【Lao Song · Husband】
August 22nd, Saturday, 8:40 p.m. I was sitting on the living-room sofa, TV off, the Notes app open on my phone, the title just a name: A-Feng. Under it, nine lines of dates, starting from July 18th last year. Under the ninth line I typed a tenth: 8.22. I didn’t save it. I just let it sit there, glowing.
I’m thirty-five, A-Lan is thirty-two. Married ten years, same factory, me in engineering, her in the office doing clerical work. Last July the plant went on rotating heat leave, three days a week, and she was home bored, binge-watching dramas. I’d been talking with A-Feng on the forum for over a month before I told her.
A-Feng is thirty-three, same city, different district, lives in Jiangnan, drives a white Nissan Sylphy, does sales for an auto-parts company, usually off work at nine or ten. He didn’t talk much on the forum. He asked straight. “Your conditions?”
I typed five lines: “Video the whole time. Condom. No photos kept. Don’t add her on WeChat. I pick the dates.”
He replied with one word: “Fine.” Two minutes later he added: “I get off late, only after nine. Strict at home, I have to be back by eleven-thirty.”
The first time was July 18th last year, a Friday. He got off at eight-thirty and drove forty minutes over. I didn’t tell A-Lan until he was already on the expressway. She was taking laundry in off the balcony and looked back at me. “Tonight?” “He’s already on the way.” “Why didn’t you say earlier?” “If I had, you wouldn’t go.”
She set the hanger down, went into the bedroom, and came out ten minutes later in a different dress.
It’s been that pattern ever since. He’s never known where we live, only that it’s always the Shangkeyou Express Hotel on Jiangbei Avenue, because I told him it was “close to where Ms. Lan works.” Actually it’s eight hundred meters from our place, one traffic light away.
Right now she was in the bedroom changing, door open a crack. “Which one?” “The blue one.” “And underneath?” “You decide.”
It took her a moment. “Just a thong.”
When she came out I stood up. My palms were wet. Ten times now, and they’re wet every time. She looked at me once and shouldered her bag. “You watch the video. Don’t talk.” “I know.”
“Last time, the second you spoke, I…” She didn’t finish.
“I’ll just say one thing. Begin.” “One thing.”
After the door shut, WeChat buzzed. A-Feng. “Song-ge, I’m here, parked out front.” “She’s coming down at eight-fifty.” “Usual rules?” “Usual rules. Let her come back before eleven.” He sent an OK. I saved the note.
【A-Lan · Wife】
There’s a mirror in the elevator. Blue cotton sundress, just above the knee, thin straps. No safety shorts, just a black thong underneath, straps as thin as shoelaces, the one Lao Song bought online last year, 49.9 yuan. I tugged the hem down. It didn’t do much.
Eight hundred meters. Out the compound gate, turn right, past the Cainiao parcel station, past the barbecue stall, the barbecue smoke drifting up under my dress. The wind got up there too, wrapped once around the tops of my thighs and out again, and I walked faster than usual. The stall owner looked up at me. “Xiao Lan, no skewers tonight?” “Not eating, just heading out.” Her eyes flicked over my dress, and I couldn’t tell if she was looking at the dress or at my face.
Across the light, the Shangkeyou sign was right there, white letters on blue, one tube dead, the last character dark. The white Sylphy was parked at the curb, a phone glowing inside. I tapped on the passenger window.
He rolled it halfway down. “Ms. Lan.” He called me that the first time, and he was still calling me that the tenth.
“You’re early.” “No overtime today. Been here half an hour.” “Then why didn’t you go up and get the room first?” “Waiting for you.”
The front desk was a girl in a mask. While she scanned his ID I stood half a step behind him, reading the price board on the wall: king room, 168 yuan. She handed over the key card. “Third floor, 3012, check-out before noon.”
He didn’t touch me in the elevator. He never touches me outside the room. I don’t know if it’s a rule or just his own habit. “Your husband?”
“Waiting on your phone.”
He nodded, pulled the phone out of his pocket, and held it in his hand, screen off.
I count more carefully than Lao Song does. The tenth time. Always this hotel, always a different room number, always him rushing to get home, always me walking back on legs that won’t hold. And still, today, in the elevator, I hitched the straps of my thong up higher, up onto my hipbones.
【A-Feng · The Other Man】
3012 was at the end of the hall. Light showed under the door of 3011 next door, a TV clearly audible through the wall. The room was twenty-odd square meters, a 1.8-meter bed, a black leather sofa, an electric kettle on the nightstand, a round alarm clock, a paper sleeve for the key card. Air conditioner at 24 degrees, humming.
We sat down on the sofa with a seat’s worth of space between us. She put her bag on her lap, I put my backpack by my feet. This is the hardest five minutes every time. Nine times, and I don’t have her WeChat and she doesn’t have mine. Song-ge arranges everything, the date, the hotel, the time. Everything she and I have ever said to each other outside a room wouldn’t add up to a hundred sentences.
“How long since last time?” She thought about it. “Five weeks.”
“Five weeks and two days.”
She glanced at me, not smiling, but the corner of her eye moved. “You’re still counting?” “I’m counting.” “What for?” “Nothing else to do on the drive home.”
I’m thirty-three. Strict at home. Exactly who keeps me on a leash, I’ve never told Song-ge, and he’s never asked. Every time I get out it’s around ten, and every time I have to be home by eleven-thirty. So I don’t waste time. I unzipped the backpack and laid everything out on the bed one piece at a time: a red lace crotchless bodysuit, a pair of black stockings, a box of Durex, five sachets of lube, two jelly sticks, one bullet vibrator.
She watched from the sofa. “Every time it’s like you’re setting up a market stall.”
“Ms. Lan, you inspect the goods first.”
She picked up the black stockings, looked, and put them down. “What are these for? I didn’t come here in a skirt for a meeting.”
“Later.” “Is the jelly for eating?” “Not for you to eat.”
She stood up and took the phone out of my hand. “Shower first.” She went into the bathroom, propped the phone against the rinse cup on the sink, and dialed Song-ge on WeChat video herself. He picked up on the second ring. Song-ge’s face appeared on the screen, living-room light behind him. He didn’t speak. He nodded once.
With her back to the camera she slid the straps off her shoulders and the dress dropped to her ankles. Underneath really was just a black thong, the thin straps cutting into her hipbones, ass flesh bulging out either side. “Just that?” “It’s hot.” She bent and peeled that off too.
I stripped faster than she did. My cock had been up for ages, up since I got out of the car. I turned on the shower; the water came cold first and she flinched, and I pulled her back and took her tits from behind. Big, heavy, more than one hand can hold. Water ran down and her nipples went hard between my fingers.
“You always grab there first.” “It’s on the way.”
One hand went down, found the hair, found the slit. She leaned back against the tiles, knees turning in. “Stand straight.” She straightened a little. I crouched and buried my head between her legs.
Water poured off the top of my head, half of it up my nose. The instant my tongue touched her, her legs gave and her hand grabbed my hair. I changed angles and the water ran down off her belly and smeared across my whole face. Three tries. On the third I choked on a mouthful.
“No good,” she said from above me. “You’ll drown.” I looked up. Her face was red, hair plastered to her cheeks, laughing. “Out.” “Lick you out there?” “Out first.”
I dried her with the towel. Starting from the neck: shoulders, armpits, the crease under her tits, belly, the crack of her ass, thighs, the backs of her knees, between her toes. Nine times I’ve dried her like this, and she just stands there and lets me. “Why are you drying my toes.” “The toes are Ms. Lan’s too.” Song-ge watched from the screen and said nothing.
【A-Lan · Wife】
He dries me more carefully than Lao Song does. When Lao Song dries me, it’s two swipes of the towel across my back and done. He does it finger by finger. I stood in the bathroom doorway, a wet patch spreading on the mat under my feet.
When he finished he dropped the towel on the floor and walked out naked, cock up, swaying once under the light. I dried my hands on the sink and picked up his phone. On the screen Lao Song sat in the living room in that grey house T-shirt, hands on his knees. His eyes were on me, and yet not on me, like he was looking at some thing inside the phone.
I walked to the bed, propped the phone against the electric kettle, and adjusted the angle so the lens pointed at the middle of the bed. A-Feng sat on the edge of the mattress and watched me do it. “Did your husband say anything today?”
“He says one thing.” “What?”
I looked at Lao Song on the screen. His mouth moved.
“Begin.”