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Chapter 12 The New Bed
Chapter 12 The New Bed
The furniture shop on Saturday was near Yishan Road. It was large, and the lighting was badly done. The moment Fang Qitong came through the door she frowned. Behind her Zhou Yu said, low, that the spotlights here were hurting the wood. A clerk led them enthusiastically to the bed section. Bed after display bed was dressed in quilts that were too plump, as if waiting for a model life that did not exist.
She stopped in front of a low bed in black walnut. The headboard was not high. There was only one line. No symmetrical metal strips. No deliberate upholstered padding. She sat, then lay down, and when she lay down she held a hand out to Zhou Yu. He was a little embarrassed. Still, under the clerk's gaze, he lay down beside her. The two of them looked side by side at the wretched spotlight overhead.
"The left is a little hard," she said.
"The right is all right," he said. He turned his head to look at her and kept his voice low. "If you sleep on the right, the morning light won't hit your eyes straight on. I've watched the window at your place."
The clerk smiled beside them and said the two of them really knew how to live. Fang Qitong sat up. Her ears were a little hot. She still ordered this bed. One meter eight. A mattress on the firm side. A low frame, so getting up at night would not knock her shin. For the old bed she contacted a recycling service. They would come Sunday morning to haul it. Duan Fei did not ask again. The seam of that bed, together with the walnut headboard, would be carried away.
Sunday's move was noisier than she had imagined. The two men from the recycling service took the old bed apart. Screws fell on the floor, clinking. Zhou Yu helped stand the mattress up. Sweat soaked his back. Fang Qitong looked at the floor that had been emptied and suddenly felt a little dizzy. Not regret. When a shape used for many years disappears, the body remembers before the mind does. She went to the kitchen to pour water, and her hand stopped. Zhou Yu followed her in, circled her from behind, and set his chin on her shoulder. He asked nothing. She finished the water and said she was fine, it was only dust on the floor. He said then they would wipe the floor. The new bed would not arrive until afternoon. They had time.
They really did wipe the bedroom floor once through. After the dust was gone, the color of the wood floor lightened by a degree. Sunlight came in. The room looked excessively large. She stood in the middle of the empty space, suddenly laughed, and when the laugh ended she pulled Zhou Yu down and kissed him in the room that did not yet have a bed.
"I want you once on the empty floor," she said. "When the new bed comes, this place will be filled again. I want to remember that when it was empty, you were here too."
"The floor is hard." He frowned. "Your back won't take it. At least pad it with a quilt."
"You pad it underneath." She pushed him down to sit on the thin quilt whose cover had already been stripped, ready to go out with the recycling. "If I feel for your back, then make it short. Short is fine too."
This time was fast, and it was very bright. Noon light had nothing to block it. She straddled him, skirt pushed to her waist, his trousers only lowered to his thighs. When she sat down, both of them could see too clearly because of the light, clearly enough that she was a little shy, and after the shyness wetter. She did not rise and fall very far, afraid her knees would grind the floor, so she changed to a grind. Her clit rubbed his lower belly, stroke by stroke. Her walls held his cock and contracted. His hands cradled her ass. His eyes were fixed on her breasts in the daylight, on her sweat-damp neck.
"You look good," he said. "It isn't the light giving it to you. It's you. Qitong, I'm in your empty room. If I come, will it be too fast?"
"Fast is fast," she said, grinding faster. "I'm fast too. Touch me. Watch me come."
His thumb pressed down. She went taut at once. The orgasm came short and bright, like noon itself. She bent and kissed him, kissed until he came too, into the condom, his whole body trembling lightly on the thin quilt. Far off, the elevator sounded once. They pulled apart in a flurry and laughed while they straightened their clothes. The recycling men were still downstairs waiting for the last trip. They had not come up. The false alarm made her unable to stop laughing. She felt she had not laughed like this in a long time.
The new bed arrived at four in the afternoon. The installer was neat about it. The frame went up. The mattress was unwrapped. There was the smell of new sponge and cloth. After the installer left, the apartment suddenly went quiet. She put the dark green sheet on the new bed. The four corners were tucked very seriously. Zhou Yu stood at the foot of the bed and looked at her for a long time.
"Come and try it," she said. "The sleeping position first. Left and right. Then the rest. The rest waits until this bed knows what we look like asleep."
They lay down side by side. The firmness of the mattress held the waist just right. She turned onto the right. He was on the left. Their hands held in the middle. There was no seam. Or the seam was still there, and only filled by fingers. She looked at the ceiling. Her eyes grew hot. She did not let the tears fall.
"I finished a thing," she said softly.
"You finished many things," he said. "Signing. Meeting people. Changing the bed. Saying you like me. You're brave."
"Then you come and finish the last one now." She turned and rode up. Her hair hung in his face. "Enter me on the new bed. Slowly. Let it remember your weight, and remember my voice. From now on this bed listens only to us."
This time they went long and soft. He kissed all over her body first, from the center of her brow to her toes, and stayed a little longer at the bend of her knee, because that place made her laugh. After he entered he did not move at once. He let her get used to the give of the new bed. Every rebound brought the two of them closer. Her legs circled him. Her heels tapped lightly on his back, like a new signal: yes, go on, I am here. They changed position twice, from her on top, to lying on their sides, and at the end he knelt on the bed, lifted her hips, and entered. The angle was deep. She gripped the new sheet and wrinkled a handful of it. She watched his lower belly strike her body. She watched that length go in and come out, wet and shining, real, and she reached to touch her own clit. He bent and kissed her fingers, and rubbed with her. When she came she called his full name, very clearly. The echo in the new room was cleaner than the old headboard. He followed and arrived, lying on her, sweat dripping into the hollow of her collarbone. The new sheet was indeed dirtied in a small patch. She looked at that small patch, satisfied beyond reason.
"Now it takes the name Fang," she said. "And it knows you."
"As long as it doesn't kick me out of bed," he said, laughing hoarse, and drew her into the pillow on the left. "Tonight I sleep here. Tomorrow morning I'll make breakfast. The day after I may have to go to Ningbo to see my parents, and tell them about you face to face, so they don't go blank when they come through the door. Do you want to come? Not coming is fine. I can say it clearly by myself."
"You go first," she said, kissing his shoulder. "I'll wait for you in Shanghai. When you come back, I'll meet them with you. I want to leave your parents a time when they hear only you talk. Some of a son's words ought to stay clear of the girlfriend."
"Girlfriend." He repeated the word. His ears went red. "You call yourself that."
"What else?" She closed her eyes. "Client? Neighbor? After tonight those are too thin. I am your girlfriend. You are my boyfriend. If it doesn't sound good, make do. For the moment I don't have a higher word."
"It sounds very good." He turned the light off. "The higher ones we'll talk about later. First I'll warm the word girlfriend in my hands."
