Angelwings: Contemporary Queer Fiction from Taiwan

SEARCHING FOR THE LOST WINGS OF THE ANGEL

SEARCHING FOR THE LOST WINGS OF THE ANGEL 8 chen xue 167 Chen Xue (b. 1970) is a member of the new generation of queer writers, and her candid writings about women’s sexuality have by turns shocked and fascinated Taiwan’s literary establishment and reading public. Chen is the author of three story collections and one novel, all of which deal with such subjects as lesbian desire, bisexuality, and incest with an honesty and directness that have made her a celebrated figure among local lesbian audiences. This story is taken from Chen’s first collection, The Book of Wrongful Women (1995). After the book’s initial publication, a controversy erupted over its explicit sexual content, resulting in copies thereafter being issued complete with cellophane covers and warning stickers, to the combined outrage and amusement of local queer literary circles. This story explores the complexities of the troubled relationship between a mother and her daughter through an interesting mix of traditional familial and modern psychological discourses. It also foregrounds the enabling power of the daughter’s (and narrator’s) writing practice, suggesting the importance of queer writing like this in the struggle of individuals to forge sexual identities in the face of immense social and psychic pressures. 6 The first time I saw A’Su, I was certain that she and I were the same sort.1 We’re both angels who have lost our wings. Our eyes are fixed on a height attainable only in flight, our bare feet stand on the searing , obdurate earth, and yet we have lost the direction that mankind ought to have. In the dark room, streetlight spilled a little brightness in through the glass of the window, and A’Su’s naked body gleamed gently. She placed her hands on my shoulders and lowered her head to look at me; her luminous eyes a head above mine blazed with two rays of restless firelight. “Cao-Cao, I have an incurable desire for you. What sort of secret is hiding inside your body? I want to know you, taste you, enter you . . .” A’Su’s deep, murmuring voice filtered into my ears; I was overcome with dizziness. She began undoing my buttons one by one, took my shirt off me, my bra, my skirt; finally my underpants, like a white flag, fluttered softly from the tip of her finger. Naked, I was very close to her. All this was already fated to happen the first moment I saw her. She softly embraced me, my eyes level with her erect nipples. They were shamingly beautiful. Next to her, I was like a half-grown girl—what sort of secret could a trifling little girl like me have to speak of? I lay on A’Su’s soft bed as her hands wandered, feeling their way over my body, and she muttered to herself as if casting a curse. “This is Cao-Cao’s nipple. This is Cao-Cao’s nose ...” chen xue 168 Like a spirit-woman’s wand, her fingers slipped over my eyes and nose and mouth and neck. Each place they touched emitted a shiver of delight. “Cao-Cao’s nipple.” Her finger stopped on my nipple and drew gentle circles around it. After a tiny shiver, a wave of warm tidewater broke. It was A’Su’s lips, gently sucking. Afterward, she parted my lush pubic hair and layer by layer peeled back the hidden parts, step by step approaching my core. “It tastes like tears.” When A’Su tasted my private part, my tears fell, and amid the salty wetness of tears I reached an orgasm like I’d never had before. It was like a fevered nightmare, falling unconscious in the mad hotness , screaming in unconsciousness, and in the screaming, gradually shattering apart. It seemed as she presumed to enter my body, savagely striking against my core, that she wanted to break all of my bones. Yes, it was she. Even though she was a woman and had no penis to become erect and ejaculate, she entered right into my innermost part, getting deeper than any male organ could. After I left her, I always saw my mother in dreams. It was a big suite in a luxury hotel. Her hair was dyed red-brown, curled and unruly, and her eyes with their black-painted edges sparkled wildly. A couple of other women, bewitching just like her...