【She · Female Lead, Lin Suqiu】
By the time the alarm rang the second time, I had already been standing in front of the wardrobe for ten minutes. In my hand I pinched a beige lace pair of panties, my fingertip tracing again and again the row of fine little scallops along the edge. Twenty-nine years old — I was long past the age of hesitating over a pair of panties, and yet I truly was hesitating. Not over which pair, but over whether to wear any at all. The thought that had kept me tossing and turning half the night under the covers did not, once daylight came, dissolve the way I had assumed it would; instead it grew clearer, more concrete, more maddening. It crouched deep in my belly, calling to me, over and over.
【She · Female Lead, Lin Suqiu】
I folded the panties in half, then in half again, into a small little square — like folding a letter that would never be sent. Then I unzipped the innermost pocket of my commuter bag, the one I never even bothered to use, pushed it inside, and zipped it shut. Just that one motion — quiet, clean, under three seconds. But I heard my own heartbeat skip a beat, and then start counting again in a flustered, excited rhythm. The instant the lining of my pencil skirt touched my skin, I sucked in a breath. Nothing between us at all. The fabric slid inch by inch over my bottom, over the top of my thighs, and finally brushed lightly against that closed seam between my legs — cool, smooth, direct. I gripped the wardrobe door and stood there three seconds before I dared take a step.
【She · Female Lead, Lin Suqiu】
The woman in the mirror was as proper as ever. Blouse pressed without a single wrinkle, buttoned to the second button, hair pinned up impeccably, lipstick in that nude-mauve shade no one would ever glance at twice. Behind my back my coworkers call me the textbook — standard posture, standard emotions, even standard lunches. But under the textbook’s skirt, right now, there was nothing, not a single unnecessary thing. I had been getting waxed for three years, every four weeks, without fail, until that place was as smooth as glazed porcelain, not even the finest downy hair left behind. Today, for the first time, that smoothness had nothing covering it. The moment the wind slipped through my hem, I could feel with perfect clarity my two full, slightly flared petals of soft flesh pressing against the skirt lining, parting and closing with each step, like a breathing, moist little mouth hidden away.
【She · Female Lead, Lin Suqiu】
The subway was packed body to body. I usually loathe being crowded that close by strangers, but today an absurd calm rose in me — none of them knew. Right there beside their suited elbows, in the corner of their downcast eyes glued to their phones, stood a woman utterly bare beneath her skirt. This secret was like an invisible layer of underwear more form-fitting than any clothing, wrapping me tight from the inside out. The car lurched, my legs went weak, and in the instant my thighs clamped together, those two petals of soft flesh were squeezed by my own thighs and, unbelievably, seeped a little warm slickness. My face flushed instantly and I fixed my eyes on my own placid, unrippled face in the window — look, so composed. Composed as if nothing were happening at all.
【She · Female Lead, Lin Suqiu】
Entering the office meant badging in, passing the front desk, nodding and smiling good morning to three people. I did all of it — voice gentle, curve of the smile precise. “Morning, Sister Lin.” The intern, young Zhou, turned sideways with an armful of documents to let me into the elevator first, ever so respectfully. I gave him a little smile and said thanks. The elevator doors closed, leaving only me, that smile still hanging on my face — and yet I pressed my hand softly to my lower belly, where, underneath, it was throbbing hot, beat after beat. I had never felt this proper face of mine and the body beneath the propriety to be so far apart, and at the same time so close.
【She · Female Lead, Lin Suqiu】
Sitting down. This was the day’s first real test. I did it as always — one hand smoothing my hem, one hand bracing on the desk edge, lowering myself slowly. But this time there was no layer of cloth to shield my skin from the seat. The chill of the imitation leather printed straight onto me, and through the thin lining of the skirt it was nearly the same as nothing at all. I froze for a second, then slowly settled my weight down for real. My own body weight pressed the soft flesh slightly open, flush against the seat. I squeezed my thighs together — and there an invisible thread of slick drew taut, then snapped. All day long, I would have to sit like this. Take meetings, write proposals, answer emails, and pretend I was that watertight, flawless Lin Suqiu. And this wet little mouth beneath my skirt would keep me company, never pausing for a second in its reminder: today, you are wearing nothing at all.
【She · Female Lead, Lin Suqiu】
There were no meetings in the morning, so I nailed myself to my desk. But the quieter it was, the clearer the feeling grew. The cold air from the vent poured up through the gap under the desk, straight up under my skirt, licking chilly across that patch of skin with not a single hair to protect it. I broke out in goosebumps and my legs pressed together on their own. But pressing them together only made it worse — the soft flesh on the inner sides of my thighs squeezed, pushing the seam down the center even more tightly shut, the full petals clinging and rubbing against each other, and that chill the vent had teased out was, in a blink, warmed by my own body into a sticky, clinging heat. I stared at the spreadsheet on my screen without taking in a single figure, feeling only that I was, little by little, quietly, hopelessly getting wet.
【She · Female Lead, Lin Suqiu】
My phone buzzed once in the drawer. It was that anonymous place — an exhibitionist circle where there were only strings of code names, no faces and no names. I had stumbled into it half a year ago by accident and never left. In there no one knew who I was, and I knew who no one was. We simply laid the parts of ourselves that couldn’t see daylight bare in words, watching each other, igniting each other. I pressed the phone deep into the drawer, the screen’s glow just enough for me alone to see. “I really did it today,” I typed, fingertips trembling a little. “At work, nothing under my skirt.” The reply came almost instantly: “Sitting down? Are you wet?” I stared at those two questions, my throat tightening. Across the partition sat Sister Wang from Finance, softly reconciling accounts with a client on the phone, less than two meters away. I clamped my thighs a little tighter and replied: “On the chair right now. Already wet.”
【She · Female Lead, Lin Suqiu】
After typing that line I hardly dared lift my head. But when I finally raised my eyes, the office was still the same office — the clatter of keyboards, the whir of the printer, the light clunk of someone’s mug on a desk, everything as usual. No one was looking at me. No one knew. And it was precisely this — no one knowing — that snapped the string deep in my belly, the one that had been called to all along, taut to its absolute limit. I turned the phone face-down in the drawer, placed both hands primly back on the keyboard, straightened my spine, my smile on standby at all times. In that moment I suddenly understood: the deadliest part of this game was never taking anything off — it was that after taking it off, you still had to play the watertight, flawless Lin Suqiu, exactly to the note, until quitting time. And I had only just begun.