Last Kiss in Tiananmen Square Read Free Page B

everyone cares only about making money, getting rich. No one cares about studying anymore.” Yumei struggled to pull a comb through her long hair. Then suddenly she stepped back. “Oh, the water turned cold.”
     
    “That’s why we have to go to the monastery to study. Only there can one find a peaceful environment.”
     
    “Baiyun, the water is cold.” Yumei pulled Baiyun out.
     
    “No wonder it feels a little cooler.” Baiyun stared at Yumei and said.
     
    “Oh, my great intellectual. Maybe we should begin to rub our backs.”
     
    Baiyun helped Yumei tie her hair into a knot on the top of her head. Then she wet her towel under the cold water, squeezed it hard and rolled it into a spindle. “I’ll help you first.”
     
    “Ok.” Stretching her arms, Yumei bent forward and held herself against the stall with her palms. Baiyun scraped Yumei’s back hard. Soft, black gums of dirt rolled down on her back. Very soon her back turned red.
     
    “Ah! Ah!” Yumei whined.
     
    “Am I hurting you?”
     
    “No, scrape it hard. Ah... I want it clean. Ah.”
     
    Then Baiyun rubbed Yumei’s shoulders, hips and circled around her breasts.
     
    Baiyun always envied Yumei’s big breasts. She wondered what she did to deserve them. She suspected that as a small town girl, Yumei probably grew up in a freer environment than she did. The wind of many political movements never blew that far. She was probably able to talk to those boys, play with them and even go out on dates with them during high school. Unlike Yumei, Baiyun was reared in the political and cultural center of China, the capital and the second largest city in China, which was akin to being raised in a convent. She was so used to that kind of life that she even contemplated becoming a monk at one point in her life. Her mother always told her that pretty women usually did not have good luck. Looking at her mother’s life, she believed it. But deep in her psyche, she wished that one day a prince riding a white horse would come to her, say he loved her, and carry her away.
     
    “Hey, are you daydreaming again?” Yumei asked.
     
    “Oh! It’s done. I was ruminating.”
     
    “Ruminating? I call it slow to react.”
     
    By the time both their backs were hot and burning, the water became warm again. They quickly soaped their bodies, rinsed them and were ready to dry off.
     
    More students were coming into the bathhouse. Soon the baths became crowded. Steam and fog, like a thin veil, shrouded the small mostly bony college students. Some were too young, yet to grow into full-sized adults; some were simple small elegant girls from southern China.
     
    Baiyun and Yumei wound their way through the now crowded sea of naked bathers, trying to avoid being splashed by soapy, brown water.
     
    “Yes, I feel so clean, so good.” Yumei leaped forward. She ran so fast that one of her slippers flew away and Baiyun had to pick it up for her.
     
    It was dark outside. The spring blossoms filled the air with sweet fragrance. Baiyun was in high spirits. The earlier uneasiness caused by the strange encounter with her mother’s boyfriend and compounded by the fantasy in the bathhouse had suddenly disappeared. Spring always meant hope, didn’t it? She asked herself. Maybe she should do something besides studying.
     
    “What shall we do tonight?” Yumei asked.
     
    Still indulging herself in the ecstasy of spring, Baiyun did not answer.
     
    “I know you’re going to go to the library, study, and leave me alone in the dorm,” Yumei sighed.
     
    “You are the one who has a lot of friends, most of whom are boys. Why do you complain about being alone?”
     
    “I’m tired of them.”
     
    “Perhaps we can stroll around the campus and read some big-letter posters.”
     
    “You’re going to give up some of your precious study time?”
     
    “You, rascal!”
     
    On Sunday nights, the cafeteria was dim and the food supply slim with some leftover boiled bok choy, dry