Harry Ugly with His Millions

 - To Buddhism -

Harry walked out of his agent’s building onto the street, smiling secretly as he felt the check in his pocket – eighty five thousand dollars. He was almost resentful of having to pay his agent Sam the fifteen percent commission of fifteen thousand dollars. But he let the thought pass, as he realized that his newest play after a long draught was a tough sell. People had forgotten how good he once was, and Sam had to work extra hard to find a buyer for his production this time.

Eighty five thousand dollars was still a sizable haul for a dried-up artist, for a piece of work that he knew in his heart was nothing but a hack job. He lost his flames long ago after a string of blockbuster successes. He made millions but lost his soul, the soul that had sustained him through all those lean years as a struggling playwright trying to make it onto the big stage. For that reason, he held on tight to the check in his pocket, ashamed and yet happy. Who knows? This could be his last paycheck, he thought. Spreading this money over the next ten years would still afford him the luxuries he had grown used to over the years.

He paused by the window of an upscale jewelry store. I could buy that pearl necklace for my wife, or for my girlfriend! In fact, I could buy the whole window, or even the store! Suddenly the pearl necklace lost its luster, seemed worthless. He saw in the glass his round and sagging face, his balding head, his sloping shoulders, his pudgy figure, his wrinkled pants, and his sad eyes. After all the successes, he thought, you still look like a failure. He moved on without looking back.

A few steps down, a good-looking woman smiled at him as he passed, “You wouldn’t be Harry See?”
“No.” He kept going, did not turn, fearing that she might stop him and begin the conversation that would be unbearable for him by now.

What would he reply to these people, who after all, at least some of them, might be his fans? “This new play is the smartest, funniest play I have ever written…” “Don’t you dare to steal from me, my money or my ideas…”

The fame and millions had taken a toll on him. The freedom to have every wish fulfilled by the millions thrown at him was not freedom at all. For a while, he tried to sneak into a movie theater in the neighborhood only after the movie had already begun to avoid public attention. That was a huge sacrifice, considering how much he would have enjoyed watching a good movie on the big screen among his fellow movie buffs. Now he could afford to buy the whole movie house all to himself; but what fun was that to watch a movie in loneliness? So he stopped going to the movie theater altogether.

Still, the temptation of fame was too alluring to resist. He remembered scouring obsessively the magazine racks in the corner newsstand for any news and pictures about him or his plays; wondering at all the airplane terminals, train stations, kitchen tables, and dental offices where people would be staring at his face on the magazine covers. He thought of growing his hair long, wearing a beard, putting on a rumpled pair of corduroy jeans to fit his artistic image, or maybe having plastic surgery to look younger to the public. But then, he thought, they won’t recognize me. Anyway, he was hooked, hooked to the trappings of public eyes.

Occasionally in his morose honesty, Harry remembered those years when he was young but not famous, sitting beside his lovely ex-girlfriend’s naked body, his notebooks spreading on the bed they shared in a summer cottage as he frantically constructed play after play about this beautiful woman of his desire. So fresh, so pure, and so rich.

Do I have anything that I really treasured that just sort of vanished? I used to have her, but now she’s gone somewhere. Where did she go, I wonder?

Now that Harry’s plays succeeded, it was almost inconceivable to make a real connection with any women he knew.

He had married his wife for quite a long time. Admittedly she was a loyal wife, suffering through his long years of struggles and depression, and now thoroughly enjoying the fruit of her investment in a theatrical genius. Yet he wished he had never married her! It was no joy to come home to the old wife who had simply grown fatter, sloppier and greedier over the years.

He had tried to seek pleasures elsewhere. Why not? He had a lot of money to burn, and boredom to kill. So he went around buying girls who would jolt his senses. At high prices, they provided him temporary releases and companionship, and they whetted his appetite for ever more exotic sexual games in the name of stimulating his senses. It worked for a while; then all the sensations became dull and even unpleasant. He tried to remember the pretty faces of the girls who had entertained him, and in each he saw nothing but calculation and look of starstruck emptiness. The whole thing was exhausting him, and he had hardly written a single note from those episodes.

In the hollow part of his heart, he questioned: Is it possible to write another play with the passion and fire that I had when I was young? And the answer was always: Thankfully I don’t have to. I have already made my millions…

As he headed downtown, he passed by the Peking Duck restaurant, an inelegant place where he had dined with Sam years ago. It would probably be empty at this hour. (No one would recognize me.) He pushed opened the red front door and saw that the bar was empty and there were two customers sitting in the restaurant part. So he took a stool at the bar. The bartender took his order without showing a sign of recognizing him.

After downing the second drink of Scotch into his empty stomach, he stood up, propped his head up, staring into the mirror behind the bar, hanging his trunk over by the neck: Harry Ugly, but a millionaire with plays running in three continents. Isn’t anybody noticing?

The Chinese bartender came over, “Excuse me. Are you okay?”
“I am Harry See.”
“I know. I recognized you. On Good Morning America, right?”
“Right.”
The bartender looked past Harry’s shoulder nodding wildly at someone behind him; then turned to Harry, “The boss invited you to have a drink on the house!”

Harry looked around and saw a Chinaman sitting behind the cash register, bowing to him lavishly. Harry smiled, and nodded back with some aristocratic satisfaction. (How refined these people are! How they love their artists! This is a great country!) He then quickly finished the drink in his hand, and ordered another Scotch.

“Excuse me,” a small round man sitting down next to him on the stool, “Are you Harry?”
“Yes,” the alcohol made him reply.
“Do you remember me? Ben Johnson.”
He must have met this fellow somewhere, sometime. “I am sorry, Ben. I can’t recall where I knew you?”
“I was your college classmate in English department.”
Harry had shut off all his college connections. But the name sounded familiar. “I have a terrible memory. I remember your name, though.”
“Come on, we were best friends for four years.”
“I believe you. I mean, I just can’t place you at this moment.”
Ben seemed a bit more at ease, “Well, you don’t look much different, except for the beard and hair. I could tell it was you in a minute.”
“What do you do?” still feeling guilty of forgetting, Harry was prepared to listen to a tale of successes.
“I run my own import-export clothing business with the Taiwanese.”
“That’s great,” Harry felt a relief. At least he was not a total failure, which could be awkward for him. “I’m glad that you’ve done well.”
“What do you do?” Ben asked.
 “I’m a writer.” He could see the pity in Ben’s eyes.
“What kind of writing do you do?” Harry’s resentment was palpable. If only I could shake off this weasel from my back, he thought.
“I write plays.”
“Really?” He still kept the pity in his eyes.
“I wrote Good Bye Plum Blossom Pavilion.”
Ben’s jaws dropped, and his skin turned red.
“And Shanghai Moon.”
The two smash hits that cracked open Ben’s face like thunderbolt. “Are you…Harry See?” he whispers.
“Yes.” Harry felt an instant gratification at seeing this poor man’s pity look turning into awe. It gave him a perverse pleasure to smother a weasel.
“I…I’ve enjoyed your shows…”

Harry stood up, closed up his coat jacket, and quickly exited the front door into the street.

A Tribute from a Fan

JinLung liked to take a stroll in Chinatown during his lunch break from his workshop in SoHo, a habit he had formed over the past year.  It wasn't that he had a particular thing to buy or place to see in Chinatown.  It was about the air, the smell, and the looks of the Chinese faces on the street, earthy, timeless, and familiar to him.

He had lived in New York City for over two decades.  He liked the city, although he still felt a little foreign here.  It was bigger and filthier than any other city he had lived before.  But it is also a unique city in the States in the sense that it is interesting and intense; a city on edge, a city that never sleeps, a city of men on foot (not in cars), a city with a big heart, a city so secure in its marginality, a city of global villages, a city so rich in its people.  To outside tourists, the New Yorkers seem to be into the world of their own, ignoring the rest of the world.  JinLung saw them differently, more or less real people living real lives, minding their own businesses, crossing each other because they had to, and occasionally losing tempers, just like the Chinese he had grown up with.  Unromantic perhaps, but real – life can be unromantic, but rich.  Where else can you observe lives more vividly than in New York? 

JinLung’s mind wandered to other metropolises’ Chinatowns he had been to.  New York Chinatown was definitely older and more content with itself: San Francisco Chinatown was fastidiously neat, new, and sterile; Paris Chinatown was barely there; Los Angeles Chinatown was too spread out, like Los Angeles.  How interesting!   Chinatowns everywhere took on the persona of the towns they inhabited.  As such, JinLung rather liked the New York Chinatown, because it reminded him the most of the cities in China – unpretentious, noisy, filthy, chaotic, colorful, warm and happy.  Just like the Chinese people in them. 

He would be lying if he weren’t hungry for the street foods while there, or he’d never been tempted by the useless junk.  Old storybooks and not-so-old antiques were among his favorites.

One afternoon in early August, during one of his treasure hunts, he spotted a faded tin plate in the back of a small junk shop near the community park.  He knew immediately what it was: a 1950s’ promotional material for household appliances.  It was a stylish thing to do then, a bit quaint now, but still charming: You put images of pretty women, movie stars, singers, models on the ugliest array of clanking pots and pans, bathtubs, or batteries to entice buyers.  They still do that today, beautiful women selling irrelevant things, cars, computers, cigarettes, except they do it more artfully now.  The plate women were from the earlier days, when the faces could be so lovely and goods so cheap (oh, what a contrast.)  It was this unusual looking woman on this ordinary looking plate that caught JinLung’s eyes: Did I know her from somewhere?  She wore a high-up chicken-nest hairdo, with paint chipped off at the hair’s edges.  Phoenix wide eyes plastered with massive black makeup, smiling ever slightly as if she knew all life’s secrets.  She stood upright in a low-cut chiffon dress showing a slim white neck.  She looked serene, mature, warm but not too flirtatious.  Isn’t she the woman of my dreams when I was a teenager, JinLung thought.  HongNan was her name.

JinLung was unsure, so he approached the shopkeeper.  “Who is this woman?  Do you know her?”

“Nobody special.  She’s been around the shop for quite some time.”  The old man answered impatiently, like a typical bored shop owner.  “You want it?  I give you for $10.”

$10 for a dream, not a bad bargain, he thought.  So he bought the plate, hoping that he was right about the woman.  HongNan - born 1932; dead 1966 from suicide; she was the biggest movie star in the 60s from Hong Kong.  She had played a lot of beauties in Chinese fairy-tale movies.  

She was all woman - grownup, mysterious, seductive, knowingly sophisticated: she wore womanhood in her sleeves like perfume, like yellow silk.  In his teens, JinLung was never impressed by the young stars of his age – they were girly, grisly, silly.  In HongNan, he discovered the high womanhood, her sultry glances and understanding smiles.  The day she died, he felt a part of him died with her.  She was real to him, adored by most as star, but worshipped by him as goddess, his very beloved lady.

It had been more than thirty years since she passed away.

That night, it was full moon.  In his tiny apartment, JinLung dozed off on the couch.  The wind was blowing cold outside.  He had the window wide open.

Past midnight, he heard someone knocking on the door, once, twice, faintly.  He got up to answer the door.  It was a petite woman standing outside.  She had lovely big eyes, and bobbed hair.  She was dressed in knee-length silk qipao, a high-neck tight-fitting Chinese costume that you don’t see many modern Chinese women wearing these days.  "Can I come in, JinLung?"  She asked in Cantonese, a southern Chinese dialect.  He hesitated for a moment, then let her in.

“You probably don’t remember who I am?”  She walked in the apartment, looking around.

"Sorry, I don’t.”

“I’m HongNan.  You bought a picture of me this afternoon.”  She turned toward him.

He couldn’t believe what he heard.  Yet, he recognized those phoenix-like wide eyes.

“Oh yes.  It was really you.  That’s incredible.” 

“Yes, it’s been a long time sitting in that musty shop.”  She sighed.

“You were a sensational actress.”  He didn’t know what else to say.  This was all a bit strange...can I be dreaming?  He thought.

“Thank you.  But fans are forgetting me,” she sighed again.  “It was my fault.  I shouldn't have left them so soon.  I was headstrong and selfish.  I want to make up…”

“How?”  How many die-hard fans like him were still around thirty years later?

“I came because I knew you still care, when you bought my picture.” 

“But why did you commit suicide in the first place?  It is still a huge mystery.”  He mustered his courage to ask.

“I’ll tell you some other time.”  She replied.  “I must go now."

"No, no.  Please stay a little longer," he pleaded.

"Would you like me to come back?”  She winked at him in her beautiful eyes.

“Yes, please do.”

“Tomorrow, I’ll be here at 5 o’clock.”

"Sure.”

HongNan exited, vanished into the nightly air, leaving JinLung dazed, disbelieving all what had happened.  "Is this my longing or my loneliness?  I need to think."  But he was too tired to think, and soon fell asleep.  In his deepest dream, he was again the young boy of sixteen, extremely shy and sensitive; and HongNan was the far-away superstar, alive, untouchable, and picture-perfect.  In those days, he would be content just staring at her pictures, drawing her slender figure, and imagining meeting her in person.  His infatuation was only revealed to Harry, another boy in his school.  The two lads would talk all day about their favorite subject, the older movie-star leading ladies with experience, intelligence, and a lust for younger men, and the willingness to let go.  He still kept in contact with Harry who now worked in the West Coast as a game software engineer.  They were both single.

In the morning, JinLung went to the office, a small company that specialized in website design.  He did a few layouts for a website he was working on.  He left work at 4:30.  On his way back to his apartment, he picked up a tin of jasmine tea, and a small fruitcake from the nearby Chinese bakery.  When he got home, HongNan was already waiting in his room.  He did not know how she got in, and didn’t want to ask.  She had a different qipao on, knee-length in indigo blue this time.

“How are you?  So glad to see you here,” he greeted her.  “I thought I had lost you.”

They talked late into the night.  HongNan told JinLung about her growing up in the fishing village of New Territory in Hong Kong; and how she was poor and the oldest of six brothers and sisters; and how she started acting in the Cantonese theater to support her family.  She told him how she was discovered during a street performance by a movie scout, and catapulted to superstardom after the release of “The Beauty of the Mountains and Rivers” in 1957, an opera featuring the southern Chinese “yellow-plum” style of folk singing; and how she had met her husband Chen Cheng during the filming of “the Dancing Millionaire”, the movie was a flop but she fell in love with her co-star.

JinLung told her about his two older brothers, both single like him, quiet, reserved and well-mannered; and of his mother who had had a hard life living through the Japanese occupation, losing her husband at a young age, and was devoted to the rearing of her three sons; and of his happy, normal childhood reading comics, watching movies, drawing cartoons and creatures, and imagining to be an artist someday; and of being painfully shy about girls, and craving for them like a lonely minstrel in search of fairies who would never love him.  He didn’t dare to tell her how crazy he was about her.

After they finished their tea and their stories, she said, “You are a sweet man.  A lot of men can be rather cruel.  You don’t seem to have a rough bone in you.  Have you ever had an affair?”

“Oh, no.  I am too shy with women.  But I would like to serve a lady someday. I just don’t see how men can be rough with the women they love.”

Then she turned toward him, stood up, balanced herself, and kissed him lightly on the cheek.  “Take care of yourself.  I’ll be back again.”  He tried to pull her closer, but she quickly slipped away, disappearing out the door. 

After she left, he poured himself another cup of tea, feeling the energy drained off him, loneliness seeping in.

She didn’t show up for a couple of days.  Then one evening, she appeared again at the apartment, this time with a paper bag of stuff.  She was radiant and elegant in another gorgeous qipao.  And, he knew he wasn’t dreaming because the hair on his neck did not stand up on seeing her. 

“I’m back, and I brought you a present.”  She was flushed with excitement.

She sat down by the table and took out a large headdress from the bag.  It was very fancy, water-crystals of peonies and rose petals fanning out to long, frilly strips of tiny pearls.  “This is what I used to wear for my movie role in ‘The Beauty of the Mountains and Rivers’.  Do you remember the story?  It was about the charming emperor stealing the heart of a poor country girl on his day out about town in plain clothes.  When she later learned of his true identity, she decorated herself to the hilt waiting for him to pick her up as bride.  But he never came.  In the end, she killed herself in shame, heartbroken, and pregnant with his child.”

“It must be very heavy, this headdress,” he was curious.

“Not really.  But it was complicated to put it on.  It used to take the makeup artist two whole hours to put up my hair and fasten the headdress.”

“You’d look splendid in that.”

“Last time I was here, I saw the Hong Kong movie catalogue book on your coffee table.  It showed me in this very headdress.  So I thought you would enjoy seeing this.”  Oh, yes, it was the book “The Movie History of Hong Kong, Hollywood of the East, 1920-1970”.

He lifted the headdress.  It was deceptively light.  Then, all of a sudden, he felt dizzy, engulfed by the glitters for one split second, as if beaming him back to her movie days.  In his mind’s eyes, he could almost see the grand movie studio and hear her singing the opera.

Whoa, this was spooky.  He put down the headdress, and came back to himself as quickly as he had left.

“How did you like it?” She asked mischievously, “You know, if you hold it long enough, it would take you back in time.”

“I see.”

“Do you like to keep this headdress?”  She was serious.

He looked at her, forever so lovely, not a day older, sitting right next to him.  He felt the urge to be young again, to live forever.  He wanted to attend to his goddess like a devout servant; to make sure that no one comes to her harm, and that she would never be forgotten; to share in her joy and sorrow; to please her and enjoy her beauty in eternity.

But he let the thought pass, “I can’t.  I don’t think I should.”  She seemed disappointed.

“However, I would like to have one of your qipaos, with the smell of your perfume.”  He uttered, barely audible, his boldest request.

She heard it, and her eyes lit up like a happy child, “That would be a deal.  You shall have it the next time,” as she cheerfully put the headdress back into the bag.

That night, she told him about her husband, Chen Cheng: How he used her and lied to her.  She was his pawn for bigger roles and larger payments in the movie world, yet he made her emotionally deprived, isolated from her loyal fans.  He was not a nice man, demanding, manipulative, controlling and seductive.  Freshly escaped from the hardships of her earlier life, she was looking for the safe harbor of love.  Alas, her choice was a deadly one, and the refuge was but a mirage - She gave pleasures to millions, but she was in pain alone by herself.  Maybe in death, she would be beyond his reach.  May be in death, she would be free.

JinLung showed her his latest artwork.  One of them was a sketch of her, from his memory of their last meeting (She appeared as a muse lost in thoughts.  The drawing was spare, sharp, and full of feelings.)

“This is lovely.”  She marveled.

“Would you accept this as a token of my thanks, for your coming by?”

She picked up the drawing and kissed him on the cheek, “Yes, I would.”  He felt her warm breath, and nothing else mattered.

That night and many nights afterwards, she kept him company.  She always came on Tuesday nights.  At first, he was as nervous as a young lad carrying a flower to his lover on the other side of the schoolyard, his hands shaking and feet unsteady.  Yet he was polite and thoughtful, always attentive to his lady's smallest wants.  His flair for aesthetics and art charmed his lady.  She brought him her old qiapo and other souvenirs, posed for his drawings, and told him stories about the stars back then - their intrigues, their comings and goings, their successes and failures, some amusing, some moving, and some quite tragic.  She knew he was fascinated with movie stars of yester years.  They gossiped about the changes in popular taste for movies and stars: Half a century ago, tall, grown women ruled the silver screens; today, unimaginably young vixens strutted their stuff on screen.

The more he learned of her, the more he liked her, her vitality and gentle kindness, and the more he was convinced of her presence (not just his wishful thinking.)

He had taken to sleeping with her qipao, and sniffing the faint, intoxicating scent, with the pleasure of a groom anticipating his bride.  “My beautiful flower, I feel your body upon me.  How can I be closer?” “I miss your soul, my long-ago love.  I don’t want to lose you again.”  While his heart was on fire, his footsteps became lighter than whimpers, afraid to scare her away.

Once, the conversations turned dark.

"How was it, dead at thirty?"  He asked her.  Her face sank.

"Death was agony.  Here I was, instantly a numb statistic.  When I first got there, I was overwhelmed with self-pity.  I expected to find sympathy, but I found none.  All I saw was thousands of others whose bodies were mangled and decayed.  They paid no attention to me - they were swept away by their own grief.  I was given a tag which read 'Suicide Victim' ". 

The day I died was an ordinary day.  It didn't matter how I took my life – The point is that I went too fast, and I took too big a chance.  All I thought was that I would be free from Chen Cheng.  The last thing I remembered I did was taking barbiturates and alcohol.  I felt a wrenching jolt inside my gut, and I heard myself screaming pain.

When I woke up, it was very quiet.  A police officer and a doctor were standing over me.  I was cold, and I couldn't feel anything.  Oh no, don't pull that sheet over my head.  I cannot be dead yet, I am only 30.  I have a show opening to go to, and I am supposed to have a baby someday.  I haven't lived yet.  I haven't loved yet.  How can I be dead?

Later I was placed in a coffin.  My parents came to identify me.  Why did they have to see me like this?  Why did I have to witness my old mommy facing my senseless death?  My poor dad, he turned to the coroner and said, 'Yes, she is our daughter.'

The funeral was the strangest experience.  I saw all my relatives and friends, and long lines of fans walking up to the casket.  They looked at me with the saddest eyes I had never seen before.  Did I mean that much to them?  I could hardly believe it.  Some fans touched the glass over my casket and sobbed as they walked by.

Oh please, wake me up!  I don't want to die!  Don't bury me.  Get me out of here.  I have a lot of living to do, people to love, movies to make, and fans to please.  I can't bear to see everyone in such pain.  No one can believe this, neither can I.

Please don't put me in the hole in the ground yet.  I promise you, Lord, if you give me one more chance, I will be the nicest person on earth.  All I want is one more chance.  Please, Lord, I am only 30."  Her voice was broken.  She was pleading to emptiness, all over again.

"You didn’t want to die after all."  He felt relieved.  "So I’m your one more chance to do it right - me, your loyal fan." 

She nodded, slightly embarrassed.

He screamed silently inside his heart, "But I don’t want to be your redemption.  I want to be your servant, to please you, to serve you.  I'm the most miserable man ever lived, for I'm in love."

On the 15^th day of the Eighth moon every year, Chinese all over the world would celebrate the end of summer with the Mid-autumn Moon Festival.  Farmers would take a break from their labor, drinking tea and snacking on moon cakes.  Poets would toast the words to the moon lady and drink themselves silly.  For centuries, Chinese told the story about the moon lady and her rabbit, working hard at pounding out a celestial concoction to bring them back to earth, to her proud, earthly husband.  If you should look closely at the moon on the magic date of lunar August 15^th, you may just catch the sight of the two shadows, the moon lady and her rabbit.

It was a special day for JinLung, because HongNan had been visiting him for one full year today.  He wanted to memorialize this special occasion.  So he came home with a box of the finest moon cakes, the kind with a yellow-yolk (a heart) in the middle surrounded by lotus-seed filling (the sweetest flesh).

She showed up at the appointed time in a black-lace floral qipao, with golden trim, ankle length, tight over her curves and slender waist, her stiletto feet strutting through the high side slits, a folded fan in one hand, and a small beaded purse under one arm. 

“You are stunning.”  He was breathless.  She smiled back in appreciation.

It was a night of brilliant stars and mother moon, tiny stories and feather-like laughs.  Finally he murmured something, “Would you share a fantasy with me - that I would be your unknown young escort who loves you simply?”

“Fantasy?”  She raised her eyebrows, her beautiful eyes radiating anticipation.

“Uh, maybe more than a little fantasy.”  He said sheepishly.

“This makes me very happy." She was gracious.

Then she came before him, leaning over, and began to kiss him earnestly.  "You are the sweetest thing I’ve ever known,” she whispered.  Her lovely mouth, red and luscious and dainty, starting to grow wider and wider to lick and touch his; her tongue, a lover’s tongue, soft and wet, insistent and clinging, sticking deeper and deeper inside his mouth to search for his.  He fell unconscious to the spell of her great tongue.  He felt himself eaten up by her, swept away by her huge seas of love, into another world.  When he drifted back to consciousness, he opened his eyes and gasped at the power of her enormous mouth, now seemed normal and in human size again.  He was speechless. 

This must be a dream that he’d found this woman, a ghost that had all the silky deliciousness of the fairest earthly ladies.  Yet her kisses were so passionate, so ferocious, and so enormous.  He was exhausted, taken with her sweet invasion, left with a sense of bliss and satisfaction.

Later, she laid down on the bed next to him, “Good night, my dear.  I love you.”  “I love you too,” he said softly.  In the dark, he savored the incredibly peaceful feeling, yet he would be hungry for more when he woke, he thought. 

In the days that followed, his head was flooded with the images of her magical mouth, her great tongue, and her beautiful face.

She showed up a few days later, looking a bit distraught.  Meanwhile, he pleaded for his lover’s kisses and great tongue, like a hopeless addict agitating for more drug.  Without complaint, she gave him the hot flush of her blooming tongue, and that was enough to shoot him to heaven, and soothe his soul.  After he regained himself, he held her hands, “What’s the matter, my dear, you are sad.”

“I’ve cheated death for far too long, to hold on to you.  It’s time for me to go.”  She said.

“You can't leave me.  I need you.” 

“I can’t fight my destiny.  I can’t escape death forever.”

“Then perhaps I should come with you.”

“You won’t like it there, down in the underworld.  How about your mother and your brothers?”

“I’ve already said my thanks to them.  I can’t go back now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Death would be better than a life of loneliness.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

"Very well, I'll think about it."

Day by day, she came to visit him.  Day by day, she revealed her secrets of surviving the underworld, and the beauty of a different sort.  It wasn’t all death, silence and dread down there.  People went about forming their own families, building their circles of friends the way they would have hoped for when they were alive.  It was the second chance for most of them, to right the wrong, to be free from stereotypes, to get out and try something new.  So, most of them gave their best, got what they wanted, except for the few who had unfinished business on earth.

Before she left, she would always make sure to kiss him with her enchanted mouth.  It seemed that she was eating him a little bit at a time, like a piece of delicious desert.

On a moonless night one month later, he was waiting for her.  He had prepared himself as best as he could, giving his family and charities whatever possessions he owned, writing down instructions for disposing the remainder.

HongNan appeared as promised, delicately adorned in a long white floating qipao.  Tonight, her otherworldly loveliness was almost cathartic.  She smiled at him.  He was fixed on her glorious, bountiful mouth that he had returned to again and again.  He was excited to see her, like a hungry dog begging to be fed, trembling, panting as she drew near him.  “My dear, you have come.”  He said, as if he were destined for her all his life.

"Yes, I have come, for you.  This is the time, our time.  Are you ready?"  She held his hands.  Her voice was as soft as a breeze through the mid-summer night. 

"Then let's do it."  He said.

As she smiled at him, her mouth started to grow and expand and widen.  When it reached beyond the edge of her face, in came out the great lover's tongue, red and moist and gleaming.  The long tongue extended and stretched until it reached the floor, and then, it gently lifted him off the ground.  What happened next was too fast for him to recount.  He had only time to savor the last glance of her phoenix wide eyes, glowing enormously in the dark, before he was swept into her mouth and swallowed.  He died quickly and quietly, without a trace of pain.

In the following night, the sky in New York was lit so bright that it was like twin-moon rising.