For several months, Mei-Lien and I have been meeting regularly twice a week. She began coming to see me in order to improve her spoken English. Her first language is Mandarin, and, like many young Chinese, she had studied English in school with someone whose own grasp of the language was tenuous. Being a good student, she had acquired a good vocabulary and could read English with ease. However, she had little or no idea how to pronounce most of the words in her vocabulary, a fault which she was determined to correct. With a combination of native talent and absolute dedication, her command of English has improved to the point that, were it not for a slight residual accent, I would be unable to tell that she had not spent her life speaking the language. Not only is her pronunciation close to perfect, the sophistication with which she chooses her works is remarkable. Thus, long before the time when this story begins, out meetings had become occasions devoted more to conversation and the exchange of ideas than to language instruction.
Not long after she started coming to me, I realized that I was beginning to like this girl quite a lot. She exuded a refreshing confidence and intelligence which quickly won me over. At the same time, I began to appreciate her looks. Although she is no raving beauty, but she has a charmingly open, bright, Asian face which transforms to reflect her mood. When she is thinking about a problem, her concentration manifests itself on her forehead, which furrows to form a charming hollow above each of her eyebrows. When she solves the problem, her satisfaction is broadcast by a smile which erases the furrows in her brow and spreads over her entire face. She stands a little over five feet tall, and, if it were as svelte as she wishes it were, her figure would be diminutive. As it is, it has a pleasing roundness about which she is somewhat embarrassed. In fact, even our earliest conversations often included a discussion of her less than successful efforts to improve her figure.
Because I rather liked the softness and radiance which her residual baby fat produced, my initial reaction was to discourage her from attempting too drastic an alteration of her figure. However, as time passed, it became increasingly clear that her figure continued to bother her and that she was discussing it with me in the hope that I would play an active role in helping her improve it. Thus when, about two months after she started coming to me, she brought the subject up again, I told her that I would be more than happy to add the transformation of her body as a reason for her visits, but that I had to know more about it before I could be of any assistance. In short, she would have to be willing to have me examine her body if she expected me to help her improve it.
Up until this time, Mei-Lien had been never given me the opportunity to learn much about her body. Although she was always attractively attired when she came to me, her choice of clothing seemed to be deliberately calculated to hide rather than reveal her figure. Initially, I attributed her mode of dress to a manifestation of Asian reserve and a reluctance to introduce possible sources of distraction into our relationship. Now I understood that her choice of clothes was dictated at least as much by her sense of vanity as by modesty. For this reason, I knew she would find it difficult to comply with my request that she reveal more of her body to me, and so I was not surprised when, shortly after I made my request, she brought her visit to a hasty conclusion.
Having not been at all certain that she would ever return, I was relieved when she arrived promptly for her next lesson and pleased to note the change in her choice of clothes. Rather than the loose fitting, waist-less dress which she had worn until then, she was wearing a blouse and pants which revealed to me, for the first time, the contours of her body. In what was an unmistakable invitation to view her figure, she stood before me and, after raising her arms, pirouetted to facilitate my inspection of what lay beneath her clothes. What I saw was a healthy young female body. Admittedly, its contours were less pronounced than those of most European women: Mei-Lien's breasts and hips are less than luxuriant, and what curves she possessed were partially obscured by the absence of a clearly defined waist.
When I had completed my appraisal, I approached Mei-Lien and, looking directly into her face, placed my hands on her hips, right at the level where her blouse was tucked into her pants. When I did so, I felt a slight tremor run down her body and could see from the furrows forming above her eyebrows that she was having difficulty deciding whether to step away. After a momentary hesitation, it was clear that she was determined to not retreat and that she was waiting for me to proceed. Maintaining our eye contact, I gently tugged the hem of her blouse out of her pants, undid its three bottom buttons, and bared the portion of her stomach between her bra and waistband. Lowering my gaze so that I could look at her newly exposed midriff, I saw that, in spite of, and perhaps because of, the thin layer of fat beneath her skin, her body possessed a succulent femininity which was in stark contrast to the muscular ideal currently in fashion.
