Midday came and she waited there by the beach. Hearing a clearing of the throat, she turned to find him standing behind her with a charming little smile. His hair had been piled up into a messy bun, a dark red stick of sorts holding it all together. He wore a dark navy dress, black pants peeking from underneath. The collars of the sleeves were a crisp white and it outlined his long body well. His eyes teased her as she drifted them down. 

    “Is something wrong?” He asked, voice deeply humored. She snapped her eyes back to his, the telltale sign of a blush warming her cheeks. Chuckling he came closer lifting her chin. 

    “You are so shy sometimes. Why? Do I make you nervous?” Sucking her teeth at him slightly, she reached up and tossed his hand away from her, lips pursed. 

    “No.” But he just smiled and watched as she drew closer to the waves. 

    “I thought escaping here would be a better life for me. But it has only resulted in absolute hell.” 

    “I feel the same way.”

     “How so?” His eyes no longer rested on her, instead they fell onto the slowly crashing waves ahead of them. 

    “I was promised a lot of things when I made the trip here. Land. Good pay. A wife.” At that she was quiet, eyes following him as he started to walk towards the water shore. 

    “None of those things I received.” Swallowing, she came to sit next to him, pulling her knees up against her chest. 

    “Instead, the men of this land have spit in my face, called me names that do not belong to me and have taken advantage of our need for a better life.” Slowly, she leaned to the side, allowing her head to rest on his shoulder. 

    “You work so hard…just to be rewarded with hatred and discrimination.” Still, she was quiet and he let out a frustrated breath. 

    “Eminta…” 

    “Hm?” 

    “What is a yellow monkey?” Biting her lip, she could not answer. Reaching, she took a finger or two of his hand resting there on his leg. 

    “The same as a black one.” She said quietly, giving his hand a squeeze. 

    “The same?” He genuinely sounded confused and it broke her heart. 

    “The white man calls my people monkeys too. They liken us to be savage beasts.” He turned to look down at her, a solemn expression on his face. 

    “What’s even worse…they think the women are wild sex crazed animals. They say it is in  my nature.” He didn’t say anything, instead lifting his arm to pull her closer. 

    “We are the same.” Looking up at him, she couldn’t help herself. Lifting fingers, she breezed them by a smooth pale cheek. 

    “You are just a different color monkey than I.” Reaching up, he took hold of her hand and brought it down to rest in his lap, their fingers intertwining. The waves crashed against the shore for a while before she spoke again. 

    “Jie?” 

    “Yes?”

    “Have you ever been married?” Smiling, his beautifully shaped eyes looked down at her. 

    “No.” No? She found that hard to believe. He was far too gorgeous to have never belonged to a woman. Eyes took in his playful gaze, handsome broad nose and pouty smiling lips. Perhaps he liked men. With a countenance as his, she could see men fighting to get at him. 

    “How come?” He sighed and leaned his head back, exposing a long slender neck. 

    “I never found a woman worthy marrying.” He answered simply, eyes closed. 

    “You never-”

    “Of course.” He interrupted opening his eyes now. They were now intense as they looked down at her. 

    “I’m well versed in the art of pleasure.” She felt a thread of desire hit her, taking in those tempting lips tongue licked and now smirking at her. 

    “Pleasure is an art?” She asked, removing her hands from him. Lifting up, she wrapped them around the underside of her knees. 

    “Very much so.” He answered, outstretching his arms back to lean in a sit.  

    “Your world is so very different than mine.” 

    “Why do you say that?” His voice had dropped an octave, making her feel butterflies. 

    “In your world…sex is something to study. Something to take serious.” Humored, he listened to her theory. 

    “But in my world it’s nothing more than fucking. Nothing but mindless humping.” 

    “Humans make it so wherever they go. But few have ever known the art of it.”

    “How does one know the art of it?” He closed his eyes once more. 

    “You must feel genuine affection for your partner. You must desire their pleasure before your own. You must be willing to be vulnerable and allow your energy to mingle with theirs.” Glancing down at her, he gave a small smile. 

    “When you do that…when you want to do that…the experience is beautiful. It satisfies and fulfills.”

    “I see.”

    “It doesn’t matter how you hunger for them. With that person it’s acceptable. Because only they can take the hunger and thirst away.” Giving a small nod, she swallowed thickly. 

    “I will never experience that in my lifetime.” Sighing, she smiled as a gentle wave or two lapped at her feet. 

    “Having my freedom will be more than enough.” Lifting to stand, she brushed off the sand from her dress and outstretched her arms as if she were to take flight. Getting up, he surprised her with a hug, wrapping arms around her shoulders. Relaxing against him, she lifted hands to take hold of his forearms, smiling at the press of his chin against the top of her head. 

*** 

    “The days blurred together and I ached more and more to see her. In my heart, I had reached a conclusion that was most frightening. Somehow, some way I had fallen in love with the tiny mortal woman. Her smile, her laughter, her desire for life inspired me. Where my existence longed for death, Eminta brought sun and rain crashing into me. I began to desire a life with her. A foolish desire at that. But I did not care. I wanted her to be mine. Completely and irrevocably.” Hands clenched themselves tighter. 

    “Did she come to know of your secret Professor?” Eyes had turned from her and they stared out into the now black night. Seeing and yet not seeing at all. 

    “I revealed it to her a few weeks later.”

    “How did she respond? Was she scared?” 

    “She was.”

    “But?”

    “So was I. We were both frightened beings trying to push past our fear. In all my years, she had been the second human I’ve ever revealed myself to. But she was the first to accept it.” 

*** 

    “Why you always out here?” Lips smiled and eyes teased her as they took her in their sight. 

    “Why?”

    “Yeah.”

    “I guess you can say…I’m drawn to the waves.” He answered, lips forming a small smirk.

     They’d fallen into a routine. He’d paid attention to the times they met, mostly at midday or a little after late afternoon when she stepped out of the inn to run a few errands. She’d convinced the man she called Grace to start letting her out little by little. Always bringing another woman with her as proof to her not taking off. Somehow that woman always seemed to know and would leave them alone just to meet up so they could walk together back to the inn.

    “That right?”

    “Mmhm.”

    “I see.” She’d lifted her dress and let the cold water lap at her hot toes, soon wiggling them around in the wet sand. 

    “How is one ‘drawn’ to the waves Jie?” At that, he laughed softly and the sound of it warmed her belly. Donghai had warned him. Warned him to be careful. Of what was forming between them.

    “I’m afraid if I tell you that…” Coming behind her, he lifted his hands to cover her eyes. 

    “I’d have to kill you.” He whispered into her ear, smiling against it at her inhale of breath. What good did warning do when he didn’t want it? Perhaps the earth under which they stood had sucked out his sense and in return left a reckless man in the wake. In the land they called the Wild West…he had become most greedy. He wanted what he wanted. And that was her. 

    “I’m as good as dead anyways so it don’t make much a difference.” She said softly, lifting those small fingers to wrap around his wrists. 

    “You wish for death again.” It wasn’t a question. An observation. A fact.

    “You know I want my freedom. If death is all that’s gonna give it to me then…I have no choice.” He pulled his hands away from the woman and slowly walked around to face her. 

    “You’re a morbid one aren’t you?” 

    “Yeah and you ain’t? I seen the way they strung up that Chinaman friend of yours the other day. Hung him just like a nigger they did. What’d he do?” At that, his gaze dropped and for a long while he stared out at the gentle waves, the whole of the sea blue-green. Endless. Donghai. It hadn’t been long since his returning. And yet they all had a price to pay for breaking the sea of the law. His came in the form of being hung from one of the posts near the General Store. While his death did not initially come that way, he knew that the water ultimately claimed him. 

    “Perhaps I don’t wish for death Bòhé. Perhaps I wish for freedom too.” 

    “From what? You ever been in chains Jie?” His gaze had grown dark almost black with intensity, the shiny inky depths chilling her. 

    “Indeed. They suffocate me more and more each day.” At that, she hummed, coming to wrap her arms around herself. 

    “Bòhé.”

    “What?”    

    “Today, I will show you what I mean.” She stood quiet as he began to undress, feeling her cheeks grow warm at the sight of his firm pectorals, biceps, and abdomen all covered in that creamy alabaster skin. She’d never seen him without clothing…and as he bared his broad muscular back, long legs and the round toned cheeks of his buttocks she could honestly admit that she was taken aback. He reached up and untied his hair, allowing the thick dark strands to tumble down his back. Without another word he entered the water and soon dove beneath its depths. She held her breath, clutching her dress nervously when she didn’t see him surface. A dark head popped up and eyes now focused on her. 

    “Come.” He beckoned, outstretching his hand towards her. She didn’t move, apprehension making her stomach tight. 

    “Jie…I…I don’t know what you’re tryna do…”

    “I told you I would show you. Let me.” Biting her lips near to shreds, she slowly came toward the outstretched hand. 

    “Do I gotta strip down too?” At that, he laughed. 

    “Not if you don’t wish to.”

    “Hm.” Hastily, she unbuttoned her dress and gripped her shift. It would be easier without the added weight of the dress.

    “Come.” The water felt good on her ankles and she took a deep breath before walking further in. Taking his hand, she gripped tight as he pulled her closer. 

    “Good. Closer.” 

    “J-Jie…”

    “You are safe bòhé.” She couldn’t explain how it seemed they were drifting further and further away from shore and so quickly but at the moment, she was trying not to touch him anywhere that would be deemed inappropriate. 

    “Closer bòhé. Come closer.”

    “I am closer.”

    “No.” He lifted an arm and wrapped it around her waist, pulling her flush against him. She gasped, gripping him at the shoulders. 

    “It’s imperative that you stay close bòhé.”

    “W-Why?”

    “Can you feel anything beneath your feet?” He asked, soon lifting his other arm to encircle it around her waist. 

    “N-No…”

    “That’s why.” She let out a small whimper and pressed her face against his neck. 

    “Why we so far out? What’s this gonna prove? This makes no sense.” 

    “It will little one.” Lifting a hand, he pressed it against her pinned braids, gently massaging her scalp with the pads of his fingers. 

    “You are safe with me. It’s all right. There’s no need to fear.” He reassured with a soft gentle voice, smiling as her arms slid around his neck. His fingers left her hair and breezed across the back of her neck, securing a gentle grip. At that, she lifted her head. 

    “Jie…” 

    “Here we both can have what we most desire.” She couldn’t reply because he’d taken the pad of his thumb and breezed it across her bottom lip. 

    “You can have freedom and I, having bondage that appears free, can have my chains removed.” 

    “H-how do you propose we obtain it?” Those enchanting black depths drifted upwards from her lips to her eyes and they had an unexplainable hold on her. Caressing her cheek, he drew nearer, carefully, lips seeking hers. When they met, she felt an explosion travel through her, setting her aflame from the roots of her hair to the soles of her feet. It wasn’t but a simple kiss but it left her insatiable, hungry for another. And another he granted her, another and another until her very skin seemed to melt from her bones and her mouth opened, panting for breath, welcoming his warm slick tongue afterward. 

    “Take a deep breath and hold tight to me ai di.” Letting air fill her lungs, the water covered them as he pulled her down deeper into the depths.