Chang we can believe in

Woe to you my Princess, when I come, I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward, you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn't eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body. -- Sigmund Freud, Cocaine Papers

The following is an excerpt from the book "Life is a Cabaret of Chum- a Memoir" by Le Cornichon:
"$7200... $7400... $8400... I have 8950 bucks. Miss Chang, do you have $1050?" "I don't... well, uh... American money? damn, hold on..." Miss Chang motioned to her maid, a local Mahorero, who looked at her as though she was some kind of mutant, but promptly fetched her purse. Miss Chang snatched it from the maid's hands and furiously flipped through a stack of currency from 5 countries, bar tabs, Chanel cosmetics and credit cards in her purse, throwing them in a pile on the bar. "Yes. Yes I do," she smiled, slamming them down.

Miss Chang and I had met some years before and proved to be a fun traveling companion and powerful ally on many occasions. She was from a wealthy Chinese family that had patented something or other, MSG, electric chopsticks, a laser photocomposition system for Chinese character typesetting, I can't remember exactly, but it was something like that, and she now traveled the globe doing as she saw fit to do, what ever it is that you do do when you can do as you like. Famous for her lavish lifestyle and the way she could turn from "Frail Flower of the Orient" to Dragon lady in an instant, we understood and respected each other perfectly and played off of each other like a demented Burns and Allen.

Tonight we were at her casita on the island of Fuerteventura in the Grand Canary islands.

Miss Chang passed me a mirror with small mountain of crystalline powder on it, with a sigh I looked at Kitty and handed her the weapon. "OK. Go for it."

I had to admit I was conflicted. It felt wrong on many levels. Kitty was smart enough to know better, coked up and fairly drunk to boot. Worse, she was not only successful, the Sanrio company had made her rich and household name to boot, she was also absurdly attractive... the sort of girl you dream about. She wasn't an Italian girl with huge -ahem- talents and an ass you knew was going to explode around age 29. She wasn't the bleach blonde Tara Reid knockoff so common around the Gran Canarias this time of year - the one who bloats into Carnie Wilson after she stops chain smoking and dying her hair. She wasn't a perma-sunburnt, half blonde/half redhead Main Line Barbie, with skin like pink beef jerky. No, Kitty was a real genetic freak... physically perfect. I'd normally roll my eyes at any girl telling me she was an international icon, but not Kitty. Kitty was about five two, naturally white hair, with black eyes and a sweet yet vaguely evil aura about her offset by that damned bow that she always wore. Everything about the girl was perfect.

And here I was, handing her $10,000 to shoot herself in the face with a taser gun. Caveat emptor... No matter how hot you are, if you make an offer like hers, you'll get takers. It's an invitation to a circus act. How does anyone not plunk the cash down when anyone, let alone a global celebrity, offers to taser herself between the eyes with a Stun Gun 800,000? Nobody turns that down. When will that offer come around again? Anyway, it's just a stun gun, not Russian Roullette. "Right here," I motioned to her, placing my index finger between my eyes. She looked at the gun. For a moment, reality crystallized through the vodka and tonic fog in her head. She stared into taser's tongs, sighed, looked at Miss Chang and me, laughed and leveled the gun above her eyes. Kitty hesitated and asked Miss Chang, "Oi, 'ave you evah done this?" Miss Chang just raised her perfectly tweezed brow, smiled, adjusted her Bulgari bracelets and nodded. Kitty called her a bloody slag under her breath and I gulped my Mojito Diablo.

This could all go very wrong - William Burroughs wrong - very quickly.

I was certain she'd be fine, but I was also lightly toasted, and had no appreciation for the physics of the thing. What the hell did I know of stun guns? Miss Chang had shot me in the leg with it earlier and I felt a sharp jolt, screamed like Little Richard, fell to the floor crying and in horrible pain, but nothing dramatic. Was there a difference when you use it on the head? Would she go blind? Would she fry her frontal lobe, giving herself an electric lobotomy? Would it blow the bow right off her head? Would we find ourselves standing around her, twitching, convulsing on the tile in the matter of seconds? Would "Hello Mimmy" have the same cache as the "Kitty" brand? Would Kimora Lee Simmons pop a cap in my ass? Who would feed Charmmy kitty? Should we stop it? Did I remember where Miss Chang had sagaciously hidden the body bags? These were thoughts for the minute prior, concerns for the moment before the cash was on the table. There's no pulling the chips until the bet's run its course. I glanced at my Cartier Pasha watch, a gift from Miss Chang, as Kitty fought with the controls on the gun, staring it in the tongs like some dim trailer park mama puzzled by a broken remote control. It was 9:00, Friday... Another of "those" weekends.

Mojito Diablo

1 1/2 oz white tequila

1/2 oz creme de cassis

2 lime wedges

12 fresh mint leaves

3 - 6 oz 7-Up soda

1 tbsp brown sugar
Muddle sugar, mint and squeezed lime wedges in mixing tin until mixture smells like spearmint gum. Fill with ice, add tequila and cassis, shake until the tin is icey to the touch. Pour into a collins glass, top with 7-up and garnish with a sugarcane stick and fresh mint.