tent’s cross poles. “Sai! Don’t!”
He looked down at me. The smeared mess of Kitten’s last rouge and eye make-up experiment made him look like an abused doll. “At last I find hope of escape.”
And with that he pitched forward, tipping over the cooking tripod and falling free. The rope jerked tight and swung as he reached its limit. The whole tent shook.
“Sai!” I leaped up to the cross pole and tore at the knot as Sai made hideous dying fish noises below me. Thank god he hadn’t dropped far enough to break his neck, but if I didn’t untie that knot he was going to choke to death.
It was too tight, and my fingernails were worn to the quick from digging tubers. I looked around, desperate. Queenie’s cooking blade hung “out of reach” on the center pole just below my feet. I snatched it up and chopped down on the knot. The blade bit through the rope and Sai hit the ground like a sack of shark bait. I was next to him in a second, digging my finger under the rope and tugging it lose none too gently. “You stupid butt-smack! What the fuck do you think you were doing?”
It took a minute for him to stop retching enough to answer. When he did it wasn’t to thank me. “How dare you? After shaming myself for these long days, too much the coward to do what must be done, I finally summon the strength and do the deed, and... and you ruin it!”
“Ruin it? I saved your life!” Then it hit me. “Wait a minute. Hope of escape? Is this what you meant by ‘finding a way out?’ You sorry-ass loser!”
He pouted. “And now you make it doubly hard. Now that I know the pain and fear of it first hand, how much more difficult will it be to find the courage a second time?”
I’m sorry to say I bitch-slapped him. Somebody had to. “You whiny little puke. You think you’re being brave by committing suicide? All that crap about honor and courage. You’re just giving up. Sure your life sucks right now, but you’re alive. You’ve got all your arms and legs. They work. As long as you’ve got all that there’s still a chance.”
Sai tried to push me away. I grabbed his jaw and forced him to look at me. “Can you save your fiancée from that dumb jock when you’re dead? Can you fix things with your dad? And what about me? You’re gonna leave me here to fend for myself?”
He flushed at that, turning from lavender to magenta. “Mistress Jae-En, I am ashamed that an outlander should show me the path of honor. You are correct. I have strayed, forgetting in my misery your plight and that of my beloved Wen-Jhai. Ending my own wretched life is a luxury I can not indulge in until I have done my all to deliver you both from your fates. I crave your forgiveness.”
Man, I hated when he got all gushy on me. “Forget it.”
From outside the tent we heard Queenie’s alto purr and Kitten’s soprano whine. They were coming back. I leaped up.
“Quick! The hibachi!” Good thing I pointed too. I had a tendency to mix my old dictionary with my new one when I got excited and half the time Sai didn’t know what I was talking about. He righted the cooking tripod as I shoved the rope under a trunk and leaped for the cross pole, yanked the chopper out of the wood, hung it back on its hook, and was down again sweeping the rug with a straw broom just as the tent flap started to open.
Sai, in a flash of inspiration that made me hope he’d gotten over his suicidal funk, tied one of kitten’s brightly colored scarves over the raw rope marks on his neck. It make him look like a sixties stereotype of an interior decorator, but it hid the evidence. Queenie and Kitten were busy talking and paid even less attention to us than usual. Probably more Hatfield and McCoy stuff.
After we finished making and serving our mistresses their vittles and cleaning up, we were finally allowed to lie down on our straw to sleep.
Sai whispered in my ear, “Again I apologize, Mistress Jae-En. I have been so long absorbed in my own despair that
He looked down at me. The smeared mess of Kitten’s last rouge and eye make-up experiment made him look like an abused doll. “At last I find hope of escape.”
And with that he pitched forward, tipping over the cooking tripod and falling free. The rope jerked tight and swung as he reached its limit. The whole tent shook.
“Sai!” I leaped up to the cross pole and tore at the knot as Sai made hideous dying fish noises below me. Thank god he hadn’t dropped far enough to break his neck, but if I didn’t untie that knot he was going to choke to death.
It was too tight, and my fingernails were worn to the quick from digging tubers. I looked around, desperate. Queenie’s cooking blade hung “out of reach” on the center pole just below my feet. I snatched it up and chopped down on the knot. The blade bit through the rope and Sai hit the ground like a sack of shark bait. I was next to him in a second, digging my finger under the rope and tugging it lose none too gently. “You stupid butt-smack! What the fuck do you think you were doing?”
It took a minute for him to stop retching enough to answer. When he did it wasn’t to thank me. “How dare you? After shaming myself for these long days, too much the coward to do what must be done, I finally summon the strength and do the deed, and... and you ruin it!”
“Ruin it? I saved your life!” Then it hit me. “Wait a minute. Hope of escape? Is this what you meant by ‘finding a way out?’ You sorry-ass loser!”
He pouted. “And now you make it doubly hard. Now that I know the pain and fear of it first hand, how much more difficult will it be to find the courage a second time?”
I’m sorry to say I bitch-slapped him. Somebody had to. “You whiny little puke. You think you’re being brave by committing suicide? All that crap about honor and courage. You’re just giving up. Sure your life sucks right now, but you’re alive. You’ve got all your arms and legs. They work. As long as you’ve got all that there’s still a chance.”
Sai tried to push me away. I grabbed his jaw and forced him to look at me. “Can you save your fiancée from that dumb jock when you’re dead? Can you fix things with your dad? And what about me? You’re gonna leave me here to fend for myself?”
He flushed at that, turning from lavender to magenta. “Mistress Jae-En, I am ashamed that an outlander should show me the path of honor. You are correct. I have strayed, forgetting in my misery your plight and that of my beloved Wen-Jhai. Ending my own wretched life is a luxury I can not indulge in until I have done my all to deliver you both from your fates. I crave your forgiveness.”
Man, I hated when he got all gushy on me. “Forget it.”
From outside the tent we heard Queenie’s alto purr and Kitten’s soprano whine. They were coming back. I leaped up.
“Quick! The hibachi!” Good thing I pointed too. I had a tendency to mix my old dictionary with my new one when I got excited and half the time Sai didn’t know what I was talking about. He righted the cooking tripod as I shoved the rope under a trunk and leaped for the cross pole, yanked the chopper out of the wood, hung it back on its hook, and was down again sweeping the rug with a straw broom just as the tent flap started to open.
Sai, in a flash of inspiration that made me hope he’d gotten over his suicidal funk, tied one of kitten’s brightly colored scarves over the raw rope marks on his neck. It make him look like a sixties stereotype of an interior decorator, but it hid the evidence. Queenie and Kitten were busy talking and paid even less attention to us than usual. Probably more Hatfield and McCoy stuff.
After we finished making and serving our mistresses their vittles and cleaning up, we were finally allowed to lie down on our straw to sleep.
Sai whispered in my ear, “Again I apologize, Mistress Jae-En. I have been so long absorbed in my own despair that
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