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Chapter 12 Plain Words
Chapter 12 Plain Words
The rain stopped on Saturday afternoon. Zhou Ye, as she had required, did not come upstairs until after four. He had no flowers in his hands, and nothing that looked like a gift asking to be forgiven. Shen Man had said a gift would turn the thing into a holiday, and it was not a holiday. When she opened the door she wore an ordinary knit top and long trousers. Her hair was tied in a low ponytail. There was no makeup on her face. The coffee table had been wiped. On it lay two sheets of blank paper and a pen.
"Write first," she said. "If we still want to hold each other after we've written, then we hold each other."
They wrote what had to be said into short sentences. Shen Man wrote very slowly, and after she wrote she crossed things out. The version left at the end was so short it was almost indecent, but every sentence could bear weight.
We are seeing each other. The relationship began this week. There has been no use of position to exchange for advantage. Shen Man will fully recuse herself from Zhou Ye's evaluations, bonuses, and project assignments. Lin Qiming will be directly responsible to Pei Chengchuan for the related reviews. Private photographs will not be provided to the company and will not be used as any condition. If the company believes a transfer is necessary to avoid a conflict of interest, Zhou Ye accepts a transfer within the same level. Neither person accepts humiliating treatment on the grounds of a private relationship.
Zhou Ye looked at the last sentence and said, "That sentence sounds like going to war."
"That sentence draws a line," Shen Man said. "Personnel has the right to manage conflicts of interest. It does not have the right to manage whom I sleep with, so long as sleeping together is not an exchange. I wrote the sentence because I'm afraid that the moment I walk into that room I'll turn back into a subordinate who is easy to talk to. I'm not a subordinate. And Pei Chengchuan is not my teacher of morals."
"Then my sentence." Zhou Ye turned the pen around and added, after the part where he accepted a transfer, "If the transfer is a demotion or a sidelining, I refuse it, and I require the reason in writing."
Shen Man looked at him as if she were meeting him again. "All right. Leave it."
The paper was folded and put into an ordinary envelope. Nothing was written on the envelope. It lay on the coffee table like a door that had not yet been opened. Only after Shen Man's hand left the envelope did she truly soften. She looked at Zhou Ye. There was exhaustion in her eyes, and also the small brightness lit by a decision she had made herself.
"Now we can hold each other," she said.
Zhou Ye held her. Under the knit top her body was hot again, and familiar. The embrace lasted a long time, long enough that it was not like foreplay. It was like two people confirming that the other was still whole. Shen Man kissed him first. Halfway through the kiss she stopped and said, "I want to. Do you?"
"I do. We do it because you said so."
"I said so."
They left the envelope on the coffee table, went into the bedroom, and did not shut the door tight. Shen Man took the knit top off herself. Today she was wearing a bra, dark gray, a little lace at the edge. It was not the kind bought new in order to perform. It was only ordinarily good-looking. Zhou Ye kissed her nipple through the lace until the cloth was wet in a small patch, and only then undid it. Shen Man's trousers and underwear were drawn down together to the bend of her knees. She turned and knelt on the bed, and then, as if she felt this position was too much like not looking at him, she looked back and said, "I want this position. But you have to let me see your face. Turn a little to the side."
Zhou Ye knelt behind her and first used his fingers to confirm that she was already wet. Two fingers went in and out very smoothly. The wet sound was light. Shen Man turned her face to the side. Her eyes were on him. He put the condom on, set himself against her, and pushed in slowly. The depth from behind was not the same as before. Her fingers caught the sheet. Her back hollowed, and then lifted to meet him. Zhou Ye bent down. His chest lay against her back. One hand reached around to the front and rubbed her clit. His mouth was against the shell of her ear.
"Can you see like this?"
"I can see." Her voice was in pieces. "Don't only look at the body. Look at me."
He looked. On the face turned to the side there was red, there was sweat, and there was a little of the blankness that comes when a person is opened by a thrust. Inside the blankness Shen Man was still there. She was not a person being pressed down into a bed by someone. She was a person bringing her own waist forward. Each time Zhou Ye entered he asked her about the depth, until she said right there, don't ask again, asking would split her attention. So he worked at that depth. His fingers rubbed steadily. When Shen Man came she buried her face in the pillow, and then turned to the side again so he could see the wetness at the corner of her eye. She reached back and caught his thigh and said together. Zhou Ye went faster and still did not leave the place she wanted. When he came he said her name. Not Ms. Shen. Shen Man. She heard it. Inside she contracted lightly a few more times, like an answer.
They lay side by side. The envelope was on the coffee table outside the door. Neither of them went to look at it. Shen Man's finger drew very slow circles on his chest.
"If, after we've said it on Monday, Pei Chengchuan wants me to stop," she said, "I won't stop because of him. I'll stop because you can't bear it. Those are two different things."
"If they make it very ugly for you, I won't run first either," Zhou Ye said. "I wrote that I accept a transfer. I didn't agree to a demotion. If they want to say other things, let them say them. I won't trade leaving you for a quiet desk."
Shen Man kissed his shoulder. "You. When you gave up the seat on the last bus, I thought it was only manners. Manners aren't this much trouble."
"Trouble is right," he said. "The easy kind is something we couldn't hand in on Monday."
In the evening they cooked. More precisely, Shen Man boiled noodles, and Zhou Ye fried the eggs until they burned once, and then fried them a second time. The two of them sat at the table and ate, barefoot, hair not dry. Outside the window the river was pale gold. After the rain stopped, the city showed a temporary cleanliness. Halfway through eating, Shen Man suddenly said, "About the picture. On Monday we don't bring it up ourselves. If Lin Qiming has already told someone in private, we deal with it then. We don't send that image onto the meeting table."
"All right."
"Are you still willing to keep it? It has already made one mistake."
Zhou Ye thought. "I'm willing. Because it reminds me that you didn't grow out of the company. If you don't want to be reminded anymore, we delete it. I won't use whether we keep it to judge whether you still want me."
The chopsticks Shen Man was using to pick up noodles paused. She nodded and said they would keep it. After she said it she turned the plate of burned eggs toward herself and said she would eat these, the burned part was still egg. Zhou Ye laughed. This laugh was not the same as the kind Chen Xia had seen on Monday. It did not need to hide. At least in this room it did not.
At night they did it once more. This time on the sofa. Shen Man sat on his lap, her back against his chest. He entered her from behind. His hands covered her lower belly and her breasts. The rhythm was very slow, as if they were afraid of disturbing the envelope on the coffee table, though in fact the envelope was still some distance from them. Shen Man's head rested on his shoulder. Her cheek rubbed his face. When she came she did not cry out loudly. She only kept saying his name. The voice went soft. Her body drew very tight. After Zhou Ye came, he still held her. Neither of them spoke. The black screen of the television reflected the two of them stacked together. The shadow did not look like a secret. The shadow was only two people.
On Sunday they almost did not go out. They read the words they meant to say once more, deleted one word that was too hard, and added one concrete name. Pei Chengchuan. Lin Qiming. Zhao Heng from personnel. Shen Man said that when Zhao Heng spoke about rules he did not speak gossip, and he was the best first stop. Zhou Ye said then the first stop would be him. In the afternoon the sun came out. She stood at that window and looked at the river. She did not have him take another picture. She said one was enough. Zhou Ye held her from behind. His hands stayed outside her clothes. Shen Man covered them with her own and said that before Monday they would not do it again. They would leave the body a little strength for speaking. He agreed. They kept that agreement through Sunday night. At night there were only kisses, kisses until both of them were a little out of breath, and still they stopped. That they could stop made Shen Man look at him and smile once.
"You really do stop," she said.
"You told me to stop."
"A lot of people hear the word let as a game." She touched his face. "You didn't. That's why I dare go with you on Monday."
