Read Online Dark of the Sun by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Free Book Online Page B

demonstrate his admiration.”
    Zangi-Ragozh watched her performance, a bit saddened that she had decided to treat him as she would any patron; it was the life she knew, he reminded himself as he said, “If it is truly what you desire, then what am I but flattered.”
    “It is how these things are done. You’ve paid for my time, and you’ve liked my dancing.” She drank her tea and held out her arm to him. “Come. You will be happier at my side.”
    He got to his feet and walked the three steps to the couch. “I am not what you expect,” he said as he took her hand and bent to kiss it. “You have nothing to fear from me; believe this.”
    Jo-Hsu stared at him. “What did you do?”
    “It is a custom among my people,” he said, sitting beside her.
    “Foreigners are so strange,” she said, shaking her head.
    “Yes. We are.” He touched her cheek, his fingers so light that she gasped in astonishment. “Some more than others.”
    “How do you come to—” He leaned forward and touched her lips with his, so softly that she was only startled, not afraid. As he drew back, she did her best to laugh and only partially succeeded, for she was becoming breathless. “Another foreign custom.”
    “The same custom,” said Zangi-Ragozh. “It expresses a different regard when done to the mouth instead of the hand.”
    “It is like you tasted me.” She looked up into his face. “Are you hungry for me?”
    “Yes, Jo-Hsu, I am,” he said with utter sincerity as he moved his hands over her sen-lai, so gently that he hardly disturbed the sheer fabric.
    She grabbed his wrist and regarded him somberly. “Shan will make you pay more if you—you know. Pregnancy isn’t good for dancers.”
    “I won’t do anything that would endanger you in that way,” Zangi-Ragozh said. He did not add that he was certain they were being watched through at least one of the peepholes in the wall.
    Jo-Hsu had heard that before. “If you do, if you forget your intentions, Shan will demand you pay for the loss of my time, and my dancing.”
    Zangi-Ragozh fixed his dark eyes on hers, this time with such attention that she was taken aback. “I gave you my Word, Jo-Hsu,” he told her quietly.
    She felt her pulse grow strong in her neck, and she took another deep breath to restore her self-possession. “All right. But I’ll have to tell him what happened, in the morning.”
    “You will have nothing to tell him,” said Zangi-Ragozh, straightening up. “I will leave something for you on the tea-tray and pay the balance of the evening to your landlord before I leave.”
    “Oh, no,” Jo-Hsu protested, taking hold of his sleeve. “I don’t want you to leave me. Not yet. Not until midnight, at least.”
    “I would rather remain,” Zangi-Ragozh admitted.
    “Then do so. I don’t want it said that I would refuse a patron simply because he was foreign.” She gave him her best smile.
    What else had he expected? Zangi-Ragozh asked himself. He had sought out an available woman, a woman with something more than a functioning body to attract him, and he had found precisely that. She would not question how he took his pleasure so long as it did not include any risk to her of pregnancy or damage to her face. No matter how much he wanted more from her, given the reality of his circumstances, this arrangement was ultimately satisfactory, or so he attempted to convince himself as he bent over Jo-Hsu again. “Does my foreignness bother you, Jo-Hsu?”
    “Not so much. You are not like many men, foreign and Chinese, for many of them are over-eager You do not rush upon me. Or you have not done so yet.” She studied his face; apparently she approved of what she saw, for she moved a little to give him more room on the couch and held up her hand. “You may taste me again, if you like.”
    Obediently he kissed her hand, continuing to hold it as he lowered it from his lips. “I thank you, Jo-Hsu.”
    Her laughter was softer and less forced than before.