ARCHIVE 18
"SHOTGUN"

ACOUSTIC METADATA

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• TIMESTAMP: Summer, 1981

• LOCATION: "Dark-Light" Ballroom, Beijing

• PRIMARY SUBJECT: Tong Tong (Manchu / Tunggiya Clan)

• ACOUSTIC PROFILE: Blue Danube flow, Viscous throat tightness, High-pitched moans

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The Blue Danube began to flow. Every dancing couple turned into a blur of parentheses. For the first time in my life, my heavy feet found the rhythm. We maintained a respectful distance, rotating to the scrape of the magnetic head against the tape. Occasionally I stepped on her polished red leather shoes; she only smiled, her ponytail unfurling like a whip.

The lights died again. The rhythm shifted to a slow “Blues."

The ambient noise thickened. The heavy, muffled breathing of men; the friction of palms sliding over skin; the silky sound of girls stroking backs. From a corner, I sampled a moan as high-pitched as a cat’s cry.

The slow melody softened my defenses. After a few steps, she pressed in. Chest to chest, thigh to thigh, we swayed. Then, the inevitable occurred.

As my knee brushed the inner curve of her thigh—sensing that softness and elasticity—the "shotgun" in my trousers was instantly triggered. I shoved her away. As I retreated, the barrel of my reflex grazed her abdomen. I hunched over and scrambled back to my seat, calculating math and physics to contemplate the dead silence of the universe—anything to lower my body temperature.

She followed me. "Are you unwell?" "I'm fine. Go dance with someone else."

She didn't leave. She sat beside me and took my hand. I sampled her irregular heartbeat; I heard the secret friction at the root of her thighs; I heard the viscosity and tightness in her throat.

"I'm Bai. Mongol. And you?" 

"Tong Tong. Political Science and Law. Manchu? Tunggiya clan." She tilted her head. "You look like a mixed-race 'foreigner.' Hahaha.”

We began to "date." I took her to restaurants, gave her fountain pens and gold-embossed notebooks scavenged from "Work’s" drawers. I found nothing else worth taking.