Beijing Comrades (29 page)

“Oh, hey, I meant to tell you,” Zhou Wen continued, leaning forward and taking a heavy drag off his cigarette. “Wei Guo and I are heading over to my place in a bit to pick a few things up. Why don't you come with us? You know, hang out for a while?” He patted me on the back. Something about the way he touched me was as strange as his smile.

Zhou Wen owned an enormous house—a mansion, really—in Pixie Hamlet, a little neighborhood about a half hour southeast of Beijing proper. It was beautiful there. Lots of trees and fresh air. By the time we arrived it was already dark out.

As the three of us pulled into the driveway, the front lights of the house came on and two girls came rushing out to greet us. When we got out of the car, they ambushed Zhou Wen, giggling and whispering to each other.

“Whoa!” I whispered, leaning my head toward Wei Guo. “These chicks are something else. Fucking Amazons! They're taller than me!” Wei Guo didn't say a thing. He just smiled, casting me a somewhat cryptic look.

The five of us walked inside, and Zhou Wen led us to the
living room. The men sat on the couch while the girls hovered over us with attentive looks on their faces.

“Care for a drink?” one of the girls asked, smiling down at me before turning around to shake her ass in my face. She turned to me again, bending over in a slutty tease that thrust her heavily made-up face into the lamplight. That's when I got a better look at her and discovered that “she” wasn't a she at all. I was more than a little surprised, but kept my cool until she went to the kitchen to get my drink. Then I turned to Zhou Wen.

“Damn!” I said. “Brother Wen sure as hell knows how to have a good time!” He laughed.

For the rest of the night, the little siren stuck by my side, chatting animatedly, pouring me drinks, and cooing a series of flirtations into my ear. At two in the morning, I stood up to say good-night. Zhou Wen pulled me into the hallway.

“Handong,” he whispered. “If you like what you see, you're welcome to . . .”

“Oh, I couldn't possibly—it would be far too much of an imposition,” I protested. Zhou Wen was asking if I wanted to take the little slut home with me, and the answer was no. But despite my effort to politely decline, Zhou Wen wouldn't take no for an answer. It looked like I would be leaving his place with some overnight company.

The Bamboo Garden Hotel wasn't quite four stars, but the amenities were decent and the service wasn't bad, either. There I booked a long-term suite not unlike the one I had previously kept at Country Brothers. In the weeks that followed, I would stay there often, and would also return frequently to my mother's home to stay with her. Eventually, I ended up booking another room at Country Brothers, as well.

Stepping into the room at Bamboo Garden with the little tramp in tow, I decided I may as well get used to the place. If Lan Yu really did move out of his apartment, I wouldn't be too put out by the transition.

Thirty-Five

It wasn't quite spring when Lan Yu moved into his new apartment in Fang Village. The snowfall of recent weeks had frozen into thick layers of ice, and I wondered how he'd managed to get his belongings from one place to the other. I couldn't have known, since he moved without telling me. The day he moved, I found out he was gone by knocking on his old apartment door at Gala, then calling his cell phone in confusion.

It was already past nine when we got home from dinner later that night. I slipped off my burgundy Cole Haans and stepped tepidly across the threshold of his new place. I was amazed at how tidy it was, given that he had just moved in. His new apartment was even smaller than the last one, but it was much newer, giving everything a clean and orderly veneer.

Lan Yu collapsed on the bed, exhausted. I lay next to him on my side, propping myself up on one elbow and looking at him intently while he gazed at the ceiling.

“You should have seen this place, it was a mess,” he sighed, lifting his head off the pillow and looking around the room
with a weary air of pride. “Now that it's somewhat in order, you can just stay here every night so you can go straight to work in the morning. It's so close to your office!”

I looked at him with a smile, but it was a forced one. I had only half heard what he said because I was still brooding over being excluded from his move. I unbuttoned his shirt and planted a few halfhearted kisses on his chest while he ran his fingers through my hair.

“We'll see,” I said. “The traffic can get pretty hairy around here.”

Lan Yu went quiet and pulled his hands away from me, folding them behind his head like a pillow.

“If the traffic is so bad, then why did you come here? Just looking for a quick fuck? Just want to ‘get some'?” I remembered the time so long ago when I'd used those words with him. He obviously remembered it, too.

“Would you mind not talking to me like that?” I retorted as I got out of bed and faced him. “You know, Lan Yu, I think those whores you've been hanging out with have been rubbing off on you.”

“Well, you would know, wouldn't you?” he fired back, rising from the bed so that he was upright on his knees. “You're the biggest whore of all!”

I looked at him in disbelief, then rage. With a single blow, I slammed my fist into his chest, sending him spiraling off the bed and onto the floor. He didn't skip a beat. He jumped up and without a moment's hesitation took a swing at my face. He missed. We struggled on the bed, then fell to the floor.

In all the years I had known Lan Yu, this was the first time we'd ever had a physical fight. I was taller, but he wasn't one bit lacking in strength.

In the end, neither of us got hurt, and neither of us won the
fight. We ended up back on the bed, both of us out of breath and feeling a little stupid.

“Well, that was good exercise!” he said with a laugh.

“You want some more?” I rolled on top of him.

“Sure,” he said, putting a hand down the front of my pants and squeezing my dick. “But this time, I want some
real
exercise.”

I laughed, but in my heart I knew he was losing me.

Not long after the fight with Lan Yu, I had to stop by Lin Ping's work unit to handle some paperwork for the medical equipment deal we were collaborating on. I had misgivings about seeing her face-to-face, but my hesitation melted away the moment I entered her office. There she was, walking toward me with a smile, her long, slender arms extended for a quick but cordial hug. I hadn't seen her in over two years. She was exactly the same gorgeous woman she had always been.

When lunchtime came around, I asked her if she would join me for a bite to eat. She wavered momentarily, but quickly smiled. “Sure,” she said, reminding me of the first time I'd asked her on a date nearly four years earlier.

We went to Old Peking, a restaurant specializing in traditional Beijing dishes. After stopping at the buffet-style counter, we sat at one of the many red lacquered antique-style tables lining the walls. We continued talking about business matters for a while, but pretty soon the conversation turned personal.

“So, I hear you're getting married!” I said cheerfully.

“Yep!” she replied, visibly happy. “Spring next year!”

“That's wonderful. Congratulations.”

“Well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed!” She laughed, then looked at me thoughtfully. “You know, for a long time I thought I would never get married again. But I think I'm ready
now. I've learned a lesson, you know? I've learned that dating and marriage are two different things. You can't jump lightly from one to the other.” She paused pensively. “Especially if you're a woman.”

I looked down at the cup of tea in front of me and smiled sheepishly. “I know,” I said. “And you're right. I take full responsibility for what happened.”

I liked the fact that we weren't afraid to talk about the past. But apparently there wasn't much more to say, because for the next few moments we just sat there, looking at each other in silence until she averted her eyes and her cheeks flushed red.

“Don't look at me that way,” she said. “Why do you think I was stupid enough to marry you to begin with?” She laughed.

“Oh, really?” I joked. “Then don't go through with the wedding next spring. Just marry me again instead!”

“
No way
!” she cried in English, laughing loudly.

As we were saying goodbye, Lin Ping gripped my elbow and told me that if I ever got married again, she hoped I would let her know so she could congratulate me. I said I would probably stay a bachelor forever. “Besides,” I added, “your fiancé and I both know we could never do better than you!” She seemed to want to say something in response to this, but must have changed her mind because she just smiled and walked away.

It had been six months since my release from jail. Half a year since the day I vowed to myself that unless Lan Yu left me, I was going to stay with him forever. Half a year. It felt like half a century.

After lunch with Lin Ping, I walked back to my car in the crisp, almost spring air, my mind whirling with contradictory
thoughts and emotions. Does the vow still mean anything to me? Again and again I rolled the question over in my mind.

On my way back to the office, I drove past Huada University. Passing the south gate, I was struck by the thunderous sound of loudspeakers blaring trite slogans. “
Graduates
!” boomed a disembodied voice. “
Go out and give fifty years of hard work to the motherland!
” When Lan Yu and I had first started dating, I always told him I hated going to Huada to pick him up or drop him off. I couldn't stand the tired, artificial orthodoxy of the university environment. Now, however, there was something bittersweet about what I saw all around me. It reminded me of him.

I forced myself to stop thinking about it. I was tired of constantly worrying about my relationship with Lan Yu and our future together, if we even had one. All I wanted was to let nature take its course.

Thirty-Six

As promised, Zhou Wen helped me resolve the hapless affair with the imported car parts. Because of this, I guess you could say we became friends. True, he pocketed more than a few taels of silver from me, but I knew money wasn't the only reason he had helped.

To thank Zhou Wen for everything he had done, I invited him to dinner at the Grand Capital, the very place Lin Ping and I had gotten married. By the time the appetizers hit the table, we were already talking about the little hussies he kept at his place in Pixie Hamlet.

“So, how about Annie? Not bad, eh?” Zhou Wen asked, lifting a thick piece of seaweed to his lips. Annie—that was the name of the one I had slept with at Bamboo Garden.

“Not bad, not bad at all!” I replied. “That little number sure had all the right moves.”

The truth was that Annie—this was his chosen name, of course—wasn't exactly my type. In fact, I had only slept with him because I didn't want to offend Zhou Wen. Still, I was curious to know more about his interest in boys who dressed like girls.

“So, when did Brother Wen start to get into this sort of thing?”

“Oh man, years ago,” he said with a laugh. “At first it was just something new and different, almost like a novelty. But now, you know what? I've been doing it for so long that I'm practically over it!”

“Ha!” I laughed. “Not doing it for you anymore, huh?”

Zhou Wen took another bite of seaweed and laughed so hard that green specks flew out of his mouth and hit the table. Then he put down his chopsticks and looked at me somberly.

“So, tell me, Handong. How did you get into this stuff?”

“Oh—well!” I fumbled. “That was a long time ago, you know. I was just messing around, really.” I paused, desperate to think of something to say. “If you don't mind me asking, how did Brother Chen know?”

“Fuck!” he chortled loudly. “Who can hide this sort of thing?” He leaned into me and whispered, “I heard you even got a house to keep him in, just like a real concubine. Now, that's doing it right! Not just messing around like me and Annie.”

Zhou Wen leaned back into his chair and stared at me through two blinking eyes as if waiting for a response. My gut instinct was to deny everything, but for some reason I didn't. Instead, I mumbled a vague affirmation which, Zhou Wen and I both knew, meant yes.

“So it's serious, huh? I mean, the relationship.” He stared at me gravely. The conversation was entering uncomfortable territory. I gave an awkward chuckle.

“Well, let me tell you something,” he continued. “It's not worth it, okay? A man only gets so many chances in this lifetime to get serious in a relationship. And when he does, he damn well better be sure there's a future in it. It has to lead to some bigger picture. Family. Kids.” He lit a cigarette. “But you
know what? With this kind of thing, there is no bigger picture. This is it! You can't even tell people about it without ruining yourself.”

The conversation was getting to be too much. The last thing I wanted was to lose face in front of Zhou Wen by getting gushy over a guy. So I distorted the facts to make things look the way I wanted.

“I know, Brother Wen. You're right. It's not worth it. But no matter what I do, I just can't get rid of him!”

He nodded sympathetically, then laughed. “The problem with you is you're too goddamn nice. A real fuckin' Buddha!” He laughed again, but only for an instant before leaning into me as if he wanted to say something momentous.

“He's really devoted to you, isn't he?” he asked in a gentle voice. “I mean, he can't stay away from you, right?”

I was on the verge of caving in. I wanted to tell Zhou Wen the truth, not so much because I trusted him, but because the more I thought about Lan Yu, the more frustrated I felt. I needed to get it off my chest or I was going to explode. I looked at Zhou Wen in distress and took a deep breath.

“I don't know what to do, Brother Wen! He just won't stop playing games with me. I mean, one day he wants me and the next he's indifferent. All I want is to know what he's thinking. Is that too much to ask? It's getting to the point where I can't take it anymore.”

Zhou Wen nodded his head in understanding. “Look,” he said in a voice as empathetic as it was stern. “That's his trick, okay? He chases after you one day, then rejects you the next. He's playing hard to get and that's exactly how he holds on to you.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette and a chunk of gray ash fell onto the mustard-yellow tablecloth. “Damn,” he
continued as if speaking to himself, “that guy sure knows what he's doing.”

My talk with Zhou Wen was a real eye-opener. He was an expert when it came to reading between the lines, and I trusted what he said. He really nailed it, I thought, as we said goodbye that night. Lan Yu sure knows what he's doing!

A few days later, Annie called my cell phone. At first I was confused because I hadn't given him the number, but quickly realized that Zhou Wen must have given it to him.

I had mixed feelings about seeing Annie again. To begin with, there was no question that I had only taken him home because it would have caused Zhou Wen to lose face not to. True, he turned out to be a great lay and had a hot little body, but for some reason I just didn't feel like getting together again. At the end of the day, I knew he was fine for a one-night stand, but for anything beyond that, he just wasn't my type.

What I wanted didn't matter though. Annie, I figured, had called me because Zhou Wen wanted him to, and he was determined to fulfill the assignment. So I agreed to meet him that night at Bamboo Garden. All I asked was that he come dressed as a boy—not wear a bra and nylons and all that. No offense, I said. It was just a turnoff.

When Annie walked into the hotel room, it was a total transformation. Wearing a jacket, wing tips, and a neatly ironed button-down shirt tucked into pleated trousers, he looked every bit the pretty, delicate boy. He was still very feminine, but without the exaggerated affectations from the first time I'd met him. I had the impression that he had no real preference for dressing as a boy or a girl, that it was mostly a matter of what the client wanted.

Annie was adept at reading other people's body language. He lived, it seemed, entirely for the purpose of satisfying others' desires. And yet, when I asked him if Zhou Wen had told him to call me, he said no, that he had called because he himself had wanted to. He also added that he wasn't staying at Zhou Wen's house anymore. That's when I learned that “Brother Wen” had some weird thing about the number three. “He likes everything in threes,” Annie explained patiently. Thus, when it came to lovers—male or female—he never kept anyone around for more than three months. Apparently, Annie's three were up.

Annie was naked from the waist up as he told me this. The unblemished white skin of his face, so encrusted with makeup the first time I saw him, was smooth, almost matte, under the dim yellow light pulsing softly above the mirrored headboard. I sat up in bed, watching as he lovingly carved slices of roasted lamb from the room service I'd ordered and placed them directly in my mouth. There was such an earnestness in everything he did, not only in his eyes, but also in his body language, perpetually oriented toward my every need. Annie told me that he had never been sexually attracted to men when he was growing up, that he didn't even know that sex between men was possible. But from the moment he discovered that it was, he wanted men and men only.

Swallowing the last piece of lamb, I shifted my body so I could lie flat on the bed. I motioned with my hand for Annie to come closer, then gently pushed him downward toward my cock, which had become stiff the moment he said “sex between men.” I already knew from the first time we were together that Annie was an extremely talented cocksucker. When we were together, he cared about one thing and one thing only: getting me off. He sucked my dick for a full half hour before
suddenly stopping and standing upright on the bed. Gazing at me seductively, he peeled off his socks with one hand while putting his other hand against the wall for balance. Everything about him was calm, relaxed, and professional as he pushed down his trousers, grinning mischievously. That's when I noticed he had violated my instructions. Despite the masculine exterior, he was still wearing women's panties. “Naughty girl!” I chastised him, as he lowered himself to straddle my waist as if riding a seesaw. He loved it.

Annie guided my cock inside him with expert precision. With one hand he reached back to cup my balls while the other arm rose to the back of his head like he was some kind of pinup girl. He loved this position, but it didn't last long because I quickly jumped up and threw him on his back. With a single hand I held his ankles together high above his torso while my other hand stroked his dick and played with his balls.

Some guys who fuck boys like Annie like to pretend they don't have male parts, but not me. I wanted to see him get off.

Whether getting fucked in the mouth or ass, penetration alone wasn't enough to make Annie come. He continued stroking his dick as I nailed him—this, apparently, was the only thing that could make him climax. When he did, I beamed with satisfaction knowing that even a veteran hooker like Annie came when I got ahold of him.

Soon after, Annie was in the shower. I closed my eyes and listened to the water splashing, recalling with relief that Zhou Wen had assured me he was clean.

I was conflicted about whether or not to hold on to Annie. On the one hand, he was young, beautiful, and hot in bed. Only a monk, and a highly disciplined one at that, could have resisted him. On the other hand, there was something about his enthusiasm that didn't quite ring true. He was skilled at
what he did, but at the end of the day it was an act, a performance, a job.

Annie didn't sleep at Bamboo Garden that night, saying he would rather take a cab home with the money I'd given him. Switching off the light to go to sleep, it crossed my mind that despite his shortcomings, I would probably be better off with Annie than with Lan Yu. At least Annie wouldn't require much effort.

I had never wanted a life that required much effort.