by Anna Ferrara
Milla’s living room curtains remained closed for more than twenty-four hours. I waited all day and all night in vain.
By noon, I was a mess inside and out.
I pasted the Neoprint stickers from happier times on the window pane facing her apartment because I thought it might help satisfy my urge to see her and get me back to feeling normal but it didn’t work. My urge to see her remained.
I found myself hating the taste of my lunch—the very same Cup Noodles I had been eating for years without being bothered by its taste—as I stared at Milla’s curtains and her tiny once-happy face in silence. I spilled soup on the floor four times because I wasn’t watching what I was eating and I didn’t even bother wiping it up. I didn’t see the point.
My life felt as colourless and bland as my unfurnished apartment was. I missed the colours of Milla’s apartment; the greens, oranges and yellows in her living room; the shimmers of brass, the glaze of her wooden floors, the textures of shiny plastic wax. Her life was full of smells, light and real food whereas mine seemed routine, uneventful and frankly, empty.
I was sad and wasn’t even sure why I would be; Milla was a drug dealer, a subject and a woman. When Jackson, a science researcher, college-mate and man, broke up with me all those years ago, I didn’t even feel sadness; it felt necessary and inevitable and I was totally okay when it happened. Why then couldn’t I feel that way about Milla? Why couldn’t I just accept that she no longer liked me or that she was just a subject and a woman I wasn’t supposed to be canoodling with? Why did I keep wanting more when it was so not okay to be wanting more?
I didn’t know. I thought about that question till the soup spills on my floor turned into solids and my thoughts began to shock and scare me.
Once that happened, I decided it would be best if I didn’t think any further about it.
Milla’s living room curtains came open at 8:05pm.
I thought it was a tall young Chinese man pushing the curtains open, until I realised, upon looking more carefully, it was really a tall, middle-aged Chinese woman who was dressed and had her hair shorn like a man.
Tiny pains appeared in my chest when I realised Milla’s living room was now a mess. Her coffee table was now next to her sofa instead of in front of it and those longish cushions I remembered with fondness were strewn all over her large orange rug. There were two empty wine glasses on the floor and three empty bottles of wine around the apartment.
Milla saw the manly woman out the door right after. She went to lie on her sofa, alone, and stared up at the ceiling with a blank expression on her face after that but that didn’t make me feel any better.
She had probably already spent an entire day with that manly woman after all. A God damn bloody whole day. I leaned in till my binoculars and palm crashed into the window pane and I realised I could resist the urge to make contact with Milla no longer. I had a job to do, yes, but it was so much more than that.
Much, much more than just that.
I went to the nearest 7-11 to pick up a single rose. When the cashier asked me if I were getting it for my boyfriend, I smiled and nodded. When she asked me if it was because we had a fight, I said yes. When she started telling me I should be getting him to buy me flowers, I shrugged and left the shop as quickly as my legs would go.
The security guard at Milla’s building wouldn’t let me up without notifying Milla. He was not supposed to, he said, and he was afraid doing so would cost him his job. I had to show him the Neoprint stickers to prove we were friends and offer him a thousand Hong Kong dollars to stop him from calling her apartment. I wanted to give her a surprise, I said. I then offered him another thousand Hong Kong dollars. Cash. He let me go up without notifying Milla.
Outside her door, I rang the doorbell and waited. I held the rose in my hand high, to show what my intentions were. I prayed she would recognise me without my office’s glasses. I didn’t wear them because I didn’t want my office seeing what I was about to do; the footage from the hidden cameras around her apartment, I knew I could deal with later on.
A blackness came over the peephole but the door didn’t open.
“I came to apologise, Milla,” I said. “And I’ve decided to tell you everything, if you’ll just let me?” Without my office’s glasses, I felt bare and exposed, like a mask had come off; like I was suddenly having to navigate the world in manual mode without being able to count on the guidelines that used to enable me to move on autopilot. I wasn’t used to operating on my own; my heart thumped violently and my palms became all sweaty. I prayed I wouldn’t screw up because I knew I wasn’t going to get backup this time; I struggled to keep a calm front.
The door didn’t open. Milla didn’t say a word.
I didn’t leave.
Two minutes and thirty-three seconds after I first rang the doorbell, Milla opened the door. She didn’t open it fully; just enough for me to see her face but not enough to see her whole body or the inside of her apartment. I could hear the music coming from inside though: an electronic, soft rock song with deep bass notes that I could feel moving across the floor and into the depths of the bones in my feet; some guy singing about a playground love. I could smell wine. She stared at my face, with no emotion whatsoever on her own, and didn’t look like she had any intention of inviting me in.
“I brought you a flower,” I said at once. I fell silent right after because I noticed I had sounded painfully shy and meek when saying so. All the things I had planned on asking her about C39 suddenly felt unimportant; breaking down the thick layers of self-protection we had grown in the process of getting to know each other and our own desires became all I cared about.
Milla glanced at my flower but turned her head away from it soon after as if it repelled her. “Leave it on the dining table,” she said, as if only to herself. She disappeared behind the door and it seemed to open up all by itself shortly after.
I stepped in with trembling knees and did exactly as she ordered. As I did so, I could feel her eyeing me with mistrust, her posture stiff and guarded. We were no longer friends, that was clear. We no longer had anything to laugh about together. A saxophone began playing on her stereo.
“I’m not offering you a drink,” she said. “I want you out of here the second you’re done.”
The coldness of her tone seemed to slice through my heart like a blunt blade. I prayed she would try to get closer to me the way she tried to do twice before but she didn’t. She stood where she was, as did I. I found myself struggling to get air moving into my lungs normally; I had to take a deep breath of air in before I could speak. “I just wanted you to know that... you were right. I did see you at the hospital the day my boss sent me to do the story and I did approach you at the tea house on purpose, specifically because I needed to work on the Danny Diaz story.”
Milla rolled her eyes, shook her head, crossed her arms and gave me a look that told me she was no longer in love with me in any way.
I took in another deep, difficult breath and felt my lips tremble as I forced myself to keep talking. “I do know how to pick locks because I was trained to do so. I’m an undercover reporter by profession, Milla. I’ve been doing it for many years now but that’s not all I lied about… I also lied about how I… feel… about you.” Once I got those words out of my mouth, it hit me how brave she had been the day she kissed me. Those words I said to her had been the most difficult words I had ever spoken in my life; nothing I ever had to do at work or at school had been quite as difficult as saying those few words to Milla’s face.
Milla turned her head away from me and suddenly didn’t seem as comfortable in her own skin as she had been just a second ago.
“I didn’t want you to know because you were supposed to be a work associate and it wouldn’t have been appropriate,” I continued. “I didn’t want to be that sort of person but, as you can see… that hasn’t worked out so well for me.” Against my will, a lump formed in my throat and pushed large pools of tears
in front of my eyes.
Milla became a blur; a brown and black shape that was as still and soundless as a statue.
“I miss you,” I said anyway, since I had already gone too far out to go back to trying to pretend to be normal. “I can’t stop thinking about you. That’s the truth. If I could go back in time, I would just…” I shrugged and those tears gushed out of my eyes like waterfalls.
All of a sudden, I found Milla right in front of me, just inches away, much closer than she had been the last time I looked. Now that I could see clearly again, I could see she was no longer expressionless but… startled; she seemed to be clutching herself more tightly than she had been doing before and was clearly having difficulty catching her breath. Her eyes were on me, staring right into mine all over again.
I realised what that meant. Suddenly, I found myself as hopeful as I was scared, as excited as I was nervous. The air between us felt electrified, like a current was trying its darndest to draw me closer to her. I tried to speak again but realised I no longer could; there was no putting into words what I was feeling or thinking when that close to her. I would have liked to remain as composed and untouchable as I had always been, to be as straight and normal as I always believed I was, but what my brain thought right was nothing in comparison to the urges my body was insisting I give in to.
My body wanted to be close to Milla; to touch and hold every inch of her. I felt drawn towards her; my body wanted to connect with her in the most intimate of ways. Staying apart from her was a torture I no longer wanted to endure. I felt myself reach for her cheeks. I felt her heartbeat under my fingertips, beating almost as quickly as mine.
A flicker of desire crossed her large blue eyes. I noticed the way she was breathing and the way I myself was breathing and I knew right away I no longer cared what those American churches or politicians thought of what I wanted to do with my body.
I leaned in and kissed her. I let myself go. I let my body do whatever it wanted to and found myself surprised by how wonderful it felt being able to do so.
Milla showed me what a kiss was truly supposed to feel like; she made me tingle in ways I never imagined a person could tingle when kissing another person. She curled her arms around my body and warmed me with her tender touch; she pressed her body against mine and made our heartbeats become one. But then, before I was ready to stop, she backed away and stared at me with seriousness all over her face.
“What’s wrong,” I asked, breathlessly, when she failed to reciprocate the smile I gave her.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Her voice was low and she observed me the way a person would observe someone they didn’t trust: intently; without blinking much. “After knowing what I do... for a living?”
“It’s just a job, I don’t care.” To prove my point, I pulled off my t-shirt and the bra I was wearing and tossed them at my feet. In front of her, I stood naked, with my nipples going hard from the sudden cold.
That look of mistrust vanished from her face at once.
Milla wasted no time in getting us both completely naked. She kissed me till we ended up in her bedroom and went down on me the second I landed on top of her bed.
The first time her tongue came into contact with my clit, I felt as if I was finally properly experiencing what sex was supposed to be like. I felt like that other woman in that video clip and finally understood why her face had been curling in all those ways then.
Me touching me had nothing on the way Milla touching me felt. All the sexual encounters I experienced before her—all with Jackson—suddenly felt like boring handshakes in comparison. I never knew a woman could attain such pleasure from being touched by another person, and without penetration too. I found myself moaning softly even though I had never been vocal during sex before. I always thought I was, by default, the sort of woman guys would call a ‘dead fish’ but with Milla moving rhythmically between my legs, I suddenly felt like a dead fish that was on the verge of coming back to life.
Just seeing Milla naked turned me on. She was the definition of sexy: tanned, toned and curvy with breasts that were full in just the right proportions; she had abs but also layers of soft fat around the bottom of her tummy, thighs and arms to remind you she was also soft and thoroughly female. I suddenly wanted nothing more than for her to feel exactly what she was doing to me.
“Come here,” I whispered as I pulled her gently up towards my mouth. I kissed her on the mouth for a while then slid myself down to kiss her nipples too. I curled my lips and tongue over them and gently sucked them the way I knew I would enjoy being sucked. When Milla let out the most seductive moan I had ever heard in my life, I was hooked; I put my hand between her legs and stroked her quickly and rhythmically just to keep her moaning. I wasn’t sure if what I usually did on myself would work on her but, apparently, it did. Her moaning grew increasingly fervent and her face became inundated with pleasure. She looked and sounded so incredibly sexy, I felt my clit go hard and I found myself getting very wet in the groin.
I needed to see more. I flipped her over and went down on her the way she had gone down on me. I moved my tongue over her the way she moved hers over mine, but faster and with more pressure than she had been doing with me because I had a feeling that would be more pleasurable for her.
It must have been because Milla gasped, flung her hand over her mouth and began moaning so loudly, I was pretty sure the whole building would be able to hear. She grabbed at my hair, tightened her thighs around my head and begged me to keep going. She moaned and bit herself on the hand and moaned again as if whatever it was I was doing to her was just torturing her thoroughly, in a really good way.
I paid attention to her moans—to the changes in pitch and intensity—to figure out the best way to move my tongue over her. When I felt I was giving her exactly what she wanted, when her thighs began trembling and her once separate moans became one continuous, endless stream of moans, I went all out. I did more of what had been making her moan the most seductively and I did it much faster.
She came sooner than I expected, and way louder too, in a manner that aroused me more than any person or porn video had ever aroused me before. The way her toned body arched and stiffened, the way her face changed, the way she grasped at me, and those sounds she made the moment the orgasm came upon her, I don’t think I’ll ever forget. She was shaking and dripping wet down there by the time I was done with her and I think so was I. When she let go of my head, flung her hands across the bed and sighed, I felt like I had just accomplished the most incredible, magical thing. And I couldn’t wait to do it again.
“Sandra…” she whispered, as she struggled to catch her breath while grinning and pushing sweaty hair out of my face, her eyes shiny and her cheeks flushed as if she had only just completed a marathon. “Say you’ll never leave me?”
I said it. Right away. Partly because that was what I wanted myself but partly because she was climbing over me again and I couldn’t wait to feel what she was going to do to me.
It was the right choice. When Milla went down on me again, I was practically screaming with pleasure the whole time. Milla introduced me to sensations I never knew I could be feeling; sensations I never realised could exist. When those wondrous sensations culminated into a long, magnificent, body-shaking, life-changing orgasm just minutes after, I concluded I would be very happy living as a lesbian forever.
When we did it again, gave each other orgasms a second time, and then a third, but with our fingers and palms instead of our tongues, I put all the negative things I read about homosexuality out of my mind for good.
I went to sleep feeling good about myself for the first time in a long time and never thought about those American churches or their opinions ever again.
Chapter 19
7 Jul 1999, Wednesday
Milla’s face was right in front of mine when I woke the next morning. She was sleeping; her eyelids with their thick lashes down over her eyes, her silken hair strewn acr
oss the side of her face like a splash of abstract art and her caramel-coloured shoulders peeking out from under her fluffy orange quilt, moving ever so slightly. I could feel the warmth of her flesh against mine and see all the tiny, downy hairs over her skin, illuminated by what little light came through her closed, cheery yellow curtains. I could see how perfect the skin on her face was; unblemished, free of scars or wrinkles. I could smell her scent; I thought she smelled delicious, like a freshly-baked Chinese bun; comfort food.
I watched her in silence for almost forty whole minutes, without moving and barely blinking. I couldn’t believe I was sharing a bed and one pillow with her, while being entirely naked too.
Why would she want to be here with me? She was beautiful; she could have any man in the world with that face and body, so why me? Why want a woman who wouldn’t be able to give her marriage or children?
And why did I want her? More than I ever wanted Jackson or any other guy at that? She wouldn’t be able to appease my mother or put me in the same league as Carla and her soon-to-be-married friends so why her? And why in the world was sex with her so bloody brilliant?
It didn’t make sense.
At some point, Milla took in a deep breath and shifted. Her eyelids fluttered so I shut my eyes and pretended to be still in sleep.
She didn’t say a word but I could feel her watching me and also moving her face closer to mine. The hairs on my face began to stand and tingle as if they had been activated by some sort of magnet. I could feel the wind and heat of Milla’s breath against my cheeks and nose. I could smell more of her scent; it made me feel all comforted and sleepy inside, somehow. I was feeling as if I were about to fall asleep again when—
—Milla’s lips touched mine. Her hair fell against my cheek and tickled me. I couldn’t help but smile. I heard her giggle then felt her tongue make its way between my lips again. We kissed, as passionately as we had done right before I fell asleep in her arms the night before, and I felt my insides get all tingly all over again.