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And so I was rebuffed. It was a little awkward, for she, naturally, did not know how to refuse gracefully and I, naturally, wanted to make sure her No really was a no and pressed again. There were hints, shoots of hope, my arms wrapping her from behind, a hand on her breast, questing. But her No was a real no, not a modesty no, and so that was that, and I took her down to a cab.

An SMS exchange followed:-

Her: Sorry. But I cannot. I really thank you for respecting me.
Me: It’s ok. Hope I didn’t embarrass you. You’re cool, I like you a lot. We’re still friends, right?
Her: Of course. I am really glad to know you and I still trust you.
Me: Ok. Sleep well, dear!
Her: And you still willing to help me. Right?
Me: I just sent you my suggestion about what you can write. It’s in your email.
Her: Thank you. Good night.

I met her once more a week or two after this, just before Spring Festival. She was on her way to her home city, Lianyungang, and dropped by for a coffee before her train. This time she was with a fellow university student who had also been in the class I taught. He was a decent sort of guy, intelligent, stylish and urbane, so I was a little more circumspect in my flirting. But Jingjing was rather giggly and shy, very different to how she was when it was just us two together. That told me plenty – she no longer saw me as a teacher, and certainly not as a lecher. I’d also been wooing her gently online and by SMS too, and could see she was weakening.

But I did not see her again after that for six or eight weeks, since she spent a month in her hometown, after which I was out of the country. But a few days ago we finally met.

However, I’d spent the night before with Sara (my current regular girlfriend) and so the day I’d arranged to meet Jingjing began with Sara still in my bed. Mornings, she is a heavy sleeper, dozing on until 11. As she dozed I planned how to organize my day. I put Jingjing back to 2 pm via text message rather than the 12.30 I’d arranged, to give myself thinking space.

After Sara woke she asked me my plans, and I claimed I had a class in the afternoon. I did it a little reluctantly, too, for I like being with her and spending the rest of the day with her would have been good. I could have put Jingjing off, but there were other women I wanted to see on the following days, and so I kept to the lie, saying goodbye to Sara at one pm and sitting down at a café on the Nanjing Road half an hour later to wait for Jingjing.

She arrived a little after 2, nervous, as she always is at first, Every time I’ve met her she’s been a little shy to begin, blushing and bashful. It’s rather appealing, though the shyness soon passes. We had a nice enough meal, and then coffee. It was in the coffee bar that I got more to it. Soon after she arrived she returned a bunch of the DVDs I’d lent her before, so now I said that if she wanted to borrow more she could come to my flat to do so. I could not keep the real meaning of this out of my eyes -- `Come to my place and let’s fuck.’
`Why are you looking at me like that?’ she asked.

`I just enjoy your company’ I lied.

She came back with me….

Of course just the coming back with me was no guarantee; but she knew what the look I’d given her meant – and, of course, last time she was here I made a pass at her. For her to come again, then, was promising… but even before I made the offer I was hoping for fuck – so much so that, as we drank coffee, I went to take a shit so that, if we did fuck, I should not fart when I came.

Having a shit in a public bog China is something generally to be avoided. Most of the toilets are the squat type, and usually are filthy and smelly, piss, shit, phlegm and cigarette butts spread everywhere. There’s never any paper, never any hot water to wash, and never any soap. And there’s never anywhere to hang your coat or jacket, frequently no doors, and usually a pile of shit-smeared newspaper by the side of the bog (though of course being smeared with shit is all the Chinese media is good for). Added to all this I find balancing on my haunches somewhat awkward, and indeed from time to time have pissed and shat on myself. All in all, a visit to a Chinese public toilet is something to be avoided. But in quest of a better (putative) fuck I sought a shit, and was lucky enough to find a sit rather than squat toilet. But no paper, soap or hot water.

The lack of soap and hot water is universal, even in toilets in big companies or glitzy shops. No matter how big the company, how wealthy the office building, there is never soap, never hot water. In fact, after six years in China there has only been one time I found hot water in the country’s toilets – during the SARS outbreak. For two weeks there was hot water! There was soap! O civilization! And then the drama passed, the government declared there was no more risk….and it was back to shitting and spitting and no soap.

Anyhow.

Back home, first of all I let her look at the DVDs in my bedroom where, luckily (and with Sara’s help) I’d made the bed already that morning. Now for Valentine’s day she gave me a picture she’d drawn of us, and whenever I know she is going to visit, I make sure this is on my bedside table. It usually resides in the drawer, lest I bring anyone home. And since Sara had stayed the night before, this is where it was. So, entering the bedroom first, I was able to obscure sight of it with my body at I walked towards it, and tip it over so it was face down. Then I left Jingjing to look at discs while I made sure the other rooms were basically tidy, something I had not had a chance to do that morning.

The rack of discs in my room is by my bed. When I came back in the room Jingjing was crouched in front of them, so I sat on the bed and leaned a little against her body. She seemed comfortable with it, so when she moved to the room next door to look at the other banks of discs I expanded this, standing behind her, pressing my body to hers, developing to an arm round her, a hand casually brushing her breast (stiff, rigid – the sign of the padded bra), then a finger tracing the skin across the small of her back, then again both arms locked round her holding her to me as she crouched in my study looking at the piles of discs.

When she had got to the end of the piles, I said `So.. what am I going to charge you for borrowing all these discs?’

‘Charge?’

’I think I should charge you a…. kiss…’ As I said this, I lightly took hold of her chin and turned her face towards me, kissed her. She did not respond with her lips, and kept her eyes open – but did not pull away, was not tense. ‘It’s okay’ I told her, ‘It’s okay’ as I kissed her again. Still with her eyes open, unsure, she began to kiss back. Cool at first, but with slowly rising passion. As we kissed, still crouched on the floor, I caressed her a little, her belly and back and then more firmly over her breasts. When she did not flinch at that I was sure…

Gloria was a slow-burn relationship; I’d known her a long time before we became lovers. She worked at one of the German departments I used to teach at, and she was unusually efficient; switched on, capable, reliable -- head and shoulders above most I have met here. Workplace efficiency in this country is pretty abysmal, and initiative, reliability and industry are not so easy to find. Gloria had them all.

But in this country it does not matter how good you are; it matters who you know. From top to bottom, China is stuffed with incompetent and idle buffoons who hold their jobs by mere virtue of having the right friends.

China does not reward talent (which is of course a blessing for me), and this is the reason so many people leave the country. Time and again I have heard it from students (most often female students, for the connections club is mostly male) – ‘I can’t get ahead in my company, I don’t have the right connections.’

Example of this enough with Gloria; by far the most capable person in the office, she lacked the right friends. And without that protection she had no defense against the spiteful backbiting, the dirty jostling and sniping, the petty viciousness and cowardice that is so much a part of the impotent and raging history of China.

What did for Gloria was a letter about her sent to head office -- but not a bold, self-respecting letter from one with a grudge, but a tattling malicious letter from nine, signed by thumbprints alone.

Thumbprints! What cowards people can be, how weak! Gloria knew where the enmity came from; her error had been to nail her allegiance to the school. A mistake, in a culture where connections are the entire grease for the engine. The way to do it here is to flatter and butter; in her case, when various staff asked her to collude in their plan to sign and draw pay for hours they had not worked, she should have agreed. She could have done so easily enough, since she was office manager. But her straight answer, her refusal, led her down that crooked path, its claims and counter-claims, the denials and the whole worthless vortex of it.

She saw how it lay; she knew one of the nine signers, knew he was greased with the big boss of the university; and thus knew she was wasting her time in fighting it. And so she left, and at least left without as full as dose of bitterness as she might have, since one guy in the chain, lower ranking but some way above her, seemingly as angry as I but with the avenue of a more effective response, saw her off with three months' pay.

Thus does China reward honesty. And how it rewards dishonesty I need not say. That’s what you’re reading.

So one day months ago, just after she’d got binned, we spent a long and close afternoon together. Oh, just eating, talking.. but subtle flirting, too. My arm on her back crossing the road; hers on mine to emphasise a joke. We ate in a Korean joint in a new food street near Fudan University, and then went for a long walk, along the tree-lined evening streets, the student crowds. The railings round the campus were hung with exhortative banners, urging citizens to live clean kind and pure. We took them as our texts for an impromptu lesson. It was good.

So the attraction crackled between us, but remained unspoken. I’d known her for two or three years by this point, and while we’d often teased and flirted a little, it had not been as strong as this unspoken feelings now.

Unspoken because it was complicated; she had a boyfriend already. And I knew this guy pretty well, and liked him. I'd given them a little bit of help with their English studies, and he passed the relevant exam, she did not. And off he went overseas to study, off to Canada. A decent guy, kind and loving and strong for her. But staid, but dull, but passionless; unable to put his love into glorious actions or wild words.

I saw very clearly that night that she was lonely, and beaten down by having lost her job, unpleasantly. This was my avenue, and one which I knew I should not take… but wanted to.

That night we parted as friends; but the following day we exchanged a lot of text messages, English and Chinese, among which one from her was `U r so cute' -- which I was half amused, half touched to get. And I arranged dinner with her the next night, for she wanted to cook for me in her flat.

As I walked out my door that evening, I saw clearly where it was I likely headed.

We ate, talking easy, and flirting as we had before, a touch here, caress there. She’d prepared a careful meal, cooked it lovingly. Though the mutual attraction was obvious, I was not sure if she would act on it.

After dinner, we sat side by side on the bed watching TV for a while, until I left the room for a moment. When I returned, she was standing by the foot of the bed. I sat, put my arm round her waist as she stood in front of me, and laid my head on her waist. She murmured and stroked my hair. And then, with the gentlest of pressure from my arm, she sat on my knee. We watched TV some more. But I could feel her heightened emotion, as maybe she mine. A kiss on her cheek was easy enough. Then we locked eyes and the half-hesitant invitation therein was clear. The chastest of kisses on her lip, and still her hesitation. ‘Sorry...’ I apologized, and ‘sorry’ again. But she smiled it away. I kissed her cheek, then again her lips, still soberly. ‘Watch TV' she admonished me, kindly, her fingers on my chin, turning my head to the screen.

Once started, not to be stopped; and so our kisses became warmer and her hands more adventurous; so her I took her lead, moving under her top, over her back, round to her breasts; and soon we were on the bed, undressed, kissing, caressing. She was sexy, seemed a promising lover… But as with other lovers, this first time wasn't so smooth. I could not get inside her without pain – ‘It's like the first time’ she said.

Still, we had plenty of fun, and I boosted my ego by making her come -- that took a while (and some aching in my neck, as this was all oral) with many almost-theres fading out. And her many ‘It's so big' comments had the effect they would have on every other male.

But the way she held on to me as we slept after made me sure that it was more than a one-night stand for her. And I might have seen this, for I knew she was lonely, knew she needed someone to hold on to. Twice the words escaped her lips, recalled as soon as spoke but not quick enough to mute them – ‘I love you.’ And those words rose in me, too.

She was worthy of love.

This was no one-night stand for me either, I felt at the time; for holding her filled a deep well in me, and indeed her pleasure was the more to me than mine, for I did not come -- not being able to penetrate her comfortable the only way was her hand or mine, and that seemed somewhat crude. It was fine by me; her arms were enough.

But of course it creates lies, births deception. The boyfriend’s name was mentioned just once, late, before we slept. More eloquent than this; a bookshelf, fashioned into the headboard of her bed, bore a pile of used IP phonecards, thirty, forty, rubber-band bound. Each of these used to talk to him, I am sure, and there as trophies, talismans. And before lights out, she had to check something on her pc; I did not enquire and she did not volunteer. But I have little doubt it was to do with him. So I have made a liar out of her.

Another example: I added her address into MSN when I got back home the next day, and later on she logged in. And as our messaging began, the pic on her display was of him, the boyfriend. She changed it soon enough to one of her, and again neither of us spoke of him. But he was there, in the room, unspoken.

As maybe Kay was for her. Kay was my only long-term Chinese girlfriend, with whom I had broken up a few months before this, with whom I kept in touch (and still keep in touch) but had (at that point) told nothing of this thing with Gloria. I could not clearly recall telling Gloria I’d broken up with Kay… Maybe I did, or maybe Gloria assumed I had so to ease her (and my) betrayal of her guy. Indeed, just a day or two after we’d become lovers, she told me, ‘I love him’; but even in those words there was a ‘but’ -- maybe not spoken, yet there clear enough.

So what had I done? Taken advantage of a fragile woman or began after someone worth loving -- oh, worth loving as Kay was and is…? But even then I could see it ending in heartbreak for Gloria, could see that I would fail to commit to her like I should have to Kay.

So I did not know. Did not know. But I was happy, filled.

Lovers like Lucy, who are only temporary, I tend to keep cordoned off from my other friends. This is expediency; if I introduce one to my circle, they will assume she is my girlfriend. And then, when she disappears and is replaced, my wolvish behavior would begin to be suspected.

Naturally enough I want to retain some sort of good image in the eyes of my friends. And so while when I am with a group of these friends, laughing, drinking and relaxing over dinner, I am happy to admit to them I love to chase women, I seldom go into any detail, keeping it all light and amusing.

There are two exceptions to this; Clarissa, and Tulip. To these two women, I am more or less honest; and it is with Clarissa in particular that I have no secrets. Neither of them have been my lover, though I very much want them to be. Tulip is married, and Clarissa alas, has emigrated. In due course I will write about her; more than any other woman in China, she is the one I wanted most. Of course, the fact that she resisted me while always being willing to flirt with me just made me want her all the more – after all, it is what you cannot have that you want most.

I remember the very first time I met her, a couple of years ago; though she was not tall nor had the looks of an international model there was something instantly sexy about her. I remember the clothes she wore – that skirt, those black tights! – and how she came up at the end of the class to ask various words, how she’d had the confidence to point out, in front of the whole class, a word I’d carelessly misspelled on the board (that’s something 99% of students will never do)…. She’s married too, having got married at a young age, which is quite common here. Yet there is nothing common about her, and nothing traditional. I have spent a great deal of time thinking about her in the past couple of years, and have much more to write about her. But more of her later, and of Tulip too.

The other reason I keep my lovers away from my friends is that they simply do not mix. This is something I learned with Lucy. After one rendezvous with her, at a time I was already getting bored with her, I took her along to a meeting I’d arranged with intriguing Laura at People’s Square. I was amused by Lucy’s reaction when I mentioned this – ‘我吃醋.’ I laughed at this, and when, later, she smiled and perked up as I told her Laura was not as cute as her, I laughed a belly laugh that shook the corridor.

When we met, Lucy did not know what to make of Laura, and so it was a pretty frosty affair, the cold front mostly from Lucy. Silence hung, part because of Lucy’s mood, part because Laura is not one for endless chatter (which virtue I regard highly), and is withal coolish anyway. In my bag I had a gift for Laura, a novel by Ishiguro; but I knew if I gave it to her the weather would become Arctic. So instead we three checked out the Biennale, which was in part good and in part vapid.

But as we proceeded, Lucy thawed, her behavior becoming more lively and warm than Laura’s. It occurred to me this might have been strategy on her part. Perhaps she saw it was the wiser move, saw that being cold and irritated was a sure way to turn me off; perhaps hoped that by playing a livelier role than Laura, she could eclipse her in my regard.

I’d also arranged to meet another friend in the early evening for dinner. This was Lena, a kindergarten teacher who I chat to online from time to time; rather an ample woman, but with some interesting opinions. Laura, somewhat moodily, refused to come along (I have more to say about this later) so Lucy, Lena and I went to the Jiangxi restaurant to which Gloria introduced me a few weeks ago; the meal was good but not as good as that which Gloria, a Jiangxi native, had ordered. (Gloria is a previous lover, and one regarding whom I do feel some guilt: more of her tomorrow or so.)

But we had fun and Lucy, seeing clearly there was nothing in my feelings beyond friendship for Lena, was chirpy and cheerful. It amused me to see how totally Lucy’s character changed according to how she judged the situation – defensive with Laura, relaxed with Lena. Territorial towards me, in a word; but really she was wasting her energy, for though she did not know it, our liaison was almost over at that time.

But though I was tired of her, pussy is pussy, and so I kept her on a little longer for fuck fun. And so a week or so later we booked into a hotel again, but I got her to go in and make the booking, since the place is not foreigner friendly (partly I think because it seems to be reserved for minor party type guys – it’s in the part of town is where the city mayor and all the other government gangsters live).

Anyhow, once in the room (en route to which the hotel staff had half-heartedly tried to stop me) we got down to it. But of course nothing is as exciting as the first time, so while I remember the first time I fucked Lucy with great clarity, I recall much less about this bout.

Two things stick out from that meeting. The first is a comment she made after we’d fucked. She was talking about her life back home. She’s from a wealthy family up in the north of the country, and while she has never wanted for money (her parents bought her a house here, for example) she has been very much emotionally neglected. She’s a daughter – a most undesired gender in China. Her parents, rich, were able to ignore the one-child policy (for money here is power, just like anywhere else – though at least other countries generally acknowledge it, while China maintains the absurd fiction it is a ‘socialist’ society) and have a second kid. This kid was a son; and the moment he was born, they wholly forgot about Lucy. No affection, no attention, no care, no love; she was more like a member of staff than a member of the family. The son, currently 10 or 12, gets it all – and what a little monster he will no doubt turn out to be.

The perfunctory upbringing Lucy received naturally shaped her character. She told me about the family maid, and told me how cheap such maids were, and how she would spend in an hour what her parents paid this maid in a month. But the most striking remark, the remark which made me remember all the rest, was ‘We spend more on our dog than we do on her.’ The level of inequality in China – socialist China, worker’s paradise China, we are all equal China – is astonishing. The rural poor are becoming restive, with around 80,000 protests a year. So far they are pretty well kept in line, by baton-wielding police and brutish public security guys, conspiring with the state to keep their country and their people under control, but I see a day when they will fight back beyond containment. And then, of course, the first people to be blamed will be the foreigners in the country (or maybe the Japanese in general, a favorite target) rather than the real criminals who are, of course, other Chinese people – the government, the state apparatus, the millions well-fed and watered in the cities who are too idle to ever try to understand their nation and their history.

But never mind. More sex, less politics.

The second thing I recall from this day is when my head was between Lucy’s legs and I was eating her.

Now the first time I go down on a woman is the very best time – the first look at her pussy, its unique shape, the trim of the hair, the taste. And since so many men in China are rather squeamish about oral sex, it doesn’t take much to do a good job, to drive the woman wild. Making her buck and writhe and come explosively is extremely rewarding – for the first few times. The first few times, I want the woman to feel like she has never felt before. I want her to think I am a fantastic lover. I want it to be the best.

But after that, as I begin to get used to her body, as I become an established lover, as the suspense of will-she-fuck won’t-she-fuck passes, then this desire passes too. I no longer feel the need to make such a strong impression. Sure, I still want her to come, but this is out of duty, rather than to make me feel like a champion lover. And so, with my head between her legs, sucking and licking and kissing away, and her getting close but not quite there, I began to think ‘Just fake it!’

That was enough of a sign – time to end the relationship. But I have never been good at breaking relationships clearly, preferring to let them drift out of focus. And that is what I did with Lucy; though we chatted a few times online after that, that was the last time I saw her.

People appear to be reading this. I’m taken aback – but gratified, of course.

Here, there is a minor debate on this blog. A user called eee says:-

Good thing he’s in ‘Sex and Shanghai’ and not ‘Sex and the City’, where he’d be guarantted a one-off ’ New jersey geek’, ‘Over the hill loser’, ‘Mr. Short Penis’ or any geeky undesirable roles that are joked by the girls.
There he is in Shanghai, a self-claimed ‘Mr. Big’ no shy about his serious oriental fetish.
How about this: “40 years old Virgin - Until I Made It to Shanghai”. Or “Laowai Powers - the chinese peasant girl who shagged me”

Largely a spot-on comment. And this is part of the reason I started writing – the city is full of mediocre guys with great women on their arms. But I certainly don’t see myself as Mr. Big. I’m a totally average guy, with no looks and little money, and I am astonished by just how easy it is to get girls.

Shutty says:

wow. i had a lot of issues with china when i left - predominantly related to almost every white guy there being a.) a giant giant tosser in social exile from his own country and b.) an opportunistic freak preying on very young girls with even younger ideas about life.
you can see the guy is so super proud of himself that he can’t post his name or picture.
i can’t even begin to describe how disturbing i find that site and unfortunately, how entirely true it is because i have had the misfortune of meeting people just like him in china.

She’s totally right. Of course China is full of guys like me. We’re 90% a bunch of bastards. Naturally I do not think I am a tosser (what person does?) nor would I say I am in social exile from home.

As Shutty says it’s disturbing because it’s true. What better reason is there to write about it? I think it’s important to be honest about this. I hope that some women in China at least will read this stuff and begin to be a bit more cautious. The blog is also here, since blogspot is censored in China.

I have various friends involved with foreign guys, and at the beginning of their relationships the woman has told me ‘This foreign guy is different.’ But he never is. We all lie and cheat and chase.

For example, a few weeks ago I was sitting in a restaurant, a place with good food but not-quite-cold-enough beer (another sign of the Shanghai’s essentially provincial soul), and there were two foreigners on the table next to me, accompanied by a local woman. The one guy doing all the talking looked to be the jobbing student type, all beard and self-satisfied attitude, and was gassing on about this and that. It was all so much white noise to which I only paid half attention until I heard him say, ‘I know about this guy, he's called Sam Blake...’

The guy said that this Sam was always bragging about the number of women he has, and how he had three at the moment, and that of course they all loved him but he was perhaps getting serious about one of them, Sarah; and also said how he, Sam had come within a moment of being fired – ‘They’d written the letter and it was just waiting to be stamped…’ the loudmouth explained, but that he’d done something – which I did not catch – to stave off the blow.

My ears had pricked up at this because the talker began by giving Sam’s full name. And I knew that name, not because I know the guy but because I happened to know one of the women he was involved with, Mona. At that time Mona had broken up with him but was unsure breaking up had been the right choice. She felt she might still be in love with him. She’d told me all this because we have formed a close bond of trust and respect. And I know her well enough to say that would not change even if she read this blog.

I had already told her she likely could not trust this guy, and of course soon after this evening I told her about overhearing the conversation, restating the fact this was what foreign guys were like; this was what I was like.

Overhearing this guy was of course no more than random chance (though weak-minded people who believe there is purpose to the universe might see here evidence of a higher power) but as I sat there listening I reflected on how easy it is to be indiscreet, how often the person we are talking about, we think in confidence, is in earshot, or in earshot at a remove like this.

And I also reflected on the corrupt and venial nature of guys here – guys like me, too – who treat it as a playground. The speaker, if not quite inflecting approval into his voice, certainly had no criticism. I wondered what the woman with them, a local, thought behind her apparently amused countenance. I would imagine – I would hope – she had nothing but contempt for guys like this Sam, for the speaker, who sort of admired him; and for guys like me, too.

And I am certainly not proud, just like I do not see myself as a Mr. Big. On the contrary, I know I behave pretty shabbily. That’s unlikely to change, but writing about it is at least a way to let others know how guys like me behave.

The reason I do not put my photo up is because I would be identifiable. If I was identifiable, the women I write about would be too. That’s the same reason I give the women fake names and do not put up their photos. I do have some respect for them, even though it may not appear that way.

I assume Shutty is a Western woman. But whether this is true or not, it’s tough to be a Western woman here. Guys like me (which is most guys) simply do not look at Western women. You are invisible to us; you are just not there.

I do not mean to condone such an attitude, but that’s the way it is. For Chinese girls, white man is good; for white man, white woman is invisible. Why would we bother? Western women are too smart and savvy to put up with our sleazy bullshit, and (more to the point) in most cases, white women can’t compare physically with Chinese women. White woman wears a slinky top in a European city, she’ll likely be well aware of the guys ogling her. White woman wears a slinky top in Shanghai and I don’t even take a look.

I do not feel quite easy writing about color and race. But the fact is this is a major issue. In China, white is better. The billboards are full of ads for whitening cream; the girls carry sunshades to keep their skin pale.


Stuart says:

How can you link to that site. Even if half the stuff this guys says is true, he’s shamelessly taking advantage of naive Chinese girls. It’s disgusting.

What should I say? Of course it’s disgusting. But it’s fun for me, and fun for the thousand other white guys just like me.

And not just white guys:-

A MIDDLE-AGED man in Nanyang, Henan Province, purchased the virginity of 17 middle school girls, arousing concerns about the education of rural area youths, a Guangdong Province

Last September, parents of two girls reported to middle school officials that their daughters were wearing new dresses and had money they did not give to them.

After repeatedly asking the girls, they said the money was given to them by a man in exchange for their virginity. School officials called police.

Investigators found 10 more girls from the school who sold their virginity to the same man. The girls also gave police the mobile phone number of the man.

The victims were introduced to the man by Xiao Mei, Xiao Bao and Xiao Tong, no relation, three other girls who also sold their virginity to the man.

When they received payment for their virginity, they promised to introduce more virgins to the man. newspaper reported yesterday.

I'd say that's a fuck sight more disgusting that anything I do. Sure, this guy is an exception; but beyond his particular sickness, the way many Chinese men treat women is wholly shabby. What this guy did was mostly a legal crime whereas I am only a moral criminal, and the two things cannot really be compared. But my point is that this incident is an echo of the sexual psyche of the average Chinese man, who fetishizes virginity.

But it really does not matter whether what I write is believed or not. What should matter is that this is what life is like in Shanghai. This is what we are. Look: I am not going to change. The girls are easy, and 90% of men on the planet would take advantage of that if they could. Men of any nation, any culture; we would all do it if we could.

As we cuddled and chatted after making love, there was a strange incident. She’d been getting a steady trickle of sms messages, which I had paid no mind to – until she visibly reacted to one. That was my cue to ask, and she told me. It was this guy who’s been after her maybe four, five years, having been introduced to her once, by her cousin; and that once was enough to convince him she was the love of his life. The spineless pussy.

He wanted her to marry him, and kicked off his wooing by claiming she was already his wife, by calling up her mother and declaring his love and so on. He had thrown over his studies to leave his hometown, Xi’an, and come to Shanghai to be near her, leading to him being disowned by his family, who are rich and powerful. And all this without having got to know her in the slightest.

In the way of the rich here, at one point this sap’s father, apparently having un-disowned him, had called her up to say if she would marry his son, he would buy her whatever she wanted, house, car, holiday and so on. Ah, China’s brash nouveau rich and their blunt, mercenary ways!

And so the grubby little worm of a guy has sent her a constant barrage of text messages, spite of her asking him to stop, spite of her asking his father to ask him to stop. She told me this rather passive, as if it was no biggie, but it made me pretty angry – it is harassment. And the fact she did not seem to mind it shows to me that women here are so used to getting a raw deal they can no longer even recognize it as such – it is just how things are, it is normality. Naturally I offered to wade in; I can just see the guy now, a timid, lily-livered yet mean, sour guy -- weak yet arrogant, a spoiled brat.

She said she’d told him she had a boyfriend but, cunt as he clearly is, he refused to believe this. So I offered to talk to him right then, in the bedroom with her, and she took me up on it. She called him, told him she was with her boyfriend, and handed over to me. And, in a mixture of very slow but firm Chinese and English, I warned him off, told him he must stop messaging her. He had little to say to me, as he would, me being another guy.

Talking to her, of course, he had no such problems. To her, a mere woman and thus to be mastered, he could show his lordliness. And he showed this arrogant attitude perfectly, by ignoring my warning – that he would do so was obvious – and texting her moments after the conversation ended to call her a whore, using the worst word Chinese for it there was, no mere `tart,’ but whore, whore.

The men in this country -- that she goes from his idol to a whore in a moment! And his racial pride too; he told her the fact she was fucking a white guy meant she was a harlot. It is no wonder than women here are so unhappy. Sure, women get treated shit all over the world, but they get a special brand of shit treatment over here – that’s why China has the highest rate of female suicide in the world.

That’s also why guys like me get so much pussy – Chinese girls just want to be with a guy who treats them with passion and respect.

Respect? Well, the ease with which we Western guys chop and change our women might suggest we have no respect at all. But when we chase a woman, when we are with her, we do indeed respect her; and though soon after we may move elsewhere, we never think of her as a whore, as easy, but rather with affection and friendship. Never contempt, as is so common among guys here with their fuddy-duddy parochial attitudes, their ill-concealed fear of women.

Lucy and I fucked some more after that, as I had still not come, holding it back to make our revels last; and when I did come, it was 2am… and at 7am we were fucking again, until 9. Then to Keven café for breakfast, after which I walked with her to the tube, parting there to go to my ‘lesson’ – nonexistent, of course, but I had invented it as an easy excuse not to have to spend the day with her - because I had a later rendezvous with Petra, a heart surgeon at a local hospital. She is a little older, maybe coming towards 30, and thus not as trim, fresh or svelte as Lucy or Mona, but yet more to my mind than they are; more mature, more complex, more interesting. She has no lover, and I am sure I could be hers (and am sure still, for though Lucy is now in my past Petra is still in my present). But, just like it would be with Holly, another woman I have thought of chasing, being her boyfriend could only happen on terms too hard for my selfishness; I would not cease to play around, and thus would only cause sorrow.

With women about 28 or so, love is a serious matter – marriage must be at its end; marriage is its reason. There is no sense of having a relationship just to see where it might go; marriage is the destination when the journey begins. And if sex happens, then it is even harder to get off the journey half way. But with women under 28, the relationship is usually open-ended. And this is a generation thing, not purely an age thing, for as those women now under 28 get older their attitude will not change much. For them, marriage is a maybe; for those born a few years earlier, marriage is a must.

In the days after this, as I chatted with Lucy online, our conversations became increasingly hard work. She wanted to spend much of the coming weeklong holiday together. I did not, finding her too pushy, and getting far too serious, wanting me to tell her I loved her. She asked this several times, and, seeing my hesitation, said `Just lie to me!’ – so I did.

That toad of a guy who’d been stalking her these past few years, as was obvious, couldn’t wait to ring up her folks and blab and whine and pule to them about how whorishly she was fucking a foreigner. I had told her he’d do this; of course he would, running to Mummy, bursting with the urge to snitch and blab. This is how it is – a man here faced with a setback will not take it like a man but will instead plot and cheat and twist and stab, get his revenge meanly, huddled in the shadows, sniping and smirking.

So I suggested that when he did call, and when her parents subsequently rang her up to demand she divulge everything they wanted to know about her private life (an attitude typical of many parents in this country) she say she and I had been in a bar. And so she did just this when, on the eve of mid-autumn festival, her mother followed up the family greetings with enquiries as to who this foreigner she’d heard about was. I’d suggested Lucy tell her mother I was her foreign pal; but instead she said I was her foreign boyfriend. Thus:-

darling:

Just now my mother called me to give her good wishes for the festival. Firstly I told her about my trouble, then she said she just wanted to ask me about something that he had told her. She asked me about who you were and why I stayed out so late with u. I replied in a joking voice that u were my bf and I was in love with you. I said that’s why we’d stayed together, sitting in the bar talking about lots of things, until he called me.

She was happy at last and asked me to take care of myself, and to enjoy my own life. She said if she could speak in German or English she would like to talk to u and wish you could look after me. Ha ha, she just takes me as a child in her eyes.

And this, of course, of course, just shut me down, made me lose all interest, made me want to shut her down. Love? O, no, no.

So I floated a lie, that my university wanted to send me to Shenzhen to teach a special holiday course. She laid it on how sad, hopeless this would make her. This, of course, had the opposite effect to that which she intended – she wanted it to make me more keen to be with her, but of course it made me less keen. But I lied, as was required, and told her I would try to get out of the course. Of course, instead I polished the fiction, made it more real, and thus got out of seeing her.

When we met it took a little while to warm up, and I felt a little bored; but we drank our coffee, got comfortable with each other again, and then went to do some filming around town (a film of my everyday life for my people back home), and then to book a hotel. That took a while – the Tian Ping hotel again wanted to rook me 880 for a room, and the Boxueyuan, where we fucked before, only had a triple. I had a look at another nearby one I knew of, further down Guanyuan Road West, with some misgiving (it being pricey and me impecunious at that time), and felt as much relief as irritation that it was ‘full’ too (though I got the impression it was only ‘full’ because I was a foreigner and saying so was simply the easiest way of dealing with me). I couldn’t find any other hotels nearby, and Lucy’s feet, got-up in heels to match her carefully chosen clothes, were hurting her. So we made do with the Boxueyuan, a hotel which part belongs to Jiao Tong University, but also in part some industrial firm, to judge from its paperwork – a convoluted and unclear ownership that is fairly typical in China.

I wanted to undress her; she did not want me to. And I got a bit shirty at that – and that was wrong of me, childish and pompous. I should have read her body language better. It was not modesty that lay behind it, but fear. I’d waved her away and said `Go and change in the bathroom, then’ and she explained that when she was younger… Yes, I should have guessed... It is, after all, a wretchedly common story; she, the young girl – 8 or 10 at the time – and the guy, bigger, stronger. This guy was an uncle with whom she had been sent to live by her too-busy don’t-give-a-fuck parents. Earlier she had already told me she did not like him. Now I found out why. But I did not ask too much about this incident, for I did not want to bring up those memories too fresh – did not, in short, to ruin my own evening.

And in fact this squall soon passed. Once she’d talked a little about it, how he took her clothes off and caressed her, my genuinely caring, worried reaction soothed her, and the fear was charmed away; and then I did undress her and we got down to it. Kissed and caressed and it was good – but not as passionate as it had been with Mona. I wanted to eat her but, unwashed, she was uneasy with it. I moved to enter her and it was a little painful for her, so I got the lube I’d brought the day before, and that worked like a charm, and she smiled wide and fascinated as I, thus smeared, glided into her. We fucked, this position and that, picking up tempo, half an hour or so, and then she wanted a break, a shower. We washed each other then dallied some more, she reading out sections of the course book I had with me, trying to pronounce the German words, translating the parallel Chinese into English with pleasure and some self-congratulation at the fluency of her translation. It was quite charming really, since she giggled and bounced like an excited child.

Then back to sex, and she began by blowing me. Did it quite well, too, sexy, passionate – but again not as hot or maddening as Mona. But I’d brought my DV, and filmed her a little as she worked me, and then later as I worked her – promising, naturally, to erase it later. And so I have done – after copying it to my laptop, of course. Well, and so we fucked a goodly while, me placing her this way and that, missionary, her on top facing both ways, and behind, and on her side, back, belly, in my arms (that was a bit harder than with Mona, as she’s a heavier woman – Mona, slender and light is as lithe and flexible in bed as could be desired); and she got into it as before, especially when I came at her doggy. As she had been more chatty in the restaurant, so she was more talkative after we had done, but this time I enjoyed it much more. She told me each time we met she learned new things – and what man does not like to hear that? And then she told me that she had talked about me with her male friends online, and told them such detail as the size of me, positions, duration; much of which, she told me, they were incredulous about. More music to my ears, naturally. So too was what they had told her, how they could last 30 minutes at the utmost, and more generally just ten; and how a Chinese guy married a few years was mechanical. His wife would lie in bed, the cover thrown back; he would just climb on top, thrusting, coming and then going to sleep; and the size, the size – or lack of it! And she told me how she had described my size, how she had told them that, when holding her fingers round -- `What.. what’s the word for it?’ `The girth’ – they could not quite meet (and indeed looking at the film just now, it is so) – and this again they were most skeptical about.

Making love (and especially for the first time) was of course a bigger deal for Lucy than for me. So later the next day when we chatted online, she wanted to hear those three words, words she had said three times during our revels; and, since she directly asked for them, I supplied them. And in subsequent conversations, she began to fall -- or had fallen – in love with me. I should have discouraged it, but she was such a hot fuck that she was quite a lot in my mind too.

I guess I ought not have told her those words, since they were not true. But at the time it seemed the easiest way to proceed. What worried me more was that, fearful of pregnancy, she told me she had gone to a pharmacy, told them she ‘did not want to have a baby.’ They asked if she had made love; she said yes; and they gave her the morning after pill. I feel uncomfortable with this. I was careful not to come in her; there is no need for her to fill her body with the hormones. And I guess it was a final mark of her inexperience. She knows so little.

What’s terrifying about that is that she is a teacher and, to judge both by what she has told me and the recommendations I have polished up on her pending university application (aiming for Princeton), a good teacher, prize winning, working wonders in her class. And yet ignorant about the most basic functions of sex!

What kind of future does that point to..? What an emotionally blind, crippled, stunted society this can be, and how deceitful and ignorant the education the children receive! This coyness about sex is a crime, and China does not even have the inane excuse of the Christians for whom sex is, laughably, a sin. But it is such danger, it is neglect, it is a form of proxy abuse. Terrible.

Another sweet memory from our night together; she was sitting astride me, resting from the lust with which she’d been riding me, and we talked. I told her that some guys made love to two women at the same time. `And the women often make love to each other, too..’ I said. Her eyes widened in disbelief at this.. but not disgust; just disbelief, it seemed something the mere possibility of which had not even occurred to her. She shook her head at the very idea of it.. but yet I could see she was not rejecting it out of hand, that I thought maybe I could explore with her. At the time I did have an idea who might be the `other woman,’ a married friend of mine who has talked to me of interest in such things. But I got bored of Lucy before I ever tried to arrange anything like that.

Boredom set in fairly soon; by the time of a third online chat I was losing interest fast – all the more so in that case because I just wanted to eat dinner, loaf, watch a film (The Revenger’s Tragedy, which was moderately well done). Sometimes just sitting at home taking it easy is more agreeable than flirting and chasing. But only sometimes.

As it turned out, it was well worth passing the pleasantries with her, for she was staying with a friend, and she had a webcam. Part of the way through our chat, she changed into sleepwear, a pink nightdress. Her friend was still up and around but soon went off to do her own thing… and so what came next was, I guess, obvious. First I asked her to stand, so I could see her whole body, and she was pliable enough for that. And so after a bit more increasingly suggestive chat, I asked her to take off the nightdress, and she did so, so that I could see her breasts – which were bigger and fuller than those of many women I have been with.

Breast size is something a lot of Chinese women give a great deal of thought to; many of my lovers have said at some point in our lovemaking ‘My breasts are too small.’ It is true that on average Chinese women have petite breasts – which is something I rather like, as it happens – but I guess most guys must prefer them larger, for no matter how much I tell my lover I like her breasts fine just the way they are, she is seldom convinced.

Mona, for example, is much worried by the small size of hers. She used to be a lover, and is now close friend (and indeed I am rather proud that she is still a friend, that we have a close, non-sexual and very open relationship. It is one of the few things that gives me hope I am not a complete bastard when it comes to my relationships with women.) She had considered breast enlargement surgery (which is pretty popular here) but instead has taken the traditional Chinese medicine approach, which involves weekly massage sessions and various herbal creams. On the whole I am skeptical of TCM; all that hot and cold food stuff is so much superstition. Believing that tiger bone will give one the strength of a tiger is to misunderstand nature – it’s seeing the natural world as an allegory. TCM assumes that the order our human understanding imposes on the world is a reflection of reality. But eating from the tortoise will not bring longevity, nor will consuming the cheetah bring speed. To believe it is to see the world like a story, a fairly tale…

And yet….

Mona’s breasts do look a lot perkier lately, there’s no denying that.

Anyhow, on camera Lucy was shy but excited. I asked her to show me her panties, which she did; and then to take them off. And she did. So I got naked too, and now I could see the excitement on her face. She really got into it, began to touch herself, gently then more actively, standing up close to the computer, showing me her pussy as she masturbated.. until she came. It was pretty hot.

Me: Mmm, oh, I do so wanna be with u now!

L: I closed the door

Me: u could take off ur nightdress again!

L: ha ha, I am safe, my friend fell asleep

L: I have to go to washroom just a minute

L: wait

Me: ok, dear. But… I would like to watch u in the washroom!

L: Ohhh… I would feel ill…

Me: I can see I’ll have to open up your mind a lot more

L: I am conservative

Me: did u not like it when we had a shower together?

L: Yes, I liked having a shower with you.. I like a man beside me.. washing me

Me: But, dear, to be honest… a lot of guys do find it sexy to see a woman小便.. Oh, you’re naked again, cool!

L: Yes, I closed the door.. my god…

Me: O, i like that.. oh, yes, let me see ur panties, dear!

L: Panties? What does that mean?

Me: It means `knickers' or underwear.. that’s right.. oh, cute…wow, I wanna fuck u right now, damn, u r so sexy!

L: I need sex now!!!!!!!!! I need it now!!! My god, I made myself climax

Me: Great! Was it good? Were you noisy???

L: But there is no man here! I need a man, now

Yeah, it was sexy. She really let herself go, her pussy close to the camera and then her mouth as I brought my cock close to the lens. Yes, sure, as she pretended to suck and lick and kiss it could have descended into farce, could have gone cold water. But it stayed sexy. And I did want to fuck her, so I arranged to meet her the following Saturday.

So I kiss down her belly, her thighs, down her legs, and back up, circling in. first, I blew on her pussy, gently, careful. That alone made her jump, sigh, but when I used my tongue.. My god, what a reaction. She began with ohmygod sighs, umms and ahhs, and up and on, on and up, higher and louder, reveling in it, taking it like she could barely believe the feeling, louder, passionater, hotter; and then her body joined in, bucking, writhing so much so it was hard for me to keep up as she jerked and ground around the bed, her hips raised high, her shoulders rucking up the duvet, her head, neck prone over the edge of the mattress.

But here was where her ignorance showed, as it did several times; for I do not think she knew what was happening to her. Now, Gloria knows how to come, and closes her thighs when she does, gentle pressure on my head to move me away; but I think Lucy didn't understand this, and just rode it as long as I did it, because it ended with her saying `Oh, stop, stop, stop..' I guess either that or -- and as this is more flattering so it less likely to be true -- she was multi-orgasmic.

So then we took a little rest. Now after all we had been through she had still not really taken a good look at my cock, was too charmingly shy to look; and that got me going as well. So as we rested I moved her hand to it, urged her to look.. ‘Oh my god, oh my god, it's so big.’ That's what every guy likes to hear, of course, but I demurred slightly – ‘How do you know, you've never seen any others?’ So she wanted to know if I had seen many others, for she had the idea Chinese guys were smaller than foreigners, and of course I told her this was generally true.

And then I reckoned to try and enter her. And after her reaction when I ate her I felt like a sexual superstar, and commensurately horny; and her passion mixed with naivety was very stimulating. So I began to ease in, and it hurt her, as it was sure to; but she impressed me pretty big with how well she bore it. It hurt, and her whole body trembled, tensed, and there was a rim of wetness in her eyes, but she was much tougher than, say, Mona or Gloria, and bore it well. She really wanted to know what fucking meant. I moved slow as I could, just rested inside her; and after a while began to move slow, shallow, and the pain subsided a little, and she relaxed, began to feel whispers of pleasure. But I kept it slow, gentle, and relatively brief.

After, she wanted a change of scene, so when she'd got dressed, sending me into the bathroom while she did so, we went out to eat to a nearby Bi Feng Tang. There, the staff claimed to recognize me which, I think, made her wonder a little if I did this every week. It's possible they did really recognize me, but since I'd not been in there for maybe six, eight months, I rather think it was merely a case of ‘all foreigners look the same’; which I think they do to Chinese people who know few foreigners, just like Chinese people do to foreigners who know few of them. And then coffee, and then back to the hotel. And she would not let me undress her, hid in the wardrobe to change. Again, her shyness in letting me see her undress was a real a turn on; but while she showered I inspected her clothes and of course pressed to my nose her panties which she'd neatly folded and hidden away. Sexy blue silk panties, their sexy perfumed odour.. they felt good, smooth and sexy around my cock.

After she'd showered we moved to the bed, and again I ate her, to every bit as much reaction from her as before. Again, on until she begged me to stop so I was not sure if she came lots or not at all. A rest, and then I entered her again. At first, it hurt. I had told her earlier it would only hurt the first time.. I had to modify this now to ‘the first few times’; but the difference was that the pain passed off quicker now, and she began to get into it more and then more, and yet more.. oh, and she got into it so hot, was so uninhibited; I laid her on her side, spooned into her back, entered her so, and that just lit her up; and after a little while of that she rolled onto her belly and put her ass a little up in the air; and so I went down on her thus. Neither Mona nor Sara were comfortable when I wanted to kiss them there (and I really do like anal play); Gloria was more at ease, but even she did not offer in the easy, natural way Lucy did. I guess she has so utterly little sexual knowledge she does not even has the modesty that is often assumed with it. And so I went to work on her asshole, kissing and licking and just knocking myself out; and then a little down to her pussy. When I entered her and she just bit the pillow in pleasure. It was something else, and even just writing it here, thinking it, turns me on all over again.

Yet she was not as wholly innocent as all that, maybe, for she does have some retail schoolground knowledge, said at one point she had heard Chinese guys didn't last very long in bed. I did not quite know how to square this with the apparent fact that she did not realize I had not come, nor seemingly realize that the guy coming was the conclusion of making love for him. Can she really be that innocent? And so again here I wondered if I was being played, if she did have more experience than she let on. So I explained the mechanics of sex to her, and how some guys came quick and what that meant. I also told her some guys liked to do anal, and was intrigued by her reaction -- not of disgust, but merely of ‘Wouldn't it hurt?’ This was after we'd been fucking a good couple of hours, on and off; and I have to say I was feeling quite impressed at my own stamina. I'm pretty good at controlling my orgasm, and here, as every time, it was the doggy fucking that brought me closest to coming. That position is so good for me, the way the angle of entry rubs the underside of my cock, the most sensitive part; and when I put a finger in her asshole, it is too sexy to endure long.

Since she was getting a little sore, I decided to let my orgasm rise; after a little more doggy, I signaled her to roll over, entered her, classic missionary, and after just a few strokes I was ready. I withdrew, came over her belly, spurting come up to her breasts. Again, no reaction of disgust; she just lay back, let it happen - which makes sense, I guess, with her innocence; she did not know at all what it was about, was just finding out.

This was all some time ago; more recently, just a week or so ago, I had a new girl in my bed, Jingjing, who was also a virgin; but when I came on her, she chided me, seeming to find it messy and perverse.

‘It’s the normal way’ I told her.

‘I thought you would use a condom when you came’ she said.

Of course if I was in the least bit responsible I would have used a condom. But really I am just a bit too selfish; plus the girls I go after (at least this is what I tell myself) are largely innocent and, thus, the risk of disease is low. Plus also the fact that local condoms are just far too small.

Lucy’s attitude, then, was far more open minded than Jingjing’s, and after I’d come she lay back, recovering, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, drawing patterns on her come-covered belly with her finger.

We showered together (another first for her, which she much enjoyed, though was giggly and bashful about it at first) and slept. She seemed to sleep light and happy, though the angry roaring traffic outside kept me awake longer. But anon I slept too until the early morning light ended what rest we both'd got at half six or so. I closed the curtains in hopes of more sleep, but it did not come for me, and nor her either, for we talked a little, whispered words, and, as I soon felt horny again, again I went down on her. It was as before. But when I entered her this time, there was much less pain beyond the initial twinge, and that lit her up, that made her happy – ‘I am used to it!’ she said, sung. And we went at it, hard, passionate, from behind, front, on the chair, me standing and her arms round my shoulders my hands under her ass, moving her up and down on me; and her on top and, in short, whatever I could think of, all of which she took to with pleasure. This time I had to concentrate a bit harder not to come, especially as I came into her from behind, for if it made her yelp it made me mad, too. Indeed, as I moved in and out of her, I gave myself something else to concentrate on at one point by reading (unknown to her, of course) Clinton's ‘My Life’ which I'd left open on my bedside table the night before.

As before, the missionary was the best way to end it, for it's fun to come over her thus, when she can see. I was so excited and knew it would be a big orgasm, but I let it go anyhow, my come shot up her belly, across her face, into her hair; ah, it was turn on and turn on; and here as before she took it all as if a matter of course, as if it was what everyone did.

There was lots I had to tell her this night, for she knew little indeed. She told me she believed until 16 or so what her father had told her - that she came from his bellybutton; and even now she did not know quite where babies came from -- I think she half suspected it was the mother's belly button. Or was it `back here?' she asked, gesturing to her ass. I showed her where, with a gentle finger, and her eyes widened in shock, ‘But how? It is so small..’ Also I told what a blowjob was, and this she took to like so much else, with the ‘if that's what you do, that's what you do’ attitude.

And this too was when I wondered, for she was damn good at it, better than other lovers, more uninhibited even than Gloria. Did she know more than she was letting on? But I think not, for when I told her later that sometimes the guy would come in the woman's mouth she widened her eyes and breathed a charming question – ‘Is it poisonous?’ I think she was indeed rather innocent, and just lacked the conditioning that `nice girls don’t.’

So we showered, dressed, and checked out. It was still early, before eight, earlier than I ever normally get up. So we went for breakfast at Keven cafe, where the service has slipped. And then she went home, back east across the river. Since I intended to go home too, our paths were in the same direction, at least as far as the station interchange. But since she thought I lived in the Xujiahui area, where we had spent the night, she said goodbye at the tube turnstile, and I did not disabuse her, loitering above ground awhile until I was sure she'd have moved on, so that she would not know where I lived. I guess that's a mark of the heel I can be.