Chapter 3 The Match
The Match
Natalie opened the door, smiling.
Lung stood in the hallway with a laptop bag over one shoulder, a backpack over the other. He looked tired. From the stairs.
“I’m glad you came,” Natalie said. “I’m excited about this.”
“Me, too,” though Lung didn’t seem excited at all.
Then Natalie hugged him.
She felt Lung’s body go stiff, probably nervous that her tits would touch his chest and she’d be offended. His arms lifted after a second and patted the air around her shoulders in a I’m not sure how to hug a pretty girl without being accused of being a sexual predator kind of way.
Natalie noticed but said nothing. She drew back and looked Lung straight in the eyes.
“Thank you,” Natalie said sincerely. “I really appreciate this.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, his gaze over her right shoulder.
She stepped back and let him in.
Her apartment was small because that’s the only apartment she could afford in Sai Ying Pun. Two windows. A narrow kitchen. A sofa that fit only because the delivery men had removed the legs and one of them had prayed.
But it looked nice. A Walasse Ting print on the wall. Postcards from gallery openings.
Lung looked at the postcards.
“Interesting.”
Then Lung went and set his bags on the low table and sat on the sofa.
He unzipped the laptop bag. “Phone?”
Natalie handed it over.
He took it, connected a small black device, and began working.
Natalie sat beside him, hands tucked under her thighs.
“How long?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you ask me questions every nine seconds.”
She pressed her lips together.
He typed.
For several minutes, there was only the sound of his keystrokes, traffic below, and someone on her floor yelling at a television.
“This profile will be under your real name,” Lung said.
“Sure.”
Then, suddenly:
“Done,” Lung said.
Natalie straightened. “That’s it?”
“For the setup. Temporary password. Change it tonight.”
Natalie smiled. “Okay.”
He put her phone face down on the table. Then, he opened a new application on his laptop and turned the laptop towards her.
“Let me show you some profiles.”
Natalie blinked. “What?”
“Profiles. So we can find you a good match.”
“But I already chose.”
“Well…”
The warmth left the room.
Lung clicked. Six profile cards appeared on his screen in a neat row.
The first was a technology heir with good hair and a philanthropic foundation. The second was a shipping grandson who collected ink paintings. The third was a forty-two-year-old family office director with a smile that looked approved by committee.
Natalie stared at them.
“What’s this?”
“Good matches.”
“For who?”
“For you.”
“But I chose Danny Yeung.”
Lung didn’t answer.
Her voice rose, strained.
“You came here to set me up with Danny Yeung.”
“I came here to set up the app.”
“And then set me up with Danny Yeung.”
“I came here,” Lung said, “to make sure you don’t get into a situation that you can’t handle.”
Natalie’s fingers curled against the sofa cushion.
There it was. Tessa’s voice in Lung’s mouth.
“But everybody agreed that I could date Danny. Tessa said it was okay.”
Lung adjusted his glasses. “This is not about Tessa.”
Natalie laughed but there was no humor in it.
“Both you and I know that is.”
“It’s not up to Tessa. I am the one taking the risk.”
His voice sharpened. “Not Tessa. Me. I’m the one who works there. I’m the one bypassing the encryption. I’m the one who gets in trouble if something goes wrong. So yes, I get a say in who I match to you.”
“You are trying to manipulate me.”
“No, I’m trying to protect myself.”
“From Tessa?”
Lung sighed.
Natalie looked at the profiles again. Safe men. Good men. Men with wealth and private cars but not worth fucking. Men everyone would approve of for her. Men who would make Tessa nod and Lung feel that he was one step closer to winning Tessa’s heart.
She could feel the cage reassembling around her, bar by bar.
“No.”
Lung clicked on a profile. “Wai-Ku Wong. Family office director. Art patron. He’s perfect for you. You could talk about art.”
“No.”
“He has a membership at the Asia Society.”
“No.”
“He funded a restoration project in Macau. You could do some good in the world.”
“I said no.”
“He has all his original hair.”
“No, dammit. Don’t you understand English?”
Lung looked at her.
He then closed that profile and opened another. “Oh, this one is better,” he said excitedly. “Divorced, but amicably. Owns an apartment in Kennedy Town. He collects the kind of art that you sell at the gallery. He could buy it from you.”
“Are you joking?”
“He’s a suitable match for you.”
“I don’t want to hear the word ‘suitable’. I want Danny Yeung.”
“You are not listening.”
“You are not listening. I don’t want these other guys.”
“Danny Yeung is not appropriate for you.”
Natalie felt tears of frustration swell in her eyes. Lung was going to steamroll her out of Danny Yeung and streamroll her into someone else.
There was nothing that she could do.
She was frustrated, upset and angry. “Tessa says no so Lung says no.”
“That is unfair.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. I have my own judgment.”
“Do you? Or does Tessa keep it in her purse?”
His face flushed. “You think because I like her, I can’t think on my own?”
“I think that’s exactly what it is. You let her use you.”
“You are trying to use me right now.”
“But we agreed,” Natalie said hotly. “I don’t even understand why we are arguing about this right now. We already agreed.” Natalie shook her fists in frustration.
“I didn’t agree.”
Natalie looked at Lung in disbelief.
Lung closed the laptop halfway. “If you keep doing this, I’ll call it off.”
Natalie went still.
“I mean it,” he said firmly. “No Danny Yeung. It’s either Wai-Ku, somebody else or nobody. If you don’t want to choose, I can uninstall everything and we can be done right now. You can get your own dates.”
Natalie’s voice went up an octave.
“You’d do that? But that’s not fair!”
“If I have to,” Lung said calmly.
“For my own good.”
“Yes.”
“And Tessa’s.”
His jaw tightened. “I’m not matching you with Danny Yeung.”
Natalie looked at him for a long moment.
Then she stood up, her fists clenched in frustration, walked to her bedroom and closed the door.
Lung looked after her and sighed in relief.
She’ll come around, he thought. She’ll prefer somebody to nobody.
He went back to programming his laptop.
A few minutes later, the bedroom door opened. Lung looked up.
Natalie emerged in a tight, sexy red string bikini.
Lung’s eyes bugged out for a moment, staring at her naked arms and shoulders, her round tits pressing into the bikini top, the small triangle of fabric stretched to just cover her crotch, her long legs and her feet crammed into some shiny black Christian Louboutin Pigalle 85 pumps.
Lung’s mouth fell open.
Natalie started to walk towards him, one tentative step at a time.
Oh, darn, she thought, these shoes are really hard to walk in.
She tried to swing her butt around like she’d seen women do on TV but she almost lost her balance so she settled for a careful butt wiggle with each step, hoping that would look sexy.
She felt like she was walking on a tightrope. These damn shoes.
She was so focused on trying to appear sexy and she didn’t notice that Lung had already looked away. He suddenly found something fascinating and urgent about the emergency escape routes on the back of the front door.
“Why are you dressed like that?” he asked without looking at her.
Natalie did not answer. She continued to walk toward him.
If I can just make it to the couch…
She reached the sofa and plopped down beside Lung, kicking away the awful shoes.
Lung slid half an inch away.
Natalie slid half an inch closer.
“Lung,” Natalie said in the huskiest, sexiest voice that she could muster.
“This is not going to work,” he replied but his voice wavered.
“I really think it will.”
“No, it won’t.”
“Then why did you stop typing?”
He looked at his hands.
“Okay, go ahead,” Natalie said. “Call up the profile of whatever-his-name-is. You can talk about him.”
Natalie paused for effect. “I can talk about you and me.”
Lung balked.
Natalie pushed her body forward, pressing her tits against him and put her chin on his shoulder.
“I want Danny Yeung,” Natalie whispered into his ear.
“No.”
But Lung was breathing hard and clearly uncomfortable.
“Then call up what’s-his-name and tell me about him.”
“I can’t reach my laptop,” Lung said but he didn’t say because, if I did, my arm would rub against your tits.
Natalie put one hand on Lung’s knee.
Lung stopped breathing.
“I said no.”
“I heard you.”
The bikini had worked well up to now but Natalie sensed that Lung’s shock about it was wearing off. He was getting back his resolve.
She needed to change tact. Turn up the heat.
“Lung, let me tell you a secret about American girls.”
“I don’t want to hear any secret.”
“Oh,” Natalie whispered, “this secret is delicious. You’ll want to hear this one. I promise.”
Lung didn’t say anything.
“Are you sure that you don’t want to hear it?”
Silence.
Natalie paused. She was sort of wondering what the secret about American girls was, too.
She stalled: “We are different from Chinese girls.”
Lung’s head slowly turned. Their faces were inches apart. Natalie’s tits pressed closer against him.
“How?” Lung whispered.
That was a good question.
Natalie racked her brain. It had to get Lung where he lived. Then it just popped out.
“American girls love to fuck… but the secret is that they need to fuck.”
A moment of silence.
“Oh, you’re joking!”
Lung started to laugh but she stopped him with a cold stare.
She could see his eyes searching her eyes for some spark of amusement, some indication that she would smile and say this is a joke, but she made sure that her eyes gave him nothing.
Lung eyes got wide.
“You don’t really need to fuck?” he whispered, looking at her.
“I need it.”
“Oh,” he said quietly, looking her in the eye.