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Chapter 10 The Riverbank
Chapter 10 The Riverbank
On Monday, Fang Qitong's phone call was very short. She stood by the studio window. Zhou Yu sat in the shadow at the stairhead revising drawings and did not make a sound. She told Lin Qinian thank you for the dinner, the scheme would follow the original nodes, the indirect light would stay. She also said that from now on, when they met, there would be less talk of private matters. Age and an ex-husband were not conditions of delivery. At the other end Lin Qinian laughed twice and said she was truly getting harder, and hard was fine, the project would proceed as planned. After the call her fingers trembled a little. Zhou Yu came up. He asked nothing. He only put a cup of warm water into her hand.
"Finished?" he asked.
"The work isn't finished. The rotten talk is finished." She drank. "Don't go back next door tonight. I want to go out. If we don't go out, that dinner will keep turning inside the apartment."
In the evening they walked along the river. The wind came off the water. September was no longer as sticky as August. On a bare forearm it was just right. She was not in heels. She had changed to flat shoes. Her step was looser than usual. Zhou Yu walked on the side toward the traffic. It was an unconscious habit of his. She noticed and did not point it out. She only threaded her fingers into his.
"Have your parents booked their tickets?" she asked.
"Not yet. My mother says she wants the week before National Day. If you want to meet them, we'll have a simple meal, at my place, not in a restaurant. My place is small. Smaller, and they'll be more at ease. If you don't want to meet them, I'll say you're away on business."
"Don't lie." She watched a slow boat on the river. "I'll meet them. I may be so nervous I say very little. Tell them in advance. My saying little is not pride. I'm nervous. Also, don't let your mother prepare too many dishes. Too many dishes will feel like an interrogation."
He stopped and looked at her seriously. "You're willing to meet them. I'm very glad. Glad enough that I want to kiss you right now. There are a lot of people here. May I?"
"Kiss me," she said.
The kiss was in the wind. It was not deep, but the streetlight made it very clear. Someone passed beside them. She did not dodge. When it ended she set her forehead against his and suddenly laughed. "I'm thirty-eight, kissing a man by the river, and my conscience is clear. If Duan Fei saw it he would probably say I was unsteady. Good that I'm unsteady. In those steady years my body nearly forgot itself."
They walked to a set of steps and sat. She took her shoes off. Her feet rested on stone that still held the day's warmth. He drew her foot into his palm and rubbed it warm. The gesture was too domestic. Domestic enough that she wanted to hand over more of what she had to say.
"I was pregnant once," she said. "In my early thirties. It wasn't kept. After that we stopped trying. It wasn't anyone's fault. It was that neither of us was willing to repair a bed that had already gone cold, for the sake of a child. I'm telling you not to ask you to take responsibility. You kissed that line. You have the right to know where it came from. If it makes you see me as more complicated, you can say so."
Zhou Yu's hand paused, and then he held her foot more steadily. "Thank you for telling me. I won't use it to define you. You were in pain. It hurts me to know. The hurt isn't pity. I only hope that later, if you still want a child, or if you're certain you don't, it will be you who says so. I'm twenty-seven. I can wait for what you say. I won't pass my mother's urging on to you."
"I don't want one now," she said, very clearly. "What I want is the work, this river, you, and a bed that no longer takes someone else's name. A child is not compensation, and not our assignment. The day I change my mind, I'll say it directly. You can have your own mind too. If two people's minds don't meet, we talk again. If we can't talk it through, we can separate. For now, don't add a play to life in advance."
"All right." He kissed the top of her foot, very lightly. "Then my mind right now is that I want to go home with you, want to do it slowly, and want to hold you and sleep when it's done. No added play."
On the way home they bought two ice pops. She ate the lemon one. It was sour enough to narrow her eyes. He gave her a bite of the strawberry. In the elevator there were only the two of them. She set her cold mouth against the side of his neck. His whole body shuddered. The hand pressing the floor button went crooked. The moment the door shut, the key barely out of the lock, he had her against the entry wall and was kissing her. The sweet and the sour of the ice pops mixed. The kiss was deep. Her bag fell to the floor. His hand went in under the hem of her T-shirt. His palm covered her breast and kneaded until she went soft.
"Slowly," she reminded him. Her voice was already unsteady. "You said it yourself."
"It will be slow once we're in the room." He lifted her. "This moment in the entry I can't control. Your mouth was too cold. Cold, and then hot."
In the bedroom he really did slow down. He took her clothes off piece by piece, and with every piece he kissed the skin that showed. When only her underwear was left, he had her lie face down on the bed and kissed from her ankle to the bend of her knee, then to the root of her thigh. His tongue traveled the edge of the underwear and did not take it off at once. Only when the cloth was soaked through and stuck to her labia did he draw it down. He licked her from behind. His tongue went into her opening, moved up to her perineum, and came back to her clit. She buried her face in the pillow. The cotton swallowed half her moan. He reached and turned her face aside.
"I want to hear," he said. "By the river, when you kissed me, you were brave. In bed you have to let me hear too."
"Then listen." She pushed the pillow away. "Your tongue, a little deeper. Yes. Fingers too. Two. Bend them slowly."
He did as she said. The pleasure was drawn out long. She rubbed her own breasts. Her nipples were caught between her fingers. When she came she cried out. Wetness surged and soaked his chin and the sheet he had just changed. He did not stop. He licked until she pushed his head, and only then did he get up and put on a condom. He entered from the side and behind. His chest was against her back. One hand was locked finger to finger with hers. The other stayed in front, rubbing lightly at the clit that was already sensitive. The thrusts were slow and deep. Every one of them was like driving the sentence from the river, I am willing to meet them, into her body.
"This is good," she said. "Don't go fast. I want it for a long time. Long enough that I forget Director Lin's laugh."
"Forgotten a long time ago." He kissed behind her ear. "Now there's only your voice. Grip me once. Grip me again. Yes. Just like that. Qitong, I like you. Not only in bed. I've liked you since the day you cursed the lamp film. I'm saying it today. You don't have to answer at once."
Her tears fell suddenly, onto their joined hands. She did not cry aloud. She only held that hand tighter, and her walls tightened with it. He felt it. His movement stopped. He was going to withdraw. She pressed his hip and would not let him.
"Don't stop," she said, her voice hoarse. "I'm not unhappy. You said the thing that was true. Keep going. Slowly. I like you too. I've liked you for days. Today I'm paying it back."
That mutual admission of liking stretched the rhythm out again by half. They changed to face to face. Her legs locked around his waist. He went deep, and still he never sprinted. He only ground, until she trembled continuously, finely. She looked at his eyes and said she liked him. Each time she said it he grew harder. At the end she came first. The cry and the laugh mixed. He came with her, quietly, only burying his face in the hollow of her neck, shuddering breath by breath.
Afterward she traced his brow with a finger. When she finished she said, "When I meet your parents, I won't say anything too soft and sticky. But I won't pretend to be a client. I'll say we're together. Is that enough?"
"Enough." He took her finger into his mouth and bit it once. "More than enough. I may have to start losing sleep early."
"If you can't sleep, come find me," she said, drawing the quilt up. "You have the key. When you come in at night, turn the light to the lowest setting. If it's too bright I'll curse you."
"Curse, then," he said. "I like you when you curse too."
The river shone slowly outside the window. Before Fang Qitong slept she thought that once the word like was said aloud, days would turn from temptation into responsibility. Responsibility was not frightening. What was frightening was no one being willing to take it. He had taken it. She had taken it. That was good.
