Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series Read Free

the
     meadow.
    Home. It meant so many things, but only one to him. He would have withered inside
     long ago had there not been this to return to.
    He stood outside the low, broad door, listening, then put his hand out flat against
     the wood and gently pushed. There was no need for locks here. No need for fear. The
     door swung back slowly,
     silently, and he went in.
    Beth stood there in the doorway, framed by the soft light of the living room behind
     her and to her left. She smiled.
    ‘I knew you were coming. I dreamed of you last night.’
    He laughed and went to her, then held her tightly against him, kissing her tenderly.
     ‘Your dreams…’ He gazed into her eyes, loving the beauty, the measureless depth of
     them.
     ‘They never fail you, do they?’
    She smiled and kissed his nose. ‘Never.’
    He shivered and reached up to stroke her cheek then trace the contours of her lips
     with a fingertip. His whole body was alive with desire for her. ‘Where’s Ben and Meg?’
    Her body was pressed hard against his own, her hands at his neck. Her eyes were dark
     with longing. ‘They’re outside. Down by the creek. But they’ll not be back. Not just
     yet.’
    She kissed him again, a harder, longer kiss this time.
    He let his left hand rest gently on her waist a moment, then rucked up her skirt.
     Beneath it she was wearing nothing. He sought her mouth again, the kiss more urgent.
     His fingers traced the warm
     smoothness of her thighs and belly, then found the hot wetness at the core of her.
     She moaned and closed her eyes, her whole body trembling at his touch, then she reached
     down and freed him,
     grasping his swollen penis, her fingers softly tracing its length, once, then again,
     almost making him come, before drawing him up into her.
    He groaned, then, grasping her by the buttocks, lifted her, backing her against the
     wall, thrusting up into her once, twice, a third time before he came explosively,
     feeling her shudder
     violently against him.
    For a while, then, they were silent, watching each other. Then Beth smiled again.
     ‘Welcome home, my love.’
    The pine surface of the kitchen table was freshly scrubbed, the knives newly sharpened.
     Ben looked about him, then, leaving the bundled rabbit on the wide stone step outside,
     busied himself. He spread an oilcloth on the table then laid the big cutting board
     on top of it. He laid the knives out beside the board and then, because it was growing
     dark, brought the lamp from
     beside the old ceramic butler sink, trimming the wick before he lit it.
    Meg stood in the garden doorway, her small figure silhouetted against the redness
     of the bay. She watched him roll back his sleeves, then fill a bowl with water and
     set it beside the knives.
    ‘Why are you doing that?’ she asked. ‘You know it’s diseased. Why not just burn it?’
    Ben barely glanced at her. He turned and went down the four steps that led into the
     long, dark, low-ceilinged dining room, returning a moment later with a book from the
     shelves. An old thing,
     leather-bound and cumbersome.
    ‘I’ve a hunch,’ he said, putting the heavy volume down on the other side of the board
     to the knives and the water.
    Meg stood beside him. It was a book of animal anatomy. One of their great-great-great-grandfather
     Amos’s books. Ben flicked through the pages until he came to the diagram he was looking
     for. ‘There,’ he said, the heavy, glossy pages staying in place as he turned away
     to bring the rabbit.
    She looked. Saw at once how like a machine it was. A thing of pumps and levers, valves
     and switches, controlled by chemicals and electric pulses. It was all there on the
     page, dissected for her.
     The whole of the mystery – there at a glance.
    Ben came back. He placed the dead rabbit carefully on the block then turned and looked
     at her. ‘You needn’t stay, Meg. Not if you don’t want to.’
    But she stayed, fascinated by what he was doing, knowing that this had