【Me · Single Guy】
The rain started around the time dinner broke up. That’s just how Jiangcheng is at the tail end of summer — dazzlingly clear by day, then the sun sinks and the clouds press down, like someone dumped a basin of dirty water over the city. My buddy A-Ze got called back to the office for overtime at the last minute, and before he left he clapped me on the shoulder and said, bro, you’re on the way, take Lin Lan home, don’t let her hail a cab alone. I said sure. It came out so easily, so easily I didn’t give it a second thought — A-Ze and I have known each other for over ten years, I’ve met his wife dozens of times, giving her a ride is only natural. Nothing to it.
The car hadn’t gone two kilometers before the rain was heavier than the wipers could clear. The windshield blurred into a running sheet of water, the taillights ahead melting into blobs of red. Lin Lan sat in the passenger seat, hugging her little bag, her profile swept bright then dark by the streetlights outside. She’d worn a light-colored sundress tonight, thin straps, and when she sat the hem rode up a little, baring an inch of knee. I tried to keep my eyes on the road, but the edge of my vision kept drifting that way in the mirror. Honestly, I haven’t been all that well-behaved since I got married either — a few years back I had a thing or two going with a married woman or a young wife around my age, and now and then I’d hit a lounge with a couple of familiar older guys from work to unwind. But that’s all old gossip, worth no more than a passing line. Tonight my head was full of nothing but the road and the rain.
The car reached an underpass where the warning lights were flashing all down the line and a traffic cop was shouting through a bullhorn. The tunnel was flooded and blocked off, and the detour road was under repair, so the GPS steered me straight into a tangle of dead ends. I pulled over, the raindrops hammering the roof like someone scattering dried beans up there. I said, Lin Lan, there’s no getting through tonight — your place is at least a forty-minute loop around, and even then it might not be open. She looked out the window, then at me, and asked, so what do we do.
My mind ran the numbers fast. The closest place to here was my rented room — two intersections over, a few hundred meters on foot. I hesitated before I spoke: how about… we wait out the rain at my place first, and I’ll take you home once it lets up? The words were barely out before I half regretted them, feeling like they carried some ulterior motive. But she just nodded and said, easily and naturally, sure, we’d only be sitting in the car waiting anyway.
【Lin Lan · Buddy’s Wife】
That half-second he hesitated, I caught it. Men think women don’t understand, but the truth is we know better than anyone what’s hiding in that half-second. And I didn’t call it out — I almost wanted to smile. Sitting there in his passenger seat, breathing in that faint trace of cigarette smoke and aftershave on him, some part of me had long since gone restless. That line A-Ze tossed off as he left — “let my bro take you home” — how lightly he said it. He probably never once stopped to think what it might come to, handing his own wife over to a man still fairly young, still with a bit of something interesting about him.
It’s laughable, really. In all these years married to A-Ze, he’s grown more and more like a roommate who only knows overtime and video games. I’m just past thirty, right at the age when a body knows best what it wants, and it’s a rare month he touches me even once. Tonight’s rain feels almost like heaven cutting off the road for me — refusing to let me go back to that hollow, empty home, keeping me beside the man who’d been sweeping his eyes over me at the dinner table all night. I held my little bag, my fingertips a bit cold, but my heart was burning up. I said “sure,” and my voice came out even calmer than I’d expected — so calm it startled even me.
【Me · Single Guy】
The rented room is on the top floor of an old complex, sixth story, no elevator. We dashed from the car under one umbrella, a few hundred meters, the rain slanting in — the umbrella was no help at all. By the time we reached the building she was half soaked, the light dress plastered to her legs, tracing a wet, dripping curve. I looked away, my hand a little unsteady as I dug for the key. Going up, the stairwell’s sound-activated light was broken, pitch dark, and I reached back for her, saying mind the steps — and her hand just settled on the back of mine, cool, soft, sending a shiver through me sharper than the rain.
Inside I turned on the light. The place is small, one bedroom and a living room, kept reasonably tidy. I went to the balcony for a dry towel, and when I turned back she was standing in the middle of the living room, head bowed, wringing the water from her hem, a few strands of wet hair clinging to the side of her neck. The light came through from behind her, and that pale dress had gone half sheer, the outline underneath faintly showing. I held out the towel, my throat a little dry, and said dry yourself off first, I’ll pour you some hot water. When she took the towel she didn’t quite catch it — or rather, she deliberately didn’t catch it — and our hands just touched like that, neither of us pulling back right away.
【Lin Lan · Buddy’s Wife】
He held the towel out and I reached for it, my fingertips grazing his. I’ll admit that touch was deliberate. I wanted to see how he’d react — whether he’d snatch his hand back like some proper gentleman, or take the moment and step forward. He didn’t pull back. He just stood there, eyes fixed on me, his Adam’s apple rolling once, up and down. The room was so quiet there was nothing left but the rain outside the window. I lifted my head, so close to him, close enough to make out the droplets of water caught on his lashes. I didn’t say a word — I only leaned forward and let my body settle lightly against his.
His hand came around my waist, tentative at first, resting there loose and hollow, as if afraid of getting burned. So I pressed a little deeper into his arms, letting him know it wasn’t an accident — I wanted this. His breathing went heavy in an instant. I rose on my toes, my lips finding his chin first, then higher, finding his mouth. The first touch was light, testing, and I tasted the faint liquor on his breath. Then all at once he tightened his arms, crushing me whole against his chest, his lips and tongue sweeping in, twining around mine. I let out a muffled moan, the soaked dress pressed between us, and even through that layer of fabric it couldn’t hold back the fire in his chest. The rain outside came down harder. And that one thought in my heart finally settled, steady and sure — tonight, nobody has to go back.