В последнем автобусе вице-президент села мне на колени

I Met the Company's Vice President on the No. 32 Bus

Chapter 1 The Last Bus

The rain had started at four in the afternoon and, at nine at night, still showed no intention of stopping. The last Route 32 bus was eleven minutes later than the time on the stop sign. When the doors opened, what crowded in first was a damp, cold breath of air, and only after that the people. Zhou Ye sat by the window in the rear section, a laptop that had already gone dead resting on his knees, his coat taken off and spread over the cushion beside him. A seam in the roof was leaking. When he boarded, that whole row had been wet, a cold film of water shining on the seats. He had blotted it with tissues and then pressed the coat down for a long time. Only the patch on his right had barely dried. His own trouser cuffs were soaked through. The cloth stuck to his calves, and the chill seeped, little by little, toward the bone.

He had worked late for the campaign review due tomorrow. Bo'an's office building was on the east side of the city. The place he rented was in Hexi, west of the river, and at night this was the only route that did not make him transfer. The last bus was usually empty. Tonight the rain had driven aboard everyone who did not want to walk. Almost no seat could be used. The ones that looked empty could not be sat on. Water dripping from the tips of umbrellas had gathered into little pools in the sponge. Someone had spread a plastic bag and was still standing, cursing the bus for not leaving even one dry place.

Shen Man got on at East Gate.

Zhou Ye saw a pair of high heels first, darkened by the rain, fine mud on the side of one heel. Then the hem of a beige trench coat, a deeper color along the lower stretch, wet cloth clinging to her calves. Her hair ought to have been pinned neatly at the back of her head. A few strands stuck to the side of her neck now, and rain ran along the line of her jaw down into her collar. She stood in the aisle for two seconds. Her eyes moved quickly over every seat, and the center of her brow drew in, lightly. Zhou Ye had seen that drawing-in at the company. At a quarterly meeting, when someone read a media-spend figure wrong, the executive vice president did not raise her voice. She only tightened the center of her brow, and the whole conference room went quiet.

She saw him. Her gaze stopped on his face and moved away again at once, as if she were unwilling, on the last bus, to greet an employee two levels below her. Shen Man was in charge of marketing, brand, and user growth. Zhou Ye's reviews belonged to Lin Qiming, the marketing director. There was still a layer between them. Rank did not need to be written on paper. An elevator door opening was enough to make a person straighten his back and pass the words he meant to say over his tongue twice.

There was no second dry place in the bus. Shen Man took a step forward. Her heel slipped on the standing water. She caught a vertical pole, her knuckles white. A man who was standing shifted aside, but the seat he freed had a dripping umbrella spread across it. She looked at the umbrella and did not sit. Zhou Ye drew the coat back onto his own legs, turned sideways, and gave up the patch he had warmed dry. His voice was not loud. It was only enough for her to hear.

"This side is dry."

Shen Man looked at that small piece of dark gray cloth, then at him. The carriage lights were yellow and lit the tiredness under her eyes very clearly. She weighed it for perhaps three seconds. The last bus would not stop longer for a vice president. Her skirt was already wet. If she stood all the way to the terminus, she might not still resemble herself at the operations meeting tomorrow morning.

"Thank you," she said, and sat down beside him.

The moisture on the trench coat came against him at once. She sat very straight, knees together, bag on her lap, trying not to touch him. A two-person seat was narrow to begin with. When the bus swayed, her elbow still met his sleeve. Zhou Ye shifted the laptop toward the window and moved toward the glass himself. Only after he had made room did he realize he was nearly pressed to the cold pane. The shirt on his shoulder dampened quickly.

"Zhou Ye." She spoke all at once, as if confirming, not making conversation.

"Ms. Shen."

"Still at the office at this hour."

"The review isn't finished."

She answered with a small sound and did not ask again. The doors closed. Route 32 drove into the rain. The streetlights outside were drawn into long streaks. The glass was covered in fog. No one could tell whether his own face was still properly arranged. Zhou Ye smelled a very faint scent on her, washed thin by the rain, and under it the smell of warm skin. He told himself to look out the window. Her breathing was close. Every time the bus braked, her shoulder struck him lightly and separated again, and both of them pretended that the strike was only inertia.

When the bus passed Qingnian Road, the water had risen over the curb. The driver dropped his speed to the slowest. Someone in the carriage complained that the last bus was worse than walking. Shen Man's fingers tightened on the bag strap. A drop of water fell from the end of her hair and landed exactly on the back of Zhou Ye's hand. It was warm first, and then it turned cool.

"Sorry," she said.

"It's nothing."

She drew a tissue from her bag, paused, and held the tissue out beside his hand. She did not reach over and wipe it herself. That pause let Zhou Ye understand that she also did not know whether a hand was allowed to fall on a subordinate's hand. He took the tissue and pressed it to the back of his hand. It carried the same faint scent as her coat. His ears heated for a moment. That kind of heat was out of place on a night of overtime. He was twenty-seven, not an age at which a drop of water should undo him, but the person sitting beside him was Shen Man. Last Friday she had still been standing at the far end of the conference room on the eighteenth floor, turning the budget page by page, very slowly, asking him why he had written the second wave of spending into third-tier cities. He had answered badly. She had not reprimanded him. She had only said to go back and do it again. Now the hands that had turned that budget rested less than a palm's width from his knee, the fingertips paler because of the cold.

"You take this bus often," she said.

"The last one. I usually can't catch the one before."

"East Gate to Hexi takes forty minutes."

"Fifty when it rains. Tonight will probably be longer."

Shen Man glanced out the window. The wipers scraped two fans across the windshield, and the glass smeared over again at once. "I don't usually take the bus." After she said it, as if she felt the sentence sounded too much like status, she added, "The car went in for servicing. I didn't want to call a company car at this hour. A record would be left."

Zhou Ye did not take the remark up. He knew what that record was. Bo'an's administrative system logged who had used a car at what time, from which building to which road. A vice president using a car alone at night was not, in itself, news. Shen Man simply seemed unwilling to hand her destination over to that sheet. The discovery stirred something small in him. In meetings she was always clear, sharp, and without explanation, as if a person's life ought not to have a seam. The seam had shown on the last bus, in the soaked hem of the trench coat and in that sentence about not wanting a record left.

The bus stopped again. The intersection ahead was flooded. The driver rolled the window down to speak with a traffic officer, and wet wind poured in. Shen Man drew her shoulders in. Almost by instinct Zhou Ye lifted the coat, already half wet, meaning to block the wind for her, and stopped halfway in the air. The coat was not dry, and the movement was not suitable. He put his hand down.

Shen Man had seen it. She did not smile, but there was a very shallow light in her eyes.

"No need," she said. "You're cold yourself."

"I'm all right."

"Your trousers are wet."

He looked down and only then noticed that the dark suit trousers were darker from the knee downward. She must have seen it when she sat, and had waited until now to say so. Zhou Ye suddenly did not know where to put his legs. Holding them together looked cramped. Separating them would touch the hem of her skirt. The hem was right there, soaked cloth against her legs, the line of them clearer than any suit she had worn in a meeting. He moved his gaze away. His throat rolled.

Shen Man was not looking at him either. She watched an advertisement on the pole ahead, her voice kept very level.

"Zhou Ye, thank you for the seat. Before the stop, we don't have to talk."

"All right."

They were quiet for a few minutes, as promised. The bus finally edged past that stretch of water. The speed was still slow. The silence was not as clean as she had announced. On a turn her knee touched his knee, and neither of them moved away at once. Under the cloth there was temperature. Only a small place met, and it was harder to pretend it had not happened than the drop of water had been.

Zhou Ye's heartbeat was so loud he worried she could hear it. He counted to five in his head before he moved his leg half an inch away. Shen Man's knee returned to where it had been. The tip of her ear was red. Under the yellow light it was almost impossible to see, but he sat so close that he saw it anyway.

The announcement sounded, muffled, saying there was still temporary traffic control ahead and asking the passengers to understand. Someone got off to try his luck. The rain soaked that person's back at once. Shen Man did not move. She held the bag a little tighter, her face in profile toward the front, the line of her jaw drawn tight. Zhou Ye knew that line. She held it when she listened to someone report a problem whose answer she already knew. What was different was a bead of water still undried on her lashes. When the bus lights swayed, the bead flashed.

He meant to move his eyes and failed again. Shen Man seemed to feel the look. When she spoke, she was still watching ahead.

"There's something on my face."

"There's water on your lashes."

She raised a hand and wiped, and missed it. Zhou Ye's fingers shifted on his knee and, in the end, did not reach across. Shen Man wiped once more herself. The bead was gone. The movement was light, too light for the person on the eighteenth floor who could press down an entire quarter's budget.

"That will do," she said.

"Mm."

The last bus kept going. Rain struck the roof, sound after sound, covering that little redness and also keeping it. Zhou Ye held the dead laptop a little tighter. The screen was black. It reflected nothing. He still felt that the heat on his face must be there. Shen Man's shoulder came against him again because of a brake, and this time it stayed longer than before. She did not leave at once. He did not dodge. The fog on the window grew thicker and turned the city outside into a blur of light.

Chapter 2 The Slow Stop

The traffic control did not lift quickly. Route 32 stopped in front of a low bridge for nearly twenty minutes. Rain hammered the roof as if someone were pouring beans without pause. The driver switched on the hazard lights, turned his head, and said he was sorry, in a tone that had grown used to saying it. People in the bus began to make calls. The voices stacked together, all of them explaining why they were not home yet.

Shen Man's phone lit as well. Zhou Ye did not try to look, but the light of the screen sat at the corner of his eye. The caller display was only two characters. He did not make them out. She looked for two seconds, hung up, and set the phone face-down on her bag. After she had set it down, her fingers still pressed the phone, as if she were still deciding whether to call back.

"Work," she said, probably because she felt the silence would make the call seem heavier.

"So you hung up."

"It will ring again tomorrow," she said. "Tonight it doesn't need to find me."

Zhou Ye nodded. He suddenly felt that he should not understand the sentence too quickly. A vice president hanging up a nighttime call, sitting in wet clothes, sharing half a dry seat with someone from marketing who wrote reviews: if it had happened to anyone else, it would already have been enough for the break room to talk about for a week. Happening to Shen Man, it only made him feel that she was tired. Tiredness was a concrete thing, in the shoulders she had let down, in the hair she was no longer keeping pinned.

The bus still did not move. Shen Man loosened one button at the collar of the trench coat, and then, as if she regretted it, did not go on undoing them. Wet clothes against skin had to be uncomfortable. Zhou Ye could see a small patch of skin above her collarbone, cooled by the rain, a truer color than the makeup on her face. He looked away, at the water stains on his own trouser leg.

"Your review," she said suddenly. "That page about the third-tier cities. Did you change it afterward?"

"I changed it. I'll give it to Director Lin tomorrow."

"The problem isn't the third-tier cities. It's that you wrote what you could explain into the table, and hid what you couldn't explain in a note." She said it very evenly, as if she were still in the conference room. "That line in the note, that users would come back on their own, has no evidence."

Zhou Ye was silent for a moment. "I wrote that line. I wanted the conclusion to look a little better."

"I know you wrote it." Shen Man turned her face and looked at him. "That's why I had you redo it. I didn't have Lin Qiming redo it for you."

That sentence was more dangerous than the knees touching. It meant that what she had seen in that conference room was not a name that could be swapped out. It was him. Zhou Ye's throat moved again. He did not know whether to thank her or to admit that he had, at the time, been hiding.

"It isn't that I can't write it," he said. "It's that I was afraid that after I wrote it, the conclusion wouldn't look good."

"Then it doesn't look good," she said. "Bo'an can't afford too many good-looking lies. Neither can you."

The driver finally started the bus. The low bridge still would not let them cross. The bus turned into a narrower road. Plane trees on both sides gathered the rain into denser lines. The carriage rocked hard. This time Shen Man's shoulder struck solidly half an inch into his chest. The ends of her hair swept his jaw. Both of them went still at the same moment. Her hair was cool. The scalp and the neck beneath it were hot. That little heat reached his skin straight across the distance.

"Sorry," she said.

"The road is uneven," he said.

But neither of them moved their bodies back to the polite distance of a moment before. To move again would make it look as if they had taken that contact for something. Not to move would let the contact go on being something. Shen Man's breathing grew a little shallow. Zhou Ye could see a short length of collarbone inside the neck of her sweater, rising and falling with her breath. Under the trench coat was a thin turtleneck, a deep color, and after it got wet it clung to the shape of her chest. He should not have looked. He looked. She knew he had looked, because she lifted the bag a little and blocked part of it, and then put the bag down again. The meaning of putting it down was clearer than the meaning of blocking. She was not inviting a whole night. She had only not used the vice president's shell to pinch that one look to death.

"Zhou Ye." Her voice dropped. "If you turn your face to the window now, this is only the last bus being too crowded."

"And if I don't turn?"

"Then both of us will be in a difficult position."

He did not turn. He also did not turn the sentence into a frivolous joke. The rain was very loud, just loud enough to cover the slight hoarseness in his voice. "Ms. Shen, I know it's difficult. You're the vice president. I'm in marketing. I didn't come prepared to trade this for anything."

Shen Man looked at him for a long time. Somewhere in the bus someone laughed at a voice message. The laughter had nothing to do with them. Her eyes, at this distance, were softer than they were in the conference room, and also sharper, because the softness was not a letting-go and the sharpness was not a job title.

"Then don't trade," she said. "If you dare treat tonight as an opportunity, I'll get off now."

"I don't dare," he said. "And that isn't what I meant."

"Then what do you mean?"

Zhou Ye thought. Honesty, at this moment, was more useful than cleverness, though honesty could cause trouble just the same. "What I mean is that after you sat down beside me, I couldn't keep seeing you only as Ms. Shen. I know that isn't appropriate. If you want me not to speak before the stop, I can not speak. But you asked."

Shen Man's lips moved. She did not smile. She drew her gaze back and looked at the bag on her knees. The leather had been soaked into a ring of darker color. Her thumb rubbed slowly over that ring, as if she were giving herself time.

"I'm thirty-five this year," she said. "You ought to know that."

"I'm twenty-seven. It's in the file."

"There are a great many things in the file that shouldn't be discussed on the last bus."

"Then we won't discuss the file."

She finally let out a breath, very lightly, as if she had lowered, by an inch, something she had been carrying all evening. "All right. We won't discuss the file. We'll only discuss how much longer this bus still has to run."

The announcement sounded again. The driver said two stops ahead would be skipped, because a truck had run aground on the road. The last bus was being diverted. The terminus was unchanged. The time would be longer. A wave of discontent rose in the bus. Shen Man listened, and said quietly, "Longer."

"Mm."

"Then put the coat over yourself. If you get any wetter, you'll have a fever tomorrow. If you have a fever, the review still has to be handed in."

Zhou Ye could not help a small smile. Only after the smile came out did he realize how tightly he had been holding himself. Shen Man saw the smile as well. The habitual tightness at the center of her brow let go. She settled her body back into the seat and no longer sat on only the outer third of it. From that moment their arms stayed against each other. Neither of them explained it again.

When the bus moved on, Zhou Ye pulled the coat out from under her side of the seat. The cloth on the inside was indeed dry. The outside was entirely wet. He did not put it on. He folded it and set it on his knees, still leaving the dry side for her, if she needed it. Shen Man looked at the coat and did not say thank you. She only, at the next brake, did not take her weight back again.

Chapter 3 The Same Ride

The truck blocked the road for nearly forty minutes. When Route 32 reached Binhe Station, the driver got out, looked at the road, and came back to announce that the run ended here. The bridge behind them was closed. The bus would not cross. Passengers who had not reached their stops could wait for the company's dispatch text, or they could find their own way. When the text would come, he did not know.

The rain was heavier than before. Half the shelter on the platform leaked. The ground reflected the lamps. Zhou Ye's place was on the other side of the bridge. Tonight he most likely could not get back. Shen Man's apartment was on this side of the bridge, two intersections farther on. On an ordinary day it was ten minutes by car. On foot she would have to cross a stretch of sidewalk with no shelter. She stood by the bus door. The hem of the trench coat dripped. She looked outside and did not leave at once.

"You can't get across," she said.

"I'll wait for the rain to ease. Or find a ride that goes around on the elevated road."

"The elevated road is closed too. I just saw the notice in the group." She paused, as if this was not a fact she was supposed to have in hand. "The company's emergency group. It has nothing to do with your review."

Zhou Ye smiled a little. "I know."

Only the two of them and two other people who could not get a car were left on the platform. A taxi came through the standing water with its light empty, moving very slowly, as if it were choosing. Shen Man raised a hand. The car stopped. The driver rolled the window down and said he was only working this part of Binhe. He would not cross the bridge. He would not take a fare any farther than that.

"Two intersections," Shen Man said.

The driver looked at the back seat, then at Zhou Ye. "If you're together, get in. If you're not together, I'll take one."

Rain hammered down between them. Shen Man turned her face and looked at Zhou Ye. Her lashes were wet again. The daytime color on her mouth had faded. There was no order in that look. The sentence on the last bus, that if he turned his face to the window the thing would only be crowding, had now become another sentence she did not finish. Getting into this car would be more than crowding.

Zhou Ye said, "I'll see you to the building. Before the bridge opens, I'll find somewhere to wait."

"You can still change your mind before you get in," she said.

"I know. I'm not changing it."

They got into the same taxi. The back seat was narrower than the bus, dry, and quieter. The driver turned the heat on. The wet clothes immediately gave off a wave of warm vapor. Shen Man's trench coat no longer dripped, but she herself was still cold. When the car turned, her knee touched his knee again. This time it was not so cleanly an accident. She did not apologize. He did not count to five.

The radio in the taxi was saying there would be more rain tomorrow. The driver was a middle-aged man of few words. Only at a red light did he say that this rain was something. Shen Man answered with a sound. Her hand rested in the middle of the seat, very near Zhou Ye's hand. The fingertips were a little stiff from the cold. Zhou Ye looked at that hand and remembered the way it turned pages, and also the pause when it had offered him the tissue. He lifted his own hand and stopped beside hers. He did not cover it.

"If you may, then touch," Shen Man said, looking ahead, her voice very light. "If you may not, pretend I didn't say it."

Zhou Ye laid his hand over hers. Her fingers were cold. Her palm was warm. He held once, not hard. Shen Man's shoulders slowly loosened, as if, for this one evening, she had finally allowed herself to lean on something a little. She did not lean on his shoulder. She only threaded her fingers between his and closed them, and then, as if she felt the movement was too fast, stopped halfway through the clasp. Zhou Ye finished that clasp. Her breath shortened.

"This is only a hand," she said.

"Mm. Only a hand."

"If I want to take it back downstairs, you have to let go."

"I will let go."

The driver glanced at them once in the rearview mirror and said nothing. The wipers went back and forth, scraping the road out ahead and then giving it back to the rain. Shen Man's building was more ordinary than Zhou Ye had imagined, an old high-rise near the river. The shops on the ground floor had turned their lights off. A moving advertisement was stuck to the glass of the lobby. She did not look like a person who would live here. Or she lived here precisely because she did not look like it. The apartments near the company were too bright. In a bright place every pane of glass could reflect a title.

The car stopped steadily. Shen Man did not pull her hand back at once. She looked at the door of her building and said, "You can't cross the bridge. At this hour a ride won't come. There's a twenty-four-hour convenience store on the ground floor. You can sit there until the bridge opens. But your clothes are wet."

"I know."

"Come up and sit for a while. Dry your clothes. When the bridge opens, you leave." After she said it, she turned her eyes to him and made every word clear. "Sit for a while. It doesn't mean anything else. If you think that coming upstairs means you owe me something, or that I owe you something, go to the convenience store now."

Zhou Ye's heart beat very heavily. He looked at her eyes. In the dark of the taxi they were extremely clear. "I'll come up. When the clothes are dry, if the bridge has opened, I'll leave. If you want me to leave, I'll leave at once. This has nothing to do with position. And you can't use position to make me stay."

Shen Man listened, and gave one short nod. "All right."

She paid the fare. Zhou Ye moved to take it. She pressed his wrist, lightly, and did not allow the contest. "I hailed this car. Next time you can fight me for it."

Those two words, next time, fell into the rain and sounded more like a promise than a kiss. They got out. The rain poured down at once. From the taxi to the building door was only a dozen steps. Shen Man's hair was soaked through again. Zhou Ye lifted his coat and held it over her head. The coat had been wet to begin with and could hardly block anything, but she still moved half a step closer to him, and they ran into the lobby together. The lobby light was white. It showed both of them looking a mess. Her makeup had smeared a little. His shirt showed the color underneath. They looked at each other for a second, and both of them laughed. When the laugh ended, Shen Man drew hers in first.

"The elevator's here," she said.

Chapter 4 Inside the Door

The corridor on the seventeenth floor was laid with old carpet, which took the sound out of their steps. Shen Man's hand was steady when she opened the door. The apartment did not have the main lights on. There was only a warm lamp in the entry. The place was not large. It was much smaller than her position. It was clean, and it smelled a little of paper and wood. The sofa was dark. By the window stood a chair, and a thin gray blanket was draped over the back of it. There were no second person's shoes.

She set her bag down and went first to the bathroom for two towels. She handed one to him and used the other to dry her own hair. The movements were natural, like receiving a colleague stranded by the rain, and also like something she had to make ordinary before she dared let it continue.

"The bathroom is on the left. The hair dryer is under the mirror. Dry your shirt a little. If the trousers are too wet, there's a blanket on the sofa." She said, "I'm going to change out of this. The door isn't locked. If you want to leave, leave whenever you want."

"All right."

She went into the bedroom. The door was pulled to, not shut tight. Zhou Ye stood in the entry with the towel against his face and heard, inside, the sound of a zipper, very light. He should not have listened. He peeled the wet shirt off himself and went to the bathroom to dry it. In the mirror the man's ears were still red. There was a faint red line on his collarbone, rubbed there by a wet collar. Only when the warm air blew on his skin did he realize how cold he had been. Once the cold drew back, another kind of heat had nowhere to hide. He thought of her saying he could leave whenever he wanted. That sentence was not courtesy. It was a road that could still be walked back. He fixed the road in his mind, and then dried the shirt until it no longer dripped.

When he came out, Shen Man had already changed. She wore a black long-sleeved house shirt that reached the middle of her thighs, and under it house trousers of the same color. Her feet were bare. Her hair was down. It was longer than when it was pinned, and the ends were still wet, sticking to her collarbones. The makeup had been taken off. Without makeup Shen Man did not look younger. She only looked more like a person who could be tired. The fatigue and the clarity of thirty-five were both there. Her eyes had softened a little from the heat and the light.

She saw that he wore only the dried shirt, the coat still over his arm, and pointed at the sofa. "Sit. I'll boil water. There's no alcohol in the house. I don't want to drink anything that makes a person decide badly."

"Hot is enough."

Before the kettle sounded, the only noise in the room was rain against the windows. Shen Man leaned in the kitchen doorway and looked at him, and suddenly said, "At the company you never dared look at me like this."

"At the company, if I looked at you, someone would notice."

"And now?"

"Now you've already noticed."

She set two cups on the coffee table and sat at the other end of the sofa. A cushion stood between them. She had put the cushion there. Zhou Ye did not move it. They drank hot water. The cups burned their hands, which was useful, because it gave the fingers something to do. Shen Man spoke first. She set the things that had to be said down under the lamp one sentence at a time, like a row of documents that could not be skipped.

"I've been divorced. I have no children. I don't keep in touch with my former husband. I'm not saying this to get your sympathy. I'm saying it so you won't use imagination, tomorrow, to fill me in." She said, "The scope I manage includes marketing. I'm not the person who reviews you, but if I wanted to affect whether you stay or go, I could do it. So tonight I'm saying this sentence until it can't be walked back. Your bonus, your level, your projects: I will not touch them. Starting tomorrow, I'll withdraw from any review that involves you. If this happens, it is not a price you have to pay."

Zhou Ye listened. His fingers tightened on the cup. "And if it doesn't happen?"

"Then you dry your clothes, and when the bridge opens you go home. On Monday we nod in the corridor. You go on revising your review. I go on being Ms. Shen." She looked at him. "I can bear both endings. I need to know which one you can bear. Don't force yourself through this moment."

The room was quiet for a few seconds. In that quiet the rain became very clear. Zhou Ye set the cup down. His voice was not entirely steady, but every word was his own.

"I came upstairs not because I'm afraid of you. And not because I want you to promote me. If you think I'm gambling on a position, I'll leave now, and after this I'll even take a different way around you on the last bus. I'm staying because I want to stay. I've wanted to since you sat down beside me. That wanting has nothing to do with reviews. If you're only cold, if you only need someone to help keep the rain off, I can be only that person."

A light came into Shen Man's eyes, and then she pressed it down. "You're saying it too clearly."

"You asked me to be clear."

She took the cushion away and still did not lean over. "I'm thirty-five. It isn't that I don't want. It's that I haven't, for a long time, allowed myself to want in front of a person who knows my title. Zhou Ye, if I kiss you, it's because I want to kiss you. It isn't the last bus's fault, and it isn't payment for giving me the seat. Can you not understand this as a debt?"

"I can," he said. "If you stop, I stop. If you tell me to leave now, I leave."

Shen Man looked at his mouth, then at his eyes. She set her cup down as well. She crossed the short distance in the middle of the sofa on her knees, but the movement was not fast. She stopped in front of him, close enough that he could see the very fine lines at the corners of her eyes, close enough that her breath fell on his lips. She did not kiss him at once. She waited for him.

Zhou Ye raised a hand and first touched her hair, brushing a wet strand back behind her ear. His fingers stopped at the side of her ear and gave her time to draw away. Shen Man did not draw away. She tilted her head and brought her mouth up to his.

The first kiss was very light, like confirming a temperature. Her lips were soft, carrying the heat of the hot water, and at the edges there was still a little of the cool that comes after rain. Zhou Ye's hand did not press her down at once. He only supported her jaw and let the kiss stay at a depth from which it could still be taken back. Shen Man drew away half an inch first and looked at him. The question in her eyes was clear. He nodded. Only then did she kiss him again. The second kiss was no longer a test. She took his lower lip, the tip of her tongue pressed it open, and slowly, clearly, she asked him to answer. Zhou Ye answered. His hand slid into the roots of her hair, his palm against her scalp. His other hand stayed empty, braced on the back of the sofa, as if he were still leaving her a way out. Shen Man caught that empty hand and pressed it to her waist. The cloth of the house clothes was very thin. The heat of her waist came straight through. Her waist was finer than it looked inside a suit, and softer.

The kiss gradually deepened. When she straddled his thighs, her knees sank into the sofa, and the cloth of the house trousers made a very light sound of friction. Zhou Ye's breathing went uneven. He was hard. There was no way to hide it. Shen Man felt it, and her movement paused. She did not laugh at him, and she did not dodge. She set her forehead against his forehead. Her voice was hoarse.

"This is your response. It isn't something I'm requiring you to hand over."

"I know."

"If you want to go on, say go on. If this is as far as the wanting goes, say stop."

Zhou Ye's hand tightened on her waist, and then loosened. The loosening was so the sentence would actually count. "Go on. Shen Man. Not Ms. Shen. If you still want me to use the title, I'll stop."

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if her name, called by him in that way, weighed more than the kiss. "Call me Shen Man. In this apartment you may."

She drew his hand from the side of her waist to the hem of her shirt and let him decide for himself whether to touch skin. Zhou Ye's palm went under the cloth and met a smooth heat at the side of her waist. Shen Man drew a breath. Her spine arched lightly, and her chest, through the clothes, came against his. She was not wearing anything under the shirt. That fact became impossible to misunderstand when two weights of softness settled against his chest. Zhou Ye's thumb stopped at the lower edge of her ribs and did not go up at once.

"You can touch," she said by his ear. "I want you to touch. If I stop wanting a step, I'll say so."

Only then did his hand cover her breast. Soft, full. The nipple was already hard, pressing into his palm. Shen Man bit her own lower lip and still let out a very light gasp. She held his shoulders. Her nails sank a little through the shirt. Zhou Ye kissed her neck, kissed the stretch the rain had wet, and his tongue tasted a faint salt and scent. Her legs tightened around his waist. The house trousers were too thick. Everything was separated by cloth. Even so she moved slowly once on his lap, as if looking for a place that would let her be closer.

"The bedroom," she said. "The sofa would make me afraid to sit here tomorrow. And the light is too bright. Not because I'm afraid of you looking. Because I want to look at you."

Zhou Ye picked her up. She was lighter than he had imagined. Her arms circled his neck. Her mouth still rested against his temple. The bedroom did not have the ceiling light on. Only a small lamp was left at the head of the bed. The sheets were light gray. Outside the window was the river. The rain smashed the lights on the water. Shen Man stood by the bed and took the long-sleeved shirt off herself. There was no performance in the movement. The shirt came off over her hair, and her shoulders, her collarbones, and her breasts were all in the warm light. The breasts, because of age and the way a body is carried, had a natural weight to them. The shape was full. The areolas were not dark. The nipples stood. She looked at his eyes and did not use her arms to cover herself.

"If this isn't what you imagined," she said, "you can leave. I won't retaliate against you on Monday. I'm saying that again because you're about to see all of me."

Zhou Ye shook his head. His voice was very low. "It isn't what I imagined. It's better than what I imagined. I want to stay."

He took his own shirt off as well. Shen Man's gaze moved from his chest to his abdomen, and then to the place already pushing at his fly. She reached to undo his belt, and before she undid it she looked at him once. He covered her hand, and together they drew the belt out. When the trousers dropped to his ankles, his cock sprang free, hard enough to burn, the head already a little wet. Shen Man's fingers circled him, not tightly. Her thumb passed over that wet opening. Zhou Ye drew a sharp breath. She lifted her eyes to him, as if she were recording his response.

"On the bed," she said. "We'll go slowly. The night is still long. The bridge won't open for a while."

Chapter 5 The Sound of Rain

Shen Man lay down first. She did not take the house trousers off at once. She drew Zhou Ye to kneel beside her and had him begin again from the kiss. Zhou Ye kissed her mouth, kissed her chin, and went slowly down the side of her neck. He stopped at the collarbone and ground there very lightly with his teeth. Shen Man's fingers pushed into his hair. She did not push him and she did not pull him. She only held on. When his mouth closed around one nipple, she finally made the first clear moan of the night. The sound was low and short, as if it had slipped out between her teeth. Then she heard herself. The roots of her ears went red. She did not push him away.

"The other one too," she said.

Zhou Ye took the other side. The tip of his tongue circled that point. His hand tended the one that had just been kissed bright, the palm kneading, the thumb passing over the nipple. Shen Man's waist lifted and fell again. Her breaths went deeper one after another. His hand moved down her stomach and stopped at the waistband.

"Do you want me to take them off?"

"I do."

The house trousers came down to her knees, then to her ankles, and she kicked them away herself. Under them was a very ordinary pair of dark underwear, already wet in a small patch, the color darker there. Zhou Ye set his forehead against her lower belly. His breath fell on that wet place. Shen Man's legs opened a little, then drew in again because she was shy, and in the end opened. She covered her eyes with her forearm. Her mouth was still clear.

"Look if you're going to look. Don't laugh. It's been a long time since anyone looked at me like this."

"I'm not laughing."

He kissed along the edge of the underwear, kissed the softest skin on the inside of her thigh. The muscle there jumped. His fingers hooked the two sides of the underwear and waited until she lifted her hips before he drew that layer of cloth down. Shen Man lay fully bare on the light gray sheet. The small lamp made her body warm. There was not much hair, and it had been trimmed. Beneath it the flesh had already parted a little with arousal, a sheen of wetness on the slit. Zhou Ye used his thumb to open her slowly. He saw a deeper red inside, and the clitoris already swollen. He did not take it in his mouth at once. He first stroked the outside with the pad of a finger, very lightly, like asking.

Shen Man took her hand off her eyes and caught the pillow. "Put one finger in. Slowly. Then use your mouth. I've thought it through."

He did as she said. When his middle finger pushed slowly in, she was so tight he nearly stopped. Inside she was hot and soft, drawing at his knuckle. He stayed there and waited until the tightness in her brow let go before he began to bend the finger gently, looking for the place that would make her shake. Shen Man's knees opened. Her feet pressed the sheet. He lowered his head and took her clit in his mouth. His tongue lay flat and licked, then gathered to a point and circled that bit of flesh. The finger moved slowly in and out. Her wetness came quickly. It soaked the base of his finger and soaked his chin.

"Zhou Ye." She said his name. The voice had come apart. "Don't stop. Just like that. Don't switch to something fancy."

He did not switch. He kept that speed. The tip of his tongue tended her clit steadily. Each stroke of the finger passed the same soft place inside her. Shen Man's thighs began to close on his shoulders, and then she forced herself to loosen them so he could breathe. Her lower belly tightened, released, and tightened again. She no longer bit the moans back. The sound of the rain could not cover them. When she came, her whole body arched up. Her cunt clenched his finger in waves. Her clit pulsed under his tongue. She gripped his hair, cried out once, and then turned her face into the pillow, as if the cry had startled her. Zhou Ye did not leave at once. He made the licking lighter and stayed with her through that stretch, until her legs went soft and her hand pushed at his forehead.

"Come here," she said, out of breath. "Kiss me. Let me taste myself."

He kissed her. The tip of Shen Man's tongue met that faint salty sweetness and did not dodge. She kissed him more deeply instead. Her hand closed around his cock and stroked twice, up and down. Her thumb spread the wetness at the head. Zhou Ye's hips pushed into her palm without his control. She looked at his eyes.

"I want you inside. Now. If there isn't a condom, don't come inside me. I get checked regularly, but tonight we are not going to take the risk that way. You can come on me, or I'll use my mouth. You choose."

Zhou Ye's mind was hot and heavy. He still heard her clearly. "There's one in my wallet. It might be expired. I'll look first."

He got off the bed and found his trousers. The date on the condom in the wallet was still within the month. He held it up for her to see. Shen Man nodded, opened it herself, and put it on him. Her fingers were still shaking while she did it, but the movements were careful. She did not tear it. After it was on she lay back, opened her legs, and guided him with her hand until he was against her entrance.

"Slow. Only halfway at first. I need to get used to you."

Zhou Ye braced himself above her and pushed in a little at a time. When the head opened her, both of them stopped. She was too tight. He was too hard. Shen Man breathed deeply. Her heels hooked his calves, and she brought her hips up a little herself. Only then did he get halfway in. The heat was still distinct through the thin condom. Her brow was gathered. It was not a refusal from pain. It was the ache of being opened. Zhou Ye kissed the center of her brow.

"We can stop."

"Don't stop. Wait a few more seconds." She said it, and her fingers went down his back and stopped on his hip, pressing lightly. "All right. All the way in."

When he sank in to the root, both of them made a sound at the same time. Shen Man's nails sank into his shoulder. Inside she was hot and wet, biting at him in small contractions. Zhou Ye stayed at the deepest point, forehead against her forehead. Neither of them moved. That pause was harder to bear than thrusting, and clearer. They were truly joined. It was not the collision of the last bus. It was not the hand in the taxi. It was her taking him in. It was him being held by her.

"Move," she said. "Deeper. Not fast. I want to feel every time."

Zhou Ye moved as she had said. Each withdrawal was slow. He left only the head inside, then pushed the whole length back until his belly met hers. Shen Man's breasts swayed lightly with that rhythm. He lowered his head and took one in his mouth. Below, he kept that depth. Her moans turned soft and broken. Her hand moved from his back to her own clit. Two fingers rubbed in time with him. Zhou Ye saw it. His breathing went more uneven.

"If I touch myself I'll get there faster," she said. "You just watch. Don't take it over. After I come again, then you can go faster."

He watched. Her fingers circled the most sensitive place. Because of that extra stimulus her cunt gripped tighter and tighter. The second orgasm came faster than the first. She suddenly held his neck. Her legs locked around his waist. Inside she clenched hard. Wetness squeezed out and soaked the place where they were joined. By his ear, in broken pieces, she said it was so deep, said don't go out. Zhou Ye's eyes burned from the way she gripped him. He still waited until that wave had passed, and only then, under the permission she had just given, went faster.

Once the speed came up, the lamp on the nightstand trembled lightly. Shen Man no longer spoke in whole sentences. She kissed him, bit his lower lip, and when he drove to the deepest point she opened her mouth and there was only breath. Zhou Ye's hands held her hips and kept her in each thrust. He asked whether this was too heavy. She shook her head. She said a little heavier. She said she wanted to be wanted by him. That sentence tore the last of his restraint. He fucked her hard at the pace she had asked for. His balls slapped against her. The wet sound mixed with the rain. Shen Man's third time came fast and scattered. She almost laughed through something like a cry, said it was too much, and then said don't stop.

When Zhou Ye was close he told her. Shen Man held his face and made him look at her. "Come. I want to see who you're coming for."

He let out a low sound, buried himself to the root, and released in pulses through the condom. The orgasm lasted long enough that his arms shook. He could hardly hold himself up. Shen Man held him. Her legs were still locked at his waist. Her hand stroked the back of his head, again and again, as if she were catching a person coming down from a height. Neither of them spoke at once. The rain was still falling. The room was full of breathing and the heat of skin.

A good while later Zhou Ye pulled out, took the condom off, knotted it, and wrapped it in tissue. Shen Man watched him do these things, eyes half closed, a softness at the corner of her mouth that had lost its guard. He came back to the bed, drew the thin quilt over her, and got under it himself. She turned onto her side. Her forehead rested against his collarbone.

"Still here," she said.

"I'm here."

"There wasn't a step I was forced through." She seemed still to need to confirm it for herself. "And you?"

"No. I wanted you. I still want you." He paused. "If the bridge has opened, I still don't want to leave. But if you want me to leave, I still will."

Shen Man kissed his collarbone once. "Don't leave tonight. Look at the bridge again in the morning. Before we sleep I still want water. You go pour it. The cups are on the coffee table."

He got out of bed barefoot and poured water for both of them. When he came back Shen Man was already sitting up, the quilt gathered at her chest, her hair a mess. She did not look like a vice president, and she did not look like the person who, a little while ago, had set the rules out one by one. She took the water and drank very slowly. When she had finished she looked out the window and said, "Come here. I want you to hold me while we sleep. Only sleep. My waist is already protesting."

Zhou Ye held her from behind. His hand lay on her lower belly and did not go farther down. Shen Man's breathing gradually slowed. Just before she fell asleep she was still saying something blurred, something like telling him not to look at her too long in tomorrow's meeting. Zhou Ye agreed. The rain covered half of that agreement. He remembered it very clearly anyway.

Chapter 6 The Window

When it got light the rain had lessened. It had not stopped. The light in the bedroom was gray-white. Zhou Ye woke first. Shen Man had her back to him. A shoulder was out of the quilt. On her back there was a red mark he did not even remember leaving, probably from a kiss that had been too heavy in the night. He looked at the mark and did not touch it. Her alarm had not gone off. The clock by the bed pointed to seven-ten. Monday's operations meeting was at nine-thirty. If they got up now, there was enough time to pretend this was only two people having their separate mornings.

When Shen Man turned over, her eyes were not fully open. She saw him. For one second her face was blank, and then memory came back onto it. In that blank second there was no regret. After the memory returned, there was still none. She reached out and touched his face. Her thumb passed over his lower lip.

"Morning."

"Morning."

"My legs are still here," she said, as if complaining, though the corner of her mouth bent. "You didn't go home."

"You didn't let me."

"That was last night. You can leave now." She looked at him. "Or you can stay another twenty minutes. After twenty minutes you have to go. I don't want to appear in the elevator of this building with you and have the neighbors who go running in the morning make up a story."

Zhou Ye kissed her palm. "Then what are these twenty minutes for?"

Shen Man drew his hand to her chest and had him hold her. Her nipples were already a little hard in the morning cool. Her voice was still hoarse. "For wanting once more. A slow one. Then we each go and be yesterday's two people. If you're so hard you can't stand it, tell me. I'll use my hand. The condom was used last night. There isn't a second one in the house."

His cock was already against her thigh. Shen Man felt it and laughed once, low. The laugh was hoarse and did not belong to a conference room at all. She turned to face him. The quilt slid down. A body in the early morning had none of the night lamp's revision. There was a little softness at her belly. There were sleep marks on her chest. That made Zhou Ye harder. He lowered his head, took her nipple in his mouth, and sucked slowly. Shen Man's fingers went into his hair. Her legs wound with his. Her cunt pressed his thigh and ground slowly. She was wet, a hot line, smearing the wetness onto his skin.

"Hand," she reminded him. Her breathing was already unsteady. "Don't go in. I mean what I say."

Zhou Ye put his fingers between her legs. She was soft and slick there. Two fingers went in easily. He pressed her clit with his thumb and moved the fingers slowly inside. Shen Man closed her eyes, forehead against his shoulder, and rocked in small movements with his hand. Her hand closed around him as well. Palm and fingers stroked him together, at the same slow speed he was giving her. Neither of them hurried the other. The sex of this morning did not drown a person the way the night had. It was more like a confirmation: it was daylight, the wanting was still there, and the rules were still there.

Shen Man came first. She bit his shoulder. Her cunt clenched his fingers. Wetness surged out and wet another small patch of the sheet. After she came she did not stop her hand. She slid down and, under the quilt, took him in her mouth. When the warm mouth suddenly closed around him, Zhou Ye drew a sharp breath and braced a hand on the mattress. Shen Man's tongue circled the head. Her lips tightened. She took him to a depth that felt comfortable to her, drew back, and her hand moved at the base in time with her mouth. She looked up at him. There was a shine of water in her eyes, and a little of mischievous seriousness. Being looked at like that nearly finished Zhou Ye at once. He warned her aloud. Shen Man did not pull away. She kept him in her mouth and let him come there. Her throat moved once. She swallowed, and then she licked him clean. After that she came up and kissed the corner of his mouth, not to make him taste it, only to lean on him for a moment.

"The twenty minutes are almost up," she said.

"You didn't look at the time at all."

"I did. I looked at it in your eyes. You've already started thinking about the elevator and the neighbors."

They laughed once together. When the laugh ended, Shen Man got out of bed and walked naked to the window to draw the curtains. She opened them halfway. The river on a rainy day was bright enough to look white. Her body had a brief outline in front of the window, the line of the shoulders, the waist, the hips, and then she put herself into the black long-sleeved shirt. The length just covered the tops of her thighs. Zhou Ye was still sitting on the bed. Shen Man looked back at him, and then looked out the window.

"Take a picture of me," she said.

Zhou Ye was still for a moment. "Now?"

"Now. Use my phone. I want a picture that belongs only to this morning. It isn't for anyone else to see. It's because I'm afraid that the moment I walk into the company, I'll pretend this didn't happen." She handed him the phone. The screen was still on the camera. "Only me. The window and the river can be in it. My face can be in it. The clothes can stay like this. Don't shoot anything barer than this. What I want is that I remember. I don't want to hand myself into a picture and not be able to get back out."

Zhou Ye took the phone. He did not press at once. Shen Man stood in front of the window. The hem of the long-sleeved shirt rested at the tops of her thighs. Her hair hung loose. She was barefoot, her face turned a little, looking at him. The rain outside made her outline very quiet. In this look there was no vice president, and there was none of the undone quality of a body soaked through with wanting. She was only a woman who had just decided she was going to remember this.

"You're sure," he said.

"I'm sure. Show me after. If I don't like it, delete it. You're not allowed to keep one in secret."

He took one. Then he took another, because in the first her eyes had not fully come around to him. In the second Shen Man looked at the lens. The corner of her mouth was lifted, lightly. One hand rested on the window frame. The river and the rain were both behind her. The neck of the shirt was a little loose. It showed her collarbone and a small patch of red on her chest. The red was his. A stranger would not recognize it as anything at a glance. The two of them would. Zhou Ye handed the phone back to her.

Shen Man looked for a long time. She did not laugh aloud. She only deleted the first and kept the second. Her thumb stayed on the screen.

"I'll send it to you. Keep it properly. Don't set it as any lock screen that will light up for someone else. Don't upload it to a cloud. Don't send it into any work software." She looked up. "This picture is ours. It cannot be used to require me to do anything, and it cannot be used to require you to do anything. Whoever uses it as a condition is destroying last night. That includes you. That includes me. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Zhou Ye said. "I won't use it to coerce you. And you don't have to use it to keep me. If you want me to delete it, I'll delete it now."

"Don't delete it." She sent the picture to him, and put the original into a locked album. "Keep it. It's only a picture. Whether we go on depends on what we say ourselves. It doesn't depend on this."

Zhou Ye's phone buzzed once. He opened it, looked at the picture, immediately turned the chat off in his notifications, and, as she had required, hid the image in an encrypted album. When he had done all that, he put on clothes that still held a little damp. Shen Man was already in the bathroom, pinning her hair up again. The person in the mirror turned, inch by inch, back into Ms. Shen. Her hands were steady. Only a small red patch at the side of her neck was still there. She covered it with concealer, and when she had covered it she looked at him.

"On Monday, don't look at me in the meeting for longer than necessary," she said. "Necessary is while you're presenting your page. When you've finished, look at the document."

"All right."

"If you want to talk at noon, use the number I just added. Don't use the company messages. Write only whether you've eaten, or whether you're there. Leave the other words for a place where no one is."

"Shen Man." He called her that in the entry. After her hair was pinned, the name was still valid. She looked over. Zhou Ye said, "Last night was what I wanted. This morning was too. When I walk into the company I won't pretend it wasn't."

Her eyes softened for a moment, and then quickly returned to calm. She came over and kissed the corner of his mouth, very briefly, like setting a seal only the two of them would recognize.

"When you go down, go first. I'll go down five minutes later. Whether the bridge is open, look at your map yourself. If your clothes are still wet, buy an umbrella at the convenience store. Don't catch a cold."

Zhou Ye went downstairs. The city in the rain had already started its workday. He did not appear in the elevator with her. He passed the convenience store and bought a cheap black umbrella. The bridge was still closed. He went the long way around and, in the restroom at the subway entrance, tucked his shirt back in. The picture in the encrypted album was like a small piece of heat against his pocket. He did not open it again. Knowing it was there was enough.

Chapter 7 Monday

The operations meeting began at nine-thirty. Zhou Ye was already sitting in the seat against the wall of the eighteenth-floor conference room at nine-ten, the laptop charging, the last page of the review already revised. The column for the third-tier cities had been changed to a shorter sentence. The line in the note that had no evidence had been deleted. His hair had been dried. The shirt was a spare one from home. The cuffs were a little wrinkled. Lin Qiming passed him, glanced at the screen, and said, "This will do. Don't write lyricism into it again."

"There isn't any lyricism."

"Your ears are red. If you've got a fever, don't force it."

Zhou Ye touched his ear and said the wind was strong. Lin Qiming did not ask again. Chen Xia from marketing sat down beside him, pushed a cup of coffee over, and asked whether the last bus had flooded again. Zhou Ye said it had. Chen Xia began to talk about the outrageous fare she had paid for a car, and halfway through she stopped, because the conference room door had opened.

When Shen Man came in, her hair was pinned without a strand out of place. She wore a dark gray suit dress. She had changed into a dry pair of low heels. There was no trace of the night on her face. She nodded to several directors. Her gaze passed over the seats against the wall and stopped on Zhou Ye's face for exactly as short a time as it stopped on anyone else's.

"Begin," she said.

When Zhou Ye presented his page, he looked at her as she had required. The necessary time. Shen Man listened very steadily. She asked two questions. Both were about numbers. Neither was a private opening left for him. When he had answered, he put his eyes back on the document. Under the table Chen Xia tapped his shoe with a pen and said, low, "You're in good form today. Ms. Shen didn't pick at you at all."

"Because I revised it."

"Modest," Chen Xia said.

The meeting ran until eleven. When it broke up, people crowded toward the door. Two directors stopped Shen Man to talk. Zhou Ye passed behind her and smelled that scent the rain had once washed thin. Now it was whole again, and restrained, as if no one had ever photographed her in front of a window. His fingers curled once at his side. Shen Man did not turn around. There was only a pause in her speaking, short enough that someone else would think she was considering the budget. Zhou Ye knew she was feeling him go by.

At noon he did not send a message. He was afraid that the moment he opened the chat he would write extra words. Shen Man wrote first. The number had no note on it. The avatar was empty. The message was only two characters' worth of meaning: Have you eaten.

Zhou Ye looked at those words, sat at his desk for a few seconds, and replied: I have.

The other side came back quickly: Good.

That was all. In thirty minutes he looked at his phone three times. Chen Xia leaned over and said he must be seeing someone, smiling that foolishly. Zhou Ye turned the screen down and said someone at home was nagging him to eat. The lie was thin. Chen Xia made a sound of understanding and did not press, but the bit of interest in her eyes had already stayed. Zhou Ye went to the restroom and washed his face with cold water. The person in the mirror still looked like Zhou Ye from marketing, twenty-seven, wrinkles at the cuffs. No one could look at that face and see whose mouth he had come in that morning. The thought made him both hot and panicked. He dried his hands and told himself the panic was proper, and the heat was proper, and what was not proper was carrying either of them into the corridor.

In the afternoon Shen Man did not appear in marketing again. Zhou Ye finished the attachments to the review and checked the lock on the encrypted album once more. The picture was still there. She stood in front of the window, looking at him. He looked for two seconds and closed it. After he closed it, the feeling of looking at her was still on his hands.

Near the end of the day the empty avatar lit again.

The bridge is open tonight. Go home. Don't come.

Zhou Ye replied: All right.

He really did go home. The place was smaller than her apartment. The walls smelled of damp. A raincoat hung on the back of a chair and dripped. He showered, lay on his own bed, and sent her: I'm here.

Shen Man took twenty minutes to reply: Mm. As long as the picture is still there. The rest we'll talk about on Monday.

Zhou Ye typed a long stretch and deleted it. In the end he left only: It's still here. We'll talk Monday.

He looked at the ceiling and listened to the rain on his own building. The rain was not the same as that stretch on the seventeenth floor. Here there was no sound of her breathing. He got hard. When he took care of it with his hand he closed his eyes, and what he remembered was her telling him to go slow, telling him to look, telling him not to exchange the picture for anything. After he came he did not feel empty. He was only clear about this: it was not an accident that could end on the last bus. They had already said the rules out loud. The rules were still there. The people did not want to withdraw either.

Chapter 8 The Break Room

On Tuesday they almost did not see each other. On Wednesday afternoon marketing was called up to the eighteenth floor on short notice to revise a page needed for Thursday. There were many people in the conference room. Shen Man came in only at the start to assign the work, and she stayed five minutes. In those five minutes she did not look at Zhou Ye. Zhou Ye did not look at her more than the necessary number of times. This time necessary was zero. He stared at his own keyboard and listened to her voice as an ordinary superior's voice. It was difficult. The moment her voice went lower, he remembered her saying, by his ear, a little heavier. He typed two numbers wrong. Lin Qiming frowned. He corrected them at once.

By the time people dispersed it was already seven. Chen Xia said they should go eat noodles. Zhou Ye said he still had a page to revise. That was the truth. It was also true that he knew the light in Shen Man's office was still on. He did not go to that office. He went to the break room, meaning to pour a cup of hot tea that would not set his heart racing tonight. The break room was beside the fire stairs. At this hour there was no one in it.

When Shen Man pushed the door open, he was watching hot water run out of the machine. She clearly had not expected him either. Both of them stopped at the same time. The door closed slowly behind her. The sound-activated light in the corridor was still on. Their shadows could be seen on the glass.

"You shouldn't be waiting for me here," she said.

"I wasn't waiting. I was pouring tea."

Shen Man glanced at his cup, as if she accepted the explanation and also thought it too convenient. "Finished revising?"

"One page left."

"Then go revise it." After she said it, she did not step out of the way. Her hand braced the edge of the door. The knuckles were tight. Zhou Ye saw the blue under her eyes. From Monday to Wednesday she probably had not slept much. He wanted to ask whether she had eaten. Even that sentence was dangerous in the break room. He swallowed it and only held the cup out.

"You drink. I'll pour another."

Shen Man took the cup. Fingertips touched fingertips, and both of them reacted as if they had been burned. The tea was not actually hot anymore. She drank a mouthful. The center of her brow loosened a little, and she suddenly said, "I thought sending you home would make Monday lighter. It didn't."

"I know."

"When I don't look at you in meetings, it isn't that I don't want to. It's that I want to too much." She set the cup down. Her voice went lower. "Zhou Ye, the early sign that we're hiding this badly is that I'm still standing here."

The sound of the elevator came from the end of the corridor. Both of them stepped back at the same time. The elevator doors opened and closed again. No one came out. Maybe someone had pressed the wrong floor. Shen Man's shoulders loosened, and then tightened again. She looked at him as if she were fighting her own judgment.

"Come here," she said at last.

Zhou Ye went over. Shen Man caught the front of his shirt and pulled him into the angle by the door that the camera did not quite cover. Zhou Ye knew that angle because, in new-employee training, administration had said there was a blind spot behind the break room door. Knowledge that had seemed useless then had now become an accomplice. An alarm went off in him. It went off in Shen Man too. She kissed him anyway.

The kiss was urgent and light, as if she were afraid the sound-activated light would understand. The tip of her tongue touched him only once. Her lips stayed a long time. Zhou Ye's hand held her waist and did not go lower. The cloth of the suit dress was harder than the house clothes. The waist was still the stretch of waist he recognized. Shen Man's breath fell at the corner of his mouth. She was hard, or rather her nipples were hard inside her bra, brushing his chest lightly. Zhou Ye said, low, "Not here."

"I know," she said. Her forehead rested against his chin. She stopped for two seconds and still kissed him once more. "So only this far. Anything further and I'm destroying the rules I set myself."

The elevator sounded again. This time there were footsteps. Shen Man let go of him at once, turned, and opened the tap, as if she were washing a cup that was already clean. Zhou Ye grabbed his own cup and stood in front of the shelf, studying the English on a box of tea. A cleaner pushed the door open, glanced at them, said Ms. Shen was still here, and also said the break room light was unreliable sometimes. Shen Man smiled a little and said she was leaving in a moment. The smile was perfect, and it was false. While the cleaner mopped, he did not look at them again. But the mop paused in that blind spot behind the door. There was no water on the floor. The cleaner's gaze stayed on the dry floor for half a second before the mop went on.

After the person left, the only sound in the break room was the hum of the water heater. Shen Man's hands braced the sink. Her back was to him.

"Did you see that?" she said.

"I saw it."

"We're very bad at hiding."

Zhou Ye wanted to touch her back, and put his hand down instead. "Then tonight don't hide in this building anymore. If you want to see me, go to your place. If you don't want to, I'll go back and revise that page. The kiss just now can count, or it can not count."

Shen Man turned. Her lipstick had smeared a little. She wiped it with her thumb. There was anger in the movement. The anger was not aimed at him. "It counts. I want to see you. But if I call a car now, the system will keep two addresses from the same time. You leave first. Arrive in forty minutes. If you change your mind in those forty minutes, don't come. I won't ask why."

"I'll come."

"Bring your head with you," she said. "Don't bring only Monday's memory. We have to say it once more: how not to push each other into this."

Zhou Ye nodded. When he left the break room, the sound-activated light happened to go out, and then his steps lit it again. In the brightness he saw the unfinished cup of tea in his hand. The surface was still trembling lightly. He did not look back. If he looked back he would kiss her once more. Once had already been enough to make a mop stop.

Chapter 9 The Second Time

When Shen Man opened the door she had already changed clothes. It was still the black long-sleeved shirt, but her hair was still pinned, as if the title she had taken off at the company had not fully landed. Zhou Ye stood in the doorway and took his shoes off. She let him in and did not kiss him first. The two of them sat on the sofa. This time there was no cushion between them. The absence of the cushion was itself a choice.

"The break room," she said, "I pulled you. If the cleaner asks, you say you were pouring tea. Don't invent anything more complicated. A complicated lie breaks on the third sentence."

"He may not ask."

"He may not ask. That doesn't mean he didn't see." Shen Man looked at her own hands. "I can bear gossip aimed at me. What I can bear less is gossip that first turns you into someone who got ahead by way of a vice president. So we have to be clearer. First: at work, except when it's necessary, we don't stay alone together. The break room does not count as necessary. Second: starting this week I recuse myself from your projects in writing, and Lin Qiming reports that part of your work directly to President Pei. I'll find a business reason. I won't mention you. Third: we meet only here, or in a place the company system won't record. Fourth: if either of us says stop, we stop. We don't pretend, after the body has already started, that we didn't hear."

Zhou Ye listened through them one by one. "Fifth. The picture stays as it is. Neither of us is allowed to use it as a handle. If someone comes upon us, we admit that we are two people. We do not admit that we owe anyone an explanation that goes as far as the bed."

Shen Man looked at him. There was a little heat at the bottom of her eyes. "You added this fifth one."

"Yes. Because you already said it on Monday. I want it said again out of my mouth. That way it isn't only your rule."

She finally leaned over and kissed him. This kiss was slower than the one in the break room. Her hand undid her own pinned hair. The hair fell and swept across his hand. Zhou Ye caught it and kissed her earlobe. Shen Man's ears were sensitive. A touch made her shrink, and after she shrank she offered her neck. He kissed along that line of the neck to the collar and undid two buttons of the long-sleeved shirt. She had nothing else on underneath. Her breasts came out. The nipples were already hard. Zhou Ye took one in his mouth and held the other with his hand. Shen Man held his head and allowed herself to make a sound. Making a sound was much freer than it was in that company building.

"Go to the bed," she said. "Tonight I want to be on top. I want to watch myself wanting you. Not be pushed by rain and accident."

This time she turned the bedroom light a little brighter. Shen Man had him lie down. She took off the long-sleeved shirt and the underwear herself and straddled his thighs. She did not sit down at once. She held his cock and let it slide along her slit, smearing her wetness onto the shaft. The head passed over her clit again and again. Each time, her waist shook once. Zhou Ye's hands rested at her hips. He did not press. He only followed. He looked at her. A thirty-five-year-old body under a slightly brighter light had no excuse. Her chest rose and fell with her breath. Her lower belly tightened lightly. The insides of her thighs trembled because they were open. She looked at his eyes, as if she meant to do the fact of I am the one wanting, and do it where he could see.

"There are new ones in the bag," she said. "I bought them at noon. Not to complete an assignment. Because if I want to do this with you, I ought to prepare it myself."

Zhou Ye opened one and put it on. Shen Man rose onto her knees, steadied him with her hand, and sat down slowly. She controlled the entry herself. Halfway she stopped, adjusted, and went down again until she was fully seated. Both of them let out a long breath. Her hands braced on his chest. Her nails tightened now and then.

"Don't thrust," she said. "Let me."

She began to move. First a small grinding, so her clit rubbed his belly while inside she held him tight. Then she lifted her hips and sat again, taking him to the root every time. She set the rhythm. Her hair hung on both sides of her face. Her eyes did not hide. Zhou Ye felt himself seen through, and also kept. His thumb found her clit and matched her rhythm, lightly. Shen Man nodded. She allowed it. Her breathing turned into broken words.

"Like this. Just like this. Look at me. Don't close your eyes."

He did not close them. When she came she stared at him, mouth open, the sound pressed very low, while her cunt clenched extremely hard. She stopped on him and shook. At last her forehead came down and rested against his. Zhou Ye kissed her eyes. She smiled a little and said it was not finished, said he could want too. She lifted her hips again. This time it was faster, and deeper. After she allowed it, Zhou Ye began to meet her from below. For a short stretch their rhythms did not match. The impact made her cry out, and then she smiled with her teeth set and said do that once more. They found the same beat. The bed made a little noise. Shen Man reached to press the headboard, as if she were afraid of the neighbors, and after she pressed it she stopped caring. Her second time came sharp and long. She gripped him until Zhou Ye could not hold. He told her he was going to come. Shen Man did not get off. She sat all the way down and watched him come, her hand on his chest, feeling the heartbeat strike again and again.

Afterward she did not get up at once. She lay on him, her face buried at the side of his neck. Her voice was muffled.

"When I bought the condoms at noon, the clerk looked at me once. I suddenly felt ridiculous. After I felt ridiculous I still bought them. Because I'd thought it through. I want this relationship. Not only that night's rain."

Zhou Ye's hand moved slowly on her back. "I want it too. Not because you being Shen Man is enough. Because you told me every way out, and I still want to walk this one."

She was silent for a while, and then she said, "Then we'll bear the part that can't be hidden. What can be hidden, we keep hiding. What can't be hidden, we don't stop up with someone else's future or with our bodies."

"All right."

They showered. Under the shower they kissed for a while and did not do it again. Shen Man's hair was soaked and stuck to his chest. She said this was dangerous, because it was too much like already living together. Zhou Ye said it was only a shower. She made a sound in her throat, smeared shampoo onto his head, the movement nearly rough, while her fingers were careful and did not let the foam get into his eyes. After they were done they sat on the sofa and dried their hair. The rain outside had lessened. Shen Man looked at the window where the picture had been taken in the daytime and asked whether the picture was still there. Zhou Ye said it was. She said let me see whether your album is locked. He opened it and showed her. The lock was there. She gave the phone back and kissed his temple.

"You can stay tonight. You can also leave. I haven't updated the rules because of what we just did."

Zhou Ye thought. "I'll stay. I'll leave early. I won't go downstairs with you."

"All right," Shen Man said. She pulled the thin gray blanket over and covered both of them. The television stayed off. They talked in a scattered way. She said the divorce had not been because of an affair. It had been because the two of them had turned the days into meetings. He said his last relationship had stopped at twenty-five. The other person had been going to another city. He had not followed. These words were not exciting. They only handed over, slowly, the places other than the bed. When Shen Man had heard him, she said, "So you know what leaving is like. Then your staying isn't a moment of heat."

"It isn't."

Under the blanket she held his hand. This time no one said it was only a hand. A hand was a hand, and it was also evidence that they meant to go on. Zhou Ye looked at her profile and suddenly felt that Monday's restraint had not been wasted. The restraint made this staying clean. He kissed her hair. Shen Man did not speak again. Her breathing gradually evened. The rain on the seventeenth floor had thinned until it could barely be heard.

Chapter 10 The Lock Screen

Thursday morning's report was in a small conference room. There were not many people: Lin Qiming, Zhou Ye, Chen Xia, and a colleague from brand. The projector was connected to Zhou Ye's computer. When he reached the second page, his phone buzzed on the table and the screen lit. He had set the phone face-down. At some point it had been turned over. What lit was not a message. It was the picture he had forgotten to change back after he tested the lock screen in the afternoon.

The picture was lit for less than two seconds. Shen Man stood in front of the window, in black, barefoot, looking at the lens. There was a small patch of red under the collarbone. The river was behind her. There was nothing barer than that. But it was not a picture that could appear in a conference room. It was too private. Private enough that even the places the clothes covered seemed to be speaking.

Zhou Ye's hand was faster than his mind. He slapped the phone face-down. The edge of the table made a light sound. Chen Xia turned her head. She had not seen anything clearly. She only asked who it was. The colleague from brand was watching the projection and paid no attention. Lin Qiming had seen it. Zhou Ye confirmed that from his eyes. Lin Qiming did not crane his neck over, and he did not make Zhou Ye light the phone again. He only moved his gaze from Zhou Ye's hand back to the projection and said, go on.

Zhou Ye went on. His voice was drier than before. When he finished the page, his whole back was sweat. After the meeting broke up, Chen Xia went to print, and the person from brand left first. Lin Qiming stayed by the door, as if asking in passing.

"Seeing someone."

Zhou Ye said, "You could call it that."

"Does the other person know you put them on a lock screen and brought it into a conference room?"

"No. I was stupid. I've already changed it."

Lin Qiming looked at him for a few seconds. The man had led Zhou Ye for two years. His temper was straight. He did not like maneuvering. His eyes were not blind. "I don't care who you're seeing. I care that you don't turn marketing into a storytelling session. I looked at that picture once. I won't look a second time, and I won't ask you for it. If you want to explain, I suggest you don't. An explanation is usually more than a picture."

Zhou Ye's throat was tight. "Thank you, Director Lin. It isn't a transaction. It has nothing to do with the company."

"It had better not." Lin Qiming said, "I accept your review. The rest I don't accept for the moment, and I won't chase it. Go do your work."

He left. The light in the corridor was white enough to sting. Zhou Ye went into the fire stairs and sent Shen Man: The picture lit up. Director Lin saw less than two seconds. He didn't ask for it, and he didn't ask who. I set the lock screen wrong. My fault.

Shen Man took a long time to reply: Come out. The stairs. Seventeenth floor. Now.

She was already there. The fire door closed behind her. The sound-activated light came on, and then, because the two of them stood without moving, it dimmed little by little. Shen Man's face was cold. The cold was not disgust at him. It was control after being frightened.

"Delete the lock screen," she said.

"Already deleted. It's still in the album. If you want the album deleted too, I'll delete it now."

"Leave the album for now. The lock screen was your mistake." She closed her eyes briefly. "What Lin Qiming saw was me. Don't comfort yourself yet about whether he recognized me. If he recognized me and chose not to ask, we owe him a promise not to make this dirtier. Not a debt of bodies. Not money paid for his silence. A debt of an ending between adults."

Zhou Ye nodded. "He didn't ask for the picture. I won't give it to him. If anyone uses this picture to coerce you and me into doing anything, including forcing you to keep sleeping with me, or forcing me to leave you, I won't do what they say. I'll come straight to you, and we'll deal with it together."

Only then did Shen Man's shoulders come down a little. She looked at him as if she were judging, from his face, whether the sentence had been invented on the spot. When she had judged, she lifted a hand and straightened his collar. The gesture was too much like a girlfriend's, and in the stairwell it was dangerous again. Her hand dropped quickly.

"Don't come tonight. I need to think alone about those two seconds Lin Qiming saw. Not about how to punish you. About whether we can still hide." She said, "At noon, check the lock screen again. The company computer, the cloud, social apps, look through all of them. When you're done, tell me the result. One word: clean. Or not clean."

"Clean. I'll check again."

"Zhou Ye." She called to him when he was about to go down. "I don't regret the picture. I regret that it appeared on that table. Those are two things. Don't write it as you having offended me. What you offended was the keeping we agreed on."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Shen Man nodded once. The sound-activated light came on again because of his steps. She stood in the light and waited for him to go first. Zhou Ye did not leave the stairs until the fifteenth floor. His legs were a little soft. The softness was not because he was afraid Lin Qiming would blackmail him. Lin Qiming was not that kind of person. He believed that. The softness was because a picture that belonged only to a morning had been seen by a pair of working eyes. It was still theirs. It could not become anyone's condition. In a toilet stall he turned off every sync, deleted the backups, and changed the lock screen to the default black. When he had checked, he sent one word: Clean.

Shen Man replied: Good. Still don't come tonight. I miss you. That sentence is not an invitation.

Zhou Ye looked at the words I miss you and stood in the stall for a long time. He replied: I miss you too. I'll wait until you've thought it through.

Chapter 11 Rumors

At noon on Friday the break room had changed into another kind of noise. When Zhou Ye went to pour water, he heard two people who were not from marketing saying that Ms. Shen's temper had been very good lately, and also saying that someone had seen her leave work on Wednesday evening with a young man, though maybe they had seen wrong. The people talking did not use a name. A name would come in the next round. In the afternoon Chen Xia pulled Zhou Ye over to the print area and lowered her voice.

"I'll ask you one thing. You don't have to answer. Someone says Ms. Shen has been close with a person in our department. My first reaction was that it was bullshit. My second reaction was to look at you. Because the number of times your ears have gone red this week isn't normal."

Zhou Ye's first reaction was to deny it too fast. He held that down. Denying too fast was as bad as admitting. "Who said it?"

"Brand. Vague. They said two people stood very close in an elevator. No picture, no name. I'm asking you because if it's real, don't be the last person to know, and don't be the first person pushed out." Chen Xia looked at him. "If this has nothing to do with you, pretend I didn't ask. If it does, I want to tell you that more people will tell this story than ever really saw it."

Zhou Ye said, "Thank you. I know."

That was not an admission, and it was not a good concealment. Chen Xia looked at him for two seconds, sighed, and said then he should get his ears under control, and she laughed first after she said it. After she laughed she did not pass it on. Zhou Ye went back to his desk. His palms were all sweat. He sent Shen Man: There's a rumor. No name. No picture. Chen Xia asked me. I didn't admit it.

Shen Man replied quickly: My assistant heard it too. The version is Wednesday night. The break room wasn't mentioned. We have to meet tonight. Not to have sex. To talk. After seven. The usual place. Leave separately.

Those words, the usual place, tightened Zhou Ye's chest. They already had a usual place. The week was not even over.

At seven-twenty he knocked on the door on the seventeenth floor. Shen Man had not changed into house clothes. The jacket of the suit dress was off. Under it she still wore the shirt from the formal suit, the sleeves rolled to her forearms. There was no alcohol on the coffee table. There were two cups of water that had already gone cool. She had him sit. The cushion was back between them. This time the cushion was not shyness. It was a reminder.

"The version my assistant heard," she said, "is that I got into the same car as a tall man. No face. That isn't frightening. What's frightening is that it will line up, in someone's head, with the picture Lin Qiming saw. Once they line up, we aren't a rumor. We're a chain of evidence."

"Then do we stop first?" Zhou Ye asked. After he asked, he was uncomfortable himself. But the question had to be asked. "Stop meeting. Keep the picture or delete it. Wait until the rumor passes."

Shen Man looked at the cushion. "I asked myself many times today. If we stop, am I protecting you, or am I protecting the seat called Ms. Shen? Both answers are there. I'm not clean enough to choose only one." She looked up. "But I also don't want to use stopping as a punishment for this week. We didn't steal anything from the company. We didn't make an exchange on your promotion. We only hid badly. Hiding badly isn't a crime. It's a risk."

"The risk has already reached Director Lin's mouth and Chen Xia's."

"So we have to decide," she said. "Not decide a whole life tonight. Decide how next week goes. If we keep hiding, it will get worse, because we clearly will not hide. If we make it known, I have to go to personnel and say it. After I say it, I have to step out of every decision that has to do with you. You may be moved to a group that isn't evaluated on my line. Some people will say you got there through me. Some people will say I threw myself at a twenty-seven-year-old. That second sentence will be very ugly. I've heard something like it, when I got divorced."

Zhou Ye's hand tightened. "I don't accept them saying those things about you. But I can't stop them. What I can do is stand beside you and not let you go say it alone. We can also say nothing, and only stop meeting. I won't go outside and talk loosely because we stopped. You can have me delete the picture whenever you want."

Shen Man's eyes reddened a little. Nothing fell. "You always say deleting the picture too readily."

"Because the picture shouldn't be a rope."

She threw the cushion aside. This time it was not for a kiss. She leaned over, set her forehead against his shoulder, and gripped his shirt. She gripped it very tightly. Zhou Ye held her. His hand stayed on her back and did not go anywhere else. Shen Man's voice was muffled in the hollow of his shoulder.

"This week I missed you until I made mistakes at work. That isn't romantic. That's a warning. I want to go on with you. I'm also afraid that the way we go on is hiding you in this apartment until one day the door gets forced open."

"Then we open the door ourselves, a little," Zhou Ye said. "Not open it so the whole company can see the bed. Open it for the people who ought to know. Personnel. President Pei. Director Lin. Tell them we're together. Tell them you're recusing yourself. Don't give the other details. Don't give the picture. Whoever wants the details is crossing a line."

Shen Man lifted her head. Her makeup had smeared a little. It was not a mess. It was only real. "You've thought it through. This will change your path at Bo'an."

"Your path changes more," he said. "So I'm not deciding for you. I'm telling you which side I choose. I choose to say it. If you choose to hide for one more week, I'll hide with you for one more week, but the kind of thing that happened in the break room can't happen again. If you choose to stop, I'll stop. What I choose now is to say it. Because I don't want those two seconds of Lin Qiming's to become something in someone else's hands."

Shen Man looked at him for a long time. Then she kissed him. The kiss was deep, but she did not push him down. Her hand stopped on his chest, as if holding a heart that was going too fast. When the kiss ended she said, "We still don't do it tonight. I want this decision to happen while our clothes are all in order. Tomorrow is the weekend. You come. We'll write what has to be said into a few human sentences. Don't write it as a self-criticism. On Monday we go to personnel."

"All right."

"You can leave now. Or you can stay on the sofa. Not the bed."

Zhou Ye stayed on the sofa. Shen Man went and showered. When she came out she was in the long-sleeved shirt, and she brought him a blanket and a pillow. She herself sat at the other end of the sofa and looked for a while at the river outside the window. The two of them did not discuss the company again. She talked about how the elevator in this building made an old sound at night. He talked about the damp in the place in Hexi. Ordinary words filled the space the cushion had left. At eleven Shen Man's head dipped and dipped, and at last it came to rest on his shoulder. Zhou Ye did not move. He let her lean until his arm went numb. Even numb, he did not change position. When she woke she called him a fool, very lightly, and then pulled the blanket up and covered both their legs. They slept on the sofa until the middle of the night. Neither of them put a hand inside the other's clothes. This restraint was not the same as the restraint on the last bus. It was the quiet before a decision. Zhou Ye woke once and saw that her fingers were still holding his cuff. He looked at that hand until the rain began again.

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."

Chapter 13 Personnel

There was no rain on Monday morning. The ground at East Gate was still wet, but the sky was very bright. Zhou Ye arrived at the company twenty minutes early and did not go to the eighteenth floor. Following Shen Man's message, at nine o'clock sharp he walked to the corridor outside personnel. Shen Man was already there, in a suit, hair pinned up, the envelope in her hand. The two of them did not hold hands. They only stood side by side, like two people who had come to discuss a procedure. Zhao Heng's assistant had them wait three minutes. In those three minutes Zhou Ye heard his own heartbeat. Shen Man's profile was very calm. Under the calm her knuckles were white. Zhou Ye touched the back of her hand with the back of his own hand. Only once. Her fingers loosened a little.

Zhao Heng was in his forties. He did not raise his voice when he spoke. The office door closed after they went in. Shen Man set the envelope on the desk and did not go around it.

"Zhou Ye and I are seeing each other. Since last week. He is in marketing. He is not my direct report, but the scope I manage covers his work. That creates a conflict of interest. I am applying, starting today, to withdraw from all decisions related to his evaluations, bonuses, promotions, and project assignments. The specific reporting line will change so that Lin Qiming reports directly to President Pei. We came to inform you. We did not come to ask the company for permission to be adults."

Zhao Heng looked at her for two seconds, then at Zhou Ye. "Zhou Ye, did you come of your own will? Has anyone used a position, an evaluation, or any picture to require you to come, or to require you to maintain this relationship?"

"No," Zhou Ye said. "I came of my own will. No one used a photograph or a position to require me to have a relationship with her. The relationship is what I want. If the company needs a transfer to avoid the conflict, I accept a transfer at the same level. I do not accept a demotion without a written reason."

Zhao Heng drew the paper out of the envelope, read it, and set it flat. "The company can manage a reporting line. It cannot manage where the two of you go after work. I'll take this paper. I will not take the photograph, and I don't want to see it. If anyone circulates private images inside the company, no matter whose they are, it will be handled as harassment and as an injury, not as gossip. I'll write that into the record."

Shen Man's shoulder line moved slightly. "Thank you. Lin Qiming may have unintentionally seen a lock screen that should not have appeared in a conference room. He did not ask for it. He did not spread it. We don't want that enlarged. If someone needs to explain the recusal to him, I'll go say it."

"I'll arrange it," Zhao Heng said. "As for President Pei, this morning I'll send one page of paper over. No image attached. No details attached. The two of you are not to put on a confession meeting outside his door. Ms. Shen, your recusal takes effect when this paper is signed. Before it is signed, you will no longer take part in any evaluation in marketing today. Zhou Ye, go back to your desk first. Don't tell anyone in the break room about this process."

"All right," the two of them said at the same time.

When they came out, the corridor was still bright. Shen Man returned the signing pen to the assistant, turned, and gave Zhou Ye only a nod. The nod was work. Her eyes were not. In the eyes there was an emptiness that comes after a heavy thing has been set down, and also a light that was still shaking. Zhou Ye did not kiss her in the personnel corridor. He said, low, "I won't look for you at noon. I'll wait for your message."

"Mm," she said. "Go work."

Marketing was unnaturally quiet that morning. Maybe only Zhou Ye thought it was unnatural. At eleven Lin Qiming called him into the small office. The door was not shut all the way. Lin Qiming's expression was like a man who had taken a mouthful of something very hot and also felt he ought not to show it.

"Personnel told me about the recusal. They didn't tell me the details. I don't want the details." He pushed a document over. "Starting today this page of yours goes straight into my weekly report. It doesn't pass through Ms. Shen. Your writing still shouldn't be lyrical. Also, that lock screen last time: I'll treat it as if I didn't see it. You'd better treat it as if it never happened in a conference room. If someone wants to make an article out of it, come tell me. Don't scare extra stories out of yourself."

"Understood," Zhou Ye said. "Director Lin, my work won't depend on this."

"It had better not," Lin Qiming said. "Go on. The ears don't have to be red. If they're red you look like a thief. And you aren't a thief."

Zhou Ye came out, and his ears were indeed hotter. Chen Xia glanced at him and asked nothing. That was a kindness. He sat down and made the keyboard sound, so he could return to the spreadsheet. A spreadsheet does not blush.

Pei Chengchuan's talk happened at four in the afternoon, and he asked only for Shen Man. Zhou Ye learned the content later. At the time he only received one message from her: It's done. We'll talk tonight. There was no extra punctuation. He looked at that message, worked until seven, and did not look toward the eighteenth floor again.

At night it was still the seventeenth floor. When Shen Man opened the door the heels were already off. The suit jacket hung on the back of a chair. She looked as if a length of strength had been drawn out of her, but her eyes were clear. She let him in, poured water first, and then repeated the afternoon's words to him.

After Pei Chengchuan heard Zhao Heng's one page, he was silent for a long time. He said the effect was very bad. He also said it was fortunate they had come themselves. He accepted the recusal. He did not accept them behaving in the company as if no one could manage them. He asked Shen Man whether she was serious. Shen Man said she was. He asked whether there had been an exchange. Shen Man said there had not. Pei Chengchuan looked at her for a while and said then they would do it by the rules, and he did not want to hear a second version from someone else's mouth. He also mentioned that if someone on the board made an issue of age and gender, the public line would be unified by the company. It would not be explained by the people involved, in an elevator.

"He didn't ask about the picture," Shen Man said. "Zhao Heng probably wrote that line about handling it as harassment into the record. It isn't that Pei Chengchuan doesn't want to know. It's that he knows some things, once you look at them, you have to be responsible for. He chose not to look."

Zhou Ye sat beside her. "Are you all right?"

"I'm not. And I haven't come apart." She said, "When I came out of his office my legs were soft. After they were soft I still held the next meeting. Once the recusal took effect, in the meeting I handed marketing's review to Lin Qiming. Some people looked up at me. I let them look. After they looked, they did the work."

Zhou Ye held her hand. Shen Man held back. This time they allowed themselves to lean together in the entry and not talk about rules first. The rules were already written on the desk in personnel. Shen Man's forehead rested against his shoulder. She was quiet for a long time before she said, "Did anyone ask you today?"

"Director Lin said I'm not a thief. Chen Xia didn't ask. Other people don't have a name for the story yet."

"There will be a name," she said. "When there is, don't go fight for me. And don't go admit more on my behalf. What we've already admitted is enough."

"All right."

They did not go to bed at once. Shen Man showered for a long time. Zhou Ye waited on the sofa and went over, in his mind, the sentences she had only later told him. The effect was very bad. It was fortunate you came yourselves. Those two sentences would live a long time in the company. They were not a scandal of spring light. They were a cost. The cost had already begun to be paid, so the sex did not have to keep pretending it had been stolen. When Shen Man came out her hair was wet. She wore the black long-sleeved shirt, walked up to him, and straddled his lap. Under the shirt she was bare. Her skin still carried the hot water.

"I want you now," she said. "Not to celebrate how brave we were. Because I spoke too many complete sentences today, and I want to put the sentences down for a while. If you're tired, say you're tired."

"I'm not tired." Zhou Ye's hands went under the long-sleeved shirt and held her waist. "I want you. It has nothing to do with President Pei. It has nothing to do with that page of paper either."

Shen Man kissed him, very slowly. She guided his hand between her legs. She was already wet there. When his fingers went in, she lay against his shoulder and let out a breath, as if she were finally releasing the breath she had been holding all afternoon. They spent a long time on foreplay on the sofa, until she came once first and her legs were too soft for her to sit steady, and only then did she draw him to the bedroom. On the bed she wanted him face to face. She wanted the light left on. When he entered she looked at his eyes. She said slow. She said tonight she wanted to remember it clearly. Zhou Ye thrust slowly. Each time he went to the deepest point, drew back until he had almost left, and came back. Shen Man's legs were locked around him. Her hands touched his face, touched his mouth. When she was close she still did not close her eyes. When the orgasm came she said his name, the sound low and long, and inside she bit at him in waves. Zhou Ye followed her there. He came in the condom, folded over her, and still held a little of his weight on his elbows so he would not press her until it hurt.

Shen Man stroked his back and said, "Still here."

"Here."

"Tomorrow at the company, you can nod to me. When other people are there you can call me Ms. Shen. Don't perform, in the corridor, that we are nothing. And don't perform, in the corridor, that we can do anything." She said, "The stretch in the middle, it's enough that we know it ourselves."

"All right."

The rain did not fall again. Across the river, the lights of one building went out. Zhou Ye looked at that extinguished light and suddenly remembered the seat on the last bus, the patch he had warmed dry. If every seat had been wet, she would not have sat down beside him. The thought was too close to fate. He did not say it. He said another sentence.

"I'll still take the last Route 32. If someday your car is in for service again, you can sit beside me. You don't have to wait until every other seat is wet."

Shen Man laughed once. The corner of her eye was a little wet. "Then I'll check the forecast in advance."

Chapter 14 Said Aloud

The rumor grew a name anyway. On Tuesday afternoon the version became: Ms. Shen was with Zhou Ye from marketing, personnel already knew, so it was true. The people telling it no longer mentioned the same car. They talked about age. Thirty-five and twenty-seven. Someone said it wasn't worth it. Someone said no wonder. Someone said marketing's days would be easier from now on. That last sentence was the dirtiest. Zhou Ye heard it in the print area while the paper was still coming out of the machine sheet by sheet. The two people speaking saw him. Their voices broke for a moment, and then they pretended they had not broken.

Zhou Ye took the paper out and said, "The review has already been recused. My pages don't go through her. If you want to look at the process, ask Director Lin. I have no obligation to explain the rest."

He left after he said it. His legs were steady. His hands were a little cold. Chen Xia came after him and, in the stairwell, looked at him and said, "So it's true."

"It is."

Chen Xia was silent for a few seconds, and then she said, "Then your ears going red has a reason. I won't help you spread it. Don't expect me not to be surprised either. Ms. Shen is Ms. Shen. You are you. If the two of you dirty the work, I'll be the first to turn on you. If you don't dirty it, let other people talk if they like talking."

"We won't dirty it," Zhou Ye said.

"You'd better not." Chen Xia pushed him once, with the force of a friend. "Go be busy. Don't stand in the stairwell like you're waiting for someone to come interview you."

He did not hear all of the ugly sentences on Shen Man's side. At night she told him part of them herself. A woman director had said, in the restroom, to another person, that a woman who had reached this seat and still went looking for a subordinate was simply pulling the ladder out. The person speaking did not know Shen Man was in a stall. When Shen Man came out to wash her hands, the two of them had already left. She repeated the sentence to herself in the mirror and said it was not new. What was new was that she had not gone back into the stall to cry. She put lipstick on again and went to open the next meeting.

"I'm telling you not because I want you to go curse people for me." She sat on the sofa, her feet on Zhou Ye's legs. "I'm telling you because we agreed not to carry those sentences alone. I carried the scene. The remaining half is yours. After you've heard it, let it be."

Zhou Ye heard it. His hand held her ankle. His thumb rubbed slowly over the bone. "I heard it. Today I also answered with one sentence about process. I didn't mention the bed. I didn't mention the picture. Chen Xia said if we dirty the work she'll turn on us. I said we won't."

"I like that sentence of Chen Xia's," Shen Man said. "It's more useful than sympathy."

They decided not to add further explanations. An explanation would feed the next version of the story. Zhao Heng had already written the recusal into the system. The path of Zhou Ye's weekly report had changed. Shen Man's signature line had disappeared from his pages. That was the whole of the fact that could be taken out. The rest, the company did not deserve to receive.

On Thursday evening Lin Qiming actually nodded once to Shen Man in the elevator, and said to Zhou Ye that the review page could be finalized. Both sentences were ordinary. They were ordinary enough that Zhou Ye did not react until he had walked out of the elevator. This was a kind of acceptance. Acceptance was not a blessing. Acceptance was the other person refusing to go on looking at them as a joke for the break room. In email Shen Man replied to Lin Qiming with only a received. When she told Zhou Ye about that received, her eyes were a little hot.

"He didn't become our enemy," she said. "And he didn't become our audience. That's enough."

On the weekend they went and rode Route 32 once. It was not the last bus. It was the emptier run on Saturday afternoon. There was no rain in the sky. The seats were all dry. Shen Man still sat down beside Zhou Ye. She wore a dark coat. Her hair was not pinned. A mask covered half her face. She did not look like a resident of the seventeenth floor, and still less like an executive vice president. Zhou Ye watched her set her bag down and said, "The other seats are dry."

"I know," she said. "I'm still sitting here."

The bus started. There were no wet clothes, no water dripping onto the back of his hand, no closed bridge. Their shoulders rested together, so openly that it was almost unfamiliar. Shen Man's hand came over and, under the cover of the coat, closed around his fingers. After she closed them she looked at the window, not at other people. Zhou Ye's thumb moved lightly on her knuckle. This ride was so short it did not resemble that night. Short was also good. When they reached Binhe Station, Shen Man did not get off at once. She turned her head. The voice under the mask was very clear.

"We've already told the company. What's left is whether we ourselves are going to keep being led along by other people's sentences. My answer is no. Yours?"

"No," Zhou Ye said. "We go on. What should be recused stays recused. When we ought to sit together, whether the seat is dry or wet, we sit together."

Shen Man's eyes bent a little. They got off and walked into that ordinary high-rise. There was a neighbor in the elevator. They did not kiss. After the door closed on the seventeenth floor, Shen Man took the mask off and kissed him. The kiss was light and slow, as if it were also bringing that daytime bus into the apartment.

The clothes came off one piece at a time. There was no rush. Shen Man pushed him onto the bed, straddled him, and first ground against him with the inside of her thigh until both of them were too hard and too wet to bear it, and only then did she go for the condom at the head of the bed. When she sat down, both hands pressed his chest. Her eyes were on him.

"This isn't payment," she said. "That page of paper in personnel isn't a ticket. I'm here because I want you."

"I know." Zhou Ye's hands held her waist. "Me too. If you only want to hold each other and sleep, we can stop now."

"We're not stopping," she said, and began to move.

Afternoon light came in through that window and fell on her body. Zhou Ye looked at the light, and looked at her. Her breasts swayed lightly in the movement. When he took a nipple in his mouth she made a short sound. She pushed the rhythm from slow to fast, and then slowed it herself, as if she were using her body to drive a week of noise out of her bones. Zhou Ye's thumb pressed her clit. Shen Man looked down and watched him do it. Her breathing came apart. She said right there. She said she wanted to come once in the light. When she came, the sun was just moving onto her collarbone. That small patch of skin, once covered by concealer, now had to cover nothing. She shook. She clenched around him. Her hands braced on his shoulders. She laughed until the corners of her eyes went red. Zhou Ye turned them over, pressed her into that patch of light, and still asked if he could. She said he could. She said deeper. He went deep. His forehead rested against hers. He moved very slowly, until her legs tightened again, until she said, by his ear, together. When they came together, a car passed outside the window, an ordinary sound, laid over the sound on the bed. Neither of them had to press their voices down anymore as if they were doing something wrong.

Afterward Shen Man lay on his chest. Her finger tapped his ribs.

"Don't change the lock screen back," she said.

"I won't."

"The album can stay. Every so often, we ask once whether we're still keeping it. Any time one of us says not to keep it, we delete it. And after it's deleted, no scene about it."

"All right."

"At the next operations meeting, the time you look at me still stays only as long as necessary." She looked up. The corner of her mouth was soft. "Necessary may be half a second longer than last week. The extra half second, I'll treat it as if I didn't see it. You'd better treat it as if you didn't see it either."

Zhou Ye laughed. "I may not control that half second well."

"Then practice," Shen Man said. She kissed his chest, and then, as if she had remembered something, she pushed herself up and went for her phone. She opened the picture from in front of the window, looked for a while, and turned the screen toward him. "It still belongs only to us. It didn't turn into a condition. That much, we did."

Zhou Ye looked at her in the picture. Rain, river, black clothes, bare feet, and on the collarbone that small patch of red only the two of them recognized. He nodded. "We did."

Shen Man set the phone face-down and lay back down. The evening light moved slowly away. The apartment on the seventeenth floor was not large. The title was outside the door. The recusal was written in the system. The rumor would live a few more days. But the two people on the bed had already finished saying what had to be said. Shen Man's foot hooked his calf. Her voice was lazy, and still clear.

"That night on the last bus, the seat was wet. I had nowhere else to sit. That part is true." She said, "What happened after I sat down was not because there was no other seat. It was because I looked at you, and you looked at me. We chose. From now on, we choose too."

Zhou Ye brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it once. "From now on, we choose too."

Outside the window the river brightened. Route 32 would keep running at night. The last bus would still be a few minutes late. The seam in the roof would probably still leak. None of those things was a reason pushing them together anymore. The reason was in this room, in the few human sentences that had already been said aloud, and in the moment she leaned in again and, in a voice only he could hear, said his name.

Zhou Ye answered. Shen Man laughed. After she laughed she said she was hungry, and said this time the eggs were not to be burned. They put clothes on and walked into the kitchen. A copy of the envelope was still in the drawer. The picture was still in the lock. The company knew the part it ought to know. The rest of the night was theirs. The water boiled. The rain did not fall. The city shone, ordinarily, outside the window. Shen Man passed him the chopsticks. Her fingers paused for a moment in his palm. In that pause neither of them owed the other anything. It was only the way they still wanted to go on.