Beijing Payback

by Daniel Nieh

  Wei walks over and stands beside me. She tips her head onto my shoulder and my mind is filled with the smell of expensive shampoo. “Did you see this?” She plucks a black tube of lipstick off the vanity and twists the two halves until something clicks. A round hole in the side of the lid exposes a tiny nozzle.

  “Not lipstick?” I ask.

  She rolls her lips inward, holding in her secret smile, and shakes her head. “Pepper spray.”

  “Yikes,” I say in English.

  “I have to prepare for every contingency,” she says in a spot-on impression of Sun’s woodenness, still holding in her smile, until our eyes meet and we both burst into laughter.

  “It’s not funny,” I say, holding my stomach, gasping for breath.

  She nods big, her shoulders shaking.

  After our chuckles subside into sighs, she says, “What will you do now?”

  “I dunno. We’re still waiting to hear about the laptop. And Sun is trying to get ahold of Gregoire, but I’m guessing he sleeps late. I’m really exhausted. Maybe I should do like you said and take a nap.”

  She pushes the disobedient bangs out of her face. “Do you want to take a nap with me?”

  My jaw must be hanging open because she quickly annotates this thunderbolt with two stern words: “No sex.”

  “What? Uh, right. Yes. Yes, I do want to take a nap with you,” I say quite formally, and we both laugh giddily again.

  “Okay.” She walks over to the big round bed and starts tossing pillows onto the plush rug. “You turn off the lights.”

  After I hit the switch by the door, I’m reminded by the pitch-blackness that these rooms have no windows.

  “Uh,” I say.

  “Follow my voice,” she says. “Come here. Come here. Watch out for the pillows.”

  “You have too many pillows,” I say when I finally reach the bed.

  “Mmhmm,” she says, and starts pulling my clothes off. All of them.

  “Whoa.”

  She takes my hands in hers and presses them together in front of us. “The rule is, these hands do not touch me,” she says. “Do you understand the rule?”

  I close my eyes and nod obediently. Nothing happens.

  “Did you just nod? I can’t see you,” she says.

  “Oh, right. Sorry. I’m so tired. Yes, I understand.”

  “Good.”

  Then we are lying in her bed. She rolls me away from her and snakes one hand under my neck and onto my chest. She puts her other hand on my stomach and presses herself against my back, and I can feel that she is naked, too, her breasts against my shoulder blades, her pubic fuzz against my lower back, her lips directly behind my ear.

  “Are you comfortable?” she whispers, and I truthfully answer that I’ve never been more comfortable.

  “Good,” she says. “Remember the rule.”

  We rest like this for a while, and I’m almost asleep when her fingertips start to roam from my stomach to my ribs, then my hip and my thigh, then back to my stomach. I feel her breath get a little deeper in my ear and her nipples tighten against my back. I’m rock hard by the time her hand gets there. I seem to hear her smile as she lets me go and gives me a pat on the butt before reaching her hand up to her mouth and licking her palm. She does this a few times in the long minutes that follow, methodically using her hand to bring her saliva to me until I’m slippery and slick.

  I feel drunk with tiredness and excitement. I try to take stock, to tell myself this is happening, but the pleasure is too overwhelming for me to process and file away as thought or memory. She fondles me, lingers, retreating to caress the rest of me whenever I get close to the edge, all along breathing into my ear and holding me to her chest with her other hand, rocking me ever so gently front to back until I lose all sense of time, place, and self. How long does she touch me? Twenty minutes? Thirty? My mind shuts down, and all I know is this endless moment in which I more or less become pure bliss, and she becomes the god of a little world defined by her fingertips. And then her hand quickens; she slips her tongue into my ear; she wraps her hand around the tip of me, and I explode, a pulsing wet ecstasy, into her palm. She claps her other hand over my mouth as I tremble and convulse.

  After I’m soft and my heartbeat returns to the sane range, she kisses my cheek and then rests her head behind mine on the pillow. I try to roll toward her, but she commands me to stay put with a wordless murmur. Then I feel the back of her hand moving along my back and spine, and her breath against my neck becomes a rhythmic panting. It dawns on me in my tiny animal brain that she’s rubbing my come over her stomach and breasts. The hand moves down and speeds up, and the other hand moves from my chest to my mouth. I part my lips and accept her fingers with a grateful tongue, and somewhere deep in my abdomen the hint of another erection stirs and I almost laugh aloud in my exhaustion.

  After bringing herself off in a series of gasping shudders, she wraps herself back around me with both arms and gives me a sticky squeeze. It’s then that I finally teeter over the threshold into a slumberous void, my last thought really genuinely being that I am content never to wake again.

  * * *

  “Do you not understand the rule?” Holly said, a triumphant smile on her face. “I can explain it again.”

  “That’s such—but—okay, I’m just saying, we won, like, four, five games in a row just now,” Andre said. “And nobody has said shit about no NBA Jam rule.”

  Sophomore year, the weekend after the end of the basketball season: Holly and Jeanie had just knocked us off the table in a hard-fought beer-pong match, and Andre’s competitive nature was getting the best of what he liked to call his General Mellow.

  “Did you play anyone else who lives here?” Holly asked, faux sweet. “Because it’s a house rule, ask anyone. But I really don’t mind, we can run it back and beat you guys again.”

  “Umm, excuse me?” Janelle Pearson leaned over the table and popped her gum. “But Tyler and I have been waiting for, like, an hour?”

  “Fine, who cares? We won five straight, we can retire, right, Victor? Kobe.” Andre shot a high-arcing fadeaway with the remaining Ping-Pong ball; it caromed off the edge of Holly and Jeanie’s last cup.

  I said, “Good game,” and shook hands with Holly and Jeanie, provoking a smile, giggles. Because I’m sweet or because I’m a pathetic dork? Another mystery to me. Who shakes hands after beer pong? I shook my head at myself as we retreated to the back porch, where Eli was sitting on a musty couch, smoking a joint with a girl I didn’t recognize.

  “Y’all finally lost?”

  “Yeah,” Andre said. “Victor, you fell off.”

  “Too much beer. Plus, Holly makes me nervous.”

  “C’mon, man.” Andre shook his head at me. “When are you gonna stop pining and make a move?”

  The girl put a hand on Eli’s knee and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, then staggered off in a kegward direction. Eli blinked down at the spot on the couch that she’d vacated. “Shit,” he said, then looked back up to me. “So, Holly Michaels, huh? You like that in-charge, alpha female thing? Think she’d strap one on for you?”

  As usual, Andre came to my defense. “You got it all wrong, Eli. Our man Victor here is a true romantic and a postchauvinist. So he’s naturally drawn to strong women such as the lovely Holly. Right, Rice?”

  I didn’t respond, just tipped my head onto the couch cushions and tried to exhale away some drunkenness. It didn’t matter to me if Andre thought I was a romantic or Eli thought I wanted a good pegging. What mattered to me was that I’d been in college for eighteen months, and the optimistic box of Trojans under my bed was still covered in shrink-wrap.

  “Andre all day! What it is, nigga?”

  “You already know, son!”

  Snapback caps and tapered fros loomed over me. I tipped myself upright in time to see Andre bounce off the couch and exchange elaborate daps with three brothers of Omega Phi Pi. Back during Freshman Rush, Omega had heavily courted Andre, who managed
to fend them off without stepping on any toes; now, he came and went freely at their parties, usually without bringing Eli and me along.

  “Why does he hang out with those guys, anyway?” I said to Eli after Andre and the Omegas had drifted away from the couch with nary an acknowledgment of our existence. “That’s not, like, who he really is.”

  “You mean, black?” Eli drew on the joint, spoke in a high whine as he held smoke in his lungs. “I’m pretty sure he’s black.”

  “You know what I mean. We live with this guy who reads bell hooks and makes pierogis from scratch, but they hang out with some slick brother who says things like ‘this nigga be like’ and ‘what’s Gucci, my killa?’ So why does he have to front like that when he’s with them?”

  Eli nodded skeptically and tried to pass me the joint, but I waved it off. Finally, he exhaled, a thin stream of smoke vanishing up into the warm sky. “He’s just code-switching, V. You think those other guys talk like that all the time? That guy Rashid, in the Clippers jersey? He’s magna cum laude, man. In physics.”

  “Seems a little phony to me,” I said. “That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Yeah, sure, dude, like we can always be perfectly honest about who we really are, that’s super-realistic,” Eli said, waxing stoned. “Look at me, I have to pretend to my parents that I don’t eat shellfish and constantly wear a skullcap to acknowledge the divine presence above my head. Victor, sometimes we’ve got to be who people want us to be. And when we do that, yeah, we’re protecting ourselves, but we might also be protecting the other people. Man, most people are just playing roles most of the time. Trying to get something: love, sex, money, respect, whatever. And it’s great that you’re not like that. But.”

  “But?”

  “But it’s ridiculous that you expect other people to be like you. And hey, you don’t even speak English with your Dad.”

  He kind of coughed, gagged, and snorted at the same time.

  “You show me someone who’s the same person in every situation,” he said, “and I’ll show you a psycho killer.”

  I might have pressed my point if Janelle hadn’t flopped down onto the couch on the other side of me. Janelle Pearson had been in my Finance 100 section, and we were once paired together to make a presentation for which I ended up doing most of the work. By custom she sat among a gaggle of her sorority sisters, but she occasionally caught up with me after class to borrow my notes and ask with a sly smile if I was “still on the basketball team.”

  Janelle was wearing a white skirt and a pale pink crop top that showed plenty of her amber skin. Her sun-streaked hair was pulled back into a half ponytail; her eyebrows were plucked to near extinction.

  “Hey, Victor!” she said.

  I responded in kind and introduced Eli, who offered her the joint.

  “Oh my God, no, thank you. I just pounded so much beers. Those volleyball lesbos really know how to throw Ping-Pong balls, I’ll give them that.”

  “So you lost, too, huh?” I said. “Another victim of the NBA Jam rule?”

  “The what?”

  “Nothing.”

  A silence. Eli elbowed my ribs. Then Janelle laid a finger on my forearm.

  “I’m gonna go take a shot. Wanna come with me?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Once she was gone, Eli said, “Dude, you know Janelle Pearson?”

  “We had a class together, that’s all,” I said. “How do you know her? I thought you just met.”

  “I follow her on Instagram. We’ve met, like, four times, but she has never once remembered me. I can’t believe you just blew her off like that. I’d be more angry if I weren’t still in shock.”

  “What, ’cause I didn’t go take a shot with her? Dude, Janelle Pearson and I have zero in common. I don’t think she’d really go for a guy like me.”

  Eli stared at me for a minute, shook his head, and then pulled out his phone. “Victor, we’re not talking about marriage. Look at these photos. She’s either in a bikini or drinking or both. She just pounded some beers and then asked you if you want to take a shot. I doubt she cares how much you have in common.”

  I took the phone out of his hands and scrolled through Janelle’s admittedly sexy feed as Eli continued to scold.

  “She’s half Puerto Rican. Look at her belly button, dude! You’re telling me you don’t want to go find out what she smells like? You know, Victor, you’re always complaining about not getting any, but seriously you wouldn’t know pussy if it hit you in the face. You’re obsessed with this weird notion that girls think Asian guys are nerds. You’re not a diminutive gamer from Daegu, you’re a racially exotic college athlete. I’m an uncoordinated programmer with eczema and freckles, and you have the nerve to complain to me about your girl problems?”

  #happyhour. #beachbody. #YOLO. Maybe Eli had a point. Maybe I needed to loosen up. Our second season of college basketball had just ended, and I continued to escape notice from the coaching staff despite practicing harder than anybody else. Maybe my disappointment had led me to be a little too hard on myself. Like everyone was always telling me.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll go find out what she smells like.”

  “Don’t do it for Eli.” He produced a pack of gum from his pocket and offered me a stick. “Do it for Victor.”

  I popped the gum into my mouth and stood up from the couch. “Nǐ de yánxíng hé nǐ de nèixīn bù kěnéng suíshí yízhì de—It’s impossible for your conduct to always align with your heart,” Dad once said, a grim look on his face.

  I found Janelle in the kitchen, and pretty soon we had rinsed out a couple of Solo cups and located a handle of Bankers Club. What’s your major? Where are you from? What’s the best part of being in a sorority? I asked questions, listening, being careful not to make jokes or open up about myself or anything silly like that. She brushed her hand against mine, she leaned close to me, she had gotten a C in Finance 100.

  She smelled like coconuts.

  Should we do another shot? Had it always been this easy, and where had I been? Pretty soon she was leading me up the stairs, pushing me onto a bed, pulling off my T-shirt. She was doing slurpy kisses on my belly, telling me she’d heard I worked out a lot, but wow. She was pulling at my belt, and I was praying I’d be hard by the time she got there, when Holly walked in with three or four people behind her.

  “Uh, wow. That’s unexpected!” Holly said, wheeling around, herding people back into the hallway.

  “Don’t you knock?” Janelle exclaimed.

  “Not usually on my own door,” Holly called over her shoulder.

  I was on my feet in an instant, halfway after her, telling her I didn’t know, I thought—

  “Don’t sweat it,” she said, and pulled the door closed in my face.

  I turned back to Janelle. She had kicked her shoes off and lain down on Holly’s bed. “Don’t worry, she doesn’t care. Come back over here.” She licked her lips. “I need to see the rest of that ripped bod.”

  I blinked at her a few times, then turned back around and headed out the door. Holly was just disappearing into a room down the hall.

  “Wait,” I said. “Holly. Can I talk to you for just a second?”

  She squinted at me, came back out into the hallway, walked over slowly, folded her arms in front of her. “What’s up?” she said.

  My face went hot. Saliva pooled in my mouth. It vaguely occurred to me that I was rip-roaring drunk. I said I didn’t know it was her room. I wouldn’t have gone in there with Janelle if I had known it was her room.

  “Look, I already told you, don’t sweat it.”

  “I know you did, I just—there’s something else I wanted to ask you. Would you like to have dinner together sometime? Or lunch? You don’t have to. I mean, maybe I could call you about it.”

  Holly looked away, blushed, traced a shape on the wall with her fingers. “Victor, I—”

  Some dude poked his head out of the doorway behind her. “Holly, babe, can’t find a lighter
,” he said.

  “Okay, one sec,” she said. The head disappeared. Holly turned back to me, reached out, and rested a hand on my shoulder.

  I noticed that I wasn’t wearing my shirt.

  “Victor, you’re a sweet guy,” she said. “I like that about you. But you really don’t know the first thing about timing, do you?”

  Then she turned and walked away.

  30

  Xiaozhou? Wake up. Xiaozhou? Wake up.”

  I open my eyes, then shut them again, gradually returning to my body after a journey to the most self-annihilating depths of sleep. Where am I? Who am I? Someone named Xiaozhou whose face hurts, I guess. Someone who saw a man die with a knife sticking out of his face. Someone who had his consciousness erased by five deft fingers.

  “Where’s Wei?” I ask.

  “She is gone,” Sun says.

  “What? Gone gone?” I open my eyes again, prop myself up on my elbows.

  “She took Xiaofang and a suitcase. She told me you were sleeping in here.” Sun says this slowly, like he’s going out of his way not to imply anything. “We have to meet Gregoire in an hour.”

  “Oh.” I drop back into bed, close my eyes. “Okay, I’ll be up in a minute.”

  After Sun leaves, I pry myself out of bed and discover that every single muscle in my body is sore. I fish Dad’s Casio out of my pants pocket and check the time: 11:30 in the morning. So I got about three hours of the sleep of the dead. Better than nothing.

  Someone thoughtful left a full glass of water on the bedside table, and I down it with a thirst that seems to originate in my legs. I rinse off in Wei’s shower and dry myself with a supersoft blue towel. I poke through her remaining toiletries. Shower puff, leg razor. Surprisingly ordinary stuff for a highly evolved sex-angel from Planet Orgasm. No supersecret love perfume or mind-numbing opiate pills. Or maybe she took that stuff with her. Gone gone, with no goodbye. If I had more than a quarter inch of hair, maybe I could pull some out in anguish. Instead, I splash some cold water on my face and poke my puffy left temple hard enough to wake myself up. More time later to mope over love lost. I need to pack. I need to check my email.