Xiaolu Guo - A Concise Chinese English Dictionary for Lovers

12:30, still have one hour left to go to Lisbon. I sit outside of a café, having a small cup of bitter espresso. How many cups of espresso the Portuguese have in one day? What is like if one’s body full of caffeine and sugar and nicotine and Coca Cola? Will it bring too much passion? Will the life be more energetic?

The espresso cup is dried up. I start to read Lonely Planet on Lisbon with my small Concise dictionary. The man in the nearby table is drinking the second cup of espresso. I am aware his watching on me. He is lighting a cigarettes now. He looks at the street, and then the blue sky, and me again. Now he stands and comes to me, and he sits on the chair very near to me.

He says: “Can you understand it?”

“Understand what?”

I close my guide book and look at him. He seems a very physical person, maybe he does low jobs. But he can speak good English. He is short, dark, energetic, solid strong body, broad chest, impressive face, intensive brown eyes.

“Understand the language. Because you are checking the dictionary all the time.”

Inside of his mouth, something strange. Some teeth missing there.

“Well, you know, I am a foreigner.” I am a little embarrassed.

“Don’t read the book. Look at the view. You should see it, not read the guide book.” He surveys my books. There is Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet lies on top.

“OK,” I say. He is definitely from local. I wonder if he reads Fernando Pessoa. He looks like a person doesn’t read any book at all.

“How many days you are going to stay in Faro?” he asks.

“Not anymore. I just came here for taking train to Lisbon, in one hour.”

By hearing this, he has no comments. There are no needs to develop more connection from his side, I guess.

“Do you know where is the old town of Faro? Do you think I can have time to walk there in one hour and come back?” I ask.

“Not very far. If you want I can take you to there.”

“Don’t you have anything to do?”

“Not today. Come with me.” He stands up and goes to pay the bill. I stand up as well, put my books in my bag.

As I follow him, I look his back. A very physical manly back. A little short. A very earthy person. I wonder if he works in a local restaurant, or works on a wine factory, or maybe he is a sailor, a carpenter, a trolley driver…

The old town of Faro is nothing very special, except for the old slipperly cobblestone ground. I like these cobblestones, they were being grind so smooth by thousands of millions people’s foot through centuries. They got stories in them. Then we walk into an old square. This man wants to show me the church. But the old church is closed today, so does the museum. Do people not working here in the afternoon time? Only a small souvenir shop opened, selling some postcards about Faro in the nineteenth century. The middle-day sunlight is strong. We want buy ice cokes from that souvenir shop. He only pays his coke, I notice. Of course, it is fair for him.

We drink ice coke, wander on the empty cobblestone square.

“I’ll take you to the seaside, then you can go back to the train station.” He walks beside me.

“I already went there. It is not very beautiful.” I want to be honest.

“No, believe me. I’ll take you to a nice place.”

“OK.”

He takes my heavy rocksack, and puts it on his back.

We walk along the seashore beside the railway. A marsh is just in front of us. It is muddy, and dirty. The marsh reflects the high noon’s sunlight. It looks bizarre and dangerous. There is something very strange between him and me. He is almost too kind, too random, without any goal in his daily life. At the same time he is also very sexual. I don’t know where this sexual feeling exactly from, maybe from his very physical looking. Or maybe this sexual feeling from myself, from my aloneness. My body is waiting for something, and something has to come out under the intensive sun.

He takes my hand, and I don’t refuse at all. I don’t know why. He holds my hand into his hand so tight that in one minute our palms are sweaty. I could feel there is something strong inside of his body. But I am not sure if I enjoy this intimacy . I am a bit confused. We walk side by side like two longterm friends. I know I don’t love him at all, and maybe I even don’t like him, but somehow I desire him. It is strange.

Maybe the more people live close to the south, the more they are talkative. They have to take out the extra energy inside of their bodies from the sun. Now he is doing a monologue:

“I don’t like Faro, you know. It is not as nice as other places in Portugal. It is full of English people. Food is expensive, and everything is for tourists. But why I am here? Why I am sitting here doing nothing? Because I lost my four teeth, six years ago. Four! Can you see here? A motorbike accident. A big accident. I had three motorbikes before, you know. But not anymore, since I sold them all. I am not going to touch motorbikes anymore. I would die if I ride motorbike again. I have been waiting for the medical insurance to fix my teeth for six years. Six years! Can you believe it? Bastards! Things are so slow in this country! Papers and papers. Finally it is arranged. That’s why I came back here, to get my teeth done. I worked in Germany. Look up here, can you see here? These two teeth? They’ll take out these two from the upper jaw, and I am going to have my new teeth, six new teeth.”

I look at his teeth again, with my new eyes. It is really impressive. How a person left the mouth so empty?! Does his tongue feel cold?

“But why you were in Germany?” I ask.

“I worked in Germany, you know, in Cologne. I was a chef. You know what a chef is, don’t you? I cooked for people. Cologne is a good place, yes, the people are friendly there. I earned good money in Cologne. You know, the economy is no good in this country, only the weather is good here…”

Our hands still hold together. We stop under a palm tree. Some empty coke tins, empty crisps bags spread around the tree. There are rocks by our feet, but covered by the dead small fish and dry weeds. So much polluted, it smells horrible. He leads me against the tree, and hugs me, and kisses my neck. Then kisses my ears. His lips are hot. And his tongue is strong, almost violent. I don’t refuse him. Maybe I also want it. Then he touches my breasts. He presses his palm on my lower body. His breathing becomes strong and heavy. I hug him too. And I can feel his heart beating fast. The sun, the sweat, the salty wind, the stinking air, everything is stimulating our desires.

I say: “I think I want to have sex with you.”

This man takes what I said. And everything comes rapidly and naturally. Finding a piece of flat rock, I unzip my jeans, and I sit on top of that piece of hot rock, with my naked crotch. He kneels down and he buries himself between my legs. It is so wet, everything is so wet, my crotch, his tongue, his sweaty skin, and my striped underwear. It is like the tide, a strong tide comes taking people away from the beach. His hands reach his jeans, and untie the button at the same time.

“But no plugging in. Please.” I don’t know how to say that. And I am suddenly scared by what we are doing: “No. I don’t want that. Just using sucking me. Please, please,” I beg him.

I just realise I don’t want he enter into my body. No. It would disgust me so much.

But he couldn’t control himself anymore. He takes out his penis from his jeans and pushes it into my body, rough, almost violent.

I am leaning on the rock. I feel sexy but I also feel disgusting at the same time. The sunlight makes me headache. I can’t breathe. Somehow I despise him doing that. Then he comes. He comes like a bull. He pulls out, the sperm dripping on the burning rocks. His face is completely red.