Đêm Ly Hôn, Nàng Ép Tôi Vào Tấm Kính

Chapter 1 The Floor-to-Ceiling Window

The rain began in the evening. When Fang Qitong came out of the lawyer's building, the plane trees on Nanjing West Road were already wet, and the taxi glass was covered with slanting streaks of water. She slid the copy of the divorce agreement into the side pocket of her handbag. Through the leather she could still feel the chill of the metal clip. Duan Fei's signature sat on the last page. The handwriting was like the man: quick, clean, no dragging, no muddle.

She sat in the back seat for a long time. Only when the driver asked for the address a third time did she give the number of the door whose entry and light trough she had designed herself.

In the elevator mirror her makeup had smudged a little. There were no tears on the thirty-eight-year-old face. Only the outer corners of her eyes were red from the rain and the air-conditioning. She carried a paper bag that held the agreement, a box of seals, and a wristwatch Duan Fei had left behind. She had meant to mail it today while she was out. The rain was too heavy. She let it go.

Cartons were stacked in the corridor. Zhou Yu was crouched at her door, sleeves rolled to his forearms, shifting a heavy box off the wall so she would have a path to put her key in.

"You're still here," she said.

"The rain came down all at once." He looked up. Twenty-seven. A clean brow. Hair mussed by sweat and rain. A dark wet patch across the shoulder of his T-shirt. "You said not to seal the shoe cabinet yet. I leaned that box of books over here so you wouldn't trip coming in. All right if I put the last two inside, against the inner side of the entry?"

She nodded. The key turned with a small sound in the empty corridor. The door opened. No lights were on inside. The floor-to-ceiling window faced west, and the city's light was cut into strips by the curtain of rain. The Huangpu lay farther off, nothing left of it but a blurred sheet of silver.

Zhou Yu carried the boxes in. The soles of his shoes left dark watermarks on the stone of the entry. He bent to look for tissues. She had already kicked a pair of guest slippers to his feet.

"You won't get them dry," she said. "Come in first. Out there it feels like something is pressing a person down."

He hesitated for one second. In that second she saw his throat move. That afternoon he had helped her move four boxes. He did not talk much. His strength was steady. When the work was done he ought to have left. She was the one who kept him for a glass of water. Then the lawyer called. She went to the balcony to take it. He stayed in the living room and lined the packing tape up straight, as if he did not want to hear another person's life come apart. By the time the call ended, the rain had joined into sheets.

"I'm soaked through," he said.

"There are dry towels in the bathroom. Left-hand cabinet."

He went. She stood at the window and set the handbag down. She did not take the agreement out. On the glass there was her shadow, and the empty place where the unlit lamps of the room should have been. All at once the hundred-and-forty-square-meter apartment felt too large, large enough for one person's breath to scatter and disappear. Duan Fei had liked that kind of emptiness. In those years, to make him like it, she had chosen a light gray sofa and made the headboard symmetrical. The symmetry was still here. The people had already signed.

The apartment was on the Xuhui riverfront. At thirty-four she had taken the model unit for an entire floor and, while she was at it, put her own home here. From the window you could see one bend of the river. In the daytime container ships crawled slowly along it. At night there were the lights on the opposite bank. Duan Fei rarely stood at this window. He said looking at scenery was a waste of time. Scenery could not be folded into a spreadsheet. Fang Qitong had argued with him then. Later she grew tired of arguing. She began to leave her best design to clients and to keep her own home in a quiet that could not go wrong.

Zhou Yu was the neighbor who had moved in two months ago. The unit next door was smaller, and the orientation was a little off. The day he came to view it the elevator was crowded, and the corner of a carton struck her shin. He apologized. His voice was low. His eyes were direct. Later she met him in the corridor moving light fixtures and said, in passing, that the color temperature was too cold. He actually took the lamp apart and adjusted it again. After that he came to ask her about the baseboard return. She crouched at his door to measure. Dust got on her shirt cuff. She cursed the supplier for cutting corners. He stood beside her and handed her a pencil, and his ears went a little red. She was busy with the divorce procedure then and did not keep that redness in her heart. She only thought this young man was clean in his hands and not oily when he spoke.

Today she had asked him to help. Duan Fei's books, his sneakers, a case of gift liquor that had never been opened. If she moved them to the door alone, her back would give. Zhou Yu did not ask extra questions. He only asked which boxes had to be sealed tight and which still needed to be left open. There was an old scar on his forearm. She saw it when they reached the third box. She did not ask.

Now he came out of the bathroom, hair rubbed half dry, a towel over his shoulder. He did not walk in too deep. He stopped at the edge of the rug.

"I can come back tomorrow to seal the boxes," he said. "Tonight you probably want to be by yourself."

"The time I wanted to be by myself has already lasted two years." Only after she said it did she realize how straight the sentence was, so she added, "The tea is in the kitchen. If you're in a hurry to go, I'll call a car."

He looked at the window. Rain struck the glass, the sound dense, like someone knocking with a knuckle and never stopping.

"Cars will jam solid at the garage mouth," he said. "I'll wait ten minutes."

Ten minutes later became a cup of hot tea. She did not turn on the ceiling light. She only switched on the floor lamp by the window. The light was warm. It cast the shadows of the rain-threads onto the floor. The two of them sat at either end of the rug, the coffee table between them. He held his cup very steady. Her fingers circled the rim, round after round.

"The agreement is signed?" he asked.

"Signed."

"He didn't come."

"He's in Singapore. Electronic signature." She smiled. The smile was thin. "Efficient. This is the last time he made me feel we were a match."

Zhou Yu was silent for a moment. "Do you want me to pack that watch as well? I saw you put it in the paper bag."

"No need. I'll mail it tomorrow." She looked at him. "How did you know it was his?"

"The way the strap is worn is different. Your watch is on your left wrist. His old box was in the second cabinet in the entry. The lid popped open when I moved it." He paused. "Sorry. I wasn't looking on purpose."

"It doesn't matter," she said. "The things in this apartment that belong to him were always meant to be seen once, and then to leave."

The rain grew heavier. The lamp swayed on the glass. She got up to close a window that had not been shut tight. Wind poured in. The hem of her skirt clung to her calves. Zhou Yu stood up with her and pressed a hand to the frame. Their hands met on the aluminum. His palm was hot. There was a thin callus across his knuckles. She did not pull back at once.

"Fang Qitong." He said her full name, his voice lower than it had been in the afternoon. "You're shaking."

"It's cold."

"Not only the cold."

She turned her face. The distance was nearer than she had reckoned. His eyes were very black. There was lamplight in them, and a young man's restraint, restraint drawn almost hard. All at once she understood that he had stayed until now not because of the car. The car was an excuse. The rain was an excuse. The boxes were too. He was waiting for her to give one sentence that would let him stay, and he was afraid that if the sentence came out of his own mouth it would sound like taking advantage of a weak moment.

She lifted her hand. Her fingertips touched the hair at his forehead, still a little wet.

"You're twenty-seven," she said.

"Yes."

"I'm thirty-eight. This afternoon I just became a divorced person. I am not unaware of what I am doing."

"I know," he said. "That's why I'm waiting for you to move first."

When she kissed him, a sweep of headlights passed outside in the direction of the river, and the white light shattered in the rain. His lips were cool. The heat of the tea was still on his tongue. The first touch was very light, like a confirmation. On the second she opened her mouth, and only then did he follow. His hand moved from the window frame to the side of her waist and pressed her through the dress, not heavily, but enough to make her lean an inch forward.

"All right?" he asked in the space between kisses.

"All right," she said. "I want this. Not out of pity. And you are not permitted to pity me."

"I don't pity you." His forehead rested against hers. "I have been looking at you since the day you let me in to see where the lights should go. You crouched down to measure the baseboard. Dust got on your shirt cuff. You cursed the supplier. I got hard. You hadn't signed any of these papers yet."

The sentence struck her. Her breath missed a beat, and then she laughed, and the laughter finally reached the bottom of her eyes. "You don't put on an act. I'll give you that."

"You hate an act."

"Yes."

She drew his hand up and placed it on her chest. There was no thick padding under the silk shirt. Her nipples had already risen and pressed his palm through the cloth. His thumb brushed slowly across. She drew in a breath. Her spine met the icy glass. The cold of the floor-to-ceiling window seeped in through her shoulder blades, and in front of her was the heat of his body. Caught between cold and heat, her legs went soft.

"The light," she said. "The building opposite can see the shadows."

"Do you want it off?"

She thought for two seconds, then reached and turned the shade of the floor lamp. The light became a narrower line of warmth. The room darkened. The reflection on the glass thinned. The city still flashed outside, but their outlines were no longer so clear.

"Like this," she said. "I want to keep this window. When I designed it, what I thought of was looking at the river in the daytime. I never thought of being pressed against it at night."

"And now you have?"

"Now I want you to press me against it."

He kissed the side of her neck. His teeth caught the skin lightly, not deep enough to leave too dark a mark, but enough to draw a smothered hum out of her. He undid the buttons of her shirt one by one. She did not hurry him. Each time he opened one, he stopped and looked at her eyes, as if making sure she was still there. After the third, the edge of her bra showed. It was the nude beige she liked herself, not something prepared for anyone. He bent his head and took one nipple into his mouth. His tongue circled. His teeth scraped across it, extremely light. Her fingers pushed into his hair and tightened.

"Zhou Yu."

"I'm here."

"The other side too."

He did as she said and changed sides. At the same time his palm held the breast that had been neglected, kneading, pinching, thumb going back and forth. Her waist began to push forward. The zipper of the skirt was at her side. He found it and drew it down to the hip bone. The skirt fell to the rug and piled into a ring. Under it she wore underwear of the same color, already a little wet, the cloth a small shade darker at the center. He went down on one knee. He did not take that cloth away at once. He kissed her lower belly first, kissed the hollow of her hip, kissed the skin of her inner thigh close to the edge. She leaned against the glass. One leg was lifted and set on his shoulder. The position opened her completely, and it meant she had to hold his shoulder to stay standing.

"You have looked at me," she said, breathing hard. "Now let me watch you look at me."

He raised his eyes. That look almost arrived before his tongue. Then, through the underwear, he kissed the wet mark. Heat came through the cloth. She swore, very softly, and her fingers gripped his hair. He pulled the underwear aside. The flat of his tongue met her labia and licked slowly upward from below, stopped on her clit, tapped with the tip, then circled. The inside of her thigh trembled. The sound of the rain covered part of her moan. She bit the rest of it into her own lip.

"Don't bite," he said, lifting his head. The corner of his mouth was shining. "This is your home. You can make a sound."

"Then listen," she said.

He buried his face again, harder this time, took her clit into his mouth and sucked. Two fingers circled slowly at her entrance. Only when she sat down onto them herself did he push in. Inside she was hot and tight. She sucked at his fingers until they bent. He found the slightly rough place on her front wall and rubbed it to a rhythm. Her voice finally came out, short, broken, like rain striking metal. The orgasm came faster than she had expected. On the day of the divorce she had thought she would be numb. Her body was the first to give way, in this young man's mouth. She clamped his head. A numbness spread through the small of her back. Wetness surged and soaked his chin. He did not withdraw until she pushed his forehead.

"Come in," she said. Her voice had gone hoarse. "Don't grind around on the floor. I want you now."

He stood and undid his trousers. His cock sprang free. The size stopped her breath for a moment. Not the exaggerated kind meant to frighten a person. The thickness and the heat that, once looked at properly, softened the knees. The shaft was dark. The head was already wet. She reached out and took hold of it. Her thumb wiped across the small slit at the tip and spread that bit of clear fluid. The muscles of his stomach tightened. A very low gasp rolled in his throat.

"Is there one in your pocket?" she asked.

"In my wallet. I didn't leave the house with this as my purpose, but I have one. I checked the expiry. It's all right."

"Put it on."

His fingers were steady while he put it on. Watching that hand, she suddenly felt safe. The safety was not because of age. It was because, at a moment like this, he still remembered to ask, and still remembered to wear one. She turned around. Her palms pressed the glass. She lowered her waist and offered her ass to him. Handprints and the fog of breath appeared on the glass almost at once.

"This way the river is still in sight," she said. "When you come in, tell me you are still here."

He held her hips. The head of his cock met her opening and pushed slowly in. She was very wet, and still the feeling of being opened was clear, inch by inch, until his hip bones met her ass. The two of them let out a breath at the same time. He did not thrust at once. He bent and kissed her shoulder blade. His hand came around to the front. His palm covered her lower belly, so she could feel how deep he was inside her.

"I'm here," he said. "Fang Qitong. All of me is inside you."

"Move."

He drew out a little and drove back in. At the start he was very slow. Every stroke went all the way to the root. His balls tapped lightly against her labia. The glass gave the faintest shiver with the force. Her nipples rubbed the icy window, pain and pleasure together. The pain was only a little. The pleasure was the kind that ran into the deep of her belly. She began to push back to meet him. He felt it and quickened. His hand moved from her belly to her clit, and the pad of his finger rubbed in time with the thrusts. Besides the rain, the room held the sound of flesh meeting flesh, and the moans she no longer held down.

"Too deep," she said.

"Shall I go a little shallower?"

"No. I'm only telling you it's too deep. Keep going."

He laughed, low. The laugh lay against her ear, and then it became a heavier driving. Her forehead rested on the glass. She saw her own blurred eyes, and she saw his shadow behind her. On this day a thirty-eight-year-old body was opened again. Not the kind of opening defined by a marriage. She herself parted her legs, sent her waist out, and said a clear "I want." When she came the second time, her inner walls clenched him in waves. He bit her shoulder and stopped. A muffled groan. He did not come at once. Being gripped made his arms shake.

"You can come," she said. "I want to feel it."

"Not enough yet." His voice had already broken. "Give me one more minute. I want to see your face."

He pulled out, turned her around, and lifted her onto the narrow ledge by the window. The surface was marble she had chosen. It was cold. The moment she sat she flinched. At once he spread the discarded skirt under her. The movement was quick, but it was not panic. Then he entered her again. Face to face, everything was clearer. She could see the furrow of his brow. She could see his mouth holding back the end. She could see sweat slide from the side of his neck into his collarbone. Her legs locked around his waist. Her heels pressed his back and urged him on.

"Look at me," she said.

"I am looking."

"I am nobody's wife now. What you are entering is Fang Qitong."

"I know." Every stroke of his went to the deepest place. Her clit was ground by his lower belly. "What I want is you. Not an empty place. Not the crack left after someone goes."

That sentence carried her over the edge. She cried out once. Not from sorrow. From being too full. Her body spasmed and clamped tight. Her fingers dragged red marks down his back. He reached it too. He stopped at the deepest place. She could feel him jump and jump inside the condom as he came. His breath broke in the hollow of her neck, hot, disordered, real.

The rain was still falling. The glass was all fog and handprints. They held the joined position. Neither of them spoke first. A long time passed before he withdrew carefully, tied a knot, and wrapped the condom. Her legs were still soft. He wrapped her in a towel and did not rush her toward the bed. They sat back on the rug, their backs against the sofa, her head on his shoulder.

"Those ten minutes were over a long time ago," she said quietly.

"The rain hasn't stopped," he said. "I can sleep on the sofa. If you want me to go, I'll go now."

She drew the agreement out of the handbag, glanced at the last page, and pushed it back in. Outside, a ship's horn sounded, the sound soaked soft by the rain. The cold of the glass was still in her palms. The insides of her thighs were still trembling. She turned her face and kissed his jaw. A little stubble had just come up there. It itched her lips.

"Don't go tonight," she said. "The sofa isn't necessary either. But that bed—I haven't decided yet how to deal with it. Sit with me a while."

He answered, and his arm tightened. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling window, Shanghai's rain washed the whole city bright. She knew this was not an ending, and not a simple beginning. It was only a divorced woman, in front of her own window, taking what she wanted for the first time without asking anyone's consent.

Chapter 2 The Old Bed

The quiet on the rug did not last long. Fang Qitong's phone buzzed once inside the handbag. The screen lit. It was a WeChat message from Duan Fei, only two characters: Received. She stared at those two words. Her thumb did not open the thread. Zhou Yu saw it. He did not crane his neck to read. He only drew the towel a little higher on her shoulder.

"Does he know you're home?" he asked.

"The lawyer will sync it. He's only confirming the process." She turned the phone face down. "The bedding in this room was bought together last year. He slept on the left. I slept on the right. There was a seam in the middle that neither of us crossed. When I look at that bed now, I feel the seam is still there."

"Then we don't sleep in the bed tonight," Zhou Yu said.

"No." She stood. The towel slipped from her shoulder. She did not pick it up. Her body was frank in the narrow light of the floor lamp. There was a very faint line on her lower belly, left by a pregnancy in her early thirties that had not been kept. Afterward they stopped trying, and they stopped talking about it. She did not explain. She only looked at his eyes, to see whether he would flinch. "I am going to sleep. I am going to sleep that seam out of existence on that bed. If you are afraid of my past, you can go to the sofa now."

He stood with her and lifted her in his arms. The movement was not effortless. His breath went heavy for a moment, but his arms were steady. She cursed him softly for showing off, and still her hands went around his neck. Passing through the corridor, her hair swept the row of wall lights she had chosen herself. The lights were off. Only the rainy light from the window stretched their shadows long.

The bedroom door was pushed open. The bed was one meter eight. The headboard was walnut. She had drawn the joinery herself. The quilt was folded very neatly. The hourly cleaner had been in the afternoon. There was the smell of laundry detergent in the air, clean, and it made her nose sting. She came down out of his arms, bare feet on the wood floor, threw the quilt to one side, and then pulled the sheet up from all four corners.

"Help me," she said.

Zhou Yu did not ask why. He caught the other side. They pulled the old sheet off and piled it on the floor. The pale gray surface of the mattress showed. One corner had already fuzzed. That was where Duan Fei's foot kicked when he watched the markets in the middle of the night. She stared at that corner for two seconds, then kicked it farther away with her toe. She went to the cupboard and took out a new set, bought last month when she was alone. The color was a very deep dark green. Duan Fei would certainly have said it was not bright enough. When the cloth opened there was the smell of cotton. Together they tucked the four corners under the mattress. The movements were clumsy. At the third corner she laughed, because he had tucked it too tight and lifted the mattress.

"Have you never made a bed yourself?" she asked.

"I have. I've never made one this big." He looked at her. "And I've never made one with someone I just kissed."

"We did more than kiss."

"I remember." His ears went red. That redness softened some place in her. She climbed onto the bed, knelt in the middle of the new sheet, and held a hand out to him.

"Come here. Shoes off. Clothes off too. I want to look at you."

He undressed without fuss. The T-shirt came off over his head. The lines of his waist and stomach were clear in the light from the doorway. Not the blocks deliberately carved in a gym. The thin, solid kind that belonged to a man who worked with his body. After the trousers came down he was already half hard. She beckoned. He knelt in front of her. Her hand moved from his collarbone to his chest, to his lower belly, and then closed around the cock that was growing hot again, and stroked it slowly. Every time her thumb passed the crown, his breath went disordered.

"On this bed," she said, "you listen to me. I want it slow. At the window just now I was urgent. The urgency is over, and I am still here."

"All right."

She had him lie down. She straddled his thighs, but she did not sit down onto him at once. She bent and kissed him, very deep, her tongue winding with his, as if she meant to turn every unsaid thing from the afternoon until now into saliva. His hands traveled her back, stopped in the hollow of her waist, and his thumbs circled those two shallow dimples. Her breasts pressed his chest. Her nipples itched where his skin rubbed them. She rolled her hips and let her wet opening slide along his shaft, not taking him in, only rubbing, her clit scraping the length of him again and again. That kind of grinding made both of them tremble.

"Do you have any more at your place?" she asked against his mouth.

"No. I didn't think it would be like this."

She turned and pulled open the nightstand. Inside there was an unopened box. She had put it there on some night when the divorce was already counting down. At the time she had thought herself ridiculous. Now it was exactly right. She opened it, took one out, and put it on him. While she did it she deliberately touched him a few extra times. His hips thrust up. She pressed them down.

"Slow," she said again.

Then she held him, lined him up, and sat down little by little. The dark green sheet wrinkled under her knees. The entry was drawn out. She could feel every fold being opened and taking him in. When she sat all the way down, both of them closed their eyes. She did not move. She only tightened her inner walls, once, and again, as if her body were learning his shape. His hands gripped her hip bones. His fingertips went white. He still held himself back from driving upward.

"Look," she said. She pushed her hair behind her ear so he could see her face. "I am on my bed. From tonight this bed does not take the name Duan."

"It takes the name Fang," he said. "Whatever name you want it to take, that is the name it takes."

She began to move. First a rock forward and back, so her clit ground against his pubic bone. Then she rose and sat, and each time she lifted she nearly left him, and then sat down hard. The sound of flesh striking flesh was loud in the bedroom. Her breasts swayed with the movement. He propped himself up and took one into his mouth. The suction was heavier than it had been at the window. His tongue pressed her nipple and circled. She cried out. Her hands braced on the muscles of his stomach. She sped up. Sweat fell from her collarbone onto his chest.

"Touch me," she said.

His thumb found her clit and rubbed in the rhythm of her sitting. Pleasure stacked, dense and hot. All at once she slowed and changed to a grind, her eyes fixed on him. The headboard tapped the wall lightly. The rhythm was the one she gave. She remembered the many nights on this bed when they had lain back to back, each person's breath going its own way, even the air-conditioning temperature something to quarrel over. Now the bed was sounding. People were sweating. Neither of them turned a back on the other.

"Say my name," she said.

"Qitong."

"The whole name."

"Fang Qitong." His voice was hoarse. Each time he said it, his hips could not help thrusting up once. "Fang Qitong. You're so hot inside. You're gripping me. I'm close to gone."

"Hold it," she said. She bent and bit his lower lip. "I haven't come yet. You wait and come with me."

He did hold it, even when the vein at his temple stood up, even when his breathing was a mess that did not resemble speech. His hands did not go wild. One steadied her waist. One pressed the clit that had already swollen, the pressure adjusting to the sounds she made. She straightened. Both hands pressed his chest, and she delivered herself into that wave after wave of tightening. When she came she did not hide. Her eyes stayed open, so he could see the look of her coming apart. Her walls clenched hard. Wetness overflowed along the base of the condom and dripped onto the dark green sheet, darkening a small patch. Only then did he let that breath go. Both hands held her ass and he drove upward a dozen fierce strokes. When he came his whole body went taut, and her name rolled in his throat.

She collapsed on his chest and listened to his heartbeat go from violent back to something that could be counted. The bedroom curtains were not drawn tight. A strip of city light fell across their overlapping legs. Her finger drew circles on his chest. On the third circle she realized she was smiling, smiling very lightly, almost without sound.

"The sheet is dirty," she said.

"We just put it on."

"Then let it be dirty a little longer." She lifted her head and looked at him. "Are you afraid? Not afraid of me. Afraid of tomorrow."

Zhou Yu thought, and his fingers combed through her sweat-damp hair. "I'm afraid that tomorrow you'll put this away as one rain. When the rain stops, you'll treat it as if it never fell. I can accept that you don't love me. I can't accept being used as a painkiller and thrown away when the dose is finished."

She was silent for a long time. The rain had lessened a little. The knocking on the window went from a density to intervals. Her legs were still wound around him. She could feel, after he had withdrawn, an empty place in her body, an honest emptiness. She did not want to fill it with pretty words.

"I can't give you a guarantee now," she said honestly. "The ink on my divorce papers isn't dry. What I can give you is this. I will not call you a painkiller. When I want you, I know who you are. Zhou Yu. Next door. The one who helped me move the boxes. The one I cursed about materials while we were measuring light positions. Twenty-seven. Eyes very black. The one who asks if he may, when he enters me."

He kissed the top of her hair. "Then that is enough for tonight."

"You sleep on the left," she said. "The left used to be his. I want you to sleep on the left. I want the person I see when I open my eyes to be you."

"The right is fine too."

"Listen to me."

He laughed low and turned, drawing her into the pillow on the left. The new sheet smelled of cotton. It covered the smell of the old laundry detergent. Her legs were still tangled with his. In her body there was the sore softness that comes after being filled. She closed her eyes and did not fall asleep at once. In the dark she touched his wrist, to confirm he was still there. He turned the wrist over and let her feel the pulse.

"Here," he said.

Outside, a night car drove through standing water. The sound was long. She counted his pulse. Later the count went wrong, and she sank. This time she did not answer back. The rain had not stopped. The bed had already changed its person. She buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder and allowed herself, on a night that no longer belonged to a marriage, to sleep first.

He did not fall asleep quickly. Her weight numbed the arm she was lying on. He did not pull it free. He looked at the linear light trough she had designed in the ceiling. The light was off. The trough was still there, like a silent river. He remembered the redness at the outer corners of her eyes when she came back from signing that afternoon. He remembered her pushing the heavy box toward him and saying, Be careful of your back. The way she looked after people was hard, hard in the manner of someone who refused to owe. He looked down at the center of her brow. Even in sleep there was still a little crease there. He smoothed it gently with his thumb. She hummed in the dream and burrowed another fraction into his chest.

In his mind Zhou Yu pushed tomorrow's site schedule back by two hours. He did not know whether that counted as crossing a line. He only knew that if the rain stopped, he still did not intend to pretend he was only a neighbor.

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.

Chapter 4 Next Door

For the next three days they did not go to bed again. It was not coldness. Both of them had work, and Fang Qitong needed to confirm that she was not being pushed along by the rain. In the daytime she went to the studio on Anfu Road to look at materials. At night, when she came back to the apartment on the river, she would see the marks Zhou Yu had left in the corridor. The boxes were already sealed. The edges of the packing tape were cut perfectly straight, and the boxes stood in a row against the wall. He had not come inside. She had not given him her key. On the first night he sent a photograph of a track light, with only one line of text: Changed. Color temperature dropped one step, as you said. She replied: Looks good. Ten minutes later she replied again: There's porridge in the warmer. If you haven't eaten, you can knock on my door. He replied: I've eaten. Sleep early. She stared at those words and actually felt a little lost, then cursed herself for being unreasonable. She was the one who had said not to force it.

On the fourth night she worked until nine. She walked into the building entrance with her heels in her hand and saw Zhou Yu sitting on the public bench on the first floor. A cloth bag sat by his leg, bulging, as if there were a lampshade inside. When he saw her he stood up, a little ill at ease.

"I'm not blocking you," he said first. "I'm waiting for a same-city delivery. The courier wrote the address as the lobby. It hasn't arrived. I can go up and wait."

"Come up and wait," she said. "My feet hurt."

In the elevator the two of them stood side by side and did not speak. In the mirror her lipstick had already faded. There was dust on his shoulder. When they reached her floor she did not stop. There was no such thing as pressing for one floor higher. She looked at him and suddenly said, "Go to your place. I still haven't had a proper look at the lamp you finished adjusting."

Zhou Yu's apartment was small, one bedroom and one living room, turned with boards and tracks into half a studio. Light diagrams were pinned to the wall. There were wood samples on the table. The air held a faint smell of pine and solder. The sofa was old, but clean. He turned on the lights. Warm light fell from several different angles. None of it glared. Fang Qitong stood in the middle of the room, and the professional part of her woke first.

"You raised the angle of this wall-wash," she said.

"Otherwise the person on the sofa gets a shadow on the top of the head." He stood at her side, a little behind. "Do you want water, or wine? I only have beer."

"Water. I'm hungry. Do you have anything to eat? If not, I'll order delivery."

In his refrigerator there were noodles, eggs, a bunch of baby bok choy, and half a bottle of chili sauce that made her lift an eyebrow. While he cooked the noodles she sat on a high stool and watched him. This space did not have the designed perfection of her apartment. A length of wire showed here and there. But a person's life filled it. He cut scallion very fast. When the hot oil went into the pan he took half a step back, afraid the oil would spit onto her.

"Have you lived with someone before?" she asked.

"The last year of university, in Shenzhen. She was an exhibition assistant, two years older than me. Later she went to Berlin. I stayed. Nobody wronged anybody. The roads were different. We've been apart three years." He lifted the noodles into a bowl. "You asking this—are you building a file on me?"

"Yes. I'm in the habit of knowing where a material comes from."

"Then what's your source?" He pushed the bowl in front of her and ate standing up. "Duan Fei. How did the two of you start?"

Fang Qitong picked up a mouthful of noodles and blew on it. "A friend introduced us. I had just taken an interior project for a hotel. He worked at a fund next to that hotel. He was tall. He spoke cleanly. At gatherings he looked only at me. I thought being seen was love. Later I found out what he saw was a wife he could take out, a wife who would not embarrass him. I'm not saying he was vicious. He only never asked how I wanted to be held at night. When we did it, it was clean too, like completing an exercise both sides had agreed to. The agreement was there. The heat was not."

Zhou Yu listened. His chopsticks stopped. "Thank you for telling me. I won't live by comparing myself to him. But when I hear 'the heat was not,' I want to hold you a little tighter."

"Not yet. The noodles will spill." She said it, but the corner of her mouth bent.

By the time they finished it was nearly ten. She ought to have gone home. Instead she walked into his very small bedroom and looked at his bed. One meter five. A gray sheet. Only one pillow. The other he had taken to pad his lower back when he worked. Outside the window there was no river, only the kitchen light of the building opposite. She turned. He was leaning in the doorway. He had not come in.

"I can stay," she said. "Not because of the rain. The rain stopped a long time ago. I want to do it with you on your bed. If you have to get up early tomorrow, tell me the time. I won't make trouble for you."

"I get up at seven," he said. "You can make trouble. I've been waiting for you to come and make trouble."

She walked over and began to undo the buttons of his shirt. She did the movement slowly, like taking apart a model whose internal structure she wanted to look at carefully. He bent his head and kissed her. The kiss was more practiced than the first night, and deeper than the first night. His hand slid in from the side of her work skirt. His palm lay against the top of her stockings. His fingertips met the clasp of a garter. He stopped. His breathing grew heavy.

"You wore this today."

"I was seeing a client." She bit his chin. "Not for you. Now it is for you. Undo it. Don't tear it."

He went down on one knee to undo those small clasps, as serious as if he were repairing a lamp. The stockings were rolled to her knees. Her underwear was drawn down. His mouth followed and met her. This small room did not have the cold of the floor-to-ceiling window. There was only his mattress, meeting the bend of her knees when she stepped back. She fell onto his bed. He knelt up after her and set her legs on his shoulders. His tongue knew her rhythm better than on the first night. Slow first, then fast, and when she was close he slowed again, until she grabbed the pillow.

"Don't tease me," she said.

"I want you to come once first on my bed," he said, his voice muffled between her legs. "Then I'll come in. I want to hear you cry out in front of this wall. This wall isn't soundproof. If you're afraid, bite my hand."

"I'm not afraid," she said, and then he took her clit into his mouth and her waist jerked up. When the orgasm came she did cry out, short and clear, his name. He kissed the wetness off her thigh, got up, and went to the drawer by the bed. There was a new box there. The seal was still on it. Obviously bought in these three days. Watching him open it, that feeling of being treated seriously rose in her again.

When he entered she was lying on her side, one leg lifted in his hold. The angle was deep and wearing. Every stroke scraped her front wall. His chest was against her back. His hand kneaded her breast from the front. His mouth spoke at her ear. He said she was hot. He said she was tight. He said that for these three nights he had thought of her leaning on the glass. Thinking of it made him hard. Thinking of it, he still did not dare knock on her door. Listening, her eyes grew hot. She reached back, caught his ass, and made him use more force.

"Then use force now," she said. "I came here for you to use force. I am not porcelain."

He drove harder. The bed knocked the wall lightly. She was pushed forward, and he hauled her back. The second orgasm lasted longer than the first. She bit her own finger. Her walls spasmed and wrung him. He swore low. The thrusts lost their pattern. At the end he buried himself deep and came, his whole body covering hers, sweat dripping onto her shoulder blade.

Afterward they were crowded onto the one-meter-five bed and had to lie face to face, the tips of their noses almost touching. She felt this crowding was more honest than her big bed.

"My hair will fall on your pillow," she said.

"Let it fall." He gave her half of the only pillow. "Tomorrow when I smell it, I'll know it wasn't a dream."

"How old were you when you started making lamps?"

"Nineteen. First I learned in someone else's factory. Later I took small jobs myself. I moved here because I wanted to be closer to some good interior projects. I didn't expect to end up this close to your door." His finger drew circles on her waist. "Qitong, I know I'm younger than you. Younger does not mean toy. If one day you feel I'm a weight, say so. I'll walk back next door. I won't make you look bad in the corridor."

She kissed the tip of his nose. "Don't talk about leaving now. My feet are still on your legs. This position is not suited to talking about separation."

They tangled a while longer. They did not do the whole thing again. Only his fingers moved slowly in and out of the place that was still wet and soft, his thumb on her clit, bringing her to an orgasm that was very light and very long. She soaked his hand. She cursed him, embarrassed. He showed her the hand, then licked it clean in front of her eyes. The gesture almost made her ask for him again. In the end she only buried her face in the hollow of his neck and said, muffled, If you keep on like this I won't be willing to go home.

"Then don't go back," he said.

"There's no toothbrush."

"I have a new one. I bought it when I bought the condoms. You can curse me now for taking liberties."

She lifted her head and looked at him for a long time, then laughed out loud. When the laugh ended she said, "Zhou Yu, the dangerous thing about you is that you buy a toothbrush."

That night she slept in his small bed. In the middle of the night his arm woke her once by its weight. She did not push it off. The kitchen light in the building opposite went out. In the dark she listened to his breathing and suddenly thought that a person's home could be very small, small enough to hold only a bed, a bowl of noodles, and a promise not to put her to shame. She tucked her feet between his calves, satisfied as an ordinary person who steals the quilt. Before sleep she said, blurred, "Tomorrow I have to go home for a meeting. Put my earrings away. I left them on your sink."

"I'll put them away." He answered from the edge of a dream. "I want to put you away too. But you are not an earring. You are you. I only open the door."

She did not speak again. She set that sentence beside her heartbeat and carried it into the sleep of the latter half of the night.

Chapter 5 The Studio

The studio on Anfu Road was on the second floor of an old Western-style house. The stairs were wood. They sounded when you stepped on them. Fang Qitong had turned the place from a moldy painting studio into an office. The windows faced the plane trees. In the afternoon the light was green. She had two regular colleagues. One was Xiao Pei, who did the developed drawings, twenty-eight, few words, earphones never off his ears. One was a part-time rendering girl who appeared only in the weeks when drawings were due. This afternoon Xiao Pei went downstairs with his bag at half past five and said it was his girlfriend's birthday. Fang Qitong waved him off, let him go, and stayed at the big table herself, comparing a stone sample.

Zhou Yu arrived at six. He did not come straight upstairs. First he sent a message from the door: I'm under the plane tree. I have the lamp film you wanted. Shall I come up? She replied: Come up. The door isn't locked.

When he came in he brought a little of the heat from outside. The tail of July. Shanghai was still sticky. He wore a shirt washed pale, sleeves rolled. In the cloth bag were several sheets of lamp film in different degrees of diffusion, and a short piece of brass. Fang Qitong took them and held them to the window. Once the profession began, her voice went cold, a clean cold.

"This sheet is too even," she said. "What the restaurant bar wants is for the edge to go dark first. This sheet of yours looks like a hospital."

"That's why I brought a second sheet." He laid the other one over it. His fingers deliberately brushed her knuckles. "There's grain at the edge. It costs more. If you're tender about the budget, I can use it only on the row by the window."

"The client isn't tender. I am tender about it coming out looking like a hospital." She looked up at him. "Did you come today to talk about lamps, or to see me?"

"Both," he said. "You finish cursing the material. Then I'll kiss you. Otherwise you'll still be thinking about diffusion while you look at my mouth."

He had her exactly. She smiled, and set the samples down. Only the two of them were left in the studio. The sound of cars downstairs was far away. She walked to the door and pressed the latch, then turned the blinds until only strip after strip of light remained. When the movement was done, her own breath was unsteady too. This was not home. Here were her drawing stamps, her certificates, her client folders. Letting a man in was letting desire into the place where she was least willing to make a mistake.

Zhou Yu did not touch her at once. He looked at the cork on the wall, where the plan of this project was pinned. "The people at the bar are sitting," he said. "If the light only washes the bottles, the faces go dirty. I'll add a line of indirect light, bounced up from hand height. You can curse me for meddling."

"I won't curse you." She walked back and stood beside him. Her shoulder met his. "This is what I want. You understand what I'm doing. That makes me want even more to take my skirt off for you."

He turned his face and kissed her. The kiss was light at first, as if he were afraid of smearing her lipstick, and quickly it went deep. Her hand pulled his shirttail out. Her palm met his waist. It was hot enough to burn. His hands, for their part, respected her work clothes. He asked first, "May I undo these buttons? They'll crease. You have to see people tomorrow."

"Undo them," she said. "If they crease I'll say I was leaning on the table drawing. Come here. Don't make me beg a second time in my own office."

He lifted her onto the wide drafting table. A roll of tracing paper was pushed aside. A paperweight fell onto the carpet with a dull sound. Her skirt was bunched to her waist. He half knelt and buried his face between her legs, and blew a breath through her underwear. Her hands braced on the tabletop. She looked at the top of his head. The angle almost softened her legs. He drew aside the cloth that was already wet. His tongue went straight to her, licked her labia open, poked shallowly at the entrance, then moved up to her clit. Today he took her more slowly, as if he were truly tasting. She bit her own wrist and still let sound leak out.

"Is the door loud?" she asked.

"It's locked." He lifted his wet mouth. "Listen. A car just went by downstairs, louder than you. You can let a little more out."

He added fingers. Two of them, pushed in slowly, bent to scrape her front wall, his tongue not stopping. Fang Qitong's heels were still on her feet. One tapped the floor with his rhythm. The other hooked his back. When she came, the tracing paper crumpled in her grip. She swore, and then laughed, the laugh carrying a pant. Zhou Yu stood. The corner of his mouth was bright. He undid his belt.

"The chair," she said. "Sit in my chair. I want to ride you. I want to remember, in this chair, that I am the one moving."

He sat as she said. The chair was one she had used for six years. The leather had the shape of her. Now he sat in it. She straddled him, guided him with her hand, and sat down little by little. At the moment of entry both of them went quiet. The office light was green. It fell on the shirt she had half undone. Most of her breasts were bare. The nipples were red. She began to rise and fall. The leather chair gave a slight creak. Her hands pressed his shoulders. Each stroke sat her all the way to the base. Her clit ground his lower belly. He held her ass and helped her. He did not take the rhythm. He only thrust up a little when she sat.

"Look at me," she said. "This is my studio. I have signed many schemes here that could not go wrong. Now I am going to go wrong once. Wrong on you."

"This isn't wrong." His thumb rubbed her nipple. "This is the scheme you want. The one you approved yourself."

She rode faster and faster. Her hair came down. Sweat ran along her spine. He was gripped hard enough to suck in a breath, and he still looked at her eyes. She liked that kind of looking. When she was looked at she did not have to perform youth, and she did not have to perform propriety. She could be thirty-eight. She could have a little softness in her belly. She could flush from pleasure all the way to her neck. She could sit a twenty-seven-year-old man to shaking in her own chair. When she came she bent and bit his shoulder. Her walls sucked him tight. He came with her. His hands held her back, as if he were afraid she would fall off the chair. In truth he was afraid the moment was too short.

Afterward she pulled tissues and wiped the chair dry, so professionally that he wanted to laugh. He did laugh. She glared at him, and then she laughed too. The two of them flattened the tracing paper and found that the crumpled part happened to be outside the area that would be issued. With a pencil, beside the wrinkle, she wrote a very small word: Keep.

"What are you keeping that for?" he asked.

"To remind me." She buttoned her shirt, stopped in the middle, and showed a little of a red mark. "I can finish the lamps and keep you at the same time. The two things do not cancel each other."

He held her from behind. His chin rested on her shoulder. The shadow of the plane tree moved on the blinds.

"Then the lamp film is the second sheet," he said. "The kind whose edge goes dark. I'll deliver the sample to the site next week. If you don't want to be too close to me on the site, I can deal only with Xiao Pei."

"I want to deal with you," she said. "On the site we can talk only about lamps. After the lamps, at night, at home, we talk about the rest. I can tell them apart."

"You can tell them apart." He kissed her earlobe. "I may also stare myself stupid looking at you on the site. That is my business. I'll keep it in hand."

She turned and looked at him seriously. "You don't have to keep your eyes in hand. Keep your mouth. People like Director Lin love to hear gossip. The client on this project likes things proper. I brought you into this project because your light is right, not because you will kneel under my table."

"Understood." He nodded. Every trace of teasing was put away. "At work my surname is Zhou. It is not the surname of your bed."

"My bed doesn't completely take anyone's name yet," she said. "But the chair already has your smell. You go back first. I'll finish today's notes. After seven, if you're hungry, come to my place. There's cold noodles in the fridge that I didn't finish at noon. Not good. Make do."

"Whatever you make, I'll eat." He said the sentence again.

Before she pushed him out the door, she stuffed the rejected sheet of lamp film back into his hand. "Keep the hospital sheet. If one day I live myself back into a model room that cannot go wrong, hit me with this."

On the stairs Zhou Yu looked back at her. She stood in the doorway. Her lipstick was smeared. Her eyes were bright. He did not say love. The word was too heavy. The number of days between them was still too small. He put the love in the edge of the lamp film, in a sentence of I'll keep it in hand, in the bowl of not-good cold noodles he was still going to eat tonight. The wooden stairs sounded under his feet. He felt that from today this Western-style house had one more kind of light he did not want to hand back to anyone else.

Chapter 6 Dinner

In the end Fang Qitong did not dismiss him with cold noodles. She came out of the studio, went around to Xiangyang Road, and bought a sea bass. At the market she always used she picked up ginger, scallion, a bunch of small green vegetables, and a bottle of white wine from a winery whose name was not loud. When she got home the sky was not fully dark. She cleaned the fish, scored it, and stuffed it with shreds of ginger. The work turned her hands back into the hands of living, and not the hands that signed.

When the doorbell rang she was heating the pan. Zhou Yu stood outside in a clean T-shirt. In his hand was a box of cut fruit, and a small bunch of chamomile that had not cost much. The flowers had been bought at the metro exit. There was still water on the petals.

"You said the cold noodles weren't good," he said, holding the flowers out. "I still brought something sweet. If you cook too salty, this can press it down."

"I won't cook too salty." She took the flowers and found a glass bottle she rarely used. "Come in. Shoes off. No moving boxes today."

Dinner was set on the table by the window. The fish was steamed just right. The wine had been iced. The greens had been blanched only a dozen seconds. Shanghai's night rose outside the floor-to-ceiling window. On the opposite bank of the river the lights came on one by one. They sat face to face, like a pair of people who could live a day all the way in. The likeness made Fang Qitong feel hollow inside, and greedy.

"It's good," Zhou Yu said. He put the tenderest piece of meat from the fish's belly into her bowl. "You really can. Did you used to cook often?"

"The first three years of the marriage, often. Later he came home late. The food would go old, so I cooked less. Later still I didn't want to open a fish for a person who would not sit at the table." She drank a mouthful of wine. "Don't take that to mean I'm looking for a substitute who will sit at the table. You are not a substitute. You are the person today who picks the bones out."

"I know." He set the bones at the edge of the plate, arranged very neatly. "A substitute has the same shape. He and I are not the same shape. I'm twenty-seven. I make lamps. I watch your hands while you steam a fish. He will not turn into me. I will not turn into a person who can sign electronically in Singapore."

She looked at him, then suddenly reached over and wiped a trace of wine from the corner of his mouth with her thumb. When she had wiped it she did not take the hand back. She leaned on the edge of the table and set her bare foot on the top of his foot.

"Zhou Yu," she said. "After we finish eating, I want you. Not immediately. I want to talk to you first. I want to know what your kitchen smelled like when you were small. It's old-fashioned. But today I want old-fashioned."

"Old-fashioned, then." He took her ankle. His thumb rubbed slowly over the bone. "My mother cooks with a lot of garlic. Home is in Ningbo, not far from the sea. My father is an electrician. The first time I had a feeling for light was when he came back from fixing street lamps, copper rust on his hands, and said if a lamp flickers, people grow uneasy. Later, when I made lamps, what I was really making was a thing that does not flicker. A thing that lets a person feel at ease."

"You make me uneasy," she said. "And you put me at ease. The two happening together is a lot of trouble."

"Then leave the trouble." He drew her foot onto his own leg, so the sole rested against the root of his thigh, which had already grown a little warm. "Eat. If the food goes cold you'll say again that you don't know how to look after a person. You do know. You only went too long without an object for it."

They finished the fish. Half a bottle of wine was left. While she cleared the plates he came up against her from behind. His hands were washed clean and still carried the lemon smell of the dish soap. His mouth fell on the nape of her neck. Her hands were still dripping. She braced them on the edge of the sink.

"Now?" he asked.

"Now," she said. She turned off the tap. "Right here. Lights on. I want to see your face, and I want to see the window. I don't want them off today."

He turned her and lifted her onto the counter. There was a little water on the surface, cold. She flinched. At once he laid a dried cloth under her. The small movement struck her again. She opened her legs and let him stand between them. Her skirt was pushed high. He did not enter at once. First he fed her a piece of the pear he had brought. The pear was very sweet. Juice ran from the corner of her mouth. He licked it away, licked along her chin to her collarbone, and then drew her house dress down off her shoulders. Her breasts were bare under the warm kitchen light. He held them in both hands, bent, and sucked them in turn, until she arched and her lower belly rubbed the buckle of his belt.

"Sweet," he said.

"That's the pear."

"It's you." He knelt and, on the kitchen tile, kissed the inside of her thigh. The tile was very hard. She told him to get up. He shook his head and said he wanted her to go soft once first, in this place where she had cooked. His tongue was hot and steady. A faint acidity of the wine was still in his mouth. When he licked across her clit she caught his hair. The smell of steamed fish was still in the air, mixed with her own smell. She felt absurd, and she felt alive. The orgasm came gently. She clamped his head. Some of the wetness that overflowed he drank. The rest stayed on his mouth.

When he stood his eyes had gone dark. She helped him open his trousers and stroked him a few times. The head was already wet. The condom was one he had brought, set beside the fruit box. Seeing it, she wanted to laugh again. He put it on, set himself against her, and pushed in slowly. The height of the counter was exactly right. He stood and thrust. Because of that height every stroke was deep and straight. Her legs locked around his waist. Her heels knocked his lower back, urging him, stroke by stroke.

"Say where you are now," she said, panting.

"In your home. On the counter where you cook. Inside you." With every sentence he thrust once. "You steamed the fish. I bought the flowers. You're gripping me. Qitong, look at me."

She looked at him. The kitchen light was brighter than the floor lamp. Everything could be seen, including the lines on her lower belly, including the tendon in his neck pulled tight by effort, including the wet shine drawn out at the place they were joined, every time. She did not hide. She even reached down and touched where they were joined, touched the edge of herself stretched open, touched the shaft moving in and out of her. The touch reddened her face further, and it excited her more. She rubbed her clit with her fingertips. He saw it. His breath went to pieces. He began to drive harder. The cabinet door under the counter made a small sound. She did not care. This was her kitchen. She was allowed to be loud here.

"I'm going to come," she said. "Follow me. I want it together."

He bent and took her nipple into his mouth. His hand pressed the fingers she was rubbing with, and they rubbed together. When she came she cried out truly. Her walls clenched and wrung him to the end as well. When he came his forehead rested against hers. His eyes did not close all the way, as if he still wanted to finish looking at her in this moment. The pulse inside him came through the condom into her body. She held his neck softly, laughed once, and after the laugh there was water at the corner of her eye.

"This isn't crying," she said first. "This is too good. Don't make a comforting sound. Comfort will break the good."

"No sound." He only kissed the corner of her eye and kissed that little wetness away.

Later they still finished the fruit. She sat on the rug wearing his T-shirt. He leaned against the sofa. The two of them used the same fork. Outside the window a pleasure boat passed. Its band of lights dragged a long line of gold. She put her feet under the hem of his T-shirt and stepped on his stomach. He caught her ankle and bit it, not hard.

"Tomorrow is Saturday," she said. "If you don't have a site, sleep a little longer. I'm going to look at a carpet. You can come. You can also not come. Looking at carpet is boring."

"I'll come," he said. "I can hand you samples from the side. I'm very good at handing things."

"There are too many things you're very good at." She looked at him. "If this goes on I'll get used to it. A habit is harder to deal with than an orgasm."

"Then get used to it slowly." He fed her the last piece of pear. "I won't rush you. I'll only show up, time after time, until you find I'm already inside your Saturday."

She chewed the pear. The sweetness came apart in her mouth. She did not promise anything permanent. She only leaned her head over, onto the shoulder of a man who, having finished dinner, was still unwilling to leave. The kitchen light was still on. The flowers were in the glass bottle, cheap, and properly open. She thought, this was one shape of the new life she wanted. Fish. Wine. A person who asked her whether he might. A person who, after she said he might, lifted her onto her own counter and did it deep, and seriously.

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.

Chapter 8 The Business Dinner

On the first Friday of September, the client invited the people in the development stage to dinner at a private kitchen on the Bund. The private room's windows faced the river. The river wind was stopped by the glass. The food was local Shanghainese sweet, so sweet that every bite Fang Qitong took made her want water. She could have gone alone. On the phone Lin Qinian said bringing a companion was fine too, the atmosphere would be looser, and then he added a line: Duan Fei used to come often to this kind of table. Everyone is used to there being someone beside you. That sentence was what made her say Zhou Yu's name.

"Are you sure you want me to go?" Zhou Yu was changing clothes at her place. The shirt was newly bought. She watched him button it a second time, then reached to undo it and button it again. "Those people will look at you. They'll look at your age, look at your shoes, look at what you are to me. When they're done looking they'll laugh. I'll hear the laugh even if I'm not in the room."

"If you want me to go, I'll go." He pressed her hand to his chest so she could feel what was jumping under it. "I'm not going to perform as your husband. I'm going as your person. If they ask, I'll say I'm Zhou Yu. I make lamps. I'm with you. Do you accept that way of saying it?"

"I accept." She drew a deep breath. "If Director Lin presses wine on you, say you have a site the next day. That's true. If they bring up Duan Fei, you don't have to take it. I'll take it."

Six people were already seated in the private room. Lin Qinian was forty-six, well kept, with a loud laugh. When he saw Fang Qitong he stood. His gaze stopped a moment on her collarbone before it moved to Zhou Yu's face. Introductions went once around the table. Fund. Brand. Engineering. Someone did look at Zhou Yu an extra time or two. Fang Qitong said Zhou Yu's name clearly, and she said the words my partner clearly as well. When she finished, the roots of her own ears were hot, but her voice was steady. Zhou Yu's handshake was crisp. He was not humble, and he did not grab the talk.

After three rounds of wine, Lin Qinian leaned his body toward her side of the table. "Qitong, after the divorce you look even brighter. I said early on that Duan Fei couldn't keep you. That man can't see anything outside a spreadsheet. This young friend of yours now looks quite obedient. Makes lamps? It's good that young people can eat bitterness. Don't eat so much bitterness that you forget how to speak."

"He can speak." Fang Qitong turned her wine glass and did not drink. "He doesn't say useless things. Director Lin, the line of indirect light in the scheme was his proposal. If you think the faces at the bar look better than the last sample, you can credit him. You can credit me. Don't call him a little friend. He's twenty-seven, not seventeen. And I am not minding a child."

The table was quiet for two seconds. Manager Wang from engineering smoothed it over and praised the light for being truly soft. Lin Qinian smiled, raised his glass, as if nothing had happened. "All right, all right, all right. Partner. I toast the partner. Qitong, you know me. My mouth is fast. Don't be angry. Anger doesn't look good."

"I'm not angry," she said. "I only corrected the word. Come on. Eat. Sweet-and-sour ribs are too sweet once they go cold."

Under the table, Zhou Yu's hand rested on her knee. It did not wander. It only lay there, warm, like a sentence: I am here. She covered it with her hand and squeezed. His palm was sweating. Only then did she know he was not as loose as he looked. Her chest went soft, and then tight. She was the one who had brought him into this sweet taste that could eat a person.

Through the meal Lin Qinian still kept putting food on her plate. Between the lines of his talk was that he could introduce larger projects, and that at a certain age a person ought to rely on resources and not on temper. Once, under the table, his knee touched her knee and stayed too long. Fang Qitong moved her leg away, very clearly, and on her face she still smiled and talked about the delivery date for the stone. Zhou Yu saw that small moving away. His chopsticks paused. He did not break out at the table. Only, the next time Lin Qinian laid an arm along the back of her chair, he very naturally drew the wrap from the chair back and put it over her shoulders. The gesture was like a partner. It was also like a boundary.

"The air-conditioning is cold," he said, to her, and to the whole table.

When they broke up, Lin Qinian walked them to the elevator and patted Zhou Yu's shoulder. "Young man, keep close. A woman like this, if you don't keep close, there are plenty of people outside who want to. I'll tell you the truth. I've admired her for many years. Admiration isn't against the law."

"Whether admiration is against the law depends on where the hand is put." Zhou Yu finally spoke. His voice was not high. "Tonight the hand was not put in the wrong place. Thank you, Director Lin. About the lamps, on Monday I'll send the revised drawings to Engineer Wang. Good night."

The elevator door closed. In the mirror neither of them was smiling. Fang Qitong looked at his profile. On it there was a pressed anger, and the anger was new, as if he was not yet used to using it on an occasion like this.

"What you said just now was enough," she said. "Say more and it hurts the project."

"I know. That's why I only had one sentence." He watched the floor numbers drop. "But I hate the way he looks at you. I hate him saying keep close. As if you were a cup that might run. I also hate that I myself mind those two words, age, being rolled back and forth by other people. I thought I didn't mind. I mind."

"We'll talk when we get back," she said. She took his hand. "This is an elevator. In the elevator I want to kiss you too. But I want to take you out of this building's sweet taste first. The sweet sticks to clothes."

They did not go straight home. The wind by the river was strong. She pulled him along the Bund for a short stretch. Her heels struck the paving, step by step, very clear. There were many tourists in the night. No one knew them. His anger dropped a little in the wind. It did not disappear. She stopped by a relatively dark stretch of railing, turned, and held him, and buried her face in his chest. The new shirt smelled of the private kitchen's oil and smoke. Under it was his heartbeat, heavy and fast.

"I chose to bring you because you are my person," she said. "Not because I wanted to spite Duan Fei. Duan Fei was not at that table. And not because I wanted to prove to Director Lin that someone still wants me. Those are their ideas. My idea is that, at an important table, I wanted you to see, and I wanted you to be seen. Being seen is uncomfortable. The discomfort is an explanation I owe you. I'm making it up now."

He held her. His arms tightened until she could almost not breathe, and then he loosened a little, as if he were afraid of hurting her. "You don't owe me. I only... Qitong, for ten minutes at that table I felt I was your new accessory. An accessory gets compared too. After the comparison it gets replaced. I hate those ten minutes. I hate his knee more. You moved away. I saw it. I still hate it."

"Hating is allowed," she said, lifting her head. "Hate, and then go home. After we're home, whether you want me, or whether you want to be alone, you choose. I can take either."

"I want you." He said it almost at once, and then added, "But I don't want to treat you, in a temper, as that table. I want to finish saying the anger first. After it's said, I'll touch you. Can you wait?"

"I can wait." She kissed his chin. "This is what I want. You didn't treat me as a battlefield. We'll take a taxi back. Go home. Wash this sweet off. Then you keep talking. If, when you're done, you still want me, I'll be there."

In the taxi through the tunnel he held her hand the whole way, very hard. She did not pull it free. The river was behind them. Home was ahead. This dinner had dragged them off the bed and into other people's eyes. Other people's eyes were not gentle. But his hand was still there. She thought, as long as this hand still asked her whether he might, she was still willing to hand over more nights.

Chapter 9 Jealousy

By the time they got back to the apartment on the river it was eleven. Fang Qitong showered first and washed the oil-smoke and the laughter out of her hair. When she came out Zhou Yu was still sitting on the living-room rug. Two buttons of his shirt were open. The television was not on. He was only looking at the floor-to-ceiling window. There was no rain on it now. Only the lights on the opposite bank. She sat down beside him and laid a towel over his shoulder.

"Your turn," she said. "Go wash. Or talk first. Director Lin's pat is still hanging on your face."

"I'll talk first." His voice had already gone level, level in a tight way. "It isn't that I don't trust you. When you moved your leg away, I trusted you. What I'm jealous of is the scene. Everyone thinks the place beside you is a vacancy that can be discussed. They measured you with Duan Fei. Now they measure me with age. I sat there like I'd been put into your portfolio as a scale bar. The fact that I'm twenty-seven was said three times tonight. Every time I smiled. After I smiled I felt dirty myself."

Fang Qitong listened and did not argue at once. She drew her knees up, set her chin on them, looked out the window a while, and then looked at him.

"You're right," she said. "I was the one who took you. I thought if I said the word partner hard enough, other people would follow and say it hard. They won't. They have their rotten habits. I underestimated that. That is my fault. The other half is not a fault, and I need to say it clearly. I will not hide you from now on because you're jealous. Hiding you would make you even more of an accessory. If you are my person, you sit at tables that have oil-smoke and knees. Sitting there will be hard. We come home and it's hard. The hardness can change the method. It cannot change into not seeing people."

"I wasn't asking you to hide me." He rushed the sentence, then lowered his voice. "I'm afraid that one day you'll get tired of hearing it, and feel it's easier to find someone their age. An easy person won't stand in an elevator and ask whether admiration is against the law. A person like me will. I'll make your projects harder to do."

"Director Lin will not cut a scheme because of one clean sentence from you. What he wants is the effect, and face. Today I left him half the face. The other half I left to you." She leaned in. Her forehead rested against his temple. "Zhou Yu, I choose you not because young is fresh. Fresh expires. I choose you because in the elevator you still asked whether I could wait. If one day you stop asking, and you only care about winning at the table, then I will reconsider. Right now I am not considering anyone else."

He closed his eyes. The tightness finally loosened a little. He turned and drew her into his arms, his face buried in the hollow of her neck, his breath hot and disordered. "I was jealous. Badly. I wanted to knock his glass over. I didn't. I still came back wanting to hear you say you are mine. You said it. I still want your body. Not in order to win against him. In order to push that table out of my head. If you think that's too mixed, we'll only sleep."

"It isn't mixed." She took his face in her hands. "I want you too. I want you badly. Go and wash. When you're done, come to the bed. Tonight I want you heavy. Heavy is not a punishment. I want to feel all of your unhappiness turn into touching me, and not into distance."

The water ran for more than ten minutes. In the bedroom she smoothed the dark green sheet and turned the bedside lamp to its lowest. She herself wore only an old T-shirt of his. There was nothing under it. When he came out his hair was wet, a towel around his waist. Seeing her, his step stopped.

"Come here," she said.

He walked over. The towel fell to the floor. Her hand closed on him directly and stroked slowly, until he was fully hard, hard and burning, clear fluid seeping at the tip. She lay down, drew him onto her, and parted her legs. She was already wet. She reached the condom at the head of the bed herself, put it on him, and guided him in. When he entered, both of them sighed, as if a whole evening of being at odds had finally found an outlet.

"Heavy," she said. "You can. I want you heavy. Look at me. Don't run off by yourself to fight Director Lin. You are inside me."

He began to thrust. At first he still remembered to be slow. After a few dozen strokes her nails pinched his back, and then he really was heavy. Every stroke struck the deepest place. His balls slapped her skin. The sound was dense and loud. The head of the bed tapped the wall lightly. Her legs were held in the crook of his arms. Her body was folded. The angle made her full and pleasured. Inside the pleasure there was a little panic at being completely taken, and after the panic a hotter wanting. She did not call a stop. She looked at his eyes. She saw the jealousy still there, and the love there too, the two things sweating out of him together.

"Say you're jealous," she said, panting.

"I'm jealous." He bit her earlobe. Below, he was heavy and steady. "I get irritated when I see him look at your collarbone. When I see his knee I want to carry you off. You are mine. Not the table's. Qitong, you're sucking me inside. You want me too. Don't you."

"Yes. I want you. Not someone their age. I want Zhou Yu. A little heavier. Hit there. Yes. Don't stop."

He drove at the angle she named. One hand was padded under her waist so that place was scraped again and again. Her moans broke more and more, and at last, on one deep stroke, she came. The orgasm came sharp and fierce. Her whole body went taut. Her toes curled. Her walls clenched in waves. He did not come at once. He slowed and let her pass the sharpest of it, then turned her onto her side and entered from behind. In this position he could hold her. His palm pressed her lower belly so she could feel how deep he was. His mouth was against the nape of her neck. His voice was so low it was almost a plea.

"I won't be replaced. Say it once."

"You won't be replaced." She caught his hand and pressed it to her chest. "I choose you. Now, on this bed, in the place those people can't see, and in the places they can. Come for me. I want it."

He quickened. His breath disordered itself in her hair. The last dozens of strokes were deep and fast. When he came his whole body shook against her, and in his mouth her name repeated. She felt his pulse. The thing the dinner had tangled in her also came down and landed. They lay a long time in the joined position. The sweat cooled. His hand was still on her lower belly, smoothing, stroke after stroke.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

"No. I asked for heavy." She turned and kissed him. "If you hurt me, I would say so. I didn't say so. That means it was good. And the jealousy? Is it still there?"

"A little is still there," he said honestly. "But it isn't as big as just now. It has turned into a thing I know. Once I know it, I can hold it. Holding it, I won't smash your project."

"On Monday you still send the drawings to Engineer Wang," she said. "Work is work. I'll speak to Director Lin. I'll tell him admiration is allowed, a knee is not, and calling someone a little friend is not. I'll say it very politely. Politely enough that he understands."

"Shall I be there when you say it?"

"I'll make the call myself. You can listen beside me. After you listen, if you still want me, we'll go again. The night is still long."

He laughed low and buried his face back in her shoulder. "The way you comfort a person is to go again."

"Do you have an objection?"

"No. I only have hard." His cock was indeed lifting again between her legs. It had not fully softened before there was a new heat. "But this time I want it slow. Just now was driving the anger apart. Now I want to kiss you. From your back to your knees. I want you to know that the person who gets jealous also knows how to attend to you."

He really did begin at her spine. He kissed vertebra by vertebra, kissed the hollow of her waist, kissed her ass, kissed the backs of her thighs, then turned her over and kissed the faint line on her lower belly, very slowly, so slowly her eyes grew hot. He did not ask the story of that line. He only set his mouth there and stayed, as if to say this is you too, and I want it. Then he took her clit into his mouth again and, with an almost devout patience, brought her up once more. When she came she caught his hair. The cry in her voice was very light. This time she allowed herself a little of that sound. The sound was not for Duan Fei, and not for Director Lin. It was for this man who was willing to finish saying his anger before he touched her, and for the fact that she was actually being loved like this, though neither of them had yet said the word love out loud.

The second time he entered very slowly. Face to face. Her legs circled him. Every inch he came in, he stopped to kiss her. They went on a long time, long enough that the boats outside the window grew few. When they came together at the end, she said a very light sentence at his ear. "Jealousy can stay. Retreat cannot. I won't retreat either."

He came into the condom at the deepest place in her, and his answer was light too. "No retreat. I'm holding the key."

Later that night they still showered a second time. She leaned on his chest. The water carried off what was left of the sweet. She thought the dinner would pass, and Director Lin's laughter would pass, and the two words of age would come again. But as long as they returned to this apartment, they still had language, a body, and a key set on the nightstand. That was enough for her to keep living forward.

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.

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."

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."

Chapter 13 A Friend

Chen Man was one of the few friends to whom Fang Qitong would give her home address. She was thirty-six, worked in landscape, spoke fast, had sharp eyes, and had divorced two years earlier than Qitong. Now she lived alone with a full head of steam. On Saturday afternoon she came to the door with a bottle of champagne and a box of strawberries. Her first sentence as she came in was, "Let me see the person who fished you out of the model unit. Where is he? You haven't hidden him in a cupboard, have you?"

Zhou Yu happened to come out of the kitchen, a freshly washed glass in his hand. He called her Sister Chen Man. His voice was steady. His ears went red. Chen Man looked him up and down for three seconds, then turned to Fang Qitong and said, "All right. The eyes are clean. The hands are clean. For the moment I won't curse you for losing your head."

The three of them drank champagne by the window. The strawberries were very sweet. Chen Man told a joke about a client changing the tree species in the middle of the night, and only after the joke did she turn serious.

"I'm not here to inspect," she said. "I'm here to confirm you haven't handed yourself back to a life that looks correct. Correct is what harms a person most. Qitong, you laugh more than you did in the spring. I can see that. Zhou Yu, I only have one sentence. She looks strong. In fact, when she's alone, she turns the lights very low. If one day you can't be bothered to turn a light on, say so early. Don't wear her down."

"I won't wear her down." Zhou Yu looked at her and did not dodge. "Light is my work. Her light I am even less willing to turn off. When she wants it dark, I'll stay dark with her. When she wants it bright, I'll push the dimmer up."

Chen Man was stunned for a moment, then laughed and cursed. "You design people, all of you talk like this. Fine. I'll finish this glass and go. I have a thing tonight. I'm not here to be a light bulb. A light bulb gets hot."

When she left she hugged Fang Qitong at the door and said, low, "I didn't hear the bed. Congratulations. Next time I come, I hope it's still this person opening the door for you. If it isn't, don't force yourself. Call me."

After the door shut, the smell of strawberries was still in the apartment. Fang Qitong leaned on the door and watched Zhou Yu collect the glasses. All at once she felt that being seen by a friend was a new kind of nakedness, one that took more courage than taking clothes off. She walked over, held him from behind, and set her face against his back.

"She likes you," she said.

"She likes that you're glad," he said. "If one day I make you unhappy, she'll come and curse me. This arrangement is good. One more person keeping an eye on me."

"For now, don't be kept an eye on." Her hand went down from his stomach and, through his trousers, closed on the place that had already begun to respond. "She's gone. The strawberries are still here. I want you in a very lazy way. The sofa. The light not too bright. You go slowly. I want to talk to you while we do it."

They moved the champagne glasses aside and sank into the sofa. She lay on her side. He entered from behind, and after he entered he really was slow, slow to the rhythm of idle talk. Her back was against his chest. His hand went back and forth between her breast and her clit, in no hurry to send her over. Outside, the color of the sky went from gold to blue. They talked about Chen Man's trees, about next week's site, about his mother hearing that the girlfriend was a designer and saying, Then she must be very busy. While they talked, the slow rhythm still stacked the pleasure. Her sentences began to break. He spoke less then, and only kissed her shoulder with his mouth. Below, he kept that wearing depth.

"I'm going to come," she said. "Don't stop. This speed. The speed of talking. Let me come in the middle of the talk."

"I'm here." His fingers rubbed, steady. "Come. I'll watch you come. You're so hot. You're so good."

When she came she did not cry out loud. She only drew a long breath. Her walls sucked him pulse by pulse. Her body spasmed lightly. The sucking brought him to the edge too, and still, as lazy as she had asked, he thrust slowly another dozen times before he came. When he came he held her very tight, tight enough that their heartbeats stacked. The bubbles in the champagne had already gone quiet in the glass. A few strawberries were left. She picked one up and fed it to him, picked another and bit it herself. Red juice stayed on her mouth. He licked it off.

"After being seen by a friend," she said, "I want even more to keep you. Before, I was afraid that being seen meant being defined. Now what is seen is that I'm glad. Gladness can define me for a while. I don't lose by it."

"Then I'll stay a little longer." He drew the blanket up. "Until noon tomorrow. At noon I'll take you for noodles. The shop is the one I went to with my father when I was small and we came to Shanghai. I don't know if it's still there. If it isn't, we'll change to another. You only have to sit across from me."

"I'll sit," she said.

In the night she woke once and found he had turned the light to the lowest setting. He was beside her, looking at a detail drawing on his phone, the brightness pulled to the lowest as well. She cursed him and told him he was not allowed to stay up. He set the phone face down, kissed her hair, and said he was only looking once. She laid her leg over him and pressed his waist, a way of not letting him leave. He laughed, and truly stopped looking. In the dark the two of them heard each other's breath. She thought a friend's blessing was good. Better was that after the blessing left, a concrete body heat remained in the room. Body heat was more reliable than champagne.

Chapter 14 The Choice

In October a hotel project in Singapore came looking. The money was large. The period was four months. The client named Fang Qitong and wanted her to fly over and be stationed on site. The terms were good enough that even Xiao Pei went silent after he heard them. Fang Qitong forwarded the email to her private inbox. That night, when she came home, she did not say it at the first moment. She showered first. She ate first. She watched first while Zhou Yu set a newly made small table lamp on her nightstand. The light was warm. The edge went dark. It was exactly the kind she wanted.

"It's good," she said.

"A sample lamp." He gathered the cord. "If you don't like it, I'll change it. You said little today. Is it the email? Xiao Pei messaged me. He's panicked, and he doesn't dare ask you. I can not ask. But if you want to say it, I'll listen."

She looked at the lamp and suddenly felt the choice had already been made inside her body. It only still had to be said to two people. One was herself. One was him.

"Singapore. Four months," she said. "The money is very good. When it's done the resume will look better. Duan Fei is in that city too. The project doesn't sit next to him, but the circles will touch. If I go, we spend four months across a flight. You can fly over. I can fly back. But flying back and forth is not a life. It's maintenance. Once I enter a project I disappear. You need to know that."

Zhou Yu sat on the edge of the bed. He held his palm toward the lamp for a while, as if warming it. "Do you want to go? Not whether you should. Whether you want to."

"I want that piece of work," she said honestly. "I don't much want those four months of being a person there. I don't want, in his city, to put myself back into a state where I can be evaluated. More important, I don't want to trade a project for the lamp you just set properly on my nightstand. Saying it out loud sounds as if I've thrown my future away. I haven't thrown it. On the Shanghai side there's a hotel renovation. The money is a cut smaller. The period is longer. But I can decide for myself. I want to take that one. I want to stay here. Staying here is not in order to watch you. My life is here. You are inside my life. The order is that. Don't get it backward and think you held me back."

He lifted his head. His eyes were a little red, and he was smiling. "I didn't get it backward. I heard you clearly. What you chose is your life. I happen to have been put into this life by you. This is the best thing I've heard. If one day you want to go to Singapore, you can go. I won't use a bedside lamp to kidnap you. I'll only ask whether you want to. If you say you don't, I'll help you do the light for the renovation hotel as well. If you say you do, I'll see you to the airport, and I'll keep the key safe."

She straddled his legs, held his head, and held it very hard. There was no immediate desire in the embrace. There was only a feeling of landing. A long time passed before she kissed him, and as they kissed the desire came anyway. Her body trusted this person. Trust ran hot.

"Today I want to do it under this lamp," she said. "Don't turn the lamp off. I want to look at your face and finish this choice."

The lamp was indeed not turned off. The warm light reached only half the bed, and it happened to show their bodies. She pushed him down and sat onto him slowly. When she sat all the way down, both of them looked at each other. Her hand pressed his chest and felt his heartbeat. She rose and fell very seriously, as if signing a document that did not need a lawyer. His hands traveled from her waist to her breasts, then to her face. His thumb brushed her mouth. She took his thumb into her mouth. Below, she held his cock. Both ways of holding were wet and tight. The sucking made him groan straight out, and he still looked at her.

"You're staying in Shanghai," he said. "I'm glad. The gladness isn't that I beat Singapore. It's that you'll come home at night. When you come home I can leave a light for you."

"Leave a light for me," she said, quickening a little. "And leave yourself for me too. When I'm going to come, hold me tight. I want to come while I'm being held."

He sat up and kept her straddling him. In this position he went deep. Their chests met. His arms locked her back. His mouth kissed her earlobe, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. Her clit ground his lower belly. The pleasure was dense and steady. When she came she was indeed held tight. The sound was muffled in the hollow of his shoulder. Her body shuddered in waves. Her walls gripped him until he came too. He swore a very good-sounding curse under his breath, drove to the deepest place, and came, and after he came he still did not let go. The lamp burned steady at the head of the bed. The edge went dark. In the middle was their sweat.

"On Monday I'll refuse Singapore," she said in his arms. "I may ache for ten minutes over the money. When the ache is done I'll go look at the renovation site. Will you come with me? Not as a boyfriend directing the site. As the person for the light. If they ask what we are, I won't hide anymore."

"I'll come," he said. "If they ask, I'll say I am your person, and I am the lamp on this project. Both sentences are true."

"Both sentences are true." She repeated it, then laughed. "I seem to be getting better and better at saying this kind of sentence that leaves no way back."

"You can leave one," he said, kissing her eyelid. "I will always leave you a way back. I just won't walk out on it myself."

That week she really did refuse Singapore. When Xiao Pei heard, he was sorry first, and then he let out a breath and said the renovation hotel was close to the studio, so at least overtime could end at home. Fang Qitong looked at this twenty-eight-year-old colleague and suddenly realized her choice was also giving the people beside her a kind of steadiness. At noon she bought him a coffee and explained nothing extra. In the afternoon she photographed the sample lamp by the bed, saved it in the project's inspiration folder, and named it with only two words: Kept.

Chapter 15 The Floor-to-Ceiling Window

November's rain came colder than July's. On the evening the first cold rain fell, Fang Qitong came back from the renovation hotel site. Her shoes were wet. The drawing tube smelled of cement. There were no more cartons in the corridor. She opened the door herself. There was already light inside. It was the lamp whose edge went dark, and in the kitchen a small flame was stewing soup. Zhou Yu had her apron on. On him the apron was too short, short enough to be absurd. When he saw her he took the drawing tube first, then crouched and undid her wet laces.

"The soup needs another twenty minutes," he said. "You shower first. I set the water. If you want to curse the site first, I'll listen."

"There's nothing on the site worth cursing." She looked at the top of his head, and her heart went soft all the way through. "It's only that the rain is heavy. Like a certain time. Do you still remember?"

"I remember." He looked up. His eyes were bright. "That day my shoulder was wet. Your agreement was in the paper bag. Later you had me against the glass. I'll remember it my whole life."

She bent and kissed him, kissed until neither of them could stand steady. The drawing tube rolled aside. In the kitchen the soup simmered in a small voice. She pulled him to the floor-to-ceiling window. The rain cut the city into strips again. The river's lights shivered behind the curtain of water. She did not turn the lamp off. She said if the building opposite could see today, let them see a woman who had come home kissing her boyfriend.

"May I?" she asked him.

"You're asking me?" He laughed. "Yes. Of course. I've been waiting since summer for you to still be willing to ask me, in front of this window."

She took her own clothes off. The wet coat, the sweater, the underwear, falling piece by piece onto the rug. She untied his apron and threw it on the sofa. Under it he had only house trousers. She drew them down. The two of them stood naked at the window. The cold of the rain seeped in through the glass. Their bodies were hot. He knelt first. The position was almost the same as the first night. One of her legs rested on his shoulder. Her back was against the glass. What was different was that her hands were steady, and his tongue knew her better, knew her so well that a few licks made her tremble. He held her clit in his mouth. His fingers bent slowly inside her, and he listened to her breath to decide fast or slow. When she came she did not bite her lip. She called his name, soft and clear. Wetness soaked his mouth. He stood and kissed her, and let her taste herself.

"Come in," she said. "Facing me. I want to see you, and I want to see the rain. The condom is on the left of the coffee table. You put it there. You look more like a person of this apartment than I do."

"I only live here often." He put it on and lifted her onto the narrow ledge by the window. Under her he had padded a soft cushion, one they had later set there on purpose. "Living here often is something you allow. Qitong, I love you. This time it isn't like. It's love. You don't have to find a word of the same weight to pay me back at once. I'll set it here first."

Her legs locked around his waist. When he entered, her eyes were open. The rain flowed in her pupils. The feeling of being filled was familiar and brand new. Familiar was his shape. New was this sentence. She tightened her arms. Her voice shook a little.

"Say it again."

"I love you." He began to move, stroke after stroke, very deep, and not fierce. "I love you cursing materials. I love you steaming fish. I love you changing the bed. I love you refusing that city. I love you wanting me against the door. I also love you coming home tonight with wet shoes. I love you. Fang Qitong. I am inside you. I am here."

Her tears finally fell. Different from the fullness of the first night, this was a fullness that had been caught. She kissed him, deep and disordered. Below, she met his thrusts. Every stroke ground her clit against his lower belly. The glass fogged again. Her handprint covered the place where a handprint had been before, like a reunion. His hands cradled her ass, so she would not be iced, and so every entry would go all the way. She could hear the rain. She could hear the sound of their bodies. She could hear the small flame of the soup in the kitchen. She could hear her own love and her own panting, sound after sound.

"I love you too," she said when the orgasm was near, said it urgent and true. "Not paying you back. It's my own. I love you. Don't stop. Come with me. I want to come inside this sentence."

When she came her whole body went taut. Her forehead rested against his. Her walls contracted hard. He came too, driven to the deepest place, repeating her name under his breath, his body releasing in jumps. They held each other. Neither wanted to separate first. For a while the fog hid the city outside the window. In the home there was only their breath, and the pot of soup that had not yet boiled dry.

A long time passed before he withdrew, tied the condom off, and wrapped her in a dry towel. She stood barefoot on the rug. Her legs were still soft. Still she pulled him to the kitchen and turned the flame off. The smell of the soup rushed out at once, ginger and pork rib. The steam wet the tear-tracks on her face further. She ladled two bowls. They sat on the floor by the window under the same blanket and drank, shoulder against shoulder. The rain was still falling. No one was leaving.

"On the day of the divorce I thought this window was empty," she said. "Empty was what made it good to look at. Now it isn't empty. There are your handprints. There are mine. There is a pot of soup we almost boiled dry because we were making love. I choose this kind of not-empty. Zhou Yu, will you be here on rainy nights from now on?"

"Here." He put the meat from his own bowl into hers. "I have a key. I have the pillow on the left. I have you. If one day you want to watch the rain alone, tell me. I'll go next door and leave the door open a crack. If you want me back, knock on the radiator. Or just call me. I'll hear."

"Then I'll call you now." She looked at him. Her eyes were bright. There was the shine of soup-oil at the corner of her mouth. On the thirty-eight-year-old face there was a vividness that no longer kept guard. "Zhou Yu. When the soup is finished, go to the bed. The new bed. Once, slowly. Then sleep. Tomorrow there's still the site. I want you to wake me in the morning. When you wake me, kiss me first, and then talk about the alarm."

"Received," he said.

Later that night they did do it once more on the new bed. Very slow, very sleepy, and very deep. She lay on her side. He entered from behind. His hand was locked finger to finger with hers. The speed was like raindrops finally growing sparse. Half dreaming, half awake, she came once more, lightly, like a hum. He came lightly too, and held her without withdrawing for too long, until he had to go and clean up. When he came back he warmed her feet between his calves. Before he turned the light off, he glanced at the floor-to-ceiling window beyond the bedroom door, still bright with the city.

The window was still there. The rain was still there. The person had stayed.

Before sleep, Fang Qitong found his pulse, the way she had on the first night. The pulse was steady, hot, and it did not belong to any marriage that had already ended. She set her lips on that wrist and said the last waking sentence.

"This is my home," she said. "You are too. Tomorrow we go on."

In the dark he answered, "Tomorrow we go on. The day after, we go on too. When the rain stops, we go on."

She smiled once. The smile sank into the pillow. Shanghai's cold rain knocked the glass. It could not knock its way into this new bed. Her body was sore and satisfied. In her heart there was no seam. The floor-to-ceiling window in the outer room kept watch over the whole city. She was no longer the person who, after signing, did not dare turn on a light. She was the person who had turned the light on, kept someone, and said love aloud. This night was long, long enough to become the beginning of a new life, and not anyone's ending.