Song of the Silk Road (24 page)
23
Visit from the Desert Lover
A
fter the long plane ride to Beijing, a shorter flight to Urumqi, an overnight hotel stay, a car ride, and finally a bumpy few miles by donkey cart to my desert village, I felt oddly at home. I was beginning to wonder which was more real: my life in Manhattan or in this remote part of China where even ghosts refused to visit.
fter the long plane ride to Beijing, a shorter flight to Urumqi, an overnight hotel stay, a car ride, and finally a bumpy few miles by donkey cart to my desert village, I felt oddly at home. I was beginning to wonder which was more real: my life in Manhattan or in this remote part of China where even ghosts refused to visit.
As I was walking toward my cottage, Mito and a bigger girl whom I’d seen a few times were playing in the open area. Once they saw me, they both ran up to greet me.
The girl looked up at me, struggling to tell me something. “Sister.” She pointed to her nose, then made a lifting gesture. “Ghost, ghost.”
A foreigner with high nose. My heart skipped a beat.
Now she pointed to the patch of brown in her dress, then tousled her own hair. Yes, she was telling me that this foreign devil’s, or ghost’s, hair was brown.
Alex.
The girl took something out from her pocket. It was a bag of candies.
She said, smiling happily, “From ghost.”
Now Mito stuck out his tongue to show his share of the sweets.
I was pleased that although Alex came back for me, he didn’t forget the children.
I asked the girl, “What does he look like?” Of course it was a redundant question.
Just then Keku materialized and offered details. “Tall and thin, big eyes, sweet smile, chestnut hair. Very good looking.” After that, she covered her face and giggled as uncontrollably as a little girl being tickled by her uncle. “
Wah
, that’s why come back so quick!”
Wah
, that’s why come back so quick!”
“Did you talk to him? Did he ask you about me?”
She shook her head, blushing. “No, I hid in cottage and watched. Too scary talk to ghost.” Seemingly trying hard to suppress another burst of giggles, she added, “Also, don’t speak ghost language. But he looked like worried ghost.”
“When did he come?”
“Four times already.”
“Thank you, Keku,” I said, and started to turn away.
“Wait!” she shouted at my back.
I turned back. “Yes?”
She placed her hand on her chest and said empathically, “He in here!”
“How do you know?”
She burst out laughing. “Ha! Ha! Ha! On your face, written on your face!”
After I took the luggage and let myself inside the cottage, two notes on the floor stared anxiously at me. I snatched them up, slapped shut the door, dropped my butt on the tire, and started to read.
Dear Lily,
I couldn’t find you, although I came here four times so far, hoping to see your face. Where are you? I hope you still live here, or are only away for one of your many mysterious journeys which you never invite me to join.
I can’t help but worry about you. You’re strong in spirit but vulnerable in body and heart. You tried to act tough but are in fact soft like water, and living all alone in this remote part of China.
If you’re back and get these letters, please call me. I’m staying at the Welcome Guest Hotel in Urumqi. But I’ll come again soon. If you call and I’m not there, please leave a message.
The idea of not being able to see you again is unbearable.
I love you. Sorry about that horrible fight. I have bitterly regretted it ever since.
I hope someday you will be my wife. Don’t discriminate against me because of my age. I can’t help it.
There is always a room in my heart reserved for you.
Alex
The second letter had only three lines:
Please call me the minute you’re back. I worry about you. If it is my sad destiny not to see you again, I’ll go back to the States soon.
Alex
I put the two letters on the table, then covered my face with a pillow and cried my heart out. I felt sad, and also frightened. I hoped our love was not a dream or our encounter an illusion. No one had ever been so patient with me, understood me so well, and loved me so completely. If I was not 100 percent sure I could return Alex the same kind of love, it might be better to end it now, lest I someday hurt him deeply and irretrievably, the last thing I wanted to do.
My love, so unexpectedly dropped into my life, both pleased and scared me. Would I have any future with this man sharing my desert bed, even if we were willing to wait for each other? Me for him to mature and make some money, and he for me to make up my mind to accept him completely—including our eight-year age difference?
The next day, early in the morning, too impatient to wait for a donkey cart, I walked two miles to the post office to make the call to the Welcome Guest Hotel.
Seconds later I was connected to Alex’s room.
“Alex?”
“Lily, where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for days!”
“I just came back from New York. Your mother told me you were in China, so here I am.”
“I’ll come over right now. Please wait for me.”
Then the phone went dead.
He was that impatient to see me.
The hours crawled by, then suddenly there was Alex, at my doorstep, then inside my cottage holding me tightly, like a child gripping a fluttering bird, fearing it might slip from his hands and fly away.
While suppressing my boiling emotions, I reached to wipe the tears coursing down his hollowed cheeks. “Don’t be sad, Alex. Everything will be all right.”
“I can’t bear to lose you, Lily.”
I searched his sparkling eyes tinged with sorrow. “You’ve not been eating well.”
“Not until I could see you, so now I will.”
I remained silent.
Alex cupped my face, then pressed his warm, trembling, tearwet lips onto mine. His kiss lingered deliciously like a pleasant dream, making my heart flutter like a dragonfly.
When he finally released me, he tilted my chin and looked deeply into my eyes.
“Lily.”
“Yes.”
“Marry me.”
Silence.
“Alex, you’re so young. Don’t you have any second thoughts? I just don’t want you to regret it later. . . .”
“Lily, please don’t mention again how young I am.”
I lowered my head, not knowing what to say. This man was so young, yet he came all this way to find me. He wanted me, an older woman, to be his wife. What did he know about life, or love, let alone marriage? But, for that matter, what did I know?
He reached to touch my cheek, very gently, once again like a child with his wounded bird. But in fact he was the one who was wounded—by me, the bird who’d always dreamed of flying high and free.
“You are so beautiful, mysterious, kind, and brave. Like you, I want to travel the world, so we can go everywhere together. Maybe we can be ambassadors, or some sort of cultural attachés. Lily, we’re perfect for each other. I promise that I’ll love you, adore you, respect you, and protect you like no other man would.”
Did “no other man” refer to Chris? Yes, compared to Alex, Chris was a jerk—taking advantage of my then dire situation to make me his mistress, claiming his great love for me but somehow never quite initiating a divorce from his wife. Always excuses—alimony too high, Preston too small, doesn’t want to hurt Jenny even though he doesn’t love her anymore . . . blah, blah, blah.
I ran my fingers through Alex’s hair, matted from the heat. “Alex, please give me time.” I meant “to finish my three-million-dollar business” but stopped myself from spilling it out just in time. This was exactly what Chris did to me, and I hated it. The delay strategy. Now I’d been doing the same to Alex. I sighed inside.
“OK, but don’t make me worry.”
“About what?”
“I just can’t relax knowing that you’re here all by yourself! Lily, you still haven’t told me what you have been doing here on the Silk Road.”
I was tempted to tell him everything. But a small voice inside warned me to be cautious. I’d already lost my parents; I couldn’t afford to lose my only chance for the much needed and, I had to admit, much coveted, three million dollars.
I said, “I’ll tell you soon. Just give me a little more time, OK? It’s nothing about you, I promise.”
He nodded. Then he took from his pocket a red silk pouch, slid out the object, and placed it in my hand.
It was a silver Chinese amulet. One side was carved with a dragon and a phoenix and the other side had the words “Peace and Longevity.”
“I hope you like it,” he said nervously.
“Alex, it’s beautiful.” I was so touched that I didn’t know what more to say.
He tied the amulet so it hung from a belt loop on my jeans. “It’ll protect you on your trip.”
“Thank you so much, Alex.”
“Promise me you’ll wear it every day so you’ll be safe.”
“Of course I will.” I kissed him on his cheek, then asked, “Alex, are you hungry? You want something to eat? Why don’t you rest on the bed and I’ll cook you something.”
“But I have my food right here,” he said, then lifted me up, carried me to the bed, undressed me, and gently set me down. In a swift motion like a cursive calligraphic stroke, he pulled off his shirt, jeans, underwear, and shoes and threw them on the floor. His eyes, hungry and greedy like a wolf’s, wandered over my naked body, lingering on my breasts, my stomach, my legs and the mysterious valley in between, then slowly back up to my face. He kissed my forehead, my eyes, my cheeks, my lips, and my neck while holding me lovingly.
I could feel his young, firm body sending waves of energy into mine as heat surged in my hidden valley. Eager, his swollen sex hardened against my groin. Hungry, we became entangled like an octopus and its prey.
His tongue, like a hot desert snake, pried open my lips, slid inside my mouth, and devoured its target. Then the two snakes, each encountering its long-awaited rival, engaged in the thousand-year-old Art of War: attack and retreat, press and release, contract and relax. Ah Hung’s sayings popped into my mind:
The loneliest person is the one whose rival never shows up.
The happiest chess master is the one who
finally meets his worthy rival.
The happiest chess master is the one who
finally meets his worthy rival.
“Alex . . .” Now my doubts dissipated and I felt myself dissolving in his arms, floating in a gilded dream. I wanted to turn this endearing moment into eternity, like the golden sands of the desert forever shifting and singing happily under a timeless sky. I wanted my young lover to enter deep inside me, so I wouldn’t feel the miserable hollowness of my twenty-nine-year-old existence. I wanted my body and soul to be filled by his innocence, passion, strength, thoughtfulness, and his
qi
-radiating sex. I wanted all of him.
qi
-radiating sex. I wanted all of him.
As I was enjoying my worthy rival, his lips moved down to my nipples, sucking them like a hungry baby his mother’s life-giving milk. I squirmed and moaned and screamed, digging my nails deep into his shoulders. Encouraged, his hands moved all over me like a mapmaker working on unexplored land. My lips trembled and murmured endearing words, as my private area experienced a painful ecstasy I had not known existed.
In a delirious state, my lover muttered, “Lily, oh, Lily, love me, please love me back.”
“Alex. . . .” I couldn’t talk, for I was already plunging into sexual oblivion under his relentless advances.
He finally entered me. The thrusting was painfully comforting and strangely therapeutic. All my worries, miseries, loneliness evaporated, leaving a love as deep as the desert valley. Then he came with a long, heaven-shattering howl, shaking the small room like exploding fireworks. I was so touched by the joy and pain embedded in the cry that when he pulled himself out and lay beside me, my cheeks were flooded with tears.
Alex wrapped one arm around me, his other hand wiping my face. “You all right, Lily? Did I hurt you? Am I too rough?”
I looked at his young, concerned face. “No, Alex, you’re a wonderful man and lover. It’s just that I felt so overwhelmed by your love.”
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