Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [236]
“You’re really not like other Chinese,” he said, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
Yin Ling’s heart was no longer in her mouth. She had seen in those hazel eyes that he was touched and pleased.
At least for the moment.
Further than that she did not want to look.
Johnny lived in a two-storey house no more than ten minutes’ walk from the tavern, where he had a room in the basement.
The house was owned and occupied by a Dutch couple. The man was a lawyer and the woman, a housewife. Their children had married and left home, except for the youngest, who had joined the army and was now fighting in Europe. When Johnny arrived in Red Deer and urgently needed somewhere to stay, they agreed to rent the basement room to him. They thought he would be company, but they hardly ever saw him. He went out every afternoon, his guitar slung over his shoulder, and only came home at dawn. When they got up, he was just settling down to sleep.
The basement room had its own entrance. When they got to the door, Johnny tucked Yin Ling under his arm as if he was carrying a cat, and quietly slipped inside with her. Yin Ling could not help laughing in the darkness, but Johnny quickly put his hand over her mouth.
“Be careful. They’ve got ears as sharp as hunting dogs. Good thing their bedroom’s on the top floor,” he whispered into her ear as he put her down.
Johnny’s breath reeked of beer and cigarette smoke. It tickled her ear and neck, and Yin Ling felt a gush of wetness along her thighs. This was what her mother meant when she scolded her for being a “slut.” But her mother was not here to keep her under control now. In fact, she hardly seemed able to keep herself under control. She lifted her lips to Johnny’s, and he covered them with his own, slurping like a duck slurps water. Yin Ling began to tremble so violently that she could hardly breathe.
Johnny put her down on the bed. It was an old wooden cot and creaked and groaned in protest under the weight of their bodies. But Johnny paid no attention. His hands were inside Yin Ling’s clothes, not bothering with the buttons, pulling up her blouse so that it covered her face. Yin Ling could not see him any more but she could feel a pair of feverishly hot hands kneading her small, scarcely formed breasts as if they were dough.
His hands left her breasts and pulled off her trousers. Yin Ling waited for the hands to knead the place between her legs too, but instead she felt something like an iron rod thrust into her body. She was unprepared for the searing pain, and for a moment, she was silenced. Whimpers of pain caught in her throat. Remembering the Dutch couple upstairs, she forced herself to choke them down again.
The rod thrust itself in and out of her body a few times more, then went soft.
“It’s always like this the first time. When we do it some more, it’ll be so good you won’t be able to get enough of it.”
Johnny pulled Yin Ling’s blouse down and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
The dawn came, and light filtered in through the small basement window, rippling over Johnny’s biceps. Yin Ling traced her finger down his arm and asked tentatively: “Have you done it lots of times?”
Johnny did not answer. But when Yin Ling asked again, he said: “They come to me. You know what it’s like in this business, there are always women hanging around us.”
Yin Ling’s heart skipped a beat. She thought to herself that she was one of those women who hung around him. But they only came once or twice for the novelty of it, she assured herself. She was not like that. She wanted to stay with him for the rest of her life. She had no father, mother or grandfather any more. She had no one. Only Johnny.
She turned over and held him tight.
From now on, Johnny’s home was hers too.
It would be more accurate to call it a hidey-hole than a home. Every day they slept until the afternoon. Then Johnny went to the Goldpanner to work and Yin Ling kept hunger at bay by chewing some crusts of bread Johnny brought home from the bar. She was as quiet as she could be so that the people upstairs would not hear her. Down