The Lamb and the Gray Battle

September 17, 1990

The images shifted. Knox thought his brain had fogged again, but it was the steam of the bathhouse and vanilla and berries perfuming the air, that made him feel heady.

A servant girl, She-Meimei, wreaked of snake blood, stood behind the pair, a tray of candied fruit in her hands. The pair kissed each other as if she weren't there, though the servant girl switched between sulking and glaring. Every now and then, Ren would take a claw and stab it into a plum and Mary would put her lips over it, take the whole thing into her mouth, deposit the pit on the tray, but then Ren would take her up again and kiss her.

The little aches were dying away and his inky black eyes soothed her. His body was different; he was muscled, from his legs to his back to his chest. There was not a bit of his form that had been neglected during training. But Mary's form had stalled at adolescence. She was this skinny waif, nothing more than a skeleton covered in cracked skin, deflated breasts, withered hands.

Mary's nipples rubbed against his chest and he adjusted so that he was between her legs. With a brush of his hand, the servant girl went away. He touched her gingerly, the tips of his claws dancing on the surface of her mummified skin.

"Promise me you'll never leave me," he whispered in her ear and kissed her neck. "You'll be with me forever."

He shared his own saliva with her, filled her mouth.

"Yes, Zhangfu."

He moved to her neck, to the mark he'd given her sixty-seven years before and he sank his teeth into it. Unlike the last time when she batted him and stormed off, this time, an orgasmic trill went through her body and she wrapped her desiccated thighs around his waist.

She heaved breaths, felt his lips brush against her jaw, down her neck and shoulder, suckled the limp breast and she was embarrassed, but her body ached too much to blush again.

She stared over his shoulder, at the dark violet sky changing to a grayish lavender. For a moment, they wallowed in the ecstasy of kissing, but then, Ren noticed his claws and shoved them under the bubbly surface. He shifted to the opposite side of the tub and Mary was empty.

She looked at her own hand. She couldn't shift them into claws for more than a few seconds. Ren's head was bowed and his breaths were even. The ever-present thumping slowed.

"What happened to you?" she said.

He glanced up at her and his face was snow white. The pulse had doubled. He bit into his lip, buried his head under his hands.

"They took my mother," he said and his voice cracked.

His legs were to his chest and the water roiled like a cauldron bubbling.

Through clenched teeth, he said, "Please don't ask me."