The Book of Firsts

Forty-Eight

"I hear you’ve been discussing mock tests with the grade coordinator. Are you tediously immersed in study once again?"

Shrugging, I followed Kyou into the garden. "In part. I’ve set up a study plan, and have revision targets every week, but I’ve left enough time for some touring about and incidental death matches with Lania. She’s quite formidable at Tyranny."

"Touring about?"

"Lania’s family’s visiting Dorsey Lake, and have a spare spot in the car."

"Possibly the most crowded time of the year to go there, and no doubt doubly so with Dorsey headlining the news this week. Are the Nichols rushing up in hopes of exploring fantastic crystal caverns?"

"We’re going to the west part of the lake, not where they’ve found those caves. They mightn’t ever let the general public near that, anyway, since there’s only one other site in the world with such large selenite formations." I took the vividly green tea he handed me, and added: "I can only feel sorry for the HSR engineers."

Kyou raised his eyebrows. "You think the caves will cause problems for the high-speed rail project?"

"Delayed for years, I would expect. Even if they decide that the vibration doesn’t pose a risk to the crystals, and no-one files a lawsuit to protect them, the cave system sounds extensive. Discovering that the only corridor through those mountains is completely riddled with near-surface caverns is going to mean, well, a hell of a lot of survey work before they continue construction. Makes me wonder what kind of survey they did previously."

I paused, because Kyou’s expression had gone very strange.

"You—your family wasn’t involved in the survey work, were they?"

"No, but they’re heavily invested in development around the HSR stations." He picked up his cup, put it down again, and smiled slowly. "Ten years, and most of the rest of the track far further along. For some reason the section through the Ramparts left to last. I really, really do have to wonder about that survey work."

"You mean…sabotage?" I asked. "Does your family have dramatic life-long enemies to go along with the internal fighting?"

"Well, competitors. Is rail construction something that interests you, Cheshire?"

"There’s usually plenty of bridges involved in HSR, so yes. Also lots of fun physics in the air pressure of very fast things. Almost everything about physics and engineering and architecture interests me, which is going to be one of my challenges because I won’t be able to resist signing up for a mass of extra courses at Helios U."

"Remember to at least leave your books behind on your trip."

"There won’t be much chance for study—we’ve a full schedule of nature walks and fishing. Staying at a camp site, but the Nichols have rented this multi-bunk cabin rather than trying out tents in winter. We’re going to toast marshmallows and freeze our butts off while telling ghost stories. What about you three? Other than buying a guitar?"

"The guitar’s in Shanghai, so no camping. The only other definite thing on our agenda is a sky walk, but there’s plenty of museums and concerts and a whole massive country for which a week isn’t nearly enough."

"Oh? Go to Guilin, if you get the chance. One of my favourite places on the planet. Scenery to die for."

"Site of another of your mother’s projects?"

"Research for my dad. He’s been working on a romance about a missionary who is secretly an atheist, and who gets caught up in a ghost marriage ceremony in China a couple of centuries ago. And it feels like he’s been writing it for a couple of centuries—he was pushing himself to improve as a writer, couldn’t decide on the ending, and threw up his hands to write a sequel to an earlier book instead. His fans will be happy to get the sequel, and I guess I’m happy with the delay, since we’ve been to Guilin four times in the last three years. But he’s very frustrated with himself. My dad’s usually able to write three or even four books a year, and he’s never spent so long on anything before."

"I hear we’ve recruited him to add racy sex scenes to Echoes," Kyou said.

"Every game sex scene I’ve ever seen has been more awkward than racy," I said. "But Dad said a game romance sounded fun. Though not this year, because he’s bounced off the Guilin story again, and his brain is melting, so he’s relaxing with some erotica."

"Does he usually have trouble with endings?"

"No, it’s because he’s trying to be literary to prove a point. Someone who tried to win my mother away told my dad he would never win the Booker Prize writing romances, so he’s trying to produce a story with a happy ending that critics will like."

Kyou laughed. "I very much hope he succeeds, then. Having a Booker Prize winner adding racy romances to Echoes will save us half the marketing budget."

"So long as he stays hung up on finding a Booker-worthy conclusion, I don’t think he’ll ever finish it." I sipped the tea, then grimaced and put it on the coffee table. "That’s truly awful."

Kyou sipped, paused, sipped again, then took our cups and emptied them into the sink. Then he picked up a small packet of tea from the bench and dropped it directly into the bin. "I’ll warn Rin to avoid it."

"How do you want to approach this challenge?" I asked, settling myself

"It’s only fair if we do everything the other tells us to. And think how much I’ll learn about your tastes when you tell me to get on my knees so you can step on me."

"Sounds like we’re going to learn more about your tastes. For me…" I slid my hands beneath his shirt. "I want you to talk, Kyou."

"Deploy my greatest weapon, hm?" That incredible voice dropped to an even more mesmerising note, and he pulled me closer. "Shall I recite some French poetry, Cheshire? Will that make you melt?"

"You speak French?"

"Technically, I am French, since I was born in Provence. The ancestral lands. Our great-grandfather prefers to speak it, and we get Looks if our accent isn’t up to standard. But all that infant strictness at least means I know some of the great French masterpieces for your appreciation. Let’s start with An Ode to Making Your Pants Fall Off."

This last was in French, and accompanied by a deeply sultry look. When I didn’t respond with anything other than a pleased smile, he began to describe my body parts, and how much he wanted to suck them, bite them, rub them with things that throbbed, and various combinations of all three. It took something for me to keep a suitable expression for the first few sentences, but Kyou’s voice is truly something special, and French only doubled its effectiveness, so it wasn’t long before the desire to giggle faded.

He managed to keep up a poetic-sounding monologue during all the process of shedding clothes, and then interspersed additional lines between doing exactly as he was describing, and didn’t tail off until well after he pressed me down on my stomach, when the tempo got too much for him.

"You just love it like this," he murmured in my ear, after he’d recovered enough breath to regain the seductive cadence. "And I swear, you come as easily as breathing, little cat. You go so tight I can barely hold on. It makes me want to pound you into eternity."

I shifted beneath him, moving so we were side-by-side and I could wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him for long minutes. Then I lightly bit his ear, and murmured in my not nearly so correctly accented French: "Have I ever mentioned that I’m a natural polyglot?"

His breath came out as effectively as if I’d hit him in the stomach, and then he laughed helplessly, and tightened his arms around me. "Cheshire, you wretch."

"French poetry sure is graphic," I said.

"You kept your expression perfectly. I was convinced you didn’t understand what I was saying."

"Different from what I asked for, but still highly evocative." I shifted back a little, smiling at him. "We have a similar weakness for amusing ourselves privately."

"Maybe Minx would be a better name for you."

I gave him what might pass as a cat-worthy grin. "Want to play some Tyranny, then revisit more French classics?"

He laughed, and slid a hand down my back. "Absolutely."