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Chapter 10 The Call
Chapter 10 The Call
On Tuesday the shadow of reconsideration became more concrete. Zhao Heng did not file at once. He applied to communicate with the clerk of the handling judge about "a maintenance exception in the enforcement of the preservation order." The clerk turned him back and told him to go in writing. Being turned back was not a victory. It was a buffer. A buffer was the most wearing thing in a lawyer's days, because it did not give you a hammer you could bring down. It only gave you waiting. At the firm Lin Xi wrote the waiting into three lists: if they filed for reconsideration, if they complained, if the other side turned and went to Gu Chengyan in private. The third list was the most dangerous. Gu Chengyan ate softness, and he also ate sentences like "close enough will pass."
At noon she ordered a salad herself and did not wait for Xiaoyao to come. She messaged him: Don't bring soup today. It isn't a refusal of you. I need to practice finishing the third list without you in the corridor. See you tonight. Seven to seven-thirty. If I'll be late, I'll say so ahead.
He answered: The list is yours. The door before seven-thirty is mine. If you're late, say so.
She read the sentence three times before she set the phone down. Zhou Ning was binding documents beside her. At the third copy she finally could not hold it.
"Ms. Lin, your messages today don't seem to be giving orders."
"They're making a date," Lin Xi said. Her ears heated on their own. "Bind them. Don't get the order of the third one wrong. The private-chat list goes on top. If Mr. Gu calls, transfer him to me first. Don't block him with 'Ms. Lin is in a meeting.' The moment he's blocked, he'll go find Pei Song."
The afternoon did come. Not a phone call. A long voice message from Gu Chengyan, a shop bell in the background. He said that tomorrow Beicheng wanted to invite him to tea, with Pei Song accompanying, just to listen in private, no commitment. The voice message Lin Xi sent back was short: Don't go. Listening in private is the waiting room of a commitment. If they have something to say, and if the court arranges a communication on Thursday, they say it in a room where there is a record. Tonight she would write him the reasons. After she wrote them she looked at the clock. Six-twenty. She could make it.
She reached Hunan Road at six fifty-eight. The time was so exact she wanted to laugh at herself. When Xiaoyao opened the door there was a little flour on him. He clearly had not meant to be caught in the act.
"I thought you'd be seven-twenty," he said. "The noodles aren't in the pot yet. Do you want to veto tonight's noodles and eat something else."
"No veto. I'll wash my hands and help you wash dishes. I won't help you decide the salt. You're already deciding the salt."
Dinner was tomato noodles, simple, sour in the right degree. She told him about Gu Chengyan's voice message, and when she was done she kissed him once, by the rule, the toll. After the kiss she put the phone on the stool outside the bedroom door and announced it herself: she would not look before nine, unless the landline rang. Xiaoyao nodded. He did not applaud. Not applauding made it more like life, and less like a certificate.
The time before nine had been arranged as a shower and a look at his cover proof. She broke the arrangement herself. She hugged him from behind. Her hand went in under the hem, palm on his stomach, and slowly down.
"I want you," she said. "You choose the place. Who leads tonight, I'll say it: you lead. I want to stand or to be on my front, whichever you want. I don't want to process the list while we do it. If I start talking about Zhao Heng, remind me. The way you remind me is to stop and say my name."
"The living-room sofa," he said. "Leave the light on. I want to see whether you've gone somewhere else. Going somewhere else isn't a crime. If you go, we stop, call the person back, and then continue. Do you agree."
"I agree."
Clothes came off to the necessary degree. She knelt on the sofa, hands on the arm that had been worn bright. This time he did not have to read the rules again. She swallowed the instructions herself and left only sound. Xiaoyao entered her from behind, very slowly, one hand locked on her waist. The other hand went looking for her clit only later. Lin Xi turned her face so he could see her eyes. The eyes were clear, wet, and had no list in them.
Just when the rhythm had become the deep one both of them knew, the phone at the bedroom door rang. Not a vibration. She had forgotten to silence it. The ringtone was the default, clean, hateful, echoing in the old apartment. Xiaoyao stopped. He was still inside her. Both of them listened.
"It may be Gu Chengyan." Lin Xi's voice was already not her courtroom voice. She tried to find it. "I want to answer. I want you to stay inside me and not move yet. That's too much. If you don't want to be that kind of background, pull out now. I'll call back. Not answering is also allowed. I already said his business once, in the voice message. Xiaoyao, you choose. I'll take it."
His hand tightened on her waist, then loosened. The silence was only a few seconds. In those seconds the ringtone went around again.
"I'll stay," he said. "I won't move. You answer. If, on the phone, you turn your voice into a voice from bed, or if you use me as a tool to steady your nerves and don't look at me, I'll pull out. That's my condition. You can still change your mind."
"Condition accepted," she said. "Please hand me the phone. After you hand it over, look at me. I'll look at you too."
The screen was Gu Chengyan, as expected. She answered and held the phone at her ear, and tried to keep her voice steady. Xiaoyao stayed at the deepest point. His cock jumped once from holding still. Her walls, disobedient, sucked once. She bit the tip of her tongue.
"Mr. Gu. I'm here. Go ahead."
"Ms. Lin, Pei Song called again." Gu Chengyan's voice was large, with the emptiness of a shop after closing. "He says if the court organizes an informal communication on Thursday, he can sit in as a friend and help us see Beicheng's real bottom line. As a friend, listening shouldn't hurt. Don't be so tense. I didn't agree to the tea."
"If an informal communication has no record, we don't attend," Lin Xi said. The tail of her voice was a little too soft. She bit the words clear at once. "Pei Song is not attending as a friend. He is a potential transferee. Sitting in means he is in the room. One more person in the room, and he takes the bottom line. Tomorrow morning I'll send a written opinion to you and to Gu Wan. We don't unfold it on the phone tonight. Mr. Gu, right now you only need to promise me one thing: don't answer him tonight."
On the sofa, Xiaoyao's thumb touched the side of her waist, lightly. Not a movement. A question: is the person still here. She turned her face, looked at him, and nodded once. The nod was not for the client. Gu Chengyan was still saying how well Pei Song understood incense, how many resources he had. Lin Xi held her husband inside her and listened to a client turn a white knight into a resource. It was absurd enough that she almost wanted to laugh. She did not laugh. She also did not clench hard enough to make herself sound. She put the urge to twist her hips into her eyes and gave it to Xiaoyao to see. Xiaoyao understood, and still did not move. Sweat fell from his temple onto her back. That one drop made her feel he was a person, more than any thrust would have. He was not background.
"Mr. Gu." She cut in, polite, and hard. "Don't answer tonight. If you receive anything from him before nine tomorrow morning, forward it to me. Don't answer so much as a punctuation mark. This is the engagement. It isn't a discussion. If you think I'm being too cautious, you may change lawyers before Thursday. Changing is cheaper than handing over the bottom line on a phone call."
The other end was quiet for two seconds, then sighed, and agreed. The call ended. The busy tone was ridiculously short.
Lin Xi threw the phone to the other end of the sofa. Only after she threw it did she find that her arm was shaking. Xiaoyao still did not move. He was waiting.
"The call is over." Her voice split. "Move. Please move. I need you. But hear one sentence first: just now, for an instant, I thought this was exciting. That makes me sick. I don't want to keep you inside me in order to take a client call. Excitement is not a reason. If you don't want to go on now, we stop. If we stop I'll still hold you. I apologize first. The apology isn't in exchange for you continuing."
Xiaoyao pulled out. The withdrawal was slow, and it still brought a wet sound. The emptiness blacked Lin Xi's vision for a second. She did not chase it. She turned, knelt on the sofa, her shirt hanging in the crook of her arm, and looked at him. His cock was still hard, gleaming wet. He brushed the hair off her face first.
"I received the apology," he said. "I was willing to stay. I chose that myself. So it isn't only you using me as a tool. But when I heard you say exciting, I was uncomfortable too. The discomfort isn't to punish you. It's that I don't want to do it once more. Tonight ends here. I'll hold you. As for my cock, it'll go down on its own. You don't have to be responsible for finishing it. Lin Xi, if you continue in order to compensate me, that is the calendar."
Her tears fell, cleanly. She went into his arms. Her bare chest against his clothes. She cried until her shoulders shook, and she did not wail. Xiaoyao held her. His palm went down her back, and down again. At the other end of the sofa the phone's screen had gone black. The smell of tomato noodles was still in the air, so ordinary it almost did not match this tear.
"I'm afraid this person I am only has two states left," she said into his shoulder, muffled. "Either I manage everything, or I use the person closest to me as adrenaline. The middle kind, eating noodles with you, walking with you, I don't know how long I can hold it."
"You've held it for several days," he said. "Failing once isn't going back to the start. The new information tonight is: a call can be answered, and the body stays separate. We have that information. The price was that both of us were uncomfortable. The price is paid. We don't pay for that lesson a second time. Lin Xi, go wash your face. I'll heat milk. Not talking is fine too. If the not-talking is together, it isn't the old silence."
The milk had a little skin. She drank it. Afterward they lay in bed and did not finish what they had started. Xiaoyao's arm was on her waist. His cock had gone soft, resting against her quietly, like a thing not in use for the moment and still belonging to the life. Lin Xi thought she would lie awake and retry Gu Chengyan's sentences a hundred times. She did not. She fell asleep inside his breathing. The last thought before sleep was light: tomorrow morning, finish the written opinion, and then tell him that tonight's right to lead is void. Not because someone lost. Because both of them were still here.
