【Su Wan · Younger Cousin】
It was only two blocks from the subway exit to the banquet hall, yet Su Wan arrived drenched in sweat. The August sun bore down overhead, the asphalt steaming heat up in layer after layer, her thin coat plastered to her back, wet enough to wring out. The strange thing was that this heat wasn’t only on the surface of her skin—it pushed outward from the deepest part of her body, and hadn’t let up since she woke that morning, like something was kindling a fire in her lower belly, burning brighter the farther she walked. By the time she pushed open the glass door of the hall, even that spot wrapped in her underwear was clammy in a way that wasn’t right, chafing with each step and shift. She was twenty-seven, here alone for her younger cousin’s wedding, and this sorry state was truly humiliating.
“Wan Wan?” A familiar voice came from the side. It was her cousin Lu Shi. Four years older than her, in a well-cut dark-grey suit, tie loosened by a button, he picked her out at a glance from the edge of the crowd. He stepped nearer, his gaze traveling over her flushed face and soaked collar, “You don’t look right—did you get heatstroke? Come on, sit over there first.” Without asking he reached out and cupped her elbow, his grip steady, guiding her out of the bustling guests to a soft chair in a corner of the space.
She’d barely caught her breath once seated, and the heat hadn’t receded at all. Su Wan peeled off the wet coat and draped it over the chair back, revealing the bandeau dress beneath, a thin film of sweat on her collarbone. She fished out her phone—her fiancé hadn’t answered a single message since morning; he’d promised to come with her, then at the last minute said he had to work overtime. A flare of anger shot up from her chest, mixing with that indescribable heat all over her, until even her fingertips trembled.
“Wait for me.” At some point Lu Shi had walked off, and came back with a wine glass, frost condensed on the outside, “Chilled. In your state you need to cool down.”
Su Wan took it, the icy glass against her palm, and drank it down in sips. It was white wine, chilled just right, a crisp fruity fragrance spreading first across the tip of her tongue, then just the right note of acidity, and after she swallowed, a thread of sweetness lingered in her throat. Her body, so feverishly restless, was soothed a little by the cool, and she couldn’t help taking two more sips.
“Good, isn’t it?” Lu Shi sat down beside her, arm draped over the chair back, very close to her, “A private partner of mine prepped a whole batch specially for today’s wedding. In my family’s cellar, there’s plenty of reserve even finer than this.”
“Then I’ll come to your place some day and drink them all.” Faintly mellowed by the wine, Su Wan relaxed and made the joke with a smile. She didn’t even notice that her tongue went a little soft as she said it.
【Lu Shi · Older Cousin】
Lu Shi looked at his cousin’s reddened earlobes, at that fine film of sweat between her collarbones, and the calculation in his mind had already turned over and over. In that glass of wine, besides his partner’s batch of reserve, he’d mixed in a little something else—a little something only he knew about, that made a person heat up, made them relax, made them loosen, bit by bit, the string they usually kept taut. Her present state, too restless to sit still, was half the weather and half that “secret recipe,” already halfway through her blood.
He beckoned over a young runner: “Take a photo of the two of us.” The instant the lens turned toward them, he suddenly leaned in sideways, one arm circling from behind her back to hold her waist, the other hand very naturally—yet with a little force—settling on her pressed-together knees. When the shutter clicked, he clearly felt her whole body stiffen for a moment.
But she didn’t pull her body away. He glanced down: her two closed legs, far from clamping shut to push him off, instead squirmed ever so slightly under his hand—as if trying to use this little pressure to grind away some pent-up ache. She probably had no idea herself how honest the motion was. That little fire in Lu Shi flared brighter at once from that one squirm.
He didn’t take his hand away; instead he slid it up from her knee, slowly, stroke by stroke, kneading that small patch of her inner thigh, and leaned to her ear, his voice pressed low: “Wan Wan, now that this photo’s taken, you can count as having shown up. Do you want to come home with me right now and taste my real reserve?” He paused, “In your state, you don’t look like you could last the whole thing anyway. I’ll tell Auntie you’re not feeling well and I’ll take you back—one word from me and no one at home will mind.”
【Su Wan · Younger Cousin】
His hand kneaded that place above her knee, not too light, not too hard, and through the hem of her dress that little warmth seemed to seep along her skin all the way into her bones. There was a roar in Su Wan’s head—this was her cousin, the cousin she’d grown up with. She opened her mouth to refuse: “I… came for my cousin’s wedding, it wouldn’t be right to leave like this.” Yet even she felt there was nothing behind those words.
“You’re so overheated, sitting here is just suffering.” Lu Shi’s hand didn’t stop, “My reserve, paired with a little secret recipe, drink it down and it’s far cooler than this—the pleasure goes deeper, too.” With each sentence, his hand brushed lightly once between her legs. Su Wan only felt that heat burning up from her lower belly stoked more fiercely by those few strokes, and reflexively clenched her legs tighter, her knees even grinding against his hand of their own accord—and once she had, the shame flushed her face hot.
The string of blood ties still stretched taut in her head, reminding her over and over that this was her cousin. Yet her body seemed not to obey, and the thought fattened by the wine and the heat kept nudging her reason aside. She raised her eyes to the din filling the hall, then lowered them to that message bar with no reply at all; a devilish, spiteful defiance and that irrepressible heat churned together.
“…Can you really explain it clearly to Auntie?” She heard herself ask softly, all but handing herself a way out. Lu Shi gave a low “Mm,” the smile right there in her ear. She pressed once more, twice, as if to push the responsibility for this bit by bit onto him, and only once he’d agreed to it all did she bite her lip and, ever so faintly, nod.