September 22nd, Monday, twelve twenty-six in the afternoon. B1. I got there four minutes early and changed in the locker room. Black leggings, white sports bra, quick-dry tee.
The lockers have fingerprint locks; mine took two tries. Inside the door was a notice: Member Rules, item three, activities unrelated to exercise are prohibited in the training area. I folded my suit skirt and pressed it down on top of that notice.
The woman in the mirror is not the same one as Manager Chen on the third floor. Bun down and tied into a ponytail, legs straining out of the fabric, ass round, the seam riding up the middle.
Cui Tao was already at the squat rack. Grey tank top, black shorts, a bottle of Mizone by his foot. Two twenty-kilo plates on the bar.
“Coach is here,” he said to the mirror. “First I watch you squat.” I set my bottle by the rack. “Give me three and I will watch.”
He did three. On the second one the knees rolled in. “Stop,” I said. “Keep training like that and in six months you are queuing at the provincial Chinese medicine hospital.”
“So teach me.”
“Wider stance, toes out fifteen degrees. Sit back with your ass first, do not rush to drop.” I pressed a hand against the outside of his knee. “Push out into my hand.”
He did three sets like that. After the eighth rep of the third set he racked the bar and looked back at me. “Manager Chen, you know more than the personal trainer I pay.”
“What he taught you is the squat for photos,” I said. “Mine is the squat that has you still walking at sixty.”
“Then squat one and let me see.” I did not squat. I got on the treadmill, number three. “First we run.”
Six an hour, eight, ten. He did not go do his legs. He stood to the right of the treadmill and watched me, watched my legs, and watched the mirror too.
“Twelve.” I hit it myself. “Manager Chen, your heart rate has to be one seventy.”
“One sixty-eight,” I said. “Count your breathing. In over two steps, out over three.”
At minute eleven sweat dripped off my chin onto the display and the distance rolled over to 2.4. He was still standing there. I watched him in the mirror, he watched me in the mirror, his eyes on my ass.
“VP Cui.” I hit stop and the belt slowed. “There is something I am going to say plainly today.” “Say it.”
“Friday morning the chairwoman crossed out line seven on my desk. Red pen, her own handwriting. Renew three years, 20,000.”
“I know.” He drank some Mizone. “That sheet of paper passes through me and I sign the last box. Your one never comes down to my nod. Whether I sign or not, you are still the manager on October 1st and your pay still goes up.”
“Your words.”
“Why would I lie to you.” He put the bottle down. “Manager Chen, I do not have the power to hold your job over you, and my sister would not let me try.”
I got off the treadmill, walked to the squat rack, glanced at the mirror, and tied my ponytail tighter.
Then I pulled my leggings down myself, underwear with them, down to my knees. He froze, the Mizone cap turning half a turn in his hand and stopping.
I bent over and took hold of the safety bars of the squat rack with both hands. The steel was cool. I pushed my ass out, straight at him.
“VP Cui, my contract is already approved.” I looked back at him. “Do not think this is a trade for anything.” “Then what is it.”
“It is me wanting you to fuck me,” I said. “Walk out now and I will still be here tomorrow running in these same pants, and you will still be the vice president. Stay, and it is right now.”
He crossed in three steps. His shorts dropped on the matting. One hand on my waist, the other feeling down along the crack of my ass to the opening, and stopping.
“Wet.” “I ran eleven minutes.”
“You do not run this out.” His finger turned twice at the opening, pulled out, flicked in front of my eyes. A thread stretched long without breaking.
“You talk too much,” I said.
He came in. All the way, one stroke. I cried out and gripped the safety bars, knuckles white.
He pulled halfway out and drove back in, harder than the first. My feet slid forward a little on the rubber mat, my pants still binding my knees so my legs could not open, and inside I was clamped dead tight.
“Manager Chen, you grip.” “Talk less.”
“Talk less and how do I know you like it.” He took my waist and picked up the rhythm, the slapping mixed with a wet sound, over and over. “Let it out. I set the inside lock on the B1 door.”
I let it out. At first it was squeezed up out of my throat, and then I could not hold it down, and the sound came back off that wall of mirror.
He slapped my right cheek. My whole body snapped forward and I clenched hard inside, and the wet ran down the inside of my thigh onto the pants hanging at my knees.
“More?” “More,” I said.
He did two more, one left, one right. My ass burned, and inside got tighter, and every time he came in I pushed back to meet him.
“Look in the mirror.” He grabbed my ponytail and pulled my head back so my throat went up and I was facing that wall.
The woman in the mirror, ponytail half fallen apart, face red to the roots of her ears, mouth open, brow furrowed, eyes not closed. Her sports bra had been knocked up, half a breast out, jolting with his rhythm, nipples hard.
“Good, is it.” “Good,” I said.
He slowed down, slowed to one long stroke in and out, dragging all the way to the deepest point each time until my lower belly ached. Qin Hao went through my head — last night lying in bed scrolling Pacific recruitment videos, saying “as long as nothing is wrong at your factory.” He passed through, and I pushed my ass back again.
“Manager Chen, your man does not get this deep, does he.” “Do not bring him up.”
“Fine.” He sped up again. “Then say it. Who fucks you.” “Cui Tao,” I said. “Cui Tao fucks me.”
He pulled me up off the safety bars a little, had me kneel with both hands on the matting instead, and knelt behind me to come in. That angle is deeper. My head was against the upright of the squat rack, steel cool, face burning.
“Where do I come.” “Inside,” I said. “I have a coil, do not worry.”
He gave me another thirty-odd strokes and then drove to the deepest point and held there, and it came in hot, in spurts. He lay over my back panting, sweat dropping onto my shoulder blade and running down.
When he pulled out there was a wet sound underneath me, and the white ran out and dripped on the black rubber matting. One drop, two, and the third hung on my thigh and did not fall.
I stayed kneeling, breathing. He pulled his shorts up and threw me a towel. “Manager Chen.” “Mm.”
“What you said before, I have got it.” He finished the bottle of Mizone. “Not a trade for anything.”
“As long as you have got it.” I stood up, my legs shook once, and I pulled my pants up. “The day I stop wanting to, I stop coming, and you are not allowed to come looking for me anywhere else.”
“Looking where?” “Not the third floor,” I said. “On the third floor I am HR.”
I turned the shower up as hot as it goes. Fifteen minutes. It took three goes before the white was gone. Two handprints on my ass, swollen in a ring, sore to the touch, and the second time I touched it I was wet again.
One twenty-eight and I was back on the third floor. Suit skirt, nude stockings, hair up. A-Wen glanced up at me. “Man-jie, did you go running? Your face is so red.”
“Eleven minutes,” I said, sitting down very slowly. The chair caught my ass and I sucked in a breath.
In the afternoon I finished the severance package for the six and sent it to Finance. N+1, total 312,400. The boss lady replied in the group, “Xiao Chen, good work,” with a rose after it.
Home in the evening, Qin Hao was in the kitchen boiling noodles. He had interviewed at Pacific that day, base salary 5,000. “Man-Man, I might move to another platform.”
“Move, then.” “You are not going to ask?”
“Ask what. You decide.” I sat down, and the moment my ass touched the dining chair it was still throbbing in front.
Ten thirty, he was asleep. Phone buzzed, Cui Tao: “Legs again tomorrow at noon?”
I typed three words and sent them: “Wear the short ones.”