Richard paused outside the Sun Hung Chang Asian Grocery in Portsmouth UK. What was he doing here? Well, he was forty-four, separated from his ex-wife for the past two years and finally divorced with the financials settled. Not that it left him with much; just his three-bedroom apartment in St James Street, and his relatively high paying IT job. And of course, his nickname, "Big Dick" a play on his name, Richard. Unlike the Aussies who perversely call people with red hair Bluey, and where to be called Big Dick would mean you had hidden behind the door when cock endowment was handed out, in the UK it is different and his teammates at his amateur Soccer club hit the nail on the head with this nickname.
But not even this could help him now. At forty-four, the young women who would have flocked to him with his previous wealth ignored him or used him, and the bitter divorced matures he had found on tinder and other sites did nothing for him. Being a reader of his Asian sexfight stories he had contacted Aussie Greg (or as his writings are known at Literotica, Asiansexfight) at his website. He had suggested that Richard find a mature Asian, not a young Asian gold digger, and definitely, not a Filipina or Thai young mail-order throwaway. He said to try for a divorced Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese. This was the sum of his advice when, in reply to his queries, Richard had told him that there were quite a few Asian international students in Portsmouth as the fees were lower than institutions near London or in the Midlands and accommodation wasn't too bad. Greg had even given him some guidelines on how to approach the task.
He entered the Sun Hung Chang Asian Grocery and stepped into a different world. Unlike the brightly lit, spacious, sanitized Tesco Superstore he shopped at regularly, two bare light bulbs cast a dim light into narrow aisles littered with half-opened cartons, and the whole place smelt of unknown spices. He wandered around clutching his carry basket which proudly bore its Asda badge. He had avoided the rusty S&M one as he had decided the one he had must have been stolen at a later date. All the other shoppers were Asian, but none fitted Greg's criteria. The ancient, bald-headed owner at the well-used cash register was giving him hard looks so he reached up at random and selected something, anything. It was Malaysian sambal, their ubiquitous chilli paste. The vulture-like proprietor resumed his predatory position at the counter convinced that Richard was a buyer.
Another random grab from the shelves. This time his hand reached out and selected dried fish. A woman who was the spitting image of the media tycoon, Rupert Murdoch's, ex-wife Wendi Deng who was dressed both elegantly and sophisticatedly and who was also browsing in that section glanced at him and nodded. But his nerve failed him, and he never mustered the courage to speak. Again, he could feel the owner's eyes boring into his back, so he stopped at the kitchen utensil section and fingered some woks pretending to compare them.
"Don't buy that one. Them not cook good," said a woman behind him.
Startled, he turned around and faced a slim, plain-faced Asian woman dressed in a dated blouse, pleated mid-length skirt and flat shoes. She looked like she was in her late thirties, though he was aware most Asians looked younger than their years. She was the complete opposite of the sophisticated, elegant Wendi Deng clone he had been admiring earlier.
"No good? It's no good? Oh," he replied surprised by the eloquence and wittiness of his reply, not.
"Yes, that one will never getting good for cleaning. This one better, a pow wok," she said handing him the pow wok.
Her English, although not fluent was understandable, and he thought, "why not proceed?". I can use this for practice for the real thing. His eyes flicked to her hands. Greg's first rule; a divorced Asian still wears the engagement ring but on the right hand or a different finger on the left. Tick, there was a diamond ring on her right hand. Rule two; compliment her English and accent. "Thank you for the help. You said pow wok, is that the right way to pronounce it? Your English accent is good, and I have no Chinese, Japanese or Korean."
He was following Greg's rules. Give praise, but only on something that was not obviously wrong: an unattractive face, praise the youthful, smooth skin. In this case, it would have been obviously wrong to say her English was good, but her accent, well that was better than her English. She laughed in an embarrassed manner. "No, it is very, very bad. I never chance get is talking native speaker before. Is Mandarin, Chinese language or home is talk parent's dialect, is Hokkien. Husband is Cantonese so is talk that, but is not much English. I come from Penang Malaysia."
Ah, Hokkien, the dialect of China's Fujian province and its capital Xiamen. When the Englishman Robert Fortune stole the tea plants from China in the 1850s and enabled the British to establish the tea industry in India, the economy of the principal tea growing, and export area Fujian was decimated. Millions of Hokkien-speaking, jobless Chinese emigrated all over Sothern Asia, to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and then years later a second wave after the defeat of Chiang Kai Shek by the Communists under Mao to Taiwan only 150 km away across the Taiwan Straits.
At least he hadn't been rejected outright and clutching his purchases he followed her to the counter, still talking in an awkward and forced manner. She appeared to dally arranging her shopping in her trolley after completing her transactions and smiled when the shop owner released Richard from his clutches. Richard was surprised he didn't bite the coins to see if they were real. No credit cards said the sign at the Sun Hung Chang Asian Grocery store. She smiled at him, and Richard nervously took the big gamble. "Would you like coffee and you could practise your English?"
To his surprise, she willingly agreed but only if he would let her cook dinner in return. Over coffee, it was agreed that she would be taught English by Richard, and she would teach him Penang style Chinese cooking. During the next few weeks, he followed Greg's rules. He didn't force things sexually. He was attentive, remembering family details etc she told him. He now obviously knew her name Ma Lim, but also that she was separated from her husband who had only married her as she came from a wealthy Penang merchant family. Her parents and brother had died in a car crash and the business was now hers and her estranged husbands. She was here with her 21-year-old daughter Liu who was studying at Portsmouth University.
By this time, he had seen all the photos on her phone, could name relatives and noticed her changed proximity to him when they studied. Now no longer were face to face across the table but sat very close side by side, and he considered Greg's advice to be working. They shopped together at their initial meeting place, the Sun Hung Chang Asian Grocery and then fate stepped in. Ma had placed her basket on the counter when the wealthy, stylishly dressed Wendi Deng look-alike from his first visit pushed past Ma and demanded the owner serve her as she was busy and had important things to do.
"Excuse me," Richard stepped forward from where he had been waiting in the background and said, "But my wife was here first, and we too are busy and have too many important things to do to let you push in."
A slanging match erupted ended by the owner who had mentally added up their purchases and announced, pointing at the lookalike with one finger like the soup Nazi in the "Seinfield" TV show, "Husband and wife first, you wait."
The Wendi Deng lookalike glared at Richard and Ma, then stormed off. Her haughty departure was ruined by snapping one of her 5-inch heels and it turned into a limping stumbling exit, accompanied by Ma and Richard's laughter. Richard carried the groceries to his car with a clinging Ma repeating over and over, "You called me your wife in front of her." Aussie Greg had told him that he needed a critical moment, a shared secret or something special. Was this it?
