[Her · The Girlfriend]
I sent Zhou Hang a message: don’t wait for me for dinner tonight, you’re busy. He replied instantly with a “Okay, stay safe,” plus a little hug emoji. I stared at that emoji for two seconds, then flipped my phone face-down on the table. He’s worked overtime nineteen days this month. I counted. I’m not complaining—he got promoted to director, being busy comes with it. It’s just that I’ve realized, in the half year he’s been so busy, I’ve grown a whole other life somewhere else, a life he knows nothing about. The entrance to that life is the address of a man named P. When I first met him, he’d check my expression before even daring to touch my hand. Three months later, at that Sichuan place downstairs from his office last week, he slid his hand under the tablecloth and stroked all the way up the inside of my thigh through my dress, while two of his coworkers sat at the same table. My hand shook as I picked up food, and he chatted about quarterly reports without changing his face. I hate that composure of his—and it was from that day on that I found myself starting to hope Zhou Hang would work late.
[P · The Fuck Buddy]
When she texted that she was downstairs, I was wiping the bathroom mirror clean. Not to look at myself—I knew that in a while she’d be standing in front of that mirror, and I wanted her to see clearly. These months I’ve figured out one thing about her: her mouth says “not out in the open,” “what if someone sees,” but every time I actually touch her in a half-public place, she gets wetter down there than she does in bed. That time at the restaurant last week, when I pulled my fingers out from under her skirt, the pads were slick with her. She’s the kind who needs to be pushed along—the more you shove her past the boundary, the more she goes soft. So I never ask her “is this okay,” I just do it, then watch her struggle between shame and wanting. The bell rang, I went to open the door. She wore a beige knit dress today, and the moment she came in I pinned her against the shoe cabinet in the entryway. I didn’t rush to undress her—I just pressed my mouth behind her ear and asked, “Where’s Zhou Hang?” She said working late. I smiled: “Then tonight you’re mine.”
[The Boyfriend]
The quarterly review meeting ran until nine-thirty, and I gnawed on a cold sandwich in the conference room. My phone lit up—a message from Lin Wan saying not to wait for her for dinner tonight. I sent back a hug, and that little pang of guilt reared up again—these past six months I really have left her home alone too many times. We’ve been together two years, and I’ve always thought of her as the kind of girlfriend who’s easy, steady, not clingy; I work late and she never makes a fuss. She said today she was going to a small get-together with college classmates. I said okay, have fun. I even felt a bit relieved—she has her own social life, so I don’t have to feel guilty for never being able to keep her company. After the meeting I sat in the parking lot for a while, thinking that once this project wraps up I should take her to Sanya, make it up to her. I texted her: once work calms down I’ll take you on a trip. She replied “Sure” after a long while. I figured the party was too loud for her to check her phone.
[Her · The Girlfriend]
The light in his bathroom is warm yellow, the door left open, the steam from the hot water slowly creeping across the mirror. P peeled my knit dress off over my head, not fast, but I never felt he was slow—every move of his was like it had been planned long ago. He didn’t undress himself first; he had me stand bare under the showerhead, then stepped in too, squeezing body wash onto my shoulders from behind, pushing it down slowly with his palms. His hands are broader than Zhou Hang’s, rougher too, his knuckles grazing my collarbone, my chest, my ribs, finally stopping on my lower belly. “Turn around,” he said. I turned, and through a layer of foam and water I saw that he was hard too. I don’t know when I became like this—the kind who’d willingly lay a body-wash-covered hand on him in another man’s bathroom and stroke him, one pull at a time. His throat moved, but he made no sound, just looked down at my hand, his gaze like he was inspecting the goods.
[P · The Fuck Buddy]
While she stroked me, I watched the mirror. Half of it was fogged, but I could see her utterly kneeling posture—even though she was still standing. Water ran down the groove of her back, slid into the small of it, and further down was the place I’d be entering soon. Her belly is flat, her breasts small, pink, and the hot water made her nipples stand up. I reached over to rub them and half her body went soft, leaning into me. I don’t like getting right to it—I like driving her to the edge of that “begging” state and then stopping. I took her hand off me, reached back and shut off the shower: “Get out, put something on.” She froze for a second, and that unsatisfied thing in her eyes was exactly what I wanted. “Put on what?” she asked. I said: “That set you stuffed in my drawer last time. You know perfectly well what you brought it here for.”
[The Boyfriend]
Waiting at a red light on the drive home, I thought again of how we were when we first got together. Back then I hadn’t been promoted, I had plenty of time at night, and we could curl up on the couch watching shows all evening. She’d rest her legs across mine and have me peel her a tangerine. I don’t know when it started, but now when I get home she’s usually already asleep, or scrolling on her phone with a face mask on, and after my shower I drop straight into sleep. The last time we made love properly was… I actually couldn’t remember which day. That realization made me a little uneasy at the red light. I made an excuse for myself: it’ll be fine once I get through this stretch. The light turned green, I hit the gas and pushed that unease back down. Home was dark, she wasn’t back yet. I turned on the lights, left the little nightlight in the entryway on for her, showered and went to sleep. Before sleeping I checked my phone once more; she hadn’t replied again. It’s a party, I thought, it definitely hasn’t wrapped up yet.