That night I found out for the first time that Trinh had already got a job in the city and she was to start in a couple of weeks.
She started moving her bottom on the bench then to the left and right and laughing, saying that she wanted to test the strength of it. I warned her that it was going to crack, but she refused to listen to me. It did break down in the end; the two back legs cracked. We fell on our backs, but her laughter continued forcing me to laugh as well. It all ended all in a couple of minutes, and we were now looking up at the black sky. The lightning increased its frequency, but it was mute as if the sky wished to listen to our little talk.
“Do you know why I used to colour my face at college?” she asked.
“No, but I wish to know,” I replied.
“I am a virgin. I promised myself that I will lose this virginity only to the person I believe in.”
“And when are you going to find that person?”
She turned her face to me, and at that moment a drop of rain bounced directly into my eye. Suddenly, the quiet sky spoke, and it spoke loudly. We collected ourselves and ran to our cottage. She was laughing again and leaping all the way. By the time we were there, our bodies were dripping wet. She brought in towels, and we started to dry ourselves. My eyes fell on her small chest, and for the first time I caught sight of those two nipples bumping through her wet dress. I raised my eyes to her face and could read in her face that she had already noticed my attention to those two small balls.
Without a warning, she pushed herself towards me, and her small wet lips were sucking mine. I caught her head with both my hands and pushed it back. A thin thread of mixed saliva hung low connecting both our mouths, but it broke fast. I looked her in the eyes.
“I am not the man you should believe in,” I said seriously.
“You are just someone with a disturbed heart,” she whispered. “I can see your true colours. I can sense your pure spirit.”
She unlaced the threads at the front of her light yellow dress and with my support the dress was removed. I undressed myself, and she removed whatever parts she still had on. She came closer and our feet touched, her small feet in between mine. I flattened my lips against her rosemary-smelling neck.
I wouldn’t disturb her virginity, you see. However bad I was and am, I wished her to give her purity to someone worthy, and I wasn’t that person. Any feelings I had carried for her earlier fell there at that moment. With pure lust I approached her. Our wet flesh rubbed against each other, and her hard nipples pierced below mine.
I moved my face down and knelt on the ground. I gently caressed her thighs and opened them wide, and the secret of the moment was there. I started it there and ended it all there. I pushed my mouth hard there, and my wet tongue did the rest of the magic tricks. I kept licking her hard and eating her up. Being a girl inexperienced in the whole process, her whole body trembled and started shaking violently just at the first couple of minutes. I could see her face grow red and full of agonized pleasure. At first she put one hand on her mouth in an attempt to conceal whatever she was too shy to let out, but as the minutes passed, she gave up on that attempt, and I could see her now trying to keep up on her feet. Her moans were loud enough to increase my pleasure. Her arms spread and attached on each side onto whatever might have served as a support. It was nice hearing her scream for the first time. It was nice seeing her explode at the end and break down with weak legs.
I gave her the pleasure she might have sought. I just shook that nice rose; I didn’t crush it.
At the end of my journey there, she gave me the following words:
“Unless you kill your sadness, you will die of it.”
19
Once I grew bored of my stay in Vietnam, I was to fulfil my promise to Howin, my college programming teacher. I returned to China and had only to show my face to Howin to get a job in the college I graduated from. Even so long after my graduation, I could see my affect still lingered on her. I believe the charms of my youth hadn’t lost their captive power over her.
Soon after joining the college as a faculty member, I starting fucking Howin. I guess it was the reason she asked me to work there and was still accepting me. The woman was very proud of what she was getting in bed, and she started talking to other female faculty members about it. As a result of this, many middle-aged women in the college turned desiring eyes on me. Out of all of them, I allowed myself to enter the realms of only three in addition to Howin. I realized that most of them were already married and had kids, but I did what I was attracted to. The three I had chosen carried some sort of encouraging beauty in bed.
I was really upset to see those married women letting themselves loose for a desire that lasts only moments. The truth is that none of those women, including Howin, could hold it in if the intercourse lasted more than half an hour. I fucked them really hard with some anger, but that attracted me towards them even more. They had conscious unfulfilled desires that they wished to outsource to some temporary active partner, and a young one for sure.
It was the power of youth, the purely unconcealed influence in the eyes of those who have let much of it pass by and yet long to have it remain present in their lives. It was the fake sense of captivating beauty and charms of an age where everything may turn possible. It was the caprice of having a muscular manhood present in bed who can demonstrate in them the secret sexual whims that linger in their minds when their actual spouse has turned weak.
One of my female students, Li Chou, I admired. She always wore a short-sleeved white blouse and a long light-pink skirt, with the blouse tucked inside the skirt, whose belt rose up just a few inches below her chest. She was very tidy in her dress, the way she walked and spoke. She was a good student in programming and other subjects as well, as I was informed by other teachers. Though there had been eye-to-eye communications between me and her surpassing just respect, I didn’t allow it to go any further. In the end I was a teacher, and carrying on with students might bring a bad reputation to the college.
To be a teacher didn’t require me to gain any additional skill; all it needed was knowledge in what I talked about and confidence. I had enough of both, and so I was good at what I was doing. I didn’t like the way Howin used to teach. I tried to make programming a delicious subject to my students, first because I liked programming, and second because I was getting paid for my job.
I wasn’t satisfied though with only that job in hand. My mind was getting lost in the second half of the day when I sat alone in my apartment or in some coffee shop. Through readings and writings I used to do, I was getting depressed from time to time, sometimes very deeply. I was still some years away from my planned death schedule, and I didn’t wish to end it there and then.
I stopped going to the free college gym, when one day I went to some local gym near my apartment and met my old friend, Bojing, who was now working there as a trainer. From then on, I used to attend that gym, for the first week as a trainee and after that as a trainer. Bojing gave the management there a good reference for me. I got some fitness tests and passed them all.
Bojing kept his body as fit as when we had worked out together in the college gym. It was as if he didn’t increase or decrease any inch of muscle. Working with him gave me some fun. If there was one gay who acted “manly”, that was Bojing. My part-time work in the gym was interesting.
Some nights he would take me to a bar. On our first encounter, he introduced me to a man as muscular as he was, with a thin face that didn’t hide its physical moisturized beauty. After a while sitting together and exchanging casual chat, a creamy light-brown skinned girl approached the guy and sat just next to him on the long sofa opposite my small round seat. The girl had big eyes. I realized the skin colour of that girl was an adopted one. Her hair was blond, dyed just to fit the colour of the skin. After exchanging some secret codes with the guy, the new girl walked towards me like a model
on a catwalk, pushed a seat next to me, and rested her artificially enlarged bottom there.
The girl rested her long-nailed hand and rubbed it between my thighs. I looked at the girl and smiled. My enjoyment of that caressing diminished within me when I turned my eyes to see Bojing and his friend sharing a light lip-to-lip kiss. I could discern then the sort of relationship between them. Just the thought of trying to imagine sexual behaviour between them brought sickness to my stomach. I turned my eyes back to the girl next to me to avoid the vomiting force that was growing within me.
“Come, our rooms are ready,” Bojing’s friend said to me. “The girl is booked for you for the night.”
The two guys stood up, and I stood as well with my hand in the dry armpit area of the girl.
“You should eat well first,” Bojing told me.
That night I hadn’t eaten at all because I had been occupied with my busy training schedule for the day.
Bojing looked at his partner and they both laughed.
“You will need all you energy tonight,” the partner added. Then he took a tiny bottle from his leather jacket’s pocket and reached his hand in front of me. “Take this.”
The light-yellow liquid in the bottle made me think of urine. I was already disgusted. I refused the offer and told them that I was going to manage the night just fine. I followed them then to the top of the stairs and to the row of rooms. They took the left one and I the right.
That night ended with me fully out of fuel. They were right; I needed all my energy, but I lacked it. I guess the girl was in her mid-twenties, and despite the softness she had shown earlier, she was really hard and capable of absorbing everything that matters. She left me dried out, and I left her unsatisfied. She left the room very upset and shouted in my face that I was as gay as my other two companions. That was the joke of the night back down in the bar with Bojing and his partner.
A month before leaving China, I opened my mail box. There were four letters, one from Qiuyue and the rest from Elizabeth, my uncle’s wife. I started with the earliest dated, Qiuyue’s letter.
Thank you very much for the joys you spilled in my heart. I really and heartily appreciate all the good times you have spent with me. You are really a bliss for any girl that may come across your path.
Sorry if I have left you without a single word. The truth is that I am bound to someone I am deeply in love with.
I am going in search for a promised union.
Faithfully,
Q.
Her handwriting was as childish as her character. She might have been thinking that she left me broken-hearted and that I was in love with her. The poor girl didn’t realize that I knew the story of her pathetic life fantasies and that I didn’t love her at all. She didn’t also know that her mother gave me more delicious pleasure than she did.
I opened the first two letters from Elizabeth. She wrote describing the bad medical situation of my uncle—that he was in the hospital and always vomiting blood. His health was declining day by day, she said, and he was continuously asking about me. Elizabeth mentioned that my uncle was in the last stages of his life, and she pleaded with me to come back and visit him for one last time to bring some happiness in his heart.
The last letter carried the unwanted news.
Your uncle died last week, and at the end the only thing on his tongue was your name. There were tears in his eyes as he called, not mine, but your name, turning his eyes to the left and right looking for you. But you were nowhere near us for the moment that most mattered.
I have seen children take shelter under a good falling roof. When they grow, they rebuilt the roof because of the simple protection it had offered them once in their life time. I have known young girls who have sold themselves for the sake of repaying the good deeds of their mothers towards them. I have heard of criminals changing to priests because of few touching words someone spoke to them in a polite way.
Years ago I took an evil into my home. I fed the child love while all it needed was hatred. When the whole world had abandoned him, my husband and I sheltered him. When he grew up, he simply abandoned us. That evil is you.
We gave you more care than your stupid mother had ever offered you. But you are a selfish, unfeeling man. My home shall ever remain closed for you. There is nothing ever between people who say nothing and never meet. I guess you have inherited nothing from your father but all the foolishness of your mother. God help your soul.
I still keep all those letters. It never pleased me to hear the news of the death of my uncle. I really loved him and respected him. It was true that I got the news late, but even if I had been informed of it earlier, I would not have gone back to the United States to visit him. As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t wish to attach myself closely to anything or anyone. I believed it was better being away from others; living and dying with a free unbound heart.
I never blamed Elizabeth for carrying hard feelings against me. She might be right about them. Yes, it is true that I am an evil, but I never wished or planned to hurt intentionally anyone who didn’t hurt me. For my part, I still and will always love Elizabeth and my uncle. I don’t deny their good deeds bestowed upon me.
My visit to China had lasted two years and one month, but it ended there. I turned in my resignation at the college a month earlier. This time Howin didn’t try to stop me from leaving. Having satisfied her whims with me, what more would such a woman require from me?
I left China with the sadness about my uncle and one sweet kiss at the end of my lips. That kiss was a gift from my student, the cunning Li.
20
My next ten months were spent in the Philippines, the country where heart-stopping scenery is mixed with poverty and where modern lifestyles are surrounded by primitive ones where even good food and shelter are lacking.
The first thing I did when I reached Manila was to buy myself a new guitar. It had been some time since I had last played on it, and I missed it. I found a simple crowded restaurant and took a seat. The bamboo-made restaurant was located on a narrow two-lane road, and the space separating the restaurant from the road was a small grassy slope. I wondered how that restaurant survived during the times of heavy rains that the country is used to.
The crowded restaurant was very quiet. It was as if all the people there had lost their tongues. Most of them were drinking liquors in small amounts, but none were speaking to the others. I turned my eyes around and caught some peaceful eyes fixed on me. The waiter approached me with a menu in hand. Giving a quick look at it, I ordered Halo-Halo.
“Don’t worry about this people,” the tender said in broken English. “They have his own problems.”
The old men really looked sad, and the cracked lines on their faces were more than those on the rough tables of the restaurant. Most of them were looking out at the view of the sunset. The horizon was flaming in dark orange, and just the head of the sun was sneaking a look over the top of the humps of the mountains. That view might have brought some beauty to their inner selves as it brought into mine.
The waiter came back with a bowl of Halo-Halo in one hand and a spoon wrapped in a piece of tissue in the other. I paid for the order. I took my guitar and started with a low rhythm playing and singing:
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.1
1 “Jenny kissed me” by Leigh Hunt
It was as if my music added lively souls to the half-dead bodies sitting on the cracked wooden chairs. They just started, though slowly, talking to each other and even smiling. I kept playing my guitar f
or the sake of seeing more of those old moving lips. Though their smiles added more wrinkles to their faces, they looked good wearing their smiles. I looked at the waiter, and he raised his eyebrows.
Suddenly, I saw a young girl walking towards my table. The next thing I saw was her hand stretched out holding a small card and then putting it on the table in front of me. I explored her face first before exploring the card. She had very short hair like a boy’s that gave an overall fine look to her tiny skull, where the cheekbones were clearly visible and the eyes were slightly swollen, with the left one naturally narrower than the other. She had thin lips that matched well her skinny body. She looked just fair in my judgment.
MEMORIES from the EAST Page 10
