"Aanhh~ Hnngh~~!!!~~!!"
Cang was still—
He was still—
Stop. Look away. Walk away—
He could not walk away.
His legs were his own. His legs worked. He was not yet under the hold that would arrive later — that was later, that was when Cang"s eye found him, that was subsequent — right now his legs were his own and he was making the specific, humiliating, voluntary choice to stand at the tree and watch.
Walk away, he told himself.
He watched.
The full, wet, suspended, bouncing reality of his wife wrapped around a man in the ancient water, the koala-hold position giving her body the specific, weight-assisted, gravity-compounded depth of something that her voice was reporting at full volume—
"—AAAHN~!!!— it"s too big— it"s—HAANN~!!!—Senior I can"t—it keeps—KYAAN~!!!—"
Too big.
He heard those words.
