Chapter 138 – Calligraphy with Emily
Casey had told me last week that she had a colleague who was new in town and a bit lonely, as a result. Said young lady called herself Emily and was, according to Casey, a gifted artist. Apparently, she dabbled in calligraphy, swiftly turning those Chinese symbols into dragons and sailboats or whatever else one might want to see. I had flippantly suggested that Emily could tag along to one of our next coffee shop visits, not thinking that it could already be happening this week. But, hell, why not?!
During the last visit to ‘our’ coffee shop, Casey and I had talked for quite some length about her plan to put a sex-show on stage, before we had met her beau Hoang for a threesome at the vintage hotel, where said performance would, in all likelihood, also take place. Casey wished Hoang would enter an erotic dance with our splendidly matured friend Yen, Charlie’s aunt. He had already agreed and also promised to ask Yen if she was up for it. Since Hoang was attending a wedding in the mountains with his buddy Vu this week, however, meeting Emily seemed an even grander idea.
I had waited for Casey outside on the sidewalk the previous week, but today I went straight in, as she knew I would be sitting up on the secluded balcony. Mira, Thanh, and I had had a couple of rousing mornings here a few months back, but that was unlikely to happen today with Casey and Emily. But I liked the secluded spot with all the flowers and plants and the knowledge we would remain undisturbed, anyway. If someone was approaching, one could hear the rusty staircase tremble ten seconds in advance. Like now, as the cute little waitress was bringing my iced coffee.
I lit a ciggy and mulled Casey’s idea of a sex-performance over some more. Casey regretted that she had been too sheepish to watch the others do it at our last outing at the thermal springs back in early May. Her picking Yen meant, though, that she seemed to want to watch herself fuck, kind of, as the latter had a similar figure to Casey’s, even though Yen was 27 years her senior. Sure, I’d enjoy seeing Hoang and Yen having sex, too, although I had a hunch that I would rather partake than watch. If Casey herself would really be able to just sit there and observe, only time could tell.
When I heard two scooters arrive downstairs, I knew it was my two young friends, as there weren’t many people out and about in Vietnam at this time of the day. And, sure enough, I immediately recognized Casey’s fairly deep voice, and now the spiral staircase began to vibrate. Laughing and giggling, they hollered their orders at the waitress over the banister, before they came over to the table. Casey, who was wearing her black-and-white checked shorts and a light tight T-shirt, plopped down across from me, while Emily came to a halt to my right. Casey introduced us, before Emily took her backpack off, put it next to her chair on the floor, and sat down.
She looked rather young, which was amplified by her simple beach dress, under which she was sporting an immaculate white T-Shirt. The neo-green and dark-blue pattern made her dress fresh and lively. It had two wide straps over her shoulders, which could be detached on the front, it seemed. I instantly noticed that she kept nudging her glasses up her nose with her crooked index finger, which had always been one of my favorites little gestures, especially among young women. The way she was sitting, her dress only covered the upper half of her thighs, and I began to wonder if Casey had told Emily about our relationship and the purpose of our meeting. Would Emily join us later at the vintage hotel?
After the cute little waitress had disappeared again, I raised my glass, even though it didn’t contain any alcohol, and wished Casey a Happy Birthday. We clinked out beverages and then Casey got some small drawings out of her backpack:
“Speaking of my birthday…” she began.
“Oh, did Emily do them?” I naturally asked after I had taken a cursory glance.
The drawings looked semi-Celtic, like tattoos often do.
“No, they are from the tattoo parlor we went to yesterday evening… I want to gift myself one or two small tattoos,” Casey was beaming.
I only managed to muster a neutral nod, as I wasn’t a great fan of young women spoiling their impeccable bodies with dark-blue symbols, which made their skin look dirty, I found. But then, those symbols here were rather small and Casey’s body succulent and large. Perhaps something on the right spot wouldn’t look too bad on her. I spread those sketches in front of me but still remained unenthused.
“Couldn’t Emily design something more original?” I suggested. “Something more personal, off the beaten path?” I asked and lit another ciggy.
After all, Celtic symbols had nothing to do with Casey’s young life here in Central Vietnam.
“Yeah, I know… we’ve thought about that too,” Casey replied, nodding toward her friend, who hadn’t said anything yet, even though Casey had described her English as ‘pretty good’ a gaziantep jigolo few days back.
Like I just said, I wasn’t particularly keen on body art but wanted to get to know Emily a bit, first. And so I asked her a few questions, during which I checked out her slim, conical calves, which had a few hairs on them. Soon, we ended up talking about tattoos again, however. Like she had just waited for that cue, though, she got a notebook out of her backpack now and a bunch of pens, but then Casey asked her something in Vietnamese, and I disappeared to use the bathroom downstairs.
I still wasn’t sure where this all would lead to; Casey and I hadn’t mentioned going to the old hotel afterwards, but I took that for granted. She did, too, didn’t she? Emily seemed shy and almost meek, and so I couldn’t imagine that she would join us. Perhaps in a few weeks, when we would know each other better, but not today. And frankly, I wasn’t sure myself if I wanted her to come with us. She seemed pretty nondescript and kinda bland, I thought to myself, as I was walking up the flimsy metal staircase again.
The two of them were huddling together, pondering different designs, it seemed. Apparently, Emily was making some suggestions for improvements here and there and had already drawn something on the back of one of those small sheets, which she now refined, talking quietly to her more voluptuous friend. They only stopped when that sweet little angel of a waitress came up again to refill our tea glasses.
When that girl saw what we were doing, she said something in Vietnamese, while she was rubbing the front of her left thigh, whose naked skin seemed unreachable under her black jeans, though. She had an enticing nimble figure, and I grew curious:
“She’s got an absorbing tattoo on her thigh?” I surmised, pointing at the server and looking at Casey.
The latter nodded, and I suggested facetiously that she show it to us. Of course, the girl only laughed the proposition off, after Casey had translated. It was still a cute little scene. But my idea that the girls go downstairs to look at the waitress’ thigh in the bathroom remained without resonance as well. So I asked Emily if she had a tattoo – to keep the ball rolling – which she denied. She looked incredibly cute when she blushed, though. Perhaps she actually had one, but in some spot that she couldn’t show me. But watching her sketch and nudging her glasses upward from time to time definitely was endearing.
“Ben, what do you think of a tattoo on my thigh?” Casey asked suddenly, placing her hand on the inside, near her crotch.
“Well, that depends what exactly it would be… and also how big it is… I guess I would need to see it ‘live’, so to speak…”
Casey was mulling over what I had just said. I wanted to hold back but then thought it would be only fair to warn her:
“You also gotta keep in mind that you’re still growing… especially there… a bit, at least… which would distort the image…”
Of course, the growth I anticipated wasn’t so much vertical but horizontal and a euphemism for putting on weight. At least, she wasn’t mad at me for subtly alluding to her divine soft form.
“Shoulder, rather?” I suggested as a compromise.
“Yeah, I’ve thought about that, too…”
The cuddly little bunny was now bringing me a second coffee, but she hadn’t changed into a skirt. Of course, not. I’d never seen her in a dress or shorts, either. Perhaps she wasn’t allowed to show her tattoo, as long as she was working here at the café. Anyway, she still stirred up something in me as I was watching her sweet supple ass disappear down the rickety stairs. Oh man, that nimble butt was certainly covered by a dainty pair of panties and would smell lovely. I instantly wondered if she had had anal intercourse yet. And what about Emily?!
“Do you actually want one or two tattoos?” I asked Casey when I had pried myself loose from my reveries.
Emily had begun one of her trademark turning-calligraphy-into-a-dragon routines, as Casey had already described the previous week.
“Well, I sometimes think two might be better… two smaller ones… that kinda belong together, somehow…”
“Yes… that sounds more interesting,” I concurred. “One of them could be a bit more obvious and the corresponding one more hidden, like on the inside of your thigh, close to your crotch, yes…” I mused and lit another ciggy.
Emily wouldn’t mind that kind of talk, would she? No, she pretended not to have heard anything and kept sketching a Chinese landscape with a temple. It was amazing how absorbed she was, which could have been her way of dealing with social anxiety: as long as she was drawing, she was safe. A bit like many young people who stared at their phones when they didn’t know what to talk about (which made the whole thing only worse, of course). I still wanted to chat – and flirt – a bit with her, but perhaps she would be embarrassed. And maybe she assumed that Casey was expecting her to complete two jigolo gaziantep stunning tattoo ideas right here.
When we heard a little bell down on the pavement, the girls leaped off their chairs and asked if I wanted a banh mi sandwich as well. Emily tossed her pen onto the table, while I was thinking. To buy time, I pleaded jestingly for one of them to stay and provide me company, but they both wanted to see what exactly the vendor downstairs had to offer. And so I just told them to get me ‘one with everything’ and slipped them money for all three of us. I took a sip of my coffee and watched the girls elope quickly, as they were afraid the lady might saunter on if no customers showed up within a minute.
From what it sounded like, the cute little waitress had joined them now downstairs on the sidewalk. The way I could hear them prattle and giggle excitedly, she was probably telling Casey and Emily more about her tattoo. I got up to look at the round of girls from above; and, yes, with one leg on the ball of her foot – which reminded me of Yen’s daughter Linh – the waitress was describing what tattoo she had on her thigh. It did seem only matter of time, though, before she would at least let the girls look at her supple slim thigh.
As little as I was enthused about tattoos, my horniness grew by the minute. I mean, I was surrounded by young skin and flesh and, as I was still waiting for them to come up again, I looked at Emily’s sketches, which – I had to admit – were rather impactful. When the ladies were back, suddenly Emily began to open up: She told us about her childhood in Ha Tinh Province in the north, which was one of the poorest parts of Vietnam. Yeah, there were probably very few positions for an educated and dedicated young woman like her up there. Our town was more prosperous, as we had the oil refinery nearby and various industrial parks, with a shoe factory and another that produced small trucks. It also sounded like Emily was already done with living in big cities, which could have had to do with her former boyfriend.
“How long have you been here?” I asked her.
“Since after Tet… about five months…”
“Your English is pretty good,” I complimented her.
She thanked me rather formally, after she had chewed her food and swallowed, before she added that English had been her minor at university.
“And your major was design?”
“Web-design, yes… I’ve always wanted to do something with computers and art together…” she smiled.
“Well, Steve Jobs took a calligraphy course once at college, which was more less a coincidence, but the Apple fonts later reflected that…”
“Oh, you know that?!” Emily exclaimed excitedly. “We watched that speech in English class once…”
“But by then, you had picked your major already…” I asked, just to make sure.
“Yeah, yeah… but, still… it was a nice confirmation…” Emily nodded, and I was glad that the ice was melting.
But now she turned toward Casey again, and we all finished our food more or less in silence, during which time I checked out Emily’s young bosom. But there wasn’t much to see, under the triple layers of bra, T-shirt, and dress. Casey’s flowing bust, on the other hand, which she hadn’t harnessed in a bra, was parked fairly low, down on the sides of her torso again – like most of the times we met.
If I had been alone with Casey, I would have asked her if Emily knew about our relationship and our frequent visits to the old hotel. And if the two of them had ever talked about sex. But I didn’t want to cause an éclat by plowing forward too forcefully. Or, if I had been alone with Emily, I would have asked her if she had already heard of the vintage hotel, since she – as an artist – would find the stately pile of bricks fascinating, wouldn’t she?
To dissolve the stalemate and make use of Emily’s elated mood, I now made a monumental suggestion, of which I wasn’t sure from what depths of my mind it had come:
“Hey! What Emily has drawn here looks mesmerizing, but it’s one thing to see it on paper… I think it would be better if we could see the symbols on your skin… where you would have them the rest of your life…”
Casey looked at me with wide open eyes, seeming not to know what I was driving at.
“Well, we’ll go to the old hotel and you take off your T-shirt, so that Emily can draw that dragon on your shoulder… if she doesn’t mind… does she know about ‘our’ hotel?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’ve mentioned it…” Casey replied quietly, blushing, like she had something to hide.
I looked at Emily, who was pretending not to have heard us. Which was clever and heightened the sensual tension. I almost asked Casey, too, if Emily knew what frequently happened at the hotel, but then she may have refused to join us. Or perhaps she would have, precisely because she knew what could happen there. It was difficult to say. Emily had already admitted that she felt lonely from time to time, as Casey had reported last week, but I didn’t know gaziantep escort if that included missing sexual gratification. Did Casey know?
Casey was blushing even more now; perhaps as she had just finished eating her banh mi. or had she divulged too much already? Would she tell Emily now that she and I were having an affair and were hoping to quickly have sex at the hotel? I didn’t want to ask Casey to be frank with Emily but, instead, asked Emily what she thought of the plan to drive over to the old hotel, so that she could draw her calligraphy-tattoo idea onto Casey’s shoulder. Emily contended that she didn’t know if the ink would come off afterwards, but when she immediately tried it on her friend’s naked forearm, I knew I had already won. Almost. Casey licked her fingers and attempted to remove the ink, which proved to be somewhat persistent, though.
“You could also do it just the two of you, somewhere else…” I offered, as I didn’t want to seem pushy, but Casey stated that she would value my opinion.
With which she had probably meant my cock, which was much bigger than her boyfriend’s. Anyway, we nodded at each other and then packed up. When I was paying the bill downstairs, the ladies disappeared into the bathroom together, of course, but it was too late for collusive behavior at this point. And perhaps there was no need. Maybe Casey was now telling Emily what to expect at the old hotel, while they were peeing or washing their hands. Or Emily would disappear after she had drafted the tattoos on Casey’s skin, and then the two of us would sink our teeth into each other’s flesh. Although I had to admit that I would find it more rousing if Emily stayed for a few rounds of tender caresses.
Anyway, I found it tantalizing not to know exactly what was on Emily’s mind and how far she would be willing to go. Perhaps she didn’t even know herself. Without saying much, we went outside and mounted our motorcycles. Looking in the rear view mirror, I saw the two of them driving next to each other – as the Vietnamese are wont to do. They looked pretty relaxed and where laughing from time to time. Or course, I didn’t know what they were talking about: tattoos, sex, both, or something else? We stopped on the way to buy a few beers and ice, but when I asked if they wanted something else, they just shook their heads.
It wasn’t far from the store to the hotel, and when we had arrived, nothing had changed, of course. I released the padlock, and we drove in. I put the lock back into the latch inside, wondering what we would do if Emily wanted to leave earlier. Well, the chances were slim, as they worked together six miles away and would certainly want to make the drive back to the VSIP headquarters together.
When Emily was distracted, as she was looking for something under her seat, I nodded at Casey and gave her a questioning thumbs-up. Did Casey know I had been asking if Emily was in the know? As she was still busy, I nodded towards Emily’s butt, which was protruding nicely, with my chin, to which Casey now responded with a thumbs-up of her own. Obviously, I couldn’t thrust my index finger through a hole I would make with the thumb and index finger of my other hand. Well, I couldn’t be sure with all the slapstick here but, in the end, things would work out. Somehow.
As silly as our charade here was, I frankly didn’t know, either, how passionate I was about banging Emily. Sure, she was young, slim, and definitely not ugly. Just a bit nondescript. But the last thing I wanted was to embarrass her. I guess I could have just asked her, but that would have taken away from the lovely, beguiling tension that had been developing over the last hour. I noticed again, after she had finally closed the seat of her Yamaha, that Emily had a few fluffy straight hairs on her shins and calves, which I now wanted to touch. We went upstairs, and Emily was really engrossed by the old stately building and the chandelier up near the fifth floor. I told her as much as I knew about the hotel’s history, and she mentioned that, of course, she knew Nguyet and Thuy. As casual as she had said it, though, she probably wasn’t suspecting that I also had sex with both of them from time to time.
Anyway, we were making our way up slowly, pausing sometimes to admire another detail. Casey had long taken my hand, and eventually we took her in the middle. When we all were connected, I felt the energy flowing back and forth and grew more and more convinced that this afternoon could only end well. And if the two of them had fun and could decide on the perfect tattoo for our sumptuous friend, it would have already been a pretty good day, I tried to convince myself. If we really couldn’t find a way to arouse each other properly and release the tension – fuck it! Casey and I would come back here soon and catch up on what we would miss today.
I quickly grabbed two glasses from the kitchen on the third floor, before we moseyed one more story up to the only semi-furnished room that was left in the whole building. The first things I saw when we arrived were the bright orange pack of condoms, the lubricant, and the silly blindfold, which we had once used during an orgy to sniff everyone’s asses, dicks, and pussies, and then guessed whose it was. Man, we had to do that again sometime soon. Perhaps as a warm-up for the fuck-show – or, rather: show-fuck – that Casey was planning.