【The Column · Editor’s Note】
This column does not take letters. Letters dress themselves up; questionnaires cannot. We printed twelve questions, mailed them out with the issue, allowed anonymity, and asked for exactly one thing: no lying. When the first batch came back, most people started dodging halfway through. Only two ran clean from the first line to the last, without a single stumble. We print them below exactly as received, not one word changed. The first one carries no name at the bottom — only a small drawing of a crabapple blossom.
【Tangtang · Her】
Introductions first: Tangtang, twenty-three, office clerk, stationed on the fourteenth floor of an office tower, with a badge photo so well-behaved it could go straight onto the Employee of the Month board. 171 centimeters, 57 kilos, long legs, small waist, A-cup chest. Question three asked which part of my body I am least satisfied with. I wrote my chest first, then crossed it out — small, yes, but they hold their shape, and they are maddeningly sensitive. Even through the thickest sweater, one accidental brush and my neck still jerks in.
Moving on. My nipples are brown, not the pink you see online; the color down below runs dark too. Question five asked, does that bother you. I wrote: it bothered me until I was twenty-two. At twenty-three I figured it out — the color is mine, and to resent it is to resent me, and nobody else gets a vote on that. Question six asked when I last masturbated. I checked my watch and wrote: this morning, with your questionnaire lying open on the bed.
Question seven: what do you like to hear in bed. That one held my pen the longest. Writing my name would be a lie, writing sweet talk would be a bigger one, so in the end I wrote the truth: I like being called a filthy slut. In daylight nobody dares raise a voice at me — even when the copier jams they come apologizing — but in bed, when those words land on me, half of my body gives out before anything even starts. Question eight: any sexual fantasies about people you know. None. Not for one second. My kink does not grow on familiar faces; it grows somewhere else.
Question nine: the wildest thing you have ever done. The pen hovered a long time. I went out to the balcony, smoked half a cigarette, came back, and wrote: last summer, at two in the morning, I stood stark naked in the hallway of my own building for eleven minutes. Below the question they left half a page blank for details. Fine. Details it is.
That night was too hot for sleep. The AC unit droned outside the window and I had kicked the sheets into a knot. By the time the idea surfaced, I was already standing at the door: nightdress pulled off over my head and draped on the shoe cabinet, panties tucked underneath it. The door handle was colder than I expected. I set the rules with myself — to the stairwell, touch the windowsill once, come back.
The sound-activated lights were the problem. The ones in our building are cheap and jumpy — one cough can light up half a floor. I inched along the wall, bare feet on the tiles, one step, one pause. The lights stayed off. The hallway stayed dark, nothing glowing but the green of the exit sign. A draft slid in through the fire-escape window, and when it swept across my chest I glanced down — my nipples had stiffened until they ached, and not from the cold.
【Tangtang · Her】
Fourteen steps to the stairwell — I counted. The dust of the windowsill rubbed onto my fingertips and I stood with my back against the wall. The whole building was dead asleep, and I was the only naked thing in it, like something left unclaimed. My heart was pounding so loud I half feared it would set off a light on some floor by itself. And just as I was about to retreat the way I came, the elevator woke up.
A thud in the shaft first, then the cables began to slide, the number climbing floor by floor. I have never run that fast in my life — fourteen steps collapsed into seven, my knee cracked against the doorframe, the key was under the mat, and my hands shook so hard it took three tries to find the lock. The second the door shut behind me, the elevator dinged open on my floor. I slid down the door to the ground and listened as somebody rolled a suitcase past, footsteps close, then gone.
The fright afterward was real. But once my breathing settled, something else floated up: I was sitting naked on the entryway floor, and between my legs I was wet to the point of shining — wetter than at any moment of all that tossing in bed. I finished myself off right there on the entryway tiles. It was fast. Embarrassingly fast. Question eleven asked, are you afraid of being seen. I wrote: yes. Question twelve asked, then why do you still want it. I wrote: because I am afraid.
The last line: what you most want to try but never have. I wrote: outdoors. Being exposed, and being taken. I capped the pen, slid the questionnaire into the envelope, and opened it again before sealing to add one small line — if I ever actually do it, I will send you another letter.
【The Column · Editor’s Note】
Second note: three weeks later, the crabapple girl’s second letter arrived, twice as thick as the first. In that same batch there was one more questionnaire, blank from question one through eleven, with only the final line — your most unforgettable time — packed edge to edge, spilling onto the back of the page. The signature was half a tangerine. We print both untouched. Before you turn the page, we suggest you lock the door.