Wednesday, four twenty in the afternoon, dismissal for the Middle Class Two. I was crouched at the door changing the kids’ shoes. On the nineteenth pair, the nude stocking on my left knee snagged and a run shot from my knee all the way down to my ankle.
Ji Lan came in after dismissal, once the children had all been picked up. Owner of the Lan Space gallery, here to discuss a “Children’s Art Week” collaboration, the principal at her side. She wore black pointed-toe heels, stood next to me, and looked down at my legs. Three seconds.
“Miss Wu has beautiful legs,” she said. The principal laughed: “Our Miss Wu is the face of the school.”
My name is Wu Nan, twenty-seven, lead teacher of Middle Class Two, salary 5,600 a month, 4,870 after insurance. Divorced eight months. My ex-husband Liu Bin lit a cigarette outside the civil affairs bureau the day we signed and said: “In bed you’re like a plank of wood. Whoever marries you will find out.”
I liked his post. Wanted to undo it the moment I did, but you can’t unlike on Moments. He replied with a dog-head emoji.
I carried that sentence for eight months. Last month he posted his new girlfriend, caption two words: Alive one.
The gallery is on the east side of town. She drives a white Porsche Macan. She came to the school three times, all three after dismissal, once the place had emptied out. The second time she stood at the door until I locked up, and what she was looking at was my legs.
Ji Lan is thirty-six. On her third visit she added me on WeChat. I saw the note she saved me under, two words: Good legs.
Thursday night at ten she messaged: “Free Friday night? Come to my house. My husband will be there.”
“To do what?” “Take some photos of you. You’d make a good model for me.” “What kind of photos?” “You’ll see when you come. My husband is a lawyer. The house is clean. You can relax.”
I stared at the screen, put the phone face down on the dining table, twice. The third time I picked it up and replied one word: Okay.
Friday night at seven, Yunjin Bay, Building 3. Detached villa, black iron gate, a black Lexus LX parked out front. I wore what I wear to work: white blouse, black knee-length skirt, nude stockings, the 199-yuan flat leather shoes on my feet.
The husband opened the door. Shen Yi, forty, lawyer, white shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, an Omega on his wrist. He looked me up and down, not the face, the legs. “Miss Wu, come in. Shoes off outside. No shoes in this house.”
The living room had a double-height ceiling, one whole wall of paintings, a gray leather sofa in the middle. Ji Lan sat on the sofa, hair pinned up, in a black silk slip, barefoot.
“Come here. Stand there.” I stood on the rug in front of her. She reached out and lifted my skirt, lifted it to the top of my thighs, and looked at the edge of the stockings.
“There’s a run.” “Snagged it this afternoon.” “How many hours a day are you on your feet?” “I don’t know. Seven, eight.” “And kneel?” I said nothing.
“Did Liu Bin say you were like a plank of wood?” she asked suddenly.
I looked up at her. “I went through your Moments. The one from eight months ago.” “He said it.” “I’ve seen plenty of wood.” She stood up, half a head taller than me. “Tonight we’ll see whether you are.”
She took me to the second floor. Master bathroom, marble counter, two wall sconces, a Sony camera on a tripod aimed at the bathtub. Lined up on the counter: a Gillette ladies’ razor, a can of shaving foam, a white towel, a bottle of L’Occitane bath oil.
“Clothes off.” “All of them?” “You didn’t know you’d be undressing when you came?”
I knew. I took them off one piece at a time, blouse, skirt, stockings. When the stockings were at my ankles she said “slower,” so I went slower. The panties were black cotton, and when they came down there was a small wet patch inside. She saw it.
“Wood doesn’t get wet,” she said.
Shen Yi leaned against the door frame with a glass of whiskey and didn’t come in. Ji Lan had me sit on the edge of the tub, legs apart, and she knelt in front of me. She was the one kneeling. I was the one blushing.
“Wider.” She pushed my knees apart with her hands until the tendons at the top of my thighs were taut. Under the sconce light I looked down and could see my own pussy lips spread by her fingers, pink, a ring of foam around them. “Have you ever looked at yourself?” “No.” “Has Liu Bin?” “We did it with the lights off.” “No wonder.”
The shaving foam was cold. She smeared it on with her hand, over the outside of my lips, up to the tops of my thighs. On the first stroke of the razor my leg jerked. “Don’t move. A cut leaves a scar.”
She shaved slowly, one stroke at a time, wiping the blade on the towel after every stroke. When she got to the innermost tuft, she spread my lips with two fingers and shaved. I heard myself let out an “mm.”
“What was that?” “Sorry…” “Make noise if you want to. Nobody in this house is going to stop you.”
Fifteen minutes. When she finished she rinsed me with warm water, then ran her hand over the whole thing, the way you run a hand over a piece of fabric checking for loose threads. “Smooth. Feel it yourself.”
I reached down. My own hand on my own flesh, slick, hot, not like me.
“Lift your leg.” She pulled my leg out of the water, hooked it over the edge of the tub, and scrubbed from ankle to the top of my thigh, slowly. “Has Liu Bin ever touched your legs?” “Yes.” “And after?” “Three minutes, lights off, sleep.” “Three minutes.” She wrung out the sponge. “These two legs, worth three minutes.”
“Into the tub.” She had run the water, forty degrees, bath oil added. She started scrubbing at my neck with the sponge, shoulders, tits, belly, all the way down to between my toes. When she scrubbed my tits she pinched a nipple, and the pinch made my back give out. “This gets hard too? Wood doesn’t get hard.”
“I’m not wood.” “Then what are you?” “I…” “Think it over before you answer.”
When I was washed she made me stand in the tub, no drying off, dripping. The camera clicked. She circled me with the camera, crouched to shoot, stood on the toilet lid to shoot. “Legs together. Turn. Hands on your head. Ass out.” I did every one. Thirty-something shots.
“Sit on the edge of the tub, leg up, open.” I opened. She brought the lens to twenty centimeters and shot five frames of the part facing the light. “These are for my husband.” Water dripped from my legs into the tub, drop by drop.
“Come look.” She turned the screen toward me. The woman in the photo was naked, bare down there, water running off her tits, the face was mine, the expression wasn’t.
“Is this wood?” “No.” “Then what is it?” “I don’t know.” “Next Friday you’ll know.”
She threw me the towel. “Dry off, get dressed, go home. I’m not keeping you tonight.”
While I was dressing, Shen Yi spoke through the door: “Will your legs hold you up tomorrow?” “They will.” “Good. Don’t let it get in the way of real work.”
Ten forty, back seat of a Didi. Legs pressed together, bare under the skirt, rubbing against the stockings, every rub an itch. My phone buzzed. Ji Lan had sent a photo, the one from the tub, with a line under it: “Next Friday, seven. Come with no panties. No touching yourself this week.”
The Didi driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. I tugged my skirt down. It wouldn’t go. That was as long as the skirt was.
Home at eleven. A rented one-bedroom, 2,300 a month. I lifted my skirt in front of the full-length mirror and looked. Bare, blindingly pale, like skin that belonged to someone else. I reached my hand down and stopped halfway. She said no.
I didn’t move. Lay there half an hour, rolled over, rolled over again. At one in the morning I pinned both hands under my ass and slept on them.
Saturday morning I bought three pairs of stockings at the supermarket, Langsha brand, 19.9 each. The cashier was a man. While he scanned them I kept my legs pressed tight together. He didn’t notice anything.
Monday, seven thirty in the morning, a packed Line 4 subway car. I held the rail with my legs pressed tight together, and every time I closed my eyes I saw that wall lamp above the edge of the tub. One thought, one squeeze of my thighs. By my stop I had counted eleven.
Wednesday, Ji Lan on WeChat: “How many times did you think about it today?” I replied: “Thirty-one.” She replied: “Good that you can count them.”
Friday, five in the afternoon, on the way home from work, a stall in the ground-floor restroom of a mall. I took my panties off and stuffed them to the very bottom of my bag. The moment the skirt dropped, the draft came up from underneath.
The phone buzzed again. This time it was Shen Yi on WeChat, his avatar the law firm’s logo: “My wife asked me to tell you: tonight you sleep downstairs. Your things are ready.”