Chapter 12: The Morning After and a New Invitation
The black car deposited him back at his apartment building just as the city was properly waking up. The driver handed him a sealed envelope with a nod—thicker than the last one. Aidan shoved it into his pocket without looking, the paper feeling hot against his thigh. He climbed the stairs, his body moving on autopilot, every muscle humming with a deep, utilized ache.
He slept through the day, a dead, dreamless crash. When he woke at dusk, the apartment was dark and silent. The envelope glared at him from the bedside table. He left it there.
Two days passed in a blur of routine. Lectures, office hours, marking papers. He felt like a ghost haunting his own life. The students’ whispers seemed louder. He caught a group of young men in the corridor looking him up and down, one muttering something that ended with “...Vit’s mountain.” The rumor had shapes now. It had locations.
On the third evening, his phone buzzed. Prae. A single message: You alive?
He stared at it. Then he typed: Barely.
Good. Need that. My place.
It wasn’t a question.
Prae’s apartment was a sanctuary of calm, all warm teak and floating shelves. The scent was different tonight—no jasmine, just the lingering, peppery trace of gaeng daeng curry from her dinner. She opened the door wearing loose cotton shorts and a faded band t-shirt. Her hair was piled in a messy knot. She looked real.
“You look like shit,” she said, her throaty laugh softening the words. She pulled him inside.
“Feel like it.”
“I heard it was epic.” She went to her small kitchen, pouring two glasses of whiskey over ice. “The stuff of legends. Vit is apparently still talking about it. You made quite an impression.”
“That was the point, wasn’t it?” He took the glass, the liquor burning a clean trail down his throat.
“It was.” She studied him, her playful mask slipping for a second. “But you don’t look like a man who just conquered a mountain. You look like you got pushed off one.” She led him to the balcony. The night was thick with the hum of cicadas, a distant chant from a temple floating on the warm air.
They sat in silence for a while. The whiskey began to unknot the tension in his shoulders.
“It was too much,” he finally said, the admission sounding pathetic to his own ears.
Prae snorted. “It was exactly what you asked for. You wanted the experience. The full immersion. You got it.” She kicked her feet up on the railing. “Welcome to the other side of the fantasy. It’s a job. For them. For you, now.”
“The money…” he started.
“Is for your time. Your… performance.” She said it without judgment. A simple transaction. “Did you think you were the only one? Vit has a roster. Artists, musicians, a Muay Thai fighter last year. You’re the current novelty. The farang professor with the magic cock.” She took a long drink. “It’s not personal. That’s what makes it easy. Or it should.”
He watched the lights of the city, dots of gold in the velvet basin below. “It felt personal when it was just you. And your friends. Before.”
“That was different. That was fun.” She turned to him, her eyes catching the balcony light. “This is business. Fun can be business, but you have to know which is which. You blurred the lines.”
“You didn’t stay,” he said, the memory sharp. Her disappearing act at the villa.
“My job was to deliver the product. I did. Hanging around would have been unprofessional.” She gave him a sideways glance. “Jealous?”
“No. Relieved.”
That surprised her. Her lips quirked. “Huh.”
Another silence, easier this time. The temple chant ended, leaving only the insects.
“So what now?” he asked.
“Now?” She stood up, drained her glass, and took his. “Now, we remember what fun is.”
She led him inside, not to the bedroom, but to her small, tiled bathroom. She turned on the rain shower, steam quickly fogging the mirrors. “Clothes off. You still smell like that pool. And other things.”
He obeyed. She did the same, her petite, curvy body a familiar and welcome sight in the mist. She pushed him under the hot spray, the water pounding the villa from his skin. She took a bar of rough lemongrass soap and began washing him with a firm, methodical practicality that was intensely intimate.
Her hands scrubbed his back, his arms. She made him lift his arms. She worked the soap over his chest, his stomach. It was clinical and caring. No seduction. Just cleansing.
Then she knelt on the wet tiles.
She soaped him there, her hand firm and thorough, circling the base, working up the shaft, cleaning every inch with a focus that made him stir despite his fatigue. She rinsed him, the hot water sluicing away the suds. She looked up, her face sleek with moisture. “See? Just maintenance. Keeping the product in working order.”
He let out a shaky breath, a laugh caught in his throat. “Is that what this is?”
“This,” she said, leaning forward and taking him into her mouth slowly, “is my quality control.”
It wasn’t like before. It wasn’t frenzied or competitive. It was slow, deep, and devastatingly thorough. Her mouth was a hot, wet heaven, her throat working him with a practiced, leisurely rhythm that made his knees weak. He braced his hands against the shower wall, head bowing under the spray. This felt personal. This felt real. The numbness from the villa cracked and splintered, washed down the drain with the soap and steam.
He came with a rough groan, his whole body shuddering, the release feeling like the first true one in days. She swallowed, easing back, her dark eyes triumphant as she looked up at him.
“There,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “The legend is clean again.”
She stood, turning her own body under the water. He took the soap and returned the favor, washing the gentle curve of her back, the perfect swell of her hips. He turned her around, soaping the flat plane of her stomach, the small, perfect breasts. He knelt and washed her legs, her thighs. He parted her, his fingers sliding through slickness that had nothing to do with the shower. She gasped, her hand tangling in his wet hair.
He stood, lifting her easily. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her back against the cool tiles. He entered her in one smooth push, her tight warmth a homecoming after the anonymous hollows of the villa. She cried out, that deep, throaty sound he’d missed, and buried her face in his neck.
They moved together, a slow, rocking rhythm in the steam. No spectators. No currency. Just the slap of wet skin, their ragged breaths echoing off the tiles, the relentless beat of the water on the floor.
After, wrapped in towels on her bed, she traced a finger over the new hollows under his eyes. “You need to be smarter,” she said, her voice quiet.
“About what?”
“About everything. The parties. The women. You.” She propped herself up on an elbow. “You think you’re invincible. A body like a god, a cock like a king. You’re not. You’re a man. This place…” She gestured vaguely at the window, at the city, at the whole simmering, seductive country. “It will eat you if you let it. It will chew you up and spit out the bones and someone else will be the new novelty next month.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying get tested.”
The words landed like stones in the quiet room.
He stared at her. “What?”
“You heard me. The villa. Me. All the others before. You never use anything. I don’t either. It’s… part of the feeling. I know.” She shrugged, a helpless, honest gesture. “But you’re with too many now. It’s a numbers game, and your numbers are getting stupid. So get tested. Next week. I’ll go with you.”
A cold knot formed in his gut, cutting through the post-coital haze. The unspoken risk, the dark underside of all the heat and sweat, had just been laid bare on her crisp white sheets. The hedonism had a price, and it might not be payable in cash.
He didn’t answer. He just looked at her, seeing for the first time a flicker of something like fear behind her fierce confidence. She was in the numbers too.
“Okay,” he finally whispered.
“Okay,” she echoed.
She curled into him, her back against his chest. He held her, listening to the night sounds, the previously comforting hum of the cicadas now sounding like a relentless, ticking clock.