The tour guide's voice was slow, and almost shy, she was Chinese, and had high cheekbones, a short upper lip, and deep satin set of dark eyes. She had spoken out of the side of her mouth, as if she hoped her words would-be correct. "My name Miss Yang," she said as the bus took off, she disappeared behind the many heads in front of her, totally leaving scarcely a dot of her form to see in the upper part of the bus. "I was just thinking that we could take the underground subway to the other side of town tomorrow, give us something to do, it's a freed day." "Yes," agreed Sandy, unbegrudgingly. I didn't know if she had other plans, nor allowed her the liberties to suggest something, but unchallenging she agreed. " I wish I had a cigarette," she said, her eyes, seemingly photographic, did not move. "I like to absorb you," she said almost vehemently. Then she put her hand on my leg, rubbed it and I was getting hard, and she liked that, not sure if it was the power, control, or simply ecstasy behind this introduction to her play, which I'd have to get used to in the future, I presupposed this was to lead into a more lasting relationship. She was thinking anyhow, thinking wondering whether we made good love, and asked me. Usually it is the man who asks such a jockey question. But I assured her she was fine, and dominate, which I didn't add, but she was. As I looked across this lake like watercourse, I could see the marble palace, sunlight had struck it, and you could now hear murmurs in the bus, and everybody trying to get a closer view. There were several on the bus closed eyed, I think pretending to be asleep, then they opened their eyes half-open to watch the blurred Princess Palace come into focus. Sandy and I had talked a lot on our way out to this site, she had accepted me impersonally, my past and all, and I hers, careless confidence it can be called, I perhaps, dismissed her issues with too much haste, like dust swept under a carpet. But it was how I wanted it at the time. I noticed it had flattered her when I asked her advice on a few things, preference to anyone else's, in particular, Frank and Gloria's. The affair was on its second day (my third day in China), but it seemed much longer, as we were lovers, and were spending every minute together. Sandy was a bit bitter of her lose of sight, and her teachers job, which she was not getting any compensation for; another reason, and the strongest, she had to tolerate her ex-husbands luck in acquiring her son, she refused to recognized his right to have him, but she knew she could not afford to raise him, pride and toughness was behind that pretty rosy smile I figured. It could scarcely be said of her, that her thoughts were not on us she was at times in a light mental slum, and she could vaguely see it, although she pulled herself out of them quickly; and enmeshed herself into me. During lunch, Sandy Gunderson had asked: "Well, what nationality are your people, my folks are from German stock?" And I told her mine were from the Russian and Polish stockpile (who had migrated, better put, sought a better life, in 1916, and hence, came to America), and the other half of me was from the Irish (my fathers side). She was restless, stretching herself from moment to moment. I was a few years older than her and could hardly keep up with her talking, her questions, statements, and to a lesser degree, but growing: counseling. She thought me handsome" ?but there was some kind of faint mar, aversion in the side of her face now and then, that took the full luster of her continence (this would come out later). "I am from a small village, town-let, a quiet one in the upper part of Massachusetts" she explained, "it is called Stockbridge," and added, "Nathaniel Hawthorn wrote his book,' The House of the Seven Gabbles,' there in a little red house outside of town (which I would visit in the near future, and walked its narrow path in the back of it, into the woods, by the lake)" There was a house downtown were the famous Norman Rockwell lived, and did his famous paintings too; and Emerson lived nearby Hawthorn, whom those two would visit one another off and on during the four years Hawthorn lived there, and Emerson, poet and man of letters, would disparage Hawthorn off and on, as a lesser intellectual than he, scholar. "The city goes back a few hundred years," she explained. And it seemed to me an aim for me to go see it, I was thinking of visiting Nantucket Island, anyhow, so perhaps I could be fashionable, and hit two birds with one stone. The day was becoming complete, she felt a purpose in the future was developing, and I had a direction, a plan, an act of creation to speculate on; but I didn't perceive a web with this pleasant conversation, and it would develop (in future time), so we left well enough alone and had a good day. |
