ليلة الطلاق ضغطتني على الزجاج — Chapter 7 The Key

Chapter 7 The Key

In the middle of August, Shanghai had several short rains in a row. Fang Qitong's project entered the development stage. The days sucked a person dry. At night she grew more and more used to leaving the door unlocked a crack for Zhou Yu. He did not stay every night. Sometimes he came, sat on her rug revising a lamp detail, revised until eleven, kissed her once, and went back next door to sleep. Sometimes he stayed, and on her dark green sheet he worked her until her legs were soft, and in the morning he got up and boiled noodles for her. This rhythm of not sticking together every day was what put her at ease. She was afraid of fast. Fast would make her suspect she was filling a blank.

The key was given on a Thursday night. She had one cut at a locksmith's. Copper. It had not yet been worn bright. When Zhou Yu came in she set the key on the little dish in the entry. There was no ceremony. He saw it. His hand stopped in midair.

"This is?"

"My home's." She changed her shoes. She made her voice flat on purpose. "Sometimes you arrive before I do. Waiting in the corridor is foolish. Take it. The day I don't want you to come in, I'll change the lock. Before the lock is changed, this one is yours."

He did not take it at once. He looked at the key. His throat rolled, as if he were swallowing a word that was too large.

"Qitong, this is more serious than going to bed."

"I know." At last she looked at him. "So if all you want is to go to bed, don't take it. We can keep knocking. Knocking is good too. If you knock, I'll open."

He picked up the key, set it in his palm, warmed it in his grip, and then put it into his pocket, as if into a compartment that could not be lost. "I'll take it. I won't use it to measure our progress. When you change the lock you don't have to feel guilty either. A key is convenience. It isn't a contract."

"You always state the way out so clearly." She walked up to him. Her forehead rested on his shoulder. "Sometimes I wish you were a little more shameless. That you'd cling and refuse to leave. But if you were shameless, I might be afraid. You make it very hard for me to find a fault."

"Then tonight I'll pick a fault and give it to you." He lifted her, walked to the sofa, sat, and had her straddle his legs. "I missed you so much I went blank on the site, and Xiao Pei scolded me with his eyes. That is a fault. I also want to do it once first on your sofa, and not go into the bedroom. The bedroom is too much like sleep. The sofa is like me wanting you. Does that count as a fault too?"

"It doesn't count." She laughed. "It counts as you telling the truth."

That night they really did not go into the bedroom. The sofa was light gray, a color she had once chosen for Duan Fei. Now their bodies pressed dark creases into it. She took him in her mouth first. She knelt on the rug, drew his trousers to the bend of his knees, and served with hand and mouth the cock that had already gone fully hard. Her technique was not showy. But she looked at him. Her tongue circled the head, and then she took him in inch by inch. When the corners of her eyes went wet she drew back, steadied him with her hand, and took him again. She liked his taste. Clean. A little soap. A little of his own salt. His hand was in her hair. He did not push. He only tightened lightly with her rhythm. His voice came broken. He praised her mouth, and he also begged her to go slower. He said it was too good to look at. Looking that good would make him come early. She quickened on purpose, until he really began to thrust up, and only then did she pull away and pat his thigh.

"Not yet," she said. "I want you to come when you're inside. I want to grip you when I come."

He pulled her up and kissed her, kissed the wetness from the corner of her mouth. He took a condom from the coffee-table drawer. They had put them there this week, like an admission that this living room had become an extension of the bedroom. She guided herself and sat down. The give of the sofa made every stroke deeper. Her knees sank into the cushion. She did not rush to go fast. She ground slowly, both hands braced on his shoulders, her breasts swaying in front of his eyes. He took one into his mouth. His palm covered the other. Thumb and tongue used the same frequency. The sucking made her hum straight out. Her walls contracted with it.

"Do you feel this sofa is finally of use?" she said at his ear. "Before, it was only for guests to look at. Now it knows my wetness."

"It will remember." He thrust up, and her voice scattered. "I'll remember too. Qitong, you're jumping inside. Are you close?"

"Close. Touch me. A little to the left. Yes. Right there. Don't change."

His thumb pressed the place she named and circled, steady. Her orgasm came long and dense. Her whole body folded onto him and shook. She called his name muddled in her mouth, and later there was only breath. While she was still clenching he turned them, laid her on the sofa, and came down on her. He folded her legs to her chest. In this position he entered extremely deep. Her body, just past orgasm, was so sensitive she could hardly bear it, and still she held his back and said she could, said deeper, said she wanted to feel all of him. He thrust dozens of times. Every stroke was heavy and full. At the end he came into the condom with a low roar, the line of his shoulders and back drawn into a beautiful arc. She stroked that arc, from neck to waist, as if she were feeling the back panel of a piece of furniture she wanted to keep. At once she felt the comparison did him wrong, so she changed it, and said on a breath, You are a person. What I am keeping is a person.

Afterward they lay side by side on the narrow sofa. Neither went to wash first. The air-conditioning blew on their sweat. It was a little cool. She pulled a blanket over both their waists. The key was in his trouser pocket. The trousers had fallen on the rug. Now and then the metal touched the floor, very light.

"Do your parents know who you're seeing in Shanghai?" she asked.

"My mother knows I'm pursuing an older sister. The word she uses is older sister. I didn't argue." He looked at the ceiling. "She asked whether the person had been divorced. I said just divorced. She was silent a while, and said as long as you don't cheat people and don't gamble, age is the other person's business. My father is simpler. He said do the lamps well, and treat the person well. They may come to Shanghai in September to see me. If you don't want to meet them then, I'll arrange it outside. I won't push you onto a dinner table."

Fang Qitong's eyes heated. She was not prepared to meet parents. But those words, treat the person well, went in more easily than any vow.

"September is still early," she said. "We'll see when it comes. It isn't that I won't meet them. It's that I'll be nervous. I'm thirty-eight and I'll still be nervous about meeting the parents of a twenty-seven-year-old. It's ridiculous. But I will be."

"It isn't ridiculous." He kissed her fingers one by one. "Being nervous means you care about the occasion. If you care, I have even more reason to arrange it properly. If it really won't work, we'll say you're my client. That identity you're very familiar with."

"I will not be your client." She pinched his waist. "A client has to pay. I've already paid in another way."

He laughed until his whole body shook. When the laugh ended he held her tight, and his voice went down. "I'll keep the key on me. I won't hang it on the site key ring. That ring gets lost. You will not be lost by me."

"You say it so full." She closed her eyes. "I'll owe the full words for now. The day I can say them full, I'll pay you back."

"You don't owe," he said. "You already opened the door. Whether I can come in and stay steady is my homework."

That night he stayed. Before sleep she watched him set the key on the nightstand, together with his watch. The watch was a cheap digital one, entirely different from the mechanical watch of Duan Fei's that had been mailed away. She looked for a long time, then reached and turned the digital watch over, so the glowing numbers faced down and would not shine and disturb him. The gesture could not have been smaller. She knew, herself, that she was coming to love him. She had not said it aloud. Once the word love left the mouth, it was not a rainy night, not a sofa, not a copper key, that could carry it alone. She held the word under her tongue and let him sleep first. After his breathing evened, she touched her lips to his shoulder in the dark and moved her mouth without sound. Those two words made no vibration in the air. But her heart heard them.