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Hoi Yin wrapped the towel around her waist, and tied a knot at the side, just above her right hip. Droplets of water were still glistening across her torso and breasts. Oh yes, I noticed. Christ, she was magnificent. And completely composed, as if we were discussing some kind of financial report on the newscable. Emotionally divorced from life.
I did not haunt Pe
I don't doubt it. Your mother, your creator, the woman who breathed life into you so that you could be condemned to an existence of sexual slavery. Then when you do meet, she rejects you utterly. And yet she made you more intelligent than herself, compounding her crime. Even when you were young you must have been smart enough to know how much more you could be, a knowledge which would grow the whole time you were with Soyana, all those years gnawing at you. I don't think I could conceive of a situation more likely to breed resentment than that. It wouldn't even be resentment at the end, just loathing and dire obsession.
Do you believe I murdered Pe
You're the alleged psychology expert. Why don't you tell me what a girl with your history would feel about Pe
I can tell you exactly what I thought about her. If I had met her ten years ago I would have killed her without even hesitating. You ca
«Oh, Christ.» I was begi
Yes. When I was sixteen, I was assigned to the Vice-President of Soyana's Astronautics Division. Wing-Tsit Chong was his guest for di
Ten days after he met me, Wing-Tsit Chong asked that I be assigned to him. Soyana could not offer me to him fast enough; after all, the company fortune was built on the foundation stone of affinity.
And you've been with him ever since, i said.
I have. He told me later he accessed my record, and saw what I was. He said he was angered that a life such as mine should be so wasted. It is he who birthed me, Chief Parfitt, not Pe
Hoi Yin, all you've told me . . . it just makes you look even more guilty.
I am guilty of one thing, Chief Parfitt; I have not yet reached the purity of thought to which Wing-Tsit Chong has tried to raise me. I will never be worthy of his patronage, because I hate. I hate Pe
I don't follow.
Hoi Yin wiped the tears with the back of her hand. It was such a delicate childish action, betraying her terrible vulnerability, that I ached to put my arms round her. I wanted, needed, to draw the hurt out of her. Any male would.
I would not kill Maowkavitz, because she was dying of cancer, hoi yin said. Her last months of life were to be spent screaming as her body rotted away. That, I thought, was Kamma. She would have suffered through it all, for she is a soulless inhuman selfish monster, and she would have fought her decay, stretching out her torment at the hands of those clinically caring doctors. If today I could save her from that bullet wound I would do so, in order that she might undergo that horrendous final ordeal which was her ordained destiny. Pe
I stepped up to her as she started sobbing, cradling her as I often did Nicolette. She was trembling softly in my embrace. Her skin below my hands was textured as smooth as silk, I felt the warmth of her, the residual dampness. She clung to me tightly, open mouth searching blindly across my chin. Then we were kissing with an almost painful urgency.
She pulled my uniform off as we tumbled onto the thick grass. Her towel came free with one fast tug from my hand. Suddenly we were locked together, rolling over and over with her hair flying free around us. She was strong, and magnificently supple, and dangerously knowledgeable. And affinity was blinding me with desire; I could feel my hands squeezing her breasts and stroking her thighs, and at the same time I could taste the rapture each movement brought her as she surrendered her thoughts to me. All I could think of was doing whatever I could to bring her more ecstasy. Then I let her discover my enjoyment. The whole world detonated into orgasm.
I woke to find myself lying on my back in the grass beside the lake. Hoi Yin was snuggled up beside me, one finger stroking my chin.
She smiled lazily, which was like watching sunrise over Heaven. «I haven't done that for twelve years,» she said huskily.
«I know the feeling.» Christ, what was I saying.
«And I have never been with a man from my own choice before. Not once. How strange that it should be you.» She kissed me lightly, and ran her finger along the line of my jawbone. «Don't be guilty. Please. This is Eden, only one step down from paradise.»
«And I'm one step from hell. I am married, Hoi Yin.»
«I won't spoil your happiness. I promise, Harvey.»
First time you've called me that.
Because this is the first time you have been Harvey to me. I'm not entirely sure I like Chief Parfitt. He can be cold.her lips started to work down my throat.
«You don't love me, do you?» I'm not quite sure for whose benefit the hopeful tone was included in that question. The confusion raging round in my mind made clear thinking very difficult.