The petite, naked, golden-skinned Korean girl standing beside me looked up, grinned, and said, "Why don' you slip me a sleepy-time dose, get me off to a sleazy motel, rip crows off, force-fuck me and bang away my virginity?"
After a few seconds, she added, "You'd better close your mouth, dear man, or the bugs will get in." She giggled again.
- - - - -
There are a lot of times I think that the most serious decisions-the ones that change whole lives-happen for the most trivial of reasons.
It was for no other reason, that I was a little out of shape, puffing a bit up the campus hill, that I happened to be behind the tiny girl when she fainted. She suddenly slumped, with her body and head starting down to slam against the curb of the access road. I didn't think, just reacted and so she slumped against me and we both fell down, in a sort-of controlled sprawl.
Really tiny, she was (4' 9" I found out later), with some sort of close-cropped, helmet-style hair, thick and black. Asian, too, golden-skinned and really light-weight. Dressed in a denim skirt and a cotton sleeveless print top. Skinny, with a narrow waist under my hands. Too skinny, really, the kind of skinny that says, 'not-enough-to-eat.'
I eased her down into the grass, under a scraggly tree of no great shade, and popped open my water bottle. I used my clean sweatband to mop at her forehead with one hand, while I fished out my intended lunch from a little backpack.
A minute or so later, eye-lids fluttered, and then opened. Holding her with one hand and arm, I made the finger-to-lips shushing gesture, and asked, "Pretty girl, when was the last time you ate something?"
She gave me a little smile, not struggling against my grip and whispered, saying, "Yesterday, I tink ... just a ritter rice."
I heard an accent, but couldn't identify it. Later, guy!
"Well, unless you've got serious objections, it looks like you're having lunch with me. Like, now."
I unwrapped a home-made ham-and-cheese sandwich, big and thick, generous amounts of bread, meat and cheese plus stone-ground mustard. When she started eating, I was setting out many carrot and celery sticks. I gave her my sweet iced-tea, too. I kept the apple, so she wouldn't have to eat alone.
I did advise, "Better take small bites and stretch things out, 'cause I think you've been starving for a while, and I don't want you to barf all over my lap."
She did, but the food disappeared quickly, anyway.
She asked, "What about your lunch?"
"I can get more, later, so right now, let's focus on you. You're too skinny, so you haven't been eating much. If you'd let me, could I take you to an early dinner, somewhere around here? No 'strings,' no payback, and you'd be safe. Not even a handshake, unless you want to. A 'thank-you' would be nice, though. Yes, no or maybe?"
I'd planned to get a girlish 'maybe,' but instead she said, "Yes!" No pretense, no hedging.
She followed this by getting out of my grip and slowly standing, even if a bit shaky. "Let's walk," followed.
So we did, ambling nowhere in particular, and sitting down often to rest. Her name, she said, was Boh Park, which was about as enlightening as saying I was 'Smith,' 'Jones,' 'Singh' or 'Patel'. She giggled and grinned at me when I told her that. So I said I was 'Dunkeld McAlistair,' which was me.
She was from Korea, south of Seoul, daughter to an extended business family, a freshman, studying nothing in particular, who talked with her dad and grand-dad at least once a week, sometimes twice ... and a virgin.
Gaping, I said, "Huh?"
Grinning again-a 100-watt grin-that lit up my day and my mind, she went on, "That's all Dad and Granddad talk about: study hard, get perfect grades, remember your Korean heritage, don't make friends, stay away from men and virgin, virgin, virgin. Allatime, virgin and more virgin. They think I don' know, but they're trying to close a really big deal and I'm supposed to be the deal-maker. They get lots of money and power, and I get sent off to a 70-year-old, diseased wreck of a man, so he can be the first one in and suck the youth outta me and try to get more immortal. Shitty deal."
I answered, "You're here, now. Why not simply tell them to stick it, find a boyfriend and bang him to death?"
She answered, grimly, "Family obligations. Pride. And no money. They send me some, every couple of weeks. Just enough to live on, nothing left over. They pay my roommates to spy on me and report back. They pay the university. I'm just here to study nothin' much and be safe from being screwed until they call me home to get cherry-popped and banged, so they can get more rich."
"What about your Mom?" I asked.
"She's under Dad and Granddad's thumb, just like me. I heard Dad threaten to turn her out of the house, a lot of times, unless she 'behaved.'"
A few hours later, in the early evening, Boh and I were having a steak dinner, at a place well off the campus. She was obeying my three rules of eating: (1) order what you want; (2) as much as you want; and (3) don't worry or fuss over the cost. I kept trying to tell her about the 'no obligations, no strings, no payback' thing, and she kept shushing me, chomping around a piece of medium-rare prime rib that would have stuffed a longshoreman. Gasping, she finished dessert, and then gave me that 100-watt grin again, burping contentedly.
"Hohkay, now you take me to your house, gimme a drink. Den Dad and Grandpa call on my phone. Probably virgin, virgin, virgin. I lie to dem, say I at school. Den you let me take a real long hot shower and get me in bed. We play and sleep. Then you can fix me breakfast, a big breakfast, tomorrow morning."
She added, twinkling a smile, and said, "I get dressed after breakfast. OK?"
I said, in a sort-of wonder, "Uh, don't you think there may be just a teensy bit of a chance your virginity is bye-bye by the morning?"
Still smiling, she answered calmly, "No chance of dat, until I say so. You a good guy. You not a pervert. I gotta say, 'yes, do me' before you pop my cherry. Even if I get drunk, you'll ask. I not worried. Besides," she added, with her fingers of her right hand curled and making an up-down hand motion, "I got dirty mind. Maybe I be a pervert to you."
My car was the usual two bucket seat type with a center console, so I couldn't cuddle her as I drove the short distance to my house , over in Ocean Beach. Set part-way up the hill that made up Point Loma, in San Diego, California, it had a nice view of the ocean and a mostly private garden. I had very little grass, and I liked it that way. Dunmowen' forever! This being Southern California, I had a car-port instead of a garage or on-street parking.
From the car-port, I took Boh in through the utility areas and kitchen ("the Scenic Route," I told her, as she giggled). Then into the living-sitting room. Three bedrooms, a small kitchen and a big bathroom made up the rest of the house, with a large covered patio outside, and a little patch of garden-enclosed grass for sun-bathing. I had a Sky-Chair in the living room, since I liked sitting in mid-air, suspended from the ceiling. A couple of average-but-comfortable wing-backed chairs and a sofa, plus the usual end tables, completed the furniture inventory.
