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Chapter 3 Writing the Rules on Paper
Chapter 3 Writing the Rules on Paper
The next morning they both woke early. The wine had gone. Their mouths were a little dry. Xu Siyi opened the curtains first. In clear weather the sea was pale. Near the shore you could see the pattern of sand under the water. She took the hotel notepad and a pen to the small table and sat down without looking at Chen Hao.
"I remember," she said.
"So do I."
"Then we go out and walk. While we walk we only talk about the two of us. If we meet them we say hello. We don't open it up."
They walked west along Golden Beach. The September sun was still strong enough to burn. The wind made a mess of Xu Siyi's hair. Chen Hao reached for her hand. She put both hands in her coat pockets first, walked a dozen steps, then took one out herself and closed it around his fingers.
"I'll say what I'm afraid of first." She looked at the rocks ahead. "I'm afraid that after you've done it, the way you look at her will be softer than the way you look at me. I'm afraid that after I've done it I won't want to come back. I'm afraid we'll use this to prove the marriage is already empty, and pretend we're only playing. I'm also afraid they aren't as serious as we are, and we'll look like two fools who asked for it."
"I'm afraid I won't be any good," Chen Hao said. "Sales can be talked up. In bed you can't talk it up. I'm afraid you'll be more comfortable with someone else and won't tell me when you come back. I'm afraid that when I'm jealous I'll say something filthy, and once it's said I won't be able to take it back. I'm also afraid that I want it, and I'm using your curiosity as the excuse."
Xu Siyi stopped. The sea wind broke her voice a little. "So if we do it, it can't be to save the marriage, and it can't be to punish the marriage. It can only be because both of us want to know, and we're willing to live with the days after we know."
"Do you want to know? Now. Sober."
She nodded, a small nod. "I do. After I know, I may regret it. If I don't know, I'll regret that too. Of the two harms, I choose the one I can say out loud."
"I want to know too," Chen Hao said. "I choose you. That isn't a line for the occasion. Even if the keys really change, I still go home with you. If that can't be said and kept before anything else, I don't swap."
Xu Siyi looked at him for a good ten seconds, then put her forehead against his shoulder. "All right. Then we go and hear how they say it. If all they want is a thrill, we eat and we leave. We have thrills at home. We just haven't been very good at using them lately."
At ten in the morning the four of them met at a seafood stall behind the hotel. No one had formally invited anyone. Lin Zheng had run into them on the beach and said Gu Wanning had already taken a table toward the back, and did they want to sit together. Xu Siyi looked at Chen Hao. Chen Hao said yes.
Plastic sheeting divided the booths. Outside, the steam from the pots was heavy. Inside it was quieter. A steamer, gloves for peeling shrimp, a pot of chrysanthemum tea. No one ordered alcohol. Gu Wanning wore a white shirt today. Her hair was down. She looked younger than last night, and less polite.
"We remember," she said first. "So we won't pretend we forgot. I don't know all of Lin Zheng's opinion. I'll say mine. I'm thirty-three. I love my husband. I want him. In the last two years the wanting has gotten polite, polite enough to feel like a guest. I want, inside a range we've agreed, to sleep with someone else for three nights. When it's done I go back to Hangzhou, back to the walk-up. I don't want anything long-term. I don't accept photographs. I don't accept changing the rules after drinking. My period ended four days ago. I have an IUD. We still use condoms. Anyone who wants it without one can walk out now."
Lin Zheng's hands stopped on a shrimp, then went on. His ears were red. His voice was steady. "I'm thirty-six. I love her too. I agree with the lines she drew. I'll add two of my own. First, any time someone says stop, we stop. We don't stop in order to ask why. Why waits until the clothes are back on. Second, we don't evaluate our own spouse in front of the other person. In bed you can say what you like. You cannot say your husband has never done it this way. That kind of sentence hurts, and it's often a lie."
Chen Hao felt the back of his shirt go damp. He finished his tea before he spoke. "I'm thirty-four. She's thirty-one. We've been married six years. Last night we said drinking doesn't count. I'm sober now. I want to try. I'm afraid. I want us, every morning, to go back to our own room first, finish talking with our own spouse, and only then go downstairs to see the other two. If anyone hides physical discomfort, or hides that they want to stop, that's a breach."
Xu Siyi spread the notepad open. Her handwriting had been trained in a bank. Fast, clear, without decoration. "I'll write. When it's written, each person reads it alone and says yes or no. A couple cannot agree as a package."
The page filled. Three nights, from tonight through the night after next, ending on the morning of checkout. Sex only in these two rooms. In public, no kissing, no touching with intent, no talk a bystander could understand. Key cards could be exchanged. Doors could be locked from the inside. The safe word was nothing else. It was "stop." The person who said stop did not have to explain. The other person stopped the movement at once, offered water, and waited while the first decided whether to end or to change the way. Kissing was allowed, because all four of them felt that not kissing would be falser. Oral sex was allowed. Penetration required a condom. Ejaculation stayed in the condom. Not on the face, not inside the body. Anal sex was outside this agreement. If someone wanted it in the moment, they had to ask separately, and the other person could refuse without owing an explanation. Phones stayed in the original rooms. No pictures. No recordings. If a mark needed covering, it was covered. It was not shown off.
Every morning there would be one debrief between spouses, no shorter than twenty minutes. Jealousy was allowed in the debrief. Insults were not. When the four of them ate together they could talk about how they felt, but a partner's privacy was not a joke. If any one person changed their mind before any night began, the whole exchange paused. It did not pause for that one person only. After a pause they could talk again. No one would be pressed back in.
At the end Xu Siyi's pen stopped, then she added a line. This is not a love affair. No one says I love you. If something like that appears in the mind, it is told to one's own spouse, not to the other person.
Gu Wanning read it and let out a soft breath. "You're harder than I am."
"I'm afraid of myself," Xu Siyi said. "So I wrote it hard."
Lin Zheng took the paper and went through it line by line. He asked, "What if someone cries in the middle?"
"Stop first," Xu Siyi said. "Crying can be pleasure. It can also be something wrong. If you can't tell, you stop. Holding is allowed. Going on has to wait until the person says they still want it."
Chen Hao asked, "What if halfway through I find I can't?"
Gu Wanning looked at him and did not look away. "Then we stop and kiss, or talk, or you help me and I help you. Penetration is not required. Not being able isn't a breach. Pretending you can is."
Xu Siyi asked a harder one. "Do we stay in contact afterward?"
All four were quiet for a moment. Steam in the pot pushed at the lid and made a small sound.
Lin Zheng said, "I suggest no contact for thirty days. After thirty days, if both couples are willing, one message to say we're all right. If not, it ends there. We don't exchange WeChat tonight. We don't exchange addresses. What we said yesterday about work is enough."
"Agreed," Chen Hao said.
Gu Wanning turned the pen once. "Then we don't vote now. Voting too fast would feel like a signing. We separate for the afternoon. Before four, each person gives their own spouse a clear yes or no. Only if both are yes do we meet in the corridor. If there is one no, a text goes to the front desk, and the desk tells the other room: don't wait tonight. That way no one has to be refused to their face."
Xu Siyi looked at her and laughed. "You work like someone who finishes reading a contract."
"My husband reads structural drawings. I read the fiber content on a label." Gu Wanning said, "You can still buy it after you've read. At least you know whether it shrinks."
After lunch the shrimp shells were piled at the edge of the plate. When the four of them walked out of the stall the sun was high. They did not walk on together. Lin Zheng and Gu Wanning went toward the Olympic Sailing Center. Chen Hao and Xu Siyi turned back into the hotel.
The room was quiet. Xu Siyi put the copy of the note on the table. She had photographed it in the restaurant, then felt that a photograph went against the spirit of what they had written, so she deleted it and kept only the paper. Chen Hao showered. When he came out she was still sitting where she had been.
"My answer is yes," she said. "Yours?"
"Yes."
"Don't say it to keep me company."
"I'm not." Chen Hao sat opposite her. His knee touched hers. "I want it when I'm hard. I want it when I'm soft too. Wanting it when I'm soft is the one that counts. I'm soft now. I still want it. I want to know what you are like in someone else's hands, and I want you to know what I am like in someone else's hands. Saying it is selfish. But if only you were allowed to go, and not me, I couldn't be that noble. If only I were allowed to go, I could do that even less."
Xu Siyi's eyes reddened. Nothing fell. "Then that's it. At four we open the door. If they don't, we go swimming and tear the paper up."
"Before we tear it?"
"Before we tear it, hold me for a while. We don't have sex. Sex would be like dosing ourselves with courage. I don't want to leave the room on courage."
Chen Hao pulled her onto his lap. Their breathing slowly matched. Outside, someone was calling the price of surfboards, one shout after another, far away. Xu Siyi put her face into the hollow of his neck. "If you're treated well over there, I'll be glad for you. If you're treated carelessly, you stop. You come back and tell me. Don't finish it for the sake of face."
"You too."
"I know."
At three fifty-eight Chen Hao stood by the door. Xu Siyi took his wrist and straightened his cuff, the way she would send him to an ordinary engagement. Her own lips were dry. She did not put lipstick on.
At four exactly, the door opposite opened.
