caught in the web
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A Tangled Web Ch. 12 free porn video
Jun-Nui gazed out over the aft rail as the dying embers of the sun glistened in the wake of the Ming-Xing. The day had been filled with too much emotion. Above all else, she would never forget that this was the day on which she had killed another human being. The look on his face as the soldier’s life had drained from his eyes was going to haunt her to her grave. She hoped she would never have to go through that again but, given what she was now involved in, the chances were slim. She brought to mind the callous way in which Major Strickland had shot Yin, and the way that Xui-Li had been prepared to take coldblooded revenge, such heartlessness was almost too much to bear.
She glanced across at Xui-Li. When they had first met, just a few months ago, life had been so much simpler. She could see now how she had been a naive and stupid little girl. She had been so caught up in some romantic notion of espionage gleaned from the pages of the penny dreadfuls, that she had failed to see that real people were involved and that those people, inevitably, got hurt. But that wasn’t the only romantic notion that had been crushed. There, standing next to her, was the hardest conflict of all. Only hours ago she had blurted out to Yin that she loved Xui-Li and, for sure, that hadn’t changed but, now that they were together, like everything else, it wasn’t that straightforward.
Firstly there was the unresolved issue of the way she had been dismissed, all those months ago, with ‘take this trash out and make sure she stays out.’ The words still burned in her heart. Just as she had been beginning to believe that Xui-Li had feelings for her as a person these words had thrown it all back into doubt. Was the connection she had felt some young girl’s fantasy or the real thing? Time after time, in the small hours of the night, she had played them over and over in her head, trying to fit them in with every thing else that had happened between them.
And, secondly, there was the vexing question of Yin. As Xui-Li had held the dying Yin in her arms there had been a tenderness, a concern, a strength of emotion that went far beyond what one might expect between a captain and her lieutenant. Whatever Jun-Nui’s relationship had been with Xui-Li in the past, it looked as if her place had been taken by Yin. It wasn’t just that Jun-Nui was jealous, although that was a major consideration, it was also more evidence to suggest that their affair had, indeed, been just an idle diversion, an amusement to pass the time.
‘Did you love her?’ Jun-Nui felt she had to know.
‘Yin?’
‘Yes, Yin, unless you have any other concubines I ought to know about.’ Even as she said these words Jun-Nui knew how harsh she was being but, for the life of her, she couldn’t stop herself.
‘Yin was my assistant,’ Xui-Li said simply.
‘Your assistant? She seemed to be pretty fond of you for an assistant. Fond enough to die for you.’
‘Yin was my assistant,’ Xui-Li repeated, ‘and yes, we were fond of each other. As for love, I’m not sure…’
‘So she was just another pretty girl to keep your bed warm. Just another girl to keep you amused. Did you string her along the way you did me? Did you force her to be your geisha? How long before you called her trash and threw her out?’ Jun-Nui couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.
‘Please, Jun-Nui, it wasn’t like that. You know it wasn’t like that.’
‘Do I? Are you saying that you didn’t throw me out as trash the moment I no longer amused you?’
‘Please, you’re twisting things around, that wasn’t how it happened.’
‘It certainly looked like that to me. Do you deny that you said those words?’
‘I had to. I had to say those words. I had to make it sound realistic. I had to protect you. Mei-Xing…’
‘Protect me from Mei-Xing!’ Jun-Nui cut across. ‘To stop her from kidnapping me, having me beaten up, raped and then sentenced to being shot at dawn? We both saw how well that worked.’
‘I’d only just found out about the plot. I hoped that, if I pretended that you meant nothing to me, then I could spare you from getting involved. I had to turn you away and I had to make it look convincing. But you sure got your revenge. I can understand why you were bitter but did you really have to write that report? We lost a whole platoon thanks to that.’
‘But… but… I made it up! I had to report on something so I made it up. How could I have done otherwise? You know I knew nothing. How was I supposed to have found out about troop movements?’
‘You made it up? Then how did…?’ The awful realisation hit. ‘Oh no! It’s so simple once you understand it. I should… I really should have guessed at the time. Tell me, when did you write the report?’
‘When I got back to base. Right after you’d thrown me out.’
‘And you gave it to Colonel Fortesque the next morning?’
‘Yes, that’s right, but why is this important? What’s so ‘simple’?’
‘Because the troops weren’t ordered on manoeuvres until two days later. Mei-Xing must have intercepted your report before it got to me and then issued the orders to make it came true. That way she could claim that I was passing information to you and that’s why she had to have you at the trial.’
‘What do you mean, intercepting my report before it got to you?’ Jun-Nui, piqued that Xui-Li should be so casual about reading her confidential reports, had all but forgotten her original anger.
‘Oh, we read all your reports. I guess there’s no harm in you knowing, Huan-yue, Colonel Fortesque’s cleaning maid, was stealing them for us. We had quite a laugh about them.’
Jun-Nui blushed at the thought of what she had written.
‘I’m sorry,’ Xui-Li said simply. ‘I should never have invited you into the club in the first place. I should never have let you get involved. If I’d know how it would work out, how you would be beaten and tortured… as I said, I’m sorry. I hope Mei-Xing is burning in hell for what she did to you.’
‘Burning in hell? Is she dead, then? Was she hung along with General Chang?’
‘No, she was killed in the raid. Well, nobody’s seen her since then so it’s generally assumed that she was one of the fatalities.’
‘Hah! Killed in the raid! She was long gone before then.’ Jun-Nui saw the look of surprise on Xui-Li’s face. ‘I guess that’s another little detail you didn’t know. She came for me in the middle of the night and had me spirited out of the compound well before the raid happened.’
‘She spirited you out? Whatever for?’
‘To sell me as a sex slave,’ Jun-Nui said simply.
‘As a sex slave!’
‘Yes, while you were swanning around being ‘amused’ by your ‘assistant’ I was being forced to work in a brothel.’
Jun-Nui turned and stared out to sea.
‘I didn’t know,’ Xui-Li said quietly. ‘Do you think I would have left you there one moment longer than necessary if I had done? Oh, god, my poor darling. Was it bad? Was it very bad?’
Jun-Nui just carried on staring out to sea. She knew she was being unfair, she knew that there was no way Xui-Li could have known but the thought of Yin in Xui-Li’s bed whilst she was…. She shuddered at the recollection.
‘If you don’t want to tell me, I understand,’ Xui-Li said.
‘No, it’s OK. It was just…’ she turned and looked Xui-Li straight in the eye. ‘It wasn’t the sex, well, not exactly. I was owned. I had no say in who could use my body or how they could use it. My mouth, my sex, my backside, I was used in what ever way the customer wanted and was prepared to pay for. Night after night I was despoiled and degraded to fill other people’s pockets. No one should go through some of the things I’ve had to endure, no one.’
Prompted by gentle questions from Xui-Li, Jun-Nui told the story of how she had been sold, of her time in the brothel, of her escape and how she had ended up as part of the force attacking the prison compound.
‘And that’s where you met
Yin,’ Xui-Li said, ‘out there, under fire.’
‘It was a good thing she arrived. Our sergeant had been killed and we were pinned down by that machine gun. If she hadn’t arrived then we would all have been shot. And that includes you.’
‘I owe her a debt I can never repay. We both owe her. She was very brave.’
Jun-Nui wasn’t sure how she felt about Xui-Li praising Yin but there was no doubt as to the truth of what she said.
‘Well, I didn’t know her for more than half an hour or so but, yes, she seemed pretty brave. She also seemed pretty devoted to you.’
Now it was Xui-Li’s turn to stare at the ship’s wake.
‘And the plan for you to ‘arrest’ Yin, whose idea was that?’ Xui-Li asked after a while.
‘Well, a bit of both, actually. We were stuck, we had to do something and, when I saw you up on the roof…’ again, Jun-Nui trailed off. ‘Well, it was my idea to dress up as a British soldier, it was Yin’s that I should ‘arrest’ her.’
‘And she trusted you? She hardly knew you but she trusted you?’
‘Not at first, obviously. She’d already worked out that I wasn’t all that I seemed and, once we were away from the rest of the troops she interrogated me and found out the rest, or the important bits, anyway. When she discovered exactly who I was, well, apparently she had heard quite a bit about me, and that made all the difference.’
‘She’d heard quite a bit about you? Whomever from?’
‘You, apparently.’
‘But I never… Oh, what does it matter now.’ She turned to Jun-Nui. ‘I won’t try to hide it. I was fond of Yin, very fond. She was brave, and clever and… and lots of other things but she wasn’t you. I thought I’d lost you, how could I think otherwise? Was I supposed to wait around forever on the off chance that we would meet again? For all I knew you had gone back to England.’
‘Well, I’m never going back now, am I? I’ll be shot as a traitor if I do.’
‘Yes, that….’ Xui-Li seemed to pull herself together. ‘So, what are you going to do?’
‘Right now,’ Jun-Nui plucked at the bloodstained shirt she still wore, ‘right now I’m going to see if I can find some clean clothes to wear. I am sick of wearing another person’s blood. I saw Xiang earlier. I think I’ll go and ask her if she’s anything she can spare. I seem to remember that we’re the same size, near enough.’
Jun-Nui pushed herself away from the rail and stood up straight.
‘Please, Jun-Nui,’ Xui-Li said as she turned to leave. ‘You were never just an amusement to me. Well, maybe it started that way, I can’t deny that but….’
‘I need to change my clothes, I need to find something to eat, I need… I need… I need to go.’
And, as she turned away, in the dark, neither saw the tears running down the other woman’s face.
But, when she went below, it wasn’t Xiang Jun-Nui found, but the boatswain who offered her work as a new crew member.
‘Nowhere else to go but the Ming-Xing?’ she had laughed, ‘that’s how we all signed up. Waifs and strays, the lot of us. You’ll be washing pots until you find your sea legs but there’s no shame that.’
There was, indeed, always work to be done in the galley, and with all the recruits and released prisoners on board there were plenty of mouths to feed. The boatswain also showed Jun-Nui where to stow her hammock and helped her find some clothes that, if not exactly new, were at least clean and not covered with blood.
When, next morning, she next came up on deck, she found that the weather was fine and they were lying at anchor in a secluded inlet. With all the passengers on board the cook had decided that it was easiest to bring the food up from the galley and set it out on a table on deck. That way those below could enjoy their meal in the sunlight and fresh air rather than the cramped and stuffy confines of the hold. It wasn’t a banquet but the cook had done marvels with some fresh fish, a few spices and some boiled rice. There was a similar shortage of eating utensils but fingers served and they made sure no one went hungry. There was quite a crowd around the table and Jun-Nui was busy serving the rice when she looked up to see Jinsong standing opposite.
‘Look who it is,’ Jonsong sneered. ‘I see you found your proper place, in the kitchen where you belong. What?’ he laughed, ‘couldn’t you manage it as a soldier? Did the little girly get scared at all the bang-bangs?’
‘Get away from this table!’ Jun-Nui snarled. ‘Get to the back of the queue and, when everyone else has finished, maybe, if you ask nicely, I’ll let you feed as well.’
‘Ohh, temper, temper,’ Jinsong replied. ‘I don’t think it’s the place of a serving wench to determine who gets fed and who doesn’t. Come along, hand it over, there’s a good girl.’
‘I’ll see you dead first!’ Jun-Nui grabbed a knife from the table and held it out threateningly.
‘What’s going on?’ Xui-Li had been standing at the wheel discussing navigation with the boatswain. She had been keeping a quiet eye on Jun-Nui all morning and, seeing the fuss, she came over to see what it was all about.
‘Jun-Nui put that knife down,’ she said firmly, ‘and you, soldier, stand up straight. Now, what’s this all about?’
Still boiling with rage, Jun-Nui put the knife back on the table.
‘This girl, this wench,’ Jinsong spat the word, ‘refuses to serve me, one of your soldiers, one who risked his life for you yesterday. Surely she should be put in her place. A sound whipping should teach her manners.’
‘Really?’ Xui-Li was all smiles. ‘A sound whipping to put her in her place? However, even a serving girl has a right to be heard. Let’s see what she has to say.’
‘Why should we? She’ll only lie! All women are liars!’ Jinsong suddenly realised what he had said and to whom. ‘Excepting you, of course, Madam Hong.’
‘Even so, liar or not, let us hear her out. Tell me, Jun-Nui, why did you refuse this soldier food?’
‘This ‘soldier’ and I have a score to settle. I will not serve him food, not while there’s breath in my body.’
‘Really? Perhaps you could explain why. He has, after all, called for you to be whipped soundly. That is not to be shrugged off lightly. If justice is to be done here, then let everyone hear the facts.’
Jun-Nui looked long and hard at Xui-Li. She knew that Xui-Li would understand how she felt but she also realised that Madam Hong, as leader, had to show that she was impartial. Much as it pained her she had to tell her why.
‘It was while we were training, while we were in the camp,’ Jun-Nui started, ‘he found out about me. He found out that I’m a girl. He blackmailed me, he threatened me, he forced me to…’ Jun-Nui couldn’t finish the sentence but it was quite clear what she was saying. ‘Please, Madam Hong, do not make me say the words. But understand, he did me wrong and I’ll see him in hell before I serve him food.’
‘Are you saying that this soldier blackmailed you into having sex with him?’
Jun-Nui just nodded.
‘These are very serious allegations. Are they true?’ Xui-Li asked Jinsong. ‘Did you blackmail this woman? Did you force yourself upon her?’
‘Of course not. What would I want with a scrawny cow like her? She’s just a serving girl. What would she be doing in the camp? She’s not a true soldier like me.’
‘True soldier!’ came a voice from the crowd. ‘One who spent the whole battle lying in a ditch pissing himself with fear.’ This caused a ripple of laughter. ‘True coward, more like.’
‘True soldier? Your comrades don’t seem to think so.’ Still Xui-Li smiled but Jinsong could sense that the tide was flowing against him.
‘This girl, this serving maid,’ Xui-Li continued, ‘she, on the other hand is a true soldier. Today she may have chosen to serve the food but that is her choice and not my order. This is my most trusted lieutenant and, if it weren’t for her, and her quick thinking yesterday, you would be lying dead in that ditch, not standing here. But, even if
she were not the hero of the hour I would still take her word over that of a despicable specimen like you. Chu-Hua,’ Xui-Li turned to her bodyguard who, sensing trouble, had also come over, ‘perhaps you could arrange for suitable accommodation for this young man while I decide what to do with him.’
As Chu-Hua approached Jinsong looked about anxiously. Jun-Nui’s anger, Madam Hong’s disdain and Chu-Hua’s calmness all augured badly for him. He grabbed the knife from the table and waved it about. The other passengers took a step back but Chu-Hua just laughed. In desperation he turned and ran to the side of the ship where, seeing that they were barely a hundred yards from the shore, he jumped overboard and started swimming.
‘Boatswain, if you’d be so kind as to organise a boat. I think we should go and fetch that young man. Make sure he doesn’t escape justice.’
‘I don’t think there will be anything to recover, Ma’am,’ the boatswain replied. ‘Not from this cove. It’s the crocodiles, you see.’
By now most of the passengers and crew were standing at the rail. Jinsong was striking out for land and was making good progress but, among the mango groves on the shore, other eyes were also watching. There was barely a ripple as a number of saltwater crocodiles slid gently into the water. It’s debatable whether Jinsong ever knew what hit him. One moment he was swimming for the shore, the next there was a swirl in the water and he was gone. For several long minutes they watched but neither Jinsong nor the crocodiles were seen again.
‘I wanted justice but I never wanted that,’ Jun-Nui said grimly.
‘Are you all right?’ Xui-Li asked gently.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ Jun-Nui replied, although she surely didn’t look it. She shuddered and pulled herself together. ‘Come along, this rice is getting cold.’
Although appetites were reduced somewhat, one by one the soldiers returned to their meal.
After the meal the Ming-Xing set sail again, following the coastline until, at a suitable inlet, quiet and crocodile free, most of the passengers disembarked. For the rest the Ming-Xing moored up at a sleepy little port and, surreptitiously they were slipped ashore.
With the ship now free of passengers and safely moored in a harbour, there was little for the crew to do. The boatswain found the crew some make-work maintenance tasks but, for the most part, it was time to relax. It was early evening. Jun-Nui and Xiang were scrubbing foredeck when Jun-Nui saw two women approaching along the quayside. They were met at the gangplank by Chu-Hua who bowed and led them towards Xui-Li’s cabin. Xui-Li came out to meet than and there was a quiet conversation. Even from where they scrubbed the wails of grief were clearly audible and, as the three women went into the cabin, it was obvious that one of the visitors was still distraught.
‘That must be Yin’s mother,’ Xiang commented. ‘Poor thing, she lost her husband to the British and now she’s lost her daughter.’
‘Did you know here well, Yin, I mean,’ Jun-Nui asked.
‘We were shipmates and you get to know your fellow crew quite quickly. She was a good person to have around. I’ll miss her but, in this game, people come and people go. We all thought we’d seen the last of you, for example. Madam Hong was most upset.’
‘Until Yin came along,’ Jun-Nui commented sourly.
‘Don’t be so nasty, it’s beneath you, and, if you think that Madam Hong simply forgot all about you because of Yin then you don’t understand a thing. Poor old Yin found that out.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean that she was always jealous of you, aware that she would always come second. She might have been the one in Madam Hong’s bed but it was your name Madam Hong called out in the dark. Poor Yin was quite upset about that.’
Jun-Nui stared into the gathering gloom. Reflections of the harbour lights danced on the waves. As ever, nothing was simple.
‘Jun-Nui, Jun-Nui,’ the cook called out. ‘Come and help. Madam Hong has guests and we must provide tea!’
Jun-Nui rushed off towards the galley where the cook was busy putting the finishing touches to a tray of tea making essentials. Jun-Nui took the tray and carried it to the cabin. Xui-Li and the two women were sat talking. Jun-Nui put down the tray and started to pour out the tea.
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