A Long Afternoon 1

Above our heads the thrumming of an electric ceiling fan slices through the soupy heat but barely disturbs the thick, dead air. Beyond the shuttered window the hustle and bustle of the morning's street market has now slowed to the languid torpor of a Saigon afternoon. Occasionally a car horn blares out a warning to a tardy pedestrian, but little can distract us from the attentions we lavish upon one another.

I look down at Thu, kneeling naked before me. Her upturned face, as dark and lovely as a shadowed moon, smiles back invitingly. A teeming flood of hair, black as night, shimmers down her cheeks and cascades in a waterfall upon her slim, sloping shoulders. Small, pale hands rest against my thighs.

'You know what I want, don't you?' she asks in perfect, almost accentless English.

I do. Of course, I do. But I need to hear her say the words, and in my giddiness at that prospect I have to steady myself against her. Her eyes are fixed on mine.

'I want to taste you,' she murmurs. 'I want your cock in my mouth.'

The pink tip of her tongue glides over her swollen lips, coating them with spittle that glistens like stardust. I gasp and she smiles at the response her words have elicited.

Now beckoned, my cock begins to rise once more, sleepily springing from its tawny nest of hair.

'Oh yes,' Thu whispers admiringly. 'What a lover you are, my darling.'

*****

Perhaps I am. Three hours have passed since we met in this anonymous room. A whole week – it has seemed like a year – has elapsed since our last liaison.

We have already fucked, of course. Within a minute of my arrival I had pushed Thu up against the thin lathe and plaster wall. In a moment more, my pawing hands were under her skirt and inside her blouse, tugging irresistibly at her underwear, desperate to possess again her yielding flesh. Her own hands were no less busy, dragging down the zip of my pants, furiously unbuckling the belt and freeing my cock from its reluctant captivity. With difficulty I wrestled my feet free of shoes, socks and pants.

So small is my lover girl that I had to stand her on my box case in order to fuck her comfortably. Even then I needed to stoop as I entered her. But soon I had lifted her off her feet, and she rode my hips – her childlike body light in my arms – as I thrust into her remorselessly, each of us seeking brief redemption from the violence of the world outside in the violent agony of unthinking sex.

Pressed hard against the wall, Thu clung to me tightly. I folded my forearms beneath her rump, raising her higher. Her ankles locked around my flanks. Harder and faster I plunged into her, battering her ass against the dampening wall. Sweat saturated her blouse and my shirt in the frenzy of our fucking. One of her hands yanked at my hair, whilst, with the other, she dug her nails into my shoulder blade. My startled groans punctuated her howling cries of 'Yeah .... yeah ....' and the thump, thump, thump against that flimsy wall.

An angry, drunken voice shouted at us in French to quieten the racket. I gagged Thu's mouth with my hand and muffled her clamouring. Unsupported, she began to slide down my body. I hauled her up again and carried her, cradled in my arms, across the room to the bed and dumped her on it.

'On your knees,' I grunted. She rolled over obediently.

I hitched her skirt over her hips and admired the delicious curves of her small, round rump, framed by the pleated folds of silk. Two succulent hemispheres formed an almost perfect heart. She wiggled her ass provocatively and I squeezed those lovely, luscious moons.

'Don't make me wait. Please,' she half-begged, half-demanded. I slapped her buttock to shut her up. She let out a little yelp, grinned at me over her shoulder and then buried her head in the mattress.

I gripped her by the hips and eased my cock back into her. All the way. Her tight, wet cunt hugged me in its welcoming embrace. Once more her moaning encouragements filled the room. Ducking her head, she looked back through her legs to watch me pumping into her, and enjoyed what she saw.

'Do it, do it,' she urged me.

'God, I love you,' I exclaimed through gritted teeth as my groin thudded against the soft cushion of her ass. Sweat from my chest and brow sprinkled her back and streamed in rivulets along her spine.

Oblivious to all but my meat filling and re-filling her, she roared: 'Yes .... Yes ....'

Now her cheek was flat against the mattress, her eyes half-closed, relishing every entering and withdrawal. Reaching forward, I grabbed at her mane of hair and pulled it towards me like a silk rope, forcing her to climb back up onto her elbows, and then her hands. The next time I thrust into her, I tugged on her hair, yanking her neck backwards.

'Ohhhhhh!!' she yelled out. Part pain, part pleasure, just as she likes it. As I pulled out of her, I eased my grip and she leaned forwards. Then, I lunged into her again and pulled harder on her jet black locks.

'Aaaahh! Fuck!! Fuck!!'

Then, again, and again, and again. My cock ramming into her. Her head jerking back. The bed creaking and cracking with each movement. My groin pounding her pillow-plump ass. Sweat soaking her back. Obscene cries spilling from her lips.

I released her hair and her body slumped forwards like a rag doll. On and on and on we fucked. Each of us desperate for an ending now. Only with the grimmest determination could I resist my need to come.

Finally, I felt her body bracing itself. Her fingers clawed at the bed sheet. Her limbs, beyond their mistress's control, stiffened and stretched. Her back arched. Head, knees and shins dug into the mattress. I fucked her harder still.

'Yes .... yes .... yes .... yes ....!!!!' she yelled at each entry. And then the sweet mercy of her coming swept through her veins.

I had held on so long for my darling, I couldn't hold on a moment more. Driving into her again, I spurted my seed, emptying myself into the depths of her. Then slowly, slowly I eased the pace, soothed the rhythm until my slackening cock was barely moving within her. Still I felt the tremors, the afterwaves of her coming, as they pulsed through her body and into mine, setting off little convulsions of my own.

'Ye-e-e-e-e-s ........' she mewed in one endless sigh as her body relaxed and returned itself to her ownership.

'Mmmmmm. Ye-e-e-e-s.'

From the other side of the wall, our drunken French friend offered an admiring round of applause.

*****

Later we fucked again. Or, rather, we made love. Slow, easy love. On the bed and undressed, face to face, relishing the pleasures mistily reflected in each other's open eyes. I had placed the pillow beneath her – as she also likes me to do – and parted her slim legs, bending them back at the knees. Then I mounted her. The soles of her feet rested on my calves and her thighs enfolded my own as my roused cock penetrated her slick, dark bush and nestled deep within her.

For minutes we lay as still as statues. Not stirring. Only our hearts moved, beating away the seconds – as ceaselessly as that useless fan – until we would part again. Then my lips swept her face, brushing every inch of its smooth, caramel skin, caressing it as lightly as a summer shower, first her forehead and then the temples, now lightly licking her eyebrows and lids, then sucking and gently nibbling upon her succulent ear lobes. My nose nuzzled her own, my teeth grazed her chin and followed the line of her jaw to the nape of her neck. And as I moved to kiss and lick, to suck and bite, so I began to move inside her. A gentle current of pleasure, at first barely perceptible beneath the surface of our senses, stirred within us.

Then she held me still once more and, drawing me down to her, her lips nipped at my face as though they were kissing the points of a sundial. First one way, then the other. Gentle, airy kisses – as tender as butterflies' wings – lighting on my damp skin.

I released myself from her embrace and raised myself on my hands. As I did so, my cock pressed more firmly within her.

'Mmmmmmm.' Her long, deep sigh declared her approval.

'Tell me again that you love me,' she murmured. I thrust into her a little, but only a little, more forcefully. She smiled and brushed back a lock of hair from my forehead.

'I love you,' I said and, despite all that I shall tell you, at that moment I really meant it.

'Good,' she whispered. 'I love you.'

'I know,' I said and though I knew that her love had its uses, I believed her.

Thu stretched her arms out beyond her head and grasped the struts of the headboard. She drew her legs up around my waist.

'Fuck me, darling,' she murmured.

I smoothly pulled out of her a little and then re-entered her. Thu's eyes closed and her dark, beautiful face radiated with a broad smile.

After a while of slow, easy fucking, first pressing against one side of her and then the other, occasionally thrusting hard so that I could hear again her startled yelps of surprise, I pulled myself up onto my knees and drew her up onto me so that her ass was cushioned in my lap. Then I began to fuck her more purposefully. Not fast, but harder. Thu's response was immediate. Her grip on the headboard tightened. She bit on her lower lip, she threw her head to one side, then the other. I looked down and watched her small breasts heaving with each entry. I squeezed her nipples between my fingers. She stared at me as I continued to explore the depths of her.

'Is that good?' I challenged her. 'Tell me how it feels.'

'So good .... Don't stop.'

I was past stopping.

'Tell me how it feels,' I demanded breathlessly.

'Ohh, you're so tight in me ... My cunt feels .... Ohhhh ....'

I slid my forearm beneath the small of her back, pulling her cunt onto me even more tightly. My cock was striking against her pelvis.

'Tell me!' I commanded.

'Heaven .... God ..... Heaven ....'

Now her hands were around my neck, gripping my hair. Her eyes were shut tight. Her hair tossed back and forth like a storm-stricken sea. I swept it from her face. Her thighs dug into my waist.

'Come for me, Thu,' I urged her.

'Mmmmm,' she mewed, sucking in her lips. With her legs she levered herself against me. Only her shoulders were now on the bed. Still I pressed into her. Not fast, but unceasingly. Out, and then back into her. Out and in. Out and in. Hard and steady. Emptying her, and then cramming her again with my flesh.

'Coming .... coming .... coming ....' she pleaded, almost willing herself to her climax. And then her arrival .... Her mouth opened in a long, wordless yawn.

I fucked her through her orgasm and soon she was coming again.

'You're beautiful,' I said as she gently uncoiled herself from around my body.

Thu always comes for me – and when she doesn't, she feigns her orgasm so convincingly that I almost believe her. But this was the real thing. This was the blissful, cauterising fulfilment of all that we feel for one another and all that we will ever feel.

*****

I rose from the bed and sluiced my face in a bucket of tepid water. Then I uncapped a bottle of beer and brought it back to the bed. First Thu, then I, drank deeply from it.

Lying beside me on the warm, soaked sheets, she turned to me.

'What are you smiling at?' she asked. Her fingertips were lightly smoothing the furrows from my brow.

'Nothing,' I answered. 'Only Keble and Vaughan.'

'Oh, them,' she sighed, and smiled too. I could smell the beer on her breath.

Keble and Vaughan are our private joke. These two buttoned-up, stiff upper-lipped English civil servants, who work in my section and have slept with half the prostitutes in Saigon, have each tried in vain to seduce my lover girl. Perhaps they wanted their sex free for a change. Now they have concluded that she is frigid or (worse, in their eyes) a lesbian and call her The Ice Queen. If they could have seen her a few moments before, writhing and bucking beneath my body, and yelling at me to fuck her harder as the sweet release of orgasm began to grip her limbs, what would they have called her then, I wondered.

We lay in silence as the fan whirred away the moments.

'Tell me about Trickingham,' Thu said. She meant Twickenham. It is, I suppose, ironic that this name, upon which she has banked the whole of her future, is the one English word she cannot pronounce. Appropriate too, because although she does not know it, I doubt that she will ever see her Twickenham.

You see, it is Thu's belief that I will soon be divorced and then, when my mission is concluded and I am recalled to London, she will return as my wife. It is that simple. She is convinced that my wife, Victoria, will divorce me. I haven't encouraged this conviction (nor, it is true, have I discouraged it). But Thu cannot believe that any woman would remain married to a man whom she loathes and who loathes her. But, then, she is not English. Half the married couples in England live contentedly in a state of mutual repugnance. Certainly, I know that Victoria is as likely to divorce me – and risk the possibility of missing out on my possible knighthood – as the Pope is to renounce Catholicism.

Occasionally I try to cast a little doubt, introduce a 'but' or 'however', but her faith is unshakable. Her departure from this Hell will happen because she wants it to, and I want it too. Now I no longer know which is crueller: to continue the deception or tell her the truth – and destroy her hope.

So I swigged on the beer and passed it to her. Then, I told her about Twickenham. A mythical Twickenham that exists only in my stories where there are red pillar boxes, laughing policemen, double-decker buses and snow every Christmas. I tried to imagine my Thu worshipping at the local church, making jam for the Women's Institute, entertaining friends for dinner.

Nor do I know any more who is in command of this relationship. I know that I cannot give her up. But could she abandon me if she knew what the future might hold? I think she could. Even when I tether her wrists to the bed, as I sometimes like to do, she looks up at me with such imperious approval that I wonder who is dominating whom.

'Come on lazybones,' she said and pulled me to my feet.

*****

It will be several days before we can escape the embassy again. Days in which we will work side by side, not touching, hardly exchanging a glance. And so, when we are together, Thu demands every drop of my seed.

'I want to taste you,' she says. 'I want your cock in my mouth.'

The backs of her fingers slowly scale the steepening shaft from base to burgeoning tip. Her touch makes me shudder and she giggles as my cock twitches. Folding her fingers around it, she stills it instantly and gently peels back the ebbing foreskin. Then, holding me between thumb and forefinger, Thu plants a delicate kiss upon the smooth, slippery dome. Her lips are cool and soft.

Huge hazel eyes gaze up at me from beneath her liquid tresses. 'I need you bigger, my love. I need to feel you swelling my cheeks. Shall I make you big?'

'Yes,' I groan. Her attentions are unnecessary – in a moment or two I'll be big enough to fill her mouth – but she wants to feel my cock hardening between her lips. She licks them again. Then they slowly envelop my cockhead in their moist, needy caress.

'Mmmm,' she moans, as she sucks me in, and now I am moaning too in gratitude.

She opens her mouth and glances up at me. My cock is resting against her lower lip.

'So big and hard and wet,' she simpers approvingly. 'What a lover you are.' She rubs her nose against the underside and then my cock disappears again as she hungrily devours it, inch by lengthening inch.

I brush her hair away from her shoulders, tuck it behind her ears and it streams like a shimmering river down her back. Thu ignores my movements, so intent is she upon her endeavours. Slowly, slowly her mouth releases me. When she pulls away her lips and my cock remain joined by a silvery thread of drool and juice. She spits on my cock and rubs in the frothy saliva, drawing the skin as taut as a satin sheet. Her other hand cups my balls, gently squeezing and kneading them.

I turn up her chin and she is smiling again, delighted by the power she is exercising over me and, holding my gaze, she leans over and begins licking me from base to tip over and over, mewing with delight at my expression of joyous anguish.

Once more she takes me into her mouth. All the way. I watch, fascinated, as my entire cock disappears within her. There is a gargling noise, then she slows reveals my cock again. Her mouth is pinker, fuller, wetter. Time after time I watch as her lips slide down my shaft. Her fist tightens around my balls, and then she releases me.

Now I'm groaning. The words, meaningless, unfathomable, are burbling from my lips.

She sucks on the cockhead again. Her hand glides along my steepling shaft.

I can't hold on much longer – and she knows it.

She stares into me crazed, depraved eyes, and murmurs, 'Bathe my face with your cum.'

Her hand is working me rhythmically but with a growing frenzy. It cannot be much longer now. I am desperate to come for her. To expel myself completely. So that she has all of me. Up and down her fist pummels my cock.

'Now .... now ....' I yell.

She bends her face towards my groin. Her mouth is open. Her eyes are closed but she is smiling. Still her hand slides up and down me.

I make a grunting noise and it's gone. The milky-white flume gushes from me in two, then three spurts. I can't see where it has struck her because she lowers her mouth onto me again, sucking from me the last bead of cum.

Then, she raises her head. She is smiling, her lips tightly closed. She opens her mouth. Her tongue is coated with my cum, as white as the English snow she yearns to see. Her eyes never leave mine. Then she closes her mouth and swallows.

Popping out her tongue again, she giggles. 'All gone.'

'Not quite,' I say.

A gash of cum has streaked her brow. A small white cloud drifting across the face of the moon. With my thumb I wipe it off her. She holds my thumb before her mouth.

'Your beautiful, beautiful cum. It's all for me, isn't it?' she murmurs. I nod.

'Good,' she says and sucks on my thumb as hungrily as if it was my cock.

*****

Another half-hour has passed. Now I am dressed. My shirt sticks to my skin, my tie is loose around my neck. Thu is still naked, lying on the bed, but looking as innocent as a virgin.

We cannot leave together and so we must say our goodbyes here. It will seem like a lifetime before we are in this room again. I can see that Thu is about to weep – I want to cry myself – but I beckon her to me. She peels herself from the sweat-soaked sheet and walks over to me.

I brush her sleek hair from her cheek, she reaches up and tightens my tie. Then we kiss.

'You do know that I'll get you out of here, don't you?' I say. And I mean it, dammit, I really do mean it. I'll write to Victoria. If I have to, I'll arrange for Thu to go the States, and I'll join her there.

She looks up at me. Her eyes, though soft, pierce me to my soul.

'Of course, I know,' she whispers. 'You wouldn't say it if you didn't mean it.'