Chapter 11: The Mandarin Lesson
The return from New York was a descent into a different kind of silence. Not the empty quiet of before, but a thick, palpable hum of something reconfigured. The key to Scarlett’s apartment now felt like a component of Vy’s own skeleton. She used it on a Tuesday afternoon, letting herself into the sun-dappled stillness. Scarlett was at a departmental meeting. Vy had come to study, but the familiar scent of jasmine and old paper unspooled the tension in her shoulders, replacing it with a low, warm awareness.
She was sprawled on the worn leather armchair, a statistics textbook open but unread on her lap, when the door clicked open. Scarlett entered, dropping her bag, her eyes finding Vy immediately. She didn’t smile. Her gaze was a physical scan.
“You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
Scarlett crossed the room, moving with a liquid purpose that made Vy’s breath catch. She stopped before the chair, looking down at her. Without a word, she loosened the dark silk tie she was wearing, the one with the subtle paisley pattern Vy had admired once. The silk whispered as she pulled it free from her collar.
“Close your eyes,” Scarlett said, her voice low.
Vy obeyed. The world went dark a moment before the cool, slick silk settled over her eyes, Scarlett’s fingers tying a secure, but not tight, knot at the back of her head. The deprivation was instantaneous and total. Her other senses strained forward, hungry.
She heard the rustle of Scarlett’s clothes, the soft thump of her knee on the cushion beside Vy’s hip. Hands, warm and sure, cupped her face. “I don’t want you to see,” Scarlett murmured, her breath a ghost against Vy’s lips. “I want you to just… feel. And listen.”
Those hands guided Vy up, and she went willingly, let herself be led the few steps to the bed. A small push at her shoulders and she fell back onto the handmade quilt, the embroidered stars pressing into her back through her thin shirt. The loss of sight made every touch monumental. Scarlett’s palms smoothed up her thighs, pushing her skirt to her waist. Cool air touched her skin, followed by the scorching heat of Scarlett’s mouth through her cotton underwear.
Vy gasped, her back arching.
“Shhh.” Scarlett’s voice was a vibration against her clit. “Just feel.”
She mouthed her through the fabric, wetting it, her tongue a firm, persistent pressure. Vy’s hands fisted in the quilt. The blindfold trapped her in a world of sensation and sound—the wet, rhythmic sounds of Scarlett’s mouth, the ragged pull of her own breathing, the faint creak of the bed.
Then, fingers hooked into the waistband of her underwear and pulled them down her legs. The air was a shock. Scarlett’s hands spread her thighs, wide, holding her open. Vy felt utterly exposed, more than ever before. The vulnerability was a heady, terrifying drug.
Scarlett’s tongue found her again, naked skin to skin. A long, slow, flat lick from her entrance all the way up to her clit. Vy cried out.
“I want to hear you beg for it,” Scarlett said, her voice dark and thick, her lips brushing Vy’s inner thigh. “But not in English. In Mandarin.”
Vy’s mind blanked. “I… I don’t—”
“You heard me in the alley. You heard the words. Use them.”
The memory flashed—the guttural, desperate Mandarin curses Scarlett had torn from the air as she came. Vy’s face burned under the silk. She swallowed. “Qǐu nǐ,” she whispered, the syllables clumsy on her tongue. Please you.
“Louder.”
“Qǐu nǐ!” Vy gasped as Scarlett’s tongue swirled, a teasing, maddening circle around her clit but not on it.
“Tell me what you want.”
“Wǒ xiǎng yào nǐ,” Vy choked out. I want you.
“Where?” Scarlett’s tongue darted, a brief, electric flick.
“Zhè lǐ. Wǒ de… wǒ de…” She couldn’t find the word. She was drowning.
“Your cunt,” Scarlett supplied, the English word crude and devastating in the flow of Mandarin. “Say it. Wǒ de biǎo zǐ.”
“Wǒ de biǎo zǐ,” Vy sobbed, the obscenity feeling both alien and perfectly true in her mouth. “Qǐu nǐ, cǎo wǒ. Please, fuck me.”
The plea unleashed her. Scarlett’s mouth descended, sucking her clit hard into the heat of her mouth, her tongue lashing it. At the same time, two fingers pressed against Vy’s entrance and plunged deep inside her in one ruthless stroke.
Vy screamed. The fingers curled, finding that perfect, devastating spot instantly, fucking into her with a steady, piston-like rhythm that made the bedframe knock gently against the wall. Scarlett’s mouth was relentless, sucking and licking in time with her thrusts. The dual assault, in the void of sight, was world-ending. Vy chanted a broken stream of “qǐu nǐ, qǐu nǐ, qǐu nǐ,” into the darkness, her hips pumping, meeting every drive.
Just as the coil in her gut tightened to the point of snapping, Scarlett stopped. Her fingers withdrew. Her mouth left her.
Vy whimpered, a sound of pure loss.
“Turn over,” Scarlett ordered, her voice rough.
Blind, disoriented, Vy clumsily rolled onto her stomach. Scarlett’s hands were on her again, lifting her hips, positioning her on her knees, her face pressed into the quilt. Vy felt the damp heat of her own arousal on her thighs. She heard the tear of a foil packet, the slick sound of Scarlett sheathing herself with a strap-on they hadn’t used before. The cool tip of the silicone nudged against her, already wet from her own mess.
“You begged so nicely,” Scarlett growled, one hand gripping Vy’s hip bone hard enough to bruise. “Now take it.”
She pushed inside, a slow, inexorable invasion that stretched Vy wide, filled her to a breathtaking degree. Vy cried out, the sound muffled by the bedding. Scarlett didn’t pause. She set a brutal, deep pace, each thrust hammering into that same sweet spot, the angle somehow more profound, more claiming. The slapping sound of skin on skin, the creak of the bed, Scarlett’s ragged grunts—it was a symphony of filth. Vy pushed back against her, meeting each thrust, her own noises animalistic, wordless.
“Shì wǒ de,” Scarlett panted, driving into her. Mine. “Zhè ge biǎo zǐ shì wǒ de.” This cunt is mine.
The words, the possession, the overwhelming fullness, tipped Vy over. Her orgasm ripped through her, a convulsive, blinding storm that clenched around the strap-on, milking it. She shook, her cries dissolving into sobs.
Scarlett fucked her through it, then her rhythm broke, grew erratic. With a final, deep plunge and a choked groan, she stilled, her body collapsing over Vy’s, the silicone buried to the hilt. They stayed like that, a tangled, sweating heap, Scarlett’s weight a comfort, the unfamiliar thickness inside her a persistent, claiming reminder.
After long minutes, Scarlett gently withdrew. She untied the blindfold. The late afternoon light in the familiar room was shockingly bright, painting everything in sharp, sentimental detail. Vy blinked up at Scarlett, who was looking down at her with an expression that was neither clinical nor possessive, but something frighteningly soft.
Later, showered and wrapped in Scarlett’s robe, Vy sat at the small kitchen table while Scarlett made tea. The domestic peace felt earned, a cease-fire after the sensual battle.
“Katy texted me,” Scarlett said, her back turned, as she poured hot water over loose leaves.
The name was a bucket of ice water. “Oh?”
“She wants to talk. Says she’s sorry about how she left in New York. That she overreacted.”
Vy’s throat tightened. “Are you going to?”
Scarlett brought two cups to the table, sitting close. “I think I have to. For closure. It’s… messy data otherwise.” She reached out, tucking a strand of Vy’s damp hair behind her ear. Her touch was infinitely gentle. “It doesn’t change the imperative.”
Vy wanted to believe her. She nodded, sipping the bitter, fragrant tea.
The meeting was set for Thursday at a café far from campus. Scarlett went alone. Vy tried to study in the library, but the words swam. She imagined the conversation: apologies, explanations, the intricate history she’d disrupted. A cold knot of anxiety sat in her stomach.
Her phone buzzed just after five. A location pin. Not from Scarlett. From Katy. Followed by a single line: She’s not who you think.
Then, a photo loaded. It was a screenshot of a text chain from months ago. Scarlett’s number. To Katy. The experiment requires a control subject. Someone emotionally open but inexperienced. I’ve identified one.
The date was two weeks before Vy had ever spoken to Scarlett at that first party.
The world tipped on its axis. Vy’s breath left her body. She stared at the tiny, glowing screen in the library’s sterile silence. The words “control subject” and “identified” burned into her retina.
She stood, her legs unsteady, the chair scraping loudly. She had to move. She had to get air. She stumbled out into the crisp evening, the photo seared into her mind. Was it real? Could it be faked? The cold, methodological language was undeniably Scarlett’s. The experiment.
Every touch, every whispered Mandarin command, every savage claiming in a dark alley… did it all trace back to this? A predefined study? Her naivety, her emotional openness, just… variables?
Her phone buzzed again in her hand. Scarlett. Where are you? We need to talk.
Vy looked at the message, then back at the damning screenshot. The imperative she had so fiercely claimed now felt like a trap sprung long before she’d ever seen it coming. She turned off her phone, the silence that followed as absolute and chilling as the silk blindfold had been.
She turned off her phone, the silence that followed as absolute and chilling as the silk blindfold had been. Vy walked without direction, the campus lights blurring into smears of gold against the encroaching dusk. Her body still hummed with the ghost of Scarlett’s strap-on, a cruel parody of intimacy that now seemed staged. Control subject. Identified. The phrases looped, a toxic algorithm corrupting every memory.
She found herself outside the old linguistics building, its gothic facade looming. It was where she’d first seen Katy, a year before they’d ever spoken. A study group for Econ 101, Katy laughing in the hallway, her smile a thing of genuine light. Vy’s crush had been a secret, delicate habitat, demolished and then painstakingly rebuilt when Katy, miraculously, had asked her out. Katy had been her first kiss, her first time, her first conscious fall into love. It had been gentle, exploratory, a shared discovery. Katy had been so careful with her.
“Vy?”
The voice, soft and laced with concern, came from behind her. Vy turned. Katy stood there, a wool coat hugged tight around her, her eyes wide and glistening under the streetlamp. She looked torn apart. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I saw you walking. You looked…”
“Shattered?” Vy finished, her own voice flat.
“I’m so sorry. For the text. The photo. It was a shitty thing to do.” Katy stepped closer, the familiar scent of her lavender laundry detergent cutting through the cold air. “I just… I saw what she was doing to you. At dinner. In New York. It’s not love, Vy. It’s a dissection.”
“And sending me that was what? First aid?” The anger felt good, a clean burn cutting through the numbness.
“It was a warning from a fucking coward.” Katy’s words cracked. “I was jealous. And scared. You were my first everything too, you know? That doesn’t just turn off.” She reached out, her fingertips brushing Vy’s wrist, a touch so different from Scarlett’s—a question, not a demand. “Please, let me explain. Not here. My place is close.”
Vy should have said no. She should have walked back to her dorm, turned her phone on, and demanded answers from Scarlett. But the haunted look in Katy’s eyes, the ghost of that old, tender love, was a siren song. She nodded, once.
Katy’s apartment was a time capsule of their relationship. The same squashy sofa, the same galaxy of string lights over the bed, the same well-thumbed poetry collection on the nightstand. It smelled like safety. Like a before-time. Katy made tea, her movements calm and methodical, the way she’d always done when Vy was stressed.
“She proposed it as a psychological profile,” Katy said, handing Vy a steaming mug. She didn’t sit, but paced, her arms wrapped around herself. “Attachment formation in novice subjects under conditions of controlled intensity. That’s how she phrased it. I told her it was monstrous. We fought. I thought she’d dropped it.” Katy stopped, her gaze piercing. “Then she brought you to that dinner. And I saw the way she looked at you. Not like a person. Like a proven hypothesis.”
Vy’s stomach roiled. She saw Scarlett’s focused gaze, the way she catalogued reactions. Proof of efficacy.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Vy whispered.
“And say what? ‘My best friend is using you for a fucked-up paper?’ You’d have thought I was just jealous. And I was. God, I was.” Katy finally sat beside her, not touching, but near. “I miss you. Not just… us. I miss you. Your mind. Your laugh. The way you get obsessed with a data set.”
It was the perfect thing to say. It bypassed Vy’s fury and went straight to the lonely, yearning core of her. She looked at Katy’s mouth, remembered the sweet, patient way she’d taught her what pleasure could be. A tear escaped, tracing a hot path down Vy’s cheek. Katy saw it. Gently, so gently, she leaned in and caught it with her lips, kissing her cheek.
It was a spark in dry tinder. Vy turned her head and their mouths met. It wasn’t fire. It was a homecoming. Katy’s lips were soft, familiar, yielding. She tasted of mint tea and regret. A sob broke from Vy’s throat and she kissed her harder, her hands coming up to tangle in Katy’s hair, pulling her closer.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Katy murmured between kisses, her own tears mingling with theirs. She guided Vy back onto the sofa, her body a comforting weight. Her hands, knowing and tender, slipped under Vy’s shirt. They moved over her ribs, her back, avoiding the fresh bite mark Scarlett had left, as if honoring a sacred boundary.
Vy was dissolving, the careful identity Scarlett had forged—the willing subject, the begging fucktoy—melting under Katy’s compassionate hands. “Make me forget,” Vy pleaded against her neck. “Just for tonight.”
Katy undressed her slowly, with a reverence that felt like mourning. She kissed every newly exposed inch of skin, her mouth worshipping where Scarlett’s had claimed. When her lips finally closed around Vy’s nipple, it was with a soft suckle, a nostalgic echo that made Vy’s heart ache more than her body.
“You’re so beautiful,” Katy breathed, her hand sliding down Vy’s stomach. “You always were.” Her fingers slipped through Vy’s folds, finding her wet—a betrayal of her body, reacting to the nostalgia, the kindness. “See?” Katy whispered, circling her clit with a gentle, perfect pressure. “You still know me.”
She entered her with two fingers, curling them in that old, remembered way. It wasn’t the brutal, pinpoint accuracy of Scarlett. It was deeper, warmer, an embrace from the inside. Katy kissed her deeply as she moved, a slow, rocking rhythm that built not in sharp spikes, but in a gathering wave. Vy clutched at her, her cries muffled against Katy’s shoulder. This was the love she’d dreamed of. This was what had been taken.
“Come for me, Vy,” Katy whispered, her pace increasing, her thumb pressing firm circles. “Come for yourself. Take it back.”
The orgasm that broke over Vy was soul-wrenching and vast, a release of grief as much as pleasure. She wept openly, shuddering through it, Katy holding her tightly, murmuring soothing nonsense into her hair.
After, curled together on the narrow sofa, Katy traced idle patterns on Vy’s arm. “Stay tonight. Just sleep.”
Vy, spent and hollowed out, nodded. In the dark, Katy’s breathing evened into sleep. Vy stared at the string lights, her mind clearing into cold, sharp focus.
The screenshot. The experiment. Katy’s perfectly timed intervention. Her tender, knowing touch that had expertly dismantled her. The convenient, damning evidence offered not in defiance, but in a moment of vulnerable solicitation.
She’s not who you think.
Vy’s eyes opened wide in the dim glow. A new, terrible equation solved itself in the silence. What if the experiment wasn’t Scarlett’s alone? What if the control subject needed a baseline for comparison? What if the real study was on corruption—not of data, but of a heart—and required two researchers: one to apply the pressure, and the other, the first love, to measure the fracture?
She carefully extracted herself from Katy’s sleeping embrace. She found her phone in her discarded coat and turned it on. A single new message from Scarlett, sent an hour ago, glowed on the screen.
Scarlett: The data is contaminated. We need to talk. Where are you?
Vy looked from the screen to Katy’s peaceful, beautiful face. She thought of the silk tie, the Mandarin commands, the alley. She thought of this soft sofa, the whispered apologies, the devastatingly familiar fuck.
She was no longer a subject. She was the forum for a war between two scientists who had once been friends. And she finally knew what she wanted. She wanted to ruin their study.
She typed a reply to Scarlett, her fingers steady.
Vy: I’m with Katy. We’re at her place. You were right. The environment is irrelevant.
She sent it, then placed the phone on the pillow next to Katy’s sleeping head. Let them parse that data point. She dressed quietly, let herself out, and vanished into the cold night, leaving the two of them to untangle the consequences of their shared, ruthless methodology.