Mai-Ling & Su-Lee
© 2004 by (the) Night Hawk
(With help from, and thanks to, Russell Hoisington for his technical help and expertise!)

Mai-Ling & Su-Lee
(For Denny Wheeler)

Knowing the time of your impending demise does nothing to reduce the pain.  It does give you time to get your house in order though, and that’s what the doctor told me to do last month.
Dividing my less than worldly assets was an easy job.  I had more than enough displaced relatives willing to take everything of any value, but none wanted to take on the responsibility of the girls.
Mai-Ling and Su-Lee were not my natural children.  I had adopted them as orphans when they were barely old enough to talk.  I had found them after American troops drove back the invading Iraqis from Kuwait in Gulf War 1.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

I had been a Captain with the Army Nurse Corps (Reserves) at the time.  As a full time Nurse Practitioner, specializing in trauma care in civilian life, I was an ideal candidate to set up a civilian trauma unit close to the Iraqi border.  I was one of the last to get called in, but because of my age, my experience, and with 11 years as a reservist, when the dust had cleared from Kuwait, I was there.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

I had been at work in the ER when the news broke into every local TV broadcast.  Our forces began striking Baghdad on January 17, 1991.  For five days we watched the fireworks light up the night skies, and then on February 23, our tanks, supported by Apaches and A10 Warthogs, pushed the ground attack.  I got the call that night. 
Canada was sending over doctors and nurses to fill US hospital personnel shortages.  I was assigned a detachment of American and Canadian nurses, orderlies, and support troops, given a location, and told to set up the clinic for the civilians caught in the crossfire.
I arrived in Kuwait on the 24th, and after a three-hour drive over non-existent roads, crawling along at a speed barely faster than walking, I found myself at what had been some sort of central village.  Some block mortar buildings with glass still intact and large storage buildings.  It was here we set up our base of operations.  The main building became the primary care center.  
The clinic consisted of twenty medical personnel, some administrative support troops, and a dozen security personnel.  The officers set up quarters in the converted storage building.  We had eight female nurses, barely out of their twenties, two young male doctors, barely out of medical school, and myself, "the old man."  The nurses shared a common room, the doctors another, while as the detachment commander I had my own area.
The soldiers were quick to clean up the other buildings and establish the clinic and support areas.  We were ready to accept patients in less than four hours.
For two days we sat around doing absolutely nothing.  The fighting was north of us.  The Iraqis had cleared this village during the first assault into Kuwait, and it was one of the first ones reclaimed by the coalition.
We had a few stragglers the third day, but mostly all they wanted was food and water.  They were heading back to their own homes.  That evening it became official.  The fighting was over and a cease-fire had been called.  “Desert Storm” had ended.
The next morning, with nothing better to do, I strolled around the village peeking into the hovels that the locals had lived in.  One of the orderlies had discovered the name of the town.  El Qasim.
Whatever el Qasim had been before “Desert Storm,” it was nothing but skeletal remains now.  Everything of value had been scavenged.  I was just leaving my third rock and stone shelter when I thought I heard feeble cries.  I investigated a dark corner and found two babies.  Both female, dark haired, blue eyed little beauties.  They looked so sad, so pathetic.  Ethnic cleansing might have missed them, but I knew that if I left them, they would be dead by nightfall.  God only knew how many days they had been lying there in their own filth!  I quickly wrapped them in the jute bag they were covered with and raced back to my quarters.
Maybe it was just premonition.  I could have, should have taken them directly to the clinic, but some primal, instinctual urge demanded I be the one to take care of them. 
One of the cooks had just finished making a batch of cream of mushroom soup.  It wasn't perfect, but we had no real milk on hand and at least I knew the mix was pure, based on powdered milk, and made with fresh water.
They weren't old enough to understand fear, but I saw it in their eyes anyways.  I had to wait for the soup to cool down before I could feed them, but they could smell food and their cries intensified.  Their hunger overcame their fear and they allowed me to feed them.  My spoon was too big, so in frustration, I tore open a sterile pad and dipped the cotton bandage into the soup and let them suckle it.  It took a long time for the girls to fill their bellies, and I was worried that one of the nurses would discover us.  I wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.  Nothing had prepared me for this tragedy of war.
Their hunger sated, they started to drift off to sleep.  I waited till they were well and relaxed in my arms before I laid them on my cot, making sure to roll up extra blankets so they couldn't fall off.  I wasn't sure how old they were, and I didn't want to take a chance of them rolling over.
Even though my bunk was sectioned off, I knew that the crying of the babies would arouse suspicion sooner or later, and cry they would.  I took the head nurse, one of the Canadians, into my confidence.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

Lisa adored the girls.  A Captain and 10-year veteran in the Canadian Forces and a RNP, she couldn't place an age on them either.  They were so malnourished and helpless.  While Lisa and I hadn't really had a chance to get properly acquainted, war zones encourage quick friendship.  She took care of their immediate needs, every bit as protective as I was, though by the time the night was over, the only ones who didn't know of my discovery were the Kuwaitis.
The doctors checked the girls out and with somber faces advised me that it would be a miracle if they survived.  They would require a lot of attention and care.  Lisa offered to help me provide that.
Lisa was an attractive woman, a fact I noticed when we bathed the babies.  She offered to help hide them from the civilian authorities until such time that we could turn the girls over to the Red Cross or the UN workers.  The last thing we wanted was for the girls to fall into local authority hands.  Local militia actually, hired hoodlums with less regard for females than for animals.  
To this day, I have no idea where Lisa secured a crib, but she did, and the babies slept in it from that night on, though only if I was not in the room myself.  Then they wouldn’t settle down except next to me.  

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

The damn Red Cross wanted nothing to do with them.  Insisting that they were not in the business of harboring indigenous personnel, and suggesting I turn them over to the Kuwait authorities.  Like hell!  I had seen how the Kuwaitis treated the border people.
The UN overseer was no more helpful, damn near demanding that I turn them over.  These were innocent babies for fuck’s sake.  I wasn’t going to turn them over to nobody!
Lisa and I spent every off duty hour feeding and nursing the babies, and together we managed to get them to eat more solid food.  They did have teeth, something I discovered the hard way.  This gave us a better idea of their age, though they were so undernourished before I had found them that they were still weak.  Motor function had nearly ceased, something else that would not endear them to the local authorities.  Thankfully their eyes were bright and they followed our movements, and those blue eyes darted quickly from me to Lisa.  Of course my eyes were on Lisa quite a bit as well!
The action moved even further away from our sector, which meant I got to spend a lot of time with Lisa and the girls.
It was love at first sight with the girls and we showed them proudly.  The fear had left their eyes and soon they cried out whenever I left them.  The girls would not settle down for any of the younger nurses, so Lisa and I spent more and more time together. 
We didn’t have much in the way of entertainment.  Not that Lisa and I were complaining.  We had two little darlings who were growing stronger every day.  The young docs checked them almost daily, measuring and weighing them.  And almost daily I was told they would probably suffer from bad bones and posture and other physical impairments, but I had worked around doctors most of my life, and I knew where there was hope, there was a chance.  Either way, I was not going to give up on my girls! 
Lisa and I, as the senior officers, soon gave up any pretense of taking shifts with the girls.  We managed to jury rig a double bed and five days after the orders from the UN overseer to turn over the girls to the local militia, we were sleeping with the girls between us.  
One advantage to this set up was that I got to see Lisa undress every night.  Those Canadian nurses didn’t seem to have as many hang-ups about their bodies as their American cousins.  Lisa would often tease me as she watched my boxers rise up when she slipped her T-shirt off at night.  She tried to join me on ‘my’ side of the bed several nights, but the girls, as young as they were, proved to be extremely jealous.  They would rock and roll and crawl over the blanket till they were cuddled either by my crotch or next to it.  Lisa found it amusing.  We couldn’t even get them to settle down in the crib anymore if we were even in the room!
Damn!  Under any other circumstances, I would never have had a chance with a beauty like Lisa, but now, the reason for her affection, my devotion and vow to see the girls get raised in a free country, was also what was preventing me from joining ‘forces’ with my comrade in arms.
On a Monday night, long after the girls had been fed and drifted off to sleep, I got up as quietly as I could and took Lisa’s hand.  The single cot that had been mine was still in the room and we joined in it!  It was a tight fit, but after I slipped out of my boxers, we finally found enough room for the two of us to consummate our relationship.
Lisa was hot and tight, and my cock, forged out of surgical steel, sliced into the wet womb lying bare before me.  Her long blonde hair, that the girls liked to hold onto while we fed them, spread like a fan around her head as she threw it back in ecstasy.  I drove my cock into her slowly but with a tempered force.  I had not had sex since arriving in this sand box, and Lisa had the most beautiful curves and in all the right places.
Slowly I pounded her hot box, driving her over the edge twice before I couldn’t hold out any longer, and biting down on her neck to stifle my cry of pleasure I shot my seed into her womb.  We laid there covered in passion sweat, softly kissing and fondling each other till the cry of Mai-Ling forced us to part.  Su-Lee soon joined in the chorus and I had to hustle before Lisa and I were charged with a number of military violations from some sleep-deprived nurse in the main room.
Yes, you are wondering about their names.  From the beginning I knew better than to refer to them as “baby one” and “baby two.”  Lisa would never have accepted that and it made them seem interchangeable.  These two girls had very distinctive personalities.  Though I had found them abandoned in the Middle East, they looked much more Oriental in their features.  The gently sloping blue eyes, their delicate facial features, and their straight, shiny, ebony hair.  Their individual personalities earned them their names.  I named them after film actresses they reminded me of, and then culturally adapted the names of Mae West and Susan Sarandon.
Two days later, our unit was notified we were being sent home.  This brought to light a whole new set of problems.  How was I going to get permission to take the two youngsters home?
It was near the end of March.  We hadn’t been in el Qasim four weeks, and I was giving the orders to take down the tents and pack the equipment.  During our time, we had only had about a dozen people come through on that one day, and after providing them with the food and water they requested, they had moved on.  The Red Cross had spoken to us only via radio, and the UN overseer had driven through on his scenic tour.  The prick hadn’t even gotten out of his chauffeured SUV. 
Lisa came through once again.  She had a friend on the embassy staff who could arrange for temporary papers for the girls to fly to Canada if I could arrange to fly with them.  If I could get permission to fly back with the Canadian group, the nurses would help me smuggle the girls on board and out of the country.
I was grateful for Lisa and her Canadian friends.  I probably would have stayed with Lisa, and I knew she would miss the girls, but Lisa had a husband waiting for her.  Officially, we had become friends and colleagues.  I refused to become a complication.  
I had worked with the Hospital Commander in the past, and he owed me a favor for reasons I won't divulge here.  He arranged for me to fly back with our Canadian partners so that I could visit family in Newfoundland. 

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

Three days later, the girls and I touched down on Canadian soil.  I knew I couldn’t just board a commercial flight back to Indiana.  The papers for the girls allowed them entry into Canada only.  It was going to be a long drive, so I rented a Safari van, secured the girls in the back seat, and set off for the long ride from St. John’s Newfoundland to Gary, Indiana.
Over 500 miles of Newfoundland scenery should be enough to last any man a lifetime!  I’m glad I didn’t have relatives there.  I might have felt obligated to return one day!  That took one full day, and allowed me to arrive at the ferry just in time to discover I could wait till morning for the 105 miles of Atlantic Ocean I’d get to sail over.  I’ve never been a big fan of ferry rides, and this one was no better.  
The girls and I slept together in the back of the van.  I folded down the rear seats and had bought an inflatable mattress for us to lie on.  Not the most luxurious accommodations, but as satisfactory as our time in Kuwait.  The girls sensed an adventure and cuddled close to me through the night.  In the morning I got us something to eat just before the ferry pulled out, headed for Sydney, Nova Scotia. 
I managed to drive another three hundred and eighty miles after getting off the ferry before exhaustion forced me to pull over just outside of Bangor, Maine.  
Crossing the border into Maine from New Brunswick prior to September 11, 2001 was a simple smile and a wave.  The uniform helped a bit, but it was a strange sensation driving through a custom’s gate, when all that separated most of the town from Canada and the US was a painted line down city streets.
It took us another five days to cover the remainder of the 2,500-mile trip back to Gary.  But we were in the US of A!  I was home and I had my girls with me!
We had grown closer and closer during our time together, and it got to the point where I could hardly move without one of them wanting to cling to my neck or be held in my arms.  I knew that life would never be the same.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

A month after settling back in at home, I resigned my commission in the Reserves.  I was getting a bit old for these war games, and now I had my two new daughters to take care of.  The one thing I had not counted on was the bigotry the girls and I would face for the next twelve years.
Being white, middle class myself, I had always thought the people I knew, to be fairly open-minded.  I was genuinely surprised by the reactions to my newly adopted daughters.  Though I did not have a big circle of friends, (actually only a few co-workers and neighbors), I was shocked by the prejudice shown towards my Asian daughters.  Yes, they had obvious features and appearances of their descent and heritage, rich black shiny hair and eyes that were slightly slanted, but this was the US of A for God’s sake.  The world’s biggest melting pot!
Some went so far as to suggest that I, as a single male, should not be allowed to raise two baby girls!  Fuck ‘em!  I was more than qualified, and if they couldn’t accept Mai-Ling and Su-Lee, I cut them out of my life.  My girls needed me.  I fed them and bathed them and took care of them in every possible manner.  
When they were old enough, I avoided any unnecessary questions and taught them at home.  I didn’t need any nosy teachers asking what a grown man was doing with two young, beautiful girls, and as they grew, they grew more beautiful each day.
What family I had was spread across the country, and since I was never willing to part with my money, either in the way of loans I knew would never be repaid or to bail another out of their own stupidity, I rarely heard from them.
I hired a young Latina to watch the girls while I went to work.  She had a baby girl of her own, and out of the applicants I had interviewed, Maria was the one the girls seemed to be the most comfortable with.
Maria was familiar with both the prejudice and the stigma of raising children out of wedlock.  She cleaned my house for me, prepared meals and most importantly, she taught my girls how to become ladies.  Maria moved in full time after six months, and though she was with us for the next ten years, she never once questioned the girls and me sharing the same bed.  It was just never discussed.  I didn’t judge her, and she didn’t judge me.
As I said, Maria stayed with us for ten years, until she finally met a man who accepted her and her daughter as a package deal, and with great regret she apologized and said it was time for her to move on.  She wanted another child before she turned 30, and the man she was seeing was an upstanding one in my eyes.
Okay.  Maybe I could have provided her with another baby.  We had started to have sex just prior to her moving in with us, though we never slept together through the night.  My girls were far too possessive to allow someone else to sleep in our bed. 
We would make love through the daytime or just before bedtime after having watched some silly show.  Her daughter and mine got along just fine, but when it came time for Maria’s little girl to go to bed, Mai-Ling and Su-Lee would want to be clutching onto me.
Maria had been 17 when she applied for the job of watching my babies.  I was old enough at the time to be her father, but she was gorgeous.  Long dark hair similar to my girls, an olive complexion, and the sweetest smile I had ever seen.  She had been disowned by her family for having sex before marriage, and it was made worse by the fact she had a child as a result of it.  She had refused to give her girl up for adoption, which might have made me hire her over all the others.  We had something in common.  We both refused to let our daughters be taken away from us!

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

Maria had been working for me for just four months when I came home early from work because I thought I was coming down with a cold.  I found my girls and Maria’s baby in the playpen in front of the TV, but no sign of Maria.  Not that she was hard to miss.  At five foot six, she was still a girl child herself.  Slim with a boyish figure and tiny breasts.  I particularly noticed her slim, trim figure because, since the departure of the few friends I did have, I had been relegated to my own hand for satisfaction.  It had been a common practice for me since the days of my youth when I first discovered the joys of masturbation.  Sometimes, though, having a partner was something I really savored.  Much like my experience with Lisa in Kuwait.
My active sex life with a partner was further limited by the fact I was tall, thin and extremely shy.  Being a nurse wasn’t the best icebreaker, either, with women.  My sex life at the age of 40 had been a series of one-night stands and the few times I had indulged myself and gone to a ‘Rub and Tug.’  You know the places.  Massage parlors that offered hand jobs as part of the extended service package for a predetermined tip.  I was single.  I could afford it.  I just didn’t over indulge myself since it felt like, and I guess it was, paying for sex.
So, I went looking for Maria.  I found her, or most of her, her usual loose and baggy clothing having been discarded, lying on my bed after what appeared to be a fresh shower in my private bathroom.
I walked in, but Maria was too involved trying to bring herself off manually.  She didn’t appear to be having too much luck, though, and with her eyes pinched tightly shut, she didn’t notice me standing in the doorway.
She was moaning in frustration as she fought to bring herself off, and miraculously all my cold symptoms disappeared as all the blood in my body headed south to inflate my prick.
I slipped off my shirt and pants and my socks.  I left on my boxers since I didn’t want Maria to think I was assuming anything, and then I moved towards the bed.  My bed.
Her head jerked up when she felt mine slide between her legs, but I gently pushed her hands away and silenced her objections by sliding my tongue over her hot crease.  In response, I got a moan and her body slumped back on the bed, with just a slight arch in her back.
I laved her hot box with my tongue, slipping and dipping in and around her clit, never quite making full contact with it.  When her hands reached down again, it was to grasp my hair and guide me to her clit, which I then willingly sucked with joyful abandonment, relishing in the delicious nectar that poured out of her.  Once, twice she peaked until she couldn’t take it any longer and her thighs slammed together pinning my head in between.  She rolled to her side sobbing.  I had little choice but to roll with her.
I blew gently on her vagina till she spread her legs and released me from a headlock that could put Hulk Hogan to shame!  
Her sobbing subsided a bit and she looked at me with gratitude and desire.  With a gentle tug she pulled me up beside her and kissed her juices off my lips and face and then reached down to tug my boxers off as she spread her legs for me.  I didn’t need any further invitation and slid my tempered iron rod into her love furnace.  All too soon the heat became unbearable and my rod melted in a spasm of sparking flames as I shot my seed into her triggering yet another climax from her.
For the next hour we just cuddled and kissed and I played with her teeny tiny titties and very sensitive, large brown nipples.  The only reason we parted at all was because we could hear one of my girls starting to fuss.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

Maria and I continued to have sex on a semi-regular basis.  Though she proclaimed her love for me, I convinced her to continue to date and have a social life.  I was too old for her, and though I did love her, culturally and age-wise we came from, and lived, in different worlds.
As the girls grew older, they also became more possessive and inquisitive.  They started to poke around whenever Maria and I closed the bedroom door.  They started to question the smell emanating from my face and crotch after Maria and I had finished a tryst in bed.  This led to the need for a shower every time directly afterwards.  In some ways it was as much a bother as it was a pleasure for me.  And I had started to feel tired.  My energy for sex was dwindling, as was my need.  Maria, however, was learning to love sex more and more.  She started to get more demanding of her male friends, as she would tell me after she had been out on a date.  If they couldn’t get her off first, before they looked for reciprocation, then that would be the last time she went out with them.
Maria would tell me these things as she fondled and caressed my rod trying to make it hard enough for her to suck on.  She said she wanted a man just like me.  A man who was kind and generous and a damn good lover as well.  She wanted a younger version of me.  I still took her to my bed on a monthly basis where I would spend all my energy bringing her off multiple times with my tongue teasing and torturing her clit.  We no longer fucked, both of us content to satisfy the other orally.
When she finally met Drew, I could see she had found the right man.  He adored Maria and doted on Isabella.  Though she was sad to go, I was a bit relieved.  I had been getting weaker and weaker in the last year, and I now stayed at home full time on extended sick leave.  Thank God we had a strong union at the hospital or I would have gone bankrupt with the medical bills and inability to work.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

At first I was happy to be at home and alone with my girls.  I missed Maria, but I didn’t like her seeing me deteriorate, and I still didn’t know what was causing this health failure.
With home schooling both Mai-Ling and Su-Lee were far advanced education-wise.  They did their homework and all of the assignments well before it was due, and the only thing left for them to really learn was about the world.  I had sheltered them since that day I first found them in el Qasim.  Their view of the outside world had been limited to the Discovery and History channels on TV.  We watched the Biography channel together as well as all the science channels and of course National Geographic.
I had taught them all I could, but they needed more.  They needed someone to take them into the real world and protect them.  I was considering a chaperone for them to take them out to discover life when the doctors I used to work with finally diagnosed my weakening state.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

  I wasn’t really all that surprised when my personal physician told me I only had a few months left to live.  Perhaps if they had discovered the problem sooner, something could have been done, but it was such a rare condition that the available treatments were all experimental anyway.
Although they cried, I tried to get the girls to understand that this was exactly the way life was, just like on the Discovery Channel.
I thought long and hard on whom I could trust with my girls.  We still had no idea of exactly how old they were, and we celebrated their birthdays on the day that I had first found them.  They would turn 13 on their next birthdays.  Too young to be alone in the world and too old for an orphanage, not even considering the idea that they were in the US illegally and had no citizenship standing.
There was only one man I could think of who would take on the care and training of my girls without asking questions.  One smart man who would ensure they would never be abused or neglected, and who would have no reservation about teaching my babies the facts of life.  He was sufficiently rich enough to be able to provide and raise my girls.
I did my best to prepare Mai-Ling and Su-Lee for their new stepfather.  I explained he was a curmudgeon.  Or at least he liked to think he was.  I knew better though.
“What’s a curmudgeon, Papa?” asked Su-Lee.  
Mai-Ling gave her one of those looks she reserved for the truly dense.  “It’s a lizard.  One who can change color when frightened,” she said.
I laughed harder than I had in years.  They say that out of the mouth of babes come the innocent truths.
“No, sweetheart,” I said.  “Denny likes to think he’s a cranky old man.  He wants other people to think of him that way as well.”
“Why, Papa?” asked Su-Lee.
“Well, honey, maybe your sister is right.  By pretending to be a curmudgeon, he can hide from his fears.”

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

I finally packed the girls off after our last night of sleeping in the same bed, as we had done for over a dozen years.  I promised them that Denny would probably let them sleep with him as well if they behaved themselves.  I reassured them that Denny would love them just as much as I had, and after arranging for their transportation to Everett, Washington, I wrote the letter.
I decided to give the last of my money to Maria.  Last month I had gotten a letter from her that included a picture of her and Drew.  Isabella was proudly perched on Drew’s lap and Maria was cradling a baby boy she had named after me.  The tears stung my eyes as I signed the final papers.  I was going to go to my bed alone tonight.  With the help of the pills the doctor had given me, I would sleep peacefully without my babies beside me.  I would sleep the sleep of the eternal.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~
Everett, WA.

The ringing of the doorbell woke Denny up.  “Fuck,” he said as he stumbled into his jeans.  “Doesn’t anybody respect the sign?”
“Just answer the door, Denny,” his wife grumbled, turning over to go back to sleep.
Denny muttered all the way to the door about the sign clearly stating, “Nightshift worker asleep inside!” 
He stopped muttering when he swung the door open to see the two beautiful girls waiting there for him.  They were both strangely silent.  He read the letter and his eyes misted over.  Stuffing the letter into his back pocket he welcomed Mai-Ling and Su-Lee into his home.  He sat with them for an hour as he fed them and thought about the strange request.  There was no way he could or would say no.  He really was an old softie, and he knew that his friend had pegged him right.  He would take the girls in and call them and treat them as his own.
Denny fixed up a place for the girls to sleep and after making sure they were comfortable, hugged them and kissed them goodnight, promising that when he woke up, he would do as their father had asked.

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

	“So?  Who was at the door?” she asked as he walked back into his bedroom, “And what was so important that it took so long?”
	Denny smiled a sad smile before he answered.  “One of my friends has passed away,” he said.
	She remained silent.  Not sure what to say.
	“He bequeathed me two beautiful Siamese cats,” he said as he shucked his jeans and crawled back into bed.

~end~