Whoa…
Cue the awkward situation music. He followed me into the guest bedroom, and I wondered when was the last time he’d slept in a room this small. Had he ever?
“I’ll use the bathroom first,” I told him. “And then you, OK?”
I grabbed my toiletries bag out of my backpack before he could answer and escaped to the bathroom.
I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and changed into an oversized nightshirt. Then it was time for an Issa Rae-style pep talk in front of the mirror. You got this, Dawn! I assured my reflection.
My reflection did not look like she believed me. And eventually, a soft knock sounded on the bathroom door.
I found Victor on the other side, looking irritated about having to wait so long.
I carefully slipped past him, then rushed as fast as I could into the empty room. I was under the covers with the quilt pulled up to my neck by the time he returned.
He walked in wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, which was bad. Terrible, in fact. He was still built like a tattooed god. I noticed that he’d added more and more of them over the years. But we hadn’t had the kind of relationship that had allowed me to get a good look at him in the clear light. So I took all the tattoos in, noting the ocean waves that now covered his abs underneath his chest dragon.
However, my gaze stopped scrolling down before I reached the new tattoos covering his legs. There was something underneath his black briefs, standing at attention and raring to go.
“What happened to no sex?” I signed to Victor.
His gaze followed mine down to the very obvious tent in his boxer briefs.
“I can’t control that part of my body,” he answered with an amused shrug.
Then he switched off the light next to the door, turning the room to black. It should’ve been a reprieve. It meant I didn’t have to see him get into bed. Or look at the other monster between his legs.
But you didn’t have to see something to know it was there.
Like the moon hiding out in the daytime, I could sense his erection. It pulsed the same as the secret he had once given me inside a ninja star. And made waves crash inside of me.
No sex was supposed to ensure that I got a good night’s sleep instead of a sex hangover the following day when I needed to be at my best. But I ended up tossing and turning because my body felt so weird. My core was swollen, warm, and clenching at air just like it did on our anniversaries.
This was not our anniversary. But my body didn’t seem to believe me when I told it that…
Eventually, I gave up and walked out to the kitchen to get a glass of water.
To my surprise, when I returned to the bedroom, Victor was sitting up in bed. With the nightstand lamp turned on.
“You couldn’t sleep?” he signed.
“No,” I answered.
I wanted to leave it there. But my eyes inevitably dragged down to the covers, and yep… I could still see the clear outline of his erection. God help me.
I set the water on my nightstand and forced myself to act like I didn’t notice him or it as I got back into bed.
But it was like climbing into bed with a ticking bomb. Impossible to ignore.
“Don’t you think you should take care of…” I ended up signing before he could turn off the light.
Again, this was where sign language did not want to be my subtle friend. I could’ve just said “that” out loud. But since this was sign language, I had to opt for the extremely graphic signs for “your erection.”
“I’m not going to be able to sleep if I know…” This time I resorted to just straight up pointing at the tented sheet, “…is lurking in the dark.”
Victor went still.
Then he very slowly began to reach underneath the covers.
Oh, wow. He was actually going to do it!
I’d hooked up with a few boys in college. But I’ve never watched one of them handle his dick. Usually, it’d been a lot of fumbling with condoms underneath covers and a push in followed by some less than exciting fireworks. More like fire sparklers.
A weird, sick excitement rippled through me at the prospect of him doing so right beside me.
But then I got a hold of myself and whispered out loud, “Turn off the light first, please!”
I flipped over, giving Victor my back. Then I waited. But nothing happened.
And when I turned to look in his direction, I found Victor staring at me, his eyes like two pieces of burning coal.
“What are you doing?” I whispered. “Why didn’t you turn off the light?”
His hand came back up from underneath the blanket. “If you want me to take care of my problem, I want you to take care of your problem too.”
“What problem?”
Victor looked at me, his gaze knowing and frank. “You are aroused too. I can smell it.”
“Stop it,” I answered. “Deaf people can’t smell better than hearing people. That’s a myth. And besides, you’re not deaf.”
He regarded me for a long beat. Then he slowly signed, “I can smell you. And this keeps me awake.”
I swallowed. Hard. Then switched back to signing to ask, “So you want me to what? Finger myself?”
Again, the sign for female masturbation was crazy graphic in sign language.
Victor smirked. “You can use your fingers or rub yourself against the pillow. Like you rub yourself with the electric sex toy I found in your drawer.”
Okay, well, just in case anyone was wondering….
The only thing more embarrassing than being told by someone you hate that he can smell how much you want him? Yep, that’s right. Being invited by that same person to rub yourself against a pillow the way he was sure you rubbed yourself with the sex toy you thought was a big secret.
I considered telling him to go to hell. I really did. But at the end of the day, the even bigger hell would be not being able to get to sleep. The problem was he was right. I was totally turned on.
“Okay fine,” I answered, my signs annoyed and rushed. “You do you, and I’ll do me. Whatever it takes to get to sleep.”
I flipped over onto my back and made a huffy show of doing his stupid bidding.
Although my resentment would’ve probably worked out better if I hadn’t found the triangle between my legs so ridiculously warm and wet when my fingers delved into it. No wonder he said he could smell me. I was practically dripping arousal, and my bud felt impossibly swollen inside my pussy lips.
No, I wouldn’t need my back massager to get me revved up tonight. I let my eyes fall closed and started rubbing.
But then I felt a weird pressure on top of my head. Fingers gripping me around my temples and forcing everything above my shoulders to twist to the left. When I opened my eyes, my face was fully turned toward Victor.
“Watch me,” he signed with his free hand. “Watch me watching you while we do this.”
Then he grabbed a Kleenex off the nightstand and snaked his arm under the comforter.
It was okay that he didn’t wait for my reply. I don’t think I could’ve come up with one even if I could speak words aloud. Which I couldn’t. I did as he said.
A new heat strummed through my body as I watched his arm move under the blanket. And I helplessly rubbed at my pussy, which was heavy and aching between my legs.
The way he looked at me across the bed with his hand still heavy on top of my head made it even hotter. He was forcing me to look at him. Forcing me to stay there with him as we did this thing apart, but somehow intensely together.
Eventually, his hand came down from my head and pressed his thumb into my lips. I opened my mouth wordlessly, sucking his thumb into my mouth as I rode my hand. He was no longer holding my head in place, but he didn’t have to anymore. We stared into each other eyes, magnetized until the pleasure became too much and morphed into a climax.
Only then did my gaze fall away. I threw my head back as an orgasm rocketed through me. A flower violently blooming to greet the spri
ng.
As I fell apart, Victor did too, his body shaking. He didn’t throw back his head or even close his eyes, though. No, his gaze stayed glued on me as he came. And that made my climax ride out even longer.
Eventually, we both recovered. He disposed of the tissue he’d used to catch his cum, calm as a Buddha. Then he signed, “Good night.”
“Good night,” I whispered back. But it felt like a lie.
There was nothing good about this night. The intense cloud of desire continued to hang over the bed, even thicker than before.
Four more months, I reminded myself as I finally drifted off into a fitful sleep. I just had to hold out for a few more months. And then I’d be free.
22
DAWN
No time for awkwardness the next morning. I had to get up bright and early to drive my mother to the hospital for her surgery.
I expected Victor to use this opportunity to slip away to the comfort of the Four Seasons. But over a breakfast of dakjuk, the Korean chicken porridge my mother made for us even though she was unable to eat, he asked for the keys to her car.
So that’s how he ended up driving us both to the hospital in my mom’s fourteen-year-old Kia Forte. And the surprises kept piling up from there.
I was planning to ask if they had any nurses on staff who spoke ASL so that my mother wouldn’t have to read lips to understand everyone when I wasn’t there. But no need. A representative appeared in the lobby shortly after we began the check-in process. She spoke sign language and assured Mom she’d be by her side until they put her under for the surgery. Then she escorted us herself to my mother’s hospital room.
I was a little confused as we followed her to the elevator bank. I mean, how had they even known that mom’s implant wasn’t working, and that she’d need further assistance?
“Is this the standard protocol for all hard of hearing patients?” I asked in the elevator, trying to get some clarity.
“I wish it was,” the translator answered carefully. Then she glanced at Victor.
And if that didn’t let me know he had something to do with his better than usual treatment, I figured it out when we walked into my mother’s room. What turned out to be a large, tranquil suite with dark bookshelves, several pieces of well-made furniture, fine art on the walls, and huge windows that displayed panoramic views of the Dallas skyline and the Trinity River.
My mom took one look at the space and demanded to see the bill.
“Insurance didn’t pay for this big room,” she insisted. “I’m not going to let you upcharge me! That’s not what I agreed to!”
Maybe because mom was getting so upset, Victor stepped forward and signed, “Not insurance. Me.”
My mom’s angry expression immediately collapsed into soft shock.
“Why did you do that for me?” she demanded. “You shouldn’t have done that! This is too much!”
Before he could answer, though, she turned to the translator and bragged, “This is my son-in-law! See how good he treats me!”
Victor once told me that he didn’t remember his mother. She had died when he was so young, and he only had a single picture of her, taken before her marriage to his father.
She wasn’t a model or actress like the wives of so many Chinese mafia bosses. His father had met her on a visit to his hometown in Macau. She’d been a freshly hired cigarette girl and twenty to her future husband’s forty-six. Before that, Raymond Zhang had no desire to settle down. Didn’t want kids or any of that, he’d told his son. But one look at the new cigarette girl had been all it took to change his mind.
Sadly, she had died less than four years after having Victor. But clearly, Victor still had a talent for handling mothers.
After we were settled in, the surgeon himself came down to visit. This wasn’t the same guy who had been listed on the paperwork my mother had given me. That guy had a long last name of Indian origin. This one’s last name was only three letters, Kim.
“You’re Korean!” my mother said, switching to her native language as soon as she saw his name tag. Luckily, she was still signing, or I might not have understood.
I surreptitiously looked him up online as they shared small talk about his parents, who had immigrated here back in the 80s. According to the internet, this guy was the best oncology surgeon in Texas. Not Dallas—the whole state of Texas. In fact, from what I could tell, he worked out of a hospital in Houston.
There were a bunch of sentimental stories online about how he’d saved one person or another from certain death by cutting out malicious tumors and cancerous tissues. Many of these grateful people had driven and flown in to Houston from other states and countries to have him perform their surgeries.
But here he was in Dallas. I wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten privileges at this hospital.
Actually, I was sure.
I looked over to where Victor stood on the other side of the bed, impassively watching my mother’s hands as she spoke with the doctor. With the view of Dallas framing him from behind, he looked like an all-powerful titan of the industry. Untouchable and cold.
Yet, here he was, going above and beyond to help someone I loved…again. Confused thoughts swirled around my head, trying to settle on how I should feel about all of this. And Victor.
Dr. Kim had a warm bedside manner, and my mother visibly calmed down as he went through the procedure with her. After he finished his explanation, he asked in English, “Do you have any questions?”
“Yes,” my mother answered, also in English. Her voice was gravely serious. “I noticed the rainbow flag pin on your lapel. Does that mean you’re gay? If so, I have a son. Very handsome police officer. And he dates men sometimes.”
“Mom…” I warned. But then, I made the mistake of glancing over at Victor. His shoulders were shaking with silent laughter, and I had to clamp my lips to keep from doing the same.
The doctor blushed. But then admitted, “I am gay. But I’m already dating someone.”
My mom looked legit disappointed. “That is too bad. I would forgive Byron for liking men, too, if he married a doctor like you. Are you happy with this other man? He’s probably not as handsome as my son. Here, I’ll show you a picture so you can see.”
“Wow. Mom, please stop,” I snatched her phone away before she could shove my brother’s picture in poor Dr. Kim’s face. I’m pretty sure he hadn’t come here from Houston to get bombarded with my mom’s dating schemes.
Dr. Kim laughed good-naturedly and told her that he’d see her upstairs for surgery.
“Mom, tell me you didn’t,” Byron signed-said when she FaceTimed with him about fifteen minutes before she was due to go upstairs.
I noticed that she was careful to keep the room beyond the hospital bed out of the frame as she spoke with my brother. That meant Byron couldn’t see Victor, who was sitting on the couch.
“I did!” she answered, her tone belligerent and self-righteous. “At this point, it’s the only way I’m going to get a doctor in this family!”
Byron took her ribbing with his usual good nature. And after they talked for a few minutes, he asked her to give the phone to me. I also made sure nothing beyond mom and me made it into her Android’s frame. Yep, we were still a family that kept everything from each other.
“Thanks for going down there to be with her,” Byron said. “I would be there if I could, too.”
“Seriously, it was no problem.” This lie slipped off my tongue easier than any of the other ones I’d told over the past few years. I glanced at Victor on the couch. “I’m just glad I could be here.”
“Me, too. Plus, you and Mom are good now, right?” he asked as if our nine-year silence had just been a ripple in our family pond.
Nonetheless, I answered, “Yes, I think so.”
After a few more moments of small talk, Byron made me promise to call him after the surgery and we hung up.
I was glad we got the chance to talk with him together. He’d sounded so relieved.
; But the smile fell off my face when I saw how scared and small my mother looked in the hospital bed.
She had seemed relaxed and in a good mood when she was talking to Byron. But I guess that was just a mask she was putting on for her baby son.
“Mom, everything is going to be all right,” I said-signed to her.
She shook her head, her eyes shining with fear. “I haven’t been in a hospital since I got my implant. What if they put me under, and I don’t wake up? I’ll never see either of you again. Or your father.”
She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “We got in a fight about his work the last time he was home. He has been promising to switch jobs ‘soon’ for years. So, I threatened to divorce him if he didn’t make a change. But he got so angry with me, he stormed out. And I haven’t seen him since. What if that’s the last thing he remembers about me? All my anger and none of the love?”
Her voice broke. And the tears that had only been trembling in her eyes beforehand began to roll down her face.
I cursed silently at my father for not being here with her. There wasn’t a big enough hospital room in the world to make up for not having her husband here when she was this scared.
I wanted so badly to hug her. But with her implant on the fritz, that would mean she wouldn’t be able to see my lips or hands as I assured her, “That won’t happen. You’ll see him again.”
“It could happen. It was in the paperwork you gave me. They said there was a chance I wouldn’t survive the surgery. And if they can’t cut out the cancer, I might not survive after that anyway.”
My heart squeezed painfully at the thought of my mom dying just a little while after we finally made up…. Nine years of silence. Why were we so stupid and stubborn? I’d never forgive myself if either of those hypothetical outcomes came to pass.
So, I insisted to both of us, “Mom, it’s going to be okay. It has to be.”
My fierce reassurance made even more tears roll out of her eyes.
“I wasted so much of my life waiting on him. Being angry at you.” She looked up at me mournfully. “Dawn, I was so sure you had failed me. But when I needed someone the most, you were the only one who showed up. Why was I so mean to you? Nine years…”
Victor: Her Ruthless Owner: The VICTOR Trilogy Book 2 [50 Loving States, Rhode Island] (Ruthless Triad) Page 15