“Hello,” came her soft voice, and it seemed to be followed by an unusual question mark.
“This is Gerald.”
“Hi…” she said in a broken voice, and I could sense her getting nervous all over again. I heard her saying something to someone, which was followed by the sound of her footsteps.
“Hi,” she said again.
“Did I call at a bad time?” I questioned, thinking about the delay between her first and second answers.
“No, it’s never bad a time for you.” She spoke with some rhythm.
“When shall I see you?”
“See me? Oh… when you are free? Okay, next… next… ,” she said.
“Next?” I echoed.
“Next week, Gerald. Is it fine with you?”
Of course it was. Why wouldn’t it be?
“Yes, and?” I was waiting for full details rather than small scraps of information.
“On Tuesday. Next Tuesday we shall meet. At nine o’clock in the evening near the Starbucks opposite the college.”
“Okay, beautiful.” I complimented her before closing the line.
I entered my small room and locked the door behind me. The wall was decorated by paintings I spent nights on; they were directly on the wall without any canvas or other material. I painted greens—trees, flowers, and gardens. Some of my books were arranged in one corner of the room, and on the opposite corner was my collection of origami, the centre of which was a grey paper vase with a bouquet of yellow paper-made flowers.
I tried to fill my life with things around me, but could fill nothing of fulfilled joy within myself.
9
Tuesday came. Qiuyue had stopped visiting the library, contrary to her normal habit, since the day she had asked me out. By eight, I locked the library. The old librarian, Shun Zun, had great trust in me for a reason I didn’t inquire about. I had full authority in the library when he was not around, and he had requested me to take, in his absence, any necessary decision required for the best interests of the library. I remember once I asked a young guy to leave the library as he was harassing a girl who was doing some reading. Later I found out that the guy was the son of a rich family, and when the college director summoned me, Shun Zun stubbornly talked to him, saying that if I was to leave the college, he would do so as well. Old Shun wasn’t just a well-respected figure in the college, but also in society.
“You have great management skills,” he told me one day, adjusting his round, thin-rimmed, Harry Potter-like glasses with his pinkie finger—the gesture which I remembered more about him than any other and the gesture which brought humour in class, as some students used to imitate him.
Shun Zun resembled a typical old warrior from ancient times. He had thin, steep eyebrows that added on his angry-looking face, in addition to the V-shaped curve in the area in between those eyebrows. Three or four thin hairs dangled just below each side of his cheeks, and those were his moustache. In his thin-lipped mouth, he hung a pipe that looked like it belonged to Sherlock Holmes.
I walked to the gym locker, where I deposited a few of my clothes, and met a few gym-mates, mostly Chinese. They greeted me and asked me whether I was joining them that day. I excused myself, saying that I had a date, which presumably was true.
“Yes, man,” Bojing giggled, demonstrating his white teeth. Then he hit me mockingly with the back of his fingers on my abs. “She is a Chinese, isn’t she?” He kept giggling.
I smiled and nodded.
“Fuck you, man. Be careful of the hair, ha!” he finally said, taking off his shirt and walking to the swimming pool. His six-pack abs were well shaped, and most of his back areas were muscles.
Bojing was a good guy and very hard-working in the gym. He was the first guy I got to know upon joining the college gym. He used to help me in my weight lifting even though I didn’t ask him for any help. I didn’t know much about him other than his great sense of humour and his dream of being a model in the future—when he had time for it, as he said. He told me a few times that many teens and ladies of his country were keeping thick pubic hair. That’s where his last statement came from. He told me many times that he had experienced swallowing a couple of hairs while eating the cunt of a girl.
I changed my dress and put on some floral cologne. I picked out the bouquet of paper flowers I had made a few days ago, and a book. I locked the locker and walked out.
I reached the Starbucks coffee shop within five minutes. I checked my watch. It was still only twenty past eight; I was early. I decided to stop at the nearest lamppost and read my book while waiting for Qiuyue. Only then did I see the thin statue-like body, standing with her back against the lamppost I was walking towards, and her black hair drawn on the left side of her shoulder, thus revealing the right side of her olive-skinned neck. I was sure that she was Qiuyue even before seeing her face because of her outfit that I had already memorized—the same T-shirt and skirt. This time she was wearing an alizarin skirt and a gold T-shirt, with simple green slippers in her feet. “How bad she is at choosing colours!” I remember thinking at the time.
I walked up and stood directly behind her. Still she was unaware of my presence. I reached my hand and lightly pinched her milk-white naked neck. She started and jumped. I started laughing as she turned and looked at me with grim eyes and with her upper teeth tight on the left part of her lower lip.
“You are early!” she said.
“You are early.” I smiled and looked at her face.
There was something different in her. Only now could I see a tiny dried black pimple on the left lower side of her jaw. But that wasn’t the thing I found that I liked. It was the glasses she was wearing, black-framed clear glass. It was the first time I had seen her with the glasses, but she looked really different, much sexier than she was already, as it added touches of new beauty to her white complexion.
She saw me now staring at her eyes.
“Oh, I should take them off.” She looked down as she put her fingers on the outer edge of her glasses trying to take them off.
“No,” I said, and I put my hand on her shoulder.
She stopped, but the glasses were already in her hand now as she looked at me. Her eyebrows lifted up a little in an attempt to understand my meaning.
“They look good on you. You look prettier with them.”
She blushed and said nothing, but she sure was happy. Her eyes fell on my hand.
“This is for you,” I said, presenting her the bouquet of paper flowers I was carrying.
She took the bouquet from my hand and looked at it all over. Then she laughed.
“Where this came from? I like it!”
“From my garden,” I answered quickly.
She looked at me, and again her eyebrows lifted, asking for clarification.
“I made it.”
She didn’t make any more comment about it but just pressed it lightly close to her chest. Now her eyes moved to look at my other hand. She took the book from my hand and read the title, Switch Bitch. She asked me why I was carrying the book. I answered that I hadn’t expected to meet her early and thus I had planned to read until she came.
“So where do you wish to go?” I asked, taking the book from her hand.
“Wherever you will take me,” came her simple answer.
I paused for a while to think of a suitable place. The idea of taking her to a nearby bar came into my mind, but I discarded the thought as it looked a cheap idea given that Qiuyue was a very shy person. The idea of taking her to a good restaurant wasn’t on the table, as she confirmed that she already had her dinner, though I didn’t believe it. I remembered seeing a cinema not so far from the college, and it was showing a good movie, Love in the Time of Cholera, which was based on the magnificent novel by Gabriel García Marquez.
“Cinema?” I asked.<
br />
Qiuyue nodded with a smile.
We rode the first bus, which stopped just a few steps away from the cinema after about seven minutes. We bought tickets and a small box of popcorn and went in. We were just in time; the lights in the hall were turned off and the movie started. Qiuyue started eating popcorn, while I held the box in my hand. I was staring at the big screen, but my focus was half slyly turned to Qiuyue, who instead of watching the movie, was staring at me, thinking that I was in ignorance of her gaze. I made no motion to make her think otherwise. I could see that the girl had some liking for me. I liked her too. When I turned my head to her, she would turn hers too, but to the screen. I kept doing so many times for the sake of forcing her to watch the movie, or at least a little of it.
The movie had some sexual and nude scenes. Whenever a scene of this type would come, I could glimpse Qiuyue turn her head left and right to look at the youngsters, boys and girls, hugging and making some noises. I realized she was wishing for some intimate gestures, and so I put my arm next to hers and lay my head next to her head and then lifted it back up. She looked at me and smiled. She understood my implications and wrapped her left arm into mine.
She started to give more attention to the movie, as it was getting really interesting, until there came one scene where I could sense her embarrassment, as she was confused whether to look at the screen or drop her eyes into her lap. The scene was when Fermina, the main female character, came into the bed of her husband, Juvenal. The husband tried to put his hand on his wife’s bosom. Qiuyue decided to look down into her lap, trying to conceal her blushes. I was sure that she wouldn’t show the same shy blush if she happened to be watching the scene alone. It was the sweet shyness of sharing sexual thoughts, ideas, and scenes with someone of the other sex, especially a newcomer into one’s life.
I liked her character; it seemed so sweet and shy, even if that shyness wasn’t completely genuine. I told myself that it was a suitable moment to intrude into her with some gesture suggesting my lust for her. Frankly speaking, although I did like her at that point, physical satisfaction was what I sought most from Qiuyue.
I slyly freed my hand that was wrapped by Qiuyue’s, and moved it down and stopped as it touched her flat tummy. Only then did I see how soft was her slightly velvet T-shirt. Then I brushed my hand against that soft wall. Her silence there meant a green signal for me. I glanced at her lap. There was my gift, the flower bouquet, resting in tranquillity. My fingers crawled down, under the bouquet, and just parked there. She gave a small quick shiver but kept silent. I leaned against her side and pushed my hand a little further down, and my fingers touched the end of her skirt. In a few seconds, my palm was on her left thigh, and the cloth of the skirt started folding and getting pulled upward along with the movement of my hand. My fingers tapped and danced there on that soft surface. I looked at her. There was a movement in her throat that came from repeated swallowing, but she didn’t look at me, only up and to her right side. The soft dancing of my fingers on her thigh provoked a soft dance in her feelings as well. I knew that she liked to be caressed like that and she didn’t mind it; she was just shy. The tips of my fingers were just near the end of the thigh, where also the end line of her panties curved.
The movie ended, and so ended my caressing. I prayed that this had aroused some sexual desires in her. I never was the type to initiate asking any girl to sleep with me. I had my pride about that, however strong my lust for sex.
We came out the cinema, with her walking slowly (slower than when entered). She tried to avoid looking at me, and so her eyes would look down or at the bouquet of flowers in her hand.
“How will you go home now?” I asked.
“I… will take a taxi. There are plenty here.” Then she heaved a nervous sigh. “Can… drop me home?” she asked. “I am not used to going home alone late at night.”
At first I thought that she would ward me off in her way, but now I could see I might get my way with her for the night.
“Yes, sure,” I replied.
We stopped the first taxi, and Qiuyue mentioned the address. Within twenty minutes we were at the gate of the building where she lived, but unfortunately she was already asleep with her head resting on my shoulder. I paid the taxi and woke Qiuyue up. She looked like no more than a child to me. She yawned as she got out the taxi and walked inside the building, pulling me behind her with my hand like a trolley bag. She just waved at the old watchman when he asked her if she was all right, and I was left with the responsibility of explaining.
“She is a little drunk,” I lied, and the old man held his hands together under his chin with a big toothless smile.
We walked to the elevator and took it up to the third floor. The corridor was dimly lit and the smell of Chinese food was everywhere. Qiuyue unlocked room 301 and stepped in while still holding my hand. She really looked drunk. I saw that it was just one untidy apartment, but clean. She walked then inside the only bedroom in the apartment and sat on the scrambled bed.
“Will you sleep beside me?” she said simply, to my shock.
I stood in front of her and looked down at her face. Her eyes were struggling to keep fully open. I wondered for a while if I might have given her some drink by mistake or if she had taken any. She was now a totally new character, compared to the one I had first got to know. She had suddenly broken all her barriers of shyness and dragged me inside her apartment, and now she was asking me to sleep beside her! I couldn’t understand what was going on in her head. I was scared that she was under some unpleasant spell.
“What about your family?” I asked. “Do you live alone?”
“My mother is not home tonight. I am living with Mom only. Don’t worry about that.”
Then, just ignoring all my comments, she lay down in her bed on her right side. There was a small space still unoccupied at her back for me to fill. But before anything else, I walked back and locked the apartment door, which she had left half open. I took off my pants and T-shirt and tidily hung them on the back of the door of the room. I slowly put my hand on the bed, which produced a small crack, and then I lay beside that strange creature, as she seemed to me. But nothing of her weird character mattered. I just missed the touch of a girl’s skin and sweet body aroma.
I pushed my body closer to her and put my hand on her arm and then through her sleeve to place it on her shoulder. I sniffed through her hair with my nose touching the scalp. My hands caressed every part of her sensitive body, and with each touch she shivered as if a slight electric current went through her. I took her clothes off, one piece at a time, starting from top to bottom. A small naked butterfly was in my arms now, a child disguised in the form of a mature girl. I embraced her tightly against my body and kissed all over her face. She welcomed each and every action with ecstasy, but blocked it in front of me when I tried to charge her from the front and finish the task there. I was filled now with a certain embarrassment that she had been in my arms for more than ten minutes and then prevented me from getting my manhood’s utmost end pleasure. I started withdrawing my body from her, but she held it and stopped it there. She turned to her right side again, leaving me against her smooth bare back where the upper bones stood out vividly. Her left hand moved down to her buttocks, where she indicated for me the back door. And there it ended, with our desires ending through that door. She perspired heavily and was damp in her our wetness, but it all ended peacefully.
I held her with a tight embrace. It is so amazing to hold a beauty in your hands, and my beauty then was more or less like a child. For one instant I found myself liking her and wanting her, that strange small creature of nature. I put my lips on the back of her neck and sniffed there and closed my eyes.
I found myself like a boat floating freely and aimlessly on the shadow of an open sea. The memory of my father’s murder came into my mind in front of my eyes. I just refused to open my eyes. I kept them tight sh
ut looking at my father standing in front of me, smiling with a piece of human heart in his hand. My body started getting tighter and tighter, and with force my hands started pressing against Qiuyue’s body. She struggled and, from fear of hurting her, I withdrew my body.
My heart was pounding. I got out of the bed and covered Qiuyue with a blanket that lay improperly folded on the floor. I sat naked on the floor next to the bed, with my back against the small black drawer on which were scattered a few of her school books.
I shed a few tear drops. Peace and tranquillity crawled again into my being and dropped a dark curtain in front of my sight.
10
Footsteps were moving around lightly. I could sense it and feel it though my eyes were closed. I let my eyes open slightly, and now, with my head bent and my chin touching the hollow of my chest bone, I could see female feet just a few steps in front of me. It took me just a second to recollect where I was. Breezes from the ceiling fan were hitting against my bare thighs and the back of my neck.
I thought for a while that it was Qiuyue, but lifting my eyes along the tight slim legs, which seemed a little bigger than those of Qiuyue, my eyes reached the chest, where two humps proudly stood and alongside the head, little curled hairs dangled on each side of the small hills of the chest. Only then, without even reaching the cheeks, I could see that it was someone else. Yes, it was a little older and heavier version of my night-mate, Qiuyue.
I gazed at the face, almost motionless.
“I am her mother,” came a whisper, carrying the same tone of voice as that of little Qiuyue.
I was totally naked. The image would have been absurd, weird, even rage-inducing in some other situation, but it was so simple with that woman standing in front of me, with her eyeballs rolling inside their narrow space and flashing at me, every visible inch of me.
MEMORIES from the EAST Page 4
