The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine Read Online Free Page A

call of a morning bird, a strange sad song ever repeated. If the bird
glanced through her window now he would see the sunrise reflected in the V of her
crotch.
    True love waits.
    Holly forced herself to remove her fingers from the slippery lips of her vulva. Her
abstinence ring was slick and bright. She was filled up with the torturous dripping
of her own desire, ineluctable. The honey of her longing was leaking from her. Pain,
but pleasure with it. She would wait. Jack was everything she ever wanted. Jack was
handsome, patient, kind. She turned over, pressed her head into her pillow and groaned
in frustration. The currawong hopped closer to her window, peered inside and watched
her frantic panting grow calmer as she plummeted into sleep. He tipped his head and
peered at her with one golden eye as the sun rose up over Clayfield and illuminated
the perfect peach of Holly’s naked arse.

The House of the Sleeping Beauties
    by YASUNARI KAWABATA
    Holly woke to flowers. She was loved; the flowers proved this to her.
    A dozen long-stemmed roses, deep crimson, and a long, white box like a coffin for
a baby. The flowers inside were so perfect she was afraid to touch them. She put
the little flower-coffin down on the kitchen table and lowered her head into it.
No smell at all, and the flowers so perfect that they might be made of wax. She touched
a downy petal, succulent and soft as velvet, and snatched her hand back quickly in
case the petal should bruise under the light press of her fingers.
    The card said Happy Valentine’s Day.
    Her mother emerged, damp from the shower, the crisp white robe spotted at the shoulder
with drops from her hair. Her father was not far behind her, swooping in from the
corridor like a wild bird, his hands alighting on his wife, fingers like claws,
his other hand gripping her thin waist. The hungry beak of a mouth biting into her
neck.
    Her mother laughed, then pulled away from him, nodding towards Holly with her damp
head. Holly was being spared any hint of passion, for which she was relieved. She
picked the roses roughly from their coffin and wrestled them into a vase. A single
petal fell from one of the perfect flower heads and landed prosaically in the sink.
    ‘They’re beautiful.’ Her mother reached out but couldn’t bring herself to touch them.
‘You and Jack doing anything for Valentine’s Day?’
    ‘Dinner,’ Holly said. ‘He’s taking me somewhere special, a surprise.’
    ‘He’s so sweet,’ her mother said, tipping her head to one side as if she were admiring
a puppy or a small child. ‘Your father and I are so happy for you.’
    ‘Don’t wait up for us.’ Her father winked playfully at her mother. ‘I have a feeling
we might stay out late.’
    She didn’t want to imagine the passion her parents still shared but it was impossible
not to. They were always touching, holding hands, little kisses exchanged furtively
in the corridor, but if they noticed her watching they would spring apart as if they
had been involved in some illegal activity. When she married Jack she would be treated
to the same simmering life of carnality. Sooner or later it would be hers. She hoped
it would be sooner.
    ‘You’re lucky to have found Mr Right so young,’ her mother said, stroking one of
the rose leaves between her fingers.
    Holly nodded. Everyone who saw them together knew that this was true. It would be
hard, being single on Valentine’s Day. The streets were awash with romance. Flowers,
chocolates, little packages tied up with red ribbon clutched in the sweaty palms
of teenage boys. Couples kissing in cafés, on park benches, fingers intertwined.
Holly was familiar with the state of being in love, she liked its sweetness. There
was a certain innocence about Valentine’s Day, a playground kind of fondness relating
to the heart but not the body.
    She walked through a city in love and knew that without Jack she would feel an outcast.
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