One Night in Cairo, Part Two
We met at the restaurant in Concord Plaza.
The hardest part was the moment we actually met. That was when it felt the most awkward. In the old days I would have played at acting natural, just to hide how tense I was, but I knew too well that the harder I tried, the more unnatural I became. These days I understood that the most natural thing was to react honestly.
"You're prettier than I expected."
"Ha. You're blunt."
"I can afford to be."
"There are people who can't?"
"Most people can't. They don't have the confidence to show themselves straight."
"Oh my. Hehe. Listen to that confidence."
"Let's go in."
We went into the restaurant and sat, and I left the ordering to Choi Jeong-ah. When she was done, she asked.
"So is your personality always like this?"
"Like what?"
"Dropping the formal speech the second you see someone—doesn't that seem a little mannerless? First meeting. I mean, you do look older."
"Manners, my ass. This isn't a matchmaking date. And we both roughly know how old the other is. I've got at least ten years on you."
"That's true, but still."
"You didn't seriously think I called you out to make you like me? And you didn't come with that in mind either. If you did, eat and go. We'll split the check."
"Ha. Unreal. Let's eat first and talk."
She looked displeased, but she didn't shove the chair back and walk out. If she were the type to flare up over something like this, it would have been better to say goodbye right here. I had no reason to spend money soothing anyone's pride.
We ate and talked about traveling Cairo—when she'd arrived, what she'd seen, what was like what. Choi Jeong-ah mostly went on about the tourist spots downtown. I told stories from the slums and back alleys she would never have set foot in, and from the outskirts of Cairo and the southern reaches of the Nile.
When the travel talk ran dry, the subject drifted, naturally enough, to clothes and jewelry. Naturally enough, it came around to my suit and my watch.
"Had this made in Rome."
"Rome? For real? You mean the ones Italian craftsmen sew stitch by stitch? That must be insanely expensive."
"The jacket cost the most. Two custom summer suits, jacket and trousers, ran me seven thousand euros."
The look on her face pleased me. Some men sneer at outward appearance and call it empty show, but if sincerity really sprang only from inner beauty, the way a line in a movie would have it, then a fashion and luxury market worth tens of trillions—hundreds of trillions—could never have existed.
"That watch is pretty. Looks expensive."
"This? I do treasure this one. It's hard to get."
"Is it?"
Choi Jeong-ah nearly asked, then let it go. She didn't want to look too eager. She was curious, but if the chance came later, she'd find out.
And so the talk never broke, all through the meal. It was, in its way, a satisfying dinner.
"Shall we head to the hotel, then?"
A flicker of tension crossed her face, and then she agreed as if it were nothing at all.
We went down to the parking garage together. Choi Jeong-ah had been only half convinced, but the G-Wagen standing off to one side put her doubts away.
Ah. So he really is loaded.
And like that, we headed for the hotel.
The moment we stepped into the room, Choi Jeong-ah's eyes went wide.
"Oh my God—what is this?"
Modern lines married to an Egyptian style, and she kept gasping over it.
"If you're going to shoot anything, shoot it first. I don't mind. Just be careful I don't end up in frame."
"I can?"
Her eyes glittered with expectation.
"We've got something to finish first. This is a trade. We both give and get."
At that, Choi Jeong-ah smiled with her eyes as if to thank me, then hurriedly pulled out her phone. Starting at the entrance, she darted all over the room, busy taking photos and filming video.
"Oh my God, look at this bed. It's so soft."
"Whoa. This is the bathroom? The bathroom's bigger than my hotel room?"
"Eek! Have you been out on the terrace? You can see all of downtown Cairo at once! Oh my God, the Cairo Citadel! That must be the Nile!"
She posed as if she were alone, snapping selfies and photos and sorting through them this way and that. Meanwhile I called down to the front desk for room service, picked up a bathrobe, and headed for the bathroom.
"I'm going to wash up first. Film all you want."
I already knew exactly what she wanted, and why she'd answered the DM. Give and take.
A little later, when I came out of the shower, the room service arrived right on time. And with the photos of the room-service dishes, Choi Jeong-ah's shoot came to an end.
Wine and food were laid across the table. I sat.
"If you're done, sit down and have a drink."
I could feel it in her face—a slight tightening, as if what was coming had finally come.
"I should wash up too. You can wait a little longer, right?"
"As long as you need."
With that she picked up her bag and headed for the bathroom.
I opened the wine, filled a glass halfway, and tasted it. Sweet. A mild, sugary buzz crept up. I thought of the figure I'd been appreciating all through dinner and took another swallow.
"Ahh. That's good."
I was alone on the sofa, savoring the wine, when Choi Jeong-ah came out of the shower. A faint scent of roses rose off the body hidden under the robe. She seemed to have put on perfume, but mingled with the fresh smell of young flesh it only stirred the appetite harder. Through the robe, parted just a little, the deep cleft of a full breast showed itself. The urge surged—to catch her by the wrist right now, throw her down on the bed, pin her and crush her, by force if I had to. I held on to reason as hard as I could. Sometimes it was more satisfying to make a person yield with something other than the body.
Seeing me, she hesitated for a moment, then came and sat beside me. She was fidgeting with her phone, so I spoke.
"Make yourself comfortable. Don't watch my mood."
She grinned and fiddled with the phone a little longer. After another ten minutes or so of that, she set it down and turned toward me.
"This is enough. The rest can wait till tomorrow."
"Yeah?"
I handed her a glass. We touched them lightly and brought them to our lips. Halfway through hers, she spoke.
"Let's talk a little now."
"About what?"
"I'm so curious about you. This hotel, the car, those clothes too. Honestly I was curious about the watch, but I held back. I didn't want to look cheap."
"I like the honesty. Talking isn't bad either. Ask whatever you're curious about."
"What do you do?"
"I work at a trading company. A fairly big one."
"You work at a trading company? You don't run it yourself?"
"I'm a salaryman. Do I look like management?"
"If you weren't, it wouldn't make sense. Even at a trading company, it's hard to have that kind of money. Honestly, I worked at one for a bit too. Not a big place, but—"
"Yeah? Where?"
"Where I worked wasn't even a small-to-mid company. A tiny forwarding outfit, with a little office in front of Incheon Port. I did about three years, decided this wasn't it, and quit. Anyway, I know the shape of it. No way a company signs off on something like this."
"You know your stuff. No point hiding it anyway. I do have a business on the side, separate from the company."
"See? But you won't get arrested for that?"
"Nothing to get arrested over. Company discipline, maybe."
"Ahh, okay. So like an unsanctioned side job?"
"You could call it that. What did you do at your company?"
"Everything. Sent invoices, inspected cargo, packed, processed vouchers, calculated taxes—and they even made me translate. Toward the end. That damn boss."
"Translation too? An elite."
"Junior college, but I studied a lot of things on my own. Back then I thought if I worked hard, something would come of it."
"Nothing did?"
"After three years I got it. Like that, I was never getting out of there. So I just walked. I wanted to spend my twenties on something worth more."
"And? You quit, you got out—did it become worth more?"
"As if. Please. I saw influencers doing well and jumped in after them, and it's still pretty bad."
After that, the talk ran on for a while.
"You got a goal?"
"At first I thought if I just started, I'd be a star influencer too. It wasn't that easy."
"What's missing?"
"If you want to take off, you have to spend money from the start, and I don't have that much. I'm not as bold as other people either, and looking at it now, maybe I just don't have the talent."
The glasses kept coming, one after another, with the talk, and along with the faint flush in her cheeks, the guard around her heart loosened little by little.
"I mean, sometimes I wonder if I should just take my clothes off and make a splash like some of them, but I don't really want my face sold that way. So I can't do this, and I can't do that. Pretty awkward, right?"
"If an influencer hates her face getting around, what's she supposed to do?"
"That's what I'm saying. Really. Why am I like this."
"If you've got a lot, there ought to be something you're short on."
"What have I got?"
"A face. A body. And a way with words."
"Please. I get the first two. The words, I don't."
"Just. It's easy. Talking with you."
"Tch. Looked at that way, you're pretty fair too, mister."
"What did I do?"
"Honestly, the first time I saw you I was a little disappointed you were so ordinary. Haha."
"What's wrong with me?"
"Tch. You don't know? You're just ordinary. Not especially tall, either. Face is, like, middle of the road? I kind of expected it, you know. That thing. A something with a ridiculously hot guy you meet on a trip? Hahaha."
"Sorry for being ordinary."
"It's fine. You've got money instead. If you make good money, your ability's probably good too. How many men your age have that much?"
"Well. That's true enough."
"So, hmm. My score's an eighty-five?"
"Looks knocked off a whole fifteen?"
"No. Looks are a minus twenty. Talking well got you plus five. Hahaha."
She laughed and hit my shoulder. Natural contact. The wine that had passed back and forth through the talk hadn't only painted her cheeks red, it seemed.
I filled the glasses once more, and we touched them.
"So what's my score?"
"Not yet. Haven't graded."
"Tch. Dirty. What are you planning to grade me on."
We emptied our glasses. I set mine down first, reached over, and wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her in. She resisted, just a little, and then she was drawn into my arms. I held her from slightly behind, following the line of her neck and breathing her in, up behind her ear. When my arms closed around her upper body I felt how soft she was, how pliant. And her palm, lightly, stroked slowly over the top of my thigh.
I'd been given a yes, so I got bolder. I caught her chin, turned her face, and kissed her. My tongue pushed past her lips. Tongue tangled with tongue in the open air and ground against it. One hand slipped in between the halves of the robe. She had nothing on above the waist. I seized the breast as I felt it—soft, heavy, like a big water balloon.
"Hnn—"
A nasal sound slipped from her lips. I grew bolder still, kneading her breast while my other hand swept up along her thigh and in. In the meantime her hand rode my thigh and dug down under the robe. Through the tight briefs, a soft palm rubbed again and again over my cock, already fully roused.
Ngh.
A jolt different from doing it with a slave. She was twenty-five, met today, little more than a kid from where I stood, and feeling that soft hand stroke and rub me drove the excitement higher still. I pulled her back, spread the robe with both hands, and seized both breasts, my mouth riding her slender neck and her cheek, sucking and licking. The urge to bite that delicate neck clean through had me pouring hot breath against her skin, again and again.
"Aah— oppa. How long has it been for you?"
"Hm? About a week, I guess."
"Total player, huh? It's been half a year for me. Hnn—"
"What?"
"I starved for a while after I broke up with my ex. Today. You confident?"
For a second I swallowed a breath that nearly burst out of my mouth. At the same time as those playful, lewd eyes, the hand that had slipped inside my briefs closed around my cock, rigidly swollen. The tight grip moved slowly up and down. I could feel the soft skin traveling the length of the shaft.
For a moment, I was afraid.
Can I even do this right today?
But even if I couldn't eat—no. I was going to eat. Whether it worked or not, I was going.
With that resolve set, I lifted her and headed for the bed.