Chapter 11: Forbidden Assistance
The scent of jasmine in the car had long since faded, replaced by the smell of old coffee cups and vinyl cleaner. It wasn’t his car; it was his older brother’s, borrowed for the weekend. Leo had offered to drive me home after the library, saying the late-night buses were unreliable. He was just being kind. A handsome, uncomplicated kindness I used to find comforting.
We’d been studying for our midterm, spreadsheets glowing on our laptops in the backseat for more space. The quiet had been companionable. Then I’d shifted, reaching for a textbook, and a sharp, unexpected twinge made me gasp. It wasn’t pain. It was the ghost of a vibration, a phantom echo from the device Shuting had buried inside me hours before. A leftover shudder from the aftershocks that still occasionally trembled through my core.
“You okay?” Leo had asked, glancing up from his screen. His face was softened by the dim light from the parking lot lamp.
“Fine. Just a cramp,” I’d said, the practiced lie smooth on my tongue.
But my body betrayed me. Another internal tremor, this one deeper, a resonant quake that had nothing to do with muscles. My breath hitched. My cheeks flushed hot. Leo’s eyes, a warm hazel, lingered on my face, then dipped lower. He was perceptive. He’d been watching me all evening, noticing my distracted jumps, my inability to focus.
He closed his laptop with a soft click. “Vy.”
“I’m fine, really.”
“You’re not.” His voice was quiet, but it cut through the silence of the car. He reached out, not for me, but for the edge of my loose sweater. His fingers brushed the fabric where it met my leggings. “You’ve been squirming for an hour. You think I haven’t noticed?”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “Leo, don’t.”
“Is it that?” he asked, his gaze direct, unflinching. “The thing girls use? A… toy?”
The vulgarity of the word in his clean, calm mouth was profoundly shocking. I couldn’t speak. I just stared, my mouth dry.
He took my silence as confirmation. A strange, focused intensity came over his features. It wasn’t leering. It was curious, predatory. “Is it on right now?”
“No,” I whispered, the lie weak.
He leaned closer. The car felt suddenly airless. “Let me see.”
“No.” I pushed at his chest, but my arm was weak, jelly-like.
His large hand—a soccer player’s hand, broad and strong—closed over my wrist, gentle but immovable. “Let me help you with that,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a low, private register that vibrated in the small space.
With his other hand, he hooked his fingers into the waistband of my leggings and my underwear beneath. In one swift, decisive motion, he yanked them both down to my knees. The cool night air of the car kissed my exposed skin. I was completely laid bare from the waist down, splayed on the backseat of his brother’s Honda Civic.
He didn’t gasp. He didn’t leer. He studied me with a clinical, fascinated hunger. His eyes fixed on the subtle, tell-tale bulge where the sleek silicone egg was nestled inside me. A low, appreciative sound hummed in his throat. “Fuck,” he breathed. “It’s still in you.”
Before I could process the shame, the dizzying exposure, his fingers were there. He traced the outer lips, already slick from my day-long torment. He found the tiny silicone tail of the egg, nestled against my entrance. With a probing pressure, he pushed it deeper inside me. I cried out, my back arching off the seat.
“Quiet,” he said, almost absently, his focus absolute. He kept pushing, working it with two fingers until it was fully seated, a deep, full ache. Then, slowly, he began to pull it out. The sensation was obscene, a slow, dragging exit that made me whimper. He pulled the glistening, blue silicone egg free and held it up, examining it in the faint light. It was slick with my wetness. He set it carefully on the center console, like a scientist setting down a specimen.
His eyes returned to me. I was spread open, throbbing, empty in a way that felt unbearable. “Look at you,” he said, his voice thick. “So fucking wet for a piece of plastic.” He didn’t ask. He pressed two fingers straight into my soaked, clutching heat. The stretch was immediate, a blunt, filling pressure. But he wasn’t done.
He reached for the egg again. He brought it to my entrance, pressing the cool, wet tip against me, alongside his own fingers. My eyes flew wide. “Wait—“
He pushed. He pushed his two fingers and the thick, bulbous end of the egg into me together. The stretch was brutal, exquisite, a burning, overwhelming fullness that stole the air from my lungs. I was being split open, stuffed beyond capacity. A guttural, ragged moan tore from my throat as my body struggled to accommodate the dual invasion.
“That’s it,” he grunted, watching his fingers and the toy disappear inside me, my flesh straining around them. “Take it. Fuck, you’re tight.” He began to move, a shallow, fuckling motion, his knuckles and the silicone toy moving together in a maddening rhythm. With his other hand, his thumb found my clit, already swollen and hypersensitive. He ground hard, ruthless circles against it, the pressure borderline painful.
It was too much. The overstimulation, the shock, the raw, devouring fullness. The orgasm that ripped through me was convulsive, violent, a seizure of pleasure that had me clawing at the leather seats, a broken, sobbing scream trapped behind my clenched teeth. My body clamped down viciously on the intruding fingers and toy, milking them in wave after wave of brutal, shattering release.
He fucked me through it, his thumb never relenting, his fingers and the egg pistoning in and out until I was a shuddering, oversensitive wreck. Only then did he slowly withdraw. The egg slipped out with a wet, filthy sound, followed by his glistening fingers.
He brought those fingers to his mouth, sucking them clean, his eyes locked on mine. “Tastes like trouble,” he said, a faint smile on his lips.
Then he was unbuckling his own jeans. He wasn’t slow. He wasn’t gentle. He shoved them down just enough, freeing his erection. He was thick, hard, and flushed with need. My brain screamed. Shuting. Condom. No.
“Leo, wait—“ I gasped, trying to pull my leggings up, to create a barrier.
He caught my hands, pinning them above my head on the seatback with one of his. His other hand guided himself to my entrance, the head nudging against the slick, thoroughly used mess he’d made of me. “You’re already so fucking wet,” he murmured, his breath hot on my neck. “Don’t pretend you don’t want it.”
I did. God help me, in that moment, my body did. It was a hollow, hungry want, divorced from my heart, which was a frantic, trapped bird beating against my ribs.
He didn’t ask again. He pushed inside.
The stretch was different. Warmer. Alive. He filled me completely, a heavy, relentless possession. He swore softly, his forehead dropping to my shoulder. “Jesus, Vy.” Then he began to move, setting a deep, pounding rhythm from the first stroke. There was no tenderness, no romance. It was pure, frantic coupling. The car rocked gently. His hips slapped against mine, skin on skin, the sound obscenely loud in the quiet car. Every thrust drove me into the unyielding leather of the seat.
He fucked me like he was trying to claim something, to overwrite something. His mouth was on my neck, sucking a bruise into the skin Shuting had kissed just that morning. His hand still pinned my wrists. I was completely at his mercy, my body responding with a traitorous, building heat. The guilt was a sharp rock in my gut, but the physical sensation began to smother it. A second, darker, shameful orgasm began to coil deep within me, fed by the sheer animal rhythm of his hips.
“You feel fucking incredible,” he grunted, his pace becoming ragged, desperate. “Gonna come inside you. Is that okay? Tell me it’s okay.”
It wasn’t. It was a line, a Rubicon. I thought of Shuting. I thought of the remote on her nightstand, her proud, possessive smile. I opened my mouth to say no.
But all that came out was a choked, “Yes.”
It was the permission he needed. With a final, driving thrust, he buried himself to the hilt and groaned, a raw, ragged sound. I felt the hot, pulsing flood of his release filling me, a shocking, intimate violation that marked me as his in the most primitive way. The sensation triggered my own climax, a weaker, emptier echo of the first, my body spasming around him as I took everything he gave.
He collapsed on top of me, sweaty and heavy. The smell of sex, sharp and musky, replaced the last traces of jasmine. We lay there in the silence, his weight pressing me into the seat, his come leaking out of me onto the leather.
When he finally pulled out and moved off me, the cold air was a shock. He handed me a fast-food napkin from the glove compartment without a word. I cleaned myself up, my hands trembling violently as I pulled my leggings back up. The fabric felt strange against my sore, used flesh. He tucked himself away, zipped up, and started the car. The engine’s purr was deafening.
“I won’t tell Anna,” he said finally, his eyes on the road as he pulled out of the parking lot. Anna, his girlfriend of two years, who was studying in Beijing for the summer.
“I won’t tell Shuting,” I whispered, the name like ash in my mouth.
It was the pact. Mutual destruction, held in check by mutual silence.
He drove me to my dorm. We didn’t speak again. As I got out, my legs unsteady, he looked at me. “See you in class, Vy.”
I nodded and closed the door. The sleek silver Honda Civic drove off, carrying the evidence of what we’d done away into the Shanghai night.
I walked into the dorm building like a ghost. My body felt foreign, heavy with another man’s sin. I didn’t go to Shuting’s room. I went to my own, the single I’d barely used in weeks. I stood under a scalding shower for a long time, scrubbing my skin until it was red, but I could still feel the phantom pressure of him inside me, the sticky reminder trickling down my thigh.
Wrapped in a towel, I checked my phone. There was one new message. From Shuting.
Did you think of me today?
The screen blurred. My breath hitched in a dry, silent sob. I thought of her remote on the nightstand. I thought of the egg, now lying somewhere in Leo’s car. I thought of her fingers in my hair, her voice calling me her good girl.
I typed a reply, my thumbs cold and clumsy.
Every second.
I sent it. The lie delivered, a tiny digital stone added to the mountain now crumbling inside me. I climbed into my own cold, narrow bed and stared at the ceiling, waiting for dawn, feeling the last traces of Leo’s claim seep into the sheets, a secret already beginning to fester.
The lie of my text message hummed in the silence, a phantom limb of my guilt. Sleep was a foreign country. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the rocking of the car, the slick heat of Leo’s release, the cold weight of the silicone egg on the console. Dawn arrived as a gray smear across the window, bringing no clarity. I dressed mechanically, choosing high-necked clothing to hide the bruise taking shape on my neck.
When I knocked on her door, the sound felt like an accusation.
Shuting opened it, already dressed, her hair damp from the shower. Her smile was immediate, a sunbreak after my long night. It faltered as her eyes scanned my face. “You look terrible,” she said, her voice softening with concern. She reached for me, pulling me inside. “Did you not sleep? Was the studying that bad?”
Her touch, so familiar, so wanted, felt like a brand. I flinched.
She noticed. Her hands stilled on my arms. “Vy?”
“I’m just tired,” I mumbled, leaning into her, burying my face in the scent of her clean skin, trying to overwrite the memory of sweat and vinyl. “My own bed felt weird. I missed you.”
She held me, one hand cradling the back of my head. “Then you should have come here.” She pulled back, her gaze sharp, analytical. “You’re trembling.”
“Adrenaline crash,” I lied, forcing a weak smile. “All that caffeine.”
She watched me for a beat too long, her dark eyes missing nothing. Then she seemed to decide. Her expression shifted, the concern melting into something hotter, more possessive. “You need to come down properly,” she stated, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw. “You said you thought of me every second yesterday. Prove it.”
My heart stammered. “Shuting, I’m really tired—”
“I don’t care.” Her voice was low, edged with a command that brooked no argument. It was the voice from the dresser, from the library remote. It pulled at the shattered pieces of me. “I want what’s mine. On your knees.”
The command, so directly linked to the violation of the previous night, coiled my insides into a sick knot. Yet, a treacherous part of me responded, craving the obliteration of her ownership. I sank down on the rug before her, the rough weave familiar against my knees.
She didn’t undress. She stood over me, unzipping her jeans, pushing them and her simple cotton underwear down just enough. She was bare, clean-shaven, the neat trim of dark hair glistening slightly. “Taste me,” she ordered, guiding my head forward with a hand tangled in my hair. “Clean me up from dreaming about you.”
Her smell, musky and deep, filled my senses. I obeyed, dragging my tongue through her folds, lapping at the faint, tangy evidence of her sleep. I worshipped her with my mouth, trying to pour every ounce of my fractured devotion into the act, to scrub my sin away with the wet heat of her. I sucked her clit between my lips, applying a rhythmic pressure I knew she loved.
She groaned, her hips pushing forward. “Yes. Like that. Your mouth belongs here.” Her fingers tightened in my hair, controlling the pace. “You’re so good at this. My perfect girl.”
Every praise felt like a lash. I redoubled my efforts, hollowing my cheeks, fucking her with my tongue until her legs began to shake. Her climax was swift, a sharp cry as she ground herself against my face, her release bitter on my tongue. I drank it down, a desperate communion.
She pulled away, breathing heavily, and looked down at me with a dazed, sated pride. “Now,” she panted, pulling me up by my hair until I stood on unsteady legs. “I want to feel you.” She turned me, bending me over the edge of her neatly made bed. She yanked my jeans down. The morning light was cruel, exposing me. She paused.
Her fingers brushed lightly over the bruised skin on the back of my thigh, a memento from the car’s leather seam. “Where did you get this?”
“The library chair,” I breathed, the lie instant and smooth. “It was stuck, I twisted getting out.”
She said nothing. Her touch moved lower, dipping between my legs from behind. She pushed two fingers inside me without preamble. I was still wet from her, from my own terrified arousal. She worked them in and out, her brow furrowed in concentration. Then she stopped. She pulled her fingers out and brought them to her nose, inhaling.
A lifetime passed in that silence.
Her eyes locked onto mine in the reflection of her wardrobe mirror. The sated softness was gone, incinerated by a cold, slow-dawning fire. “Vy,” she said, her voice dangerously calm. “What is inside you?”
My blood turned to ice. “What? Nothing.”
“Don’t.” She pushed her fingers back in, deeper, scissoring them. “The pH is wrong. The smell is… different.” She withdrew her hand again, staring at the faint, altered slickness on her skin. “It’s metallic. Saltier. It’s not you. It’s not us.” Her gaze lifted, piercing me through the mirror. “It’s semen.”
The word dropped between us like a stone.
I couldn’t speak. My throat closed.
“Who.” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand carved from ice.
“No one,” I choked out. “Shuting, I swear—”
She moved with terrifying speed. Spinning me around, she slammed me onto the bed, climbing over me, her knees pinning my thighs. Her hands gripped my face, forcing me to look at her. The kindness was gone, replaced by a raw, unhinged fury. “You reek of another man’s come,” she hissed, spit flecking her lips. “You are dripping with it. Who fucked you?”
Tears spilled over, hot and shameful. “Leo,” I whimpered. “It was Leo. Last night. In his car.”
The sound that left her was not human. It was a raw fracture of betrayal. She recoiled off me as if my skin burned. She stood beside the bed, shaking, her hands clenching and unclenching. I saw the calculation in her eyes, the timeline assembling itself—the library, the study session, the text messages.
“Did you come with him?” she whispered, the question laced with venom.
I could only nod, a tiny, wretched movement.
She stared at me, and something in her face broke apart and reformed into something harder, darker. “You let him come inside you.”
It was the deepest cut, the ultimate betrayal beyond the physical act. I curled into a ball, sobbing. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was a mistake.”
“A mistake.” She repeated the word as if tasting something rotten. The silence that followed was a vacuum, sucking all the air from the room. Then, she moved. Not toward the door. Toward me.
Her hands were rough, dragging me onto my back. There was no passion in her touch, only a ruthless, clinical purpose. “You’ve polluted what’s mine,” she said, her voice eerily detached. She shoved my legs apart. “I need to clean it out.”
She lowered her head between my thighs. But this was not the possessive hunger from before. Her tongue plunged inside me, a brutal, probing invasion. She lapped at me with a frantic, angry intensity, scouring my insides with the flat of her tongue, sucking hard at my entrance as if trying to draw the contamination out. It was violent, degrading, a punishment masquerading as intimacy.
I cried out, pushing at her head, but she was immovable. She fucked me with her tongue, deep and punishing, until my sobs mixed with ragged, unwilling gasps. My body, the ultimate traitor, began to respond to the brutal stimulation, a dizzying rush of shameful heat pooling low in my belly.
She felt it. She lifted her head, her mouth and chin glistening. A horrible, cold smile touched her lips. “You’re still getting wet. Even now.” She unbuttoned her own jeans, pulling out the harness and the strap, the dark silicone gleaming. She didn’t bother with pleasantries. She angled the tip against my sore, abused opening. “This will remind you,” she said. “This will put my shape back inside you.”
She slammed into me in one brutal thrust. The stretch was agonizing, a burning rearrangement. She set a relentless, pounding rhythm, her eyes locked on where our bodies joined, watching herself disappear into the place another man had been. “You will not see him again,” she grunted, each word a hammer blow. “You will not speak to him. You belong to me. Every filthy, cheating inch of you.”
I clutched at the sheets, overwhelmed by the pain, the shame, the perverse thrill of her reclamation. She was rewriting the violation with a greater one, searing her ownership back into my flesh. My climax, when it came, was a silent, seizing thing, a wave of utter devastation that left me void.
She followed shortly after, a sharp, choked cry muffled against my neck. She collapsed on me, the heavy weight of her body and the truth pressing me into the mattress. We lay there, a tangled mess of sweat, tears, and spent rage.
After a long time, she rolled off. She stood, putting herself away with mechanical movements. She didn’t look at me. “Clean yourself up,” she said, her voice hollow. “We have class.”
“Shuting…” I reached for her.
She avoided my touch. “This stays here,” she said, finally meeting my eyes. Her gaze was a wasteland. “No one knows. Not ever.” She swallowed hard, the muscle in her jaw jumping. “If you ever speak of it, or see him again, I will erase you from my life.”
She walked to the door, pausing with her hand on the knob. “We will hide it. We will hide all of it. Now get dressed.”
She left, closing the door softly behind her. I was alone with the aftermath, the scent of sex and sorrow thick in the sunlit room. The affair was hidden, buried under a new, more terrible layer of silence. The secret was now ours to share, a rotting foundation for whatever was left.