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Chapter 7 The Drawer
Chapter 7 The Drawer
Sunday had no rain. The wind was dry. One or two plane leaves had started to yellow, not yet enough to be written into a poem. Xiaoyao was working in the second room, the door open. Lin Xi had meant to bring her outline preparing for a reconsideration reply to the dining table. She stood in his doorway for a while, then carried the computer into the second room and sat on the floor, her back against his worktable.
"I'll be typing," she said. "If the noise bothers you, send me out. If you send me out I'll go to the living room. I won't leave in silence."
"Type." His ruler held down a sheet of black paper. "Only this one gold line. Don't set your cup on this sheet. There's a ring of coffee on the bottom. It would become another design."
She smiled, and set the cup outside her own knee. There were not many emails. Zhao Heng was working on Sunday too. He had sent a supplement "to avoid misunderstanding," writing the warehouse plan as if it were a favor: twenty-four-hour temperature and humidity, two people, two locks, the Gu family free to inspect at any time. The right to inspect was written in front. The right to decide was hidden behind it. A board majority could transfer the thing. Lin Xi highlighted the paragraph, then lifted the screen.
"Look once. With the eyes you use on varnish."
Xiaoyao leaned over. He did not read law. He read structure. After two minutes he drew a door on his scrap paper with a pencil.
"The handle is on the outside," he said. "They let you feel as if your hand can touch the door. If you actually want to open it, the key is with the board. After Beicheng came in, the Gu family isn't a single majority anymore, is it."
"No. Once Beicheng was in, the equity sat right around the veto line. So they want to make 'custody' look like a harmless change of address. Move it once, and control changes bodies."
"Then on Monday don't discuss with them whether the warehouse is good or bad." He set the pencil down. "Discussing good or bad is admitting it's a door that can be evaluated. You only say this door is not on the table at this dinner. A dinner is a dinner. If the case is to be discussed, it goes by letter. You already know that set. I'm only afraid Pei Song will paint the door a polite color."
Lin Xi looked at him. Wanting arrived with no warning. Not because his body was close just then. Because one sentence of his had hit what she had been preparing to write three pages about. She reached, caught the hem of his shirt, and set her forehead against his side.
"When you talk like that, I want to shut the computer."
"Shut it for ten minutes, or shut it for the afternoon. Ask it clear."
"Ten minutes isn't enough. I want forty. Then I'll write the bone of this letter as one paragraph, not three pages. You keep drawing your line. If I touch you, I'll say so first."
"You can say so now." His voice had dropped. "Your eyes already don't look like they're on a letter."
She shut the computer, pushed it aside, and knee-walked to the front of his chair. He carefully moved the black sheet up out of the way. The care made her want to kiss him more. She opened his house pants. His cock was still soft, lying between his legs. She did not take it in his mouth at once. She pressed her face to it first, breathed on it, and watched it lift, little by little, under her gaze. She used to find this slowness impatient. Today the slowness felt like a luxury she was allowed.
"I want to use my mouth," she said. "You don't have to push my head. If you want it deep, tell me. I have a veto. Same if you only want me to hold you. Tell me. Don't force yourself to accept a service. I used to turn this into a service. Today it isn't."
Xiaoyao's hand went into her hair and only rested there. He did not push.
"I want it. When it's deep I'll say so. Lin Xi, look up. Look at me once while you're taking me. Once is enough. I'm not training you to look forever."
She took him in. Between soft and hard, his cock grew harder in her mouth. The head met her tongue. The taste was clean skin and a little of his own salt. Her tongue circled the rim of the head. Her hand held the base. She slowly took him to the opening of her throat, drew back, kissed down the shaft with her lips, kissed his balls, and came back to the head to lick away the wet that had beaded there. Xiaoyao's breath went heavy. He did not direct the speed. Only when she swallowed too fast and the corners of her eyes reddened did he say, "Slow. Look at me."
She looked. Eyes wet, mouth stretched open. That one look made his fingers tighten and then loosen at once, as if he were afraid of becoming the kind of force he hated. Because of that, Lin Xi wanted to give him more. She used her mouth until he was fully hard, took him as deep as she could bear, and her throat tightened once. Xiaoyao hummed, low. His stomach went tight.
"Up," he said. "I don't want to finish only in your mouth. I want to be inside you. Unless you want me to come like this. You choose."
She took her mouth away. A thread of wet broke on her lip. She wiped it. Her face was red, and she smiled.
"Inside me. The floor is fine. The bed is too far. If the forty minutes have to start being counted, the floor is more honest."
He got down from the chair and lay with her on the old wood. The floor was cold. The moment her back touched it she shivered, a fine rash of a shiver. Xiaoyao put his outer shirt under her. When that was done he caught both her wrists, lifted them over her head, and pressed them to the floor. Before he pressed, he stopped.
"May I hold them. Yesterday you said you liked making fewer decisions. If you don't like your wrists held, say so now."
"You may. A little tighter is all right too. Don't make it hurt so much that my signature shakes tomorrow. I don't have anything to sign tomorrow, but I still have hands that need to type."
"I know."
He entered her. She was already soaked. There was almost no resistance. He went deep enough that both of them made a sound at once. With her wrists held she could not hold him. She could only use her legs. They locked around him. The tops of her feet went taut. Xiaoyao's pace was steady. Each stroke made the wood give a very light sound, as if the room were counting for them. Lin Xi watched his face, watched him lose a little of the calm he had when he was designing, because of her. That loss made her clench wildly.
"I'm here," she said, to herself and to him. "I'm not performing a service. I want you. Xiaoyao, hold me down. I'm not going anywhere."
He kissed her until she could not make a whole sentence. He did not keep both hands on her wrists. He changed to one hand holding both, and the other went down to rub her clit. All three places at once, and she came apart fast. When she came, her wrists strained once in his palm, not to escape, a bow the body made by itself. She cried out. Her cunt bit him hard. Wet soaked the shirt under her. Xiaoyao let her wrists go so she could finally hold him, and then he came too, deep and long. She felt every pulse. She recorded every pulse, the way you record evidence that does not need to be filed.
Forty minutes was of course not enough, and should not have been enough. They used longer. Long enough that the sheet with the gold line stirred lightly on the desk in a draft of air, and was not stained by a cup. Later Lin Xi sat back on the floor in his clothes and used twenty minutes to write the bone of the letter as one paragraph: the place of custody does not change; maintenance follows the list permitted by the court; the dinner does not discuss alternatives. She read the paragraph to Xiaoyao.
"Like you," he said. "Hard, short, the handle not left for anyone else."
"This afternoon I want to look at that note," she said. "I'll open the drawer myself. If you're beside me I may cry. If I cry, don't hand me a solution. A tissue is enough."
The drawer was the bottom one of the bedroom chest. Inside were the property papers, an expired passport, and a flat tin. In the tin there was only a piece of paper the size of a business card. The paper had gone soft. The writing was his, six years ago, the ink a little bled: Legal comments absorbed. The paper is still mine. And then a smaller line: If you agree, dinner is mine too.
Lin Xi set the paper on her knee. The crying came without sound. Xiaoyao sat on the edge of the bed, pulled one tissue, and set it by her hand. He did not wipe her face. She wiped it herself. When she was done she held the paper out to him, as if he might have forgotten.
"I didn't agree to the dinner line," she said. "At the time I only answered you with one word. All right. Later dinner really was often yours. And I wasn't at the table. The note didn't say if there's no hearing. I added that condition myself, later. Xiaoyao, I ruined your sentence."
"A sentence can be changed back," he said. He put the paper back into her palm and held her fingers with it. "Not changed back to six years ago. Six years ago you were twenty-six and I was twenty-four, and we both thought revising an invitation overnight could revise the days too. Now you're thirty-two and I'm thirty. We'll be tired. There will be Zhao Heng. There will be varnish. Changing it back means dinner is ours first. The paper is still mine. You, the person, are not my property. If you're willing to sit at the table, that's your decision."
"I'm willing," she said. "I'll sit tonight. Don't put so much ginger on the fish again. I can cut vegetables. While I'm cutting, no Pei Song. If I talk about him, I kiss you. The rule was set yesterday. Sunday it remains in force."
The food at night was in fact a little better. Less ginger. The fish was still a bit old. They drank with the old flesh. The wine was half a bottle of huangjiu left in the cabinet, not much, one cup each. The rims touched. Lin Xi's phone lit. A text from Gu Chengyan: Monday night, Wutong Hall on Julu Road, six-thirty. Please bring Mr. Jiang. A family meal. No official papers. Only how to keep the old shop's door.
She showed Xiaoyao the text.
"He says no official papers," Lin Xi said. "That kind of sentence needs the most defense. I'll go. Are you still going. There's still time to back out. I won't punish you."
"I'll go," Xiaoyao said. "I'll choose your clothes. You choose mine. We choose each other, so you don't dress yourself for court and I don't dress myself for the gallery."
"Then you wear the dark blue shirt. Not black. Black looks like you came to fight, under those lights. I'll wear the dark green. Hair down. Underwear—"
She stopped. She stopped because a more private thought had grown out of yesterday's rules. Xiaoyao looked at her and waited.
"Say it," he said. He did not hurry it into an interrogation.
"I want you to decide whether I wear underwear," Lin Xi said. Her ears went completely red. "This is too far. The dinner is a client. If something happens, it's my professional risk. So the veto stays. But I want to practice one thing: before I walk into that room, one decision isn't mine. If you think this is taking sex into a place where it doesn't belong, refuse. If you refuse, I won't be undressed for other people to see. I'll only know it myself."
Xiaoyao thought. His finger tapped the rim of the cup. The tap was rhythm, not impatience.
"Wear them," he said. "Wear them. Not because I'm conservative. Because half of why you're offering this now is that you want to prove you're changing by obeying something more extreme. Proof isn't what I want. That table on Julu Road will be looking at you. I want you comfortable. I want you able to stand up and speak. Wear the underwear. I'll make the other decisions. You drink one glass. I'll block the second. If Pei Song turns the warehouse into politeness, you look at me once, and I'll interrupt by pouring water. That's our signal. If you don't agree, veto it now."
Lin Xi went still. She had thought he would enjoy the dirtier decision. He did not. He made the decision into protection, and he did not gather her up into a child. Her eyes heated again. She stood, came around the table, sat in his lap, buried her face, and said, muffled:
"No veto. This decision of yours is much worse than not wearing underwear. It makes me want to be held by you more. Xiaoyao, how are you like this."
"Because I love you," he said. "And because I've seen what you look like when you aren't present. Tomorrow you have to be present. Being present is harder than any secret. We keep the hard part. The sex we do when we get home. Home is Hunan Road, not the washroom of a private dining room."
She nodded against him. The sweetness of the huangjiu was still at the root of her tongue. She had put the note back in the tin. The tin was not locked. It was unlocked because she had decided she would dare to look, after this. Outside, someone was bringing a bicycle in. The chain sounded, and sounded again. Sunday ended like that. No color blocks. No varnish. Only a door with the handle on the inside, and a night when both of them were still willing to put a hand on it.
