The Bound Heart by Elsa Holland

sold through The Velvet Basement and other somewhat lower-end establishments of a similar nature. Working men who came in from the country, their earning power weak, bought them. They couldn’t afford a woman who made her money on her back, let alone a respectable girl. Instead, they saved for an erotic postcard, perhaps a few. For many of them, those postcards were their faithful women. Some of those men, if they survived the sixteen plus hour days, would only ever have those postcards as companions. Their preferences were easy to do and when he first started out, they were his staple income.
    Now, he did them because he got ideas he wanted to portray or simply wanted a break from the more strenuous work of the rope.
    “Those postcards are no different from the erotic ukiyo-e prints and the role they’re playing in Japan even now.”
    They were both a sexual placebo for the poor.
    The line of reasoning went uncommented.
    Jamie took a sip of the sake and placed the cup down.
    Okazaki topped it up and placed the small bottle next to his cup.
    “Of course, Jamie-sama, you are very talented. So many things to choose from. No obligations to fulfill.”
    Irritation itched him at her tone; it implied the very opposite of what she said. Of course, he owed Sensei, even without this house and the financial wealth he’d inherited at Sensei’s death. The mentoring into the rope and the world of The Collectors had created a career, a pathway he never knew existed. A path outside of the rules of the social classes. A never dreamed of life for a boy from the knock-shop.
    As an artist, he straddled the classes.
    If you were good, you mixed with the richest and noblest on one day and rubbed shoulders in the poorest parts of town the next, and anywhere in between with no social consequence. That straddling layers was what made you interesting, made you colorful, and added grit and depth to your art.
    Artists, writers, and clairvoyants were classless if they were good.
    With Sensei and now on his own, he was building a name for himself in that world. A world where the only requirement was to make art that people wanted to see. For him and his field of erotic art, what people wanted to see was endless.
    “Sensei just hoped, we both hoped, you would one day wish to continue his work.”
    “I do. And I am.” Tension ticked in his jaw.
    Okazaki was impatient for him to continue with the rope, continue what she and Sensei had started to explore and do for The Collectors who commissioned Sensei’s work and now his own.
    However, he’d started his own explorations, his own themes of what he wanted to do, not simply to follow in the footsteps of his mentor. Just as Sensei had done from his teacher, Jamie too wanted to branch out, to make something for himself.
    “You are talking about a battle of rope between two schools of thought, a battle where the two men who started it are now dead.
    “With Yamata-sensei gone, perhaps, the battle of ideas has gone with them, replaced by a more liberal exploration of independent ideas by each rope worker?” he said.
    “Yamata-sensei has strong pupils continuing his work. They teach what rope is and how it should be done as based on the tradition of interrogation, the ‘correct’ knots, the ‘correct’ method as if there are no other schools of thought.
    Who is there for Kobayashi-sensei? For his work working to bring the art of connection, the rope as we see in Shinto, in life. This is a profound shift that needs advocates. So who is there to continue it if not you? Sato?”
    Bloody Sato, the man did not deserve to be in anyone’s lineage.
    “That’s not the point. You know I support Sensei’s way.” His finger stabbed at the tabletop. “What about my work? I have my own work. I am building my own ideas.”
    Her silence was a recognition of sorts. She and Sensei were more traditional in their ideas. What they had built, and what he was trained in, related more to the Japanese samurai