原创英文小说：[Blue Jacaranda] 蓝花楹 - Chapter 2 何木屋语2021-08-30 00:06:00
Blue Jacaranda
澳洲：何木
Chapter 2
When Melody came back from the toilet, she looked at him with a long and inquisitive eye, as if he were a face in the mirror when she was doing her makeup. Goosebumps started to creep up his back.
She began, seriously, “I wanted to love you,” and after a pause, said again, “I always love you…”
He was confused, “Wanted? What do you mean? I thought you … ”
“You mean my ex?” She finished his sentence for him. “Well, it was only because he chased me that hard and I was kind of, kind of desperate… you...such a fool…”
“Oh...” he muttered, in total disbelief, searching for words but found them escaping from him. Her confession was unprecedented, going through him like wasabi, the sensation so strong and so brief. Only Peter had known too well that the girl before him had a volatile temperament. So, even after he had survived the first thrilling impact, he decided not to make any flippant comments.
?And much to his relief, Melody seemed to have lost momentum to hurl out more at him, love or hate. She cupped her face with her hands, her eyes on the table, for the moment presented a docile creature vulnerable after giving out her secrets. Peter had the urge to express his sympathy or his ‘love’ to her, by physically touching her, but, her wild rejection a while ago still afresh in his mind, he remained unresponsive, like a piece of wood.
Melody was a student in Visual Arts who had the tendency to swing moods and thoughts in a very short time. In contrast Peter, if his career followed his study, would be an accountant, who would only reveal things after he had done the double entry of debits and credits. The thinking habit was in many years of making, and would not alter easily even if, tonight, he was made a little loose by the drink.
Melody had once confided in him, in a kidding tone, that she very much liked the shape of his lips. They were chisel-cut, she said, very manly and determined, and extraordinarily sexy. But, she added further, that it was a pity that his single beauty was much wasted in his ‘childish' small face, and among his other ‘plain’ features, and not to mention his ‘mediocre’ 169cm body length. In technical terms, his physique had more debits than credits, far from ideal in her picky artistic eye. Peter, a young adult who had been very self-conscious of his shortcomings, felt his pride wounded badly by her harsh comments, and had since concluded that Melody was a vain species without subtlety and due respect for others.
Anyway, for the sake of reciprocity, this evening he should also reveal his own secrets, more or less. At least he could say that he had renewed his ‘desire’ for her after seeing her today. But, wait a second, he argued against himself, doing so would definitely create a problematic ‘balance sheet’. If he told her of his new feelings, then how about his old feelings that had failed her in the first place?
Too much confession was apparently not for today, especially in such a noisy romance-killing bar.
“We go?” Melody rustled with a quick move, ready to put an end to his pathetic silence.
“Okay,” he obeyed, emptying his glass.
Without doubt, he had upset her, she was disappointed, so she wanted to end it and never wanted to see him again. Otherwise, having just done their October exams, plus tomorrow being Saturday, they could stay as late as they wanted. And the most important thing was that Peter had the least intention to disappoint her. Giving him a little more time for sorting out the rationality of the matter, and with a few more drinks, he might become as hilarious as she had been, baring his heart and soul to her and making his accounting book clean and accurate.
Melody was a girl of enormous pride. As the only sweetheart of her millionaire, even billionaire father back in Beijing, she had the impression of being constantly superior to her peers. In the eyes of many, Peter had every reason to love her inside out, their previous breakup could only be that Melody had jilted him, like she had done with her other exs, not the other way around.
Outside in the street, they walked in parallel, like two lone rails of a railway. Even the fiercely blowing wind at the time couldn’t reconcile their distance. The lure of her body clad in a flimsy blouse was poignant, the temperature wafting in her direction was very delicious. But they moved on like strangers, as if it were their last meeting, the end of their love story, clear cut and once for all lingerings.
Time would only tell they would bury each other in their separate lives, in the vast universe. But time, occasionally forgiving, and always on a whim, might also tell otherwise.
As soon as they boarded the train, in the man-made cage confinement, they were able to brush each other, intentionally or otherwise, at their arms, as well as the fringes of their thighs. And what was more, after a minute or two of them seated at one bench, she rested her head upon his shoulder, as though it were the most natural thing to do on a train for a couple.
And he would not mind lending his arms to hold her shoulders. He cuddled her close to him so that her head was snuggled under his chin, so that she would no longer shiver in the chill of the unusually windy night. And before long, he found his body began to stir and grew restless, the knot of energy beginning to swell in spite of himself. The warmth of her body, of her breath, and her velvet locks, were teasing him mercilessly. Thus carefully, he looked around, and found the environment to be safe for a little romance, where the few passengers scattered about, heeding nobody but their own musing or smartphone activities.
He stroked her hair, with the affection of a zealous pet lover stroking a pet's fur. The rumble of the train was helping settle their intimacy. At one point, Melody half opened her eyes, turned up to peep at him, with a measure of amusement to her heart’s content. At another, she lifted her hand to trace the edges of his lips, like she was hand-making a ceramic piece in her class.
The train tumbled along. Out of the window, he couldn’t see the usual greens and flowers and pacific houses as in the daylight. Only the silhouettes of trees were bending low, their limbs frantically grabbing the darkness. And the train, clanking and screeching now and again, threatened to run off the tracks. Peter, for a moment, thought of China’s high-speed bullet trains, and subways, fast and smooth and punctual, gone the typical rhythmic thumping caused by the rail gaps. Sydney's cityrail, in comparison, still kept the powerful ancient rhythms, affording him the opportunity everytime as he took it, to miss his old days travelling on the rusty old trains.
The girl on his chest stirred as if protesting against the minute of his distraction. Her lips, clear of lipsticks, looked as fresh as the budding leaves in the spring. He couldn’t help but allow the tip of his finger to do what Melody had often done similar to him.
But his caress was met with a fierce bite. The girl suddenly opened her mouth, catching a quarter of his finger between her teeth. The pain was solid, and sweet, until she released her capture to have a whisper, “Will you love me, Peter, keep on loving me?”
His heart skipped a beat and he answered her by scooping her face, now heated more by her passion than anything else. Then he bent low to administer many of his kisses, first on her cheeks, then her nose, then to the opening of the softness.
Peter lived in a unit, shared by another roommate. He had never taken girls to his small one-single bedroom. But tonight Melody seemed willing to follow him wherever he went. Indeed it was very bad weather, indeed she was in need of support one way or another. Since one year ago he made love to Melody he had moved quite a few times, whenever a better budget could be achieved. His family was very ‘poor’ compared to Melody’s, with his father an associate professor in South-Western Jiao Tong University, and his mother an office clerk in a private company. Over the years, he had to keep a juggling balance between study and work, and whenever possible picking higher-paid part-time jobs.
Entering the door, his roommate, as usual, was heard indulging in computer games, with the loud fighting noise from his closed room. Peter had little interest in all sorts of games, to him it was a robot-like machinery hobby, getting one old and bald quicker, wasting too much of his precious time.
“Okay, Melody, how are you feeling?” said Peter, in his effort to extricate himself from her arms that seemed very reluctant to leave his neck. “Okay, Melody, lie down, now have a nice sleep, I go and get water for you.”
After dropping her off to his bed, Peter went out to the kitchen to fetch a kettle of water. The loud hissing of the kettle, turned on, was irritating, but it did give off a sense of domestic life in the otherwise very dull space.
Peter sat down in his only chair, in front of his only desk in the room. The laptop ThinkPad, with its sleek and black surface, was the most precious item in the place. If there were a fire emergency, the only thing that needed rescue was it, being his closest companion in the classroom and at his Australian home.
“Peter,’ murmured Melody once, but when Peter turned to her he saw she was not awake. Then as if remembering something, he went over and managed to pull the quilt up to cover her, before sitting on the edge of the metal-framed bed, clearing away a few strands that had veiled her face.
Her cheeks were a gradual mix of pale and pink, as if she had been pinched, or chilled by the cold wind. But the most tantalising feature was still her characteristic thin nose, so defiant every time she was unhappy with him, but at the moment so invitingly serene and acquiescent.
He decided to kiss her carefully without waking her up. He intended to do this slowly and would like to take his time. Melody, when she was awake, always made her kisses with too much passion, like a wild little animal. Now she was in full or half sleep, he could have his way to handle the sensuality.
But his slow motion proved very difficult to maintain. Any touch, by this nature, would be a wildfire that can hardly be controlled. It will flame up and leap towards its ultimate destiny. Besides, the hard and cold metal edge that spanned his bottom, as well as the weariness of his back, told him that his body was not as comfortable as his lips.
The sudden jarring of the kettle that signaled the readiness of hot water, set him flinching from her, as if he were caught off guard during robbery.
“What am I doing?” he asked. “Melody had just broken off with her boyfriend, and she was really drunk. Do I really want to take advantage of her?’
With these sober thoughts, he left the precious bed and went to make a glass of warm water.
When he returned, he noticed Melody had turned over, from the face-up position to laying on her side, facing the wall. The nice “hump” in the middle of her body, curved up by the thin quilt, was such a sight for appreciation that he had to take a hard breath, as if petrified, stopped in one frame of a motion series.
The undulation was like the smooth contour of rolling hills or Port Stevens’ sand dunes. The womanness, articulated by her heightened hips, was so marvelous that her body seemed everywhere ready for pregnancy.
He didn’t realise the power of lust had already possessed him until his manhood had taken its angry stance. Putting away the glass, he began to make painstaking efforts to lay himself into the one bed, pulling the small quilt for his own fair share, wriggling inch by inch away from the edge towards the amazing oasis.
Melody was not awake. And he didn’t think she was faking her sleep. But still, he had to insert an arm under her to hold her, feeling the quiver going through him as he inadvertently brushed her breasts. For a minute or two he remained wrapped with her, daring not to make more attempts. Then, after a lifetime’s patience, he whispered, in her ear, “Melody, Melody, are you okay?” which was utterly nonsense, of course she was Not okay, with him groping about her without her consent.
Just as a little guilt began to affect him, thinking of the indecency of ‘harassing’ a sleeping girl in this manner, Melody, the motherly woman in bed, got up all of a sudden, in a drastic girly move that almost sent Peter off the bed.
“Oh my god,'' she said, wiping her eyes swiftly, totally bewildered, not showing a sign that she might recognise this poor bed where she was put in, “What is going on?”
Peter scrambled to draw up his composure, feeling somewhat relieved that he had not already taken off his pants, except that he still had to suppress the item jutting against his pants.
“Sorry, Melody,” Peter mumbled, flushed if not already, with the shame and regret evident in his face.
Melody, looking around, began to piece together a picture of the events that had since occurred. Slowly, her face softened to that of an amiable girl who, a while ago, had asked him to love her.
“I am thirsty,” she said, and her words sprang Peter into action. With one hand holding the glass to her mouth, the other her back, he helped her finish the glass, the horse-like gurgling soothing his clumsiness. Melody had been right in saying that he was not as assertive and brave as the shape of his lips might have suggested.
Then just as he decided to go out of the place to cool himself, to allow Melody to have an undisturbed night of sleep, he heard her calling, “Peter, come over.”
“Peter, sorry,” her arms circled his waist, her eyes loving him, “I must have scared you ...”
He smiled, bashfully, “Yeah, sort of, but it was all my fault, sorry I didn’t mean to…”
Melody, a girl with little patience, cut his words by pulling him down, the bed at once began to complain by kicking and screeching.
“You fool,” she pinched his ear, ‘it was me who should be sorry, for scaring you shit like that, but… ah...” Her lips began to attack vigorously where she loved the most, “at that moment… I .. unaware of nothing, like, like a bad egg was touching me...”
“Am I a bad egg?”
“No really, but yes ... Oh, Peter, I really really love you,” she said, catching her breath, “Why were you so cold to me before, I know I might not be your ideal, we may be different in many ways …but.. ”
This time it was Peter who cut the speech, and he would not allow her to take more control, and she must be under him.
The next morning, he was woken by a scream, 'Oh my god, the tree is dead!’
“What tree?” Still half asleep, Peter turned instinctively onto the naked Melody. Melody had a habit of checking her mobile the first thing every morning.
“The Blue Jacaranda…” she replied, and immediately she began to cry.
~to be continued~