Fish Story

"We can't go in," he said. He must have recognized the look of panic washed with relief that was transforming my features. "It's to protect you. Security."

We headed into the raging sunshine, which never felt so good on my delicate albino flesh: so much better, I was sure, than the musty shadows of a third-world prison cell.

Tran spent a few minutes on his cell phone while fish and I stood there smiling at each other. All the other women that I had ever been attracted to may have been smarter, wittier, classier, worldlier, even better-looking than Fish. But none of them had a nicer smile.

"Okay," said Tran, "Everything is okay!"

He led us to a taxi, gave the guy instructions, and turned to me. "Everything is set up. You can go to another hotel. It's cheap. Call me if you need help."

"Great! Thank you!"

We got in. In the taxi I felt almost free to touch Fish unabashedly. We cuddled together, me hoping that the place we were going would be no problem, hoping I wouldn't have to call Tran again, hoping we could finally express whatever love or lust it was that seemed to rage in both of us since she had parted her lips for my kiss. I don't know what was going through Fish's mind as we plowed slowly through the maddening traffic of Ho Chi Minh City. But I could feel the anticipation coursing through her body.

It looked like a fly-by-night hotel, a tiny place staffed by a bunch of grinning young guys. But in this socialist paradise even they had to follow some rules. They needed my passport. Of course, it was the one time I'd left my hotel without the photocopy. My hotel kept the original in its safe, as much for their own protection as mine. I saw no alternative but to call Tran, which I had really hoped to avoid. He had work (and drinking) to do. But I felt I had no choice. I gestured to Fish that we needed to call him, and the hotel let us use their phone.

Tran was not pleased. He showed up pretty quickly, haggled with the desk staff, then informed me that I would have to pay a hefty fee because I didn't have an ID. But it came to about six dollars, so that didn't bother me much. What bothered me was Tran's look of exasperation as he accompanied us up to the room. They had insisted that he leave his own ID at the desk, so I guess he wanted to make sure we were all safely tucked in before he left.

The room was very nice, much more modern than my 60's-era spread at the Victory, with a marble floor, beautifully embroidered red drapes and a big comfortable bed. It was only when we got into the room that I remembered I had my California ID in my wallet. I took it out.

"Hey, can they use this?"

Tran said they could, and that he would bring it down when he left. I didn't ask whether I could get my six dollars back.

Tran said something to Fish in Vietnamese. She looked shocked, then started laughing.

"Sir, I told her I want to watch!"

After all his trouble I figured it was the least I could offer him. But I knew he was joking. He came over and put his hands on my shoulders.

"You owe me a lot of money! I had a lot of trouble!"

"Of course, whatever you say! I thank you so much!"

"I'm going now. I hope you have a very good time today, sir!"

I looked at Fish, who was grinning broadly.

"I will, sir! I fucking will!"

He laughed and went out. Fish came over to me, smiled, put her arms around me, sighed "ahhhhh!" with her cute bubblegummy sound.

I said "Finally!" and held her tight.

We fell to the bed, arms and mouths interlocked, and just lay that way for a long time, enjoying the feeling of really being together. I was content to suck on her slothful tongue until she moved.

Finally she started unbuttoning my shirt. She gasped in wonder when she saw and felt my hairy chest. I'm not even that hirsute as Caucasian primates go, but I'm sure that to her I felt like a polar bear in heat.

She fumbled me naked, and for a few minutes I reveled in the feeling of being bare in the arms of this teenybopper-clad young woman. I wanted to undress her slowly, to extract the maximum erotic value from peeling each piece of cloth from her body, but she pulled off her sweater and then had herself stripped naked in what seemed fractions of a second.

I went wild on her, kissing, licking, and sucking. I looked up at her while sucking on one of her small shapely breasts. She looked down at me with that benevolent woman's smile, that magnanimous smile of giving, of giving a man the pleasure of her breasts, the pleasure that she knows he has craved until the moment he finally kisses them.

Seeing that motherly look on her young face drove me crazy. I kissed her everywhere, loved her everywhere, made sure to miss nothing. When I got to her vagina I saw that there was only a whisper of fine black hair above her clitoris. I licked her bare open slit, abandoned to happiness, determined to give her pleasure. Her bright bird-like sighs belied her fishy nature, but with my nose in her crotch the smell of warm tuna was overpowering. Overpoweringly delicious.

After a few minutes she pushed my head away and pulled me on top of her. At first, as we tongue-kissed deeply, she kept her legs together. I had a condom, and I assumed she would want me to use it. I knew I should use it, even if she didn't say anything. But my raging erection had thoughts of its own. When she opened her legs the feel of her wet vagina against my cockhead almost destroyed any caution, prudence or intelligence I had left. She put her hand down to guide me in. But at the last moment I jumped up and put the condom on.

Even behind a wall of rubber, entering Fish was like entering heaven. At that moment she was not Fish but Quan Yin the Buddhist goddess, the one who could answer human prayers. I made love to that goddess, I fucked her, I held her and kissed her, and together we spun through eternity.

I had never been inside anything that felt so good. Most of the time orgasms take forever for me, especially with a condom. But I knew I could explode whenever I wanted to. I held back, went slowly, then fast, then slowly again. Quan Yin was gasping, laughing, urging me on.

I knew an ecstasy divine, like no other.

When I burst inside her it only drove me to fuck faster, to ram into her with blinding speed, to smash my years of unhappiness with a fury that gave her pleasure, that made her tremble in shock when it was over.

She smiled and said "Wa!" breathlessly.

I assumed that was Vietnamese for "Wow!" I smiled back and kissed her, my cock still strong inside her.

After another long tongue kiss she giggled, got up and went to the restroom. I heard the shower. I got dressed and sat in the chair near the bed. I was in a daze, drunk on sexual fulfillment.

Quan Yin came out of the bathroom fully washed and dressed, her hair a beautiful wet black. She smiled, straddled my lap, kissed me.

"Quan Yin love Mr. Bob."

Her bubblegum voice never sounded so sweet.

"Mr. Bob love Quan Yin." I kissed her. "Okay?"

She laughed. "Yes, okay!"

We embraced for a while, then she said "Let's go," and led me from the room.

I saw her three more times after that. The second time she brought her long-lost ID. It said she was twenty years old. It felt good to know that I wasn't a vile criminal.

Each time I saw her was pretty much the same except once when, under Tran's influence, I was so drunk that I couldn't come when we fucked. Quan Yin seemed disappointed; I wasn't sure whether she just felt it was a failure on her part, or she really wanted me to fall in love with her, possibly with the goal of marrying her way to the United States. Or maybe she really was in love. But I didn't mind not knowing. It was our ignorance that led us to physical bliss.

After a month, feeling horribly guilty about the mess I had left behind in the States, I went back. I left Quan Yin, my fish, my goddess. I want to return to her, but if I do I fear that the emptiness between us will be gone.