He called me all sorts of vile names and said I was a disgrace to the family. My mother pleaded with him not to do it, but he did it anyway, all my cl...thes, all my stuff, out onto the front lawn. I put everything into two large plastic trash bags and went over to my best friend's house. I didn't know where else to go. Her folks were very nice, and very understanding. Her dad fixed up a little room in their basement and I lived there for almost a year until they moved away and I had to find. She sat, feet curled under her, deep in thought as to what he might like. She needed Clive to be out so she could plan her surprise. She decided to send him out for pizza. It’d have to go cold, there wouldn’t be time to eat it, but that was a sacrifice worth making…When Clive came back Sarah had got everything ready. He burst through the door, pizza in his hands, and stopped short when he saw the chair in the middle of the room. Almost identical to how he’d arranged it for Sarah: a length of. Kneeling there, satin rustling as I bend closer, hair lightly brushingshoulders, shivering a little in a new skin, the glow within suffusing me,I could imagine nothing else.I lightly touch my lips to the very tip of him. Somewhere deep inside Ihear a tiny, fading voice cry no, and no, before it dies away. My handslides to the root of him, and just below; what dangles there now gentlycaptured, mine to hold. I bend still closer, felt the length of him brushmy cheek, a little scared still. The. He entered the hut, returning with his shield, assegai and knobkerrie club. David drew out two cheroots, he lit one, handing the other to N’debi. Whose face lit up with a smile off pleasure? Hanga had his saddlebags and bedroll ready along with the pack mule, when they returned to the house. Two hours later they passed through the gates out into the veldt. Chapter 39 That night they camped by a hedge of ‘wait a minute’ thorn bushes tethering Kahn and the mule by it. Has N’debi roasted meat.