{No! Don't do this!} screamed Dee as Manchu tossed her over his shoulder.

{Xiaohu, it's for your own good,} he said as he hauled her out of her room, and downstairs. Though she kicked and fought him, he held her tight. {I'm coming with her! Be ready!}

{Manchu, I swear to Buddha I will kill you if you do this!}

The man laughed. {You? You would never hurt me, and you know it.} He slapped her bottom hard enough to make her gasp. {Now behave and things won't be so bad.}

She growled and bit down on his back. With a yell, he threw her down onto the ground as if she were a burning sack. She lay there stunned, her breath knocked from her.

{Damnit, Xiaohu! Now look what you've made me do! Li Mei! Have you got a muzzle for her?}

{What happened?} the woman asked from further down the hall.

{She bit me!}

Chuckling good-naturedly, Li Mei came into view. {The little tiger bit you?}

{Right on my back!}

Li Mei lifted his shirt and looked at the ring of teeth marks. Dee hadn't broken the skin, and it looked to just be bruised. {Your shirt saved you. Now pick her back up and bring her along. Chu Hua and the others are waiting.}

Glaring at his friend, he cautiously lifted her again. This time he carried her under one arm, like a sack of potatoes. Still trying to catch her breath, she was easier to carry. He made it to the women's bathing pool without any problems. At the edge stood his girlfriend, Chu Hua, along with several of the women from the house. When Dee caught sight of them, she began to squirm again.

{Not this time,} Manchu said. He lifted her up, almost over his head, and threw her into the pool of warm water. {That should teach you to bite me!}

{Yes, yes. Now go. You shouldn't even be in here,} Li Mei said.

{If you want, I'll take a closer look at it later,} Chu Hua said, with a little smile.

Manchu perked up at that. {Really?}

{Go! No more flirting! Go! Out!} demanded Li Mei, watching Dee splutter at the surface, thrashing about in the silk pajamas that were now weighing her down.

He hurried off, knowing that he would be better off far away from that pool, not only because he had just angered his best friend, but because it wouldn't do to anger Li Mei as well. Rubbing the spot where Dee had bitten him, he went off to check on the classes that were being held at the moment.

{You are being overly stubborn, Xiaohu. You have been here for two weeks, and have only changed and bathed once in that time. Yet if you are not sitting, staring at that picture, you're working out. That does not make a good combination.} Li Mei stood at the edge of the pool with the others, blocking Dee's escape path. {Either you wash up right now, or we will wash you. It is your choice, little one, but we will not be gentle as we remove those layers of dirt.}

Submerged up to her eyes, Dee scowled through the wispy steam rising from the surface of the water. Her hair was plastered to her head, strands of it in her eyes. She wanted to run. Why couldn't they just leave her alone to sulk in the way she wanted to? If she wanted to sit and look at a picture of him while being stinky, that was her business, not theirs!

{Well?}

Dee looked around at each of the faces. Every one of them wore the same expression: Get out of there before you're clean, and we'll make you wish you could repel dirt. She stood, letting the water sheet off her exposed body.

{Fine. I'll bathe.} She tugged the soaking wet silk off her, petulantly throwing the material at the women.

{That's better. And don't forget that this one needs a bath as well,} Li Mei added, reaching down and picking up Tangram. He grumbled, trying to squirm away. However, he was thrilled when the woman tossed him into the pool of water next to his mistress. {He's been smelling a bit lately as well. You need to take care of him, Xiaohu. We are not pet sitters here.}

The woman turned her back and started walking away. Naked and dripping wet, Dee put her hands on her hips and started silently mocking Li Mei.

{Do not think I don't see that, Xiaohu. Just for your impertinence, you may wash dishes tonight. Alone.}

Glowering, Dee folded her arms across her breasts. It wasn't fair! It simply wasn't fair! They were treating her like a child, and she was a grown woman!

Chu Hua asked the other women to leave, assuring them that she would be fine alone. Once they were gone, she knelt at the edge of the pool. {You do need to keep clean, Xiaohu. What if he comes to the door looking for you? He would not like to see you like this.}

{What does he care? He won't come here. He doesn't have the guts to come here. And he wouldn't care how I looked. You haven't seen those other women!}

{Yes I have. I do read more than the Hong Kong newspaper.} She hitched her pant legs up and dipped her feet into the warm water. {So what if he was with other women? You knew that before you let him bed you. Now that you know who the women were, that makes a difference?}

She scrubbed at her arm a little more than necessary, turning the skin bright red. {It does. He was with two of them when I went home the day we got back. Two! I wasn't enough for him.}

{Did you ever consider that perhaps they were coming on to him, and that he wanted nothing to do with them? That perhaps he left you at the restaurant so that he could get rid of them before you saw them? That he was doing what he did because he was worried what you might think?}

Her scowl returned. She had thought of that, but didn't give it much attention; her desire to be right was too strong. When she had walked in, Eddie hadn't been putting up much of a fight from her point of view. {Chu Hua, I'm just tired of doing this with him. It's always a fight. Always. He was worried that I was going to have an affair with this man in Spain.}

{And you were worried about the woman in France. So what? You worked that out, and both realized that you were just being paranoid.}

{Perhaps. But, for the last time, you did not see what I saw. He practically had his pants down! And he was... Exposed! If I hadn't walked in at that moment, given a few more minutes, I'm sure they all would have been naked and...} She stopped, gagging at the thought.

{You're impossible, you know that?} Chu said, a note of disgust in her voice. {You said it yourself that he took care of you the second night you got drunk and those women attacked you.} She paused and shook her head. {If anyone needs to apologize, it's you, Dee Lemma.}

{Why should I? I'm not the one who did anything wrong!} she demanded, flipping her hair back. She winced as the wet mass smacked her back with such force it felt like the blow of a whip.

{Because from what I'm hearing, he did nothing wrong either. You didn't hear out his side of the story. You just assumed what you saw was what was happening. I barely know him, and I know that what you described sounds nothing like anything he would do! Especially not now that he has you! Or had. If he took you back after the way you've been acting, he has got to be the craziest man alive.}

Dee was silent as she scrubbed her stomach. She wanted to scream. There was too much to consider. Too much to think about. She wanted to sleep. As soon as she was done here, she would go up to her room and sleep until it was time to wash dishes. The last thing she wanted right now was food.

{Chu Hua?} Li Mei said, coming back into the bathing area, a clean silk robe folded across her arm.

{Yes, Li Mei?}

{I would like you to come with me, please. Leave Xiaohu to herself to finish bathing.} She gave Dee a severe glare, setting the robe next to a towel before turning back the way she had come.

{Yes, Ma'am.} Chu Hua stood to leave. {Xiaohu, think about what I said, and think about being the big one and making an apology. After all, this fight is because you were too stubborn to listen.}

She said nothing, staring at Tangram who paddled around, enjoying the water. Dee dared not look up and reveal that she was crying. But Tangram knew. As she sunk down onto one of the submerged seats, he propelled himself to her, nosing her hands away from her face. She allowed him to squirm his way onto her lap. As she pet his wet fur, he licked away her tears.
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