Gladiatrix Read Online Free

circumstances.
    I couldn’t think about this now. I had to relax, unwind. First, Ledbetter the cretin, re-enacting his high school fantasies, and now this?
    Spud had picked up on my bad mood and was watching me with doggy concern, her big honey-coloured eyes melting my crankiness. I leant down and stroked her velvety head. ‘Don’t worry, baby. I’ve been through worse than this.’
    Shower. I needed a mindless, relaxing shower. Cold water pouring down my sweaty body.
    I peeled off my clothes as I headed for the bathroom. The heavy black hakama, the sweaty white gi, sticky underwear.
    Spud followed, dodging the falling clothes.
    I turned on the cold-water tap, and stepped under the shower spray.
    Mmmm, good. The rest of tonight was off-limits to stress of any kind. I’d eat some dinner, sleep soundly, dream about the man who’d just started work as next door’s gardener, and his nicely rounded … No, maybe I should skip that tonight, too. Just rest, nothing but perfect peace and quiet. And in the morning I’d know what to do. I kept chanting that thought. ‘Tomorrow. I’ll fix everything tomorrow.’
    I dried off, slipped into a singlet top and sarong, and padded into the kitchen. It was too hot to cook and I was sick of salad, so I went straight for dessert. Fresh mangoes and the last of the vanilla ice cream they made in the village. Yum.
    It was too steamy to stay inside, so I took my bowl out and sat at the table on the deck. With the deck lights off, so I could watch the moonlight paint the shifting waves below without having to deal with a hovering cloud of mozzies.
    Spud lay in a contented sprawl over my bare feet, snoring loudly while I ate. She looked exactly like her grandmother, Biscuit, who’d turned up on our doorstep one day and refused to leave. She’d known a pair of suckers when she smelt them.
    Yuki had tried to find Biscuit’s owner, but in the end she’d stayed.
    I’d loved Biscuit from the first moment I saw her, and she’d padded behind me like a furry shadow till she died. She’d slept on my bed. Even swam past the breakers with me, when I was learning to surf. We didn’t know whatbreed, or mix, she was, but she was big and sleek, with a shapely head and gentle eyes. Except when she got protective and then her eyes switched to high beam and a tall spine of fur, tapering from her neck to her tail, would stand up like a warning flag.
    Spud wasn’t taking Yuki’s death very well. Even in this heat the pup wouldn’t let me out of touching range. Most nights I woke to find her lying across my chest, head on the pillow next to mine. I missed Yuki too. Running the dojo forced me to keep moving, but it just didn’t feel right without her. It felt like I was up a dead end, nose-close to a brick wall.
    Dessert had melted into a fruity mess so I abandoned it to look down at the cool water below. When I was younger, I’d never thought about Yuki dying, and even now it was a shock to remember she was gone. She’d been indestructible. Had seemed indestructible. But she wasn’t.
    Headlights on the road below caught my eye.
    A rusty old Ford ute shuddered to a stop under the streetlight and an older man, carrying a briefcase, got out and shakily walked towards my front gate.
    Bloody hell! It was Des. He had only come out of hospital five days ago. He wasn’t supposed to be driving, and he certainly wasn’t supposed to be climbing my steep stairs. It had been scary watching him struggle to survive in intensive care.
    Yuki and Des were my family, and now there was only Des.
    Stubborn old man. He hated feeling less than in total control.
    The automatic lights flicked on as he climbed the external wooden stairs to the top storey. Des stood for a moment, panting outside the open side door, then stepped heavily through the lounge room to the deck.He flicked the deck lights on as he came and immediately mozzies