Black Comedy

My mother’s new husband’s son called me a gold-digging freeloader, said my mother had seduced his father, and declared us both shameless sluts.

I cornered him against the wall and attacked his lips with my tongue.

“That’s right! My mom seduced your dad, and now I want to seduce you!”

The school heartthrob claimed I had a crush on him, mocked me for dreaming above my station, then photocopied my secret diary and scattered the pages all over campus.

I pasted his face over a photo of the hottest host at a male revue, then grabbed his ass in front of the entire school.

“Are you jealous because I didn’t book you last weekend?”

When my homeroom teacher said I was a troublemaker and threatened to punish me, I tied him up instead.

“When a student misbehaves, her teacher is to blame—so please accept your punishment, sir!”

Mother always said that if a woman wanted to stay radiant, she had to know how to nourish herself.

Ginseng and deer antler were useless.

What truly nourished a woman was a young, vigorous man.

Following that regimen, she still looked sixteen well into her forties.

Having grown up under her influence, I understood the secret by the time I turned eighteen.

Scholars were lean, generals solid, actors charming.

I had sampled them all.

The one I found most intoxicating was Shen Zhaoye.

I lavished mountains of gold and silver on him, yet never so much as put an arm around his waist.

Then he came to take his leave, claiming he had found a more powerful patron.

Furious, I followed him by lantern light into Springwater Lane.

When I kicked open the door, he was kneeling beside a couch, offering tea to someone.

The beauty reclining there lifted her eyes lazily.

My lantern went out, and my soul nearly fled with the flame.

“Mother?! You’re sleeping with my man?”