Qing’s place was an old wooden house with a couch mouldering on the verandah. It had four bedrooms, and Qing shared it with five other students. Qing’s was a tiny room in a three bedroom house she shared with four other students.

In the kitchen she skillfully ducked my attempt to put my arms around her, but took my hand and half-led, half pulled me down a short corridor to her door.

Once we were in her room and I’d shut the door behind us, she did a spin with her arms close to her body but her hands at shoulder height, palms upwards. “Well, home swee home. So welcome, hey.”

She’d said her room was tiny but it seemed even smaller than that: spare, sparse and Spartan. Her only furniture was a small double bed, a work desk and a chair made of three-ply and metal tubing. The books on her desk were about accounting and business management. The most frivolous volume was something called The Seven Habits of Successful Companies.

Some landlord, long ago, had painted the walls the colour of mushroom soup. It looked like there’d been an explosion in a paté factory. There were no pictures on her walls.

Qing saw me looking around. She shrugged. “It’s what I can afford. It’s ugly but it’s got a bed and a desk.”

“I’ll beautify it.” I meant the room would look better if she was naked. But it was a bit obscure: Qing frowned, not getting me. But I took the top buttons of her pyjama top and fumbled with them. I stopped for a second and looked questioningly into her eyes. She gave a tiny, dismissive nod, as if I shouldn’t have stopped or asked her. Buttons were being too hard and too slow, so I pulled her top up, away from the pyjama bottoms.

She put her arms up. I pulled the top free and dropped it on her chair.

Her breasts were small and perfect, nipples hard as bullets in the cold. I could warm them with my mouth. Or I could pinch her and make the cold irrelevant with my fingertips. Qing stood with her hip slung forward, watching me. It was my decision.

Qing was poised in the front door, ready to leave. She didn’t seem to be in the same mood as when she’d offered to fuck anyone who was at the party. I wanted her back in that mood. I couldn’t tell if I was losing ground or doing reasonably well. Anyway, I’d got a smile for honest lust. “Yeah. Your bum is way cute.” She didn’t like ‘cute’. “I mean it’s hot. And, well, like two apples.”

“Apples? Tha’s your guess? You sure?”

“Well, apples with dimples at the side. No, more than dimples. Concavities. I’d have to get rid of those pyjamas to be sure, of course.”

She frowned, considering that, then nodded judiciously. “All right.”

So I took a step closer, like a man getting within stroking range of a spooked cat. Carefully. “And I followed your bum out of the room, didn’t I?”

But that annoyed her. “Well, you didn’ seem very keen before.”

“Qing. Course I was keen. More than keen. But I thought you were hanging out with your boyfriend. I didn’t want to get in your way. That’s completely the only reason I haven’t spent this evening talking with you. Um, and trying to fuck you.”

“Ok. Then why didn’ you get up, in the lounge? If you were so keen?”

That was too sharp a question, and the truth (cowardice, insecurity, etc) just wouldn’t do. “I had some guy sitting on my feet. And someone’s legs in my lap. I had to push them out of the way before I could get to you. You got to do that sort of thing carefully.”

“Mmmm.” But she was pretending not to smile, now. “Well, maybe you waited too long. The momen’s gone.”  

I laughed. “Nah, we’ve just wasted some time, is all. But it was a waste. So we should go to bed, right now. Really quickly. Your bed, wherever the hell that is.”

“Okay. You can walk me home. And fuck me.”

Qing was in the corridor, about to open the front door. She heard me coming and looked over at me. She didn’t react. I had no idea if she was pleased or disappointed that it was me. I said, “I’m Jaime. We were talking in that … revolving barrel thing in the park.”

“Yeah, why’d you leave all of a sudden?” The tone wasn’t friendly.

I took another step closer. “That guy, who grabbed you. Back in the park. I thought he was your boyfriend. So I left you to it.”

“Ah, you idiot.” Women sometimes say that with affection. This wasn’t. And she wasn’t going to explain what had really been happening, either.

Oh, _those_ tits.

I said, “Well, I got it wrong, but I had the sense to be sad about the idea of you having a boyfriend.”

She frowned sceptically. “Were you?”

Another step. She opened the front door, letting in a whoosh of cold air. “I was absolutely sad. Cause I really liked you.” Her face fell. She didn’t like, trust or respect that sort of statement. Not from men.

I corrected myself. “Liked your tits. Loved your tits, when we were face to face. Nice and biteable. And just now, when you were walking away…”

I got my first smile. “You liked my bum, la?”