She raised the leatherette door curtain and entered the building, which was dim and quiet inside, as though deserted. Climbing the stairs, she couldn't help envying the nurses in charge of this building. Apparently they had fewer patients here and much less work to do.

Geng Yang, in gray pajamas, answered the door and let her in. The room reeked of alcohol, and the air was damp because of the steam rising from a wet jacket on the radiator beneath the window. The frosted panes were purplish against the night. She turned and looked at him; he grinned with bloodshot eyes as if to acknowledge his drunken state. His face was sallow in the fluorescent light, which rendered his cheeks concave and his mustache spiky. On the bed that Lin had once occupied lay an opened suitcase, partly filled with clothes and pillow towels of various colors – pink, orange, yellow, saffron. Obviously they were gifts from his men. Two thick novels, The Golden Broad Road and The Chronicle of the Red Flag, were on a bedside cabinet; next to the books stood a liquor bottle, short-necked and half empty. A picture of an ear of golden corn curved along the side of the bottle.

"You're drowning yourself in this stuff again?" she said, pointing at the liquor. She took off her fur hat and put it under her arm.

"He-he-he, " he chuckled. " Sit down, Manna. Let me ask you something." He went to the door and locked it.

"What?" she asked with a start, putting Lin's books into her satchel.

"Why are you so concerned about me?" His eyes were leering at her as he put both hands on her shoulders to make her sit down on the bed. She blushed and turned her head, facing the wall.

"Come on, look at me," he said. " Don't you have some good feelings about me?"

She was too flustered to reply, her heart throbbing. He went on, " Tell me, why did you buy me the strawberries?"

She was shocked. For a second she wanted to laugh, but she controlled herself.

Hearing no answer, he grasped her arm with his right hand. The grip was so forceful that she cried, "Take your hands off me!" Her hat dropped on the floor, but she couldn't bend down to pick it up.

"Listen to me, my little virgin. Am I not a better man than Lin Kong? Why are you so devoted to that sissy?"

"Who told you that about me?" she exclaimed. "Shameless, all men are shameless."

"Yes, I am a shameless man where pretty women are concerned."

"Geng Yang, you're drunk and out of your mind, or you wouldn't talk like this."

"No, my mind isn't drunk although my face is red. I know you are always interested in me. I saw that in your eyes. In fact I can smell that in a woman." He began coughing, covering his mouth with his palm. His breath was hot and sour.

"Let me go please."

"No, you can't."

"You're Lin's friend. How could you treat his fiancee this way? Don't you know the saying, 'A good man must never take liberties with his friend's wife'?"

He threw his head back and let out a laugh, which shook her heart. "How could a virgin be thought of as a wife?" he asked. "Do you believe Lin Kong will marry you? You aren't even his mistress, are you? He's no good and doesn't know how to handle a woman."

"Stop it. Let me go." She bent down and picked up her hat, but he grasped her shoulder and blocked her way.

He went on, "Wait, let me finish. He told me that he had never slept with you. How could he do that? I saw his dick when we bathed together in the bathhouse. I've wondered ever since if he's a bisexual. "

His last sentence threw her into a daze. She held out her hand and grasped the bedpost to support herself. Then she thought, This cannot be true. Lin had a baby with Shuyu and his Adam's apple always juts out. If he weren't normal, he couldn't have passed the recruitment physical. "Don't slander my man!" she cried out. "Let me go, or I'll scream."

Before she could say more, his large hand seized her throat. "Shut up!" he rasped. "If you shout again, I'll strangle you."

"Don't, don't hurt me. Geng Yang, you're a revolutionary officer and shouldn't do this. Please – "

"No, I'm not an officer anymore, so I don't care. Why should I? Now, you delivered yourself to me, didn't you? Didn't you come here of your own free will? Everybody will take you to be a slut."

"You told me to come and pick up the books!"

"How can you prove that?"

He forced her down on the bed and began kissing and licking her face and neck while she struggled, begged, and wept. She tried wriggling her legs loose, but they were gripped between his. His right hand held both of her wrists, while his free hand went beneath her shirt and grasped her right breast and then her left. "Ah, you smell so good, delicious, but your breasts are small, you know?" His nose kept thrusting into her hair, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead.

She tried pushing him away, but his body and his legs pinned her to the bed. Meanwhile, his left hand was unbuckling her belt and pulling down her pants. "Let go of me!" she groaned.

"My, you have a nice butt."

"Geng Yang, spare me just this once, please! I'll come back to you tomorrow, I promise. You can do anything you want with me. I'm not ready now. Please – " She choked, feeling dizzy, her temples pounding and sparks splashing in the air. His head looked twice the size it was.

"No. You think I don't know you're lying?" He pulled her over on her stomach and forcefully pressed his thumb on her spine at the small of her back. The pressure nearly made her black out. Her lower body turned numb; she felt injured. He spat on his fingertips and began rubbing her anal cleft. She tried to hold her legs tight, but they felt no longer her own. She was sobbing, unable to fight back, her arms flailing helplessly on the bed.

"Look at this." He grabbed her hair and pulled her head around. She had never expected that the male organ could be so large; his was like a donkey's and terrified her.

"See how big my cock is, " he said, panting. " It's like a rolling pin, no, it's a little mortar."

"Please, don't. Don't do this to me! Oh – "

He pushed her face down on the bed. "Shut up! My cock is designed to blast into an old virgin like you." As he was speaking, he pressed his organ into her, thrusting away like a dog.

She felt totally paralyzed, a numbing pain contracting her limbs, as though she were struggling for life in dark, freezing water. The white sheet turned black under her eyes, and a bloody taste sprang into her mouth. Suddenly rage flamed up in her chest and words gushed out of her throat. "I curse your whole clan! Damn you, you'll be childless. Your parents will drop dead next year."

"Say whatever you want. My parents are dead and I already have two sons."

"They'll die like homeless dogs!"

"Oh…ah…ah!" He came, still rocking on her.

"Damn you, your sons will be run over by trucks!"

He pushed her face into the bed and instantly her voice was smothered. She tried to twist her head aside so that she could breathe, but his hand nailed her neck down. Meanwhile his body was still wriggling on her. She was choking and had to use all her strength to breathe in a little air through the stinking sheet and cotton mattress.

As he stopped writhing, he released his grip of her neck. The moment he got up from her, she coughed and gasped, then resumed swearing.

"What did you say, bitch?" He pulled her up by the collar.

"You'll be the last of your father's line!" she said through her clenched teeth, her eyes flashing.

"Shut up!" He slapped her, and she fell on the bed again. Her hands were trembling, holding up her pants and buckling the belt.

He moved away and lay down on his back on the other bed and closed his eyes. "I've got what I wanted." He chuckled. "You can go tell anyone you want to. Let the leaders have me arrested or expelled from the Party. I don't care. They can punish me in any way they like. But think twice before you do that. Who will believe you?" He lit a cigarette, then grabbed the liquor bottle by its neck and took a gulp. "You know, if you weren't a virgin, I would've given you this." He waved the bottle, chuckling again. Then he began a hacking cough.