本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛First year, in senior high school, Xie and I spent many sunny afternoons playing table tennis and after each game we would have a break by sitting side by side, either reading or chatting. Our relation of the time was quite inexplicably odd: she talked about her boy friend who was studying in a university in a distant city, while I dwelled on how a girl, Qiao, had attracted my attention and captured my heart. My initial intention of improvising this imaginary interest in Qiao was to balance our chat and avoid awkward silence during our breaks; however, little did I know then, by repeating the feeling constantly, I had tricked myself into believing in and accepting my own fabrication.
Qiao was a lovely, energetic and gregarious girl. Her mother was a music professor in a nearby university, and not surprisingly, she was brought up immersed in piano tunes. The first time I saw her playing piano at her home, her two hands dancing on the piano keys with such dexterity that I was transfixed along with a group of other people, and the unearthly music was so beautiful that, at that very moment, under the influence of my own fantasy, I felt as if she was playing only for me. If you love someone, you love everything about her. She had two upper front teeth slightly slanting obtrusively (we call them “tiger teeth”, and how on earth tigers are able to keep their mouths shut is beyond me), which had made her mouth difficult to keep fully closed. But for the same reason, the way her mouth was always ajar gave people an smiling illusion; yet, her teeth had irritatingly remained my primary attention for a long time, as a result of which, out of many her other attractions, I falsely believed her teeth was the reason why I liked her.
Qiao was put in charge of the entertainment and propaganda for the school. Each year, she was the primary musical support at the back stage of Students’ Culture &.Art Show, which was single-handedly orchestrated by several teachers whose combined experience on choreography and art were from watching CCTV. In the first year, I was chosen to dance as a young man of ethnic minority for the show. My designated part of the show was very simple: to dress like a young man of ethnic minority and dance for a group of singing girls at the front stage. It wasn’t even real dancing. In one show, I was a Tibetan lad with a foam horse head hanging from my neck to imitate a happy horse trotting in a big prairie, while a group of fake Tibetan girls were singing happily, waving their ridiculously long sleeves and doing some laundry beside an imaginary river, an incredibly high-pitched and tremulous singing of a Tibetan woman blaring from a cassette recorder hidden at the back stage; in another show, I was doing the same thing, except that I was a Mongolian lad circling a group of fake Mongolian girls who were happily milking cows at the front stage. Throughout the whole show, I was running all over the stage, facing the audience at all time, one hand holding the horse head to prevent it from floating to the back of my neck, the other hand pantomiming whipping, and a smile as broad as I could manage. The background painting was so coarse and in such poor quality and my smile was so crooked that audience reviews hat put it quite bluntly, after the show, that my horse trotting looked a lot like someone drowning in the ocean, desperately clinging to a horse-shaped wood and mouth wide open gasping for air.
I hated the show. I felt I was a complete idiot in the show. For any young boy, it was girl-repelling, image-shattering and self-esteem-battering. I wish Qiao were too busy at the back stage to watch my performance, and I also knew it was a wishful thinking.
I found solace in the company of Xie after show. She did not make any attempt to conceal her amusement and replayed every bit of my role in the show which I would do anything to make people forget. Then we listened to a song by a Taiwan singer Qi Qin. My only singing experience at the time was howling out those patriotic songs as loud as possible in chorus contests, (normally, in chorus contests, the loudest class would win). The first time I heard Qi Qin singing, I could not believe my ears: a song could be sung this beautifully – the guy was virtually crooning – about a wolf!
I am a wolf from the north,
Roaming in the borderless wildness.
Piercing and shrieking northern wind has passed,
Engulfing sand storm has swept.
I have to grit my teeth in coldness,
Willing myself against it with howling,
Not for other things,
But for that fabled beautiful prairie.
...
“He is so cool,” Xie was pointing to a photo of Qi Qin, “look at that German Sheppard, I wish I had one.”
“He is a sissy.” I said drily, maybe a little jealous, “That is why he needs a pet to protect him.”
“I like his leather jacket. Very masculine.”
“He is wearing a t-shirt. Taiwan is hot. And he puts on a leather jacket. He must be sweating like a pig.”
“His hair is so long, but quite handsome.”
“I bet he needs to wash it every day to avoid lice.”
“Stop it!” She was laughing, punching me gently.
As soon as she recovered from her laugh, acting on an impulse, I kissed her - the first kiss in my life. I did not know why I kissed her. Maybe I figured she was accessible at the time, or I wouldn’t get slapped on the face or kicked in the crotch if we kissed. Our intimacy emboldened me. However, it was the worst kiss in my life. I kissed her so fast that there was barely anything I could remember to relish later, and to make things worse, both of our eyes were open when I made the move: she did not know I was going to kiss her and I needed to make sure my lips would hit the target. Thus, I turned my face toward her, my mouth formed a small “o” shape, closed up with lightning speed, touched her lips gently and withdrew. Done.
The sex education in China back then was disastrous. I had no idea as to how to kiss a girl properly and there were no movies from which I could copy, but I was knowledgeable enough to know that I needed to press my lips onto hers and, by doing so, no unwanted pregnancy would take place. Only years later, from an imported movie, did I know the proper way to kiss: both actor and actress closed their eyes (my experience was it would be very uncomfortable to kiss someone with eyes wide open); then the actor opened his mouth into a big oval shape before gluing it to the mouth of an actress; after accomplishing that, his tongue slithered out and forced its way into the actress’ mouth; Once inside, his tongue did a tongue laundry noisily by sloshing around inside enjoyably.
So, I kissed Xie. She did not seem to be annoyed, or vexed, or insulted, maybe a little surprised. She took it rather passively, expectantly and as-matter-of-factly. But I felt nothing – no legendary sensation and excitement that had been so much talked about. It was even less electrifying than touching hands!
After the kissing, neither of us seemed to know what to say.
“I...I always wanted to know what a kiss feels like.” I stammered. I felt pressured to say something. But why in the world did I have to say this?
She did not respond, except lowering her head and playing with her pencil.
“Funny, I feel nothing. You?” I was trying to break the ice and restore our relation to what it was before kissing. But what I actually did was to keep showing my IQ to a new low level. Like a social awkward, any new effort to rectify my previous unintended words, only created more urgent needs for correcting the present ones.
“Nothing.” She echoed me.
“I don’t know why I kissed you. I want to make sure we are not in love. Are we in love?” I couldn’t help talking, hoping I could talk my way out of this awkwardness, and it was getting worse and worse (I should have shut my mouth).
“No. We are not in love.”更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net