Me and Benoit, we discussed this at length. In the afternoons that hung there, floating, curling, out and around like smoke. Those afternoons seemed to drag . . . But here was my thing, that so far no one felt the need to put rules on us. Whether that was Mr. Leung, I couldn't tell. The Amah. Arms crossed. I'd look up, there she'd be, staring at us. But still nothing. No rules. We could sit in the big room and wait. Surrounded by mirrors. Stare at the girls. We could get out there and beat the pavement all night, handing out cards, working the block. On Austin, or down in the MTR, those green lights strobing the floor beneath our feet.

Or Wendee. That T-shirt, Lagerfeld, Fashion Week 93', the sleeves cut off, in the afternoons she'd have that over the black dress, or the purple one, on the couch, eating with chopsticks right up until time. Even the idea of her picking that name. And obviously, this wasn't New York, and Wendee, like Thanh, like Khira and Bela, they were all about five and a half feet tall, and dark like Mexicans, it wasn't fashion week either, and what I meant was since there were no rules then why not make what we wanted this to be. In other words, why stand out there circling the block, we could dive, dive for that mythology, clubs, those parties we saw from the outside, jumping, dive right in, and why think of ourselves as touts or wage slaves, or pimps, I guess, that was Benoit, my thing was the height of it, that deep, shivering dive, and some nights you wanted meet every girl, to see everything, go on forever, to reach out, touch everyone . . .