Beg Me
Page 27
I hugged her close. We dozed. I was conscious of her resting her lips on mine like tiny pillows, brushing them, kissing me in butterfly pecks. I was conscious of her caressing my hair, always so fascinated with it, touching my fur below and marveling again at its texture. I didn’t want to cry anymore, so instead I shook and shivered, and she held on to me. She spoke in Thai again, perhaps knowing the words didn’t matter, only the tone, the unintelligible words like faint music outside my window.
I knew then I was going to be all right.
I told them about the case. I never talk about cases, unless it’s to Helena. It felt right with them. I told them about beautiful doomed Violet and that bitch Danielle, about Ah Jo Lee and Anna. I confided how I didn’t know what to think about tortured Isaac, more than the others. He was a villain, but not a villain like others I’ve encountered, ones it was easy to hate and to mess around with for the sake of my client’s check.
“I remembered what you told me about Tiger Woods,” I said, looking to Keith. “How Thai people were thrilled and greeted him like one of their own.”
“It’s very true,” said Busaba, nodding.
My eyes were still on Keith. “And I think about you living in Bangkok and…” I trailed off. I didn’t know what I wanted to say.
“I understand,” he said with a faint smile.
Look for the irony, but keep in mind it also comes looking for you.
Keith had gone to Thailand by choice, lived there by choice, could have left quietly if the place had treated him badly or it wasn’t to his liking. How much he felt like an alien in America, the country of his birth, was a separate issue, but Asia…Asia for him was a choice. And the love he had found with Busaba was a small miracle of its own. But for Isaac…
For Isaac, the union of his parents, no matter how tawdry or committed or whatever it had been, had been a curse, making him a prisoner of culture, a refugee of time. And, sweet Jesus, how many other Isaacs were out there struggling with their self-loathing, I wondered. Feeling they weren’t black, being told they weren’t Asian? No safe harbor of identity. How many of us have missed the quiet traps thanks to the precious, bloody plodding progress of a few decades?
“Brother never had a chance, you know what I’m saying?” said Keith. “I don’t know what to tell ya.”
“That’s okay,” I said. We were all quiet for a long moment.
“You miss Violet,” said Busaba.
“Yes.”
We listened to the birds in the park.
“Is Wimbledon far?” she asked out of the blue.
I smiled. “No, not far. We can get there by train or Tube. But the tennis is over, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Busaba smiled. “Oh, no. Not that.”
Keith put an arm around me and said, “I don’t know if any of this is gonna be comfort to you, Teresa, but we have an idea.”
“What is it?” I asked, my voice dead. I was numb.
“We should go to Wimbledon,” said Busaba.
“What for?”
“You’ll see.”
I shrugged, clapped my hands, and said, “Okay, we’ll go to Wimbledon.”
“We must go to this place,” she told me, holding out an address on a scrap of notepaper.
I didn’t understand until we took the District Line to Wimbledon Park. Busaba was cheerful, linking her arm through mine, and I brightened, infected by her joy. Keith held on to my other hand as we made the short walk to Calonne Road. Busaba had done some checking around and found Wat Buddhapadipa, a genuine Thai Buddhist temple right here in London.
We strolled through the gallery of astonishing murals that had come all the way from Thailand, and I found myself stopping at the one where Buddha defeats the ultimate bad guy, Mara. Then Keith and Busaba led me into the shrine room for the real purpose of our visit. Busaba had bought an offering of flowers at the convenient stand, and now she placed them in front of the golden statue. And then black woman, black man, and golden girl knelt to pay homage.
I didn’t know the words, didn’t know what was expected of me. It didn’t matter. I watched the two of them bow forward three times on their knees and did likewise. Then they showed me how to light a candle and pour water over an altar image for the spirit of Violet.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Lawrence lives and works in London as a freelance writer, contributing to newspapers and various women’s magazines. She blames an early boyfriend for inspiring her to write fiction after he regularly dragged her into the West End’s various bookshops for mysteries, science fiction, and comics. She went looking for erotica all on her own. Her first novel, also featuring Teresa Knight, was Strip Poker.
ALSO BY LISA LAWRENCE
Strip Poker
BEG ME
A Delta Trade Paperback
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Brown Skin Books edition published in the UK in June 2007
Delta Trade Paperback edition / June 2007
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2007 by Lisa Lawrence
Cover photograph copyright © ImageSource/Getty Images
Delta is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Lawrence, Lisa, 1970–
Beg me / Lisa Lawrence.
p. cm.
1. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 2. Sex-oriented businesses—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 3. Bondage (Sexual behavior)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6112.A989B44 2007
823'.92—dc22
2007002413
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-440-33699-0
v3.0