A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (16 page)

“I feel sad about my life,” you once said to me.

“Why?”

“Everything feels empty and endless.”

“What you want then?”

“I want to find happiness.”

“You can’t have happiness at all times. Sometimes you will be sad. Don’t you think?”

“But I don’t see any happiness in my life.”

“Then what’s your most near happiness?”

“…The sea.”

That was our conversation one day, in our home in London. Now it is like a replay. It echoes above the waves.

Tavira
is situated in the southeast corner of Portugal; it is considered to be one of the most picturesque towns of the Algarve region.

tavira

A very slow and old train, clink, clink, clink…it is so slow that it’s like I am sitting on a real time machine. I can feel the time moving in the space physically. It is much more interesting than watching clock.

The train moves along the south coast of Portugal. I didn’t stay in Madrid or anywhere in Spain because I lost eighty euros when train stopped in Madrid. Maybe they are being stolen. I didn’t feel like to stay in the big city anymore. It is always aggressive in the city. Here, the train patiently takes me to Tavira, a little town close to Atlantic Ocean, yellow sand everywhere.

Out of the station I find blocks of old residential houses, decayed in the hot sun. I walk to a corner café between two streets, white plastic tables and white chairs outside. I sit down, breathe out, get rid of the stale and take in the fresh. Suddenly I feel everything slow down and stop. In the shade of sun, two old local mans with very dark skin sit on the chair. They are smoking, quiet, in the morning. Two little tiny coffee cups are left empty in front of them. Everything is brewing very thick in the early morning here, like the sun, with passionate beams. They got a real sun here in their sky, not like in England. English sun is a fake sun, a literature sun.

The other side of the café is a grocery shop. Some vegetables and fruits are being sold. A young woman standing outside, she seems mad, I mean, real mad. She keeps talking to nobody, and there is no anybody there at all, not even a wild dog. She wears fleshly red lipsticks like she just drank a glass of blood. Sometimes a car passes by and she talks to the car. Strange, somehow there is always a mad woman in any little town in the world.

A young girl, looks like a backpacker, a tourist, wanders in the street. She wears a tight lemon-colour T-shirt. Her young lively breasts drag those old local man’s eyes. As she disappears into the end of the street, two old mans withdraw back their eyes, and both exhale the smoke from their mouths. It must be a pleasure for them, in the morning street, seeing a young active breast under the lemon T-shirt.

The sunlight is like a knife cutting off the earth, half of the world is in the shadow, and the other half is bright. It is like a black and white movie, and everything is in slow motion. The sky is deadly blue, blue and blue. In alley ways, the old houses are silent, with rusty iron balcony and wooden window. They are sucking people’s soul. I understand why some foreigners travelled to a strange town for a short stay, but one month passed by, and then three months passed by, still there, and eventually ended up to live there for the rest of their life. That strange power, forces a person settle down a foreign land, whatever how wild he was. I can feel that strange power. It is something opposite of adventure, something comes from the living habits, and acceptance of monotonous, the monotonous of everyday’s life.

Sitting in this corner café with old mans, I am melted under the hot sun. My body is losing its shape, and floating in the air. My entirely existence is being sucked by a strange power. It scares me.

I find room on top floor of Residencia Mina. A budget hotel. The room is narrow but clean. With the beautiful sky light it feels light hearted. I love this small Mediterranean-style hotel. Standing on balcony I can see the river wriggle and connect to the sea. The sand is dark yellow, and the houses are colourful. Two or three old mans sit on the bridge above the river, smoking, chatting. The old streets, the green bushes, the sea birds…All these are exposed under the sun. I feel very close to the nature, the happy side of the nature.

I climb the steps up to roof of hotel. It is like a tropical garden, full of pot-planted palm trees and flowers. The sea not far away, shining in the distance. There are several ferries carry people to the outskirt part of beach. It is high noon, and the late summer sun is really hot. I take off my shirt, letting my body naked. It feel so good I take off the rest of my clothes. My soul is dancing. If happiness is a brief matter, then I am in this brief moment. I wonder whether the sadness inside a human sometimes is just because of lack of sunlight.

I think of you, while I am naked lying on the roof garden. We used to make love so often in your garden, by the fig tree. I remember all those details of when we were making love. I remember that you would take out my earrings before we make love. I remember that they were always entwined in my hair, very difficult to come out, but you would try hard to remove. That is you. That is one of the details I will always remember about you.

Unconsciously, I touch my earrings, but they are not there now. I am getting restless. I feel my nipples getting hard. I want to be exposed and touched in the hot sunlight. I think of book I bought in the train station while I was bored waiting:

Women’s Pleasure or How to Have
an Orgasm as Often as You Want

Question: “How do I build up my skills?”

There are two ways in which you build up your masturbation skills:

1. By doing it more frequently.

2. By doing it in a variety of different situations. This creates the sexual versatility that is so important to your progress.

Below are fifteen different ways of masturbating that you can practise. These fifteen methods are divided into four lessons.

Lesson 1:
Masturbation in private

Lesson 2:
Masturbation in semi-public

Lesson 3:
Masturbation in public

Lesson 4:
Improving your timing

Masturbating, I never tried it before. Nobody Western would believe that I never try to masturbate as a twenty-four-year-old woman. Or maybe I did but I didn’t know what I was doing. Sex in my understanding means something to do with a man, but not to do with myself. Having sex with oneself is like talking to oneself: bit mad. When I saw that Soho peepshop, I never thought to do with me. I also believed no love then no sex. Sex is an expression of love. But somehow this idea is changing. Now I feel tortured by the desire inside my body, and I feel strongly how much this desire wanting to be fulfilled.

“You should learn to play with your own clitoris.” Once you told me this on the bed. We were naked, and we had just made love.

Your hand touched my body. “If you want to have an orgasm, you should touch yourself here.”

I remember this conversation. But I never did it with myself, because I was always with you. Why do I have to?

On the roof of Residencia Mina, through the trees, the sun penetrates my skin. The leaves rustle in the mild wind. I start to touch myself.

The juice flows from my cave, and my fingers touch my hidden lips. Up and down. A great urge coming over me like a high tide flooding my body. The only thing I can see is the blue sky. The deep blue, like a boundless sea. The dry leaves under my skin are wet from my desire.

My body starts to shake. My breath gets difficult. My cave wants to devour something. I want to shout. It is almost painful, I feel like crying.

And I scream.

On my own. With myself. I did it. It is like dream.

For the first time in my entire life, I came by myself.

I can be on my own. I can. I can rely on myself, without depending on a man.

Faro
is the capital of the Algarve region and the southernmost town in Portugal; tourism now dominates the economy.

faro

The train from Faro to Lisbon will depart at 1:30 in the afternoon. It’s twelve o’clock now. I learned Faro is a
resort
town. From the dictionary the
resort
place must be a very nice place, but in reality it is the opposite. Faro is very concrete. Almost ugly. What should I do in little
resort
to kill one and half an hour?

I walk around the train station with my rocksack on my back. The sea is just by the train station. But this sea smells bad. Between the sea and the inner land is an industry space, no beach. The rocks nearby the shore are dirty, polluted. It smells pee or something unpleasant. But some seagulls still convolute there. I feel sorry for those seagulls. I walk back to the street nearby the train station. People sitting outside of cafés looks at me. I can feel their curiosity to me. I bet there is few Chinese people come to this town. What is like looking this Chinese girl through their eyes? Without a companion with her, lost herself in the street, doesn’t know what to do about her life…Or maybe they just think of Chinese food when they see me.

12:30, still have one hour left to go to Lisbon. I sit outside of a café, having a small cup of bitter espresso. How many cups of espresso the Portuguese have in one day? What is like if one’s body full of caffeine and sugar and nicotine and Coca Cola? Will it bring too much passion? Will the life be more energetic?

The espresso cup is dried up. I start to read
Lonely Planet
on Lisbon with my small
Concise
dictionary. The man in the nearby table is drinking the second cup of espresso. I am aware his watching on me. He is lighting a cigarettes now. He looks at the street, and then the blue sky, and me again. Now he stands and comes to me, and he sits on the chair very near to me.

He says: “Can you understand it?”

“Understand what?”

I close my guide book and look at him. He seems a very physical person, maybe he does low jobs. But he can speak good English. He is short, dark, energetic, solid strong body, broad chest, impressive face, intensive brown eyes.

“Understand the language. Because you are checking the dictionary all the time.”

Inside of his mouth, something strange. Some teeth missing there.

“Well, you know, I am a foreigner.” I am a little embarrassed.

“Don’t read the book. Look at the view. You should see it, not read the guide book.” He surveys my books. There is Fernando Pessoa’s
Book of Disquiet
lies on top.

“OK,” I say. He is definitely from local. I wonder if he reads Fernando Pessoa. He looks like a person doesn’t read any book at all.

“How many days you are going to stay in Faro?” he asks.

“Not anymore. I just came here for taking train to Lisbon, in one hour.”

By hearing this, he has no comments. There are no needs to develop more connection from his side, I guess.

“Do you know where is the old town of Faro? Do you think I can have time to walk there in one hour and come back?” I ask.

“Not very far. If you want I can take you to there.”

“Don’t you have anything to do?”

“Not today. Come with me.” He stands up and goes to pay the bill. I stand up as well, put my books in my bag.

As I follow him, I look his back. A very physical manly back. A little short. A very earthy person. I wonder if he works in a local restaurant, or works on a wine factory, or maybe he is a sailor, a carpenter, a trolley driver…

The old town of Faro is nothing very special, except for the old slipperly cobblestone ground. I like these cobblestones, they were being grind so smooth by thousands of millions people’s foot through centuries. They got stories in them. Then we walk into an old square. This man wants to show me the church. But the old church is closed today, so does the museum. Do people not working here in the afternoon time? Only a small souvenir shop opened, selling some postcards about Faro in the nineteenth century. The middle-day sunlight is strong. We want buy ice cokes from that souvenir shop. He only pays his coke, I notice. Of course, it is fair for him.

We drink ice coke, wander on the empty cobblestone square.

“I’ll take you to the seaside, then you can go back to the train station.” He walks beside me.

“I already went there. It is not very beautiful.” I want to be honest.

“No, believe me. I’ll take you to a nice place.”

“OK.”

He takes my heavy rocksack, and puts it on his back.

We walk along the seashore beside the railway. A marsh is just in front of us. It is muddy, and dirty. The marsh reflects the high noon’s sunlight. It looks bizarre and dangerous. There is something very strange between him and me. He is almost too kind, too random, without any goal in his daily life. At the same time he is also very sexual. I don’t know where this sexual feeling exactly from, maybe from his very physical looking. Or maybe this sexual feeling from myself, from my aloneness. My body is waiting for something, and something has to come out under the intensive sun.

He takes my hand, and I don’t refuse at all. I don’t know why. He holds my hand into his hand so tight that in one minute our palms are sweaty. I could feel there is something strong inside of his body. But I am not sure if I enjoy this
intimacy
. I am a bit confused. We walk side by side like two longterm friends. I know I don’t love him at all, and maybe I even don’t like him, but somehow I desire him. It is strange.

Maybe the more people live close to the south, the more they are talkative. They have to take out the extra energy inside of their bodies from the sun. Now he is doing a monologue:

“I don’t like Faro, you know. It is not as nice as other places in Portugal. It is full of English people. Food is expensive, and everything is for tourists. But why I am here? Why I am sitting here doing nothing? Because I lost my four teeth, six years ago. Four! Can you see here? A motorbike accident. A big accident. I had three motorbikes before, you know. But not anymore, since I sold them all. I am not going to touch motorbikes anymore. I would die if I ride motorbike again. I have been waiting for the medical insurance to fix my teeth for six years. Six years! Can you believe it? Bastards! Things are so slow in this country! Papers and papers. Finally it is arranged. That’s why I came back here, to get my teeth done. I worked in Germany. Look up here, can you see here? These two teeth? They’ll take out these two from the upper jaw, and I am going to have my new teeth, six new teeth.”

I look at his teeth again, with my new eyes. It is really impressive. How a person left the mouth so empty?! Does his tongue feel cold?

“But why you were in Germany?” I ask.

“I worked in Germany, you know, in Cologne. I was a chef. You know what a chef is, don’t you? I cooked for people. Cologne is a good place, yes, the people are friendly there. I earned good money in Cologne. You know, the economy is no good in this country, only the weather is good here…”

Our hands still hold together. We stop under a palm tree. Some empty coke tins, empty crisps bags spread around the tree. There are rocks by our feet, but covered by the dead small fish and dry weeds. So much polluted, it smells horrible. He leads me against the tree, and hugs me, and kisses my neck. Then kisses my ears. His lips are hot. And his tongue is strong, almost violent. I don’t refuse him. Maybe I also want it. Then he touches my breasts. He presses his palm on my lower body. His breathing becomes strong and heavy. I hug him too. And I can feel his heart beating fast. The sun, the sweat, the salty wind, the stinking air, everything is stimulating our desires.

I say: “I think I want to have sex with you.”

This man takes what I said. And everything comes rapidly and naturally. Finding a piece of flat rock, I unzip my jeans, and I sit on top of that piece of hot rock, with my naked crotch. He kneels down and he buries himself between my legs. It is so wet, everything is so wet, my crotch, his tongue, his sweaty skin, and my striped underwear. It is like the tide, a strong tide comes taking people away from the beach. His hands reach his jeans, and untie the button at the same time.

“But no plugging in. Please.” I don’t know how to say that. And I am suddenly scared by what we are doing: “No. I don’t want that. Just using sucking me. Please, please,” I beg him.

I just realise I don’t want he enter into my body. No. It would disgust me so much.

But he couldn’t control himself anymore. He takes out his penis from his jeans and pushes it into my body, rough, almost violent.

I am leaning on the rock. I feel sexy but I also feel disgusting at the same time. The sunlight makes me headache. I can’t breathe. Somehow I despise him doing that. Then he comes. He comes like a bull. He pulls out, the sperm dripping on the burning rocks. His face is completely red.

I will never trust this man again I tell myself. Nothing will be between him and me anymore. Not anymore, I swear to myself. I feel a strong guilt, and danger. I despise myself.

We put on clothes, and the dirty feeling of my body is overwhelming. It sticks on my skin, my underwears, my jeans, and my white T-shirt. It is under my skin. And the sea seems even dirtier and even more polluted than before. Empty plastic bottles half buried in the sand. Black plastic bags floating on the foaming sea water. I just want to leave this place, leave him, as quick as possible.

The train is ready to leave. He is standing behind me in the train station café. I want to buy some water, and I want to find a place like a toilet can wash myself. I can’t stand the dirt on my skin, and I can’t stand the strange smell from his body. His clothes smells of strong perfume. I can’t stand it for one more second. It makes me vomit. But as the train approaches into the sight in the distance, he suddenly says:

“Something very bad happened.”

“What?”

“Look here.” He turns around and shows me the back pocket of his jeans. There is a hole underneath the pocket.

“I just lost fifty euros,” he says, with a worried tone.

I look at him. His face is covered by emptiness and vagueness. I think of what he just said. He was quite cool before, or say half an hour ago. Now he becomes very weak, suddenly. When I met him, I thought he was just a normal local man having espresso in a café. I thought he was just as simple and happy as the weather in Portugal. But now I don’t know what to feel anymore.

“Now I can’t even buy a bus ticket to go back home,” he says. His hand is still on his pocket with a hole.

The train arrives and the door is opened.

What should I say about that hole? What should I do about this strange fifty euros? No, don’t start to think. Don’t start to talk about it. Just leave this topic. Don’t ask, don’t say anything more. I take my rocksack from his shoulders, and I walk to the platform without hesitation.

“Bye,” I say, with a cold smile.

I step on the train. Don’t look back. Don’t look back now. The door is closed behind me, thanks God. And that’s it.

I walk straight to the toilet on the train. I unload my bags on the floor of toilet. I remove my clothes, my jeans, my pants. And I turn on the tap. I wash myself completely.