Keep Your Mouth Shut

Chapter Two: No One Warns You

Looking back, Richard knew the moment. At the stoplight, he spotted Liu at the bus stop: that moment. She was dark against the night, wearing a slinky black dress and clutching a small black purse. This was the same black dress every young woman in Europe owned. It was for going to a nightclub if somebody else was paying. She was looking around expectantly, hopefully, with a small smile. She seemed to him in that moment to embody everything beautiful and precious in life. Why can't these things happen at practical times? Or for practical reasons? Or in practical situations?

He pulled up and parked at the bus stop. She frowned suspiciously at the car. He climbed out. Her face lit up. She approached the car. He walked around the back and made to open the passenger door with a flourish, but it was locked. Smooth. He smiled at her. She smiled at him. He reached for his pocket, but the keys were in the ignition. He went around to the driver side, opened the door, and hit the unlock button five times. Watching him, she squeezed up her smile and widened her eyes, appreciating his utter defeat of the unlock button. He walked back around and gently opened the door for her. She climbed in. He shut it.

He took her to a midrange restaurant. Everything was expensive in Euros. He ordered a steak. She ordered trout. He reached across the table while they were waiting for their food. She slipped her hand into his. "How was the rest of your day?" he asked.

"It was cleaning, mostly," she said.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said.

"No, I like cleaning. It calms me down," she said. Since she wouldn't do anyone favors, that is, sexual favors, around the office, she got shit work. Their interrogation room in the basement unsurprisingly stunk like death. There was dried blood and less recognizable matter spattered creatively on every surface. That afternoon, she had mopped the floor and had put a dent in the rest of the mess. The station chief came down, thankfully not to order her onto her knees, and remarked, "You'll ruin the ambiance." Though he didn't say anything, it seemed she'd gotten some credit for hooking Richard so deftly and quickly. They'd left together. It was safer that way for her. She appreciated it.

Over dinner, Liu shared more of her cover story with Richard. Her extended family had been in the process of fleeing Hong Kong for years. She had been a University student there, working odd jobs. She had an economics degree that was mostly meaningless in the west.

When she was pushing the remains of her trout around the plate, he asked, "What next? More fish?"

"I couldn't," she said, waving her hand at him in surrender.

"What happened to your prodigious appetite?"

"The wine. I'm dizzy," she said. He had bought a bottle of white for her fish rather than red for his steak. It was nearly gone. He had drunk the majority of it, but she had been sipping steadily. The blush across her face showed she was allergic.

"Dessert then?" he asked.

"Oh no please," she insisted.

"I'll order one to share," he said. The waiter came, took their plates and his order for a slice of cheesecake, and left. He sought her hand again. "How long have you lived here?"

"I only arrived a few days ago," she admitted.

"Your English is surprisingly good for that," he said.

"I'm good with languages."

"What do you want out of life, Liu?" Richard asked.

"A golden car," she answered quickly, sipping her wine.

"I mean seriously."

"Isn't that what I'm supposed to say? This is the decadent west."

"What do you really want?"

He was beginning to annoy her. "To do my work. Why do you care?"

"Am I allowed to care about you?"

"Would it stop you for me to say 'no'?"

"I don't think it actually could," he admitted.

He was annoying. She countered, "What is it that you want out of life?"

"You're deflecting."

"So are you."

"I want to find an equal partner and learn her. Open up to her completely. Share our lives together. Support each other."

"So that's why you, with a gun and a golden card, are pursuing a Belgian restaurant worker."

"Yes."

She looked away. She was exposing herself with her responses. He was already suspicious. He saw her as a possible equal. Saw her. She laughed nervously, trying to think, to not be provoked like this. She needed to skip the small talk and run her plan.

"I feel ill," she said.

"How can I help?" he said, solicitous. "You need the restroom?"

"No," she groaned. "Let's leave."

The car was brought around, and they drove towards her place. She'd said she lived above the Chinese restaurant. "Not there," she said. "My family will see I'm drunk."

"Then where?" he asked.

"I don't care," she said sleepily. "Not there."

She had to be an enemy agent, he thought. A regular citizen straight from communist China wouldn't act like this. Women from there were uncomfortable with any intimacy on the first date. She was strongly implying he should take her to his apartment. "I'll park." Around the block from the restaurant, there was a small parking lot attached to a primary school. He parked there. It was dark.

"Do you feel nauseous?" Richard asked.

"I'll be fine," Liu insisted.

"What are your views on western dating practices?"

"What's the idiomatic phrase?" she said. "So far, so good."

"Kissing on the first date?"

"When in Rome."

He kissed her then. She was dangerous. He couldn't help himself. Her mouth felt awkward, uncomfortable.

She was uncomfortable. She had never had a real boyfriend, only sex. Kissing was intimate. It was disgusting, right in one's face. It was bourgeois and immoral. Kissing wasn't covered at the academy. None of her university minnows had kissed her. They'd gotten straight to work like good little fish. She could suck a cock very ably. She didn't have to be uncomfortably in a man's face to do it.

Her plan was for him to take her to his place, exposing himself further. He would throw her on his bed, remove her clothes, and fuck her, thus cementing their continued association. If he ran away then, she knew where to find him, unless he left the field entirely. She was already wet enough to have him in the front. She'd prepared her bottom before the date in case that was his preferred kink or form of birth control. She'd heard that you never knew in the west.

She had not prepared for the kissing part. It had clearly been an oversight.

"You seem uncomfortable," Richard observed.

"It's unsanitary and forward," Liu said.

"What happened to 'When in Rome'?"

"Give me a minute," she said. "I don't want to throw up into your mouth."

"We don't have to," he said, backing off. "I'm sorry my habits are strange to you. There's a lot of kissing in the states."

This was going in the wrong direction. She grabbed his face and knocked teeth with him. She tried again, latched on, and sucked. She tried putting her tongue into there. Fuck his mother! She was a professional. She was going to get this done properly.

"Look, I appreciate the effort," he said. "We really don't have to." A few minutes later, he said, "Okay, go to town. I'm your practice dummy. You're doing great." He was not kidding. He felt her hand come to rest on his crotch. He was getting hard. Under the cover of the continued kisses, he reached over and felt her breasts. She wasn't wearing a bra. He massaged her nipples through the light knit fabric.

Come on, wiggling trout, she willed. Take me home and fuck me, you fucking son of a whore! Do it! Start the ignition! She was getting the hang of kissing mouths. If she kept her eyes closed, it was like sucking a little wiggling cock. Except it was disturbingly intimate.

He broke the clench. "Look, I'll take you home," he said.

"Don't you live somewhere?" she asked.

Richard regarded Liu. "You're no Belgian restaurant worker."

She willed herself not to show upset. There it was. He had to say it. There was a tense moment between them. She may have been blown from the beginning. His hands were in motion. The engine roared to life. He put his car into gear and backed out of the shallow school parking lot. He was driving. Maybe it was too late for him. He was driving away from the restaurant. In he comes.

"Why?" she asked, admitting nothing. They both knew what she was really asking. Why, if he knew she was not as she seemed, was he taking her home with him anyway?

"You want more out of life than to do a good job," he replied.

"What do you care?" she pushed back. She knew that to sink the hook, she had to pull away.

"I should drop you off, but I'm not," he said simply, his eyes on the road. "I don't want this moment with you to end."

She was unnerved by his response. Who was turning who here? He was the one on the hook, and he had tremendous nerve to think, and then she felt it. This was different. Not love like the rush of a kill. This was not her work. This was her. This was her, loving this moment, loving being with him. It made her angry, but she hid it. He was a fucking solicitous moron. Go ahead, take me, you fucking whore of a mother fucker! I'm stronger than this stupid feeling, this moment of weakness. This was her job. She was a professional. Fool. Moron.

Afterwards, in his bed, him wrapped around her improbably, her thoughts wandered. He wasn't technically the best lover she'd ever had in terms of orgasms, timing, excitement. One of her instructors at the academy filled that role for her and several of her colleagues, reportedly. "Richard" did probably have the biggest dick that had ever been in her. But if anything, that had been merely a discomfort, though he'd been maddeningly solicitous. Plus, sex with a condom, no matter how good it was, never approached the feeling of taking a bare dick. Mostly, men had gone bare in her before this. At the academy, she and her classmates were like bathroom fixtures, not worth wasting a condom on. Her university minnows could never be bothered with condoms. They spent their money on recreational drugs instead.

It had been the silent times laying in the darkness with him. He hadn't wanted to let her go. He held her. He wasn't needy. His desire for her was all-consuming. It soaked into her pores. He didn't want to leave her alone, and to be honest she didn't want to be left alone. They didn't say much, so it wasn't that.

She teared up, facing him closely, trying to stare him down. She wanted to tell him all the vile and treacherous things she'd done for her country. She wanted him to hate her like he should. "You," she faltered, a little angry. "You don't know me."

He hadn't resisted. "You're right, I don't," he said. "There's nothing for it, though."

"This is when I should lie to you," she said.

"We can lie to each other in the morning," he said. Then he kissed her. It was like a magic spell that weaved into her soul. He was under her complete control. She had him. And yet, nothing was more precious to her than living in this moment with him.

(To be continued)