The more days we spent together, the more I agonized over whether I should tell him why I was traveling alone on the Silk Road. Would he start to covet my inheritance and stop loving me for who I was? I didn’t have the slightest impression that greed could be inside his brainy head or hidden behind his innocent face. But one could never tell. Twenty-one or eighty-one, men covet the same things—money, power, status, high-fat gourmet food, pretty women, mind-blowing sex. Then one day Alex reminded me that his parents would be visiting soon and that he would travel with them around China. Another surprise came when he said that after the family’s vacation, he’d take me to meet them. I didn’t know how to respond to this. This kid was clearly serious about me. But what about his parents? Would they like me and approve of our relationship, or would they see me as the older woman who had shamelessly seduced their young son? The morning of Alex’s departure to meet his parents in Urumqi, after we had breakfast and I helped him pack, he drew me into his arms and kissed me with a dying-to-be-relieved desire.
