Chinabounder on the Road

I’m not going to bore you with opinions about China this week. I’m going to shock you.

Question: Do Chinese women ever want to be treated like hookers? The old Western idea of being a mother to the children, a fabulous housekeeper and cook, and a hooker in the bedroom – is that true for Chinese women?

It not being wholly true that I am an English teacher, business has taken me out of China to another Asian nation. Naturally I will not mention which one, though those who know it will no doubt recognize the venue.

Now of course I cannot go into the touristy shtick, and besides there are a thousand other blogs giving that side of the country, its temples and markets, its past and present. And so I will move straight to the matter -- which is that, in the lobby of the hotel where I’m staying, a few days back, I see a woman walk through, dressed in a straight black business suit, walking with power in her stride.

Oh, yes, the business suit, formal wear; an obvious fantasy, but potent for all that. After all, what man in his right mind would not want to fuck every single one of the black booted, red mini-skirted, red-jacketed women’s brigades that goose-stepped their way through China’s celebrations last national day? Ah, uniforms, clothes as badges, yes, there’s sexy. But in addition to the default sexiness of her clothes, what I also see is how she herself also exudes sex, magnetism, potential – to me.

I knew there was a small Chinese trade delegation staying at the hotel, selling some Chinese tech product, and I assumed she was part of it, even as she turned – hell, whipped, snapped -- my head. I had to follow her. In a city full of sexy women of another culture it was the Chinese woman who brought me to stiff attention.

She turns, makes eye contact, and so I immediately speak Chinese to her. This is a shock – a Western person in a foreign country speaking Chinese! ‘Where are you from?’ I ask.

‘Shanghai’ she says, and so, using my meager stock of Shanghainese I fire question after question at her. With the courage of a man on the make – something that most Chinese men would not have – I ask all I want to know. Are you alone? Are you married? Are you here with a boyfriend?

She was astounded, shocked. But was she caught?

My questions came too fast for her to evade or avoid them, and so I got all the answers I wanted including, to my final question – ‘Do you speak English?’ -- a ‘Yes.’

‘I want to have dinner with you’ I tell her. Her eyes widen.

‘I can’t. I’m busy tonight.’

‘Ok, then lunch.’

‘No time...’

But then it’s my turn to be astonished. ‘I have an hour at about 3 o’clock. Coffee? Meet me in the lobby?’

‘Sure,’ I reply, marveling at the confidence she shows.

And then she turns and continues to her meeting.

Three p.m., I’m waiting, having found a secluded table. She comes in a little later, pissed at her colleagues – ‘These guys are so in love with the sound of their own voices’ – and a little nervous too, I can see by her slightly too-quick gestures, the heightened tone to her voice.

So we settle down to get to know each other. Having snared her so far, there’s now no need to rush, and so I begin with the usual chit chat questions, stalking her through her replies, her body language. She’s a middle manager in some thrusting tech firm in Shanghai, a computer science graduate of such and such a university. Her official duties wrap up today, she says, which is why she is so busy. The rest of the group is heading back to China, and she’s arranged to stay on a few more days to tour the city and shop. How unusually independent!

But she’s a woman of surprises, and it’s she who brings sex to the conversation first. Well, truly, the whole conversation is nothing but sex, this entire meeting is about sex. But she’s the one who makes the implicit explicit.

She tells me she’s about to quit the firm.

Why?

Because, she says, she cannot get ahead. She tells me most of the staff there are guys and this makes it impossible for her. If she gets promoted over the men in her team, then the whole office will be alive with gossip that she fucked her way there. Not that she uses the work ‘fucked’ of course, but rather, ‘My boss just cannot promote me since he knows if he does everyone will assume I slept with him.’

Of course that’s what I want her to do with me, but naturally I do not say it, instead making the requisite remarks about what scumbags Chinese businessmen can be.

Busy woman that she is, she only has half an hour or so, and so as our time ticks out I take the gamble. ‘So you’ll be here on your own tomorrow?’

‘Yes, I told you.’

‘Then I want you to spend the day with me.’

A moment of hesitation clouds across her expression, so I press on. ‘I think you want to. Say yes.’

And she says yes.

But I am not done yet. This woman intrigues me, I see hidden fires in her that I flatter myself I can bring to the surface. I want to explore her, and I want her to explore her. And so I double down, increasing my bet.

Leaning close, I whisper into her ear, ‘But I have a condition… when you come tomorrow, don’t wear a bra.’

She’s shocked by this. ‘Wha – what?’

‘You heard me. No bra. I want to be able to touch you.’

And right then her phone buzzes with a text message, her boss wanting her back; and so she must go, the question unanswered, still reverberating through her mind in raw shock.

But I know this is a make or break bet. If she obeys me, comes the next day braless, then we will be lovers. If she does not, we won’t. That night I lie in bed, thinking it over, playing out strategies, scenarios, seductions. Calculating the odds.

And the next day?

We meet where we have agreed, and I can tell by the mixed shame and excitement on her face that she has done what I asked. I slide my hand high around her back feeling for the lack of bra and, satisfied, kiss her on the cheek, whispering in her ear, ‘Beautiful. Thank

you.’

And so we do the regular thing, the temple, the market, the tiger park, all that.

I know this is not what you want to read. You want the end of the day, not its beginning, its middle, none of its touches and pauses, testings and probings.

But it turns out I have unleashed something I did not expect for, towards the end of this day, things take a turn I had not foreseen. As, over dinner, I tell her she is coming home with me, she says –

‘Yes – I know – I am – but – but-’

‘What?’

‘I want you to pretend I am a prostitute. I want to be a prostitute for you, like the other girls in the city.’

Now this is new. Really new. Shockingly new. My acquaintance with the good women of China is rather extensive, but I have not come across anything like this. It is my turn to be stunned now. For a moment, I am speechless – and indeed so taken aback am I that I lapse into a rare moment of honesty.

She explains more. ‘This city is full of hookers – it’s Asia’s sex capital’ (she’s right there) ‘yet with all these sexy women available, you chose me… but I want to know what it is like to be one of them, I want you to treat me like that…’

‘But I do not know quite how… I have never been with a hooker before…’

That’s all I say before I say to myself, What the fuck are you saying?, and so I finish up, ‘…but, sure, yes, if that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do.’

And so we go up to my room, riding the elevator with both tension and expectation in the air as I decide how to play out her fantasy. How would it be if she was a hooker, I wonder – what would I do?

Yet after all, the equation is simple. A hooker is but a toy, a plaything, a servant; she does what the guy wants and pretends to like it. And he, I guess, cares only for his pleasure and none for hers. So this is the attitude I take, using her solely for my desires, first kissing her, exploring her body with my hands, her breasts naked beneath her top, kissing her with more passion and urgency and then undressing her, slipping her jacket from her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor, slipping her top up over her head… push her to the bed and kiss her here, there, lower to her skirt, unslip the clasp, toss it aside, to see – ah, rare woman! – sexy panties, a perfect choice, creamy-white lace and satin combined, stimulating, maddening, fragrant. Momentarily I wonder if I should rip them off her before deciding that is a scene too obviously from a porn flick (and reckoning besides that slight as they are they will not rip so easily) and so I just take them off the normal way.

‘Talk to me, talk dirty, tell me what I am, what you want to do to me’ she gasps as I go down on her, and so I do. Talk all out of a bad blue novel, a third-rate stroke-story, sure, sexy this and fucking that and oh yeah babe, but it works its purpose, each illicit word from my mouth notching her higher. Her reaction turns me on even more, and as my desire grows deeper I let myself get wrapped in the fantasy, treating her like so much bought goods, entering her with a sudden thrust that makes her yelp, pushing deep inside, grabbing her legs and lifting them higher, deepening my angle of attack; and then flip her over, come from the side, and behind, tell her to come on top, to get on all fours, to suck me, fuck me, harder, faster, quicker, deeper, louder, messier, telling her to talk dirty, telling her to say how it feels, to say how much she likes fucking, that she is my whore; and each forbidden word out of her mouth, each feeling and desire that would not be permitted back home drives her to heights upon heights, until riding me, my finger on her, myself inside her, she comes, comes, comes; and now lost in it myself, the closing scenes of a hundred porn flicks in my mind, I let my own orgasm rise. She’s still in the throes of hers, and I grab ahold of her, as she rides on top of me, roll her down towards the bed, still inside her (not such an easy technique, but one that with enough women to practice on is not so hard to learn), and, after few fast thrusts withdraw from her and, she all this while still gasping through her climax, I come on her breasts, her face.

‘Oh yes, yes, yes yes yes, do it on me, do it’ she cries, captive in the fantasy driving her, half disbelieving it is really happening, both outraged and excited. It is intense for me too, since I have never treated a woman in this way before (save in my mind) and I gasp and roar, until I am done, whereupon I collapse on the bed beside her, my mind a perfect, contented blank, sunk in what has just happened…

As she is too; and so we lie there dazed, dazzled a few minutes, slowly slipping back to normality. The first thing she says is, of course, ‘Tissue… tissue..’ and so I toss her a handful from the bedside table. Having wiped her face, body clean she says, ‘That was.. that was…’ but has no words for it; and, I feel, as the fantasy cools and shrinks, she starts to see it a little differently, to feel some regret for what she let herself become, for the inner self she showed.

And so she decides to go – showers, on her own, dresses, on her own, and makes to leave.

But the surprises are not over yet.

‘I have a question,’ she says. ‘How much would you pay me if I was a prostitute?’

‘Nothing’ I say.

Boom, just like that, anger, fury, the spoiled Shanghai princess protesting…

‘What? You would not pay me anything?

I say, ‘I told you, I don’t use prostitutes.’

‘But if… if..’ she cries, starting to vent the anger rising in her.

‘Still nothing’ I say.

‘Fuck you’ she says.

‘I did’ I reply.

A silence prickles around us.

I can see she’s deciding what to do – hit me? Yell at me some more? Turn away and stamp out?

Finally she says, ‘You foreigners always wish to take advantage of Chinese people, in China or abroad.’

She might as well have hit me. In an instant I am back in China apologizing for all the wrongs China has suffered, imperialists, invasions, massacres, burnings and lootings, hell, even the value of the yuan.

She glares at me one more time. Whirls away.

And she’s gone.

Shanghai women.

Love them or hate them.

Fantastic.