BEIJING UNBOUND (13)

In which Jim gains entry to the forbidden world of a tycoon's entertainment empire only to go against his own better judgement.

*PLEASURE DOME

I don’t know exactly when it struck me that I was not free to leave, but I didn’t really begin to panic about it until I was too wasted to do anything about it. Towards dawn, I really wanted to bust out of the joint, but felt trapped, ineffectual and utterly without autonomy.

Big Ten was the center of attention of our little entourage and he set the tone, alternately engaging and dismissive of all comers; it was very much a boy’s night out kind of vibe. The girls with drop-dead good looks tended to hover around him, and him alone. He alone was the man, the alpha male, the big spender, the sun around which the rest of us revolved at a distance.

The laconic driver and the bespectacled, stoop-shouldered logistics aide, no strangers to the red-light scene, acted, I suppose, as subordinates are supposed to act. Flanking the boss like loyal flunkies, they sat there grimly and inertly, keeping the focus on drinking and smoking, with a little bit of fondling here, a little bit of…