Mei Ling was sitting at the campsite, waiting for her boyfriend to come back from the 7-Eleven. A creepy junkie, stoned out of his mind, came trembling toward her. He said, “Take off your clothes, bitch!” She said, “No way, I’d just bought this faux Dolce&Gabbana denim camping outfit from Hong Kong, and it took me two months to find a seamstress to alter it. Go take somebody else’s clothes. That lady three trailers down, she buys only couture.” The creep looked dazed by her response and left.
Ten minutes later, the creep came back, still so stoned that he could barely stand up. “Bitch, take off your clothes,” he said. She said, “Okay, obviously, you came a long way to do this.” So she took off her clothes and gave them to him. “Okay, now, go away and sell them on eBay. My dead grandmother would be blissed out in Nirvana that I give them to you. You know, the right intention, the right action, all that Buddhist crap. And here, take my money. All I have in my wallet is twenty-three dollars. I gave my boyfriend the rest of my cash to buy beer and nachos. By the way, he’s coming back soon, so you better get going.” The creep looked bewildered and took the clothes and went away.
Twenty minutes later, the creep came back again. “Shut up, bitch, I’m going to rape you. And don’t try to fancy talk me out of it either.” Mei Ling sighed but was still cool. “My grandmother, the Buddhist, would want me to be compassionate and give you what you want. But she would also want me to tell you the truth. I cannot speak falsehood. Yama, the king of Hell, will boil my tongue in oil if I do. The truth is that I have a hideous infestation of the crabs. I caught them from my ex-boyfriend the punk rocker. (Notice, he’s an ex-boyfriend now. My new boyfriend is okay with my checkered history. He was raised by feminists.) I bought some medicine from TJ that turned my pubes blue. This stuff is so harsh that it might make your dick fall off.” Indeed, he looked at her pubic hair and her little stubbles, leftovers from her last Brazilian wax, were scintillating bright blue. He groaned in disgust and went away.
Meanwhile, Mei Ling sat naked and stared at the beautiful full moon. Ryokan would have given the creep the moon. But she was not that enlightened. Not yet. She wanted this magical moon all to herself. It was a warm and fragrant twilight, and the wild jasmine had just opened.