An adult stories – Man, Woman, and Meaning Between by EroticCupcake,EroticCupcake I stood in the crowded arrivals line in the Pudong Airport in Shanghai China, holding a sign that read, “Welcome Robert and Anna!!!”
That morning the CEO had called me from America, not unheard of but rare.
“Push your return flight out a few days,” he said. “We have clients flying in to Shanghai, looking to buy a company. Support is on the way, but you’ll need to handle it for the weekend.”
He gave me the details. CFO and a forensic accountant. Names, schedules, reservation details. Their job was to crawl inside the books of this prospective company and determine if it was worth buying.
I needed to show them around for the weekend as a kind of personal favor between rich old business owners. It didn’t matter if I was the right person for the job. I was the only American we had in Shanghai, at least for the weekend.
“And Mark?” the CEO said.
“Yeah?”
“Spend some money for Godsakes,” he said. “These are executives.”
“Yes sir.”
So I had a reputation for austerity. I didn’t mind. I took pride in being low maintenance. Shoot me out of a cannon from space, and I would get to work. Help.
Even so, the timing was bad. My ticket back to America was already booked. I’d been in China for too long, months instead of weeks. My sister Sarah was organizing a birthday party for me, one I was going to miss.
I waited for strangers to arrive, reminding myself that I chose this life. I wasn’t nervous, but… What do you call a dinner with two accountants and an engineer? It sounded like a joke, but I didn’t know the punchline. Awkward silence?
The foot traffic picked up. Americans. This had to be the flight. I watched for couples, a man and a woman walking together, projecting expectations on to strangers. Executive. Accountant.
There weren’t many couples, and I found myself watching attractive women instead. A tall blond, maybe forty, but with nice legs. Older man and trophy wife. Fake breasts. A short woman in a Dallas Mavericks hoodie, dark hair and a nice ass, rolling along with a giant suitcase, big enough to fit inside.
I sighed, too long in China. I had sworn off dating foreign women. On a long enough time line, distance and culture doomed every relationship. Chinese women, the kind I was attracted to at least, weren’t interested in casual dating, and truthfully neither was I.
“Mark?”
The dark haired woman with the nice ass stopped in front of me.
“Anna?”
She nodded. Anna was much younger than I anticipated, maybe thirty, maybe younger. Her hair was pulled back in a pony tail. Large brown eyes and light skin. It’s impossible to look your best after that flight, but even so, she was cute. Anna flashed a brilliant smile and extended a hand. I shook it.
“Where’s Robert?” I asked.
“Scratched,” Anna said. “Family emergency. He’s okay, but yeah. Just me.”
She bent over, reaching for shoelaces that had come loose. I wasn’t trying to look, but I couldn’t help but see the gap between her loose hoodie and t-shirt, to her ample cleavage and a sports bra.
I turned away, a shot of lust and also embarrassment. Had she noticed?
“Here’s my card,” I said. It felt important, a connection to my broader organization, letting her know I was who I claimed to be. She looked at the card then at me.
“A little young to be a Director,” she said.
“I could say the same about you.”
“I’m not a Dir–” she started.
“But you’re here,” I said, “Titles don’t mean much anyway, all that matters is responsibility…”
Anna stared at me.
“Seems like you have plenty,” I finished.
She sighed, a big heave of her shoulders. “Seems so.”
“We have a car waiting,” I said. I grabbed her giant suitcase and started rolling. It was the kind of luggage college kids pack when they are moving for a semester, trying to pack up their whole life.
“Great,” she said. Anna pretended to be excited. I could tell she was tired.
“Mavericks fan?”
“Big time,” she said.
“Luka or–”
“Dirk,” she said.
We walked down the long corridors of the Pudong Airport.
“You in the military?” Anna asked.
“No,” I said.
“Were you?”
“I do push ups. Gym access here is–”
“I meant your hair,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “No. Getting a haircut in China is awkward, so I started doing it myself.”
I turned to look at Anna. She was watching me, studying words or maybe my body language, drawing conclusions about me.
—
Anna and I loaded in to the company car. The driver shot me a burst of Mandarin, confirming destination and plans. Then we were off, navigating a dark maze of parking garage then out to the overcast exterior, to the underdeveloped “country side” around the Pudong airport.
“It’s a long drive across the city,” I said, “two hours maybe. I imagine you’re tired.”
“I have to stay up,” she said, “only way to beat jet lag.”
Anna stared out the window. I needed to give her space. That flight wore everyone out. Shanghai was my hobby, my real passion outside of work. I was a font of trivia and history, but I bit my tongue. Anna didn’t need me talking about the opium wars or Mao ZeDong.
So I watched her watch the city, trying to see it again with fresh eyes. As I was studying her, Anna pulled her hoodie off over her head, no time to look away. It clung to her t-shirt, dragging it up her body, exposing pale skin almost up to her breasts. She wasn’t thin in the typical Chinese girl kind of way. She looked… better.
I felt a stir of attraction as I tried to look away. Pulling off her hoodie triggered an inappropriate response, my body only registering that this cute woman was taking off her clothes. I had to force my eyes away from her very nice, very full breasts. Jesus. Too long in China or without a girlfriend. Both.
I spoke to the driver in Mandarin. My vocabulary here wasn’t perfect. “We, right now, are hot. Please. Cold.”
He nodded and cranked the AC.
“Thanks,” she said. “You speak Mandarin?”
“Just barely,” I said, but I wasn’t sure if that was still true. I had been studying hard and spending weeks at a time in China. Fragments of language were starting to pull together. “You know what… actually, yes?”
“But you cut your own hair?” she asked.
“I may not have that vocabulary…” I said, “even in English.”
She smiled at me. “I didn’t want to say it…”
We were in traffic, running parallel with the elevated Maglev line. A train wooshed by.
“Did that train have wheels?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
My phone started ringing. Anna looked at me. It was my sister, Sarah, calling from the states. She wouldn’t like my news. I silenced the call.
Sarah called again.
“You can take that,” Anna said.
She wouldn’t stop calling. It was my birthday, and the more Sarah thought I was avoiding her, the more she would keep calling. I answered.
“Hi Sarah.”
She immediately erupted in to Happy Birthday, so loud I held the phone away from my ear, not even on speaker but her voice still carried across the car. Sarah’s tone became increasingly desperate as she rounded to the end.
Anna was all smiles, chuckling at my discomfort.
“Are you boarding your flight?” Sarah asked.
“Um,” I started, “Sarah I have something–”
“You’re staying in China,” she said. I heard the disappointment in her voice.
“I’m with a customer,” I said. “I need to call you back.”
“This is… I can’t believe you,” she said.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
I heard her sigh. I got off the phone as fast as possible. Anna’s dark eyes followed with concern.
“Sorry,” I said.
“That a… girlfriend?”
“You heard?”
“Hard not to,” she said.
I sighed. “Sister.”
“Oh,” Anna said, “and you stayed in China… for me?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “A few extra days.”
“You can go if you need to,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Sarah will get over it,” I said. “And it’s… It’s not your fault. I have orders.”
“Orders for what?”
Shit. I looked at her. “Make sure you have a good experience in Shanghai.”
“I’m an assignment?” she smiled at me, nervous more than happy. “Not sure how to feel about that.”
This was off to a miserable start.
“A good assignment?” I volunteered.
“You ever done this before?” she asked.
I realized that Anna wasn’t threatened by me, which was nice, but she did lack confidence. I had the vibe of a guy who needed direct orders to spend money. I needed to do something.
“I love this city,” I said, feeling it in a way that I couldn’t put in to words. I caught her eyes. She looked… probably just overwhelmed. It had been a long day. “And you will too.”
“Forty eight hours to fall in love?” she asked. “Tight deadline. How you going to get that done?”
“I’ll show you,” I said, finally finding confidence.
“Show me what?”
“Everything.”
“How you going to do that?”
The Maglev sped by again. The displaced air rippled across our car. Giving Anna space wasn’t working. Every word I had chosen so far seemed to be the wrong one. My heart was racing, but I let go.
“That’s the Maglev. Goes from the Pudong airport to the edge of the city, topping out around 400 kilometers per hour. It doesn’t have wheels because it floats on a magnetic field. It was supposed to go across the entire city, but the first leg cost 1.4 billion, so they canceled the project. It goes from East Pudong to slightly less East Pudong.”
Anna smiled at me. “Well that’s certainly a lot of information.”
I stared out the window, embarrassed. I wasn’t used to failing.
“Shanghai is my… hobby,” I said. I didn’t make eye contact. “It’s very possible I can talk about it longer than you can stand to listen.”
“Mark?” Anna touched my arm. I turned. Her brown eyes studied me.
“Keep going,” she said. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”
—
It was dark when we arrived at her hotel, The Renaissance on Zhongshan park. Even in the misty smog, it was an obvious landmark, a forty story skyscraper with brilliant LED lights lining around the edges, bathing the darkness in blue light.
I waited with Anna and made sure there were no issues at check-in.
“All set,” she said.
“You’re probably tired,” I said.
“Yeah,” Anna said.
“You can get dinner at the hotel. Or room service,” I said. “Western stuff. For tomorrow–”
“If I stay in my room, I’ll pass out,” she said, “and I need to be steady by Monday.”
“Dinner then?”
She smiled.
—
I waited in the lobby while Anna got ready. That flight was brutal. Sixteen hours plus, cramped, no sleep. I couldn’t imagine going out after.
Even if she hurried it would take a half hour to get ready. I needed to call my sister. Sarah was throwing a birthday party. For me. It wasn’t the first time I bailed on plans in favor of China, but it was a dick move. She picked up on the first ring.
“Mark?”
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“How could you extend your trip again?” she said. I expected her to yell. The disappointment in her voice hit harder.
“I had to,” I said.
“You can say no,” she said.
“Not to the CEO,” I said. He was an old man who promised the world and mostly delivered, but I always said yes. It was the foundation of our relationship. “And anyway I want to be here. I caught an interesting… assignment.”
“Visiting another shit hole factory?”
“I have to show someone around Shanghai,” I said. “A client.”
“You ditched your birthday to wine and dine?” She sounded suspicious. I wasn’t a people person.
“How’s the new job going?”
“Fine. I guess,” she said. Sarah was an adjunct professor of mathematics. Entry level, but a job with potential. “Did you change the subject?”
“Doesn’t sound fine,” I said.
“It’s just… I’m teaching business Calc,” she said. “You so much as smile at these frat boys, and they think you want to fuck them.”
I thought of Anna, her exposed stomach and easy smile, already there was a lonely pit of want forming in my body.
Boundaries. I wasn’t a frat boy.
“Burden of being pretty,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“You showing around a celebrity or something?”
“Just a girl,” I said. “An accountant.”
“A cute one?” she asked. I could hear the smile in her voice. What was the point in lying?
“Yes.”
“Good for you,” she said. “You could have told me–”
“It’s not like that,” I said.
“God knows you need to get laid.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
—
When Anna came back down to the lobby, she was transformed.
The same smile and sparkling eyes, but everything else was different. Anna was wearing a floral printed shirt, maybe silk, that clung to her breasts and stomach, the faint outline of her bra showing through as she approached. She wore dark slacks that hugged her ass along with moderate heels. Her brown hair bounced around her shoulders, loose and wavy. Maybe a little damp.
I thought about sending her back for better footwear, but it would be okay. Probably.
“Thanks for waiting. It’s nice to feel human again.”
“You look… uh…” Goddammit. Don’t start a sentence you don’t know how to finish. “You look great.”
I was mad at myself. I was here to be a professional. Anna was in a foreign country. Her expected traveling companion was ten thousand miles away. She didn’t need to feel pretty. She needed to feel safe.
“I know,” she said. “Want to know why?”
I did my very best to drink in her beauty indirectly, not to obviously focus on her full breasts or the pleasing curve of her hips. Anna was watching my eyes. It was torture.
“It was a rhetorical question,” she said.
“Why?” I answered.
“Because you’re taking me somewhere nice. You can do that?”
“Yeah. Yes,” I said. “You want the shortcut or the scenic route?”
“Give me the scenic,” she said.
—
I led her down toward the maze of subways that criss-cross beneath the streets of Shanghai.
“You have an odd interpretation of scenic,” she said.
“Trust me.”
We walked around the sprawling underground compound below the Renaissance, around a full sized supermarket, bakeries and Japanese restaurants, ice cream and clothing boutiques, a whole world below the surface.
I spent extra time buying her a subway card, showing her how to navigate the maps and stations. I over explained the city, trying to provide her multiple ways to get home safe without me. I framed it as information for “next time.” I just wanted her to feel secure.
“We’re going to Xin Tian Di,” I told her. “It literally means ‘new Earth-Sky’ but the combination of Earth and Sky together means place. The New Place. A trendy restaurant development. We can get any kind of food there.”
We went riding the escalator down to the subway proper.
“Mandarin is interesting that way. The real meaning is sometimes smashed between opposites. East-West together means ‘something.’ Left-right together means ‘approximately’ and–”
I looked up at Anna. She was a step and a half above me. “I’m babbling,” I said.
“No,” she said. “It’s… cute. I don’t know many passionate engineers. You really love China?”
I took a deep breath. It felt like a date. That was probably a good thing. Show her a good time.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe just Shanghai. I grew up in a small town, never really knowing a place like this could exist until I found myself dumped in the middle of it.”
I cut myself off, not telling her how I took every chance to stay in the city, to wander the streets, always exploring, looking and often finding something new.
We transfered lines, and I found myself riding up an escalator with Anna, nearly three floors. She was standing ahead of me, two steps up. Her ass was almost eye level, slacks so tight I could see the outline of her panties cutting across half her butt cheek.
I told myself to stop looking.
—
I showed Anna around Xin Tian Di, a low slung neighborhood of brick buildings surrounded on all sides by skyscrapers. Everything was carefully curated to look rustic, but modern five star restaurants and clubs erupted from the buildings out in to European style plazas.
Groups of wealthy foreigners and the occasional escort walked through.
“When I wander around, I like to play a game,” I said, “American or European.”
“What are the rules?”
Anna had several tells that marked her as an experienced traveler. Maybe not in China, but Europe at least. It wasn’t just her strategy about jet lag. She seemed to accept things at face value, China, maybe even me.
“When you spot a foreigner, you call out where they are from. America or Europe. Bonus points if you get the specific country. No points if you hear the accent first.”
Anna started scanning the crowd.
“That guy is definitely Dutch,” she said, and nodded at a gentleman, a Chinese woman on his arm, a little too pretty.
“Very ambitious to call your shot on the first round,” I said.
I looked this potential European over. He was tall. Fine hair, maybe blond, but it was too thin to tell in the low light. Clothing was business casual, an untucked dress shirt, dress shoes. I don’t know anything about fashion, but the scarf was a dead give away.
“Maybe German,” I said. The height was a tell. Northern Europe for sure.
“Not German,” she said. She kept her eyes on him. “Too haughty to be German.”
“Known a lot of German men?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. I looked at her. She shrugged. “What if I get this right? What do I win?”
“We mostly play for pride around here,” I said, gesturing to my non-existent friends.
Anna didn’t make eye contact. She was soaking everything in, this faux European town square in the middle of Shanghai, hundreds of people from all over the world, fine dining, new money, the not so far away pulsing beat of a night club.
“If I win,” she said, “you buy the first round.”
“Anna?”
“Yeah?” she said. No eye contact.
“I’m buying all the rounds,” I said.
She turned back to me. “Your assignment?”
I nodded.
“Any other orders I should know about?” she asked.
“Spend money. More than I’m comfortable,” I said.
Anna laughed at me, the kind that ambushes you, that would make you spit out your drink.
“What?” I asked.
Anna bit her lip and looked at me, really took a moment to process. She smoothed her blouse, framing the contours of her body.
“You needed a direct order to take a woman out for a nice dinner?”
Anna was… intoxicating. The kind of woman I should be afraid to approach. I sighed.
“Apparently,” I said.
She smiled. Some tension in her body broke. “Let’s get you a drink,” she said.
Anna dragged me toward the nearest bar. Along the way we passed the target of our little game. She touched his elbow and spoke to him in Dutch. His face lit up.
She turned to me. “Point. Anna.”
“You speak Dutch?”
“Just barely,” she said. I was impressed. Dutch is… not an obscure language, but under represented. English was sufficient in the Netherlands. You’d really have to put in time for it to pay off.
I caught the edge of the suspected Dutch man as he spoke to his date. It sounded like German.
“No point,” I said.
“What?” Anna shot back. “I spoke Dutch.”
“I heard German,” I said. “Are you actually trying to cheat at American or European?”
Anna smiled at me. “How dare you!” she said, mock outrage. “You saw his face. He clearly understood–”
“Just because he was happy you approached him, that doesn’t make him Dutch. It makes him human,” I said.
Anna swerved in to me, knocking her shoulder against mine. “Was that a compliment?”
“An observation.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “But it doesn’t really matter. You already won anyway.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re the one taking me to dinner.”
I stopped. She took two more steps and turned to me.
“What?” she asked.
“You are not what I imagined,” I said. “Accountant. Corporate.”
She stared back at me. “You mentioned that Mao ZeDong lived around here?”
“Yeah. No,” I said. “The original meeting site… the conspiracy, the revolution was hatched right around the corner.”
“Show me,” she said.
—
After dinner I grabbed us a cab. If I was tired, then Anna was out on her feet. A few gin and tonics and a shit load of jet lag.
I went back and forth with the cab driver several times, then we were off.
“What was that about?” she asked.
“Whenever I tell a cab driver where to go,” I started, “they never understand the first time. I used to think it was bad pronunciation, but I’m starting to believe they’re just confused I can talk at all.”
“You ever feel like you’re in Planet of the Apes?” she asked. “Like, hey! This human can talk.”
“That’s a deep cut,” I said.
“And?”
“Every day.”
—
I walked her to the lobby, to the double elevators up.
“What’s the plan tomorrow?” I asked.
“You tell me,” she said. Her eyes were sleepy. Languid smile.
“Brunch along the Wan Pu River?”
“It’s a date,” she said.
The elevator doors closed, then she was gone.
I shut my eyes. I was hopeless. Maybe just lonely.
Boundaries. “Don’t be that guy,” I told myself. Beautiful women were allowed to be good hangs, to have fun and flirt. Reasonable men didn’t read too much in to it.
And even if she was in to me, what was the point? We had another day and a half together, two days at most. I had nothing to gain and an incredible amount to lose.
I had a job to do. Show her a good time. Day one started rocky, but I turned it around. Two more to go.
—
The area around the Wan Pu River is known as The Bund. It’s an easy metaphor for the city and probably China as a whole. Pointing west, facing toward greater China, the buildings were ancient and grand, built during the colonial period, drug money and horse racing, banking and trade. To the east, across the river, was the financial district. Three of the tallest buildings in the world crowded within a mile of each other, neon signs so large we could read them from across the river.
Anna’s hair was up. She wore a thin cardigan over a v-neck shirt. Her shorts hugged her ass and exposed enough of her legs for me to notice. Her sneakers were bright, almost new. I had the suspicion the brand was significant, but it was lost on me.
We walked along the river, the wind occasionally picking up, drudging up cold mist and the salty smell of the ocean. It was early, and the sun hadn’t broken through the cloud cover. Even so, there were already tourists wandering on the raised walkway.
The Bund extended miles in either direction. We were wandering south on our way to brunch, in no particular hurry.
Anna nudged me, then nodded at a pair of young Chinese women ahead of us, one wearing a shirt that said, “An 11 is a 10 that swallows.”
“That’s a very unfortunate t-shirt,” I said.
“Do you think she knows?”
“Probably not,” I said.
“And the person who sold it… was it a prank?”
I had no idea. I didn’t feel responsible, but it still felt wrong. This young woman, maybe still in high school, was the butt of a joke. An American joke.
“One second,” I said.
I broke away from Anna and approached the girls. This was going to be awkward.
“Excuse me!” I said in Mandarin. “Young woman.”
They turned to look at me, not embarrassed, but uncomfortable. It was about to get worse.
“You right now. Clothes speak English. What do they say?” I said in Mandarin.
The girl eyed me with suspicion. “I don’t know,” she replied. “What does it say?”
I took a deep breath. I certainly didn’t have the vocabulary for this, and conveying half the idea incorrectly would make it worse.
“It says. You are bad girl. A joke. Bad love. American men misunderstand,” I tried.
“Really?” she looked embarrassed.
The friend laughed at her, followed by a rapid burst of Mandarin I couldn’t quite catch, something about sex and boys and understanding. The girl with the obscene t-shirt punched her friend on the arm.
She turned to me, her face red. “Thank you.”
I nodded, then turned to find Anna. She was already close, watching the whole thing. We started again toward the restaurant.
“That was awkward,” I said.
“Don’t know the Chinese word for blowjob?”
I turned to Anna. She was smiling at me, enjoying making me uncomfortable.
“Yeah. No,” I said. I looked away from Anna, across the Wan Pu River, to the fog covered skyscrapers. “I just… if she didn’t know, I didn’t want–”
“It was sweet,” she said.
—
We ate eggs Benedict on a rooftop restaurant overlooking the Bund. Smoked salmon and poached eggs. Black coffee. The breeze coming off the river was actually cold. We should have gone inside, but we suffered through it. The view was too good.
We watched street vendors ply their trade along the river, selling cheap trinkets or caricatures. The vendors would run away or hide their goods when a wandering police officer got near. From up high, it was an absurd dance.
I watched Anna’s face more than the spectacle below.
“You’ve done this before,” I said.
“What’s that?” Anna turned to me. She hugged her coffee cup with both hands, breathing in the steam.
“Buying a foreign company,” I said.
“Auditing. It’s not my money. How’d you know?”
“Your jet lag strategy. And Dutch,” I said.
“Oh yeah,” she said.
“And also… people who travel are different,” I said.
“How so?”
“You aren’t trying to project America on to your experience,” I said. “You just take everything in, accepting it for what it is. In the moment, I guess.”
“You think that’s a symptom of travel?”
I nodded. She took a sip. Anna watched me for a moment. Hesitated.
“It could just be my personality,” she said. “You don’t seem very… in the moment.”
It felt like an insult.
“I’m sorry–”
“No it’s fine,” I said. “More than fine. It’s true. How’d you know?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Anna said. “Some things you did that were… thoughtful.”
She drank her coffee.
“It’s much easier to prevent a problem than clean it up,” I said. “I call it my ‘Quality Brain.’ I often find myself living in the future, anticipating problems.”
“That’s why you like travel,” Anna said.
“How’s that?” I asked. It was true I did like travel. She sounded confident, but I didn’t see the connection.
“I’m going to ask you a question,” she said, “and I don’t want you to find the perfect answer, I want you to find a good answer as fast as you can. Got it?”
I nodded.
“When was the last time you were happy?”
My heart started racing. “That’s a difficult–”
“Don’t think. Speak,” she said.
So I did, the first thing that popped in my brain.
“A few months ago, my coworker visited Shanghai. She asked me to take her to a lesbian bar. I didn’t know… by the time I found one, it was late, empty, no Chinese girls for her to meet. We sat for a round, and eventually the owner found us, a forty year old Chinese woman. She sat with us for like three hours, telling us her life, what it was like to be a gay woman in China, how her family didn’t understand, how her friends asked if her girlfriend was her son.”
Maybe happy was the wrong word, but it was the first thing that had popped in my head. Anna watched me.
“That may have been a bad example,” I said.
“Why did you pick it?”
“It’s been on my mind,” I said. “Maybe poignant is a better word, but I also think… How could an American… what are the chances that a straight white American would ever get to experience that? Maybe not happy. Grateful.”
“When she was talking, what were you thinking about?”
“Her life,” I said.
“How about the future?”
Then I found her point. I did an inventory of the “best moments of my life.” So many of them, almost all of them occurred while traveling, but that wasn’t the common theme. The moments were unscripted, organic, quirky weird moments in life I could never have predicted, but demanded my full attention. No future. Only now.
Anna was right.
“That is… uh,” I started, “very insightful.”
I studied her. Expressive brown eyes, a faint smattering of freckles across her nose that I hadn’t noticed before, glossy pink lips that matched her fingernails.
“You’re pretty smart,” I said. I meant it as an understated compliment.
“Just keep it between us,” she said. “It’s easier to investigate when they don’t see you coming.”
Anna may not have been joking.
We wrapped up brunch, tested our tired feet, and prepared for more.
“What now?” Anna asked.
“I promised to show you everything.”
“You can deliver on that?”
“I believe I can.”
—
We walked back to People’s Square, the “Central Park” of Shanghai, figuratively and literally. It’s a giant common area of rolling hills and light woods.
I bought tickets to the Shanghai Municipal Museum, a four story building in the corner of the park, next to the opera house.
“I know this sounds lame, but it isn’t,” I said. I handed Anna her ticket.
“I trust you,” she said.
The interior was dark and cool, a metal detector and security guard into a giftshop then info display. I took Anna around the edges, avoiding all of the first floor and cutting to the escalators going up.
“We’re going to the top first,” I said.
We rode multiple long escalators until we arrived on the fourth floor.
Unlike the other areas, the fourth floor is one single, giant room. There were metal walkways around the edges, a balcony above us. The edges of the room were dark, ceding all control to the giant spotlight on the middle.
“Watch your step,” I said. I led her to the closest walkway.
Below us was a perfect replica of Shanghai in miniature, each skyscraper no more than three inches tall. Every building, every park, every street was perfectly replicated. From the new money skyscrapers of Pudong to the hundred year old colonial buildings of the French Concession.
As we walked around, I tried to fill in gaps for Anna, pointing out major landmarks, trying to give her the perspective to navigate the city on her own.
I pointed out the neon blue light of her hotel, then east to Jing’An Temple. Then People’s Square and this museum. The JW Marriot on the west side of the park, glowing purple like a wizard’s tower, then east, to the Wan Pu River and the Bund. The bottle opener shape of the Financial Center and the art-deco Jin Mao tower.
“The thing I love about Shanghai,” I said, “is you don’t even need Mandarin. As long as you can see, you can never truly be lost. There is always a landmark to guide you home.”
I realized I was babbling. I looked down at Anna. Her eyes weren’t on the display. They were on me.
“You make a very persuasive argument…”
“Yeah?” Our lips were so close.
My heart was pounding. I saw everything that could go wrong if I kissed her, outrage or hurt feelings. Best case was a wistful moment then a sharp goodbye.
Let it go, I told myself.
“I’ll show you the balcony,” I said. I shoved my hands in my pockets to keep them from shaking.
What the fuck was I doing? I was having a Schroedinger’s cat moment. I was either a goddamn idiot for not kissing this beautiful, intelligent, magnetic woman or a complete asshole for assuming she wanted to kiss me. The safest option was to be a professional. Anna deserved a tour guide that wasn’t trying to fuck her.
“Sure,” she said.
—
We went our separate ways after lunch, with plans to regroup for dinner. I spent most of the afternoon thinking about Anna, that moment in the museum when our lips were close, then her intelligent eyes looking over a coffee mug at breakfast, followed by full breasts in a floral shirt and her tight ass on an escalator.
Fuck.
And it wasn’t just lust. It was worse than that. I needed another evening with her. No expectations, only open ended desire to see her again.
As muddled as my thinking was, I was self aware enough to know I was in trouble. I should have called in sick. I spent the afternoon picking through my wardrobe instead.
—
I returned to the hotel at dusk, a little early, pacing around the lobby waiting for Anna.
I was watching the elevator when she stepped out. Her impossible beauty sent my heart racing even as I worked to process the detail. She wore a dark green dress with metallic accents. It hugged her breasts and hips while extending past her knees. The dress had a slit up the side, releasing tension and exposing leg up to her thigh. Her shoes were no longer practical, long black heels drawing attention to her legs.
Anna’s smile looked nervous.
“Hi,” she said. Had I ever noticed her being nervous?
Her makeup was subdued but still striking, lips a little more red, eyes a little darker. Anna’s hair was up again, this time in an elaborate braid, showing off the elegant curve of her neck. She carried a jacket and a small purse.
I took a moment to process her beauty.
“Mark?”
“Shanghai may not have a restaurant nice enough for you… for that outfit,” I said.
She flashed a brilliant smile. “But you’ll try?”
“I’ll do my very best,” I said.
—
We took a cab across town, to the Jin Mao tower in Pudong. I tried to keep my eyes off of her, away from her breasts or legs, away from her brown eyes and easy smile. Shanghai after dark was different, LED lights on the highway, neon signs everywhere. It started to drizzle as we sat in traffic.
I watched Anna watch the city. There were moments when her beauty hit me so hard, it felt difficult to breathe.
“What is that building?” Anna asked.
She turned to me, saw my face, saw me watching her. Anna smiled. I’m not so sure I ever answered her.
—
We drove through a tunnel under the river to Pudong, to the Jin Mao Tower. We ate high end sushi on the 86th floor while the storm rolled through.
We clinked our glasses together as Anna toasted, “To a lovely weekend.”
The saki was warm, mildly sweet with a hard bite. Anna was wearing a stylish jacket over her dress, downgrading her beauty from breathtaking to merely painful.
I had a sad realization. There was something between us. Not just physical attraction. She was fun and insightful. Did she use her beauty as camouflage? I didn’t know, but just the uncertainty was fascinating.
But no matter what happened tonight, she would be gone tomorrow evening, and I’d be in America directly after.
“Thinking about the future?” Anna asked.
She extended a delicate hand across the table. I took it and nodded.
“You gotta stop doing that,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
She stared out the window while I studied her.
“So where do you actually live?” Anna asked, “The US or China?”
“Neither?” I said. “Kind of in between countries at the moment.”
“Is that…” she paused. “How is that going?”
I ran my eyes across her body and sighed.
“I’m not so sure I know any more,” I said. “Strange. Difficult. I had a moment, a kind of realization that there is no point in buying things, in material possessions at all. What’s the benefit of a nice car if I’m never home to drive it?”
“How about people?” she asked.
I didn’t answer her. Had I been mostly fine or just oblivious? Since Anna arrived, the loneliness had become painfully acute.
“How about your life in America?” I said instead.
“Oh, I have a nice car,” she said.
“Anything else?” I asked.
Anna looked out the window. There was a flash in the clouds.
“You see that?” she asked.
“Anna?” I needed to know about her life in America. No wedding ring, but that didn’t mean a whole lot.
Her eyes came back to mine. “Not any more,” she said. “Travel is… hard on relationships. Not everyone gets it.”
—
We did follow up drinks at Cloud 9, once the highest bar in the world. Neither one of us needed more liquor, but it felt like a mandatory inclusion while in Shanghai.
It wasn’t even nine o’clock, but Anna was fading fast. Day two of jet lag is usually the worst. She was a real trooper just to be awake. When I saw her eyelids drooping, I got the check, ignoring her protests to “stay up just a little longer.”
The line for a taxi was backed up, rain putting stress on the whole transportation network. We waited a half hour for a car.
“Can’t we just take the subway?” Anna asked. She was drunk, tired, leaning against me, her breasts pressed against my chest. My arm was around her, holding her steady more than showing affection.
“That dress is beautiful…” I said.
Anna smiled up at me.
“But you can’t wear that on the subway, not in the rain.”
She frowned. “Fine.”
It took another hour to cross the city. Anna wrapped her arm around mine and rested her head on my shoulder. She slept. How many more hours would we have together? I ran through tomorrow’s theoretical agenda. Maybe sixteen? Not enough.
—
I delivered her to the double elevators again. Anna carried her shoes, her elbow locked against mine, and even still she felt shaky. She was either incredibly drunk or jet lagged, so much that she struggled to walk.
“You can make it up by yourself?” I asked. I hung in the moment, terrified that she would ask me up, not sure how I would answer.
“Yeah,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean I want to.”
My heart was pounding. I believed she wanted me. Anna was obviously beautiful, and there was real chemistry between. Was she this wonderful with everyone or just with me? It didn’t matter. She was here now. Behind her tired eyes I saw desire.
I was desperate for Anna… but not like this.
“Goodnight Anna,” I said. It was the right thing to do, but it hurt like hell, emotional pain twisting in my gut.
She nodded, then disappeared behind steel elevator doors.
Fuck me. I sighed.
For good or for bad, I had survived. I would complete my assignment. A wonderful weekend. No one hurt except me. I would live.
—
We met again for breakfast. Anna looked as bright eyed as ever. The night before had been more jet lag than alcohol.
We rode the subway to the French Concession. Anna had her hair down. She wore a v-neck shirt that exposed a fun amount of cleavage along with skin tight black leggings that showed off the contours of her ass and thighs.
We had a breakfast of black coffee and quiche, then we went wandering. The sexual tension from the previous evening seemed subdued. I still found her immensely attractive, but there was now an unspoken understanding. Whatever seemed destined to happen between us should have occurred last night. A critical window had been missed. We were safe. Things were now just… comfortable.
The neighborhoods of the French Concession feel old. The garish neon signs that are so typical of Shanghai are missing. The sun threatened to burn through the cloud cover as we wandered under sycamore trees that jutted from the sidewalk along the near infinite rows of small shops
“After the opium war, sections of Shanghai were seeded to foreign countries, including France,” I said. “There’s a story, maybe apocryphal, about a sign that read ‘No Dogs or Chinese.”
“So the French Concession,” Anna said, broadly gesturing to the sprawling neighborhood.
“Yeah.”
As we walked, Anna bumped her shoulder against mine, playful. She reached her small hand out, and I took it. We wandered around the French Concession like a couple of teenagers in love. When I looked in her eyes, I felt attraction so sharp that it hurt. We had so little time, not even a full day. Hours.
Even before noon it was humid, and when the sun finally broke through it became hot. We stopped at a “Bier Garten” nominally for lunch, but mostly just to get off our feet. The restaurant was tucked behind layers of green shrubs and small trees, a small oasis in a busy neighborhood.
We sat outside, under a wide umbrella in the shade. Our waitress was German. The neighborhood around us felt old, a hundred years or more with colonial vibes. The skyscrapers that surrounded us were hidden behind foliage and old buildings. We could see the balcony of an alabaster mansion through the trees. It could have been an old hotel or even a re-purposed embassy.
We drank German beer and hid from the sun. I watched her sharp eyes and full lips, mourning this almost relationship that never bloomed.
“So where will you be in three weeks?” Anna asked.
“Hard to say,” I said. “My travel schedule is… not well organized.”
“Could you maybe be in Dallas?” she asked.
“Think you can show me around for a weekend?”
“Don’t you live there…” Anna drifted off. Her eyes focused behind me.
“What?”
“Come here,” she whispered. She nodded at me, behind me. “Look at this.”
I slid my chair around the table next to her, bumping shoulders.
“What?” I asked again.
She pointed her finger up to the tree. I didn’t see anything.
“Behind the tree. Lean over.”
I leaned in to her space, closer until her hair tickled the side of my face, but saw nothing but thick green leaves and the outline of a pale building behind.
That’s when the singing started. A woman’s voice, alto, clear and beautiful.
I leaned in further, until our cheeks were touching, and the view through the trees opened to the old mansion balcony.
There was a couple up there, a young man in a black tailored suit, and a young woman in a wedding dress. It was beautiful pure white with metallic sequin accents that left her shoulders exposed. She was singing.
Her voice carried through the trees to our patio. I heard the slightly tinny sound of imperfect mixing and saw her microphone. She stared at the young man, her fiance, singing in Mandarin. I didn’t need to speak it to know she was singing about love.
Then his voice came in, a tenor. His voice was… fine. Ordinary. The bride was likely a professional singer, and the performance her idea. The groom was going along with it, even if he wasn’t as good, willing to test himself to make her day perfect. It felt like a good omen for their future.
I felt Anna against my face, breathing, micro-movements as she leaned in, trying to see and hear everything. I didn’t move. I couldn’t if I wanted to keep watching.
We were transfixed by this bride and her elegant voice, but more than that I felt the delicate nature of the moment, pure chance finding something wonderful.
I had to fight myself to stay in the moment, to not calculate the seconds until this wonderful thing would end, drinking in every bit of the experience, trying to live forever in each clear note.
The bride’s voice cut through the soreness of my feet, through a mild hangover, finding cracks in my sense of self. It found my loneliness, highlighting the pain, twisting and hurting, but her song was also strangely hopeful. It was about love, and the tone in her voice communicated more than any lyrics. I felt hope in her voice, telling me that loneliness wasn’t a permanent condition. We could all find love.
When the song ended, we heard the muted clapping of the wedding party.
Holy shit.
I took a deep breath. I had spent hundreds of hours wandering Shanghai and had never seen anything like this. I closed my eyes, taking time to savor the moment. This was the reason to travel, to wander the streets of strange cities without expectation. Unplanned. Organic. I could walk the French Concession the rest of my life and never be at this exact right place at this exact right time.
I turned to Anna. She was watching me. Our faces and lips were close, almost touching. Her brown eyes found mine. I don’t know how to explain what I saw. Anna wasn’t on the verge of tears, but her eyes looked wet, expressive, processing thought and emotion and the world around us while also staring in my eyes.
“That was…” she hesitated, “that was incredible.”
My heart was racing. Her eyes darted down to my lips. I stopped worrying about the future. I leaned forward and kissed her, our lips wet with the taste of beer, and found a small moment in time where I wasn’t in control. I was lost in the soft comfort of her lips.
We pulled away. I saw her satisfied smile and a longing in her eyes. My heart was pounding.
“Anna I–”
Whatever I was about to say was interrupted by Anna kissing me back, frenetic energy in her lips and tongue, confidence to pull away between kisses, to regroup and go back for more, demonstrating that this thing between us wasn’t some fragile, fleeting moment.
We sat under an oversize umbrella in the French concession, lips brushing and teasing, tongues dancing together.
Anna finally pulled away, her eyes never leaving mine. She took a deep breath.
“We uh…” Anna started, “we should go.”
—
We went back to her hotel, rushing together to the elevator. When the door closed, I looked at her face and saw only want. Then I was against her, our lips together, my hands on her firm ass, Anna’s breasts smashed against me.
She pulled away for a breath and looked at the elevator display, at floors counting up. Anna must have decided there was still plenty of time. Her lips returned back to mine, tongues caressing and exploring. My erection pressing against her belly.
I heard a ding.
“This us?” I asked.
Anna took a deep breath. Her cheeks were flush. Before she could answer, the doors opened. An elderly western woman looked at us as we pulled away from each other. Any attempt to hide my erection would only make it worse.
“We uh…” Anna sounded winded. “Going up?”
“No,” she said.
Anna jammed her finger against the “close door” button, dozens of rapid fire clicks. When the old lady finally disappeared behind the doors, Anna was back on me again.
—
Her room was small but neat. The giant suitcase was opened to the side, clothes already hanging up. The moment the solid hotel door clicked shut, her lips were back on mine fumbling to undo my pants.
I’d never wanted anything in my life as badly I wanted Anna, and we didn’t have to wait. We were finally together, miscommunication and propriety behind us. Her body and my cock.
She slid my pants off, and looked down at my erection bulging toward her. Anna ran her hands across my cock, and I shifted my hips toward her.
Anna pulled off her top. Her large breasts were smashed between a dark bra. I kissed her neck, then the top of her breasts. She smiled, then started pulling up my shirt.
I could see every contour of her body beneath her dark tights, but even so they had to come off. Anna slid back on the bed, her eyes glued to me.
I looked to the window, a strangely clear view across Shanghai. The smoggy mix had burned away.
“The curtains?” I asked.
“No!” she said. “I need you right now.”
I followed her to the bed. She stared down at me as I hooked my fingers around the band of her leggings and peeled them down her body.
Anna immediately spread her legs and leaned back on her elbows, watching me drink her in. Her panties were a pale green, tucked between her thighs, hugging the enticing curve of her pussy. Her shoulders, arms, and legs had a very mild tan, but otherwise her skin was light, almost porcelain.
“Like what you see?” she asked.
“You’re beautiful,” I said, then I dove on the bed next to her, our lips back in contact. She rolled her body toward me, my leg pressing against her panties, my hands gripping her ass, pulling her close. I felt muscles in her abs and thighs tightening as she grinded against me.
I ran my hands up her back, to her bra strap and found the fastener. I pulled my lips away for just a moment, concentrating, working her bra by feel. I bunched up the fabric, freeing tiny metal teeth, then her bra fell away.
Most of the girls in my life up to this point had been thin, small asses and small breasts. Seeing Anna’s breasts drop against her body, large nipples that blended seamlessly into her pale skin, was something else. A novel experience.
“Point for Mark,” she said.
“I already won.”
She pulled her bra away, and it was my lips against her neck then down her body. My hands went to her breasts, kneading and stroking, my tongue against her hard nipple. Anna moaned.
“Just like that,” she said.
I spent time on her nipples, my tongue flat against the top, back and forth, one hand gripping her breasts, the other between her thighs. Anna’s hips were writhing against the sheets.
“That feels so good,” she said. “But…”
Her eyes shifted down to my cock.
“Condoms?” I asked.
“You don’t have one?” she asked.
Fuck.
“No,” I said. I had them back at my place. I was lonely but not hopeless.
She ran her hand across my cock, soft strokes.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said.
Anna lifted her hips, and I pulled off her panties. My underwear immediately followed.
My hand went back between her legs, exploring the soft flesh of her labia. My mouth went to her nipple. I ran my hand up and down her pussy, then used my middle finger to explore her in finer detail.
Anna moaned when I grazed over the more solid flesh of her clit. I circled around it. Anna’s only relief came when I broke contact to run my hand against the rest of her pussy, dipping my fingers inside of her for a moment, picking up her lubrication before I was back to her clit.
“Like that,” she panted. “And my nipple. Harder.”
I pressed my face against her breasts, using soft pressure and my teeth to tug against her nipple. My tongue pressed flat against the top.
“Oh god,” she said.
I pulled away to kiss her lips, my fingers on her clit never stopping.
Her eyes shifted back to me. Hungry.
“God I want you,” she said.
“Not yet,” I said.
She turned away, her body writhing against my hand. Her breathing intensified, her chest and stomach expanding and contracting in a hypnotizing rhythm. With each sharp breath, Anna picked up something between a moan and a cry, soft at first but building.
“I’m uh…” she said, then a sharp intake of breath. “I’m– don’t stop.”
Her clit was solid against my wet fingers. Anna closed her eyes and moaned. Her hips jerked up, a spasm through her body, grinding against my hand, a look of pained desire on her face.
She didn’t cry out. She just held that position, all the muscles in her body clenched. Then Anna let go, collapsing against the bed. I kissed around her lips, but she didn’t kiss back, her only reaction was against my fingers.
She recovered enough to turned to me and speak. “Fuck.”
“Good?”
She smiled.
“I can go down on you?” I suggested.
“No need,” she said. Her fingers traced around my cock as she recovered from her orgasm.
Her lips found mine again as she ran her fingers up and down the shaft. I shifted my hips toward her.
Anna slid down the bed, her face toward my cock. I rolled on my back, my erection jutting toward her. Her dark hair dangled around her face and neck. I reached out for her breasts, hanging large against my legs.
She took my cock in her mouth, stroking with her fingers, pressing with her tongue. I got lost in the moment, the pleasure and acceptance from this wonderful woman.
Anna pulled away to wrap her hair in a messy bun, then dived back on me. I watched every motion of my cock inside of her while I experienced the wet pressure of her tongue and lips, her dark eyes checking in, watching the pleasure in my face.
I missed this so much, the satisfaction in her eyes, beautiful naked body, the feeling of her nipples and mouth against me, but not just the sex. Intimacy.
Dark eyes looked up at mine as she pulled away for just a second to smile, to bask in my appreciation for everything that was Anna. Then she went back to it.
The wet friction of her mouth kept escalating, a wonderful pressure building inside of me.
“I’m close,” I said. She understood, the pressure of her tongue intensified, her hands sped up.
I bucked my hips in to her as I came. I saw her flinch against the first shot, but she took it, swallowed. Then another.
Anna pulled away, struggling to swallow all of me. Her large breasts swayed against her body.
“Wow,” she said. Wiping her lips.
“That was…” I started. “That was a long time coming.”
“Accurate,” she said.
I had a dry chuckle at my accidental pun as she flopped down next to me. I wrapped my arm around her body and hugged her close. Anna slid her naked leg over mine.
“Does that make me an eleven?” she asked. She turned up to me and smiled.
“Absolutely,” I said. “I’ll make a shirt.”
We laid like that for a time, our bodies intertwined.
“What now?” Anna asked.
“How about we spend every minute together,” I said, “until we can’t.”
“Sounds good to me,” she said. I felt her breathing against me. “I meant lunch though. We never actually ate.”
“We had more pressing business,” I said.
We ordered room service. A bacon cheeseburger and satay and Thai curry. Japanese beer and Vietnamese coffee. We charged my credit card instead of her room. I still had orders.
“Thirty minutes,” I said.
Anna hadn’t bothered to put on clothes. “I suppose all we can do now is wait,” she said.
I bent over her, kissed the inside of her thigh. “I can find something to tide me over.”
—
When room service knocked on the door, my face was buried in Anna, lips and tongue against her clit. They knocked a second time. Anna’s only answer was “Don’t stop.”
—
Later.
“We may starve to death,” Anna said. Our naked bodies were again intertwined.
“I’ll call room service,” I said. “I doubt they threw the food away.”
—
We ate lunch together. Anna definitively answered the age old question of “Should I eat curry while naked?” The answer was no.
Then we spent the afternoon napping. Even after we woke, it took time to convince ourselves that life should go on, that there were things worth doing outside of a hotel bed.
I went back to my apartment to refresh, and then met her back at the hotel at dusk.
I spotted Anna across the lobby before she saw me. I didn’t approach her immediately. I took a moment to watch, to catalog everything about this moment, the way her hair framed her face, inquisitive eyes staring out the window. Anna had changed her clothes. Small shorts and pale cleavage.
We had such limited time. She would leave tomorrow, off to fourteen hour days of financial audits, a hundred million dollar deal in the balance.
Anna saw me and wandered over.
“You look pretty deep in thought there,” she said.
“Yeah, just imagining…” What? How to get more time with her? How to sabotage her trip and keep her in Shanghai? It sounded crazy. “Nothing. You look great.”
—
We went back to People’s Square, then walked east, to the plaza where Nanjing Road meets People’s Square. I’ve never been to Times Square in New York, but it can’t be much different than this plaza in Shanghai. The sun had set, but the whole area was bathed in orange light. Hundreds of neon signs cut along the edges reaching toward the sky, grabbing attention for every shop and store imaginable, from luxury watches down to Pizza Hutt.
Thousands of tourists, most of them Chinese, wandered ahead of us, taking pictures, flashing double peace signs, or making tiny hearts with their fingers.
“There are no cars on Nanjing Road,” I said. “Only people.”
“So many,” Anna said.
Anna and I took selfies together, and eventually a young Chinese couple stepped in to help. I had always resisted taking pictures in China, but I took them with Anna, smiles and longing stares, the neon lights of Shanghai behind us.
I saw pictures as a crutch. I didn’t need to prove what I had seen or done, and I refused to end up an old man sitting in America, looking at pictures of this other life. If I missed China, I would get my ass on a plane and come back.
So what had changed?
Anna was adjusting her hair. “One more,” she said. “Okay maybe two more.”
China would be here forever, but Anna wouldn’t. I wrapped my hands around her waist and pulled her tight, looking at her eyes while a stranger snapped pictures, painfully aware of the transient nature of this moment.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just happy.”
“Me too.”
Anna showed me the pictures as we walked down Nanjing Road, past fast food and luxury shops, past touts selling fake watches and real women, kids launching cheap plastic helicopters in to the sky, dodging the trolley that looked like a miniature train. Our pictures together reminded me of engagement photos. I didn’t say anything. I just gazed at her smile as she scrolled through images of us together.
—
Back in her hotel room. We forgot to buy condoms, but it didn’t seem to matter any more, to either of us. I ran though the consequence, some of them scary. I didn’t care. I welcomed a future with her.
We were naked almost immediately, Anna on her back, dark hair on white sheets, legs spread and waiting. My lips were against her neck as I entered her. Anna released a sigh so thick it was practically a moan. She was wonderful and wet against my cock, soft heat and friction as we restarted a kiss that had never truly ended. I went slow, not caring about pleasure, only wanting the moment to last as long as possible.
While my cock explored the interior of her body, my lips explored the rest. Lips and neck, behind her ear down to her collar bone, large breasts, circling around to her nipples then back to her lips.
Anna would bite her lip or moan as the mood struck her, all while I worked my body against and inside of hers.
Then I was coming again, less violent than that afternoon, but far more intimate, every muscle in my body under tension while Anna moaned, running soft hands down my back.
—
“You okay?” Anna asked. Her head was resting on my shoulder, her eyes turned up to mine. I was living in two moments, the wonderful here and now and the future, when she would be gone.
“I uh…” I said. “I guess I’m missing you already.”
“I’m still here,” she said. Anna slid her leg against mine to reinforce her point.
I closed my eyes, trying to capture this perfect moment, her soft skin against mine, the way her messy hair seemed to cascade across everything.
“Why don’t you extend your trip?” she asked. My heart went racing again. “You already extended your trip once.”
“More than once.”
“Why not two weeks more?”
It was so obvious. I usually returned to America as a convenience, to reconnect with my other life. That other life was lying against me. The cloud of a tragic narrative that was forming in my mind broke. I bathed in warm joy.
All I could do was hug her.
“It’s okay to live in the future,” she said, “just live in a good one.”
“You’re pretty smart,” I said.
“Don’t tell anyone.”
—
Anna had to work. Two weeks of fourteen hour days. A sprint. Gather enough data to approve or reject a hundred million dollar deal. I checked in with her every evening, but I tried to give her space. She was tired and needed to focus.
I rearranged my flight. I considered upgrading us both to first class, but that was probably pushing the limits of “spends some money for Godsakes.” I did pay to move our seats next to each other.
We spent five hours together in the airport, then another sixteen on the flight, planning our opened ended future.
—
Weeks later.
“I heard it went well in Shanghai,” the CEO told me. “No Robert?”
“He couldn’t make it,” I said.
“Their boss told me to thank you personally, said you took good care of… Anna?”
I sighed. How much should I tell him? Dating accounting from our biggest client wasn’t exactly a conflict of interest, but if we broke up it would be drama.
“She doesn’t show up on any org charts,” he said, “but apparently she’s important. Their CEO said she is special.”
I took a deep breath.
“She and I…” I said, “started dating–”
“Seriously?”
I nodded. “Anna is wonderful.”
“Not a great decision–”
“I know.”
“If you fuck this up–”
“I won’t.”
He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I told you to show her a good time, not marry her.”
“Catastrophic success?” I said.
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He got out of his chair and dug around in the secret liquor cabinet that we all pretended wasn’t there. He poured us both a glass of scotch. He stared behind me for a moment, probably imagining his own adventures in China.
“I wish all your assignments went this well,” he said.
“Most of them aren’t this cute,” I said. “Sir.”
He knocked his glass against mine. “Next time a pretty girl needs a tour around Shanghai, I think I’ll find someone else.”
“Anna would appreciate that.”
—
Once we arrived back in the states, Anna and I never really separated. I still kept a room with my sister but mostly just stayed with my new girlfriend.
Her company did end up going through with the deal. She’d be spending lots of time in China for the next year.
Anna’s head was resting on my chest, our naked bodies still sweaty, breathing hard.
“I can spend my weekends in Shanghai,” she said. “Anything else you want to show me?”
“You have no idea.”
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