My Fish Pond Has One Very Loyal Customer novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: A Proper Bed

The farmhouse stairs had never seemed long to Lu Qing before.

They went up them in the dark, one at a time, with Meng Yuhe a step behind and neither of them saying anything.

Lu Qing's bedroom was at the top, under a slanting roof, with one lamp and a quilt printed with faded peonies.

He had made the bed that morning.

He had made it again at noon, and once more on the dam bank, in his head.

Meng Yuhe stopped in the doorway and did not know what to do with his hands.

Lu Qing had seen the photograph of a man on a podium with a gold medal and ten thousand people below him.

He had never seen that man at a loss in a room this small.

"You can sit down," said Lu Qing.

"Yes."

"On the bed. It's the only chair."

Meng Yuhe sat.

The bed creaked, and Lu Qing sat beside him, and for a while they both looked straight ahead at the wardrobe.

"I should say something," said Meng Yuhe.

"Please. I'm going to say about forty things if you don't."

"I'm thirty-three, and nobody has ever touched me."

It came out stiff and formal.

Lu Qing watched him hear it and nearly laugh.

"I trained from age eight," said Meng Yuhe.

"There was never a time. And afterward there was no one I could stand in a room with."

"Until a man with a hole in his boot."

"Until a man with a hole in his boot," Meng Yuhe agreed. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"Neither do I." Lu Qing's voice shook.

"I'm twenty-six and I'm a virgin, and I talk when I'm scared," said Lu Qing.

"So you'll have to put up with a lot of talking."

"I like it," said Meng Yuhe.

"You like it?"

"It was the first thing I liked about you," said Meng Yuhe.

"You never leave a silence alone. I never knew what to put in one."

Lu Qing turned his head.

In the lamplight the dark eyes were steady and very bright, and they were not tired at all.

"Then I'll talk," said Lu Qing. "And I'm in charge of the pace. You do what I say."

"Yes."

It was said so quickly, and with so much relief, that Lu Qing felt it in his knees.

"Good," he said, rather faintly. "Kiss me."

Meng Yuhe put a hand on the back of his neck and did.

It was not like the dam bank.

It was slow, and it went on.

Lu Qing made a small hungry sound against his mouth, and the hand on his neck tightened.

They fumbled at buttons.

Lu Qing said "Sorry" three times, and then "Hold on, it's caught on my ear," and the laugh went into the kiss.

His shirt went over the edge of the bed.

Meng Yuhe's came off a moment later, and Lu Qing sat back to look and forgot what he had meant to say.

There was a long pale scar under the ribs on the left side, and the shoulders were broader than a hut door.

"Don't," said Meng Yuhe.

"Don't what?"

"Look at the scar."

"I'm looking at all of it," said Lu Qing. "I'm going to look at the scar last, and for longest."

He put his palm flat over it, and felt the heart beneath going hard.

"You're shaking," said Meng Yuhe.

"So are you."

"I'm shaking more. I'm winning," said Lu Qing.

"You are not," said Meng Yuhe.

"Say that after," said Lu Qing, and pulled him down.

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