_____________________

"Because you told me you are not a communist," he said. "Why are you fucking me?"

"Maybe you go home to America and replace me with other woman," she replied. 

He loved listening to her throaty, crude accented English. 

"I am not a butterfly," Ethan replied, "and, when I return to the United States, I'm taking you with me." Otherwise, there wasn't much for him in America but bad memories and a strict Evangelical Christian mother who often quoted Holy Scripture when lecturing him. 

A loud creak sounded outside the shattered window. "What was that?" he asked, aware that discovery by either side would be disastrous for both of them. 

A rumble of thunder shook the old house, and it started to rain. The fat drops pounded the leaky roof like a barrage of pebbles. 

"It nothing," she replied, as she rolled over on her back. "Only ghosts. This is old house." Slipping an arm around his neck, she pulled him down on top of her. 

Still, that creaking noise bothered him—it sounded as if someone had shifted weight from one foot to another. His combat sense warned him to listen closer, and when he did, he heard a rat scampering across the rotting attic floor above their heads. 

"I think us together this morning too long," she said.  

"Maybe it is your Commie brother, Giap, spying on us." He watched her features closely and noticed a quiver in her lips as heat climbed into her face at the mention of her half brother's name. 

"No," she said, spitting her words out as if they were laced with cobra venom. "Giap recruiting in far village." 

Ethan knew that something dark and brooding existed between Tuyen and her half brother, but he couldn't ask what it was. She had made it clear when the affair had blossomed months earlier that questions of her private life and family were forbidden. To cross that line could mean losing her, and she was his addiction—his opium. 

Then as fast as the hate in her face had switched on, it vanished. "I loving you," she said; then kissed him on the mouth. He felt a thrill shoot through his groin as her lips pressed against his. He should have stopped, but he couldn't resist.

______________________

§ “Running with the Enemy” was awarded an Honorable Mention in General Fiction at the 2103 San Francisco Book Festival

§ Discover a new world of Publishing–-the 2013 San Francisco Book Festival Event held on May 18.