The Vietnamese Grass-Cutter Woman

My palm is now fully inside her panties having shoved them aside, and two of my fingers swim around the dripping entrance to her vagina from behind. My other hand has pushed aside the bra cup and released her small but firm breast and I am about to bend my head lower to her chest and take the large protruding nipple into my mouth. She has small areola and nipples that occupy most of the rough surface, standing erect and firm. Her hand has got a grip around my massive erection and is drawing it upright, flattened against my abdomen. The top half of my cock is now out of the waistband and I need to unbutton the constricting top of my denims.

I am suddenly pulled out of my feverish state of heightened arousal by the sound of my doorbell, penetrating the libidinous fog that has surrounded me in the last fifteen minutes. "Ignore it", I whisper through the sultry breathing of our hot-blooded passion, urging Lien to continue her manipulations.

"No, cannot. It may be security man. He has key and can open door", she murmurs back.

I take my hand away from her arse and grip her wrist, holding it firmly so that she doesn't release her hold of my phallus. But she forces me away, buttons her shirt, straightens her panties and skirt, and pushes me towards the balcony, saying "Go outside. I open door."

Reluctantly, I grab my t-shirt from the settee and pull it on before shoving my clothes from last night under a large cushion, and then turn away to the balcony. As I slide the panels open and step out, I hear Lien open the entrance door and begin a conversation with someone in Vietnamese. Standing outside, I pick up the pack of Gauloises lying on a table and light a cigarette. After a few minutes, I see Lien walking towards me, with two gentlemen behind her as she says "The cable guys are here to change your service provider and install the new boxes. The security guard also sent you text message last night saying they'd be here at 11:00 am. They need about one hour to work."

I am too stunned to say anything but I whisper to her, pleading "Will you stay?"

"No, I go now."

"Can you come back?" I ask in an anguished tone, but she's already picking up her parka from the backrest of the couch and pushing her arms into the sleeves.

"I go now, Boss" she says a little louder, and then speaks to the cable guys before heading to the door. She waves from there and shuts the door behind her. I picture her putting on her boots which she normally leaves outside the entrance, like all Vietnamese do. I want to run after her but realise that the security guard must be chatting with her as she waits for the elevator to arrive. Instead, I stand at the balcony railing, looking down and waiting for her to exit from the apartment. After about five minutes, she exits from under me three floors down, but all I can see is the top of her helmet as she rides off on her motorcycle. I keep looking till she rounds the corner and disappears.

I'm in a state of desperate angst and misery, feeling totally deflated and disconsolate, I leave the cable guys to do their thing and walk across the hallway towards my bedroom. I shut the door and strip off my shirt and pants, and then stand naked in front of the full length mirror on the wardrobe door. My penis is certainly not erect but it hangs thick and loose, about five inches in its detumescent state. My pubic hair is untrimmed, wild and thick. I look at myself staring back at me; hangdog expression on my face.

I need to shake out of this desolation so I go into the bathroom, have a shave and a shower, and then put on a fresh pair of jeans and a denim shirt over my vest. It's been about half an hour since my cook left but a strange kind of pain seems to be spreading through my body. I'm just beginning to realise how much Lien has been at the back of my mind all these days and months; never straying from my subconsciousness nor ever coming to the fore. She has been an unfulfilled desire for the couple of years since she first started working for me, but I never allowed myself to consciously consider a liaison with her. But now, now I want her more than any other woman; she has set light a fire that is raging in me and left me extremely frustrated.

I walk through the hallway and living room back to the balcony, sit on a creaky wooden chair and light another cigarette. The sun shines directly over the lake, its waters shimmering and sparkling as ripples rush across the surface. Early flowers on Ban trees hang lazily over the embankments of the lake, their purple colours reflecting on the waters. The peaceful serenity and beauty of the view nourishes my mind and I feel some of the heaviness in my heart dissipate. I decide to indulge myself further with a weekend gin & tonic like I did yesterday, and proceed back into the kitchen and bar area. By the time I'm done making myself a tall drink, the cable guys start wrapping up their bags.

One of them takes the TV remote and runs me through a number of channels that I've never seen before. I rarely watch TV or cable so it's not really important; I thank the two men, give them some money that's lying on the bar counter, thank them again and shut the door as they exit. I take my drink out to the balcony and sip quietly, listening to the sounds of the water against the banks of the lake. I drive thoughts about my cook, Lien, away from my mind and ruminate instead about the grass-cutter woman from last night.

I look along the embankment, tracing the meandering contours of the lake, but do not see any grass-cutters on the shoreline. Perhaps they don't work on Sundays, I think. I'm fighting melancholia and getting bored, not quite sure what I should do with the remaining hours of my weekend. It's a half hour past noon now and I go in to make myself another drink. On the way back to the balcony, I stop to scan some of the CDs lying on the music cabinet. Finding a classical mix of various composers - Grieg, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and a bunch of others - I slip that into the player, turn up the volume, and head outside.

The afternoon goes by with yet another drink, cigarettes, a disturbed snooze on the chair, phantasmagoric dreams about the busty Hoa, sunshine in my eyes as the sun makes its inexorable journey towards the horizon, and a mild headache when I finally awake. I come back in to the apartment from the balcony and the classical masters are on constant replay, filling the room with strains of symphonic delight. I realise I haven't had anything to eat after breakfast so I make a couple of sandwiches and wash them down with a chilled beer from the refrigerator. Then I walk into my bathroom and have a cold shower to fully wake myself up.

Back into my jeans and a clean shirt, I pull on a windbreaker jacket, slip into a pair of socks and my scuffed walking shoes. Like the previous evening, I decide to go out for a walk and more fresh air. As I step out of the apartment building, I notice the sun very close to the horizon; that golden hour just before sunset which is a photographer's 'magic hour'. Sure enough, there are individuals and couples who have parked their scooters and motorcycles on the footpath along the shoreline and are peering through the long telephoto lenses of their cameras. They're taking snaps of the sunset, the fiery sky, flowers and trees, reflections in the water, women posing by the railings, fishermen silhouetted against the horizon, and anything that catches their trained or untrained eyes.

I walk along the embankment, thinking of the grass-cutter woman and our evening together. I think of her smile and her lilting laughter, I think of her face and her hair and the conical straw hat, I think of her nakedness and the massive breasts and the luxuriant growth of her pubic hair. I think of the sex we had, her hot wet pussy glued to my mouth, and my raging hard cock penetrating her from behind. I remember how fervently she had tried to prevent me from withdrawing my penis before ejaculating, and how she had tried to swallow my cock and my semen into her mouth after I had pulled myself out from her cunt.

I'm not willing to admit it but, as I continue my perambulation, there is a twisted hope at the back of my mind that by some miracle, I can meet her again. I realise that I have no way of contacting her, and maybe I shouldn't anyway, but it would be nice if we met just once more. I certainly don't think she will ever come and knock at my door uninvited.

The sun has just gone over the horizon and the final rays of sunlight fan out through the stratus clouds high in the sky. Shades of red and orange and yellow splash across the firmament in a dazzling display of cosmic art. As I round a corner, there's a small manicured park on the other side of the narrow road, away from the lake, and I can see five or six women in conical straw hats. My heart leaps with joy for obvious reasons; my pulse rate ticks up a few notches as anticipation builds. Could this even be happening?

I quicken my pace and enter the garden through a small wooden turnstile that creaks as I push my way past. There's very little daylight time remaining and I need to find Hoa soon, if at all she's here, that is. But then it strikes me that firstly, with their hats still on they all look alike, and secondly, I can't really see their faces. They're all hunched down with scythes and shears, no doubt soon reaching the end of their working day. One or two of them stand up and I try and peer into their faces but they don't look familiar. My mind is spinning and my thoughts incoherent, not logical. I'm thinking whether I can go up to one of them and show Hoa's picture on my phone, but it strikes me that they may be of a very personal and intimate nature.

Behind me, a green coloured mini-bus pulls up and parks near the entrance to the park; it has a government department logo and large bold letters spell out the name in Vietnamese. The grass-cutters all stand up and begin to pack their tools into canvas bags. Some of them walk to a corner of the field and wash their hands and faces under a tap of running water. One by one, they doff their hats or push them back. I look carefully at each of the faces in the fading light but I cannot see Hoa. My heartbeat is now racing as I realise this could be my last opportunity ever of finding her, but I can't think of anything intelligent or even sensible to do. Is this how it's going to end? A one-night stand with a woman whose path I crossed? Will I just have to be philosophical about it and let it go?

My emotions are surprising me; this isn't the first time I've been on a one-night affair so why am I so keen to find the woman? The last of the labourers is now stepping up into the bus; impulsively I rush towards her, fishing out my cellphone from the back pocket of my jeans and tapping the app for my photos. The last image taken comes up first and it is one of Hoa sitting on my settee, wearing a bra and skirt, hands raised to her head so I can see her bare underarms. I hastily scroll to some earlier snapshots but the mini-bus driver is already putting her vehicle into gear. The next set of images are of her undoing her shirt but she still has her hat on so her face is not clearly visible. I keep scrolling backwards, hoping to find a clear shot of her face but the bus is already moving.

Instinctively, I trot behind the minibus for a few metres and then realise the futility of what I'm doing; I stop and watch the rear red lights disappear around the bend I had come from only a few minutes ago. I'm not sure what to do now; I have a brain fog that won't quite clear as I walk aimlessly in the same direction that the bus went. There is only a very faint blush of rouge in the otherwise darkening sky, allowing the twinkle of the brightest stars to filter through. I cross the road and get back to the lake side where I stop and lean against the metal balustrade, peering into the almost dark waters and the reflections on it.

After a while, I haul myself up on the top railing and sit on it facing the water and the bank opposite me about a kilometre across. Shaking out a cigarette from the pack in my wind-cheater pocket, I light it and stare into nothingness. I still don't understand why this is affecting me in the way it is. About 50 metres to my right, an old lady lays out small plastic stools and mats on the footpath and lights up a dozen oil lamps placed strategically to show customers the way and also to provide them - young couples mostly - some privacy. From her cart parked on the side of the road, she will be serving pieces of barbecued meat, coconut juice and tea, beer and snacks. She is there every night when it doesn't rain, and she will stay till midnight plying her trade. Her name is Hàng Phương and I have known her ever since I moved to this locality.

I get off the banister and walk over to the old lady; we greet each other as she smiles her toothless grin and chatters away gleefully. I ask her for a bottle of her home-made rice wine and she surreptitiously digs deep inside the lower shelf of her cart and extracts a bottle which she slips into a brown paper bag and hands over to me. She then takes out a bottle of Coke from a bucket of ice and passes that to me as well. I give her some money, way more than the price of my purchases, and thank her before walking away into the darkness.

I walk back towards the park where the grass-cutting women were labouring, enter through the turnstile and make my way to a dark corner where a stone bench is embedded into the ground under a large copperpod tree whose bright yellow flowers will bathe the city in another month or so in the spring. I open the bottle of home-made rice wine and take a swig out of it, chasing it down with a small sip of Coke. After another couple of swallows, I decide that this self-indulgent moping is pointless and I need to forget the beautiful busty Hoa and head back home.

As I get up to leave, I hear a soft whisper. "Hjjer! Hjjer?" I stop in my tracks as I'm not sure if I heard my name or whether my brain is playing mind games with me. I'm heading towards a large green trash bin to dump the bottles of unfinished liquids when I stop, and then turn around slowly. And then I see her as the dim light from a faraway streetlamp catches her face as she moves under a grove of trees. "Hjjer, wait!" she says under her breath. I'm finally beginning to believe that it really is my Vietnamese grass-cutter woman and not a hallucination.

I walk slowly towards her, leaving the rice wine and soda on the bench where I sat a few seconds ago. She stops in the darkness under the trees and when I reach her, we immediately clasp each other in our arms. Her body almost falls into me as her arms reach up around my neck and I wrap mine around her waist. I bend my head down and our lips meet, her tongue pushes its way into my mouth as we kiss fervently in a passionate embrace. She's pressing her crotch and stomach against me and I feel the stirring in my jeans as I cup her face in my palms and kiss deeply; our tongues move feverishly in and out of each other's mouths, wet lips mash against one another. "Hjjer!" she says again as the woman comes up for breath and her hands run down from my neck over the muscles in my back till they rest around my waist.

I look at her beautiful face, fresh and clean, but don't say a word. I have her in my arms, and for the moment that is all I need. She's wearing a dark coloured shirt, maybe black, with the top buttons open and a silk scarf knotted around her neck. Her skirt is a lighter shade and looks grey in colour, long pleats descending from the waist to well below her knees. Resting her cheek against my chest, she mumbles a quiet "How are you?"

I respond with a rather grim sounding "Hm!" and just hold on to her for another minute or so. Still mumbling, she says "I finish work today at 4:00 but no go back in bus. I want to visit you, your house, but afraid. I scare." After a minute of silence, she says in a voice I can barely hear "Tomorrow I go to Việt Trì. My supervisor get new job in Phú Thọ so we all go for maybe one month. Our bus go early morning tomorrow so I want come see you before."

I'm still holding her close, listening to her words, realising that she will soon be gone. Việt Trì is the capital city of a province about 100km away from Hanoi and I understand that her gang of labourers have been assigned a job there. "Let's go home", I whisper urgently into her ear as I take her hand in mine and turn towards the park exit. But she draws me in the opposite direction so I follow her hand in hand, pausing for a second as she grabs the bottles which I left on the bench and stuffs them into her over-sized bag. Beyond the grove of trees is a break in the hedge through which we sidle out and find ourselves on the pavement; the lake is hidden from us as we walk for a minute. Hoa then unchains a motorcycle from the roadside railing, gets on top after tucking her skirt under her, starts the engine, and looks at me quietly.

I straddle the bike, my body flush against her back, and wrap my arms around her waist as she starts moving forward. It's about 6:45 in the evening and I don't know exactly how limited our time together will be. Hoa gets on to the road that skirts the lake and it strikes me that we aren't headed for my apartment; in fact we're going in a different direction. After about five minutes, she stops the bike and I get off not knowing what I should do. She wheels the motorcycle on to the footpath and chains it to the metal railing that runs all around the lake. Then taking my hand in hers, she leads me to a gate in the fencing and uses a key to unlock it. I guess this is horticulture department property.

Still holding on to my hand, Hoa guides me along a narrow path and then switches on the torchlight on her mobile phone. We're walking on a long narrow isthmus with the lake on our right and a large pond on our left; the earthen embankment has patches of grass growing on it and is about ten feet wide. This is a quiet and dark area of Tay Ho and after walking for a couple of minutes I cannot hear any traffic or other sounds, apart from the gentle lapping of the water against the causeway. The only light I can see are the street lamps on the far western shore of the lake, and their shimmering reflections on the surface. On the left is another wide expanse of water but there's no light visible, not even in the distance.

Her tiny hand grips my palm firmly as we walk, her phone-torch lighting the pathway. There's a chill in the air that has begun to penetrate the layers of my clothing as a breeze blows across the waters. The feel of her hand around mine has a comforting warmth as I follow her till she suddenly stops and I almost bump into her. Barely five feet in front of us is a small hut, and as Hoa shines the light forward I see a structure built with horizontal wooden planks, the walls resting on stilts about three feet off the ground. The hut projects over the water on one side, also on stilts that are embedded in the lake.

I'm standing directly behind her, my body almost fused against hers; as she approaches the shack, she releases my hand and walks up a three-step set of stairs while removing a key from her handbag. Unlocking a door, she pushes it open, turns on a light switch next to the door, and then reaches down for me. I hold her outstretched hand and step up the stairs, walking into the shanty. There's a small doormat inside on which we leave our shoes before walking into the single room which has a Japanese style tatami mat covering. She pulls the door shut and locks it from the inside.

The wooden cabin has a comfortable feeling to it and is surprisingly warm at the moment; the lighting is from a low wattage floor lamp in one corner. There's a window, about two feet wide and a foot high, that has a beautiful view of the twinkling reflections on the dark waters of Westlake. About half the matted floor is taken up by a mattress covered with an off-white protector and a soft fluffy-looking pillow at the head which is placed below the window. There's a small wardrobe and a straight-back chair in the corner opposite the entrance door. And next to the wardrobe is an open door, no higher than five feet, through which I can see a wash basin, a shower cabinet, and a WC. Once again, I assume this is government property to which horticulture department staff have access, but as usual I ask no questions.