Qiu Rong, my empressly fugitive, not of this earth but of my soul at large, largely waiting to be marshaled and tamed.
Oh, her legs apart, her calves inwardly plump. A memory of a mole gradually surfaced, right under her left ear along a blue vein. And that smile … sisterly to Annabelle’s, rightfully all mine.
Had my Annie patently given her likeness to Qiu Rong’s keeping? Had my old love finally given way to the new?
I bathed myself in the tub. To dull my urges, I drank a shot of single malt while phantoms of the past flew around me, the scent of muggy hair, of Annie and Q, the fragrance of summer weeds all mixed together.
Upon arrival at his royal dwelling, an enthused S met me, wearing a mysterious smirk. Q, my piquant gadfly, was nowhere to be found, though her faint shrieks and silvery giggles lurched amidst us deep in an adjoining grove, an iridescent yet muffled hide-and-seek, hidden and sought.
A certain emptiness drove me to down with S toast after toast of my own brew, ignoring a supper of steamed hairy crabs, simmered bear paws, stewed leaping rabbit, and braised fatty goose, to name but a few. Dim prospect dulledall things around and above but not my fiery urge. More shots of whiskey finally emboldened me to inquire S about Q’s absence.
“It’s not her night here per palace rule,” he intoned solemnly. “This night belongs to my first consort. Q, being the fourth, my last empress, has few rights or honors that way, though I will have more say after an heir is born of my first empress, per Grandpa’s advisement. It’s the bargain agreed upon when I was granted permission to take Qiu Rong as consort.”
“Intriguing.”
“Indeed, it is. What you see here is not what it is. Few things here are of my own will, except Qiu Rong, and now you.” He sighed. “I endured much to have you here for her.”
“For her?”
“Much melancholy she has. Palace life hasn’t been easy. To you.” He raised his cup, downing it before refilling it with my bottle. “One thousand cups of wine intoxicates this host not at all.”
I followed readily with the closing verse of the famed and much lorded couplet composed by Li Bai, a Tang Dynasty poet. “Ten thousand volumes would pale against the depth of my gratitude.”
“Well versed you are.” Emptying another shot, he challenged me to a poetry contest and alcoholic consumption.
“Gin Shi, you and I?”
“Rhymes and meters?”
“Style and polish.”
S called out to Dome Head, hidden behind a teak screen. “Servant, bring more wine and four treasures.”
A battalion of eunuchs appeared, some adding plates of fresher food, others bringing jars of fine brew, still others carrying in an oblong writing table, a jade inkwell, rolls of rice paper, and quivers of wolf-hair brushes. Rice ink was circularly ground in the inkwell by In-In, the palace’s finest, his hands as soft as bird’s feet, ensuring the silkiest fluidity. Risen sheaves of paper were smoothed out and settled by a jade ruler.
The tawny wine of Shaoxing origin was only to be served in a silk-thin porcelain ware and sipped carefully and slowly. But imperially, S tilted the earthen urn and took a big wincing swallow before handing it over to me for the like taking.
A game of poetry making ensued with each brushing a worse entry than the other, producing an array of limericks, sonnets, and stanzas filched somewhere, ranging from quasi brilliant couplets—
“A drunken poet wades deep into a river, foggy; he wonders if it pours asunder from a sky, high”
—to frivolity—
“Three monks sit side by side nude in the bathing sun; six heads swing right to left without a stir of peeping wind.”
Ink bled and brushes flew, soiling rolls of rice paper. Jars poured and cups emptied, filling full the throats of fools. It was then when the muse of poetry possessed us both.
Haunted, drunk, and self-absorbed in his glee, one was prone to act in roles of his invention. Gripped, one could reach
Oh, her legs apart, her calves inwardly plump. A memory of a mole gradually surfaced, right under her left ear along a blue vein. And that smile … sisterly to Annabelle’s, rightfully all mine.
Had my Annie patently given her likeness to Qiu Rong’s keeping? Had my old love finally given way to the new?
I bathed myself in the tub. To dull my urges, I drank a shot of single malt while phantoms of the past flew around me, the scent of muggy hair, of Annie and Q, the fragrance of summer weeds all mixed together.
Upon arrival at his royal dwelling, an enthused S met me, wearing a mysterious smirk. Q, my piquant gadfly, was nowhere to be found, though her faint shrieks and silvery giggles lurched amidst us deep in an adjoining grove, an iridescent yet muffled hide-and-seek, hidden and sought.
A certain emptiness drove me to down with S toast after toast of my own brew, ignoring a supper of steamed hairy crabs, simmered bear paws, stewed leaping rabbit, and braised fatty goose, to name but a few. Dim prospect dulledall things around and above but not my fiery urge. More shots of whiskey finally emboldened me to inquire S about Q’s absence.
“It’s not her night here per palace rule,” he intoned solemnly. “This night belongs to my first consort. Q, being the fourth, my last empress, has few rights or honors that way, though I will have more say after an heir is born of my first empress, per Grandpa’s advisement. It’s the bargain agreed upon when I was granted permission to take Qiu Rong as consort.”
“Intriguing.”
“Indeed, it is. What you see here is not what it is. Few things here are of my own will, except Qiu Rong, and now you.” He sighed. “I endured much to have you here for her.”
“For her?”
“Much melancholy she has. Palace life hasn’t been easy. To you.” He raised his cup, downing it before refilling it with my bottle. “One thousand cups of wine intoxicates this host not at all.”
I followed readily with the closing verse of the famed and much lorded couplet composed by Li Bai, a Tang Dynasty poet. “Ten thousand volumes would pale against the depth of my gratitude.”
“Well versed you are.” Emptying another shot, he challenged me to a poetry contest and alcoholic consumption.
“Gin Shi, you and I?”
“Rhymes and meters?”
“Style and polish.”
S called out to Dome Head, hidden behind a teak screen. “Servant, bring more wine and four treasures.”
A battalion of eunuchs appeared, some adding plates of fresher food, others bringing jars of fine brew, still others carrying in an oblong writing table, a jade inkwell, rolls of rice paper, and quivers of wolf-hair brushes. Rice ink was circularly ground in the inkwell by In-In, the palace’s finest, his hands as soft as bird’s feet, ensuring the silkiest fluidity. Risen sheaves of paper were smoothed out and settled by a jade ruler.
The tawny wine of Shaoxing origin was only to be served in a silk-thin porcelain ware and sipped carefully and slowly. But imperially, S tilted the earthen urn and took a big wincing swallow before handing it over to me for the like taking.
A game of poetry making ensued with each brushing a worse entry than the other, producing an array of limericks, sonnets, and stanzas filched somewhere, ranging from quasi brilliant couplets—
“A drunken poet wades deep into a river, foggy; he wonders if it pours asunder from a sky, high”
—to frivolity—
“Three monks sit side by side nude in the bathing sun; six heads swing right to left without a stir of peeping wind.”
Ink bled and brushes flew, soiling rolls of rice paper. Jars poured and cups emptied, filling full the throats of fools. It was then when the muse of poetry possessed us both.
Haunted, drunk, and self-absorbed in his glee, one was prone to act in roles of his invention. Gripped, one could reach
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