I drifted to a new city after graduation, lonely as hell. I missed Xie terribly.
My first job after graduation was accountant, something I really hated to do. The company I worked for was a local subsidiary of a state-owned real estate company under the direct management of XXX Ministry. There were only about 20 people in the company, handling hundreds of millions of yuans in business. But on the bright side, I was really happy that I befriended with half a dozen new recruits in the company.
Contrary to the conventional responsibilities of an accountant, mine included bribing, embezzling, pimping and drinking myself into a stupor on a regular basis.
For bribing part, every three months, I was asked to deliver a bag of money to a loan officer who was working for the local branch of China Construction Bank. Credit cards were not available at the time. Later I came to know the money was a kickback to the loan officer for granting my company business loans. I did not understand why we had to give him money for acquiring loans. Shouldn’t he give us money? Here was why: China’s economic miracle was largely driven by construction – building things, anything, such as roads, office buildings and museums. In our case, we specialized in real estate business. We bribed someone in the local government to obtain a piece of land for a song and then we built something on it, normally office buildings. In a good market, before we even started building the base, the property would be sold quickly. Cash rolled in, loans paid back, profit pocketed and everyone was happy. If the market turned sour, we would hold the land for a better time and we didn’t need to worry about paying back the loans, because eventually, those loans would be written off as bad loans. All we needed to do was to apply for new loans to cover old ones and gave some kickbacks to the bank loan officers. That was where my role came into play. Of course, such Ponzi scheme would dig a bigger and bigger hole in the banks. But who cared? When banks’ bad loans ballooned to the stage of bankruptcy, Chinese government stepped in to do what they called “asset restructuring”- to create a state-owned company that would buy bad loans from the major banks. (I suspect US president Barack Obama’s huge 700-billion bailout plan in 2008 was a copy from China’s idea, some of you folks should be cheering by now. Finally, US have something copied from us! The guy was probably trying to build a “Socialism country with American characteristics”)
My embezzling function was much more rewarding. My job was to make sure there would be an invoice for every transaction through which we squandered the borrowed money and the books looked legitimate and balanced. One designated restaurant that we frequented most had a special deal with us: for each consumption of 100 yuans there, I would get an inflated invoice of 300 yuans for balancing my books. The difference of 200 yuans would be deposited in a special account. I was not worried about being caught by auditors. Before anyone could put his or her hands on my books, company managers would make sure they were as drunk as dead fish, plus a generous take-home gift next day. Second week on my job, I had already hated it.
Behind that restaurant, was a big Karaoke Bar where about 20 escorts solicited businesses. Normally, after a heavy dinner in the restaurant, those senior company managers would totter into the bar to coddle an escort girl before heading home. As a new member of the company, I was only allowed to share a table with company drivers. No one called me my name, they all yell “college boy” at me. One day, those drivers were playing Karaoke, each holding a girl and bowling those Russian songs into a microphone in turn. I had to wait to the end to pay for the entertainment and get the invoice. One of the drivers who wasn’t singing shout in my ears above the noise in the Karaoke bar, “College boy, you got a girl friend?” The alcohol in his breath almost choked me. For an instance, I thought of Xie. But I shook my head. That somehow amused him. “See, I am married, but I still know how to find some fun. Why don’t you relax and find a girl here?” As if on cue, another driver pushed the girl who was sitting on his lap towards me and shouted, “Go, make our college boy happy.”
The girl bounced to me like a rabbit, deliberately shook her breasts, thrashed them only inches from my face and challenged me, “my handsome brother, touch them.”
Everyone stopped doing what they were doing and chanted in unison, “Touch them! Touch Them!”
I really did not know how to respond and I felt my face was burning. I was young and I was an accountant, so after quickly calculated the cost of the entertainment of the night, I asked the driver sitting beside me, “If I touch them, how much more would it cost me?”
Instantly, a boisterous laughter filled the room. They were all laughing uncontrollably in various positions. The girls joined the laughing chorus by shrieking. Several managers in a different room came to check what the fuss was about and left earnestly to spread the joke. I felt like a monkey.
I could endure all this, but what I couldn’t endure was constant drinking. We drank with clients, government officials, bankers, contractors and ourselves if there was no one to drink with. My boss drank with reserve, while forcing me to drink unreservedly as part of job. Normally, before I could have a chance to eat anything on the table, I was half drunk after a couple of rounds of toasting, half tumbler of hard liquor for each round, for friendship, for health, for business opportunities, and there was always something to make a toast for. Then I would rush to the washroom to vomit several times before I became totally hammered for the night. I was so drunk that I usually could still taste my own vomit and bile the next day.
I hated my job and I missed Xie. If I were alone, I would lock myself in the office, listening to Qi Qin’s songs and gazing at her photo. I wanted a home, my own home, where someone was waiting for me; when I walked home after work, there would be light blinking through my window; when I pushed open the door, there would be a pair of arms clasping my neck to welcome me home; when I sit down, there would be delicious foods on the table; when I went to bed, there would be someone nestling beside me. But could that be Xie? I wasn’t sure. She was my best friend, and I had a hard time fitting her into that picture. Nevertheless, I wanted to see her. I hadn’t seen her for a while.
I thought I had the worst job in the world until I got to know what my roommate was doing in the company. He was a civil engineering graduate from a University in Si Chuan. His job was to supervise the construction sites of office buildings my company was working on. One day, he told me he was going to quit. I asked why. He said he was scared because the engineer in chief made him to sign on those progress reports. I asked what was wrong with that. He patted my shoulder as if he was about to tell me a big secret, “The blueprints require 24 steel bars in each concrete block. Our contractor only put in half!”
“So?” I still did not get it why he was scared.
“You idiot, the building would fall. But don’t worry, I think it won’t happen in ten or twenty years. When you pass by those high-rises, stay as far from them as possible. You never know, someday, something might drop from those buildings.” Said he reassuringly.
“No shit! But would that be the engineer in chief who has to sign on those reports?”
“No, he is scared too and that is why he refused to go to the construction site and he made me do it. I have to do it, because he is my boss. If someday, one of those building collapses and they find my signatures on the reports, I could be put in jail. ” He signed.
“What if you don’t sign?”
“Those contractors are local thugs and they are capable of anything. Tonight, they have invited me to dinner and I know they will bring reports with them. I am screwed!”
“No kidding!” I shuddered at the idea and decided in private that I would not live or work in one of those buildings, a manifestation of “the progress” that China had been so eager to show the world.
All of sudden, my accounting job wasn’t that bad anymore and thus I had worked for this company for four years.
One day, Xie called and told me she was in my city on a business trip and she would like to meet me before her scheduled departure next morning. I was disappointed that she told me so late and saved only half day for me. But I was already ecstatic just at seeing her. I hadn’t seen her for six years although we called each other occasionally.
I hopped in a Taxi and met her at a restaurant. She was sitting beside a window, in beige business attire, high heels, her hair neatly tied in a bun, demure and measured, now beautiful in a different way. I sat on the opposite seat of the table. For several minutes, neither of us said anything. We just sat there, looking at each other and smiling. No words were needed. Six years! Now I could touch her for real. And thus I stared at her, my soul mate and best friend, and all those years of failures, sorrows, depression and loneliness were dissipated by her loving and fathomless eyes. I had a lot to tell and yet, I didn’t know what to say at that moment.
Neither of us had an appetite to eat. Hastily having stuffed ourselves, we went to do one thing we both enjoyed – play table tennis. She was wearing a pair of high-heels that day, so the game was more of an effort to reconnect to the past than of an intense sport. But the game was not important anymore, it gave me a chance to appreciate her vitality and youth when she moved around the table, swinging, scooping, pushing and swirling; her perfume and occasional crisp laugh filled ping-pong room. There was a desire flashing in my mind that I wanted to hold that woman and froze the time. But I quickly shook off the thought self-deprecatingly because any lewd ideas concerning my best friend would make me extremely uncomfortable. Watching her lively playing in front of me was enough for me. She was beautiful as ever, but now with some womanly maturity, adult sagacity and an air of assertiveness.
After the game, it was getting late and I accompanied her back to her hotel for further talk. While she was taking a shower, I seated myself on the couch after making a cup of tea for both of us and browsed the newspaper of the day. She spent a long time in the bathroom, but I did not mind because I was taking my time to recall all the things we did together and that made me chuckle.
When she came out of the bathroom, she had only a towel wrapped around her, her left hand holding the edge of the towel to prevent it from slipping and her right hand drying her hair with a hand towel. The towel had merely covered her mid section, revealing most of her long legs and half of the chest. Sexy and imagination-inducing. I couldn’t help but watching and wondered why I did not notice that before. Oh my, she had a cleavage! I started sweating, squirming uncomfortably in the couch and holding my tea cup in a desperate effort to regain my composure. Then she did one thing that officially ended our plutonic romance completely – she asked me if she was beautiful and then removed the towel. I wasn’t prepared for that because this was so not her. But again, what did I know about her? She thus stood in front of me – totally naked and she wasn’t shy at all as if she was posing for a camera. Hot air instantly shot through me and I knew I was having an erection. I could not sit straight in the couch, so I started to slouch, hoping it would make me more comfortable in the couch. “Do...do you want to see mine?” I had no idea why I said that. She said no and she wanted me to remember how she looked. It wasn’t easy to see my friend’s body, not because I haven’t seen a woman’s body before, but it somehow made me feel guilty.
I really did not know how to respond to the situation. Then I made one mistake that I regretted all my life.
I had to distract myself to avoid an inevitable swell in my crotch. I began mentally telling myself jokes while taking in her beautiful body. The tactic had worked. I wasn’t excited anymore, but I was so amused that I laughed at my own jokes. And that was it. Before I had chance to explain, she made a sudden swirl and dashed back into bathroom, slamming the door behind her and leaving me regretting what I had just done.
I could hear she was sniffling inside and that was the first time I witnessed her cry. I gently knocked on the door to the bathroom, explaining awkwardly that it wasn’t her I was laughing at, that I was laughing at a joke I was telling myself, that I was sorry I felt ashamed to have an erection in front of her and that I needed some time to prepare. She came out eventually, not looking at me, only in her bra and panties, and slipped into one of two beds in the room, showing her back to me. “I think I need to go back to my dorm, and I will see you off tomorrow.” I said drily and I wasn’t sure what to do anymore. “You can sleep here if you want.” She said and her back was still facing me. “Yeah, right, there are two beds in the room.” I had been saying the similar dumb thing the whole night. She did not reply. I went into the bathroom to wash off the sweat from the ping-pong game.
After the shower, I did not come out the bathroom right way. I paced back and forth debating the best way to go out. Obviously she wanted to make love, or did she? But it took time for me to accept the thought I would make love with my soul mate. Should I go out naked? Would she freak out seeing her best friend naked? What if I was too nervous to have a hard-on? What if I might have premature ejaculation? Could I just leave and sorted out my thoughts first? Or rush out and have a wild sex? I didn’t have a slightest clue on what to do. Then I made what I believed was the right move at the time - I wore only a boxer and slid under the bed cover beside her. I would let her take the lead and I would follow. She turned towards me and tear streaks were still visible on her face. She cupped my face with her hands and said, “You know I really really want to kill you.”
“Me too, may I suggest a torturous one?” I felt my wits were coming back.
“Hold me tight.” She said gently. Her voice was barely audible.
I removed my boxer first and then her bra and panties.
I locked my arms around her shoulders, but kept my hands carefully off her breasts – I needed more confirmation from her. Her soft hair scented floral shampoo and her skin had texture of jade. I never studied her so close. I cuddled her in my arms and buried my face between her hair and neck. I knew the days that I treated her as my best friend were over and days as my lover had begun.
With our bodies tightly locked, we talked and talked. Her family, my family, classmates we could still remember, those we couldn’t remember their names, mutual friends, her city and my city.... Then I dozed off.
When I woke up, it was early morning. She was already dressed and sat beside me, watching me. I was sprawling on the bed in a very unflattering position.
I sit up instantly and said, “It is not fair.”
She smiled and said, “I know, but I have a plane to catch.”
“Did you see my body without my permission?”
She laughed, “It is not pretty.”
“Don’t tell me I am still a virgin.” I said while pretending being hurt.
On our way to the airport, I was holding her hand and neither of us said much.
After checking in, we settled down at a table in a coffee shop. She ordered a cup of coffee and I chose tea.
Then she looked at me in a way as if tomorrow would be the end of the world. I was thinking she was studying every pore on my face.
Finally, she picked up her cup, took a sip and asked, “What exactly in Qiao did you like so much?”
I was completely taken off-guard. She was asking about a girl in high school? Again, none of what had happened last night made any sense. “Her tiger teeth?” I blurted it out and I did not know why I said that. I was happy to find the answer pleased her, because she tried very hard to contain a laugh. But the cup in her hand still shook a bit, spilling some coffee. She grabbed a tissue and cleaned the stains and unruffled her dress and asked again, “do you still like her?”
“Maybe, if she still has that pair of tiger teeth.” Said I. I didn’t know why I said that.
This time, she burst. A mist of coffee wafted towards me. She grabbed a tissue for me when she was still in spasms of laugh. “You haven’t changed.”
I took the tissue, but put it down on the table, and said, “I don’t want to clean it. The coffee stains are from you. Actually, I intend to wax myself.” She already laughed in a double. When she finished laughing and straightened up, she threw a balled tissue at me. “I hate you.” She got up and started walking towards boarding gate. “You sit where you are, don’t follow me. Don’t make me cry.”
I sat where I was and watched her leave.
When she walked about 20 steps, she turned around, tears in eyes, and yelled, “I love you.” Then she swirled back, running towards the boarding gate. I hurriedly got up on my feet and started walking towards her, almost tripped over my own bag which I put beside my foot and knocking everything on the table out of place. I yelled, “What?” not believing what I had just heard. It was so not her. Has she changed or I wasn’t paying attention all these years?
But she quickly disappeared in the boarding gate, along with her flying hair and flying hand bag.
A moment later, a plane swooshed above the building, taking her away from me.
That night, I was very happy, as if my life was injected with new blood. I was man with a purpose now. I played Qi Qing’s song “Love Axiom” the whole night again and again. My roommate laughed and teased me, said I was so in love and I did not deny.
But little did I know that was the last time I saw her.
This is my love axiom; I will announce it to the whole world.
I trust tears in a baby’s eyes,
I don’t believe a lying heart;
I trust salty and bitter tears,
I don’t believe sweet affection,
I trust a waft of wind,
I don’t believe wandering cloud;
I trust a hard-earned affection,
I don’t believe life-long promises.
Is that true, if I turn into a stone,
My heart would be impervious to hurt;
Is that true, if turn your head away,
You wouldn’t feel my deep love for you?
This is my love axiom, I will announce it to the whole world.
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