And she took him, her wet heat squeezing him impossibly tight. Then, she gripped him even tighter when she came with a cry, her body shuddering her release underneath him.
Luckily, his body was pre-programmed. The tingling sensation in his balls cut through the fog of lust to let him know his own release was imminent.
At the last moment, he pulled out. But this was not an act of pride as it had been before. His back caved as his cock spurted, a firehose without any guide.
He came and came for an impossibly long while. And by the time he was finally emptied, he fell onto his back, drained and wrecked—the very opposite of powerful.
Somewhere in the distance, he sensed her tugging on the bed’s top cover. Dragging it from underneath him and tossing it somewhere he couldn’t see before climbing back into the bed with a heavier quilt to cover them both up.
They lay in the dark. Breathing together but no longer touching.
“I was afraid when you didn’t show up today. I was afraid you were…hurt.” Her voice was a soft knife in the pitch black.
Afraid.
The word squeezed around his heart. She’d been worried about him. And he was so defeated, so exhausted. He couldn’t fight it when the old feelings arose.
But then he remembered her sitting on the couch. Her eyes widening as he made his marriage proposal. The way she’d knocked him over with her yes, as if she’d been overjoyed.
It had been a lie. An act orchestrated by her father. She was a good actress, the best he’d ever known. He had to remember that.
Disgusted with himself, he climbed out of bed and left as abruptly as he’d arrived.
And the next day, he didn’t disenroll her from RhIDS, as he’d so maliciously planned.
He’d failed the test for the seventh year in a row. He still didn’t deserve that particularly sweet vengeance.
The eighth year went no better. He made plans to leave the country for the week, somewhere far away, where he couldn’t possibly change his mind within twenty-four hours. But at the last moment, he turned around and called one of his men to come to get him at the airport. Less than an hour later, he stormed into the Providence house. He hadn’t even made it on the plane.
The ninth anniversary found him at her home bright and early, rutting her desperately before she even had a chance to fully wake up.
He kept her in bed all day again for that anniversary, but it still went by too fast. One moment he had just gotten there, and the next, it was May 26th and time to return to his own world.
Their anniversaries always went this way. The 364 days between May 25ths dragged. A slow and steady accumulation of enemies, partners, money, and power. But the day of their anniversary passed in the blink of an eye. Fleeting moments of bitter weakness and sweet lust as he gave in to all the demons and emotions that had destroyed him in the past.
He had thought a decade would be more than enough to overcome this weakness. To overcome Dawn. But here he was.
One more year, he thought as he left the house after his ninth anniversary failure. One more year, and then he would be honor-bound to let her go.
Seven months after Victor’s ninth failure, Kuang invited him to his mansion overlooking Gramercy Park for what the Chinese called the White New Year’s. He was pleased, Kuang told him that January 1st, more than pleased with their partnership. And he was impressed that The Silent Triad had managed to establish themselves as a global organization, with corporations and snakeheads operating out of six of the seven continents in such a short time.
“If I do not watch out, you will soon become more powerful than even the 24K.”
Though he said this in a jovial tone, his eyes were direct and sharp.
“I would like to offer you my daughter. She is in her final year of business school, and I’ve told her she can delay no longer. She had some wild years in her youth. But she has calmed down now. She is very intelligent. I assure you, and she will make for a gentle and beautiful wife. I am hoping that after you two meet, we might plan a wedding for next fall.”
Victor thought about Kuang’s words and the implications of his offer.
Then for the first time in nearly a decade of partnership, Victor raised his hands to say the only thing he had ever directly signed to Kuang.
Han translated after he was finished: “Next fall will be perfect. And I will be ready.
15
DAWN
“I’m sorry, Dawn, but I can’t make any changes to the schedule,” Jacoby Pirelli, the director of the Animation MFA program, told me from behind his super avant-garde desk made entirely out of wires. “As I said at the beginning of the school year, I have sole discretion in picking the thesis presentation dates, and they are all set in stone.”
Yes, he had said that at the beginning of the year. And I’d hoped and prayed all of the first semester that I wouldn’t draw the May 25th slot. But here we were at the beginning of my last semester of grad school, prayers unanswered. Ugh!
I swallowed to clear the way for the colossal whopper I was about to tell. “But that’s my parents’ wedding anniversary. And we already planned a huge party.”
Jacoby lifted his silver eyebrows which somehow managed to be razor thin and bushy at the same time. “Wow, you are a very dedicated daughter. I’m truly impressed. If I remember correctly, you also threw them a very special anniversary party last year. According to the notes left by the head of the Experimental Animation program, that was why you weren’t able to make it to the Group B grad thesis showcase, even though all second years were required to attend.”
My stomach twisted with guilt. But I pressed past it to say, “After all my parents have done for me, it’s the least I could do.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Jacoby answered with a thoughtful look. “It’s just so sad that their anniversary falls on the same day as your grandmother’s funeral and your grandfather’s funeral and your grandmother’s funeral and then your grandfather’s funeral again. It’s a wonder how you seem to be either celebrating or crying on this particular day every single year.”
Dammit, caught! Before this, I’d mostly had to hand in excuses to individual teachers, not the program director, who could easily look at all my past records, including the excuses.
But I was in for more than a few pennies at this point, so I doubled down. “Yes, we’ve suffered a lot of tragedies on this day. That’s why it’s so important to me to make my parents’ wedding anniversary special.”
The mask of faux sympathy dropped from Jacoby’s face, and he regarded me with a stern look. “I’ve scheduled your thesis presentation for May 25th. Be there or be fine with not receiving your MFA because you did not present your thesis on that exact date with the rest of Group B. Good day, Dawn.”
With that, he went back to typing something on his computer, which I guess meant no more arguing. I’d been dismissed.
FML.
I trudged out of Jacoby Pirelli’s office.
“Yeah, Dawn wears a ring on her wedding finger, and she’ll tell you she’s married if you asked her. But I think she’s lying.”
I stopped walking when I heard the voice coming from around the corner where all the grad student lockers were situated. I recognized the voice immediately. It was Elizabeth Ann Margaret, the only other person in our Experimental Animation program who’d attended undergrad with me.