Life Sentence

Translation

LIFE SENTENCE

By Hirafuku Hito

Prologue

It has not actually been so very long since my strange life with Queen Mitsuko began. Yet, lowly slave that I am, I have committed a truly inexcusable act. Though I had sworn such absolute loyalty, I made an irreparable mistake.

Mitsuko discovered what I had done and subjected me to a severe interrogation. Rather than casting me away, she graciously imposed a punishment upon her slave. It is a life sentence, a burden that will weigh heavily upon my back until the end of my days. Yet from the bottom of my heart I prostrate myself at Mitsuko’s feet. I will probably never be released. Less than an animal, I shall remain a living implement, serving at her side forever and ever.

It happened about two weeks ago, when business took me to the Kansai region. As always, Mitsuko fastened the lock of my leather harness with her precious hands. I crawled on all fours in the entrance hall while my queen struck her despicable slave’s buttocks sharply with a farewell whip.

“Please forgive your slave for leaving his precious mistress for three days, unable to serve at your side. I shall return as quickly as possible and resume my duties as your lowly animal.”

With this farewell, I departed. And yet…

1

My work in Kansai proceeded smoothly, and I was due to return to Tokyo on the next day’s First Fuji express. Bored and restless, I entered a bar in Osaka’s Minami district. I sat at the counter as usual.

“Old Parr, on the rocks.”

After ordering, I idly surveyed the room. It was nearly eleven, and there were quite a few customers. The smoky air and dim lighting made everything look so dull that I wondered whether my eyesight had deteriorated. As I shifted my gaze along the counter, I spotted a woman and involuntarily caught my breath. I could never have forgotten her. It was Asada Kaoru.

2

This takes us back to the summer two years earlier, during another business trip to Osaka. A decayed tooth that I had lazily neglected suddenly began to ache, so I entered Y Dental Clinic in Sōemonchō for emergency treatment. In the entrance I noticed a pair of red high heels, unusual for such a place. While I waited alone, my masochistic urges began swelling until I could no longer restrain myself. I tore a page from my notebook and wrote:

“My queen, I am your lowly slave. Please trample me beneath these beautiful high heels.”

I folded the message into a tiny square and slipped it inside one of the shoes. Then I touched my tongue to the toe of the red high heel and licked it before returning innocently to my seat. Since I was alone in the waiting room, I wondered endlessly who could own them.

“Mr. Hira, please come in.”

A young woman’s voice interrupted my fantasy. At the same time, a woman who appeared to be around fifty descended the stairs, making me even less certain who owned the shoes. When I went upstairs into the consulting room, I stopped in astonishment. Before me stood an exotic beauty, perhaps twenty years old and well over five feet tall, wrapped in a white medical coat. Surely a woman such as this must be the owner of those heels. My heart leapt at the thought of prostrating myself beneath her feet.

When the treatment ended, I left reluctantly. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought I saw a sadistic smile on the face that coolly looked down upon my pain.

“Come again tomorrow.”

Her businesslike words left me with a faint hope, and I returned to my hotel.

The next day I went back to Y Dental Clinic. After a brief wait, I received the final treatment. Sitting in the chair and waiting for her, I could not stop trembling at the thought that my act of the previous day might have been discovered. When she returned, her treatment seemed much rougher than before.

“There. That will do. Have it properly treated as soon as you get back to Tokyo.”

Driven from the room by her voice, I returned to the entrance. As I tried to put on my shoes, I felt something beneath my foot. It was a tiny piece of paper, and my heart jumped. It read:

“If yesterday’s letter was yours, come to the Vision in front of Namba Station at nine-thirty tonight. I have something to discuss with you. The Woman in the Red High Heels, A.K.”

3

We met at the Vision at the appointed time. Without either of us clearly inviting the other, we soon found ourselves facing each other in a room at Hotel M. After I introduced myself, she said her name was Asada Kaoru. She explained that she was an assistant at the dental clinic and was handling the work alone while the dentist was confined to bed by illness.

“Mr. Hira, you are a cowardly, timid man. If you were going to put such a letter in my shoe, why didn’t you get down on both hands and beg me when we met? I am training in medicine, and I know something about sexual abnormalities. I hate men without courage. A man like you is human refuse.”

Perhaps it was a performance, but she struck me across the face with all her strength. Forgetting myself, I prostrated myself at Kaoru’s feet, clung to her beautiful legs, and sucked her pretty, plump toes.

“Beast! Filthy creature! This is what should be done to someone like you.”

Speaking in a startlingly savage voice, Kaoru ground my head into the carpet.

“Harder, my queen.”

A strangled groan escaped me. With no special instruments available, Kaoru stripped me, tied my hands and feet together in front with the cord from a sleeping robe, removed my belt, and thrashed every part of my body.

An hour later, we separated without promising to meet again. I desperately wanted another meeting, but none was arranged.

Afterward I had no opportunity to see Kaoru. In time I became the property of my present mistress, Mitsuko.

4

Seeing Kaoru again after two years, sitting alone at the counter, I asked a hostess:

“Does that woman always come alone?”

“Yes. She used to come quite often with another woman, but lately she is always by herself.”

Reassured, I approached her.

“Miss Asada, it has been a long time.”

She said nothing.

“It is Hira. We met at Y Clinic.”

At last she appeared to recognize me.

“Goodness, what a surprise. Here of all places.”

We drank until closing time and then went to the Hotel M of our memories, where once again we faced one another as queen and slave. When I undressed, Kaoru noticed the leather restraints I wore and seemed to understand something.

“Hira, what are these strange things? Who put them on you? All right, today I am your owner, so I shall take them off.”

She pulled scissors from her handbag and cut through the leather straps. I was overwhelmed by guilt toward Mitsuko, yet at that instant my masochistic excitement was strong enough to cast aside even my sacred feelings toward her.

“When you return to your owner in Tokyo, let her examine your body carefully. She will probably torment you nearly to death. You ought to be grateful.”

Kaoru’s words inflamed my masochism still further.

Soon my body writhed helplessly beneath a storm of blows from the belt. My back and buttocks were covered in red welts.

“Thank you, my queen! Thank you! Ah! Ah!”

Blood dripped onto the red carpet along with my groans.

“Of course, you beast! You dog! You brute!”

Showering me with abuse, Kaoru grabbed my hair and dragged me into the bathroom. I lay spread helplessly across the tiles while her full legs opened above me like two pillars. When I eventually awakened from the dreamlike state, I obeyed her command and gave her my address before we parted. I had no idea that this would become the cause of my life sentence.

5

When I returned to Tokyo after three days, Mitsuko interrogated me severely, exactly as I had expected.

“Hito, confess. Where did you remove your slave’s leather harness? Where did you receive those whip marks? You are my animal. Do you imagine you may become another person’s plaything whenever you please? Very well. If you refuse to confess, I shall dismiss you today. Leave this house.”

She tied my hands behind me, made me kneel before the bed, and continued questioning me while lashing my back.

“Please forgive me. I shall confess everything. Please do not cast me away.”

I begged desperately. Mitsuko listened as I confessed everything honestly. When I had finished, she said:

“Very well. Take five days away from work, beginning now, and reform yourself.”

No matter how painful the punishment might prove, I had no choice but to accept it if I wished to remain at her side.

My life during those five days was extraordinary. There was almost none of the direct physical pain I had previously experienced, but what replaced it was something else entirely.

On the first day I was chained on the balcony like a dog and ordered to remain on all fours throughout the day. I received no scraps. Mitsuko filled a washbasin with what she called her precious sacred water and told me:

“For the next five days, this will be your only food. I shall give you nothing else. Do not move too much, or you will become hungry. Stay still. And when you need to relieve yourself, use this.”

She placed an orange crate filled with sand on the balcony.

Thus I reached the second day. Mitsuko behaved as though she had forgotten me completely. Apart from occasionally replenishing the basin, she did not even show me her face. By the second night, hunger and loneliness drove me to violate her rule. Forgetting that I was only a dog, I spoke in human language.

“Mistress, please. Throw me some leftover food.”

Unusually, Mitsuko showed no anger. She opened the balcony door.

“A dog must not use human words. You must be very hungry. Then perhaps you will eat this.”

She brought a covered bowl and disposable chopsticks. I wondered what she intended to feed me.

“Here, dog. It came from your mistress’s body. Receive it gratefully.”

She removed the lid and pushed the bowl toward the pitiful human dog before her.

I am, of course, an extreme masochist. In fantasy I had imagined consuming my mistress’s bodily waste many times. Yet confronted with it physically, I could not bring myself to put it in my mouth. Trembling at the prospect of Mitsuko’s whip, I repeatedly brought my face near the bowl but could not find the courage.

Exasperated by my indecision, Mitsuko picked up a small piece with the chopsticks.

“Eat it. A little of your queen’s nourishment must remain in it.”

She forced my mouth open and pushed the chopsticks inside. The extraordinary taste and smell caused a reflexive wave to rise from my stomach, and I vomited it out.

I, an animal who should have received gratefully whatever came from Mitsuko’s precious body, had presumptuously refused it. Naturally she was furious.

“Idiot! Look at you. You drank Kaoru’s sacred water gladly, yet you cannot eat what comes from Mitsuko? I shall never forgive you until you can eat it. Learn the cost of betraying me.”

Under Mitsuko’s furious rebukes and whip, I begged forgiveness, pressing my forehead against the concrete of the balcony. Gradually I began to believe that my attitude had indeed been wrong. If I had accepted Kaoru’s bodily fluid, how could I refuse the solid waste of Mitsuko, my absolute owner? I told myself that I must eat it, that such food was appropriate for a dog like me.

I plunged my face into the bowl and carried a tiny amount to my mouth with the tip of my tongue. At that instant, I felt I had become Mitsuko’s animal completely, in both body and mind. The realization produced an ecstasy that swept away the unpleasant sensation in my mouth.

Each day I consumed more. By the fifth and final day, I could take nearly one-third of a teacup. At last I was allowed indoors. Mitsuko ordered me to bathe and cleanse myself. When I emerged, she commanded me to crawl across the floor.

“I shall have a guest this evening. Serve her well. Of course, I cannot display a filthy slave such as you before another person, so I shall arrange matters like this.”

She wound thin cord tightly around my body and bound my hands behind me. She ordered me into a wardrobe, wrapped the chain from my collar around an iron pipe, and made me hold a pair of Mitsuko’s mesh panties in my mouth.

“Stay exactly as you are. My guest will arrive soon.”

Mercilessly, she slammed the door shut.

6

I do not know how much time passed. It was probably only thirty minutes, but in the darkness, tied behind my back, tethered to a pipe by my collar, with mesh panties in my mouth and no knowledge of when the humiliation would end, it felt like two or three hours. Throughout that time I repeated my apology with complete sincerity:

“Mitsuko, I am truly sorry. I accept this as a punishment that Heaven has placed upon me for life. For as long as my existence as a slave continues, I shall endure the suffering required to atone.”

After the women’s conversation continued for a while, their voices stopped. At that instant the space before my eyes suddenly became bright. I lowered my head and averted my eyes in shame. A crisp slap struck my cheek.

“Beast, raise your face. Greet our guest.”

At Mitsuko’s command I timidly opened my eyes. An involuntary cry of surprise escaped me, and Mitsuko’s mesh panties fell from my mouth.

“Idiot! Why are you staring so stupidly? It has been a long time, dog. Ho, ho, ho! What a marvelous sight. Mitsuko, you have trained him very well.”

It was Kaoru.

I later learned that Mitsuko and Kaoru had attended the same high school, with Mitsuko three years ahead of her. During their school days, they had apparently been partners in what was then called an ‘S’ relationship. The woman with whom Kaoru had continued corresponding was Mitsuko. On the third day of my five-day punishment, Kaoru had sent her the following letter:

“Mitsuko, yesterday by complete chance I met the slave Hira whom you once mentioned. I was astonished. I could hardly believe that the man whose head I trampled two years ago is now your slave. It is a frightening coincidence. You and I are both women overflowing with sadistic tendencies. I shall soon be transferred to Tokyo. Would you like to make Hira our shared slave? His own body will prove to you that my sadism is in no way inferior to yours. Kaoru.”

To return to the events themselves, I was dragged in my miserable condition before the two women, and Mitsuko pronounced judgment:

“Hito. From today, I and Kaoru shall be the mistresses of this house. Naturally I am the absolute queen and Kaoru is my attendant, but she is also your mistress. You are a slave and an animal. Do you understand? And to ensure that you can never escape your condition as our lifelong slave, we shall now tattoo your back.”

My hands and feet were tied to the bed. Kaoru, who possessed only rudimentary medical knowledge, performed the tattooing. In characters roughly three centimeters across, she inscribed the word ‘slave’ upon my back. The final sentence is partially obscured at the binding and the article gives way immediately afterward to the next contribution.