the same as any other, or that’s what they tell me; I never tried one—I saved her for you.”
“Revered Father—I’m not worthy—you made a sacrifice—”
“Well, all right, maybe, but it’s for the Kwan Family or you’d never got this chance. Son, what’s gnawing at you?” And then the great illumination came to Kwan Yu-tsun. He slapped Ju-hai on the shoulder. “You’ve heard too much nonsense about virgins; no wonder the idea worries you.”
The Old Man’s dissertation on virgins was in line with the standard books on anatomy, gynecology, and folklore. He concluded, “That sing-song girl in Ch’ang-an, the one they said was a virgin, she was a swindle. Every farm boy this side of the Ta-pa Range had her before you came to town. She’d been the house virgin for years. Well, now you’ll know Hsi-feng is the real article.”
And finally, inspiration came to Ju-hai.
“Sir, how long can you keep Little Phoenix from moving in—I mean, without insulting her?” The Old Man looked so perplexed that Ju-hai ended his groping by continuing, “It is this way—first of all, I’ve never let her clean up around here; women always get things into an awfully confused mess.”
“Uh—well—you’ve learned something—and so?”
“There’s more to it than just that. Everyone knows I’ve been sleeping with Lan-yin. Even so, I want to go over everything, just in case she’s left an ear pendant or hairpin or anklet socks or—um—uh—”
Kwan Yu-tsun wagged his head. “Son, you are right, but you can’t win. Seven magistrates and their bailiffs could follow each other, looking for souvenirs of Lan-yin, and any half-witted girl would spot something at first glance.” He got up. “When your Little Phoenix finds a Lan-yin souvenir, tell her so many women have scattered their stuff around that you couldn’t guess whom it belonged to.”
Ju-hai bowed a perfect ninety degrees. Once the Old Man was on his way, Ju-hai fired up nine joss sticks at his personal shrine. He needed gods, Buddhas, and Immortals on his side.
Chapter V
Ju-hai pondered ever more on his unusual facility at jade-craft. Looking back, Mei-yu’s appearance and his apparent instinct for jade set him thinking. There had been a farm boy, not even moderately bright, who could not remember when he was not able to loose an arrow and bring down a partridge in flight. And the Ancestor had handed down the story of a comrade conscripted into military service, a clown with no more sword experience than a pig had with chopsticks; yet in his first battle, he came out a master manslayer.
“They learned those things in earlier incarnations,” Ju-hai summed up. “Maybe I got the knack of jade working a couple lives ago.”
Again nearing her fullness, the moon caught Ju-hai off guard, perhaps because he had become muddled by the prospect of Hsi-feng’s living with him, if only for a little while.
After a few nibbles of supper, he said, “Hsi-feng, these books—” He gestured. “No shop work tonight—”
As soon as she left, he drew window curtains and set to work, giving that pectoral the final touches. When it was perfect, he’d give it to Hsi-feng. He had to get her out of sight and beyond smelling, before he and she talked each other into bed. This was a critical period.
He was busy amending the arc of a curve, flattening the roundness of an over-sharp foliate stem, and working on the bird figure, the Phoenix which Mei-yu had outlined, in place of the lotus blossom—that and the endless knot which she had inked in for the background.
The watchman’s calling the hour warned him that it was well past bedtime. He put out the light. There was barely a glow of coals in the brazier. He groped his way to the curtained bed in the alcove.
Although sure he’d not slept a wink, the voice of the watchman assured him that he’d been drowsing and had missed one call entirely. A sudden and intense awareness had aroused him—the watchman’s voice was an incidental. He was no longer alone—he sensed a presence.
Then he saw her, smelled her fragrance, and heard the tinkle of ear pendants and bracelets. Moonglow bouncing from the whitewash of courtyard walls thinned the gloom of the all-purpose room. Silk shimmered, and her hair mirrored the lurking half light.
This time, her coiffure was informal—nothing stately about it.
“So, sleepy head… She was fondly mocking as she came toward him. “I’ll go back home to the Moon.”
This brought him to his feet. He reached with both arms, but drew back before he touched her. Mei-yu laughed softly. “Didn’t I promise I’d get a body solid enough for everything we’ll do. Of course I’m real! Kiss me and find out.”
When finally they let go of each other, her breathing had an exciting cadence, and it took him moments before he remembered to breathe again. He ran a caressing hand along her back and drew her closer. This was no hallucination, and that wasn’t an apparition’s hip-illusion.
“I’m really real, and isn’t it nice?”
“How’d you manage?”
“I pleaded with Chang Wo. The karma was good—”
“O mi to fu! But how—my karma or yours?”
“As long as you like it, what do we care?”
Mei-yu seated herself on the edge of the bed and extended her legs. “From here, you can’t make any mistakes.”
He knew all about Lan-yin’s undressings, but whatever a lady would have beneath a long tunic—
“Aiieeijah! What if you do fumble? It will be fun and I’ll love it! All my life, I have had to undress myself.”
“All your life? But you’re a moon spirit, an Immortal!”
“Lady Chang Wo was human before she became a Goddess. Me, I was a Buddhist nun. Ju-hai, Ju-hai, what you were doing was quite all right, I’m not a nun any more!”
He took off her gilt brocaded shoes and the anklet socks. Then he made a hopeless muddle of ungirdling the simplest garments known to civilized folk. She got to her feet.
“I’ve never been undressed by a man—” She caught his hands. “I’m not a bit shaky! Of course you’re going to undress me! I spent a long lifetime doing good works, serving mankind in all ways but the most important, and now I’m going to be waited on—look at the merit you’ll get, Ju-hai! What a tangle—start right here, and don’t fumble—go ahead, fumble all you want.”
Not even an Immortal could guide Ju-hai’s jade-skillful but farmer-clumsy paws. After groping for the little oblong buttons that slipped into loops of cloth and getting his hands full of woman all the way from collarbone to waist, Ju-hai felt foolish when she said, “At your age, you ought to know that a woman’s dresses fasten on the left.”
“All right! I’ll get a light!”
“Don’t! Please—I forgot to tell you—”
That she was upset helped him to regain his poise. “So, it’s all right undressing an ex-nun, but I mustn’t peek? Not even a glimpse, not even accidentally—”
“Ta jen—superior person—” This was cold-haughty. “A body made of moonlight can’t endure even lamplight.” She wriggled out of the long tunic and flung the garment aside. She stood there in something white, her innermost garment. “Ta jen, you’re fun, you’re nice!”
Though this was fastened up the front, it was thin, close-fitting, and in its own way baffling, with many small fasteners. When Mei-yu was clear of her foundation garment, she sighed.
“If I’d worn a harness instead of buttons and loops, you’d have had me bare in a wink!” Then she laughed. “We had to get acquainted, didn’t we?” Mei-yu half-turned and drew the curtains together. When she faced him again, she snuggled up and said, “Lover,