【Qi Ming · Husband】
Tuesday, eleven twenty at night, the only light in the bedroom was her phone. Lan Zhi lay on her side, still editing a supply contract, thumb swiping the screen, one swipe, one curse: “dumbfuck Party A.”
I stared at the back of her neck for a long time. A thirty-three-year-old man, a product manager, I write requirements docs for other people every day, and I’d sat on my own requirement for two years without daring to raise it.
“Zhi.” “Talk.” “I want to watch you do it with someone else.”
Her thumb paused, then kept swiping. “Verbal offer. Not accepted.” “What?” “If you mean it, put it in writing. Can’t write it, shut up and go to sleep.”
She set the phone by her pillow, rolled over, back to me. I was hard, embarrassingly hard. For two years I’d watched her shower through the frosted glass, I’d recorded her breathing when she turned over in her sleep, there was a note in my iPhone Voice Memos called “Zhi · moaning · March 14,” forty seconds. That’s the kind of man I am. She knows.
【Lan Zhi · Wife】
I wasn’t asleep. He thought I was, but I was thinking about formatting. He was breathing that heavily, a thirty-three-year-old man, two years to get one sentence out, sweat all down his back; my fingers brushed his arm and it was wet.
Thirty-one, contracts assistant at a law firm, seven years in, the contracts I’ve reviewed would stack higher than I stand. My husband wants to watch me get fucked by another man. Fine. Then we do it by the rules. I have never once in my life seen a thing go wrong when the rules were written down clearly.
Ten the next morning, I wedged twenty minutes between two supply contracts, opened a new document and typed a two-word title: Performance Agreement. Xiao Fang at the next desk leaned over and asked what I was writing. I said “an NDA” and she went oh and ducked back. Five pages, seven clauses, one appendix. When I finished I reviewed it top to bottom myself and changed three shoulds to musts.
Clause One, term: thirty days, counted from the date of first performance. Clause Two, Party B qualifications: twenty-five or older, a medical report from within three months, no steady partner. Clause Three, time and place to be designated by Party A, hotel no lower than four stars, costs borne by Party C.
Clause Four, Party C, Qi Ming, may be present, must sit in the seat designated by Party A, must not stand, must not speak; Party B must not converse with Party C.
Clause Five, Party B must use a condom throughout. Clause Six, Party C may record audio, not video; the recordings belong to Party A.
Clause Seven, should any party say the word “Terminate,” this agreement is void that same day, no reason required, no claims to be pursued.
The appendix was the last page, a table, thirty rows, three blanks per row: date, Party B signature, Party A acceptance.
I printed two copies and stamped the page seams with my own name seal. Eight that night, at the dinner table, before he’d even set his bowl down, I pushed the contract across.
“Signature page is page five. Read it before you sign, don’t fucking scribble on it the way your company signs off on requirements.”
He turned to Clause Six and read it twice. I knew he’d read it twice. The word recording was written for him.
“The recordings go to you?” “To Party A. Party A is me. You’re Party C.” “Party C can’t speak?” “Party C can breathe.” “Then I—” “Whatever you want to say, Clause Seven is there for you. One word. Any time.”
He signed. I handed him the pen, the black gel pen the firm gives out, and his hand was shaking when he finished; he went into the study before he’d finished eating. I knew what he was doing in there, there was light under the door and a steady, rhythmic sound.
“I pick the guy,” I said through the door. “You don’t choose. Anyone you choose is guaranteed to be useless.”
The sound behind the door stopped for two seconds, then went on.
【Qi Ming · Husband】
Friday night she sent me a photo, taken on the sly through the glass door of the gym: a man with his back to the camera wiping down a squat rack, lats stretching his staff shirt into a slab. “This one. Interview Saturday.”
I replied: “Can I come? I’ll sit far away.” “Party C is not present at the interview. Book the Atour, Wednesday night, high floor, a room type with a writing desk.”
I booked the room, 1517, executive king, desk by the window. Then I looked at that photo of his back for forty-some minutes, imagining her hands on it, wondering whether her moans would sound any different from the March 14 memo. I was hard all night and didn’t touch myself; I wanted to save it for Wednesday. Clause Six said audio, so I cleared out my iPhone Voice Memos and freed up twelve gigs.
【Qin Ye · The Other Man】
Saturday, three in the afternoon, the café on the third floor of the MixC, a window seat. She was there first, in a black suit, hair pinned up, a kraft folder on the table and an untouched americano.
I’m twenty-nine, a personal trainer at the gym, three hundred-plus clients under my belt, and nobody had ever looked at me like that. She went from my head to my feet and then back from my feet to my head, like she was inspecting a secondhand treadmill.
She’d been training at our club for four months, Tuesdays and Thursdays at seven, always the third squat rack. I’d spotted her twice, hand at the side of her waist; the second time she looked back and said “Watch your hands.” Yesterday she added me on WeChat, one line: Saturday 3 p.m., MixC third floor, bring a medical report.
“Medical report.” I passed over two sheets. Hep B panel, HIV, syphilis, all negative, done three days ago at the Second City Hospital. She read line by line, a fingernail tracking down the page.
“Dates are fine. Sit.” I sat. I didn’t order a coffee and she didn’t ask.
“You’ve been watching me on the weight floor for four months. I know. Here’s your chance: everything you’ve looked at, you get to touch. The terms are in here.”
The folder slid across, five pages, dense. I opened the first page and my palms were sweating.
“Read it out,” she said. “What?” “Clause Two. Out loud. I want to hear you read it.” I read it, like I was reading membership rules to a new client. “Party B qualifications: twenty-five or older, a medical report from within three months, no steady partner.”
“Do you have a steady partner?” “No.” “When was the last time?” “Two months ago. A client.” “Still in touch?” “No. She cancelled her membership.” “How long?”
I froze. She lifted her eyelids a fraction.
“How long when it’s hard, in centimeters. It goes in the appendix. Overstating counts as breach.” “Eighteen.” “Girth.” “Never measured.” “Measure tonight, send me a photo. No face.” She said all this without taking her eyes off the contract, like she was asking for my ID number.
She turned to page four and pointed at Clause Four. “My husband will be sitting in the room. You don’t talk to him, he doesn’t talk to you, he doesn’t move. Any questions, you ask me.”
“He watches?”
“He watches. If that bothers you, you can leave right now. Coffee’s on me.”
“And the schedule?” “Eight to eleven at night, once a day, thirty days, thirty times, Day 1 through Day 30. Miss one and it’s a breach. Move your sessions earlier.” “I’ve got a group class Saturday nights.” “Get someone to cover it. If you can’t, don’t sign.”
I didn’t leave. She reached across, not to shake my hand but to pinch my wrist, thumb on the pulse, three seconds. “Heart rate one-twenty,” she said. “Good. No need to fake it.”
Her voice was flat, every word of the clauses bitten off cleanly, and under the table my pants were already tenting. It was humiliating: a woman auditing me like a supplier, and the audit was making me hard. All the clients I’ve ever barked at in all my years of coaching put together didn’t add up to one of her “Sit.”
“Clause Five. Condom throughout.”
“With a condom I—” “You what?” “It feels worse.”
“Clause Five can take a supplementary agreement. Depends on your quality of performance.” Her pen tip tapped Clause Five twice. “Get the first four right first.”
“Then Clause Three, the hotel—” “My husband books it. Your job is to show up. Fifteen minutes late or more, that session is void. No make-ups.”
Then she turned to Clause Seven. She didn’t have me read that one; she read it herself.
“Should any party say the word ‘Terminate,’ this agreement is void that same day, no reason required, no claims to be pursued.” She looked up. “You, me, my husband; whoever says it, it counts. I stop liking you, I say Terminate. You get scared, you say Terminate. He can’t take it, he says Terminate. Understood?”
“Understood.” “Sign.” The pen came across, a black gel pen, a line of small print on the barrel, her firm’s name. I signed Qin Ye under Clause Seven, my hand shaking worse than my first day coaching.
She pulled that page out and took a photo of it with her phone. Then she made a group chat, three people, named simply “Performance.” She posted the photo, long-pressed it, set it as the group announcement.
My phone buzzed. The announcement popped up: Clause Seven, black on white, my signature at the bottom, hers above it, and above that another name, Qi Ming. The third avatar in the group was a gray cat. It didn’t say anything. I knew he was watching. His wife had just taken my pulse in front of me, and he was watching.
She lifted the americano and took a sip, finally, then closed the folder.
I turned my phone face down and looked at her. “When does Party A run acceptance?”