Beneath the light of the moon, a young lover sleeps

Throughout the night, my young lover rose frequently from sleep and filled me with his youthful desire. And I showed my devotion religiously. Over and over, my bitter soul drifted within him.

Ah Gen had gone crazy. My ex-husband had lost his mind. He wouldn't eat, wouldn't drink. All he could do was sit stupidly in my mother's home, asking over and over, "When is Chunjie coming back?" He found a Japanese flag, who knows from where, and each time his mother came by to beg him to return home, he'd raise the flag, wave it in the air and call out: "Ma, look, this is Chunjie's blood. Are you happy now?"

It was my Uncle Heling who sent me the news. In his letter, he mentioned that he planned to take my mother to his house on Kongjiang Road to stay for a while. She could avoid Ah Gen there.

Like the Russian nihilist Chernishevsky once asked, I found myself repeating the same question over and over again: "What is to be done?" From a public phone booth, I screamed that same question to my uncle. In reality, I was asking myself. A light snow began to fall. A snowflake landed on my face and the wind blew through my clothing and straight to my skin. I shivered in the painful coldness.

The weak heart and tiny shoulders of this young woman were now expected to bear life's heaviest burdens.

News of Ah Gen came my way in snatches. He had been committed to a psychiatric hospital, then had returned home. He eventually calmed down, but in the process he became increasingly slow and quiet.

It was Ah Gen's step-sister Auntie Dong who wrote me. She and I had lived on the same military compound for years. She had watched me grow up. She had been the first to talk of introducing me to her brother. She was still alone, surrounded only by the memory of the man she had loved, the man who would never be hers.

"Why is it that two people such as my brother and I, who take love so seriously, could be so unlucky?" She asked in her letters. She didn't blame me, but instead expressed hatred for her stepmother, my mother-in-law.

In her bold hand, I once again saw Ah Gen's bright smile. He was always walking towards me, but couldn't reach me. He remained floating in time and I in my wanderlust continued onward, in constant movement, further and further away.

The next year, a Japanese lawyer traveled to China and took care of my divorce. "Chunjie, you're free. If you wanted to get married tomorrow, you could." He had called me long-distance from Shanghai Towers.

That night, I made good on my promise. Amataka and I consummated our love.

I spent that unforgettable night in Amataka's apartment.

When I arrived, he hadn't yet reached home. I took a key he had given me from my backpack and for the first time, used it to open the door.

I took a shower, then lay naked upon a towel on the tatami. In a bit, as if entrusting my body to the gods, I would soon give myself to my young lover. I had been thinking about this for the longest time. How could I not think about it? Oh, a young woman's body. My sense of morality though, had kept me chaste. I just couldn't step over that line, not until I was truly free. I wanted so much to make his first time unforgettable. In a way, it was also my first time. I listened to the famous tune "To a Wild Rose" as her melody filled the room. I picked up a copy of Murakami Haruki's new novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and began to read.

It wasn't long before I heard the sound of a door opening. I acted as if I hadn't noticed and pretended to be lost in the story. While my eyes were on the book, I could see his surprise. Silence surrounded us. He was speechless. With that melody still wafting in the background, I could almost hear the steady beating of his young heart.

Without warning, he was pressing down upon me. I threw the book to the side and gathered him up in my arms.

I closed my eyes and swam through the sweetness. I tipped my head towards him and brought my lips to his. He enveloped me in hungry kisses. Kisses are strange things; they lift you and send you toward that special place, then push you into the depths of desire. Amataka's kisses burned into my lips, then covered my naked body. I could feel the blood flowing through my veins. My breasts were full and erect. That private place opened like a blossom in the morning sun, reaching up for more, flowing with desire.

"Amataka, take off your clothes." I whispered in his ear without opening my eyes.

His boiling hot body returned to press down upon me. He was hard, so hard. I bent to meet him and reached out to lightly massage his dick. I brought him to that secret door and let him knock a bit. His dick rubbed lightly against my tiny little flower bud. I opened the door…

This was Amataka's first time. On the last day of his eighteenth year, twenty-three year-old me turned a boy into a man.

"Amataka, tell me the truth. Are you sure you've never been with a woman before?" After we had made love, I caressed his face. Exhausted, he rested his head upon my breast. His glazed, drunken eyes looked up at me with desire.

"This was my first time. I've never been with a woman before today. But I've seen more than my share of naked women. I have to say that you are by far the most beautiful."

"How could you have seen so many naked women? You never told me that before!" I said in surprise.

"You never asked," he replied, looking like a little boy who had just made a mistake.

"Amataka, you can tell me. It's OK. When did you see them?" I pushed him to tell me.

During my last year of high school, my best friend Miura and I went bowling one night by the east exit of Shinjuku station. When we left the bowling alley, we found ourselves in the Kabuki-cho Nichōme, the red light district. A group of girls who were handing out advertisements on the street dragged us into a strip joint. We each had to pay three thousand Yen to get in.

The place was full, so we quickly lost all nervousness. There were many strippers. Some were so young that their breasts had yet to develop. Others were older with large, drooping tits. While they were stripping, the older women would work the crowd, inviting guests to touch them at will.

Then a couple came out and began to make love, their bodies grinding to the beat of the music. They were constantly changing positions, front to back, then on to something else. Their skill was obvious. Not once did he remove his dick from that secret place.

Once they had finished, the woman called out to the audience: "Whoever wins mora, the finger guessing game, can join me up here on the stage." The audience roared with excitement. The woman came down onto the floor to act as judge. 'Rock, paper, scissors…'. The chorus continued until she had a winner.

"So did the winner actually go up and try his luck with her?" I asked curiously, thinking that these Japanese really have no shame.

"The winner was me…" he said.

"What? What did you say?" I cut him off mid-sentence, leaned forward and pushed him off of me.

"I won. I had no idea I would win. I figured most of us in the audience were just there to have fun. We didn't really want to win. It was the regular guests who wanted to win most, but instead they lost," he said innocently.

"So like a little clown you actually went up there?" I asked, obviously agitated.

"The crowd went wild and began pushing me toward the stage. 'You lucky little shit!' someone hollered from the audience. The stripper lay a thick, clean blanket upon the floor, then walked over and began undoing my pants. I blushed and told her to stop. I was scared half to death. I knew that strip joints such as this one and most of the gambling halls were run by the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia. I didn't want to provoke them. Just then, Miura came up on stage and whispered something into the stripper's ear. He grabbed me by the arm and led me off stage and out the door. We ran as if running from a nightmare." Amataka slipped into deep thought.

Wow. I felt a bit better. "What did Miura say to her?" I asked.

"He told her I wasn't yet eighteen. The law said I couldn't even enter such a place. If there were any undercover police in the audience, she'd most definitely end up serving a jail sentence."

"That Miura is a smart guy. If it weren't for him, you would've been finished." I poked him in the head.

"After that, I swore I'd never go to such a place again. All of my classmates who had come to Tokyo from out of town always wanted to visit that red light district. I thought to myself, sure go ahead. You'll regret it when you discover you're HIV-positive." Suddenly he was speaking like a grown man.

You weren't so innocent. If it hadn't been for Miura, you would have gone through with it. I turned away and pretended to be mad.

He grabbed me and held me tightly. "Chunjie, I love you. I promise you that I'll never touch another woman. You're my first and my last. Do you understand? At school, you're the famous Shanghai beauty. All the guys are jealous of me. Even the English public speaking professor Eizawa asked me if you were my girlfriend. He was green with envy. I'm so lucky!" With that he lay me down upon the tatami and entered me again.

This time he was far more relaxed and soon that comfortable, intoxicated look came over his young face. For me, this was a religious experience. In order to save myself, I turned his first time into my first time. Our innocence made me in the image of the purest Madonna. His shyness reflected upon me and in that moment, I let go of that spotless piece of white cloth that had haunted me from across the ocean.

"Chunjie, listen. What's that song?" Amataka lay down beside me and wrapped me in his arms.

The sad moan of the "Zigeunerweisen" rose from the radio. "Amataka, thank you. You remembered that that was the music playing when we left Shanghai. I've loved that melody since I was a child. The older I grew, the more I learned to appreciate its depth. I've often felt that it was singing to rescue my very spirit. It's a song about love and death. I'm just a wanderer, a veritable wanderer!"

"I'm a wanderer too. My parents are so busy working in Los Angeles, that they only have time to send me money. I never hear a word from them otherwise. My grandparents used to dote on me, but then my grandmother died and my grandfather remarried a woman twenty years younger than him. Now he could care less about me. His new wife Michiko is only interested in his money. She treats her Pekinese better than she treats my grandfather." Anger singed Amataka's words.

I lay in his embrace, caressed his black hair, then softly moved my fingers from his forehead to his eyes, then down to his lips. "Amataka, don't be sad. I'm here and I'll take care of you, love you, spoil you." My eyes filled with tears.

"Chunjie, I love you." He grabbed my hand and began kissing it wildly, then cupped my face and showered me in tiny raindrop-like kisses. He even kissed the tears from the corners of my eyes.

"Chunjie, you're so beautiful. Your face, your body, your skin, your hands, your feet – even your voice. You're just so beautiful." He wanted me again and this time took me more forcefully. I lay peacefully upon the soft covers like a field of parched earth. A young farmer had come to plant his seeds and now the earth stirred. The waters began to flow, drenching the fertile soil…

Afterward, I filled the tub and we bathed together. Then we dressed and went to celebrate this special day over dinner at a famous Greek restaurant in Ginza.

That night I didn't return to the dormitory. We slept together. I listened to the sound of his breathing in the darkness and raised my head to look at him. Beneath the moonlight, I watched his sweetly sleeping face. I was full of a painful sort of love for him. He was just a boy. In my heart, he would always be just a boy, a square of newly-turned earth. But I had become a woman, full of motherly love and warmth. Perhaps even more so, that night was a milestone in my life.

Throughout the night, my young lover rose frequently from sleep and filled me with his youthful desire. And I showed my devotion religiously. Over and over, my bitter soul drifted within him.