"Welcome, sir. You are Mr Martin, yes? Please if you would follow me" From her first sentence as I entered the tea house, I could tell that the hostess had good English; a strong Chinese accent for sure, but with a gentle sing-song quality to it and a friendly confidence that put me immediately at my ease. This confirmed the impression I had got as I had approached the tea house; it was a obviously a high quality establishment. While a few restaurants in the area had staff that could speak some English, it tended to be rudimentary, hesitant and at times nearly incomprehensible.
At three in the afternoon the bottom floor was nearly empty of customers, but as we passed through the main hall though I counted at least ten different hostesses, each tall and beautiful. I suspected that they were chosen not only for their general good looks, but also according to a particular fetish that the manager or owner must have. They were all over five foot eight, and none had pronounced breasts or bottoms, though the traditional Chinese dress that each wore subtly emphasised their figures. Each dress was identical, white with the branches of a cherry blossom tree embroidered up the left-hand side. Each had a small walkie-talkie discretely pinned to their chest. Their hair and make-up was also identical, with their hair tied in a bun held in place by a matching pink and white sticks. Unlike many Chinese girls they didn't cover their faces with whitening make-up but seemed to have naturally porcelain skin. Each was beautiful, but for my money, the hostess who had greeted me was the nicest of the lot. Though the restaurant was empty, each girl stood upright in her appointed place, neither looking bored nor chatting with their neighbour, but waiting with a relaxed serenity. They bowed slightly in turn as I passed.
I tried not to feel too out of place. I told myself that I should feel like ten thousand Renminbi, which was after all what I was getting paid for this afternoon. After all I was wearing the new Armani suit and the Rolex watch, my shoes were shined, my eyebrows were plucked, I was carrying an expensive looking leather briefcase. I tried to reassure myself that I looked the part. On the other hand, it was nearly forty degrees and it was impossible to avoid sweating. The air quality around Beijing had been particularly bad that day and my skin felt grimy. I felt like a fraud, especially knowing that my clothes and watch would have to be returned by the end of the afternoon.
I ran my fingers though my newly cut and styled hair. I had enjoyed having my my head washed and massaged in the salon. I'd even enjoyed being hand shaved with an old fashioned cut-throat razor by a woman who was apparently one of the most sought-after stylists in Beijing. More embarrassing was having my public hair trimmed by one of her trainees, especially as she had done little to hide her amazement at the size of my member, "Aiya..Hen da...very...big". We didn't have enough of either language in common for me to do anything more than simply agree with her. "Yes...big" I had said with a nervous smile. Without being too immodest, my dick is big by Western standards; by Chinese standards it's nearly freakish; ten inches erect and not that much smaller flaccid. As she took her scissors to my pubes, she had to work around my cock, moving it from side to side, gingerly at first, and then with more confidence, each time sighing gently "hao da ya", so big. She'd been a plump girl, trendily dress with a round face, as she'd bent over me to see to her work, I'd been able to see down her top. I thought about trying to get her phone number, but after I had to endure her applying wax and pulling the hair from out between my bum-checks, my affection for her waned temporarily waned somewhat. Beside I had to keep my mind on my work.
As we reached the stairs of the tea house, my hostess turned her head back and said "Mrs Lin sends her apologies, she will be fifteen minutes late. She asked me to serve you and make you comfortable. I am Meiyan ". As she climbed the stairs, I found myself staring at her behind, perfect in its elegant minimalism, and wondered if she had to endure painful waxing in the pursuit of her profession as well. I imagined myself lifting up that cherry-blossom dress right there and spreading her ass checks apart, giving her hole a good inspection to ensure it was completely hairless for its night's work. After a second I snapped myself out of it. It was good that I was horny, but having that kind of image might not be helpful for the business at hand.
Besides I was getting ahead of myself. I had no real evidence that she was any more than she appeared to be, a glorified tea-lady for the kind of people who could spend the equivalent of the national weekly wage on boiled water and some leaves. That said, I found it impossible to believe she wasn't at least propositioned by clients every night. She'd be able to handle them; a smile, a joke, a gentle refusal that someone still managed to stroke their ego. They'd return every week, ordering increasing expensive tea in the hopes of looking affluent and culture, but never actually getting anywhere with her. No, I decided, I was the only whore in the room.
The suit, the watch, the haircut and this meeting had all be arranged by Sue. I guess you'd could call her my 'pimp', but that would be a fairly incongruous word to use for the middle-age woman who spent most of her days doing translating work for big multinational companies and her nights setting up illicit meetings for wealthy clients who wanted to try something more exotic than the local fare. She dealt with both 'chickens' and 'ducks'. Chickens were the women; Russians mainly from what I gathered, though she had lately been developing contacts that would allow her to bring South Americans into the country. I was a duck. A pretty boy brought in to amuse the lonely wives of absent businessmen. With my new haircut I felt more like just the duck's arse.
We entered a private room, with a low table carved out of a tree trunk in the centre. Two cups were already on the table. The table was surrounded by a trio of three-legged wooden stools. She indicated for me to sit and took a place opposite me. Besides her stool there was a small metal kettle sitting on a miniature brazier over some hot coals. It was already whistling gently. One one side of the room was a large folding screen depicting a dragon and a phoenix engaged in a circular flying dancing around each other. On the other side a small fountain gushed water out and down over a miniature waterfall. The only two concessions to modernity in the room were the double glazed windows, which almost blocked out the noise from the busy main road below, and the air-conditioner which lowered room's temperature to a far more comfortable level.
Meiyan sat and from shelf on the underside of the table she brought out a delicate wooden board and a equally delicate tea-pot. Using the water from the kettle she washed the boards, the teapot and one of the two cups. The used water was allowed to spill onto the table, which was gently curved into a basin shape, allowing the water to run down a hole in its center.
"Mrs Lin selected some tea for you to try. This is Puer tea, from Yunnan. It is Mrs Lin's favourite". She took a plain white envelope and poured a few leaves into the pot. She then added the water and left it to stand for a minute.
"This tea takes a while to settle. Perhaps in the meantime you have some paperwork for me. Mr Lin has asked me to take care of some of the...preliminaries?" It was only on this last word that Meiyan ever hesitated with her English and the only time she looked at me to check she had used the right word. I was still impressed, I doubted one in fifty of my English major students knew the word. I nodded strongly to show she'd got it right, but it had suddenly shocked me. Maybe she wasn't such an innocent tea-lady after all.
I realized that I hadn't even said a full word since I entered the tea-house and remembered how much Sue had emphasized how important confidence was in this industry. "Certainly...Yes, right...Preliminaries, right, okay. How would you like to proceed?" I was hardly oozing confidence yet, but hopefully in the fifteen minutes I had until my client arrived I'd be less of a compete nervous wreck.
"I believe you have some documents from me" she said. It took me a few seconds to realize what she was talking about. I fumbled clumsily with my briefcase, not wanting to open it too far unless she saw what else was in there. Eventually I managed to dig out the manila envelope and handed it across to her. She took out the papers and began to look over them carefully, reading each section as if she was reading a tax report. Syphalis: Negative, HIV: Negative, Clymidia: Negative. It is strange how mortifying it can be to have a beautiful girl you've just met read that you don't have any sexually transmitted diseases.
