Chapter 35

I had barely seen Melissa and Lavi that morning as we had all overslept. I got some work done before Ji got there but she ran late too so it was a mad rush to the doctor’s office only for him to make us wait an hour past my appointment time before he saw us. In theory, though not likely, I could lose my arm and I was filling out the same paperwork I had over and over for the last week. I wondered if the sheer mundanity of something that could be so important to my life made it better or worse. Fortunately I had a book with me. I was rereading China Mieville’s “The City and the City.”

And Ji was good company. She was dressed in a light blue dress that might have been a classic cocktail dress but a loose jeans jacket over it made it look casual. She kept a white leather purse at her side. Her hair was pitch black and fell untended down her back. She had been easy going all morning, a different person from last night, relaxed instead of flirty. Now that I was looking at her as a woman the relaxed vibe was pretty damn sexy too. It wasn’t like Lavi or Melissa. With them I wanted them near all the time, so much that when we were apart during the day I felt a kind of tension ease when they were back with me. I was enjoying Ji’s company but I didn’t miss her when she wasn’t near.

I went back and forth between these thoughts and my book until a nurse finally called us. With the doctor Ji was serious and asked relevant questions. While there she took off my bandages and applied new ones. The doctor had some advice but no corrections for her. Any doubt I had about her ability to look after my bandages was dispelled. We both promised to contact his office if anything was the slightest bit off. When the doctor was finally happy we were dismissed, presumably so that the doctor could now see people who were waiting ninety minutes after their appointment times.

It was 11:30 AM when Ji got us back to my house. Ji got out first and held my car door for me. Having to reach across myself to open my door was awkward so it was appreciated. Making sure I didn’t unconsciously do little things like use my right arm to steady myself made me feel like I was moving in slow motion. Even working was hard as I could type with my right hand but my shoulder just couldn’t stay in position to do so for very long.

Ji had a hand on one hip as she held the door and asked, “What are you smiling at?”

“I was just thinking that no matter how much this hurts I at least have a prescription for controlled narcotics for the pain.”

She grinned, “And a seventeen year old girl who is going to get you naked every day.” She shut the door.

“Topless I think you mean,” I said.

“Nah, I think I should check all over, just to be thorough.” She was still grinning.

“Careful or I’ll think you mean it.”

“Mmmm maybe I should.” She said it with a bit of wistfulness in her voice. I had a feeling a lot of things were going on in her head. I did like the flirtatious Ji I’d met last night and she seemed to be back. “He seems to think I do,” she said with a nod of her head. I followed her line of sight to an older fellow who lived next to me, glaring at us from his porch.

“Ignore him,” I said.

“He probably figures I’m a hooker,” she said giggling.

“Because hookers give their johns rides home?”

“Hey, it’s a crowded market, there’s probably a space for combining ridesharing services with nooky. Here,” Ji said, “let’s give him a thrill.”

She stepped up to me and stood right in front of me. She was shorter so I suspect he couldn’t see her at all. She took my left arm and slid it around her waist.

I said, “You know, he can’t see you. I don’t actually have to do this.”

“Hush, I want to sell this.” She pressed herself to me. She wasn’t voluptuous but she was a firm presence and very female and I could see directly in her dark brown eyes. “So, what are you thinking?” She asked. Why the hell did every woman I’ve ever known ask me this question when they were being sexy? Could they really not tell?

“Honestly?”

“Honestly,” she replied.

“Two things.”

“What?”

“You’re very pretty,” I said.

“That’s only one.”

“The other is a bit cruder.”

“I’m a big girl.”

“I was thinking your lips would look good wrapped around my cock.”

Her eyes went big and then she smiled. “Maybe you’ll get to find out someday.” She skipped away from me and pulled on my good arm, holding my hand. “Come on big boy, let’s get you inside.” I glanced back and my neighbor was slamming his door.

We approached the house and I shared with her the code I’d set up for her to be able to come in. It was unique to her and I had her practice it several times. Inside I went downstairs to take off my shoes. The slip on shoes I had were easier to put on and off from my office chair. I never thought I’d miss tying shoe laces. I also put up my wallet from the kangaroo pouch of my sweat shirt since my sweat pants didn’t have real pockets. I was beginning to understand what women complained about when they said their pants didn’t have real pockets.

I rejoined Ji upstairs and sat on the couch with her. She had taken off her jacket and dropped it on the back of a chair. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and watched me. Her breasts were the size of firm apples and very perky. She was reclining against the end of the couch and had her phone balanced on one corner between her breasts tapping the other end against her lip.

“You left me all alone,” she said. “But this is an awesome couch.”

“Tell Melissa. She picked it.”

“She’s really getting domestic here isn’t she?”

“She and Lavi both decided to live here full time now to take care of me.”

“And their parents know?”

“They’ve both said that by Christmas they’re moving everything in. Linda doesn’t seem to want to make it a fight right now. Syliva already has plans for Lavi’s room as an office.”

Movement attracted my eyes. Ji’s feet were bare and she was moving them around wiggling toes at me so I grabbed one and started to knead the sole with my knuckles. I couldn’t move my right much but I made do while keeping one arm still.

Ji’s head dropped back over the arm of the couch. “Oh God!”

“You like?”

She sighed in pleasure. “Fuuuu ... I don’t know about the rest of you but your hands can do whatever they want to me.” I worked on her arches and moved up to her calves. “Lavi was right, your fingers are magic.”

“Never had a foot massage before?”

“I’ve had a boy rub my shoulders hoping to get my panties off. Melissa has rubbed my legs when they were sore. But, just to give me pleasure, no. I might not need sex after this.”

I grinned. “Maybe I should stop then.”

“If you do I’ll handcuff you to my ankles.” I think she was joking.

I continued but said, “Well, I will have to abandon my duties here soon.”

“You’ll leave me all alone? Even when I’m feeling frisky.”

“You look frisky, why?”

“Did you ever skip school, like at the end of the year?”

“Sure.”

She rolled her head around and stared at the ceiling. “I did last year. First time ever. I’m not a goody two-shoes but ... well, there are rules you can break and ones you can’t in my family. I could probably gain an opium habit and it would be all right so long as I got straight A’s.”

“So, skipping school is bad huh?”

“Yeah. Reggie Moussay, he was a senior, asked me to. We went to the lake, he wanted to skinny-dip. I wanted to too but didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I liked breaking the rules and Reggie was nice but I didn’t want him to think he was why I wanted to break the rules.”

“Are you breaking rules here?”

“Apparently not. Seriously, what the fuck, Mom?” She threw out her arms dramatically. She pulled her arms back and sighed again. “No, this is better than breaking the rules, it’s making my own rules for once.”

“Well, my rules require that I get something to eat and get some more work in.”

“Do you mind if I kill time here? I don’t feel like going home.”

“Mom there?”

“Yeah, and she’ll have tons of questions. And she’ll be busy.”

“Busy? I had the impression she was a housewife.”

“Kinda. She does translation work.”

“I thought you said her English wasn’t great.”

“It’s not. She translates Cantonese, Mandarin, Veitnamese, Japanese and Korean. She does a lot of business work. Someone will make a document at the end of the business day and she has it translated by morning. Moving here was actually useful for her.”

“Sounds boring.”

“It’s how she met dad. She was translating meetings he was in.”

“You know she’s following me on Instagram?”

Her head lifted up. “No shit?” Apparently seeing that I wasn’t making it up she grabbed a throw pillow and covered her face with it before screaming.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Ah, fuck it.” She replaced the pillow.

I stood. “Well, you’re welcome to stay. I’m going to make myself a bite. Join me?”

Ji jumped up. “Do I get to start learning now?”

“Absolutely.”

I was just raiding the fridge for leftovers but we went ahead and made pizza dough. I set a reminder for the proving, left her with the TV and went downstairs. I logged onto the company chat and it was crazy. I’d tried to keep up in the hospital but the South American project was going full steam ahead and the Pacific Rim statistics that our new client sent us were very interesting. Soon I’d lost three hours staring at numbers. Suddenly I had a ping, it was my boss. I opened the Slack call.

“Hey Tony.”

“Hi Robert, how are you?”

“Alive and glad to be home.”

“Good man. And your lovely brides?”

“Still lovely and fortunately still haven’t realized I’m ugly and old.”

He nodded gravely. “And may they never.”

“Amen,” I replied.

“Anyway, I know you worked some this morning and based on emails you’re going solid this afternoon. How are you feeling?”

“Tired. I should log out.”

“Do that. You have over five weeks of sick time, burn it and rest.”

“A boss telling me to rest?”

He looked a little grim. “I need you hearty and whole. The board met while you were in the hospital last week. I’m going to be honest Robert. We’re getting more work than we can do. I want to hire two more people to help but the board is afraid it’s temporary so ... I don’t want to hurt morale and...” he held up hands defensively on the screen “I’m not going to tell anyone to work extra hours or anything but ... if we can make this work it’s going to be amazing, for all of us.”

“And a lot of that work is going to come from Laurence isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is and I need you to be the pointman on it. He likes you. He’s mentioned you when talking to Julie, the president. He made a point of saying that his wife wants an excuse to fly you and your wives out to their house for dinner.”

“Uh...”

“Yeah, don’t sweat it. I don’t know if Julie cares or not about the poly thing but she cares about contracts a lot more. So, I need you rested and focused. Capisco?”

“Capisco.” There was a pause. “Does that mean I’m a mobster now?”

He was too nice to roll his eyes at me but I know he wanted to. “Finish what you need to and log off. Rest.”

“Yes sir.”

It took me a little bit to finish up and make notes. Then I turned to the boxes and mail on my desk. Melissa had sorted the mail the night before and put it in little piles for me. She had taken her and Lavi’s tasers and unpacked them to put them away wherever they were now. I opened this one, made sure all the parts were there and found that the videos I had watched online had been accurate. This thing was made to be dead simple, which was a virtue. I tried out the laser sight and pointed it at an imaginary bad guy.

“Make my day ... punk.”

I didn’t feel very tough holding it with a shaky left hand though. Pulling it closer to me I was able to get it a lot steadier. I made sure the safety switch was set and put it into a canvas messenger bag I was using since anything heavy tended to pull down the sweats. Lavi had called it my man purse.

I figured I would practice firing it outside later. But I went upstairs to find Ji still on the couch, her dress pulled up on her thighs and my thoughts changed direction. Something animated was on the screen. “What are you watching?”

“Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai.”

I blinked. “Gesundheit.”

She sighed dramatically. “Not an anime fan?”

“I’ve watched the Godzilla animated movies, that’s about it. What’s this about?”

“Uh, it’s a romance but kind of, like, there’s magical type things that happen like curses but it’s because of quantum stuff but the science is just a metaphor but not really because they say it’s the things a metaphor is usually for is causing the quantum physics stuff.” I tried to process that and failed. Seeing my confusion she said, “Sorry, I’m doing the babbling thing again, aren’t I?”

“You’re fine, I’m just not following.”

“I think it would explain itself better than I could.”

“I’m game.” I sat.

“Really?”

I did the one arm shrug. “Why not? If you say it’s good I’m willing to give it a try.” I put the messenger bag by the door.

“It’s not high literature.”

I looked, “None of it is really though, is it?”

She looked at me seriously. “You might be surprised. Still, this is based on light novels.”

“Light novels?”

“They’re an Asian thing. Short novels, often with some illustrations but not like manga.”

“Like novellas?”

“I guess, but they’re often series.”

“Interesting. And this is based on one?”

“Yeah. They’re often teenage stuff but there’s definitely an older audience too.”

I nodded. “All right, expectations are set.”

“I’ll start it from the beginning.”

By the time the second episode had ended I was rubbing my chin.

“So?” Ji asked.

“I like it, I’m just trying to decide if it’s good.”

“Don’t they mean the same thing?”

“Nah, take for example my musical tastes. Most of what I like is garbage, I like it but there’s a difference between subjective taste and objective quality.”

She studied me. “You are strange.” I ignored that.

“I think it is good, not great but good. I need to pee.”

“Need help?” She looked like she had a plan.

“Nah, I got it.”

“Melissa said I should help.” She stood.

“Sweat pants plus no underwear - even one handed I can manage.” I stood and gave her the thumbs up as if that proved a point.

She moved to be right behind me as I walked away. “Still, a medical professional should be on hand.”

“Call one then.”

She pouted. It was cute. “I’m getting paid, I count.”

“How are you getting paid?” We were nearly to the bathroom.

“In pizza.”

I started to blow her off but decided fuck it. I needed to pee and I was not going to have this conversation in the doorway of the hallway bathroom. “If you’re coming, come on.” I left the door open as I lifted the lid and pushed my sweat pants down. She surprised me by walking in and jumping her tiny ass onto the sink.

I started to pee. Being in the bathroom made me think of something she had said last night. “So, were you sick with stress last night?” I asked.

“A little. I was like ‘OMG what did I do?’ but Mellie and Lavi were so chill. And I saw that video she sent me! That was uber hot.”

“Sent you?”

“Yeah, the one of her wearing my panties! I diddled myself watching it.”

This conversation was having a reaction. I was pretty much done pissing which was good since I was getting hard. I noticed her watching it and might have moved it around a bit more than strictly necessary to piss.

“Thinking of her huh?” Ji asked.

“Actually looking at your legs and thinking of you.” She hadn’t pulled her dress down and it was very high on her thighs. I suspected she had noticed.

“Why?” She asked.

“Seriously?”

“It’s not like I have Mellie’s tits or Lavi’s booty.”

“There are ass men and tits men. Me, I like women, whole packages, lots of types. Everything you have is just right together.”