Swinging in the Middle Kingdom
So what's a couple to do when it's 3am, both are dead tired but the
only bed in a Shenzhen hotel suite - a room you're not paying for -
is occupied by two men and a woman -- also freebie lodgers involved
in what looks and sounds like a cross between a Kinsey Report lab
experiment and an amateur porn movie?
With radioactive orange permed hair, woman receiving all the
attention resembled a thoroughly middle class, middle-aged Chinese
housewife - not the wealthy, single, small business owner she
claimed to be.
She was a little thick in the middle, nude, moaning and and
occasionally yelping and baying like a seal giving birth. Her eyes
were closed, and she was splayed flat on her back, legs rigidly
extended, one hand squeezing her left breast, the other
occasionally stroking one man's groin and the other fellow manually
stimulated her and occasionally grunted what I gathered was Chinese
dirty talk or the equivalent of "Oh, yeah, baby. Do it! Do it for
daddy!"
"Go do her," my partner, Mandy, said, yawning. "It's okay. I'm
tired."
"Not really my type, you know? I think she's also plenty occupied
already. Plus the air conditioning sucks. I'm sweating just
watching them and it's not from excitement."
I walked to the bed, declined one guy's invitation to jo in the fun
and grabbed two pillows. "Thanks, but too tired," I said. He didn't
speak English and I don't speak Chinese so I mimed the sign
language for "sleep" and returned to the suite area where Mandy was
already drifting off on the couch. I threw an extra blanket on the
floor beside her and tried to sleep as the trio next door
continued.
It had been an exhausting and surreal evening of mix and match
couples - and trios, and foursomes and the odd single - that began
at about 6:30 pm with a phone call to Mandy from "Tony" -- the
Chinese self-proclaimed ring master of a loose group of Shenzhen
swappers. There would be a gathering of the tribes, one Shenzhen
group and one from Guangzhou, and Mandy and I were invited.
Our initiation had been several months earlier, courtesy of a
German (him) Chinese couple who had invited us to a large gathering
at their private home. Since then we'd received almost weekly
invites, mostly from Tony and his girlfriend, Alice for a four or
eightsome, but the chemistry fell flat at the initial roundevouz
points and times -- typically a loud, crowded Chinese restaurant at
10:30 pm.
Believe me eros and table loads of mostly Cantonese spitting
chicken and fish bones, sucking up noodles like wet-vacuums and
caterwauling into their mobile phones just isn't a good mix.
This had an equally inaspicious beginning though the starting time
was earlier, 7 pm. The initial meeting spot was - naturally - a
crowded restaurant, the address of which seemed to vary depending
on what phone call was made and the taxi driver's whim.
By 7:25 we'd found it and three tables filled with a group of about
16 people - four couples and four single guys - with me the only
foreigner and Mandy the only one who could fluently speak both
English and Chinese.
"What's with all the single guys?" I asked Mandy.
"Men don't last as long," she said. "I think it's for the women.
But I don't see anyone interesting yet, really."
Nonetheless we decamped at Tony's table where he was busy working
his phone, directing other confused potential attendees. We placed
our orders as about five others finished their meals and drifted
from the restaurant, shouting back at Tony.
"What's the deal? Where are they going?" I asked Mandy.
"They are checking into the hotel before us but can't agree on how
many rooms and whether the Guangzhou and Shenzhen groups should be
in the same rooms at the beginning."
"Huh?" I thought. But I kept my mouth shut. "TIC," I thought to
myself. " 'This is China,' " a bit of all-purpose advice another
expat had passed on to me upon my arrival to explain behavior that
was otherwise inexplicable and/or uncomprehensible to my foreign
barbarian way of thinking.
There was more hubbub after we began eating. Again it involved some
obscure point of pride or disagreement between those from Shenzhen
and Guangzhou.
"No difference!" I said smiling at one red faced Shenzhen booster.
"All same -same!"
"No!" he yelled back. Mandy told me to chill.
Outside the hotel, a "five star" that seemed to have dropped a
couple of stars since it opened, Tony told Mandy that we were to
drift in small groups, about four minutes apart. He gave her three
room numbers: 2502, 1702 and 802.
The covert approach was obvious even to me. Couple swapping, while
not technically illegal in China, does draw the attention of
authorities who want to make an issue of "public immorality" and
collect some bribes in the process.
Hotels in southern China are also supposed to forward the personal
identification details of all guests to the local cop shop within
three hours of check-in, though it's often a spotty approach.
Nonetheless caution was the watch word until we finally hit room
2502 where we found (drum roll, please) lots of fully clothed
people playing cards, sipping beer and soft drinks, looking at
unopened cartons of Durex condoms and watching TV.
Same story in 1702, except one fat fellow was stripped down to his
tighty whities, laying on a bed alone and flipping through
channels. He patted the bed and looked expectant as Mandy and I
looked in.
"Uh, thanks but no thanks," I muttered.
"Maybe 802?" she said.
Paydirt. Two couples and one guy who mostly hung on the outskirts
of the bed as a solo act, invited us in for what turned into a
couple hours of frolicking, interrupted by mobile phone calls,
knocks on the door - one more couple, another two guys and vain
searches for more towels.
Back at 1702 we took a long breather while watching one woman in
high heels and nothing else take on two guys as the fat guy who
orginally staked out the bed continued to watch TV while
occasionally idly groping her and himself.
Finally a mass flurry of knocks, phone calls and people scrambling
into their clothes signaled a late dinner break. Again, in small
groups, we trailed out of the hotel to a nearby greasy noodle joint
where some ate and ran and others stayed and rehashed the
evening.
"She said she came six times," Mandy said, pointing to the
radioactive permed woman who would seemingly double her record an
hour or so later. "How about you?" I asked.
"Maybe as much. Maybe more. Maybe less. I didn't count them," she
said smiling. "It's going to be a mystery for you."