Love the One You're With
Yes, it's been awhile. But last night's near-fiasco involving two different women probably merits recounting, at least if like me, you've got the morals of a cockroach and the emotional depth of a camel's scrotum.
For several months now I've been enamoured of a young woman I'll call "C" who works as a translator for an American company near the SZ Daily. And after a long period of mostly faithful flirting and attention on my part - much of which resembled behavior reminisicent of The Amish Guide to Courtship we finally and hurridly sealed the deal in a frantic coupling one Sunday morning. I gave her keys to the Lucky Number for free and easy access and things were going fine until a behavior pattern that once seemed "eccentric" and even occasionally "cute" on her part morphed into "pathological."
It's not unusual for C to not return phone calls and she is given to last minute cancellations. Though I've grown more patient in general since coming here, my patience began to finally fray as far as she was concerned. Last weekend on Friday night she text messaged me to cancel for a home cooked dinner I was in the middle of preparing. Sunday morning and afternoon she was unavailable and - when she finally granted me a phone audience - maddingly vague about any plans for Sunday night. Plans, I should add, that we had agreed to on a rare Saturday night date.
The reptile portion of my brain kicked in about 10 seconds after hanging up with her chirpy "maybe we can do something later" ringing in my ears.
"Maybe I can call ANOTHER WOMAN who would be glad to go out with me and maybe even fuck my brains out on short notice unlike C," was my mature solution to this quandry. And yes, after a month outta touch "S" was thrilled to hear from me and said she would meet me at the Lucky Number in an hour. An hour in which I spent hiding C's peronal effects, including about 12 jars of cosmetics, two dresses and a large box of sanitary napkins. I even wrote down where they had been, what position the cold cream was in (right side) in relation to the moisturize and carefully noted "pads 45-degree angle from wastebasket."
(Though in my careful preparations, I neglected to address the tiny, insignificant but shrill voice in my head that asked: "What if C decides to come over to the apartment while you're out and notices her things are gone?")
My work there was finished. As I would be several hours later.
Suffice to say my evening out with S at an almost real Italian restaurant followed by dancing went swimmingly. She had the good sense and perhaps foresight to politely decline my subtle hint to "do the nasty like a rabid wombat" at my place or hers - a decision I didn't appreciate until I stumbled into the Lucky Number at 2:30 a.m. and instantly noted that the A/C was cranked up and puffing hard.
Funny. I didn't remember leaving it on and I'm usually very careful about that detail. Further investigation revealed that there was someone sleeping in my bed and it wasn't one of the three bears.
It was C, of course, who had decided to "surprise" me. And just imagine my joy and surprise when she wanted to know why her dresses and cosmetics were hidden, why I had blown off two of her calls and, by the way, where had I been?
What followed was not pretty. I did my best to make a case that I had been grievously wronged by her careless, self-absorbed behavior; so wronged, in fact, that the mere sight of her personal effects caused me more pain that I could bear. But now, jeeze, now I was thrilled to see her and by-the-way why don't we just kiss and make up?
"I knew you'd say that," was her retort.
I'll spare you the rest of the details, except to say we did kiss and make up at about 4:30 a.m. and were settling into post-coital cuddle mode when her cell phone chirped.
She spent the next 10 minutes talking to an "ex-boss" who "wanted to rehire her." Well, sure. You believe my story about why I hid your stuff and I'll believe that Santa Claus was calling you at 4:30 a.m. about a job...
As you might imagine, the temperature in the once Burnin' House of Shenzhen Love has plunged since. Sort of like Sino-US relations after America accidently bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
  ¶ 3:41 AM