Chapter 30: The Noodle Shop's Midnight Game
The noodles arrived in thin plastic bags, steaming and fragrant with basil and chili oil. Prae spread them out on a low lacquer table, along with two icy bottles of Singha. They ate cross-legged on the floor, the events of the bed still humming in the air between them like a third presence. Aidan was ravenous, the spicy broth clearing his head even as the beer fuzzed the edges.
“Nok is shy,” Prae said, slurping a wide ribbon of rice noodle. “But her eyes got very big when I told her. She said she has a… hypothesis. That needs testing.”
“Is she a scientist?”
“She is a loan officer. It is the same thing. Assessing risk. Calculating interest.” Prae’s smile was wicked. “Her friend Gam is coming too. She works with her. They are like sisters. Very curious sisters.”
Aidan felt a fresh, low thrill curl in his stomach. It was partly the beer, partly the absurdity. Back home, his notoriety was for a published paper on algorithmic knot theory. Here, it was for something decidedly more primal. The equation was simpler. The results more immediately gratifying.
“And what’s your role in this experiment?” he asked.
“Observer. Facilitator.” She dabbed her mouth with a tissue. “I like to watch. I like to see their faces. It’s different from feeling it. It’s like… reading a review of a restaurant you already love.”
They finished eating. Prae cleared the containers, then took his hand.“Come. Upstairs.”
A rickety wooden staircase led from a corner of her main room to a rooftop terrace. It was a pocket of privacy amidst the sprawl of cables and satellite dishes, shielded by potted bamboo and lines of drying laundry. A single string of fairy lights was plugged into an extension cord snaking through her window. Beneath them, on a woven mat, was a large, low mattress piled with more cushions and a folded silk blanket.
The air was cooler up here, carrying the distant chaos of the city: motorbikes, a dog barking, the tinny melody of an ice cream truck. Prae pushed him gently to sit on the mattress. She produced a long, narrow scarf from a pocket of her robe—dark blue silk.
“Trust me?” she said, though it wasn’t really a question.
He nodded. The scent of jasmine was stronger as she moved behind him, tying the scarf over his eyes. The world vanished into warm, fragrant darkness. His other senses amplified. The rough weave of the mat beneath his fingers. The cooling sweat on his own skin. The specific sound of Prae’s bare feet moving away on the concrete.
He heard the door to the stairs open, then close. Muffled voices, giggling, the shushing sound of laughter being restrained. Footsteps returning. Not just Prae’s. Lighter, quicker steps.
He stayed still. His heart was a steady, heavy drumbeat in his ears.
A hand, small and cool, touched his knee. It wasn’t Prae’s; her skin was always warm. This hand traced up his thigh, over the fabric of his jeans. Fingers fiddled with his button, his zip. He lifted his hips, and the jeans were tugged down his legs. The night air kissed his exposed skin.
Then a different touch. A mouth, hot and wet, enveloped the head of his cock. He jerked in surprise, a groan torn from him. The mouth was skilled, swallowing him deep, then pulling back to flick a tongue over his slit. He heard a soft, feminine sigh of appreciation. Nok, he thought. The loan officer.
Before he could process it, the mouth withdrew. He felt the mattress dip in front of him. Hands guided him forward onto his knees. Small shoulders were under his palms. He felt the tickle of long hair against his wrists. She positioned him, her hand guiding him between her legs. She was already soaking wet, her opening a slick, welcoming heat. She sank onto him with a slow, controlled sigh, her tight channel a perfect, vice-like fit. She began to ride him, her movements tentative at first, then gaining confidence, her hips rocking in a gentle, rising rhythm.
She leaned close. Her breath smelled of green tea and mint. “They weren’t lying,” she whispered in lightly accented English, her voice high and soft. Her hands framed his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones over the blindfold. She kissed him, her tongue shy. Her pace quickened, her body clenching around him as she came with a series of quiet, shuddering gasps.
As she slid off him, he heard Prae’s low laugh from somewhere to his left. “See, Nok? The interest rate is very high.”
More giggling. The mattress dipped again, behind him this time. Hands on his hips, turning him. A new body, pressed against his back. This one felt curvier, softer. Her scent was of coconut lotion and fresh linen. Gam.
She didn’t bother with his mouth. He felt her nimble fingers spreading her own wetness over him, then she was guiding him into a different, even tighter embrace. Her ass, he realized. She took him bareback with a sharp, indrawn hiss, her body rigid for a moment before melting back against him. She moved with a bold, demanding hunger, grinding herself onto him, reaching back to clutch at his thigh, urging him deeper.
“Yes,” she grunted, her voice thicker, less refined than Nok’s. “Like that. Fill it up.” Her demands were crass, glorious. She fucked herself on him with a frantic, driving need, her climax hitting her like a seizure, her whole body trembling as she pushed back against him, milking him.
He was close, teetering on the edge. The blindfold, the anonymity, the sheer greedy consumption of him, pushed him over. As Gam’s contractions subsided, he pulled out. A hand—Prae’s—wrapped around him, stroking him firmly, and he came with a shout, stripes of hot release painting across warm skin and soft silk.
For a moment, there was only the sound of heavy breathing and the city’s hum. Then, the blindfold was untied.
The fairy lights bloomed in his vision, slightly blurry. He blinked. Kneeling before him was Nok, petite and elegant in a simple sleeveless dress, now rucked up around her waist. Her face was flushed, her lipstick smeared. Behind him, Gam, fuller-figured in a tight tank top and shorts, wiped a hand across her stomach with a satisfied smirk. And to the side, Prae, still in her open robe, watched them all with a cat-like contentment, her fingers glistening.
Nok looked at him, her dark eyes wide with post-coital wonder. She reached out, touching his jaw with delicate fingers. “Legendary,” she whispered, as if confirming a complex financial report.
Gam laughed, a hearty, uncomplicated sound. She slapped his thigh. “Next time, no blindfold. I want to see the face of the man who wrecks me.”
Prae stood, stretching. “The committee has reached a verdict,” she announced. “The data is conclusive.” She helped Aidan to his feet, handing him his jeans. Her touch was proprietary, kind. “You are a natural resource. And we are just getting started.”
Downstairs, the single bulb flickered. Aidan dressed, his body humming, feeling both emptied and profoundly filled. The whispers had become a chorus. He was no longer just a subject of gossip. He was their shared, exhilarating secret. And the night, for the first time, felt truly, terrifyingly infinite.