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Chapter 3 Before the Rain Stops
Chapter 3 Before the Rain Stops
Near dawn the rain weakened. Fang Qitong woke to the ache inside her body. Not pain. The presence of having been used. The roots of her thighs, her waist, and a little redness sucked up on her chest. She opened her eyes. Zhou Yu was on the pillow to the left. He lay on his side. One hand still rested on her waist. His sleeping face was more honest than she had imagined. In the gray-blue morning light a young man's face looked younger. Looking at him, a tenderness rose in her that was almost unkind, and then she pressed it down herself.
She needed the bathroom. She moved his hand away gently. He woke at once. His eyes opened fast, as if he were used to staying alert in an unfamiliar place.
"I haven't left," she said.
"I know." His voice was still hoarse. "You go. Should I... make myself scarce?"
"This is my home. You didn't sneak in." She got out of bed. Her bare foot landed on the pile of old sheets. She cursed, and kicked them into the corner. The bathroom light came on. In the mirror her hair was a mess, and there was a very faint mark on her neck. She pressed it with the pad of a finger. It did not hurt. She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and watched the water take the makeup of a whole night completely away. Under the white light the skin of thirty-eight was not at a disadvantage, but there was tiredness under the eyes. She said a very soft sentence to the mirror: "What you wanted." Then she wrapped a towel around herself and went back.
Zhou Yu had already drawn the curtain open a crack. The rain had almost stopped. The river was a washed blue-gray, with an occasional early boat. He had put his trousers on and not his shirt. He stood by the window and looked at her. His gaze went from her collarbone to her calves and came quickly back to her face, as if he were afraid of being rude.
"Hungry?" he asked.
"It's still early." She dropped the towel over the back of a chair, walked up to him, and set her palm on his chest. "I want you once more. Before daylight. If you're tired, refuse."
"I'm not tired." His ears went red again. "But I'm afraid your waist can't take it. You gripped very tight last night. Later, while you were asleep, you were still trembling a little."
The sentence heated her face. She was rarely remembered in this much detail. Duan Fei remembered her flights and her client lists. He did not remember that she trembled when she came. She pressed the comparison down. She did not want an ex-husband inside this hour before daylight, outside the bathroom door.
"Then be gentle," she said. "Go to the bathroom. Leave the bed to get dirty in the next round. I want to wash, and I want you to touch me in the water."
The shower was set to a temperature she had chosen. It came out hot. Steam climbed the glass partition quickly. Zhou Yu stood under the spray. The water soaked his hair and ran down the line of his neck. Fang Qitong watched those streams cross his chest, cross the shallow groove between the muscles of his stomach, and disappear at last around the cock that had lifted its head again. When she knelt, the tile knocked her knees. At once he tried to pull her up.
"Pad it with a towel," he said.
"You do know how to be careful of a person." She still pulled a dry towel off the rack and padded her knees, then looked up at him. "I am going to take you in my mouth. You look at me. You are not allowed to close your eyes."
Her hand closed around the base. The tip of her tongue licked the head first and took away the little salt that had seeped from the slit. The muscles of his thighs went tight. She opened her mouth and slowly took the shaft in, until it met the opening of her throat, then drew back, wrapped her lips around the crown, and sucked. Water struck her back. It was hot. Her hair was wet and stuck to her cheek. He reached and tucked it behind her ear. The gentleness of the gesture was the complete opposite of the forward push his hips could not help.
"Qitong, if it's too deep you'll be uncomfortable."
"I'll stop myself." She said it thickly, around him, and then took him in again. This time her hand worked the base with her mouth. Her tongue pressed back and forth along the underside. His breath became broken syllables. His hand braced on the tile. His knuckles went white. She liked seeing him like this. She liked that the man who was so steady moving boxes in the corridor showed his flaw once he was in her mouth. She quickened a little. The sucking made a wet sound the water could not cover. All at once his hand pressed the back of her head. Not to push her down. To stop her going farther forward.
"If you keep on like this I'll come," he said. "I want to be inside you. May I?"
She let him out of her mouth. When her lips left him they drew a very thin silver thread, and the water washed it away at once. She stood. Her legs were a little numb. He steadied her. She set her own foot on the stone step in the shower. The height meant she did not have to rise onto her toes too much. She turned her back to him, hands on the wall, and looked over her shoulder.
"Come in. Gentle, but all the way. If there's no condom, only for a little while, and come outside."
"I have one." He actually felt another out of his trouser pocket. His voice was a little embarrassed. "There were two in the wallet to begin with. I'm not like this every day. It's just... I bought them last time, while I was getting other things."
She laughed out loud, her forehead against the tile. "Zhou Yu, if you keep explaining, the water is going to go cold."
He put it on and entered her from behind. The hot water made skin slicker, and still she could feel the fullness of being filled. He did go gentle, as promised. Stroke after stroke, deep and slow. At the deepest place he paused half a beat, then drew out. One hand came around to the front, the palm cradling her lower belly. The other kneaded her breast, fingers pinching the nipple and tugging lightly. Her moans echoed in the bathroom. Hearing herself made her ears hot.
"It sounds in here too," she said.
"Your apartment is honest." He kissed behind her ear. "The moment a person makes a sound, the walls tell you."
"Then listen carefully." She caught his wrist and pressed his hand to her clit. "I like you slow. I like that you ask. And I like this depth you have now. Don't change it."
He did as she said. The steam blurred the boundary between the two of them. Only the place where they were joined stayed especially clear. When she came she could barely stand. It was his arm across her waist that held her. Her walls sucked him in waves. He followed and quickened for a dozen strokes, and while she had not fully come down he came too, his forehead against the nape of her neck, panting breath after breath.
By the time they had finished washing it was nearly seven. Fang Qitong put on an old cotton house dress and found him a shirt that was too large, one she threw on when she was making samples. It actually fit. There was nothing fresh in the kitchen. She fried two eggs, boiled noodles, and heated the milk left from the night before. Zhou Yu sat at the island. His hair was still dripping. He ate the noodles very seriously, as if he were afraid of wasting her time.
"Do you have class today, or a site?" she asked. He made lights on his own, and small spaces. He took the lighting for some restaurants and exhibitions, and sometimes he went to the site himself.
"This afternoon there's a gallery where the track lights have to be changed. This morning I was going to finish sealing your boxes." He looked up. "If you still want me to seal them."
"Seal them." She pushed an egg into his bowl. "When you're done you can go. Tonight, if you want to come back for dinner, send a message. If you don't, don't force it because of last night."
He set his chopsticks down. "I want to. It isn't forced. I can send the materials list out at noon and be here before seven. If you're working late, I'll wait."
She looked at him. Morning light came from the side and made his lashes very clear. All at once she realized she was arranging a tonight, and not sending a person out the door after the rain stopped. It made her nervous. It also made her steady.
"Seven," she said. "I'm going to check materials on a small project. If I don't work late, I'll buy food. Can you eat spice?"
"Yes. Not too hot. How is your stomach? I saw stomach medicine in your medicine box."
"You even saw the medicine box?"
"When I was looking for a bandage. A carton scratched me. Very shallow. I put it on myself." He turned his wrist over to show her. There was indeed a small flesh-colored plaster.
She caught that wrist, bent, and kissed beside the plaster. The kiss had no desire in it. It was as light as a thank-you. He went stiff for a second, then turned his hand and held her fingers.
"Are you handing in the original of the agreement today?" he asked.
"The lawyer is coming for it this afternoon. The apartment is mine. I bought it before the marriage. It's in my name. He isn't fighting over that. He fought over a small share in a company, and in the end he let that go too. At the very end, we were actually peaceful. Peaceful in a way that feels a little empty."
"Empty is where new things can be put." After Zhou Yu said it, he seemed to feel the sentence was too much like comfort, so he changed it. "What I mean is, you can clear the cabinet on the left of the bed as well. His charging cable is in there."
She laughed. "You observe in a way that almost frightens me."
"I make light. If I don't observe, I put the light in the wrong place."
When the noodles were finished he washed the bowls. She stood in the kitchen doorway and watched him. She watched him wipe the water off the edge of the sink. She watched him fold the cloth. These small things tightened her chest more than the orgasm in the night. In the last two years Duan Fei did not enter the kitchen. Takeout bags always sat on the island, waiting for the hourly cleaner to clear them. She was not looking for a person who could wash dishes to fill in for a marriage. She had only, suddenly, been treated kindly. The kindness was this concrete. Concrete as a plaster. Concrete as a bowl washed clean.
At the door, before he left, he stopped, his hand on the handle.
"May I kiss you? It's morning now. Morning and night are not quite the same."
"Come here," she said.
The kiss tasted of toothpaste and noodles. It was very short, but he took her lower lip into his mouth for a moment. When they parted, both of them were a little out of breath. People were already leaving for work in the corridor. The sound of the elevator came from far off. Before she pushed him out the door she said, low, one more sentence. "Tonight at seven. Don't be late. If you're late the food will go old."
"It won't go old," he said. "Whatever you cook, I'll eat."
After the door shut, Fang Qitong stood in the entry for a while. The cartons were still there. The old sheets were still in the corner of the bedroom. The agreement was still in the handbag. Nothing had been put in order yet. But her body was soft, and the corner of her mouth was warm. She walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and wiped away a patch of fog that had already dried. The river brightened. The time before the rain stopped had been properly taken into her body. It had not turned into regret.
She sent the lawyer a message and set the afternoon for handing over the original. Then she opened the refrigerator, looked at the empty shelves, and wrote in her notes: sea bass, ginger, scallion, a bottle of white wine that was not too sweet. After she finished she added a line: buy one more glass. He drinks water fast.
