Read Boy in the Twilight for Free Online Page A

Yuan get off okay?” he asked, his eyes puffy from sleep.
    Horsie was a bit taken aback. He wondered how Guo Bin knew Lü Yuan was out of town. “How did you know she’s away?” he asked.
    Guo Bin rubbed his eyes. “You told me she had a trip planned.”
    “When was that?” Horsie didn’t remember this at all.
    “Then it must have been Lü Yuan.”
    As Guo Bin said this, he went into the toilet and had a pee, not bothering to close the door. Horsie sat on the sofa and watched as Guo Bin gave another yawn, rubbing his eyes again with one hand and tugging the toilet chain with the other. Amid the din of the flushing water, Guo Bin came out of the bathroom and shuffled over to the sofa. He hesitated a moment, then turned around and lay back down in bed.
    Horsie noticed a camcorder in the corner by the balcony. “Whose camera is that?” he asked.
    “It’s mine,” Guo Bin said. “I bought it last month.”
    Horsie nodded. “I’d like to borrow a few videos,” he said.
    “What kind do you want? Action or romance?”
    Horsie thought about this. “Both.”
    “Help yourself,” Guo Bin said.
    He told Horsie the thrillers were on the third and fourth shelves and the love stories on the fifth shelf and the right-hand side of the sixth shelf. Guo Bin rubbed away gum from his eyes and yawned.
    Horsie walked over to the bookcase and scanned its contents. He took out two tapes, one from the third shelf and one from the fifth. When he turned around, Guo Bin seemed to have drifted off to sleep. He hesitated a moment, then said quietly, “I’m taking two tapes.”
    Guo Bin opened his eyes. He propped himself up and his head tilted in Horsie’s direction. “Go back to sleep,” Horsie said. “I’m off now.”
    A smile appeared on Guo Bin’s face, an odd kind of smile. “How about something erotic?” he asked.
    Horsie smiled too. Guo Bin jumped out of bed, knelt on the floor, and pulled a carton out from underneath the bed. When he opened the box, Horsie could see it was filled halfway with videos. “All porn,” Guo Bin said proudly. “Is it Hong Kong and Taiwan movies you want?” he asked. “Or foreign?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Guo Bin stood up. Seeing Horsie at a loss to know what to choose, he patted him on the shoulder. “Just pick one,” he said, “any one you like.”
    Horsie chose one at random. In bed that evening, he first watched a love story that moved him to tears and then watched a thriller that made his hair stand on end. He reserved the porn movie for the finale.
    Horsie inserted the video into the warm VCR and went to the bathroom as the tape rewound. By the time he came out, the tape had begun to play. He saw a mass of snowflakes, and after a few moments a picture appeared on the screen: a naked woman lying on her back, her head buried in a pillow, her legs together. A man’s arm moved on the left side of the frame; shoulders appeared, then the man’s back. The man walked toward the bed, put a hand on the mattress to steady himself, then clambered onto the bed. He separated the woman’s legs and mounted her.
    Horsie heard a little groan as the man began to move back and forth on the woman’s body. He was struck by the way the man’s buttocks trembled, as though shivering with cold. Horsie heard the man pant, and the woman too, then constant groaning from the woman. In the following frames there wasno significant change, but the bodies clamped together on the bed swayed slightly; a quiver had seized them. This uneventful scene lasted a little longer, until two cries were heard. The bodies now lay glued together, motionless, as though dead. After a little while the man shifted his weight and detached himself from his partner. She gave a long, capricious moan. The man knelt on the bed, his back to the camera; he was doing something with his head lowered.
    Horsie realized that their job was done, but … “Why wasn’t there any music?” he wondered.
    He thought this very strange.