‘Sorry, but would you pass me that?’ she said, waving at the spatula.
The pans, brushes and other utensils hung neatly from a row of hooks on the wall. Her doing, no doubt. I thought I was going to cry. I took down the spatula and passed it to her. She reached out a long, bony hand and took it from me.
‘Burnt food gives you cancer.’ She turned the eggs out. ‘He always sleeps late, otherwise you could sit and wait for him to wake up.’
2
I fled. I just didn’t have the courage to wait until he came out. I would be dragging him from the world of his secret pleasure to face this wife of his, a wife who was in complete ignorance of what he was doing. It would be too cruel.
‘It must be the people upstairs,’ I said.
‘We’d never do that,’ she said as she saw me out. ‘We wouldn’t be so antisocial.’
I nodded. Then — so as not to wreck my story — I went upstairs and knocked and asked if there was water dripping from their balcony.
I was starting to feel sorry for her. Every time I saw her, I thought of what her husband was up to. Because of him, her body carried the smell of it. Did she lie awake at night and stare into the darkness, filled with disappointment because something was missing in her life? The worst thing was that she probably didn’t know what was wrong. She had no idea her husband was giving another woman what he should have been giving to her, giving it to the woman of his fantasies.
Masturbation is like driving — all men masturbate at one time or another, just like everybody breaks the law when they drive. I used to have dark fantasies about doing impossible things to a girl I didn’t know. But as soon I got married I stopped, because I believed that husband and wife have certain obligations to each other in that department. Either both should be getting it, or neither. If one enjoyed pleasure and not the other, that was a betrayal. There was too much unfaithfulness nowadays, especially among people like him. Of course I didn’t really know what he did, but he looked like he had his own business and one day I heard a visitor call him ‘Boss’. There are plenty of women in this world ready to play the whore and drop their knickers for their boss.
Not that I had strong feelings either way about whores. They were part of life in our city, just like the air we breathed. When you invited guests to a restaurant, you naturally had a few hostesses there, for a bit of fun. Once everyone demanded that a hostess show us her tits, and she did. Everyone laughed. I laughed too. Really it was no big deal. It’s what they do. They’re hostesses, just like we’re company bosses. That’s just the way we do business.
One evening I was wining and dining a business contact I met through my friend, Water. He got his nickname because he spreads it around so often that we all say his spunk must be thin as water. It was because of Water that I started selling health tonics and supplements — he saved me.
Before I met Water, I’d been running around like a headless chicken, with nothing more than a mock leather briefcase, selling anything from chemicals to watermelons. I had just graduated and wanted to start a whole new life: I was willing to run, I was willing to graft. I was educated, but I’d still been fooled. I had just done my biggest deal ever — a truck full of Hami melons from Xinjiang — but the buyer had vanished and the melons were rotting in front of my eyes. I rushed to the place where the buyer worked, but he had taken time off and no one knew where he’d gone. Just then Water turned up like a man rescuing a drowning dog, and sold some of the melons for me.
‘In this world,’ he said, ‘you’re better off selling than making, and selling fake brands is best of all.’ That was my moment of enlightenment.
Our guest that night was the deputy head of the provincial hospital. We were going to book some hostesses but he didn’t want to. So we didn’t. Though I could have done with it. I was really tense — I don’t know why.
Since he didn’t want women, we just plied him with food and drink. But he said he couldn’t hold his drink, so he didn’t want much of that either.
Several times I tried to start a conversation about how the hospital bought drugs, but the deputy head was having none of it.
‘Are you trying to give me the hard sell?’ he said.
‘Of course not,’ we protested.
‘Medicines are vital to human life,’ he intoned.
‘Yes, but drugs can kill you,’ Water replied. ‘Our tonics and supplements are totally harmless.’
Having no hostesses to propose the toasts was worse than having an empty table.
‘Let’s go to the sauna,’ said Water.
The deputy head wasn’t keen on that idea either, but Water insisted.
‘You have so many important matters to attend to every day, Mr Zhou, you need a chance to take it easy.’
He certainly knew what to say. Of course, normally so would I, but for some reason I was awkward that night.
After we had got to the sauna and stripped off, the deputy head finally began to relax and talk about the ups and downs of his job. Heading up a hospital was hard, he said, he’d much rather have an easy-going job like mine.
‘Well, today you can relax too,’ said Water.‘You can have a massage.’
Zhou just laughed and said nothing, so Water rushed off to ask the manager if they had any pretty masseusses.
‘All our masseuses are pretty,’ declared the manager, gesturing to the girls sitting and lying and strolling around the dimly-lit rooms. They certainly did look attractive.
‘We want the best-looking,’ said Water.
‘Of course.’ The manager smirked. ‘Nothing but the best for bosses like you.’
‘He’s the big boss,’ said Water, pointing at me. ‘You don’t want to mess with someone like him.’ I didn’t like Water saying that one bit.
We trooped along to pick our girls. Zhou was playing coy, but when he smiled at one of the girls Water took the hint and called her out. He was quite straightforward about it, beckoning her over with his finger. Had I ever summoned a girl like that?
When it came to my turn, I said I’d pass. Water grabbed my arm.
‘What the hell’s up with you?’ he hissed. ‘Don’t leave me out on a limb.’
Sure enough, our guest said he’d pass too.
‘That’s not what I meant,’ I added hurriedly. ‘I just want to go to the toilet first.’
‘Of course,’ said the manager. ‘But please choose your girl first, sir, and she’ll wait for you in the cubicle.’
‘Don’t call me sir, I’m not the big boss,’ I said.
They led us down a discreet inner corridor, past dimly-lit cubicles furnished with identical massage beds. There was a stale smell of cologne and cosmetics — I could hardly breathe. The girl’s hair reeked of grease and tobacco. Soon I did, too. Two hard-soft lumps were resting on my head while she massaged my face, though their owner didn’t seem to notice. My heightened senses could pick out the lines on the tips of her fingers, the moisturiser oozing in and out of the whorls. She was dissecting my soul with a warm scalpel, like meat on a chopping board. I couldn’t understand how I’d found all this relaxing before.
She reached down to my chest and tweaked my nipples.
‘Why do you always do that?’ I’d never thought to ask.
‘Why not?’ she replied. ‘The male chest is very sensitive.’
‘No, that’s not what I meant.’
‘Just tell me if it feels good, sir. That’s the important thing.’
Her smile was poppy red, obscene. I grabbed her hand and held it away from my body.
‘No more massage, let’s just talk,’ I said.
I asked her where she came from and how old she was. Her hands kept stroking me.
‘No more massage,’ I said again. She stopped.