“Women are all a little fake,” he replied bluntly.
“So you’re telling me you’ve been at your school for nearly four years and not one girl has gone after a good-looking guy like you?” I teased him.
“Girls? What girls? There are hardly any girls in the architecture department. And the ones that are there . . . well . . .” He laughed. “There’s even a rhyme about it.”
“All right, let’s hear it then!”
Lan Yu took a deep breath:
“Huada girls though sweet and proper
To the eye have naught to offer.
Don’t bother trying to cast your hook,
Her nose is buried in a book.”
“Ha!” I chortled. “Who came up with that?”
“Someone wrote it on one of the desks at school.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I majored in the humanities. You science types are pathetic when it comes to going after girls.”
“So, you still want to go after them? Even now?” Lan Yu put down the magazine and looked at me.
Raising my hands, I made circles out of my thumbs and forefingers and held them to my eyes like glasses. “We are already old, it doesn’t matter to us anymore!” I laughed. I was quoting Zhao Ziyang, the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He had been purged and put under house arrest after delivering a sympathetic speech to student demonstrators during the hunger strike the previous year. When Lan Yu heard me imitating Zhao’s heavy Henan accent, he burst into laughter. “Anyway, even if I went after the ladies, I couldn’t run fast enough to catch them!” I continued, ascending the staircase while Lan Yu remained on the couch, shaking his head and laughing.
The second time I saw Lin Ping was at my company again, but this time in the quiet solitude of my private office—and alone. Her boss had returned to the United States and asked her to come see me face-to-face to go over the details of our agreement. I was more than happy to oblige. When we met, she wore another blue suit, a kind of bluish-green cyan this time, bright and colorful, but with a lingering elegance that made my blood race.
We talked shop for a while then chatted animatedly about this and that for some time until there appeared a brief lull in the conversation. I leaned back in my chair, riveting my gaze on her in a way that was, I thought, polite and professional, but which carried an unmistakable hint of flirtation that she couldn’t have missed. She maintained composure at first, and looked me straight in the eye, calm and cool. A few moments later, however, she broke eye contact and looked down at her hands folded in her lap. Damn! I had never met a woman like her.
“Would Miss Lin allow me to thank her by accepting my invitation to dinner?” I asked, leaning forward in my chair and holding her steady in my gaze.
For a brief moment, Lin Ping’s face was overcome with a kind of panicked indecision. Looking downward, she fingered the hem of her skirt as if trying quickly to decide what to do. In a flash, her lips formed a smile, and I heard the words I wanted to hear: “I’d love to!”
For dinner I picked a posh French restaurant called Le Ciel Harmonieux. At eight o’clock on the dot, Lin Ping strode into the lobby where I waited, the automatic glass doors unfolding before her like parting seas. My eyes lit up. One hundred seventy centimeters of breathtaking beauty. Her simple but elegant ash-gray evening dress clung to her finely wrought frame. The dress had a little black floral ornament on the right shoulder, perfectly matching the sleek black pocketbook she carried in her left hand. Her hair was up in a loose bun with strands of hair falling over the tiny black earrings she wore.
What a fucking body! Slim, slender, and tight—so different from Hao Mei with her big, clunky ass. She was just the right height for me, the perfect complement to my tall, masculine frame. My mind spiraled with desire as her dainty feet clicked their way toward me in the lobby. I stood up from my chair to greet her with a gentle, lingering handshake. Something was definitely happening between us.
We stepped into the lush, well-lit dining area, my right arm hooked around her waist. Testosterone surged through my veins as we made our way through the maze of tables, lighting up a runway of grandeur as each man we passed, whether Chinese or foreign, turned to drink her in with his eyes. I beamed with a kind of pride I never thought possible. Lan Yu would never be able to give me that.
Lin Ping and I conversed throughout dinner and late into the night. She told me she had graduated from Fifth International Studies University four years earlier and had worked as an English interpreter ever since. The job with the American company was her third since graduation.
Like Hao Mei, Lin Ping was originally from the South. Her father was an official in some government agency or another, and her mother was a typist. I sat across the table from her, more captivated by the way she spoke than by what she was saying. Everything about her was mesmerizing. Her delicate mannerisms, the graceful way she ate, her gentle laugh, her frankness and openness. I was enchanted.
When I got back to Tivoli it was nearly midnight. Lan Yu was still awake, reading the paper in bed.
“How come you’re still awake?” I asked.
“I can’t sleep,” he said with a yawn. “How was work?” He never took any interest in my work. It was just something to ask.
“Okay,” I said, turning off the light. “Let’s get some sleep.”
Lin Ping and I went out a few more times after our first date. The power her charm and sex appeal held over me grew stronger and stronger, but my desire was frustrated by her apparent unwillingness to consummate the deal by sleeping with me. We only met at night, staying out pretty late each time. With a little logistical help from Liu Zheng, I was able to arrange things so that Lan Yu had no idea what was going on.
One Saturday night I had to attend a social gathering at the Dai household. Donald Dai was the number-two bigwig in the high-flying world of Chinese finance, and he had the English name to prove it. I’d managed to get myself invited through a friend in common. To make everything feel more natural, I asked Lin Ping to accompany me at the last minute. She agreed. Everything was perfect at the party, thanks in no small part to Lin Ping. It was good for me to have a woman by my side, and especially a woman like her. Her beauty and charm won people over wherever she went.
“I want to thank you for coming with me tonight,” I said as we left the party and our feet hit the pavement outside the Dai house.
“You’d better,” she said with a playful smile. “How do you intend to do it?”
“How about dinner?”
“That doesn’t count!” she cried. “Although”—her voice became quiet—“you must have read my mind because I really am starving. Let’s get something to eat!” She laughed sweetly. In each of our interactions she had been so professional and restrained. This was the first time I’d seen the cute girly side of her. There was something so tender and loving in her manner—or so I thought at the time.
That night after dinner, I kissed her in the car. I was on the verge of exploding, and the way she draped herself around me like a shawl told me she liked it too. But before I could go any further she pushed me away abruptly.
“Handong!” she cried faintly, clutching at the collar of my shirt as she pinned her eyes to my chest.
“Hmmm?” I cooed.
“There’s something I need to know,” she continued, turning away from me and resting her folded hands in her lap. “Do you have a wife?”
I laughed. I found it amusing that she would even ask such a question. “What makes you think that?” I asked.
“Let’s just call it a woman’s intuition,” she replied, gazing straight ahead through the windshield.
“Listen,” I said. “I’m single. I’ve never been married.” I touched her arm gently to signal that I wanted her to look at me. “You want me to show you the marital status on my household registration card?” Rich or poor, everyone had a household registration card. It said where you were authorized to live and work, as well as whether y
ou were married or single.
Lin Ping smiled bashfully and looked down at her lap. Then she looked up at me again. “Handong,” she said. “I’m so scared of this! I’m scared of getting in too deep. I’m scared of hurting you, hurting myself.”
I was struck by her words. Few women will demonstrate their love this openly. Especially beautiful women.
It was one o’clock in the morning when I took Lin Ping home, gently kissed her good-night, and went back to Tivoli. Still wound up from the date but ready for some shut-eye, I kicked off my shoes and went straight to the bedroom. Lan Yu was sitting up in bed, watching a movie on the VCR. He didn’t even look at me, let alone greet me.
“Up this late!” I said nonchalantly. “Don’t you have class tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” he said coldly.
“Well, I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.” I unbuttoned my shirt, hoping that if I didn’t say much he wouldn’t start asking questions about where I’d been all night. It didn’t work.
“You’re pretty busy these days,” he said abruptly. He was no dummy.
“Yeah, work stuff. What a pain!” I hated it when he started acting suspicious.
Lan Yu turned off the TV and pulled the blanket over his head as if to tell me he was going to sleep. When I returned from the bathroom after my shower, the blanket was pulled down again and he was lying on his stomach with his head turned to one side, almost falling off the edge of the bed. I turned on the headboard light, then stood at the side of the bed and looked down at him. Eyes closed, the contours of his thick black eyebrows and pouting lips were as exquisitely precise as if they’d been carved in stone. His expression when he slept was always so serene, so calm and unperturbed, without the slightest trace of artifice. I squatted next to the bed and gently kissed his lips. This must have roused him out of his sleep, because he rolled onto his back, muttering something. I climbed into bed and lay directly on top of him and kissed him until he woke up.
“Go to sleep,” he said sternly, though he was struggling to force back a smile. We were face-to-face, but his eyes remained closed.
“But I want some,” I said in a saccharine and slightly high-pitched voice.
“Want some!” he said as his eyes popped open. “You come home this late and you want some? No way, go to sleep.” He looked at me in annoyance, a barely perceptible smile dancing on his lips.
“But I’ve been so very busy,” I said in an exaggeratedly sweet voice. Lan Yu groaned and pushed me off of him.
Unable to bear the game any longer, we burst into laughter. We often played with this kind of role reversal, teasing each other until the whole thing became so silly that we had no choice but to start laughing and rolling on the bed together, giggling through the kisses.
“Man, what made you so grumpy tonight?” I asked after we had settled down from the fun. I was still on top of him, enjoying the sensation of his fingers running through my hair.
Instead of answering, Lan Yu pulled his hand away from the back of my head and looked at me straight in the eye. “Handong,” he began soberly. “Were you out sleeping around tonight?”
“And what if I was?” I quipped cheerfully. “You wouldn’t want me anymore?”
Lan Yu sighed. “I just worry that it’s you who doesn’t want me anymore,” he said, looking wistfully at the ceiling. I studied his face. His smile was gone, and his eyes were full of that kind of anxiety I knew so well, that deep distress that made me want him so badly when we first met and that still ignited my passion even now. At that moment, however, the distress he displayed provoked not desire—or not only desire—but a combination of sadness and guilt. Under the soft glow of the headboard light, my heart was flooded with so much passion for him, so much devotion to what we had, that my eyes filled with tears.
“Are you crazy?” I asked, burying my face in his neck. “How could I not want you?”
I didn’t talk to Lin Ping for two months after that. The truth was, I did have some guilty feelings about “sleeping around.”
In the end, it was Lin Ping who called me. Twice. The first time, her voice was calm and steady, as if there were nothing at all awkward about the long period of silence that had transpired between us. She was brief, though, saying little more than to ask how I was doing, then hanging up before the conversation went too far. Just enough, I noted with a vague sense of sudden frustration, to give me a taste of what I had been missing. Whether she intended it or not, her manner on the phone did something to me. My blood started racing the moment I heard her voice, and I felt the sharp stab of disappointment when she said goodbye. At twenty-five, she was five years Lan Yu’s senior. She had accumulated a kind of feminine maturity that oozed through the telephone. Women were sexiest at that age.
The second time she called, we made plans to get together. I told her I was going to a cocktail party on Friday night and asked her if she would like to come. Her answer—“Sure!”—got me excited, but worried. I hung up the phone, repeatedly telling myself not to do it. It wasn’t because Lan Yu and I had legal ties—I knew we didn’t. It was because I didn’t want to betray him.
And yet, in my gut I knew that when Friday night came it was going to happen. Lin Ping and I were going to sleep together.
Sixteen
The cocktail party was at the home of a boring, pompous, and utterly officious bureaucrat. The setting was informal, but nearly all the attendees were government officials and their spouses, so the social and career stakes were just as high as at any other event. I knew all the major players in attendance and, as expected, the evening went off without a hitch.
When the event was over, Lin Ping said she wanted to get some air, so we hit the streets of Beijing for a walk. Together we strolled through a quiet, dimly lit neighborhood. Arm in arm we passed the occasional shop or restaurant, just as cozy and natural as if we’d been a couple deeply in love for years. No matter where we went or what we did, I always took every opportunity to display my affection for Lin Ping. How much affection I actually felt was beside the point. With women, even the tiniest trace of tenderness could be expressed as if it were the greatest love in the world. But with men—with Lan Yu—it was the exact opposite. No matter how much love I felt for him, I couldn’t show even the slightest trace in public.
After our walk I took Lin Ping to Country Brothers. For the first half hour we sat on opposite sides of the couch, just making small talk. The bellboy brought some champagne and we drank a toast. “To friendship!” we shouted, clinking our glasses together. Her directness excited me. The male desire for conquest raced through my veins as I moved closer to her side of the couch. I had had my suspicions about what was going to transpire that night, but when she held up her champagne and looked me in the eye—that’s when I knew for sure: I was going to fuck her.
We kissed. I pushed my tongue into her mouth and she gasped, clutching first my shoulders, then the back of my head. Impatiently I advanced, wrapping my arms around her until finally I grabbed her by the waist and, in one quick motion, lifted her and carried her to the bed, where, item by item, I slowly began removing her clothes. Her demeanor was completely different from what I had observed thus far. She was usually so confident, elegant, self-assured. All this slipped away and in my arms she became shy, submissive, obedient. She untied her hair and it fell to the bed in a heavy cascade. Unable to wait any longer, I tore open her blouse and grabbed her left breast with one hand while prying her legs open with the other. I pressed up against her, kissing her lips, then her neck, then moved down to her chest, sucking her breasts one by one while moving my hand toward her pussy. I fingered her for a while, then pushed down my pants, raised her legs, and entered her in one solid motion.
It had always struck me as odd that I was able to hold out much longer before coming with women than with men. Sex with Lin Ping was enjoyable enough, but the truth was it lacked the magical fireworks I had hoped for. It was exciting, but the excitement I felt was more about psychol
ogical conquest than about the physical act itself. It didn’t matter though. When I saw the way I made her come again and again—that was exhilarating, intensely so, to the point that I very nearly cried.
“Handong!” she screamed, digging her nails into my back and kissing my neck. “Oh god . . . oh . . . oh . . . oh . . . oh,” she moaned as she wrapped her legs around me. It took some time, but I eventually managed to climax too.
With women, you have to hold them for a while after sex or they’re not going to get the ultimate satisfaction they’re looking for. Lin Ping nuzzled into my chest, clutching one of my thick, strong hands while I stroked her neck with the other.
“I feel so stupid,” she said, shaking her head and looking down with a laugh.
“Why?” I asked. “You’re the most intelligent woman I’ve ever known.”
She laughed. “I bet you’ve said that to a million girls!”
“Actually, I used to—” I started to speak, but Lin Ping cut me off by blocking my mouth first with one finger, then with a kiss.
“Handong,” she said, turning to look me in the eye. “I don’t care about the past. I don’t even need to know what’s going on with you now. All you have to know is that there’s a girl right here named Lin Ping who loves you very much. As long as you know that, everything else is okay.”
She shifted her body and sunk into my arms again. Eyes open in a wide stare, her gaze focused on some vague location on the other side of the room. The scent of her shampoo hit my nose. She continued:
“If there ever comes a day when you no longer care for her, just tell her to go away. It will be hard for her because she loves you very much, but she will do it. She’ll just quietly disappear.” Lin Ping turned to look at me again, a sad smile stretching its way across a face that was by now completely red. No one with a heart could have failed to be moved.
The sudden appearance of Lin Ping in my life forced me to confront a crucial question: whether or not to get married. My mother had been pestering me to do so for some time, particularly after my father’s death. I was beginning to feel the heat.
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