Year of the Boar, Seventh Month, Day 22.

Oh... dear gods ... I can hardly bear to write this entry but as I keep promising myself an accurate record of what happens to me on my travels, I must... Only a day at sea was enough to convince me that I had been right about my hair. I was sick of the salt in it, sick of the weight of it and the knots and it was as if a candle flared suddenly in my head and I lost all reason. I separated it into two braids and then I hacked them off with the Chief's meat cleaver. I am extremely lucky that I did not hack into my own neck but when it was done I felt so ... light. My hair sits just above my jaw now that one of the Chief's wives has tidied up the ragged edges that I had created with the cleaver and it is such a relief I cannot describe it. The Chief however, was less than impressed. He was actually angry. I tried to point out that it was not his hair and so it could not concern him less but his response was to pick up both braids and drag me onto the deck where he ... oh I cannot... The mere thought of how his hands possessed my body yet again is enough to flush my cheeks scarlet with shame and yet when he held me beneath him, bound to the rigging with my own hair... threatening ... I goaded him into taking me there... Any one of the traders could have come across us in the act but I did not care. What bothers me more is that I would not object if the Chief wanted to do it again. I would beg him to do it. I would moan like the lowest sort of harlot to feel his hands roaming my body; possessing me, commanding me to move as he chose, telling me what to do in order to satisfy his needs... and that thought sickens me... what have I become in just a few short encounters with a man I do not even really know...?
And now... my cycle is upon me and I am in the worst sort of pain. I have been unusually fortunate in that regard for most of my life but this... this is appalling... Kyung-Ah, the first wife, says it is a side-effect of the herbs. I felt my cheeks flame with embarrassment at the thought that she knows the most intimate details of my liaison with her husband. It is one thing for the wives to know that we have been lying with each other, but for them to know exactly what we have been doing... this cannot go on. I must end it. I must.