If being friends with Crazy Keiko has taught me anything, it’s to always search your house when you get home. When her boyfriend caught her asleep in his wardrobe, with a machete in one hand and an iPhone in the other, he decided it was the end of the affair. But he owns a girly bar in Soho and would rather lose a testicle than have anyone think he’s vanilla.
In those innocent times before location apps, Crazy Keiko may have found a new hobby. But now being a stalker is so easy it’s embarrassing not to have one—especially if you’re famous, like most of the men on Crazy’s list.
Mr. Lash and I were invited to dinner at the home of one of them, a Chinese movie star. When we arrived, Mr. Lash made the mistake of ringing the doorbell. “Tell that crazy flasher bitch behind the tree I’ve called the police,” the movie star’s wife said.
“He really cares about me,” Crazy Keiko mooned as we dragged her naked body away, “or he wouldn’t have come out in the rain to speak to me.” “What did he say?” we asked. “He say, ‘Fuck off, you crazy bitch.’” At least she has the sheet he covered her with as a memento of their non-existent affair and can wipe her tears with the restraining order she’s sure his wife forced him to file.
If there’s one thing worse than being stalked by a fan, it’s being under the evil eye of the strange woman who’s your mother. Andy Murray’s mom calls it support; I call it stalking. His dad sits there with moobs, while his girlfriend has exactly two looks: plant and petrified plant. And who can blame her when Andy’s mom, who can’t keep her tongue in her mouth when Nadal’s on the court, could soon be her mother-in-law? Maybe she should take a cue from Mel Gibson’s stepmum and get a restraining order.
Janis the Stripper is a bit fatsies for a stripper and her mum doesn’t go to any of her shows because she doesn’t want to see her cellulite, but she did pay for the big cage Janis keeps in her living room. Janis thinks Mr. Lash really cares about her because he had her removed from the hood of his car. “If only I’d got to him first,” she admitted to me, as if Mr. Lash is the prize in an egg and spoon race.
I’ve had enough weird friends for one summer, so I hooked up with Miss Sam for tea and scones after she played her harp in the British Ambassador’s garden in Beijing. I’ve been deaf in one ear since contracting pneumonia and normally it’s a blessing only to hear the bores on my right. But I turned my good ear to Miss Sam when she confided, “I was fisted under that bush.” She showed me the Fuck Me tattoo on her forehead hidden under her frumpy fringe.
“See that man over there? I fucked him good,” Sam said in a voice loud enough to drown out her entire orchestra. “Which one?” I foolishly asked. “All of them!” she cackled. The waiter looked scared when she tipped him well. Tipping isn’t really done in Beijing. “I’m a total nympho,” she explained. “It’s because I’m in an orchestra.” She offered to show me how to blow a wind instrument. It’s always the quiet ones.
I lack the commitment to stalk anyone, but I don’t like to be left out of the party, so I pretended not to notice when a strange man followed me. Chinese people don’t all look the same to me, but short fat men who smell like Chairman Mao’s corpse do, so I wasn’t sure Xiao Wu was stalking me until he followed me into the ladies room holding a tiramisu over his face as a disguise. Doesn’t everyone know spies wear fake mustaches?
My driver, Gang Bang, who looks like Tony Leung from In the Mood for Love, said Xiao Wu isn’t shuai ge enough to be my stalker and had him removed. But now Gang Bang’s days are numbered. He’s been caught one time too many with his eyes in the rearview mirror instead of on the road. Mr. Lash draws the line at paying someone to flirt with me.
I’m secretly hoping he’ll be sacked so that I’ll have to share Mr. Lash’s driver, Liu, possibly the coolest man on the planet. If I get lonely without Xiao Wu and his tiramisu on my tail, I could stalk Mr. Liu. I may as well live up to my reputation as the lead character in Spying on Strange Men.
Read more episodes of Vivien Lash’s column Shallow Not Stupid.
Read more about Vivien Lash in Spying on Strange Men.
