My Asian Dragon

Chapter 6

Joy inhaled deeply before remembering the air was thick with tobacco smoke. Coughing softly, she took a moment to clear her lungs before centering herself, focusing on the next few minutes. It had been a long time since she had done any singing in public.

The initial plan had seemed simple, but now seemed helplessly foolish. After stripping and searching the Triad bodies, Longwei had discussed the situation with some of the other village elders, men he trusted and had known since he was a boy. In a sign of how important Joy was becoming to him, he included her in all of the meetings, even if she didn’t understand much, if any, of what was being said. Still, he had filled her in, explaining that while the written note had included directions on how to get to the village from Shanghai, the men that had attacked were actually members of a much closer sect of the Triad, based in the nearby industrial city of Hefei. That they were armed with automatic weapons was more concerning, because it meant that the Triads were willing to risk serious governmental reprisal.

The initial plan was for Longwei to try and go in alone, but Joy had nixed that. “No offense Longwei, but you’re a man, and it will take you years to gain their trust and penetrate the layers of their organization to the point of doing anything meaningful.”

“So what do you propose?”

Joy laughed. “We use a weapon that men worldwide have been weak to since the beginning of time.”

The conversation had led her here, to this Triad controlled nightclub deep in the Triad controlled pleasure district of Hefei. She was standing backstage, dressed in a tight blue velvet dress, her bre*sts pushed together to create maximum cleavage, a long slit running almost all the way to her hip. She was thankful she had some singing ability, as the waitresses in the club wore even more revealing clothing, and from what she could see, were groped by the patrons on an almost regular basis.

Glancing to her left, she looked into the club’s tiny kitchen, where she saw Longwei studiously washing dishes. He spared her a worried glance, but smiled, which she dared to return. Officially, their cover story was they didn’t know each other, and just happened to start working at the club at about the same time. They even kept separate apartments, dives that were tiny and cramped, but within a block of each other. It had been this way for the past two weeks.

The club manager came to the back, chattering at her angrily in the Hefei dialect. While closer to Mandarin than the village’s, she could still only catch about one word in three he was saying, although she got the message. It was her time on stage.

Stepping through the curtain, she thought again how fortunate she was that the local Triad head favored what Longwei had derisively called a “rainbow policy” for girls working in his club. With a fetish for all types of foreign girl, the Boss had hired girls from most areas of the world for his nightclub act and as waitresses. Those who could sing, like the blonde Russian before her and the petite Filipina after, were given slightly better positions as entertainers. Those who couldn’t sing but had some grace, like the Japanese girl she had seen and the Latina who Joy wasn’t sure where she was from, worked as dancers, ranging from semi to full on exotic strippers.

The worst positions were saved for the girls who couldn’t sing or dance, but whose bodies were desirable to the Triad Boss. They served as what were officially deemed hostesses, but were often little more than grope dolls for drunken, horny Triads who thought that grabbing a foreign tit or ass was no big deal, and was just good fun. Joy had even heard that many of the girls were coerced into sleeping with various Triads, whether for money or through threats of bodily injury. Thankfully, none had approached her for such favors, although most of the Triads undressed her with their eyes every time she walked on stage.

As such, she carefully selected her routine to avoid any songs that she wanted to have a positive feeling about later. Instead, she had chosen every slinky, sl*tty song she could think of from the realm of R&B, jazz, and even some pop music, as long as it was made famous by what the manager had called “dark peoples.”

Starting off with the sultry tones of Givin’ Him Something He Can Feel, Joy launched into her set, sashaying her hips and popping a pose occasionally to accentuate her lyrics. She knew that probably none of the Triads were fluent in English, so she didn’t worry about accuracy of the lyrics, and instead making sure she kept her voice as lustful as possible. She wanted these assholes to think that she was so horny that she would jump off of the small nightclub stage into their laps at almost any moment, begging for them to satisfy her. Most nights it took more effort to keep up the charade than she would have expected, and she had to close her eyes and imagine she was singing for Longwei to make it through the forty minute set.

Winding her way from En Vogue to Toni Braxton to Aaliyah and finally wrapping up with classic Marvin Gaye, Joy was glad when the last notes of Sexual Healing drifted away over the sound system, and she was able to make her way backstage. The Filipina girl was up next, shaking her head ruefully. “I hate going on after you,” the girl said, one of four or five in the club who spoke passable English.

“Why?” Joy asked, grabbing a terry washcloth and wiping at her forehead. She’d have to reapply her makeup for her second set, but it didn’t matter.

“Because you make them so hot, I have to ramp up my set to full sexy to not make them bored,” she said. Joy felt a moment of pity. Luana was from Mindanao in the Philippines, and had grown up in a hamlet so poor, many children went nude until puberty. While she didn’t like the looks from the Triads, she needed the money, and as she had told Joy, “Being stared at by those Chinese fu*ks is better than what a lot of the girls in my village are doing to make money. I at least don’t need to spread my legs for my pay.”