She was a little thick in the middle, nude, moaning and and occasionally yelping
and baying like a seal giving birth. Her eyes were closed, and she was splayed
flat on her back, legs rigidly extended, one hand squeezing her left breast,
the other occasionally stroking one man's groin and the other fellow manually
stimulated her and occasionally grunted what I gathered was Chinese dirty talk
or the equivalent of "Oh, yeah, baby. Do it! Do it for daddy!"
"Go do her," my partner, Mandy, said, yawning. "It's okay. I'm tired."
"Not really my type, you know? I think she's also plenty occupied already. Plus
the air conditioning sucks. I'm sweating just watching them and it's not from
excitement."
I walked to the bed, declined one guy's invitation to join the fun and grabbed
two pillows. "Thanks, but too tired," I said. He didn't speak English and I
don't speak Chinese so I mimed the sign language for "sleep" and returned to
the suite area where Mandy was already drifting off on the couch. I threw an
extra blanket on the floor beside her and tried to sleep as the trio next door
continued.
It had been an exhausting and surreal evening of mix and match couples - and
trios, and foursomes and the odd single - that began at about 6:30 pm with a
phone call to Mandy from "Tony" -- the Chinese self-proclaimed ring master of a
loose group of Shenzhen swappers. There would be a gathering of the tribes, one
Shenzhen group and one from Guangzhou, and Mandy and I were invited.
Our initiation had been several months earlier, courtesy of a German (him)
Chinese couple who had invited us to a large gathering at their private home.
Since then we'd received almost weekly invites, mostly from Tony and his
girlfriend, Alice for a four or eightsome, but the chemistry fell flat at the
initial roundevouz points and times -- typically a loud, crowded Chinese
restaurant at 10:30 pm.
Believe me eros and table loads of mostly Cantonese spitting chicken and fish
bones, sucking up noodles like wet-vacuums and caterwauling into their mobile
phones just isn't a good mix.
This had an equally inaspicious beginning though the starting time was earlier,
7 pm. The initial meeting spot was - naturally - a crowded restaurant, the
address of which seemed to vary depending on what phone call was made and the
taxi driver's whim.
By 7:25 we'd found it and three tables filled with a group of about 16 people -
four couples and four single guys - with me the only foreigner and Mandy the
only one who could fluently speak both English and Chinese.
"What's with all the single guys?" I asked Mandy.
"Men don't last as long," she said. "I think it's for the women. But I don't
see anyone interesting yet, really."
Nonetheless we decamped at Tony's table where he was busy working his phone,
directing other confused potential attendees. We placed our orders as about
five others finished their meals and drifted from the restaurant, shouting back
at Tony.
"What's the deal? Where are they going?" I asked Mandy.
"They are checking into the hotel before us but can't agree on how many rooms
and whether the Guangzhou and Shenzhen groups should be in the same rooms at
the beginning."
"Huh?" I thought. But I kept my mouth shut. "TIC," I thought to myself. " 'This
is China,' " a bit of all-purpose advice another expat had passed on to me upon
my arrival to explain behavior that was otherwise inexplicable and/or
uncomprehensible to my foreign barbarian way of thinking.
There was more hubbub after we began eating. Again it involved some obscure
point of pride or disagreement between those from Shenzhen and Guangzhou.
"No difference!" I said smiling at one red faced Shenzhen booster. "All same
-same!"
"No!" he yelled back. Mandy told me to chill.
Outside the hotel, a "five star" that seemed to have dropped a couple of stars
since it opened, Tony told Mandy that we were to drift in small groups, about
four minutes apart. He gave her three room numbers: 2502, 1702 and 802.
The covert approach was obvious even to me. Couple swapping, while not
technically illegal in China, does draw the attention of authorities who want
to make an issue of "public immorality" and collect some bribes in the process.
Hotels in southern China are also supposed to forward the personal
identification details of all guests to the local cop shop within three hours
of check-in, though it's often a spotty approach. Nonetheless caution was the
watch word until we finally hit room 2502 where we found (drum roll, please)
lots of fully clothed people playing cards, sipping beer and soft drinks,
looking at unopened cartons of Durex condoms and watching TV.
Same story in 1702, except one fat fellow was stripped down to his tighty
whities, laying on a bed alone and flipping through channels. He patted the bed
and looked expectant as Mandy and I looked in.
"Uh, thanks but no thanks," I muttered.
"Maybe 802?" she said.
Paydirt. Two couples and one guy who mostly hung on the outskirts of the bed as
a solo act, invited us in for what turned into a couple hours of frolicking,
interrupted by mobile phone calls, knocks on the door - one more couple,
another two guys and vain searches for more towels.
Back at 1702 we took a long breather while watching one woman in high heels and
nothing else take on two guys as the fat guy who orginally staked out the bed
continued to watch TV while occasionally idly groping her and himself.
Finally a mass flurry of knocks, phone calls and people scrambling into their
clothes signaled a late dinner break. Again, in small groups, we trailed out of
the hotel to a nearby greasy noodle joint where some ate and ran and others
stayed and rehashed the evening.
"She said she came six times," Mandy said, pointing to the radioactive permed
woman who would seemingly double her record an hour or so later. "How about
you?" I asked.
"Maybe as much. Maybe more. Maybe less. I didn't count them," she said smiling.
"It's going to be a mystery for you."
