With that she departs.
For a moment I try to square these warnings with Empress Kimiko’s encouraging hints from the previous day. They seem absolutely contradictory. But at last I shrug the matter aside. I’m no closer to guessing what step eight might hold than when I fell asleep, and a few short hours will tell in any case. And really, for all Mistress’ threats and warnings, and indeed for all the horrors she keeps inflicting on me in carrying them out, she’s never succeeded in weakening my commitment to Empress Kimiko. If I can endure being regularly roasted half to death (the sheer extremity of this idea makes my heart race and c**k throb unaccountably) I can endure anything. I’ll take a life composed of ninety percent torture if it means I get to spend the other ten percent just as I
