Due to work needs, I rented a two-bedroom apartment near the university. I lived in one room and sublet the other to a university student named Zheng Yue, whom everyone called Xiao Zheng. Xiao Zheng is outgoing and quickly became friends with me. Living with him is his girlfriend, Shan Shan, a typical post-90s girl.
Shanshan is about 1.7 meters tall with a well-defined figure. She often wears her long brown hair down, carrying a faint, pleasant fragrance. Her face is petite with delicate features, her breasts are full, and her skin is fair and smooth. What draws the most attention are her straight, slender legs; even in ordinary loungewear, they outline beautiful curves. Both she and Xiao Zheng enjoy drinking, so the house is always stocked with various kinds of alcohol.
Shanshan occasionally goes to the living room to get water wearing a camisole nightgown. The thin fabric clings to her body, the shoulder straps are delicate, and the skin of her collarbones and chest appears exceptionally clean under the light. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of this through the door crack, and my heartbeat involuntarily quickens. That feeling of being so close yet untouchable slowly ferments in my heart into a suppressed longing.
Once Xiao Zheng and Shan Shan went out shopping, leaving me alone in the house. I stood at the door of their room hesitating for a long time, but in the end, I used the spare key to open the door. The room was very tidy, with underwear, stockings, and some personal items neatly stored in boxes. I didn't rummage much, just stood there taking a deep breath. The air seemed to still carry the scent of the shower gel she often used. That smell made my scalp tingle. I quickly left the room and locked the door again. After that, my attention towards her became even more obvious.
Later, the four of us would occasionally go out drinking together—I, Xiao Zheng, Shanshan, plus one of my friends. At the table the atmosphere was relaxed, and everyone toasted one another, talking about work and school. After drinking, Shanshan’s face would flush red, and she would speak a little more freely than usual. When she laughed, her eyes would curve, her shoulders would tremble slightly, and the spaghetti straps would slide gently with her movements.
Once, after drinking quite a bit, Xiao Zheng was clearly struggling to hold on. A friend suggested taking him to a nearby clinic for an IV. Worried about Shan Shan, Xiao Zheng helped her back to her room before agreeing to leave. The door was locked. The house suddenly fell quiet.
I stood in the living room, listening to my own heartbeat. The spare key was in my pocket. At that moment, reason and desire were pulling fiercely. In the end, I still walked over and gently opened the door.
Only a dim yellow bedside lamp was on in the room. Shanshan lay on her side on the bed, breathing evenly, clearly having drunk too much. She wore the same loose loungewear from the daytime, her hair spread messily on the pillow. I stood by the bed watching for a long time, and finally reached out to gently touch her arm. She didn't react.
I sat on the edge of the bed, hesitating for a long time. My hand finally rested on her waist. The body beneath the fabric was warm and soft. My fingers slowly moved upward, touching the outline of her ribs, and further up to her breasts supported by her bra. Even through the clothes, I could feel their fullness and elasticity. I leaned down, my forehead against her shoulder, my breathing becoming heavy.
I don’t know how much time had passed before I started unbuttoning her clothes. I moved very slowly, afraid of making too much noise. Her pink underwear came into view, and her skin looked dazzlingly white under the light. I lowered my head and buried my face in it, my nose filled with her scent. My palm enveloped one breast, gently kneading it. Even in sleep, her body showed a slight reaction—her breathing grew a little more rapid, and under the stimulation her nipples slowly stood up.
I continued downward. The jeans were a bit tight, so it took some effort to take them off. When the pink underwear was fully exposed, my hand stopped mid-air, frozen for several seconds. In the end, I still pulled that layer of fabric down. Her legs were spread apart by me, her private parts fully displayed before my eyes. I lowered my head closer and could smell the unique scent there. My tongue tentatively touched, and her body trembled slightly, but she didn't wake up. Love juices gradually secreted under the stimulation, wetting my lips.
I stood up and adjusted her position, making her lie flat with her legs spread wider. My pants were already stretched tight. I held myself and rubbed back and forth at her entrance, feeling the wetness and warmth there. A flicker of rationality struggled at the last moment but was quickly overwhelmed by a stronger impulse. I pushed forward with my hips, slowly entering.
The sensation of tightness, warmth, and being completely enveloped made my scalp tingle. I didn't dare move too vigorously, only thrusting slightly. My hands braced on either side of her body, my eyes fixed on her face, fearing she might suddenly open her eyes. Her eyebrows occasionally furrowed, her breathing became less steady, but she never truly woke up.
In this state of both tension and extreme excitement, I quickened my pace. The pleasure built up rapidly. At the final moment, I didn't pull out but thrust deeply inside, leaving everything within.
Afterward I sat by the bed, my mind blank. Only after a long while did I start to clean up. I put her clothes back on, covered her with the blanket, and, after confirming the room had returned to normal, I quietly slipped out.
After that day, I became more cautious, yet also more unable to control myself. Whenever Xiao Zheng wasn't around, I would find excuses to get close to Shan Shan. Sometimes it was drinking and chatting together in the living room, sometimes helping her fix her computer or move things. The physical distance was slowly broken down through repeated contact.
Once she was half-drunk, leaning on the sofa smiling at me. I reached out and brushed the hair from her forehead; she didn't avoid it. The next second I kissed her. Her lips were soft, tasting of alcohol. At first she seemed stunned, but then she opened her mouth. That kiss was long, and when it ended we were both a little breathless.
"Do you know what you're doing?" she looked at me, her eyes glistening with tears.
"Got it." I said.
After that, things no longer required spare keys or drunkenness. She would actively send me a message when Xiao Zheng was attending his evening class and ask me to come over. The door was no longer locked dead. The room lights were set very dim. She would take off her clothes herself, then look at me and wait for me to cover her.
We rarely spoke. Most of the time, we were just entangled physically—urgent, silent, yet with a tacit understanding. Afterward, she would let me leave first, slowly tidying her clothes and the bedsheet herself. Occasionally, she would leave a remark like 'be more careful next time' before pushing me out.
Xiao Zheng remained completely in the dark. He still treated me as a good friend, occasionally even pulling me aside to drink and chat. Sitting across from him, listening to him talk about his daily life with Shan Shan, my mind was filled with an entirely different version of the scenes.
This relationship has no promises and no future. It's more like a tacitly understood game, using bodies to fill a certain emptiness, while maintaining surface calm with silence.
But whenever it was deep into the night, when I lay in my own room, I would still think of the way she slightly frowned while under me, think of the feeling of being completely accepted when I entered her, think of her silent profile as she leaned against the bedhead and smoked afterward.
Once desire is ignited, it is difficult to completely extinguish.
And this shared rental house near the university became a secret we kept together.
The days after that were superficially calm, almost deceptively so.
Xiao Zheng still rode his old electric scooter to class every day, and on his way back, he would casually pick up two bottles of cheap beer. Shan Shan continued attending her elective courses, occasionally spreading out her notebook in the living room to write papers. I went about my usual routine, leaving early and returning late, with the supermarket business being neither booming nor failing. When the three of us sat at the same dining table for meals, the atmosphere was even more natural than before—because everyone was trying hard to maintain that naturalness.
Only I know that that sense of ease was earned through countless glances, countless deliberately averted fingers, and countless restrained breaths.
What truly pushed the relationship forward again was a rainy night a month later.
That day, Xiao Zheng's supervisor suddenly notified him to work overtime on an experiment, estimated to last until midnight. Shanshan sent me a message in the afternoon:
"He’s not here tonight. Come over. The door isn’t locked."
After work, I didn't go straight home but lingered at a nearby convenience store for a long time. I picked up a pack of cigarettes, then put it down; picked up condoms, but ultimately returned them to the shelf. By the time I reached my building, the rain had intensified. I stood under the eaves and smoked half a pack of cigarettes before going upstairs.
The door was indeed slightly ajar.
Only a floor lamp was on in the living room, the light dim and yellow. Shanshan sat on the sofa, wearing a loose white shirt, the hem just reaching mid-thigh. Her hair still held the dampness from washing, she was barefoot, her toes lightly pressing into the carpet. Seeing me come in, she didn't speak, just glanced up at me, then tossed the TV remote aside.
I walked up to her. She looked up, her eyes unnervingly calm.
"Do you know what we're doing?" she asked softly.
"Got it."
“Then you should come too.”
“It’s here.”
She reached out and grabbed the hem of my shirt, pulling me down. When the kiss landed, it carried the minty scent of an orthodontist and a hint of smoke. I knelt on one knee at the edge of the sofa, my hand slipping under the hem of her shirt. She wore nothing underneath. The skin at her waist was warm and smooth, and further up were soft breasts. My palm felt her nipples gradually hardening, my thumb slowly circling.
Her breathing became ragged.
Clothes were quickly removed. Two bodies entangled on the narrow sofa. I lowered my head to take one nipple into my mouth, gently grinding with my teeth, while my other hand already slid between her legs. It was already wet there. When my fingers probed inside, she tensed her feet but made no sound. Only the faint sound of wetness was amplified in the quiet room.
I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. This time, I wasn't in a hurry to enter. I had her lie down properly while I knelt at the foot of the bed, parting her legs. Under the light, her private parts were fully exposed, their pink hue slightly flushed with arousal. I lowered my head and kissed there, my tongue meticulously tracing every contour. Her fingers tangled in my hair, at first just holding lightly, then pressing my head down firmly.
“Don’t... too slow...” she finally said, her voice carrying a distinct nasal tone.
I didn't listen to her. I continued to torment her most sensitive spot with my lips and tongue until her waist involuntarily arched up and the inside of her thighs began to spasm. When her love juices gushed out, she bit the back of her own hand, muffling all sounds in her throat.
Only then did I get up and take off my own clothes. The moment I entered, both of us let out a suppressed sigh. Her inner walls were hot and tight, gripping me in layers. I didn't move immediately but leaned down, pressing my forehead against hers, looking into her eyes.
“Look at me.” I said.
She opened her eyes. Those eyes held no love, but a kind of honest desire and a secret sense of complicity. I began to thrust. At first, it was somewhat restrained, later completely unleashed. The bed frame made a rhythmic, light sound, the sound of flesh colliding seemed especially clear in the rainy night. Her legs wrapped around my waist, her heels knocking against my back, like a silent urging.
Before the climax arrived, I asked her, 'Shoot inside?'
She nodded, but her eyes avoided mine.
My last few thrusts were deep and heavy, releasing everything inside her. She reached orgasm simultaneously, her inner walls contracting violently, gripping me tightly. The two of us remained in the connected position, breathing heavily. After a long time, I slowly pulled out. The mixed fluids trickled down the inside of her thigh, leaving a dark stain on the sheets.
Afterward she did not make me leave right away. We lay side by side, listening to the rain outside the window. She took a cigarette from the bedside table, lit one, took a drag herself, then handed it to me. We silently shared that cigarette. The smoke slowly dispersed under the ceiling.
“Xiao Zheng probably won’t be back for another two hours.” She suddenly said.
“Mm.”
"Next time... you lock the door."
I turned to look at her. She stared at the ceiling, her expression calm.
From that day on, the rules became clear.
As long as Xiao Zheng isn’t at home, or it’s certain that he’ll be home late, Shanshan will send a brief message. Sometimes it’s “Tonight is fine,” sometimes just a time. I would show up at the agreed time, open the door with a spare key, or directly push open the half-closed door. Afterward, she would let me leave first, staying behind to open the window, change the sheets, and shower. Sometimes she would add another round before I left, using her mouth to clean me up, her movements skilled and silent.
The level of physical compatibility was astonishingly high.
She enjoys being taken from behind, especially when standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Even with the curtains drawn, the illusion of possibly being seen excites her immensely. I would grab her hair, tilting her head back slightly, while my other hand reaches around to fondle her breasts. Her cries would gradually shift from initially suppressed to unrestrained, until I cover her mouth with my hand. Sometimes I come on her back, other times I leave it all inside. She never refuses creampies, just cleans herself thoroughly afterward.
Once after we finished, she leaned against my chest and suddenly asked, 'Have you ever thought about what would happen if he found out?'
I thought about it. 'Probably would fight, then move out. Or worse.'
"Are you scared?"
“Afraid. But I’ll still come.”
She didn't speak again, just buried her face into the crook of my shoulder.
Xiao Zheng wasn't completely unaware.
Once he came back early, and I was with Shanshan on the living room sofa. Our clothes weren't completely off yet when the door sounded. We quickly separated, and I grabbed my coat pretending I had just come in. Xiao Zheng looked at the somewhat messy sofa and our slightly unnatural expressions, just smiled and said his experiment had ended early. That night, the three of us sat together watching TV, the atmosphere eerily tense. Shanshan hardly spoke, and I desperately tried to make conversation.
After that night, we restrained ourselves for a while.
But once desire is opened up, it’s hard to completely close it again. Two weeks later, Shanshan sent me another message. This time the location was changed to a budget hotel near the school. The room was very small, and the soundproofing was poor too. Yet we were like two lovers who hadn’t seen each other for a long time, tearing at each other’s clothes from the moment we entered. Halfway through, faint thudding sounds and a woman’s moans came from next door. Hearing those sounds, Shanshan’s inner walls suddenly tightened, squeezing me painfully. She bit my shoulder and reached a very intense climax.
When we came out, it was already dark. We did not leave together. She left first, and I stayed in the room for ten more minutes. When I went downstairs, I saw her standing under the bus stop sign across the street, head lowered as she looked at her phone. The night wind lifted her hair, and the streetlight cast a vague halo of light on her body. At that moment I suddenly felt that this kind of relationship between us was both dirty and clean—dirty because of betrayal, clean because we both understood clearly that this was nothing more than a transaction about the body.
Without promises of love, there is no qualification to be let down.
When winter came, things changed.
Xiao Zheng began preparing for the postgraduate entrance exam. He became very busy, often holed up in the library or lab, sometimes not coming home for several days in a row. Shan Shan suddenly had a lot more free time. The frequency of our meetings went from once or twice a week to almost every other day. Sometimes it was at the shared apartment, sometimes at a hotel, and occasionally we would even drive to a budget motel in the suburbs.
The physical familiarity had reached a point where no extra words were needed. She knew I liked her to moan when she climaxed, and I would deliberately slow down to torment her when she was close; I knew she had a particularly sensitive spot on the back of her neck, and if I gently bit it with my teeth, her legs would go weak. We were like a pair of perfectly synchronized dancers, pushing each other's pleasure to the peak within the limited time.
But the more it is like this, the more obvious a certain weariness becomes.
Once after we finished, she stared at the ceiling and suddenly said, 'It seems like we've done everything we were supposed to do.'
I turned my head to look at her. "What do you mean?"
“It’s just... the initial nervousness, the sneaky thrill, it all seems to be gone. Now it feels more like... routine.”
I fell silent. Because she was right.
That initial heart-pounding guilt, the fear of being discovered, and the excitement of breaking the rules are now being replaced by a habitual pleasure. We still enjoy our bodies, but it's no longer like before, where every meeting carried an all-or-nothing flavor.
"Do you want to end it?" I asked.
She thought for a long time before shaking her head. 'It's not the right time yet. At least... wait until he finishes his postgraduate entrance exams. Bringing up a breakup now would be too cruel.'
I nodded and didn't ask further.
Since then, when we met, we would talk a little more. It was no longer just undressing, entering, climaxing, and leaving. She would talk about the progress of her thesis and her confusion about future work; I would talk about the supermarket business, about how sometimes I felt trapped in this city that was neither big nor small. In the pauses between our bodies entwined, we exchanged fragments of each other’s lives like two ordinary friends.
Strangely, this kind of conversation made the sex even deeper.
Once while she was riding me, she suddenly leaned down and kissed me. That kiss was long, slow, carrying a gentleness never felt before. After it ended, she didn't get up immediately but lay on my chest, listening to my heartbeat.
“If you had rented this house first, and then sublet the other room to Xiao Zheng……” she suddenly said, “would we have been different?”
I didn't answer.
Because some assumptions are meaningless. The reality is: she is Xiao Zheng's girlfriend, and I am their shared-rent landlord and friend. We are on a bed that doesn't belong to us, briefly possessing each other time and again, then returning to our respective roles as if nothing happened.
On the day the postgraduate exam results came out, Xiao Zheng treated us to a meal. He did pretty well, passing the target university's score line. At the table, he drank a bit too much, held my hand and thanked me for always taking care of him, saying we should keep in touch even after he moves out. Shanshan sat beside him, smiling appropriately, occasionally giving me a look only I could understand.
That night they went back very early. I sat alone in the empty living room, listening to the faint sounds from the next room—they probably did it too. I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke slowly rise towards the ceiling.
The text message was received at 2 a.m.
"Tomorrow he’s going to report to the adviser. The house will be empty during the day."
I looked at that line of text and replied with an 'Okay.'
The next day, I took leave from work. At noon sharp, I showed up at the shared apartment. Shanshan was already waiting inside. Today she was dressed simply, in a T-shirt and sweatpants, no makeup on her face. Seeing me come in, she didn't pull me straight into the bedroom like before. Instead, she first poured two glasses of water and handed one to me.
“Drink it all before we do it,” she said.
We sat on the sofa, chatting intermittently. Sunlight leaked through the gaps in the curtains, drawing narrow bands of light on the floor. She suddenly asked me, 'Have you ever thought about the future?'
“What kind of later?”
“It’s just... the future of our relationship. One day it will end, won’t it?”
“Will.” I said, “all secret relationships will end. Either they get discovered, or you get bored of each other, or life pushes people onto different tracks.”
She nodded, as if receiving some kind of confirmation. Then she stood up, pulled the hem of her T-shirt over her head and took it off. She wasn't wearing a bra underneath. She walked over to me, straddled my lap, and leaned down to kiss me.
This kiss was different from all the previous ones. There was less urgency, more of a certain solemnity.
We went at it until very late. From the sofa to the floor, then to the bedroom. She was unusually proactive, almost demanding. When she climaxed, she didn't suppress her voice, just moaned openly. When I came inside her for the third time, she held me tightly, her legs not letting go either.
“Let’s leave it at that.” She said in my ear, her voice somewhat hoarse. “Enough.”
I understand what she means.
From that day on, we never sent messages about meeting again.
After Xiao Zheng successfully enrolled, they quickly moved out of the shared apartment. On the day they moved out, I helped with the moving. When Shan Shan handed the keys to me, her fingertips lingered on my palm for a second. She looked at me, smiled very lightly, and didn't say anything unnecessary.
Later, we would occasionally run into each other near the school. She would nod at me, and I would nod back. Sometimes Xiao Zheng was there too, and he would come over enthusiastically to say hello and pull me along for a drink. At the table, Shanshan would sit quietly to one side, occasionally meeting my gaze before quickly looking away.
Those entanglements, gasps, sweat, and secrets that happened in the shared rental house were all properly sealed away in the past.
No one mentioned it.
And no one forgot.
Sometimes in the dead of night, I still think of her frowning slightly beneath me, the sensation of being fully opened yet tightly wrapped when entering her, and her silent profile as she smoked afterward. The desire has subsided, but the memories are like old film, occasionally awakened by a chance scent or light, as clear as if it were yesterday.
Later, the shared apartment was rented to new students again. The new tenant was warm and polite, and occasionally invited me to eat together. I politely declined.
Some doors, once opened, can never be properly locked again.
And some people, once they become a secret of the body, can never revert to being ordinary neighbors.
The wind will still blow in through that window. It's just that inside, different people are there now.
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