She knelt there in a ceremonial kimono much to big for her. The sleeves hung down over her hands and her small body of 12 seemed lost in the folds of the vibrant colored fabric. She had been here at the temple steps all day in the hot sun. She didn't think she could cry anymore as she was all cried out. A man walked up the steps and spoke to her parents behind her. She heard them talking about her negotiating a price. They told the man they were very poor and could not afford to pay him much to take her. They began to dispute and the man began to walk away, but he stopped and reached down and grasped her by the chin and lifted her tear-stained face and looked into her eyes. She just looked back at him quietly behind eyes of innocence.
The man returned to the parents and reached out his hand and took the small coin. He took a black ribbon from his pocket and tied it through the coin and stood in front of the girl. He opened his hand and dropped it on the stone steps in front of her and it made a small deadening "clank" and laid still.
She looked at the coin for a long time and then she looked up at the man. He told her to pick it up and look at it. She reached out and took the coin and ribbon and looked at it. It wasn't even worth the cost of a single meal. The man told her that she was now his. She was to obey him in everything or he would sell her as a whore. He then lifted her from the stone steps and made her walk and climb into the car. Peki looked at the coin in her hand and then out the window at her parents as the car drove off. She vowed never to cry again. A vow that would years later earned her the status of a Hojojutsu-Dorei.
Peki looked down at the old ceremonial kimono that now fit her but the colors were now faded and if you looked, one close could see hand stitching that repaired holes or tears in the fabric. All her life she had been trained as a slave to endure hardship and pain. Her parents had set her worth long ago which she held in her hand. She was Hojojutsu-Dorei to Mr. Han. This was her one chance to prove to Mr. Han her worth and she was not going to make it easy for this man RJ. Yet deep inside she was afraid. She was no longer in her home country, and she was now in the hands of man she did not know or understand. Mr. Han gave him the coin which meant he could do with her as he wished. She didn't know why his submissive was here, but she could feel her presence and she didn't feel so alone. She was glad and was comforted by it. It was the only nice thing anyone had ever done for her she could remember.
After what seemed like hours of standing there in his office trying to figure out what he would do, finally an answer came to him. It had come to him from a lesson his instructor and mentor taught him long ago. He remembered him sitting in his wheel chair under his oak tree and smoking his pipe when he called him over. RJ sat down to listen and his mentor looked at him and said;
"I have taught you many skills RJ in the time you have spent here. I have taught you how to tie knots to bind a person's body. I have taught you how to mark flesh with leather and cane, but today I am going to teach you something more important than all of that and I want you to remember it the rest of your days." RJ listened intently. "Never, beat against the honor of another, you will only succeed in beating yourself till it breaks you."
RJ never knew exactly what he meant by that until this moment. It finally made sense to him now. He opened the doors of his office and walked forward across the room with nothing in his hands but ball-gag with a leather harness; armed with his own confidence, the wisdom of his mentor and the answer "she" had provided him unknowlingly.
When he reached them he stood in front of them both.
"Peki, stand up and give me your clothing."
Peki stood up and slowly took off her clothes and handed them to RJ.
RJ paused a moment as he stared at Peki. The pause made her look up at Peki too. They both stood there looking at her body as it was covered from the tops of her ankles to the bottom of her neck with intricate beautiful tattoos. She was beautiful as she stood there in the light showing her lovely form. She waited quietly under their gaze.
RJ recovered quickly. "Now Peki you will collect my assistant's clothes from her."
RJ looked down at her still kneeling and commanded her to stand up and give Peki her clothes. RJ folded Peki's Kimono in half and laid it carefully down on the ground and knelt down upon it. His assistant looked at him questioningly but obeyed. Her face burned red with shame as she was forced to take off her clothes in front of Peki, her soft white skin with out even one tattoo was a stark contrast to Peki's who was covered in them. The shame of being naked was nothing next to seeing Peki's eyes see her soft skin unblemished, unstained. Suddenly both of them felt very much ashamed as they looked at each other's own nakedness.
RJ pointed to his right side and told Peki to kneel. RJ knew the effect this would have on Peki. Peki hesitated, as she was confused. He was commanding her to kneel in the place of the honored submissive, something a Hojojutsu-Dorei was never permitted to do. RJ pointed again.
"Obey me and do not make me say it a third time." The even tone and seriousness of RJ's voice made her comply leaving his assistant the only one left standing in the room.
She looked down at RJ and Peki and realized she was the only one standing, she felt exposed and shifted uncomfortably as his eyes raised and looked at her. The more he looked at her the redder and redder her face became she wanted to run and hide from him. Her eyes began to fill with tears then he spoke.
"I told you not to interfere and not to go near Peki." RJ paused letting the words hang on the air.
"But here I find you next to this...this... Dorei...this slave."
The insult had the exact effect RJ intended. He saw her hand clench, and he saw Peki flinch.
"Can you tell me why?"
She started to respond but RJ interrupted her.
