And is it important for me to say who found who, later that night, in the crush of bodies outside the Lost World club? What I remember is people's eyes riveted, following, and Ching Wren pressing against me as if it was just that we'd been unable to find each other all this time . . . From the beginning it was wordless, understood. It was also sloppy, almost futile, and no doubt we drew stares because there was no poetry in it. There, on the sidewalk, pawing under my jacket with alcohol steaming from her pores. Then on the road, veering, weaving through traffic, me on the back of her scooter, and instead of wearing the single helmet—because that was the way I felt—I let it hang from my fingers, dangling, now and then catching sparks from the road beneath us flying by.
And after those initial sparks, after the dead silence of what could have only been our second thoughts, after that we did manage to crash around half-clothed on the bed, but it didn't seem to make much sense . . . I struggled with then broke the clasp on her bra, and she knocked the wind out of me, putting a knee into my stomach as I kissed the ridge of bone at the center of her chest . . . And this was after floating, gliding up the stairs, no hesitation, after guiding me into her flat, holding two of my fingers in her fist . . . She rolled on top of me, breathing hard, but still wearing pants, still confused, maybe, and I guess I wasn't going to force it . . . This was after sitting on her bed, no time, just forever, sitting bolt upright, the both of us, fully clothed and staring, as if she knew I was going to blink first . . . My hands, black stones, and just as clumsy, against the pale flesh of her back . . . Which was what I was telling myself even that first night: We all find love then lose it . . . Her place was a tenement room, sixteenth floor, the walls eggshell blue. The pairs of jelly sandals by the doorway, and one stray one. Stickers all over the side of the VCD stack . . . Ching Wren could have been the love of my life, but even so close, even on that bed, mouth to mouth, and I still couldn't seem to cross that gulf . . .
For what difference it makes, there's a part of me that still aches about it as much if not more than back then . . . The truth was I didn't know what to do so I just let the days drift by. . . I should have walked out that first night, probably, but I stayed there for more than a month, during which we rarely spoke even a few words . . . Thinking about it now, it's easy to maybe make too much out of it, but there was a kind of language between us. . . Sitting on the floor, wide-eyed, a couple of mimes, watching each other and grinning from opposite sides of that tiny room . . . Or while she was cooking, while I was on the bed sprawled out and sweating, or when I could smell the rain outside and she'd be right there tugging on my shirt . . . What else?! Her huge, silver-dollar nipples . . . scrubbing my hands through the forebrush bristles of her short haircut . . . That is to say, plenty of Tarzan/Jane moments, and I guess I was relieved it felt like love because all that big lust was gone . . .
But it was a lost cause, maybe that's what I felt we were grinning about! Like that first night with nothing accomplished, no way, no how, and bone tired, bottle-pop, when she pulled my finger out and held it to her chest and that's how I drifted off, falling, diving to sleep . . .
