Chapter 1: As Told by Charlie Wu

I don’t know how I get talked into these things. My neighbor is having a problem with the duct work on his central air conditioning system and here I am in his sweltering attic helping him find and fix the problem. Yes I know I’m younger than he is and I’m smaller than he is and it only makes sense that of the two of us I’m the one crawling around up here, except the old bastard has enough money to hire someone to fix the dam thing, he’s just cheap, that’s all, but no, good old Charlie will help him out.

I shouldn’t complain. Harvey’s a good guy and the rest of the men in the community have welcomed Lin and me here even though we aren’t supposed to live in the gated subdivision. However I think a big portion of the reason the men have welcomed us with open arms is that my wife is quite good looking and for an Asian woman she has fairly large breasts.

The reason we shouldn’t be living here is because my wife and I are in our mid-twenties and this is an over fifty five adult community. I inherited the house when my parents passed away. We tried to sell it, but the market is bad and we are just starting out, fresh out of college, yada yada yada. You know how it is.

Anyway we had to sign a ton of paper work before they would let us move in, so many rules, Christ. We had to promise not to have children as long as we live here, but that’s all past us now. Lin and I have lived in this little community for almost six months now and we are slowly acclimating to the way things are done here.

I am third generation Asian American, but Lin is a recent immigrant from China. She can speak pretty good English for being, as many American say, ‘fresh off of the boat’ mainly because she was an English teacher in our homeland.

My Grandparents emigrated from China in nineteen sixty four and even though I was born in the United States I still deal with a huge culture gap because my family has always been very close knit and they didn’t try to assimilate with Americans. My parents had purchased the house as an investment property.

The American persona is just forceful and challenging and difficult for Chinese people to deal with, they are especially problematic for Chinese females who are traditionally very subservient to males, not to mention all the sexual baggage we Asians have been taught over hundreds of years of indoctrination.

So here I am sweating my ass off in Harvey’s attic looking for the vent that isn’t working properly. I guess I’m a push over. I just have a hard time saying no. Help me with this Charlie. Bring me that Charlie.

I know he’s senior citizen, but give me a break. He’s not that fucking old, he just has a beer belly that won’t let him see his penis without a mirror.

Right now Harvey is standing on the ladder with his head poked up through the ceiling access, directing me to where he thinks the problem is.

“To your left Charlie, on the other side of the air handler.”

I crawl over the rafters being careful to place my weight on the wooden two by fours that form the base of the peaked roof structure.

“Ok Harv, I think I see it.” I told him. “Give me a minute, I think I can fix it.”

I can see that the duct work has pulled loose from the ceiling vent and is blowing cold air from the AC system into the hot attic.

As I reach the vent I can hear someone crying down below. I look through the vent and I see Martha, Harvey’s wife and three other women in the kitchen. Martha is patting her eyes with a tissue.

“It’s unfair that we are cursed with menopause.” She blubbered. “I love my husband yet I can’t even make love with him, because when he enters me it hurts. The three other ladies commiserated with her and patted her on the back.

Eleanora, one of the more dippy ladies volunteered. “What we need is a younger woman to service our men when we get to this stage of life.”

Two of the women turned and looked at her like she had lost her mind. Something that happened often around Eleanor and she rarely realized the look was about her or what she said.

Ginger, the snotty bigoted bitch offered. “Yeah, we ought to tie that skinny young chink up and let Harvey shove his fat cock up her coochie till he fills her up with baby batter.”

That shut conversation down while the merits of the statement were considered. Marge seemed to especially like the idea.