A Loving Gift
She is a modest, traditional yet modern Indian girl from my office. A 24-year-old and extremely underweight. She’s the Operation Assistant to my Sales role. Soft-spoken, polite, extremely intelligent, with sharp collar- and cheekbone, thick and luscious eyebrows, really big brown eyes, and thin, mostly dried, dark lips.
I am an outspoken Chinese boy. 28 years old barely behaving like one. I am called the stickman of the office due to my body frame and am the youngest VP of Sales in the Southeast Asia region.
I can sense that she has a fondness for me. You know? Like that gradual change in actions and tone over a period of interacting when a girl starts to develop a mad crush on you is very obvious in this case. You clock into the office at a later timing and start to find a Starbucks on your desk. You went for lunch together and she starts scooping food over to your plate. You head to the next city for dinner with a bunch of colleagues after work and she will somehow wiggle her way into your carpool.
Rumours about us are starting to circulate around the office.
And you start to think...
There’s never a dull moment working with her.
There’s never a crisis executing a complicated sales delivery with her.
And she’s a bright and professional young woman; fast, capable, curious, attentive. It’s almost a turn-on for me.
...and that is when the feeling starts to grow mutual. You began to light up every time she laughs at your joke or whenever she says she will wait for you when you need to take a quick toilet break before heading for lunch.
I am however, unsure what all these feelings stands for nor what it would amount to.
PART I
---- DATE NIGHT ----
I bought her back to my condo after a night of dinner, movie, and a long casual walk. Since that very short intimate moment we shared in the theatre, the butterflies in my stomach have been fluttering more aggressively coupled with the fact that I have now invited her to my condo. She took off her flat canvas with her feet and pushes them to the side of the door, mindfully took her first step into the apartment and was greeted by my housemate, Mark.
“Hello.” She said softly while waving awkwardly. Mark reciprocates with a nod, seemingly too busy making his own dinner by the kitchen bar.
We acknowledged our presence with a small nod like how two male acquaintance housemates would normally do, turn around and grab Saanvi’s hand and led her quickly into my room. I closed the door behind me and gave her a piercing look.
“What?” She asked, puzzled.
“Don’t talk to him so much!”
“Why? Is he a pervert?”
“No lah, just don’t talk to him!”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like when you talk to him lah!”
“Oh,” she paused for a second before continuing, “you jelly, is it?”
She gave me a cheeky smile as she pinched my cheek softly and playfully. I started fuming and let off a big breath.
“Jelly, jelly!” She giggles and walked around me to examine my room.
Truth is I am jealous. Not the normal jealous or the playful jealous but the real uncomfortable jealous, just from her greeting Mark. I know I wouldn’t react or behave like this normally but something changed after the short intimate moment we shared in the theatre. It seems subconsciously, I am giving in to the budding fondness I have for her. We didn’t have a conversation about our status. We just had our first date; I think you could call it a first date despite having eaten lunch many times, just the two of us.
She examines all my belongings like a mother checking up on whether her son has tidy up his room.
“Your room smells weird.”
“Hey!”
“Really, your room smells weird!”
She giggled as I responded by slapping her hips. That’s the most intimate body part of Saanvi I have touched today, her hips. Considering how conservative she is, she didn’t react negatively to it except for throwing me those big side eyes, signalling me to behave myself.
I grab her hands and pull her towards my table.
“This is a medal for my secondary school art class. My personal laptop and my notebook, and a tissue box!”
“Booooring….”
“Okay, okay! So, this is where I keep my home clothes. This is where I hang my office shirts. This is where I keep all my underwear and this is where I keep my socks.” I continued quickly as I open up my worn-out white wardrobe.
She started snoring, sticking her tongue out and fainting death as if I had killed her with my boredom. Both of us started breaking into laughter due to the timing of her reaction. In the midst of the laughter, I awkwardly put both my hands around her hips and she leans into my chest. Being flooded with all these warm positive vibes, I threw out a bold suggestion.
“Don’t leave. Stay over, tonight.”
“What?”
“I mean it, why not just stay over tonight? I will drive you back home first thing tomorrow.”
She looks at me with genuine shock in her face. Her thick eyebrows raised, her big brown eyes staring right into my soul as if trying to figure out if I was sincere or just trolling. I tend to troll around like this so I can understand her scepticism.
“I didn’t bring any clothes.”
I was relieved. She didn’t flat out reject me.
“You can wear my clothes to sleep. I don’t mind.”
“But my inners?”
“Maybe, don’t wear them tonight while you sleep and wear them tomorrow when you going back?” I replied with a soft, high pitch voice as if doubting my own answer.
“Cannot lah. Bottom inner very unhygienic la. I wore it for a whole day already.”
I stare at her while I softly nod my head, acknowledging the stupidity of my answer.
“Eeyer, you so dirty one ar! Wear your inner two days in a row.” She said with a smirk while throwing me the side eyes, again. I gave her a wide silly grin as a respond. Deciding not to press any further, I dropped the idea.
“Okay, maybe next time then. I’ll drive you back later.”
She stares at me blankly as if making some calculations in her head, looked around the room for a short while and asked, “you have a washing machine?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“You sleep with air-con on?”
“Yea. Of course.”
“Maybe,” she paused for a second to complete the calculations in her head, “I can toss my inners for a quick wash right now and hang them here overnight? Very soft material, should dry by tomorrow.”
My heart began to light up. For a second, I swear I could feel myself floating off the ground and began singing joyfully like how Disney characters would after they hear the good news. I would say that I am a regular male. And like all regular male, I am highly motivated by lust but for the first time, sex wasn’t on my mind at that moment. In fact, sex hasn’t crept into my mind for a single time during that entire date night. I was just genuinely elated to be able to spend time and now a night with Saanvi, cuddled up in our sleep.
“Yea, I guess we can do that.” I said with a smile on my face.
“One-time only ar, not every day I sleep here ar!” She replied with a playful grin on her face.
I pressed my lips together and nod my head in the affirmative.
“Okay then, I quickly go shower now.” She said while slapping both her hands on her waist softly. “Can I borrow a towel?”
I open up my wardrobe and pull out a towel, a t-shirt, shorts, and a pair of clean boxers. I hand it over to Saanvi, open the door to my bedroom and guided her to the shared bathroom. I pointed out the shampoo and soaps that belongs to me, how to operate the heater, and she aggressively shoos me away after and locked the door behind me. Twenty minutes later, she walked into my room fully dressed like my clothes with her hands holding on to her blue blouse, black pencil skirt with what I would assume her bra and panties tucked underneath.
“Hey, I forgot to ask just now. Your roommate is okay with me staying here?” Saanvi asked sternly.
“Yea, why not? He doesn’t even leave his room that much.”
I walk towards her with only a pair of clean boxers in my hand and pull the wet towel from hers.
“The washing machine is at the kitchen. You can just use it.” I said, before walking into the bathroom for my shower.
After my shower, I came back to a chilling bedroom. Saanvi have turned on the air-conditioning and was sitting, cross legged on the middle of my single bed typing away on her phone.
“Messaging your boyfriend now huh?”
She stopped her typing at my comment, raised her head and gave me a wide grin that reveals her white teeth, locks and toss her phone onto my pillow. Without pausing, she summons the strength from her slender legs and pounced towards me, took the clothing from my hand and a pair of bra and panties that was laying by the side of the bed.
“I wash your clothes also ar?”
I stare at her with my eyebrows raised, confused, puzzled. Without waiting for a response, she walked out of my room with all the clothing in her arm. I proceed to quickly tidy up my bedroom knowing Mark has already retired into his bedroom for the night. Soft beeps can be heard coming from the kitchen and the washing machine began churning. Shortly after, Saanvi returns to the room and locking the door.
We then spent the next thirty minutes or so talking about random things from work to travel, our life’s goal individually and aspirations, favourite food to movies, fears and pet peeves. Both of us sitting rather far apart from each other – she crossed legged on the floor near the door with my oversize shirt collar slightly misplaced, revealing her sharp left collarbone without a bra strap while I on my bed. The finishing beeps of the washing machine stopped our conversation as she instinctively stood up and exited the room. We collected our laundry together and decided on hanging my clothes in the balcony, as it should, and her intimates in my bedroom, clipped widely on a wooden hanger placed on the knob of my wardrobe.
Not knowing what to do next, we decided to switch off the light, open up the curtains to let the warm city light peep in gently and call it a night.