Sheng Keyi - Northern Girls - Life Goes On

Her mind sprang back to life. She shook her head at the thought of being raped and, maybe, killed. If only she could find a shred of humanity in this guy, maybe she would still get out of this alive. So, shaking and crying, she started to beg.

‘Please, mister, let me go. I’m begging you.’ She fell to her knees in front of him.

‘Yeah, let her go!’ Suddenly, the van door flew open, ‘Take me instead!’ She saw a flash of white from Sijiang’s jacket, and heard an inhuman cry escape from her throat.

III

The tail lights of the weaving van stood out blood red against the black night as it drove away. Faced with the kneeling figure of Xiaohong, her tormentor had finally come to his senses. He backed towards the vehicle with an awkward crab-like gait, climbed aboard, and tossed Sijiang out into the dark wasteland. Xiaohong collapsed, feeling a sharp pain where she had been kneed, as if her genitals had been sliced open with a blade. Sijiang stood silently looking on, then fell to the ground and crawled over to her friend.

‘Sijiang, you… you alright?’

‘I, I, I didn’t want to… he had a knife. He made me take my clothes off. He… held the knife while he did it and held it when he was finished.’

So, the shocks Xiaohong had felt from the van were Sijiang’s initial resistance. The rhythm that followed was Shorty going at her.

‘Same here, Sijiang. I had no strength. My legs were weak. I was so afraid he was going to kill me.’

‘Honghong, let’s go back. Look at those lights. I think it’s the hotel,’ Sijiang said, as she wiped the tears from her face.

‘Yeah. Let’s go.’ Xiaohong stood up and shook her arms. ‘It’s so near. How come I couldn’t see it just now? I was scared, so scared I couldn’t even scream. Damn, that bastard’s fingers hurt! Fuck him! You know that ticklish spot under the arm? Is that an acupuncture point or something? He dug his fingers in there with so much force I thought I’d pass out. How can a person grip hard enough to make it feel like that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Hey Sijiang. After he did it, did he pay you?’

‘Yeah. He gave me a note. I don’t know how much it is.’

‘At least you got something.’

‘Honghong, look. What’s that black shape?’

‘Where? Don’t scare me. Let’s just hurry. It looks like we’ve hit the main road.’

‘Let’s not be so trusting in the future, OK? We barely got out with our lives tonight.’ They grasped each other’s hands a little more tightly. Their voices trembled.

‘What’s this? You two go back to a guest’s room or what? It’s three a.m.,’ a pyjama-clad, makeup-less Li hissed at the pale image reflected in the mirror in front of her when the two girls finally walked into the room.

‘Where are the others?’ Xiaohong asked.

‘Not back yet. They went to spend the night with customers. What the hell you two been up to?’

‘Fucking nearly raped, and just about killed too.’

Xiaohong sat on the edge of the bed. She suddenly realised just how sore her crotch was, right in the spot the tall guy had pinned her with his knee.

‘Then you got lucky. A few days ago, a couple of women were found in the woods, raped and murdered,’ Li said casually, flicking the ash from the end of her cigarette on top of the pile of butts already filling the ashtray. ‘I forgot to tell you, you need to use the rooms at the night club for your customers. Didn’t figure you’d need one on your first night. Where’d you go? Both with the same guy? Did you get a bull?’

‘What the hell are you talking about? We thought we were going for dim sum and tea, but instead we were manhandled to some godforsaken place. They said we were hookers. I said I wasn’t a hooker, and I just wanted my tips for singing. And so the bastard forced himself on me. He just about poked his knee right through me,’ Xiaohong said heatedly, chest heaving.

‘You two aren’t in this line of work? Then what do you expect to do here?’ Li shook her head in disgust, stabbing out her cigarette. ‘You’d better get out of here now, then. The longer you go on, the harder it is to turn back.’

‘I don’t know anything about that. I just know there was a woman who offered us a place to stay, and it was cheap, so we thought we’d give it a try.’

‘That fat-arsed woman? She’s the Madame . She drags you into this line, and whatever money you make, she gets a cut.’

‘If you don’t stay on here, what else can you do?’ Sijiang, trying to unravel the knot, stared at Li in consternation.

‘If you don’t go through her, you’ll never have work. The guests here are considered pretty generous. Sing with them a while, let them feel you up, and you make a few hundred or so. Every now and then, you’ll catch a bull.’

‘What in the world’s a bull?’ Xiaohong couldn’t contain the question any longer.

‘A thousand Hong Kong dollar note. But they only come along once in a while. Only if you find a really rich, really generous customer that really likes you.’

‘A thousand?’ Sijiang took out the note Shorty had tossed her and found it was red and unfamiliar. She waved it at Li. ‘So what’s this?’

‘Hong Kong note. Hundred bucks,’ she answered with barely a glance.

‘What use is Hong Kong money?’ Sijiang looked puzzled.

‘Hong Kong money gets a good exchange rate. So hooking up with a Hongkie is a good thing.’

‘You could make a few thousand a month like that?’

‘Roughly.’

‘Wow.’ Sijiang was like a student, with the light beginning to dawn.

‘But going on like that, won’t you get spoiled with use… you know, down there?’ Xiaohong asked.

‘Of course you can’t do it every day. Three, four times a week or so. And always with a rubber. There was this one girl, she wanted to make money to send back home for a sick relative to get some medical treatment. She’d do two or three guys a night. It only took two months and she was wasted, her body ruined and riddled with disease. She left to get it treated, but never came back. I have no idea what happened to her.’ Li sighed, suddenly seeming like an old woman.

‘You’re so pretty. Why do you hoo— work in this line?’ Xiaohong stopped herself just in time. She was trying to learn the lingo — substituting ‘this line’ instead of ‘hook’ — afraid of saying something taboo. ‘This line’ made it sound like a legitimate profession.

‘You wouldn’t understand.’ Li cast a glance at Xiaohong, letting the girl know she didn’t care for anyone’s understanding.

A moment later they heard the clacking of high heels running. Lu burst into the room, clothes hanging open, underclothes in disarray, hair in a wild mess and wheezing like an asthmatic.

‘Fuck! Raided! So damn dangerous! So sudden. The hotel manager didn’t even have any warning.’ She reached for a plastic cup and gulped down the contents.

Li gave a sharp laugh. ‘A raid? Then looks like you getting away has cost the cops another two grand. Fuck them! As soon as they’re out of uniform they’re some of our best customers. Then when they’re not here looking for company, they trap us. How are we supposed to get by if they keep making our guests antsy? I haven’t seen Liu yet. She must have been hauled in.’

Lu’s face fell in dismay. Li rallied and continued, ‘Fuck! Fucking bastards! Is everything just about money? Arrested and fined, fines paid and then arrested again. Two grand a pop! It’s a fucking cash cow. Did you see the john get picked up? Those damned cops, if they’re not going to let us do our job, they might as well cut the balls off all the men in town!’