Chapter 1.....a new country, a new life.....
It wasn't just that San Francisco was a new city in a foreign country, or that people spoke so quickly and in a language whose rhythm she was only just beginning to follow. It's that there was a manic energy to the city, a flow, that sometimes felt like it would knock her over, sweep her away, suck her out to sea. No polite smiles, no eye contact, hardly even an apologetic grunt when, faces glued to their phones, they brushed by her her as she walked glumly towards the towering office building where she spent her days. People moved down the streets with an urgency, a self-absorption, a single-mindedness of purpose that left her feeling small, unseen, invisible.
Though she was petite - only five feet tall, and weighing less than 90 pounds - but if one had glanced at her, even for a moment, they would have been jolted out of whatever app was capturing their attention. Her skin glowed white, as if cut from the stuff of moons.
Though born in China, people often mistook her for japanese, likely because of the exquisite delicacy of her features and the unshakeable sense that, though she dressed like any other modern woman, she had the gracefulness of a geisha. But unlike the women in that ancient japanese tradition, whose students spent years cultivating just the right balance between sensuousness, politeness, and shyness, then imbuing it with it with a hint of flickering sexuality, Grace, without even thinking about it or even being aware of it, seemed to exude those very qualities.
Though she was 20 years old, her diminutive size, coupled with an almost unbearable innocence, caused people to guess an age far younger. Adding to that impression was her petite frame, and breasts so small that, in most clothing, were discernible through the fabric only by the subtlest of swells. Shy by nature even in her native land, her arrival in San Francisco less than a month earlier had pushed her a bit further into her shell, leading often to downcast eyes and a gaze that, whenever it did come up off the ground to help her navigate through the churning city, skittered away the moment she sensed another set of eyes seeking hers out.
Her move to San Francisco to pursue a marketing career had come, in the eyes of her siblings, friends, and neighbors, as a complete shock. No one from her tiny farming village in rural China had ever even gone to college, much less had the good fortune of securing a position at one of the most well-paid, prestigious companies in the city. She hadn't really aspired to leave her native country. Her original hope, after recovering from the shock of her college acceptance, had been to learn some basic accounting skills so that she could return home to her village and help ease the workload of her parents and cousins, many of whom operated small farms or grocery stores.
But those plans changed when one of her accounting professors, impressed by the acuteness of her mind, recommended her to a friend of his who had recently moved to san Francisco. The thought of leaving home for a life in San Francisco held little appeal from her.
Although her English, honed by a lifetime of classroom study and American TV shows, was more than passable, the perceived chaos of American life revolted her, and she could feel herself missing her village's familiarity and tranquility even before she'd left it behind.
She had prepared herself to turn down the job even before she'd received the call from the woman who had interviewed her. But what she couldn't prepare herself for was how she'd react when she was told about the salary she'd earn if she accepted the position. When she heard the number, she quickly knew, almost to her dismay, that she couldn't turn it down. The good she could do for people in her village made walking away an act too selfish to bear. So she accepted the offer, and began her new life in the city.
Before arriving, she'd assumed that there would be an adjustment process, a series of frustrating moments when she struggled to figure out how to ride the subway, which market stocked the best selection of Chinese spices and vegetables, and where to shop for clothes that allowed her to perpetrate the ruse that she was an American accountant, not an impostor from a small Chinese village, desperately trying to earn money to send back to her siblings. But what she didn't prepare herself for was the sheer loneliness of her new life. Her time outside of work seemed to creep along, leaving her with the feeling that rather than living her life, she was trying to fill the moments.
That sense of solitude, of being alone in a vast, uncertain world, had been with her since she was five, when her parents, who'd started a family far too young, abandoned Grace, an only child, and moved to Beijing in search of a better life. Grace often suspected that their abandonment of her had been caused, at least in part, by the fact that she was a girl, the inferior of the sexes in the eyes of many traditional villagers. Her memories of her parents were hazy at best. Rather than images, what endured in her heart was a feeling, a sense of reaching out to them, arms open, longing for embrace and comforting, but sensing only their turned backs as they walked into the darkness. Grace's aunt had raised her, trying her best to fill the void created by the departure of Grace's parents. And although Grace never lacked for food or shelter, she could never shake the feeling that her aunt was acting out of obligation rather than love.
Chapter 2.....Karen and Mike.....
Karen couldn't recall when she first felt a maternal instinct inside of her. But then again, reflecting back on her 41 years, she couldn't recall a time when she didn't feel it. To be sure, she felt other instincts too. As a successful nurse, she prided herself in having an almost preternatural sense of what her patients were feeling, where they were hurting, and what she could do to relieve that pain.
But despite those considerable gifts, despite the satisfaction she derived from easing the suffering of others, none of her impulses rivaled the intensity of her desire for a child—a person to pour her love into, to teach, to help guide through the world, to nurture them through that most beautiful of human processes: self-actualization. But Karen's age, her orientation towards self-knowledge and growth, had conferred upon her a certain wisdom—that the desire for something does not guarantee that it will come to pass; to the contrary, attachment to the object of one's desires inevitably leads to suffering. Swallowing and digesting that bitter pill had been the work of a lifetime for her, as she endured the pain of three miscarriages, then the news from her physician that harm caused during the third miscarriage would make it impossible for her to carry a child.
Reflecting upon that moment years later, Karen knew that she would not have survived emotionally without the love and infinite patience of her husband, Marcus. A clinical psychologist by training, Marcus's insight into the human condition, his uncanny ability to put himself inside the mind of his patients, then locate and shine love on the parts of them that hurt, that felt unloved and inadequate, had made him invaluable to his patients, but unlike many psychologists, Marcus was equally present when he left his office. Karen had no doubt that his faith in her, his firm but loving assurance that she could endure despite the untimely end of her pregnancies, had not just saved her, but helped her become a stronger more loving more complete person.
Despite their difficulties starting a family, no one pitied Marcus and Karen. To the contrary, there was a certain mystique that seemed to surround them, a feeling that the universe had allowed them to peak behind the curtain and glimpse, just for a moment, its many secrets. Perhaps it was the twinkle that always seemed to be in their eyes, like they knew a bit more than one could know possibly know in a situation. But more than that, it was their sheer physical beauty. Although it had been years since Marcus played volleyball, at six feet, five inches tall, he still had the trim, muscular body of a college athlete.
Although at 44 years old, a glimmer of gray had crept into his wavy black hair, in some ways, age had only added to the feeling of authority that he exuded, accentuated all the more by his piercing green eyes. Karen, for her part, also seemed to radiate a sense of authority. At six feet, one inch tall, she towered over most women, but her kind eyes and a warm smile had the effect of putting people at ease, of almost countering the initial, sometimes subperceptual gasp they'd emit when they saw a person of such considerable beauty approaching them. The straightness of her hair, which was a chestnut color that inhabited a twilight zone between brown and blond, contrasted with the waviness of her husband's hair, as did the hypnotic blue of her eyes to his radiant green.
She and Marcus had first met more than ten years ago. Neither of them had ever been to a sex party before that night, and they'd both gone more out of curiosity than because of any real desire to actually try that sort of lifestyle. It wasn't that either of them were prudes -- they'd both had their fair share of meaningful and not-so-meaningful sexual experiences. And both of them, though they never would have admitted it then, took a certain pride in their sexual abilities, of their intuitive gifts for understanding exactly what their partner was thinking and feeling, what was going on deep inside of them, and how it could be lured out.
Exceptionally self-aware, both of them sensed the effect that their respective sizes -- Marcus was nearly six feet six and Karen was over six feet -- exerted on their lovers, how their lovers always seemed, through some unspoken communication, to slip into a space where relinquishing control seemed so natural, so easy, like a silk scarf slipping through fingers. They appreciated just how beautiful, almost divine that submission was, like a gift laid down at their feet as a sacred offering. And oh, the looks on their faces, beatific almost, of simultaneously cultivating and bearing witness to, those moments when their partner was close to orgasm, was becoming ever more unglued, ever more ready and needing, truly needing, to transcend this state of ordinary consciousness into whatever glittering realms lie beyond.
In any event, Marcus would never forget the first moment he saw Karen. He'd been wandering through the vast, opulent mansion where the party was taking place, his reactions ranging from mildly intrigued, to totally shocked, to moderately aroused. Before coming, he'd told his friend that he was going simply to satisfy his curiosity, not to engage, and his initial exploration around the mansion led him to believe he'd made the right choice.
But then, he saw her. He has been walking down a long, marble hallway when he heard a sweet, almost kitten-like moaning coming from a room at the end of the hallway. What he witnessed took his breath away, a vision that, even to this day, seemed to perfectly embody the yin and yang of dominance and submission. A tall, athletic woman with chestnut hair strewn about her shoulders positioned languidly on the bed next to a tiny, jet-black skinned African girl who seemed to be in a position of pure surrender.
