Tales from Old Shanghai 01

When we were out, even in our school uniforms, men had eyed us in the way that men do and we were aware of the desire in those looks, those glances. In the summer of that year, 1937, we were allowed out in our own clothes and now we attracted even more looks. We both favoured the qipao, the dress that had become so popular with modern Chinese women in the 1920's and 1930's. At that time, in the late spring of 1937, I had just received the last letter from my mother that I would ever receive together with my allowance.

I was able to indulge myself in a little clothes buying. Not extravagantly, but my father was not a poor man and he was generous. Our qipao's were in the latest style, form-fitting, figure-hugging and my most daring one had side-slits reaching the thigh. Hemlines had crept up too, one of Hua's ended only a little below her knees and wearing it, she looked exquisite. The white girls, the English and American girls with whom we boarded, they looked down on our qipao's, wearing western-style dresses as they all did.

Hua and I simply smiled, for no amount of rudeness could disguise the simple truth. Our long slender legs and in Hua's case, her full firm breasts, were displayed to perfection in those figure hugging qipao's, A figure-hugging perfection that none of our classmates could match, and when we were out together, it was Hua and I who the men's eyes would follow, much to the chagrin of the white girls.

Now, at eighteen, Hua was more beautiful than I by far and I envied her that figure and the way she looked in her high-hemmed qipao. I had even sketched her in it, but by then there were fewer tourists visiting Shanghai, and our visits to the Bund had tailed away. There was no market for more sketches of Hua, but I enjoyed drawing her all the same.

Looking at those rather graphic illustrations in this book we had found, I was intrigued. Reading the text, I was a little confused, but I was more than sure that further study would help me understand. We found more. "The Plain Girl's Secret Way." "Secret Decisions in the Jade Chamber." "The Art of the Bedchamber." "Book of the Mystery-Penetrating Master." "Prescriptions of the Immaculate Girl." "Dream of the Red Chamber." "Variegated Battle-arrays of the Flowery Camp," a book that was full of further illustrations, some of which stunned me into silence, at least for a second.

"Look," I said to Hua, showing her one. "Do men really desire to do things like this?"

Hua's eyes widened, her cheeks flushed pink. She glanced at me, closed the book, placed it with the half dozen we had already selected in unspoken agreement. We paid, we carried the books home, we placed them in our small bookcase, secure in the knowledge that none of the European teachers or our School Headmistress, Mrs. Innes, who inspected our rooms, could read Chinese. Some of the Chinese servants might, but none of them would betray us to the foreigner, just as none of us Chinese boarders would give away their secrets.

Over the next days and weeks, we devoured those books, the texts and the illustrations of which opened our eyes to another world. A world of the sexes. The world of men, women and the act of love. We were Chinese, we didn't have the reticence of the English and American girls when it came to sex. Of course, we knew, coming from the families that we did, that we were expected to be virgins when we entered the marriage bed, but a wife was expected to please her husband, and, too, we were women of modern China.

That was what we told ourselves, and as an excuse, it was flimsy, but it sufficed. We studied those books as hard as we studied our textbooks. With the fighting against the Japanese going on starting in July, we were not allowed out of the School under any circumstances. There were guards on the gates, White Russian guards that the School had hired. Restricted to school, we concentrated on our studies, fascinated by this new subject. It took some time to understand the euphemisms that the writers employed. Jade gate. Jade stalk. Cinnabar Crevice. Such terms were easy to understand, but what was "jing." Essence?

"I think it is this?" Hua said, and she had one of our school biology textbooks open, pointing to the definition of semen.

"Oh," I said, reading and re-reading, the Chinese text, the biology textbook. "I think you're right." And one more clue was solved.

"Listen to this," Hua said to me, her cheeks pink. "The women's left hand should hold the man's jade stalk. The man will use his tight and to caress the women's jade gate. This the man will feel the yin energy and his jade stalk will be stirred. It thrusts high toward heaven. The woman feels the yang energy and her cinnabar crevice will become moist with the liquid flowing downward, like a river coursing from a deep valley. It is now that coupling can take place."

"Aiiyahhh," I said, squirming a little. "My cinnabar crevice likes this." I giggled.

Hua smiled, her cheeks pink. "I would like to see a man's jade stalk," she said.

"So would I," I echoed, turning the page. "I wonder if they really look like this?"

It would not be too much longer before both Hua and I were granted our wishes. Far sooner than either of us expected, in fact, although Hua's wish was granted rather more abruptly than mine.

"Aiiyaaah," I murmured, the following Saturday. "I'm buying this."

"What is it?" Hua asked.

"The Chin P'ing Mei," I whispered, my heart quickening. The "Metal Vase Plum-Blossom". Written and first printed four hundred years ago, even I had heard of this famous classic, banned until the fall of the Manchu's.

"Buy it," Hua said, her cheeks pink, and we did and as soon as it was ours, we returned to the School and our room, reading it together on Hua's bed.

"Listen to this, Hua," I said, reading, for I was a faster reader of Chinese characters than she and I couldn't wait for her.

"She parted her trembling thighs and raised them reverently as if she was making an offering to a god. She offered up her furry saddle to Hsi-Men's passionate eyes, a saddled reserved for the strongest men. Only he could stirrup himself to it and ride this passionate world at a furious gallop. Her nipples stiffened at the thought. Oh, he could bite them off with his strong white teeth if he wished and leave her bleeding. Already that tiny cherry of enchantment, set beneath the fur and hidden between those firm folds, was sending out is sparkling thrills to all parts of her lovely body..."

"What does furry saddle mean?" Hua asked, frowning.

I giggled. "Aiiyaahh, think about it, Hua."

"No!" she squealed a second later. "That's so... I am not furry. The American and English girls are, but not me!"

"It's a manner of speech," I said, laughing. "I'm not furry either."

"That's because you shave there," she said primly.

"You should too," I said. "Mother taught me just before I came here."

"Alright, alright," she said. "Keep reading."

"Her satin skin was on fire. She writhed. A gasp burst through her juicy mouth, a low gasp but so filled with longing that it made the goblet, on a stool nearby, ring as if some jade-throated sing-song girl had torn the air with the purest note.

"Come, come!" she cried as she stared half in terror at his fearful spear of flesh, and he, wide-eyed, with the visage of a warrior who is about to plunge his spear down the gullet of a green dragon, leaped forward, grabbing the ivory waist with his two strong hands. Thus is the flesh of beauty bruised as magnolia petals by the lusty fingers of summer.

As he leaped, she raised her knees for protection and, pressed against his brawny chest, they barred his way but not for long. While Hsi-Men squeezed himself between her knees, his sturdy fingers sought under her creamy buttocks for heaven's brown starfish; that second place of pleasure with which deft fingernails are able to spice the feast.

As his fingertips reached the tight little rim, she made way, and guided by nothing but his sure passion, the plump and palpitating head of his quivering charger pressed its course between her welling moistening folds and came to rest against the cherry of enchantment. But only for a moment, and what a moment! Gold Lotus felt as if her heart was there, her woman's heart, bare and fluttering like caged butterflies.

Her entrance clung to his minaret..."

"His what?" Hua asked.

"Hua!" I said. "They're using all sorts of fancy words to describe his jade stalk. His cock."

"Oh!" Hua said, her cheeks pink. "I thought that was it."

"Don't interrupt," I said, my own cheeks hot and I wriggled against the bed because something else was moist and hot and I wondered if that was how Gold Lotus had felt.

"Her entrance clung to his minaret, like the suckers on an octopus tentacle, drawing it inward past that cherry of enchantment...that's her clitoris, Hua... sucking at it, pleading with it to plumb her narrow whirlpool, massaging it for the journey to her bottomless depths as the wife of a pearl diver oils the body of her husband before he dives into the sea to seek a treasure. Another cry left her lips, a sharp animal cry, of pain or pleasure one cannot tell. There is no word in China for such a sensation.

Her lily hands which were clinging to his back flew out on either side of her with fingers fluttering for he had thrust himself savagely into her scabbard. And on withdrawal he seemed the tear the sides of it and bring them up with him, as if it was a barbed sword. But a magic sword, on re-insertion it carries her pleasure-flesh back with it unharmed.

He plunged and reared while one finger dug deep into her starfish. He rubbed his finger along the inner walls of her cavern. Only a thin sheath of flesh separated his finger from his turbulent charger. He could feel it throbbing. Her thighs began to rock and roll on her mounting passion as a small boat is tossed by gigantic waves.

For the first time he sought the lips of her mouth and forced her tongue between her pearly teeth. Her mouth had been drawn against her hissing teeth, but now his tongue had parted them, her lips formed over his and sucked him into her fragrant throat. With ever-increasing fury his thighs beat against hers. It seemed as if a bird with giant wings was beating them against her hips, while its predatory beak shook and tore at her innards.

Now she tore his back with her mails, now she drummed against it with her little fists, and now she kicked her lily feet. The pleasure was unbearable. Short cries escaped from her mouth. She turned her head this way and that. No longer could she feel his finger digging into her starfish. She had got beyond the need for spice. Does a tigress need to spice its prey before devouring it?

Her passion rose higher and higher until at last his final violent ram presaged the molten lava erupting into her, scalding her in ways she never dreamed... and his charger in convulsions... and her whirlpool sucking at it... and aaaaah, a sensation which defies all description. Hsi-Men lay exhausted in her arms. He was her prisoner but a prisoner that does not have to be held fast by strong arms.

This they lay together until the phoenix grew its wings, again ready for flight. Twice again was Hsi-Men able to take his lover..."

"Ohhhh," Hua moaned, and the bed moved. I glanced at her, lying face down on her bed and both hands were beneath her, her hips moving a little as she sobbed for breath. "Ohhhh... I would like that, Chuntao... I would like a man to do that to me... Ohhhhh I would... I would." She turned her face to look at me and she was sobbing for breath.

"I wonder what it would be like, Chuntao, to have a man inside and his finger in my starfish." Her breath sobs out, she half closes her eyes and her hips move, lifting, sinking and I know her hand is moving and I am so hot and wet and my jade gate wants to be touched. It demands to be touched and I slip one hand under me, pulling my skirt up, all the way up until I can touch myself through my panties.

"Ohhhhhhh," I shiver as my fingers press and my cherry of enchantment, my clitoris, it is so sensitive. It's so good and I do it again and again and I've never done this before, never touched myself like this and it's good, it's so good and I watch Hua's face and she watches mine as we touch ourselves.

"I would like a husband, Chuntao," she moans. "I would like a husband to plunge himself into me and take me as Gold Lotus was taken."

"Ohhhh... ohhh... ohhhhh," I moan, losing control of my body because that's what I am also imagining and a golden wave overwhelms me, washes through me and my mind is a kaleidoscope of thoughts and images as I shudder on the bed before collapsing limply and beside me Hua shudders and moans and her mouth opens wide but no sounds emerge as she too finishes and afterwards we fall asleep and I dream of a man.

A foreigner. A white man. Plunging himself into me again and again.

I met Martin within a couple of weeks of the fighting against the Japanese ending. He was the first Englishman I'd ever really talked to. I'd met westerners, but apart from Mrs. Innes and our teachers, who were all older women, I'd never talked to a European man.

Martin? How did I meet him?

Yes, I'll tell you. It was quite simple, really. It was just one of those chance things that happen. At School, Hua and I were friends, as much as a Chinese girl back then could be friends with an American girl, with Marjory. To Marjory, I suspect Hua and I were almost pets in a way. She never condescended to us, but there was always that feeling there that she felt good from befriending us, that she was doing a good deed.

I suspect it was that same attitude that you see in so many Americans towards minorities in these present times. Befriending us made her feel virtuous. We had no real inkling of that at the time, and when her parents invited us, the only two Chinese girls in the senior Class, together with all the other white girls in our Class to their garden party, a last autumn garden party before the bitter cold of the Shanghai winter set in, we were both suitably gratified.

Gratified enough that Marjory felt suitably rewarded for her virtuousness in insisting her parents invite Hua and I together with all the English and American girls. Mrs. Innes warned us to be on our best behaviour, to remember our manners, to behave in the western way. Only us. She reminded us that Hua and I were there as an example to the Americans and the English that China was modernizing, that Chinese could be westernized, that this next generation of young Chinese could assimilate successfully and be treated as, perhaps not equals, but certainly close to equals. Suitably humiliated, we prepared ourselves. We did have western-style dresses. We would wear those. We would display our assimilation to all.

"It's going to be fine, Chuntao," Marjory had whispered to us on Friday in class. She was American after all. "Mommy and Daddy are only inviting people they know who won't get all sniffy about Chinese. You don't need to worry. Some of the other girls will be there was well so you'll know lots of people. Oh, and you should both wear those qipao's. You look so lovely in them."

"Would that be alright?" I'd whispered back. "We have dresses to, we were going to wear those."

"Oh no," she said. "I asked Mommy. She said it would be lovely if you wear your qipao's. She said it would be so delightfully exotic for the other guests. We don't invite many Chinese home, you know. It's just not done, but you two are so..." Even Marjory hesitated, looking for the right words.

"You fit in so well," she said. "Nobody would even know you're both Chinese if they didn't see you. You don't even have that funny accent that most Chinese have."

I actually felt rather proud of myself and so did Hua. We'd worried though.

We needn't have. Everyone had been so polite. Friendly even. Very friendly.

"Oh, you both look so charming in those dresses," Marjory's mother had said as soon as we arrived in the car that Marjory's father had sent to the school to pick us up. "Don't you think so, Chuck?"

"Oh for sure, yeah, they do, Betty," Chuck said, eying Hua's chest. Chuck was Marjory's dad. "Delightful, both of you." He'd tucked Hua's hand under his arm and led both of us off and he definitely wasn't concerned with whether I followed or not. "It's our garden party," he'd said, "let me introduce you around before I give you back to Marjory."

And he had, to a group of his male friends, first.

"His jade stalk is definitely feeling yin energy," I whispered to Hua, in Chinese of course. "I think he likes your breasts. A lot. He keeps looking at them."

She'd glanced down demurely and giggled. "His jade stalk is not the only one." It wasn't, and we'd both giggled as we'd been moved on, Chuck more than happy to monopolize us until Marjory came to our rescue.

"Daddy," she'd said. "I need Chuntao and Hua, there's some of our friends to introduce them to."

Chuck had released us, reluctantly. "A dance, later, my dear?" he'd said. To Hua, not me.

"There's dancing?" Hua had asked, surprised.

"This evening," Chuck said. "After dinner."

"We weren't invited for dinner," I said to Hua. "Marjory only invited us for this afternoon."

"Say something to him quickly," Hua said. "This is embarrassing." Beside us, Marjory's face had flamed pink. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Cunningham, Sir," I said, so politely. "We're boarders at the School, we're not allowed out for evenings, we had told Marjory we have to be back at School late this afternoon."

"Nonsensical," Chuck said. "You should've explained to Mrs. Innes, Marjory. I'll have Dexter drive you both back to the school this evening. You'll be perfectly safe." He looked around, called out. "Betty. Hey, Betty, there's been some sort of a mistake, the girls didn't realize they were invited for dinner and the dance afterwards as well."

"They wer..." Marjory's Mom cut herself off. "I'm dreadfully sorry, girls," she said, after a slight pause where she and Marjory looked at each other uncomfortably while Hua and I feigned complete obliviousness. Something we were used to doing. We'd been doing it for four years.

"Oh dear. There must have been a mistake with the invitations. After the garden party, we're moving inside for dinner and a dance party. Of course you two are invited." The glance she shot at her husband was barbed, her smile a little forced as she turned back to us. Beside her, Marjory had flushed an even brighter pink.

"That's alright, Mrs. Cunningham," I'd said. "Of course we understand and we'd love to stay but we should go back to School, really. Mrs Innes will be concerned if we're late, we said we'd be returning late this afternoon and we don't wish to cause her any concern."

"I'm so sorry, girls," she said, looking relieved. "Of course, our driver will take you back to the School."

"Nonsense, Betty," Chuck boomed, loudly enough that half the guests could hear. "It's no trouble at all to squeeze a couple of beautiful girls like these in for dinner, I'm sure." He beamed down at us and almost I was drunk on the fumes he breathed. "I'll call Mrs. Innes right now and let her know they're staying and we'll have Dexter drop them back this evening."

"Of course, dear," Mrs. Cunningham looked daggers at her husband, turned to smile artificially at us. "You're most welcome to stay, girls. Please excuse me while I talk to the boy." She eyed us suspiciously. "You're both familiar with knives and forks? We're serving American food, you might not like it?"

Her expression was so hopeful I almost giggled. It was a struggle to keep a straight face.