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Chapter 9 Her Voice
Chapter 9 Her Voice
In 1208, Lin Zheng heard his own heartbeat first.
When Xu Siyi opened the door she was still in the clothes from the day. Her scarf was over her arm. She gave him the key card and said that in the twenty minutes they had not quarreled. Lin Zheng nodded, locked the door, and went to wash his hands first. Washing was not a performance of being fastidious. He needed those tens of seconds to change himself from the husband of the daytime into a man who would still keep the rules tonight.
Xu Siyi sat on the bed and watched him come out. "At Huashi Villa today you reached and then took your hand back. I saw it. I was relieved at the time. Afterward I was a little disappointed. I told Chen Hao about the disappointment. Now I'm telling you. Disappointment isn't an invitation to touch me outside. It's the truth."
"I'll take it," Lin Zheng said, sitting beside her. "Tonight I can not touch you first. Talking counts as part of the night too. If you want to, we go step by step, the way we did yesterday."
Xu Siyi looked at him, then suddenly pulled her top off over her head. The movement was fast, fast enough to be a little like a dare. The bra was still on. Her chest rose and fell.
"I want to," she said. "I don't want to use talking to hide. Kiss me. Below waits for my nod. And the wall is thin. I may make a sound. Don't praise me for that, and don't stop me for it."
Lin Zheng kissed her. The kiss was deeper than last night, because he already knew how she liked her lower lip taken. Xu Siyi's hand went inside his shirt. Her palm lay on his waist. He undid her bra, held her breasts, and passed his thumb over a nipple. She made a sound. Lin Zheng bent to take it in his mouth. His teeth were light, the pressure she had asked for yesterday. Xu Siyi's back arched.
"You remember," she said.
"I remember."
His hand pressed the center of her through her trousers. The cloth was soon soaked through. Xu Siyi undid the trousers herself, took that obstacle off, and sat naked on his lap. When Lin Zheng's finger entered her she was already wet and hot again. He put in only one. His thumb pressed the side of her clitoris. He was not in a hurry to add another.
"The second," she said, moving her waist, wanting deeper.
He added the second. Her forehead was against his. Her breath was on his mouth. At that moment Gu Wanning's voice came from opposite, very short, but recognizable. Xu Siyi's body went rigid.
Lin Zheng stopped moving at once. "Stop, or wait?"
Xu Siyi's eyes were shut. Her vagina still held his fingers, contracting, out of her control. Tears turned in her eyes and did not fall.
"Wait," she said. "Don't move. Let me hear this one through. I need to know what I feel."
They waited. The sound opposite passed. Then there was lower talking, impossible to make out. Xu Siyi's tears fell, onto the back of Lin Zheng's hand. She opened her eyes.
"I'm sour, and I want it," she said. "Go on. If you think I'm using you to punish him, you stop. I can't tell myself. So I'm giving you the judgment of whether to do this with me like this."
Lin Zheng looked at her for a long time. His fingers were still inside. Then he said, "I judge that you're still speaking, and still leaving both of us a way out. This isn't punishment. This is hurt. A person who is hurt can still want. I'll go on. If you curse him, you can. If you curse Wanning, I stop."
"I won't curse her." Xu Siyi's voice shook. "She didn't steal. We all signed that paper. Go on."
Lin Zheng's fingers moved again. With his other hand he wiped her tears. What he could not wipe, he let fall. Xu Siyi's pleasure was driven high and sharp by the jealousy. She held his shoulders. Her nails went into the flesh. The orgasm came fast and hard. Her whole body shook into a small knot. Lin Zheng held her, waited until the contractions passed, and only then slowly drew his fingers out.
Xu Siyi panted and swore, not at anyone, only at the wall. After she swore she started on Lin Zheng's trousers. Her hands were urgent. Lin Zheng held her wrists.
"Slower. Like this I'll think you want it over quickly."
"I don't want it over." Sweat covered her forehead. "I want you inside, to cover that sound. The reason is selfish. I still want it. Will you give it?"
"Yes. With a condom. And I want you lying properly, not sitting on my lap in a temper." Lin Zheng's voice was not loud, and it did not give way. "A posture out of temper makes it easy for you to hurt. If you hurt, you'll blame tonight. I won't accept that."
What he said reddened Xu Siyi's face. In the red there was anger, and also the feeling of being caught. She lay back and opened her legs. Lin Zheng took his clothes off, put the condom on, knelt between her legs, and still stopped.
"Xu Siyi. I'm going to enter. Do you want it now? Not ten seconds ago."
"Now."
He entered. She was tighter than last night, and inside the tightness she was very wet. There was no real obstruction. Both of them groaned at once. Opposite, there was the sound of bodies at the same moment. Xu Siyi's eyes opened wide. Lin Zheng did not go faster. He stayed at the deepest point. His palm was on her face.
"Look at me," he said. "The sound is there if it's there. Your body is here with me. Do you want fast or slow?"
"Slow. Deeper. Don't take your hand off my face."
He did it. Each stroke seemed to push the wall's sound a little farther, and could not push it clean. Xu Siyi simply stopped competing with the sound. She lifted her legs and let him reach the place that made her go weak. Her fingers went into his hair. Lin Zheng's breath was at the side of her ear. He asked if here was right. She said yes. He asked if he could touch her clitoris. She said she wanted it. After his thumb was there, her voice finally got louder than next door. She heard herself. Shame burned from the soles of her feet to her face. Her body met him honestly anyway.
"I'm going to come," she said. "Don't stop. Don't look at the wall."
"Only you."
When she came she cried out. It was not a name. It was a broken ah. Inside, she bit him in waves. Lin Zheng set his teeth, gave her a few more strokes, and said he was close too. Xu Siyi held him and said to come inside, the condom was still on, that was enough. When he came his shoulders shook. He did not fall in a way that pressed her breath out. Afterward he pulled out at once, dealt with the condom, and took her to the bathroom.
The bathroom light was very white. Xu Siyi looked at the two of them in the mirror and suddenly did not want to stay in white light. Lin Zheng set the water to a warm temperature, let her lean on his chest, and rinsed the insides of her thighs with his hand. Hot water took the tracks of tears off. Xu Siyi's voice went very small inside the sound of the water.
"Just now I used you to cover him. You didn't let me use my body until it broke. Thank you."
"You don't have to thank me like that," Lin Zheng said. "I get sour too. I heard Wanning's voice. When it made me harder, I disliked myself for a second. Then I looked at you. Looking at you, I was still inside the rules."
Xu Siyi turned. Her forehead rested on his collarbone. "Tomorrow I want to see you in the daytime. Only walking. No touching. I need to take you out of this wall and put you back in the day. Otherwise I'll think you're only a sound."
"All right. We'll tell them."
They dried themselves and went back to the bed. Xu Siyi put on his shirt, then felt she should not, and changed back into her own T-shirt. Lin Zheng saw the small change and did not point it out. He only poured her water, watched her finish it, and put the cup back where it had been.
At eleven at night the other side had been quiet for a long time. Xu Siyi did not ask for a second time. Her body ached. Her heart ached. Lin Zheng lay outside the quilt. His palm was on her back, stroking. He stroked until her breathing lengthened.
"Sleep," he said. "I'll keep the time. If you wake in the night and say stop, I'll go back to my own room at once."
"Don't leave in the middle of the night," Xu Siyi said, eyes closed. "If you leave in the middle of the night I'll think I did something wrong. Wait until seven thirty. That's what we wrote."
"Until seven thirty."
The sea was still sounding outside the window. From the other side of the wall no more sound came. Half asleep, Xu Siyi caught one of Lin Zheng's fingers. She held it tight, the way you hold a key that should not be yours, and she also knew clearly that at daylight she would give it back. Lin Zheng did not pull his hand away. He looked at the ceiling and, in his mind, restored Wanning's face once through. The restoration worked. From that he knew he was not lost. A lost person calls the wrong name. Tonight he had not called the wrong one once.
