Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Fiction
vr 3.00
2008-02-16
"Shippo's Little Asymmetric Dragon" by Abraxas | 2005-12-14
Chapter Five
I have spoken of innocent-looking shops and of fetishes mixing art and pain. I have spoken of deviant perversions and abnormal sexuality. Of obsessions with dragons – small, symmetric, winding, three-dimensional dragons. Of late-night visitations and long-distance correspondences. And, above all, a new and obscure source –
Souten – queer, is it not, how she emerged into the village like a bolt out of the blue? Or did you not think it was strange how she was determined to find Shippo? Or did you not imagine it was weird the way she was so upset, so sad? These things have been known to art historians for years and cited as proof that Shippo was seeing a woman and that Souten was that woman. And that it was a sudden, asymmetric schism that destroyed their relationship and spurned the tormented-artist into suicide. These things have been known to the public – but until now no proof could be produced.
It is Souten whose memoirs I possess, whose words I translate and thus unveil the forbidden enigma of Shippo’s psyche.
He sought her because while he knew of her talents she did not know of his passions. And, therefore, through a combination of nocturnal rendezvous and letters he opened and bared his soul to fathom her limits and seduce her mind. The messages Kilala transported – that she treasured and saved – we see the process unfold: Shippo makes a suggestion and Souten replies in-kind and they add fuel to the fire. Knowing her fondness for dragons, he sends her samples. Teasing his interest for her, she says she could never be that good and wonders if he would not be better off seeking another artist with which to collaborate. But Souten in the only one Shippo trusts and he lets her know that time and time again.
So it was indirectly that their relationship blossomed. But it was in person that he confessed the secret that since his teenage-years remained firmly locked tight within his head. He showed her the needle-brush and exclaimed suddenly, unexpectedly, that his fascination with the art began when he saw a woman tattoo a man’s body. Souten tells of the curious, physical change in Shippo’s manner that ensued as he revealed that deep, dark aspect of his heart: he whispered through a boyish-tone, he fidgeted, he stuttered, he blushed frequently and apologized profusely at the obscenities which he then lovingly and painstakingly related. She sensed a quickening of his breath and all but felt the beating of his heart as he described, clearly and vividly, the man’s body – arms and legs, smooth and chiseled – the woman’s hands – firm and icy, pressing and groping the skin even of the private, intimate parts – and the flesh, transforming itself from something weak and mortal into something that would be forever,a living, breathing work of art.
Clearly, it excited her and she urged him for more and more information.
Naturally, he complied – and asked if she would help him cover his body –
Her testament records her reply – an aroused, tentative kiss, an embrace that brought him to tears and she to shivers. Subsequent paragraphs tell of him removing his kimono and letting her ‘practice’. She wondered what sort of images could be drawn onto his skin – to conform into the shape of his body’s contours – he suggested ideas and she traced it with her fingers.
Over the course of weeks, months, he trained her. He delivered inks and needle-like brushes. She learned to draw with the tools and with the clean-shaven hides of butchered animals. All the while she practiced he sketched the strokes she traced upon his flesh – as if, she states, he had been reliving the moment over and over again – and produced from memory working drafts for the tattoos’ designs.
It is in Souten’s heightened and excited script that you and I all but see Shippo as he was – as he lived – standing before her wearing only a loincloth, blushing and fidgeting, as he says he wants her to tattoo his entire body. As he explains he wants to be created anew by a woman for the sake of art.
Of course, is it not obvious that it aroused no only her creativity – that he intended – but also her sexuality – that he may not have been aware of until too late.
She grasped the flesh of his arms, of his hands, tenderizing it, massaging it. She tugged at the waistband of his loincloth – he loosed it and she stole icy glances at his genitals, distantly and professionally, as she role-played in the fantasy in which she engaged and enables. He knelt, spreading his thighs, easing off all of his garments. He must have been overwhelmed to be consummating the situation he fantasized about since his teenage-years yet he remained rigid and stoic.
Nevertheless, she knew he was nervous and embarrassed just by the weird, child-like manner of his speech. By his insistence that she should not be nervous. The tattoos would not be finalized until she determined if it conformed to his shape and contour, he said, adding she was free to probe and explore. They would have to be comfortable with each other for the work to be flawless.
Every fold of his penile skin, even the underside of his foreskin, was to be tattooed, he confessed so calmly, so matter-of-factly there was not a quiver to his syllables that were now firm and masculine.
And it took her breath away – she confesses as if on trial – the bluntness of the words and the request –
Souten continues, explaining how a certain, subconscious gesture impelled her to molest Shippo. At first tentatively, almost lovingly, she explored its texture and weight. She hastened slowly, growing bold when he assured her it would not hurt and urged her to be rough. She watched and felt as his penis ‘squirmed’ as if alive and lengthened and hardened through her fingers.
After the ‘introduction’ as she termed it, work began on the great, artistic undertaking. They perfected the drafts of the designs, turning the images into works of art of their own right. The patterns were vivid and life-like and required a month to apply. From his neck to his knees, every square inch of naked flesh was etched in the black, metallic ink – except for his genitals, those drafts were not yet prepared. Shippo wanted the image there to represent the ultimate expression of creative skill and Souten – secretly terrified of maiming his flesh – wanted the time to hone the talent before anything intimate would be approached.
I stop here, right here, for a moment of introspection. And if you, the reader, if you have come this far into the narrative it is doubtless that you have discovered in this fetishism something about Shippo you may not have wanted to know. It is tempting to deny these facts about an artist as esteemed as he. But these things cannot be denied. And – at the same time – we must be careful not to be too harsh against the fox-demon. To what doctor could he have turned? In what therapy could he have relied? He lived at a time so remote, so distant from ours that we cannot judge him fairly. Indeed, as I realize the scope of his warped and twisted mind I cannot help but pity him.
Still, it is human nature to deny what we do not want to believe. But as we look back upon the scant and muddled history, do not the facts that Souten provide us with make sense? If all of his body were thusly outlined, if he were being painted upon all over everywhere, how could he bathe with the others without exposing the truth? Without resurrecting the specter of that wretched incident within that innocent-looking tattoo parlor? He had been weak before and had been caught – now he would be strong and would be perfect.
As soon as the outlines were permanently engraved into Shippo’s skin, Souten engaged the process of filling in the blanks with the colors.
She groped his muscles taught; she forced his body into what would have been uncomfortable and humiliating poses. He remained calm and silent and did not complain. He watched as art emerged out of a carnal mix of naked male skin and delicate female fingers – it was as if his body were a vagina and her needle were a penis, ejaculating her colors, fertilizing his flesh.
Souten knows Shippo was satisfied with her part; she wonders about his role, however. In the letters, she thinks about the man he saw all of those years ago and theorizes that he had to have been stoic throughout. She states that in not-so-many words the fox learned from the man how not to wince and how not to emote. Yet, she continues, though he could hide the pain there was part of his body whose honesty he could not suppress.
She does not acknowledge it affectionately during the tattooing sessions – but in the accounts she gushes about its every detail, drawing and sketching it along the margins of the pages. She adores its proportions and imperfections; she cannot get enough of its contradiction of hardness and softness. And she relishes at just how close she can get to it any time for any excuse.
At last she marvels at how the breath-taking drawing Shippo prepared for it completely conforms to every fold of flesh along its length, from its base to its eye-like slit.
Souten’s memoirs give the impression that through the tattooing they attained a truly spiritual closeness. It cannot be argued that theirs was a physical and emotional bond. But was it real or imagined? Can solid intimacy be the offspring of outlandish fantasy?
No – strike it – let me refrain from magnifying impressions. I aim for the truth, let speculation rest where it lies; and to understand the truth I must dredge through the events that surround it. The secret of Shippo’s demise rests entirely upon one, singular even known only to Souten for a thousand years. Before I can reveal it, the reader must be prepared. The event, a personal and intimate corruption born out of the machinations of the fetish itself, the permanent consequence of the event, the reader must be allowed the time and space to sink into the kitsune’s mind. Then and only then can the impact of the failure of the fantasy on Shippo’s fragile, hypersensitive psychology – and Souten’s own, disturbing reaction to it – be understood.
END OF CHAPTER
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