"OK, I got it, this is the plan." JD gazed into the distance as if contemplating Fermat's Last Theorem.
"What? What plan? What's the plan?" I said cleverly.
"It's like this, right? We're going to Sanlitun, we're gonna get some smokes, then we're gonna go to the Joy Club. Yeah."
"What, you mean the massage joint, the Joyful Ecstatic Explosion Club? I don't know how you can even say that name with a straight face." Massage bars in China have a reputation for selling more than just a back rub.
3 mm of JD's top left lip hiked up as he tried to keep the smile off his face.
"OK, so we're gonna go to the Joy Club and we're gonna get hot stone massages. Yeah. You in the mood to go out?"
I thought about it for a moment. I'd been in transport -- planes, trucks, night buses -- for over 24 hours spread over three days. I needed a wash. And I could do with a smoke.
"So what the hell are we waiting for?"
I got changed on the quick in JD's dorm room and we headed out the door. Johnny told the cab driver at Xizhimen to head for Sanlitun Bar Street.
"You know anyone out here?"
"Nah, you?"
Johnny looked contemplative. "See, the problem is we gotta start from scratch. Some guys told me it was easy to score out here. We gotta find some black dudes. Yeah. 'Cos you can't just walk up to a Chinese dude and say, you got any smokes?"
"You know what we need?" I said. "We gotta find some dude who looks like a regular, not some tourist; some guy who looks out of his skull. He's gonna know what we're looking for."
Johnny grabbed my arm to steer me out of the way of oncoming traffic. Cars don't stop for pedestrians in Beijing, at most they slow down for the ones lying horizontally in the middle of the road.
"Hey, this right here, this is what we need," he said. "You know this back alley behind the shopping mall?"
"I got it! The tattoo parlor!"
Just then we spotted a crowd of likely candidates. They were all loitering outside the DVD shop where you can buy X-Men for 15 RMB if you don't mind Russian dubbing.
JD entered into extensive negotiations with a Nigerian who went by the name of Geoff. Funny thing is, you had to call that name at least twice before he would answer. I turned my back on proceedings to fend off an old couple holding out a begging cup.
"That's funny," they cackled in Beijinghua. "He's talking to him, and that foreign guy is handing him something."
"Yeah yeah," I said. "We don't have any spare change."
We headed out of the alley towards the yellow sign of a waiting cab. Johnny held the door open as I slipped in. He showed the driver the card with the Chaoyang address.
"OK, it's 12:07 a.m. We got 15 minutes to get to the Joy Club before they stop taking customers. You ready for this?"
Twenty minutes later we were ensconced in the scarlet plushness of the Joy Club. The smell of tea rose filled the air. We ordered vegetarian dumplings, egg tarts and honey water from the free menu. After showering in separate rooms, we lay back in reclining armchairs and took in an Andy Lau movie set in Shanghai.
"It's not making any sense, and we're not even faded," JD said.
"Yeah. How come that dude is attacking the chick in curlers? And she looks awfully sprightly for someone who's just been stabbed in the chest."
The fuwuyuans came in and said something in rapid Chinese. All I caught was "clothes" and "oil".
"You got underwear?" Johnny asked me.
"What? Um, yeah, I'm wearing underwear." It's not the first time he's asked me something like that. Like the time he asked if I plucked my nipples.
See, I know JD doesn't mean anything by that. He gets girls running after him, it's like Yellow Fever. So we've got this agreement. I don't hit on him, and I don't take it personally when he asks about my nipples.
"They say we've gotta get naked. Alright? You just lie down on the massage bed, put your head in the hole on the end."
Looking away from each other, we took off our Joy Club pyjamas and lay down on side-by-side beds. I actually blushed.
About halfway in, after hot stones on the spine and hot oil on the thighs, one of the masseuses asked me if JD was my boyfriend.
"No," I said. "We study together."
"Oh," they said. "Your Chinese is so good. A lot of foreigners can't say a thing!"
I get credit for my language skills even if I just say "excuse me" without fudging a tone. Johnny, on the other hand, who looks Chinese, gets dirty looks because his Mandarin isn't syllable perfect. I like to rub that in his LA-born face.
As I was gloating, the girl took the towel off my torso and rubbed oil around where there would be pecs if I was Arnie. I prayed that JD's eyes were closed. For a friend, he already knows too much about my nipples.
When the two women had left, we leaned out the window for a smoke. "Hold it upright," JD said. "It's all like brown and dry, it's gonna burn too fast."
Smoke melted into the Beijing smog. Everything seemed really funny all of a sudden. We started giggling. "Man, are you faded?"
"Yeah, I'm totally off my face," I said.
"I'm hungry. Are you hungry?"
In the taxi on the way back to Wudaokou, Johnny got into a meditative mood again.
"Voices are interesting," he said. "You know how you can tell a lot about someone from their voice?"
"Yeah I know. Like what?"
"Well, you know. You can tell a lot."
"Like, what specifically?"
"Like, the first time you meet somebody, right? You can tell if they've done the same things as you. If you have shared experience."
I thought about the first time I met JD. He seemed really clean-cut. We started going to the weights gym together on and Tuesdays and Fridays. I can't remember if that was before or after we started escaping to the rooftops for Davidoff Lights, existential talks.
JD told me once that the first time we met, he thought I seemed like a girl who was up for anything. Now, I take that as a compliment. You've got to have buddies for best behavior
and for getting nasty. Here's to hot oil and high times, and a very satisfying Valentine's.
