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Anyone who didn’t know them personally would instantly assume that a 12-year age gap was far too big for a married couple to cross.
Normally, they’d be right. The sheer amount of life experience to be had during that length of time would be so vastly different for anyone, much less two people who’d grown up together in a fashion.
And yet…the stars seemed to align at every turn for Praerin and Khemjira.
So many instances had had to bisect at critical moments in Space and Time for their paths to cross and eventually merge.
They’d overcome numerous obstacles like age, past loves and even the sheer act of staying together.
And somehow, they had their shared history to thank for it all.
23 and 35
Aside from their gender, what else could two women married to each other possibly have in common?
Rin often asked herself this question when staring in bewilderment at Khem’s wide grin as she spoke in a cutesie babyish voice to MooKhem, the purple plushie she’d won for her when they first got married.
It wasn’t any easier watching her quirky wife shower said plushie’s furry face with loud, sloppy kisses right afterwards.
“Khemjira! Everyone’s staring!”
The younger woman had seemingly forgotten that they were sitting in a park filled with other people that Saturday afternoon.
Khem pouted adorably at Rin’s mortified expression. “Aww, but MooKhem is a symbol of my undying love for my beautiful wife! Why can’t I show my affection openly?”
“This crazy girl,” Rin muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation.
Instead of being offended, Khem’s gaze grew increasingly mischievous, which worried the older woman even more.
“I think I see the problem.”
“Good. I know an excellent psychiatrist who works near our office block.”
“Not with me. With you.”
Rin’s jaw opened comically. “Me??? I’m not kissing a toy like it’s a real person.”
“So I shouldn’t kiss MooKhem in public?”
“No!”
“Well then, who should I kiss instead?”
Khem’s hand, which had been resting companionably on Rin’s fabric-laden thigh all the while, started drifting dangerously south. The older woman’s mouth became very dry, watching in muted awe as her wife’s lithe fingers danced seductively over her kneecap, fingering speculatively at the paltry edges of her summer dress.
That little performance had been a red herring as Khem feinted to the right, dusting her soft lips over Rin’s bare shoulder instead.
“I think someone’s jealous of all the kisses MooKhem got instead of them. Forgive me, Thī̀rạk. Let me make it up to you…”
It irked and aroused the older woman to no end, witnessing her wife’s voice morph seamlessly from nauseatingly sweet to dripping with pure sex at the speed of light.
Rin had known Khem would be trouble the moment she’d first laid eyes on her as an infant, when she was a gangly adolescent herself.
It seemed as if they were destined to be oil and water trapped in the same glass together their whole lives.
She planted her black Jackie-O-styled sunglasses more firmly over her eyes in protest. “This crazy girl is going to kill me…”
0 and 12
Rin was still furious with her parents for forcing her to come to the hospital with them instead of letting her go to her friend Mali’s house for a sleepover.
What did she care if their best friends had just had a baby? All babies looked the same when they were born, anyway—like tiny and wrinkled aloo bukhara. The only difference was that this particular baby also had dark, giant eyes like that of a colossal squid.
The young girl soon grew bored with her sterile surroundings, wandering over to the crib where the baby lay while the adults spoke in quiet tones of happiness amongst themselves.
Despite her best efforts, Rin couldn’t stop staring at the newborn’s massive eyeballs.
“You are one weird-looking baby…” She muttered under her breath.
The young girl suddenly felt the strangest pressure on her hand. She looked down and squawked in horror at the sight. The baby had reached upwards, curling its tiny fist around her index finger in an uncharacteristically vice-like grip.
For such a small thing, little Khemjira was stronger than she looked.
Those massive squid-like eyes were glued to the young girl, like they knew exactly who Rin was to her. Worse still, the baby tried to put her whole index finger in its tiny gummy mouth right after.
“Mæ̀! Pɔ̂ɔ! This ugly baby grabbed me!”
Despite her evident exhaustion from 14 hours of labour, Khem’s mother, Saran, cried tears of pure happiness in the moment. “Thī̀rạk! Look how much our Khemjira already loves Praerin!”
Khem’s father, Anek, was equally moved by the gesture. “She knows we’re family.”
“You’ll be good friends from now on,” Wasin told his daughter, beaming with pride while clapping his best friend’s shoulder affectionately.
Rin scoffed and folded her skinny arms.
There was no way she’d have anything to do with this weird baby and her giant eyes and octopus hands that grabbed whatever they liked.
Only Rin’s mother, Chantana, seemed to notice that her young daughter was grinning widely at nothing in particular, even while cursing baby Khem’s existence.
12 and 24
Rin had so much work to do. She’d recently been promoted to a junior managerial role at her father’s company, and was desperate to impress the man who raised her for most of her life.
Work was done for the day, but she’d taken it home with the sole intention of nailing the budget report she’d started days ago.
Unfortunately, Wasin had company for the evening: puffing away at cigars companionably with Anek, who had brought a tiny, pubescent brat along with him—
“I’m bored, Rin. Play with me.”
“Go away, you crazy girl. I’m busy.”
“With what?”
Khem had zero understanding of personal boundaries. She rested her small chin on Rin’s right shoulder as the older woman sat cross-legged by the kitchen counter, watching her work without an ounce of shame.
“A very important presentation for my father. If he likes it, he’ll have to make me president of the company one day.”
“Why?”
“It’s my legacy.”
Khem scrunched her nose in confusion. “Is a legacy fun?”
“Legacies aren’t supposed to be fun.”
“Then why do you want one?”
“Because it’s my birthright. My father made that promise to me when I was a baby.”
“Does every baby get a legacy?” Khem asked curiously.
Rin smirked with the utmost superiority at the adolescent. “No, just smart babies.”
Khem made a decision then and there. “I don’t want a legacy, then.”
“Good. They don’t give them to little girls who ask a million questions.”
“I want to marry you!”
The older woman dropped her pen with a loud clatter.
“What nonsense are you spewing now, you brat?!”
“I want to marry you when I’m older, Praerin. By then, I’ll be beautiful and smart. And you’ll be too old and slow to run away from me!”
“Why, you little—”
Anek looked down at his watch before taking one final, merry puff of his cigar. “Khemjira! It’s time to go home!”
“Till next time, Thī̀rạk.”
Rin spluttered indignantly when Khem pressed a big wet kiss to her cheek before fleeing the room, her loud giggles filling the air.
“This crazy girl is going to be the death of me…”
Despite her mother being dead for several years already, Rin still wore a secret grin for old times’ sake, touching the spot on her skin where Khem had kissed her.
19 and 31
“Rin, I want to study design! But my father doesn’t think it’s a serious degree!”
“Design isn’t a serious degree. Not like accounting, which you’re actually studying.”
“That’s not true! Design is totally serious! Only the most talented people can enter that programme. Praeriiiiin, I really need help here!”
The older woman sighed as Khem continued sobbing loudly and dramatically with zero tears in sight. Even without visible moisture, Rin could tell the college student was actually upset about her future.
Khem played the role of a bubbly extrovert a little too authentically. Deep down, Rin knew the younger woman’s public persona was merely a mask for her more troubled thoughts.
The older woman suspected a big piece of Khem’s heart had been ripped away with Aunty Ran’s sudden passing when she was 15 years old, a mere four years ago. Rin herself had just celebrated her 21st birthday when she’d lost her own mother.
It was strange thinking of all the ways that she and Khem were bonded, with shared traumas too, particularly when the younger woman irked her so much on a regular basis.
Still, without either of their mothers around, Rin’s role was clear in this scenario: to placate Khem with sage wisdom no matter what it took so the young woman wouldn’t give her father a heart attack by dropping out of school without warning.
Rin looked the part too with thick-rimmed glasses she didn’t even need. She only wore them to look smarter at work.
“My father never listens to what I want.” Khem lamented.
The older woman had known Khem literally since the day she was born, and she’d never seen the college student look so serious before. Not even while declaring she was crazy in love with her.
“You really want to study interior design?”
Khem’s big brown eyes lit up. “I really do, Rin. Uncle Wasin even said I could do an internship at the company once I finish my studies.”
Rin rolled her eyes at this. “Of course he did.”
The college student leaned her cheek intimately against Rin’s shoulder, sighing blissfully all the while. “Just think: we’d work at the same place. We could even have lunch together every single day…”
Rin groaned inwardly at this. She saw enough of Khem as is in her personal life. Trust her father to intentionally have this brat bully her at work too.
Khem let out a weary sigh. “I wish my dad would trust me to make my own decisions sometimes…”
The older woman shook her head, but leant forward and took Khem’s hand in hers. It was all the college student could do not to explode with happiness at the way Rin ran a soothing thumb over her purlicue, just as she’d done many times over the years whenever something upset her.
Underneath her hostile demeanour and biting sarcasm, Khem knew how caring Rin truly was. She relished these quiet moments between them when she got to see the older woman’s more loving nature.
“I know it seems like he doesn’t consider your feelings, Khem. But Uncle Anek worries so much about your future. He just wants to reassure himself that you’ll have a good life, even when he’s not around one day. Maybe you just have to show your father that you’re serious about studying interior design, and that you’ll see it through. I think that will really put his mind at ease.”
“Wow, you are so smart, Rin.”
The older woman scowled at the sprightly college student. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
Khem smiled widely, holding up a hand in surrender. “Never. You just grow more brilliant and beautiful every day.”
Rin rolled her eyes, but was secretly pleased all the same. “Glad you’ve cheered up enough to flirt badly with me again.”
“My flirting isn’t bad! It’s filled with sincerity!”
This drew the tiniest of smiles out of the older woman, especially when she caught Khem’s eye a moment later, knowing full well the college student’s rejoinder was purely for her amusement.
“Sure, sure, Khem-Romeo. Now, quit your sulking and keep studying for your exam, or your father will really lose it. Mæ̀ always used to say that you’ll have only success when you make an effort.”
Khem nodded with a solemn air. “Aunty Chan was very wise. And she passed it on to my dearest.”
The college student’s face was buried in her textbook, so she missed the faint blush which crept across Rin’s cheek at the endearing pet name.
23 and 35
Rin huffed in exasperation. “Just do it, already.”
The skin on her neck tingled with every sensual kiss Khem laid across its velvety surface.
“Patience, Thī̀rạk. Besides, you know it even feels even better when I put on a show.”
Even though silently agreeing with her young wife, Rin still couldn’t resist rolling her eyes for dramatic effect.
Just like most nights, she lay sprawled out in defeat on her bed with Khem straddling her hips, a wide grin plastering her adorable face.
Despite being a kid in comparison to her, Rin marvelled at all the things Khem made her feel deep inside.
Like no one before her, not even Prapai.
Pai had been something to treasure from afar, but never to truly possess.
But Khemjira?
She’d marched to the beat of her own drum since the day she was born.
She was sunshine wrapped up in a petite, buoyant package.
And right now, she was hellbent on making Rin die of frustration. All because she decided that tonight was the perfect time to ruin her—slowly and thoroughly—instead of getting straight to their nighttime adventures, which had become a regular event since they tied the knot months ago.
Rin was still dead set on tearing her father a new one for forcing her to marry Khem just so she could keep her inheritance and he could take care of Khem after Uncle Anek’s unexpected death months ago.
She’d barely had time to mourn her father’s best friend because she was too busy stopping his incorrigible daughter’s sexual advances every hour of the day.
Losing Uncle Anek and marrying Khem had most certainly not been on her bingo card for the year.
Not that any of it mattered a whole lot at this particular moment.
Even when she meant to deny Khem with her words, Rin’s body sang a completely different tune whenever her wife touched her or even just looked at her. Something the younger woman was infuriatingly aware of; so much so that she leveraged every opportunity she got to be close to Rin with more acumen than she’d ever shown for her studies or any other area of her life.
The older woman threw her head back against her pillow in frustration. “Khem! I can’t wait anymore. Do it.”
Her young wife raised an eyebrow at this. “Do what exactly? This?”
Rin bit down hard on her bottom lip at the feel of Khem lifting up the edges of her threadbare lingerie, tracing her middle finger lightly, but deliberately over her underwear, which was already, embarrassingly damp.
Right on her clit.
Her neck strained backwards all the more with the sheer effort of reining in her desire.
It was mortifying being seconds away from falling apart just under Khem’s intense stare and nothing else.
What was happening to her?
This marriage was supposed to be a business arrangement, a way to secure her future and become the head of her father’s company in more than just name.
Being with Khem wasn’t supposed to feel like this.
Confusing.
Frustrating.
All-consuming.
“Yes,” Rin mumbled hoarsely. “I need it.”
It was no use. Her whole body tightened in feverish anticipation at the prospect of the younger woman finally touching her where she wanted her most.
Khem grinned in answer, looking for all the world as if Rin had hung the stars in the sky.
It was incredibly flattering, not that Rin would ever admit that in a million years to the younger woman currently situated between her spread legs.
Khem soon put her wife out of her misery, shifting her underwear to the side and finally wrapping her lips around her clit.
Rin’s head hit the pillow beneath her with the unravelling force of her arousal. Her body was just a play-thing for Khem’s mouth and fingers now: winding her up and contorting her limbs into incredible poses, her hips lifting off the mattress and grinding forwards against her wife’s greedy mouth.
She was hypnotised by the younger woman’s eyes; they remained fastened on her throughout her ministrations. Khem was relentless, even amidst her tender caresses, her tongue sliding into Rin’s warmth and claiming her with every panting breath that escaped her lips.
When the pleasure became too much, Rin finally tugged Khem away from her dripping centre, pulling her back up to her impatient lips as their mouths collided again and again in a sensual, feverish dance.
The younger woman wasted no time lifting Rin’s lingerie up and over her head before fastening her lips on one of her beautiful breasts, her hand claiming the other for itself with just as much fervour.
Rin tugged at the straps on Khem’s nightie soon after, her teeth and tongue claiming the parts of her creamy shoulders those sorry excuses for fabric used to occupy.
She ignored the soft moans that left her wife’s mouth or the effect they had on the rest of her body, least of all her heart.
Instead, she focused all her energy on the wild hunger that had slithered deep within and made a home, desperate to uncoil its grip on her senses and satiate it by any means necessary.
It wasn’t long before they were completely bare, hands and mouths wrapped so completely around each other that you could scarcely distinguish one body from the other as they stoked the growing flame between them.
Even in her rampant denial, Rin could freely admit to herself that Khem’s body was a work of art.
The scrawny, awkward girl had vanished years ago, somehow morphing into this heavenly creature with gorgeous black hair, womanly hips, legs for days, unfairly pouty lips and soft brown eyes that had the power to rob you of all thoughts.
Despite being the self-proclaimed top in her previous relationships, she found herself completely and stupidly dumbfounded against the raw, sexual energy her wife possessed in every single one of their encounters.
Khem was a supernova: a furious blinding ball of energy igniting everything in its path with her sheer brilliance.
While Rin could easily brush past her with a hard shoulder bump or click her tongue derisively and ignore her when they were in public, she was helpless against Khem when they were alone.
This was embarrassingly clear when she wrapped her legs tighter around her wife’s hips instead of retreating, sighing in absolute ecstasy with Khem’s every ardent kiss to her collarbone and industrious fingers thrusting deep inside her.
Rin was under her spell.
Whenever she closed her eyes, losing herself in the sensation, Khem would bring her back to the present in no time. All it took was a gentle tug on the back of her head, bringing their faces closer together as the younger woman ravished her all over with bruising kisses, the mark of which would surely still be there in the early morning light.
The older woman whined petulantly when it seemed that her wife was hellbent on making her lose her mind with her torturously slow pace. “Khem…”
That perpetrator chuckled lightly, and it took everything in Rin not to swoon at the delightful sound, or the tender kiss on her nose that followed. “Let me do my job right and make you as happy as you want to be, Thī̀rạk.”
For once, Rin stopped fighting and let herself surrender fully to the moment. Then it was her mouth moving of its own accord against Khem’s, following the sweet rhythm of their hips as they delved further into one another.
As her body seized up, one section at a time, from her neck down to her toes, the older woman knew she was seconds away from losing the battle with Khem and herself.
For her part, Khem curled her fingers at the perfect angle within her inner walls, making Rin’s whole body levitate above the bed as she felt herself come apart at the sensory seams.
The moans ripped from her throat surely belonged to something ethereal: a ghost being let loose among the plane of the living, haunting their sultry silhouettes.
In the haze of her undoing, Rin felt the briefest touches of Khem’s lips against her clammy forehead and cheeks, cooling her skin and guiding her back to safety.
When she was through and her legs had finally stopped shaking, Rin took to staring at the ceiling in utter disbelief at what had just transpired between her and her wife.
How had that little brat grown up into a young woman with the power to unravel her like this?
Khem had shifted her weight off of Rin and lay back on her side, watching her wife recover from her ecstasy, one painstaking breath at a time. She propped her face up against her closed fist, smirking at her handiwork. “That was good, right?”
Her self-satisfaction was short-lived when Rin scoffed openly (with what little breath she had left in her lungs) right before grabbing Khem’s ankles and pulling her closer till she was situated right above her parted lips.
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
The younger woman sucked in a sharp breath, moaning loudly at the first touch of her wife’s hot mouth dipping between her glistening folds as she held her thighs in place and got to work on giving her the best orgasm of her life.
From that night on—without wanting to or planning a thing—Rin dropped her guard and let Khem love her as she was and, all she could still be.
Slowly but surely.
35 and 47
Khem emitted a loud groan as she collapsed face-first onto their bed. “These brats are making my blood pressure skyrocket…”
Rin, who was sitting in her favourite recliner by the window and reading a novel, chuckled at this. “What did our children do this time?”
The younger woman lifted her head off the mattress, looking uncharacteristically disheveled. “Fon captured a bunch of frogs, then released them in Noi Krittin’s office during lunch time.”
On any other day, Rin would have been fuming over this. Instead, treacherous laughter escaped her lips till she had to place a dainty hand over her mouth to stop more from escaping.
“It’s not funny, Praerin!” Even as she said it, the younger woman herself couldn’t stop a tiny giggle from leaving her own lips.
“I’m sorry, Thī̀rạk. It just reminds me of the time that man screamed like a banshee when he found a squashed frog underneath his car. He must’ve gone straight to the hospital after coming face to face with the live ones…”
“ôo hŏo…” Khem’s adorable face crinkled in horror while holding it in her hands. “Our children were so tiny and pretty when they were born. How did they grow up to be such cute terrors???”
Rin smirked knowingly. “This is what happens when you make prophecies about your unborn children. You said we’d have a son in the summer and a daughter in the winter. Instead, we had a son and a daughter at the same time—when you turned 25.”
The younger woman groaned dramatically. “I’ve never been superstitious about numbers. How was I supposed to know you’d get pregnant with twins on our very first try with a sperm donor???”
“Next, you’ll be saying that Noa and Fon shouldn’t have been born on a rainy day because it’s bad luck and there weren’t any virgins around to prevent a calamity,” Rin teased.
This was clearly the wrong thing to say to Khem, whose brown eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. “Oh my God, our twins were born on a rainy day after I celebrated my 25th birthday. Quick! We have to go to temple and get some amulets!”
“What good will amulets do now, Khemjira? Our children are already 10 years old,” her wife pointed out with infuriating mildness.
“Why are you so calm?! Fon could be suspended for torturing the school principal with his least favourite animal!”
The twins, Fon and Noa, were the pride and joy of their parents and their grandfather Wasin. But as clever as they were, which they inherited from Rin, they were twice as mischievous, a trait they got from Khem.
Rin sighed delicately and gestured for Khem to come to her. She obliged, straddling her lap and wrapping herself in her wife’s waiting arms, her back resting against Rin’s chest.
“That won’t happen, Thī̀rạk. My father and Krittin are old golf buddies. Pɔ̂ɔ can smooth things over with the promise of funding a new computer lab.”
“Do you really think that’ll work?”
“How do you think the school paid for their new badminton courts two years ago? That was when Noa pulled the fire alarm because she saw termites in the school desks and said Phi Pluak was coming to kill all the students.”
“These devil children…” Khem groaned in dismay.
Rin chuckled at this, kissing the top of her wife’s head sweetly. “They’re our devil children.”
Despite the stress of the day, Khem smiled radiantly at Rin’s loving tone as she spoke about their children.
“We’ll have to teach Fon a lesson though,” Rin declared matter-of-factly, a pensive look in her eye. “How about making them both write 5,000-word essays each on why children should respect their elders?”
“Noa too???”
“You know as well as I do that she held the net for Fon while he gathered all the frogs from the pond. Just like Fon distracted Teacher Ploy with a fake note from Noi Krittin so Noa could sneak out of the classroom to pull the fire alarm two years ago.”
“Still, that’s too extreme!”
“So is bribing the school every time our two brats misbehave.”
Khem laughed heartily. “Point taken.”
Rin’s soft brown eyes crinkled sympathetically at the weary sigh that escaped her wife’s lips a moment later.
Even as the mother of two, Khemjira was still so young at heart and experience. As irrational as it sounded, the older woman sometimes worried that her wife might get bogged down by the responsibility.
Not that Khem ever showed it. From the moment Rin had told her she was pregnant, the younger woman had been nothing but reliable and loving.
Rin would be completely lost without her incredible wife.
She cooed gently, kissing Khem’s cheeks with absolute reassurance as her hands massaged her wife’s shoulders, loosening the knotted muscles bit by bit. Her heart galloped furiously as the younger woman melted completely in her embrace, emitting the sweetest, softest murmurs of appreciation throughout.
“Mmm, you’re so good at this,” she crooned with absolute sincerity. Thank you, Thī̀rạk.”
Rin dipped her head to lay loving kisses over her wife’s temple as she continued her ministrations. “I know just the thing to really help you unwind…”
Khem’s eyes closed involuntarily at the feel of Rin’s soft lips ghosting sensually over her neck from behind. She knew good and well it was her undoing, too.
She raised a half-hearted eyebrow as she shifted her head slightly to look at the older woman. “Are you seriously thinking about sex right now?”
“I’m always thinking about sex with you,” Rin mumbled against her wife’s porcelain skin.
“You’re terrible, and so mean to our children.”
“Oh, hush, Khemjira. You love it.”
Rin had her there.
Khem fixed her wife with a faux frown as she turned fully in her arms. “What happened to the woman I married who only wanted to do it three times a week because she was too tired?”
“She exercises regularly and takes vitamins now. Plus, she has a gorgeous wife who’s impossible to resist.”
“Oh, is that right?” The younger woman’s hands wrapped like vines around the back of Rin’s neck as she got more comfortable, her eyelashes fluttering seductively while staring down at her wife’s gorgeous mouth.
Rin smiled before biting her own bottom lip, which made Khem’s insides bubble over with want. She cupped her wife’s cheek with so much tenderness, making the older woman beneath her tremble in pleasure.
“What is it, Babi?”
Rin shook her head, scarcely daring to believe that she’d been so lucky. How all of this could’ve been gone in an instant when Khem left her all those years ago.
If she hadn’t tracked her down, what would’ve become of their marriage? Would they even still have one? Would Fon and Noa never have existed if she hadn’t brought Khem home?
Rin shuddered to think of those morose possibilities. They betrayed everything she and Khem had built together since then.
Insane age gap aside, they belonged together—plain and simple.
And Rin would be damned before she ever let Khem go again.
The older woman bit her bottom lip yet again while gazing at Khem and speaking from the heart. “I didn’t know it back then, but the day you were born changed my life forever. Babi, I’m so grateful to your parents for bringing you into the world, you’ve made it brighter ever since.”
“Thank you for being born so I could love you.”
Khem’s dark brown eyes were swimming with unshed tears, but the smile on her face was radiant enough to fuel the dying sun for several more generations.
Rin leant forward and brushed her lips against that dazzling smile, praying it would steal into her heart and keep it warm for a long time to come.
“I love you so damn much, Khemjira. I love Noa and Fon. I love everything we’ve done together till this day. I can’t imagine any life without you and our children in it.”
Khem kissed Rin once, then pulled back ever so slightly to lean their heads together so their noses were touching. “Neither can I, my sweet Rin. Thank you for loving and accepting me despite our 12-year age gap.”
Rin chuckled wickedly. “Love doesn’t ask for a birth certificate, my sweet girl.” She nipped at Khem’s bottom lip to prove her point.
This was clearly too far for the younger woman as she exploded with incredulous laughter. “Praerin, you’re going to kill me saying crazy things like that!”
The older woman caught her wife around the middle, holding her impossibly close. “All your fault, Thī̀rạk. You’ve rubbed off on me.”