Stay Sweet Ch. 03

"Mmm-hmm."

"Well, that croupier's name was Adrián, and he had these hot brown eyes and this sexy accent, and I was so caught up in the rush of winning all that money that I gave him my room number, and...it may have turned into a thing."

"Sounds like it was a very good thing."

"I...'d like to be diplomatic?"

I mussed Ji-yeong's hair; payback for all the times she mussed mine whenever I was being cute. "Well, it sounds like you had fun at least."

"I did," she said. "He actually managed to take me from behind. Remember how I freaked out when you tried?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, what he did was he had me lean against the window. Keep in mind, I'm naked, and it's a big picture window, but it's also really high up. So I'm feeling totally exposed even though I know nobody can see me, and the mixture of emotions from that was...really effective, we'll say. Kinda nullified the dread."

I nodded. "He also had you on your feet, so he wasn't, like, looming over you. Remember, our first time together, I spooned you."

"That's a good point," said Ji-yeong. "But you understand what I'm saying: He leaned me against the window."

I blinked, in response to the loud whoosh I heard just over my head.

"The one facing the fountain."

It didn't hit me just yet. But I saw that it was about to. "Oh," I said. "So you're saying that that picture, the one I used to symbolically represent your freedom..."

"Which, in my defense, I took way before I got my hands all over the glass."

"...will always remind you of getting railed from behind by Adrián the handsome croupier."

"...if it helps, it still kinda fits?"

I don't think I've ever laughed that hard in my life. I nearly blacked out from being unable to take in oxygen; I was on the floor, making these rough, loud gasps for air that must have frightened poor Ji-yeong, who joined me on the floor shortly after, hand on my back, making sure I was okay.

Eventually I caught my breath, looked up at Ji-yeong's warm, smiling face as she cradled my head.

I knew this wasn't leading anywhere we could safely return from if it somehow went wrong.

But still I couldn't help myself. Before I did what I needed to do, I allowed myself to reach up and comb my fingers through her soft, short hair, to register her texture with my nervous system one last time.

She leaned down into my space.

"I need to go," I said, and she pulled back, her smile briefly faltering before coming back at half strength. "I'm not mad at you at all," I assured her, "but I need to go."

Ji-yeong nodded. "I hear you." She took my hand, got up, and pulled me to my feet. "You want some water before you go?"

"No, no, I'm good now," I said, while she led me to the front door. "Thanks, though."

"All right, then," she said. "So, next Saturday?"

I wasn't sure I wanted to. But I said I would.

She smiled at me. Wistful, perhaps understanding.

She said, as usual, "Stay sweet, Pete," before she shut the door.

* * * * *

"I swear to God you're going to meet him one day," said Bernadette, after showing off the engagement ring Brian got her last week, "and you're going to love him." We were out to lunch for what had become a monthly Sunday Funday thing; this month we were at TGI Fridays because fuck it, we didn't have any better ideas. Brian was supposed to tag along that day but he had caught a cold.

"You know," I said, "it's probably just as well. I think I need to talk to you about something personal."

"Uh-oh."

"Yeah. But just so you know, this isn't about me missing you, it's...I think I'm blowing it with Ji-yeong."

Bernadette's eyebrows jumped. "How's that?"

I took a few seconds to figure out if there was a quick way to explain what I was worried about. I couldn't, so I just asked. "What made you realize that the two of us weren't going to work out?"

Bernadette leaned across the table and chewed on the corners of her bottom lip.

"I don't know if it's a hard question to answer because of how I handled it, but—"

"No, it's not that, I'm just...it's not complicated, I just don't quite know how to phrase it." She took a swig of her beer. "Okay, it was kinda like this," Bernadette said. "Somewhere around the time we graduated high school, I asked myself, 'If I live another 60 years and I'm still with him, am I going to regret it?' And I kept feeling like I would have."

"Did I do something specific to drive you away? Or did you just, I dunno, change?"

Bernadette had this look like I was about to push her into a pool while she was wearing an expensive cocktail dress. "What is bringing this on?"

"I think I'm in love with Ji-yeong but I'm worried that I'm just crazy." What I had trouble expressing just moments ago clicked in my head just like that, all of the sudden. "Look, I've got no use for clichés like 'Oh, love IS crazy,' because love or not, I care about her. And if I start that kind of relationship with her and it's just some unhealthy co-dependent thing...I don't want to just be with her, I want to be good for her." I leaned back in my seat, rubbing my face. "God, she hates it when I treat her like a precious snowflake. This is so fucked."

"Pete, you're overthinking it."

"When haven't I?"

Bernadette blinked in surprise. "Pete, you never overthought things when we were together. Do you remember graduation night, we camped out in your backyard and looked at the stars? I asked you where you saw us in ten years and you said, without missing a beat, 'married.'"

Oof. "Wow, college really did make me smarter."

Bernadette shook her head. "No, see, it wasn't that stupid. We'd been together for two years at that point, and you didn't see any signs that we were winding down. Even us going to different colleges didn't seem like such a big deal to you because you thought it was enough that we loved each other. Yeah, maybe that was naïve and really hasty, but in the end, I was the one who overthought it. I was in a place where I didn't like myself much, and I started thinking 'How am I supposed to change when I'm so comfortable?' You being 'the perfect boyfriend' actually worked against you: Perfect was boring. Perfect gave me nothing to aspire to. 60 years of the same thing, day in, day out was going to drive me crazy."

I was riveted. "Jesus, Bernie," I said. "I had no idea."

"Well, I'm fine now," she said, her face scrunched up with a subtle discomfort, before reaching for my hand. "The things you said to me afterwards hurt so much, Pete. I'm glad you apologized for them. But that doesn't change the fact that I broke up with you in a really shitty way, so I think it's my turn to apologize to you. I'm sorry for how I ended things. I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you about what was going through my head. And I am so, so sorry if I ever made you think it had anything to do with you, because...well, you always tried to be so good for me. It just wasn't enough."

I felt my chest begin to loosen up and my organs spread out; I hadn't even realized I was so wound up.

I laid my other hand on top of Bernadette's. "I mean, it did have something to do with me," I said. "For whatever reason, you felt like you couldn't talk to me about this when we were together. And if that's the case, maybe it was for the best that we—sorry, that you called it off. After all, you ended up with Brian, and you're crazy about him. Like, in a way you never were for me."

"Very true," Bernadette's laughter was choked with little sobs of catharsis. Our hands parted; she wiped her eyes and pulled herself back together. "You know, Brian grew up in Jackson, down in Mississippi, and he started transitioning really early. He was almost killed after one of his 'friends' realized he was born a girl, because he made him think he was gay. Ever since then he's lived under the assumption that one day he'd walk through the wrong door, or meet the wrong person, and that'd be the end. Brian doesn't think much about the future. He takes whatever he can get now, and...mighty fucking white as it is of me to think this way, I can't help but notice that he's generally happier for it.

"I caught myself asking the 60 years question about Brian recently, and you know how I answered? 'Who gives a shit?' Maybe we're together the rest of our lives, maybe we get bitterly divorced in five years. What I know is that this ring—" She held out her left hand, showing her engagement ring once more. "—in this moment, feels right. And everything it represents makes me feel like the luckiest woman in the world.

"I can't tell you what'll happen if you make it official with Ji-yeong. Obviously I'm rooting for you. But regrets are something you either have or you don't. The more you try to avoid having them, the more likely they are to pop up. You say you want to be good for Ji-yeong? Stop worrying about whether you can be good for her and just be good for her. I know you can be. You're not some fuckboy looking to crush challenge pussy. You're a sensitive guy who's hopelessly in love with someone who hopelessly loves you back, and you both happen to be carrying baggage. And if I'm somehow responsible for your baggage, maybe it'll help if you hear it from me: Fuck the context. Fuck the possible consequences. You know how you feel and you know it's not going away, and as long as she feels the same way, you might as well play it out."

Yeah. She was definitely going to be my Best Woman, assuming Ji-yeong—or whoever I ended up with—didn't pitch a fit about it. I smiled at the thought and took a long pull of my beer. "Man, how many exes are as cool as we are?"

"Not many," she said, taking her own sip of beer. "I can't wait until 20 years from now, when we talk about swapping to spice things up, and then I laugh in your face until you kill yourself out of shame."

* * * * *

Friday Ji-yeong texted me to let me know that she had to work on Saturday, but wanted me to come by that night anyway.

It was happening. Maybe.

"Ah," I wrote back. "I take it you're gonna shower right before I get here?" I added a winky face to make sure it wasn't taken too aggressively.

>I mean of course I'm showering after work

>But it's not like I'll be greeting you in a towel or anything like that.

It seemed innocent enough, but something told me there was a plan in place here, even if I couldn't see the specifics of it.

And if there was...so what? Bernadette's pep talk didn't magically cure me of my concerns, but it did give me a lot to think about, and I was thinking that if Ji-yeong was going to push, I was going to let her.

I was tired of fighting against something that could be just as good for me as it was bad.

I was tired of overthinking it.

I trusted her to know what she could handle.

"Be there at 8," I texted back. "I'll bring dinner."

>Thanks! Don't worry about dinner, I've got it.

* * * * *

Ji-yeong told me that if she didn't respond when I buzzed her apartment, then I should buzz her neighbor instead, and that's what I ended up doing. She'd leave her door unlocked for me, so I could just wait for her on the couch.

She was definitely in the shower. This was definitely happening.

Was it?

I spent the long ride in the elevator thinking about how much I tended to overthink things. There'd been a longing in Ji-yeong's eyes lately, and I was sure she wanted more from me, but however emboldened she might have been by her time on the road, I felt like she would've gone with the soft sell.

The door turned out to be locked. Maybe she had just missed me at the door to her building. I knocked on her door and waited.

Maybe we would just talk today, and maybe that would lead to sex, and then I'd spend the night and we'd talk more over pancakes before she left to volunteer at the shelter.

Or maybe she'd open the door wearing her motherfucking hapkido dobok.

Did I say her dobok? No, that implies she was wearing pants. She was only in the robe, white with black stitching in a diamond pattern, held together with a yellow sash (called a tti, I later learned; pronounced "dee"). She leaned against the doorframe and looked through my glasses into my astonished eyes with her soft chocolate browns.

"You coming in?" she asked.

I nodded dumbly, shutting and locking the door behind me. She took my hand and led me to the living area; the robe of her dobok came down past her hips but couldn't cover up the lower curves of her naked ass, which rose and fell hypnotically with each step she took. She sat me down on the couch and sat on my lap, facing me. I could feel her heat, soaking through my jeans, warming my rapidly inflating erection.

"I hope you don't mind that I'm being so aggressive," Ji-yeong said, hands softly framing my face. "But I think I've been ready for this for some time now, and I feel like you're ready too. I know you're scared that you're going to hurt me down the road, and I get that, I really—"

"How could I be scared of hurting a badass like you?"

"I'm not a badass yet! I'm only a yellow belt!"

"You've always been a badass to me," I told her, holding her by the shoulders. "And yeah, I'm still worried that this is a bad idea. But I'm not going to fight this anymore; it's taking too much out of me. If you're ready, so am I."

"You don't have to fight," said Ji-yeong. "If you're not sure you want to do this, then—"

"We probably should've done this months ago," I said, before pulling her in for a deep kiss.

Our bodies compressed into each other, my hands roaming up and down her robed back as she ground and ground against me, until she decided that she wanted to pull off my shirt and I raised my arms to help her get at my naked torso. I didn't dare pull open her dobok, though; not even to expose those gorgeous tits I missed so much. The visual was still too exciting.

We broke the kiss, but Ji-yeong continued to grind into me, her hands resting on top of my shoulders. "Help me out here," she said. "How does a badass like me show dominance over a guy like you?"

I moved my hands up and down her naked hips. "Seems like you're dying for some relief down there," I suggested.

"Mmm, I sure am."

"Well, I could lay you down and lick you off, but why should you be on the floor when you could just sit on my face?"

Ji-yeong's eyes bugged out. "Wouldn't you suffocate?"

"It's fine, I can just breathe through my nose."

She took a couple of seconds before getting visibly excited. "It sounds so hot!"

"Get up so I can lay down," I said.

But Ji-yeong was looking at the shelf above the couch, which was meant to hold various collectibles and tchotchkes whenever she found any worth getting. "No, stay here, I think I can just..."

She swung her feet up onto the couch cushions and stood, towering over me; as she stretched, her dobok started to ride up her body and I could see the beginnings of her neat strip of pubic down. She pushed my head back, tilting me slightly upwards, then grabbed onto the shelf above before climbing up to the top of the couch and doing a split—"Oh my God!"—that lowered her thick, glistening pussy down onto my face.

I said that when I go down on a girl, I tend to be leisurely and gentle.

This was not leisurely and gentle.

"Oh FUCK," she cried out, as I reached under her dobok to grab her ass tight and corkscrewed my tongue up her honeyed hole.

"Ohhhhhhhhh Goooood, Pete, fuck yes!" She was vocal. Way more vocal than usual. I chalked it up to the lessons of the road. "Fuck fuck fuck, you lick my pussy so good!"

I was on solid ground but I hung onto her like I would the edge of a cliff, tonguing random shapes—fuck it, the alphabet—double-fuck it, print and cursive—triple-fuck it, lower and uppercase—into her twat as she twisted against me, her tangy mead trickling down my throat. My ninja girlfriend—this is not a race thing, she was doing the splits on my head, she is a fucking ninja—cried out and cried again and sent her poor neighbors scurrying to their computers so they could file noise complaints with the super.

"Shit shit shit ohmigod Pete this is so GOOD fucking lick me just like that!"

My hands slipped away from her tiny rear, feeling the flexing tendons that connected her legs to her center, before they started moving up and down her powerful thighs. They were stronger than I remembered; must've been all the legwork hapkido called for. I kept stroking, down her thighs, under her knees

"OhOHHHohoHooo FUCK!!" Ji-yeong's entire body spasmed in my hands and she lost her grip on the shelf, tumbling halfway down my body before I caught her and brought her back to my lap. She laughed all the way.

She calmed down shortly after she got back on her knees, but she wasn't finished yet, reaching under her dobok to diddle her clit, locking her half-lidded eyes with mine, jaw hanging open, tti coming loose, grinding back and forth against me as she frigged herself higher, higher, higher, then crashed in a breathy, mesmerizing release.

"Oh my God, Pete," Ji-yeong said, pulling herself back together, "when did you learn The Knee Trick?"

"Uh...just now?" She laughed. "When'd you learn it?"

"One of my 'misadventures,'" she said; that much was obvious.

"Same guy who taught you the splits?"

Ji-yeong screwed her lips up, showing me the gears turning in her head. I saw something click into place, and she admitted: "Same girl."

Fireworks went off in my head. "No fucking way," I beamed.

"I'll tell you more about it when I'm drunk, angry, or extremely careless."

"AWW," I pouted.

"Well, I don't see you talking about your homoerotic encounters to turn me on!"

"That's not fair! I never had any!"

"Well, look at it this way," she said. "Now you don't have to worry about measuring up to anyone specific."

"Except for Adrián." I wasn't really measuring myself against Adrián. The man had an accent mark in his name; that battle was already lost. I was just happy to be here.

"Oh, don't worry about Adrián," Ji-yeong said, slipping off my lap. "Worry about the fact that I'm about to try sucking your dick again."

"Oh really?" I lit up. My memory of that awful, amazing blowjob in the blanket fort was so fond it was sepia toned.

"Really!" Now on her knees, Ji-yeong unsnapped my pants and pulled them down my legs, sending that thick, juicy dick she liked so much flopping out against my stomach. "One problem, though," she said, taking hold of me. "I've had some practice. So instead of being hilariously bad, this might just be boring."

"There is literally no such thing as a boring blowjob," I said.

Well, maybe there was, but Ji-yeong didn't give it. Basic? Absolutely. Steady pace, good suction, hand on the base of the shaft jerking along, but no deepthroating, no ball play, little tongue action. Again, though, this was Ji-yeong. It was enough just to see my sweet, wholesome girlfriend—I don't care if she sucked a hundred dicks and licked twenty clits, in a row, to get to this point, she was still wholesome to me—with her head buried in my naked lap, dutifully and gleefully sucking me off.

My girlfriend Ji-yeong. I was into that.

She pulled herself off me with a hot little pop, and started idly stroking my dick. "How'd I do this time?" she asked.

"Great," I said. "There are a few more things I can teach you if you're interested. If not, no big deal."

"Let's wait on that," she said, pulling open her dobok at the chest.

I could wax poetic about nearly any part of her body, but God help me, I might love her tits more than life itself. The size, the shape, the wonderful weight, the way her skin effortlessly contoured into each erotic swell, the perfect reddish-brown circles of her areolae, the stiff nubs of her arousal at each peak..."Jesus I missed those," I told her.