หลังเลิกศาล ภรรยาทนายรั้งผมไว้ — Chapter 9 The Entryway

Chapter 9 The Entryway

The key turned louder than usual. Lin Xi came in, and leaving Julu Road outside the threshold was not as easy as she had thought. Pei Song's watch still flashed once at the bottom of her eye. She bent to take off her shoes. Xiaoyao took them and set them on the elm bench with the uneven legs. The bench rocked.

"A complete sentence," he said. The door shut behind him. "In the car you said half of one."

The entry light was warm. Her dark green dress still carried a little of the food from the private room, and the leftover smell of camphor wood. She leaned on the door and looked at him, and set down what was left of the lawyer's frame.

"I want you to touch me in the entry," she said. "Not because I performed well today and I'm here to collect a prize. Because I almost said the case wrong, and my legs are still soft now that we're back. I want you to put me against this door, push the dress up, and come in. Fast is all right too. I want to cry out. What I cry is your name. If the neighbors hear, I'll be embarrassed tomorrow. Tonight I want it first. If you don't want the entry, we go to the bed. You choose the place. I choose the fact that I want you."

Xiaoyao listened, then kissed her forehead, then her mouth. The kiss was deep. It took that long request into the body. His palm pressed the small of her back, turned her, and put her chest to the door. The door was cold. Her nipples went hard at once. He did not tear anything. He pushed the dress up from behind. His thumb hooked the edge of the silk underwear and drew it down to the middle of her thighs. When his fingers went in, both of them knew how wet she was.

"Like this since I poured the tea?" he asked behind her ear.

"Since you said it wasn't stable." Her face was against the door. Her voice was muffled. "You admitted in front of them that we aren't fine, and that the people are real. I clenched once, right then. It was too much. That was a client's table. I clenched anyway. Xiaoyao, don't use only your hand. I want your cock. Please come in now."

The sound of his belt in the entry was especially clear. The head set against her entrance, rubbed twice through her wet, and then all of him pushed in. Lin Xi's forehead hit the door. She made a short cry that was actually let go. Too full. Standing, the angle drove him deep. Every stroke sent her into the door. The elm bench beside them gave a small sound, as if it meant to count. One of Xiaoyao's hands covered her lower belly so the handle would not strike her. The other came around to the front, onto her clit, not light and not heavy, rubbing in time with the thrusts.

"Cry out," he said. "You said you wanted to. This isn't the forty-second floor. It's the third. You decide the volume. I won't cover your mouth. Unless you want me to."

"Don't cover it." She called his name in pieces. Called that it was too deep. Called don't stop. Next door, a chair seemed to move. She went rigid for half a second. Xiaoyao stopped for half a second too.

"Do you want the bed," he asked. His cock was still buried in her, the pulse jumping. "This is a question. Not a retreat."

"The bed," she said, panting. "I want to cry out more clearly. In the entry I'll split my attention listening for the neighbors. If I split it, I'm not present. Carry me over. Don't stay out of me too long. I'll be empty."

He really almost did not leave her. He pulled back a little, lifted her across his arms, and on those few steps slid half of himself back in. Both of them laughed and both of them swore. When the bed took them the frame cried out once, loud. Xiaoyao set her on the edge of the bed, on her back, her legs up on his shoulders, and drove deep again. In this position she could see all of him. The dark blue shirt still hung on his arms. The collar was a mess. His hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat. He was good-looking, and he was hard, hard in the way of refusing to move his eyes.

"Watch me do it," he said. "Julu Road is over. Now there's only Hunan Road. You're hot and tight inside. You're gripping me so hard I can barely stand. Lin Xi, touch your own nipple. That sentence is a request. If you don't want to, hold the sheet."

She chose to touch. Her fingers pinched her nipple. Shame and pleasure together. Her cunt tightened with it. Xiaoyao's thumb stayed on her clit, drawing circles. Below, the thrusts went from fast to deep and slow. When it was fast she only felt filled. When it was slow she felt every line of him, and how much she needed him. The orgasm was cooked out on a low fire. She arched. Her calves shook on his shoulders. The sound she made was long and straight, and not one word of it was a ruling. The grip of her broke Xiaoyao's breath. He said, low, that he was about to come.

"Come inside," she said. Her eyes did not dodge. "I want to feel it. Then hold me. Don't talk first. Let me hear your heart. A heartbeat is more honest than a review."

When he came he covered her completely, his face in the side of her neck. Heat struck the deepest place. Lin Xi's legs slid from his shoulders and locked around his waist, keeping him in. Sweat against sweat. Next door made no more sound. Maybe they had not heard clearly at all. Maybe they had, and tomorrow on the stairs they would only nod. She found she could accept that uncertainty. Accepting it made her hold him more softly.

After a good while he pulled out, padded her with a tissue so the sheet would not take it at once, and still held her. Lin Xi's ear was against his chest. The heartbeat went from urgent to the kind a person could follow with breath.

"The review is one sentence," she said later, quietly. "I can't use your knee to judge. Today, 'a move is not good faith' was mine. It has to be mine after this too. You can pour tea. You can't appear in court for me."

"I don't want to appear in court," Xiaoyao said. "All I know how to do is refuse the varnish. You close the legal doors. We close the doors of living together. Lin Xi, tomorrow morning I decide breakfast. After I decide, you have a veto. It's a very small test of who is in charge after we come home. Not a permanent constitution."

"A test of what."

"Of whether, on a morning that isn't an emergency, you can let the first decision go. If you have something at court at seven, the test voids itself and you leave first. When it doesn't void, you don't revise my decision while you eat. Fried or boiled, you eat the eggs first. You can say they're bad. You can't turn it into you doing them over."

She laughed once against his chest, and after the laugh kissed that piece of skin.

"No veto. Xiaoyao, this is harder than being put against the door. I'll try. If I fail the try, tell me. Don't store it up. Stored up, it turns back into silence."

"Done," he said. "Sleep now. You haven't taken your makeup off. I'll get the cotton. You lie there. This isn't treating you as a patient. Your legs are still shaking. I saw."

She was shaking. After the shaking she took the makeup off, and her face went back to having no armor. In the mirror a woman of thirty-two had eyes a little red, and a mouth that was soft. She said a very small sentence to the mirror. Xiaoyao heard it from the doorway.

"The person is here," she said.

"Here," he answered.

The light went off. The plane tree's shadow came back onto the curtain. The yellow lamps of Julu Road, Pei Song's thin watch, the "could" that had almost left her mouth, all stayed outside. Inside there was breath, a little wet that had not dried, and a test about breakfast. Lin Xi held his hand. Holding it, she finally slept. That night she did not dream of putting herself on trial.