Chapter 6
The next morning, believing his goal a large step closer as a result of the effective communication with Serena the night before, he went to work with a jubilant heart.
As soon as he arrived in the office, he sent her a SMS, ‘I cancelled the “doctor” appointment, not worth the time and, you don’t want me to go.’
‘But I hope you go.’ She replied in real time.
‘What? You hope I go? But I have already cancelled it!’ His pretence was with a layer of chagrin.
No more response from her, nor did he send her any message during the day until after he came back home. After supper, he visited the Lucky Love website and by reviewing Serena’s profile, he guessed by her logon timestamp she was online. So quickly he hooked up with her in QQ.
‘Are you there?’
‘Yes.’ Her response was without delay.
‘I thought you were at your friend’s’
‘No, I am at home all the afternoon.’
‘But you told me yesterday you would see a friend after work.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Her message ‘sounded’ cross and rude, as if she was in a temper.
‘Oh…’
Her cold attitude had dampened his spirit and for a moment, he desired no more dialogue with her. She was either dishonest by not telling him the truth, or disrespectful by not giving him an explanation he thought he had a right to know.
A number of silent minutes had slipped by, before abruptly, without a proper prelude, her message popped up on the screen: ‘Do you want to see me now?’
He was surprised and startled with a flush, and the turn of his mood was radical. ‘I desire it very much,’ and, ‘I have been restless the whole day.’
‘Then let’s meet soon, at the service station,’ and, ‘I reckon I should be frank with you by saying things directly.’
‘What time?’
‘6:30pm,’ she answered. Bing checked the time, and replied, ‘already 6:15pm, can’t make it from Baulkham Hills to Ashfield, let’s make it 7pm.’
‘Fine, you call me when you arrive, two minutes in advance.’
‘Fine, c u.’
Bing had to rush. He slipped off his shirt, put on a yellow-and-white striped T-shirt he thought to be the best match for his pants, went straight to the bathroom, and took off his spectacles to check his face and hair with velocity. Then, grabbing his three essentials, he trod out of the door, but a little over the threshold he paused, and reckoning of a need, he went back in to the toilet.
A minute later, he was on the road. Excited as he was, but it was only with the fact she had initiated a meeting. She said she should be frank with him by saying things directly. What did she really mean? What did she try to say to him? Was she about to tell him frankly and directly that she wouldn’t be able to love him? If so, why didn’t she just tell him so in QQ or SMS? Why bother proposing a face-to-face meeting?
He was thinking hard. Then he realized the music was too loud, noisy and distracting. He turned it off and felt he was now able to think straight. OK, she wanted to be frank, and she wanted to see me personally, she wanted to look into my eyes directly and express something to me. What would that be? Was it possible that she was ready for him, but her readiness required one or two preconditions?
What if she asked to check his ID? Some people demanded it on their first dating, which was sensible and reasonable enough. After all, who could trust the internet these days, where reality could be so easily dotted and mosaicked? If he were an honest person, Bing should have told her everything at their first meeting or even before, or simply told the truth of his age, marital status and the number of children on the Lucky Love. However, he didn’t regard himself as an honest person, not in the conventional way, and he perceived honesty to be dull, lack-lustre, a lack of imagination. He believed he was honest with himself, honest with his own heart and desires, not necessarily with others.
At any rate, he would tell her the truth when both of them had developed a feeling for each other and seriously began to consider a relationship, or marriage. Otherwise, why did he have to reveal all the facts about himself? Especially to someone from the internet, who would slip away quickly like a loach in the field after a few meetings? Even Serena herself didn’t reveal her true age at their first text messaging and meeting. She said her age had not been added automatically on the web site; but he was inclined to assume she had deliberately placed herself in the age group under thirty, so that she could become a target for many Chinese male prospects who would only consider younger females. To many Chinese, thirty was a clear line to distinguish a girl from a spinster. Therefore, her age registration under thirty was realistically motivated, although it mattered little to him.
However, during the half an hour trip, his vigorous pondering, self-explaining, and justifying his disingenuous approach of hunting for a partner or his second wife, had given no comfort to settle his troubled anticipation and apprehension.
‘Well, whatever!’ He said to himself, slowing to wait for a traffic light. ‘I will soon find out.’
Entering to the territory of Ashfield, he received a text line from her: ‘Drive slowly and safely, I know it’s a bit far from here.’
Again, his mood change was radical. Oh, what a charming, soft and feminine message! She was caring for him! Her words sounded so and all positive!
His spirit was high, a soft and warm flow tickling his chest, fending off the uncertainty and misgivings that had bothered him along his drive. A light of hope was indeed glowing in his tunnel of darkness.
With no difficulty, he drove to the service station, for he remembered the place when he had dropped her off at the first meeting. He stopped the car in the customer parking area, wondering if he was allowed to stay in the place without filling gas or buying anything from the shop. But he brushed off this small concern and sent her a message to inform her of his arrival.
Turning off the engine, he turned the music back on, hoping she might like listening to it, based on her comment last time. Romanticism was always important in the courting business.
Waiting excitedly, his eyes searched about the corner from where she was supposed to come. And there, in just seconds, she came out, so glamorous and marvellous looking. Dressed like a city girl cat-walking in the street towards a party, she was almost a new person to him. Her leopard-spotty pants were outlining perfectly her long legs and full thighs, affecting and stirring his very moments.
She was coming to him. She smiled. A quick flush spread over her face, radiating a charm that Bing had not seen on a woman’s for so many years. It was so feminine and tantalizing, and seductive, that he must have been stupefied at least for a time long enough for Serena to notice.
‘Hehe, don’t stare at me, you should open the door for me, like a gentleman.’ She said, lightly, but waking him up.
Awkward and a little numbed, he didn’t get out of the car but stretched out his left hand towards the passenger door, lifted its handle and pushed the door to only a little crack. And he replied, ‘Not sure if I can park the car here or not,’ which was absolutely nothing to the point of her comment.
She pulled open the door herself, and seating, she said, ‘Let’s go to Newtown, there is a good vegetarian restaurant.’
Bing had heard of Newtown but had no idea how to get there, for he could recall no times he had been there before. So he used GPS.
On the way, Bing was feeling dangerously short of topics for in-car conversation. But for some unclear reason, Serena was becoming very talkative. She seemed to know the roads very well, from a time to another pointing out a better route, as she believed, than that advised by the GPS. But still, Bing had missed one or two turns, because in his current state of mind, he couldn’t concentrate on either the driving, or her talking. At one traffic light, he went wrongly into the Right Turn Only lane waiting, instead continuing straight ahead. When the light for Right Turn changed to green, he was hesitating, unmoving, and a taxi driver behind him, after giving out a number of futile horn-warnings, had to pull around him, throwing out some words Bing didn’t dare to hear. All these whiles, Bing was so diffident and unnerved as if he were doing his driving test, and Serena who sat there like the driving instructor, paid no heed to his plight but kept telling him the right direction. When the Forward light was finally turned green, he drove straight, jerking straight along, uncaring for the cars on his left heading to the same lane.
Lucky, no horn was heard, no accident occurred. It was a relief.
But his stress didn’t end here. Newtown was a very busy suburb and looked exceedingly prosperous and intoxicating. Cars were packed tight along the kerbs of its narrow street. Under the old, or threadbare, or only recently refurbished low buildings the small, rugged but energetic shops were numerous. In front of them, the stocky Australian men were swaggering, taking the ownership of the whole atmosphere.
Where to park? It was a million dollar question.
Guided by Serena, the car slipped into a small side road, and started searching for a precious slot. Yet hundreds of metres he had driven past, no space was in the sight. Then Serena said or complained that they needed to turn back, because it was too far away from the town centre, too hard to walk all the long way back. So he made a U-turn, and still guided by her, dived into another little lane, yet the new hope died off completely to its end. At last, he simply drove blindly to anywhere he could pause for breath. He stopped the car on the side of the road, far away from where they, or correctly she, had wished to have dinner together.
‘Looks like we have to go to another place,’ he said, disoriented.
‘Yes, where to go?’ she acknowledged the failure as a simple fact, though her face was unemotional, without betraying a trace of displeasure.
‘City, Opera House?’ he probed, meekly. Compared to her calmness, he was excessively uneasy, with a strange malaise in his disposition, as if he had been in some way treated unfairly. Their meeting had come up solely on her impulse, and he didn’t even know what kind of meeting it was going to be. It could be just a ‘Bye, bye, good luck to you’ type of thing at the service station, or a little walk somewhere in Ashfield, or eating again in the familiar Burwood. But he swore to the sky of Sydney that he had never imagined about eating vegetables in a vegetarian restaurant in such a crowded Newtown.
‘OK, up to you,’ she said, as if relinquishing a precious power to him.
Feeling at a loss about where about they were, he again fiddled with the GPS. The destination was easily set, but going around, the roads seemed to be a mess, too many little turns, too much lurching and roundabouts. Oh, what a joke and awful surface in this part of Sydney! The roads seemed even more complex than his complicated palm lines that would always puzzle a palm reader, who might have an interest in deciphering his life and fate, especially his love affairs and marriages. And, for a flashing moment, he was thinking to miss the broad and regular Melbourne streets, and yes, his ex-lover Pan over there, who had been so kind to him, so easygoing and considerate, and who had cared him more than any woman except his mother.
As if lost into the black holes, and growing more and more anxious and frustrated, he was, for the first time, not quite sure the GPS was doing the right job, wondering if he could eventually get out of Newtown and reach the city.
Then she raised her eyebrows, ‘Where are we going?’
‘The Opera House?’ he was confused by her question.
‘Isn’t it too noisy over there?’
‘Hum..yeah,’ he faltered.
‘Hehe, are you nervous again…maybe we go to UNSW?’ She had another idea, which was nevertheless taken by him as a sort of last straw to unravel his predicament. He didn’t want to make a decision, the power she had handed over to him had proved to be a mere source of distress.
A new destination was set. The same GPS, but this time it seemed to be working perfectly.
‘How come you know the roads so well, considering you don’t drive, or do you?’ he asked, truly amazed with her knowledge of the road.
‘I studied in UNSW, and lived in Ashfield, I’ve been around here for nearly eight years,’ she replied proudly. ‘My ex-boyfriends used to drive me often in the area.’
Oh, her ex-boyfriends, she pronounced the prefix ‘ex’, and the suffix ‘s’ distinctly, chafing his ears not a little, especially when his driving skill was at its worst in his history.
Before waiting for his comment, she went on, ‘What have you been doing for all these years? Where have you been going?’ Her tone was critical, suggesting he should have known this place very well, if he had been actively going out.
But her logic was ill and absurd. Why did he have to visit Newtown, and UNSW? Sydney was not as narrow as her mind!
‘Well, there are hundreds of suburbs in Sydney,’ he claimed, making a controlled effort to smooth the edge of his retorting. ‘I often go to the northern suburbs and beaches.’ Not really the truth, but enough to counter her mean deliberation.
‘Well, we can go to the beach as well, if you like,’ she said, as if she had to show a bit womanish obedience to him. He was about to deter such a whim of hers by saying something, but she preceded him, ‘I need to go to the toilet.’
‘Oh, really?’ he cried out as if he were struck by such a difficult and beastly task at this point of time.
‘Yes, let’s go to UNSW.’
Bing imagined UNSW was far away. In his mind, that was at the other end of the city, even farther than Opera House. But he didn’t say anything, for she was the actual driver, for both stomach and toilet needs. However, when Serena said they were already in the road the university was on, he was rather surprised. Serena later explained Newtown and UNSW were very close, that was why she chose the place.
They drove off Anzac Parade to a small lane, and soon located a parking space along the street. Getting out of the car, he noticed the parking sign leering at him ominously like a scarecrow. He went over to it, so did Serena. The plate displayed ‘1P, Mon-Fri, 6am to 8pm’. There was no ticket machine about. So it was free to park during the range of time, but only for one hour. He checked the time, 7:25pm.
‘Should we buy a ticket?’ asked Serena, her eyes narrowing with real concern.
Bing was mused for a moment, his mind ticking. Then he said, ‘No, it doesn’t say a ticket is needed. But it has a one hour limit between 6am and 8pm.’
‘But we still have half an hour to go 8pm, what can we do? Should we wait here until 8pm?’ Serena queried, her wonder knotting her eyebrows.
Bing explained: ‘No, no. It means that before 8pm it’s free for one hour, so if we park now, we are allowed up to 8:25pm, which will be already past the time limit...’ He paused, feeling suddenly confused with himself. Perhaps it was after all a clear and better option if they just waited the 35 minutes until 8pm. Easy and simple as it had been a while before, he found it very difficult to explain. It was like helping his daughter to do her maths homework.
‘Well…’ she turned and moved on, seemingly giving up altogether an issue about which she should not have to bother, and he knew it was more important for her to go to the toilet.
He followed her, towards somewhere she must have already set her mind on. Watching her behind, Bing, only now, became aware that she was wearing a pair of high-heeled shoes that made her steps a little clumsy. But she was really sexy in the tightness of her spotty leopard-pants, and the movement of her buttocks was extravagant and desire-inspiring, although, in her high heels, she was too tall for him, and her body was like that of a dainty lady cat-walking in the street: a man could look, and imagine, but he couldn’t do anything to her.
They crossed Anzac Parade to where UNSW was located. They trotted on, briskly, her heels loudly knocking on the pavement. He knew she couldn’t wait to go to the toilet.
Then suddenly, without slowing her brisk advancement, she turned her head and asked him, ‘Do you feel uncomfortable walking with me? In my high heels?’
‘No, no, I am fine. I’m not worried by your height,’ he said, telling the truth only a little.
‘Then your will must be strong,’ she said. ‘Some boys, of your height, are not comfortable treading along with me.’
‘Well, I don’t see why they have to be uncomfortable. It is only a person, a head, a body, and some legs.’
But apparently his little sense of humour didn’t get to her ear, for her head had then turned to the restaurant she must have frequented during her study in the university.
She opened the door and they entered. They were greeted, and he was seated, while she directed her high-heeled strides to the little corridor leading to the bathroom.
In a minute, she returned, lofty and lightly poised. In her face, the attractive flush that had stunned him earlier was no longer there. Replacing it was an expression of sternness and sophistication, and hard pride.
They ordered Pickled-Egg-Lean-Meat-Porridge for two, and a vegetable and a fried fish. They sat waiting, and before long a free soup, a typical entree in a Cantonese-style restaurant, was delivered. They began to drink. Serena said she was hungry.
Like last time, she ate actively, but, unlike last time, she was the one excessively voluble.
‘You are a very different person,’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘The way you pursue a girl was like a schoolboy,’ she spoke as if recalling her younger, prime days. ‘That is something a boy of eighteen is supposed to do.’
‘Well…’
‘But at your age, it is…hehe…’
Bing looked at her, imagining of her entire jaw dropping if he told her his true age.
‘Well, people have feelings, regardless of how old they are.’
‘I know, but when one gets more mature, some feelings should not be taken so seriously. You should give a girl a time to breathe, even if you have a feeling for her. You are too honest, revealing too quickly your feelings towards a girl. You can be easily played by some girls with plenty of experience in courting.’
‘Played?’
‘Yes, for instance, if I want to play with you, I can just go out with you every time you ask me, spending your money, but in the end, I won’t promise to give you anything. And you will be used. Your time and money will be wasted.’
‘Why? Wasted? No, no, my time and money will not be wasted, so long as I can use them happily and willingly. And I don’t have to contrive for a particular result from you.’
‘Well, as I said, there are many cunning girls who may come to you only for convenience.’
‘Again, I don’t feel I could be used by them one way or the other. After all, you need friends and girls to talk to, to pass the dull spare time in Australia. I myself have to dine anyway, and it is not that I can’t afford it.’
‘All I can say is most men in my dating history were not like you. They usually asked for a second date after an interval of a week. But you try to contact me and see me every day, hehehe…’
‘I don’t have to hide my feelings, which had been hardly felt in my years,’ he said to flatter her, flirting like a shameless cock.
‘That is why I think I have to be honest with you. You are my country-fellow, I can’t play with you.’
‘What do you mean, play?’
Nibbling a piece of fish in her mouth, she didn’t fully attend to his question. Then she discovered in her mouth a tiny fish bone, fiddled for it with her fingers, and picked it and disposed it onto her plate. Then looking about, she said, ‘Maybe we go somewhere else after dinner?’
‘Fine,’ he answered, understanding her reluctance to discuss an intimate topic in the restaurant.
In half an hour, they were at Bondi Beach, a place she had suggested after dinner.
‘Where can we find a place for coffee?’ he said, after, lucky, parking his car without much difficulty.
‘I like coffee, but my doctor said I should not drink too much. It could impair my ability to absorb the calcium and iron.’
‘Well, so long as you don’t drink too much. ’
They wandered along the walk path for some distance, without a definite aim. Then, she slowed her steps, and as if she regretted coming here, asked him in her stiff, critical voice, ‘Where will we go?’
Detecting her whimsical grudge, Bing replied, disappointedly, ‘Maybe just walk on the beach a while, then we go home?’
‘Okay, then.’
The wind was blowing more strongly than they had expected at this time of evening, but it was cool and balmy enough for their stroll. On the beach, people were gone. They must have already fallen asleep after a day’s bustling and flirting with the waves.
‘Let’s just sit on the steps,’ she said, cancelling the idea of walking on the beach.
They sat on the top of the steps. She was on his left, which was essential to his eccentric side-preference. She folded her long full legs, and set her elbows on her thighs so that her two hands were able to cup her chin and her cheeks. For the moment, she reminded him of an innocent, placid and dreamy girl looking into a future of mystery and uncertainty.
They didn’t talk. The sound of the sea was that of a sad, sighing man. The waves was rolling, breaking with a cackle of derision, producing the pale glistening specks that trembled only a second before dying off.
‘Are you a romantic person?’ she broke the moments of their silence, without turning her eyes to him
‘Maybe.’
‘Tell me the most romantic things you have ever done to a girl.’
‘I’ve never had a girl I really loved,’ he lied safely in the duskiness of night.
‘So how do you know you are romantic?’
‘The way I came to see you in the bank was romantic.’
‘Hehe.’
‘And I have lots of romantic dreams.’
‘Tell me.’ Now she tossed her head to look at him with an interest.
‘Hehe.’
‘What?’
Like an innocent, placid and dreamy boy, looking into a future of mystery and uncertainty, he said, ‘She and I, walking together, in a flurry of snow, leaning on each other, making two pairs of footsteps, very long and lonely.’
She didn’t interrupt him, so he went on, ‘She and I, baring our feet, treading on the beach, feeling the silky sand, then I lift my foot to touch on hers.’
She didn’t interrupt him, so he went on, ‘She and I, gazing at each other in a restaurant, then we both pick a piece of food, putting it into the mouth of the other.’
She didn’t interrupt him, so he went on, ‘She and I, sitting together as we are now, quiet and peaceful on the surface, but our hearts are vibrating, like those beating and breaking waves.’
He paused, musing.
‘No more?’ She asked.
‘You want more?’
‘Yes.’
‘She and I, naked and running in a forest, making love, being circled and growled at by a pack of wolves.’ His mind suddenly turned wild and flaming.
‘She and I, jumping out of a plane, and in parachutes we are trying to fuse our bodies as we fall.’
‘She and I, both exhausted in a desert, and dying, we are making our last connection.’
He paused, musing.
‘You have crazy ideas,’ she said.
‘Hehe.’
The wind was arising, and without the sun, the temperature on beach had dropped considerably. A little chilled in his T-shirt, he wrapped his bare arms with his hands. Serena seemed to feel the same, for she said, ‘Are you cold? Let’s go back to the car.’
Some time later, they were inside the car.
A song was playing. It was not in Chinese.
‘What language is it?’ she asked.
‘Mongolian.’
‘I thought it was Tibetan.’
‘Tibetan is more like praying.’
‘It is interesting. The lips seem to slip over all the time.’
‘It is called Kiss, by Halin.’
‘It is nice.’
‘It is.’
He adjusted his seat, and sat back, stretching his feet.
‘Wang Bing, do you know why I asked you out today?’ she asked, finally ready to say something to him.
‘No. It was a surprise to me.’
‘You know, I talked to my mum about you. I told her that I wouldn’t possibly have any feeling for you, and that you seemed to be so sincerely in love with me.’
‘So?’
‘She told me, if I don’t want to continue with you, I should tell you as soon as possible, and should not drag you along and hurt you in the end.’
‘Oh.’
‘So when you said you cancelled the appointment with that doctor girl, I felt it imperative to be frank with you. I don’t want you to have illusions about me.’
‘Well, I do have a feeling for you. But please don’t imagine I’m pressuring you. I am not an easily hurt, vulnerable weakling,’ he said. ‘At least we can be friends.’
‘But I think we are so different, incompatible,’ she said. ‘You know, like a man who may only like a beautiful girl, I have a tendency to be attracted by a man much taller than I am. Height is the number one in my list of desires.’
‘Is that so much?’
‘Yes. You know, my ex-boyfriend is 190cm, he was my classmate. I felt so good walking along with him, admired by the passers-by, though I know it was only vain.’
‘Do you love him?’
‘Yes, very much.’
‘Then?’
‘He wanted to pursue his career. He was only thirty-one then, and said he wasn’t ready for marriage. So when I saw no hope of a good end, I asked for a break up.’
‘It must be very hard for you.’
‘Yes. I spent two weeks in bed, unthinking, un-eating, completely wretched and distraught. Now I really understand those people who have depression, understand what kind of hopelessness and desperation they must have gone through.’
Bing was touched. A long silence fell between them. He didn’t look at her, but he heard the tears in her breath.
‘Where is he now?’
‘He is in the US, he lives there after doing a MBA.’
‘Is he married?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Can’t you go after him, I mean to the US?’
‘No, I can’t think of leaving Sydney. And I don’t think he had ever loved me all that much, otherwise he would have married me, or at least given me some hope.’
The music on play now was too soft and desperately emotional. Bing heaved a deep breath to moderate the stirrings in his chest.
‘Well, if you don’t have any feelings for me, I think I will cease bothering you,’ he said. ‘Unless you can treat me as a genuine friend. Really, I don’t want you to feel bad about our meetings.’
‘But a true friendship can hardly be sustained between a man and a woman,’ she returned. ‘I had a friend, on his wedding day, told me he still loved me, although I thought we had already become two friends ages ago.’
‘I can’t agree with you,’ he said modestly. ‘I feel all right, just like now, talking about things with you, as a friend.’
‘You know, as I told you on QQ, I am dating with a doctor at UNSW. I met him at a friend’s place a year ago, and the first thing he said to me was a negative comment on my dress, and since then I thought he wouldn’t like me.’
‘What did he say about your dress?’
‘He said, I shouldn’t bare too much of my shoulder. I was rather offended, and thought he hated my type of girl. So I decided to forget him. But strangely, he still sent me messages every now and then, especially at Christmas and New Year. I don’t particularly like him, nor dislike him.’
‘It is interesting that a man would comment on a girl’s dress at the first meeting.’ Bing was a little amused, then, as if enticed by the thread of their conversation, he turned to look at her, interested in the way she today dressed herself. She turned to meet his look, but failed to do so, because his eyes had already slipped onto the upper line of her breasts, creamy-white, constrained only by her thin black undershirt.
‘I think he is more suitable to me,’ she said.
Ceasing his furtive glance, he asked, ‘What does he do in the university?’
‘He is a lecturer.’
‘Is he tall?’
‘184cm’
‘Much taller than me.’
‘We met a few days ago,’ she said, looking straight ahead, where, through the windshield, there was nothing but a gloomy sky. ‘Since then I have been expecting his call, but no calls from him.’
‘Maybe another week?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Why don’t you contact him?’
‘What? A girl, contacting him? No, that won’t work,’ she said, making a little rustle in the seat. ‘I have actually deleted his mobile number from my phone, in case I can’t resist contacting him when I am desperately lonely.’
‘Really? Deleted his number? In case you couldn’t resist? Oh…’ He turned and observed her with a mighty awe.
‘Yes. It is very hard.’ She appeared weak and helpless like a child, but to imagine that she had the courage and determination to delete a contact she desired dating!
‘If I were you, I have to contact him, even go directly after him in his university. I can’t control and freeze myself from doing nothing.’
‘No, that won’t work.’
‘How do you know it won’t work?’
‘You don’t know, but I know, it won’t work. A man doesn’t like a woman taking the initiative, especially Chinese men.’
Bing thought for a second or two, what she had just stated was not entirely false. But, still, he felt it was an enormity for one to endure the type of torment of passive waiting, of craving for something yet unable to enact a move.
‘So what do you do?’
‘Just wait, and I am confident he will contact me again.’
Bing sensed a sweeping compassion and pity in his heart. There seemed an urge in him to give her some support, by some gestures, but he couldn’t, so he remained still. ‘Do you think you are in love with him?’
‘No, but I guess he is the best one I can get. I am thirty-one, heading quickly to thirty-two. I am constantly pressured from my parents, my relatives, and everything around me, besides from my own desperation. I am not like you, pressure-free, looking for those luxurious feelings.’
‘But you are after feelings too, otherwise you could accept me,’ he corrected her.
‘True, but you see, I have a better candidate,’ she said. ‘You don’t look sad and heart-broken at my denial, do you?’
‘Hehe… may only after going back to my home,’ he said, humorously, ‘I may take more than two weeks to tide my sadness.’
‘You know, some of the songs you listen to are so old-fashioned, they are the likes of my dad.’
Bing was taken aback, composing himself lest he betray himself with an uneasy expression. After all, she was born after 1980 and he could be her father’s younger brother. A wedge of a generation was indeed between them, between their minds, and literally, between their waists.
‘I don’t like very much those rock tunes.’ He gave a hasty explanation, feeling for the first time ashamed at pursuing a girl much younger than himself. And in a second or two, his self-esteem was so much nettled and hurt, and his spirit in the battle for a young love was so severely daunted that he said his words out clearly: ‘I can promise I won’t contact you in the future.’
For some moments after his promise, he was remaining resolute with the pride of a wounded man. But that didn’t last long before he decided to withdraw and soften his stance, ‘Or maybe just for seasonal greetings.’
‘Hehe, then I will forget you entirely,’ she said a little teasingly.
‘Well…’ He paused, seeking to grab a reason to shun the strained situation, and checking his mobile, he said, ‘What is the time? Time to go home?’
A minute later, back on the main road, sunk in the music she didn’t like, he managed to recover and heal his wounded dignity.
‘Well, I still think it is no harm we maintain a friendship. I can’t see why you have to feel bad about this.’
‘But even if we go out one hundred times, I won’t nurture any feeling for you, which is unfair to you.’
‘I don’t see it is a matter of fairness,’ he emphasized. ‘I won’t see it as wasted and useless. But you must feel okay, that is the main thing.’
She said no more, nor did he.
In another half of an hour, in the service station, she said, ‘Thank you, bye,’ as she mobilized her breasts and legs, and then her hips away from the car, before closing the door after her.
His eyes were following her, watching her heels tapping solidly on the ground. He was imagining she turn her head and at least throw him a smile of last time.
But she didn’t.
Her leopard-spotty pants were wiggling, like a eerie set of sex organs, until they were entirely drowned by the dusk.
-- End of Chapter 6 ---
選擇“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
選擇“don't run on pages on this domain”
