Drinking Tea with Miss Wong Ch. 03

It felt like our souls were holding on for dear life through our lips; if either of us broke the connection by pulling away at that very moment, we would both disappear right there.

I wanted to say something like "I don't care how old you are," or "I like you no matter what," but it was fuzzily perspicuous in my swirling brain - just groggily intuitive - that words weren't what Anne wanted or needed right now. I sat upright on the couch as I held her hips. Anne crawled away, kissed me one last time, and slowly stood up. She grabbed my forearm exactly like yesterday.

Was it really just yesterday that we met? The realization instantly lowered my blood-alcohol level by maybe .03 points, error of a hundredth. Was I taking advantage of her? Was she taking advantage of me?

Nevertheless, I followed her to the dining room table. Anne released my arm and slid her fingers down the back of my hand and along my knuckles as she went to the kitchen. Even though her dress was disfigured and barely covered anything now and her hair was just wagging behind her head like it gave up trying to unfold and she almost fell forward as she carried the large bottle of baijiu back, she looked angelic to me. The soles of her cute feet smacked lightly against polished hardwood and her toes were trying to grab the smooth surface like she forgot how to properly use them. Her gait was determined.

She relinquishes control of the large bottle, retrieves our shot glasses, and slaps them down before me. I hold her from behind - partly to make sure she doesn't fall, partly to hump her ass.

Clear vodka-like liquid jumped over the rims of the miniature cups and escaped freely to the tablecloth as Anne filled us up. Then she spun around against my cock as her hand seemed to magnetically find the tip and squeeze it.

She drags her fingers away and picks up a shot glass. I do likewise.

"Eric. If you still like me, you drink."

"Deal."

"I am a 47 year old."

"I still like you, Anne." I take my shot and put the glass down. The flavor is vaguely fruity and fermented and has an extraordinarily unique profile. And it's fucking strong. I cough a bit, well a lot, then redress myself.

Anne's beautiful eyes search me.

"How much older?"

"Twenty years older. Hey wait-" I interject. "Do you still like me?"

Her eyebrows are furrowed and her lips are pulled together as if she's pouting. Anne lifts her chin high and like drops it dramatically a couple times. Big nods.

She takes her shot and doesn't even bat an eyelash; if Anne led an army into battle, she would do so exactly the same way she drinks baijiu.

"This means you belong to me now, right?" I ask.

Another big nod.

Anne screws her eyes up at me. She sways in place like buckwheat in a gust of wind, briefly snapping back to coincide with her initial position before swinging the opposite way. That shot must have hit her something awful.

She begins lovingly pulling down my boxers as if they were seasonal gift wrapping.

Fuck, I think. This is really fucking happening.

She doesn't break line-of-sight with my rigid obelisk as she slowly unveils it inch by tantalizing inch, lowering herself one knee at a time. But from the looks of it Anne is fast losing her center of gravity. She opens her mouth and misses my cock by a mile and lunges into me and I almost fall backward myself.

"Anne? Are you alright?"

"I very, veeerrry goood, Eric..."

She doubles up for another go and misses even more this time, falling sideways while lazily gripping the waistband of my boxers. I have to kind of throw my leg to the side to follow her weight and make sure she doesn't rip them like she almost ripped the buttons off my shirt. Her fingers slip and she crashes to the carpet, haplessly squirming well like a turtle on its back. She can't even make herself sit up now.

"Anne, you're barely staying awake. I think you-"

"Nooo Eriiic! I just fi-fine-"

The way she's looking at me with her big puppy dog eyes silently begging me to let her perform this one lover's act to show her fealty or devotion or submission while popping in and out of lucidity is making me feel some type of way; a melancholic sympathy I haven't felt in ages.

I can't let her keep doing this to herself.

"Let me take you to bed, Anne..."

"Noooooooo!"

I knelt down and picked her up, holding one arm under her butt as she righted herself and flopped against my chest, throwing her head over my shoulder. She began pounding at my back with fists that weren't fists so much as it was just her fingers unanimously agreeing to curl up and approximate the shape of a fist.

"Puut meee dooown Eriic! I not a baaaby!"

I walked to the only bedroom in her apartment not even bothering to turn on the light and only knew I found her bed when I accidentally kicked the hard edge of a metal frame with my shin and held my tongue like a motherfucker so I didn't angrily curse and make Anne think I was cursing at her or anything.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness of her bedroom and I found the corner of a duvet, then pulled it back and laid her down as softly as was possible in her condition.

"Eric's biiig, diiick..."

"Please, go to sleep Anne. I'll be back tomorrow..."

"Nooooo! Stay, h-here..."

"I'm sorry, I can't... I'm going to be swamped with work this week..."

"Errrriiiiic-!"

Her protests soon ceased as I kissed her lips and cheeks repeatedly. Anne wanted badly to keep going and just didn't have the strength to fight the alcohol anymore.

I sat on her bed for a while, stroking her hair until she fell asleep. Diffuse moonlight through the window and stray 60-watt light from the dining room illumined her features just enough to see that her eyes were really closed. When she began to breathe deeply I drew the duvet to her small shoulders and kissed her forehead. She was completely unresponsive, a sign she would be comfortably KO'd at least until morning.

After everything that happened, I was still harder than granite. Well, she did say she would be completely mine...

She's so adorable. I can't believe she said that. I can't believe she was so insecure about her age. I wouldn't care if she was 57.

I got up to close her bedroom door, giving my unsatisfied cock a few consolatory tugs before pulling my boxers up. As I paced around her apartment on a scavenger hunt for my clothes, there were miscellaneous things I saw for the first time. She had bottles and jars of exotic-seeming oils and organic matter on the kitchen counter and some in the living room. There was a low dresser with plants under the window adjacent to the front door.

I grab my shirt from the floor by the dresser and plants. I turn around while turning my shirt inside-out or rightside-in, I guess, and notice the like traditional paintings on her wall again. They're encased in three unassuming black rectangular frames in a wide row above what is now the TV/stool area. I stand before them while putting my shirt on, admiring the vibrant palette of hues and shades; the symphony of lines of every thickness making up the endless detail of a long flaming dragon wrapped intricately within itself; how the subjects are just sitting or floating on the bespeckled beige canvas that looks like it was freshly unwrapped from a bamboo tree and pressed as-is. My eyes wander to the Chinese characters masterfully painted in charcoal black and frayed mid-stroke where the brush was lifted. On each painting there are large ones on the right margins, descending in precise columns and seeming to gradually transform into medium-sized ones as they go towards the left.

While amusing myself by trying to make sense of the characters as if they could be interpreted pictorially, I spot much smaller writing in the bottom-right corner. It seems to be stylishly scrawled in Latin script, something I can definitely grasp. It looks like there are only two letters:

'AW'

So these must be... Anne's paintings... and the characters - are they verses? Her poetry...

They're every bit as amazing as she is. I never for a second thought Anne was actually lying, but I never thought her work would be in plain view all along. If she had a proud bone in her body, she could have just pointed to them. But she pretended like they didn't even exist...

There's something complexly shrouded in her soul, yet so divinely simple as well. I wonder if I could be one of the lucky people who gets to see it.

I dump the large bowls of food back into their respective domiciles and rinse them in the sink. I lock her front door from the inside, stealing one final glance at her paintings before I go. In the end, it turned out Anne was the one who couldn't keep up. I'm such an idiot- there's no way her tiny body could handle that much alcohol. Was she trying to impress me? Why did I let her take that shot, on top of everything? Damn it... she didn't have to put herself in danger like that.

I'll check up on her tomorrow...

AN: Thanks everyone for the support and amazing feedback! It's been a wild ride trying to flesh out these characters and bring them to life as best I can. I don't plan on stopping this series, but I can't guarantee the next chapters will roll out as quickly. Bob's your auntie - Cheers!