[Su Wei · Young Wife]
The address for the shoot was a studio converted from an old warehouse, in that dead factory district on the west side of the city where no one ever comes. I pushed through the gap left under the rolling shutter; dust floated in the slanting light like someone had ground the whole afternoon into powder. I am thirty-one this year, married four years — in everyone’s social circle I am the “most proper” sample, the one who remembers the in-laws’ birthdays, who folds her husband’s shirts by color. Before coming here I told myself three times: it is only a set of photos, a set of pretty photos I want to keep for myself, nothing more.
[A-Wei · Photographer]
She was more worth looking at than the photo on the booking form. Not the kind of woman who dazzles at a glance — the kind you have to look at twice, look into her eyes at that little flicker of hesitation, before she gets under your skin. I poured her a cup of warm water, deliberately letting my fingertips brush the back of her hand as I passed the cup, watching her shrink back as if scalded, then feel too embarrassed to really pull away too fast. I have shot plenty of women like this — the more they wear the word “proper” on themselves, the heavier the breath pressed down beneath it. I am not in a hurry. The camera glowed with a red dot on the tripod, but I knew today’s real shutter was not in that machine.
[Su Wei · Young Wife]
He had me sit on that old rattan chair, said the light was just right. I did as told. He circled behind me to adjust a lamp, his hand casually pushing back the hair draped on my shoulder, his knuckles grazing the nape of my neck. My whole body went stiff. “Relax,” he said in a low voice, “you are too tense. The lens lies for no one — it will capture every taut thing in your heart.” I forced a small smile. But instead of retreating behind the camera, he crouched halfway in front of me, level with my eyes. The way he looked at me was not the way you look at a model — it was the way you look at something you have already decided to take.
[A-Wei · Photographer]
I brought my hand to my belt and slowly undid it. Her pupils contracted all at once, her lips moved, no sound came. I pulled down the elastic of my underwear and let it spring free — carrying the heat pent up all afternoon, and that thick, unmistakable smell of a man no one can fake, jutting straight out in front of her. Thicker than she had expected; I could tell, her throat rolled once. Veins coiled along it, the head flushed and glistening, a single bead of clear fluid slowly seeping out and catching the light. I did not move, just let it stand there like that, let her look for herself.
[Su Wei · Young Wife]
I instinctively leaned back; the rattan chair gave a creak. “No…” I heard my own voice tremble, “I really can’t, I’m married, we agreed it was only photos.” I turned my face away, yet the corner of my eye still glanced at it. It was so close to my face that the heat from it could almost brush against my lips. My heart was pounding in a panic, and for the first time I remembered so clearly my husband’s hands that morning, straightening my scarf as he left. I should have stood up. I really should have stood up.
[A-Wei · Photographer]
“You look straight at me.” I pressed my voice to its lowest, coaxing and commanding at once. “Look, I am already this hard for you — it is not an act, you can’t fake this.” I reached out and held her chin, turning her face back. “Just a taste,” I said. “Like licking ice cream when you were little, just one lick, just to taste it. Your other half will never know. This afternoon never happened.” I gripped the base and slowly lifted, letting the tip drag across her lower lip, leaving a bright, wet streak. Her breathing came apart.
[Su Wei · Young Wife]
That bit of warm, slippery something on my lip — I can’t tell if my body moved before my mind, or if my mind had long since given my body its silent consent. Either way it was my own tongue that reached out a step ahead of me and licked that wet streak in. Salty, with a hint of rawness, and something warm I can’t name that belongs to a living person. Just that one lick, like a string in my lower belly being plucked softly. I should have been disgusted. But I wasn’t. That taste instead stirred up something ravenous, something I had thought I no longer had in me. I opened my mouth.
[A-Wei · Photographer]
The moment she took it in, I nearly let out a sigh. Clumsy — her teeth even bumped it by accident — but it was that very clumsiness that was fatal. She was not practiced, she was a woman of good family, someone else’s wife, and now she knelt in a stranger’s studio with him in her mouth. She tried to swallow deeper, her throat making a wet gurgling sound, then got pushed too full and pulled back. I reached out and pressed the back of her head, not hard, just so she would not retreat. Her tongue slowly learned to coil, saliva dripping down my shaft. This afternoon was worth it, I thought. But I wanted more.
[Su Wei · Young Wife]
He suddenly pressed my head, not letting me move. Before I could react the first spurt slammed deep into my throat, scalding, fast and forceful. Instinctively I wanted to shove him off, my palm braced against his lower belly, but I could not push him. He held down the back of my head, his throat rolling above my crown, a satisfied muffled groan in it. I was forced to swallow it down with a gulp, one spurt, then another. When he finally let go and my lips left him, it made a “pop,” like someone pulling out a cork wedged in too tight. That sound rang out clear and plain in the empty studio, and shame set my whole face on fire.
[Su Wei · Young Wife]
I wiped my mouth blindly with the back of my hand, stood up, knees weak. I did not dare look at him, nor at that camera still glowing with its red dot — had it captured it? I, a married woman, a woman everyone calls proper, had actually knelt in a stranger’s studio and done this for him, and swallowed it too. I grabbed my bag, voice tight: “The photos… I won’t shoot anymore. The money… give me the fee you owe me, I’m leaving.” I only wanted to flee this dusty warehouse at once, flee back to that home that carried my husband’s scent.