Cheat meets Cheat

And such chances there were. Mona showed herself quite a good player, giving me several opportunities to suggest seeing her, rather than asking directly (for that would make her seem too forward.)

Mona. hi, how r u?

Me. fine.and u? do anything exciting since i chatted to u? busy today, or i would have called u and come over to help u move

Mona. it is ok .some of my classmates came and helped me.ty all the same:).and i am wondering if u could visit my new apartment when u have time.(mp) ,in ur last class,u asked us to describe a film.what tense should i use to describe it.past simple or present tense?

Me. i would like to see ur apartment! maybe next week, when i have more free time. for the film, either tense is ok, and long as u use the same tense for the whole answer. but simple past is a little bit better

Mona ok and if u have more free time,i would like to meet u at the coffee. chatting to u ~

Mona. i see

Me. i'd like that... i think u'd be a lot of fun to spend time with

Me. u seem to be quite unusual in some ways

Mona. maybe i am.but why do u think so ?

B. firstly, u like to live alone. that shows maturity and independence, which most ppl ur age lack.

Me. then, u are very self confident... look how quickly we have become friends. that's also quite unusual

Me. say u are bold, strong willed, confident

Mona. thank you and u r a good man too.homurous and sexy.ur class is very interesting.and maybe u don't know how much we enjoy it. and by the way ,u have just given me some more words to describe a people(F)

Me. oh,ur too kind!

She's a modern woman, and she quite well knew what inviting me over to her apartment meant. Sure, it could have meant just friendship, or even that she wanted to test out her power; but by her demeanor in class and other actions I was confident it was more than that. And so this conversation was seduction mixed with schooling. I flattered her some, because everyone likes to hear they are unusual, unique, special (though even so there was much measure of truth in my words.) She is bolder than her peers. And her words to me, humorous and sexy? Of course she flattered me as much as I her – and, I guess with, the same goal in mind.

And so we set a date, a date I chose with some care, for though I had plenty of daytimes free, afternoons and mornings were not appropriate for my plans, which called for an overnight stay. Sure, we’d agreed I was going to see her flat; but really, I was going to see her bed, and her body. And also we agreed we would cook together, since at one point I mentioned how much I liked shopping at the city’s wet markets (one of the many pleasures of life here, being able to buy live fish, crabs and shrimp, chicken and duck, and being able to select from a vast array of vegetables.)

Sure, I could have taken her to a restaurant, but cooking together would, I knew, have its seductive qualities just as a restaurant has its. But also I had a wider goal here, which was to film our buying trip to the wet market, as part of the ‘this is my life’ film I was making for the folks back home.

Now at this point in my life I was still involved with Gloria, the woman I stole from her boyfriend, and she had been very keen to help me with this little project. But naturally I was not so keen on that, and did not want her too much on the tape, for just the same reason she wanted to be on it – that is, that it would show her a big part of my life.

I was getting rather bored of her, keen to end our relationship but not quite firm enough to do it, for doing so, I knew, would hurt her. So for example around this time she needed to go to hospital for some minor elective surgery, and I accompanied her there, arriving at around 9 a.m. Even though we’d arrived pretty early, the doctor had already gone to surgery, having begun his day (the one day a week he did operations) at half six. Chinese hospitals are not run efficiently enough to have an appointment system; the patient must just turn up and take pot luck.

Now Gloria had booked the day off from work, and her thought was that now we could spend it together, given that she was not going to get the operation. But I really did not want to spend a whole day with her, and so I got out of it by saying that while of course I did want to spend the day with her, she probably ought to go back to work. After all, I said, she would now need to book another day off to try to see the doctor the following week and her boss would wonder why, if she had not seen the doctor this day, she had not come back to work.

I remember this clearly because, later that day when I messaged her to say I felt bad about suggesting she go back to work, she replied that in fact she had been moved by the level of care this showed I had for her. And so what had been a ruse on my part to get out of spending the day with her appeared to her as a gesture of love. We see what we want to see.

This, at least, helped smooth the slightly ruffled mood I had caused in her when we’d met a few days before this. We had agreed to go swimming, and, as we walked to the tube, we met a German guy I knew. In general I prefer to move in the more local community, but this guy I met at the birthday party of another woman with whom I have developed a close relationship, Phoebe (Phoebe is a very Americanized woman, having spent many years in the country and having picked up many of its best qualities -- the confident, strong self-belief that can make Americans so admirable. She is one of my friends who gives me some minor confidence I do not purely see women as sex objects, for our relationship, though close (and though she is sexy) is platonic).

Anyhow, that night this German chap and I hit it off well, shared a good few beers and had a most enjoyable, relaxed evening with it. He was there with his longterm gf, also German (and, rarely for a white woman, I found her attractive).

But when I met him now, he was not with this gf, he was with a Chinese woman who was, of course, cuter, younger and sure more pliant than his German girlfriend. We talked a little while before going on our ways, and as I walked on I told Gloria a little about him, and that fact that his companion seemed to be an extra-curricular girlfriend. Gloria harrumphed, ‘I think that’s bad, I don’t like guys like that’ she said.

Of course I ought have ignored the hypocrisy, and was she a bit dearer to me I would have. But instead I said ‘Yeah, seeing two people at once, there’s no excuse for it.’ She got the point, it made her sulky, and she withdrew her hand.