The Clever Fox: Part Three (The Pleasure Hound Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

custody for producing pornographic art.”
    “What? No. None of his work is obscene.” Alyss looked to Sister Mychelle. “I’ve seen it all. It's all wonderful. It's-"
    “There’s one piece that’s a depiction of you,” said the Male Voice. “As a butterfly. But you're posed in a…sexually suggestive way.”
    “But Adom didn’t paint that.”
    “He’s taken responsibility for it. If you know the true artist, my lady, you’d best unmask them. Otherwise, Adom will face life in prison for not only painting a lude picture, but a lude picture of an unbonded woman.”

Chapter Five

    The confinement didn’t bother Adom. He had always lived in small, cramped places. First as a discard in the overcrowded shelters for boys. Then again as a monk in training sharing a room with his brothers Emet, Jaspir and Jian. So, no the small jail cell didn’t phase him.
    Neither did the cold. He and Emet couldn’t afford to heat the entire storefront in the harsh winter months. They relied on each other’s body heat to keep warm during the cold winter nights. So, no the chill in the air didn’t trouble him.
    It wasn’t even the monochrome walls that disturbed him. Adom’s imagination was too vivid to ever let monochrome bring him down. There were a myriad of cracks and water stains in the wall to call the wall drab. So, no the dullness of his conditions didn’t hassle him.
    Adom shifted on the metal cot. He winced as the metal frame met with the metal handcuffs around his wrist. The cold, gray shackles bit into his skin drawing blood at the place it rubbed raw. For all his years of binding body parts, Adom had never drawn blood nor had he once elicited a grunt of pain from a participant. Unlike the dead steel, ropes were alive.
    When he didn’t follow behind Lady Jayne to her bedroom, she’d stared him down and then reached for a phone. Adom didn’t budge from his position. He didn’t move when she pressed buttons. He didn’t break as she continued to try to seduce him up to her room up unto the time the Peace Keepers came to the gallery door. During all that time, his mind had been on Alyss.
    Alyss, who had just woken up and come into her true self. Adom had been apart of that. Because of his bindings she’d finally cracked the cocoon of her former self and emerged. He wouldn’t allow her to be confined again. It was the least he owed her after being complicit in turning her away at her dawning. His penance would be to sit in this cold, dead cell, shackled with that shame.
    “You have a visitor.” The guard’s gruff voice startled Adom from his reverie.
    A pang of guilt wracked through Adom’s chest. For the last few hours of this ordeal, he had thought little about what this would do to Emet. But he’d known Emet would come, would try to rescue him once more. Adom knew Emet would use his oratory prowess, his connections, any and everything at his disposal, to free him. But the only way to free him would be to offer the true artist to the authorities. And Adom would not do that.
    Emet couldn’t rescue Adom this time. And when Emet went home alone, there would be no one to bind him, to free him from his stress, to free the weight of responsibility he added to his back every day in the name of justice for all.
    They would all be alone. Alyss, set adrift in the world with no one to support her creative needs. Emet, weighed down by the pressures to balance the scales of justice. And now, Adom would be confined to this cold, gray cell. Each of them had only wanted to spread joy in the world, but they each were pushed down by the powers that be.
    “You look cold in there. I’ve brought you a blanket to warm you up.”
    The metal on Adom’s wrist chaffed as he turned away from that voice.  
    Lady Jane leaned against the cell. “I had come prepared to drop the charges.”
    Adom looked up, surprised. But the smile on her face told him what the price would be.
    “You can leave here and come straight to my