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Chapter 5 The Other Bed
Chapter 5 The Other Bed
At the same time, the lock of 1208 made a sound.
Xu Siyi stood at the window. She did not turn and she knew it was Lin Zheng. He had knocked first, two knocks, very light. She had said come in. After he came in he locked the door, put the key card on the table, and did not walk toward the bed.
"Wanning has already gone into our room," he said. "If you want to stop now, I'll go out at once. No one will blame you."
Xu Siyi turned. She had changed into a dark slip dress. The underwear under it was something she had chosen herself. Her hands had shaken while she chose it. Lin Zheng looked at her. His gaze stayed on her face and did not drop first. That let her shoulders loosen a little.
"I don't want to stop," she said. "I'm nervous. Nervous isn't stop."
"Then we sit first." Lin Zheng pulled a chair out from the table and sat in the other one. "I've showered. I haven't been drinking. There are condoms in my pocket. The lights in your room are yours. I won't turn them off."
Xu Siyi switched off the main light and left one lamp by the bed. The light went warm. She sat opposite him, knees together, then felt that this was too much like an interview, so she deliberately turned her legs the other way.
"Your wife is very good at talking," she said. "While I was writing the rules I kept looking at her. I'm afraid I look like someone who's scared of trouble."
"You look like someone who takes responsibility," Lin Zheng said. "A responsible person walking into a room like this makes me easier than a person who is afraid of nothing."
His voice was lower than it had been at the table. Xu Siyi looked at his rolled cuffs, at the hand she had noticed since yesterday, and suddenly felt thirsty. She drank. A little water escaped the corner of her mouth. She wiped it with the back of her hand and felt clumsy. Lin Zheng did not laugh.
"May I come closer?" he asked.
"Yes."
He moved his chair beside her and still did not touch her. Their arms were separated by a little air. Xu Siyi moved first. She put her hand on the back of his and felt the callus, felt his temperature. Lin Zheng turned his hand over and let her fingers fall into his palm.
"Your hand is cold," he said.
"I'm afraid."
"Of what?"
"Afraid I only wanted to be looked at once, and don't actually want to do this with you. Afraid that halfway through I'll find I'm performing. Afraid my husband, over there right now, is more honest than I am." She finished and gave a bitter smile. "Also afraid you'll be too slow, so slow I'll think you don't want me."
Lin Zheng lifted her hand and touched his mouth to her knuckles. "I want you. I've been hard for a while. I just don't intend to use being hard to hurry you. I want to kiss you now. May I?"
"Yes."
When the kiss came down, Xu Siyi closed her eyes for a moment. Lin Zheng was not urgent. His lips were dry and hot. First they rested against hers. Then he took her lower lip. His tongue came in shallow, and went deeper only when she met it. Xu Siyi's hand caught the front of his shirt. She found she was shaking. It was not cold. One of Lin Zheng's hands stayed on her shoulder and did not go down.
They kissed until she herself pushed a strap off her shoulder. Only then did he ask, "Is this you wanting me to go on, or are you only warm?"
"Go on," she said. "Clothes can come off. You can touch my breasts. Below, wait until I say so."
He drew the dress down to her waist. Xu Siyi's bra was black. It made her skin look whiter. Lin Zheng's gaze stopped there, and the stop was obvious. Her ears heated. She did not hide.
"If you're looking, look," she said. "While you look, tell me what you're looking at."
"I'm looking at your collarbones. At how your chest moves when you breathe." Lin Zheng's finger slid along the strap to the edge of the cup. "I want to undo the clasp in front. May I?"
"Yes."
The clasp sprang. Her breasts came free, fuller than Gu Wanning's. The mole under the left one was clear in the warm light. Lin Zheng bent, kissed the mole first, then took the nipple in his mouth. He was very slow. The flat of his tongue pressed over it again and again. His palm held the weight of the other breast. Xu Siyi's waist jerked. She did not usually make much sound. Now a sound escaped her, and she found it strange in her own ear.
"Too light or too heavy?" he asked, against her.
"Heavier. A little teeth. Gently."
He did it. The small pain turned at once into a sharper pleasure, from her chest down into her belly. Xu Siyi closed her legs. Lin Zheng's hand went to her knee and stopped.
"I still can't go in here," he said. "But I want to touch you through the dress. Only the outside. All right?"
"All right."
His palm met the center of her. The dress and the underwear were both a little soaked through. Lin Zheng did not rub fast. He only pressed slowly with the heel of his hand and let her seek his hand herself. Xu Siyi sought it. Her hips moved in a small arc. Her breathing got shallower. This man had barely touched her clitoris in any real way, and she already felt she was going to come apart along his palm.
"I want your hand inside," she said. "Now."
Lin Zheng pushed the dress to her waist and drew her underwear down to the bend of her knees. He looked at her, got the nod, and only then parted her labia with his fingers. Wetness covered them. He found her clitoris and first slid the side of a fingertip over it, not pressing straight down the way Chen Hao sometimes did. Xu Siyi's thigh jumped.
"Like that," she said. "Don't change. How do you know?"
"I don't. I'm watching you." Lin Zheng's middle finger circled at the entrance and did not go in. "When you tighten here, I know light is right. One finger. May I?"
"Yes. Slow."
When one finger went in, Xu Siyi caught his wrist. Not because it hurt. Because the feeling was too full. Lin Zheng stayed inside and waited until her hand loosened, then moved slowly in and out. His thumb still attended to her clitoris. The rhythm was so steady it almost made her angry. She wanted him faster, and she was afraid that if it was fast there would be nothing left but the body.
"Talk," she demanded. "Don't only do it. I need to hear that you're still you."
"I'm Lin Zheng." His voice was against the side of her ear. "I'm in your room. Your husband is across the hall, with my wife. I know that. I still want you to feel good. You're gripping my finger hard. If you want a second one, tell me."
"I want it."
When two fingers went in she made a sound. Lin Zheng's other hand cradled the back of her head and let her rest against his shoulder. His fingers curved, found the slightly firmer place at the front, and stroked it lightly. Xu Siyi could not hold the sound down. She bit his shirt. The orgasm came long and deep. The insides of her thighs went numb around her own hand. Lin Zheng did not suddenly speed up while she was coming. He kept the same pace until she pushed his wrist.
He stopped at once. His fingers stayed inside until she said he could draw them out.
Xu Siyi panted. The corners of her eyes were wet. When Lin Zheng withdrew his hand he did it slowly, then wiped it with paper, then went and wrung out a hot towel. He half-knelt in front of her and wiped the insides of her thighs, as seriously as if the act had nothing to do with sex. Xu Siyi looked at the top of his head and cried a little, all at once. Not a large cry. Tears going down on their own.
Lin Zheng stopped. "Is this stop, or is it only crying?"
"Only crying." She sniffed. "Don't stop taking care of me. Don't go on either. Wait for me."
"All right."
He set the towel down, carried her to the bed, pulled the quilt over her waist, and lay himself outside the quilt, his arm under her head. Xu Siyi cried for two or three minutes. What she was crying about was not complicated. She had felt good, better than she had rehearsed, and so the guilt came after. The guilt was not because someone had forced her. No one had forced her. It was exactly because she had nodded at every step that she could not push the responsibility onto wine, or onto anyone else.
"I still want it," she said at last. "I don't want to stop the whole night. I want you inside. But you wear a condom, and you ask me again before you enter. I'm afraid what I'm saying now won't count in a minute."
"I'll ask again." Lin Zheng kissed her hair. "Do you want water? Do you want the bathroom?"
She went to the bathroom, washed her face, and looked at herself in the mirror. The lipstick was long gone. Her eyes were a little swollen. There was a faint red on her chest where he had been. She did not feel dirty. She only felt extremely clear, as clear as if she had just walked out of a meeting room at the bank, except what she was holding was not a file. It was her own body.
When she came back to the bed, Lin Zheng had opened a condom and set it by the pillow. He had not put it on. His shirt was off. His trousers were still on. Xu Siyi saw the hair on his lower belly and the obvious shape in his trousers, and swallowed.
"You're very hard," she said.
"Since you grabbed my collar. I can wait."
"Don't wait. I want to see you."
He took off the rest of his clothes. His penis was a little longer than Chen Hao's, not as thick, darker in color. The head was already wet. Xu Siyi looked, reached out, and stopped in midair.
"May I touch?"
When Lin Zheng heard that, his eyes went darker. "Yes. As long as you want."
She took hold of him. The heat went from her palm all the way to her ears. She moved her hand a few times. Her thumb crossed the head. Lin Zheng's stomach tightened. Breath left through his nose. Xu Siyi bent and licked once with the tip of her tongue. The taste was clean, a little salt. She took the head in, only for a short while, then drew back.
"I'm not very good at this," she said. "My husband doesn't ask for it much. I rarely want it myself. Tonight I want to try for a while. Don't push my head."
"I won't." Lin Zheng put his hands behind him and held the sheet. "When you stop, it's stop."
Xu Siyi took him in again. She held the part she could not take. Her tongue moved slowly along the ridge underneath. Lin Zheng's breathing got heavier. He still did not touch her head. The restraint made her want to do it more. She did it for a few minutes, until her cheeks ached, then lifted her head.
"I want you to put it on now," she said. "Come inside me. I'll lie down. You look at my eyes. If I cry, you stop first, the way you did just now."
"Asking you now." Lin Zheng tore the condom, put it on, and knelt between her legs. "Xu Siyi. I'm going to enter you. Do you want that?"
She looked at him, at this man who was still almost a stranger, at the sweat on his forehead. Her answer was quiet and clear.
"Yes."
He held himself and paused a second at the entrance, then pushed in. Xu Siyi's body was opened. A sore fullness went up her spine. She held his back. Her nails went in. Lin Zheng stopped halfway.
"Pain?"
"Full. Don't pull out. All the way, slowly."
When he was all the way in, both of them went stiff for a moment. Xu Siyi felt filled, filled enough to want to swear, and also to want her legs around him. She put them around him. Lin Zheng began to move. Each stroke withdrew a long way and came back slowly. The rhythm was not Chen Hao's. Chen Hao was hotter, more intent on being close. Lin Zheng was like a man listening to the structure of a building. Where there was a sound, he paused.
"Faster," she said. "I can take it now."
He went a little faster and still did not lose control. The sound of bodies meeting became clear in the room. Xu Siyi thought of the room opposite. Over there, maybe, the same sound. Her body clenched hard at the thought. Lin Zheng felt it. His movement did not turn rough.
"You're thinking of them," he said.
"Yes. Do you want to stop?"
"I don't, unless you do. You can think of them. You don't have to think only of me to make me glad."
The sentence nearly made her cry a second time. She did not cry. She opened her legs wider, heels against his waist, and let him go as deep as he could. Lin Zheng's fingers returned to her clitoris and rubbed lightly in time with his thrusts. Pleasure stacked on pleasure. Xu Siyi was pushed up again quickly. When she came she cried out, then blocked her mouth with the back of her hand. Lin Zheng took her hand away.
"The room is yours. You can make a sound. It doesn't matter if they hear across the hall. They know what we're doing."
So she did not block it. The sound was short and broken. Lin Zheng moved another dozen strokes inside the clench of her orgasm, then said, low, that he was going to come. Xu Siyi held his back and said to come. When he came his forehead was against hers. His eyes were open. His throat moved. He did not call any other name. Xu Siyi looked at him and was suddenly very grateful for the silence.
Afterward he did not collapse on her to rest. He pulled out, pinched the condom, knotted it, threw it away, and then gathered her into the quilt. Their heartbeats struck each other and took a long time to separate.
"Water." He passed her the bottle from the nightstand and watched her finish it. "Do you still want to stop? Or do we just lie here?"
"Lie here." Xu Siyi's voice was hoarse. "Don't go. Go when the time we agreed comes. I don't want to face this bed alone right now."
"I won't go."
Lin Zheng's hand moved down her back, stroke after stroke. Not sexual. Only bringing her back from the orgasm. Xu Siyi put her face against his chest and smelled a faint soap, and a little of the warmth that belonged to someone else's husband. She thought of Chen Hao. The way she thought of him was not a knife. It was a thread, drawn from this bed all the way to the bed opposite.
"I felt good," she said plainly. "Better than I expected. Don't take that sentence and use it as a score. I'm telling you because I promised myself I wouldn't lie. I still love my husband. Right now I miss him very much. I miss him, and for the moment I don't want to open the door."
Lin Zheng's arm tightened. "I know. I love Wanning. When I entered you I thought of her too. That doesn't stop me thanking you for trusting me. When you cried I was a little afraid. Afraid you didn't really want it, and only didn't want to be the one who backed out."
"I'm not." Xu Siyi lifted her head. Her eyes were still red. Her gaze was steady. "I wanted it. I may want it again. Not now. Now you just hold me. Not talking is fine too."
The sea wind bellied the curtains. The bedside lamp was still on. Two people lay in a bed that belonged to another couple, and neither mistook the other for their own spouse. That, strangely, eased Xu Siyi. She closed her eyes and heard her own breathing, and his. In the corridor there were not three knocks. For the moment, everything was still inside the paper they had written.
