I was flying into Shanghai for a business conference and still felt like shit from the giardia I contracted on the last leg of my hiking trip through Nepal.

Not to mention that I was shaken by the turbulent ride over the Himalayas, having watched the snowy peaks of the mountains, like a bed of nails below us, as the plane’s cabin violently shook, and passengers screamed.

The plane sliced in through the smog, and several people onboard applauded as we touched down safely to Pudong Airport...

After immigration, collecting my bags, I caught a cab and we set off into the bustling Shanghai traffic, and I gazed out at the massive city state, its endless series of structures that were so alive, all glowing and glimmering, flashing their night colors.

My driver’s bouffant hair bobbed in the bumpy ride. He leaned back and asked me directions and I told him I’d never been to Shanghai, didn’t know where my hotel was, aside from its name, location on GPS.

He cursed in a local Shanghai dialect that sounded more like Japanese. He looked pissed. It was the first time I’d been asked directions by a cab driver in a foreign country.

The cabbie suddenly pulled over, stopped in the breakdown lane of the highway. Big beeping trucks whizzed by us. A scarlet Lamborghini careened inches away, at breakneck speed.

I handed the driver my phone. After a shouting match with my hotel’s front desk, he finally figured out the way...

We chugged into the city, into the Bund area, passed by the waterfront’s colonial architecture and nearby glittering glass towers, sprawling malls and department stores selling luxury brands.

Finally arriving at the hotel, a burgundy, art deco colossus, the bellboy met me and whisked away my bags.

When I greeted the front desk staff in Mandarin, a pony-tailed, rail-thin, post-college age girl in red/black hanfu replied to me in impeccable English. Her demeanor was gruff, her voice plangent, and her horn-rim glasses practically the size of grapefruits...

She averted eye contact, monotonously rattled off the breakfast buffet time, location, check out time, and handed me a key card, said the bags were already in the room.

After handing my passport back to me, with both hands, she pointed me in the direction of the elevator and returned to her phone.

“Service with a smile” wasn’t a thing at this hotel, like most of China, I surmised, but it was sort of pleasant, sometimes, how no one kissed your ass or gave a general fuck...

On the 7^th floor, I wandered through a cavernous hallway that was adorned with antique decor and Mondrian replicas and finally found my room, #721, and entered the fancy, compact, slightly dusty-smelling quarters.

The bed was queen-sized, with a comfy memory foam, super soft mattress- unlike the usual cement-style beds of Asia, and the furniture was a charming walnut color; the lamps, phones were vintage, 1930-esque.

The room’s only window, a single casement, next to the bed, led only to a direct view of the adjacent building’s red brick exterior.

I dumped my stuff. Got situated. The night was still young, and my stomach was growling for a better dinner than the microwave fare, beef noodle slop from the plane.

I went out, stopped by a tasty local restaurant, next door to the hotel, and had a sweet duck dish accompanied by steamed rice and stir-fried Cantonese cabbage. As I clamped my chopsticks on the last few bits of crispy duck skin, I received a text from my coworker, Denny, who was also in town for the conference.

Ole’ Disco Denny, The Wildman, told me he’d just arrived and was headed to a bar and that I should meet him there.

Though my stomach was still queasy from the giardia, I didn’t want to waste my first night in Shanghai doing my quotidian routine of TV, book, sleep, so I decided to join him, hoping to maybe meet a local lady or that a shot or two of whisky down the gullet might kill off the rest of the virus in my guts...

二

It was November, so it had rained and gotten colder, damper, as time passed deeper into night, and walking out of the restaurant, my breath appeared like vaporous mist.

Appropriately, I selected “November Rain” from my playlist, blasted Slash’s glorious guitar into my earbuds and zipped up my leather jacket, stepped and dodged through the masses of humanity in the streets, and I let Siri guide me to the subway.

There were 1.4 billion people in this country, and in places like Shanghai, it sure felt like that many...

Everywhere, there were people. People on every corner, in every building, every car, every bus, pretty much every inch of the city center had a person in or near it.

Most, like any metropolis, minded their business, hurried along, but I noticed an unusual number of obnoxious touts.

The touts mostly fell into two categories: either halfway decent looking young girls, speaking perfect English, on about trying local tea, or short, pushy, tacky dressed middle-aged guys, like gnomes, poking fake, gaudy watches in my face, grunting repeatedly, “Rolex, Rolex!”

These touts were practically the only people who paid attention to me, unlike other Chinese cities where simply being a foreigner rendered you a curiosity, a thing to be gawked at, taken pictures of, pointed at, yelled “hello” at, and basically considered a zoo animal.

I paid little attention to the touts, did my best to avoid eye contact, politely nodded “no” if we did lock eyes, and kept my earbuds firmly affixed...

Shanghai’s subway, despite being massively crowded, was impressive, state-of-the-art, almost futuristic, and it quickly carried me to the bar’s vicinity, which was only a few stops away.

Riding the escalator up to street level, I swiped through my GPS, located the bar, which turned out to be a restro-pub, in a gargantuan shopping center close by...

I rode up another escalator inside the shopping center, spotted my destination: “Cowboys Bar and Grill.”

Walking in through the open, arched double doors, I noticed the place was packed. But I also picked up on something funny. There were no women there. Only dudes. At first, I thought this was because of China’s gender disparity.

But scanning around, examining closer, I observed how all the guys were buff or at least in decent shape.

They were mostly young, too, with well-trimmed hair, and dressed quite stylishly.

Gazing over at the walls, I saw posters of Madonna, Lady Gaga, Queen, Jason Momoa, and then, yes, a rainbow flag.

It was a gay bar.

Ah shit, I thought to myself. Probably wouldn’t meet a lady at this place.

I was surprised Denny had invited me here. He’d never struck me as gay, but I don’t have the best gaydar.

I’d known Denny to be a skirt-chasing maniac. Wait, was he maybe bi?

He was a prankster, though, always pulling gags in the office. Perhaps it was a joke?

I wasn’t sure, but I decided to take advantage of the “fabulous” drink special, slam a couple shots to finish off the virus, then have a stroll around the city, then head back to the hotel, creep online, probably jerk off to phone porn, the usual...

After draining a trio of Russian vodka shots, in rapid fire succession, and paying the African drag queen bartender, who’d winked at me several times, I texted Denny to see if he was at the bar. He replied with only a rainbow flag pic. Sneaky bastard!

Slightly crapulous, I decided to one up him, and I made a fake Grindr profile, with his pic, social media, and phone number, and I showed it to the drag queen bartender, asked her to post it on the bar’s Weibo page.

Figured Disco Denny Boy would have some interesting correspondences tonight...

三

The drag queen waved sentimentally, feigned heartbreak as I left, and on my way to the subway stop, I happened upon a massage place that looked legit and decided to get a leisurely rubdown.

The place was attached to a chain hotel and had the usual foyer, front counter that took your shoes, confirmed which package you’d like.

I chose oil.

A balding, shifty-eyed, runty 50ish man in gray “Guccci” sweatpants and sweatshirt led me up a flight of stairs, down a dingy hallway, into a KTV room.

“No, I wanted an oil massage, not karaoke,” I affirmed, but my words fell on deaf ears, and he scurried out.

I sat into the butterscotch brown leather couch in the center of the room, thinking perhaps another attendant would arrive to take me to the massage quarters.

But a second later, in slinked a very, very pretty young girl, maybe mid-20s, and slim, with catwalk legs...

The China Doll, the geisha white Asian beauty had sparkling sapphire lenses in her epicanthic eyes.

She was simply radiant in her black spandex miniskirt barely covering her pelvis.

And her white button-down blouse showcased a most yummy, spicy pair of round B-cup boobies!

This was some serious Kung Pao Pussy...

Her wavy, midnight mane was waist-length, parted to the left, and she swept it over her shoulder, sauntered towards me, like a kitten, her black pumps speaking with the cherry laminate flooring.

Wordlessly, she sat on my lap, crossed her black floral pattern pantyhose-sheathed legs, and wrapped her warm arms around me.

“What the fuck?” I thought to myself. Had I mistakenly come to a brothel?

I wasn’t sure what I’d gotten myself into. But I certainly knew where I wanted to get into...

“You have pretty eye,” the mysterious Geisha said to me, in a sultry voice. Her breath had a whiff of fruity candy to it.

“How about the other eye?” I quipped, wondering if my humor would land. But it didn’t. And she just quizzically stared at me for a second, like I was an asshole.

Sarcasm and plurals don’t usually translate well into the Chinese syntax.