She stared up at him resignedly, dull eyes and set mouth, saying nothing, but all her muscles finally alive and warmed from use.
He stared into her eyes, and let his right hand rest on the kneecap as though it would not move again, as if they would stay like this for day upon tedious day. She smelled of freshness, something beyond bottling, the healthy fresh aliveness of youth. Her skin was golden and soft, her face eggshell round and amooth, her eyes deep black. And then Remo saw it in the- eyes, that small slight desire that his hand move up again across her thigh.
And he did so, but hesitantly, and even slower than before. But coming down to the knee again, he brought it down faster and slightly harder, then to the inside of the thigh, steady smooth warm strokes always stopping short of her essence. The dark rims capping her golden mounds formed sharper edges and Remo lowered his mouth to their concentric circles, then drew a tongue line down to her navel, while never ceasing the slow rhythmic force on the tender inner thigh.
He saw her mouth relax. She would allow herself to be taken, even though she did not like it. This is what she would be telling herself. But she was lying to herself. She wanted him.
Remo still held her small wrists above her head. He had broken the pattern of taking her by force. If he let go she would be obliged by her upbringing to try to fight her way free. So he held them. But easily.
With his right hand, he worked her breasts, then her navel, her upper arms, her inner thighs before finally reaching her moistened essence. She was moaning, "You white bastard. You white bastard."
Then, the penetration, but not fully, holding out, waiting for her to demand. And she demanded. "Damn you, I want it," she groaned, her dark eyes almost disappearing beneath her upper lids.
He released her wrists now and with both hands began kneading her buttocks again, increasing pressure, increasing penetration, bringing maximum pressure on her sensory organ, willing her into orgasm, holding only for a bare moment of peak, then relaxing to the usual, ho-hum, hysterical shrieks of the woman.
"Ah," yelled Mei Soong, her eyes shut in ecstasy, "Fuck Mao. Fuck Mao," and Remo suddenly withdrew fully and stood up. Under different circumstances, he would have stayed, but now he needed her to follow him, to be unsure that he would ever want her again. So he left her exhausted on the couch, and zipped up his trousers, having performed fully clothed.
And then he saw Chiun standing in the doorway, shaking his head.
"Mechanical," he said.
"What the hell do you want?" Remo said, angrily. "You give me 25 exact steps to follow and then you call it mechanical."
"There is always room for artistry."
"Why not show me how it's done?"
Chiun ignored him. "Besides, I think to do it in front of another person is disgusting. But you Americans and Chinese are pigs anyway."
"You're some piece of work," said Remo who had enjoyed less passion in his sex, than a man across the street intended to enjoy in Remo's death.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"I must talk to you, Chiun," said Remo. He shut the door behind him, leaving Mei Soong still sprawled, exhausted and drained, across her bed.
Chiun sat down on the gray carpeted floor, his legs crossed before him in the lotus position. His face was passive.
Remo sat down before him. He could, if he wished, sit for hours now, having worked for years on his concentration and body control He was taller than Chiun, but as they sat, their eyes were level.
"Chiun," said Remo. "You're going to have to return to Folcroft. I'm sorry, but you're just too much trouble."
And then Remo caught something, which he was sure he did not catch. He could not quite define it. Not in Chiun. In anyone else, he would have decided a preparation for attack or a decision to attack. But that was impossible in Chiun. For one, Remo knew Chiun had eliminated any telegraphing motions, at least as much as he was able, right down to the first flash of preparation which could sometimes be seen in the eyes but more often in the shift of the spinal column. Most people adept at the trade learned to give nothing from their eyes, but the shift in the spinal column was like hanging out a sign.
And Remo, if he did not know that Chiun did not give out signs, and if he did not know that Chiun had deep affection for him, would have sworn at that moment, in the hotel room in Boston, with the doors shut and the blinds drawn, that Chiun had just decided to kill him.
"Something troubles you," said Chiun.
"The truth is, Chiun, that you've become impossible.
You're going to blow this mission with your nonsense about the Chinese. I've never before seen you less than perfect, and now you're acting like a child."
"Smith has ordered you to send me back?"
"Now don't get upset. This is just a professional decision."
"What I am asking is did Smith order my return?"
"And if I told you he did, would it make things easier for you?"
"I must know."
"No. Smith did not order it. I want it."
Chiun raised his right hand delicately, signalling that he wished to make a point and that Remo should listen with care.
"I will explain to you, my son, why I do things you do not understand. To understand actions, one must understand the person. I must tell you of me and my people. And you will know why I do what I do, and why I hate the Chinese.
"Many people would think of me as an evil man, a professional killer of people, a man who teaches other people to kill. So be it. But I am not an evil man. I am a good man. I do what I am supposed to do. It is our way of life in Sinanju, a way we needed for survival.
"You come from a rich country. Even the poorest countries of the west are rich compared to my home. I have told you some small things about my village of Sinanju. It is poor as you do not understand poor. The land can support only one-third of the families who live there. That is in the good years.
"Before we discovered a way to survive, we would destroy half our girl babies at birth. We would drop them sadly into the bay, and say we were sending them home, to be reborn during better times. During famines, we would send the male children home the same way, waiting for another time more propitious to birth. I do not believe that by dropping them in the bay we send them home. And I do not believe that most of our people believe it.
But it is an easier thing for a mother to say than that she gave her child to the crabs and sharks. It is a lie to make grief more endurable.
"Imagine China as the body and Korea as the arm. In the armpit is Sinanju, and to that village the lords of China and the lords of Korea would exile people. Royal princes who had betrayed their fathers, wise men, magicians who had done evil. One day, I believe in your year of 400 and our day of the nightingales, a man came to our poor village.
"He was as no man we had ever seen. He looked very different. He was from the island beyond the peninsula. From Japan. He was before ninjutsu, before karate, before all. He was, on his own island, accursed, having taken his mother as a woman. But he was innocent. He did not know she was his mother. But they punished him nevertheless, taking out his eyes with bamboo sticks."
Chiun's voice began to quiver as he imitated pomposity: " 'We cast you to the scum of this scum land,' the Japanese captain told the poor blind man. 'Death is too good for you.' And the blind man answered."
Chiun's voice now exuded integrity. His eyes lifted to the ceiling.
" 'Hark,' the man said. 'You who have eyes, do not see. You, who have hearts, know not mercy. You, who have ears, do not hear the waves lap upon your boat. You, who have hands, do not comfort.
" 'Woe be to you, when your hardheartedness returns and no doves mark its trail in peace. Because I see now a new people of Sinanju. I see a people who will settle your petty disputes. I see men of men. I see people of goodness, bringing their wrath to your foolish squabbles. From this day forth, when you approach Sinanju, bring money for the wars you cannot fight. That is the tax I place upon you and upon all those not from this village. To pay for the services you cannot do yourself, because you know not piety.' "