Mei worked at a cheap Chinese buffet in my neighborhood. I'd been washing dishes there since the previous owners had owned the place.
The restaurant was a real dive. Despite my employee "perk" of eating lunch there for free everyday, I never touched the food. I worked in the kitchens and I knew perfectly well how unsanitary the conditions were.
Mei was the only thing right about the restaurant. From the first day I laid eyes on her, I hadn't been able to get her out of my head. I wasn't sure how old she was, but she didn't look much younger than myself. She was about a head shorter than me and pretty in an unassuming sort of way. She wore her jet black hair short and she had the biggest darkest eyes. Those eyes just lit up whenever she laughed or smiled.
Her family didn't own the restaurant though. She just worked for the scumbag who did. I'd heard rumors that he had criminal connections and he had financed Mei's family's immigration to the United States. Now they were working off their bao in different ways. I wondered if they were making the same slave wages as me, or worse.
I wanted to talk to Mei. To get to know her better, but it was hard. Whenever I spent more than a minute or two talking to her, one or more of the cocky little Chinese punks that also worked in the kitchen would break it up and start yammering away at Mei in Chinese. I knew it was something bad because she always dropped her eyes and went right back to work.
I thought I'd probably never get to know her better and it certainly looked that way. But one day I saw her standing beside the bus bench just outside the shopping center parking lot where the buffet was located. It was pouring rain and I was in my car heading home.
"Mei??" I pulled up beside her. "Are you taking the bus??"
She looked at me and nodded. She was drenched. So much so I could see her dark brown nipples through the wet white t-shirt she had one.
"Your brothers aren't around??"
"Those guys aren't my brothers," she said. "They're the bosses nephews."
"Oh. You want a ride somewhere??" I asked.
She looked back toward the buffet and I could clearly see her thinking about it. Finally she ran to my car and opened the door and got inside. We drove off.
"Poor kid, you're soaked." I looked around for something she could dry herself with, but my car was a mess. All I had on the backseat was an old shirt I'd used for a rag when working on the engine a few days earlier. I frowned.
"Sorry, I don't have a towel or anything."
"That's all right." She smiled weakly.
"You're worried you'll get in trouble for riding with me, aren't you??" I could tell.
"A little." She admitted. "Not just from those guys. But my own family wouldn't like me riding with a white guy."
"I can drop you off before we get to your house."
"Thank you." She told me.
We drove in silence for a moment. The radio was on but cut down low. Ronnie Van Zant was singing about going to find a woman and finding love. That was a sentiment I could get behind I thought, looking at Mei sitting beside me.
"I wish we could talk more," I said. "I really want to get to know you better."
"I wish that too." She admitted. "Those guys tell me they'll have their uncle send my family back to China if I keep talking to you. And they said they'll take your job."
I barked a short derisive laugh. "They can have that job. I waste more gas driving back and forth to work than I make in salary." That was an exaggeration, but not by much.
"Why do you work there then??" She asked.
"I dropped out of high school when I was sixteen," I told her. "I don't have a diploma, a GED or anything. That's the only job I can get at the moment. I'm waiting for a construction job to open up though. I've had my eyes on it for a while."
We shot the shit for a while. Finally she directed me to a real low rent, sleazy neighborhood full of apartments and gang graffiti sprayed everywhere. She wanted to be let out beside a row of mailboxes, most of which had been broken into. I watched her walk down the sidewalk, admiring the way her rear end looked in the Army surplus camo pants she wore.
A few days later she jumped in at the bus stop again.
"Hey pretty lady." I smiled at her.
She blushed and looked away, smiling shyly.
"I noticed ugly and uglier haven't been at work the last few days." I said.
"The bosses nephews??" She asked. I nodded. "Oh. The cook told me they got in trouble with the police. The boss sent them away until things cool down."
"So you can talk to me and ride with me for a while??"
"Talk, no." she said. "The other people at work would tell on us. But ride yes. If you don't mind."
"I don't mind at all." I told her. "I hope those two stay gone forever."
She giggled.
"You're beautiful when you do that." I told her and caressed the side of her face with my hand. She blushed.
"Do you have a boyfriend??"
She shook her head no. "Once. Back in China. No longer."
"What if I told you I wanted to be your boyfriend??" I asked.
Her blush deepend slightly, but her smile grew. "I'd say you were crazy. I'm nothing special. Just a poor Chinese girl."
"Your special to me," I told her. "And I'm just a poor white boy."
"I wish it could be." She sighed. "My family would never allow it."
"Would they allow it if I paid off your bao??"
She stared at me. "What do you know about that??"
I told her the little bit I'd heard. Mostly work place gossip.
"You don't have so much money," she told me. She named a figure on how much her family owed. I whistled.
"See??" She smiled sadly.
"You leave it to me honey," I said. "I'll figure something out."
I took pulled over beside the busted mail boxes and took her hand, squeezing softly. "See you tomorrow??"
She nodded and surprised me by leaning over and kissing my cheek, then hurrying out of the car and jogging away down the sidewalk.
What Mei didn't know was that I had a wealthy father. He had never been married to my mother and I was just one of who knew how many kids he had by various women, but he had sent me cards every year on my birthday and Christmas like clockwork and I had his phone number if anything should come up. The problem was, I hardly knew the man. Would he care enough about one random kid to do me the favor I was going to ask, or would he laugh in my face?? I had no idea.
"Dad??" I phoned him that night. "Yeah, its me. How're you doing?? That's good. Me?? I'm doing the best I can. Working everyday. What?? Yeah, that's the truth...." we talked a while before I found the nerve to ask him. "You see there's this girl. She means the world to me dad. But she and her family owe this guy for bringing them over here. He's making them work like slaves at his various businesses to repay him and at the rate he pays, we'll they'll never be free of him. What?? Her name is Mei. Yeah, she loves me too (I hope, I thought but didn't say). How much??" I cringed and named the figure. There was a long silence on the other end, then a sigh. "What?? You mean it?? Oh wow, dad... thanks. Mei's gonna be so happy. Of course you can meet her sometime." I was so happy I jabbered on for a good half an hour. I hadn't spoke to the man in nearly two years and he'd agreed to help me just like that.
Mei couldn't believe it when I told her the next day that I could pay her family's entire bao off. She stared at me wide eyed. "Don't tell me that if it isn't true. That would be cruel."
"I'm being honest," I told her. "My father is a wealthy man. He agreed to give me the money for your bao."
It took a little to convince her, but in the end she wept with joy, hugging me. Man, did that feel good. She told me she would work it out with her parents and that they would want to meet me. She gave me a laundry list of things to do and not to do, how to dress, etc.
About a week later I came to her home, a crummy little apartment that in all honesty should have been condemned by the city. I met her paternal grandparents, her parents, one of her aunts, and her eight younger siblings. I wasn't sure how the visit went since nearly all of the talking was in Chinese. It wasn't until Mei told me her grandmother finally convinced her father I was ok, and that her family agreed we could date if I paid their bao that I knew it had been a success.
Arrangements were made. The Bao was paid. Both Mei and I stopped working at the buffet. My dad offered to help me get a better job, but I already felt overly indebted to him. I said thanks but no thanks. I was confident of getting a construction job. And I did.
Mei and I started dating. At first several members of her family always wanted to go along with us. To the movies, to the mall, everywhere. And I was forking over buckets of cash I barely had just to keep up with buying them little presents. I told her it had to stop. It did.
The more Mei hung around me, the more independent she grew. I liked the change in her. Especially since the lack of chaperones meant we could finally have some time alone.
We began having incredible sex at my place. I'm talking headboard thumping the wall, bed springs squeaking, moaning, screaming, dogs barking outside sex. Mei was a little freak in the sack. She was game for trying anything and wanted to be tied up, choked, spanked, ridden hard, dirty and rough. I lost track of the times she'd have me lying exhausted on the bed only to crawl over to me and tell me she wanted more. I wondered if she was trying to kill me, but hell it didn't matter, what a way to go.
I eventually married her and we've got the two cutest little girls on the planet. I'm still working construction (Mei made me get my GED last summer) and Mei's a stay at home mom. We're still not rich, but we're happier than a lot of people who are. My dad passed away last November and it looks like his other kids are gonna get most of his estate, but he already gave me the greatest gift ever. When we have a son he'll be named for his paternal grandpa, not me. That's who he owes his existence to as much as me.