A Guilded Cage

Grey. If I had to use one word to describe Beijing, it would be grey.

The sky was grey. The buildings were grey. Even the people seemed a bit… grey.

Riding next to me in the two-seater Mercedes Benz was a Chinese girl in her mid-twenties. She was attractive by most anyone’s standards. She had an almond shaped face with large eyes and a small, pointed nose. Her mouth was slightly wider than most Chinese would like but, being the foreigner I was, I had once even thought that was cute.

Let’s call her Lan.

To most young men, this would be a dream come true. Traveling in a luxury sports car with a pretty girl, seeing the world and experiencing things you once would have only dreamed about. This was not a dream however. In fact, it was something closer to a nightmare.

As I rode in that Mercedes, all I could think about was how much I hated the woman next to me. This horrible dragon-lady, who had stolen my freedom and my dignity, was one of the most repulsive creatures I had ever known. I fantasied about some sudden, horrible accident that would allow me to pocket the stack of cash she kept in her purse and hail the first cab to the airport—back to safety somewhere far, far away.

It had all started a year before.

★  ★ ★  ★

It was nearing the end of my second semester at University in Beijing. I had found a gym near my school with passable equipment and affordable memberships. Most days after class, and any weekend I wasn’t too hung-over, I would go there for a workout.

One day I was in the middle of a particularly intense chest routine when one of the employees approached and asked to see my membership card. I was annoyed, as this appeared to be yet another instance of “special” treatment I seemed to be subject to as a foreigner at this gym (some other examples including repeated issues with my contract and countless instances of unusually long examination of my personal details upon check-in). The man returned with my card several minutes later, however, and I put the instance from my mind for the remainder of the workout.

Later that evening I was eating a bland dinner of boiled meat and rice at the university cafeteria when I received a phone call. It was a young Chinese woman claiming that she and I had met that day at the gym.

I could not remember the meeting she spoke of. In fact, I was fairly certain I had not made any new acquaintances in the last week. When I conveyed this to the young woman, she reasserted that we had met just a few hours before in the gym lobby.

I paused and thought for a moment. It suddenly dawned on me who the girl must be. As I passed through the lobby that day, I had caught a glimpse of a young Chinese woman sitting on one of the couches and staring at me. I hadn’t thought anything of it and walked past her without a second glace. We had not “met” in any sense other than briefly being in the same place at the same time. She had apparently seen me and sent one of her “friends” to go collect my information, hence the membership card inquiry and the mysterious phone call.

Despite the strangeness of the situation, my curiosity got the better of me and I agreed to meet the young woman for dinner. I chose a cheap restaurant on the walk back between my gym and the university. I picked the spot purely for the fact that I had already planned to stop there on the way back from the gym.

And so it was, dressed in my gym clothes and still rather sweaty, that I arrived at the dingy restaurant the following evening. I looked around for any sign of my mysterious date. From somewhere off to my right I heard someone call out, “Jack?”.

Meet Lan.

She had a pretty face. Prettier than I remembered from my extremely blurry glimpse of her the day before. Her clothes were obviously expensive. Between her apparel, bag and jewelry she was likely wearing an entire working-class Chinese family’s yearly income. Her hair and makeup were tastefully done.

Seeing her, I was both pleasantly surprised and painfully aware of the inappropriateness of my clothing and the location I had chosen. This was not the kind of girl that you took to eat greasy dumplings dressed in gym shorts.

I figured my best bet at salvaging this situation was to play the foreigner card. I wasn’t dressed like this because I was a lazy slob, I was dressed like this because being athletic and casual was the hallmark of cool in my country.

It seemed to work. It probably would have been better if it hadn’t.

★  ★ ★  ★

That night seemed like a strange dream.

Our date began with a small change of plans. Glancing skeptically at the somewhat run-down restaurant to our right, Lan asked if I would like to try somewhere bit nicer. I agreed and began to walk down the street in the direction of the metro. After a few steps, Lan stopped me and informed me that we would be taking her car.

It was a beautiful two-seater Mercedes Benz. It was brand new. It was probably the most expensive car the young foreigner in gym shorts had ever sat in.

The restaurant was nice. I enjoyed the meal, even if the atmosphere was a bit stuck-up for my taste. By the time the bill came, my stomach was both full and in a bit of a knot imagining the damage to my monthly food budget. When I reached for my wallet, however, Lan stopped me. I started to argue that she should let me pay, but was cut short when she pulled a stack of 100 Renminbi notes from her wallet. She casually peeled several bills off of the top and placed them on the table.

I tried not to stare or look surprised at the thick stack of cash rubber-banded together like some drug runner from the 1970’s. Chinese people use cash more than westerners, but this was clearly on another level. The casualness with with which she handled it indicated that, to her, this was an insignificant amount of money. I realized that I could likely live very comfortably for several months on Lan’s walking-around money.

★  ★ ★  ★

The next several weeks passed in a blur. Lan took me on a series of trips including days at various high-end spas, a weekend skiing, and countless expensive meals.  On one occasion I literally bathed in a hot tub full of coffee. She paid for everything. Usually in cash.

Eventually the time approached for my return home. Lan wanted to know when we would next meet and pressed for an answer on several occasions. I finally admitted that, while I would like to see her soon and would be sure to keep up contact, I was not in a position to purchase a long-distance airline ticket in the near future. As you might guess, she found it rather ridiculous that something like the cost of a plane ticket should keep us apart. Lan made it clear that she would be purchasing a ticket for me to visit her at the nearest opportunity.

The day she took me to the airport, Lan was driving one of her alternative cars. She had several others she switched between when not using her Mercedes. This one was rarely used and apparently belonged to her father.

For obvious reasons, I will transcribe Lan and my interactions in English. In reality, they were in Mandarin, overlaid with Lan’s noticeable Beijing accent. She rarely spoke English, and when she did it was surprisingly bad for someone who had spent as much time overseas as she had.

When we arrived at the airport, Lan proceeded to park directly at the front-most curb near the terminal doors. I was quite confused, as this appeared blatantly illegal and seemed likely to get her lovely car towed away. When I expressed my concerns, her response was short and decisive.

“This is a government car. No one would dare touch it.”

★  ★ ★  ★

Several months passed before I saw Lan again. We had several Skype chats and messaged regularly. To me, she was an interesting distraction from school and some of the mundane realities of college life. To her, I suspect it was something more than that.

Spring break turned out to be an excellent excuse to fly back and enjoy another bout of travelling at my wealthy patron’s expense. This time we stayed in a luxury villa on the beach in Sanya. We spent the days snorkeling and lounging on the beach, and the nights eating at restaurants with price tags that made me laugh. I ate a steak that cost more than 300 U.S. dollars. I felt a bit like a dog in a fancy restaurant.

Once we had had our fun in Sanya, we flew back to Beijing for short stay before my return home. One night, as we were cruising in Lan’s beautiful Mercedes, she mentioned something that caused my whole body to tense up against the leather upholstery.

I had always suspected that Lan’s family likely had some influential connections within the government. Any extraordinarily wealthy Chinese usually did. As it turned out, Lan’s father did not just have influential connections within the government, he had a career’s-worth of experience there. More shocking was the nature of his work. Prior to entering the business world, Lan’s father had been employed with the Ministry of State Security. If this name means nothing to you, imagine the CIA or the KGB, but so secretive that you, dear reader, have never even heard of it.

As if this were not enough to leave my jaw hanging and eyes peeled open like two halves of a golf ball, Lan decided to casually drop another small detail on the nature of her father’s position. He had recently served as a delegate at the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party; the same political body that had “elected” Xi Jinping as the leader of China.

I found no need to press for more details on this particular topic. The less I was exposed to this particular facet of Lan’s life, the better. It was time to fly home and put this uncomfortable bit of information from my head.

By this point, you may be thinking that it was long-past time I ended my dubious engagement with this strange young woman. Instead, I spent the next several months fantasising about my next romp across luxurious and exotic destinations.

Should some kind of warning bells have been sounding in my head? Maybe. But the sounds of luxury sports cars and waves breaking on island resorts tend to drown out the nagging whispers of common sense.

Besides, I was never one to walk away from something strange.

★  ★ ★  ★

This time was decidedly different.

“WHY ARE YOU SO SLOW?!?” Lan snapped impatiently as I lugged several huge bags down the uneven cobblestone street. I pointed out that it was hard to keep pace since I was carrying both her and my own luggage. She scoffed and muttered “stupid” as she turned sharply away and continued down the street.

I watched her walk off for a moment before resuming my laborious trudge forward. Something had changed. This time Lan was nothing like the smiling and good-humored girl I had met more than 6 months before. She had become a vicious dragon-lady, ready to spit molten fire into the face of anyone who crossed her. Particularly my face, as I now seemed to live straddling some proverbial uncrossable line. Any movement in either direction would result in a spray of scalding insults that, while often ridiculous in nature, still began to leave my skin red and sore after grueling days without relief.

My favorite reoccurring theme among Lan’s endless streams of insults drew on the apparent newfound “exotic” flare in my wardrobe. Lan had decided that several of the shirts I had packed for this trip were unacceptable and made me look “just like a Cambodian”. She would say this final word in English, drawing it out and curling her upper lip in a manner reminiscent of someone spitting out a piece of spoiled food. Being a tall white man, I found this particular accusation so laughably stupid that I made the mistake of grinning each time it reared its malformed head. This in turn would result in a stream of insults, including such classics as: “garbage,” “retard,” and “stupid cunt.”

We had been hopping around from city to city for the past week visiting some of Lan’s favorite spots across China. It could have even been a fun trip if the company had been a bit less terrible. Unfortunately, even the most exotic of destinations lose much of their luster when you are serving as the pack-mule and purse dog of a tyrannical dragon princess.

We were now on our way to see and climb the one of the peaks at Huangshan. Under different circumstances, I would have looked forward to this outdoor adventure. As it was, I was more concerned with planning how to convince Lan to carry as little up the mountain as possible. Not only was I certain that I would be stuck lugging whatever burdens she fancied having along, but by this point I would not have been surprised if she decided part way that she herself needed to be carried up the mountain.

Fortunately, these particular concerns proved to be unwarranted. We were never to climb Huangshan. Lan woke the morning of our planned climb complaining of stomach pains. I was unsure if these were real, or simply an excuse to avoid exerting herself, but I didn’t really care. The opportunity to skip out on what would certainly be a grueling and painful experience was more than welcome to me.

The downside to this sudden change of plans was that we were now in a small town in the middle of nowhere. We had taken first a plane, then a train, then a private car through increasingly remote areas, until we had arrived at this point several hours from our destination. I suspected that there must have been a simpler way to reach this famed mountain, but I had long ago given up asking Lan to explain any of her decisions to me.

It was here that I was to undergo one of the most demeaning experiences of my life.

To compliment her constant flurry of insults, Lan had developed an accompanying pattern of demanding praise and homage at every turn. It was one such exchange, set in the tense atmosphere following the cancellation of our plans to climb Huangshan, that detonated the powder keg I had been sitting on for the past week.

Lan and I were sitting in our hotel room idling away the time until she decided what our next destination might be. We had just finished a particularly unpleasant lunch, during which my meal had been seasoned with a spicy spray of scornful remarks. She was wrapping these up with a critique on my appearance and physical condition.

“Disgusting. Why are you so fat?”

My only response was an exasperated eye-roll. I was certainly not fat by any stretch of the imagination, but any cutting remark soaked in enough venom and applied often enough can become painful and sore.

Realizing that I would not be replying to any of her accusations, Lan returned her attention to her phone. She sat for several minutes flicking through social media feeds before becoming bored and lifting her gaze to look around the room. She stood up and strode to the mirror opposite my current seat. I was trying my best to bury my face in a book and imagine my way to somewhere far, far away from this prison cell.

Lan stood examining herself in the mirror, rotating her hips from side to side with a dissatisfied expression on her face. “Why are my legs so thick?” she asked in a whiny voice.

I knew this cue well. It was my time to tell her that her legs were in fact not thick at all and that she had a perfect figure the envy of fat Westerners the world over. Under normal circumstances I would never participate in this sort of painfully blunt ego-massaging. With Lan, however, I had come to realize that, in order to avoid a maelstrom of attacks and insults, I was required to deliver this praise on demand.

Normally I would have simply played along and given Lan this meaningless and scripted response. Regrettably, in that moment I just so happened to hit the limits of my patience. The last hour of insults on my own physical condition and generally disgusting appearance had left me in no mood to spoon-feed Lan with praise on her (rather average) physical condition.

“Well maybe you should go to the gym more,” I read my own obituary without so much as a glance up from my book.

The tension in the air was thick enough to choke on.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!?!”

I instantly knew the gravity of my mistake. The white-hot shrapnel of a thousand hand grenades detonated in my face.

“YOU PIECE OF GARBAGE!!! YOU’RE LESS THAN A PILE OF SHIT!!! HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!!!”

Fine droplets of spittle flew into my face like a sprinkler spraying sulfuric acid.

“WHAT KIND OF PERSON ARE YOU?! YOU’RE DOG SHIT IS WHAT YOU ARE!!! GO TO HELL!!!”

I sat dumbfounded and helpless. My overwhelming instinctual reaction was to deliver a hearty fist directly into the acid-spraying mouth.

Lan suddenly took a half-moment’s pause.

“I don’t want you anymore.”

The words were delivered as if to some piece of rotten food that Lan had discovered in her refrigerator.

“What do you mean?” I asked as carefully and evenly as I could manage. “You want to break up?”

“I’m going to throw you on the side of the road and return to Beijing myself.”

I felt my stomach fall as I grasped her meaning. This was not an idle threat. I was fully confident that Lan would in fact leave me on the side of the road in this rural village. The sheer stupidity of my failure to bring a supply of my own cash or working phone on this trip was now shining in my face as blindingly as a negligent house fire. Even if I did manage to somehow make it to a major city, I didn’t have enough money in my bank account to buy my own ticket out of the country.

“Oh… well that… it makes me very sad to hear that. If you’re completely decided then I guess there is nothing I can do. Could you just drop me off in Shanghai on the way back to Beijing?”

“No. I’m going to throw you on the side of the road here.” she responded in a disgusted and dismissive tone.

My brain worked to untangle the current situation. I thought about Lan, the type of person I now knew her to be, her drives and motivations. This was very bad.

Dark thoughts began to fill my head. I began to calculate how quickly I could make it out of China. I knew where Lan kept her stack of cash. That would certainly get me as far as I needed to go. It would likely even cover a last-minute ticket purchase for the first flight out of Shanghai on my arrival at the airport.

But nothing would work if Lan was chasing me. With her influence and connections I would be lucky to make it to the nearest city before I was either arrested by local officials, or abducted by a carload of goons. She would have to be out of the picture.

I thought about the area around the hotel. There were large fields in the immediate vicinity that I could conceivably hide a body for at least a couple of days while I made my break for Shanghai. But how to make it down through the lobby and out of the hotel with her? Could she fit inside of her suitcase? I would need to strangle her so there wasn’t blood leaking in the room or out of the bag to draw attention.

No. This was stupid. Was I going to become some sort of international fugitive because I made the mistake of becoming romantically involved with one unstable princeling?

If I was going to use Lan’s money to get out of China, it was going to have to be with her blessing. And that meant one thing. I needed to be her pet dog for a bit longer. So I did what all good dogs do when they want something. I begged.

I told her how wrong I had been. I told her how sorry I was, how it would never happen again. I literally got on my knees and begged her to take me back. I would be so much better to her, finally treating her like she deserved.

Her disgust slowly turned to condescending smiles. She was visibly pleased when I denounced my own stupidity and begged for her forgiveness. By the end she was laughing, smiling and clearly in a enjoying having her favourite pet debase himself for her pleasure.

At last she agreed to take me back. We would return to Beijing together and spend two blissful weeks there together shopping, dining and anything else that she fancied. I smiled up at her at the prospect.

I have hated few human beings in my life as much as I hated Lan in those moments. I did not want to strangle her. I wanted to slice open her belly, pull her out her intestines, then throw them on the ground and watch her gargle in her own blood until she died.

But my emotions and my pride did not matter. What mattered was getting access to Lan’s money so that I could make my escape. I had learned my lesson. This was the price you paid when you put yourself at someone’s mercy. A dog has no rights save those his master chooses to grant him.

★  ★ ★  ★

The wind felt amazing blowing through my hair, even as thick and polluted as the Beijing air was. It’s incredible how much even the most insignificant freedoms can seem like gifts from god when one has been deprived of them. Perhaps it is the meaning behind them, rather than the liberties themselves that are so enjoyable. This was the wind of my freedom.

Upon our arrival in Beijing, Lan had delivered me to a nondescript hotel in a part of the city I didn’t recognize. Here I was introduced to several people who were ostensibly her relatives visiting from nearby Tianjin. I was then escorted to a room on the 10th floor, where I was put and told to remain until Lan returned for me.

This would not have been so terrible, except that I was literally not allowed to leave the room. As foreigners technically weren’t allowed to stay in this hotel, I needed to avoid being seen coming and going by the staff. Lan’s “relatives” were stationed in the room directly opposite me at the end of a long corridor. The room had no internet and a window that looked out onto a brick wall.

I waited in the room for what seemed like an eternity. I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling as time drew on and the hour grew late. Eventually sleep came and I spent several hours restlessly tossing and turning. When the clock informed me it was morning, I turned on the lights and got ready.

And then I waited… and waited… and waited.

I dug into my bag and found some peanuts and artificial fish sausage to ease my growing hunger. I had grown used to eating on Lan’s schedule by this point which, Lan being a small Asian woman, necessarily meant that I faced infrequent feedings. My supplies were only enough for one missed meal however, and I worried at what might happen if Lan neglected to return until the evening.

Around noon, just as I was beginning to debate attempting to slip out and get some cheap food with the little money I had, Lan finally came knocking on my door.

“You hungry?” she asked with a smile.

With the sweetest and most sincere smile I could muster, I told her that I was, in fact, a bit hungry. I diplomatically omitted small the footnote that most any human would be quite hungry after 12 hours without food.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Anything you would like would be excellent to me,” I replied again in my consistently sweet and submissive manner.

“Hmm… I’m actually not hungry,” she responded in an nonchalant tone.

“Well then if we could just stop for a few moments at any convenience store we happen to pass, I’ll quickly run in and pick up something.”

Lan gave a satisfied smile at this and nodded her agreement. We left the hotel and climbed into her Mercedes for a day out shopping. I played the perfect purse dog. Lan was at first surprised, then immensely pleased at my change in demeanor. This was the royal treatment she was due.

As I had been laying in the empty room the night before, a thought had come to me. A flash of memory from an old acquaintance—another Chinese woman. She had once told me that the worst thing you could do to a woman was to give her a beautiful memory, then take it all away suddenly and without explanation.

It made sense. I had seen it play out with friends and couples and I had known. When someone ended the relationship, a lack of closure, more than almost anything else, would drive their ex mad. I could recall many instances of people confiding in me an overwhelming and irrational drive to understand why. What went wrong? Was there something wrong with them? Could things have been different? Was there a chance the relationship could still be saved? In truth, this concern was often more a product of damage the rejected party’s ego than true concern for the relationship.

I had seen this reduce rational people to hollow shells of their former selves. It took them so long to recover that many people elected the easier route of finding another relationship to fill the void. This was usually at best a bandage, however, and the underlying wound would often remain festering under the surface for years to come.

This was what I would do to Lan, that acid-spitting dragon creature I had come to loathe. I would give her a beautiful memory. I would convince her that I was the perfect match for her. I would be strong when she wanted a man, and sweet and obedient when she wanted a lapdog. Then I would take it all away, suddenly and without explanation. I did not have the luxury of time to play the long con and truly bring her to her knees, but I had enough time. Enough time to make her hurt. Enough time to leave her with a beautifully painful memory.

And so our blissful weeks passed. I was ever sweet and obedient, undemanding with gentle smiles. I added accents of strength and manliness at just the right times. I made sure her concerns were always put first, that she always knew I was ready to do anything my beautiful princess might require. I could soon see that it was working.

Lan’s smug satisfaction at my transformation slowly became something more earnest and delicate. She began to smile more frequently and sincerely and employ all manner of affectionate hand-holding, kissing and petting. I had never been so glad for a Chinese woman’s propensity to fall in love so quickly.

When she told me she loved me, I was ready with perfectly scripted responses and crocodile smiles. She obviously loved the nauseatingly sweet phrases and flowery words. It was a true test of my Mandarin ability to scrape up all of the disgustingly romantic garbage I had heard over the years.

By the second week, I was freed from my prison cell. Apparently a room had become available at a better hotel across town. This new location was nearly on par with many of the beautiful accommodations Lan and I had stayed at prior to our falling out. She joined me in the hotel room most nights.

I hope I never again experience sleeping with someone I hate so much.

By the time the day of my departure arrived, Lan was positively swooning. She bemoaned my need to leave and chatted excitedly about the next time we would meet. I joined enthusiastically in these conversations, decrying the horrible American university system that was pulling us apart; pining over the prospect of our next meeting.

Soon we were nearly to the airport for our final goodbye. The Beijing air washed over me, the harsh chemicals burning away the filth of the slimy reptile I had become. I looked at Lan, surveying the now hated faced. She looked back and, smiling sweetly, reached out to grasp my hand. We traveled the remaining minutes in a peaceful silence.

We pulled to the front of the airport and parked at the curb. We were running late, but I had no need to worry, as Lan’s “friend” who worked at this airport would get me past any lines for check-in or security. I accepted this graciously, with more than a little internal apprehension at the thought of relying on one of Lan’s goons for my escape.

We sat in the car staring at each other.

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” I replied with puppy eyes and a crocodile smile.

“Call me when you get to Shanghai,” she said moving her hand to stroke my face.

“Of course I will.”

She smiled and closed her eyes as she leaned in towards me. It was the most poisonously saccharine-coated kiss I have ever mustered.

I stepped out of the vehicle, every movement full of longing and regret. As I pulled my bags in through the terminal doors, I turned and gave Lan one last wave. She smiled and waved back. The doors shut.

Lan’s goon was true to his word. He somehow identified me as soon as I entered the terminal. I was escorted the front of the check-in line, then the security queue. I boarded the plane and made my way to Shanghai without incident.

I did not call Lan when I got there. I simply sat and watched the clock tick until it was time for my flight. Neither did I call her upon my return home. I did not call, message, email or engage in any other form of communication with the dragon princess.

I did, however, receive a vast volume of calls, emails, Skype and text messages. She even managed to find the contact information of several people close to me and assault them with streams of messages. From the contents, it was obvious she was hurt and confused. I could see the tone fluctuate between demanding and pleading, doing anything to try and elicit some kind of response. She did not get any.

After six months, the messages became less frequent. A year saw the last attempt at communication finally come to an end; one last defeated email, asking without hope for some kind of response.

At that it was finally over. The dragon was slain, and I was free.

At first I had enjoyed my revenge, seeing her twisted in confusion and pain. By the end I was just glad to put the entire unclean affair behind me.

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.”

I suppose the same should be said of dragons.

End