"Dream is a beautiful name." She's chuckling, and the sound reverberates in her robust chest.
You say it was, to some extent, a camouflage, otherwise you would have been hauled out for criticism long ago.
"Did she also call you that? Did she fall in love with you just like that?" she asks.
"Maybe."
You say of course you were fond of her, and it wasn't just pure lust. You were very wary of women who had been to university, because they all gravitated toward the light and always tried to achieve a sort of angelic purity. You knew that your own thoughts were dark, but you had been taught a lesson by your little experience of love at university. If what you raved on about in private came to be confessed by the woman in one of the thought-report sessions set up by the Party or the work unit, you, too, would have been put on the altar for sacrifice.
"But surely there were other women?"
"If you haven't lived in that environment, you wouldn't understand."
You ask whether she would want to make love with a Nazi who might expose her Jewish background.
"Don't mention the Nazis!"
"Sorry, but there is a similarity. They made use of the same psychology," you explain. "Lin, of course, wasn't like that, but she enjoyed many privileges because of her family. She didn't try to get into the Party; her parents, her family, were the Party. She didn't need to put on an act or go to report on her thinking to the Party secretary."
You say the first time she invited you to a meal was in an elegant dining room that was not open to the public. To get through the door, a pass was needed. Naturally, she paid, you didn't have a pass and didn't have the money to pay, and felt bad about it.
"I understand," she says softly.
You say Lin wanted you to take her husband's military pass so the two of you could take a room in the holiday guesthouse for high-ranking cadres and their families in the Summer Palace. She said you could pose as her husband. You said what if you were found out? She said you wouldn't be, and, if you wanted to, you could wear her husband's uniform.
"She was brave," she murmurs.
You say that you, however, were not, and this recklessness made you very anxious. Anyway, you made love with her. The first time was in her home. Her home was a huge courtyard complex occupied by her parents and the old doorkeeper who swept the yard and lit the stove. At night, they all went to bed early, and it was very quiet in the courtyard. It was she who initiated you into manhood, and, no matter what, you're grateful to her.
"That means you still love her." She props herself up on her elbows and looks at you in the dark.
"She taught me."
You reflect about it; rather than love, it was desire for her lovely body.
"What did she teach you?"
Her hair brushes against your face, and you see the faint gleam of the whites of her large eyes looking down at you.
"She took the initiative. She had just become a married woman," you say. "Anyway, at the time, I was over twenty and still a virgin.
Don't you think it's hilarious?"
"Don't say that, at that time, in China, everyone was puritanical, I understand…"
Her fingers play little games on your body. You say that you were not puritanical and that you also wanted her.
"Was it because you were repressed that you wanted to indulge yourself?"
"I wanted to indulge myself with a woman's body!" you say.
"And you also wanted a woman to indulge herself, right?" Her velvety voice is right by your ear. "Then fuck me, like you did those women of yours in China."
"Who?"
"Lin, or that girl whose name you've forgotten."
You turn and embrace her, lift her negligee, and slip into her…
"If you want to ejaculate, go ahead…"-"Ejaculate in whose body?"-"A woman you want…"-"A wanton woman?"-"Isn't that what you want?"-"You're a prostitute?"-"Yes."-"Have you ever sold yourself?"-"Yes, and not just once____________________"-"Where?"-
"In Italy…"-"Who did you sell yourself to?"-"Anyone who wanted____________________"-"You're cheap!"-"Not at all, you can't afford me, what I want is for you to suffer____________________"-"That's all in the past."-
"No, it's right by you____________________"-"That deep place?"-"Yes."-"It's very deep, right inside to the end… maybe too deep… Is that why you're squeezing hard, sucking?"-"You've ejaculated! Don't worry…"-"Aren't you afraid?"-"Afraid of what?"-"What if you became pregnant?"-"I'd have an abortion."-"Are you crazy?"-"You're the one who's afraid, you want to indulge but you don't dare. Don't worry, I've taken something."-"When?"-"In the bathroom."-"Before coming to bed?"-"Yes, I knew you would fuck me."-"Then why did you torment me for so long?"-
"Don't ask, if you want to, just use it… this body…"-"The body of a prostitute?"-"I'm not a prostitute."-"I don't understand."-"Don't understand what?"-"What you said just now."-
"What did I say?"-"You said you had sold yourself."-"It would be impossible for you to comprehend, impossible for you to understand, impossible for you to know!"-"I want to know everything about you!"-"If you want to use me, go ahead, but don't hurt me."-"But aren't you a prostitute?"-"No, I'm just a woman, one who became a woman too early."-"When?"-"When I was thirteen…"-"Nonsense! Are you making it up?"
She shakes her head. You want her to tell you about it! She mutters that she doesn't know anything and doesn't want to know…
She needs to suffer and to experience ecstasy through suffering. You need women, need to ejaculate your lust and loneliness into the bodies of women. She says she pays because she, too, is lonely and longs for understanding. Pays for love and enjoyment? Yes, she just wants and so she gives and also pays. And sells herself? Yes. And is wanton?
And cheap! She rolls on top of you and you see her eyes glinting in the dark before you close your eyes and start calling out…
11
As he lay in Lin's nuptial bed of not long ago, he opened his eyes wide, still finding it hard to believe he was not dreaming. Naked and beautiful, and looking down at him like this, Lin had taught him what it was to be a man. Lin led him from the sitting room down to the very end of the corridor to her bedroom. Thick velvet curtains hung to the floor, and the only light came from under the chrysanthemum-yellow shade over the tall vase-based table lamp. She sat him at the desk and brought out a big photo album with pressed-metal edging. As he turned the pages, he saw that the photos were all of her, either in sleeveless, low-cut dresses revealing her arms, shoulders, and legs, or else in wet bathing suits that clung to her body; her husband had taken these at Beidaihe just after they married. At this point, Lin leaned toward him, and he felt her hair brush his cheeks. He turned to put his arms around her slender waist and, as his face pressed against her breasts, he became aware of the fragrant warmth of her body. He straight away pulled down the zipper at the back of her dress, got her onto the bed, and started wildly kissing her on her lips, face, and neck, then, after removing her bra, her nipples. This was what he had sought in his dreams. He was in such a desperate hurry that he tore her delicate sexy panties that were not available in ordinary shops. But he was not able to get an erection and could not enter her. Again, it was Lin who eased his mind by saying that by this time of the night her parents would be asleep and that they do not come to her room anyway. Also, her husband's hi-tech weapons research institute was far away in the mountains of the western suburbs; army discipline was strict, and he could not come home unless it was a weekend. He suddenly needed to urinate, so Lin put on a dress, went outside in her bare feet, and came back right away with a washbasin. He latched the door, but pissing so noisily into the enamel washbasin made him feel like a thief. Switching off the light, Lin helped him off with his shoes and socks, then got him to lie down naked in the bed. She pulled the bedcover over him just like a big girl in his teenage dreams, or like a kind nurse on the battlefield caring for him, cleaning his bleeding wounds with her gentle, firm hands. It was then that he suddenly had an erection. He turned, bore down on this spritely woman, and carried out his most important act since birth.