Scenes From a Chinese Restaurant

"I just wish it would stop raining."

"I know. Any more of it and I'm going to drown!"

Keith cleaned his glasses with a ragged blue cloth before putting them back on. He wanted as clear of a view of Julie as he could get. Julie, for her part, used the napkin on her table to clean her glasses.

Keith looked nervously at the menu. He wasn't quite sure what to order. It had been years since he had been to Sir Chau's. Everything had changed so much.

Julie seemed much more confident as she flipped through the pages of the menu. She seemed so calm, so comfortable. She could do so much better, Keith thought. He was in over his head.

Suddenly, an older waiter—he had to be in his mid-40s—appeared at their table. He smiled warmly. That was a relief, Keith though.

"Good evening," he said. "My name's Jim. We're delighted to have you as your guests."

"We're delighted to be here!" Julie replied.

"May I start you off with a drink?"

"I'll just have some water."

"Same here," Keith added.

"Two waters, coming up," said Jim. "I'll get you some bread as well."

"He seems nice," Julie whispered as the waiter walked away.

"Yeah."

Keith looked back at the menu. He still didn't know exactly what he wanted.

"So how long have you known Keira?"

"Oh, uh...we used to work together at Garrison & Kohner, about five years ago. She was great. She was dating John back then."

"Really!"

"Yeah. It was a nice wedding, wasn't it?"

"I guess...but honestly, I don't know what she sees in him."

Keith was stunned. "Well, he seems like a nice guy."

"I think he's boring as fuck."

"Wow."

Jim was back with the bread and water. "I can give you a few more minutes to order, if you'd like."

"No, I'm good," Julie replied. "I'll have the number 12."

"Thanks. And what will you have, sir?"

Keith flipped open the menu again. "Oh, uh, I'll have the number 3."

"Number 12 and number 3," replied Jim, taking the menus. "Enjoy."

Keith sipped water as Jim walked away. "So, if you don't mind my asking, how do you know her?"

"She actually let me stay at her place when I first came here."

"So that must have been before she met John."

"Yes, before the bore," Julie replied, laughing.

"So how long have you been here?"

"So I came over in 2012. I did some acting back home, and I thought I was going to be the next Cate Blanchett...turned out I was the next Cate Blanchett of commercials! So I started getting into screenwriting. I've sold a couple of scripts—haven't been made into anything yet, but fingers crossed. Working on a novel now. And no, I'm not telling you the plot."

Keith smiled. "I guess I'll have to buy it when it comes out."

"Smart man," said Julie, giving him a playful kick underneath the table.

"So, are any of your commercials on YouTube? Just asking because I don't watch a lot of TV."

Julie smiled. "Yeah, a few of them are online. I can show you one of my favorites, but you have to come over to this side of the table."

"OK," said Keith, standing up to take a seat next to her.

"Wow," Julie remarked as she pulled her cell phone from her purse.

"What?"

"You smell really nice."

"Thank you."

Julie laughed and touched his hand lightly. Julie's fingers were extremely soft, and the visual of her pale fingers on his smooth brown skin gave him a bit of a shock near his waist.

"So this was for an Aussie underwear maker that was trying to make it big in the States—it didn't exactly work out, and they're out of business now. They were from Adelaide, too, which is why it was kinda cool to do the commercial."

Julie pulled up the YouTube clip and played it for Keith. It began with Julie in a wedding gown, walking into a hotel honeymoon suite. As romantic music played on the soundtrack, she slowly removed her gown to reveal a black lace bra and panties. Keith went breathless at the sight of her ass in the panties. The camera panned up to show Julie sweeping back her long red hair with her hand and smiling, her vibrant blue eyes and cute dimples stunning the viewer. The image then faded to black, with the following words appearing in white on the screen:

"When the moment is right...Sweet Mountain Lingerie."

Keith was frozen in his seat.

"Did you like that?" Julie whispered, before glancing down and laughing. "I guess you did!"

Keith finally managed to compose himself and walked back to his seat. "Uh..."

"Only thing I wish was that they had given me a really hot guy to do the commercial with. I wanted someone like an Idris Elba or a young Denzel to be the groom I was looking at. But they just wanted me in the ad to save money."

Keith almost felt dizzy. "Well, uh...that was a great ad."

"Glad you think so."

Keith could barely restrain the onslaught of erotic imagery in his head. He wanted to kiss her creamy pale skin, lick her lovely ass, run his fingers through her long red hair, empty his balls over her face and chest and shoulders...he wanted to make wild, frantic love to her. He had never felt this horny, ever.

Julie gave him another playful kick underneath the table. She had to see the erotic intensity in his eyes; there was no way for him to possibly hide it. He was out of his mind with desire.

Keith struggled to find something to say that wasn't "I want to take you home and fuck you right now." Suddenly, Jim was back with the two plates.

"Hope you enjoy," the waiter said as he placed both dinners on the table.

As he walked away, Julie looked up at the restaurant window.

"Oh, that's so cool!" she remarked, causing Keith to also look him. The torrential rain had finally stopped, and in the sky there was a double rainbow.