Chapter 8
Chapter 8
On the tabletop, those long, slender fingers tightened at once. So did the Adam’s apple that kept bobbing in his throat.
In his constricted pupils, I saw a woman.
Her satin-smooth hair fell over her chest, and she wore a moon-white taffeta gown, its two shoulder straps so impossibly thin they looked as if they would snap with the slightest tug.
She looked exactly like a gorgeous banner meant to summon the dead.
He stared blankly for a moment. Then, all at once, he grabbed my arm and yanked me out of my seat. Pulled along by him, I stumbled into the cold night where the wind roared.
The road was short, and yet it felt very long.
Not far away, the little gray house rattled in the wind, the sound oddly plasticky, as if a strong gust might send it flying into the sky at any moment.
Right now, we were pressed very close together, and bodies did not lie. The tense line of him had already laid his urgent reaction bare. So I simply looped my slender arms around his neck and breathed against him, teasing, “You left your driver’s license behind on purpose, didn’t you-”
“You’re drunk.”
He was changing the subject.
More than simple aggression, that breezy composure of his made me furious.
So I hooked my arms around that long, elegant neck, rose onto my tiptoes, and kissed those rouge-red lips in front of me.
As we kissed, I seized his collar and dragged him hard all the way into the room. He even couldn’t help laughing.
I said through gritted teeth, “What are you laughing at?”
“Although this is moving a little fast, I can’t say it’s unacceptable.”
The windows were dim, letting in a beam of frost-white moonlight that fell across the ambiguous curve of his profile. His fingers slid open the buttons of his shirt, and his voice was mellow and soft.
“Come here, if this is really what you want.”
It turned out that intimacy with the white moonlight Tan Xi had pined after for more than ten years brought not only physical pleasure, but also an enormous satisfaction to my vanity.
It made me feel very happy.
I slept without dreams, and when I woke, it was already bright out.
What finally woke me was my phone, buried among a pile of scattered clothes. The moment I saw the incoming call, I was so frightened that I instantly shut it off. After that, I dressed as quietly as I could.
The man behind me was still asleep, his loose black hair spread softly across the pillow.
I knew perfectly well that what I was doing made me scum, but I still fled in a panic, driving all the way back to my place in the city in one breath.
After I got home and turned my phone back on, I realized my mother had called me dozens of times, as if she were hounding me for my life. Before I could even react, the next call came in. The moment I answered, she interrogated me in a stern voice.
“Did you and Xiao Yu have a fight?”
I poured myself a glass of ice water and drank it, forcing myself to sound calm. “No. We’re fine.”
“Then when I asked him what day the wedding was set for, why did he say he didn’t know? Didn’t the two of you discuss it ages ago?!”
I didn’t take the bait. Since the other party had tossed the ball to me, of course I tossed it right back. “Then I don’t know either. I haven’t been able to reach him lately.”
“How about you go check on him for me?”
“What would it look like if I went?!”
“Just say you’re bringing him soup. Didn’t you used to deliver your loving care to your son-in-law all the time?”
My mother fell silent for a while, then hung up with a sigh.
I opened WeChat and found that profile picture with the white background and red characters. My finger hovered over it for a long time.
Just as I was about to tap delete, I suddenly remembered the low whisper he had breathed by my ear last night, saying it was his first time and asking me to be patient with him.
Heh. This man might even have changed his name. Who knew which of his words were true and which were lies?
But I had to admit, that confession that sounded almost like weakness still made my heart soften in spite of myself. In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to delete him.
After doing my makeup again, I pulled myself together and went to the studio, planning to clear out the orders piled up in my hands. At a time like this, only working myself to the bone could erase that wicked, bewitching man from my heart.
All afternoon, I kept suspecting my colleagues could see through me. Deep down, I felt a subtle excitement, like a child who had secretly eaten candy, along with the emptiness that came after reckless indulgence.
I felt both lucky and afraid.
Both regretful and sweet.