Họ đổi thẻ khóa phòng — Chapter 8 Through the Wall

Chapter 8 Through the Wall

Twenty minutes was not enough to finish every feeling. It was enough to ask one question. Chen Hao sat on the edge of the bed and watched Xu Siyi wash her face. She washed the salt and the sunscreen off, pressed her face dry with a towel, came out, and asked him directly.

"Do we swap again tonight? If you're swapping for fairness, then forget it. I don't want a fair sacrifice."

"I'm not sacrificing," Chen Hao said. "In the daytime I thought about stopping. Out on the rocks I felt we could stop, because we already knew the body was real. But I don't yet know whether the second day will hurt more, or be clearer. I want to know. And you? When you hooked my sleeve I thought you were going to stop."

"I was afraid of wanting it too much," Xu Siyi said, sitting beside him. "Wanting it so much that hearing their voices would do something to me. That reaction made me look down on myself for a second. After I looked down on myself, I still wanted it. So my answer is we swap. The conditions haven't changed. If you hear me cry, don't come and bang the door down. Three knocks are my business. I'll use them."

"All right."

They exchanged key cards. This time they did not stand long in the corridor. Chen Hao knocked twice. Gu Wanning opened. She had already showered. Her hair was half dry. She wore a gray robe, belted at the waist. Seeing him, she did not immediately step aside into some suggestive angle. She only said, "Come in. I was sour about you in the daytime. You should know that. After I was sour, I still opened the door."

"I know." Chen Hao locked the door. "I was sour too. I still came."

The main light was off. The bedside lamp left the sea's shadow on the curtain. Gu Wanning set a bottle of water and two condoms where he could see them, then sat and patted the place beside her.

"Don't be in a hurry to undress me today," she said. "I want you to tell me what your wife said about you."

Chen Hao was blank for a moment. "She said I had your smell on me. She hated it. She also said she had Lin Zheng's smell on her. She wouldn't let me ask who was better. I promised."

"Then you don't compare in here either." Gu Wanning undid one of his buttons, only one. "You can think of her. When you want to think of me, look at me. If those stay two separate things, I'll sleep with you. If they get mixed into a contest, I stop."

"I'll look at you," Chen Hao said.

He looked at her. Inside the robe's collar was the collarbone he had taken in his mouth last night. Gu Wanning put her hand on his and led him to undo the rest of the buttons, then led him to the belt of the robe. The cloth fell open. She had nothing on underneath. Her body was quiet in the warm light. Her breasts rose and fell slightly with her breath. On her lower belly there was a very faint mark, like an old crease. Chen Hao's palm went there.

"Did you have a child?" he asked, and at once felt he should not have.

"No," Gu Wanning said. "I've been thin, and I've been heavier. The mark is mine, not a child's. You can touch. Your mouth too. Below waits for my nod."

He kissed her chest, kissed the faint mark, then took a nipple in his mouth. Tonight he did not use the speed he used with Xu Siyi. He remembered she wanted slow. The tip of his tongue circled. His lips sucked. His palm held the other breast. Gu Wanning's breathing slowly grew heavy. Her hand went into his hair and suddenly tightened.

"If there's sound next door, don't stop unless I say stop," she said. "The wall is thin. Today I'm not going to pretend there is no next door."

Chen Hao made a sound of agreement and took her deeper into his mouth. Gu Wanning's waist lifted and fell. His hand went down her stomach and stopped at the edge of her pubic hair. She opened her legs.

"Your hand. First the way you did last night."

His fingers parted her. She was already wet. The wetness reached his knuckles. Her clitoris was slightly firm under the pad of his finger. He circled, steady. Gu Wanning bit her own knuckle. Sound still leaked from her nose. Chen Hao put one finger in, curved it, and moved slowly. Her leg came up over his back. Just then, from the room opposite, there was a low sound of the bed, and then Xu Siyi's short cry, the kind she could not hold down. The sound came through the wall as if through a layer of cloth.

Chen Hao's finger stopped.

Gu Wanning opened her eyes. Her chest rose and fell. "Do you want to stop?"

"I don't know." His voice was badly hoarse. "That's her. I'm harder, and I want to go over there. Both things at once."

"Then stop for ten seconds." Gu Wanning sat up. She was not angry. She took the water, drank, and passed it to him. "In the ten seconds you decide. If you stay, we go on, and while we go on you don't punish my body, and you don't hurt me in order to cover what's over there. If you leave, that also keeps the agreement. You can go right now."

Chen Hao drank. The water was cold. Ten seconds passed. Opposite, there was a moment of quiet, then a heavier sound of impact. His hand was shaking. He put the shaking hand into Gu Wanning's palm.

"I stay. If you think the state I'm in won't do, you stop us."

"All right." She pressed his hand back between her legs. "Look at me. Don't look at the wall."

He looked at her. His finger went in again. His thumb returned to her clitoris. Gu Wanning did not hide from the sound. Her eyes were on Chen Hao. Her body contracted to the rhythm from next door. She said it herself. "I hear it. I'm wetter. That's rotten of me. I still want you to go on. If you can accept it, accept it."

"I accept it."

He bent and took her clitoris in his mouth. He had not done this last night. Gu Wanning drew a short breath and grabbed the sheet. Chen Hao's tongue was light and slow. His fingers still curved inside her. Her taste was salt and heat, different from his wife's. He did not allow himself to turn the difference into better or worse. He only remembered it. Gu Wanning's thighs closed over his ears and blocked part of the sound from next door. She came quickly. The flesh inside bit his fingers. Her waist left the mattress and fell back hard. Chen Hao did not stop until she pushed his forehead.

She was panting. She pulled him up and kissed him. The kiss had her own taste in it. Chen Hao's penis pressed her stomach, hard enough to hurt. Gu Wanning reached and held him, stroked a few times, and asked, "Do you want my mouth, or do you want to come in?"

"Come in. I want to look at you. You put the condom on. My hands aren't steady."

She tore the packet, rolled it onto him, and checked the edge. Then she lay back, put a pillow under her waist, and opened her legs. The position kept nothing back. Before Chen Hao knelt in he still asked. She said yes. When he entered, both of them made a sound. Next door made a sound at the same moment. The sounds stacked. A numbness went up Chen Hao's spine.

"Slow," Gu Wanning said, her hand on his waist. "Yes. Like that. You don't have to be faster than over there."

He was slow. Each stroke went as deep as it could, then drew back until only the head was in. Gu Wanning's legs locked around his waist. Her heels pressed him. Her hands held his face and forced him, inside those sounds, to keep looking at her. Chen Hao saw her eyes were wet. Not crying. Pleasure. His thumb went back to her clitoris. She swore, very short. Her inner walls tightened.

"I'm going to come," she said. "Keep going. Don't suddenly get rough."

When she came she buried her face in his neck. Her teeth held his skin and did not break it. The clench nearly undid Chen Hao. He moved another dozen strokes and said, low, that he was going to come too. Gu Wanning said he could. He came into the condom, forehead against her shoulder, vision white. After he came he did not collapse on her for long. He remembered to pinch the condom when he pulled out. He did it, threw it away, cleaned both of them with a hot towel, and then gathered her into the quilt.

Next door went quiet. The quiet was louder than the sound.

Gu Wanning touched the tooth mark on his shoulder. "I bit you. She'll see it tomorrow. Do you want me to tell it, or will you?"

"I will," Chen Hao said. "Are you hurting? Was I too hard just now?"

"No. You listened." Her finger went down his spine and stopped in the small of his back. "When you stayed, I actually let out a breath. Not to win. I don't want a person who isn't here and is forcing it anyway. Your mind left for ten seconds, then came back. Those ten seconds were good."

Chen Hao put his face into her hair and said, muffled, "I want to go look at her right now. I'm not going. I'll keep to seven thirty. If you miss Lin Zheng, you can say so."

"I do," Gu Wanning said, cleanly. "I wonder if his hands are still steady. I wonder if he stopped when she cried. I believe he would stop. Believing isn't the same as not wondering. Hold me. We'll listen to the sea for a while. The sea is more honest than the wall."

They listened to the sea. As they listened, Gu Wanning's breathing sank, then she woke a little and asked if he was thirsty. Chen Hao passed her the water and watched her drink. There was no sex in the way she drank. In those few minutes without sex he felt more clearly that he was doing something that would affect a marriage. Not because he had come. Because he was willing, when another woman asked if he was thirsty, to answer seriously, and to bring that seriousness back to his wife.

After nine there was very soft talking next door again. The words could not be made out. Gu Wanning looked at Chen Hao. Chen Hao shook his head, meaning he was still all right, he did not need to stop. So she did not ask again. She only put her leg between his. Skin against skin, hot. They did not do it a second time. Not doing it was also a choice. Chen Hao was hard for a while. He drew back a little himself, so his body would not renegotiate for him. Gu Wanning saw it and said thank you, quietly. The two words were light in the dark, light as a key card put back where it belonged.