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Chapter 14 Tonight, Me
Chapter 14 Tonight, Me
The lights on Hunan Road came on a little earlier than the lights at the court. They came in together. They changed their shoes together. The elm bench was still uneven. Lin Xi set the pack of tangerine peel in the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and saw the blue-gray-red schedule still stuck there, corners curled, like a summons that had already lost effect and was still occupying the courtroom.
"I want to tear it off," she said. "The keywords are in the tin. If this chart stays, I'll write today's victory on it. The moment I write it, the victory becomes a new magnet. Xiaoyao, tear it with me. Whoever's day, that person writes it. We start from an empty refrigerator door."
They tore the chart down. Glue marks stayed on the door. Xiaoyao wiped them slowly with a towel and hot water, patient about it. Lin Xi watched the blocks of color crumple in her hand. She suddenly wanted to keep a photograph as a memorial, and then felt that a memorial was also filing. She threw the wad of paper into the trash, then picked it back out, smoothed it, folded it small, and put it in the tin. Not to stick it back up. To keep it, and see how much she had once believed in blocks of color.
"The press date is next Tuesday," she said. Her hand had already picked up a pen, ready to write on a fresh sheet. "I'll note it on the door for you. Just this one line. Not managing you. I remembered."
"Whoever's day, that person writes it." Xiaoyao's voice was not high. "Next Tuesday is mine. I'll write it myself in a minute. If you write it now, you're taking minutes for both of us again."
The pen stopped in the air. Lin Xi's face heated, and inside the heat was a grievance. She had only wanted to help, and help had also been ruled a violation. The old silence rose out of the hum of the refrigerator and nearly occupied the kitchen. She heard it. This time she did not let it sit down.
"I'm unhappy right now," she said. Every word was clear. "Not silence. Unhappiness. I feel caught on a word. I also know you're right. Both things are true at once. Let me put the pen down. You write it. If I'm still angry after you write it, I'll say I'm still angry. I won't take this anger and do something else with it."
Xiaoyao looked at her. His eyes softened once. He took the pen and wrote only his own line on the white paper: Tuesday, to press, a night shift is possible. Then he held the paper with an ordinary magnet. No red. None of her blue.
"I received your unhappiness," he said. "I won't rebut it. If, when the anger is done, you want to touch me, say so. If you don't want to, I decide dinner. After I decide it, you can say it's bad."
"The anger is still here. The person still wants to touch you." She capped the pen, lightly. "You decide dinner. After dinner, tonight, me. That sentence is in effect now. It stays in effect until I say stop, or until I say tonight, you."
Dinner was soup and rice. The tangerine peel was not steeped into the soup. It was steeped on its own into two very pale cups of tea. Bitter. Xiaoyao drank a mouthful, frowned, and still finished it. Lin Xi watched him frown, and half the anger actually scattered. What remained in the scattered half was desire, the clean kind, not the kind used to press a quarrel out. She could tell them apart. She was surprised, herself, that she could.
In the shower the water temperature was his to set. Warm, not scalding. In the steam she washed his hair first. Her fingers went through his hair. She did the motion clumsily, and she did it with care. Xiaoyao's eyes were closed. His throat moved once. He did not take the lead back. After the washing, the bedroom light stayed on its warmest setting. Lin Xi had him sit, against the head of the bed. She straddled him. Her knees sank into the mattress. She had not sat down yet.
"Tonight, me," she said again. Her forehead was against his. "I want to see your face. I want to decide the speed myself. Your hands can touch me. Wherever you touch, you tell me, and you use a request. If you think I'm scoring you, say my name. If you say it, I'll stop and kiss you. I won't analyze. Before we start I'm asking: do you want to be wanted by me like this."
"I do," he said. "Please sit down. Slow. I want to see your eyes not run when you take me in. Lin Xi, I'm not a prize. If you turn this into a demonstration that you can lead too, I'll say stop."
"It isn't a demonstration." Her hand closed around his cock and set it at the mouth of her cunt, already wet. "I want you. I want you now. Watch."
She sat down. An inch, and another inch. Her walls were stretched open. She controlled it herself, not running, and not swallowing him all at once. Xiaoyao's breath broke. His hands held her waist and did not press. When all of him was in, both of them stopped. Lin Xi's eyes were open. She was soft and hot inside, holding him at the deepest point. Her clit met his stomach. She ground, lightly, and ground a sound out of herself.
"Please touch my nipple," she said, and then smiled once. "This is me requesting you. Leading doesn't mean you can't use your hands. Using your hands isn't you taking the rhythm away. If you want me to go faster, say it. If you say it, I decide whether I listen."
"Please go a little faster." His thumb rubbed her nipple. His voice was rough. "I like watching you move yourself. I also like it when you tighten and don't talk. Lin Xi, like this. No commentary."
She went a little faster. Up, and down, letting the head drag again and again over the place that softened her most easily. The bed frame sounded. She was no longer ashamed of the sound. Her hands were on his shoulders. The pressure was to borrow force, not to give an order. Xiaoyao tipped his head and took one nipple in his mouth. His tongue was hot and slow. Below, she had the pace. The mismatch made it nearly impossible for her to think. She rode until her legs were weak. The rhythm broke. Her forehead was against his. Sweat dropped onto his collarbone.
"I'm going to come," she said. "Hold me. Please hold me tight. Don't speed me up for me. I'll do it myself."
He held her tight. In his arms she ground in a small range, her clit against him. Her walls suddenly tightened in waves. When the orgasm came she called his name, short and true, and not one word of it was a closing argument. The grip of her reddened the bottoms of Xiaoyao's eyes. He still did not take the rhythm. He only kissed her temple. The way of kissing was old, and it was new.
Lin Xi panted, still holding him inside her, and did not get up. Her hands cupped his face.
"What do you want," she asked. "A complete sentence. I want to hear it. After I hear it I'll decide how to do it. This isn't an interrogation. I'm leading, so I need to know what you want."
"I want to come inside you," he said. "Please keep moving until I come. When I come, look at me. Don't say I'm good. Don't say I performed well. Those words would turn me into your work. Saying my name is enough."
She almost said you are very good like this. The words reached her mouth. She swallowed them. The way she swallowed them was by kissing him, and then moving again. This time the pace was for him. Deep, steady, every stroke sitting all the way down. Xiaoyao's hands finally tightened on her ass, and the force was still like a request. When he came his whole body went taut. Heat struck into her. His eyes were open, looking at her. Lin Xi looked too. She did not score him. She only said:
"Xiaoyao. I see you."
Later they lay side by side. Outside, the plane tree cut the streetlight into pieces. She was still wet between her legs. She did not get up at once to clean herself. Cleaning could wait a minute. In that minute she buried her face in his shoulder and laughed out loud.
"Leading was harder than that conference room this afternoon," she said. "Hard because I couldn't use the words that come most smoothly to me. I almost said you were very good. If I had said it, I would have been closing a case again. Thank you for forbidding it in advance. The forbid was very dirty. And very necessary."
"You also didn't write my press date on the door." He stroked her back. "That unhappiness in the kitchen, we didn't use it as fuel. Fuel goes cold when it's used up. This is different. This is hot. Lin Xi, next week I'll be very busy. When I'm busy I may forget the words in the box. Remind me. If I forget your hearing day, you remind me too. A reminder isn't management. It's that we still talk."
"I'll talk," she promised. "Shower first. Do you still set the water the second time. I can veto it down to a little warmer-no, a little milder. The veto isn't taking dinner and the press date back. It's only my skin."
"The veto stands," he said, and laughed. "You go adjust it. When you've adjusted it, call me. If, when you call me, you want it once more, say so straight. If you say it straight I may agree. If I agree, we open our mouths again about who leads. It doesn't renew itself into a second time."
In the bathroom she set the water milder and looked at herself in the mirror for a while. Thirty-two. A little blue under the eyes. Her mouth was red. On her collarbone, one very faint mark of his teeth. She did not cover the mark. She called his name. This time she did not want it again. She only yielded the direction of the spray. The two of them stood in the same temperature, and neither led the other. The sound of the water was ordinary. They cherished the ordinary the way a person cherishes a thing just won back.
