The Saigon Interpreter Made Me Discover Who I Was

Margaux Delacroix stepped off the steamer with her linen blouse stuck to her back and her hat pressed to her chest. Saigon smelled of burnt spices, ripe fruit, and something else, something sweet and damp she couldn’t name. Twenty-five years old, only heir to an export house in Bordeaux, and the first time she set foot in a port her father had only ever told her about in letters.

For three months she had known that men did not interest her. She had found that out in the cabin of a Belgian singer during the crossing, a woman older than her who kissed her for one night and then disappeared in Suez. Since then she had looked at women with a new curiosity, as if she had just learned to read a language that had always been right in front of her.

And there, on the dock, there was plenty to read. The native women carrying fish baskets had tea-with-milk skin, narrow hips, small firm breasts barely covered by the thinnest cotton blouses. They walked barefoot, with that elegance that only comes from having carried a load on your head since you were six. Margaux watched them and her mouth went dry, and her cunt grew wet under her petticoats at the same time.

A rickshaw took her to the Continental Hotel along streets that were still cobbled, between mango and charcoal stalls. The boy pedaling it had a bare back and sweat gleaming over his muscles. Margaux paid him well and did not look twice. She recognized the beauty of that young body, but it was of no use to her. A man’s cock interested her as much as plumbing.

In her room, the maid prepared a bath with jasmine salts and withdrew, closing the door carefully. When she was alone, Margaux fumbled with her blouse buttons, let her skirt fall to the floor, and pulled off her stockings, tugging them down to her ankles. In the mirror she looked at herself naked for an instant: heavy breasts with pink nipples already hard, a flat stomach, the blond, thick triangle between her thighs. She slipped into the warm water and closed her eyes. The memory returned of the washerwomen on the river she had seen as she passed, bent at the waist, scrubbing clothes against the stones, their braided hair falling between their naked tits.

She took one hand to her neck, then to a nipple. She squeezed it slowly between thumb and forefinger, pinched harder until the pain turned into a direct pull between her legs. With her other hand she took hold of the other whole breast, lifted it, squeezed it against her palm. Her other hand slid over her belly, found the soaked blond hair, and forced its way between lips already swollen. She was so wet the bathwater wasn’t needed: her own flow slid between her fingers, thick, warm.

First one finger went in, then two. She curved them inside her cunt, searching for that spongy spot she had discovered on her own one night in Marseille, and found it. With her thumb she rubbed her swollen clit, quick circles, while the two fingers went in and out making a wet sound that bounced off the tiles. She thought of one of the washerwomen lifting her head to look at her, of her black eyes fixed on hers, of the dark little tongue peeking between her teeth. She imagined that tongue going into her cunt, licking her clit, and she came with a long, rough groan that escaped her throat before she could cover her mouth. Her legs jerked in the water, her nipples turned as hard as stones, and a second wave rose in her when she pulled her fingers out and brought them to her nose to smell them.

After that she stayed still, her head resting on the edge of the tub and her heart beating in places it shouldn’t, still with her fingers between her legs, lazily playing with the swollen lips of her own cunt.

It took her another half hour to dress. The new ivory silk dress fit her hips and left her back nearly bare to the start of her spine. She put no underwear on: the mere idea of silk rubbing against her freshly masturbated cunt seemed like a promise. She went down to the restaurant with her cheeks still burning and the feeling that everyone’s eyes in the room lingered on her a second too long.

***

Her appointment was with Mr. Trinh, a silk exporter of about seventy. She had been expecting one man. She found two.

—My granddaughter Lien is accompanying me as interpreter —the old man said in worn French—. My English no longer stretches to serious business and my French is going the same way.

Margaux held out her hand and almost forgot to breathe. Lien was about twenty-two, no more. She wore a black silk cheongsam embroidered with silver dragons, fitted like a second skin, open to mid-hip. When she leaned in to greet her, the dragons slid over her chest and back as if they were alive. She had long, slightly slanted eyes, very short hair cut at the nape of her neck, and a small mouth that always seemed on the verge of laughing at something private.

—Delighted, Miss Delacroix —she said in perfect French, without an accent.

It took Margaux an extra second to let go of her hand.

Dinner was long. They talked about tariffs, shipping routes, the prices of Egyptian cotton, and English competition in the delta. Lien translated precisely, but every time she said “my grandfather thinks that…” she leaned a little toward Margaux, and the cheongsam’s neckline opened just enough for Margaux to see the upper edge of a small dark nipple and lose the thread of the tariffs again. She imagined sucking it, biting it, tugging on it with her teeth until Lien screamed.

Under the table, Lien’s right thigh was exposed by the cut of her skirt. The yellow lamp light settled there, right where the skin grew paler. Margaux pressed her foot to the floor so she wouldn’t do something stupid. The naked cunt under the ivory silk soaked itself with each breath of the Vietnamese woman, and she could feel the wetness running down the inside of her thigh.

When coffee was served, Mr. Trinh excused himself with an old-fashioned gesture.

—At my age, eleven at night is two in the morning. Lien will take care of you tomorrow. She knows the warehouses better than I do and bargained with less patience, so close quickly.

They watched him walk away with his cane toward the elevator. On the table remained two rice liquor glasses and a silence with weight to it.

—Would you like another drink in the bar? —Lien asked.

—Yes —Margaux said, too quickly.

In the bar the orchestra played a waltz no one danced to. Lien brushed the back of her hand with one finger as she handed her the glass. It was not an accident. Margaux stared at the place where she had touched her, as if expecting a mark.

—The hotel garden is very beautiful at night —Lien said without looking at her, stirring the ice in her glass—. Would you like me to show it to you?

***

The garden was a labyrinth of magnolias, hibiscus, and climbing orchids. The lanterns hung low and the moon was high above the red-tiled roofs. They walked to the back, where an old banyan spread its roots like fingers over the damp earth. Lien pressed her against the trunk with firm softness, like someone placing a book on its shelf.

—You’ve been looking at me since I sat down —she said quietly.

—I know —Margaux answered.

She kissed her first. It was a slow kiss, barely a pressure, and then Lien’s tongue pushed its way in and all of Margaux’s body answered at once. She ran her hands over her waist, over her hips, and slipped her right hand under the edge of the cheongsam through the skirt slit. The skin of her thigh was warm, smooth, lightly perfumed. She wore nothing underneath.

—Here? —Margaux whispered.

—Here —Lien said, and caught her wrist and shoved her hand higher, until it was right on her cunt.

Her fingers found the black, curly hair, and beneath it, the wet, slippery lips. She was soaked. The Vietnamese woman had been leaking inside herself all through dinner. Margaux had no experience with other people’s bodies, but she had learned a great deal from her own. She stroked with two fingers together, unhurried, drawing small circles around the clit, listening to Lien’s breathing turn ragged against her ear.

—Put them in —Lien panted. —Both of them. Fuck me with your hand.

The filthy French in that perfect mouth sent a jolt straight through Margaux’s groin. She pushed two fingers in to the knuckle. Lien’s cunt swallowed them as if it had been asking for them all night, tight, burning, dripping over her open palm. Margaux started moving them, first slowly, then with a steady rhythm, in and out, while with her thumb she kept rubbing the clit in tight circles.

—Like that —Lien whispered against her neck—. Harder. Put them in harder, French whore.

Margaux had never heard anyone speak to her like that. She loved it. She drove her fingers deeper, curving them, searching for that place she knew how to find in herself. Lien threw her head back against the trunk, grabbed Margaux’s shoulder with both hands, and began to ride her hand, moving her hips. The cheongsam silk had ridden up to her waist. Her small tits shook in the neckline.

—Suck my tit —she ordered.

Margaux pulled the silk away from her breast with her free hand, bent down, and caught the dark nipple in her mouth. She sucked it, nibbled it, tugged on it with her lips while still fucking her with her fingers. She tasted of jasmine and sweat. Lien moaned louder, writhed, and suddenly Margaux felt the cunt tighten around her fingers with a force that almost hurt.

Somewhere in the garden someone else was panting too. They were not the only ones. But they were hidden behind the trunk and the tropical night was everyone’s accomplice. Margaux stopped hearing what was happening around them and focused only on the growing wetness beneath her fingers and on the way Lien clung to her neck.

Lien came with a long shudder that rose from her knees. She bit Margaux’s earlobe to keep from crying out, and felt a warm jet bathing her wrist. The Vietnamese woman came hard, all over her hand, against the banyan trunk. Margaux pulled her soaked fingers out and, without thinking, brought them to her mouth. The taste was salty, slightly sour, denser than she had imagined. She sucked each finger slowly, one by one, looking Lien in the eyes.

Lien pulled back slightly, took her face in both hands, and looked at her straight on.

—Now me. But not here. In your room.

Margaux fastened the two cheongsam buttons that had come undone and followed her through the garden holding her hand like a schoolgirl returning from recess. She could feel her own cunt soaked, throbbing beneath the silk dress, running down the insides of her thighs with every step.

***

The Continental suite had a four-meter ceiling, a lazy-bladed fan, and a canopied bed with white muslin curtains. Lien locked the door, kicked off her shoes without looking, and let the cheongsam fall in one movement of her shoulders. She stood naked in the middle of the room, her small feet on the Persian rug, looking at Margaux with a patience that was frightening and hungry at once. The black hair of her pussy still glistened with the garden’s wetness.

—Your turn —she said.

Margaux came closer like someone approaching something that might break. She started with the right nipple, brushed it with one finger, watched it harden under the fingertip. She bent down and took it into her mouth, sucked it fully, nipped it gently, then less gently. Lien let out a sigh and said something in Vietnamese that Margaux didn’t understand but felt at the base of her belly. She moved to the other breast, did the same. She licked the hollow between her collarbones, bit her neck, followed the line of her spine with her tongue down to the curve of her ass.

She undressed her too, slowly, Lien’s fingers undoing one button at a time, as if she were in no hurry for the ceremony to end. When the ivory dress fell to the floor, they were equal: nothing but skin and breath. Lien saw her soaked blond cunt and laughed under her breath.

—You’re dripping, Frenchy.

—I’ve been like this since I saw you.

Margaux guided her to the bed and laid her back carefully over the feathers. She wanted to touch everything, taste everything, not miss a single inch of that body that had been drawing itself under silk all night. She started with the arms. She lifted one and ran her tongue through the hairless, perfumed armpit with an oil that smelled of sandalwood. Lien shivered and laughed a little, as if it tickled and pleased her at the same time.

She worked down over the ribs, sucked each nipple until they were hard and shiny with saliva, continued to the navel, bit the tense skin of the belly. She opened her legs with both hands and rested them on her shoulders. Lien’s cunt opened before her face, pink inside, glossy, swollen, with the clit peeking out between the dark lips like a small pearl.

The first lick was long, bottom to top, flat, gathering all the taste with her tongue. Lien moaned and grabbed her hair with both hands. Margaux buried her tongue between the lips, went inside as far as she could, licked the inner walls of Lien’s cunt as if she were drinking from a spring. The taste filled her mouth, her nose, her throat. She was going mad.

She moved up to the clit, circled it with her tongue, stroked it with the tip, sucked it between her lips. Lien pushed her hips toward Margaux’s mouth without saying anything, only ever-longer pants. Margaux slid two fingers inside her while still sucking her, curving them upward, searching for the spot. She found it. Lien screamed into the pillow.

It was not one orgasm, it was three, chained together, each deeper than the last. The first shook her belly and clenched her cunt around Margaux’s fingers. The second made her lift her hips off the bed and grip the canopy bars. The third was longer, slower, a continuous tremor that lasted almost a minute, with Margaux’s mouth glued to her clit, sucking nonstop. Margaux drank every drop as if she had the thirst of an entire crossing. Lien’s flow ran down her chin, her neck, and onto her tits.

When she lifted her head, Lien was smiling with her eyes closed and her hair tousled against the pillow, the skin of her chest reddened, her nipples still hard.

—Now you —she said, and flipped her over on the bed with a strength Margaux hadn’t expected from her.

She put her on her back, spread her legs in one push, and settled herself between them. Lien’s mouth knew what it was doing. Margaux understood within thirty seconds that this was not her first woman, nor her tenth, and that, far from bothering her, gave her a strange calm. Lien began by kissing the inside of her thighs, slowly working upward, nibbling, leaving marks. Then she blew on Margaux’s soaked cunt, and Margaux writhed.

—Please —she whispered.

—Please what —Lien said.

—Lick me.

—Say it properly.

—Lick my cunt. Lick it all. Please.

Lien smiled and ate her out. She pried her blond lips open with her fingers and buried her tongue between them, long, precise, insistent. She licked the clit with the tip, then with her whole flat tongue. She put her whole tongue inside, pulled it out, put it back in. Margaux clutched the sheets with both hands and arched her back.

Lien slid two fingers in slowly, almost deliberately slowly, and with her tongue searched for the exact spot on the clit. The fingers began to go in and out, picking up rhythm, curving inside. Margaux could feel her cunt stretching, getting wetter, tightening. Lien added a third finger. Margaux bit the back of her hand so as not to wake the whole hotel.

I didn’t know it could feel like this, she thought. I’ve spent twenty-five years missing this.

Lien’s tongue never stopped. The three fingers fucked her at a steady pace, driving in to the root, splashing inside the soaked cunt. The wet sound was obscene and beautiful at once. Margaux came the first time with a stifled cry, belly contracted, tits rising and falling, thighs tight around Lien’s face. The Vietnamese woman did not move away: she kept sucking the swollen clit and kept working her fingers, not giving her a break.

—Again —Lien said against her cunt.

And Margaux came again almost at once, body arched and fingers tangled in the cotton sheets, feeling one of her own spurts running down her ass to the bed. Lien licked that too.

Then she climbed up her body kissing her, leaving traces of Margaux’s own taste over her belly, between her tits, on her neck, and offered her mouth with Margaux’s flavor still inside. They kissed like that for a long while, without speaking, mixing saliva and juices, two soaked cunts rubbing against one another between the rumpled sheets.

They still settled facing each other, each with one thigh between the other’s legs, and rubbed their cunts against the firm skin of the other’s thigh until they came once more, almost at the same time, mouths pressed together and nipples brushing. Margaux felt Lien’s warm flow soak her thigh just as she laid hers over the Vietnamese woman’s leg.

After that Lien lay on her side, propped on one elbow, tracing Margaux’s breasts with the tip of one finger, drawing slow circles around each nipple, still hard and swollen.

—Tomorrow we have to see the warehouses —she said with half a smile.

—Tomorrow is a long way off —Margaux replied, and drew her back toward her.

They fell asleep entwined sometime in the early hours, with the balcony doors open and the thick smell of sex in the room. The hot breeze moved the muslin of the canopy and brought the distant sound of the garden birds.

***

Margaux woke at dawn with Lien’s hand on her belly. Tropical light came in like a thick blessing, orange, and painted stripes over her back. She stayed very still so as not to break the moment.

—How many days are you staying? —Lien asked without opening her eyes.

—Three weeks.

Lien smiled against her shoulder and brought her hand down to her still-sensitive cunt, idly playing with the blond hair.

—My grandfather has warehouses in Hué and Phnom Penh. Last night I told him I should accompany you to see them all. He said yes right away. I think he noticed something.

—And he doesn’t mind?

—My grandfather lost his wife thirty years ago and never married again —Lien said—. The things that matter, he learned long ago not to judge.

Margaux ran her hand down her back to the curve of her hip. She thought of the contract she had to sign, of her father waiting for a telegram in Bordeaux, of the return trip now looming before her like a threat. Then she thought of the Belgian singer, of Suez, of how little she had understood then of what this was.

—Three weeks —she repeated, as if for the first time it were many.

Lien kissed her shoulder and got up to throw the curtains wide open. Saigon was already awake: hawkers, bells, wheels over stone. Margaux watched her naked against the light, small and whole, with the mark of her own teeth still visible on one breast, and knew that this journey would be the first of many.