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 spring.
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.
