Mystery Motel

I was finally able to relax as I dropped my bag in the hotel room. My first thought should have been to get some food since I was so hungry but I actually got my phone connected to wifi and I checked my messages. There didn't seem to be anything special. They hadn't figured it out yet apparently. I got on social media and looked at what people were posting. Again, there were no red flags, just the same old crap.

Was anyone looking for me? Nope. I scratched my head. I'd still have to keep on my guard and not let anyone know where I was just in case. I had figured out that if people didn't really care where I was and were not asking me to come home then I was safe. The moment people started to really pressure me to tell them where I was and give me sob stories to guilt me into coming home because the motel needed me or whatnot, then it was guaranteed that I'd be arrested as soon as I got off the plane.

I took a shower and washed off the travel stink. How long was I going to stay here? I could go hopping country to country 90 days at a time. That kind of life would suck but I could do it and then just tell everyone that I finally decided to live my dream and see the world. I just didn't need to mention that I had never actually said or thought about that before or that I was only going to go to countries that didn't have extradition treaties with the US. Don't sweat the small stuff.

I tried to wash myself but I still didn't feel clean. Part of the reason why was the water felt different here. Probably the difference between hard water and soft water. But another part of it was I kept thinking about how my sister had been the most recent person to have sex with me. It was fucking with my mind. I needed to go fuck someone. I needed to go fuck a beautiful Chinese girl and then that would somehow remove my sister from my package.

Wait, what? That was crazy. What I needed to do was just learn to keep it in my pants. UGH. I looked at myself in the mirror. Yuck. My face looked weird. How long was it going to take for my beard to grow back?

I got dressed in some fresh clothes and then headed out to get food. Thanks to jet lag even though it was nighttime I felt wide awake. But then sleep hit me as the sun was coming up and I slept part of the day and only got to go look around in the afternoon. I always wondered what those Chinese characters meant but I sure as shit wasn't going to learn since they had the English written right underneath and that was much more convenient.

I spent three days like that, sleeping in until about eleven or noon and then checking out Taipei as just a tourist with no real plan as to what I wanted to see or do. I couldn't just go on like this since the hotel costs so much. I mean, I could but it didn't make sense. If I was going to stay here the full 90 days, then I needed something cheaper.

It was that night when my body felt like it was starting to adjust to the new daytime hours that I got a call.

"Hello."

"Where are you?" my mom asked.

"I'm in a hotel room." I answered, suddenly cautious of this conversation as I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes.

"What are you doing in one of the rooms?"

"Not our motel. I'm in a hotel room."

"Why? What are you doing?"

"We talked about this."

"What?"

"The plan, mom. The project. Remember. We're supposed to go and stay in different hotels and see what their doing and ..."

"Oh. Yeah. You're doing that now? You didn't say anything."

"What? I need permission to go travel now? You don't ever tell me where you're going."

"Ok. Ok. Don't have a cow. Just stay safe. I heard New York's having a crime spree after ..."

She thought I was in New York. I almost laughed but I held it in. "Ok. Will do. Bye mom."

"Bye, honey. Oh, and hurry home. I have big news."

"News like what?"

"Just, you know, it's big so hurry home."

Red flag. "Ok. I'll be home as soon as I can. I'll go catch the next flight."

"Great."

We ended the call but I was not going to go home anytime soon. Fuck that. I could see the police lights coming for me now.

While that was on my mind I checked my email and all. Still crickets. Was that good or bad? Was it a normal amount of people not being interested in me or was it less than before because the cops didn't want me getting tipped off? And why would my mom assume I was in New York? Was it part of that original conversation about staying in random hotels or was she testing for the cops to see if I would confirm I was there or what? Yeah, I was staying right here.

The next morning I actually woke up at seven. I went to the gym in the hotel and started to train. This was good. This was good for me. No worrying about the motel. No worrying about my sister. No worrying about that small town. No worrying about what people thought of me. No worries at all. I was just a guy who was trying to stay in shape and whatever my ex thought about what had happened was too far away for me to worry about from Taiwan. I mean, I was in the fucking Republic of China. The authorities here had way too much on their hands dealing with all the left over corruption and human rights violations that the defeated communists had left in their wake. My problems were literally over a thousand miles away. It was a great time to be alive.

After working out and getting a shower I checked my phone and it looked like something was happening. Chad and my ex had broken up and had had a huge public fight where they both accused the other of cheating. How did that work? So now my ex was saying that the threesome thing was a test to see if he'd be faithful even if she said it was ok to have sex with someone else and apparently he'd failed. But then Chad was saying it wasn't him or at least he didn't remember any of it so it shouldn't count. At first he was saying he wanted a redo on the threesome but then he got pissed and started accusing my ex of cheating on him cause it couldn't have been him. And yes, they were saying all this shit out in the open where everyone could read it. My sister had gone dark on social media and so far no one was bringing up her name. ... Or mine for that matter.

Was this good news for me? Or was it a ruse? At least Chad didn't seem to be really hurt. He hadn't sent me an email. Of course I wasn't sure if he knew my email but my ex sure did and she hadn't sent me anything either. Neither had my sister.

...

I'd been in Taiwan for about two weeks. I had left what I thought was Taipei but had actually been in the city limits of Taoyuan. I went down to Taitung and I was actually enjoying myself as a tourist. It was a lot more open here than up in the denser city, which I found I didn't like so much. I could relax and I had forgotten about shit back home. I had forgotten about my sister. I had forgotten about Chad and my ex. I wasn't even checking in anymore.

"I want maybe practice speaking English." the girl I was on a sort of impromptu date with said.

"Sure. Ask me anything."

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

"Sh. It's a secret. Don't tell my wife." I answered.

"You married?"

"It's a joke. I don't have either."

"American joke. Funny."

"You didn't laugh."

"Ha, ha." she giggled as she tried to look cute. "One day I want to do homestay in America."

"Well, we have plenty of room at my place. You can have the room next to ... my mom." I almost said my sister and just the mention of her was fucking with me again. I took another sip of my drink.

"How long are you going to be staying?"

"Not sure. Depends. I could decide that I want to go home tonight or I could stay for another month. It just depends."

"Depend on what?"

"I mean, I'm not in a rush. I can go back any time. But until the spirits call me home I just want to enjoy this moment right now cause it might never come again."

I wasn't trying to be deep or philosophical. I wasn't trying to impress her. I was just bullshitting my way through the answer cause really I was not actually planning to ever go home.

Well, even though this was only my third time to actually see her and the first two times were just haphazardly bumping into her at the little shop where she worked cause I wanted to buy stuff, yeah, I got her back to my room and I fucked her.

She was a very attractive girl. You know the type. She was probably about 5'7" and very thin. She was actually almost too thin and her breasts weren't very big, not like someone I won't mention. She had nice long legs and she was so cute when she made her little sounds. She acted like she was so scared to moan or call out when we had sex that I actually thought I was hurting her.

The funny thing was, I wasn't sure if she was Chinese or one of the Formosa people. I honestly couldn't tell the difference. They all just looked like normal people to me. Oh, well; I wasn't sure if my ancestors were English or German, as if it mattered at all. Ok, sure, I didn't want to be related to the Nazis but I didn't want to be related to the guys who banned Christmas either. We have to stop judging based on blood and start just looking at the individual and their own actions.

Well, this individual girl spent the night in my new hotel room. She was damn good in bed even if she didn't last that long. I wore her out but she seemed really happy to have me cum all over her. She hugged me tenderly as we took a shower together and sang a Chinese song as the water sprayed over us.

When I got out of the shower I noticed that my phone had the little light flashing. I unlocked it and saw that I'd missed a call from my ... my sister. Ok. Relax. Take it easy. I looked over at Shenhua and she smiled at me as I called my sister back.

My sister answered the phone without even saying hello. "Sorry. I called you by accident." she said.

"Oh, well ..." I started to say but then she hung up on me.

Ok. Whatever. I looked at the time and shrugged. Live and let live. I got in bed with my new girl and I forgot about my problems for a second time that night before we went to sleep.

The next day I'm not sure how it happened but it seemed like I'd been suckered into meeting Shenhua's parents. They were super nice to me but I got the feeling her grandfather was a bit pissed at me for something. Well, I did have sex with his 19 year old granddaughter but judging from how it was, I was not the first one. Hey, no judgment, just being honest. There were more men than women in Taiwan so you have to figure that most women have multiple guys.

But yeah, it got way too personal and I felt like now expectations were being put on me all of the sudden. They were tiptoeing around it but it was sort of like they were feeling me out to see when I would want to get married, even if not to Shenhua then to her sister oddly enough. What, and be like my parents? Fuck that noise.

But still they were very nice to me and Shenhua was very good in bed so for most of a week I was seeing her without committing to her being my girlfriend or getting engaged or anything. But then Shenhua introduced me to her cousin as her boyfriend. Shit. I mean, I liked her. I liked her a lot but you can't just assume things. And no, I wouldn't be interested in marrying her cousin either and I was honestly shocked when that just seemed to casually come out in conversation when Shenhua was claiming to be my girlfriend.

"I need to talk to my parents." I told her after I walked her back to her family's home one night. She seemed very excited by that news.

"About what?"

"Something important. So I'm going to fly home and then I'll be back. But look this'll be great. Then I get a whole new 90 days to stay here."

She was very sad to see me leave but things getting so serious so quickly just really took the fun out of everything.

My dad was in Malta so I flew there but by the time I got there my dad was in Italy so I had to track him down while doing as little calling as possible. I found him holding an outdoor business meeting with some contractors. He was explaining the big new construction project and he had a translator next to him repeating everything he said.

He was genuinely happy to see me and he acted carefree about introducing me to everyone around. If my dad knew I was in trouble he'd tell me. There wasn't a hint of it. So maybe I was fine. Maybe I was ok. The Italian police seemed to not know or care who I was.

I stayed at my dad's villa that night and I got all these emails from Shenhua asking me for my address in the US and other information. I had to pay international rates to call her which annoyed me but on the other hand, she's so good in bed. And besides that, she ... I really felt like she cared about me. So what was the harm of letting her know a little bit?

She asked me when I was coming back but I told her I had only met my dad, I still needed to talk to my mom. Oh, she was so excited but she didn't really know what I was talking with them about.

I stayed in Italy for a while. I knew a few phrases so I could get by. I'd been to Italy before a bunch of times when I was in college so I'd seen everything a typical tourist would want to see. My dad gave me access to his business and I spent a bit of time hanging out with him. After my mom left him I had only really gotten to spend a lot of time with him when I was in college and not really since. He hadn't known I was coming so instead of having fun vacation stuff planned he had a lot of meetings and work related stuff to do but I was happy to just hang out and start learning the business. After all, my dad always told me that sitting in on just one of his meetings was worth a year or more of graduate school, business school, or law school.

One morning I was just having some coffee and toast at an outdoor cafe in some town just south of Rome on the other side of some lake across from the Pope's rainbow colored free love fest castle as the locals called it. I couldn't see it in the daylight but they said that at night there were lights that lit up the side of the hill and the buildings in a rainbow flag. Recently a lot of people really hated the guy, not just for pulling stunts like that but for a bunch of illegal stuff he'd pulled as well. But he couldn't be arrested because of some such thing with international treaties. Of course the Pope could never leave the Vatican again except to travel directly here or directly back or he'd be apprehended. And he could certainly never leave Italy even if he strayed from a direct path back to the Vatican. He'd been convicted in absentia of racketeering, money laundering, child molestation, rape, and finally murder. There was a complete loss of faith in him as a religious leader and so some other guy had been proclaimed as pope. Not that I knew or cared much about religious matters after my dad got off his religious kick but everyone around was just boiling over with want of telling me what was going on. So most religious people and priests were following some other guy as the 'real' pope but the guy in the Vatican was still legally the Pope and as such was the head of his own little country even though no one showed up if he offered any religious services. As head of a country he could tell the police to fuck off when they tried to arrest him. But of course he had to stay a prisoner in his palace.

Anyway, while I was having coffee some girl came up and struck up a conversation. She seemed nice and she was very pretty. She was asking me about my car and I told her it was actually just my dad's and I'd borrowed it. Then she asked if I'd mind giving her a ride in it. What? I know what you're thinking, I must have borrowed the lamb, right. No. I had just taken one of the black sedans. I didn't know much about luxury European cars so I didn't know that this car was anything special.

Well, anyway, a random girl just approaching me to ask if she could ride in my car did sort of creep me out so I tried to politely find a way to get out of the conversation with her. She then explained that she was going to be late for something and could I give her a ride to her appointment. This seemed so shady so I told her no. No reason given, just no.

The next day I ran into her again. Instead of being angry with me she approached me and was acting affectionate towards me in front of her group of friends. It was then that I learned that her name was Ludovica. Yeah, try saying that three times fast, no offense but still. Anyway, she was my age and she was very attractive and even spoke a bit of English. Her friends invited me to spend the day with them and I was cautious but went along.

It was a pretty fun day and nothing outlandish happened. We just went around town to different shops, went up some kind of tower to see the view, and eventually had dinner at a place where there was some guy playing guitar. I looked over at this girl and when it seemed we had a sort of semi private moment when her friends wouldn't notice she let herself be open to me and I kissed her.

One thing led to another and I found myself in a hotel room with Ludovica. We were in a kind of competition with each other to see who could last longer in bed. I prided myself in being mister endurance but this girl could just keep going and going. I kept thinking that this was amazing. How had I gotten so lucky with her? Did she really like me? Did she really care about me? What about Shenhua? I was still calling and emailing her. But good sex is good sex and Ludovica was willing to do a lot of things sexually that Shenhua was just not willing to even entertain. The sex started with Ludovica giving me head which Shenhua would never do. Shenhua was all about just having the sex itself. Ludovica went right to sucking my cock for a bit every time it came out of her pussy like it was an instinct or something. She also enjoyed experimenting with various positions and we even went out to the balcony in the early hours of the morning so I could bend her over and fuck her out there.

The next day I didn't leave the hotel until noon but Ludovica was already gone. I emailed her and she sent a message back saying she was at work but would call me later. Cool. No pressure. I drove back to my dad's villa to see him and what he was up to. He introduced me to his newest girlfriend who was younger than me. I wasn't sure of exactly where she was from but it was not Italy. The three of us had dinner together at a nice place and then we went to the harbor to have a get together with friends on one of my dad's boats.

This was nice. This was a nice life. The work my dad's company did was actually interesting and I could start to see something for myself. But you know how life is. The moment you think you've got something figured out the next curve ball was already coming while you were distracted.

The next day I was able to meet up with Ludovica again. We made a plan to meet for lunch and she said she was bringing someone special for me to meet. Man I really hoped it would not be her parents or sister or cousin and then there would be all this pressure on me to get married just because I spent one night with her. No. Stop trying to lock me down.

Well, she didn't bring her parents but she did bring a family member ... her two year old daughter Chiara. So ok. I had never knowingly had sex with a woman who'd had kids before but I wasn't initially against the idea. She was a single mom but she told me she'd never been married or anything. I mean, if sex was going to turn into a real relationship then I'd have to come to terms with this quick.

Our 'date' that day was sort of me acting as a pretend father to Chiara and I actually spent more time with the little girl than the mom. Instant fatherhood, was this really something I wanted to get involved in. I was still going back and forth on that in my mind when a few days later I was confronted by a group of three guys who were all pissed at me and yelling at me in Italian. It looked like a fight was going to go down but the police showed up before anything happened and I learned through the police translator why the guys were angry with me. One of them was claiming to be Ludovica's husband and Chiara was his daughter. Now I didn't know if any of that was true or not but I did not need drama or contact with the police in my life so I was out.