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“Well, you’re the one setting the price here.”

  “I’m negotiating. You give in too easily. I guess that’s what you’ve always done. But in China you wouldn’t last a day. Lucky for you you were born in Japan. My little sister wouldn’t have let me get away with a bargain like this.”

  I couldn’t figure out what Zhang was trying to say and was just about at my wits’ end. It was freezing. A cold north wind had come up, and there was no trace of the earlier warm night air. I stared down at the torn blanket covering the mattress and said nothing. Zhang began to grow impatient as well.

  “So? What’s it going to be?”

  “You decide. I only try to please the customer.”

  “Aren’t you in this for the business? I can’t believe you’re so lacking in ambition. You are really an unattractive woman, you know. I’ll bet you aren’t any better at your other workplace either. Japanese people are all the same. If you had a little more individuality, you might be a better prostitute. You would, wouldn’t you?”

  What a pain in the ass he was turning out to be. I had an easier time figuring out Eguchi and his disgusting demands. I began to collect my clothes.

  “What are you doing? Did I tell you you could put your clothes back on?” Zhang asked, bemused. He drew closer to me.

  “Well, you’re being difficult, and I really don’t feel like standing here listening to your lectures.”

  “You look the type who would like lectures.”

  Zhang grabbed me tightly and I leaned into him. His leather coat was cool against my bare skin.

  “Hurry up and take off your clothes.”

  “I’m not undressing. I want you to suck me off just like this.”

  I got down on my knees and pulled the zipper on Zhang’s jeans. He pulled his dick out from his shorts and pushed it into my mouth. He rambled away while he had me suck him.

  “You’re really a submissive girl. You do everything I tell you to do, since I’m your customer. I wonder why that is. I don’t know much about Q University, but I imagine it’s one of the more prestigious institutions in Japan. In China, girls who graduate from university wouldn’t dare do what you’re doing. All they can think about is their own career—making it to the top. It looks like you’ve given up on your career. I guess you got tired of being submissive at work, so instead you submit to men you’ve never met. Am I wrong? You know, men don’t really like women who are submissive. My little sister was extremely attractive. Her name was Mei-kun. She’s dead now, but I really respected her. I loved her. No matter how difficult things became or how she had to struggle, she always fought her way to the top. She was always looking for the next challenge. I hate a woman who looks back. I could never love a woman like you. That’s what lets me treat you like this.”

  Zhang gradually grew more excited as he talked. I took my mouth off his penis and quickly fumbled through my purse for a condom. Zhang was still sitting on the mattress. He drew me closer and started kissing me roughly. I was startled. I’d never been embraced that way by a customer. Zhang started to move his hips on top of me and I felt a change taking place inside me that I had never experienced before. What was happening? I was burning. All this time I had been faking orgasms and now I was finally having the real thing? It wasn’t possible! Oh, God! I clung to Zhang’s leather jacket.

  “Oh, God, save me!”

  Startled by my cry, Zhang looked up and stared into my face. And then he came. I held my breath and clung to him, trying to draw him closer, but he quickly pulled away.

  “Why did you say save me just now?” Zhang asked, with an earnest expression. “I held you just now as if you were my little sister; that’s why it made you feel good, isn’t it? I think you should thank me.”

  Was he still haggling over the price? I was panting so hard I could hardly focus. When I came to my senses, I realized that my wig had slipped off and Zhang was playing with it.

  “My little sister had long hair too. About like this. Poor thing, she fell into the ocean, and I watched her die.”

  Zhang’s face had grown dark.

  “Mr. Zhang, I’ll be glad to listen to your story, but that’ll bring the price back up to eight thousand yen.”

  Zhang raised his head. He looked irritated, as if I had interrupted his thoughts.

  “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. You have to devote all your energy to selling your body. No wonder you aren’t much interested in what your customers have to say. All you can think about is yourself.” He spat these words out angrily and stood up to leave.

  A northern wind had suddenly come up, swirling the trash on the rooftop. Zhang hooked the zipper on his jacket, which fell to about his waist, and pulled it up to his chin with a harsh yank. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind but hesitated because I didn’t want to get into a big argument before I’d gotten my money. But it was so typical of a foreigner. So typical of a man to be insensitive to my distress. I hurled all kind of expletives at Zhang—silently. But what irked me most was the fact that this was the first time I had ever really enjoyed sex, and yet he pushed me away so coldly. Was it the completely indifferent way he treated me that had turned me on? As for my own distress, what exactly did I have to be distressed about?

  With utter seriousness, I told Zhang, “I’ll have you know that not all my clients patronize me just for sex. One is a university professor who enjoys conversing with me on a variety of subjects. We discuss his current research projects and he keeps me informed of their progress. Our relationship extends into the academic. And there are others as well. Another is deputy chief of operations for a chemical manufacturer. He tells me about the difficulties that go on in his company, and I give him advice on how to deal with it. He’s always very grateful. So, you see, I do listen to my clients. But those are men who take me to hotels and pay me a proper fee. And furthermore, they are all intelligent men who are able to carry on substantive conversations.”

  I couldn’t tell if Zhang had heard anything I’d said. He looked bored and scratched listlessly at the edge of his mouth. The wind blew his hair back off his face and I could see he had a receding hairline. Go figure: a handsome enough face but balding! I began to grow bitter over the fact that I’d been coerced into doing my business atop this windblown garbage dump of a roof. I threw the used condom against the rough concrete surface of the rooftop and watched as Zhang’s semen splashed out.

  “Just going to toss it away like trash, huh?” Zhang asked, when he saw what I’d done with the condom. A twinge of emotion leaked through his words.

  I laughed.

  “Didn’t you just say you wanted to forget all about Japan and everything that’s happened here?” I asked. “You’re going to have no trouble tossing me aside just like the trash on the stairs back there.”

  Zhang turned back to look at me but said nothing. He opened the door to the staircase, and I could see a dull orange glow. The entrance to the trash-strewn stairway looked like the mouth to a dark cave. I continued my assault.

  “While we were in the midst of things back there, you kept talking about your sister. Are you into hentai, some kind of perversion? Isn’t that off limits?”

  “Why?” Zhang glanced up in surprise. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “What’s wrong with it? It sounds like you were having sex with your sister. That’s incest! And if you weren’t actually doing it, it seems like you wanted to, didn’t you? I mean, isn’t that bestial?”

  “Bestial?” Zhang shook his head. “No, it’s beautiful. We might have been brother and sister, but we were also like husband and wife. What relationship could be more intimate than that? We’d been together our entire lives. When my sister came to Japan, she betrayed me. She decided she’d come first, and she tricked me so she could get away. But I used every resource I had and tracked her down. I think her drowning at sea was an act of fate. I stuck out my hand to try to save her but I couldn’t reach her. Maybe I didn’t want to reach her; I’ve thought about that. I feel sorry for her no