Little Orea

We got off the train and made our way to the exit of the sprawling building which looked more like a giant shopping centre than a train station. It was early evening - around half past seven - and as we made our way through the heart of the central business district, the twilight sun peeked out at us between the skyscrapers. It had been a scorcher of a day - the hottest of summer yet. Not the best day to pick for heading to a distant riverside regional town, whose claim to fame was being a paddle steamer port. As it turned out, the very day we chose to make the three-and-a-half hour train journey was the day the paddle steamers weren't plying. We spent a couple of hours in the sweltering heat, then took the next (and last) available train back to the big city.

We were bummed out, but the day wasn't over yet, and we decided to make the best of the time we had left. Wandering through the laneways, we found a decent Korean BBQ restaurant, and sat down to eat. Each of us ordered a dish that we'd never tried before. Our order was taken by a male waiter. Then we decided to try out some Korean beers as well, and the waitstaff who took our order of drinks was a cute Asian woman. I asked for her recommendation, and she brought me a refreshing lager to go with the food I'd ordered. I and my companions stayed in the restaurant for about two hours, eating, drinking and chatting. Although a couple of tables adjacent to ours were occupied by some very pretty women, I kept stealing glances over at our waitress. Her almond-shaped eyes sat atop a slim nose and lightly painted lips. Underneath her apron, she wore a yellow off-shoulder dress that seemed rather expensive. Once, when she caught me looking, I smiled. She smiled back.

We ordered two more rounds of beer. The third time, it was the male waiter who brought us our drinks. I looked around to find the waitress, but she was nowhere in sight. She must have finished her shift. We got up and went to the counter to pay. I took care of everyone's drinks bill, and headed out. We hadn't realised this, but we were in Koreatown. Around us there stood numerous bars and restaurants brimming with patrons. Their interiors were dimly lit. The night had only just started to sweep in. It seemed like if you hurried, you could still catch up to the dusk sun on its way.

It was still warm outside, and we'd just had a spicy meal. Forehead covered in a sheen of sweat, I lead the way to a nearby bar. A prop-up chalkboard outside advertised cheap soju. Never one to say no to trying out new kinds of liquor, I ordered two pint-bottles for us. Judging by the colour of the bottles, one could be forgiven for mistaking the contents for beer. But soju has 4 times the alcohol by volume content than beer, and is meant to be downed using shot glasses.

We took up a corner table. I poured the drink out for everyone, and ten minutes later we were already three shots down each. Then two of the guys dropped out of contention, citing dull excuses about work the next day. Now it was just me and my flatmate who were drinking. We paced ourselves as the drink hit us. We drank two more shots each over the next quarter-hour while we chatted. I looked over at the bar, and there was the waitress from the restaurant. She seemed unaccompanied. On the pretext of getting another bottle, I left the table and made my way over.

"Do they serve better alcohol here than your restaurant?" I asked, sitting down.

She smiled at me. Without the apron on, her dress looked even better on her. It hugged her tight and rode up her legs as she crossed them.

"The boss keeps it locked up. For diners only, he tells us. If it were up to him, he'd keep the bar service open till the last bottle was sold." she replied.

Just wish I could be the one to order the last one and you'd still be around to pour it for me, I thought to myself.

"Hey, thanks for suggesting the lager earlier. It went beautifully with the food." I said.

"I'm glad you liked it."

"Now I know what drink to order in a Korean restaurant without feeling awkward."

"My pleasure. I know the feeling."

"Can I buy you a drink?"

"Sure."

I asked the bartender to bring us two of what my companion was having.

"I never did get your name." I said as we waited for the drinks to be served.

"Su-jin. But everyone calls me Sue."

I raised my glass to hers.

"To Korean lager, and to having bosses who aren't tight-arsed."

She laughed and we started talking. Sue was from South Korea, but had migrated five-thousand miles away to this city, about seven years ago. She got herself a degree a couple of years ago and secured a job as a personal assistant to the MOMA curator. But on some nights like this one, she helped out at her aunt's restaurant.

"Hold on, so your manager at the restaurant is actually your aunt?" I asked.

"I wish! It's her son, who seems to have inherited his father's ways in running a business. Not that he's as successful, though."

"Horses for courses, I guess."

I paused for a couple of moments, and took a sip out of my glass.

"But it's admirable that even though you work in a relatively high-profile job, you find time and energy to help out at the restaurant." I said, looking into her eyes.

"Yeah. It feels like a getaway, you know. Dealing with arrogant artists, who spend more time gloating over work they did two years ago than creating anew, and mindless millionaires who buy art just to impress someone's pants off - it starts getting to me if I go at it for too long. I come from a small town in South Korea no-one's heard of. For the past year I've been spending every other night at exhibition launch parties or doing dinners atop skyscrapers with jet-setting clientele. I need to stay on top of the gallery's schedule, organise events, manage the curator's appointments and sit in on meetings, supervise installations, field calls from terse secretaries - who sometimes can't even speak English and want their boss's art deliveries yesterday, chase down insurance and security companies for every new installation; and I'm expected to do it all with a big fat smile plastered on my face the whole time. I can deal with all this work and more, but it's just the pretence and politics that I can't bear."

Sue broke off as she stared into her glass. Her long brown hair fell over her face. I had an urge to run my fingers through it. After taking a moment, she looked back up.

"And that's why I try to find time to come here and help out. It's hard, messy, sweaty work. One day you might have a kid puke on your trousers, and on another day you might get yelled at by a half-drunk diner who messed up his order and blames you for it. But it's a purge. A purge of ego, conceit, and greed. Keeps me balanced. I don't know what'll happen the day I start getting used to that life."

Sue looked down again. She seemed tired.

"I bet it wouldn't change you as a person." I said softly.

"How do you figure?"

"I think you understand how that level of fame and wealth affects people, and I can see that doesn't sit right with you. It's like an uncomfortable dress that you wear. I think the day you start getting used to the dress, you'll shrug it off, because it doesn't define you."

I took another sip. I was buzzing. The lager and the soju were loosening me up. The next few sentences rolled off my mouth before I realised what I was saying.

"You'll peel off the straps, shimmy out of the fabric and step out, naked into the world. Your decision to go the other way will be as liberating as the feeling of a cool breeze on your skin. You'll start walking, or perhaps even running, towards your calling. It'll be something big, something satisfying. Like diving off a cliff on a hot summer day into the ocean. You'll go under for a few seconds - holding your breath, trying to figure out which way is up - but when your head breaks the surface, your first breath of air will remind you why you took the dress off in the first place..."

I stopped. Sue was looking at me in a funny way. Her brow was furrowed, one hand on her hip, other on the counter. Her glass was empty. My brain caught up with my words a couple of seconds later and my ears started burning. Here I was, spewing nonsense about stripping naked, to someone I'd only met two hours ago. Idiot.

"Uhhhh... look... I don't think I..." I stuttered.

Sue grabbed my hand.

"Come with me. I want to show you something."

My friends forgotten, I let Sue lead me out of the bar, into the cool night. I followed her unsteadily, fumbling over curbs, trying to avoid walking into other pedestrians. We walked across a couple of blocks, zig-zagging through laneways.

"Where are we going?" I called out to Sue's back, now a couple of metres ahead of me. She was walking fast, and soon brought me to a construction site. We climbed on a car, and clambered over the timber hoarding into the construction compound. Sue led me into the half-built skyscraper. Taking off her platform shoes, she started ascending the stairs. We climbed about fifteen floors, through the heart of latticed brick and metal. Wiring, insulation, plumbing and ducting lay about. A few lights dimly lit up the stairway landings on each floor. By the time we'd finished climbing, I'd managed to sweat all the booze out of my system. Taking laboured breaths, Sue made her way to one of the corners of the building, into a large space which was obviously destined to be either a penthouse suite or a posh office.

"This is what I wanted to show you. This has been my place of escape, for the past couple of months. I come here on nights when the restaurant doesn't need me and I can't shrug the smell of frame varnish off my nostrils." Sue said, arms stretched out, as if to embrace the openness of the space. Bare concrete walls surrounded us. Enveloping the building were columns of scaffolding. The night wind drifted through the criss-crossed metal, whistling lightly. We were high enough above street level as to not be able to hear the traffic below. An almost cavernous silence greeted us, the kind you can feel only when you're surrounded by millions of tonnes of concrete and steel.

"This will one day be my office." Sue continued. "I'm going to run an interior-decorating business out of this place. That's the dream."

"That's an impressive dream, Sue." I said. "And it takes a lot of courage to dream this big."

"I know. It keeps me going. I come here to meditate, and visualise my office of the future. Walls bathed in soft pastel shades. Employees bustling about. Orders being placed. Phones ringing with satisfied clients. Referrals, expansion, city and country-hopping. And it's all going to start here."

"Wow." I found words failing me. I roamed around. A Step ladder, wooden beams, tool drawers, portable air-conditioning equipment, and a tarp were some of the items spread around the area.

"I'm tired of selling art to people who pretend to have taste. All this while I've been a glorified interior decorator for the rich. The first time I saw this building, towering over MOMA, I knew I had to come up here. I had to rise above the craziness."

I went over to one of the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows and looked out at the city below, sprawled out like luminescent algae in the sea. Sue's voice softened.

"Since I started coming here, you're the first person who understood my efforts to find balance. Also, that thing you said about diving off a cliff - it put into words what I've felt for a while, but could never phrase in such a manner. It resonated with me... as did the part about taking off the dress."

I turned around to face her.

"Hey, I was talking out of my a..." I started.

Words caught in my throat as my eyes found Sue slowly slipping her arms out of the straps. She hooked her thumbs inside the neck and pulled the dress down her body. Stepping out of it, she reached behind her and unhooked her strapless bra. Her round, pert breasts came into view, taut skin flushing red, glistening with the sweat of exertion. She stepped towards me.

"I want to be as naked as this place is right now. Naked before I take the plunge. Naked before my body hits the water. Naked in front of someone who understands, and can see me for what I am, not what I dress up to be."

Sue wrapped her arms behind my neck and pressed her body into mine. Her face was less than an inch away from mine, eyes boring into me. The smell of expensive perfume, intermingled with that of sweat, filled my nostrils.

"I want to be naked with you... before the world sees me that way."

She pressed her lips softly into mine. I reciprocated. One hand on her shoulder, the other one on the small of her back. Her mouth was soft and yielding. I kissed her tenderly at first, revelling in the fullness of her lips, taking in the smoothness of her skin. We gradually turned the dial up. I pulled her hips into my groin. My other hand slithered from her shoulder to the back of her neck. Sue's nipples grew hard and dug into my chest through my shirt. I groaned and gingerly flicked the tip of my tongue across her lips. Her mouth parted wider to let me in. Our tongues met and started getting acquainted with each other. Our breaths grew faster. My erection bulged through my shorts and pressed into her crotch. She ground her pelvis onto it.

I broke off the kiss to take my shirt off. My shorts were next to go. I picked Sue up and carried her over to a tools drawer resting against a wall. I sat her down on top of it and we began eagerly French kissing again. The drawer made her sit up a foot higher than me so she had to lean down to kiss me. My mouth left her lips to find the side of her neck. Sue giggled and then moaned as I kissed and licked down her neck to her collarbone, and on to the tops of her breasts. My hand massaged one breast as my mouth found the areola on the other and sucked on it. Blood rushed into her nipple and I gave it a flick with my tongue. She groaned and arched her back into my face. I sucked, licked, squeezed and kneaded her ample tits as my other hand rubbed the top of her thigh. The space was filled with the sound of heavy breathing and moaning as I worked her up.

The hand on her thigh went up to her groin. My fingerstips gently caressed her pussy through the fabric of her panties. Heat almost radiated from her sex, and the gusset was damp with her arousal. My fingers came together and started rubbing her crotch harder, making her grab my wrist with one hand. The other one was over my ear, alternately grabbing it and rubbing the side of my head. Her breaths came in short, shuddering gasps as my hands and mouth stimulated her most sensitive nerve endings. I slipped my hand inside her panties, sliding my fingers down her feather-soft, curly pubes, and reached her warm, wet opening. She shuddered as my palm cupped her mound and stroked her labia and clit. It didn't take very long to bring her to the peak.

Sue's moaning grew louder, and she cried out as the first wave of orgasm hit her. I lapped away hungrily at her engorged nipple as she pushed my head down onto her chest. Her grip on my wrist turned vice-like and she tensed up, mouth open in a half-cry. Her heart hammered through her ribs, pumping warm blood through her arteries into her engorged labia. She shuddered as the little death temporarily released her from its hold. Her grip on my hand loosened and she relaxed. I broke off and stepped back. This gorgeous woman lay on top of the tools drawer, leaning back against the bare concrete wall, her skin slick with perspiration, her pussy dripping onto the cold metal. My cock raged inside my boxers at the sight.

Sue rose up and climbed off the drawer. I stood still as she came up to me. She kissed and bit my lip, and her hands ran over my hairy chest. Then they slowly slid down to the waistband of my boxers, slipped in and grabbed my cock. Sue started stroking me, while still planting kisses all over my face. Her other hand circled my nipple with its fingertips. My stiff member throbbed and pulsed in her grip. I grabbed the base of her skull, my fingers entwined with her satin locks. Gently massaging her tit with the other, I gave it a light smack every now and then. She shuddered every time my palm came down on the erect nub.

Leaning her head back a little, she took my arm and led me to a pile of folded tarp. Pushing my back on to it, she lowered herself on top of my till her head was between my raised knees. Grabbing my shaft, she looked into my eyes as she started stroking it again. I swelled in her hand as her fist massaged me to full attention. Then, smiling, she lowered her mouth down on it. Her peach lips puckered as they slid up and down my member. Her tongue licked the underside of my cock, and its tip flicked the sensitive head on each upwards stroke. I gasped every time.

It was a fantastic sight. I looked down at this beautiful woman blowing me, here in this unfinished building. The moon shone through the windows, its light bouncing off her lustrous locks. Her head bobbed up and down and her fingers gently massaged my balls. She kept this up for what must have been only minutes, but seemed like hours as she made my butt clench and body convulse with pleasure. As my balls started to grow tight, she sensed my imminent climax and pulled her head back. My cock, veiny and glistening with her saliva, stood twitching. Sue got on her feet and helped me up. Pressing her body into mine, she leaned in to the side of my face.

"Take me here." She whispered.

I don't know what came over me then and there. Never had I felt so entranced by someone. My hands let go of the steering wheel and someone else took over. Not wasting any time, I led her to the mobile work platform lying in one corner. It was a platform with laddered sides and wheels underneath, which were currently locked to prevent the platform rolling around. I grabbed the back of her neck and shoved her head in through the rungs of one of the laddered sides. I shoved her hips roughly against the ladder and kicked her feet apart.

Now she was bent over at the waist, her ass facing me. Her legs were outside the platform, while her head and torso were inside. Her panties framed her puffy mound. Sue grabbed the horizontal bars, which formed an enclosure around the platform, for support. I grabbed my cock and pulled the panties to the side. I teased her opening with the tip of my shaft. She moaned and I felt her body vibrate with need. Needing no further invitation, I pushed and entered her.

Her pussy felt like liquid satin. We both groaned as I first bottomed out in her. Retracting almost all the way out, I grabbed her hips before thrusting in again. I fucked Sue in a steady rhythm for a couple of minutes. The platform rocked with my thrusts. From my point of view, I could see the muscles in her back undulating as she held on the horizontal bars. The bones in her spine jutted out as small bumps under her skin. Her hair fell to one side of her head, leaving a tantalising sliver of pale skin on the nape of her neck exposed.

"yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah baby fuck me just like that. just like that baby oh fuck yeah..." Sue moaned with each thrust.

Sue pulled herself up on the bars and arched her back. I was driven wild by her body. She seemed to be ravishing me just as much as I was doing her. I reached in through the ladder rungs to grab a fistful of her hair. I wrapped her locks around my fist till her back straightened up. I could feel her tensing so I could tell she was close to another climax. I grabbed the waistband of her panties for added leverage and thrust harder into her. My balls slapped against her clit, and her skin rippled outward every time my pelvis smacked into her ass. Sue let one of the bars go, reached down between her legs and started rubbing her clit.