[Gu · The Single Man] Nanjing’s plum-rain had fallen for a whole week, the air so sticky you could wring water out of it. I parked at the far end of the compound, beneath that building, looked up and counted to the sixth floor, where one window glowed a warm yellow. The agreed message still sat on my phone screen: Tonight. Our place. We’ll be waiting for you. I killed the engine and sat in the car, letting my heartbeat slow, the raindrops smashing against the windshield one after another, each one shattering.
[Man · The Wife] I stood before the mirror in the entryway, straightening the pink silk nightdress for the third time. My husband bought it last month, said the color suited my skin. Right now it was so thin it was almost transparent, the straps thin as two threads, sliding down at the slightest movement. I’m not tall, one meter sixty, on the thin side, my collarbones jutting out clearly, the neckline of the nightdress hanging loose across my chest — the moment I looked down, I could see my own rising and falling outline. I didn’t know what I was nervous about — I was the one who’d agreed first, the one who, deep in the night, had pictured this scene against the ceiling more times than I could count.
[Lu · The Husband] I was the one who proposed it. The idea had been growing in me for a long time, so long I thought I’d hide it for the rest of my life. Man was a good wife — quiet, decent, like a cup of warm water by day. But I always remembered our newlywed days, the way she came undone beneath me, that version of her with her face flushed red by desire, worn thinner and thinner over these years by ordinary life. I wanted to see that her again. I wanted to watch her be reignited by another man — the shame I couldn’t bring myself to speak, and the spark in her eyes after I did speak it, to this day I still can’t tell which one I’m more addicted to.
[Gu · The Single Man] The door opened. It was the man of the house who opened it, early thirties, gentler than I’d imagined, his palm dry when we shook hands. He stepped aside to let me in. A floor lamp lit the living room, and on the coffee table sat two wine glasses and an opened bottle of red. And just then I saw her — she walked out from the bedroom doorway, the pink nightdress swaying lightly with each step, the light striking her from behind, that layer of silk almost half-sheer. In a single glance I saw the curve of her waist, saw that beneath the nightdress she wore nothing at all.
[Man · The Wife] The instant his gaze landed on me, my skin heated first. A complete stranger, looking at me with a gaze so blunt, so unconcealed — looking at my bare shoulders, at the shape of my breasts drawn out by the nightdress, at my legs exposed beneath. Instinctively I moved to gather the neckline closed, but my hand stopped halfway. The shame was real, yet beneath the shame something hotter was rising — so this was it: being looked at this way, I wanted to be looked at even more.
[Lu · The Husband] I poured his wine and watched them sit down across the coffee table from each other. Man tugged the hem down toward her knees, but that scrap of fabric couldn’t cover anything; her thighs were dazzlingly pale, pressed together, her toes fidgeting uneasily against the carpet. Knowing her all these years, I was far too familiar with that little gesture of hers — she wasn’t resisting; she was startled by the reaction rising from within her own body. Holding my wine glass, I leaned slowly back into the sofa, ceding that space in the middle to the two of them.
[Gu · The Single Man] We talked in shallow terms — about the Nanjing rain, about the property prices in this building, the kind of words no one would ever remember. But all three of us knew perfectly well what tonight was for. Two glasses of red in, a faint flush rose to her cheeks, and at some point one strap of her nightdress had slid down to the crook of her arm, baring half of a smooth, naked shoulder. She didn’t reach to fix it. She only held her wine glass, eyes lowered, her lashes casting a small shadow under the lamp, a look both quiet and wanton — quiet as water, wanton as fire beneath the water.
[Man · The Wife] I felt the strap slide down, but I didn’t deal with it. I wanted to let it slide. I wanted this strange man to see more — the instant that thought surfaced, I startled even myself, my face burning hotter. All these years I’d been the most dutiful of wives, never imagining that one day I’d sit in my own home, in a thin dress like this, waiting for a man I was meeting for the first time. Yet this was exactly what I was waiting for. My body was far more honest than my mind; it had long since grown wet, under the dress, in a place no one could see, for a man whose name I still couldn’t call.
[Lu · The Husband] I saw that fallen strap, saw that she didn’t reach to fix it, and in that moment my heart skipped a beat. Pride and something else surged up together, surging until my throat went tight. This was a scene I’d arranged with my own hands, the picture I’d wanted to see, yet when it truly unfolded before my eyes, I found I wasn’t as calm as I’d imagined. I lifted my wine and drained it in one gulp, using its sharpness to press down that unnameable taste in my chest, and then I heard myself speak, my voice steadier than I’d expected: “Don’t be so tense,” I said. “Tonight, at home, we should relax a little.”
[Gu · The Single Man] She lifted her eyes to glance at her husband, then looked back at me. In that glance there was inquiry, there was shyness, and there was a small trace of resolve. Then she set down her wine glass and edged closer to my side. She carried a faint scent, mingled with the smell of wine, very close now. I could see the front of her nightdress rise and fall with her breathing, could see, beneath that layer of pink, two points already drawn taut. The rain still fell outside the window, the floor lamp in the living room stretching the shadows of all three of us long, and the night had only just begun.