Hello Kitty Must Die Read online

  ON THE OUTSIDE, twenty-eight-year-old Fiona Yu appears to be just another Hello Kitty—an educated, well-mannered Asian-American woman. Secretly, she feels torn between the traditional Chinese values of her family and the social mores of being an American girl.

  To escape the burden of carrying her family’s honor, Fiona decides to take her own virginity. In the process, she makes a surprising discovery that reunites her with a long-lost friend, Sean Killroy. Sean introduces her to a dark world of excitement, danger, cunning and cruelty, pushing her to the limits of her own morality. But Fiona’s father throws her new life into disarray when he dupes her into an overnight trip which results in a hasty engagement to Don Koo, the spoiled son of a wealthy chef.

  Determined to thwart her parents’ plan to marry her off into Asian suburbia, Fiona seeks her freedom at any price. How far will she go to bury the Hello Kity stereotype forever? Fiona’s journey of self-discovery is biting and clever as she embraces her true nature and creates her own version of the American Dream, eliminating—without fear of remorse—anyone who stands in her way.

  HELLO

  KITTY

  MUST

  DIE

  By

  Angela S. Choi

  Published by

  TYRUS BOOKS

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  4700 East Galbraith Road

  Cincinnati, Ohio 45236

  www.tyrusbooks.com

  Copyright © 2010 by Angela S. Choi

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction.

  Any similarities to people or places, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-3080-7

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-3080-7

  This work has been previously published in print format under the following ISBNs:

  ISBN 978-1-9355-6203-0 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-9355-6202-3 (paperback)

  “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

  Written by Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic

  Published by EMI Virgin Songs, Inc. o/b/o The End of Music and Primary Wave Tunes, Songs of Universal, Inc. on behalf of MJ Twelve Music, and Murky Slough Music Courtesy of Geffen Records under license from Universal Music Enterprises

  All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

  ---

  Words and Music by Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl

  © 1991 THE END OF MUSIC, PRIMARY WAVE TUNES, M.J. TWELVE MUSIC and MURKY SLOUGH MUSIC

  All Rights for THE END OF MUSIC and PRIMARY WAVE TUNES Controlled and Administered by EMI VIRGIN SONGS, INC.

  All Rights for M.J. TWELVE MUSIC Controlled and Administered by SONGS OF UNIVERSAL, INC.

  All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

  Used by Permission.

  Reprinted by permission of the Hal Leonard Corporation

  “Dancing Queen”

  Words and Music by BENNY ANDERSSON, STIG ANGERSON and BJORN ULVAEUS

  © 1976 (Renewed) POLAR MUSIC AB (Sweden) All Rights in the U.S. and Canada Administered by EMI GROVE PARK MUSIC, INC.

  and UNIVERSAL-SONGS OF POLYGRAM INTERNATIONAL, INC.

  Exclusive Print Rights for EMI GROVE PARK MUSIC INC.

  Controlled by ALFRED MUSIC PUBLISHING CO., INC.

  All Rights Outside the U.S. and Canada

  Administered by UNIVERSAL-SONGS OF POLYGRAM INTERNATIONAL, INC.

  All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

  ---

  Words and Music by Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson

  Copyright © 1977 UNIVERSAL/UNION SONGS MUSIKFORLAG AB

  Copyright Renewed

  All Rights in the United States and Canada Controlled and Administered by UNIVERSAL-SONGS OF POLYGRAM INTERNATIONAL, INC. and EMI GROVE PARK MUSIC, INC.

  All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission

  Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

  “Love Shack”

  Words and Music by Catherine E. Pierson, Frederick W. Schneider, Keith J. Strickland and Cynthia L. Wilson

  © 1989 MAN WOMAN TOGETHER NOW!,

  INC. and EMI BLACKWOOD MUSIC INC.

  All Rights for MAN WOMAN TOGETHER NOW!,

  INC. Controlled and Administered by EMI APRIL MUSIC INC.

  All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

  Used by Permission.

  Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

  “Heart Shaped Box”

  Words and Music by Kurt Cobain

  © 1993 THE END OF MUSIC and PRIMARY WAVE TUNES

  All Rights Controlled and Administered by EMI VIRGIN SONGS, INC.

  All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

  Used by Permission

  Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

  “Come As You Are”

  Words and Music by Kurt Cobain

  © 1991 THE END OF MUSIC and PRIMARY WAVE TUNES

  All Rights Controlled and Administered by EMI VIRGIN SONGS, INC.

  All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

  Used by Permission.

  Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

  To Mom, Dad, Meatball, St. Jude

  I would like to thank the wonderful people who made this project possible:

  Robert Ressler, my creative writing coach, for guiding me through my transition to the writing life

  John Kithas, for employing me while I wrote this book

  Lynda, for telling me to just start this book already

  Adrian Weber, my friend, personal editor, and reader, for helping me come up with a kickass title, editing my first draft, and cheering me on

  Marie Mockett for guiding me through the querying/ publication process

  Andrea Somberg for giving me suggestions to polish the novel

  Josh Getzler, my fabulous agent, for going above and beyond the call of duty to sell this novel

  Alison Janssen, for being a brilliant editor

  Ben Leroy, for buying this novel in the first place

  Mom Dad for putting me here on this planet

  Meatball, my fat parakeet, for being an inspiration

  St. Jude, for prayers answered

  Dick Cheney for being Dick Cheney

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  FWCRIME.com

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  IT ALL STARTED with my missing hymen.

  One week before my twenty-eighth birthday, I decided to take my own virginity with a silicone dildo coated in two-percent Lidocaine gel.

  Silicone dildos are the best. Firm, smooth, easy to clean, and most importantly, you can boil them in water. We Chinese folks love to boil things. Our chopsticks, ou
r teacups, our pots and pans, and especially our drinking water. Nothing goes inside our bodies without being boiled in water first.

  Silicone dildos are also the ideal choice for people who have allergies.

  I have a lot of allergies. That and I didn’t quite fancy the idea of asking some emergency room doctor to pick glass shards out of my vagina. And as the saleswoman said, glass dildos would be “less than ideal” for my present intentions.

  I selected a purple medium-sized dildo with a flared base for easy grip. As it was not attached to a male body, I figured I would need to have a firm handle on it. Not that it would have gone anywhere except out the way it went in, but still.

  And like everything else, it was “Made in China.” A fact my parents would surely appreciate. They like everything made in the home country.

  I named my dildo Mr. Happy. I thought it would be an appropriate name for something that would have the privilege of destroying my family’s honor, which I had upheld dutifully between my legs for nearly three decades.

  The existence of that untouched membrane sent every American boy running, especially when I told them that we couldn’t have sex until we got married. As no one wanted to marry me by the third date, my insistence of keeping my hymen intact put a huge damper on my dating life. Had my parents and I stayed in Hong Kong, it would have been less of a problem. Traditional Chinese people frown upon premarital sex.

  But we were not in China. We lived in the home city of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence who had been “defining San Francisco values since 1979.” We lived in the golden state of California, which had the second highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. We lived in the United States of America, the nation of Girls Gone Wild, where that thin sliver of tissue did not get anyone’s family an extra head of cattle. All it did was keep me home every Friday and Saturday night.

  So when I met Chip, I decided to assimilate into debauchery and vice, to bite into forbidden fruit American-style. Family honor be damned. Not because Chip was Mr. Right, but because he happened to be Mr. There-At-The-Right-Time. Except there was a problem: my father.

  “You’re not coming home tonight, Fiona?”

  “Big project. Whole office pulling an all-nighter.”

  “Okay. Work hard.”

  And I was free to sin.

  Thank God the Chinese are not into honor killing—at least I would not be dragged out into the village square and stoned, stabbed, or set on fire. I considered myself lucky.

  It would just make my mother cry.

  Unfortunately, my hymen felt differently. The dozen condoms I bought sat unused on the nightstand, next to a packet of Plan B pills. Suspenders and a belt for me. I am a woman who buys double insurance. But my insurance proved unnecessary for my hymen refused to be obliterated, pulverized, annihilated. Its resistance to all three of Chip’s attempts had not been futile. It left him whimpering and nursing himself in the dark. It sent me to Dr. Ng’s examination room.

  “His weenie bounced out of me like I had a trampoline down there. I must have one tough hymen. Maybe you’ll need to cut it open. You can do that right?” I asked. Lying on my back on the paper-covered table, I counted the little holes in the ceiling tiles while Dr. Ng examined me with a long Q-tip.

  “Actually, you’re already open. I really can’t see a problem,” replied Dr. Ng from underneath my dressing gown.

  “No, seriously, it wouldn’t go in. I kept asking him what the hell was wrong with his equipment. Maybe he was too small. He was the same size as a low-absorbency tampon. Do you think that matters?”

  “Uh, no, it should still work.”

  “That’s what I thought. But anyway, I told him it wasn’t his fault as that’s what God gave him. Then he went all floppy.”

  “You said that to him?”

  “Yeah, I was trying to make him feel better.”

  “Next time, Fiona, don’t try to make him feel better.”

  “Oh, there’s not going to be a next time, Dr. Ng.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He wouldn’t let me wipe him down with an alcohol pad. You know, to sanitize that area before slipping the condom on.”

  “Fiona, why in the world...?”

  Because he wouldn’t let me boil his penis in water first.

  It was all Listerine’s fault—or perhaps Neosporin’s. All those commercials with oversized cartoon germs in Crayola colors with spikes, tails, and little mouths eating away at the tongue and gums. All those flagella propelling fat microbes about on the skin. All those microscopic spirals, spheres, and cylinders of death and disease waiting for their chance to slip into the body. No wonder Listerine sells so well. Maybe the next guy wouldn’t mind being splashed with some minty-fresh mouthwash. I’d offer him the non-stinging kind.

  “You’re thin, pretty, and smart. Don’t worry. You’ll find someone, Fiona,” said Dr. Ng, as I pulled my long hair into a French twist.

  That was not the point. For nearly three decades, culture, parents, and upbringing all intertwined my self-worth with my hymen. If it was indeed that valuable, I should want to rip it out, freeze-store it in a little plastic bottle and leave an instruction in my last will and testament to be buried with it. Either that or stuff it in a little glass vial and wear it around my neck like Angelina Jolie did with Billy Bob’s blood.

  Anything but let someone else take it. And have a picture of me up on his MySpace page next to the other picked cherries. Or get my bloodied panties passed around in the boys’ locker room.

  No thank you.

  Then Dr. Ng came up with the dildo solution. No rush, no fear of STDs or pregnancy, no involvement of another human being, no stench of human warmth crushing down on me. Nothing but an eternal, unfailing erection that could be twisted and bent to my satisfaction and sanitized with boiling water. God bless Dr. Ng.

  But I came up with the two-percent Lidocaine gel idea. I demanded an extra-large prescription to ensure that I would have enough to cover Mr. Happy and myself several times over. With a large number of anesthetics available, I saw no reason for having to endure any pain. It wasn’t as if I had asked for an epidural. That would be insane. But this? A little gel and no pain. God bless Lidocaine.

  I don’t think Chip would have let me slather Lidocaine all over him. But Mr. Happy remained true to his name and was more than happy to oblige.

  Guys. So overrated.

  I PULLED THE CAP OFF the Lidocaine bottle with my teeth, wondering if the manufacturers had anticipated how their customers were going to use their product. The bottle had a long, narrow applicator tip like a tube of Krazy Glue. The gel came out in a thin, delicate squiggle with every squeeze.

  I held Mr. Happy horizontally and squirted a line of Lidocaine on him, zigzagging back and forth like I was putting spicy mustard on my Sheboygan Bratwurst at ATT Park. I smoothed the gel out, glazing the slippery silicone surface like a Krispy Kreme.

  The Internet was right. The saleslady at Good Vibrations was right. Silicone dildos are the best.

  Dr. Ng had suggested that I buy a bottle of KY Jelly, originally to put on my face to treat the dryness caused by my eczema, which she noticed during my exam. Go to a dermatologist and you get Elidel cream for your face. Go to a gynecologist and you get KY Jelly.

  The little two-ounce bottle with a purple cap had caused a sensation at my house. My mother refused to believe that I had bought it for my face. I couldn’t blame her. After all, who goes out with a face covered in lubricant? You start your day with Clean Clear or Noxzema. You follow it with Clinique, Origins, or Chanel, not KY.

  I decided not to douse the Lidocaine-coated dildo with KY Jelly. First, I didn’t want to dilute the potency of the Lidocaine. Second, KY Jelly had already caused enough trouble for me. A troublemaker. And third, I really, really didn’t want to dilute the potency of the Lidocaine. Lidocaine was king.

  Suddenly, it occurred to me then that what I was doing was absurd. I wondered how many women in the world went through this ritual o
f taking their virginity. I wondered how many prescriptions of Lidocaine had been written for this purpose. How many dildos had been used in this way.

  Absurd, demented, brilliant.

  After I smeared some Lidocaine inside me, I waited for the blessed gel to take effect while I plugged in my iPod for some Nirvana. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” felt appropriate for the occasion. For me, the hallmark of any great song is its ability to endure Repeat One for hours on end without rousing me to raging violence. True for Nirvana; not true for The Doors. My college roommate had played “Light My Fire” on Repeat One for an entire evening. I had to take an Ativan to refrain myself from strangling her in her sleep with her stereo’s electric cord.

  I flipped off my bedroom lights.

  With the lights out, it’s less dangerous

  How right you are, Kurt. It seemed obscene to do it under the ashy-white glow of CFL lighting. It seemed less ridiculous with the lights out. So I scooted myself on my bed and put my back against the wall. Hunched up, with my knees bent and spread apart, I must have looked like a frog, squatting on my bed and rotating Mr. Happy by the base so the Lidocaine gel would not drip off.

  Twenty minutes.

  Hello, hello, hello, how low?

  Lower.

  I pinched myself to see if I was good and numb. Excited that I could only feel my fingertips, I aimed Mr. Happy at the opening to the holy of holies.

  “Go, Mr. Happy, go where no man has ever gone before.” My final frontier.

  “An in he throng.” Just like Chaucer said. Now that man was a real poet.

  I expected something, anything. A prick, a tear, a loud ripping, a shredding, a sharp puncturing like the pop of a balloon. But there was nothing like that. After a bit of initial resistance, it just felt like inserting an over-lubricated, jumbo-sized purple tampon. Parting myself like the Red Sea. Moses would be proud.