Without a word of warning, she floored it. The tires shrieked, spinning violently against the asphalt, filling the air with the acrid stench of burning rubber. With a violent jolt, the car lunged forward. Since we actually moved forward, it seemed she hadn’t botched the shift of the Porsche Carrera’s seven-speed manual transmission. I tentatively rubbed my neck, checking to see if I’d suffered whiplash. The car burst out from the space—which, under its artificial lighting, had felt like a columbarium—and leaped into the dazzling light of the West Coast sky.
“Hey, why don’t you take that off already?”
“Eh?”
“Your name tag.”
“Oh, right.”
I hurriedly unclipped the strap, rolled it up, and stuffed it into my suit’s waist pocket. Looking back, I realized there had been no need to panic.
We drove down an avenue lined with jacarandas, their branches heavy with clusters of pale violet flowers. After passing through a residential area where sprawling mansions stood scattered, she pulled into a drive-thru burger joint and shouted her order into the intercom.
“Cheese burger, fries, and a Coke.”
For a moment, her profile looked young and cute. For a fleeting second, it felt as though she had returned to being an ordinary girl.
“And you?”
“I’ll have a fish burger and a coffee, please.”
“OK.”
Then she entered the interstate. As expected, every lane was packed with cars. Mary clicked her tongue in blatant annoyance. For a while, we crept forward slowly, like potatoes moving along a conveyor belt. Eventually, the cityscape vanished, the groves disappeared, the lanes narrowed, and the traffic thinned.
Wait. Does this mean we’re heading inland, toward the desert?
Good grief.
As pedestrians and oncoming traffic almost entirely disappeared, the risk of an accident dropped significantly, and I felt a wave of relief.
However, she then began to push the car to speeds of over 150 km/h. She was clearly exceeding the interstate speed limit.
Strangely, I didn’t feel afraid. Her driving was rough, but she was proficient. There were no blind curves—just a flat, straight road.
How should I describe her?
The most striking thing were the two magnificent clavicles exposed by her tank top. The skull and sternum, covered by thin skin, and the various muscles of the neck connecting them, contracted and expanded briskly in sync with her steering. It was a living anatomical diagram, a mystery of the human body. I could watch her forever without getting bored.
Her shoulders were bony, and atop each scapula, she had tattoos that looked like birds’ wings. To me, they looked less like the wings of an angel and more like those of a demon.
The arms extending from those shoulders were thick and powerful, like those of a tennis player. I didn’t know the brand of her wristwatch, but it was a mechanical skeleton; it must have been two or three orders of magnitude more expensive than my electronic watch.
She had a small face and a well-shaped bridge to her nose. Her teeth were straight, perhaps corrected in childhood. In contrast to the thinness of her skin, her lips were rather full. Her blonde hair, which I assumed was naturally straight, reached down to her waist. Up close, each strand seemed incredibly fine, almost translucent. Her eye sockets were deep-set with distinct double eyelids, and her irises were hazel. Simple gold earrings adorned her ears. A few freckles remained, but she looked far more mature than an eighteen-year-old. Her waist was narrow, and her breasts and hips were ample. She wore vintage jeans and sneakers from a brand I didn’t recognize. Fine, white vellus hair grew on her pale skin. They say Caucasian skin is coarse, but that certainly wasn’t the case for her. She likely spent a great deal of effort on skincare.
In short: she was a glamorous, beautiful, and physically imposing celebrity Caucasian girl.
The deep deserts of the West Coast. The scenery outside the window was monotonous, but to me, it was a rarity. Since I remained silent, she turned on the car radio. A country song mixed with static played, overlaid with the voice of a chatty DJ. Finally, we veered off the interstate and continued along a straight road littered with cacti. Every now and then, she spoke to me. She told me that those cactus flowers were edible, and that those were too. She mentioned that the
“Camel Spiders” living around here eat geckos and lizards.
“Camel Spiders?” I had never heard of them.
“Yes. They have a grotesque shape—something between a spider and a scorpion, like a giant soldier ant. Their skin is a pinkish beige, and when they stretch their legs, they’re about the size of a human palm. Eight legs.”
“If it has eight legs, it’s either an octopus or a spider. Octopuses only live in the sea, so if it’s on land, it must be a spider, right?”
“The face is a mass of macho muscle with two pairs of fangs—basically, it looks like four muscular jaws bundled together, with a tiny head and eyes the size of mustard seeds on top. Their bite is incredibly powerful and their fangs are sharp. A friend of mine was bitten on the leg during a school trip as a kid, and it caused a huge scene. If you accidentally crush one of their nests, a swarm of them will chase you across the desert at 50 kilometers per hour.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not. They say they have venom potent enough to paralyze a camel in one bite.”
“Is that why they’re called Camel Spiders?”
“Exactly.”
“This is a dangerous place. But I don’t think camels actually live in this desert, do they?”
“Of course there are no wild ones.”
Then who, and why, gave them that name?
The fact that she was so knowledgeable about the area likely meant this was her home ground. She had gone on field trips here as a child? For a celebrity, she had been born and raised in a remarkably remote place.
“But you know, camels actually originated around here. The species that migrated south became llamas and alpacas. The ones that moved to Asia became the dromedary and Bactrian camels. Dromedaries and llamas can produce offspring through artificial insemination. But the common ancestor that lived here went extinct tens of thousands of years ago.”
“I see. Why is that?”
“The indigenous people of this country probably hunted them to extinction.”
The Porsche came to a stop atop a low hill. There was a paved parking area, but no buildings. Perhaps the ruins of something. From there, one could look down upon a reservoir, a gargantuan dam, and the canyon that stretched downstream.
Military aircraft were frequently flying at altitudes near the stratosphere; perhaps this was a corridor for a nearby air force base. The roar of the water crashing through the concrete barrier that blocked the canyon sounded like an earthquake, and geckos could be heard chirping in the distant brush.
With the press of a button, the convertible top opened with a grand yet slow motion. Fine dust rained down into the car.
Unbothered, she began to drink her Coke and eat her hamburger. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I followed her lead.
She remained silent. I could sense her gauging my reaction. Was I supposed to say something? But about what? The fate of the camels? We hadn’t spoken a word about work for the longest time.
I had absolutely no idea what she wanted. I found out later that she had brought me to a place with a beautiful view where a young man and woman could get into a romantic mood. The burgers and fries were merely props for that stage.
I suspect I was expected to say something saccharine, like:
“Today is the day of our fateful encounter.”
Or, “Your eyes are beautiful.”
She must have been confident in her appearance. Every man who had ever been alone with her had likely seen it as a golden opportunity and immediately started flirting. But to her, I must have seemed completely indifferent. She must have been growing impatient in her silence. I only realized this much later; at the time, I was simply stunned, not knowing how to behave.
After finishing her burger, she slurped the rest of her Coke and spoke.
“I’m sorry. I’ve never really gone on drives or dates like normal people do.”
“Wait, is this not a business meeting? Is this a date, between you and me?”
There was a long silence before she opened her mouth.
“You know that my family is very different from ordinary families.”
“Yes, of course.”
“On top of that, I was sick for a long time. I hardly ever went to school.”
“Is that so?”
“In a situation like this, should I say I’m sorry?”
“No, not at all.”
I denied it almost reflexively. But what did she think she was apologizing for? Her lack of social skills? Or for ignoring the business meeting and dragging me around?
“I’m going to start studying how to get along with people now. I’ll be entering university. And my life is short.”
She casually placed her hand, which had been resting on the handbrake, onto my arm.
I didn’t understand what she meant, so I couldn’t answer.
“So, if you can overlook my lack of social graces for now… what do you think of me?”
“Eh?”
“Do you want to go out with me?”
I finally grew irritated by her ambush-like approach. I could logically understand that her ignorance of the world and her erratic methods were a product of the environment she grew up in. I could make an allowance for that. I forced myself to shift my mindset. Setting aside everything she had done so far, how was our compatibility? I didn’t know. We had only just met. A commoner and a foreigner like me, and a celebrity from a family that had succeeded over generations in this
country. It was doubtful whether a romance could even be established. But if it worked, it would undoubtedly be like marrying into royalty. If I became her husband, I could settle in this country and live in luxury until the day I died.
As long as the marriage remained harmonious. The gears of calculation began to clatter in my head.
However, I had my own life plan and my own relationships. I wasn’t a blank slate. First and foremost, the concern wasn’t so much the family I left behind in my hometown, but rather the fact that I currently had a girlfriend named Natasha. I hadn’t seen Natasha for a while. I didn’t even know where she was, how she was living, or if she had found a new partner.
But we hadn’t lost contact. Occasionally, we would comment on each other’s photos on social media.
Would dating Mary mean cheating on Natasha with Mary? Well, I was still single, so keeping options open with multiple people until marriage… surely that couldn’t be exceptionally evil.
Cowardly as I am, I gazed out at the deserted surroundings. Various shapes of cacti with red and yellow flowers grew on the dried-up riverbed, and a gecko was chirping somewhere in the shadow of a shrub. There wasn’t a soul around us.
My gaze then drifted through the car and stopped on a striped straw, bent in a zig-zag, poking out of the lid of her half-finished Coke in a drink holder clipped to the AC vent. The straw, marked with her teeth and lipstick, seemed to be a foreshadowing of the events that were about to unfold between us.
I suppressed a sigh and spoke. “Are you saying you fell in love with me at first sight, the moment we met?”
“Yes,” Mary asserted flatly. And without a moment’s hesitation, she pressed her full lips against my mouth.
No way. Could such a thing actually happen? Falling for someone in such a short time?
Mary’s kiss tasted of ketchup, and her breath smelled of beef. While kissing me, she attempted to crush me between her voluptuous breasts and the seat.
You carnivore, I wanted to curse. Are you on drugs? I thought about grabbing her hair and pulling her back. But my spineless hand only gently stroked her hair.
I had not predicted this development when I left home this morning. That the eighteen-year-old Chairwoman Mary would appear in person. At most, I was supposed to spend an hour or so presenting to a representative. I had carefully constructed a story, devising ways to keep the audience interested and entertained, inserting the occasional joke to ensure they didn’t get bored. Then, in three hours at most, I would sign the contract, finalize the deal, and be released by early afternoon. I would then check into the business hotel I’d reserved downtown, use the cramped single room as my office to send a report to the company, and then hit a nearby bar to quench my thirst before sleeping.
All of that was canceled.
Her cleavage was right in front of my eyes. She closed her eyes and buried her face in my shoulder, becoming still. I leaned back against the seat, staying quiet for a while, covered by that warm blanket of flesh.
Then, she took me to a motel.
Wait, what? She wanted to go to bed on the very day we met? And in a place like this? This was far too much, even for a celebrity’s whim.
A garish neon sign floated in the desert twilight. Several campers and trailers were parked in the lot, and the light from a coin laundry leaked outside. It was a cheap hotel, utterly unsuitable for someone of her status.
I received the key from a bearded Spanish manager at the reception—which also doubled as a drugstore—and checked into a room that was spacious and comfortable, yet bleak.
She immediately began to strip, glancing at me with a puzzled expression as I stood there still wearing my suit.
The sandy carpet. The interior that looked like a cheap plywood facade. Comparing that to her gorgeous naked body, my mind grew confused. Could this really be happening?
If she were to take me to a hotel, wouldn’t she choose a luxury hotel with a pool and a casino, befitting her status?
Was she really the daughter of the Schmidt Foundation, Mary Schmidt?
Was she a decoy or a body double? Or had a con artist switched places with her along the way?
But there had been no opportunity for that. I had been with her from the very beginning.
Had she been someone else from the start? Was I being played?
It felt like the kind of thing that happens when you hit it off with a call girl at a dive bar. All I could do was chug three watery cans of Budweiser from the fridge, forcing alcohol into my bloodstream.
She didn’t drink. She was still a minor.
I found out later that she maintained a policy of not drinking a single drop of alcohol even after she became an adult.
“Are you really Mary Schmidt?”
“I am.”
“Are you actually an impostor?”
“Why would the Schmidt Foundation go through the trouble of introducing you to a fake Mary? What possible gain would there be in deceiving you?”
She was right. There was no motive to deceive me.
“Do a man and a woman need status or family lineage to love each other?”
“Of course not.”
“The person in front of you is the real, genuine me.”
She pulled her driver’s license and a black card from her wallet. Wow. A titanium Black Card. I had heard that the rich possessed such things, but this was the first time I’d seen one. It looked authentic. I also opened her license and stared at it. It was the same as mine. Without a doubt, it was a Driver License issued by the state government.
“You’re a suspicious person.”
“Did you really fall in love with me at first sight?”
She knit her brows, looked at me with a face of disbelief, and without answering, sealed my mouth with a kiss.
She was likely the real thing.
Even if someone had tried to trick me—for example, a honey trap intended to blackmail me—why would they go through such an elaborate setup and drag me all the way to a desert motel? There are far easier ways to deceive someone.
But she was lying. At the very least, she was hiding something.
It had all been orchestrated. The story couldn’t have progressed this quickly by chance. She had probably known about me for some time. And for some reason, she had taken a liking to me. My boss must have known as well but kept quiet. I was the only one in the dark. I had probably been sent as a sacrifice for her whims. That seemed the most likely explanation.
It was difficult to grasp, but perhaps there was some consistent necessity behind her aberrant, contradictory behavior.
Perhaps, as she said, it was simply that I, a commoner, was unable to communicate effectively with a celebrity woman raised in a special environment.
Whatever happens, happens.
With that feeling of desperation and half-belief, I shared her bed.
Well, that is how we began. It was a truly bizarre encounter. No one might believe that our romance started in such a strange way, but it’s the truth, so it can’t be helped.
And from then on, she began to change my life, one piece at a time.