“You should give me a discount this time,” she argued loudly. “I am always coming here. I’m a regular customer and buying more from you than most customers, and yet I don’t get a decent discount…”
“Miss…” the young girl at the counter tried to interrupt her, when she herself got interrupted.
“Li Chou,” I whispered to myself, recalling her name.
“My friend came here yesterday, and she said that she got a good discount. Why not me? Why are you against me?”
“Li Chou.” I called her name as I walked to her. She turned and smiled broadly as she looked at me.
“Who is this guy?” she clasped her hands, before spreading them before her and walking quickly towards me.
We hugged swiftly and then pulled away to face each other.
“You are back,” she whispered, and her hands loosely gripped my fingers, which I gladly allowed.
“I am.”
“Where do you live?” She asked, and her shy smile covered her face.
“Nearby. Where do you work?”
“For a while I worked at Blooming, as the manager there is a family friend. That company is very small in space and in results. Now I work as a network administrator in a European-owned private company, but I often think of leaving it and seeking a different path in life.”
We paused for a while and stared at each other.
“I see you are having a good discussion with the girl.” I nodded towards the girl at the counter.
“Oh, no. You heard that? Nothing here protects the consumer’s rights.”
I now placed my wrapped flowers on the cashier’s desk. I looked at the girl with a tender smile.
“Will you please give us a discount?” I said with the charm required for the moment.
“Okay, sir,” said the ugly counter girl.
Li approached and was about to open her mouth to start a new argument, I guess, when I placed my hand on her back and pressed it there. She took it, as I intended, as an indication to keep quiet, and she closed her lips. We went out and stood under the thin shade the shop provided. She looked down and picked a yellow umbrella at the side of the door.
“Is it yours?” I asked, doubting for a while any answer that would agree.
“Hmm,” Li answered. “I just forgot it here.”
She leaned a little forward as she opened the umbrella, and the figure of this girl who was once a student of mine lit a spark that energized and awoke all my senses with a shock of current. I could see how her white blouse and pink skirt still fitted her and gave her fine figure a pleasant appearance. I could see that I might not be able to keep myself from caressing tits and cunts for the rest of my life journey as I had promised myself.
Li was as tidy in her dress and speech as she had been when a student. Nothing had changed in her during my absence. Her straight hair was still the same length, her lips carried the same natural redness, the same blush brushed her cheeks, and the shape of her body hadn’t changed a bit. Even her not fully mature character remained the same, but that always suited my taste. I had never been attracted to a girl with roughness or a manly strength of character. It is the special softness of femininity that is in the best of taste. But wait! There was one thing that had changed in her character: she was shyer. She used to be more daring and expose her character as a student, but she was very quiet now. Or was it that she was shy now that she was with me without the boundaries of teacher and student?
During the minute we walked side by side under the yellow umbrella, I kept wondering how far I might go with Li and whether it was right to feed myself upon her at this stage of my life, even though at that moment I could swear that she, even if just for a split second, had a wicked fantasy of having sex with me. It was undeniable. Her dead silence all of a sudden and her heavier blushing made it clear that something of that sort was tickling her lust and breeding in her mind. The drops of rain hammered in slow motion on the top of our narrow roof, and I thought for a couple of seconds that they would tear their way through it.
“Would you like to eat something?” I asked.
“Actually I am going to my grandmother’s. She asked me to bring her flowers. Would you like to come with me?”
“Where?”
“To my grandma’s. She is a peaceful old lady, and she will be happy to see you with me.”
The question “why” lingered in my mind, but I didn’t wish to say it. We walked in silence again. One side of my arm was touching hers, and my partially wet hair was dripping at the back of my neck, forming a path that tickled along the line of my back.
We reached a decent red house, and the doorbell was answered by an old lady whose aged face and the slightly bent back concealed the strength of her body. The grandmother kissed Li and shook hands with me.
“Hi, handsome,” she said, and as I felt the force of her hand, she looked in my eyes and smiled, as if showing off her ageless power.
I followed Li into the house and to a sofa. Turning around, I expected to see the grandma following slowly behind us, but I had an amazing shock when my eyes caught her small figure moving quickly towards the kitchen. Since when could turtles run? I couldn’t believe it, and when I looked at Li, she smiled and leaned her head to one side.
“She is a superwoman, you see.” Li said and placed her lower lip under the top one while wearing the same smile.
The running turtle appeared from the kitchen holding a tray with two glasses of juice. She placed it on the table and sat opposite us on a rocking chair with a long back rest. The old lady looked like the skeleton of a princess left over for decades who had once been on a throne.
“You seem to have found a man at last,” the old lady said and leaned to pick up her glasses and a thick bible-like book.
“He was my teacher, Gerald Arsov,” Li commented quickly to forestall any allegation from her grandma that I was her boyfriend.
The grandmother, having heard my name, gave me with a hard look. The smile on her face faded for a while, and her mouth opened. She felt frightened somehow, but then she recollected herself and her simple smile returned.
“Your teacher,” she said and then released a quick cough.
“He was my…” Li started loudly, but then the volume of her voice went down. “Favourite teacher.”
“You stay here, daughter,” the grandma said, looking at Li, and she stood up from her chair. “Your father will be visiting in a couple of hours. I have to go to my yoga class.”
“But today is Friday; you don’t have classes on Friday,” said Li.
“I have today. Give some clothes to Gerald so he can change. He may catch cold in his wet dress. Have a good day, young man.” She quickly walked out of the house.
“I am very sorry, Gerald. How did I miss seeing your wet clothes? Come, you may borrow some of my father’s.” I walked behind her to one of the rooms. Li opened a closet. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. Suddenly she gets upset for no reason.”
“She is an old lady after all.”
“I guess so.” She took out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. “You can borrow these.”
“What for? It is better I leave now,” I said.
“Why?” The question came loud, but she lowered her voice once more as she continued. “You will not be having lunch with us?”
“Well, if only I am invited.”
“You are,” she responded instantly. “Haven’t I mentioned that?” She reached out to hand me the clothes.
“I guess you didn’t.”
I didn’t know exactly whether she was just assuming that I could always read her thoughts and that I would do what I was expected to in her mind, or if it was just acting at the right moment. But I was even more certain that she wished to be with me. I wished the same because of the deep respect I natu
rally carried for her. She was a really decent girl, but the strength of the taboos raised by my respect for her didn’t stop me having a secret lust for licking her warm flesh.
“So you are staying?” Her mouth remained open at the end of the half question.
“I am.”
I took the clothes from her hands and nodded to her. She giggled happily in a semi-muted tone and drew the door half-closed as she went out. I took off my wet spotted grey shorts and then my blue T-shirt and rubbed my hair dry with the latter, before piling them on the floor that felt cold under my bare feet. Unzipping the white shorts she had provided, I slid my legs into them, I zipped them up round my waist; they fitted me almost perfectly. I pushed my head through the neck opening of the T-shirt, and as I pulled my hands through, my eyes suddenly caught sight of a picture on the wall of a normal-looking guy with a thick moustache and hands resting backwards on the front of a green Hummer vehicle. A vague fierce current of hard feeling went through me, accompanied by a flow of inner heat through my throat. Feeling dizzy and as if I was about to throw up, I quickly located the bed and collapsed on it, producing a loud bang as I fell on it, the bed being very low to the floor. I stopped myself from falling back and covered my eyes with my palms. Suddenly, with hidden horrors, images of blood appeared in front of me, and their taste ran in my mouth. I forced open my eyes and the sound of the door opening rang in my ears. I thought at first it was the effect of the turbulent emotional situation I was in, but then the figure of Fang stood in front of me for a second and then drew closer to me.
“What’s wrong, Gerald? What’s wrong?”
Two light hands were placed on my shoulders and I lifted my face to see Fang’s bright face. Unconsciously, I dropped my hands around her waist and pressed my face against her flat belly. Tears ran from my eyes in irrational fear, as it seemed at the time. It was the first time, I guess, that I showed my tears to any of the girls I had been with, but it, wasn’t the last.
“Fang…” came out my mouth.
“What happened?” she asked, slipping her fingers through my hair.
I then realized suddenly the world I was in, and opening my eyes on reality, the light-pink skirt reminded me of the identity of the girl I was holding. No Fang was near; there was only Li. I withdrew from her quickly and started wiping my eyes with the bottom of the T-shirt I had on.
She sat next to me. Her gentle fingers kept caressing my hair and my scalp.
“I will be with you no matter what is happening in your mind,” Li said.
She pressed her face closer to mine, but her lips were visibly trembling. She didn’t have the same courage now as she had when she was a student to kiss me, even on the cheek. Our eyes met for a while, and mine dropped to her lips; her top lip wiped the bottom, leaving it wet. I strongly felt she was my salvation from the current storm of hardness that had emerged. With force, I took those shy lips into mine, swallowed them, and licked hard the jewelled candy that presumably, for that short moment, belonged to me. But the glorious moment came when my action was met with a similar reaction. Li pressed her chest tight against mine so that her small breasts flattened and disappeared against my chest, and her heart bumped and bumped through her chest with a loud sound to my ears. The sweet fear that was capturing her about the deed she was involved in with a previous teacher caused her saliva drip into my mouth. This scene may seem disgusting and unnatural to some, but it is so sweet when it involves a man and a sweet angelic creature. I swallowed her dry mouth, and when I held her by her shoulders and detached myself from her, I could see how sweetly swollen her lips were, and her heavy breathing was enticing as if she had just completed some physical exercise. Her light brown eyes dropped to my lips as well, and she childishly chuckled.
There was no way, I guess, either of us could back off now. We had given ourselves to the demon of true lust when first our lips met—or, no, it was when I first accepted her invitation to accompany her to her grandmother’s home. I truly didn’t wish to take advantage of Li in any unethical manner, because she was a special gift looked at by my heart in the whole of my venture. She was like the sweetest dessert that one would keep for the end to savour most above all, and fate had reserved her for me at the end of my life. I drew my hand down her shoulder and paused at the top mound of her left breast. Her pure heart vibrated under my hand, and my latest motion produced a fascinating reaction from her. She lifted my T-shirt and hid her small head underneath, and her dry mouth created a cosy wet feeling as she sucked my breast and nipple like a child deprived for long from what it legitimately deserved. My one hand eagerly went to her back and removed the bra from her chest, while the other hand crawled down across her belly. Only then could I feel her firmly shaped abs; I never knew her to be a sports girl, but abs shaped this way on a girl always won my dislike and disapproval. The thought of caressing her belly withdrew from my mind, and I slid my hand lower, stretching the top elastic band of the panties and dropping those hungry fingers in.
Our clothes started flying off as the next step, and that young flower never ceased to tremble in my arms throughout the execution of the needed task, but all those trembles and the tears of pain she shed the whole time sweetened the whole process, because I realized she really enjoyed it despite her limited experience.
At the end of it all, she lay next to me. Both of us were open-eyed, but she gazed at the ceiling. I turned myself on one side and drew with the tip of my finger an imaginary line on the side of her neck.
“I have had casual sex a few times before when I got desperately and depressingly drunk, but nothing serious. My grandma always laughs at me, saying that I am not lucky in my love life,” Li said.
I knew that she wasn’t lucky with me either. She was the first girl for whom I had carried feelings both before and after intercourse. I couldn’t see how to tell her that I really liked her, but it wouldn’t be useful at all to admit it to her, seeing that I had just less than a year to live. Should I marry her, I wondered, and give her pain for the coming nine months. It would have surely brought me happiness, but it would have been very bad of me to do so and spoil her beautiful young life. I would have been selfish to make that decision, and that wasn’t among the principles I believed in.
“Having this pure heart of yours, you surely will be lucky with your love life,” I said.
“How do you know?” She turned her face now to face me.
“I can just see it.”
A moment of fine silence followed while my nose enjoyed sniffing her damp skin that still bore some trace of a wonderful light perfume. Then I recalled the strange feeling I had experienced minutes before. I turned my face towards the picture hanging on the wall. Again a strange shock, though lighter, held me. I couldn’t make out what that feeling was and the source of it. I did get strange feelings towards things around me from time to time, but never one so violent.
“Who is this moustached man?” I asked, my eyes still fixed on the picture.
“Oh,” Li chuckled. “He is my father, Gen.” Then after a pause she continued. “He is not much liked in our family, even though he is rich and clever. My grandmother doesn’t favour him much because of his attitude towards the family. He is always drunk, and he is the kind of person who speaks his thoughts no matter how offensive they might be.”
I giggled slowly. “So how does your mother stay with him?”
“I don’t know my mother, to be honest. I was the product of him having casual sex with a strange woman, who ran away one month after giving birth to me because of the cruel treatment of my father. I really wish she had taken me with her, because the father I know I only meet once a month. Today is one of the exceptional days when I see my father in an unplanned way.”
I wrapped my hand around her and placed a deep kiss on her lips. Her response was to lift her head a little off the pillow and return my kiss with a deep breath. Our new session of
sharing lips was interrupted by the sound of the door alarm. In a fearful manner, Li pushed me and the nail of her thumb scratched through the skin on the top of my chest. She jumped out of the bed with the blanket wrapped around her, and her hands held it so as not to display any sign of her breasts and other critical areas, as if it wasn’t me who had just nailed her minutes ago. She picked up all the scattered pieces of her clothes and ran into the bathroom.
“You put on your dress,” she shouted. “Father is here.”
I calmly followed her order. I didn’t care about her father and grandmother for having sex with a fully grown-up girl. After all, having a casual sex is a decision made by two parties. I enjoyed watching her nervous actions.
She came out of the bathroom and started to comb her hair while at the same time adjusting her clothes.
“I will help you,” I said as I took the comb from her hand and started running it through her shiny hair. Her arbitrary movements made it very difficult, and she exclaimed quietly in pain as the points of the comb came in contact with her scalp.
“Li…” the voice of the grandmother came from hall.
Li stood at the door of the room and beckoned me to follow her. We went out together and the fast-walking turtle was coming into the kitchen with a plastic bag in her hand. Li ran into the kitchen after her, leaving me behind, and started helping the old lady with the stuff in the bag. She was fascinating, that Li girl, and she deserved the best of life.
I walked to the sofas and switched on the unique yellow television. The news was on, and it was talking about a murder case, the victim of which was a young school girl. I listened to the Chinese commentator, whose nose seemed to be blocked as her voice sounded as if it was coming from deep in her throat. The young school girl was chopped into pieces and each piece was thrown in a different garbage bin across the city. It was horrible even to hear about it.
MEMORIES from the EAST Page 16
