The first time I met Mr. Yang was at the Traders Hotel in Shenyang. He got my number from someone, I either can’t remember who or he never told me. He called one night to meet for drinks and ask me to teach part time at his English school. This was in winter of 2000 when there weren’t many foreigners in the city, so a call of this type wasn’t out of the norm. Besides, I only lived a ten-minute walk away and figured why not knock back a couple.

We chatted for maybe an hour over a few pints of exorbitantly priced Fosters, he sizing me up more than I did him. From behind his oversized tinted glasses, which he still wore despite the pub’s lighting, I remember his beaming white grin exhaling through wisps of chain-smoked cigarettes. He was otherwise unintentionally dull. He was also not notable to look at, unapologetically attired in a bleached polo shirt and adorning an ostentatious watch. He might have told me he was a Canadian national, or maybe I learned those details later. But he had returned to his hometown of Shenyang to start a school, and left behind his wife and their teenage son both in Calgary.

The second time we met might have been a couple of weeks later. He again telephoned. This time he told me to call him back after I got into a cab so he could give the driver directions. Twenty minutes after exiting the taxi I was met outside the dingy entranceway to a bathhouse. Once upstairs, Mr. Yang led me to a private carpeted room. It was disproportionately large for accommodating the sofas and coffee table, around which four or five men lounged smoking cigarettes and supping tea. Mr. Yang introduced them as childhood friends. Two had just returned from several years doing business in Bulgaria, though it was never made clear what they did there exactly. They were either dressed in loose bathrobes or shirtless, and they grunted at me out of obligatory convention as I sat down.

Soon after two sauna prostitutes entered. One was prettier than the other, but they were both in a good mood. Mr. Yang said we would play a fucking game to see who could cum the fastest. He asked me to be the first to go, instructing me to strip down and commence. Tampering surprise tinged with indignation, I was forced to spell out how he couldn’t possibly expect a total stranger, and a foreigner on top of that, to willingly accept and lead the charge. One of the other patrons, a pot-bellied man with a darker, peasant-like complexion and nondescript prison tattoos etched into his forearms, ordered Mr. Yang to be the first. The less pretty of the girls had by then deciphered the plan to have a speed “whorgy,” and not willing to partake she quickly made an exit from the room unhindered apart from a flurry of chuckles. The prettier girl, however, was more than willing and undressed while giggling.

Mr. Yang sprang up onto his seat and while standing on the sofa keenly took off all his clothes. It was shocking and ridiculous, this middle-aged educator atop a cushioned pedestal displayed naked apart from his black socks and tinted glasses. The prostitute then joined him and he then methodically mounted her and immediately after began thrusting. His thighs forcibly slapped against hers and sounded throughout the room. They soon moved to the floor and continued in spacious, carpeted comfort. One of the other men drew his robe and stuck himself into her mouth, and the three of them hummed and hawed in abandon until Mr. Yang came to a spastic halt while still inside her. The other people in the room laughed and weakly applauded.