I did not think to message her again until the evening of the next day – which, of course, shows my fundamentally callow attitude. Now I was sure of her, there was no need to woo. Sending messages to a woman you’re unsure you’ll charm to bed is stimulating, spicy; the need to bat messages back and forth, to tease and maneuver, keeps the thumb active, keeps the mind ticking over on what the next reply will be, and the response to it. But once you’re sure of the woman, all that dies down.

And so (as I might have expected if I had really bothered to think about her at all) she replied to my message that she was unhappy.

‘Why?,’ I asked.
‘Because you didn’t send sms to me, Ha ha, do you believe it?’
She followed this by texting, ‘I’m really waiting for your sms all day. I know u r busy but I’m still feel unhappy. Ha ha.’
And so I replied to say I was sorry about that, but that I had been very busy. I had not, of course.
‘I know ~ I’m happy now~ I want to be your girlfriend now~ ha ha ha ha only make a joke but I’m really like you.’

Then she asked, ‘you have been kiss many girls, right?,’ to which I made some glib reply.
‘Oh my heart is broken.. :-) 你真的是华心大萝卜啊。。’

Now I did not bother save my messages, so all I have is a record of hers. But my replies can be pretty much guessed from the pattern of what she says.

‘what are you mean? You will kiss me for a long time?’
‘why? You change heart quickly or love other girls fast?’
‘which kind of woman do you like best?’
‘you like a playboy.. But I’m still like you. You have special charm. I wanna say goodbye to my bf’
‘together with him I can’t learn anything and I found I lost many times’
‘my mood is complex now. I don’t know whether to meet you is a good thing or a bad thing.’
‘Let me think about it.. Well this Sunday I will get away my parents and stay with you all day, OK?’ (I’d asked if she’d spend a night with me)
‘Or you unwilling to stay with me?’
‘It’s very exciting~ Just like you say, I’ll let my youth colourful~ Don’t cheating me any more’
‘Whether any girl told you she wanna be your gf you all agree with her?’
‘I love you, I wanna be your gf.’
‘Ha ha Don’t mind only sound out you~’
‘昏.. I know you like see me become a bad girl’
‘You wanna see me have many many boyfriends?’
‘Very well!! I miss you all night until now~ :-) How about you?’
‘Sorry’ (I had not said anything to make her say sorry; the reason she said it is clear from the following message.)
‘Maybe you don’t like to hear I say I miss you.. So I say sorry.’
‘:-) You say you dreamed of me, tell me something about that’ (I’d told her I dreamed of her. I had not. But telling a woman this is an effective gauge of where she sees the relationship going. It is a shallow and obvious thing to say, and would not work on a Western woman, but of such flimflam is my box of tricks made.)
‘Maybe it will be interesting! Don’t worry, tell me’
‘Are you sure you tell me the truth?’ (I’d told her it was a sexy dream – that’s part two of the routine.)
‘I understand what’s your thought’
‘Tell you later!’ (I’d wanted to know what she though of my dreaming about her so.)
‘Take care of yourself. I like you regard me as an adult~~~ You can tell me everything you thought, about sex…’
‘Yes I think so! :-) and you are manly too’
‘Sorry, I meant include sex.’ (Her meaning was ‘I meant to say you were sexy also.’)

The next day we met again, but just for an afternoon. And while we spent it in bed, we did not make love. As we idled together, talking, she worried out loud that, if we made love, I’d then lose interest; and so I likely would, I thought to myself.

But yet… as I lay there, just cuddling, it was rather sweet, and I felt whispers of emotion. She fitted in my arms snug and light; cool against my body, even under the duvet, light, sweet. Slender as she is, her body lies against mine nice. When I’d carried her into the bedroom it was as a scrap of silk – she is featherweight, 45 kilos or so. With a bulkier woman it takes each body a few hours to adjust to each other, and so cuddling soon becomes too warm, sticky, under the duvet, after lights out, until the cooler small hours and the body’s adjustment. But she was just right, and it was good. She’d be fun in bed, I was sure, and promises of it percolated through the afternoon, how she straddled me, pressed into me.

I could see that she’d take a little more persuasion before she gave herself to me wholly, but I knew I’d be able to persuade her to yield, and that she had the potential to be a fine lover. She would not be a great lover to start with, of course. Women here, I have often found, are cautious lovers at first, having been raised to suppress their sexual side. I was well aware, for example, that when I went down on her it would cause her to squirm at first. She’d find it dirty, wrong, product of this society as she cannot help but be. Mona, for example, in telling me about a new local boyfriend, said ‘But I will have to hide how experienced I am with him. He wouldn’t like that at all. He has to feel like he’s in charge and I don’t know anything.’

But I was pleased Christine she felt I saw her as a woman – that too would help bring her to me, for her parents and sap of a boyfriend only make her feel like a child. Perhaps if I was a bit more honorable she would be child in my eyes too, for, when I first got to know her, she had not quite turned 20. But that youth fired me rather than cooled me, and so I carried on with my pursuit.

This time, after she’d left (to hurry home for her 6pm curfew) I made sure to send messages after her:-

‘I miss you too. Tell you a good news. Maybe I can stay with you a whole night this Saturday.’
‘You can compare with superman! 快去吃饭！谁叫你中午不吃完上又不吃的！’
‘We must make love on Sunday?’ (I replied to say that it was totally up to her. And of course it was; I would respect whatever choice she made – but would do my best to persuade her to choose yes).
‘Oh I see! Thank you! You are very kind! I love you! Kiss~’
‘Do you have free time after 6 tomorrow?’
‘算了当我没说’
‘噢!Maybe I can stay with you all night. I’ll try my best.’
‘Try my best!’

And so we met to spend the night together. She was a little early at the rendezvous, which seemed to me a measure of the keenness she had for the encounter. I suggested eating – was she hungry? She was, and she wanted to eat at McDonalds. This made my lip curl, rather – such trashy bland pap. It made me think less of her, though she did not quite see my distaste. But I pushed the feeling down – after all, she was only 19, and so it was no surprise she has the tastes of a teenager. And the more mercenary angle of it occurred to me too – junk food a cheap and quick precursor to sex. What need for candles and romance?