More than a Poisoned Hand

In prior years, Tsatsi hadn't thought about him much. Banmai had been a boy, and that had been cause enough to ignore him.

Nonetheless, there were a few things she remembered. She remembered that little boy who'd been sent out for a bucket of water who had somehow managed to fall and twist his ankle. Banmai had been the first to show up, and he'd carried the boy into the house of Grandma Two-Sticks, where she could tend to the injury. When Tsatsi had arrived, one of the adults had murmured, "We still need that water." Seconds later, the wooden bucket, filled with water, had slapped down onto the ground by the house. Tsatsi distinctly remembered Banmai walking away without a word.

Tsatsi and Banmai had crossed paths again during the gentry tour, when the landlord and his family had come by on horseback to inspect their peasants. The first Tsatsi had seen of Banmai that day was his mother clenching his arm, reprimanding him over something. When the adults had finally left, Tsatsi had gotten the story from Banmai: apparently, he had been ready to throw a rock at the landlord. Months passed before Tsatsi could stop laughing about that.

Their last encounter as children had been just after a feast. Women, of course, ate first, then did men, then girls and finally the boys. One of the boys saw that his brother hadn't been allocated a meal like all the other boys had, and he wouldn't have it. That boy, of course, had been Banmai, and he wouldn't cooperate until his grandfather gathered a little from every boy's meal to give to the last boy. Then Banmai ate gladly; fairness, apparently, had been worth all the hassle.

Those three incidents were all that Tsatsi remembered of Banmai. And when she was still a child, they'd been all she cared to know about him. But now, as a girl of eighteen, she had new ideas about boys, and Banmai was her boy of choice.

Her reminiscing ended as she finished what she was doing on the ropemaking table. She straightened her back, rinsed off her hands in the water bucket and slipped out of the house.

"Tsatsi!" The snappy male voice stopped her. "Where are you going?"

Tsatsi turned around and looked up into her father's disapproving face. Tsatsi's mother had married her father the old-fashioned way, by enslaving him. Shunned though it was by the priestly and noble classes, slavery remained a legitimate and warranted practice, the ultimate expression of an everywoman's dominance over mankind. But despite all that, he was still her father, and she could not simply brush him off. "I'm going to see Banmai," she said quickly.

Her father's eyebrows rose, and she prepared herself for the floodgates to burst open. Instead, her father nodded slowly. "Be back by sundown," he said languidly.

'That's it?' she thought, but decided not to push her luck by asking.

Her father turned sadly to rejoin her mother in the workshop, where unpurchased ropes lay piled up against the wall. Suddenly, Tsatsi understood the real source of her father's anguish. Ever since the merchants had begun showing up in their flat-bottomed riverboats, their better, cheaper ropes had crippled the family business.

But Tsatsi did not think of that. She only thought of Banmai. The last several years had been good to him; although his frame remained as thin as the rice stalks he picked, his shoulders had swelled with muscle, and his black hair now reached down to the base of his neck so that it blew dreamily in the wind.

There he stood in rice fields, barefooted so he wouldn't trample the crops and bare-chested so the summer heat wouldn't scorch him. As she watched, he got up from the ankle-high water and straightened his back, showing the flat, ridged belly he had developed. He did not react to Tsatsi's coming, but she got the tantalizing sense he noticed her anyway.

"Get out!" barked a female voice, and Tsatsi's every nerve went taught. A skinny, harsh-looking woman barged out of the farmhouse and charged up to her. "You, that ropemaker's girl! Get out!"

"I..." Tsatsi's voice threatened to abandon her. "I just want to visit your son..."

"You do!" Her tone bristled with accusation. "You're a son-thief! You're a bread-duster! You're a stray bitch, and if I catch you sniffing around for my son, I'll have your head!"

Tsatsi gaped at this bony beast of a woman, her mind racing. She had not violated etiquette by coming to visit, nor had she gone behind this woman's back... she hadn't even reached the house yet! Banmai was of age—Tsatsi had painstakingly confirmed it—and she had even visited him a few times before, visits she'd assumed his mother knew about.

But now under that cruel stare, Tsatsi's didn't have the courage to say any of that. She turned and ran—indeed, like a stray bitch.

* * *

Finally, all the stars had aligned. Tsatsi had her parents' blessing. Banmai's mother, who had mellowed from vicious to merely rude in the past few years, was off with a magic-woman, being treated for some illness. Tsatsi could have Banmai all to herself.

It was not a short walk, the dirt-path that connected her home to Banmai's, and she did not go unnoticed. Some of the street boys stopped and pulled open their shirts, thinking they were being subtle, while others extended their necks, inviting her to put a collar on them. Tsatsi ignored them all. Easy men had never appealed to her. 'Eager,' her mother had called them, but to Tsatsi they seemed like drooling hyenas, pathetically willing to do anything for approval. Banmai showed something more valuable, strength. No hyena, he was a reliable ox, tame but imperturbable.

But when Tsatsi arrived, backed by the setting sun, the only sound was an odd, sharp thumping noise set to a backdrop of grim silence. Tsatsi stepped carefully in, peeking around every corner. Eventually, she stepped out the back of the house and found him. In a patch of bare dirt, he circled around a tree, hopping on the balls of his feet. Every few heartbeats he'd snap his fist at the tree, denting its bark with his knuckles. His shadow, many times longer than he was tall, copied his movements.

Tsatsi shuddered to imagine how the tree bark must have felt on his bare skin, but even that wasn't what struck her the most. Banmai's broad, handsome face was stretched taught, his saber-shaped eyebrows shearing low over his eyes, his lips pursed in fierce concentration. Every time he struck the tree, the skin above his lips pulled up in a snarl.

"Banmai?" said Tsatsi timidly.

His head snapped up, black hair twitching before it fell around his face in a sad curtain.

"Banmai, what happened?"

"Nothing," he mumbled.

"It's not nothing. What is it?"

He took in a deep breath, clenching every muscle from his face down to his stomach, then slowly sighed out his tension. "The Whittler family is gone."

"Gone? They've lived here even longer than we have!"

"They were are neighbors. More than that. My father had sworn a blood-oath with their son Yondra. Our families were meant to be allies forever."

"What happened to them?"

"They moved away. It's the merchants..."

'Not this again,' thought Tsatsi, dread pooling in her stomach.

"...they drove Whittlers out. The merchants dump their goods. Practically dump them, scattering them about like trash, selling them for a pittance. Cheap brassware, cheap cloth, cheap lamps, cheap clay, you name it."

"It doesn't have to be that way. My mother made a deal with the merchants, and they buy their ropes from us now. Can't everyone do something like that?"

"No. I don't blame you for doing it, but because of them, our neighbors are gone." He smacked the wooden post a few more times. "That's why I train. There's going to be an uprising. The Poisoned Hands are taking a stand, and when they do, I want to be one of them."

"You're going to fight them? Fight the merchants and all their guards?"

"We'll fight the whole world if that's what it takes."

"Banmai, don't." She placed gentle hands on his arms, bringing them down. "It's going to be okay."

"No, it's not!" he snapped.

She grabbed the charmed amulet from her pocket, which was never far from her. "Here. Give me-"

"Don't!" He snapped to face her, his shoulders bulging with tension. "You're always barging in! You think it doesn't matter, but it doesn't! You're a selfish..." he gritted his teeth and looked like he was about to implode.

But Tsatsi had heard enough. "Am I talking to Banmai, or his mother?" Standing up carefully, she turned and walked back outside, stately and serene.

One of the town boys, she saw, had followed her partway out to the rice farm. When he gazed innocently at her, pretending not to notice that his tight pants were showing off his butt, she only glared back at him. Banmai's outburst had left her in even less of a mood to put up with their sycophantic nonsense. The boy got the message and scampered away.

"Tsatsi!" a male voice hurried up behind her. "Tsatsi, I'm sorry."

Tsatsi looked over her shoulder, ready to rebuff him, then was surprised to see real, cutting pain in him. His jaw hung open, and his thin, sharp eyebrows rode high above wet blue eyes.

"I'm sorry, Tsatsi. I didn't mean that." His fingers twitched with furious tension, and she could see him choosing words carefully. "I was angry at someone else and I... I just wasn't ready. I took it out on you. Will you forgive me?"

Tsatsi faced him. "I forgive you." She said it coldly, dusted with uncertainty. She waited for his next move.

"You... wanted to see me." He itched the back of his head. "How would you like to walk to the old blue pond?"

'Right answer!' She smiled, sidling up to him. "I like the way you think."

It was the perfect time for such a walk. As the sun faded under the horizon and revealed the stars gleaming above, the stone-still surface of the pond reflected the endless, speckled black above. Banmai lay down in a crook where the ground sloped down to meet the water, the shifted to accommodate Tsatsi as she settled beside him. She felt his warm, hard body supporting her side, and she rested her head on his shoulder. His slow, deep breathing rocked her almost to sleep.

Tsatsi had something she wanted to say. It brewed in her throat, but she held it in, afraid she'd make a fool of herself. "Banmai..." she began. Then her courage wilted. "I... you... you've always been good to me."

Banmai stroked her hair. "You've made it easy."

Inwardly, she frowned. She had been hoping for a more proactive answer than that. "There's... something I want to do."

He held his breath, but to her frustration did not take the initiative.

On their own, Tsatsi's hands played over his clothes. Her fingers brushed the shirt that covered his big shoulders, gently undoing the ties down the middle of his chest that held it on. She inched her fingers down the split, feeling his hot skin and the thin hairs over his chest, until her fingers found his belt.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

'You cannot be this stupid!' she wanted to say, but fear of saying the wrong thing had sealed her lips shut, and instead, her hands worked furiously at his belt, then unwrapped it and threw it aside. She sat up, facing him intently as she slid his pants down. But there was nothing underneath except a metal stump.

It wasn't a stump, Tsatsi realized a moment later. It was a thin metal cage enclosing his penis. A little keyhole at the base taunted her, promising sex if only she could produce the key. She could see his flesh straining uselessly against the confines.

"I'm sorry," said Banmai gently. "I can't. That cage keeps me a virgin, and it can't come off until I marry. That's how it always is in our family."

"Until you're married..." she echoed, staring listlessly at it. For a moment, she debated furiously how to propose to him. But she found no way of saying it that she liked. Nervousness bound her tongue. She looked up at him, waffling. When she saw his shirt parted to reveal his lean, athletic chest, lust got the better of her. She set on him with a kiss.

When they broke the kiss, she hovered there for a moment, her face only finger-widths from his. "I want you to kiss me," she breathed, "on my other lips too."

Banmai grinned, then slowly ran his hands down her body. The gentle pressure of his fingers sent excited ripples from her chest, then her sides, then finally her thighs. With shaking, unsure hands, he parted her dress and tugged away her trousers, revealing her hungry womanhood.

Tsatsi shifted back, dismounting him, then lay back in the soft, cool grass with her legs spread.

From below, Banmai seemed suddenly huge as he got on all fours, then slowly brought himself down to her. He did not start at her slit, but petted her thighs, teasing her with uneven touches until she trembled, then ran his hands up one leg, across the closed lips of her heated sex.

Tsatsi lay back and moaned. 'Now,' she thought. 'Do it to me now!'

Infuriatingly, Banmai kept teasing. his fingers picked at her thighs, his tongue dabbed around her slit and he brought her no closer to orgasm.

Tsatsi sat up, ready to reach over and force him down onto her. Taking the hint, he lowered his head, and his tongue flicked at her slit.

That little touch shocked her body. He looked up at her, watching for a reaction, and her lust refused to wait any longer. Grabbing him by the shoulders, she pulled him down, parting her lips with her other hand, and his warm lips met hers. His breath broke over her sensitive, hungry skin, and finally his tongue passed over it.

It felt nothing like her fingers ever had. Warm, wet and completely unpredictable, his tongue washed a wave of pleasure up her spine, and she gripped the ground until her fingers entangled with the grass roots.

Banmai kept at it uncertainly, first a long swipe along her flesh, then a short one, then he would stop for so long that Tsatsi almost reached up to pull him down again. Maddeningly inconsistent, he kept plying her.

Tsatsi tried to close her eyes and enjoy it, but always she would open them and see Banmai debating what to do next. With an exasperated huff, she slumped back.

Finally, Banmai seemed to find his rhythm. Putting a little pressure on her thighs, he leaned in and pressed his tongue to her. A long, slow pull along her womanhood tickled her, and then he went in faster, focusing slowly in on her clitoris. At last, she felt rising heat and tension under his tongue, and in a moment, it burst. She yelped, and for a few intense moments she couldn't sense anything except her own rushing pleasure. Then it passed. One thing at a time, she became aware of the sky, the ground beneath her, and the man bent over her. He came to a rest beside her, and she cozied up to him, pressing as much of her skin against his as she could. The gentle pattern of his breathing rocked her into a lull.

Her afterglow swallowed up all desire to talk about marriage, or anything else. All she wanted was to lie there with her male, comforted by his closeness and warmth. For a while it seemed she would spend the whole night that way. Then she felt heat rising inside her again.

"Banmai," she whispered. "Can you do that again?"

* * *

"Today," Tsatsi told herself. Today, the would finally do it. She would ask Banmai if he would marry her, then they would go his mother together and get her permission. She would let nothing distract her. Today, today would be the day.

Life-changing portent hung on the air. There was a riot in the heart of town, little traders raging against the merchants for pushing them out of business. 'At least Banmai will be home,' she thought. On such a dangerous day as this, he wouldn't be up to any men's rebellion foolishness.

But when she arrived and entered the house, Banmai was nowhere to be found, and his mother sat listlessly at the table, staring into an empty wooden bowl.

"Tsatsi?" said his mother, seeing her. Her face melted into a rueful smile. "Ah, I know what you want. But he's gone."

"Gone? What do you mean, gone?"

"Off in the fight. Can't you hear it? Those brutes in the Poisoned Hands are trying to start a war."

So Banmai really was in trouble. Tsatsi grasped for what to do next. "I'll go to him. I'll tell him to come back."

"I already tried."

"Yes, but..." She ran out of words. "I'll think of something. I'll do whatever it takes."

"If you can save him, do it." The sad woman drummed her pointer finger against the rim of the wood bowl. "Please. Or I'll never see him again."

Tsatsi hurried off. The dead only knew how she would convince him, but she had to try.

The town was in chaos. A fire blazed in the main square, with women and men rushing to smother it out with wet cloths. Women-at-arms, armored in a rich fashion that only a merchant could finance, tromped victoriously through the streets. When Tsatsi did not get out of the way quickly enough, an armored elbow threw her aside, and she landed on her hands, hurting her fingers against the stone tiles.

Violence erupted down the street. Tsatsi watched, horrified but spellbound, as a man in nothing but a tight robe held two armored women at bay. His hands snapped out, seizing one woman's polearm and striking her with the butt of her own weapon. When his other enemy sliced at him, he sidestepped, and with amazing flexibility his leg swung up, his feet hooked around the woman's head and he flexed his knee to bend her to the ground. Another man hurried up behind the still-standing woman and swept his leg at their ankles, taking her feet out from under her and sending her clattering to the ground.

An arrow thunked into the wood next to them, and the men spooked and ran. Such was their hurry that they failed to notice one armored woman hiding around the corner. Swinging her staff, she caught one of them across the forehead and knocked him asleep—maybe dead!—before he knew what had struck him.

Elsewhere, rebel men and their martial arts proved no match for equipped warriors, and Tsatsi feared the worst as she ran aimlessly through town, checking anywhere Banmai might hide if only he had the sense.

Then, by the generosity of the spirits, she found him.

In the darkness of a pantry in the back of an abandoned shop, Banmai slumped back against a few sacks of something, his head resting listlessly against a pot. He had no wounds on his exposed, sweaty chest, but Tsatsi could hear his frail, heavy breathing. He wasn't showing any bruises now, but clearly he would be soon.

"Banmai!" She fell to her knees in front of him. "Banmai, you're alive!"

"The rebellion is on," Banmai strained out. "We're striking back, Tsatsi. We're making the merchants bleed."

"Banmai, do you see what's happening out there? It's chaos! Chaos, and the men aren't winning! Come back with me, please!"

"Not until we've won."

"You're not winning!" she said again. "Everyone's running, and it's a mess!"

His eyes widened. "We've lost the square?"

"There's nothing in the square except a few bodies. Now those armored women are running amok!"

Banmai closed his eyes and let out a long, breathy grunt, as if the pain in his body had just sunk a little deeper. "I want to fight to the end. The Poisoned Hands can't go down with a whimper."

"You'll just get yourself killed!" She grabbed up his hand and pressed it between hers. "What difference will it make if you die today or not? Nothing! It won't make any difference at all."

Banmai looked affronted.

"But it will make a difference to me. You're more than just a Poisoned Hand! Please, Banmai, you've done enough!"

"I love you, Tsatsi." He raised an arm to stroke her chin, his fingers trembling against her soft skin. "I'll wait for you in the next world. But I have to go there now."

Tsatsi gripped his hand until it was white. "Damn it, Banmai! Why?"

He said nothing; he had already explained why. Women marched and shouted outside, a cruel reminder of the fight.