the yard like a dove. “My god, where did you learn that? I’m no tiger, you know, and I won’t bite that thing off!” She nudged him with her foot. “Get up, it’s bath time!”
She led Jintong into the bathroom, where she turned on the light and pointed to a pink bathtub beneath a crystal fixture with a frosted bulb, bordered by tiled walls, a coffee-colored Italian commode, and a Japanese water heater. “I bought all this from scrap dealers. Half the people in Dalan are thieves these days. I don’t have running hot water, so I need to heat my own bath water.” She pointed to four water heaters arrayed around the tub. “I spend half my day soaking in the tub. I never took a single hot bath the first half of my life, so I’m making up for that now. But you’re worse off than I, son, and I don’t imagine the labor reform camp supplied hot water for baths.” While she talked, she reached out and turned on all four heaters, from which hot water gushed into the tub and steam quickly filled the room. Old Jin, pushed him in, but he shrieked and jumped back out. She pushed him in again. “Tough it out,” she said. “It’ll cool down in a minute.” So he gritted his teeth, as all the blood in his body seemed to rush to his head. He felt a prickly sensation all over. Neither truly painful nor totally numbing, it fell somewhere between agony and bliss. He went limp, his body slipping weakly under the water, as the four jets pummeled his skin with watery arrows. Through the steamy air he saw Old Jin slip out of her robe, climb in like a big white sow, and cover him with her soft, lustrous body. The steam was suddenly perfumed. Picking up a bar of fragrant bath soap, she washed his head, his face, and his body, which was quickly covered with a rich lather. He submitted weakly, and when her nipple brushed against his skin, he nearly died of ecstasy. The dirt and grime fell away as the two of them moved and shifted in the tub; his hair, his stubbly beard, were cleansed of filth. An ordinary man would have thrown his arms around her, but he just lay there and let her scrub and pinch him all over.
After they emerged from the bath, she flung the rags he’d worn home from the camp out the window and dressed him in clean underwear. Then she helped him into a Pierre Cardin suit she’d readied for the occasion. After completing the outfit with a tie, with which she struggled for a moment, she combed his hair, adding some Korean hair oil, trimmed his beard, and splashed on some cologne. She then led him over to the dressing mirror, where a tall, handsome, impressive-looking Chinese man in Western garb looked back at him. “My dear,” Old Jin exclaimed, “you look like a movie star!” He blushed and turned away. But he’d liked what he’d seen. It wasn’t the Shangguan Jintong who had survived on stolen eggs at the Flood Dragon River Farm, and it surely wasn’t the Shangguan Jintong who had tended livestock in a labor reform camp.
Old Jin led him over to a sofa at the foot of the bed and handed him a cigarette, which he refused. Fearfully he accepted the tea she held out to him. She leaned against the folded comforter on the bed, spread her legs casually, and covered herself with her bathrobe, as she leisurely blew smoke rings from a cigarette she’d lit for herself. With the powder washed off in the bath, wrinkles and a few dark freckles showed on her face. When she closed her eyes to keep out the smoke, crow’s feet fanned out in the corners. “I’ve never seen a more innocent man in my life,” she said with a squint. “Am I just an ugly old hag?”
Unable to bear the penetrating glare that squeezed out from her slitted eyes, he lowered his head and laid his hands on his knees. “No,” he said, “you’re not old, and you’re not ugly. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“I thought your mother was lying to me,” she said, sounding demoralized. “But I see it was true, every bit of it.” She stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray and sat up. “The incident with that woman, did it really happen?” He stretched his neck, unused to being confined by a starched collar and a tie; his face was sweaty. As he rubbed his knees, he felt he was on the verge of crying.
“That’s all right,” she said. “I was just asking. You’re such a little idiot.”
At noon, a dozen or so men in Western suits and leather shoes joined them for lunch. Holding his hand, she introduced him to her guests. “This is my adoptive son. Looks like a movie star, doesn’t he?” The men gazed at him with their clever eyes. One of them, a man with slicked-down hair and wearing a gold Rolex, the band intentionally loose around his wrist, said with a salacious wink, “Old Jin, you’re an old cow feasting on tender new grass!” Jintong recalled that Old Jin had introduced this middle-aged man as the chairman of some commission or other.
“Up your mother’s ass!” Old Jin swore. “This son of mine is the Golden Boy at the feet of the Queen Mother of the West, a gentleman in every respect. Not like you horny dogs. You’re attracted to women like mosquitoes are drawn to blood. You’ll sink your teeth into them even if you get swatted flat in the process.”
‘Old Jin,” a bald man piped up, “you’re the one we want to sink our teeth into.” His jowls flapped when he talked, so badly he often had to cup his hands around his cheeks to keep his mouth from twisting out of shape. “Such tasty flesh!”
“Old Jin, you’re taking a page out of Empress Wu’s book,” said a husky young man with naturally wavy hair and eyes like a goldfish. “You’ve got yourself a little pretty boy!”
“You all have your second and third wives, but I can’t…” Old Jin stopped short. “Just shut your foul mouths. If you don’t watch out, I’ll make sure people find out about all your sneaking around.”
A heavy-browed, hollow-cheeked man held out his wineglass and walked up to Jintong. “Elder brother Shangguan Jintong, here’s to you and your release from the camp.”
Now that his secret was out, Jintong felt like crawling under the table.
“He was framed!” Old Jin shouted indignantly. “Jintong is an honest man who would never do what he was charged with.”
The men began whispering among themselves. Then they stood up and, one after the other, toasted Jintong. Since he’d never drunk alcohol before, it took little to set his head spinning. The men’s faces took on the appearance of sunflowers waving in the wind, and he had the baffling feeling that he ought to clear something up with these people. He held out his cup and said, “I did it… with her, but her body was still warm… eyes still open… she smiled…”
“Now that’s a real man!” he heard one of the sunflowers say, which made him feel better, just before he fell facedown into the food on the table.
He awoke to find himself stark naked on Old Jin’s bed. She was there beside him, also naked, leaning against the comforter, a glass of wine in her hand; she was watching a video. It was the first color TV Jintong had ever seen – at the camp he’d seen a tiny bit of TV on a black-and-white set, which was astonishing enough, but the color picture had him doubting his own eyes. Especially since a naked man and woman were cavorting right there on the screen. Feelings of guilt weighed his head down. He heard Old Jin giggle. “You can stop pretending, son. Raise your head and take a good look. You need to see how people do it.” Jintong raised his head and stole another look or two. Chills ran up and down his spine.
Old Jin leaned over and switched off the video. White dots filled the screen until she turned off the TV. When she adjusted the bedside lamp, a soft yellow light painted the walls. The light blue window curtains cascaded down to the bed mat like a waterfall. Old Jin smiled and began teasing him with her feet.
His throat was as dry as an abandoned well; the top half of his body was hot as cinders, the lower half was like a stagnant pond. His eyes were fixed on her full breast, which hung down to her navel and sagged slightly to the left. His lips parted as he moved over to take it into his mouth, but Old Jin moved it away and, at the same time, shifted provocatively. Irritated by her rejection, he grabbed her soft shoulders to roll her over. She turned toward him, her breast flashing into view like a frightened wild goose, but was quickly moved back out of sight. Before long, they were engaged in a wrestling match, one struggling to find the breast, the other fighting him off, until they were worn out. Finally, Old Jin was too weary to deny him any longer, and he buried his head in her bosom, with no thoughts for anything else, taking the nipple into his mouth with such force it’s a wonder he didn’t swallow up the whole breast. Once she’d surrendered her nipple, all the fight in her vanished. With moans of pleasure, she dug her fingers into his hair as he proceeded to suck her dry.
Jintong slept like a baby after emptying her of her milk. Old Jin, her heart on fire, tried every trick she knew to wake the man-child up, but he snored on.
The next morning, she awoke with a weary yawn and glared at Jintong. Her nursemaid brought over her baby for a feeding, and Jintong saw the infant, not yet a month old, in the nursemaid’s arms, staring at him with hatred in his eyes. “Not now,” Old Jin said to the woman, rubbing her breast. “Go get him a bottle of milk at the dairy farm.”
Once the nursemaid had made a tactful exit, Old Jin cursed, “Jintong, you bastard, you sucked so hard you drew blood.” He smiled apologetically and stared at the hand cupping her treasure. The demon of desire reappeared, and he began to make his move. But this time she stood up and took her breast into the other
