เธอแก่กว่าผมสิบสองปี และเธอเป็นฝ่ายเริ่มก่อน — Chapter 2 The Red Light

Chapter 2 The Red Light

For the next three days it was the same car and the same three people. The change was small enough to be denied. When Wu Ziyi got in she took off her coat, folded it, and laid it on her lap, and the citrus on her was clearer. At red lights she no longer only watched the road. She looked at the side of his face, and when she had looked she took her eyes back, as if nothing had happened. Zhang Xue still answered messages in the back. Now and then she lifted her head, caught some pause in the rearview mirror, and explained the pause to herself as tiredness.

At the office Li Gan still called Wu Ziyi Teacher Wu. The younger people on the project all did. She heard it and let it pass, and she did not particularly like it. At noon on the fourth day the two of them were alone in the pantry. She was drawing hot water. He was waiting on the microwave. She said, "In the car, don't call me Teacher Wu. Ziyi is enough. The word teacher makes the age sound ugly."

"That isn't what I meant."

"I know it isn't." She watched the water turn in the cup. "But I hear it and I'm uncomfortable. If you're willing, change it."

"Ziyi." He tried it. The two syllables were strange on his tongue, and close.

She smiled a little. "Mm. That sounds better."

The microwave beeped. Someone passed the door. They stepped half a pace apart at once, like two colleagues who had both happened to be thirsty. Li Gan carried his heated lunch back to his desk, and his chest was still stopped inside that half pace. He hated the half pace. He was grateful for it too. She had not touched him at the office. She had even taken her eyes back. That made what she had said the other night more believable: she could tell one setting from another, and she could tell power from the rest of it.

On Friday a client kept Zhang Xue for dinner. She sent a voice note to the group chat and said not to wait, she would take a cab. The note was bright. After the brightness the chat went quiet. Wu Ziyi glanced at Li Gan. Between the open desks the glance was too short for anyone else to read. She said, "Then tonight it's only the two of us in the car. If you want me to take a cab as well, say so now."

"I'll drive you," he said.

"All right."

The evening rain was fine, fine enough that the wipers were too lazy to move. The passenger seat was empty for a few seconds. She got in, buckled the belt first, and set her phone face-down on her thigh. "Zhang Xue isn't here. May I speak a little more directly than usual?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll ask you." Her fingers rested on the belt and did not come near him. "From Tuesday until now, do you still want to sit that extra minute? Not out of politeness. Not because I spoke first and you're embarrassed to leave me with no way down. Do you want it yourself?"

The red light came on just then. He held the brake and turned his head to look at her. There was no coaxing on her thirty-eight-year-old face. There were faint lines at the corners of her eyes. The color of her mouth was her own. He felt that face dry him out. "I want it," he said. "I do. I've been wanting it in the daytime too. I know you're twelve years older than me. I haven't failed to count. I'm not saying this because I've taken you for some novelty. If all you want to hear is a young man's impulse, then what I'm saying is more trouble than impulse."

Wu Ziyi's breath slowed by a beat. "A little trouble is better. I've seen plenty of impulse. Trouble means you're willing to think."

He could not smile. "But I still get impulses. When you sit over here, I get hard. Saying that is ugly. But if you're asking whether I want it, I can't give you only the pretty half."

The car went quiet. A horn tapped behind them. The light was already green. He drove on. She was not frightened off by the bluntness. She watched the rain ahead, and her voice dropped, as if she had finally let herself a little way out of the rules.

"Li Gan, may I put my hand on your leg? Through the trousers. If you say no, I'll take it back this moment, today's subject ends here, and at home we're still roommates."

His palms were all sweat. "Yes."

Her hand came down. First the fingertips, then the whole hand, warm, steady, resting on his right leg near the knee. It did not go up at once. She only left it there. The cloth made that small heat clearer. The muscle in his leg went tight, and he forced it to loosen so the accelerator would stay even.

"All right?" she asked.

"All right." His voice had gone rough. "Your hand is hot."

"Your leg is hot too." Her thumb moved once, slowly, still far from the place that had gone tight. "I'm not asking to sleep with you tonight. I need to know first that you're clear-headed in my hand. You can say take it off at any time."

"Don't take it off yet."

Her thumb moved again. The car passed a junction. He was hard enough to hurt, and the shape of it showed plainly through his trousers. She saw it. Her eyes stopped there a moment. She did not laugh at him, and she did not pretend she had not seen. "It doesn't look as if you're humoring me."

"I'm not."

"Then I'll ask one more thing." Her hand was still only on his leg, but every word seemed to move an inch higher. "If someday I want to kiss you, and I want you to touch me, you can still refuse. If you refuse, on Monday in the weekly meeting I'll still finish walking through your page numbers. Do you believe that?"

"I believe it," he said. "You've said it twice. I believe you aren't here to hold me down. Ziyi, if I don't want something, I'll say so. Right now I don't want to say I don't."

Her fingers finally shifted up and stopped on the inside of his thigh, still through the cloth, only a little way from the hard length of him. She did not take hold of it. She only let him feel that she could. Then, before the light at the garage entrance of the compound came on, she took her hand back, and she took it back cleanly.

"We're home," she said. Her breath was not entirely steady either. "Tonight ends here. If you go into the elevator like that, and Zhang Xue gets back first, she'll see it."

"And you?" He looked at the hand she had withdrawn. "You're completely unaffected?"

Wu Ziyi unbuckled and turned a little toward him. Her eyes were bright in the dark. "I'm wet. I'm giving you that sentence too, so you don't think you're the only one making a fool of yourself. But I'm not planning to deal with it in the car today. I want you able to look me in the eye while we eat."

He swore, very softly. She smiled once, pushed the door, and got out. On the way up they kept a little distance. Zhang Xue was indeed not back yet. Only the entry light was on. Wu Ziyi went to wash her hands and washed them a long time. Li Gan went into his room, shut the door, put his back against it, and pressed his hand over the place that was still hard, but he did not undo anything. He did not know what contest he was in with himself. Maybe he was treating her "tonight ends here" as a rule to be kept.

Zhang Xue did not come in until eleven, carrying a little wine and a little rain. She poured water in the kitchen, saw that Wu Ziyi had already gone to her room, and saw Li Gan come out for a charger. She looked at him for two seconds. "On the nights it's only the two of you coming back, you look like you ran a red light."

"I didn't run one," he said.

"You'd better not have." Zhang Xue set the cup down, and her voice went suddenly thin. "Li Gan, this flat isn't large. If someone starts keeping a secret, the other two aren't deaf."

She said it and left. One kitchen light stayed on. Li Gan stood under it and felt, for the first time and clearly, that nothing in the car had truly begun, and Zhang Xue had already smelled the smoke.

He went back to his room and sent Wu Ziyi a message: She's back. She said the flat isn't large.

Wu Ziyi answered quickly: I know. That's why I took my hand off tonight. Sleep. Don't explain it to her in the kitchen. Halfway through an explanation it turns into a confession. We don't have anything yet that can be confessed that completely.

Li Gan looked at the line, then at his body, which had not settled. He wrote back: You're right. But I'm still hard. It's undignified.

The other side paused a few seconds: Then deal with it yourself, or endure it. I object to neither. Don't send a photo. If I want to see, I'll ask you to your face.

The sentence actually made him laugh. After the laugh he was harder. In the end he did not deal with it himself. He turned the phone face-down and listened to Zhang Xue running water in the bathroom. The water was loud. Inside the noise, for the first time, he was not thinking only of Wu Ziyi's hand. He thought of the two seconds Zhang Xue had looked at him, and of her saying the other two weren't deaf. In those two seconds there had been a sting, and a heat he did not dare claim.

He covered his eyes with his arm. The red light in the car was still jumping in front of him. After Wu Ziyi's hand left, that patch of skin stayed cool for a long time. The cool was what proved the heat had been real.