Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

He opened his eyes, aware at once he had been watched. Who? What? She was squatting patiently on the floor, arms resting easily across her knees, waiting for the bus that would carry her off to a stop only slightly less boring than this one. All Vietnamese squatted like this. No bus ever arrived. How many disagreeable sleeping habits of his had she noticed? The drool on the pillow, the unconscious hand in his shorts? He recognized her immediately, of course, Missy Lee, the interpreters’ hootch maid. Come to case the joint for the next attempt. The locker was still secure, the key still chained around his neck.

“Yes?” inquired Griffin.

Her face closed in a frown. “You no want Missy Lee?”

“No, thank you,” he replied. “My room’s already been cleaned out once this morning.”

She stood up. “We make fuck,” she said. Her eyes the glossy black of charred cardboard.

Griffin laughed. It wouldn’t have been the first time a girl had been sent into somebody’s bed for a joke. There was the memorable night Trips paid Suzi, EM club bar girl and resident whore, three dollars to take off her clothes and crawl into the bunk of Private Edwin Norris, supply room incompetent and resident virgin. Poor Norris had bolted upright, clutching his sheets. “Woman,” he’d shrieked, “have you no shame?” The laughter still echoed. Missy Lee, though, never joked; she performed her housekeeping duties with the sour efficient disposition of a head nurse. Her age, like that of so many Orientals, was difficult for foreigners to guess; she might have been twelve, she might have been thirty. Still, she had about her the look of a daughter, of someone whose family ties were sufficiently complex that the idea of sex with her seemed ringed with ancient taboo. Everyone in the company wanted to get inside her pants as soon as possible.

On hot mornings, unable to sleep, Griffin often sat on the hootch steps and watched her hanging laundry across a string of commo wire. She’d have to strain to reach, lifting onto bare toes, arms outstretched, slender body leaning gracefully forward as if poised for flight, the gusts of wind tightening her loose clothing around the curves of her buttocks, the lines of her thighs, the long black hair shining down her back. He’d watch until she was just a pair of legs behind a curtain of wet fatigues.

Now she sat beside him on the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“You make fuck with me.” One hand scratching his back, the other fumbling across his thigh. His excitement readily apparent. She smiled. Her teeth dazzling as snow. “We make fuck now, okay?”

What was it she wanted? Money? food? stereo tapes? She need only ask. Or was she VC, an avenging seductress intent on information and reprisal? What would be the price of this visit? Her hand burrowed into his crotch. He opened his legs.

“Sure,” he replied.

There was also the less paranoid possibility she simply liked him.

Then Missy Lee stood and with as much ceremony as if she were preparing to step into a bath she stripped off her blouse, pulled down her pants, and climbed into bed.

Griffin tried to kiss her but she refused, shaking her head no. Without a word she settled herself under him, seized his penis and began guiding him in. Griffin came all over her thigh. “I’m sorry,” he stammered, wiping her with his bed sheet. She giggled. “I go now, okay?” “No,” he said quickly, “please don’t, not yet.” He liked Missy Lee. He wanted her to like him and despite his ineptitude, the uniform he wore, the color of his skin, he knew she would if presented with a full view of the real Griffin. At least one Oriental woman today was going to experience his capacity for tenderness and understanding. He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the shoulders. Her skin was so soft, softer than his lips. He kissed her back. Brown satin. He eased her down and began moving his mouth across her chest. Breasts the shape of bananas. A taste of salt. He sucked them clean. Beneath her passivity he detected the wary eye of a modest tension questioning each movement. Okay. He didn’t know her too well either. That was what these kisses were for. But below her navel she stopped him with her hands. “We make fuck,” she said firmly. “Fine,” he answered. There would be no hesitations, no clumsy pauses. Carefully he climbed on top, he seemed so heavy, she so small, so alive. Once he was in he didn’t ever want to leave. For a moment he just lay there, allowed himself to be buoyed by the comforting tide of her breathing. It was like coming home to a place you had forgotten you left. You were ready for a lingering visit. He moved slowly at first, edging into the current, prolonging the savor. How to be here every day. Missy Lee could meet him each morning, hands cool from wringing out the laundry. He’d get a bigger bolt for the door, more boards for the window. Naked, they’d sit in the dim light, discover with their bodies where trust began. He’d wind her hair about his penis, he’d teach her how to kiss. He’d tell no one, Their Eyes Only, a secret the war couldn’t classify or burn. Later perhaps—who could know?—two seats back to The World. Suddenly all the scenery changed. Walls, banks of rubble, stands of damp forest were looming through him. What the fuck? Space telescoped away like the dropping of an elevator. Things were larger, slid further apart. She was here and now she was gone. He was lost in uncharted immensity. Frightened, compass gyrating, he went humping away. Down a tunnel toward a hope, openings, that burst of light. On and on until the glow drained off like poison. There was no exit. Her legs tightened around him and he experienced a moment of pure panic, sharp as a needle sliding under skin. Joined by the heat, friction-fused, they’d rock and roll forever, shake themselves down to bone and fear, yellow skeletons grinding mechanically in the dust. He looked down into Missy Lee’s face. All expression had settled out. Her eyes locked, blind to him heaving above her, slick with sweat, ass pumping frantically. He was on a rock ledge, peering down into black pits deep as starless space, a cold shifting of voids and vertigoes, the one recognizable shape the reflection of his own head drifting over the surface like the shadow of a monstrous bird. His foot touched metal, the end of the bed frame. His penis scraped sand. He thrust again, once, twice, long threatening licks, a promise of future action, a denial of defeat, and, preparing to disengage, turned his head and saw the crack in the door and the dark curious eye peeking back at him.

“Hey!” He was up in an instant, hopping into his underwear. “Who is that?” He flung Missy Lee her clothes, hit the door in one step, forearm slamming the planks backward to miss by an inch the huddled form of Mamasan out in the hallway cringing like a wet dog. “What you do?!” Griffin shrieked. This was the absolute worst day of the war. Tonight, on his guard shift, the perimeter would be breached at last, the base overrun.

“Get in here,” he ordered.

Mamasan shuffled obediently into the room. Without a pause the two women began exchanging bursts of angry Vietnamese. Missy Lee started to cry. Mamasan reached over and squeezed a pinch of skin above Missy Lee’s elbow.

“What the hell’s going on?” demanded Griffin.

“Mamasan say you no like Missy Lee,” she said, letting the tears fall freely.

“Of course I like you. What is this?”

“Mamasan say Missy Lee make bad fuck.”

He wanted to hold her, to tell her what had happened, but he couldn’t trust himself yet. He felt as though he had been in an accident. “No, hey, that’s not true.”

Mamasan silently studied the unmade bed.

“What the hell does she care about the quality of your fucks anyway?”