The apartment was too quiet.
Xu had left for her interview hours ago and the silence she left behind felt larger than usual. I tried to study. I tried to watch a match recording. I tried lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling until the ceiling became offensive. Nothing worked. My body was still restless from the leftover edges of the rut and my mind kept circling the same empty space where she used to argue with me.
I decided to take care of the restlessness myself.
The first attempt was the shower head.
I stood under the warm spray, adjusted the setting to something more focused, and aimed it between my legs with the grim determination of someone who had watched too many late-night videos. The pressure was strong. The angle was wrong. Water went everywhere except the exact place I needed it. I slipped once, caught myself on the tiles, and spent the next minute cursing the designer of the bathroom. By the time I gave up I was more annoyed than aroused and the floor was a minor flood.
I dried off and moved to the kitchen.
The electric toothbrush was a moment of pure regret.
I stood there with the vibrating handle pressed awkwardly against myself, the bristles nowhere near useful, and the cheerful buzzing sound echoing through the quiet apartment like an accusation. It felt ridiculous. It felt slightly painful. It felt like something a person who had completely lost dignity would do. I lasted less than a minute before I turned it off and put it back in the cup with more force than necessary.
The sofa cushion was next.
I folded it in half, straddled it, and tried to create enough friction to finish. The fabric was too soft. The angle made my knee cramp. At one point the cushion slid out from under me and I caught myself on the coffee table with a noise that was half groan and half pure frustration. I stayed there for a second, forehead against the wood, and accepted that I was losing a fight against household furniture.
Loneliness crept in somewhere between the third and fourth attempt.
It was not the sharp kind that came with arguments. It was quieter. I was in the middle of the living room, half undressed, surrounded by the ordinary objects of a shared apartment, and the only thing I could think about was that Xu was not here to look at me with that irritated expression she always wore when I did something stupid. The silence felt heavier than the need. I pressed my face into the crook of my arm and breathed through it, but the feeling only settled deeper. This chapter was copied from novelping.com without permission.
I tried one more time on the bed, using the corner of a pillow and the slow grind of my own hips. It worked better than the rest. My breath grew short. My fingers dug into the sheets. For a few seconds the loneliness loosened its grip and pleasure took its place. I came with a low, frustrated sound that felt too loud in the empty room. The relief lasted barely longer than the orgasm itself. Afterward I simply lay there, staring at the ceiling again, feeling more alone than when I started.
I did not hear the front door open.
I did not hear the footsteps until they stopped at the bedroom doorway.
Xu Linling stood there with her bag still on her shoulder and her keys in one hand. Her eyes moved from my flushed face to the pillow still trapped between my thighs to the general state of the room. The silence that followed was absolute.
I froze.
She blinked once.
Then she said, very calmly, “I was gone for three hours.”
I opened my mouth. No useful words came out.
Xu looked at the discarded towel on the floor, the slightly crooked sofa cushion visible through the doorway, and finally back at me. A faint, incredulous sound escaped her.
I pulled the blanket over myself so fast I nearly fell off the bed.
“Get out.”
“I live here.”
“Get out of the doorway.”
She did not move. She just kept looking at me with an expression that sat somewhere between secondhand embarrassment and reluctant amusement. My face burned. The loneliness from earlier twisted into something sharper and far more humiliating.
Xu sighed, stepped back, and closed the door with careful politeness.
Her voice came through the wood, dry and unmistakable.
“Next time at least lock it. And maybe leave the toothbrush alone.”
I buried my face in the pillow and accepted that the day could not possibly get worse.
It already had.