Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

you’ll stop crying, you can drag me to the police station tomorrow morning, or you can slap me sixty-three times, or I’ll get down on my knees and bang my head on the floor sixty-three times … if you so much as sniffle, I’m overcome with guilt, so I beg you … beg you …” He took out a handkerchief and dried her face, which she permitted, raising her head like a little bird. Play the role, Shangguan Jintong, he was thinking, play it to the hilt. You’re like a pig that remembers the food but not the beatings, so do what you must to get her away from here. Then you can go to the nearest temple, light incense, and give thanks to the Bodhisattva. The last thing you want is to spend another fifteen years in a labor reform camp.
    Once he’d dried her face, he held the coffee cup in both hands. “Here, drink this, young lady, please.” She gave him another flirtatious look; it hit him like ten thousand arrows piercing his heart, opening up ten thousand little holes that were home to ten thousand wriggly worms. With the look of someone who was lightheaded from crying, she leaned against Jintong and took a sip of coffee. The crying stopped, but she was still sniffling, like a little girl, and Jintong, who’d spent fifteen years in a labor reform camp and another three in a mental institution, was starting to get angry over her performance. “Young lady,” he said as he tried to drape her raincoat over her shoulders, “it’s getting late, time for you to be going home.” Her lips parted in a grimace, the coffee cup in her hand followed the contours of her breast and abdomen as it crashed to the floor.
Wahl
She was crying again, this time louder than ever, as if she wanted the whole city to bear witness to her grief. Flames of rage ignited in his heart, but he didn’t dare let so much as a spark emerge. Happily, there were a couple of chocolate drops wrapped in gold foil on the table, like a pair of tiny bombs; he picked up one, peeled off the foil, and stuffed the dark candy into her mouth. “Young lady,” he said, clenching his teeth to keep his tone passably gentle, “don’t cry. Eat the candy …” She spit it out; it landed on the floor, where it rolled around like a little turd, dirtying the wool carpet. On and on she cried. Jintong peeled the foil off of the second piece of chocolate, and stuffed it too into her mouth. In no mood to be an obedient soul, she was about to spit it out, when he covered her mouth with his hand. So she doubled up her fist and tried to slug him. He ducked, putting his face directly opposite the blue bra, beneath which her milky white breasts jiggled. Jintong’s anger melted away, replaced by feelings of pity. Now that reason had taken flight, he wrapped his arms around her ice-cold shoulders. Then came the kissing and petting, the melted chocolate drop serving to fuse their lips together.
    A long, long time passed. He knew there was no way he could get rid of this woman before sunup, especially now that they’d kissed and held each other tightly; accompanying an increase in mutual feelings was a greater sense of responsibility. “What have I done to make you dislike me so?” she asked through her tears.
    “Nothing,” Jintong protested. “It’s me I dislike. You don’t know me. I’ve served time in prison and in a mental institution. Bad things await any woman who gets close to me. I don’t want to bring harm to you, young lady.”
    “You don’t need to say anything,” she said as she covered her face and sobbed. “I know I’m not good enough for you … but I love you, I’ve loved you in secret for the longest time … there’s nothing you need to do except allow me to stay with you for a while … make me a happy woman.”
    With that she turned and walked across the room, paused briefly, and opened the door.
    Deeply touched, Jintong cursed himself for his pettiness and for having such bad thoughts about the woman. How could you let someone with such a pure heart, a widow who’s suffered so much, walk away in the grip of sadness? What makes you so great? Does an old lecher like you deserve a woman’s love? Can you really let her leave in the middle of the night, in the rain? What if she catches her death of cold? Or what if she meets up with one of those gangs of hooligans?
    He rushed out into the corridor and caught up with her. Still teary-eyed, she put her arms around his neck and let him carry her back to his room. The smell of her oily hair