Free A Cruel Season for Dying by Harker Moore

already open, she began with his head and neck tonight, rubbing and pressing where worry and
     fatigue had disturbed the natural flow of
ki
through the channels.
    “Feels good.” He spoke once as her hands flowed to his shoulders. Then, “Uhhh, that one is sensitive, Hanae,” when she had
     moved to his back. “Where are you?” he said in another moment. Jimmy liked to have her name the
tsubos,
the fixed points on the channels where
ki
could be taken in or released.
    “You should not speak,” she said. “Empty mind is important for the receiver as well as for the giver of healing.”
    “I want to know,” he insisted.
    “Mei-mon,”
she answered. “The gate of life.”
    “Because …?”
    “Because it is so near
jin-yu,
the seat of inborn energy.” Her fingers flowed to the place. “
Mei-mon
and
jin-yu
are each connected with the life force inherited from the parents. In only a few hours, you will return to work. Restoring
     the proper flow of
ki
here builds stamina.”
    Now, at last, she could feel him smile. “I thought it was
shi-shitsu
that did that.”
    “That
tsubo
is also near
jin-yu,
” she answered. “But its name implies another kind of stamina.”
    “If I remember correctly,” he said, “
‘shi-shitsu’
translates roughly as …
sperm room.
” He rolled over beneath her fingers.
    “I am not finished.”
    “I feel much better. I want to hold my wife.”
    She lay down beside him, naked again beneath her kimono as no proper Japanese wife. He held her, stomach to back, his chin
     resting in her hair. Not speaking at first, which was always the way of his unburdening.
    “There was another body today.” He broke the silence.
    It explained the blockage of
ki.
She turned toward him, her hand cradling his face. She could sense his eyes searching, blinder than she was in the dark.
     “Have you spoken yet to Kenjin?”
    “No.”
    “You must ask him to return.”
    “I don’t know,” he said softly.
    She felt his tension increasing again, building in the muscles of his jaw. “He is your friend,” she said. “He wears
on
with no offense.” The concept had no real English equivalent. The closest translation was debt of gratitude.
    “And I wear mine with none,” he said.
    “Then, my dear husband, perhaps it will be a calm sea you cross.”
    She had thought him long asleep when he reached for her. She turned toward him, slipping from her kimono. She was eager as
     always for their lovemaking. It was a joy to
see
Jimmy, not just with the tips of her fingers on his face, but with the full feel of him, body to body. In these moments he
     was completely hers, wholly apprehended.
    He began tonight with gentleness, kissing her deeply. But soon he was like raging water carrying her to that place of peace.
     She moved with his thrusts, the light behind her lids a growing pressure. At the moment of her climax, she was the light,
     consumed in the grace of their union.

    The solution ran off like thin blood. The excess dripping into the steel pan as the man hung the photographs to dry. His fingers
     appeared detached from his hands, moving like small white worms in the brothel red light of the developing room.
    But that was only an illusion, for his flesh pressed against him with increased vigor. No matter how often he bathed, he could
     smell himself. The odor of decaying fruit. And the feel of it. That, too, was more acute than ever. Arms. Legs. The sack of
     skin attached to muscle. The connection of tendon to bone. The flush of blood. He had an absolute consciousness of every cell
     in his body. Every molecule. Every atom. Every nucleus of every atom.
    That the level of communion with his physical self had grown these last months did not surprise him. Nor that he had plunged
     to the very edge of sensation. It was an expected consequence of awakening.
    What was still a mystery to him was if there were others of his kind who had awakened. Or was he the only one on the physical
     plane fully