Punishment with Kisses Read Free Page A

was so engrossed that I barely moved—occasionally rolling from my back to my stomach to prevent bedsores, and rising only for bathroom breaks or to go downstairs for the requisite meals.
    Loud voices and laughter wafting up from the pool house interrupted my reverie. I tried to ignore the noise, but I couldn’t shake my curiosity. Who was out there and what were they doing? It wouldn’t hurt to stretch my legs.
    Not wanting to damage the book’s spine, I carefully slid a piece of paper in to hold my place and set it on my bedside table. My legs were spongy with sleep, and when I put my weight down they caved under me. I grabbed on to one of the smooth, hand-carved posts and managed to stay upright. I used the furniture as crutches while I stumbled across the room, going from bed to desk and outside to the railing of the balcony.
    Fortunately, my land legs returned, because the minute I stepped outside I was blinded by the light and instinctively raised a hand to shield my pupils from the excruciating brilliance of the midday sun. When my eyes finally adjusted to the brightness, I was not surprised to see Ash wearing nothing but bikini bottoms, floating on a giant inflatable bed in the middle of our pool. She wasn’t alone. A man wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and a woman with an old-fashioned one-piece suit were taking turns stroking Ash in the guise of applying sunscreen. Their movements rocked the raft and splashed water onto Ash, who shrieked theatrically. I looked around to see who was playing audience to her show. Our gardener, whose name I still couldn’t pronounce, was skulking behind the hedges, pretending to trim them while peering over at Ash and her strange friends floating in the aquamarine water. She was probably trying to give the old guy a heart attack.
    I was appalled at her complete lack of decorum, and angry with myself for falling for Ash’s exhibitionism. She was probably out there laughing louder and louder, calculating what decibel would bring Father or me to a window. Ash was like a child having a tantrum, stamping her foot and yelling, “Look at me, look at me,” to get attention.
    To hell with her. Valencia was waiting, full of the kind of clever prose I loved to read in literature classes but had never yet managed to write myself. Tea’s words saturated my mind like rain falling through slats on a barn roof. Sometimes I read lines aloud, letting the words linger on my tongue, rolling them around my mouth, tasting them with the different sensors—sweet, sour, salty. I adored her words, and I turned them over and over in my head as the day began to slip into evening, oblivious to the party still going on.
    A scream interrupted me. I spit out Tea’s words and tossed her book aside before racing out to the balcony again. Ash was out of the water but standing by the pool, now with a different duo: the woman from earlier today and a new man. I wanted to stare, to see what the hell they were up to that elicited the shriek I’d just heard. But I was afraid Ash would catch me at it, and I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d gotten my attention again. And knowing her, Ash would just call me a pervert and tell Father I was spying on her, just to get me in trouble.
    She was always doing things like that when we were younger. I remember one time when we were kids and Ash was in trouble for something—I don’t remember what, since usually it seemed like she could do no wrong. But I do remember Ash had been sent to her room alone. Even back then Ash couldn’t stand to be alone. She cracked open her door and stood there whispering my name until I came to see what the fuss was.
    Then Ash looked me right in the eyes and slammed her hand in the door. On purpose. She broke two of her fingers and had to go to the hospital. But her plaintive wails brought Father running and her lies convinced him I’d been responsible. Ash was released from solitary and I took her place in the