a Pleasure Rites, #1 by Ines Johnson (top ten books of all time TXT) 📗

Khial could not have blamed him. Though he'd watched his fathers do it time and again to each other, he'd never hit another human being before.

It felt good. Getting that aggression out of him. For half of his life people had looked at him as though violence would burst from his person at any moment. That he would unleash the monster his mother had created. Though he'd never committed a single act of violence in his entire life, people in polite society would cringe as he walked by. Khial would often cringe as he caught sight of himself in the mirror.

When he looked again at the man on the floor, bile rose in Khial's throat. His meal threatened to encore. Gone was the elation at releasing the aggression. Khial reached out his hand towards the man. He was met with a swift kick to the face.

Khial fell back sideways onto the bed. By the time he sat up, the man had regained his feet, and he didn't stand alone. Two other men stood beside him. The man charged towards Khial.

Khial clenched his fists once more, willing the adrenalin, the anger, the aggression to return to him. It didn't.

He unclenched his five fingers, releasing his tie to the world. He envisioned the blue balloon sailing off into the heavens.

Khial closed his eyes and waited for the pop of impact.

Then, he heard it. Pop! But he didn't feel it.

And then another. Pop! Followed by a succession of pops. Khial opened one then another eye. A flurry of robes flashed before him.

The monk moved like Khial played. Fluid, never ceasing the melody. Khial watched the notes form as the monk's feet spun, spread, and came back together. His arms spread wide, striking out but wrapping around a neck instead of punching. His hands came together cupping an incoming fist and twisting it to its limit without snapping the joint.

When the monk had finished, the three men lay in heaps on the floor. Incapacitated and bruised, but not bloody. The fight had been elegant, no brute force used.

"Out! Out!" The shelter manager bellowed from above.

Jian looked up at the man. The fight seeped out of his rigid shoulders, an inscrutable looked settled on his handsome face. It may have been shame. That would make sense. The man was a monk. Didn't monks swear never to harm?

Jian turned to Khial and motioned for him to precede him. Once outside, Jian looked around, appearing lost for a moment. The moon glowed bright as the sun in the dead of night. The silent streets had emptied of all souls.

"What are you doing here?" Khial asked.

Jian tilted Khial's head back and surveyed his bruise. "I came for you."

The cradle of Jian's warm palm threatened to tether Khial once more to the earth. But then Jian's harsh tone snapped the string.

"Those places are dangerous," the monk admonished. He placed both hands on Khial's shoulders and gave him a shake. "They're no place for a lord."

Khial could only focus on the warm feel at his shoulders. Moments ago, they had been numb, but he could still clearly feel where each of the monk's fingers touched him, pulling him down to the ground.

Khial shook the sensation off. "I'm not lord of anything."

"Your birthright made you a lord."

"My birthright?" Khial laughed. "My birthright is one of insanity and murder."

The monk shook his head. "We write our own pasts, Lord Khial."

Khial ignored that. "I didn't know monks could fight."

Jian put them both in motion towards the inner city. "The great thinker, Buddha, had a constant adversary: Mara. After a time, Buddha saw Mara lying in wait to trap him. Buddha did not run from his adversary. Buddha told Mara, I see you. Can you guess what he did next?"

"Buddha sucker punched Mara in the face?"

Jian made an amused sound in his throat. "No," he said.

He eyed Khial as his grade school teacher had when he’d tried to teach him something. Khial's grade school teacher knew he was smart. Knew that Khial listened, but refused to allow the lesson to penetrate.

"The Buddha said to Mara, 'Come have tea.' Buddha wanted to understand his adversary, for only then could he truly defeat him."

"I didn't see you ask any of those thugs for tea," Khial challenged.

Jian's laugh was humorless this time. "No, I understand men like that. I was a street turd before I was a monk."

Jian reached out and put a hand on Khial's shoulder. Again, the heat from his fingers penetrated through the fog of Khial's brain.

"I am sorry for your loss, my lord. I know you must be grieving, but your family needs you."

"I don't have a family."

"You have a wife and a child."

Khial's chin dropped to his chest. He hadn't thought of Chanyn in the last three days. He'd assumed she would not care to keep the bond with him, especially after losing both the baby and Dain. But the monk had said wife and child.

Khial thought back to the day of Dain's death. They had been together, Dain and Chanyn. Dain had said he felt the Goddess, that she'd blessed the union. She'd blessed Dain and then took him away, out of Khial's reach, leaving an empty vessel behind.

"Dain was my home and now he's gone."

"Dain is at your home," Jian said.

Khial's breath hitched, his eyes widened. Jian rested his hand once more on Khial's shoulder. The compassionate expression on the monk's face deflated any false hope that seeped into Khial's chest.

"Dain lives inside your wife's womb. That child is a part of him. As much as Chanyn cared for Dain, she didn't know him as you did. That child will need to know its father, both fathers. That child will need you, Lord Khial."

Khial looked up into the night's sky. The stars twinkled at him, beckoning him to sail away.

Jian began walking once more, back to civilization. Behind him, Khial followed. His feet heavy with each step on the earth, each strike of his heel a new tether.

23

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