章節 256: Chapter 21: New York IIl
-- WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2008 --
My alarm would have gone off at 7am, but I woke up before that and silenced it early, despite the time zone jet lag. I lay in bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling and lost in thought. And when 7am actually came around, I looked down at the head trapping my left arm beneath her pillow, rolled over to spoon myself behind her, and started kissing my way up the back of her neck while reaching around to fondle her tits.
Rania moaned in her sleep, making annoyed noises at first, but after a few seconds they became more gentle purrs of contentment. One of her hands slid on top of mine, helping me cup her boob. And she sighed and snuggled her cheek a little deeper into the pillow before cutely recoiling at the ticklish sensation of my lips on her neck.
"What time is it?" she murmured, her eyes still closed.
"7am, and it's a school day," I replied.
She sighed, stretched her legs, and arched her back before extending both arms forward to stretch them as well. Keeping her arms extended, she rolled onto her back and stretched her hands to the ceiling. But she then abruptly dropped her hands onto her chest and smacked her lips while sleepily trying to open her eyes and look up at me. "Morning," she greeted with a sheepish smile.
"Morning to you too," I replied warmly before bending down to peck her lips.
Humming happily with a youthfully innocent expression that made her look like a content schoolgirl, she smiled with her eyes closed and buried her face into my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tightly. And taking a deep breath, I asked the question that had been preying on my mind all morning.
"Hey, uhhh ... How much do you remember about last night?"
"Hmm?" she mumbled into my chest. Pulling her head back, she looked up at me with furrowed eyebrows. "You mean, do I remember the royal pounding you gave me six ways from Sunday last night?"
I chuckled and shook my head. "After. Just before you passed out. You, uh ... You sorta mumbled something."
Rania blinked a couple of times and looked thoughtful. Then, shaking her head slowly, she gave me an apologetic look and said, "Sorry, don't remember. I'm guessing I mumbled it so bad that you couldn't understand it?"
"Uh, no actually. I heard you loud and clear." I popped my eyebrows. "You said, 'I think I love you.'"
Rania's eyes popped open WIDE. "I said what?"
I gave her a tight smile. "Actually, the full sentence was, 'Fucking A, Ben. I think I love you.'"
"Oh, well that's better," Rania said in relief as she flashed me a smile. "I must've been pretty delirious from all the orgasms."
I shrugged. "Must've been."
Rania laughed, a little too loudly. "I must've really scared you. Girl you barely know professing love after two nights fucking each other's brains out. Not exactly the sort of thing a hotshot Casanova wants to hear." She looked a little nervous, blushing and averting her eyes.
I sighed and frowned. "Why do you do that?"
She looked up at me, confused. "Do what?"
"Keep categorizing me as one of the predatory hunters out to add another notch to my bedpost. I'm not a hotshot Casanova."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean any offense." She visibly shrank before me.
I sighed again. "I'm not offended. I'm just trying to understand. And I'm trying to figure out where WE stand with each other. One minute, you seem absolutely thrilled to be here with me. The next, it seems like you're expecting me to throw you aside like so much trash."
Rania blinked twice, staring at my chest. "Well, aren't you going to?"
"Of course not."
"Then what happens on Saturday? What happens when you fly back to California while I stay behind?"
I took a deep breath. "What do you want to happen?"
"I don't know. What do YOU want to happen?" She was staring at my chest again, refusing to meet my eyes.
Reaching down, I gently tilted her chin up to face me. "I want to kiss you goodbye, thank you for a wonderful week together, and promise to remain friends. I don't want to mislead you into thinking this is going to turn into a serious, romantic relationship, at least not right away. I'm coming off this thing with Adrienne and you're coming off your own breakup. I don't think losing control of our emotions and rebounding is the right thing to do, for either of us. We're young – you're even younger than me – too young to have any be-all/end-all expectations of each other after only two nights. But at the same time, I want you to realize that you're NOT just a notch in my bedpost. You're special. I really LIKE you. That's why I want to spend this time with you."
Rania flicked her eyes up to mine but returned her gaze to my lips, despite me continuing to hold her chin. "I like you, too. And you're right: rebounding isn't the right thing to do. So I agree: it's best that we separate on Saturday as friends."
"I'm glad we're in agreement."
She looked up at me, her eyes tight, and gave me an equally tight smile. Then she rolled away from me and slid off the bed.
I may be pretty dense when it comes to recognizing girls' emotions, but I knew enough to recognize things weren't as settled as her words would like me to believe. "Rania..." I called after her.
"We need to get dressed. I can't be late for work again," she called over her shoulder as she headed into the bathroom.
Quickly, I hopped off the bed and followed after her. She turned on the sink and started splashing her face. Her toiletries and makeup had already been arranged on the counter. I reached over to rub her back, standing alongside her and staring at her from the side, not at her reflection in the mirror. "The last thing I want to do is hurt you. I'm just trying to be honest here."
"Thank you for your honesty," she replied with a wet face as she looked up at my reflection. She grabbed a tube of facial wash and squeezed a dollop into her hands. "But I'm a big girl, not some love-struck teenager. I can take care of myself."
"I know you can. But it also feels like there's an emotional wall between us that wasn't there before, and I don't want you walking out of this hotel room with any regrets."
"I'm fine," she insisted, mid-facewash.
I arched an eyebrow and stared at her reflection. "Is that 'fine' the way it is in the dictionary? Or 'fine' the way that -I- define it?"
That got Rania to chuckle, and she paused to rinse her face off before standing up straight and patting her cheeks dry with a towel. "I'm fine, as in dictionary fine. Thank you for your concern, but we're good. I've had a great time these last couple of nights, and I'm looking forward to..." she paused to quickly count in her head, " ... to sharing three more. But I really have no expectations beyond that, okay?"
"You sure?"
"I'm sure," she stated firmly, and she caressed my cheek before pulling my head to hers for a kiss.
Rania's kiss did wonders for reassuring me, and she gave me a warm smile when she broke away. But then she started pushing on my chest, saying, "Now out with you. I gotta pee."
I held my hands up defensively and backed away with a smile. "I'm going, I'm going."
She smiled all the way as she closed the bathroom door. Alone outside in the bedroom, I took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and headed for the closet to get dressed.
Rania got off work at 5pm and took the subway into Manhattan. She and Moon were waiting in the JKE lobby when June and I arrived, and the four of us stayed close to Wall Street to do some more shopping, do some more sightseeing, and also get something to eat.
Dinner was at a nice but cramped vegetarian restaurant. Moon spent more time giggling and tickling June than actually eating the salad in front of her. Rania, likewise, didn't eat much. Actually, Rania was pretty subdued overall. She still smiled and chatted and even flirted with me. But I could tell that her initial enthusiasm over our blossoming relationship was starting to wear off now that it was our third night together, and I started to wonder just a bit if we'd even make it to Saturday.
Not that I wanted to confront her about it. Kim's Sunday morning warnings about emotional confrontation were still fresh in my mind, and I realized that making a big deal out of her mood would only do that: make a big deal out of it. Creating a larger issue would mostly likely end up being the fastest way to ensure that Rania never again took the subway back to see me after work, and perhaps I'd already made the mistake of confronting her too much too fast by asking her about the big L-word this morning.
So I played along. She'd insisted this morning that she was "fine", and I was going to behave as if I thought things were "fine" between us. But I was also going to try and get to the root of the problem ... gradually.
Moon had decided the four of us would take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, not to go anywhere but just to see the sights. It turned out to be perfect for what I had in mind, since the best views of the Manhattan skyline were from the outdoor side decks, the nighttime air was still as cold as ever, and the sounds of waves and wind all but drowned out conversation unless the person you were speaking to was only inches away.
Rania snuggled in against my chest, keeping herself close to me for both warmth and private conversation. I turned my back to the headwind to shield her, and opened up my peacoat to wrap it around her slender body. From just beneath my chin, she kept up a running commentary about the landmarks she recognized, like the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge that connected to Brooklyn, the Statue of Liberty, and even some smaller buildings on the shoreline that weren't in any tourist guide.
But there was only so much even a native New Yorker could say about the view. In-between Rania's travelogue, I asked how her day at work was, how things were going with her family, and whether or not they'd gotten suspicious about her spending these three nights away from home, especially during the weekdays.
Her mom was suspicious, asking if she'd met a "boy". This wasn't a new suspicion; her mom had asked the same question every other month prior to Hassan. Rania told her the same thing she always told her: that her mom would only meet him if things ever got serious, otherwise there was no way in hell she'd want her mom to scare the guy off early.
Work was work, not much to say. It paid for her credit card bills. She did tell me about a creepy co-worker who kept staring at her but wouldn't talk to her. She figured he probably jerked off in the employee bathroom to magazine pages of her cosmetics advertisements. I laughed and told her I'd done that myself in college to Adrienne's first Sports Illustrated magazine, although certainly not in the employee bathroom.
That led Rania into asking about Adrienne. She seemed sad that her old friend hadn't really kept in touch with her. Apparently, Adrienne still texted Moon regularly and they'd meet up whenever she was in town. But ever since Rania had dropped out of modeling and moved back home, she only got updates on the still-famous supermodel through the news, tabloids, or from Moon.
I told her that as far as I knew Adrienne was doing well, that she was very happy with her new girlfriend, and that I was happy for them both. They were a good match for each other.
"But what about you?" Rania asked quietly, looking up at me with those big brown doe eyes. The harbor wind whipped her hair back from her forehead. "You've been her boyfriend off and on since high school, and whether she's publicly outed herself as a lesbian or not, I know the truth. I saw it with my own eyes when the two of you visited here together. She loved you. She loved making love with you. What the two of you had together was ... it was the real thing."
"It was, but now it's over," I said quietly, taking a deep breath and staring over Rania's head.
"What happened?"
I sighed. "We grew apart. We ... we fell out of love. It happens."
"But why? The whole time she was living here in New York, she never stopped loving you. I have to admit, when she used to tell us stories about her ex-boyfriend Ben back in Berkeley, I didn't really believe her. She got this faraway look in her eyes when she talked about you, and honestly, I thought that look meant she was making you up. I thought she was spinning some fantasy story, full of rich detail because she was trying to sell the idea of actually being heterosexual, even though it wasn't really true. But it WAS true. That look in her eyes was there because of how MUCH she loved you. And quite frankly, we were absolutely SHOCKED to hear you two had broken your engagement."
"It was my fault, really. I did it to myself. I got distracted by other things. I put all my energy and focus into other relationships. I took her for granted, just kept going through the motions, assumed she'd always be there, and then one day..." I sighed.
"One day you looked up and she was gone," Rania finished sadly.
But I shook my head in the negative. "No, she was still there. She'd never gone anywhere. Yeah, she traveled quite a bit, but it's not like she moved back to New York. She was right there, waiting for me in the apartment we shared, still as in love with me as ever."
"Then what happened?"
I sighed again, took a deep breath, and confessed, "One day ... One day I woke up and... -I- didn't love her anymore."
"What?"
I shook my head. "I didn't love her anymore. I mean, I still loved her, and I always will, but I wasn't 'in love' with her anymore. I didn't have that all-encompassing urge to be with her as much as possible. I didn't find myself missing her when we were apart. We made love, we fucked each other's brains out, then we kissed and each went along with the rest of our day without a backwards glance."
"The honeymoon phase was over."
I shook my head again. "I just ... I don't know ... I don't know when it happened. I don't know how it happened. I just know that it happened."
"No big unforgivable sin? Nobody cheated, did they?"
"No, absolutely not."
"Some little quirk of her personality that finally got to you? Eroded your affection?"
"No, nothing like that."
"Nothing? You just woke up one day and realized you weren't in love with her anymore for no particular reason?"
"It wasn't that simple."
"So what did happen? You just came to this realization, told her you'd fallen out of love, couldn't even give her a real reason why and broke up with her? Because I have to say that's a pretty shitty way to treat somebody."
There was raw pain in Rania's voice, so I blinked a couple of times and looked down at her carefully. She quickly averted her eyes, but I gently took hold of her cheek and redirected her back up to me. Frowning and doing my best to express my concern for her, I asked softly, "Is that what happened to you and Hassan?"
Rania averted her eyes again and swallowed thickly. She let me hold her close, but her gaze was on my chest. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly and finally flicked her eyes back up to meet mine. "More or less."
"I'm sorry."
"Asshole," Rania huffed and pushed off me, muttering, "Let go of me."
I relaxed my grip but didn't let go of her completely. She backed away, anger flashing in her eyes as she looked up at me. I'd seen the look before, by the doors to the nightclub balcony when she first accused me of just trying to worm my way into her panties. There was some old resentment there, resentment she was projecting onto me.
"I'm not him," I reminded her carefully. "I'm not Hassan."
Rania pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, waging some internal debate in her mind. Obviously, she knew I wasn't actually Hassan, but she hadn't decided just yet whether or not I was like Hassan.
Fortunately for me, she took a deep breath and pushed herself into my chest again, turning to set her cheek down on my shoulder. "I know you're not," she murmured quietly, barely audible above the background noise. Then she repeated, "I know you're not."
I didn't say anything. I simply held her and stroked her hair.
Rania shuddered for a moment, exhaled, and finally inhaled as she looked back up at me. "I'm sorry."
"You don't need to apologize."
"I guess the pain is still a little raw. It's just hard to wrap my head around sometimes, you know? Nobody cheated. There was no big unforgivable sin. He was great. He was nice. He was kind. Everything was going fine, until the Saturday before New Year's, I was asking him about our plans to go out on New Year's Eve, and out of the blue he told me he was breaking up with me."
"I'm sorry."
"He insisted I hadn't done anything wrong. He said it was nothing in particular, nothing within my control. He said I was sweet, and beautiful, and intelligent, and sexy. He got along with my parents, and my parents got along with his parents. But after almost a year together, he just ... wasn't in love with me. The big spark that he'd hoped would come had never really materialized, and he didn't think it ever would. He didn't think it would be fair to keep dating me, to keep me off the market and prevent me from finding a man who would love me the way I really wanted. So he said he was breaking up with me for my own good."
"I'm sorry."
"Is that what happened between you and Adrienne? You realized you weren't 'in love' with her and you broke up for her own good?"
"Something like that." I took a deep breath and thought about how to explain. "We're very different people, Adrienne and I. You saw some of that when we visited together. She's Miss Party Central: going out dancing, experimenting with drugs, and jet-setting around the world. I work a day job, and I've got a young son at home to take care of. We got engaged rather suddenly, and a little by accident. We never really worked out the issues an impending husband and wife should work out, like where to settle down, and when. Most importantly, we never really answered the 'Do you want kids?' question. She knows I do, but I know she doesn't. Maybe we both thought we could change each other's mind? I did hope she'd eventually want to have children with me, and I'm sure part of her hoped I'd be okay with the son I already had."
"Sounds more like you two had irreconcilable differences than there being 'no reason' to break up."
"I suppose. But the thing is: we never talked about this stuff. We just kept going on with our lives, operating on routine, maintaining the status quo. In some ways I feel like we could have kept going on like that forever without anything changing. But the status quo never stays the same forever."
"Don't I know it."
"And if you're looking for some big event, a reason why we broke up, I guess you could say it was because of Sasha."
Rania frowned. "Adrienne's new girlfriend?"
"Old/new. Sasha was my girlfriend first, during my senior year of college. Adrienne came back into my life, the two of them hit it off, and after a while it made more sense to call us a 'triple'. I had two girlfriends, and Adrienne and Sasha were girlfriends with each other as well."
Rania's jaw dropped. "Your first girlfriend stole Adrienne from you?"
I grimaced. "I wouldn't say she stole Adrienne from me."
Rania snorted. "Um, she's with her now, and you're not anymore. Sounds like stealing."
"It just happened. I know Sasha didn't mean for this to happen."
"Just like I'm sure you didn't mean to fall out of love with Adrienne. But it happened."
I sighed. "It did. One day I looked up and realized how in love they were with each other. They spent ALL their time together, and I'd become an afterthought. They were going everywhere without me. Their love for each other bloomed. And when I realized I was losing them, I called them out on it."
"Then what happened?"
I shrugged. "They apologized, offered to spend more time with me, and rebuild our three-way relationship."
Rania looked at me incredulously. "And what, you turned them down?"
I sighed and gave her a helpless look. "I wasn't in love with them anymore. They were happy together. So I set them free. The damn thing of it all, I wasn't even hurt. Adrienne said that I always knew we wouldn't work out. She said I knew who she was, knew she wasn't the settling down and having kids type, and always knew our engagement would eventually fail. So when it did, I just sort of accepted it and moved on. Everyone kept expecting me to feel this huge emotional loss, but all I felt was numb. And I think my lack of emotion about it bothered – still bothers – Adrienne more than anything else."
Rania looked up at me, studying me. "You're still numb, aren't you?"
I glanced down and arched an eyebrow at her.
"You're even numb with me. Now granted, I'm coming off a breakup and you're coming off a breakup so losing our heads and rebounding isn't really the right thing to do. But ... you're still numb. You couldn't conceive of starting a real relationship with me even IF you felt that kind of connection."
I frowned. "I don't know. How could I tell?"
"You know when you know, but with me, you clearly don't know." Rania started pushing at my chest again, and I relaxed my grip to let her take a step back. This time she completely walked away and took a few steps along the railing before turning back to me. With a sigh, she dispiritedly muttered, "I'm sleeping with a robot."
I frowned and stepped toward her, my arms extended. "I'm sorry. I never meant for my burdens to--"
"No. Stop. It's okay." She took a step back to maintain distance between us and also held up both hands. "It's alright. I'm not mad at you. You're being honest, and I appreciate that. You've shared some pretty intimate details of what's going on in your life, and I'm glad you think enough of me as a person to do that. It's good that I know where I stand with you. I didn't sleep with you that first night intending for us to fall in love with each other or anything, but it's good that I understand that the chances of me convincing you to fall in love with me are basically zero. That knowledge keeps me grounded. It keeps ME from losing my head over you, because it would be so easy to lose my head over you. It would be easy to let my emotions carry me away and put me in another situation where I love a guy more than he loves me. Better I know the score in advance, right? So ... thank you ... for that."
Her words said 'thank you' but her tone was a mix of 'you're a cold-blooded reptile' and 'I'd rather spend my night with a drunk hobo from Queens than you'. I held up my hands defensively, gave her an earnest look, and stated, "The last thing I want to do is hurt you."
"I know that. I appreciate that." Rania tried to give me a smile, but it was clearly forced.
I finally dropped my hands and gave her a sad look.
After we disembarked the ferry, Rania went straight home.
-- THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 2008 --
Rania got off work at 5pm, but she didn't take the subway into Manhattan. Instead, she went home to have dinner with her parents, although she texted me to text her when I was done with my work obligations so that she could meet me at my hotel.
I was relieved that she still planned to meet me at the hotel. After last night's conversation, I wasn't entirely sure if I'd ever see her again. And I still didn't know how she'd act around me once we DID meet up. But finding out would have to wait. As I mentioned, tonight I had work obligations: June and I were having dinner with "The Boss".
Dinner tonight was NOT at a nice but cramped Japanese restaurant, nor a nice but cramped vegetarian restaurant. Tonight's venue was considerably larger, had significantly more room between each table, and offered an eclectic variety of contemporary French dishes. It also had two Michelin stars, and the menu prices were appallingly high – like, if your bank account doesn't have at least seven digits before the decimal, you'll have a heart-attack when you get the bill kind of high.
Thank goodness I wouldn't be paying for it.
June was still my dining companion tonight, seated in the plush armchair immediately to my left. But the other two people seated at our square table for four were not Moon or Rania. Instead, our hosts were none other than Mr. Jonathan Kwong, owner and President of Jonathan Kwong Enterprises (and my landlord), and his ever-present personal assistant Cassandra Cooper.
June kept calling our boss "Mr. Kwong" for the first fifteen minutes, despite his insistence that we both call him "John". She had an easier time with "Cassandra", but even so, it took a couple of glasses of wine to calm her nerves enough for her to settle down.
Thankfully, she warmed up pretty fast after that. This wasn't intended to be a business dinner, even though all four of us were only too aware of our respective roles within the company. Rather, while John would not be directly involved in our training, he still wanted to spend time with me and June outside the office to better get to know us. It had nothing to do with my past relationship with Adrienne or the fact that we'd already spent some significant time together. Hell, I'd double-teamed his wife with him. No, he did this at least once with ALL his employees who made it to a certain level within the company, and tonight was simply our turn.
Everyone had a good time, even June. There were no Caesar salads on the menu, but for the first time in a long while, I actually thought it wouldn't matter. Moon had taken on the role of trying to expose June to new foods and new flavors the past few days. But whereas June had always bristled at Adrienne's attempts to force her into at least trying new dishes, Moon had a way of coaxing and encouraging June into doing so, a method that had been far more successful. So tonight when I explained that June was still refining her palette and would appreciate our hosts' suggestions, Cassandra was quick to recommend a few items, and June was both grateful for the assistance and even a little eager to try them out. If nothing else, I knew my co-worker actually cared what kind of impression she made on the boss and his assistant more than she'd ever cared what Adrienne thought of her. It was simple job security.
June had also discovered this week the wonderful things that alcohol could do to a person's body and mind, so she was equally willing to accept whatever wine selections the boss and his assistant made. Thankfully, she'd also discovered what a hangover felt like, so she was able to keep herself in check. All in all, an appropriate amount of wine loosened June up so that she no longer hid in my shadow, both literally and figuratively, but she also didn't get out of control. And the four of us passed the meal away in pleasant conversation.
Hell, if I didn't know any better, I'd swear June was flirting with John Kwong.
But at the end of the evening, we went our separate ways. John had a Maybach with personal driver that picked up him and Cassandra to take them back to JKE and its helipad for the ride back home to Montauk. He offered to take us back to our hotel, but I insisted that it was in the other direction from the office, and that we'd be fine with a cab. He reminded me to put the cab on my expense report and waved us off. And then June and I were safely ensconced in a yellow and black-checkered Ford Crown Vic for the ride home.
"Have a good time?" I asked June as I buckled my seatbelt.
"Absolutely," she beamed. June was definitely much quicker to smile when she was a little buzzed. "Even though he's this ridiculously wealthy, super-duper-famous billionaire, John is just so ... so down to earth. I thought I'd be more intimidated with just the four of us, but he's easy to talk to. He's really nice. He's ... He's..."
"Really good-looking?" I jested.
June blushed and averted her eyes. But a moment later, she grinned and leaned across the backseat to peck my cheek. "You're cute, too."
I blinked in surprise, but June was already back in her seat looking straight ahead as if she'd never even kissed me. She didn't even look embarrassed about it, and a moment later she turned back to me, saying, "How about you? Have a good time? I know you enjoyed staring at Cassandra's breasts."
Now it was my turn to blush as I replied evenly, "I don't know what you're talking about. I maintained a respectful gaze on our President's assistant's face."
"You were trying to maintain a respectful gaze, and working very hard at it indeed. You were quite obvious about it, actually, but I still caught you looking down a number of times."
I sighed and rolled my eyes. "They're huge and gorgeous and put on display. What am I supposed to do?"
"Nothing. I was staring too!" June giggled and slapped my arm.
Okay, maybe she's a little more drunk than you think.
Taking a deep breath, I gave my co-worker a serious look and asked, "You okay there? Maybe one too many glasses of wine?"
"Pfft. I'm fine."
I chuckled. "You're more than fine. And it seems like you've been more than fine for four days straight."
June put her right elbow up on the windowsill and pressed her cheek into the palm of her hand. With a bit of a silly grin, she looked back at me and sighed happily. "I am more than fine. This whole week has certainly been different."
"'Different' is an understatement. You've acted like a whole new 'June'."
"You like the changes?"
I raised my eyebrows and said diplomatically, "There wasn't necessarily anything wrong with the old June."
"But you like the changes," she stated knowingly.
"For the most part, yes. But I'm still trying to understand them. You've really become a different person on this trip: happier, more outgoing, more willing to try new things. But at the same time, I want to make sure you're changing for the right reasons, and that these changes are what you really want. You've been my friend for a long time now, and like I said: there wasn't necessarily anything wrong with the old June."
"You still like the new June better, just like Kim said you would."
I blinked in surprise. "Kim? What's she got to do with any of this?"
"We're here." June looked out the window.
I looked out as well and realized the cab was pulling into the hotel driveway. "We're not done with this conversation."
The cab came to a stop, and June head-nodded me toward the driver. "Pay the man. Keep the receipt for accounting," she instructed. The hotel bellhop opened the cab door for her, and she stepped outside.
Sighing, I pulled out my wallet and passed the company credit card through the window to the driver. A minute later, I had my card back and my receipt, and I finally exited the vehicle.
June waited for me just inside the hotel doors rather than stand around in the cold. She turned to head for the elevators, but I reached out and grabbed her hand, arresting her forward progress. "We are not done with this conversation," I repeated firmly.
She sighed and glanced down at her hand where I still had a grip on it. I took the hint and let go. Only then did she take a deep breath, cock her head to the side like a bird, and explain, "Kim encouraged me to let loose a little bit on this trip. She said it would be easier for me to try out a new persona, to be a little more sociable, and experiment with different approaches to interacting with others without the risk of permanently alienating anyone. The people around me at home already know me, know the way I act, which dictates the way they respond to me. But I'm in a city full of strangers who have no preconceived notions of who I am. It's an opportunity to make a good first impression and see how they honestly react. Except for co-workers, if I make a bad impression, I'll never see them again anyway."
I smiled. "From what I've seen, you're only making good impressions."
June grinned. "I think so too."
I furrowed my eyebrows. "So is that why you let Moon give you a complete makeover that first night? You'd mentally geared yourself up to 'try anything'?"
"More or less. I still think the amount of makeup she puts on me is far too much for me to wear on a daily basis, and the amount of time it takes to get dressed is unacceptably inefficient. But for this week, I'm willing to see how things go. And since I've bought all these new clothes, you may even see elements of this wardrobe reappear after we get back home."
I whistled. "I'd like to see Rakesh's and Kamar's jaws drop to the floor when you show up to the office looking like this." I gestured up and down June's entire body.
June snorted. "Yeah, right. You think I care what those guys think of my appearance? John Kwong: yes. Rakesh and Kamar: no."
I arched an eyebrow. "So you're going to go right back to frumpy pantsuits and no makeup at the office?"
She shrugged. "To do otherwise would only invite speculation and unwanted attention. That said... elements of this wardrobe might creep their way into my daily routine. Slowly."
I nodded. "That's logical."
"Of course it's logical. When am I ever not logical?"
"Well, your budding relationship with Moon for one thing. You're gonna have to explain the logic to me."
June rolled her eyes. "There's no 'relationship'; we're just having fun. On Saturday I fly out with you and that'll be the end of my budding fling with Moon."
"Fine, it's a 'fling', not a relationship," I conceded, but refused to give up the line of questioning. "Still, you're gonna have to explain the logic."
June blinked. "Fine. I wanted to fuck Dawn," she stated flatly, no hesitation.
That rocked my head back, and I arched an eyebrow. I don't know what I was expecting her to say, but that certainly wasn't it. "Umm ... what?"
June smirked at my discomfort before continuing, "That night in your apartment, when Kim and I walked in on you with Dawn and DJ, there was that awkward moment. Do you know how intimidating your ladies can be? Each one of them is ridiculously beautiful, and none would hesitate to drop their panties for you at a moment's notice if they were the slightest bit horny. Dawn was the first girl I've ever seen that looked as nervous as me. Once we stopped blushing and let you and Kim take over, I think I found it refreshing and ... cute."
I smiled. "You got yourself a little crush on Dawn?"
June immediately shook her head. "No, I told you I wanted to fuck Dawn that night. I know her only through my conversations with you and that single encounter during which we spent most our time watching the other having sex. I couldn't tell you what I think of her as a person or as someone I'd want to spend any further time getting to know. What I saw when I looked at her was an approachable girl in the body of your blonde goddess friend."
"Unlike, say... Adrienne?"
June's eyes popped and she nodded her head. "Dawn and I watched each other those first few minutes. I wanted it to be me making her moan when you made her touch herself. I think she wanted to touch me as well." June's eyes unfocused as she stared off into the distance. "I wanted her ... I wanted her body. If I never saw her again that would be fine; it was a completely sexual compulsion. That's ... that's never happened to me before. Later, when I had my chance, I couldn't do it. I knew I'd see her again at some point, and I didn't think I'd be able to handle my regular day-to-day interactions with her after something like that."
I smirked at her. "That didn't stop you from latching onto her tits when she smashed your face in them, as I recall."
"I'm not made of stone," she replied, a decidedly unJune-like mischievous grin playing across her lips at the memory. "Anyway, Kim and I talked it over and we agreed that if I found someone I was attracted to while here, I should just go with it and experience my first casual fling."
"Hence: Moon."
"Hence: Moon," June agreed with a shrug. "She's beautiful, and incredibly sexy, and she can do these things with her tongue I'd never dreamed were possible. She has a deviously inventive mind and an assortment of sex toys much wider than what Kim has in her nightstand."
I blinked several times, my brain unable to keep up with the images assaulting it all at once. "Damn," I muttered, holding my temples.
"I'm trying new things. I'm trying a new person. I've only ever had a single lover in my life: Kim, unless you count that little bit with Dawn that one night."
"I'll let you decide how you want to count that."
June shrugged. "Moon is fun, and she's nice, and she's very interested in continuing my development. She's an enthusiastic teacher, and I'm an eager student. And we're both very aware that there's a time limit on our interactions. School gets out of session on Saturday, so we're making the most of our time now."
I arched an eyebrow. "Do you have any feelings for her?"
"Feelings? For Moon?" June's head jerked back and she stared at me like I'd turned into a purple-skinned, six-eyed alien.
"I'm guessing not, then."
"Like I said: she's fun. But neither of us has any misplaced ideas of where this is going. She's romantic about men, maybe even a little romantic about you, but certainly not me."
"Wait, what?" Now my head jerked back. "She's romantic about me?"
June winced. "Shouldn't have said that, should I? I need to get a better handle on knowing when not to share certain things people have told me."
"Not the point right now. Moon? She has feelings for me?"
June waved both of her hands side-to-side while shaking her head 'no'. "She said she had a bit of a crush on you after your last visit and was kind of hoping that sparks might fly now that you've come back to town. That's why she wanted to surprise you in your hotel room the first night we arrived. But the very next night, you took one look at Rania, and Moon could tell immediately that your sparks were flying for someone else. So rather than compete with her own friend, she started chatting with me and now here we are."
I frowned and shook my head. "You're wrong. There aren't any real sparks flying between me and Rania. This is just a weeklong hookup, nothing more."
June frowned. "I may not have much experience with romantic emotions, but I know what I see when I see it. You ... Rania... Spaaarks." June flickered the fingers of both hands in the air only a few inches in front of my face while leaning forward, giving me a wide-eyed stare, and making sound effects with her mouth. Her breath was definitely wine-scented.
I sighed. "Sexual chemistry I'm good at. Maybe those are the sparks you're talking about. But emotional chemistry? Not so much. I've gone dead inside, and I'm not sure what to do about it."
June shrugged. "Can't help you there. I'm not exactly the person that people go to when they need advice about their emotions," she deadpanned.
That got a chuckle out of me, and I gave June a warm smile. "Well your sense of humor has certainly improved."
She blinked twice and frowned. "I wasn't joking."
"Nevermind." I waved her off. Taking a deep breath, I looked around the hotel lobby. June and I had sort of automatically meandered over to the same spot where Moon and Rania always met us after work. I'd texted Rania when our dinner was done, as requested, and she'd texted back to tell me she and Moon were waiting at the hotel. But as I looked around, I confirmed that neither of the girls was here. I gave June a confused look, muttering, "Where ARE they?"
"Hang on," June said while fishing a hand into her purse. "I got another text a few minutes ago, but you were so insistent that we finish our conversation that I didn't get a chance to look."
"What's it say?"
June peered at the screen and explained, "It's from Moon. She said: 'We're upstairs.'"
"Upstairs?"
June shrugged. "Rania does have your room key, doesn't she?"
"Holy shit..."
Rania did indeed have a key to my room, and Moon indeed was with her inside. From the text message, I was expecting to find the two of them waiting for us, and indeed they were. But immediately upon entering the room, my jaw had dropped to the floor in absolute shock.
The last time I'd seen Rania had been to watch her walk away and head home after the Staten Island Ferry rather than come back to my hotel room with me. While we hadn't parted with animosity, it hadn't been a very positive parting, either. I hadn't been sure what to expect the next time I saw her. Would we be able to regain the chemistry we'd shared these past few nights? Would she want to sit down and have a serious conversation about what we meant to each other? I'd expected some kind transition period for us to find our footing, to figure out how to relate to each other after the emotionally draining conversation of last night. I had NOT been expecting to find her and Moon like this: naked, sweaty, and sixty-nining on my bed.
Moon was on top, hands gripping the backs of Rania's shapely thighs as she ravenously devoured the Arab girl's wet cunt. The door shut rather loudly, the sound causing Moon to jerk her head up and look at us. And with a soaking wet jaw that glistened in the bedroom lights, the Korean girl complained, "Finally. What took you so long? Rani and I got to talking about all the things we were gonna do to you two and got so worked up we couldn't wait any longer."
"Blame Ben," June explained. "He wanted to finish our conversation from the car, so we didn't get your text until just now."
"Whatever. You're here now!" Moon promptly crawled off Rania and hopped off the bed. The skinny waif went straight to June, wrapping her arms around the Chinese girl's neck and smearing Rania's pussy juice all over June's face, much to my co-worker's consternation. But Moon was laughing so much, and she followed up by giving June several passionate kisses, that June ultimately didn't mind as she kissed the impish pixie right back.
A moment later, Moon broke their kiss and said, "Excuse me for a minute. I'm going to go reacquaint myself with your big brother over there."
"'Big brother'? That's the second time one of you has said that," June chirped in confusion as Moon launched herself at me.
The Korean girl had already gotten in one solid smack on my lips, but she looked back over her shoulder to say, "Ask Rani." And then she immediately turned back to me, her nimble fingers working at the buttons of my shirt while she resumed sticking her tongue into my mouth.
So June gave Rania an inquisitive look. Propped up on her elbows, her own face wet with glistening pussy juice, Rania shrugged and said, "Tell you later."
In the meantime, Moon was just finishing my shirt buttons, and she looked back over her shoulder at June again to say, "Come over here and help me with his pants."
June's eyes popped open wide, and she remained rooted to the floor.
Moon rolled her eyes and muttered, "You SAID you've already seen him naked before."
Blinking fast, my co-worker explained, "Seen him: yes. Touched him: no."
"First time for everything!" Moon grinned. "Come on."
June screwed up her face, but to my surprise, she took a deep breath and came right over.
"There," Moon directed, more for my benefit than June's, as she began to push me toward the hotel room's couch. She kept pushing me right up until my calves hit the seat and I practically fell onto the cushion. But Moon grinned, helped me shrug out of my dress shirt and jacket, and stepped back to gesture with both hands for June to take over.
June screwed up her face again, but she quickly sank to her knees in front of me and studied the mechanics of my belt and zipper. After a moment's thought, she bit her lip rather cutely and leaned forward to grasp my belt, unbuckling it methodically and tugging the two sides apart to provide her with access to my pants. But she stopped for a moment, analyzing my pants fasteners.
"Button on the outside, and either a metal hook or another button on the inside," Moon explained.
"I know how pants work," June muttered back as she took a deep breath to calm herself. Cutely biting her lip again, she leaned forward once more, efficiently making quick work of my outer button, the zipper, and finally the inner button of my dress slacks.
"Take 'em off!" Moon heckled after June paused to study the situation once more.
June shot her a harsh look. "Do you want to take over?"
"YES! But no, I'm not going to. Just DO it already!"
Taking a deep breath, June glanced up at me with a helpless look as she reached for my waistband. But I stopped her hands with my own, and when she glanced up at me again, I gave her a serious look and said, "You don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with."
"I know that," she replied firmly, pushing past my hands to grab my waistband and start tugging my pants off.
Moon turned back to the bed and remarked, "I get the 'big brother' thing now. Pretty girl is trying to take his pants off, and he's in 'protective' mode."
"Told ya," Rania shot back.
June paused and looked back at them with a sigh. "Oh, that's what you meant by 'big brother'. I was starting to wonder if you thought we looked related or something, because I really don't see the slightest resemblance."
Moon shook her head and sighed. "Look, he doesn't even have a hard-on. Too concerned for 'little sister's' well-being."
Indeed I didn't have a hard-on, and June stared at my un-tented boxer shorts in disappointment as she muttered, "It would seem I have this effect on you."
"It's not your fault," I assured her. As erotic as it had been to see Moon and Rania sixty-nining on the bed, not to mention their still-naked bodies or Moon's playfully-erotic kisses, I wasn't entirely at ease with the situation. Rania and I still had unresolved issues between us, and I'd long since passed the point where I would mentally shelve those issues just because an opportunity for sex had been presented to me.
With a resigned sigh, I grabbed my pants and pulled them back up to my waist. Looking down at June, I took note of her troubled face and explained, "This isn't about you. It's about Rania. Can I steal your room key? I think she and I need to go next door to talk."
Moon and Rania exchanged a glance, and Rania exhaled wearily while looking at me like I'd just told a teenager she needed to perform some hated household chore before she could go out with her friends. "Do we have to?" the 22-year-old complained. "I know last night was weird between us, but can't we just go right back to fucking and having a good time?"
I gave her a serious look and asked, "Please?"
With a sigh, she nodded her understanding and slipped off the bed, muttering, "I'll need a bathrobe or something to go out into the hall."
"Just wait by the adjoining doors between our rooms. I'll go around and open it from the other side." Suiting words to action, I unflipped the deadbolt lock on my side of the connecting doors, turned just in time for June to hand me her spare room key, and popped out into the hall. At least I still had my undershirt on, and there was nobody in the hallway anyway. I quickly let myself into June's hotel room, opened the connecting door on her side, and pushed open the second door into my own room.
Meanwhile, Rania had retrieved a white bathrobe from my closet anyway. Fine with me, because as much as I enjoyed looking at her naked body, it would be better if I wasn't distracted. She came through the doorway and pulled it shut behind her. I closed the matching door on our side. And together we moved to the mirror image of the couch in my room to take a seat.
"I owe you an apology," Rania began wearily as she cinched the bathrobe tighter around her torso, looking at me seriously. "Actually, now, I think I owe you two."
"Why do you think that?"
Taking a deep breath to gather herself, she gave me a frank look and began, "First, I shouldn't have walked away from you last night. You were doing the right thing, trying to communicate where you were emotionally, and being very rational about this ... whatever ... that's going on between us. I'm the one that got emotional, couldn't handle it, and made things into a bigger deal than they really are."
"It's okay. You have every right to be emotional after all that you've been through. I'd have liked to have been supportive, but you wanted to get some space and headed home. That's your prerogative, and you don't have to apologize for it."
Rania gave me a wry smile and shook her head. "Even now you're being rational."
I shrugged. "It's easy. I'm numb, remember?"
"Still, I wanted to apologize for walking away from you last night. I know that numb or not, you're hurting too, and I should have stayed. Can you forgive me?"
"Water under the bridge. There's nothing to forgive. I'm just glad you came back tonight."
She gave me a shy smile. "And that's the second thing I need to apologize for."
"What?"
Rania sighed and gestured toward my hotel room. "The little stunt Moon and I pulled just now. I thought it would be the fastest way of getting you and me back on track. Pretty much every guy I know would have walked into that room and started taking their clothes off right away, and any emotional conflicts would immediately be both forgiven and forgotten. I have to admit I did that a couple of times with Hassan after we'd gotten into fights where I realized it was my fault. He'd walk in, I'd be naked, and whatever argument we'd been having would be history, just like that." She snapped her fingers for emphasis.
I shrugged. "I'm not most guys."
"Clearly. But I think Moon's pretty disappointed."
"Why?"
"You're not fucking her right now, are you?" Rania grinned, and a little bit of that sparkle was returning to her eyes. "I figured you walking in on me being naked would have been a good start to putting last night's conversation in the past, but you walking in on BOTH of us would be even better. What guy doesn't love a threesome? Or kind of even a foursome, depending on how much June got involved? I mean, I know you've got all kinds of wild and crazy experience, having been Adrienne's boyfriend and all, but still. I know you're on good terms with Moon, and she's been dying to get you to fuck her again, especially since I've kinda monopolized you all week. Besides, we've already established that you and I are just friends, nothing seriously romantic, so why not invite her to play with us, right?"
I smiled, "I'm not arguing with your logic."
"And yet you and I are still here, in this room, not with Moon and June in that room."
"I couldn't go straight to fucking without making sure first that you and I are alright," I explained. "Are we?"
"We're fine," she assured me.
"Is that 'fine' the way I define it? Or 'fine' the way it is in the dictionary?"
Rania laughed. "Dictionary-fine, dictionary-fine."
"I'm glad."
"Me, too." Rania smiled, a sweet smile of relief. She took a deep breath, and when she exhaled a great weight seemed to have been lifted off her shoulders. She gave me a coy look, and impulsively, she leaned forward to close the distance between us, puckering up.
I leaned forward to meet her, kissing her softly while she hummed in both relief and joy. And when we separated, both of us were grinning.
"Let bygones be bygones?" she asked hopefully. "Can you and I enjoy the rest of your trip here, take it for what it is and not worry about it meaning anything else?"
"Sounds great to me," I replied.
Rania grinned. "So does this mean we can go back over to your room and join the others? Seriously, if Moon doesn't get fucked tonight, she's gonna drive me crazy bitching and moaning about it for weeks."
I laughed, stood up, and extended my hand down to her. "So what are we waiting for then?"
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