Chapter 1. Beginning
To lead would be too long, so I’ll summarize some of the main information like this: The family has 3 siblings, the oldest brother is in the 3rd year of military school, I’m in 11th grade, the younger sister is in 6th grade. The old man was in the army before, after the border war, he was demobilized, changed his career, became the director of an institute that had both research functions and was a place for practice and experimentation… (in short, it was not big, not small, in the late 90s and early 2000s, the salary was fully subsidized, the money poured in for topics, experiments… was also about less than 20 billion – that’s the value); the old woman was the deputy secretary of a town, which was also relatively (later she returned… to a central agency with a moderate role); The house was 45km from Hanoi, the old woman’s office was about the same distance from Hanoi, so the old woman and her sister stayed in the town where they worked, the old man and I stayed at home. The old people’s goal is to buy an apartment in Hanoi so that later on, I can go to university and my sister can go to high school and we can all move there. Normally, once a week, my grandmother and sister will come back, and once a week, my father will come to visit.
Up to 80% of the staff of the old men branch are women, from young to old, from single to twice-married, they all have it all; especially every year they welcome a batch of interns who are all young female students; there are also men and women (mostly women) who come back to “practice” to get state positions before running around to get elsewhere…
On to the story!
Actually, since puberty, I have accidentally witnessed the old man touching the girls in the hospital a couple of times; a couple of times when I came home, I saw a girl or a girl in my house, flustered with disheveled clothes, not yet tidy, but because the old man and I got along very well, every time like that, he usually gave me 10-20k for pocket money, so I shut my mouth.
At the end of the summer of 10th grade to 11th grade, I lost my virginity because I followed my older brother to visit my schoolmate’s house (called a fellow countryman from another district) and witnessed the two of them sublimating with the housemaid of their friend’s house and then letting me enjoy it a couple of times during their summer vacation (interesting, two 20-year-old older brothers and a younger brother who had just turned 16 years old messing with a 37-year-old housemaid who was a… big pervert; this story is not the main topic so I won’t tell anymore); in short, I was “trained” systematically.
Let’s get down to business!
It was a Saturday morning in November when I was in 11th grade. At that time, there was no Saturday off for high school students (now I see that schools don’t have days off depending on the facilities or something like that), but because of the school’s schedule for the Workers’ and Civil Servants’ Congress, I had the day off (I remember this very clearly). Coincidentally, that day, my grandmother didn’t come home, and my grandfather didn’t visit either. In the morning, I woke up early as usual, but I spent most of my time exercising, doing personal hygiene (I had to take a shower because near dawn, I was in the middle of a dream about a brick kiln with my two brothers and the maid, then I suddenly woke up, so I… caught squirrels and put them in a jar to get rid of my horniness), and after I finished sweeping the house, at around 8:30, my grandfather came down from the 2nd floor and asked why I didn’t go to school today; knowing what was going on, he suddenly took out his wallet and gave me 30k to go have breakfast and play video games (at that time it was only 10k/bowl of pho; 2.5k/hour for half life so having 20k left after breakfast meant I could play until the afternoon); I quickly left without noticing the old man…look at his watch.
After feeling hungry, I walked over to invite my friend to ride his bike to the arcade but…the arcade was closed in the morning. Feeling hesitant and having a feeling, I said we could play tomorrow and then everyone went home.
I opened the gate to enter the house at around 10am and saw Ms. Thoa’s bicycle (the characters are real but I will change the names, it’s hard to remember with the new names) neatly parked in the yard.
Let’s talk about my house, located in a 7m wide alley (in the past, the alley was so wide that 2 cars could pass each other comfortably), about 70m from the main road, in front there is a yard, a rockery and a star fruit tree, a jackfruit tree, quiet and quite private; the 4-storey house is now called a semi-detached villa, so from the 2nd and 3rd floors, each floor has 1 large bedroom (with private bathroom), 1 medium bedroom, 1 small bedroom, 1 shared toilet for 2 rooms, the 4th floor has 1 bedroom, 1 worship room and a drying yard; especially, it is close to the house next door but there is no fence or dividing wall, only a row of 40cm bricks to separate the boundary (talking about this structure because…there will be other stories from here later).
Seeing Ms. Thoa’s car neatly parked in the corner of the yard, I had a difficult premonition because she was 33 years old, very close to my family because her husband was 49 years old that year (3 years older than my old man) and was from the same old unit as my old man, very close, because after the border war, he still served in the artillery force, so he got married late and the unit was about 20km away from home (if I remember correctly, he married Ms. Thoa when she was 24 years old, he was 40 years old). Ms. Thoa worked as a financial officer at the Institute that my old man was in charge of and was also the matchmaker, so the two families became even closer, when they came to each other’s houses, they naturally…like at home, basically every time my old woman came back to both houses, they ate together; a couple of times I saw Ms. Thoa in a state of…disheveled clothes at my house when I suddenly came home early.
I opened the door very gently, and somehow I saw Thoa’s slippers so I picked them up and put them in the shoe cabinet, closed it neatly, and even put her hat and mask in there. Looking back, I guess it was fate.
Just finished doing those things, the doorbell rang, I looked out…it was Thoa’s husband; I was stunned for a moment but I calmed down and ran out.
Uncle Bao!
– Not going to school today?
– I have a day off, where are you going?
– I’m going to find your dad. I made an appointment to go to the wedding at 11 o’clock, but I asked your dad to go a little earlier because I need to use your dad’s car for something later.
(The old man went to the wedding in the Institute’s car, not our family’s private car.)
I pulled the gate latch and invited him in. After a few steps inside, I saw Thoa’s car and he asked:
– Ms. Thoa lives up here, huh? (My house is in the alleys about 300m apart from Ms. Thoa’s and Mr. Bao’s, but we go downhill so we’re used to the up/down distinction.)
Somehow that day was like a miracle; I was calm:
– I went to have breakfast and met her and Ms. Thuy. The two of them invited each other to go by Ms. Thuy’s motorbike to the Institute, so they asked me to ride my bike back. I’ll come over and pick them up later (Ms. Thuy is 4 years younger than Ms. Thoa, also working in the Institute in the field of Finance, and she is a more close relative and a more attractive woman, and has a child too. Up to now, besides beauty queens and models, I have never met a woman in her 30s who is as… attractive as her; among the women I’ve enjoyed from my father, and including the ones I’ve had sex with, she’s still the most attractive in her early 20s and after 30).
Where is your dad?
– Your dad is probably on the second floor. Let me go call him.
I rushed to the second floor without inviting Uncle Bao into the house properly. I shouted loudly that Uncle Bao was coming to alert him.
The old man and his wife’s bedroom was still wide open, the small bedroom was closed because it was my sister’s room; I pushed the door of the other bedroom and saw the old man and Thoa in a doggy position, trying to finish while listening because they heard an alarm but didn’t know what it was.
– Uncle Bao came to visit, he is downstairs.
I said that loudly and at the same time grabbed Thoa’s clothes and threw them into the old man and woman’s bedroom next door, closed the door, and pointed Thoa upwards.
Honestly, the old saying goes that times create heroes; Ms. Thoa, despite being completely nude, quickly jumped out of bed, ran to the stairs and ran to the 3rd floor, while the old man ran back to his bedroom and into the bathroom.
After a few minutes on the first floor, Uncle Bao proactively went upstairs, saying loudly as he walked:
– Still not awake yet, Uncle Nhat?
I quickly waited and said:
– My dad is changing clothes because he just came down from the 4th floor.
Very quickly, in just a few minutes the old man had finished bathing, put on his party clothes, and walked out the door, saying as he walked:
– I’m coming down, you wait for me down a bit.
He tucked in his shirt as he walked out the door and conveniently pressed the lock from the inside, so Thoa’s clothes would stay inside and only his key could open them to get them.
The two men met at the second floor hallway and went downstairs together. I followed out of courtesy, but my mind was already on the third floor.
Going down to the first floor, Uncle Bao talked about the appointment at 11am but the plan changed, he planned to come to the celebration and ask the old man’s car to take him to some personal matters, probably only finished tonight. The old man agreed with Ngay and picked up the landline to call the office to remind the driver to come right away.
I stood next to him and just smiled and asked:
– Did your son go to school today? (Ms. Thoa and Mr. Bao had a 7 year old son that year).
– It does, but in the morning, when Ms. Thoa left, I didn’t have any plans, so I asked Uncle Y (Mr. Bao’s younger brother who also lives nearby) to pick her up at school at noon. When Ms. Thoa comes back, tell him to come pick her up in the afternoon.
My old man didn’t understand anything so I immediately explained:
– This morning when I went to have breakfast, I met Ms. Thoa. She told me to help her put the bike away so she could ride her motorbike with Ms. Thuy to the Institute to do something.
The old man realized what he meant, and also realized that Ms. Thoa’s hat, mask, and sandals had…disappeared, so he was very pleased. He took out his wallet and gave her a 50k bill, telling her to go buy something for lunch (it seems that at that time, 100k was purple, the highest denomination; 50k was blue).
The car horn sounded to pick us up so the old man and Uncle Bao went out. I carefully saw them out, locked the gate carefully and saw the old man’s eyes squint and a slight smile on his lips.
I went back in, locked the door on the first floor, and flew up to the third floor like a flying knife. Why am I so nervous standing in front of my room door? I stopped for about a minute to regulate my breathing, quickly planned what I would do, then pushed the door open resolutely.
Miss Thoa was sitting on her bed, wrapped in a thin blanket, her face still full of anxiety.
I gently came beside:
– I’m leaving already, Uncle Bao still needs a ride home in the afternoon; gosh, if I don’t hurry, I’ll die.
Calmed down, her face relaxed and turned pink again:
– Thanks; who would have thought…
I sat down next to her, without any hesitation, one arm around her shoulder, the other hand slipped under the thin blanket, making her surprised and unable to react, only mumbled a little; I took the opportunity to push the blanket away and bury my face in her breast, a single mother.