There is a leper with a fat brown face who sits begging for change on the pedestrian flyover that leads to Jardine House, but blacker than his pock-marked stumps, is the heart of the mainland lady who stands on the corner of O’Brien Road in Wanchai, offering with a leer and a wink, “Young girls, young girls.”
In truth, a man would soon discover, the girls are not that young, for if he showed the slightest interest in pausing a moment too long, a diminutive female of uncertain middle age might beckon from the shadows of a side street, her superficial smile betraying imperfect teeth and improper motives.
And as one disrobes in the second floor locker of the nearby Mauna Loa Sauna, there is something mildly disconcerting in hearing from behind an unexpected acquaintance call out your name in recognition, particularly when your name is C.K. Chan, and you are a newly-appointed special constable with the Royal Hong Kong Police.
C.K. turned in surprise and immediately recognized his neighbour from the block of flats they both inhabited on Tin Hau Temple Road. Neither had anticipated this chance meeting, but after exchanging sheepish glances, each carried on as if little out of the ordinary had occurred.
As his neighbour hastily proceeded on his way, C.K. continued packing his clothes and shoes in a locker and donned the white terry-cloth robe he had been provided at the front, thereafter following in the same direction to the lounge area where he waited until his turn was announced.
An unassuming elderly gentleman dressed in a loose uniform that resembled a pyjama then led him down a hallway lined with doors to a tiny room, where C.K. was invited to climb up onto a padded table under the warmth of an accommodating heat lamp. It was typical that they would leave him alone here for several minutes while he became accustomed to his surroundings. His eyes adjusted to the subdued lighting as he inspected the plain walls and dimly-lit corners until eventually, he was joined by a short lady with a dark complexion who he judged to be of Hakka or Toi San descent. C.K. couldn’t help but observe that his demure, newfound companion looked very much like she might be somebody’s aunt. In fact, she probably was.
He recalled on an earlier occasion making stilted conversation with such a lady in asking, “How does a nice women like you end up here?” She smoothly turned the question around, as though it was the first time she had ever been asked, “How is it that a nice man like you ends up here?”
How indeed.
C.K. remembered back to his honeymoon and a five-star hotel in Jakarta. After a tiff with his wife, the first of many, he wandered down to the fitness centre and after a light workout, had pampered himself in engaging the services of the facilities’ masseuse. It came as a complete surprise, as they neared the end of the session, when his physical benefactor leaned down close to his ear and whispered heavily, “Would you like a sex massage?”
Perhaps she was emboldened by the state she’d manufactured in him; one of manifest comfort, relaxation and arousal. In any case, he declined the proposition, offering that he “didn’t think his wife would approve” and that was how his massage had ended.
He had been so idealistic then. C.K. never understood nor respected the ogre who could breach his matrimonial vows. And the idea of paying for sex seemed to him an admission of weakness and failure. C.K. returned to Hong Kong from that trip in an understandable swathe of self-righteousness and with his fidelity intact.
But no one can foresee how the dynamics of a marriage, its leverage and momentum, might change over the course of a few years, much less a decade. After the birth of their children, the pendulum of their relationship had taken a profound swing for the worse. The realization hit him suddenly, although the deterioration came about gradually over time, eroded by thoughtless gestures and the spiteful things they had said.
She felt confinement in the realization she would never be more than a policeman’s wife. C.K. had felt the lack of respect. They squabbled about money, although there’d never been any real shortage, and the division of housework also proved a potent source of friction. After they hired a Filipino girl to help with the cleaning and to look after their kids, they fought about the maid.
He lived with a woman who did not love him any more and they no longer shared aspirations in any meaningful way. It had taken him a long time to understand that it was not his fault. Neither was it hers. The sad and crippled reality just was. This spurred within him a pervasive sense of loneliness, but it had also been liberating.
Although he had taken comfort from unusual sources, he would not take a mistress in Shenzhen as his father had. Even if he’d been able to afford this on a policeman’s salary, he would not put his own children through the hurt and betrayal he had known in his father’s duplicity. There is a distinct discomfort in the stultifying formality of a traditional banquet, staring with baleful glances and bewilderment across a wide round table and over teacups in meeting one’s half brothers for the first time.
Instead, C.K. found solace in the camaraderie he shared with his colleagues at work and in sport. They travelled together, for instance, to play football at the Asian Policemen’s Games held that year in Thailand.
In the course of one evening during that trip, he struck up a lengthy conversation with a young lady working in a bar in Nana Plaza. C.K. felt euphoric at this intoxicating, mutual attraction, fuelled as it was by the intense heat, neon strobes, techno-pop music and Sanga beer.
Later that night, in a Bangkok hotel room, C.K. made love to this woman. Unabashed and athletic sex that quelled a burning lust he had long restrained.
Only in the morning had she asked for fifteen hundred baht, about US$75.00. C.K. had not expected this, but he learned shortly from others in a nearby room that a loud ruckus had resulted when certain of his team-mates in an identical predicament had refused to pay, and so he surrendered the money voluntarily, not entirely without gratitude.
On another occasion, his birthday, C.K.’s team-mates took him by hover ferry to Macau. A short distance from the terminal at an entertainment complex nicknamed the Fishbowl, a dozen girls had poised on chairs, behind glass, bearing numbered tags by which they could be identified.
His team-mates selected two busty Thai ladies with harsh, flat faces, whom C.K. probably would not have chosen for himself, to accompany him in a bubble bath. In the course of an hour he luxuriated there in a slathering of suds and skin as they slid up and down the length of his body with their nakedness, culminating the experience with four hands to his decided satisfaction.
There had been other times when he felt markedly less fulfilled. C.K. remembered spending a half-month’s pay one night at the Firehouse, a girlie bar a stone’s throw from Joe Bananas and just around the corner from the China Fleet Club.
There, tiny Filipino girls with smooth, round buttocks had danced on stage in leotards and later came to his table to sit like small dolls on his lap, joking and laughing with gleaming smiles, beseeching him with requests to “Buy me a dreeenk!” And when the money was gone, they quickly finished their house beverages and slunk off with little goodbye, leaving C.K. with a hollow, empty, short-changed feeling; one which he needed to repeat on more than one occasion to fully comprehend.
He knew in his heart that contrary to these fleeting pleasures, his most rewarding relationships had flourished in intense, emotional connection. Looking back he had been fortunate enough to experience such love in his lifetime. He also recognized encounters which had fallen far short.
C.K.’s presence was once feted in the basement of a Patpong hotel with a parade of young women who thereupon lined the walls of the reception area until the room resembled a tawdry high school dance. He passed over the more provocative, garish ladies in favour of a wholesome-looking girl who might have been seventeen. It had been a miscalculation on his part, for although the massage belied a certain competency, she responded with much less enthusiasm as he proceeded to crawl on top of her and engage in intercourse. This had been perfunctory and one-sided, for in the course of pleasing himself, he recorded the fact she was craning her neck over his shoulder toward the television on the shelf behind him to watch MTV.
Although he thereafter pumped a little harder in expression of his annoyance, she pretended not to notice and directed her eyes once again to the ceiling fan, focussing her mind on a place that was far, far away.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nelson L. Eshleman believes there may be nothing more redeeming than the creation of timeless, uplifting literature. In the meantime, he contents himself penning dismal accounts that feed the pornographic machine. His stories have appeared in the Adirondack Review, Asia Literary Review and Southern Ocean Review.
