I sent this a day ago, and I didn't receive it back. Sending again just because 
it might be an oops from my mailer or something.


This is a warning to everyone: This story is very dark, and not likely to 
become bright and happy any time in the near future. Also, this story is not 
work safe in any way, shape, or form. Herein is a story of mature subject 
matter, if you don't think you can handle the idea of sex, violence, rape, and 
other aspects of pain, put this story aside, go elsewhere, and read happier 
stories.

Disclaimer: All rights of all the characters herein belong to Rumiko Takahashi 
and the various syndicates that publish her works. I am but a poor writer that 
doesn't get paid for her work.



Shadowed Edge writing

Presents

Black Dreams

By Shadow Dancer

******

I can feel it, still. The nightmares continue to haunt me, from when father 
sold me. So many times he has sold me, for food, for money. Rarely, rarely, did 
he ever care what happened to me while I was with those other people.

"Martial artists protect the weak!" he tells me, he teaches me. 'Who protects 
the martial artist,' I whisper in the depths of my mind.

Before now�I was a young boy. I was sold to many people, to feed my father, to 
pay for the training that I received. "Take my son," he told the people, "teach 
him what you know."

Many forms of martial arts I learned this way. Many...and yet sometimes he 
would sell me to feed himself. Food being his only passion larger than his 
desire for me to learn martial arts.

Before, he had sold me to two brothels, without knowing it. He saved me, all 
right.

Two days later.

I still wake up screaming, seeing into the eyes of old perverted men. The pain 
of them doing _that_ to me. I longed to beat them, to hurt them�but they were 
weaker than I. Even though I was much much younger than them.

Father still apologizes for taking so long to retrieve me. Then berates me for 
being so weak. He promises to send me to another one, so as to 'get over my 
pain.'

He's an idiot.

After this last training ground, I want to go home. I don't want to go back to 
the brothel, no matter what he wants. I'm not a young boy anymore...I am almost 
a man in my own right. Nothing can make me go again, nothing...nothing.

Father jumps on a bamboo pole and yells at me to fight him. I shake off my 
thoughts. I need to focus if I'm to escape this training ground unscathed. The 
guide behind me yells, about curses, and I start, turning towards him. "What?" 
I exclaim. Forgetting for one instant...

That's all it takes. I feel a foot against my back, and then air slips past my 
face like silken cloth. Then a splash, and I land in one of the pools. I look 
up out of the water, thinking how easy it could be to just stay down here, 
breathe the water...and let go forever.

But then, that is giving up.

I never give up.

I push against the bottom of the pool, and yet feel a tug. I look down, 
surprised, almost gasping. Something holds at my pants. Something sharp. I 
reach down, struggle, and finally get my pants free...and the thing holding 
them as well. I hold it gingerly, and then push to the surface, towards the 
light.

I breathe in the air of life, gasping softly. I pull up what was at the bottom 
and look at it, in my hands. Tiny delicate hands hold an old blade. I'm not an 
expert in weapons, far from it. My father taught me primarily weaponless arts. 
Only weaponless arts. I turn the blade around in my hands, only barely seeing 
my hands. Ignoring the yelling of Father. It is maybe three hand spans long, 
this blade I rescued from the waters. Again I note that my hands are smaller 
than before.

I put the blade down, and look at my hands. Smaller, finer, more delicate. They 
show years of training, but are not as large as my hands used to be. Maybe they 
are weaker than before. I follow the lines of my hands to my arms. They, too, 
are smaller, finer, and yet also they speak of years of training. I look down 
to my chest. It is smaller than before...and yet larger at the same time. I 
pull open my shirt, looking...

Well, at least father has a reason to call me a 'girl' now. I look up at him, 
and finally hear him yelling how I will never be a man among men. The guide 
mentions, quietly, yet loud enough that I can hear, that there is a temporary 
cure. That hot water will reverse the curse, until I get hit with cold water 
again.

Anger fills me as I glare at the one who did this to me, who forced me to 
become cursed like this. "Stupid old man," The words come out of my mouth in a 
snarl. He backs up slowly, holding his hands out. "You just _had_ to come here 
didn't you? Had to train me in a forbidden training ground. Had to make me the 
best, just to appease your own inflated ego." I know, deep inside, that mine is 
just as bad when I'm not hurting, but I ignore it for now.

My hand lashes out, almost of its own accord. Strange, I don't remember picking 
the blade up again.

Father jumps up and back from me. Towards the pools. He reaches for a pole as 
he glides through the air...and misses. His massive bulk slips into a pool with 
a resonating splash.

I turn away, not wanting to look. My anger slips out of me as so much water 
pouring out of a glass. Tears fall from my eyes as I think, 'how much can he 
sell me for _now_?' I turn to the guide, asking, "What did father promise you 
for payment?" knowing that he has no money to his name. He probably will 
bargain with my body...again.

"No need money sir. Is enough for a change, yes?" his eyes tell me differently. 
The eyes are the windows to the soul. 

******

Hot breath over silken skin.

Hands touching. Caressing. Squeezing.
Pain.

Skin over skin, elsewhere. Heated skin caressing.
Pressure, pushing.
More pain.

Movement, long and slow, fast and short. I try to ignore it. Push it out of my 
mind.

A grunt. Another.

He leaves.

I feel so dirty.

******

I sit here in my tent, almost dreading the coming of dawn. I know that soon 
Father will be barging in here, throwing me in some random body of water to 
wake me. He always desires practice. Not necessarily his practice, but most 
assuredly my own.

Throbbingly sore muscles state that whatever happens, father WILL get the 
better of me today. And for a long time to come.

I am a man!

Or am I?

Am I just someone's play toy? Am I just someone's meal ticket?

Yes. No. I don't know.

I don't want to be like that.

The thought of becoming male again fills me with revulsion. Makes my stomach 
turn.  Why would I want to be a man, in any way? My father is supposed to be a 
man among men. With him as a teacher, uncaring and greedy, I doubt I would want 
to ever be male like that.  With other men I have...encountered, the doubt 
increases in really really large numbers.  Sure there are the martial arts 
masters that father had me train with. Most of them were very very good. But 
father is also supposed to be a martial arts master, and HE has ruined my life 
several times over.

Rustle of grass and dirt. A single pebble shifts position, being ground into 
dew soaked earth. Here comes father, for the morning spar.

I don't want to be thrown today. It will probably hurt me...there.

I crawl out of the tent, easing aching muscles into motion. I tense and release 
them as I move, knowing well enough that that is about all the stretching I'll 
get until afterwards.

Father's panda form amuses me. Sure, I may have lost my gender, if only 
temporarily, but he has lost his humanity.  If he ever had it, that is. 
Sometimes I wonder, is he truly my father? Or is he someone that just kidnapped 
me one day.

I roll to the side, coming up with my hands before me. There he is, the fat 
slob. A twinge from stressed muscles almost makes me wince, but I stop it just 
before it hits my face.

Pain hurts. Pain tells you you're alive.

Pain is a focus. Use your hurt to give it back to the one who hurt you.

I can't strike out at the guide. Not yet. But father, him I can strike out at 
just fine. It's his fault that we are here without money. It's his fault that 
we came HERE.

It's his fault that I'm female right now.

Pain begets anger. Anger begets fury.

I really shouldn't be this angry, I reflect in an almost detached manner. Anger 
dulls the blade, clouds the heart. Anger clouds the focus, obscures the target.

Strike, strike, block, block-twist-counter. It's hard, oh so hard, to keep my 
blows focussed on father's chest. My feet want to slip lower during my kicks. 
My fists want to fly higher.  Father was only a couple inches taller than me 
before, but he's now almost a foot taller. Ten inches. Twenty-five centimeters. 
That much farther that I have to reach up to wipe that smirk off of his face.

"Growf!" Father exclaims as his paw slips past my guard, hitting me in the 
chest.

Pain blossoms. Exquisite pain. Tears threaten to cloud my vision, and it is 
only by effort of my entire will that I do NOT curl around my smashed breast.  
Cool wind caresses twitching skin. I can't tell if it hurts more in the air, or 
less. I do know that I have to replace this shirt. And I probably need several 
bandages as well.

"You see what happens when you shun weapons?" I snarl at my father as I 
redouble my efforts to beat him into unconsciousness. I see a flash of red as 
he swings at me again, and I chance a glance at his claws. Only the tip of the 
claws, all three of them, shows blood, and I wrench my gaze back onto his form 
as I counter his blow, finally landing a decent blow on his chest.

Pain spasms along my legs and I realize I can't keep this up for much longer. 
One block, two. I've lost the momentum, and it's going to bite me. Flashing 
paws, sunlight glinting off the claws, I twist, turn, avoiding that one, but it 
puts me in line for the other.

Flashing pain as father strikes my leg. I try to move it, but it has cramped 
beyond my abilities. Half my mobility gone, it doesn't take father more than a 
second to hit me twice more, launching me into a tree.

*SNAP* I hear and feel, as I slam against the tree. Blood trickles down my leg, 
down my chest. Maybe down my back as well. I slide to the ground, unable to 
control my falling at all.

Father snarls at me, growfs at me. His paws wave spastically as blackness fills 
my sight.

I would fall asleep, I want to fall asleep, but the pain won't let me. I feel 
furred arms pick me up from the ground, away from my tree. I can feel my legs, 
so I don't think the damage is THAT bad.

I'm set gently on a bedroll, and I lay here, eyes closed, or open. Just feeling 
the pain takes everything I have. Especially where father hit me, down there. 
Painfully, uncomfortably close to...there.  I can feel water slipping along my 
face. Tears.

Real men don't cry.

I'm not a man. Not really. A real man doesn't get raped, it can't happen. 
Father said so, after that first 'mistake' of his.

Maybe it isn't like he says. Maybe it's a real man that has honour. A real man 
does what needs to be done, no matter the cost to himself.

I don't know.

Cramping, spasming muscles ease. Pain edges away, slowly...much more slowly 
than it arrived. I still ache there, but at least it doesn't hurt.

Fingers, at least I think they are fingers, pull at the tattered edges of my 
shirt, where father's claws tore through the thin cotton. They trace downwards, 
to my pants. Tugging and teasing...apparently father tore those open as well.

The sensation leaves. I'm left with my pain for I don't know how long.

Cloth warm above me, air around me warming.  Talking, though muffled. Father's 
voice, and the guide's. Apparently father used some of the water for tea to 
change back.

A splash in the distance, a scream. Another splash. Father's bulk leaving, not 
bothering to be silent. The guide's steps, noticeably heavier than father's, 
even though the guide weighs less.

Silence.

I float on the pain, thinking no thoughts. Footsteps catch my attention again. 
For some reason I'm thinking of that blade again, the one I pulled from the 
waters. I remember the guide mentioning the spring being one thousand five 
hundred years old.  Yet the metal of the blade was untarnished by the age.

Something in my hand, that my fingers close around on their own. The blade?

The tattered pain of injured nerves settles, as the blade warms in my hand. The 
shrieking pain from my breast eases and quiets, no longer so extreme. Still it 
hurts, but not as bad as before. The lacerations along my leg also ease their 
calls of pain, and finally, I can settle into sleep as the pain falls nearly 
silent.

******

I awaken, startled, to darkness, and to rustling sound. Cloth against cloth, 
like the flaps of my tent moving. Either in the wind or someone moving them by 
hand I don't know...yet. I peer around, my eyes drinking in what little light 
there is.

Surprising, there's more light than I first thought. A glimmer of moonlight 
from the open tent flap, and I see a faint blue light, about a candle's 
brightness, from my hand. I look at the intruder, without moving. If I'm to 
defend myself, I want to know who I am defending against...oh no.

"You already took your payment," I mutter softly, glaring at the guide's face.

"You here another day, your father eat most of my food. With what you pay for 
that?" I wince at his reply, "You father have no honour, do you?"

"Yes," I whisper, tears in my eyes again.

He grins, "Maybe I make it good for you, yes?" his green shifts to a leer as he 
gazes at my body in the faint light.

"You can't." I whisper, "It won't feel good. Ever."

"A challenge," still he leers at me.

I close my eyes, just so I don't have to see his face again. And so I don't 
have to watch him doing THAT again. My hand seems to want to reach for his 
face, the hand with the blade in it. *No, * I think, pushing the blade to my 
side, all the way to the edge of the tent.  The light filtering through my 
eyelids brightens, and then the blue shifts to an ugly red, and my hand strains 
harder for Him.

I focus on my hand, letting go of the knife. Just as it leaves my fingers and 
lands on the ground, I feel a hand on my leg. It is another effort to keep from 
screaming or striking out.  The hand slides up, over tortured leg muscles 
towards my...there. Another hand is at my leg, massaging around in circles, 
while the first does smaller and gentler circles around my orchid.

It's almost impossible to think that word, really. But the other names for it 
either don't feel right, or just plain frighten me. I feel him crawling closer, 
the one hand still at my orchid, and the other one now caressing up along my 
hips, and then higher. Feather light fingers trace circles along my stomach, 
and then slowly press harder, drawing a grunt from me even though I don't 
desire it.  Heat building up between my legs, almost, and it feels almost like 
I'm...wet?

"No," I whisper, trying to pull away a bit. My head hits the other end of the 
tent, and He crawls closer still...his legs pinning mine.  I feel a whimper at 
the back of my throat as I see that he has already removed his clothing, and 
mine is already missing. I don't know how, or when that happened, I thought I 
was dressed before falling asleep. I shut my eyes again, desperately, not 
wanting to SEE.

Sensation means I don't have to see, as I feel him pushing inside of me again. 
Filling me in a way eerily similar to so long ago, but not as much pain as 
before. Not even hurting like it did the night before.  A tingling, almost like 
electricity, builds up in my middle, and arcs along to his hands...

His hands are wandering along my sides, up, caressing my breasts.  I don't 
_want_ to feel this way, but my body is taking me along for the ride. The 
almost electricity flickers between my orchid, and my breasts, back, and forth, 
growing with each movement. I twitch as I reach the point that used to mean 
exploding...and then pass it. Each movement he makes, each caress, driving me 
higher and higher.

Tears fall from my eyes. I don't want this. I just want to be left alone.

I gasp, as the electricity forms a ball deep inside, growing, growing.  He 
grunts. Once. Twice. And that ball...explodes. Bouncing from my core, out to 
the edge of my skin, and back again, and again, and again.  All that escapes 
from my throat a soft whimper, even as he finishes and crawls out again.

Muscles still a bit sore from the fight earlier twitch and shudder from the new 
sensations zinging through my body. Tears fall from my eyes, as I slip back 
into slumber.

*~*~*~*~*~*

It's been a while, I know, but hey, you write what you can when you can. 
Sometimes work and life just leaves less time than our authored works demand of 
us.

I await the flames!!

Wings of Hope:
God gave you wings,
And a voice to sing,
Although you don't know why;
Powers so fair,
Suddenly not there,
Find your own reason to fly...
(c) October 22, 1998, Liath Hidson


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