Her father had not hurt her. He had restricted her to one bowl of rice until the Feast of Fertility as punishment for being greedy with her eyes. He had seen her looking at Zhi Hao. Fortunately, he thought it was because she had been practicing her feminine wiles on the only available man she had seen in years. He had no idea that she knew Zhi Hao so intimately.
He didn’t know that her real punishment was realizing that her future was set. That in a few weeks’ time, she would enter the Forbidden City and never leave it again. She would be one of many women among eunuchs. Even if she became empress, she would serve only as bedmate to the emperor and only if she conceived a male child. Every other moment of her life would be restricted, watched, and completely proper.
If she was to ever truly live, ever to enjoy the thrills that Zhi Hao introduced to her, now was the time to do it. She didn’t have the privilege of second guessing.
So she jumped down from the stone wall, letting him catch her so that she could feel the hardness of his body against hers, and then she went inside Master Gao’s house.
She expected Zhi Hao to take her straight to his bedroom, but he stopped her in the main sitting room. His expression was grim, but one look at his pants told her he was as excited as she was. That was a good thing. So why did he seat himself on a couch and lean back, as if expecting her to entertain him?
“You promised to teach me,” she said, her annoyance clear.
“You want to dance in a way that excites the emperor.”
“Yes.”
He gestured to her. “So dance.”
She gaped at him. “There is no music, no costume.”
“A courtesan needs none of those things.” He grinned. “Hum if you must. And use your hands as if they were fans. I will get the idea.”
“But how will I dance differently? You said I bored you before.”
His smile turned rueful. “I do not think you will ever bore me, Song Ling Xin.” His expression softened. His moods tonight were making her dizzy. “Remember how I made you feel on the wall? Remember how your breasts felt heavy and tight. How your yin cauldron…” He gestured at her belly. “It turned wet and hot.”
She nodded, her body reflecting the very words he used.
“Now dance, but with that memory. Accentuate those parts of your body.” Then he leaned forward. “Imagine my hands and my dragon in all those places.”
“And what will that do?” she asked, not because she thought he would answer but because she needed a moment to think of these things. It was one thing to experience it in the shadows. The way his hands had moved over her breasts and between her thighs. It was quite another thing to dance while thinking of that.
He grinned. “It will make me think of it, too. And if I am thinking it, then I will want to bed you.”
She knew he already wanted to bed her, and she wanted it too. But he was teaching her how to seduce the emperor, and so she set her body into the beginning steps of the fan dance.
This was a folk dance, not intended to be erotic. Traditionally, it told stories of heroism. But some fan dances were meant to evoke emotion, and she relied on that now. She began with the movements for happiness and fat contentment, then added the entrance of something frightening. A man who was large and scary.
When she made those movements, she looked straight at Zhi Hao, but instead of suggesting the storyteller was cowering in fear, she changed her expression to one of interest. She thought of how she had spied on Zhi Hao over the stone wall, watching his body in the moonlight and how it made her body swell just to watch.
She didn’t know how to show her nipples getting tight or her mouth turning dry, but she used her hands over her breasts, opening and closing them as if they were large fans. She mimicked her heart beating faster as he approached. And she looked right into his eyes as she licked her lips.
It felt crude, but his eyes widened and he shifted in his seat. She couldn’t tell if he was pleased or dismayed. She stopped dancing.
“This is awkward,” she said. “The dance is supposed to be graceful.”
“What would help you?” he asked.
She shook her head. That was the problem. She knew there were ways to entice from across a crowded room, but she didn’t know them. She couldn’t begin to imagine—
“Let me dance with you,” he said. “Let me show you what men like.”
She frowned. “Do you know the fan dance?”
“Not in the least,” he said with a chuckle. “But I don’t need to.”
She thought he would stand in front of her, that he would adjust her body the way he wanted her to appear and then step back. That was how all her teachers had instructed her before. But this was a very different type of instruction.
Instead of standing in front of her, he stepped behind her, fitting his body to hers. He set his arms around her, his hands meeting hers. And he pressed his back tight against her.