Vixen



  VIXEN

  By Rick Johnson

  This story follows _Foxy Lady_ by some time.

  I

  Some friends were over with a _Dirty Pair_ Anime film and some popcorn and beer when Kitsune Suki arrived, uninvited and unannounced and totally unwanted.

  The show was rapidly approaching their trademark ‘mass destruction of innocent lives and property’ and everyone watched Suki enter without knocking. To them, she was a short Japanese woman with fox-ears, a fox tail and when she smiled, long incisors. Unseen, under her kimono she also had six breasts, the two upper normal-sized for a Japanese, the middle two smaller and the lower pair barely more than nipples. I suppose that they saw in her a fan of the Furry Anime in costume come for movie-night. But she wasn’t.

  Even when she bowed and spoke in Japanese, I had to remember that Suki wasn’t what she appeared. Oh, the ears and tail and breasts and teeth were real enough. She was, after all, part fox and sometimes all fox. But she wasn’t a LARP actor nor a fan of anime nor was she the submissive woman she acted. Kitsumi Suki was a Fox-spirit, a Kami and that made her a God! And you never anger a God.

  She only pretended to be subservient to and need me. In reality, she could snap her fingers and turn us all into beetles. Or stomp her foot and cause an earthquake that would level a city. Or clap her hands and raise a tidal wave that would wash away property a hundred kilometers inland. Why she put on this show and asked for my help was simply one of those quirks that Gods have.

  I remember how in the Third World, people wished to go to America for an easy life but simply did not understand how hard Americans work for their lifestyle. The idea that an American worked 9-5/M-F or else! was totally beyond the comprehension of a people who worked only enough to support a very limited lifestyle and were raised on the idea that America is the land of milk and honey and if you wanted to buy something, you simply pried up a brick of gold from the sidewalk and used that as money.

  I could no more understand the motives of a God than a foreigner could understand America or a puppy could understand the actions of their owner. Even I didn’t understand Americans and I was married to one and had spent a lot of time here.

  So, when dealing with a God, all you could do was to play their game and do what they wanted and hope that they would forget about you when the job was done…. To their satisfaction.. or else. And sometimes, you got paid… though rarely what you wanted.

  The show was in Japanese with English sub-titles at my insistence. My companions spoke not a word of Japanese despite their fanaticism for the Anime genre while I spoke the language fluently but read and wrote it poorly. Suki glanced at the screen then ignored it as if it was not there. She only pretended to not understand English and speak only Japanese which was strange as despite her mannerisms, she was originally Chinese. Well, she had been born(?), prayed into existence(?), created(?) in China some 850 years ago, by the modern calendar.. maybe longer, and had been a Japanese God for far less than a few hundred years. She claimed to be only 350 years old. But any God can understand any language anywhere, anytime. Such trifles as language, technology, time and space were as irrelevant to a God as the weave of my shirt was to me.

  I recalled some Pagans I once knew talking about Bastet, the Egyptian Cat-Goddess and how they would lay catnip on the shrine they made to her in their homes as if that Goddess were some well-combed Persian cat to be pampered. Crap! First of all, her Name is Bast! Not Bastet! Second she is NOT a cat-Goddess, she is a River Goddess and the Right Arm of Ra (pronounced Ray) who, with her sister Sekhmet, would hunt down and kill those who angered the Sun-God. There is nothing pleasant and cute about Bast despite the desires of those who pretend to be her worshippers.

  Or an uncle, a catholic priest back home in Claire, who insisted that God was love! I pointed out all the really nasty parts of the old testament and he disregarded them as irrelevant to his own beliefs. Facts do get in the way of one’s ideals and humans have such a narrow view of divinity. Suki was as limited by human understanding as the Universe is limited by medieval thought and she only pretended to fit our preconceptions, and then only when it suited her mood. Job found out how ‘loving’ Jehovah was and I had no desire to discover how ‘complacent’ Suki was. I would listen to her, pretend to play the game and move on.

  But she did pay me. She had long ago decided that I was a Hero and had enlisted me to save a Medieval Japanese village from bandits. I had done so, and had even made peace between the Kitsuni and the Kappa and removed some pirates that had the Kappa under their thrall. So I suppose that she now wanted me to do something else.

  I admit to a mood of cynicism for I had recently escaped Ireland to visit America, that bastion of agnostic atheism, after an unrewarding argument with my uncles, three being catholic priests as are many of my generation, about the dichotomy of evil. I took the position that one cannot be ALL-good and ALL-powerful at the same time for the two exclude each other. My uncles insisted that our perception of good and evil was a human matter and irrelevant to the divine. My response was that we live in a human world and not a divine so God had better damn well accommodate our abilities or redefine the universe. The argument escalated and so I left in anger, hating the fools who play at interpreting divine will to justify human crimes. I should have visited my Aunt Katherine, the Pagan who raised me after my mother had given us up in her insanity but instead, retreated across half the world as is my habit.

  And so my depression was interrupted by another God, one who played a game with people as pawns on a board so large we could not even see the edges. And the worst part was that we pawns were not even allowed to see the rule book.

  Suki spoke, then apologized, knelt and waited for the show to end, not wishing to interrupt. Why not? She could control time so could sit patiently for a century, then return to the instant she had left.

  I reached for a beer, this being one of the bad habits of Americans. Not the beer, but the way they chose to drink it ice-cold from an aluminium can. Beer should properly be drunk at room temperature from a glass bottle or a tap-filled glass-glass, though room temperature in Ireland is somewhat cooler than that of American homes.

  Suki was there before I could reach the bottle. She removed a cup from her kimono, poured the beer for me and handed over the cup from which I sipped. Saki! She had changed the beer to saki for me and kept the cup full. My companions she ignored as unimportant or almost invisible.

  As the saki warmed its way down my throat in into my limbs, I reconsidered. Why would a God want me? Gods are notorious for ignoring prayers. At least the big ones are. When you have two billion followers (for Christianity that is. Islam has 1 ½ billion, Hindu 900 million, Buddhism 375 million followers), you can afford to loose a few million by ignoring their prayers to save them as a tidal wave approaches or famine and disease strikes. And with four million Shinto followers, the Kami can safely ignore a few prayers. The Horned God to whom I prayed had far less than a million followers so He couldn’t afford to ignore prayers made to Him. Perhaps I should Pray to My God to save me from this Shinto God?

  No, I thought, sipping more of Suki’s excellent saki, she is simply a Kitsuni, a fox spirit. A lesser god capable of a few simple magicks and transformation but hardly on a level with the Horned God, Mother Nature or even Amaterasu. I glanced at the mirror and saw myself sipping from a fine porcelain cup while a vixen in a kimono squatted at my side. Yes, fox spirits generally revealed themselves by reflection or shadow and if she were a god, why must she retain the tail and ears and breasts of a vixen? Why not a full change into human form? She poured me more saki as the film reached its climax of unwarranted destruction that all fans of Yuri and Kai loved and expected. My cup was never allowed to
remain empty for long and then we were alone. I hadn’t even noticed my companions leaving. One second we were watching the film, then I was alone, sipping saki. Curious but.. irrelevant. They would have gotten in the way with embarrassing questions anyway.

  I set the cup down, stood, fell, then stood again, weaving as I asked, “Suki-sama, can we continue this discussion in the morning?”

  “Of course, Jason-dono,” she replied, using the archaic form. She was 346 years old or so but looked very good for her age. At least, Japanese women could easily do the Japanese schoolgirl fantasy long after European women were too aged for fantasies. “Would you prefer me in a school-girl’s uniform,” she asked. I hated it when she read my mind…. No when I spoke out loud. Suki couldn’t read anyone’s mind. She was a spirit, not a God.

  “No thank you. Perhaps later. I’m a bit too drunk to enjoy it.”

  “Of course, let me help you.” She was amazingly strong for her size. Japanese of the Muromachi Era were short and their women shorter with Kitsuni even shorter. It was as if the Japanese conceived the Kitsuni to be a bit shorter than their own women to reduce the fear men would display at them. Then, with we Europeans being so much taller, Suki seemed tiny next to me. At least her head was below my shoulders, her fox ears tickling my neck.

  She pushed me down, removed my clothes, pulled and the blankets from under me were now neatly folded at the foot of my bed and then, she was there, her kisode open to reveal her three pairs of breasts that she encouraged me to explore as she worked at my erection which took very little work. Kitsunes had ten vixens to every dog so the kitsune vixen was always sexually frustrated and often sought human lovers. Kitsune dogs had no problem with raping any human woman they saw which added to their reputation. “Pay attention to me, Jason-dono,” she said, returning me to reality.

  She climaxed a dozen times to my one, each time she barked like a terrier as she did so. Then, myself spent for she was very good, she collapsed onto me and pulled the blankets over us whispering, “Thank you, Jason-dono. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  II

  I awoke a couple times to find her, again, mounting me and me easily rising to the need. Then when the sun woke me up, I was alone. I tossed my robe over my naked body and sought my nighttime lover to find her setting the coffee table with breakfast, rice and other items of a Japanese nature that I didn’t know I had bought. She looked so enticing there with her furry tail peeking from under her kisode that I lifted it up, kissing her neck as she rose.

  Her hips were still positioned as she bent her back calling, “Bite me!” so I did! Hard on her shoulder and neck as I entered. One hand grasping her hips and the other exploring her multiple breasts until she began to bark with orgasm again and again until I had matched her pleasure. Then, I let her go and she collapsed, breathing hard. Finally, she rose, her own clothes open, smiled at my stare and took my hand, “You need food for the journey. We can finish this later,” and set me at the table where she began to serve me breakfast. She ate none herself and I almost wondered at that but decided to not ask. For all I knew, she had devastated the neighborhood of cats and birds while I slept.

  As a Kitsune ages, they grow in power and add more tails to show their advancement. Suki was less than 350 years old so was probably 650 years too young for her second tail until she had nine. If she could do all this now, what would she do when she was a few thousand years old?

  Shoveling rice into my mouth, I asked, “Tell me what you wish of me, please.”

  “I cannot,” she replied. “I can only tell you that I need you again but the dangers are great and you will learn what you must when you must.”

  Pausing, I stared back, “I don’t like that way of doing things.”

  She patted a clay jug that looked as if it had been buried for centuries. Then she opened the top and pulled out a handful of coins that she scattered on the table. Bronze and silver and gold, Ancient Chinese axe money and medieval pierced coins and even the oval golden Japanese money they finally minted in the late 1500s. Although the pierced bronze coins from China were so common, they were deported by the ton and even today one can easily purchase 500 year old Chinese money for pennies, though the older and the others were valuable. “I don’t need the money,” I commented. I had found king Solomon’s Mines before I was an adult so cash was not a big influence in my life.

  She smiled at me, “Then I will find something that you wish. But for now, please help me.” How could I refuse?

  I finished eating and began to collect my gear. Japan! Medieval Japan! The Century of Wars was beginning. Japan was exploding in their own Renaissance of art and poetry and music.. and warfare. Daisho! Long and short swords and dagger called Katana, Wakizashi and Tanto. Then Sai and Manriki, a mongol bow (I disliked the longer Japanese bow) and thinking, added a socket yari head into the quiver for finding a spear pole would be easier than finding an entire spear.

  Then a pair of hashi and rice bowl, a journal and pen and ink-stone for I had not the fine skills for a brush, and a few other things of value. Now a thick tatami mat and quilt that I rolled for my bedding and I dressed in Kisode and Hakama, tabi and waraji with a straw hat.

  By then, Suki had made me some rice balls and other foods, filled my gourd with water and was ready, herself dressed again. I removed a couple handfuls of money from the jar, not even making a dent in the wealth and said to her, “I always like to get paid. It makes things professional and lets you fire me if you don’t like my work. Besides, we might need to pay for lodging.”

  She gave me that strange look that said ‘I have no idea of what you mean’ for to Suki, she would pay me only to allow me to hire retainers and believed that I, now her Samurai, should serve her for the honor of serving her. I shrugged and placed the money into a couple bags which I added to my gear and then, looking around and locking the door, said, “Let’s go!”

  Suki smiled, showing her canines, and taking my hand, walked into the trees that encircled my home and led me off as she chatted away to disturb my train of thought. If I thought too much, it would interfere with the time-space shift.

  Then the temperature changed to hot and humid and I knew we were in Japan, about 1500 ce.

  III

  Death! Anyone who has survived a war knows that stink. Unburied bodies rotting in the muck, dogs and ravens eating your friends, the knowledge that you will NEVER forget that stench no matter how hard you try and regardless of how much you drink.

  It was also dark.

  “Couldn’t we have arrived someplace … less horrible and brighter?”

  “This is what must be, Jason-dono,” she replied, leading me through the fog.

  I shrugged and wondered if I peed on some cloth and wrapped it around my face, would it slow the stink and memories? Instead I noticed something. “Suki!” I called as I knelt, poking at a body with my short sword. “Notice anything strange here?”

  She glanced at the body and offered, “Killed with a club?”

  “Naked!” I replied. They were all naked. All dead by violence and all naked as if an army of foragers had stripped them all. No clothes, no weapons, no gear. Nothing… then I saw the earth, brown, beneath them. No blood either.

  “Suki-Sama,” I asked. “What kills a man, strips them completely and then eliminates all the blood from the body?”

  “I don’t know, Jason-dono,” she replied, not at all curious. I got the feeling that she did know but wanted me to figure it out for myself. Gods are like that. They know everything but want their worshippers to either believe without thought or learn without faith. I had faith only because it had been proven to me. In that I felt that I was superior to my uncles who believed without evidence. They saw their faith as being superior to my scepticism.

  I moved to another body, partially eaten. Then another and another, examining each, my curiosity overcoming my nausea. “Something killed these men, then drained their
blood and ate their flesh after stripping them of their weapons and clothing.” I loosened my sword and moved my manriki to advantage.

  Then as I was moving to another, Suki snapped, “Down, Jason-dono!” I had dropped and rolled before she said my name, combat reflexes keeping me alive, and I slashed at the shadow that fell to the ground before me.

  It was a spider, but with the body of a woman. She wore a kisode adjusted for her extra four arms and a rope of silk came from her genitals. Her hands and feet were claws and she looked like some nightmare from an adult anime film.

  I wanted to study the thing better but forced myself to look around after ensuring that the monster was dead. “Yokai?” I asked.

  “Hai!”

  “Can we get out of here?”

  “Perhaps if you are strong.”

  “Then which way to the closest safe place where I can make a stand?”

  “There is a Buddhist temple that direction, Jason-dono!”

  “Keep up with me,” I called and began to trot. Running in the dark would lead to me tripping over something or stumbling into danger. “Can you give me a light?”

  A ball of fox-fire appeared overhead and led us through the woods.