On the Keikaji Empire - On the Foreigner Rich and Young
In the dusking years of the Pre-Unity Era, the Empire of Keikaji suffered hardships one upon another. The sky wept as the Water Serpent mourned for the Wind, whilst the Emperor struck a violent schism between his people and the changelings with purpose unknown.
In here was a moment, between these crises and the next, that joy still burned in the kirin heart. It kindled most of all in their city above the sky, Ame-no-Mihashira. Or to pony tongues, Heaven-on-High.
They were such foreboding times that the kirin sought ways to escape and indulge in fantasy. Theatre was the most favored amongst both rich and poor, chiefly kabuki plays; the wild and eccentric telling of past legends and current struggles had survived countless regulations through its popularity alone. There likewise burgeoned a hidden side of the theatre, only spake of on pipe-smoke or under snuffed lanterns—the selling of more intimate pleasures, much to the distaste of stuffy lords. But amid the theatre folk it was embraced as the shadow of their lives.
Out of shadow and in the daylight, a kabuki actor of especial renown strode along the streets of the upper business district—this time, recognized by no one. From this anonymous kirin hung expensive flower-print silks which swished around sandals like fog on water. Smoke crept from a kiseru pipe and sometimes from a pair of rosy lips. It was the actor’s latest conception: the grand courtesan. This courtesan would, on lax days, dress up and waltz through the city to give her people a show. A show, yes, and that was all—so might the gods pity whoever made it more than that.
* * *
It had to be accepted in this era that the earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns would not find peace with one another, but they were allowed within the borders of the Keikaji Empire if they did not bring their pony-quarrel with them. And indeed, there were a fair number of pony foreigners to visit Heaven-on-High, all for business and study, all of them wealthy to some degree, for the journey east was long and hard for the ponies.
Swiftwater was there because of his wealthy blood, not by choice. He was born in the cloudcity Hyapolis, where he lived a privileged rearing in a family who designed airships. He never liked ships, despite his father’s needling. When he was twelve years old, his parents dragged him across the world to Keikaji on the idea of building relations between pegasi and kirin, and strengthening occident-orient travel. They did fine for themselves, and three years later, they felt rich enough to move to the mountaintop capital Heaven-on-High, where the three of them all stayed in a house in the foreigner district.
There was a great score of huffing and moaning in the new house ere Swiftwater was eventually, carefully allowed to go out alone. “But the city is dangerous,” his mother would warn, “especially to rich foreigners like us who haven’t gotten wise.”
Swiftwater thought that sounded distrustful of the natives. He thought the same thing when they said that about the earth ponies, too.
He felt wise. He was becoming a strapping young stallion, and living in Keikaji for three years had learned him enough of its tongue to speak very well for himself. He showed this off with a high-chinned façade of confidence as he strolled through the upper business district. He believed this façade worked, even whilst he occasionally gawked or got lost.
One question bore heft in his mind and in the satchel neath his wing: what could his allowance buy here?
He felt both light and leaden by his new freedom. Even if one were a native, Heaven-on-High was as head-spinning as it was beautiful. Sometimes Swiftwater bumped into monks who traced their daily routes; important kirin flashing past him in their formal kimonos; he shivered as he met eyes with menacing police-guards, bushi with scars over their muzzles. But above them all, one figure stood. A figure no-one dared ignore. Murmurs gathered in her wake, for she could even pull the attention of a flagellant monk—who hurried on in shame.
The way she moved captivated Swiftwater, too—made him lift his eyebrows and his posture. Peering across the street, he could follow the wag of a mare’s hips and tail, clear even beneath a glistening rainbow of silks. Her fur was light like fresh birchwood, and the scales on her face like dark earth. Her mane, to him, resembled the soft squishy mochi at the markets, or puffy clouds. She demanded attention from within her circle of silence, and drew wisp from her thin kiseru too gracefully for it to be called smoking. No doubt—she gave...“that” for money. She was a courtesan. Swiftwater’s mother had said dark, nasty things about courtesans; whoring scum. But this one certainly didn’t look scum.
He remembered the weight of his satchel of Keikajin coin. Its contents were his and his alone. The thought picked at him again: what could a rich young stallion’s money really buy?
Torn from his pondering, his heart leapt at what he saw: a kirin male, probably drunk, waddled close to the grand courtesan and hiked up the hind quarter of her yukata. There was not a moment afore a flurry of silk, beautiful like a dancer, then a swift and violent swipe from the lady’s hoof. The male shrieked and stumbled away from this invisible attack, limping past Swiftwater and spitting, clutching his breast where blood dribbled between the cloves of his hoof.
Swift’s eyes darted back to the courtesan. She had resumed her walk as if nothing had happened. The colt shivered. He knew that disputes were oft settled by blade in Keikaji, but now he truly believed it.
He swallowed a lump and breathed for the first time in a minute. Confidence...that air of confidence he’d stridden out the front door with, he was going to reclaim it. He was an adult and he would prove it—no, he was better than adults, especially that horrible drunkard just now. He’d defy all the onlookers and follow the courtesan, observing from afar like a play, and he the audience. None but he would have the courage.
A quarter hour or more was spent tailing her from a building’s breadth. She never turned around, only fired her gaze at males before her who flinched away. Even the bushi dipped their straw hats and shuffled to the side of the road. Eventually, she and Swiftwater ended up near the lower end of the business district where it met with pettier commerce. He recognized the stately Suijin-za theatre house (closed today) right where the courtesan bent her steps around a corner. He followed her in. She rounded another, deeper corner, plunging Swiftwater into unfamiliarity. His jaw tensed as he followed her in there too. Then he froze.
The narrowing, blackening alleyway was invisible to the sun and lit only by the red glow of paper lanterns strung above. Groups of kirin, mostly female, smoked and waited outside buildings that looked like businesses but didn’t have signs. The stifling smell of smoke was background noise here. It was impossible for something like this to lie right under his and his parents’ noses.
He knew what the red lights meant. His parents drilled into him to avoid such areas, that they were rife with scum and disease and the shame of society. But then, this courtesan clearly wasn’t scum; she dressed better than a lady or probably even the Emperor, so why would she go down here? And if she was going down here, maybe...maybe money could buy her?
It occurred to him that his brain wasn’t doing all the thinking.
The kirin girls in colorful dress gave him curious looks. They also sneered and rolled eyes at the courtesan—maybe, Swiftwater thought, because they looked lesser next to her. His thoughts winked out of existence as the courtesan stopped under an awning, forcing him to dig his hoof into the cobbles to halt. He couldn’t turn back now, he knew, or he’d look a fool. His heart drummed in his ears. Now or never. Gods be with him, now or never. He cleared his throat.
“Good after——”
It cracked. Suffering. Hell. Shite, gods and Hell and everything, his voice cracked. His fur and feathers should’ve turned from yellow to red for all the burning he felt. He coughed suddenly, praying it cover his botch.
“—Afternoon, madame. I...hope your schedule isn’t packed too full.” A smile of confidence covered up his embarrassment. It was fake confidence now. It always was.
The courtesan swished around with perfect grace that struck a chill down the colt’s spine—aye, colt. He was no longer an adult before her. She took a long draw of smoke and let it seep from the corners of her lips, flowing around her outward-curved fangs. Her hard eyes bore just enough interest to speak down at him.
“Schedule?” she sighed in response. Hers was low and husky for a mare’s voice but laced with pomp and superiority. “Is the one you see before you a teller of the bank? Or mayhap a realtor?”
He had been critical of his opening even as it left his mouth. Now he was screaming inside. Bad idea. Awful, awful idea. He shook his head with his idiotic smile still plastered on. “Of course not. I was only hoping you didn’t have any other...obligations above the possibility of us spending time together, should that interest you...?”
“Mmm. Obligations,” she hissed over smoke whilst narrowing her gaze. With the courtesan’s almighty glare; the smoke bleeding past her teeth; the crimson light splashed across her face, she now more reminded him of something he’d seen viciously portrayed in Keikajin art: a demon from the depths of Hell.
“And who or what obligates I to spend time with this mere boy in my presence?”
“N-Not I...nor anyone else, madame! Of course, all’s of your own accord and for your benefit, that is...I wouldn’t dream of a proposition not worth your while, financially, or other...wise...”
“Quiet.” The demon-glow shifted startlingly across her visage as she leaned down to his level—and blew acrid smoke in his face, forcing him to suffocate and squint. “Mm. You are a young but handsome boy, even for a foreigner, and not a smart one. Did your parents tell you what I am?”
“N-No,” he choked, “they didn’t. Well, not you in specific...but...”
Words were gravel in his mouth. His wings suddenly atrophied, for he couldn’t move them, let alone flit away. Instead only silent stillness blanketed the alley. She stared at him, unblinking, far past the point of discomfort and into nightmare.
“Hold out your tongue so I may extinguish my pipe on it.”
He almost gagged. Did he understand her right? No—surely this was a metaphor, or something symbolic. But every instinct in his body shouted OBEY HER. Or else what? Would he be thrown off the city? Or cut down like that drunk? Would he be killed? The voice was screaming not just from his brain but from between his hind legs; following her from behind had made his sex so stiff that it slapped his belly. It hurt. Everything hurt. He opened his mouth and stuck out his quivering tongue. Frightening silence gripped him. His heart stopped beating and he braced for the searing bitter pain and he prayed. His tongue sensed her breath. She was so close, until...
She leaned away and threw back her head in laughter. “Gods! You did it! You really did! Oh, you’re hopeless! You were ready to—to simply—” She cackled some more like a rumoring wench.
Swift’s face contorted in horror and embarrassment and he shrunk into his withers, tongue still present, still in disbelief and staring up through hot tears at the laughing courtesan—who reached out with her free hoof and used her ankle to push his tongue back in.
“I simply couldn’t pass the opportunity, boy. I noted you tailing me for a few roads and I decided to be a little cruel. I suppose I shall apologize. You don’t know a thing about yūkaku etiquette, do you?”
Swallowing another lump, he shook his head. “I’m afraid n-not, madame. No. I’m sorry. This is my first time in one of...those.”
“Yes, I’ve got eyes. Now since you’re young and stupid, and I’m actually nicer than those other whores, I’ll admit you the truth: I only wander about in this get-up to watch old farts stumble over themselves, and couples steam at each other because they got caught staring. I would never honestly show myself off like some common bitch.” She waved off smoke and chuckled pretentiously. “I get my clientele in a far more discrete manner. You aren’t seriously searching for business, are you?”
“I...um...I was, yes.”
She moved suddenly to make him flinch—grabbed his ear and tilted his head, inspected him like livestock, all the while frowning and rolling her tongue around in her mouth. Finally she breathed through her teeth and sighed.
“I wasn’t doing business today, but you look like a fish strung up by the gills. If you went down this alley with anyone but me you’d have your insides torn out—literally, if you’re lucky. I’ll humor you. But unlike the cheap holes you walked past, you pay for a luxury experience. And you aren’t quite handsome enough for a discount.” A wry smile flashed. “But you are within my inflexible standards.”
To be called stupid, hopeless, not handsome enough; being laughed at, it was shocking. All his life he’d been showered in praise, and here was this mare looking down at him in pity. And for some disgusting reason, it never got any less stiff down there.
“Have you got ears, boy? Was I clear when I called myself luxury? You’ll show me money, or you can face about and head right back down the alley.”
He snapped to attention. “Oh—! Money is no issue, madame! I never came expecting cheap service. I’m more than able to pay...whatever it is you charge, I promise!”
“One hundred billion,” she grinned. “If you’re such a wealthy little foreigner boy, why shouldn’t I take all your money?”
He hesitated to croak a nervous laugh. It appeased the kirin, who showed him a chuckle for seeing her joke.
“So be it. Since you clearly don’t know what you want, you can think about it on the way, then pay. See how nice I am? Come along, boy.” She dumped her kiseru’s ashes to the street, then ground them neath her sandal. Swiftwater shared bitter empathy with them.
Wending through the crimson-hazed alley did eventually bring them to an end: a plain back entrance to some establishment, or maybe storeroom—from all the rest, it was a wonder how the courtesan told it apart—but little mind to Swiftwater as he was beckoned in.
The den was dark and cool with each creaky floorboard releasing the the smell of old wood. Mellower than the red ones outside, pearly white lanterns flickered calmly, revealing that a whore’s hovel this was not. The courtesan brushed aside fine tapestries strewn from the rafters, and with a few sweeps of her horn she lit mayhap a hundred candles, all arrayed neatly around the room. A nigh-dozen locks and bolts clicked the door secure, and without windows nor another visible exit, there would be total privacy in this strange sealed haven.
Citing her dignity, the courtesan refused to speak a list of her services; rather, she asked the colt what he wanted. His reply was painfully vague, only stammers. Still she smiled knowingly at it, pouring a pint of spirit back into the crushed colt—ere she whisked it away by stating her price. It was like two week’s stay in the city's embassy suite, or mayhap passage on a top-class airship. Swiftwater grimaced whilst he all-but-emptied his coinpurse of its heft; it was good that his belly was already full.
“Miss, pardon... I’m sorry for not being more specific earlier,” offered the colt, sensing the lady’s mood. In return she merely kept her back to him whilst shouldering off the breast of her yukata. The warm lamplight caressed her graceful neck—much like her face, freckles dotted her withers. She untied the obi from her waist and tossed it to the bed where it joined a dozen lush pillows.
“Be quiet and come. Wash your hooves of their mare-virginity.”
Swiftwater’s heart spiked. She must have been clairvoyant. Even after the foreigner’s years in Keikaji, he’d never so much as touched a kirin, making the idea ever tantalizing as the days grew. He swallowed a lump and reached out, weakly, to her scaled back...and fulfilled his dream. The surface was paradoxical in its design: thick scales squished as skin would neath his hoof, and whilst they were smooth and cool there was a warmth that glowed from below. It tingled; he was actually getting to feel them—but the wonder was snatched away as it jerked out from under his hoof.
“There. Now when anyone asks, you touched me first.”
She turned to him with a grin—a portent of her sudden lunge, grabbing his neck and pulling him in. Too suddenly their lips touched. She was so soft. Her breath smelt thick and earthy and drenched in smoke. A hot, wet thing made Swiftwater’s heart leap; already, her tongue came to taste his lips and teeth. It should have been disgusting...but the opening of his jaw claimed otherwise.
The lady yanked away from him again. “Pace, boy. You’re to savor me. In sips, like you do with your pricey western liquor. Now—clothing off.”
Swiftwater sucked his tongue back in, swallowing both their spit. He could only stupidly nod. His shaking hooves struggled with the buttons on his westerner’s coat. None of this felt real! He wasn’t even an adult yet and this was the most adult thing in the whole world. It was wrong to be naked outside of his bedroom. It was wrong, even as he stood naked before this mare, his sex painfully slapping his belly again...he didn’t even know her name.
“W-What do I start with...miss...?”
She clicked, “You paid for my throat first, idiot boy. The performance only moves in one direction.”
“Y-Yes, madame...”
“Stop moving. Just stand up.”
“Aye...”
With discomfiting speed the courtesan slipped under the colt’s barrel, head canted aside so not to gut him with her horn, and laid a kiss upon his tip which shot a shiver up his spine; another shiver hit as her lips overtook him. The selfsame cloudy softness he felt against his muzzle was leagues better down there. She was all lip and tongue, no teeth. Practiced. Professional. His hooves could never, ever, ever compare again. Was it always like this for adults? Was this how it was to be one? Could he ever feel like one?
Strangled groans feathered up from his throat for already he felt familiar pressure in this nethers. The deeper he sank in the maw, the warmer it felt—nay, hot; ‘twas no myth that kirin had cores of flame. The working muzzle huffed and puffed against his sensitive underbelly, breathing what could’ve well been steam, for how it sweltered. It made Swift suck his belly in, made him quicken his fevered thrusts—had to grab the whore’s mane, pull her in, forcing himself deep down the slick, gagging throat-hole that dribbled and shuddered like a steampipe. Too much—her heat, sucking, gods, too much! Gods!
He lost it all, let himself go, sloppily thrusting and whimpering and shutting his eyes tight, tears streaming down his cheeks. He sounded like a foal to himself with his pathetic mewling. From her the only sounds were the loud gulps that vanished the seed as soon as it spilt into her. His heart pounded so hard he worried if it could explode. He slumped forward, trembling, panting and coughing on his spit. The whore, her scales, felt so warm. As did his belly. He was in love. This is what it felt like, love, wasn’t it?
Swiftwater’s support slid out from under him with a satisfied slurp, reclining on the bed and leaving the spent colt to stumble on brittle limbs. She hummed, “You barely filled out my throat, but you did. I ought to make you my new minimum size limit.”
“Aah...ha...y-yes, thank you.” Minimum limit. How pathetic.
“Thank you?” she repeated, grimacing. “Don’t you thank me, boy. As if I’m working at a food stand... You foreigners are always too polite or not at all.”
“Yes, r-right, thank—ah! It’s just, I-I can’t believe I really...with you. It felt so good, like...”
“Like Heaven? Save it. You’re filling my rafters with words I hear every time, and they mean even less from a virgin.”
If Swift’s parents could see him now, he knew, they’d be so ashamed: their proud young stallion only muttering “sorry” ‘fore collapsing on the bed. Plus losing his virtue not to a pretty pegasus mare, but a filthy whore. No, she isn’t! he protested. She’s a beautiful mare who deserves respect! And maybe, just maybe, I’m in love with her!
But he couldn’t tell them about her. He’d never be let outside again so long as he lived...
“Well?” she startled him. “You didn’t pay for a mere kiss and a throat. Were you inclined to quit me with half your coin gone to charity?”
He shook his head. “No, madame! I just need...a moment to recover.”
“After that little squirt?”
“Y-Yes...”
“Pathetic. Drink this.” She found a hoof-sized gourd of liquid from the bedside drawer. “All of it. Yes, you paid for it. No, it isn’t booze.”
After how she’d made him feel, he’d do about anything for her without question. Even her bitter put-downs made his heart wrench in a wonderful way. He really could fall no lower, he chagrined, as he uncorked the bottle. A sniff revealed it to be gag-worthy. What liquid then passed his lips tasted stale and sweet, but quickly gave way to foul fire that burnt his throat and nose. After desperately gulping, he coughed and groaned, “W-What was that?”
“Booze,” she smiled. “With a little pick-me-up from the apothecary.”
Swiftwater stammered and looked down at his belly which suddenly boiled with warmth. Warmth turned to tingling, and tingling eerily spread through his extremities. His bones felt sore—yet at once, strong. Ready. His loins felt it, too. Oh...they felt it.
“Stand up, let it circulate. If your little poker down there is awake yet, you can——”
A kiss shut her up for once. His chance to taste her rosy lips again—for a split second, at least, ‘fore a hoof struck Swift’s ribs, teetering him over and sprawling him to the bed with a skull-rattling WHAP. Like a levin-flash the kirin was upon him, prying his jaw open and diving her tongue past his teeth ere he could even gasp. Swift’s hide crawled as the foreign tongue writhed inside his maw; the slimy appendage had gulped down his ejaculate minutes before and now it shared it with him. Not only thus, it methodically curled around his own tongue and squeezed. Hard. The rest of her body pinned him, draped him neath her disheveled clothes. There was naught he could do but whine and squirm his hips—he barely prodded his erection against something hot; her marehood, it must’ve been! Success, but at this price... He would take it.
Once sated, the courtesan slithered her tongue out from his mouth and rose up. Cloven toes weighed uncomfortably against his windpipe. “Don’t ever...try that on a normal whore,” she huffed, “or they’re like to stab you—or worse, charge you tenfold. Lucky... I have a secret policy: kisses are free, should you taste your own seed on them.”
Sudden silver flashed across Swift’s vision and stopped at his heart. A knife. Its white tip traced, ticklish as a feather, down his breast. “That policy stays a secret, withal—or else I’ll cut them off.”
He croaked past the cloven hoof, “I-I promise, I’ll never tell! And...won’t do that again...sor...ry...please!”
“Good.” A sharp thunk, and the knife was stuck fast in the wall far behind her. “You know...I felt you get excited down there when I drew my blade. You really are hopeless. It’s revolting.”
“Nn...maybe,” he conceded, still staring at the discarded blade.
“What’s with that trembling jaw? You fancy that a mare makes herself the center of attention and doesn’t carry defense?”
“No, I just...I remember, that drunkard...”
Her hooves clopped together. “Aha, yes! I’m pleased you saw him. I hope his wound gets infected.” She wiggled her rear against Swiftwater’s twitching pole, making it bob side to side. “I’d gut males like him if I could. Spill his blood, watch it soak into the stones, the gutters...see his teeth in the dirt...the maggots eating his eyes—don’t you want to see that, too?”
He throbbed feverishly against her rear even as her words churned his stomach. He nodded along, “Y-Y-Yes...my lady...”
“Mmm...” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m waiting, anyroad. You could be a stallion and rut me any time—or I could rip into you like a wild dog and fuck your ass into the dirt.”
His heart ached with fear. She could really do it, she could kill him, she could kill him. She’d do it if he didn’t please her, no doubt. How could a colt like him have gotten this deep? He wasn’t an adult, he never was—just a colt, and she was a demon. A sick, hungry demon that spoke of killing and blood and came from Hell to take his virtue and his soul. And his damned erection still wouldn’t go down. Gods... He could cry.
“I...I can be a stallion, I just...” Just wanted his mother.
“Just can’t, with your limp little worm?”
“Please...stop...”
She growled, “I generously lift you off the street and here’s all I get? Come on, boy—show me that virgin colt energy. Every time it got stiff at a mare, every dirty thought you’ve ever had—I want that. Give me a hard, desperate fucking! Come on!”
Swiftwater’s eyes slammed shut as he screamed. His hooves had clutched the courtesan’s flanks, without his control, and yanked them down to his crotch. He felt as he’d been struck by levin. Time froze. Fire overtook his member and a hearty slap met his ears. He was in her. He was inside of her. A mare. A demon. A killer. She felt so good. Her throat curled a moan into the air, trembling, hissing in through her teeth.
“Fuck,” through her clenched jaw. “Do me better. Harder.”
He groaned and lifted her flanks. His forelegs burned. He didn’t care. She was so hot and soft and slick inside. He dropped her back down on his pelvis with another slap, yelping as it hurt his balls. He didn’t care—couldn’t care when he was close.
“Dirty boy, wanting me in my tailhole so badly.” She grabbed his neck and spat, “You’re disgusting! Filthy little foreign pony, fuck me!”
Tailhole—it wasn’t what he wanted. But it counted. He’d make it count. “S-Shut up...demon!” he grunted. “You want it so bad? Beg, y-you whore!”
Hotter that Hell this demon was inside, even more than her throat—it was nigh cooking him. Primal shocks of pleasure and fiery agony crashed through him over and over again, stomping and huffing, making right messes of the bed, the whore’s clothes, her mane. The smell of smoke prickled Swift’s nose; sparks began flickering off the demon’s back and up to the rafters. And she kept growling. Deep, guttural, belonging to something else. Swift knew of the nirik, indeed, but this sounded wrong.
“Inside me, pegasus boy!” demanded this thing in its dark voice. “All inside. All of it—pump your balls deep, you dirty fucking swine!”
Drool fell from the colt’s lips as he slammed away into the demon. An animal, that’s all he was, a frenzied beast with the desire to breed. He moaned over the demon’s commands and tugged her—its flanks into himself, its weight squishing his balls painfully as he burst forth. Load after load after load furiously pumped inside, riding on a growl that he shared with the demon.
He did it. His virtue was gone, as was his soul.
The dizzy spinning of the world eventually slowed to a crawl. He was suddenly aware of being sodden by sweat the whole over. His body tingled with blazing heat, inescapable, all-consuming; his face felt hottest...with something thick dripping down his snout. He opened his eyes to look. What he saw broke him.
Protruding from disheveled silken clothes, it looked similar to Swiftwater’s own, yet from a mere glance it was bigger—rosy pink with earthy splotches, twitching mere inches from his face, dribbling with cloudy emission. Masculine odor wafted off it. The colt’s eyes traced upward to show what flipped his stomach and constricted his heart: the erection’s owner was panting, glaring down at him with half-lidded eyes that bored into his head. The demon who’d just been his first lay. And it grinned at him.
“I really, honestly, truly did not expect this to work. I was sure your stupidity was an act.”
A changeling, those purged from the city, was Swiftwater’s first thought. Alas, this was no bug; it was not even a different kirin. The female courtesan was nothing but a lie. His head was pounding. He opened his mouth to speak, but his tongue met with warm, stale strands of goo which trailed down his snout and neck and led to the organ lying upon his breast. He pursed his lips, sputtering, “Phh... Ugh! Wh-What happened to—?”
“Rich foreigners are such a treasure,” continued the kirin, and licked his fangs. His softening member twitched out a few drops more for the yellow colt. “I don’t deserve you, truly.”
“I... No, this—you looked—this is a mistake! No, no, no no no no...” Swiftwater’s chest shook and he held his head. His penis was inside a male. He had sex with him. He had sex with a male. If this got out, his parents, his reputation, his peers...all’d be in ruins. “I’m not like this, I’m not...”
“Mhm, mhm. Keep going. You’ve never even thought about stallions like that, right?”
“I can’t... Please...”
“So how did my hole feel? Like Heaven, if I may purchase your words?”
“M-My parents, they...they can’t find out... I thought you were a lady!”
The male sneered. “Of course I was a lady. I am an actor.” He reached down to brush Swiftwater’s teal mane aside, flinching him. “And if you are at all cultured, my dear little foreigner boy, you’ll have heard the name Goma. Goma of the Suijin-za.”
Of course Swiftwater knew the Suijin-za—the famed kabuki theatre of Heaven-on-High. But his parents forbid him from it always; the plays were too risqué and had too strong a pro-military sentiment. Thus, the name Goma was lost to him.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“Of course.” Goma sighed and shifted his weight so to come off the colt—with a vulgar wet sound and sliding sensation that made Swiftwater cringe and whimper. “But I’ve gone ahead of myself. What was that about ‘my parents can’t find out’?”
“They can’t!” he restated, covering his crotch in embarrassment. “They need me to find a pegasus mare! A-an expatriate here, or maybe when we go back home. If they know I...was with a stallion...” They’d hate him. Disown him. They wouldn’t kill him, but he’d wish they had.
Goma smiled in understanding ere he turned to fetch a smoke. “Ah, I see, I see. Your parents want even more of you little feather-dusters flying around in our land. And if they hear their son is a colt connoisseur, or even a mare-hater...”
“I’m not! Please, you can’t tell anyone!”
“Oh, wherefore would I tell?” He lit his kiseru and lounged back down. His lush tail curled and flicked with sadistic delight. “Of course, I would suffer no consequence but for some foreigners’ ire. I stay the beloved actor I am, and the burden fells you to your death. But am I so cruel?” He hissed smoke in Swift’s face, forcing the colt to bow his head. “No, I enjoy keeping my clients. I ensure they always return.”
“You’re...you’re blackmailing me?! That’s not legal!”
“Black...mailing?” He frowned.
“Y-Yes... Yes, you are! Holding me hostage, but with threats!”
“Hostage?” Goma’s snout twisted into a smirk that showed his demon-fangs. He gracefully arose and waltzed over to the door to undo the locks and crack it open. The room was painted with a stripe of crimson light. “Are you not free to leave? I have your coin. Your abstract western laws don’t exist here. But by all means, tell the bushi you’re being ‘blackmailed’. Tell the Emperor. Tell everyone all about how you wanted to fuck me.”
“I’m not... I never...” He was lost. All he could do was curl up and wish he could die. On his dry lips still dribbled Goma’s emission—by some dark purpose, he licked at it and swallowed.
* * *
In a dim room past corners a-dozen, a storehouse once connected to the Suijin-za, a foreign colt pressed his lips to a grown kirin’s. They shared hot pipe-smoke between their tongues—their ritual, now—as the kirin kissed his sheath against the colt’s. Swiftwater drew a chuckle from the kirin by eagerly licking the latter’s fangs; Goma knew he’d won again.
Bleeding the boy of mommy and daddy’s money felt good, aye, but the boy’s body felt better. Such an actor’s sterotype, Goma thought of himself—but what was wrong with that? What was more, his ears’d prick up at the occasional mention of a “Kijo” stalking the yūkaku. Such urban legends stroked his loins nigh better than any kirin or pony, mare or stallion.
“Same service again the next morrow?” Goma leaned against the door frame, licking his lips as he eyed down the colt.
“Y-Yes!” Swiftwater anxiously cried. “I can even pay in advance this time, and...and I’ll come see your plays! Just, please, keep this away from my parents, a-and my friends too. Everyone.”
“A promise is just that, boy.” He smirked. “For a week longer, at the least.”
“Thank you.” Bitter tears welled as he bowed. “Thank you...”
