Primal Scream (Box Set #1, Taboo Sex + AFF) (20 page)

He looked down at the ground, pretending to concentrate on sweeping up some of the leaves when a tan Buick LeSabre cruised past—Jake recognized the red-white-and-blue heart ornament hanging from the car’s rearview mirror. The driver was Jenny Beck, who owned seven cats, and was one of the local gossipers who told many tell-tales. She had the sharpest ears, and eyes at the back of her head. Sneeze near her, and the whole of Perri would know about it in no time. Jake tried to avoid gossipers as much as he could, though they were everywhere. Things could seriously get twisted in small towns.

Jake looked up again once the Buick had slithered down the street, and turned a corner.

His eyes widened—his heart skipped a beat for a moment—standing with his torso erect as his hands tightened their grip on the rake’s upright handle, as he peered through the curtains, moving his head from side to side slightly, to get a better view of the bigger picture.

He was staring at a white mound of flesh…at the most perfect ass and hips he had ever set his eyes upon. Satin smooth skin, a pure, even-toned, milky complexion—
Good Lord, the girl’s sleeping in the nude
—
a petite exotic Asian doll
lying on her side, then turning ever so gently, onto the other side, eyes gently shut, facing the window. Her whole body was on display, from the front, this time. She was facing Jake now, and the growing hard on in his pants.

It took him a while—mouth salivating—to realize she worked at Crazy Wok, the town’s new Chinese restaurant.

Holy Mother of God,
he thought.

He’d eaten there a couple of times. It was a newly opened restaurant, just a few weeks old, just over a month. He thought he’d seen her, just once. She’d been in a slightly baggy long-sleeved shirt, with her hair tied up, hiding behind the counter, returning his receipt and change without a word. He hadn’t found her particularly attractive, then. She was cute, and young, but he hadn’t been able to get a good look at her. She seemed so…reserved—even more so than him—and a little…stand-offish.

Inaccessible. Unavailable. Kind of like an ice princess. Her sweet nipples, like little angels. Does she know?

Jake heard a car pulling into the driveway.
Holy fuck!

The car was on the other side of the house, at the front yard. Jake’s gut turned into a knot when he heard a couple chattering in another language he couldn’t identify, and the rustle of paper and plastic bags—and his heart leapt into his throat when the girl’s eyes lazily flickered open, and blinked, before meeting his gaze.

Look down—she’s going to scream—RUN!!!

And he did—move fast—Jake picked up his rake, tripping twice over a trail of scattered leaves as he headed in the direction back towards Mrs. Bartlett’s house. He took a casual look-over at the window, wiping his shaking hand through his dirt blond hair under his cap, almost exploding with nervous system overdrive. The girl was still there—standing at the window now, her slim figure visible through the crack of space in between the two curtains—she was staring straight at Jake, with her dewy, mysterious eyes…before she unhurriedly drew the curtains together.

Jake was a scatterbrain.

He could be charged. He might be arrested. Would they come after him? Would she report him? Yet, all he could think about was her small, but firm tits—and her heavenly neatly groomed shaved pussy
marking the spot, right where she wants it
—maybe he’d do a bit of manscaping himself, since he didn’t mind (quite enjoyed, in fact) land-scaping—and he wondered if there was any chance he’d ever have it
under his tongue.

II. XYZ

Xing Yi brushed her hair, eyeing her image in the mirror. She was twenty-one, but could pass off as fourteen, to the Caucasian locals. The Asian build was typically more petite and less muscular than their European counterparts.

She knew the guy who’d been standing at her room window. She might not even have screamed if the guy had been standing in her room. It’d be something refreshing and unexpected.

She’d seen him thrice at Crazy Wok: once when he ordered take-out, another time when he’d come alone, and the first time with a friend. She had a good memory. She could identify customers by their voices, and remember their orders and favorite dishes too.

This guy either had the buffet, or ordered Beef with Mixed Vegetables. He always had beef.

She’d been mixing drinks the first time she saw him.

She’d smiled at him the second time, when she was at the counter handling the money. She smiled after he took his change, but he had already turned around to leave.

On the third time, she had taken his take-out order over the phone. She was serving some customers when he walked in to take the order (“Beef with Mixed Vegetables, No MSG”) from one of the waitresses at the counter.

Exhilarating—the little details she had to remember, from the daily running of the family restaurant. While she didn’t know his name, she remembered him because she’d already seen him several times around the area.

The first time was sometime in late August, when she’d first gotten to Perri.

It was a hot day. She’d been listlessly gazing out the window from the backseat of a car, wishing she wasn’t thousands of miles away from her home country, when she zeroed in on a nice, slim, shirtless body—a gardener of some sort—crouched before a flowerbed. His back was facing towards her. She could see the band of his black CK underwear. He had a faded red baseball cap on, and a black wristband on his left hand.

She’d always had a thing for lean, toned torsos. They were so easy on the eyes. Her legs were crossed over each other—she pressed her thighs harder and closer together, as the car drove past the young, fit guy, who stayed concentrated on his work.

She wondered if she’d ever see him again—and she did, over the next weekend. She’d been aimlessly wandering around Taylor’s, a surplus and salvage store that sold great stuff at cheap prices. She recognized the black wristband, the temptingly streamlined body, and the faded cap he’d hooked through one of the belt loops of his dark denim blue jeans.

She shyly, swiftly dashed aside before he could see her, hiding behind a row of shelves lined with perfumed, sweet scented candles. She saw his longish, handsome face this time, when he turned for a moment. She saw his defined jawline, very light facial stubble, and his serious, semi-haunting expression.

Was he sad, angry, tired? A nice boy, or a potential serial killer?

He started walking in her direction when a colleague called him over. He went right past Xing Yi, without noticing her. But she saw his nice eyelashes and amazing green, green eyes. They were mesmerizing—the type of eye color Xing Yi wished she could have, if she had a choice.

Nice body…slim…the hot gardener.
Those green eyes could dazzle anyone.

That night, she thought to herself as she lay in bed:
Damn, I want to fuck him.

She didn’t know that he only worked the afternoon shifts on weekends, once a week. She’d always be looking out for him, in the following weeks, whenever she happened to drop by at Taylor’s.

I’m going to die in a small town,
Xing Yi had been reiterating in her mind, when she almost spilt the drink she was mixing, the first time she saw the hot gardener at Crazy Wok. She almost ran up to him, to say, “It’s you!”

And if she got his name, she’d introduce herself as “XYZ,” the name she used for online screen names. She thought he might have trouble pronouncing “Zhang Xing Yi,” and explaining to him that last names came first, in the Chinese language.

Which she thought she might have to explain several times, if he couldn’t even hear what she said in the first place. Which she thought would make her look crazy. But not as crazy as she felt she
really
was.

She didn’t know anything about him. Except that he seemed to like Chinese food.

She felt she was going to go insane because there was nothing to do, apart from help out at Crazy Wok, which was practically all the time. She had some relatives who ran another Chinese restaurant, Oriental Jade, in Bangor. Bangor was the closest city to Perri, about an hour and a half’s drive away.

Her parents had decided to come over from Singapore, when their application for permanent residency had been processed. It’d taken thirteen years to process. Her parents wanted to try out a quieter pace of life.

She had an older sister who’d married an Australian citizen, and was living in Melbourne. But they hadn’t really kept in touch since the wedding. The husband was a clever, but lazy bum, who wasn’t in any contact with any of his family members. Traits which seemed to rub off on Xing Yi’s sister. Both sisters thought the same of each other—that they could each “do better,” with regards to their own lives—and it had just gotten tiring and antagonistic to converse for the sake of “maintaining a contact.” Big Sister said Xing Yi had issues. Xing Yi thought Big Sis was too obsessed with money, and didn’t really care about the family, until shit hit the fan and she really needed something.

Xing Yi wanted to try and run away from her miserable life, for good. She’d save up, relocate. To where, she didn’t know yet.

She was confused all the time, not knowing where she wanted to be, where she wanted to live, what she wanted to do, who she wanted to date—if she even wanted to date at all, in the first place—what she really wanted.

Singapore was always busy, and stressful.

“
Busy all the time, but I don’t know what I’m doing,” read one of her friend’s Facebook profiles.

“
Done with school and in denial—all I wanna do is travel,” read another.

Singapore was a tiny city-state, and an expensive place to live, where property prices were sky-high. The rich could own a lot, while “the rest of the people” had to settle for less. There was a fantastic public transportation system. There were lots of shopping malls, lots of food, lots of fabulous distractions. But the distractions could be so fun.

She could list almost all of Perri’s landmarks with her ten fingers.

Taylor’s. McDonald’s. Burger King. Subway. IGA Supermarket. Crazy Wok. UMP. Nancy’s Café. Perri High School. Porter Memorial Library, a quaint library right across from the Post Office. The Perri movie theater stopped doing business some time ago. There was no public transportation. The nearest mall was at Bangor. The nearest Wal-Mart was an hour and a half’s drive away.

There didn’t seem to be much to talk about. Xing Yi liked traveling all over the world, experiencing different cultures, visiting museums, learning to speak different languages, eating with chopsticks, and making friends from Japan to the United Kingdom. Perri’s local weekly newspaper featured high school football, engagement and wedding announcements, pictures of dead deer strapped to tool boxes in the back of pick up trucks from hunting season, more high school football...

She’d never even thought of herself as a “city girl,” until she got here. Sure, there were millions of “city folks” who never bothered to embrace the opportunities presented to them, and were no better off than if they’d buried their heads under the ground. Living in a big city was no guarantee one would be smart, and being from a small town like Perri didn’t mean you’d have to be stupid…but weren’t the odds of growing, learning, and having better, broader experiences greater in a place that welcomed change, that was open to new ideas, and not so closed off?

And the people here weren’t racist, though they always seemed surprised when Xing Yi spoke and they discovered she and both her parents had a good command of English. “Where’d you learn to speak English?” some of them, especially the older folks, would ask with a genuine smile. “Singapore,” she’d reply politely, and they might chat for a little bit. Some of the customers would try to guess Xing Yi’s accent—she didn’t even know she had an accent—but she hadn’t been ridiculed for it, so far.

Was she an Asian stereotype? Asians in foreign lands always seemed to be running either a laundry mart, or a restaurant. Her dad had in fact, managed a few upmarket restaurants in Singapore. And she wasn’t sure about the white American stereotypes she’d heard of so far, either.
Ang mohs
—the Hokkien slang for Caucasians.

“
My mom says
ang mohs
are wife-beaters,” one of Xing Yi’s friends had joked before, over lunch, before Xing Yi left for the U.S. They’d sheepishly gathered their belongings and promptly left the café, when they noticed a Caucasian male seated two tables away.

“
I thought you were getting married,” another friend, Tessa, had said, during another meet-up. “You can find somebody there—how bad can they look?”