Chapter 9: Man Skirts

“How about the expectations of the United States Government, when they see you walking around with antique swords and a martial arts uniform and decide you’ve gotta register as a deadly weapon?”

“I am a deadly weapon.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, dude. You can wear a kimono. I’ll order you one off eBay, then you can strut around in a man-skirt all you want.”

It took him a moment to realize what she was talking about. “Man-skirt? You mean a hakama? Is that what they call it, here?”

“What, the funky pleated baggy pants that the kendo guys wear? Yeah. Totally a man-skirt.”

“Hmm, okay. When you call your seamstress, tell her to bring extra cloth. I will need several man-skirts, at least three kimonos, an obi, a couple changes of tabi, at least two sets of zōri—”

“Seamstress?” She gave him a look like she didn’t even know what the word meant. “You mean a tailor? Somebody who fixes hems and stuff?”

He frowned. “Someone who makes your clothes for you.” He gestured at the elaborate mansion around him. “Surely you can afford someone to make your clothes for you.”

She blushed and glanced at the house as if it hadn’t occurred to her. “Well, I guess I could. I know where my parents keep their cash. Huge wads of it. A room of cash. You ever heard of anything like that before? I think the fuckers liked to go swim in it, like on that show with the ducks.”

Masaaki nodded, having no idea what cash, was, or why anyone would want wads of it, or what duck had to do with the conversation. “Are you hungry?” he asked, cocking his head at her in his confusion.

She blinked at him like a macaque working an abacus. “A little?”

He grunted. “Where do you keep your ducks?”

“Uummm. My parents didn’t like pets. Even my parrot disappeared, when I was gone at school.”

“You eat parrots here?” He had known his daimyō was wealthy, but not that wealthy. He peered at her, feeling there was definitely something missing from their conversation, and, judging by the puzzled look on her face, she was feeling the same. Shaking his head, he decided to go back to the original conversation. “I will want kimono, several hakama, tabi, obi, zōri.” Then he paused, having struggled for the last five hours to find the courage to say what came next. “I also want a taste of your blood.”

She was nodding at each item he listed until he reached the last one, at which she flinched and jerked away from him. “Excuse me?”

Drinking the blood of a queen was the only way one could become immune to her, should she ever decide to sink her kiba into him. “You want to feed from me. Fine. But I require that boon first.”

Looking startled, she said, “Why?”

He gave her a wary look. “Those who survive the kiss of a queen before she has made them an offering of her blood become her thralls and soldiers. Forever.”

She laughed. “What, like mind-control?”

“Exactly, yes. Control of the mind.”

She gave him a flat look. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“I’ll need to take the blood from a specific place on your wrist.”

He watched her cringe and fist her hands, drawing them away from him. “Uh, how about we just can the blood-drinking and call it even.”

“I’ll be gentle,” Masaaki promised her. “And then I’ll allow you your first taste of yatagarasu, if you wish. Just blood, mind you. I’m not quite…ready…for your fangs, yet.” Just the idea left him shuddering inside, remembering how many times they’d been thrust into his body during some new torment, reaping his pain and terror like sponges soaking up water.

“Um,” she said softly, “that yatagusu thing… That means I could walk in the sun? If I drank your blood?”

“Yatagarasu. And yes. At least for a couple hours.”

She swallowed hard. “My parents said that drinking your blood would, uh, change my metabolism.”

“I’ll just be giving you a taste, at first.” He was beginning to dance on dangerous terrain, honor-wise, but the girl would have to awaken and learn to control herself sooner or later, and it was better if she learned on Masaaki, who could defend himself, than on some poor boy she met in the park. He also got the idea that if he told her exactly what he planned to do—and what would happen to her when he did—she would run from him again.

But she glanced over at the huge, thick curtains and the rim of morning sunlight just now beginning to bounce off the inside of the curtains, hitting the wall. “Okay,” she said, with painful innocence. “But we need to find you some clothes first, ‘cause you are really starting to creep me out. I’m gonna grab you some of my dad’s stuff until we can find you something of your own, okay?”

Masaaki glanced down at himself again. “I have nothing to hide from you, daimyō.” He had meant it as a soothing means of telling her that, after centuries of being stripped bare in both body and mind, there was nothing more genuine than the naked form. It was one of the few beneficial things that the vampires had done for him. As a samurai, a man’s status had been largely based upon what he wore. His clothing and his self-esteem had been one in the same, and he had truly thought that the cut and the weave of the cloth made the man.

Now, after centuries without, seeing naked slaves die with more honor than any shogun, he knew that it wasn’t the cloth at all.

His daimyō turned bright crimson and she bit her lip. “I wasn’t kidding, earlier. I really don’t like to see people naked.”

He crossed his arms stubbornly. Of the horrible things that the vampires had done to him, nakedness was one of the few things he embraced as a positive result of his captivity. To Masaaki, nakedness had come to mean innocence and purity, because even when they were feeding, the vampires were rarely completely naked. To Shannon, he said, “I haven’t worn clothes except a few times in seven centuries. I imagine that, after all this time, I’ll find them uncomfortable. Especially the tight, constrictive things that I saw your father wearing, whenever I saw him clothed.”

“My dad was about your size,” she muttered. “He’d at least have some jeans that would fit.”

Then he cocked his head at her. “There’s also the fact I’d simply rather not wear your father’s clothes.”

She flushed again. “Oh.”

He gestured at himself. “Like I said. I have nothing to hide from you. There’s nothing shameful in it, and I don’t mind if you look.” He would dress if the forced the issue, of course, but at the moment, he would rather not spend his first day of freedom looking like the vampire that had violated every part of his body in every conceivable way. “I pledged my service to you, little wan-ko. My body is your body.”

She blushed like an apple and got to her feet. “Okay. I’ll get you a towel.”

Masaaki sighed, deeply, but his attention sharpened when she came back with a towel in one hand—and a small paring knife and a glass in the other. She offered him the towel, and he distractedly wrapped the cloth around his hips, eyes fixed on the glass. It was the same kind he had seen her parents sip from, too many times before, and it unnerved him enough he found it difficult to speak.

“So.” She swallowed hard, looking down at the tiny knife. “Um…” She held them out with obvious reluctance. “Just please don’t kill me, okay?” She made a nervous sound.

Seeing she wasn’t going to try and order him to let her bleed him, Masaaki relaxed somewhat and, taking the tools, sent them gently aside. “I don’t need a glass, wan-ko.

She peered at him like this was the point at which he told her oh, by the way, he was really a vampire lord, and welcome to his dungeon.

Before she could change her flighty female mind, Masaaki went and retrieved his tantō.