise and walk away, gathering up the crush of red silk that was her kimono, to disappear behind the decorative screens that kept prying eyes from her world. He shut his eyes and planned for another disagreeable night.