Write Affair

Reaching 30: Chapter 1

[Author's Note: Sneak preview of the novel being written for NaNoWriMo.]

The postcard read “My dearest jewel, I miss you so much! I wished to be with you now! Love, Edward” Tossing the postcard to the dustbin, Calista continued her work. She didn’t care about Edward despite his declarations of undying love for her.

All she felt for him was a sense of irritation and annoyance. He was persistant and she wished that the earth would swallow him up at times. All the bouquets and flowers he sent almost every week were often given away to her female or male subordinates. The males wanted to pacify their girlfriends or wives. The females just wanted to feel romantic or make their husbands or boyfriends feel jealous.

Calista enjoyed her work and was happy to be an events planner manager. Being in this position wasn’t easy as she had to overcome prejudice from men who often gave her that “What-is-a-woman-here-for” look whenever she visited her clients with her male subordinates.

However, her efforts and results have paid off and her director was always satisfied with her work. Everyone in the office respected her as she often stood by them when they had problems with difficult clients.

Her phone rang just before lunch. It was Edward. He wanted to lunch with her. Rejection seemed impossible when her secretary pointed that he was just outside her door. Sighing, Calista resigned herself to an agonising lunch with him.

Just as they were leaving the office, Calista saw her regular client. “Mr Fu! What are you doing here?” Mr Fu beamed at her and introduced his friends saying that he was bringing them to see her. “What a surprise, do you want to have lunch first? We can always discuss it during lunch.”

“Will I be disrupting you and your…”

“No! No! He was just leaving.” Calista cut Mr Fu off before he could complete his sentence as it was simply drive Edward’s ego further, something she didn’t want. She left with Mr Fu and his friends happy for the intervention. Edward was left at the lift lobby. He scowled at her leaving back.

When she returned to her office, her secretary was worried for her. “Miss Teo, I doubt that Edward is happy. He looked evil just now when you left.”

“Lucy, I think he is harmless. I have tried to tell him in whatever ways I could to let him know I don’t like him but he still doesn’t get it. I think this ought to let him know that I don’t care to have lunch or anything with him at all.”

However, Lucy was worried because his face was scary at the lobby and she couldn’t convince her boss that he could be up to nothing good even with his nerdy appearance. She left the room reluctantly and hoped Calista would be safe.

Calista took note of Lucy’s words to heart. She didn’t want her colleagues to be worried about her when it was her problem. Edward was known to be persistent and today’s episode must have wounded his ego even more than the previous times.

She just couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t let go when she had informed him in various ways that she wasn’t remotely interested in him and had always rejected his advances. Sighing inwardly, she started on her planning for her new clients.

It was two weeks later when a woman stormed into her office demanding her to leave her husband alone. Calista was called a slut, bitch, snake and all other terms that the angry woman could think of. Shocked, Calista didn’t know how to react but she had no idea who the husband was.

“Who is your husband” she asked when the tirade died down due to the woman pausing for breath.

“You don’t know who he is?” the shriek was hurting the ears. “He is Owen Fu! The two of you have been meeting each other almost everyday and he hasn’t been home for the past two weeks!”

“Mrs Fu, your husband and I were only talking about work. I have a business dealing with him.”

“My foot! Work indeed!” Mrs Fu spat out the words as if they were vile. “The two of you have entered different hotels for 3 consecutive days and you telling me it’s work?”

“The hotels are for selecting the ballrooms.”

“Right! I don’t believe you, you little slut!” At that moment, the security guards arrived to pull the angry and jealous wife out of the office. “So, you need bodyguards now? I’ll have a piece of you!” Mrs Fu struggled to be freed so that she could slap Calista. However, she was no match for the guards. Soon, she was dragged away screaming and kicking her way out of the building.

Calista sat down at her desk in shock. She didn’t know that by meeting her clients after work would affect their families. She never had any problems with any of her clients until now.

“Miss Teo?” Lucy was at her door. Calista motioned for her to enter. Lucy closed the door behind her and sat in front of her. “Here’s your hot drink. I think you need it now.”

Calista took the hot milo from her and sipped it, grateful to have such an efficient secretary. “Lucy, I will need to cancel my appointments for today. I’m going to take the day off and leave today’s work to your capable hands.” Nodding, Lucy took note and left the room. Calista proceeded to pack and called Sonia for a drink.

Sonia arrived at the pub at the same time as Calista. She was the only one Calista would confide in first. They found a corner in the pub and ordered their drinks. Enjoying the atmosphere, they drank in silence until Calista recounted her scary encounter with a jealous wife.

Sonia listened with animated eyes. Finally, she said, “Well, from the looks of you, I can understand why she called you a slut. You still look beautiful while she could be frumpy looking. And going to a hotel with a man does look suspicious.”

“I know, but I was really talking to the hotel managers with my client. I just don’t understand why she didn’t go and ask them if she doesn’t believe her husband.”

“From her point of view, her husband is quite influential and could easily influence anyone to just ‘lie’ to her. She is getting older and feeling inadequate when dealing with her younger counterparts.”

“Sonia, you could be right. She was all wild-haired when she stormed into my office just now and the guards did have some difficulty trying to stop her from clawing at me. I think my face would have been the first to go.”

Sonia laughed but she was serious when she replied, “True but if it were any other woman who could escape the clutches of those guards, I think you would have been in more serious trouble.” Calista agreed.

As they left the pub, a dark figure was following them towards the taxi stand. Feeling chilly, Calista turned around but noticing nothing. Shrugging the ugly thoughts away, she boarded the taxi with Sonia.

Tags: Emotions, Family, Feelings, Friends, Love

Reaching 30: Prologue

[Author's Note: National Novel Writing Month has started. This is a sneak peek at the erotica novel being in the works.]

It was supposed to be a quite night but the little girl couldn’t sleep due to the noises coming from outside her bedroom. Hearing “Com’on baby! Yea!” and someone moaning in the dark of the night was scary to a 6-year-old. Her parents were overseas and her sister was the only one at home with her.

Scared, she wanted to look for her sister for comfort. As she approached the door, the muffled sounds and moaning got louder. Scared that her sister could be in trouble, she turned the door knob quietly and saw her sister naked with 3 other naked men who were at different positions on her bed.

She saw a man kneeling behind her sister with him moving enthusiastically at her bottom. Another man was on top of her sucking, kissing and fondling her breasts while she was eating yet another man’s precious jewels. All of them had their eyes closed while moaning and looked like they were enjoying it. Their movements made the bed creaked with agony and they were perspiring. With sweat glistening their bodies, they continued the movements crying out terms of endearment at different times.

At that moment, her sister opened her eyes when the man she was eating from moaned louder. Her younger sister had seen everything. The girl ran into her room in terror. She had always respected her elder sister because she would always do the right thing for her. They were often left alone at home because their parents travelled frequently for business negotiations.

Seeing her sister with three unknown men horrified her. She had never thought that her sister would be willing to strip down for anyone until she married. She had told her before. She ignored the calls and knocking from bedroom door for the rest of the night.

Tags: Family, Love, Relationships

That Italian Man

“Uncle Elmo!” The heavily mustached man turned around only to be smothered with hugs from an excited female. It took all of 5 minutes to extract the arms and the bags. Passersby were amused at the scene where a huge man was being hugged tightly by a young and frail-looking girl who shouldn’t be impossibly strong to entangle him.

“Bo. Nee. Ta, I can’t. Breathe!” Elmo managed to extricate himself from the entangling mess. As usual, his favourite niece was so enthusiastic that she was carrying her mass number of bags and throwing herself at him without removing the strings and knots.

“I’m so excited to be finally here! ITALY!” she shouted at the last word. Elmo cringed. She was in her element, excitement often made her unaware of her surroundings. Sighing, he picked up her largest suitcase wondering what on earth was inside her bags. The luggage fees hadn’t deterred her from bringing almost her whole room during her travels.

They proceeded towards the parking lot to his car. During the ride, Bonita was so animated about the wedding that she would be attending and the life back home. It was unfortunate that her parents were engaged in an important business negotiation that they couldn’t make it for the wedding. Elmo smiled quietly, she was her usual talkative self.

“So, Uncle Elmo, who is the lucky bride?”

“Her name’s Flora and she just graduated from Cambridge a few weeks ago.”

“Wow! What did she major in?”

“History. She mentioned something about wanting to know more about what happened and why things are the way they are now.”

“How interesting.” From the tone, Elmo knew she wasn’t interested in history. Bonita never was. She was of the Natural Sciences type. He wondered if the two girls would be able to get along during Bonita’s stay. He hoped he could let Bonita explore Rome, Venice and Florence since the wedding was still 3 days away.

After washing up at her uncle’s place, Bonita announced that she wanted to explore the streets. Elmo nodded and went off to busy himself with the wedding stuff. Bonita decided that taking the public transport would be too much since she wasn’t going to wander off too far.

With a map and her trusty camera in her hand, she was off on her own adventure. The cobblestones fascinated her and she took various angles of them. Since she was interested in visiting Basilica di San Francesco, she went off to the place as her first place of interest.

The ruins fascinated her further. The history was sad as quite a number of people were executed there until the 13th century. Busy with her phototaking, Bonita slipped on a loose stone. At that moment, she felt someone holding her and breathed in the strong masculine smell. Heady from the smell, she nearly fainted.

“Signorina, alright?”

Stabling herself, Bonita regained composure and looked at her saviour. He was swoon-worthy. His deep-set eyes and incredibly hazel brown eyes were captivating her. He was talking to her.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m alright now,” Bonita finally replied. She smiled at him. “Grazie.”

He grinned showing off his perfect set of white teeth. Bonita was in love. She had never met such a perfect man that was charming her. Regaining herself, she bowed and left reluctantly as she didn’t want to be late for dinner. Uncle Elmo would be worried.

Throughout her solo visits to other parts of Italy, Bonita was hoping against hope that she would see him again but to her dismay, he wasn’t in sight. On the wedding day, she finally met Flora, the wife of her cousin. She was a lovely woman and Bonita realised that those who studied history needn’t be boring either. They chatted happily away just before the bride was to be wedded officially.

That was when Bonita saw that Italian man again. He was in a suit and strode purposefully towards her cousin. Wanting to know his name, Bonita crept towards them. “Orlando!” Her cousin was saying. The rest were in Italian that she couldn’t pick up as she was bad in learning new languages.

Knowing his name made her feel closer to him a little. After the solemnisation, everyone went towards the buffet table. In her attempts to find a table, she bumped into Orlando. “Ah, signorina. We meet again.” He was flashing his pearly whites at her again.

Bonita smiled demurely not wanting to give herself away. “It’s nice to see you again, signor. I see that you are my cousin’s friend.”

“Si, we have been best friends since high school. I’m very happy to see that he is now marrying a wonderful woman.”

The both of them found a table and started to chat away. After the wedding had ended, Orlando proposed that he take Bonita around as most of the Italians prefer speaking Italian to English. Bonita was delighted and accepted his offer.

Spending 3 days with Orlando was pure pleasure for her and she was happy to be accompanied by him. They went to The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Grand Canal and The Uffizi. They took countless photographs of each other and together.

On the 3rd day, Orlando seemed gloomy. Sensing his sad vibes, Bonita was at a loss as she didn’t know him well enough to intrude on his personal thoughts. However, during dinner, Orlando spoke his thoughts. Floored, Bonita was at a loss on how to reply at first.

“Married?” was all she could utter. He nodded sadly.

“Don’t you have to accompany your wife or something?”

“It’s like this, the day I met you at the Paradise Hill, I like you. It was like the first time I saw my wife, my heart was on fire and I wanted to see you again. I was so happy that you are Carlo’s cousin that I wanted to see you more.

After the 3 days with you, I realised that I still love my wife. I haven’t seen her for a week now.”

“Did you quarrel? I’m sure it can be solved easily.”

“Well, it’s like this, she saw me with my arm around another lady.”

Bonita was speechless. She never knew that this handsome and trustworthy looking man was capable of being such a Casanova. Perhaps men who had his looks tend to have such a behaviour. She told him sternly that he had to keep his hands only on his precious wife if he loved her that much.

Relationships can be thrilling and passionate if they put in the effort together. A marriage was to be kept sacred and renewing the wedding vows should help them remember why they got married in the first place. They ended the day with Bonita reminding him to get some flowers and gift for his wife.

Orlando seemed to walk with a lilt in his strides. She smiled. That Italian man had made her stay in Italy more exciting and she didn’t regret it.

[Entry to Tiger Airways contest. Share your holidays here.]

Tags: Family, Friends, Holiday, Italy, Relationships, Short Story, Travel

Kylynn Wu

[Author's Note: This is a character for the National Novel Writing Month.]

Kylynn is a woman who has been searching for what she wanted to do all her life. She is often changing companies while keeping to the same job scope. The routine has been carrying on for 5 years when she realised that she doesn’t want the same thing.

She just wants to do something that she has been wanting to do in life. However, her parents are unable to understand why she would give up the high pay and do nothing at home. They try various means such as telling her to try the MLM that they believe in due to its length in business while she resists against the idea as she doesn’t feel comfortable talking to some stranger about the benefits of any products.

She feels that MLM is about sales and quotas that she hates to the core. She just wants to try something out by herself and has a her little business startup online while doing a few other things at the same time. Her experience with the Internet has helped her in setting up a few websites that she likes to focus on. Those websites have been done before she left her job.

Feeling that she is unable to make her parents understand, she tries to endure the constant nagging about finding a job while the economy isn’t stable. Her failures in 12 interviews have led her to despair that nobody wants to hire a woman who is reaching her 30s. They either feel she is too young for a supervisory role due to her lack of experience or she is too old for the same job level.

Tags: Career, Woman, Work, Writing

Her First Time

It was her first time. She was so excited that she couldn’t keep still. Her constant giggles made him irritated and he said sternly, “Stop moving! I can’t find it if you can’t keep still!” She stifled her giggles and tried to remain calm by relaxing.

However, she soon fidgeted again and he finally blew his top. “KANTI! You can DO IT YOURSELF!” He threw down the comb and left her opened mouth. However, Kanti started to laugh and attempted to find that last hair pin. She was getting married and this was her photo shoot for her wedding album.

She was so happy to be marrying Tristan in Spain. A country that she had often dreamed of but never had the chance to visit until she met Tristan in her home country. He was in India for a work commitment when the first met.

The relationship started off slowly and they exchanged emails and instant messages when he had completed his assignment. Realising that they have fallen in love through the exchanges, they made plans for their first trip together; the Maldives. They spent 5 days with each other.

Tristan had secretly prepared a quiet dinner by the beach just for the two of them. Kanti nearly cried as none of the guys she had dated before did such a sweet thing. Throughout the vacation, they went snorkling, parasailing, reef casting and angling.

On the last night together, Tristan presented a diamond ring to Kanti at the villa’s balconey. Shocked at first, she didn’t say a word except to cover her mouth. Finally, after some agonizing minutes, she nodded her head.

Kanti’s parents were ecstatic. They made arrangements and when Tristan proposed the idea of marrying in his home country, Spain, they were hesitant as none of them had the money to go to such a far place. However, Tristan said his family would help to offset the airfares and accommodations. That was when they agreed.

It was there Kanti realised why they had to marry in Spain. His father was in a wheelchair due to a minor stroke. The photoshoots in Spain were taken in a few places that Tristan loved. They had taken some in India before coming to Spain.

However, Kanti treasured the time spent in the Maldives as it was more relaxed with just the two of them.

Tags: Family, Fictional Writings, India, Love, Maldives, Relationships, Short Story, Spain

Sonia Fong

[Author's Note: Character building for National Novel Writing Month]

Sonia is a happy-go-lucky woman who doesn’t care about her singlehood. Her father is worried as he doesn’t know why his wonderful daughter can’t find a decent date. His attempts at match-making have resulted in her being out of the house more than he would have liked.

She has dated a few men but none of them could accept that she wanted to be free to do her stuff. She hates to report her every movements and have initiated the breakups due to this fact. She likes to do things as she pleases and wishes her father would stop harping about finding a mate.

Her mother had passed away for years but he is still single and worries about her instead. She loves to volunteer at the animal shelters because she loves animals. As her father is allergic to fur, she could only comfort herself at the shelter.

She is also active in the feminist activities and often spends her time promoting women’s awareness for domestic abuse and breast cancer. She champions the causes for women to have equal status recognition for career promotions.

Tags: animal, Family, Health, Relationships, Woman