Read Candy for Free Online Page B

an audience. It had been a long time since I’d seen Qi, and this was the first I’d heard about her having a boyfriend. I also hadn’t known that she had a place of her own—she’d always moved around a lot.
    It used to be that I didn’t like having a fixed address of my own, she told me. But then I met him. He looked after me, and I could be myself with him. Even though he knows what I do for a living, he still loves me. We can’t keep our hands off each other. We just want to make love all the time. He helped me learn to love myself.
    Qi poured me some Chivas, and I looked at her slim legs. Pretty Shanghai girls all had these beautiful legs.
    I realized that she didn’t have any mixers, but she said she liked her drinks straight. Saining also took his drinks that way, but I didn’t like Chivas, and I especially didn’t like drinking it plain. It was too much like being an alcoholic.
    Little Qi was playing it cool that day, but it was all an act, because not once did she mention her boyfriend’s name.
    There were times I had turned my apartment upside down trying to find some book or other to lend to Qi. I told Saining how sorry I felt for her. Saining had reacted coldly, saying, What gives you the right to feel sorry for people? You just can’t resist the weak or the sick, but frankly, it’s immoral. You’re a phony, and you just use people to make yourself feel better. I said, What are you talking about? You’ve gotten so weird lately; you used to love meeting new people. All I know is that she needs help, and I feel as though I have to help her.
    I looked around Qi’s apartment. I liked the way she had decorated it—simple, cozy, sensitive. I was thinking that I’d been right about her, that she had a lot of depth.
    We sipped our drinks and listened to a Hong Kong radio station, and when we were just starting to feel a little bit drunk, we heard the sound of a key turning in the lock.
    And who should step inside but Saining?
    I screamed.
    Is this your idea of a joke, Qi? I asked.
    Saining stood stupidly in front of us, his full mouth hanging open, but his eyes were unclouded. He didn’t appear to be the least bit uneasy or embarrassed.
    Saining, I said, we’re going home, now!
    Without uttering a word, Saining made to follow me out, but Qi’s icy voice was right behind us: I love him more than you do!
    I turned and hurled my glass. Go ahead, I said. Take him and love him all you want—he’s yours!
    What the hell are you doing? Saining asked. What the hell do you think you’re doing?
    I said, Nobody has the right to talk to me like that!
    I looked at Saining. My father had told me that this man wouldn’t love me for more than a year. The bark of the poplar tree has the most beautiful eyes a hundred miles around, the saying went. Looking at Saining’s eyes, those eyes that still had the power to hold me, I wondered whom I could believe. I didn’t want to go; I wanted to stay and see what would happen next.
    Qi walked over to us.
    Saining, she said, do you love me?
    Qi’s face was the classic “melon seed” oval, her eyes were clear and liquid, but she also looked damaged, and her clear skin appeared almost bloodless. A long, narrow, classical nose, full lips that bowed upward, discolored teeth, a flat chest, tiny nipples. She always wore stiff, Chinese-made bras, had spindly, malnourished legs, long, skinny toes like Shanghai scallions, a thin waist, a flat ass. Her sexual technique was average, but she was good at suppressing orgasms because sex for her was a means to other ends. She was a typical Shanghainese slut—they’re the world’s best fakers, the world’s best liars. A lot of these Shanghai sluts become professional prostitutes. They aren’t as businesslike and efficient as girls from the Northeast or girls from Sichuan, who meet, conduct their transactions, and are on their way. They excel at deception. They aren’t afraid to spend a lot of time and effort on the slow seduction,