【Her · Married Woman】
The late-summer sun still hadn’t eased off. Two in the afternoon, and the cicadas screamed the whole mountain into a fever. I’d picked this wild trail on my own — on the map it was just a dotted line, and the comments section had only a few thin words: “few people, wild scenery, don’t come alone.” I came anyway. Three years married, and between home, the office, and him, my days felt like someone else had wound the spring for me. I just wanted to sweat, to shake loose the stale, stuffy weight in my chest.
I’d worn my most body-hugging workout set. A white sports bra, the kind that wraps the whole chest and pushes it up — when I tied the straps, even my own reflection made me pause. Once the sweat soaked in, the fabric pulled taut, the shape of my breasts drawn out clear as anything, the two peaks pressing faintly through the thin cloth. Below, dark green fitted leggings, high-waisted, hugging my ass, clinging closer with every couple of steps. My skin was that healthy tan you get from years of training, the lines of muscle catching a thin sheen of sweat in the sun. Before heading out I thought — no one’s around anyway, what’s there to be afraid of.
Phone, one bottle of water, nothing else. That was my first mistake.
By the time I reached the halfway point, the dotted line had vanished entirely. Gravel and dry grass underfoot, brush higher than my waist on both sides, no telling which way was the path. I stopped and gulped down a couple of mouthfuls, my palms slick with sweat, and the bottle slipped — just like that, it slid out from between my fingers, knocked against a rock, bounced, and went tumbling down the steep slope, rolling farther and farther until, with a final thud, it was gone.
I stood there, listening to my own heartbeat. Half a bottle of water, gone just like that.
【Her · Married Woman】
At first I didn’t panic. I told myself I just had to head back. But the cruelest thing about a wild mountain is this — every part of it looks exactly the same. Twenty minutes of walking and I not only hadn’t found the fork I’d come from, I’d wandered into an even denser thicket. My phone had one bar of signal left, the navigation spinning in circles, unable to find me. The sun had baked the back of my neck sore, my lips were going dry, my throat felt coated in sandpaper. Dehydration starts at the temples first — a throb, a throb.
I found a boulder half my height and sat, forcing myself calm. Panic is the most useless thing. I brushed the sweat-damp strands off my forehead and behind my ears, closed my eyes, counted my breaths. Wind poured up from the valley, lifting the hem of my bra with a little coolness, and only then did I realize my whole back was soaked through, the fabric stuck to my skin. So thirsty — I even started fantasizing about that half-bottle that had rolled away.
Just then, I heard the sound of stones crunching underfoot.
【Him · Foreign Man · Nat】
My name is Nat. These past few years I’ve run an import business in this city — red wine, olive oil, a few little trinkets from home — and my Mandarin has been worn smoother and smoother by local clients. On weekends I like to slip off alone into wild mountains like this, chasing quiet and something new — my own country has no mountains this hot and this thick with growth.
Rounding a patch of brush, I saw a woman sitting on a rock. From the first glance I slowed my steps. Her skin was a lovely wheaten brown, clearly the body of years of training — shoulders and back firm, waist cinched trim. That white sports bra was soaked half-sheer, holding her breasts up high and full, the two peaks pushing little shapes through the thin cloth; when she bent her head to catch her breath, that pair rose and fell with her breathing. I’ll admit it — my gaze slid down from her collarbone and pretty much never made its way back up.
“Are you all right?” I spoke in Mandarin, keeping my voice as soft as I could so as not to startle her. “You don’t look… so good.”
【Her · Married Woman】
I looked up. A man with a foreign face, his Mandarin surprisingly smooth. He was half a head shorter than me, narrow-shouldered, not exactly built — through the thin quick-dry shirt you could tell he had a bit of muscle, his chest and forearms covered in a layer of dark, thick body hair. As he came closer I caught a scent — sweat, some kind of cedar cologne, and a little of something that belonged to his own body, a foreign air I couldn’t name, strange and unfamiliar and… not unpleasant.
I opened my mouth, my voice so hoarse it didn’t sound like mine: “I… lost my water. Got lost.”
Without a word he swung the pack off his back, pulled a soft water bladder from a side pocket, twisted the valve open, and held it out to me. “Drink. Slowly.”
I practically snatched it. Bringing the nozzle to my lips, I closed my mouth around the length of rubber tube and tipped my head back, sucking down mouthful after mouthful, cool water pouring down my throat — I’d never known water could taste so sweet. I drank too fast, water spilling from the corners of my mouth, running down my chin to my neck, my collarbone, sliding all the way down into my bra. I must have looked a mess with that tube in my mouth, but I couldn’t care — not until I’d drained half the bladder did I finally let go and gasp for air.
【Him · Foreign Man · Nat】
The way she drank with the tube in her mouth had me a little dazed. Her lips were full, closing around that stretch of rubber and pulling at it, again and again; her throat didn’t show much of an Adam’s apple, but the line of her neck rose and fell with each swallow. Water ran down from the corner of her mouth, tracing over her chin, her neck, sliding into that cleft her bra pressed up. She had no idea how enticing the whole picture was.
“Thank you.” She finally handed the bladder back, wiped her mouth, her color much better now. “Really, thank you — I thought I was going to end my days out here.”
I gave a small laugh and took the bladder back. “Lucky for you, I walk this one a lot. This mountain looks close, but it can wind you to death.” I sat on the rock across from her, pretending to take in the view, though the corner of my eye kept falling back on her — when she shifted how she sat, those dark green leggings pulled tight over the tops of her thighs and her ass, the high waistband cutting a faint line into her waist. That little notion in my head started getting restless.
【Her · Married Woman】
Once I’d come back to myself, I finally, belatedly, took a look at him. He’d been watching me the whole time. Not the kind of leering, skin-crawling stare you want to hide from — an open, brazen appreciation with a hint of amusement, from my chest, to my waist, to my pressed-together legs. Wherever his gaze swept, my skin felt as if it had been scalded.
I instinctively folded my arms across my chest, yet my heart was inexplicably speeding up. I’m a married woman. That thought was like a thread pulled taut across my mind. But another voice rose up from somewhere deeper: it had been so long since anyone had looked at me like this. When he looked at me, I actually… kind of wanted him to look a little longer.
“Can you still walk?” He stood, patting the dirt off his pants. “Come down the mountain with me, I know the way. Only —” he paused, one corner of his mouth curling into a wicked grin, “it’s a long way. Just walking is so dull. How about — you and I make a bet?”