by Xiaolu Guo
With the three strings, I tried the only part I could remember from ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’:
Raindrops keep falling on my head
But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turning red
Crying’s not for me
’Cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complaining
Because I’m free . . .
I stopped. A little abashed, I said: ‘I have not played it for so many years. My fingers are stiff.’
‘I like it.’ You sat close to me on the sofa. ‘I should buy some strings.’ Then you looked at me, and spoke almost teasingly: ‘We can play in a band together. I feel there are some musical vibrations between us.’
‘Vibrations?’ I laughed. How was I meant to respond to these words?
Suddenly we both became quiet and felt tense. Then one of us bumped into the ukulele and it fell to the floor. You picked it up, laid it carefully against the bookshelf.
When does a physical relationship begin? Is it when the lovers kiss or when they imagine their kissing beforehand? Is it when their eyes meet and knowingly gaze at each other? We kissed. That’s how I date the beginning of our physical relationship.
Penetrative Sex vs Non-penetrative Sex
– I don’t know if I like penetrative sex.
– What do you mean?
– I prefer non-penetrative sex. I prefer kissing, tenderness and our bodies being close.
From early July, the city totally changed its appearance. The sun decided to stay up in the sky for as long as it could, and its golden rays pierced down and made my body warm. Giant hydrangeas bloomed in front of the once grey council buildings. London planes stretched out their tough branches and hard leaves onto the summery air.
It happened very fast. I stayed in your flat for the following week, almost every night. The outside world disappeared. There was only you and me. Our bodies parted for some hours during the day, but we found ourselves in each other’s arms again in the evening. How I loved the way you enveloped me, one arm around my neck and shoulders, and the other holding my hip. Our legs entwined. My long hair covered my face whenever you kissed me, as if it were a veil to keep you from seeing and feeling me clearly.
‘Should I shave my head?’ I asked, half joking, while trying to pull back strands of my hair.
‘No, it’s so lovely,’ you said with seriousness.
You entered me. You filled me completely. My womb contracted. It felt like my body was bursting. But I held on to you, and wouldn’t let you come.
‘I can hardly take being inside you,’ you whispered, trembling slightly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s too much. I can barely stop myself coming.’
You stopped speaking, as if you were in some sweet pain. We both breathed in and out, and felt the same force travelling between us. No. There was no us, but one form.
After that, we rested in bed, letting the sweat dry on the sheets. My head was buried in your chest. We didn’t talk for a while. You were thinking about something, something I could not guess or understand. Your eyes were now lingering on the light coming from the window. They were no longer on me. I didn’t like their absence. I felt you had moved away from me, as least your mind had, along with its elusive thoughts. Then into the silence, I said:
‘I don’t know if I like penetrative sex.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I prefer non-penetrative sex. I prefer kissing, tenderness and our bodies being close.’
‘So you don’t like it when I’m inside you?’ You raised your upper body, supporting yourself with an arm and now stared at me.
‘When you’re inside me, it’s like you’re intruding, forcefully. I can’t then feel love any more.’
‘What do you mean you can’t feel love any more? Surely you are taking me into you. Isn’t that an act of love?’
‘But it’s not you. It’s just your penis.’
‘Yes, but in that moment, we are both so absorbed in our bodies, in that pleasure. So, it’s not just my penis. It’s me, and it’s you, taking me in!’
‘Not for me. I’m not focused on my vagina. I’m in my whole body. It’s the man who treats his penis as himself. Like an instrument.’
You said nothing. Were you offended? But I could not deny my feelings. After penetrative sex I felt lonely, and a little empty. Perhaps that’s because I did not connect with this idea of penetration. The idea that you filling my vagina with your penis would complete me emotionally. It did not. And once you were out, my incompleteness came back to me even more powerfully and I felt I was alone, all alone. What took away my sense of incompleteness was our bodies being entwined, the barriers of our skins falling away. That wasn’t about penetration at all. But that did not seem to be how it was for you.
After another week I felt we had calmed down a bit. Our bodies were less hungry for each other. Every morning we had breakfast together, then you left for work. I would leave your place and walk back to my flat. I studied and wrote for the rest of the day. When the evening light descended on the oak trees outside the window, I began to feel unloved and was longing to see you again. I always hoped you would jump on an earlier train to come back. But you rarely did. On the contrary, you often came back later than I expected.
After dusk, I walked back to your flat, feeling anxious. The days were still long as the summer grew older. I watched people going home with their shopping bags, their children following behind. The rows of houses from my flat to yours were concrete grey council houses – the kind I would not regard as nice, as the English would say. The iron fences were high, and the security cameras hovered like aliens above each street corner. London was the most fenced city I had ever seen or lived in. But at least these ugly council houses were home for the ordinary families who lived there. I didn’t even have an ugly home. Under the white street light I felt weightless and deserted. Was it about our relationship? Or was it a deeper anxiety about my own future? I refrained from indulging in my disturbing thoughts. I walked towards your place as my temporary fix, a powerful distraction. Love makes people blind. But how I desperately needed this blindness, at least for now.
Our lovemaking continued with penetration. Why? Was it because that’s what men and women do when they are in love? Was I submitting myself to you because I feared I might lose you?
Elderflower Lemonade
– When I was a kid I’d go out into the fields and collect shoots and then cook them at home.
– Ha! When I was a kid in Australia I’d go out, chop down shrubs, chase lizards and throw stones at sparrows. But we never ate shoots. We’d just go to the supermarket.
One afternoon, after another morning in bed, we went for a long walk. We walked all the way along the Hackney Marsh. By the River Lea, there were large patches of elderflower bushes. So abundant, despite being late in the season. You could not help but start to pick them. I watched you, remembering how I first met you. The elderflower picker. I found that really special, even though now I knew you much better and you were less enigmatic than before. Then I followed you, uprooting the flowers one by one. I found myself returning to my childhood, with you.
‘When I was a kid I’d go out into the fields and collect shoots and then cook them at home.’
‘Ha! When I was a kid in Australia I’d go out, chop down shrubs, chase lizards and throw stones at sparrows. But we never ate shoots. We’d just go to the supermarket.’
We brought a big bunch back home. The tough stems made my cheeks and hands itchy.
You showed me how to make elderflower lemonade.
‘The thing about making elderflower lemonade is that it makes you want to return to nature again. It’s a strange effect. Almost like addiction.’
Almost like addiction – I repeated this in my heart. Right now, my addiction was you, your body. Your
caress. Your kiss. You inside me. I would not tell you again I preferred non-penetrative sex. I liked both. I also liked our lives whether we were having sex or not. Sex was always there, like a secret fragrance, even when we did ordinary things together, like crushing elderflowers.
When you were cooking elders, you were like a scientist doing an experiment. You were not distracted by me. You taught me how to boil up the cordial. We heated a pot of sugar syrup first, then cut the flower heads off the stems. You opened the boiling pot and instructed me:
‘The flowers should be steeped in the water!’
Steeped in the water? I asked myself. I knew I should put the heads in the pot, but I didn’t know what ‘steeped in’ was. I didn’t want to look stupid, so I vaguely dipped the flower heads in the boiling water, remembering the very first conversation when we met.
You watched over my shoulder and I could feel your breath on my skin. You added lime and lemon juice.
‘The acid will help preserve the cordial and add tartness.’
Hmm, tartness. A new word. A nuanced word. I liked learning words from you.
I dipped my spoon into the liquid and tasted the syrup. It was thickly sweet and sour. Too sour, actually, but I liked having the experience.
‘Are you sure you are making the right drink?’ I wheezed. ‘This tastes like the cough medicine we drink in China.’
You laughed and took back my spoon. ‘Normally we don’t drink it directly. You always add water to dilute it before you drink.’
Oh. I swallowed the last drop of sugary water on the back of my tongue and said nothing.
You poured a little of the syrup into a glass and mixed it with sparkling water.
‘Try this now.’
I tried. Yes, it tasted so much better. It was delicious.
You stored the liquid in two bottles and put them in the fridge. Now we sat down at the kitchen table, both looking at those headless green stems. Without the flowers, they looked like a particular type of weed we would feed to pigs in China: 猪草 – pig weeds.
Our life with your flatmates was an odd one. They were like strangers yet friendly, and so close to us physically. We wondered if they could hear us in bed. We could not hear them, so we pondered if they made love at all. One night I heard a cry. Was it pleasure or a bad dream? I would look into the Irish girl’s eyes in the morning to discern some truth of her love life at night. But I found no clue. I could feel the warmth of her body as I squeezed past her in the kitchen, and thought of her boyfriend touching her.
Art for Art’s Sake
– Mao said there is no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics.
– On that note I agree with Mao.
As I originally thought about it, doing a PhD was a way of finding a place in the real world – with a set of ‘specialist’ vocabularies and methods I would have more chance to compete. But I didn’t find myself engaged in most of my seminars, nor was I inspired by talking to my supervisor. Why was that? I asked myself. Perhaps I didn’t find anything real in that environment. For me, the conflicts and discussions worth being part of were coming from the everyday world, not from academia. Sitting in lecture theatres just made me feel, acutely, a disconnection from life.
I returned home late one night, and told you about a meeting with Professor Grant. I said I would go to China in less than a year for my film project.
‘Did he agree with your proposal and everything?’ you asked.
‘More or less. We talked about the Walter Benjamin essay – “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”.’
‘Oh, how come?’
‘Because it is related to my research.’
‘But mechanical reproduction is to do with machines – you said the Chinese workers reproduce paintings with their hands. It’s not quite the same thing, is it?’
‘Oh, please don’t take it so literally. You’re like my professor! Overly pedantic and a bit picky.’ I was impatient. I couldn’t attack my professor, but I could attack you. So I continued: ‘Don’t you see my Chinese artisans are acting like machines?! They are reproducing machine-like behaviour.’
‘Okay, but isn’t that quite a negative, dehumanising perspective on humans?’
‘It is, and it isn’t. They are machine-like. Andy Warhol said he wanted to be a machine. It can be quite liberating too. Individual thought is overly worshipped, don’t you think?’
I paused, realising all this was actually not relevant. The mere fact of those workers selling their reproductions to anyone who could afford them, so the lower classes could enjoy some level of art too, was simply a good thing.
‘Mao said in his Little Red Book: There is no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics.’
‘Hmm, on that note I agree with Mao.’
You then added:
‘Take Bauhaus. I am German enough to like the Bauhaus. Those guys saw no separation between art and social conditions. The aesthetic was the functional. Buildings were machines for living.’
‘But I really hate Bauhaus. They either look like bunkers or containers!’ I snapped. ‘In China, we have Bauhaus everywhere – from big cities to small villages. Gigantic, grey, cold, and all looking the same. No one would call that art. I wish they could be blown up.’
I opened and closed your fridge – there was nothing in it, just a bare space that reminded me of some ugly modernist construction.
You got up from your chair, looking a little peeved. You never wanted to spend too much time on an intellectual discussion. You were a man interested in physical reality. Sometimes you preferred to stare at a tree rather than talk about culture.
A bit later, after we had finished our supper and I had calmed down, you asked:
‘Why don’t you tell your flatmate that you are moving out in a month and living with me?’
I looked at you, nodded. I found myself having the thought: we are becoming a real couple. Then I was wondering what that meant. I heard people using these words, but where would it take us?
Living-boat
– I would love to live on a boat . . .
– Seriously? On a boat?
We didn’t ask your flatmate for permission for me to move in. You said it wasn’t an issue. The landlord would not know how many people were living in the house, and besides, your flatmate’s girlfriend also stayed here without paying extra rent. We could all live together with very little cost.
Now we four people shared a two-bedroom flat with a tiny bathroom. The toilet was always busy and the kitchen was always full of steamy pots and the smell of fried onions. In the bedroom, we turned on Radio 3 all day long so we didn’t have to listen to the music from the next room. I had never listened to so much classical music in my life – now Radio 3 had fixed a station somewhere in my brain. And it would play on its own even when I unplugged the radio.
In the evening, after everyone returned from work, we either hid in our bedroom, or went out for a walk till the flatmates had finished eating. One night not long after I’d moved in, you told me you wanted to move out.
‘Yes. I agree. This is like living in a Chinese dormitory!’ I said.
‘I would love to live on a boat,’ you murmured.
‘Seriously? On a boat?’
‘Yes. One of those narrowboats you see on the canal.’
This was completely out of blue. Even though I’d noticed you always slowed down whenever we walked along Regent’s Canal, I had not realised you were looking at boats and imagining a life on them. We often walked from Victoria Park, along the water, towards Dalston, and you would stop by the canal watching people moor and ask them about their firewood and stoves.
You gazed wistfully out through the window. Ther
e were grim-looking estates, treeless backyards littered with rubbish. You said, slightly dispirited:
‘When I studied architecture at Edinburgh, we looked at Frank Gehry and some other architects’ designs. I often asked myself: would I be happy to live in those buildings for the rest of my life? Deep down I’m ambivalent. I find those designs too crude. Those monuments were born from the ego, but not for people. I would rather live in a tree house, or on a boat, if I could.’
This was the first time I learned that you had doubts about what you had studied and devoted your life to.
‘But don’t you like your profession?’
‘Yes, I love my work. But at the Design School it was all about selling your ideas, no matter how unsuitable they might be in reality. That’s why I preferred landscape design, which is not so much focused on buildings but more to do with the environment and nature.’
‘What about Edinburgh? You studied there for a few years. Isn’t it a nice city to live in?’
‘Yes, but as a modern architect, what was I supposed to do in an all-listed old town? We couldn’t touch anything, every building and every stone was protected. There was no space to experiment.’
I see. Now I understood you a little more, I thought. Especially the way you see a perfect space to live in. But on a boat? In a city like London? I was not convinced.
‘I like the Regent’s Canal,’ you said. ‘It has both a natural and an industrial feel. There is a particular English charm.’
‘But where on the canal? It is a long canal, going through the whole city!’
‘Anywhere. We can find a quiet spot by the park or near some woods.’
You paused, distracted by the sound of repeated flushing from the bathroom. The toilet always needed some encouragement. We often had to pour water from a bucket into the bowl.
You tried to ignore the sound of toilet activities and continued: ‘On a boat, we won’t have to share our kitchen or bathroom any more.’
I liked that idea. I imagined drinking morning coffee half naked on a boat, or reading a novel by the water and looking at ducks drifting by.
