Shang Zhitao woke in the impossibly comfortable bed at Luan Nian's place, sunlight slipping through the curtains, and guessed it was already afternoon. She lay still for a moment before climbing out and heading to the bathroom. She sat on the toilet for a long time without accomplishing anything. In the end, she just wasn't used to this place. She silently praised her own bladder, a bladder capable of great restraint. She washed her face, rinsed her mouth, pulled her clothes on, made the bed, left a note on the pillow, and slipped out the door.
She hadn't taken out her contact lenses the night before, and now her eyes felt dry. She didn't dare blink properly, afraid the lenses might slide out, so she stood carefully at the entrance of Luan Nian's compound, blinking with great caution against the wind while she waited for a taxi. The security guard glanced at her on the sly, deciding she didn't look like a woman in that kind of profession, though residents of this compound never walked out to the gate themselves to flag down a cab. Shang Zhitao gave him a friendly smile.
The autumn afternoon sun was mild and clear, the kind of light that satisfied. Except for the wind. Why did Beijing autumns have to come with such relentless wind? She watched the trees along the street sway back and forth and thought of herself, clinging to Luan Nian's body like one of those unsteady trees.
Xin Zhaozhou had made her happy too, but the happiness the two men gave her wasn't the same. Xin Zhaozhou always asked her, is it like this? Is it here? Does it feel good? He paid attention to her feelings every moment. Luan Nian didn't ask. He simply took control, without any particular tenderness, and still managed to drive her wild.
Shang Zhitao found herself strange. She'd expected to feel the sting of conscience, something like, you actually had a one night stand? You actually had sex without love? But she didn't feel that at all. So I'm this open minded, she thought, quietly redefining herself.
Sitting in the taxi, she thought of Luan Nian every time a tree flashed past the window, every time she looked up at the clouds. Luan Nian was too dazzling. In twenty two years she had never met anyone like him. She was curious about him, and drawn to him.
She got out of the cab and ran home, where she found Sun Yu sitting on the couch crooking a finger at her. She blushed and fled to her room, changing into a high collared shirt. Sun Yu followed her in, shut the door, sat down on her bed, and looked at her with great interest. "Want to explain what you got up to last night?"
Shang Zhitao pressed her lips together and said nothing, sitting down beside Sun Yu. High as her collar was, it couldn't hide the marks on her neck. Sun Yu's eyes caught them at once, and she tugged the collar aside with two fingers. "Well, well. Fell in love, did we?"
Shang Zhitao shook her head quickly. "I'm not in love with anyone."
"Then what's this?"
Shang Zhitao didn't know how to explain it. Sun Yu would surely tease her for having loose morals. But Sun Yu wouldn't let go, pinching her cheek. "Spill it!" A girl's happiness could be that simple, sitting together gossiping about anything at all, especially when the gossip involved someone's love life.
"It's that boss you know about, the one who made me quit." Shang Zhitao finally said it. She still hadn't quite shaken off the mood from the night before, and just thinking of Luan Nian made her blush again. She'd made other friends since then, but Sun Yu was the only one she'd ever told about Luan Nian, not even Yao Bei knew. She trusted Sun Yu without quite knowing why, and Sun Yu guarded her secrets faithfully. Sun Yu had become the only outlet for everything Shang Zhitao felt about Luan Nian.
"You slept with your boss? The one who made you quit?"
"It was an accident."Shang Zhitao had finally settled on how to describe it: an accident. If anyone ever brought it up someday, she could say, I had a little accident once too.
"An accident, or something you two planned?" Sun Yu wasn't buying it. Plenty of things between men and women looked accidental but were plotted well in advance. As far as Sun Yu was concerned, her innocent roommate had been "plotted against" by her own boss.
"It shouldn't be..." Shang Zhitao denied it outright. It had to be an accident. What kind of person was Luan Nian? He'd never even looked at her properly before. How could he have planned anything?
"Fine, fine, that's not the important part. What matters is..." Sun Yu lowered her voice. "How was it?"
Sun Yu's question brought back the memory of Luan Nian's sweat dripping onto her cheek, him bending down to lick it away, then passing that salty wetness to the tip of her tongue.
"No need to answer, I already know." Sun Yu burst out laughing. "Our little Tao Tao got thoroughly satisfied last night."
"Is it wrong of me to have done this?" Shang Zhitao asked her.
"Where's the wrong in it? As long as you're happy." Sun Yu patted her shoulder. "Let me tell you, at my old company I had a few coworkers who had regular sex partners."
"What's the difference between a regular sex partner and dating someone?" Shang Zhitao was a little confused.
Sun Yu laughed at her puzzled expression. "Oh, you... A regular sex partner just handles a need, no emotional investment required. Dating is a lot of trouble, and everyone's busy, so having someone like that saves a lot of hassle."
"Oh."
Shang Zhitao hadn't gotten enough sleep. Feeling drowsy, she yawned and flopped onto her bed, remembering she'd arranged an English lesson with Long Zhentian that evening, so she pulled the blanket over herself for a nap. The moment she closed her eyes, there was Luan Nian, his breath against the shell of her ear, that cold man who liked to kiss during sex, his palm against her neck, the base of his thumb against her chin, his fingers pinching her face and pulling her toward him as he kissed her fiercely. Lips that heartless, and yet so scalding when they kissed.
Shang Zhitao thought: I'm done for. I think I might be a little addicted.
She jumped off the bed and ran to Sun Yu's room, asking her seriously, "Have you ever gotten addicted? When you were with your ex boyfriend?"
"Hm?"
"You know, closing your eyes and it's him, wanting to do something with him."
"Of course." Sun Yu giggled. "Shang Zhitao, you're done for. Want me to give you an idea?"
"What?"
"Ask your boss if he wants to be your regular sex partner."
"No."
Shang Zhitao ran back to her room, certain she was done for. When she'd first been physically intimate with Xin Zhaozhou, she hadn't enjoyed it much, because the sensation always felt strange to her. It was one night, in a small cottage in the countryside, when Xin Zhaozhou spent a long time kissing her, gentle and unhurried, that she first realized it could actually feel good. But back then Xin Zhaozhou had been right there beside her, at the same school, together every day, sneaking off on weekends. Shang Zhitao had never needed to feel addicted, because Xin Zhaozhou was simply there.
She got up in the evening. She had arranged to practice speaking with Long Zhentian, and even though she'd thought of Luan Nian's beautiful body countless times that day, by evening she managed to set him aside and go do what she'd planned.
She met Long Zhentian by Houhai. He talked with her slowly. Whenever Shang Zhitao ran into a word she didn't understand, she interrupted him to ask. Long Zhentian told her he'd come to China because he liked girls in qipao. The qipao was the most beautiful garment in the world, and only Chinese girls could wear it with real grace. He asked her, "Have you ever worn one?"
Shang Zhitao thought about it. "Does an event uniform count?"
She had worn one, hadn't she? In her freshman year she'd been roped into working as an usher for a club event, wearing a satin qipao and holding a little tray of name cards. Nothing could have looked more ridiculous.
A tall, sunny foreigner like Long Zhentian walking beside a sweet, pretty Chinese girl like Shang Zhitao was bound to draw stares. Shang Zhitao could even read the meaning in passersby's glances: there goes another one scheming to marry a foreigner.
"So how do you translate what you just said?" Shang Zhitao asked.
"In your Chinese, the meaning would be something like: you learn a lesson through experience." Long Zhentian answered her patiently.
"Oh, I see. Thanks." Shang Zhitao always carried a voice recorder with her, and on her way home after every meeting with Long Zhentian, she'd listen back to their conversation two or three times. Long Zhentian was an excellent teacher, patient and kind, and even when he corrected her accent he did it in a way that was endearing. "Oh, your accent could get you a life in England."
At first she'd felt embarrassed about it, but eventually she stopped caring. I'm here to learn, she told herself. If I already knew everything, why would I need to study? I'm studying precisely because I don't know.
Thinking that way, she let go of her pride.
Shang Zhitao had come to genuinely love learning after graduation. She started to find it fascinating, knowledge stretching on without end, vast as the universe, boundless as the sea. Every time she noticed she'd made a little more progress, it made her happy. She'd share it with Yao Bei, Sun Yu, and lumi, telling them, "Once I finish English, I want to learn French and Japanese too."
They assumed she was only talking, but she wasn't. Like today, no matter what had happened the day before, no matter how tired or upset she felt, she kept her appointments with Long Zhentian without fail. They talked about everything under the sun, and amid all that laughter, the world opened up bit by bit in Shang Zhitao's eyes. A new and unfamiliar world.
She said goodbye to Long Zhentian, and on the subway ride home she thought back to what Sun Yu had said: you could be his regular sex partner, it would save a lot of trouble and still take care of what you need.
Shang Zhitao faced her own desire honestly. She typed out a message, deleted it, typed it again, deleted it again, and finally sent Luan Nian a text: "Luke, could we be regular sex partners?"
Looking back later, Shang Zhitao could never quite explain why she'd done such a thing then, why she'd sent Luan Nian that message. At the time she'd thought she was being brave. Later she recognized it for what it was, an absurdity. A beginning like that could never lead anywhere good.
Why do people always do such foolish things when they're young, as if foolishness never comes with a price.
Luan Nian was drinking with Tan Mian when his phone lit up with Shang Zhitao's message. His brow furrowed, involuntarily. It struck him that Shang Zhitao seemed to be looking for a way out for herself, that she might even be trying to sell him her body. Or perhaps beneath that docile exterior of hers lay a heart that had been itching to run wild all along.
She'd probably also overestimated her own performance in bed, though he'd admit it hadn't been bad. Luan Nian hated transactions. He felt Shang Zhitao was trying to strike a deal with him.
Luan Nian wrote back: "Sorry, yesterday was an accident."
"Anything a man says while his brain's flooded with dopamine can be treated as hot air. If I said something that gave you the wrong idea, I apologize." That was simply how Luan Nian talked, cutting.
Shang Zhitao put her phone down, her fingertips trembling slightly. She knew she'd read too much into it. What Luan Nian had said the night before, that she could come to him whenever she wanted, was clearly just as he'd now explained it. Nothing a man said with his pants off could be trusted. What mattered was what he thought once he was sober, and a sober Luan Nian wouldn't so much as glance at her. So last night could simply be chalked up to him being drunk and reckless.
So what. It wasn't like she'd lost anything. Getting a man like Luan Nian would probably cost most women a fortune, and she hadn't spent a cent. I really am something, aren't I, she mocked herself.
She slept well that night, and put Luan Nian out of her mind.