Mellow Yellow

Ch. 3: The Evil Mrs. Nguyen

Hanna came to my place to tell me more about Ted and herself. As soon as she came in, I knew my friend was in distress.

"What's the problem, Hanna?"

"I tell you what happen. I go out with Ted now three month so I think we almost old married couple. So, I think it OK tell my friend where I have work who my boyfriend. I say them 'My boyfriend Polish. Very nice guy' They say me, 'What this Polish? That mean he white?' I say them 'Yes, he white guy.' Then they all start talk and want know why I go with white guy. I say: 'Ted my boyfriend because he good me. He make me happy and he say me I make him happy. I say this good thing.' I find out some these ladies my friend, still talk me. Some no talk. They big mouth, say I bad lady have white boyfriend. I no care. They no my friend now. I have Ted and he good friend and good boyfriend." "Hanna. I still don't know what the problem is. You have a great guy for your boyfriend, you're going to get married and you found out who your real friends were."

"You no talk. You listen me. One these lady, Ba Nguyen, she bad lady long time ago in Vietnam. She work in bar. I say, she change here Canada, so I talk her. She start ask me many thing about Ted. I do wrong thing, I say how good Ted make love. Now she want know how big Ted banana, how many time he fuck me, everything we do. I say this too much. I no tell you this. She stop talking Ted banana but she still ask where Ted work, if I all time at his place. In my head, I say 'This woman still no good. She want try Ted.' What I do. I no want she take my man"

I had to reassure Hanna that Ted wanted a loving wife like Hanna, not an old hooker like Mrs. Nguyen. Hanna calmed down and we started to analyze, as best we could with her limited English, how serious Mrs. Nguyen might be in pursuing Ted. I pointed out that Mrs Nguyen was married. Hanna countered that Mrs. Nguyen probably got to like white men in her former profession. I said that, if she was older than Hanna, she wouldn't appeal to Ted. Hanna thought that Mrs. Nguyen could still make herself look good if she tried. We went back and forth like this for an hour. I saw that Hanna's story would have to wait for another week.

"Hanna, we aren't getting anywhere. Let me meet Mrs. Nguyen in person and I'll tell you if she's after Ted or not."

Probably I should tell you a bit about myself so what happened is comprehensible. I studied journalism but there aren't too many newspapers in Canada. Rather than being a starving poet or novelist, I got work as a technical writer. So, instead of reporting on late breaking news, I edited manuals on machinery, software and tried to clean up the messes lawyers made of the English language. It wasn't what I set out to do in life but it paid the bills.

I write freelance so I sometimes work well into the evening and weekends. Other times I have afternoons or even days free. That was how I started working with refugees, and especially Vietnamese refugees, when the boat people crisis hit. I thought of it as noble work and I learned a lot from the Vietnamese about oriental culture. I had always been interested in oriental people and more knowledge could only help my writing career, whenever I got around to starting one. That was how I met Hanna and how I helped this poor lady and her daughter settle in Canada.

While I was in the process of writing Hanna's story, I got a contract with the hospital she worked at to write a personnel manual for the hospital's HR department. Frankly, I found more humanity working with shyster lawyers than I did in that HR department. One thing I liked was that I would meet with the client and, if they didn't spoil my lunch, I could meet Hanna and a few other immigrants I worked with in the staff cafeteria. After telling me her fears about the evil Mrs. Nguyen, I arranged to meet Hanna one day at the hospital. I intended to evaluate the dragon lady without actually meeting her but Hanna was sitting at a table with Mrs. Nguyen when I arrived.

"Paul. I want you meet Ba Nguyen. You never see her before? You sit down with us? You get something eat now?" Hanna said.

While I was in line getting a sandwich, I peeked at the femme fatale that was causing Hanna so much grief. Mrs. Nguyen didn't look like a man stealer to me. She was definitely a high mileage unit with a drawn and tired face. On the other hand, Mrs. Nguyen wasn't ugly. There were traces of past glories that I could detect. Most Vietnamese have a small smile at most times but Mrs. Nguyen never smiled. When I came to the table, Hanna and Mrs. Nguyen were speaking Vietnamese. I sat down and Hanna switched to English.

"This Paul, he nice guy. He help me, other Vietnamese lots of time. He help me move one time."

Hanna started extolling my virtues in a long monologue. I was getting a definite impression that Mrs. Nguyen was not much of a conversationalist in English. Suddenly there was an announcement on the PA system: "Hanna Li. Please come to the 4th floor east for an emergency cleanup!"

Hanna muttered something that sounded like "Oh shit" to me and said:

"How long I be I no know. Paul. If you want go home, you no wait."

Hanna quickly left to take care of the emergency and I was left with Mrs. Nguyen. Wanting to be polite, I embarked on some small talk.

"How come we haven't met before? I worked with many Vietnamese at the Refugee Centre."

Mrs. Nguyen's English was better than Hanna's but still heavily accented: "I have private sponsor. My husband and me, we get sponsor and they help us. Never need go to Refugee Centre. Tell me this. Why you work with Vietnamese people? What you get out of this? What Hanna do for you?"

Mrs. Nguyen was obviously an industrial strength cynic. I told her that what I got out of working with Vietnamese refugees couldn't be measured in money or in a favour-for-favour way. I found new friends and I learned things about Vietnam that I could only learn otherwise by expensive travel. I said that I was a writer who still had to produce his first novel and I was seriously thinking of an oriental theme. I don't know how much of this sunk in or whether she could believe that someone could help without asking something in return.

"Yes but why you like Vietnamese lady like Hanna? You try Hanna yet? I hear she like white guy. Hanna have white guy for boyfriend. You ever be Hanna boyfriend?"

This was not going in the direction I wanted: "No, Mrs. Nguyen. Hanna and I are good friends but we aren't intimate. Hanna is very much in love with Ted and Ted loves her very much, in return from what she tells me. In their case, I think it has nothing to do with Hanna being Vietnamese and Ted being Polish. They are just two people who are right for each other."

Mrs. Nguyen's face started to soften a little bit: "OK, I think I see now. You nice guy. You like all Vietnamese, not just Hanna?"

"Yes, I just like being with Vietnamese and learning about them."

"OK, you come my place some time? I tell you more about Vietnamese. You give me telephone number, I call you?"

I was finished my sandwich by now. Hanna hadn't returned and I wanted to get out of there without any further involvement with this lady: "Mrs. Nguyen, I need to leave now and do some business with another client. If you want to call me, I'm in the telephone book. It was nice to meet you and I hope you have a nice day. I hope you don't get called for an emergency like Hanna."

I said good bye and left feeling that that was the last I would see or hear of Mrs. Nguyen. Vietnamese never looked in the telephone Directory, in my experience. They kept the numbers of all their friends on a piece of paper by the telephone. So, you can imagine how surprised I was when a few weeks later Mrs. Nguyen telephoned to ask me to come for supper the following evening. I happened to be free and accepted, even though I wasn't excited about visiting the Nguyens. On the other hand, depending on which way my novel developed, I might need some information from the dragon lady and her husband.

The Nguyens didn't live in the "Vietnamese ghetto" so I didn't need to worry about Hanna finding out I had actually been in the dragon's den. Mrs. Nguyen opened the door and invited me in. She had shed her cleaning lady image and had dressed up and put on makeup. As she walked towards the living room, she was noticeably moving her cute little bum from side to side. Well, what did I know about how old bar girls acted in retirement? Their apartment was slightly seedy and furnished in garage sale chic. Obviously, the Nguyens were getting by but not overly successful. Something bothered me and I realized that it was the absence of Mr. Nguyen.

Mrs. Nguyen brought tea and I asked: "When will Mr. Nguyen be joining us?"

"Duc no come tonight. He work construction. Have job in (city 300 km away). Duc not be back until weekend. Just you, me for supper."

Probably I should have politely left after tea but three things kept me there. Mrs. Nguyen wasn't shy about feeding me information abut the seedy side of Saigon life, information I thought I might need for a story sometime in the future. She wouldn't exactly admit she had been a hooker but what else would a beautiful, young Vietnamese woman be doing in bars frequented by servicemen. The woman had a talent for stories that almost got to the truth but then abruptly shifted gears. In a way, listening to Mrs. Nguyen was like one of those bad dreams where the scenery keeps shifting and nothing ever makes sense.

Another reason I stayed put was the smell that was coming out of the kitchen. I've always been a sucker for oriental cooking, ever since my days at university. Mrs. Nguyen definitely had kitchen talent. Perhaps there was some truth to her stories about working in restaurants, not bars. I just had to see what she was going to put on the table.

My third reason for not getting out of there was that Hanna had given me an unhealthy interest in oriental women. She was almost bragging when she claimed how good she was for Ted and how happy she made him. I had to find out if all oriental women were as good in the sack as Hanna said she was. Call it lust or call it curiosity but I just had to indulge this new interest of mine. I was wrestling with this problem when Mrs. Nguyen stopped in the middle of a story that was starting down a road she didn't want to take me just then.

"We go eat now? I hope chopstick OK with you. We no have knife and fork here."

I said that I was OK with that and we went to the dining room. The Nguyens ate like most Vietnamese do, with small rice bowls, picking food out of common dishes. I've always found this very intimate although Vietnamese think it's natural. Many people who worked with refugees didn't like it, especially the health fanatics. Maybe that was why I was so popular with Vietnamese. They probably felt that someone was not a true friend if they wouldn't eat at their table. Mrs. Nguyen obviously didn't have any problem with Vietnamese tradition and even picked out what she considered to be morsels and placed them in my bowl.

"You want beer? I go get one for you same way I make for Duc."

I said OK and Mrs. Nguyen produced a glass of warm beer with a couple of ice cubes. Wherever Mr. Nguyen came from, they didn't have refrigerators in their bars.

Mrs. Nguyen's stories started to drop some pretenses. The "restaurants" where she worked became bars and her "waitress" jobs became hostess. She admitted to having white boyfriends. Mrs. Nguyen said she like them because they were bigger than Vietnamese men, without defining what she had in mind. Mrs. Nguyen asked me if I had ever had a Vietnamese girlfriend. I said that all my girlfriends had been white.

The final pretense of the evening was dropped: "You want try Vietnamese lady tonight? You give me $50 and we go...."

Mrs. Nguyen clapped her hands turned wrist to wrist in the universal sign for transactional sex. So, that was the deal tonight.

"Mrs. Nguyen, I have to say no to you. I've never paid for sex in my life and I'm not starting now. Besides, how do I know Duc won't barge in and find us in bed together"

Mrs. Nguyen stopped smiling: "You no like me? You no worry Duc come home. He away long time. Just you and me tonight. How about you try me no charge? I think you nice guy and you never try Vietnamese woman. You try me and you like what I do. I know how take care of white guy."

Mrs. Nguyen had sensed that I was curious about oriental women and had pressed the right button. Why not now, I thought? Mrs. Nguyen really wasn't all that bad looking. Plus she had just offered me a free sample. Without even waiting for a yes, Mrs. Nguyen grabbed my arm and pulled me to her bedroom. Mrs. Nguyen got undressed without any ceremony and pulled down the sheets. She lay on the bed, raising and lowering her hips. She knew her men. Don't give them time to start thinking. In my case, the brain had gone on holiday long ago and my dick was taking charge of the situation. I matched my dragon lady for lack of ceremony and climbed on the bed. Mrs. Nguyen also didn't want any ceremony as far as foreplay was concerned and pointed down to her pussy.

I decided I had better start taking over here: "Stop jumping around and open your legs."

Mrs. Nguyen did as I ordered and I got between her legs. Well, here I was face to face with my first oriental beaver and why shouldn't I enjoy myself? I got my face down in position and started to open up the Gates of Hell on Mrs. Nguyen. Interesting, I thought. There was very little bush on this woman, just some hair above her pussy lips. I found her pussy lips firmer, tighter and less hair than the white women I was used to doing muff dives. I got the tongue in there and started to caress her inner lips with it. I broke through and found a tight inverted V leading upwards to a hardening clitoris. Her smell was like good quality nuoc mam and the woman was clean. She was also wet, even before I started working on her.

"What you do? What you do? I never have man do this to me."

I wasn't about to believe her and I wasn't about to stop the job for a long explanation on oral sex. I kept this up for five minutes and from the sounds Mrs. Nguyen gave out, she must have been having the time of her life. I decided enough was enough and I moved up and wasted no time in putting in my dick. That's not my usual style as I like to work the dick in slowly, especially if the woman is tight. Mrs. Nguyen wasn't especially tight plus she moved to get as much of my dick in as fast as possible. All right by me, lady.

I was starting to stroke a little and Mrs. Nguyen said "I come" and started that bucking motion with her hips I had seen before. Well, here was real talent and Mrs. Nguyen was good at what she did. Under the circumstances, there was no way I could last and I came with great force. When she was finished, she pushed me away and grabbed some Kleenex from beside the bed, wiping herself with no great ceremony. She gave me the box and I wiped myself off. Taking care of white guys had its limits, it seems.

I got dressed and so did she and then I was ushered to the door, still no ceremony, no warmth.

"I go work tomorrow. You go now. I call you sometime" Mrs. Nguyen's face had the first hint of a smile.

I wondered that week, if she would call again and I did get a call about two weeks later and several times after that. Mrs. Nguyen didn't bother taking the route to my dick through the stomach. Why should she bother with food? After all, it wasn't as if I was a paying customer. I gathered that Mrs. Nguyen developed a taste for white bread instead of brown rice every time her husband hit the road. I didn't mind because I was short of work at the time and short of women. I don't think Mrs. Nguyen minded because she learned a lot from me. I taught her to slow down, enjoy the foreplay and even to make a little noise when she came. One thing I couldn't teach her was to show some passion when making love. It was almost as if she was clinically studying white guy technique. I know it may sound arrogant to claim that I taught an ex-hooker everything she knows about sex but it's true in this case.

Suddenly the calls stopped. I later learned that the Nguyens had left the city for work elsewhere. I don't know if Mrs. Nguyen had tried out her new-found knowledge on Duc and he figured out that someone with more skill was boinking his wife. On the other hand, Duc seemed to find construction work in a lot of cities where drugs entered the country. I never heard that the law was after him. If he was involved in some shady business that went wrong, he could have left some bad deals behind. Whatever the reason, the Nguyens didn't leave anyone a forwarding address and, as far as I know, nobody ever asked for one.

After my first visit to Mrs. Nguyen, Hanna never complained again that Mrs. Nguyen was asking too many questions about Ted and their sex life. Some good came out of my sordid affair with Mrs. Nguyen after all. One thing I did like about Mrs. Nguyen was that she was discreet. Hanna was the kiss and tell type but I never heard a word that Mrs. Nguyen bragged that she was having me on the side. That was a good thing because it would have ruined what happened to me next.

To Be Continued...