opportunity, and boarded the minibus together with the two sisters. Although she signed a one-year contract, she made up her mind that she’d leave after a few weeks, once she’d earned enough money to buy a ticket to Guai Village.
I’m done for, this time! she says to herself as she moves down the red-carpeted corridor. Glancing over her shoulder she sees the woman’s face becoming sterner with each step she takes. ‘Stay inside and wait,’ the woman says gruffly, ushering them into separate rooms and shutting the doors behind. Meili pities the sisters, who’ve escaped one brothel only to be sold to another. She decides that if she’s forced to sleep with a man, she’ll follow him into the room, strangle him and escape. So long as the police don’t find her, she’ll make her way back to the bamboo hut, even if she has to walk all the way.
The door opens and a dumpy girl in a grey cheongsam tells her it’s time to eat. Meili follows her through a windowless bathroom stinking of sewage to a room where her contract has been placed on a round dining table.
‘Sit down,’ says a man in a sky-blue shirt sitting by the window. His hair is blow-dried and his lips have a purple tinge. ‘I’m the boss of this nightclub. I won’t ask where you’re from or check your documents. But I paid eight hundred yuan for you, so I must make myself clear. If you work hard and do as we ask, I’ll let you go in three months – I’ll even pay for your bus ticket home. But if you don’t cooperate, if you attempt to escape, well, you’ll only have yourself to blame for what might happen. No one knows you’re here, and no one will know if you disappear. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘I signed a contract to be a cleaner. I refuse to do any other work, so you’d better let me go straight away.’
‘Your job is to be a hostess, to look after our clients. The men who come here are rolling in money: shake them about a little, and coins will fall into your hands. If you do as you’re told, you’ll have hot meals and a shower every day. For a peasant like you, it’s heaven! We’ll teach you all you need to know.’
‘I’ll clean rooms, wash dishes – anything. I’m not afraid of hard work. But I won’t sell my body. I’m a simple woman with no education. I’m not suited to this job.’
‘But peasant girls like you are very popular with our clients. They’d love your simple, honest, wholesome look, and would pay good money for you. But I warn you straight away: all tips must be handed over to us. From now on your name is Ah-Fang, and you’re twenty years old.’
A girl reeking of cheap musk enters the room. She’s wearing high heels and a red skintight cheongsam. She places a bowl of noodle soup in front of Meili and sits down, the long slit in her dress exposing her bare thigh.
‘This is Ah-Fang,’ the boss says to the girl as he gets up to leave. ‘She arrived today. Show her the ropes.’
‘How can you dress like that?’ Meili says to her as soon as the boss has left. ‘What if your parents saw you? You’d bring shame to your village.’
‘Who cares – now that I’ve left that miserable dump, I’ve no intention of moving back!’ says the girl, a look of disdain darting across her young face. ‘My name is Xu, by the way. When you’ve finished your meal, have a shower, then I’ll give you a new dress, cut your hair and see you transform from a mother hen into a phoenix!’
‘Don’t boss me about, little sister – I’m a mother of two,’ Meili says, casting a condescending eye over Xu’s skinny, adolescent frame.
‘Well, I warn you, big sister: if you don’t cooperate, you’ll be treated worse than Communist martyrs were in Guomindang jails. The boss paid good money for you, so you’ll have to repay his debt. I was a bit rebellious myself, when I first arrived. See this wound on my thigh? That’s where the boss jabbed a needle into me. He never injures your face or cunt, because those are the parts that bring the money pouring in.’
‘Why haven’t you tried to run away?’ Meili asks, staring down at the bowl of noodles.
‘Run away? I’m only here because I ran away from my