Chapter 1

Ahh, Soapies. Those long-running TV afternoon time fillers. They consist of implausible plots, caricatures of perfect people wearing designer clothes, are filled with ever-changing feuds, backstabbing, shifting relationships, and characters who appear briefly when needed but then disappear without reason, and poor acting. But even though we know all this, we become hooked and go along for the ride. Days of our Lives started in 1965 and is booked to continue until 2029, while my favourite, The Bold and the Beautiful only started in 1987 and both it and Brooke are still going strong, while Dallas only went from 1978 to 1991. Not only do I watch them, but I am participating in one, involving a revolving carousel of Asian women and their sexfights, which I have called My Year of Living Dangerously (with Asian women).

It started innocuously enough in my hometown of Melbourne, where The Peninsula Hotel’s faux-antique chandelier, because, after all, this was Melbourne, not Europe, cast its subdued light over the foyer, showing that it had once been at least a 4-star venue. Now it was struggling to be a 2-star, but its reception centre was cheap and still had some character, so it fitted the bill for me. I tugged at my 18-karat gold cufflinks, a gift from Nguyet for our tenth wedding anniversary, and tried unsuccessfully not to stare too obviously at my Vietnamese wife’s reflection in the large mirrors.

This time, Nguyet had even managed to outdo herself. The dress, or attention seeker, as I thought of all her clothing, had a neckline that plunged nearly to her belly button, revealing the inner curves of her breasts, and, from a side-on view, her areolae. As usual, she wore no bra, and her dark nipples were visible through the thin silk when the lighting was at the right angle. The back was non-existent, exposing her spine down to her arsecheeks. The slit up the side went hip-high, showing plenty of leg and even more with each confident step, making it clear to everyone that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath, except possibly a thong, and I knew she wasn’t.

At forty, Nguyet had the body of a woman who treated fitness and her appearance as a full-time occupation and took it more seriously than I did fucking, which is saying something. Her tits were full and high, 34 and big for an Asian with natural B-cups that somehow defeated gravity. Her belly was firm, matched with hips and an arse that swayed when she walked in her six-inch stilettos. No flat Asian bum for this woman. Her black 5-inch heels cost more than some people’s monthly rent, and I knew because I was paying for them.

She had her thick, loosely permed black hair, and I thought I had shown great restraint when I resisted the urge to grab it and fuck her in the lift as it ascended from the underground car park, especially after what she had whispered in my ear. Her face was that of your typical, self-absorbed Vietnamese princess: high cheekbones, and full lips which were cosmetically tattooed in a crimson shade that matched her dress. Her dark eyes were enhanced with expensive shadow and dramatic liner, and her exposed skin, of which there was plenty, was maintained with religious devotion to expensive creams and procedures.

She looked like a porn star, and my cock was telling me that. Nguyet was a woman who knew exactly what effect she had on every person nearby and she revelled in it. Little was I to know that this night to reel in rich Asian investors was to be the start of My Year of Living Dangerously as I discovered Asian women. And just like the 1982 Australian movie, ‘The Year Of Living Dangerously’, one of Mel Gibson’s early efforts, about the 1965 intrigue, double crossings, betrayal, and conflict of the Indonesian PKI (communist) threat with the Muslim army, puppet-mastered by General Suharto that allowed him to replace anti-communist President Sukarno and also destroy the communist party, my year would have those similar elements.

When we had exited the lift, Mai, my sole employee, was waiting. She was Nguyet’s complete opposite in every conceivable way. Where Nguyet had in-your-face sex appeal, Mai was invisible. Her blazer was a boxy, shapeless, muddy grey-brown at least two sizes too large, hiding whatever figure she had beneath it. The matching skirt hung to mid-calf. It was an unflattering length that made her legs look shorter and was loose, pleated and the kind of garment a much older woman might wear to church. Her black shoes had chunky rubber soles that always reminded me of advertisements for orthopaedic shoes for seniors.

She had a slight body with narrow shoulders, small tits, non-childbearing hips, and long thin fingers that clutched her clipboard like it was the most important thing in her life. Studies have connected long digits with high sex drive, but this wasn’t the case with Mai. Her face wasn’t ugly, just round and flat with no cheekbones to provide definition. No make-up or eye-shadow, and thin lips without lipstick helped make it unremarkable and plain. Her hair, pulled back in a severe bun, was secured with multiple hairpins so that not a single strand escaped, giving her a severe, almost nun-like or spinster type appearance. Overall, she looked older than her thirty-six years.

But it was the glasses that really sealed her fate from the viewpoint of men. Thick plastic frames that hadn’t been fashionable since I was a boy were oversized, rectangular and completely dominated her face. The lenses were obviously strong, as her eyes looked slightly magnified and distorted behind them, giving her a permanently startled or confused look.

She stood rigidly waiting, spine straight, clipboard pressed against her flat chest and went straight into business mode. “The Chens are already here, and the Nguyen group just arrived. I’ve prepared the pitch materials in your briefcase with the financial projections in the blue folder, tax optimisation strategies in red.

But she was the best secretary/PA anyone could have. She was irreplaceable and kept my business afloat, as I tended to concentrate on the big picture and the next big thing and flutter from one unfinished thing to start another. “What would I do without you?” I said as I accepted the folder. I meant it as appreciation.

“Probably forget which folder was which,” she said and she was probably right too.

Maybe at this stage, I should talk about myself. My name is Richard Sullivan. I am a 42-year-old product of Melbourne, well preserved, although not in the shape I was when a semi-professional sportsman. I attended a top private school in Melbourne, was captain of the school, and also football and cricket, and academically was dux of the final year. If Australian schools did those stupid USA year books, I would have been voted the one most likely to succeed.

From first impressions, great. But inside, I was a weak man. I lacked the inner steel to deal with life’s challenges as I crumbled under pressure and found excuses not to step up when it mattered the most. I avoided confrontation, backed down from responsibility, and relied heavily on others to take care of issues that were rightfully mine to manage, then blame them if something went wrong. In sport, I would rather be a star at a lower level than pit myself against others in a higher grade. I was a chocolate soldier: shiny on the outside, soft inside.

Thus, I never became the tycoon, the CEO, the name in the paper that people had predicted I would end up based on my final year at school. But I had a silver tongue, no conscience, and the ability to see advantages for me. So, I ended up the best accountant/legal expert for finding loopholes in government investment laws. A big fish but in a very small niche market

Nguyet pressed against my right side, and the contrast to Mai was again staggering. Where Mai generated no heat or presence, Nguyet was like the boiler room of an old steam ship. One semi-exposed tit was pressed against my arm deliberately, the warmth radiating through to my stiffened tool. Her hand slid around my waist possessively, fingers splaying across my hip, nails painted the same crimson as her lips and dress. Her perfume, something obscenely expensive, wrapped around both of us and announced her presence before anyone even saw us.

“You look beautiful,” I’d told her earlier in the lift, and she’d laughed.

“Beautiful? My husband, I look like I’m begging to be fucked in a dark alley.” She ran her hands down her sides, stoking her taut arse through the thin material. “It would be a failure if I didn’t look that way.”

We entered the conference room I had rented for the overseas investors, and she surveyed the room for its response, her lips curving in a satisfied smile as she accepted every male gaze that found her and lingered. “So many boring people in boring clothes,” she whispered into my ear. “Promise you’ll make this worth my while later tonight.”

Her hand drifted lower, fingers trailing over my belt, then moving to cup my arse through my slacks. Anyone looking in our direction would see exactly what she was doing. And that was the point. Nguyet loved displaying her sexuality, my arousal, making it clear to every man in the room what she could do.

“Behave,” I said without conviction, knowing it was pointless.

“Never.” She pulled back slightly, looking at me with eyes that promised the extremely sexual things she planned to do later. Then her gaze drifted past me to Mai, and something flickered across her face. It was a look of amusement mixed with cruelty, like someone noticing a stray, injured dog and thinking how to torment it further.

Mai stood attentively, still holding the clipboard. The contrast between the two women was extreme. Nguyet looked like she’d stepped out of a high-end brothel’s VIP room, while Mai looked like a character from a depressing self-righteous left-wing documentary about repressed office workers.

“Mai,” Nguyet asked condescendingly, “has anyone ever told you that you dress like you’re about to go to a pension eligibility interview?”

Mai’s thin fingers tightened imperceptibly on the clipboard. Behind her glasses, her magnified eyes remained fixed on something in the middle distance. “I dress appropriately for my position, Mrs. Sullivan.”

“Your position.” Nguyet’s gaze travelled down Mai’s shapeless form before sneering. “Which is what? A professional nun? Invisible woman?” She gestured at her own body, on display in what could laughingly be called a dress. “You do realise you’re allowed to have a body under all that fabric, right? Or have you just given up entirely?”

“Nguyet,” I warned, but she ignored me.

“I’m serious. You’re thirty-six, not eighty-six. Don’t you own anything that fits? Something that shows you have a female body.” Nguyet’s hand traced her own curves demonstratively from tits to waist to arse, making sure Mai understood exactly what she was referring to. “Or are you just flat as a board under there, and this is damage control?”

A flush crept up Mai’s neck, visible above her buttoned blouse collar. “I should check on the seating arrangements.” Her voice remained professionally neutral, but something in her posture had gone even more rigid.

“Of course you should.” Nguyet waved a dismissive hand, already turning back to me, pressing her barely covered body against mine. “Run along and do whatever it is you do.”

Mai handed me the clipboard, reminded me of its importance, and walked away with her clunky shoes squeaking slightly on the polished floor. No one looked at her as she passed. Several men turned to watch Nguyet however, with their eyes following the sway of her hips, the flash of thigh, and the hope of her dress revealing more.

“You didn’t need to be cruel,” I told Nguyet, though even as I said it, I knew it would have no effect.

“Cruel?” Nguyet looked genuinely puzzled and adjusted her dress, which really meant running her hands over her own body in a way that drew eyes from across the room. “I’m trying to help. That woman represents your business, and she looks like she’s auditioning for a role in a soapy as ‘Sad Librarian Number Two.’ When was the last time she even looked in a mirror?”

She pressed closer, her hand sliding to my chest, feeling my heartbeat. “Some women have it, baby. Some don’t. Look at me.” She gestured at herself, at the way her dress clung to every curve, her tits pressing against the material with each breath and the exposed length of her legs. “Then look at her. We’re not even the same species.”

I didn’t argue, because what could I say? Nguyet was incredibly attractive and radiated sex. Men and women all stared at her. She commanded attention. And don’t forget I wanted to do what she had promised in the lift we would do.

Across the room, Mai stood by the entrance conferring with an usher, concentrating on arrangements for my prospective clients. The glasses sat crooked on her face. The blazer hung shapelessly. She looked exactly like what she was: a spinster secretary who’d given up on ever being seen as anything else and was only interested in her job.

“Come on,” Nguyet purred, her hand trailing down to squeeze my arse again. “Let me charm some clients. And baby, after we land these accounts, I’m going to suck your cock in the car before we even leave the parking garage. Think about that while you’re discussing tax savings.”

That made me forget entirely about Mai and her crooked glasses and shapeless clothes, and therefore I didn’t see her watching us from across the room, studying Nguyet’s dress, posturing and exhibitionism, cataloguing every detail in her memory. I didn’t notice that behind her thick, unfashionable lenses, Mai’s magnified eyes had gone cold and calculating.

The apartment was dark and silent when Mai finally made it home, accompanied only by the replay in her brain of Nguyet’s laughter. She stood in the darkness for a long moment. The cruel words whirled through her mind. “Flat as a board. Given up entirely. Not even the same species.” Her reflection stared back from the hallway mirror, and for the first time in years, Mai really looked at herself. She took in the awful blazer, shapeless skirt, glasses she had worn for years and the severe bun that aged her.

Nguyet’s dress flashed through her mind. The minuscule crimson material, the way it had clung to every curve, and how every eye in the room had tracked her movement as though she was the only woman in the room. Something cracked open inside Mai’s chest. It wasn’t sadness or hurt, but a cold, revengeful, merciless demon.

She walked to her bedroom. It was small, sparse, furnished with objects that served a purpose rather than decoration, and sat on the edge of her single bed. Her laptop was on the bedstand, and she reached for it. Mai had always been methodical, a researcher, someone who solved problems through information and planning and if she was going to destroy Nguyet, she needed to understand what made her powerful.