A Startling Dream
The room I’m currently living in faces north. During the day, there is no sunlight, but because it’s on the street, the light from the streetlamps always seeps through the blinds at night. When I turn off the lights, narrow bands of warm streetlight spill across the bed, the walls, and even onto my body. At these moments, my mind starts to wander, and most of these thoughts are memories.
One such night in this room, I was lying in bed, searching through an old Gmail inbox I rarely use anymore. The address still bears the name I no longer go by: Cherry. It was the name my elementary school English teacher assigned to me. The young female teacher, based on her own ideas about names, gave each of us a different English name. The two prettiest girls in class were named Lucy and Emily, the most handsome boy was Karl, the smartest girl was Kate, the smartest boy was Robert. The more ordinary kids were called Ben, Wendy, Anna, James, Betty... These common English names somehow seemed to match the personal traits of the children in that small Sichuan town. And I was Cherry. I once disliked this name, but I couldn’t find a connection to any other English names either. In Hong Kong, everyone liked using their English names, and my relationship with this name became quite close. After I came to the UK, I switched back to my Chinese name, Chengwei, but I still used Cherry on dating apps. Strangers—especially men—liked to make puns with the name, often saying things like, “You’re the cherry on top.” Now, Cherry has taken on a certain provocative, almost promiscuous air, the taste of cherries—sweet but a little naughty.
Q also called me Cherry. Back then, the name hadn’t yet taken on those connotations. He told me he liked names that ended with the "i" sound because they sounded cute. He also pointed out that Cherry sounded similar to the French word cheri (meaning "dear"). In short, he liked my name.
I knew what I was looking for in that inbox—I was hoping to find my old communications with Q. Although they seemed distant in my mind, I realized, upon checking the dates, that the most recent email was from 2023, just last year—not as long ago as I had imagined. That email was from Q, and I hadn’t replied to it.
The most frequent exchanges between Qand me took place in 2019. In those emails, I was deeply uncertain, constantly throwing my life questions at Q: Should I pursue my master’s in Europe? Should I study philosophy? Should I focus on art? My life felt stagnant, lost. I had just returned from Hong Kong and was living in my family’s house in a rural area on the outskirts of Chengdu, isolated from the world, with no friends around. I kept trying to find comfort in past relationships. Qtold me he had moved out of his parents' house, into his own place, and had a new girlfriend, a Japanese girl, but beyond that, he wouldn’t tell me anything more. He wanted me to exchange my secrets for information about her. My secret was a one-night affair I’d had with a middle-aged man in Hong Kong after Qand I had broken up. He wanted to know all the details, but I refused to share them.
Then, I came across an email I’d sent to Qon February 7, 2019. Apart from one word—almost like a code between us—there was only one photo of a drawing. It was a small sketch, drawn with a black pen on A5 paper, depicting a room. In the drawing, a girl and a boy are lying on a narrow single bed by the wall. The boy is sleeping on his side, while the girl is sitting up, her head turned toward his back and the back of his head, as though she had just woken from a nightmare. The girl has short hair and is wearing only a floral-patterned underwear, perhaps they had made love before falling asleep. The window is open, the curtains blowing in the wind—a breezy night. I had even meticulously drawn the wood grain on the floor and the texture of the furniture.
The boy in the drawing is Q, and the girl is me. The room is Q’s bedroom, in the attic of his parents' house.
In that room, on that single bed, had slept boy Q, teenage Q, young adult Q. Perhaps other girls had slept there too, but it was in that room, on that bed, that I first experienced intimacy with another person. In that room, on that bed, Q and I would touch each other, kiss, make love, and then fall asleep in each other’s arms.
I flew from Hong Kong to Brussels, a journey that took over ten hours. On the flight to Brussels, I opened the window shade. Outside, the black night stretched over the Eurasian continent. I watched the distant cities below flicker with lights scattered across the darkness, and quietly, tears welled up in my eyes. I felt as though I was bravely flying toward love. It was winter, between Christmas and New Year's. My flight arrived early in the morning, before dawn. Q met me at the Brussels airport, and we took a train to his town. I watched the unfamiliar scenery pass by through the train window as it slowly began to reveal itself in the soft morning light.
When we arrived at his house, Qhelped me carry my suitcase up to the room on the second floor. He asked me, “Can I kiss you?” He had asked me this same question when we were in Japan, twice, under different circumstances, and both times I had refused. I desperately wanted to kiss someone, but I lacked the courage. It seemed easier to say no than yes at that moment. After months of imagining this moment and preparing myself mentally, I finally said yes. I had envisioned this scene countless times, but when it happened for real, it was different from what I had imagined. My mouth was awkwardly wide open, like a hungry little bird being fed. After it ended, Q asked me, “Was that your first kiss?” I said yes. I felt embarrassed by my clumsiness and lack of experience, but also because I had let him know that before him, no man had ever loved me like that.
Nightmare
pen on paper
18cm*13cm
2019
惊梦
我现在住的房间朝北，白天见不到太阳，却因为临街，夜晚总是有路灯的光透过百叶窗帘射进来。夜里关掉房间里的灯，一道道窄窄的暖色路灯光线投在在被子上和墙壁上，也投在我的身体上。每当这时候，我总是思绪连篇，这些思绪大部分都是回忆。
在某一个在这个房间里的这样的夜晚，我躺在床上，在一个我已经不常用的gmail邮箱深处搜寻。这个邮箱的地址还带有那个我已经不再使用的名字：Cherry。这个名字是小学的英语课上老师分派给我的。年轻的女老师按照她对这些名字的理解给我们全班的每个孩子都起了一个英文名，我们班最漂亮的两个女孩一个叫Lucy，一个叫Emily，最漂亮的男孩叫Karl，最聪明的女孩叫Kate, 最聪明的男孩叫Robert，那些在班里显得普通的男孩女孩叫Ben，Wendy，Anna，James，Betty……这些英语世界里的常见的名字似乎和那个四川县城小学的孩子们的个人特质联系在了一起。而我叫Cherry。我一度很不喜欢这个名字，但又对其他的英文名字更没有认同感。在香港的时候大家喜欢互相称呼英文名，我和这个名字的关系一度变得很紧密。来了英国之后，我用回了自己的中文名，Chengwei，只是在dating app上还叫Cherry。总是有陌生的男人喜欢拿这个名字做文章，比如“You are the cherry on top”之类的。这个名字现在有了一种放荡、slutty的滋味，樱桃的滋味，甜蜜中带有一丝调皮。
Q也叫我Cherry。那时候Cherry还没有和slutty的意味联系在一起。Q说，他喜欢名字的最后一个音节是i，他觉得这听起来很可爱。他还说Cherry和法语里cheri（意思是亲爱的）的发音很相似。总之他喜欢我的这个名字。
我知道我是想在邮箱里搜寻什么，我是想找到我和Q的通信。印象中这些通信已经很久远了，但我看了邮件时间才发现其实最近的一封是2023年的，也就是去年，并没有想象中那么远。那封信是Q写来的，而我并没有回复。
我和Q最频繁的通信是发生在2019年。那些信里的我很迷茫，总是把我的人生问题抛给Q，比如我要不要来欧洲读硕士，要不要读哲学专业，要不要学艺术。那时候我的人生处在一个停滞、迷失的状态，我从香港回来，住在成都郊外的乡下老家，几乎与世隔绝，身边没有朋友，于是总想从过去的恋情里获得安慰。Q告诉我，他搬出父母家住进了自己的房子，有了新的恋情，对方是一个日本女孩，但除此之外他就什么都不肯透露了。他想让我用我的秘密跟他交换我想知道的那个女孩的信息。我的秘密就是跟他分手后我在香港和一个中年男人发生的一夜情，他想知道关于这件事的所有细节。但我是不会告诉他的。
我注意到2019年2月7日我发给Q的邮件。这个邮件里除了我和他之间的暗号一般的一个词，就只有一张画的照片。这是一张用黑色中性笔画在A5大小的纸上的不大的画，画的是一个房间。房间里，一个女孩和一个男孩在靠墙的窄窄的单人床上，男孩侧睡着，女孩坐起来，扭头看向侧躺着的男孩的后背和后脑勺，似乎刚从一个噩梦里惊醒。女孩是短发，没有穿上衣，只穿着一条碎花内裤，可能睡前他们做了爱。房间的窗子开着，窗帘飞起来，这是一个有风的夜晚。我还仔细地一笔笔画出了木质地板和家具上的纹理。
那个男孩是Q，那个女孩是我。那个房间是Q的卧室，在他父母的房子的顶层的阁楼里。
在那个房间，在那张单人床上，睡过男孩Q，少年Q，青年Q，也许还睡过别的女孩，还有我。在那个房间，那张床上，我的身体第一次有另一个人进入。在那张床上，我和Q抚摸对方的身体，亲吻，做爱，然后沉沉睡去。
我从香港坐了十几小时飞机来到布鲁塞尔。在飞往布鲁塞尔的飞机上，我打开遮光板，窗外是笼罩着亚欧大陆的黑色的夜晚。我看着遥远的地面上散落在黑夜里的城市闪烁着的一团团光点，悄悄地流泪了。我觉得我正在勇敢地飞向爱情，我为自己的壮举感动不已。那是在冬天，圣诞节后，新年之前。我的飞机到得很早，天还没亮，Q来布鲁塞尔机场接我，我们一起坐火车回他家所在的小镇，我透过车窗看陌生的风景在晨光下渐渐显露。
到他家后，他帮我把行李箱放在楼上的房间里。他问我，我可以吻你吗？在日本的时候，他也问过我这个问题，在不同的情况下问了两次，我都拒绝了。我内心是非常渴望和一个人接吻的，但当时我并没有勇气，似乎说no比说yes对那个时候的我来说会更容易。经过几个月来无数的场景想象和心理建设，这一次我终于说了yes。我构想过无数次这个场景，但真实发生的还是不同于我想象的。我的嘴笨拙地大大地张着，像是一只接受喂食的饥饿的幼鸟。结束后，Q问我这是不是我第一次接吻。我说是的。我感到羞耻，因为我的笨拙和缺乏经验，也因为我让他知道了在他之前，我还没有被一个男人这样爱过。