"Are you crazy! Money? You won't come and visit but you want money?"
"Po!" I wriggled on the floor, stomping my feet like a troublesome child who wasn't getting their way. "Do you want me to live on the streets? Huh! Won't you be embarrassed!"
"No, why would I be? Will I be the one living on the streets?"
"Po!"
"Oyi! Stop disturbing me, eh Kit! Shut it down, find another job or come home and help your mother and me run this restaurant. We are opening a third one," he stated. Even without seeing his face, I knew he was smiling.
I rolled over and laid on my stomach, swinging my legs in the air as I played with an ant crawling in front of me.
"I don't want to," I replied.
"How is that my problem! Eh? Don't call me again!"
"Po!"
"What!"
"Congratulations on the new restaurant. I'll call Mae too."
"Thank you. Make sure to come home soon. I want to see you."
"Ok."
"Have you eaten?"
"Yes."
"Ok, bye." He hung up and I giggled.
It was good to hear his voice. I had not spoken to either him or Mae in a while on purpose. When I started the company, they weren't the most supportive. It took me a while to get them on my side and it was beginning to feel like they were right. I put my phone down, looking at the screen, waiting for a credit alert to come. I knew Po all too well, he always said no first before saying yes.
"Arghh!" Nat screamed as he stepped into the house. "So hot! So hot!" he complained, putting down the groceries and rushing to turn on the air conditioner. "No power?" he screamed in frustration. "I'm going to have a heat stroke! I walked for hours at the market! Damn this country!"
"Stop whining, come here." I gestured him over, turning on the rechargeable fan sitting beside me on the floor, and he rushed to it, raising his shirt over the fan with a sigh of relief.
"My back hurts, Kit." He pointed to his shoulder. Pouting, he begged for a massage.
Nat could be such a baby sometimes, but I was the only one he let see him that way, pouty and whiny. I crawled over and began massaging his shoulder.
"To the left... ah there there there... then to the right... more to the right." He moaned with relief as I massaged him. "Kit harder! Put your back into it!" he urged on. I pressed harder. "Ah yes! Harder! There! Go lower!"
"Oyi!" I smacked his back. "Do it yourself!" I crawled back to my corner on the floor, sitting with my back to the wall and picked up my phone.
"You should be thanking me! It was your turn to go grocery shopping! Do you know how hot it is outside? How long I walked? Carrying all the bags!" He hissed. "So ungrateful!"
"I've heard. Well done." Giving him no further attention, I turned to my screen.
"You're going to force that phone to explode with the way you are staring at it."
"He is going to send it anytime soon."
"You asked Po for rent money again?"
"Yes."
"Will he give it to us? They already paid for three months. I almost ran into our landlady today. I saw her at the market. One of these days she'll show up here—"
"Yes!" I sighed loudly, relieved at the sight of the credit notification from Po.
"He sent it?"
I nodded, sliding to the ground and laying back down.
I knew Po would send it anyway, and even if he didn't, Mae would. But I had asked them for far too much those last few months, it filled me with guilt. They did their utmost best raising my siblings and I, the least I could do, as a functioning adult, was not to bug them with all my financial woes.
"Nat, there is no way she's actually going to pick based on the marriage thing, right?" I asked, spreading my legs.
He crawled away from the fan and laid beside me.
"I don't think so. That would be such a messed up reason to pick, we are in the twenty-first century, that would be crazy—right?"
"Are you asking me the same question I asked you?"
"I gave you an answer, now give me yours."
"I don't know. It's not hard to believe after the way she behaved that day." We remained silent for a few seconds and I wriggled once again. "Why is everything proving to be difficult! Eh? Did I kill someone in my previous life?"
Nat chuckled. "Stop that. At least we can say we did our best before moving back home. You'll manage your family's restaurants, finally. I'll take over my parents' farm. Maybe we should start looking for a job, just in case we want to remain in the city."
"Those are not the encouraging words you think they are." I stretched and got up to pick up the groceries when I heard a familiar sound come from Nat's phone. "Nat. What was that?"
"Nothing," he replied, frozen with an obvious poker face.
The sound came again and I pounced on him, fighting to reach his phone while he struggled to keep it away from me. When all my efforts to reach his phone failed, I resorted to tickling. Nat was very sensitive, everywhere! It was cute most times, a tool I used to easily get my way. I continued to tickle him as he laughed, pushing me away. He held out for as long as he could before surrendering, allowing me pull his phone from his back pocket.
"I knew it! Nat! You're using Grindr again! You slut!" I smacked him across the head.
"Stop hitting me! It hurts!" He held his head, groaning.
"We agreed! No more random hook-ups! You've been cheating on me!" I smacked him again.
He shoved me off him and sprung up.
"I didn't agree! You just made it a thing! I have no problem with hookups! It's you that keeps getting attached with the men you sleep with. I'm ok with it!"
"Weren't you the one that was going on and on about how men suck since they have the emotional capacity of teenagers?"
"Yes... But their dicks aren't teenage dicks. And I'm not the reason! It's because you start catching feelings for those douchebags!"
"Nat!"
"Oyi! Kit! If you are not going to blow my back out, then leave me alone! I never said I'm going to date them! I'm just trying to get laid while I'm still hot." He snatched his phone out of my hand.
"Who said I can't blow your back out? Come!"
"That is disgusting!"
He ran into the bedroom and I chased after him. From the room to the kitchen to the veranda, I chased till we had exhausted ourselves from running and laughing.
We dropped into the sitting room sofa, breathless, recovering from the thirty-minute long chase.
"I have only been with one guy, I promise," Kit said.
"It's fine, Kit. Date if you want, don't let me hold you back."
He sat up. "You're not. I really wanted to go on this journey with you, I didn't realize how much I missed it till Valentine's Day."
"I said It's fine, Kit."
"Don't you miss it?"
"The sex, yes, sometimes. The men, no. I hate that I can't have meaningless sex like you, I'll be better off if I could—you should have a good time and tell me all about it. Besides, it was getting boring around here."
"Are you sure?" He reached out and held my hand.
"Mmh." I nodded.
"Remember that guy from Valentine's Day? The funny one on Grindr?"
"Mmh."
"We're still talking." He laid back beside me.
"What's his name?"
"HotCockForHungryBottom6969," Nat replied with a straight face and a wave of deep, overwhelming laughter hit me. "Stop!"
"Definitely befitting I guess." I laughed some more.
"Kit."
"Fine fine. What? You guys hooked up?"
"That's just the thing, he's not eager to get there. You know me, if I like a guy, I want to jump his bones ASAP. But not him. It's so chill. I mean... I want to, but more importantly, I don't want to ruin whatever this is."
"Finding Prince Charming on Grindr? That'll be the day." I scoffed, rising from the sofa. "Let's make dinner, I'm starving."
***
While Nat slept, I stayed up all night, working on my designs and sketching out the model. I was focused, but often my mind would wander off. Knowing Nat and I were celibate together made it easy for me to swear off men. Finding out I was the only one made me feel a tad bit lonely.
He wasn't wrong. I did have a record of falling for the men I slept with, demanding more from them emotionally, even though ultimately, I knew I was just a quick fuck. Yet, that wasn't the only reason I decided not to date and remain celibate.
I have an UNDERWEAR fetish.
Yes, I get turned on by underwear. You might be thinking, don't we all love sexy underwear? Well, not like I do. I could cum from just watching men take off their underwear. I love watching them wear it too. I love to sniff them. I love the smell; especially when it's been used after a long day, when there are cum stains and sweat marks. I could cum from just that. I love watching men masturbate in their underwear, or better still, wearing their underwear and masturbating in it.
It doesn't matter to me whether they are male or female underwear, as long as it's being worn by a man. I love briefs and panties and occasionally, I love it when men wear bras too. I love how they feel in my palm when I squeeze them or rub them on my skin. It's the most satisfying feeling. I also collect underwear, just to touch and admire. Sometimes, masturbate to.
As it turned out, the men I slept with or attempted to date in the past found my fetish riveting, most especially, my ex, Sud. Even as kinks and fetishes became more normalized in society with all those movies and books, the underwear fetish is still pretty much considered weird and disgusting by many.
We are looked down on as people who just want to steal and sniff underwear. Yes, a few of us do steal underwear, it's a compulsive act that comes with the fetish for some. Behavioral therapy is always recommended to correct it, but therapy is a luxury for many.
There are also those who get off from the thrill of being caught wearing them or stealing them. AKA people with humiliation kinks. But the assumption that we all want and act the same way just because we have a similar fetish, is ludicrous.
I was eleven years old when I first began to admire men in underwear. Mae loved those men's health magazines and so did I. She'd buy them once a week and when she was done with them, she'd discard them. At the end of the day, I would go pick them up, cut out the muscled men wearing underwear of all kinds to make my personalized collage. That's how I discovered my attraction to men. It didn't take long for me to start masturbating to them.
I repeated the same behavior at my all-boys middle school. All they did for eons was talk about girls and normally that would include a woman's magazine of some sort. When they were done, I would take them home and cut them out too. So, I figured I was bisexual, because why else would I find both types of magazines attractive. It was during my horrible attempt at cunnilingus that I realized, it wasn't the women I was attracted to, but rather their underwear.
I grew tired of all the shaming I got from the men I had been with. For a community that never shut up about sex, especially kinky sex, everyone I met was so prude.
Nat never knew about my fetish; I couldn't bring myself to tell him that was why I really wanted to be celibate. Removing sex from the equation made it easier for me to abstain from my fetish needs, indulging only once in a while with my private collection. That night, after learning Nat wasn't celibate too, I indulged.