【Lin Jianxia · Wife’s Inner Voice】The bottom drawer of my nightstand has a broken lock, but in these four years no one has ever opened it. Three things lie inside, arranged in the order I bought them, each thicker than the last, each longer than the last. The first I bought in our second year of marriage — slim, pink; back then my hands shook with shame and I wondered if something was wrong with me. This latest one is silicone, dark red, a whole size thicker than my husband and half a palm longer. I did not need one this big from the start. Xu Lang backed me into this inch by inch — not because he gave me too much, but because he gave me too little, so little that I could only keep buying bigger for myself.
【Lin Jianxia · Wife’s Inner Voice】Xu Lang slept deep, his back to me, his breathing as even as a recording cued up in advance. The last time we did it was three weeks ago — hurried; he was on top of me for less than ten minutes before he finished, then rolled over, said he was tired, and was asleep in a second. I lay in the dark with my eyes open, my body lit like a fire with no one coming to save it, so I waited until he was fast asleep and quietly slid open that drawer with the broken lock. When the silicone touched the place I keep shaved clean, I bit down on the pillow — afraid of waking him, and afraid he might wake and see: see his wife, poised and proper Lin Jianxia, alone beside him, fucking herself until she shook.
【Lin Jianxia · Wife’s Inner Voice】The most ironic part is that with that dark-red thing I get there every single time. Spread open, pushed in, pressed against that deepest point, my inner walls clenching ring after ring — the pleasure comes fast and full, a hundred times more real than when Xu Lang is on top of me. At the moment I come I have to clamp my own mouth shut, my whole body drawn taut as a bow, convulsing soundlessly under the covers, then collapsing, the corners of my eyes wet. It feels good — it really does. But the emptiness afterward is worse than never coming at all, because what is wrapped around me is not a person; it is a piece of cold silicone. I wipe it clean, put it back at the very back of the drawer, turn over, look at my husband’s back, and for the first time think, very clearly: did I marry the wrong man.
【Lin Jianxia · Wife’s Inner Voice】I am twenty-nine this year, one meter sixty-six, and the company physical says fifty-two kilos. I know my figure has not gone — my waist still tucks in, my legs are straight when I stand, and only when I sit and my thighs press together does that bit of softness show; I am a C cup, and buttoning a blouse to the second button already pushes out a curve. This is not me bragging; it is what the mirror tells me every morning, and what a certain gaze in the office tells me too. That gaze belongs to Shen Yan, from marketing, seated diagonally across from me. When he looks at me he does not look away — just openly, blatantly, from the collar where I have tied my scarf all the way down, until my ears burn, until I know I am still wanted — except the one who wants me is not my husband.
【Shen Yan · Male Coworker】Lin Jianxia, this woman — the more composed she keeps herself, the better she looks. Every day she puts herself together flawlessly, blouse pressed crisp, scarf tied just so, speaking softly, her smile carrying a polite little distance. But I have read enough people in this line of work to tell at a glance: the tighter someone holds it in, the fiercer the thing pressed down inside. When she bends to read a document, her collar gaps open a sliver, showing her collarbone and the shallow line below it; when she turns to fetch water, the two halves wrapped in that pencil skirt curve full and shift with every step. A body like that, paired with a husband who lulls her to sleep and then rolls over and walks away — it is a criminal waste.
【Shen Yan · Male Coworker】I am in no hurry. People in a hurry do not get the good things. All I do is let her know, every day, that a pair of eyes is on her — on her face, on her collar, on the thigh her skirt pulls tight over when she sits. The first couple of months she dodged me, timing her water runs for when I was gone, going out of her way in meetings to sit at the far end of the long table. But the more she dodged, the more certain I became this was done. A woman who truly feels nothing does not go to the trouble of dodging; only the one already stirred inside, afraid she cannot hide it, panics the moment she sees you. Her panic is my opening. All I have to do is reel this line in, a little at a time.
【Xu Lang · Husband】Jianxia is a good wife — of that I have never had a doubt. The house is kept spotless, my shirts are always pressed and hung ready when I leave, and there is a hot meal when I get home. She is quiet, no fuss, not like other men’s wives who check up on you all day. In four years of marriage we have barely quarreled. As for that side of things — a man past thirty, worn out from work, where is the energy to keep it on the mind every day? She does not seem to mind much either; when I am tired I say so, and she never clings, just rolls over and sleeps. Having such a sensible wife is a blessing I must have earned in a past life. That is what I always thought — until much later, when I finally understood that quiet and not minding are two different things.
【Lin Jianxia · Wife’s Inner Voice】It is not that I never told him. Once I worked up the courage, leaned over and put my arms around him, my hand reaching across his body. He caught my hand, patted it, and said: Jianxia, it is late, we have to get up early. That one weightless line pressed my reaching hand and my heart both back down. After that I never made the first move again. Everything I had nowhere to put, I stuffed into the deepest drawer of my nightstand, gave it to that silicone I kept buying bigger. By day I stayed poised as ever, still dodging Shen Yan’s gaze that set my heart racing. I told myself I am a woman with a husband, I lack for nothing. But at night, shaking under the covers, I knew exactly who I was lying to.
【Shen Yan · Male Coworker】The opening was one she handed me herself, though she would deny it to her dying day. That day we worked overtime very late, and only the two of us were left in the office. She was packing up to go; I said it was on my way, we could head down together. In the elevator she stood pressed into a corner, as far from me as she could get, hugging her bag, her fingertips white where they gripped it. I did not touch her — I only watched her in the elevator mirror, across that little distance. She was watching me in the mirror too, and I caught her at it; she looked hurriedly away, but the blush had climbed all the way up her neck. That one look, and I knew where things stood. A woman who truly did not care would not flush like that. Her body is more honest than her mouth, and I — I only deal with the body.
【Lin Jianxia · Wife’s Inner Voice】Those few dozen seconds in the elevator stretched as long as a century. He stood one step away, doing nothing, yet I felt every nerve under my skin lifted up by that gaze of his. Our eyes collided in the mirror; I looked away in a panic, but afterward my heart pounded harder. I caught the faint scent on him — a little smoke, a little cold cologne — nothing like the familiar, comforting, wearying soap smell of Xu Lang’s pajamas. It was that one small difference that pried open a crack in the door inside me I had thought locked shut. I clutched my bag tighter and told myself we would part the moment the elevator arrived, that nothing would happen. But my legs, under my skirt, had already gone soft.
【Lin Jianxia · Wife’s Inner Voice】On level B3, my car and his turned out to be parked in the same row, two spaces apart. The underground garage is enormous, and at that hour it was empty but for our two cars and the ghost-pale lights. He walked to his car first, turned back to look at me, and asked: this late, are you all right driving home alone. Just that — the most ordinary sort of concern — but coming from his mouth, paired with that gaze, I froze on the spot, the key clenched in my palm, unable to press unlock for the longest time. I should have said I was fine, gotten in, driven off. My whole head was those three words: go, go, go. But my feet did not move a single step.
【Shen Yan · Male Coworker】She stood by her own car, not moving, the key clenched, her eyes on me — and in that look there was panic, refusal, and, buried at the very bottom, a flicker of anticipation she herself had not noticed. I know that look. I walked toward her, slowly, giving her every chance to turn and flee. She did not flee. I reached her, lifted a hand, and tucked a strand of wind-blown hair behind her ear, my fingertip grazing the shell of it. Her whole body shivered, her lashes trembling hard, but still she did not step back. The garage was quiet enough to hear her breathing, light and ragged. I knew: the time to reel her in had come.
【Lin Jianxia · Wife’s Inner Voice】The instant his fingertip touched my ear, a current ran through my whole body. I should have slapped his hand away, I should have gone cold, I should have said Shen Yan, keep some respect. Those words lined up in my throat and not one came out. I only stood there, letting his fingertip linger behind my ear, letting that bit of warmth trickle down my neck. Four years — no man other than Xu Lang had touched me like this. And Xu Lang could not even be bothered to touch me like this. The moment the thought surfaced, my eyes went hot. I lifted my gaze to him, meaning to make him stop, but I saw in his eyes that undisguised hunger, that wanting-me-as-a-thing-to-have — the very thing that had long since vanished from the way Xu Lang looked at me.
【Xu Lang · Husband】She came home late that night. I was already lying down when I heard the door, heard her stay in the bathroom for a long, long time, the water running and running. Half-asleep, I asked why so late; she said overtime. Her voice was a little muffled. I did not think much of it and rolled over to keep sleeping. The next morning she fried me an egg, warmed the milk, everything as usual. She sat across from me eating breakfast, head down; I asked offhandedly whether the overtime had worn her out, and she said not really. Like more than a thousand mornings before, we each looked at our phones, exchanging the odd word about what time we would be back. I did not sense a thing — that this quiet woman across from me, eating her egg, had the night before leaned against another man’s car in a garage two kilometers from home.
【Lin Jianxia · Wife’s Inner Voice】That night, back home, I stood under the shower for a long, long time, trying to rinse off the bit of warmth on me that did not belong to Xu Lang. But the more I rinsed, the clearer my head grew, the more I remembered — remembered his fingertip, remembered the way he looked at me, remembered how under that ghost-pale garage light I could plainly have left and did not move a step. The water beat down on my clean-shaven body; I reached down to touch, and that plain seam was wet — not all of it water. I leaned against the cold tile, eyes shut, and for the first time the image that sent me over the edge in my head was not that dark-red silicone; it was a living person, it was him. I was terrified, and also… burning up.
【Shen Yan · Male Coworker】That night I did nothing — only touched her ear, said goodnight, and got in my car. Some would call me a fool, meat at my lips left uneaten. But I know this kind of woman too well: with her sort, if you take her down all at once, she comes to her senses the next day and hates you, uses her marriage as a shield to pull herself back in, and it is all undone. What I want is for her to walk over on her own. I want her lying beside her husband, night after night, unable to sleep, again and again recalling that garage light, that bit of warmth, recalling the step she could have taken to leave and did not. When her own desire has stewed her past bearing it, she will come to me. And I — I only have to wait.
【Lin Jianxia · Wife’s Inner Voice】For the week that followed I dodged him again, dodged him harder than before. But this dodging was not like the old dodging. Before, I feared being seduced; now, I feared I could not hold out. In the office I did not dare look at him, but I knew he was diagonally across, knew that gaze landed on me now and then. At night I slid open that drawer, gripped that dark-red silicone I kept buying bigger, shut my eyes — and my head was full of him. At the moment I came, I bit the pillow under the covers and cried out in silence, and the name I cried, for the first time, was not Xu Lang. I opened my eyes, saw my husband’s sleeping back beside me, and something ashamed and afraid and starving drowned me whole. I knew this dam was about to give.