Dinner with Mona was as I was sure it would be.
We’d met, and first she’d shown me her dorm, which she had to keep on so that she could pretend to be living there – for if the university found she had rented her own apartment she would be expelled. The dorm was not quite so spartan as others I have seen, such as those at Shang Wai, though was still mostly a big poured concrete box, with correctional facility overtones.
And then to the wet market, where we made the film I had planned, a large crowd of onlookers staring as we did so. That done, it was still early, so we returned to her flat and watched a couple of episodes of some sexy American sitcom which she’d heard about but never seen. A good choice of viewing, given my plans for the evening.
I said she would soon have to pay what we’d agreed for me bringing her these DVDs – the pay being a kiss, which we had teased about on MSN. She was still a little nervous, not yet warmed, so she blushed and murmured, and I did not press for the kiss. There would be time for it later, and I knew that the sexy language of the show we were watching would help change the mood. Finding it for her was easy; the DVD pirates are one of the city’s many wonders. Just today, for example, I found a copy of ‘Le Comte Ory,’ one of my favorite operas. Rossini suits my essentially ephemeral character.
And so when we were cooking I took the kiss, holding her under the chin and tilting her lips towards me. Still a little shy, she did not meet me with her eyes, but the response of her lips was quite enough to show how the evening would end. This kiss was spiced by the loose, shapeless housecoat thing she’d put on while cooking, having modestly closed her door as she changed out of the showy dress she’d worn to meet me. Even though this garment would well become a 50 year old Shanghai housewife with big hair, on her slender body it fell forward enough to reveal that she was naked under but for panties.
And after eating and washing up (more romantic than you might think, with its chances for caresses, warm water, suds) we made love. Kissing first, gently nibbling and caressing her; and like Tulip, like Lucy, soft breath in her ear made her wilder.
Blowing in a woman’s ear, kissing and caressing her there, feels cheesy to me; feels like the kind of thing the guy who has read his ‘Guide to a Woman’s Erogenous Zones’ would do. It does not feel authentic – it is too clichéd, too obvious. But it works.
I eased my shirt over my head and then slipped the hem of her dress upward, first to see pink latticed and bowed panties, clearly chosen for their look; and then over her belly up to her breasts. Petite, and, thus, for me, most erotic. Big, broad aureoles, wide enough indeed to be out of proportion to the size of the breast. But cute, cute. So I played there a while before kissing back down; then she took off the dress and I the rest of my clothes – then her panties for the first glimpse of her pussy. Compact, tight, needed a trim on top. And so the oral, which I dearly love, as did she – but far more controlled, restrained than Lucy. Her passion was deeper, more locked, sighs and sips.
This country, this society being what it is, I had wondered if she too was a virgin, and while her control here, lack of nervousness, made me think not, that opinion was balanced by some seeming inexperience elsewhere as we cavorted. And while I was sure she enjoyed it, I was not sure I made her come.
It was a fine night with her, sexy and wholly satisfying, though not quite so wild as Lucy was the first time. Mona was not so unreservedly passionate and, a little to my irritation, told me, ‘It’s my special time of the month.’ I was prepared for this at least, clued into it in part by the lengthy amount of time she spent in the bathroom before we made love but more by the bloodied towel I saw hidden half around the u-bend. Later, when we were talking, I leveraged this into an accolade. When she’d said it was her ‘special time’ I’d said I knew; after we’d made love, passion spent, she now wanted to know how. So I told her she had seemed tired and a little pale yesterday, and even that she had walked a little wearily – which was true, indeed, though at the time I did not draw the conclusion that she had her period. But anyhow, the tale I now told her made me think me ‘很厉害.’
The next morning, she had to get up at 6 for the mandatory exercise her martinet university insists on, and then a lecture at 8.20. Her university day was over at 9.30 a.m, an hour when it should not even have begun.
It’s little wonder China is still a third-rate country. It will never be anything more than the world’s service shop until it stops treating its people as commodities.
I dozed until about 9 and then sat on her pink-covered bed in her pink-walled Pudong apartment typing what was the original of this entry until she came home. Having just been going over the night before in my mind, I was feeling ready and horny, and keen to see her lovely body again, those cute breasts. I put her in my lap, kissed and caressed, undressed and ate her… as before, I was not sure if she quite orgasmed; for tho’ she sure enjoyed it, there was no clear peak, no obvious climax, no pushing away of my head as with Gloria or other lovers; and so either my skill lacking or she is still an ingénue that way.
However, after that, she did not really want me to penetrate her, telling me she was tired. But I guessed that more likely she meant sore, for, physically, she was the slightest women I had been with. Maybe half the bulk of me, at most. And while this made her a great lover, easy to position, lithe and responsive, it also meant that now, the next morning, she somewhat ached.
And so I made no fuss over it, was polite and understanding. ‘You’re a very gentleman’ she said – and I did not correct her either on the sentiment or the grammar, though both were wrong.
We dozed an hour, 90 minutes, and then I got dressed and she walked me to the bus stop.
Now going to the bus stop might seem the action of a cheapskate. But that is a too-hasty interpretation. Taking the bus here is, in fact, a rather positive thing to do. In general, Chinese people are often surprised when a foreigner can talk Chinese, and even more surprised if he or she can read it. Locals thus expect foreigners to travel almost exclusively by cab, in part because of the language problems (overcome by the Chinese person telling the cabbie where to go) and in part because they believe money is no object to expats. Taking a bus, therefore, shows a certain familiarity and ease with Chinese society, and that goes down very well. For while the moneyed life of many expats is a matter of aspiration and envy to local society, it is also a slight sticking point, an angle of envy, contention. Showing respect for the culture, being willing to live like a local, and able to speak and read Chinese some – all this helps.
And so taking the bus by oneself is a good thing; it shows that one is willing to make oneself a part of society. Naturally, when with the woman in question, one takes a cab.
Once on the bus I turned on my mobile. I’d left it off the night after it rang when I was between her thighs. That time, we both ignored it, and I then turned it off when we were lying prone on the bed after making love.
And now, on the bus, as I turned it back on, an sms from Tulip arrived, saying she had called me but I was turned off or engaged, and asking was I busy this afternoon, how about lunch?
This was most convenient, as right then I was heading to Lujiazui, right near her office. And so I arranged to wait for her by the Orient Pearl Tower, a hideous monstrosity of a building, all communist boasting and ugliness, with the touts and tourists peering at me as at a strange fish.
I remember thinking as I sat waiting for her of what to tell her. Should I explain my switched-off phone by saying, ‘I was in a class?’ Or should I say, ‘I was seeing a friend’? Or should I say ‘I was seeing a ‘friend.’”? Now, sure, to let her know I was seeing her right after another woman could be taken as an insult. But also she is a little intrigued by this free and open sexuality of mine, and I think hearing about it gives her a charge, a thrill, and that’s something worth aiming for. And so some measure of honesty might have been fruitful.
But one must not plan these things too carefully. And so I simply decided to wait and see, play it by ear.
Right on time she rolled up, at our usual meeting spot, in her cute car; a sigh and catch in my heart as she did so, as I stood to walk toward her, open the door, take in the scent of the car’s perfumed interior, sight of her lovely profile…
