A kerosene lantern stood beside the bed, giving the room the appearance of a cave. "Please wait, I will go wash myself okay?" She said this in English.
"Yes, Of course, okay.?
She disappeared, leaving behind a smile that seemed more like a shadow in the gloom, I stretched out on the narrow bed.
"Since you're here, be at ease. Let nothing worry you." Bitterness washed over my body as I used that phrase for comfort. I knew that I was beginning to revolt, beginning to cast off the brainwashing of the past twenty years, But I found I was powerless. This decadent act was all I could use to assert my own control, my own sense of superiority, my own opposition. All the beautiful words, all the lofty languages itself had been monopolized by those with power. Going outside the boundaries set by those who criticized meant that one must be willing to descend into the mire. There was no alternative.
Everything in my mind had been out there by them. But this step I was taking also proved to me the criticizes that the criticism of me had been correct. The little woman came fluttering back after about ten minuets, a large white towel wrapped around her glowing body. I tried to think of something to say, a way to tell her I was not in the practice of making love purely for making love, of limiting love making to the physical motions. I consider myself a romantic in lovemaking, a poet and I said to her," Please tell me, what is your name?"
