Part Five of the fictional Sanlitun Diaries, by Kaiser Kuo (whose blog has the same name as this story).

We got up together to leave and my head was swimming.

I haven't made my bed. My sink's full of dirty dishes. There're no clean towels. I'll turn the light on and roaches will scatter. There's like a quarter roll of toilet paper. There's a half-eaten, day-old sandwich on my coffee table and a half-bottle of Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon that's gone to vinegar by now -- didn't have far to go when I opened it last night. Another bottle of Jacob's Creek, I think... hell, I don't have decent wine glasses anyway. Couldn't we do this after my ayicomes tomorrow? My apartment's stifling hot and my AC's been on the fritz.

And had she told me her name? At several points during our conversation, I simply couldn't hear over the deafening thump of my own pulse. Her lips had moved, I had nodded, thinking only of the lips. Panic seized me as I realized she might have said her name during one of those auditory lapses.
I picked up my laptop and shoved it clumsily into my shoulder bag. She was at the door, talking to Henry. Two guys I know casually, Americans, had just stepped in and greeted me. "Hey S_____, what're you up to?"
"Fine, thanks." This did not compute; their faces registered momentary confusion. What the hell was her name?
"You takin' off? Hang out, man. I'll buy you a beer. You're not goin' anywhere important, right?" This was Paul, a guy I knew from from Beida a couple years back. He came from Bloomington, Indiana and played wretched blues harmonica whenever the opportunity presented itself. I never really hung out with him, less still with the other American, who was an English teacher at some Aeronautics Institute. Paul worked for a PR company now; the only recent conversation I could recall having had with him (and with the other guy, who was with him then too) was at The Den one very late night. If I remember correctly, I began it by roundly condemning the PR business (in spite of my having precious little notion what a PR firm actually does) and ended up heatedly debating the legitimacy of Alberto Fujimori's regime in Peru.

"Naw, no, just... well, heading home. Doing some writing. I have a deadline tomorrow, you know how it is. Promised my editor I'd have it for him by tomorrow morning. Gotta charge my battery."
"Sit and have a beer. Night's young, dude. We could get in all sorts of trouble. Hey -- have you heard about the stripper bar? I know this bar over that way that has this totally hot chick who actually does lap dances. Lap dances, man!" Guys like this always make me feel rigidly sanctimonious. That night after PR and Peru and odd stops in between, they had ended up at Maggie's -- the infamous "Mongolian Embassy" -- and I had gone home, still feeling rigidly sanctimonious, to quarrel with D_____ for what turned out to be the last time.

"I'll have to take a rain check." "Ei! S_____!" She called my name from the doorway, pronouncing it without a trace of an accent. "Zou bu zou?"

"Yeah, I'm coming. Just one second." I nodded bye to Paul and Alex (that's the other guy's name, now what the hell did she say hers was?). They grinned loutish, idiot grins at me. Paul: "Better make your deadline. Charge that battery." Alex: "Duuude!"

The Sanlitun night shift was in full effect as we walked out onto the sidewalk and into the steamy evening. We worked our way past tables full of people eating, drinking and chatting away. The flower peddlars, the beggars, the portrait artists, the beer promoter girls in their immodest Tiger or Budweiser or Heineken or Corona or San Miguel wear.

"I could stop over there" -- I gestured toward Jenny Lou's Market across the street and down a ways-- "and pick up some smokes or wine or beer or some coke or something."
"Forget it. Let's just go. How far is your place?"
"Just up ahead on the right. By Jazz-ya."
Inside of a minute we had reached the hutong that leads to my flat. "Well, here we are," I said, hesitatingly.
"Walk in ahead of me and I'll follow you a few steps behind," she ordered.
I obligingly walked into my compound, past shirtless men on benches fanning themselves with wicker fans. The smell of stir-frying onions made me realize I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I had strong premonitions of doom, the unmistakable feeling I was walking into a trap. We trudged up three flights of stairs without saying a word. I fished out my keys and opened the door.

"You know," I suddenly confessed, "I don't even know your name." She walked in, shutting the door behind her.
She laughed musically. "I knew you didn't know it. Silly boy, why don't you listen when people tell you things? Maybe I won't tell you now."
"I'll make one up. Do you want a drink? I only have water and ... beer" I offered, glancing nervously around the walls of my less-than-impressive digs. I found the remote for the air conditioner, stood in front of it and let it dry the sweat off my face while I gathered courage.
"No, thanks," she said. She set her bag down on the chair by the door. "I just need to use your bathroom."
She was in there for what seemed like an hour. I neatened up where I could, sniffed the air for any unpleasant smells, quickly made my bed, thought about putting on music and then opted against it. How does that porno movie music go? I turned on the TV and DVD player, picked up a magazine, lit a cigarette (something I only rarely do), tried to look nonchalant.
"Really, if you want, I can go down the street to Jenny Lou's and get a bottle of wine. They have this decent Spanish red for only 70 kuai a bottle," I called out from the living room. "Are you hungry? I could order something. You like pizza? Or I could pick something up."
There was no reply.

I walked back toward the bathroom just as she was emerging. Her hair was down now; I smelled the intoxicating perfume. She smiled mischievously and held out a hand: "Are you going to show me around?" I took her hand.

"Not much to this place. That room -- I use it as kind of a study, but right now it's a mess. That's the kitchen -- no, no, don't go in there, it's dangerous. And this -- this is my bedroom. I get good light in the morning, and there's this liitle balcony, but the kids on the schoolyard are pretty loud, you know, and..."
She sat down on my unmade bed and crossed her legs.

"Uh... do you still want to watch the movie?" I stammered.

She looked up at me and started to say something. And then her phone rang inside her purse: The Nokia snake-charmer ring. It went through its whole melody, twenty seconds, before she suddenly broke eye contact and rose quickly to answer it, brushing past me. Standing by the door, she looked down at the display, frowned, answered it in a bored-sounding voice. "Wei. Nnnn. Okay. Hao." She looked at me. "At a friend's house. No, no, right away. Bye."

Still looking at me, she put her phone back in her purse. "I'm really sorry. I have to go now." She stood for a moment as if thinking, then held her hand out. I took it without thinking. She pulled me toward her and kissed me on the cheek, a two-second, a full-lipped, honest, and not merely dismissive kiss. "Gotta go." She opened the door, stepped outside, turned around and looked once more at me, then hurried down the stairs.

I stood in the doorway for a minute or two, hoping to hear her coming back up. Then I closed the door, leaned against, shook my head. Sitting in the chair where her purse had been was a DVD: "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." Guess I knew what I'd be doing this evening.