Tales from Old Shanghai 01

She brings him into my room as I close my university textbooks. I have a room to myself now. The entire floor of this wing of the Boarding School is now Chinese boarders only. Girls like me. Pretty girls. Pretty girls with no family, no money and no other means than their bodies to survive. Our rooms are furnished in the schoolgirl style, but with elegance.

Mrs. Innes has inadvertently cornered a niche market. Her clients are foreigners, primarily Englishmen and Americans with a taste for Chinese girls in school uniforms. We girls, we do what we must to survive. There is no real choice for us and we know that, for we know Shanghai. There is no charity in Shanghai, no mercy, it is a struggle for survival and the losers are cleared off the streets, loaded into the death carts every morning.

We girls here in this school, we are the fortunate ones. Mrs. Innes pimps us out, but she cares. She protects us, she looks after us and we are all aware of how fortunate we are. Serving men as we do is not the worst fate that could befall us. There are far worse fates in Shanghai and all one has to do is walk the streets to know and to understand that we are lucky. We serve at the disposal of men at night, we attend classes by day, some here at the High School. Some, like Hua and I, are in our first year at University. All of us are gaining an education.

We gain an education in the evenings and weekends too.

A different education, an education in the stark realities of life.

The gentlemen Mrs. Innes brings to our rooms, they are our teachers.

Our teachers teach us late into the night, the corridor echoes with our cries.

I have accepted my fate now, I know myself for what I am. I know I am a whore.

I have been a whore for a year and a half now, and I am popular. If I wished, I could double the money I make, triple it even, easily. As it is, I can choose and I do choose and now I am expensive. Martin's father was forced to give me up. For him, the cost was twice what anyone else paid and in the end, perhaps he loved me, perhaps he was intoxicated with me. He offered to set me up in an apartment, he offered to keep me. I laughed in his face, flirted with him, teased him, charged him three and then four times as much as anyone else until he could no longer afford me. Until his wife left him in disgust and his friends shunned him.

Only then did I refuse him.

He pleaded with me as I once pled with him.

I gave him the same heartless cruelty that he once gave me.

Mrs. Innes looks after us well. She pays off the local Triad, she pays off the police, Inspector Fleming is her friend, she makes money from us herself. Far more money from us than the school makes from its other boarding students but no-one cares. The members of the Board of Governors enjoy this new subject on the curriculum. Many of them devote entire evenings to the ongoing education of the students.

Now, after a year and a half, I sometimes find myself the teacher. The younger girls come to me. They weep on my shoulder and I comfort them. I tell them it could be worse. They could be working in a brothel or adrift on the streets slaving for a pimp, a fifty cent whore giving blowjobs to any passing drunk or far worse even, a ten cent coolie-whore. Here, they are safe. The men who come are all westerners, all referred to Mrs. Innes by friends or acquaintances. There are no drugs, no opium pipes, no beatings, no drunken oafs who will abuse us, no diseases, no pimps to exploit us, they are free to pick and choose, free to say yes or no as they decide.

"Be grateful to Mrs. Innes," I tell them, my arm around their shoulders as they come to me for comfort, as they weep tears of bitter shame on my shoulder. "Yes, we sell men our bodies, yes, we have shamed our families, if our families are still alive. Yes, we are whores, but we are safe, we go to school, we go to University. One day we may even be able to hide our past and marry. There is no shame for us in what we do. Cast adrift on the sea of life, we do what we must to survive."

They come to Hua and I for advice. We're the oldest. We're the ones who know. The big sisters. We give them the advice they ask for. We teach them if that is needed. We even teach little classes of our own. This selling of my body, it no longer shames me. I am no longer embarrassed by what I do. By what I am asked to do.

"Take the money and do what you must to survive. That is your duty. To survive." This is what I tell the younger girls, the new girls, the ones who are still ashamed and scared and humiliated. That is what I tell myself, and I do what I must. I survive.

If a man desires a blowjob, that is what I give him. If a man desires to use my sex, I give him that. If he desires to possess my back passage, I am amenable and I know all the little tricks to that now and the men that take me that way are enthralled with the pleasure they experience. If men desire to share me amongst them, I will smile and agree, for a price. If a man wants a show, me with another girl, I will do that too. If he wants a beautiful escort to a nightclub, I am that girl in the high heeled shoes, the slender beauty in the elegantly erotic qipao, slit to the waist, hanging on his arm, smiling, chatting gaily, dancing, lighting his cigarette's, flirting happily.

Everything in Shanghai has its price.

Shanghai is harsh teacher, but I have learnt.

I am a good student, I learn well and my price is high.

But still, still I cannot forget that love. My love for Martin. That never ending pain at his loss. The emptiness in my heart where he used to be. Sometimes I think I see him and my heart quickens. An angle of the head. The way a white man walks. The way he turns his head. I catch a glimpse, my eyes brighten, my heart comes to life at the thought that I might see him again, my step quickens and I am alive with hope for a moment, a minute, but when I catch up with the hoped one, it is never him.

Always it is just another white man.

Always, my heart dies, always that hope fades.

Will I ever see him again? And even if I do, what then?

It is hopeless, for I am a whore now. He will never love me again.

This one, the one that Mrs. Innes has ushered into my room, he looks me up and down and he is eager, I can see that as I smile for him, as I walk to him and he takes me into his arms.

"You're as beautiful as Tom said you were," he says, and I have no idea who Tom is.

"You're gorgeous," he says, reverently, only a couple of minutes later for he has said he wants me naked, not in my school uniform as many of them do. I am naked for him, waiting on my bed as he stands over me, looking down at me, undressing himself, and there is no shyness about him.

Only eagerness.

"By Jove, you're good," he says, five minutes later, as his cock enters me, slowly, thickly, for I tighten myself on him as he slides up inside me and I am wet and ready for him, as a good little whore should be, and a minute later, as he eases in and out of me. "Oh god... yes... oh fuck, yes."

"Mmmmmm," I moan. "You're so big inside me." He is, and I like that, I enjoy his weight on me, his cock inside me and he is moving slowly, he wants this to last, he wants to draw this out and I really am wet and ready for him. I enjoy sex, I enjoy men and in this act, I can lose myself. I can forget Martin while a man takes me. Any man and I do not even know this one's name. He did not tell me, I did not ask. All I need is his money and his cock. I do not need his name.

"Please," I beg him. "Oh please... please." His cock penetrates deeply within my sex, filling me, as so many men now have filled me. His weight rides me, as so many man have ridden my body, as so many men had possessed me and used me and I revel in that possession, in that use, for if I do not have Martin, at least for now I have this man's desire.

I do not have his love, I do not care for his love. It is his passion I desire, his passion and his hard male arousal using me, thrusting deep and I lift my hips, I draw my knees back, I open myself to him, I arch my back, I tighten myself on him. I moan. I moan again and again, and my moans are real, my excitement is real and he enjoys my excitement, as they all do. Every one of them.

"Please," I beg him. "Oh please... please."

"You like that?" he groans, and my sex answers him, spasming on him, clasping him, dancing on him. "Oh yes, you like that don't you?"

His face says that my unfeigned excitement is doing things to him, stimulating him, inflaming him and my head arches back, I moan, I beat my heels against his butt, my hands clutch at his shoulders as his cock thrust deeply. Thrusts again and again and I am close, so close to my climax and I am no longer thinking of him. It is my own pleasure I seek now, and I writhe beneath him, I sob and I have lost all control.

"Ohhhhhhh," I moan, my knees clutching at his ribs, my feet beating a wild little tattoo against his hips and his cock surges deep. Deep and he is so big and hard, his shaft sliding against the slippery walls of my channel, his cockhead swollen and far up inside me and I welcome him, welcome is long-sliding thrusts, cradle is body between my widespread thighs and he is pounding into me now, hos own control dissipating.

"Oh yes," I squeal, taking him within me. "Yes... yes... yesyesyes," and I climax, my sex dancing on him, my back arching, sobbing and wailing with my pleasure as that golden tide sweeps through me and it is good, so good and I lose my mind in that wave of ecstasy that fills me and it doesn't matter at all that I have no idea of his name. I don't care. I don't want to know.

"Ohhhhhhhhh," I sob, and I judder beneath him and now his cock throbs and spurts inside me, his semen exploding outwards inside me, pumping his essence into me, flooding my sex and I clasp him and I milk him for every drop as he groans, his body pressed so tight to mine, shuddering as he loses himself in his culmination and that glow fills me as I receive his pleasure, as I give him what he has paid for.

As I give him what a whore gives every man who pays to use her body.

"Oh God, that was good," he groans, rolling off me at last to lie beside me on my bed. "Tom was right."

"Of course Tom was right," I smile, my own breathe coming in panting gasps. I roll onto my side, look down at him and he is my only client tonight. I know that, for I only take one man a night and he has paid, and paid highly for this time with me.

"Rest," I say, sliding off the bed, standing, cupping myself for he has cum inside me, copiously. "I will run a bath and wash you." I smile. "And then we will come back to bed and do this again."

"Oh fuck," he says, to my back, for I am already walking to the bathroom and I know he is watching my butt. All men do when I walk away from them in my bedroom, naked, and I know how to draw their eyes. How to stir their desire. How to tempt them with a sway of my hips, a look, a gesture, and this one is no different.

I will wash him, he will wash me, he will become hard again, he will take me and use me again and I will give him the pleasure he seeks. My body will satisfy him, I will sate his desire and tempt him even as I assuage his lust. He will leave wanting me again, as they all do and if I wanted to, I could do this act with half a dozen men every day and night and become wealthy. I do not. One a night is enough, for I do this to survive, to live, to study as my parents wished me to study.

I will do this. I will survive. I will stay loyal to my parents' wishes and complete my studies at University and then I will look to my future. I do not know what that future will bring, for China is in chaos, war and fighting is everywhere, the Japanese continue to advance and my dreams have withered away. There is no hope within me, only sadness and pain and that deep sense of loss whenever I think of Martin, and I try not to, but I do, so often.

One thing keeps me going. Duty.

Duty to my family, for somewhere they may survive and I owe it to my parents, to my father and my mother, to do my best, to struggle, to survive myself and one day we may be together again, and perhaps they will not be proud of me, for what I do to live, to survive, to continue my studies, that would bring shame on them. That does not concern me. Hua and I have talked on this, openly now, and both of us will do what we must and at least we have each other.

"Come," I say, returning to my bedroom, taking his hand. "The bath is ready, let me wash you."

I will join him in the bath, I will wash him, he will wash me. Perhaps he will take me in the bath, perhaps we will return to my bed. Perhaps it will be as it was when last night's client dried me and bent me forward so that my forearms rested on my bathroom counter and then he stood behind me and took me, watching my face in the mirror as he used me.

And so another night will pass, each one like the last and for now, this is my future. Man after man, night after night and after this one leaves I will wash myself, the maid will change my bedding, I will return to my bed and as I always do, I will think of Martin, of my lost love. I will think of him and mourn his loss as I fall asleep and it is better that I am exhausted, for then sleep will come the quicker and my tears for Martin will be the less.

"Chuntao?" Hua is at my door and her face is pale as I take her arm, as I seat her on my couch, for our rooms are furnished now. We each have our own and where her bed once was, now there is a couch and a small wooden table. It is not often used for tea. Many times I have been bent over that table and I know every grain of the wood from which that table is made. I have often examined it closely as I have been used on it. Its grains permeate my mind, its fine-grained wood is permeated with my sweat

"Hua, what is it?" I sit beside her, close beside her for there is comfort in touching each other and over these many months we have comforted each other often. I pour her tea, for I have just made myself a small pot, scented jasmine tea, with its delicate fragrance and taste. She sips, slowly.

"Mr. MacDonald," she says. "Robert." She sips her tea, puts her cup down, half turns to me; takes my hands in hers. "He has asked me to go with him, to Hong Kong and then to be his second wife in Malaya."

I know Mr. MacDonald, for a time he was one of my guests as well as Hua's and he has tried one or two of the other girls, but for the last months, he has been only with Hua. Often with Hua and it is obvious that he is deeply attracted to her. She and I, we have talked of this. He's a kind man, gentle, considerate, he does not abuse his girls.

My heart sinks, for Hua is my friend, my sister, my family. We are each other's family, we are all each other has now. My family is gone, not heard from in two years. Hers unheard from for even longer and all we have is each other. We are sisters and best friends, she and I and if she departs, I will have no-one. I will be alone, all alone, for the other girls, some of them are friends but not as Hua is.

"He says war is coming," Hua says, her hands clutching at mine. "Not just Japan and China but the rest of the world, another war in Europe like the one we read about. He is moving to Malaya, he has closed down his business here, he is leaving for good and he wishes to take me with him." Two tears trickle down her cheeks. "He told me he loves me, Chuntao. He wants to take care of me and he does, Chuntao, he really does care for me. He loves me and I almost love him. I will love him in time, I know I will."

"He will marry you?" I ask.

"No," she says, sadly. "He has an English wife, but she is in England. He says he will take care of me, he will make legal arrangements, I will have an honoured place, a house of my own, he will acknowledge any children as his and care for them as a father should." Her hand clasps mine.

"Have you decided?" I ask, knowing that she has.

"He is a lonely man," Hua says. "His wife is his wife in name only, he has not seen her in years. She will not leave England to come to him. As long as she has his money and his name, she is content. We have talked of this, and he has asked me to become his companion, his second wife."

"The English do not permit second wives," I say.

Hua shrugs. "It will be as it is here," she says. "In Malaya there are many Chinese. Everyone will know who I am. My place will be known and respected. Englishwomen may not approve but our own people will know and respect my place." She sobs now. "But I do not want to leave you, Chuntao. How can I leave you here by yourself?"

"You must," I say, knowing it is true. "You must take this, Hua. An opportunity like this, it comes only once and you must seize it with both hands."

"I do not want to leave you, Chuntao. You are my only friend, you are my sister." Her tears flow, she takes me in her arms, we hold each other and she is shaking and I know this is tearing her apart. This is tearing me apart too but I know what she must do. How could I ever forgive myself if she did not take this opportunity because of loyalty to me? Because of our friendship.

"You must!" I say, my face buried in her shoulder, breathing in the scent of her hair, her beautiful silky hair, holding her slender body tight and I know. I know what I must say. "You must go with him, Hua. You must escape all of this, go with him; take this chance with both hands. I could never forgive myself if you stayed here because of me."

"Chuntao," she sobs. "I do not want to leave you."

"You must, Hua," I say, and I want to cry myself, for losing my friend is a pain that spears my heart but I know she will go, she has made up her mind and all I can do is make this easier for her. I can ease her pain at the least and I will. "You must go with him, Hua. I will find my own way out of here."

I do not know if I can or will, but if Hua escapes this, I will be happy for her. One of us at least will be free, and I know her Mr. MacDonald. He is an honourable man, as much as any foreigner in Shanghai can be honourable. He is a man who keeps his word and I have seen the way he looks at Hua. He adores her. He will care for her and cherish her and protect her.

"He says I will be as a second wife to him," she says. "I will have a place, he will acknowledge and care for our children."

"You must go with him," I say. Then, "Oh, Hua, my sister, I will miss you so," and the tears trickle down my cheeks and we cling to each other. "But I am happy for you. So happy."

"I will miss you so much, Chuntao," she says, and I smile through my tears, for she has made up her mind. She has found her escape. She will survive and I am happy, so happy for her even though in leaving she will take a piece of my heart with her. Another piece, for Martin has taken not just a piece of my heart. He has taken almost all my heart and when Hua goes, there will be very little left.

"He will come for me tomorrow morning," Hua says. "We will tell Mrs. Innes and I will leave." She smiles, sadly. "Spend tonight with me, Chuntao. One last night together, the way we did when we first came here?"

I smile, stand, take her hand in mind. "Come then, Hua," I say, sadly, but smiling too, for her luck has changed. Her luck now is good and we lie in each other's arms in her bed all night, talking softly of our early days here, our school days. The days when we were happy, before we lived this life we live and she tells me of her hopes and dreams with Mr. MacDonald, of the house he will build for them, where they are to live and she will write to me after they arrive. She will tell me everything.

Morning comes, dawn wakes me and I am curled up in bed, Hua's arms around me, her body pressed warm against me and I lie there, treasuring these last moments with her until she wakens. We bath together in her bath, washing each other's backs, washing each other's hair as we used to do when we shared our room. We dress at last and that final parting is close. So close, and I am holding back the tears.