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Chapter 11 The One Before
Chapter 11 The One Before
Duan Fei returned to Shanghai on an afternoon in the middle of September, only to collect a painting and sign a property appendix. The painting had been left by his father before the marriage. It had hung in the study all along. Fang Qitong was not keeping it. She wrapped the painting in cloth and leaned it in the entry. The appendix lay on the coffee table. She did not have Zhou Yu stay away. She told him he could be there, or not be there. He thought, and said he would be next door revising drawings. If she needed him, she could knock on the radiator. He would hear. She laughed and called him a secret agent, and still she agreed.
Duan Fei arrived at four. He was a little thinner than she remembered. The suit was still crisp. There was jet lag on his face. He came in. His gaze swept the floor-to-ceiling window first, then swept in the direction of the bed that had already been changed to dark green. The bedroom door stood open a crack. He did not walk in.
"You changed the sheets," he said.
"The bed is going to be changed too." Fang Qitong handed him the pen. "The appendix is here. The painting is by the door. You can drink the tea. You don't have to. Let's finish the business."
He was quiet while he signed. When he finished he lifted his head. In the way he looked at her there was an old evaluation. "You look well. I heard you brought someone to Lin Qinian's table. News travels faster than I imagined. A man who makes lamps. Very young. Qitong, I'm not here to manage you. I'm reminding you that the first stretch after a divorce is the easiest to use as proof that you are still worth something. After the proof, it goes empty."
"Are you finished?" She sat in the single chair, legs crossed, voice level. "My affairs are not a proof problem. That person has a name. His name is Zhou Yu. He is not a prop at a table. Take your painting. Go back to your Singapore. You already returned the key to the apartment. After today there will be no more of your boxes in the entry."
Duan Fei looked at her as if he had discovered for the first time that her level voice was harder to deal with than anger. He nodded and capped the pen. "All right. Then I'll ask only one more thing. Are you happy? Not whether you've won against me. When you sleep at night, are you happy?"
Fang Qitong could have not answered. She answered anyway. "Happy. There is someone who asks me whether he may. You never asked before. You assumed I ought to cooperate. Cooperation is not happiness."
His face moved. He did not refute it. Perhaps because the sentence had struck true. Perhaps because he no longer needed to refute anything. He set the painting on his shoulder and stopped at the door. "I received the watch. You changed the strap. Thank you. Qitong, let this be how we end. If you meet friends of mine on a project later, you needn't be awkward. I'll tell them to talk less."
"You can't govern their mouths," she said. "I'll speak for myself. Go slowly."
After the door shut, there was a strange quiet in the apartment. The quiet was not emptiness. It was the clean print left on the floor after an old piece of furniture has been carried away. Fang Qitong stood beside that print for a few seconds, then walked to the wall and knocked on the radiator with her knuckle. Three times. Soon the door next door sounded. Zhou Yu came over. His hair was a little messy. There was a question in his eyes, and no rush of forcing his way in.
"Gone?" he asked.
"Gone." She drew him in and shut the door, her back against the door panel. "He asked if I was happy. I said I was. You weren't there when I said it. I didn't use you as a report card to show an ex. I'm telling you now because that sentence belongs to you."
Zhou Yu held her. He held her a long time. His hand smoothed her back, stroke by stroke, in no hurry toward sex. In that embrace she slowly grew hot anyway. The smell of the person from before had already left with the elevator. She wanted to take the entry back in her own way. She lifted her head and kissed him, urgent and deep, her hand already going to his trousers.
"Here," she said. "He stood at this door and talked about a proof problem. I want to do it with you against this door. When it's done, all that's left on it will be our handprints. May I?"
"Yes." He lifted her skirt and found she was wearing no underwear. His breath went heavy at once. "You did that on purpose."
"I knew he was coming. What's inside was left only for you. Feel. I was wet from the moment he was signing. Not because of him. Because I knew you were on the other side of the wall."
When his fingers touched her she was indeed wet and hot. Two fingers slid in easily. His thumb pressed her clit. She moaned against the door. One leg lifted and hung in the crook of his arm. He freed a hand to put on a condom. The movement was a little messy. He still got it on. When he entered, the thrust set her back tight to the door. The door gave a light sound. Every stroke of his was deep and steady. His palm was padded behind her head, afraid she would knock it. That protection made her want him more. Her arms circled his neck. Her heel pressed his ass and urged him faster, faster again.
"Whether he's in the elevator or in a car, it has nothing to do with me," she said at his ear. "Inside me is yours. You hit it. Hit it again. I want to come against this door."
He quickened as she said. He bent and took her nipple into his mouth, biting through the thin shirt. Saliva wet the shirt. It stuck to her breast. The color went darker. She looked at that darker place and clenched with excitement. When the orgasm came she cried out. The sound rang in the entry. She did not cover it. She wanted this apartment to hear. He came while she was clenching, a muffled groan, and he held all of her up so she would not slide down the door.
Afterward they slid down and sat on the floor, backs against the door, legs still tangled. She laughed out loud, and when the laugh ended she buried her face in his chest again.
"I think I'm a little crazy," she said.
"Crazy in a good way." He kissed her hair. "You wrote the ending in your own shape. Not in the shape of his leaving. I like this shape."
In the evening they ordered delivery and did not cook. The two of them sat on the floor and ate xiaolongbao. A drop of vinegar fell on her collarbone. He licked it off, and licked them into a new round. This round was on the rug. She rode him. The window was wide open. Night wind came in and hardened her nipples. She looked at her own shadow on the glass, looked at his hands gripping her waist, and suddenly felt that the person from before had truly become a person from before. An ending did not count only when the hate was gone. It counted when a new body and a new dinner covered over it.
She bent and said against his mouth, "I'm changing the bed this weekend. You're coming with me to choose. When we've chosen, you help me move it. When it's moved, you sleep on the left in the new bed. This is a notice, not a discussion."
"Received." He thrust up once, and her words scattered. "Notice received. I'll sleep on the left. The seam in the middle—I'll fill it."
