Read Online Honey is Sweeter than Blood by Jeffrey Thomas - Free Book Online

under his lover.  Kot’s erection at last slipped heavily out of Cheung’s ass.  Cheung rolled offthe bed to the floor, scrambled backwards across the dirty carpet like a crab, ignoring the pain in his bandaged right hand.  He felt one of the drops of warm fluid on his neck wind its way down to the small of his back.
    Kot’s face was turned to the wall, and that was preferable.  Though the back of his head was shattered like a doll’s, blood pouring over a jagged rim of bone to dye the sheets scarlet, it was better to see this horrific exit wound than his beautiful face in death.  Blood soaked into the pillows now, streamed down the side of the bed.
    And tears streamed down Cheung’s cheeks.
    And the last of the rain streamed down the windows as the deluge began to move on.

Impressions
    “I don’t believe two people lying down could get hit by lightning,” said Andrea, having snicked her tongue before saying it.
    “Well, it’s the highest point around; it’s like a hill,” defended Jen, who had shown them to this place, had told them the old story about it as related to her by her mother.  As a child her mother had taken her on walks through Pine Grove Cemetery, and passing this spot had said that two people had been struck by lightning and killed here.  It wasn’t until three years ago, when Jen was fifteen, that her mother informed her they’d been copulating at the time.
    “ Hill. ” Andrea sneered.  “There are trees over there.” She pointed with a jut of her chin.  “They’re a lot higher than a guy’s bare ass on this little mound.”
    “Maybe they weren’t there, then,” Diane offered meekly.  “Jen said this tree wasn’t.” She had her hand on the flank of a massive oak.
    “Oh, so this used to be a desert, huh? I see.  When did this happen, 1923? So that tree is only seventy years old and it’s that big around?”
    “That’s long enough, wouldn’t it be? Why not?” Jen said.
    “Come on, it’s as big as a house.  That was here in 1923.”
    “My mom says it wasn’t.”
    “Your mom told you that story when you turned fifteen and started feeling funny new urges, my dear child.  It’s a suburban legend invented to scare people sexless.”
    “I’d been feeling funny urges since I was thirteen, Andrea, and my mother doesn’t resort to old wives’ tales as a form of birth control; she put me on the pill herself.”
    “See how paranoid she is?”
    Jen groaned.  Diane was gaping straight up into the canopy of leaves, the thick branches snaking off into them like black rivers seen from a plane, vanishing into misty jungle.  “It’s so thick ,” she heard Jen saying, “because the thing is engorged  with their passion.”
    “It’s like Apollo and Daphne,” breathed Diane, a restless camouflage of light and shadow stirring on her face.
    “ Huh? ” Andrea turned slowly.
    Diane had regretted it the moment she’d said it.  She liked Andrea, but also found her caustic, perpetual cynicism intimidating.  She knew she had to get it out now so she got it out fast and simple.  “The old myth about Apollo? How he and Daphne got shot by Cupid’s arrows…one that made Apollo in love with Daphne, and one that made Daphne repelled by love, so that she kept running away from him.  Just as she was finally about to be caught she begged the Gods to transform her so she could escape him, and they turned her into a laurel tree.” There, it was out and said, and she waited for Andrea to turn to Jen and sputter into laughter.
    But Andrea could be oddly gentle toward Diane at times, and only chuckled a little and said, “Yeah, the Gods were always doing shit like that.  You look at them the wrong way and poof …you’re a zucchini.  ‘And that, children, was the birth of the first zucchini.’ ” All three girls laughed.  “See? Jen’s mom was trying to scare her into believing that if she had premarital sex on a hill in a graveyard, Zeus would turn her into a giant