I liked having dinner with my housemates. We usually ate quite late, around eight p.m., but that was fine with me, since most days I didn’t leave the factory until seven. Often I was not the only man dining with them; they offered free dinner to their clients as well. The meals were homely fare — plain rice and two or three dishes, one of which was meat while the others were vegetables. Occasionally the women would prepare a bowl of seafood in place of a vegetable dish. There would also be a soup, usually made of spinach or watercress or bamboo shoots mixed with dried shrimp, tofu or egg drops, or even rice crust. The women would take turns cooking, one person each day, unless that person was occupied with a john and another had to step in for her in the kitchen. Some of their clients enjoyed the atmosphere at the table and stayed for hours chatting.
Whenever there was another man at dinner, I would remain quiet. I’d finish eating quickly and return to my room, where I would watch TV or play solitaire or leaf through a magazine. But when I was the only man I’d stay as long as I could. The women seemed to like having me around and would even tease me. Huong was not only the prettiest but also the best cook, depending less on sauces, whereas Lili used too much sugar and Nana deep-fried almost everything. One day Huong braised a large pomfret and stir-fried slivers of potato and celery, both favorites of mine, though I hadn’t told her so. None of them had a client that evening, so dinner started at seven thirty and we ate slowly.
Nana told us, “I had a guy this afternoon who said his girlfriend had just jilted him. He cried in my room — it was awful. I didn’t know how to comfort him. I just said, ‘You have to let it go.’”
“Did he pay you?” Lili asked.
“Uh-huh. He gave me eighty dollars without doing anything with me.”
“Well, I wonder why he came here,” I said.
“Maybe just to have someone to talk to,” Huong said.
“I don’t know,” Lili pitched in. “Maybe to find out if he could still do it with another girl. Men are weak creatures and cannot survive without having a woman around.”
I had never liked Lili, who would speak to me with her eyes half closed as if reluctant to pay me more mind. I said, “There’re a lot of bachelors out there. Most of them are getting on all right.”
“Like yourself,” Nana broke in, giggling.
“I’m single because I’m too poor to get married,” I confessed.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Huong asked.
“Not yet.”
“So would you go with me if I wasn’t a sex worker?” Nana asked, her oval face expressionless.
“Your taste is too expensive for me,” I said, laughing, though it was only partly a joke.
They all laughed. Nana continued, “Come on, I’ll give you a big discount.”
“I can’t take advantage of you like that,” I said.
That cracked them up again. I meant what I said, though. If I slept with one of them, I might have to do the same with the other two, spending a fortune. Then it would be hard to keep a balanced relationship with all of them. Besides, I wasn’t sure if they were all clean and healthy. Even if they were, I disliked Lili. It was better to remain unattached.
Then the phone rang, and Lili picked it up. “Hello, honey, how may I help you?” she intoned in a sugary voice.
I resumed eating as if uninterested, but listened carefully. Lili told the caller, “We have many Asian girls here. What kind of a girl are you interested in, sir? … Yes, we do…. Of course pretty, every one of them is pretty…. At least one-twenty … Well, that’ll be between you and the girl, sir…. Wait, let me write it down.” She grabbed a pen and began jotting down the address. Meanwhile, Huong and Nana finished their dinner, knowing that one of them would have business to take care of.
Lili said into the phone, “Got it. She’ll be there within half an hour…. Absolutely, sir. Thank you, bye-bye.”
Hanging up, Lili turned around and said, “Huong, you should go. The man’s name is Mr. Han. He wants a Thai girl.”
“I can’t speak Thai!”
“Speak some Vietnamese to show him that you’re not from China. He can’t tell the difference anyway, as long as you know how to charm him.”
Huong went back into her room to brush her teeth and put on some makeup, and Lili handed me the scrap of paper with our destination — a room in the Double Luck Hotel. I knew how to get there, having driven the women several times. I clapped on my brown duckbill cap, which kept my eyes hidden.
A few minutes later Huong came out, ready to go. “Wow, you’re beautiful!” I said, quite amazed.
“Am I?” She lifted her arms while turning a little to let me view her from the side. Her waist was concave at the small of her back.
“Like a little fox,” I said.
She slapped me on the arm. She wore a beige miniskirt and had applied lipstick, but she seemed more like a teenager who had messed up her makeup, so that her face appeared older than her petite body, which was curvaceous but tight. As she walked with her denim purse hanging from her thin shoulder, her legs and hips swayed a little as if she were about to leap. Together we went down to the garage.
The hotel was on a busy street, and two large buses stood at its front entrance, one still puffing exhaust out of its rear. Flocks of tourists were collecting their baggage, while a guide shouted to gather them for check-in. I found a quiet spot around the corner and let Huong out. “Call if you need me to come up,” I told her. “I’ll be waiting for you here.”
“Thanks.” She closed the door and strolled away, her gait as casual as if she were a guest at the hotel.
My heart sagged as I lay back in the seat to take a nap. She was young and beautiful and shouldn’t be selling herself like that. For sure she had to send her parents money regularly, but there were other ways of making a living. She wasn’t stupid, and she could have learned a respectable trade. She had finished high school in Vietnam and could speak some English by now. But from what I had gathered at the dining table, she was an illegal alien, whereas Nana had a Canadian green card and Lili held a student visa. They could make some money, definitely, but nothing like what the newspaper ads promised for the “massage” profession—“more than $20,000 a month.” Usually, the women charged a john one hundred at the house, but they had to give Mrs. Chen forty of that. Sometimes a client would give them a tip, between twenty and sixty dollars. Nana was rawboned and on the homely side, with a slightly cavernous mouth, so her price for incalls was eighty dollars, unless the men were older and had more cash to throw around. On a good day, they could each make more than two hundred after paying our landlady. Now and then an obnoxious client would not only refuse to tip them but also walk off with their belongings. Lili had once lost a pair of silver bracelets, stolen by a man who claimed to be from Shanghai, like her.
I had asked Huong about visiting hotels and private homes. She said she could make thirty or forty dollars more per client than at the house, though there were more risks. One night I had driven her to see a john at the International Inn, but on arrival she had found two men in the suite. They dragged her in before she could back out, and worked her so hard that she felt as if her legs no longer belonged to her. She had to take off her high heels to walk back to the car. She wept all the way home. She was sick the next day but wouldn’t go to a clinic, as she had no health insurance. I suggested she see Dr. Liang at Sun Garden Herbs. She paid ten dollars for a diagnosis fee. The old man put his fingers on her wrists to feel her pulse and said her kidneys were weak. Also, there was too much angry fire in her liver. He prescribed a bunch of herbs, which helped her recover. After that, I offered to accompany her into hotels and wait in the hallway, but she wouldn’t let me, saying it would be too conspicuous.