1. Have a breakdown moment of personal growth.
Three months after her brother’s funeral, Meng Yao shows up at Nie Mingjue’s apartment wearing jean shorts, a white t-shirt over a black sports bra, and a beat-up pair of tennis shoes. It’s early March, and she’s freezing, but they’re the only clothes she owns that do not deliberately emphasize her curves. She has clipped her nails short, ruining her French manicure, and this the first time she has left her own house without a full face of makeup since college. Or maybe ever.
“I’m having either a mental breakdown or a butch awakening,” she informs Nie Mingjue when the door opens. “Either way, I need you to shave my head.”
There is a pause.
“Well, I’m not going to do that,” Nie Mingjue says bluntly.
“Why not?”
“Because if you’re having a breakdown, that’s enabling. Best I can offer is a cup of coffee and some unfortunate bangs. I can call Xichen if you need a shoulder to cry on.”
Meng Yao considers all of the calm, rational, placating, coaxing things she would have said to get her way yesterday. Then she thinks of what a mean bull dyke would say when her autonomy over her own body was denied.
“f*ck you.”
Nie Mingjue laughs—a short, startled sound. She raises an arm to scratch just above her ear, where her hair is buzzed short in an undercut. Usually she pulls the rest of it back in a long braid, but it’s a Friday night and she is at home. Tonight it is piled in a messy bun on top of her head, and she is dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a muscle shirt that emphasizes her strong arms. Meng Yao has never been more envious in her life.
“All right,” she says. “Come on in.”
11. Get a buzz cut.
The buzz of the clippers is almost unbearably sexual.
Meng Yao wasn’t prepared for this. She stands at Nie Mingjue’s bathroom mirror, resting her hands on the porcelain sink and watches as Mingjue takes first scissors and then clippers to her head. She makes three passes, shorter and shorter each time. She takes care around the ears, bending the cartilage out of the way so she can get the edges of Meng Yao’s hairline, and Meng Yao feels a tingle up her spine. The touch is gentle but persistent, a teasing little tickle, and the sound— look, the thing sounds like a vibrator. There’s no getting around it.
Her eyes in the mirror look hungry. She’s fascinated by the sight of her own face like this—no makeup to make her eyes look even bigger and her lashes even longer, no signature vermillion lipstick adding a sensual curve to her lips, no hair teased out in a voluminous bob to soften and frame her face. Nothing to distract from the way she actually looks. The person in the mirror is practically a stranger. Have her ears always stuck out that much? And her nose—long and straight as always, but it actually looks quite regal like this, doesn’t it? She wants to tilt her head up, to admire her jaw from every angle, but she is mindful of the sharp blades close by.
“You want it squared off in the back?” Nie Mingjue asks.
“What?”
Mingjue’s fingers dance over the back of her neck.
“Here, the hairline—do you want it pointed, or squared off?”
“Um.”
She has never thought about the appearance of the back of her neck.
“Pointed is more pixie cut, squared is more masculine,” Mingjue offers.
“Squared.”
Mingjue works for another moment, then she sets the clippers down. She wipes a wet towel over the back of Meng Yao’s neck and follows it with a little spritz of cologne.
“The full barbershop experience,” she says.
Meng Yao is wearing an oversize flannel—Mingjue’s—that acts as a makeshift hairdresser’s cape; she stands and shakes off the loose hairs before buttoning the front. Mingjue is taller and broader than her, but her tit* are smaller, so the fit isn’t too bad, as long as she rolls up the sleeves. It makes her look boxy, and it’s a proper flannel, the kind made for lumberjacks, so the material is thick and cozy.
“All right, Butch Cassidy,” Mingjue says, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed. “You want to tell me what the f*ck this is about?”
17a. Learn to drink beer whiskey whatever the f*ck you want
Meng Yao curls up against the arm of the sofa and tucks her bare legs under her seat. It’s not the most masculine of poses, but she’s still chilly. Mingjue comes in from the kitchen and hands her a bottle of beer. She takes a sip and represses the urge to gag.
“I’ve never really drunk beer,” she admits. She takes another sip and settles back in her seat, picking at the label of the bottle. “I’ve never been a tomboy, either. This is going to sound weird—but I’ve always been really, really good at traditional femininity. Like, maybe too good? I never really had a problem with it until my brother’s funeral. Somebody hit on me.”
“At the funeral?”
“Yeah.”
“Asshole,” Mingjue said succinctly.
“Yeah. But on the other hand, can you blame him?”
“Yeah, I f*cking can.”
“But I looked hot. That’s not arrogance, it’s just acknowledging—my hair was perfect and my makeup was perfect, I have a traditionally desirable body shape, I was dressed nicely, I was wearing tasteful jewelry, and my mood was subdued but accommodating. I wasn’t bawling my eyes out. I could smile at the guests—I smiled at him. So why shouldn’t he think I was open to being hit on? And I had this sudden realization that this was the story of my f*cking life.”
She takes another sip of beer. It tastes like— like wheat that’s gone sour, with none of the wholesome hominess of bread, and when it slides down her throat, the aftertaste is bitter. At least liquor burns, so you know it’s working. But she presses on.
“It’s like nothing I do is ever good enough. I put all this work into being appealing to men, and what I get back is business associates of my father who want to give me a good dicking down after my brother’s funeral when their wives aren’t looking. I basically single-handedly planned my brother’s wedding and my sister-in-law’s baby shower and my brother’s funeral—don’t tell me I sound like a bitch for this, I know, okay—and then I get to spend the whole time scurrying around putting out fires while everyone else gets to sit back and actually process. I was the one comforting everyone the whole time, and Xichen was the only one who ever thought to ask if I was okay. And like I know Zixuan and I weren’t close—but don’t I get to have feelings about that? Don’t I get to take a f*cking second and grieve? My stepmom smacked me when I tried to hug her and I just stood there dispensing handkerchiefs. And my father—”
She takes a big gulp of beer, and this time she does gag. She coughs and holds the bottle out for Mingjue, switching tracks.
“I can’t,” she admits. “Never mind. If being butch means I need to learn how to drink beer, then forget it, I can’t do it.”
Mingjue snorts and takes the bottle from her.
“No worries.” She drains it and goes back to the kitchen. “How do you feel about whiskey?”
“Agnostic. I’ve had whiskey sours, but that’s pretty much it.”
Mingjue comes back with a glass filled with dark soda. She holds it out, and when Meng Yao takes it, she sits in her armchair like a panther, stretching out her long legs and resting them on the cedar chest that serves as a coffee table.
“Whiskey and co*ke will ease you into it.”
Meng Yao takes a sip. She doesn’t drink soda very often, full-sugar soda even less, and the fizz and the grit against her teeth is odd. But she likes the taste. There’s a richness, an earthiness to it that mellows out the candy-sweetness, and a little bit of that liquor zing as it goes down. Mostly, Meng Yao drinks vodka or wine—or tequila very rarely, when she’s close enough to cracking that she lets Xue Yang drag her out on the town. But she could maybe get used to this.
“Being butch means drinking whatever the f*ck you want,” Mingjue tells her. “Up to and including milk, if the bartender’s got it. But a taste for whiskey never hurts.”
“This is Irish whiskey?”
“Yeah. Bourbon’s a bit sweet for me, and scotch tends to have this really smoky flavor that’s not my thing. Irish goes down easy.”
“Mm.”
“Your father?” Mingjue prompts.
“He’s happy to have a daughter who will take care of all the domestic arrangements but he won’t let me hold A-Ling. He’s happy to have me doing three other people’s jobs, including his, but he’s not going to pay me for them. He’ll tell me to flirt with people in meetings so we can get a better contract, but he won’t let me in on any genuine relationship-building because it’s never going to be my business, it’s f*cking— A-Ling is his heir. A-Ling, the four-month-old, he’s more suited to the position! Because when it comes down to it, the only woman that’s really useful to Fuqin is a dumb whor*. A whor* who reads is more trouble than she’s worth, and an educated woman he can’t sleep with is worth nothing at all. That’s basically a direct quote, by the way. Overheard that one this afternoon.”
She takes another sip from her glass and realizes, to her surprise, that it’s empty. Mingjue takes it back, goes to the fridge, and drops in an ice cube. She brings the bottle back with her this time, along with a second glass, and pours a generous measure while Meng Yao continues to rant.
“And I realize it’s kind of f*cked up that I’m comparing my problem with men sexualizing me to my treatment at the hands of my father. I don’t mean it like that—but also I kind of do, because it’s all the same thing, right? Because my mother was honestly a perfect person, a perfect woman, and there was always this hope that that would… save her. Save us. That Fuqin would come back and whisk her away. And when that never happened, like, okay, all they had was sex, that’s fleeting, but he and I have this biological connection and that’s immutable, right, that’s scientific and it’s cultural, it should be enough—”
She takes a sip of whiskey. It shuts her up. She hums, looking down at the whiskey glinting in the light, and licks her lips. It burns hotter than the whiskey-and-co*ke, that’s for sure. But it goes down smooth and bright.
“I like that.”
“It’s good, right?”
“Yeah.” She takes another gulp. A gulp was ambitious, but she powers through. “It’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough. The things men like in themselves and in each other are just totally different than what they like and expect in women. So I’m done. I’m not trying anymore. I’m going to find out what I like—and what women like, because I’m also very f*cking done of playing down my queerness to make men comfortable. So there.”
Mingjue gives the occasional nod, but her expression is cool. She takes a long pull from her beer and taps her finger on the label of the bottle. On the middle finger of her right hand, she wears her father’s wedding ring—the one he stopped wearing when he married her stepmother. It clinks in a quiet, steady rhythm on the glass.
“What?” Meng Yao asks.
Mingjue sets the empty bottle down and reaches for the whiskey.
2a. Don’t bullsh*t others.
“You’ve always talked a good game, Meng Yao, and you talk good theory, but—”
“It’s not theory, it’s how I feel.”
“It’s f*cking smoke and mirrors, and to be brutally f*cking honest, I don’t care what kind of haircut you have if you’re not going to address the elephant in the room. Your dad’s a sociopathic, misogynistic asshole. That sucks for you. Are you going to ignore how much it sucked for everyone else when you were doing sociopathic, assholish things to get his approval?”
“That is uncalled for. I’m not—I never—”
“You got Danny arrested. That was just— it was so f*cking unnecessary. Maybe he was a dick to you, maybe I should have intervened, maybe I would have intervened if you had tried to de-escalate the situation in a million different ways that didn’t involve ruining his life on a goddamn pot charge. And then you go on to work for Wen Ruohan and don’t even get me started on ‘technically’ none of the illegal evictions went through, ‘technically’ none of the demolitions happened. Technically, you scared the sh*t out of a lot of vulnerable people.”
“Did you miss the part where Wen Ruohan is being charged with multiple counts of fraud and racketeering because of me, or—?”
“No, I didn’t. Nor did I miss the fact that you jumped right from the Wen to Golden Towers, which is gentrifying half the city. Basically trying to bulldoze Chinatown just as thoroughly as the Wen were, but, you know, a couple years behind schedule so nobody notices.”
“You actually have no idea what my job is, do you? I spend half my time hounding people to make sure reports get done, environmental impact reports and community impact reports and maintenance surveys and lead checks and energy efficiency reports. I am this close to locking in Golden Towers’ commitment to doubling the number of affordable units—”
“For f*ck’s sake, Yao, you’re whitewashing the business for him. You’re doubling the number of affordable units from, what, fifty to a hundred? And then sending out a survey to make sure at least ten of those units aren’t slums? Meanwhile Golden Towers f*cked over a thousand people to get those built, but hey, at least you take a paycheck.”
“Not only are you challenging my morals, but now you’re doubting my efficiency? f*ck you, Nie Mingjue.”
“Funny, real funny.”
“ Listen : I do what I can. I don’t work miracles, but on the whole, it’s better that there is someone like me at Golden Tower, and it’s better that it is me than that it’s someone else, because unlike most people, not only am I f*cking good at my job, but I know what it’s like! Unlike you, frankly—”
“I know what it’s like. I was born here, I grew up here, I work in the neighborhood. You just go from high-rise apartment to high-rise office building—”
“That’s right, you work in Chinatown. But where do you live, da-jie? How much do you pay in rent, da-jie? Have you ever been on benefits? Have you ever got an eviction notice? How much of this is real for you and how much is just a righteous hobby?”
Silence.
“Come on. Don’t be shy—and don’t lie. How much do you pay for Huaisang, by the way, now that he’s all the way out in the ’burbs—”
“ f*ck you, Meng Yao. We moved out of Chinatown because Huaisang had asthma and he couldn’t f*cking breathe in Center City. We moved to a more residential neighborhood and our dad commuted for a f*cking hour and a half each way because he didn’t want to give up the old shop and couldn’t keep a car half the time. And now Huaisang is finally finishing his degree and you’re throwing it in my face?”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t bullsh*t me.”
“I’m not!”
“You have no idea why I moved here, you have no—”
“That is my whole— will you stop shouting? Baxia is going to get worked up and maul me if you don’t calm down.”
“Good. C’mere, baby. Sh. Shhh, I’m not mad at you.”
“May I continue?”
“Free country. What?”
“‘Free country’?”
“It is!”
“That’s so—surly teenager. Never mind. My point is that I am sure you have excellent reasons for making choices that do not align with your political or moral views in every respect. So do I. So does every single person on the planet, and yet what’s so infuriating about you sometimes is that you understand yours and categorically refuse to consider anyone else’s.”
“You’re calling me a hypocrite?”
“No. No, that’s the worst thing—I know that you are painfully aware of every inch of ground you have to give away to practicality. You probably would never have moved if Huaisang wasn’t literally at risk of death, and you probably would have moved back except some family with three kids and yeye in a wheelchair needed the apartment you wanted at that exact rent and no more. And you feel so miserably guilty about every little compromise that you refuse to make any others. You watched your parents make sacrifices and rather than accept that they were trying to make your life easier, you think you have to make more to be worthy of them. It’s the fact that you demand the same from everyone else that I can’t stand.”
“All right. Tell me your reasons, then, and I’ll consider them. Swear to God.”
“Fear.”
“Fear? That’s it, that’s all you have to say?”
“You say ‘that’s all’ like it’s nothing. Yeah, da-jie, I was afraid. I was afraid Danny was going to sexually assault me eventually—no, he hadn’t tried anything, but his focus on my mother being a sex worker seemed like a pretty big, bright red flag, and even if he didn’t I was afraid that he was going to get me fired and I would still be a few thousand dollars in debt with no income, no insurance, no fallbacks, and four hundred dollars in my bank account.
“I was afraid that if I didn’t let Wen Ruohan go that far, it wouldn’t be enough and they couldn’t prosecute. I was afraid that if I didn’t work for my father, and if I didn’t do good work for him, then I would be right back where I started, with nothing. Worse than nothing. I grew up knowing, knowing in my heart that once my dad recognized me, then life would be comfortable. I didn’t want to be rich—I don’t want to be rich—I just want to not be afraid anymore and I was afraid that I was always going to be afraid. Maybe I was a coward. But doesn’t it mean anything to you that I’m here? That I’m saying I’ve had enough?”
“I wouldn’t have done that.”
“Done—?”
“Fired you. Because someone else said I should. Was I that bad of a boss, that you didn’t—?”
“No. Not really. But… people have always let me down. Fool me once. Fool me five thousand times…”
“Got it. Okay, listen. I don’t think being afraid is an excuse for doing objectively immoral things—”
“Says someone who has never been in that position.”
“But… I also think it’s completely unacceptable for you to have been in that position. You should have had people in your corner. You should have had people to help you out when you needed it, and people to call you out when you needed it. So—so let’s start over. Okay? From here on out. You find yourself in a tough spot, you call me. Or Xichen. Or somebody.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. Good.”
“Does that go both ways?”
“Yeah. What do you mean?”
“I mean if you get to call me out for what I do to other people, do I get to call you out for what you do to yourself? Between the shop and the committees and running favors for people, how many hours do you work a week? 70? 80? Every single week without a break unless Huaisang bullies you into it, and since his classes started he hasn’t been able to do that as much. You don’t go to the doctor, you barely sleep—”
“I like to keep busy. I’m fine.”
“You’re killing yourself. And no one wants to say it out loud because on paper you’re successful. You eat, you work out, you do a good job at a good job. But you don’t rest. ”
“Pot, kettle.”
“Da-jie. That’s what I’m saying. If you’re my people, then I’m your people. If I’m here saying that something has to change, that I’m going to stop working myself to the bone for someone else’s standards, then you need to stop working yourself to the bone for your own. Don’t lie and say you think this is sustainable.”
“It used to piss me off so much that you would never just say what you were thinking straight out.”
“And now?”
“Now I can’t complain. Fine. Yeah. Okay. I—yeah. You hungry?”
“What?”
“Do you want to order something? It’s getting late. I think we’re going to make it through the bottle at this point if we keep up this therapy sh*t, so we should probably eat, too. I was going to get a burrito, but if you don’t want Mexican…”
“...I could do with a burrito.”
“’Kay. Here, just add it on.”
“Twenty-five minutes. I can Venmo you—”
“Nah. Mind if I put some music on?”
“Go ahead.”
A beep as Mingjue connects her phone to the speakers on her TV. Then: American Pie by Don McLean.
“God, I forgot about your dad rock.”
“Hey, if you’ve got a complaint—”
“No. I missed it.”
“What do you want to yell at each other about next?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m okay with taking a break. At least until the food gets here.”
“Okay.”
18. Master the bulldagger swagger.
“All right,” Mingjue says, crumpling the foil from her burrito into a ball. “Let’s get the walk down. Show me that bulldagger swagger.”
“That what?” Meng Yao laughs, not so much failing to understand the phrase as failing to understand how something so playful has come out of Mingjue’s mouth.
“You don’t know Phranc? No one has good taste in music these days.”
She shakes her head and hoists herself to her feet while Meng Yao googles.
“You’re judging me for not knowing a song from a folk-punk lesbian EP from 1995? Yeah, right, I’m the weird one.”
“Get up and walk,” Mingjue orders.
Baxia obeys first, jumping up and dashing to Mingjue’s side, her tail wagging like crazy.
“Not you, baby,” she coos. “Later, I promise.”
Meng Yao stands up and walks across the room. She turns and walks back.
“There,” she says. “Happy?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Not like that.”
Mingjue puts her hands on her own hips and walks in a straight line with an exaggerated sway, like a cartoon femme fatale.
“I don’t walk like that. ”
“If you put one foot directly in front of the other and lead with your hips, you get more of a sway when you walk. Plus it makes your shoulders twist—” She demonstrates. “—so you look smaller. You want to walk straight on, keep your shoulders straight and back, your feet about shoulder-width apart, and lead with your chest.”
She squares her shoulders and there it is, that da-jie stride Meng Yao knows so well. She tries it out herself, looking down at her feet to keep them in position. Mingjue lives in a split-level apartment, and there’s really only one main room on the lower level—an entryway that widens into a large living room, with a circular dining table off to the side and a tiled kitchen at the back. Meng Yao walks all the way around the living room and to the edge of the tiles.
It’s a weird adjustment. She usually doesn’t think about walking unless she has an injury she’s trying to avoid, but it’s undeniable that it’s had an effect. Baxia keeps pace with her, whining because no one is paying her any attention.
“Do you do this on purpose?” she asks. “Like did you experiment with your walk and practice keeping your shoulders back and everything?”
“Nah, not really,” Mingjue shrugs, watching her with a critical eye. “I did drag shows a couple of times in college, before I dropped out. You have to think about stuff more deliberately when you do that.”
“I didn’t know about that.”
“Yeah, I don’t have great stage presence, so I didn’t keep up with it. Shame, though. I look hot with a mustache.”
Meng Yao bites her tongue. She hadn’t known Mingjue dropped out of college—actually, she hadn’t known Mingjue went to college at all. Mingjue has a lot of euphemisms for the period of her life starting around age nineteen, most of them having to do with her brother. When Huaisang was in high school, when I became Huaisang’s guardian, when Huaisang was legally forced to listen to me. When I took over the business. When I was still figuring sh*t out.
These are all, of course, euphemisms for when my dad died, but rather than call attention to it, Meng Yao merely files “when I dropped out of college” away with the others.
“You should try it with shoes,” Mingjue declares. “Not the ones you came with—heavier ones are better. Help you get the gait down. What size are you?”
“Nine.”
“Huh.”
With this cryptic comment, Mingjue goes to the front hallway and comes back with a pair of heavy workboots she wears to the butcher shop. Meng Yao wrinkles her nose at the idea of putting them on indoors, and Mingjue’s mouth twitches as she swears she was going to mop the next morning anyway.
Meng Yao sits to put the boots on, and that’s when she understands the “huh.” Despite the eight-inch difference in their heights—six feet even compared to a generous 5’4”—they wear the same size shoe.
“You have dainty feet,” she says. “I never noticed.”
“My feet are normal-sized. Yours are big.”
“Sure, da-jie,” she says dryly.
Meng Yao stands and strides around the room again. Mingjue was right. Her feet connect to the floor with heavy, decisive thunks, and she can feel her steps slow, her hips roll. Forward, not side-to-side. A swagger, not a sway.
“I get it.”
“Yeah, you do,” Mingjue approves. “Seriously, that’s like 70% of being butch, right there. Saunter when you walk, manspread when you sit, lean when you stand.”
“Thank you for your wisdom, shifu.”
“Now that you’ve got the basics—how’s that mental breakdown coming? Because the lord high commander of this place is starting to get antsy.”
“Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time—”
“No worries.”
“Totally unannounced—”
“A-Yao, seriously,” Mingjue interrupts. “Don’t worry about it.”
Meng Yao pauses in the middle of untying the laces on Mingjue’s boots.
“That’s the first time you’ve called me A-Yao in a while,” she says with a shy smile, and Mingjue scowls to hide the softening of her face.
“I’ll book you a Lyft.”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to—”
“No, but it’s what I’m gonna do.”
“Seriously—”
“It’s done,” Mingjue says, putting her phone back in her pocket. “Three minutes. f*ck, A-Yao, you weren’t even wearing a coat. Weren’t you freezing?”
“Yeah,” she says sheepishly. She takes the flannel off and returns it. “I was so angry, though. I was wearing that white peacoat today, and it just felt like way too much. I went home, cut my nails, took my makeup off, and threw every piece of clothing I own on the floor until I ended up with this stuff. Then I just marched out and came here. I wasn’t thinking straight—I’ll wear my puffer coat until I can figure out what I actually want to wear.”
“Well, if you need advice… honestly, you’re better off going to Xichen. Not that I don’t want to help, but it’s not really my area.”
Mingjue’s wardrobe consists of work t-shirts, t-shirts that look kind of like her work t-shirts, tank tops that look kind of like her t-shirts, One Nice Button-Down, joggers, jeans, jogger shorts and jean shorts. All in a uniform color palette of white, grey, black, and green. No, she would not be helpful when it comes to fashion.
Meng Yao finishes tying the laces of her tennis shoes and pets Baxia, who has rushed over to her hopefully. She straightens and looks at Mingjue, who is hovering in the hallway with Baxia’s leash in her hand. Meng Yao is still a little tipsy, and tonight is the most vulnerable she’s been around another person in years. She doesn’t know how to end it. She shoves her hands in her pockets.
“So…”
“Driver’s one minute away,” Mingjue says, showing her the screen.
“Right. Listen, da-jie… thanks.”
Mingjue stares down at her for a second, her face unreadable. Then she ducks closer and sweeps Meng Yao into a tight hug.
“I’ll walk you down,” she says gruffly into Meng Yao’s hair—what little is left of it.
She pulls on a hoodie, shoves her feet into a pair of sandals by the door, and hooks the leash to Baxia’s collar. They head down the steps and emerge into the frigid evening air just as Mingjue’s phone chimes and a grey car pulls up. Meng Yao waves goodbye before darting into the street.
“Hey,” Mingjue calls. “What happened to the swagger?”
Meng Yao flips her off and slams the car door.
12a. Dress the part. In general, big and boxy is better. Thrift stores are a good place to find casual pieces.
“Xichen!” Meng Yao waves.
Lan Xichen’s eyes almost pop out of her head when she spots Meng Yao, but she recovers quickly. She glides through the crosswalk and offers Meng Yao a hug.
“Hi, A-Yao,” she says warmly. She draws back and circles a finger at Meng Yao’s hair, or lack thereof. “This is new.”
“I’m opting out of femininity,” Meng Yao says, trying to ignore the way her heart is pounding. The only people who have seen her new look so far, besides Mingjue, are assorted random strangers—people she passes in the street or on the bus, the neighbor down the hall. Some of them gave her odd looks, but at least she doesn’t care about their opinions.
She cares about Xichen’s. A lot.
But if Nie Mingjue is the last person in the world to judge her for playing around with gender, then Lan Xichen is certainly in second-to-last place. A blinding smile crosses her face.
“I see. Well, in a very non-patronizing sense, I think you look lovely. You have a very shapely skull.”
“Thank you, er-jie.”
“You’re very welcome, Yao—mei?”
Meng Yao nods.
“Just a wardrobe update, at the moment.”
“Ah.”
Lan Xichen waves an expressive arm at the thrift shop they’re standing in front of, as if indicating that it’s all coming together now.
Meng Yao is very familiar with thrift shops, but she still cringes to enter them; she isn’t sure if her subconscious is ever going to make that mental shift from “poor people shopping” to “trendy, artsy, practically environmentalist praxis.” Yet the repulsion she feels at 90% of her existing clothing is stronger than some lingering childhood shame, and even her new Jin family salary would be strained if she tried to replace all of it from new at once. She invited Xichen for moral support.
Plus, she isn’t totally sure what her taste in menswear is going to look like when her body is the one in it, despite the fact that she’s been obsessively googling “butch clothing” “menswear for women” “butch fashion” “butch office clothes” “business casual menswear” for the past sixteen hours. Xichen is a much better shopping companion than Mingjue would be, and might also have helpful advice on determining fit. Her experience fitting her tall, athletic figure into women’s clothing may be the exact opposite of Meng Yao trying to squeeze a petite hourglass body into men’s, but Mingjue has a butch’s dream figure and would be no help at all.
“So, what are we looking for?” Xichen asks as they stroll into the store, arm in arm. She has mastered the art of shortening her strides to accommodate Meng Yao without appearing to try.
“Pretty much everything. I tore through my closet last night and everything is super feminine and fitted. I don’t even have workout clothes—it’s all matching yoga pants and crop tops.”
“A-Yao, on behalf of the rest of the population, please don’t deprive us of butches in crop tops,” Xichen teases, and Meng Yao laughs.
“Sorry, er-jie. Maybe I’ll start wearing those muscle tanks with the huge arm holes instead—although I should probably get some muscles first.”
“I’m sure da-jie would be willing to help.”
“Maybe. She did my hair.”
“May I—?” Xichen asks wistfully, and when Meng Yao nods, she pets the back of her head, scraping lightly with her nails.
Between that and the clippers, Meng Yao is going to develop a fetish for her own head.
“It really does look good on you. All right—” They have wandered into the new arrivals section, and Xichen starts flipping through the racks. “Let’s start with a few t-shirts and basic jeans to get your size. If you start by finding something that fits at the widest point, you can always get it tailored down… although honestly, for a more masculine shape, oversized probably does a lot of the work for you. It’s easier to hide a waist than it is to make one.”
“Layers, too.” Meng Yao flicks through the hangers in the men’s pants section. Pants with real pockets, sized by waist inches? She’s already in heaven. “A t-shirt can only do so much, but a t-shirt under a hoodie under a jacket…”
“That is so the da-jie school of butch fashion,” Xichen laughs. “But you’re right. Oh, this is cute.”
She pulls out a blue, floral short-sleeve button-down. There are four t-shirts sling over her arm already, while Meng Yao is still dithering. She grabs two pairs of jeans and some cargo shorts more or less at random, and heads to the dressing room. As she begins to change, she sees Lan Xichen’s shoes approaching underneath the curtain.
“A-Yao,” she says in a voice that is light, would-be casual—but also earnestly gentle. “It probably doesn’t need to be said… but if you find something you like, that looks good on you, then we’re getting it. You deserve to feel good in what you wear even if it doesn’t fit the ironclad rules of men’s fashion.”
Meng Yao is standing in her underwear with a t-shirt pulled half over her head. She tugs it down and reaches a hand out through the gap in the curtain. Xichen takes her fingers and squeezes.
“I know, er-jie. But thank you.”
12b. If you want to go the dapper route, make sure to find a good tailor.
Meng Yao can’t take her eyes off the mirror. The tailor stands and she blinks for the first time as her view is obstructed. He circles her and tugs at the waistband of her trousers.
“All right—you’re sure the waist is comfortable?”
“Yeah, it’s great.”
“Good. The pants can definitely be done with next-day service, now let’s see about the jacket.”
He slips it over her shoulders, and Meng Yao’s heart skips a beat. In all honesty, she hadn’t been planning on wearing a suit to work on Monday—she had assumed that she would need to get one custom-made, and was resigned to wearing her normal skirt suit and letting her hair and lack of makeup do the talking.
But then she had found a yellow floral necktie at the thrift store that was the exact shade of Golden Towers’ logo, which just seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up, and then Xichen had dug a suit out of the last-chance bin that fit her perfectly at the hips and bust, and suddenly they were paying for their purchases and running around the city half-co*cked to buy a new men’s dress shirt from a department store and find a tailor that could have everything done by Sunday evening and… now here she is, obsessed with her own reflection yet again.
She had changed into the shirt at the tailor’s, along with some scuffed but comfy brown derby shoes from the thrift store, because they need to make sure the length of the hem is correct, and the tie, because Xichen insisted on completing the look. She hadn’t known how to tie it—something to study tonight—but Xichen helped.
“Hm,” the tailor says critically, fingering the edge of her right sleeve and tugging the opposite shoulder. “Okay. You don’t want the jacket too fitted, right? Same as with the pants?”
He pinches the jacket in at the waist so that it flares.
“Right,” Meng Yao confirms quickly.
“Good. The shoulders are a little wide, but that’s not really something that’s worth fixing—you’re better off starting over with something made-to-measure or custom. If you wanted it taken in, that would make the shoulders a little more obvious, but with a cut like this it’s not bad. I’m going to take up the sleeves by…” He folds up one sleeve and pins it in place, needles flashing. “This much… and then shorten the hem…” He kneels in front of her and whips out a tape measure. “One and three-quarters of an inch. That way you won’t look like you’re swimming in it, but the pocket flap won’t be too low and you won’t lose any pocket space.”
“This pocket is incredible,” Meng Yao says, heartfelt.
The tailor makes a mark on the suit with chalk and grins at her. He steps back so she can have a full, unobstructed view of the mirror.
“Okay. Anything else you’re concerned about?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“A-Yao,” Xichen beams. She’s sitting in a chair by the wall, both hands covering her mouth. “You look so handsome, I can’t stand it.”
Handsome. A little shiver went up Meng Yao’s spine, and she tilted her head in the mirror. From some angles, her jaw really did look quite masculine—that was why she had stuck with bobs for so long, to hide it.
“Thanks, er-jie,” she says, smiling at her reflection. She straightens her lapels, and then the tailor touches her shoulders for her permission to carefully ease off the jacket without displacing the pins. “My dad is going to have a heart attack.”
“Oh, no, ” Lan Xichen says, because she has an unshakeable belief in the beauty of human nature.
Not that Meng Yao can really blame her. Up until yesterday afternoon, she was also trying to delude herself into trusting her father, and she doesn’t even have the excuse of being an optimist. The tailor, sensing the sudden tension, gives her a Look and she flashes back a commiserating grimace.
“If that’s all, then,” he says brightly. “It will be a bit of a squeeze, but we should be able to have the whole suit done for a 5 PM pickup tomorrow. Let’s get you checked out.”
8a. Some people will be dicks. Be prepared for it.
The whispers start as soon as Meng Yao arrives at work on Monday morning, but no one actually says anything until her father arrives for his first meeting at eleven o’clock. (Jin Guangshan never has meetings before eleven o’clock or after three. If he is scheduled for any, that’s a sign for Meng Yao to copy them to her calendar, because she is sure to be attending and making his apologies.)
“What the hell have you done to yourself?” he demands. Meng Yao takes a breath and looks up with a smile.
“Good morning, Fuqin. I got a haircut. How was your weekend?”
He stares at her, his face a mask of horror.
“Are you ill? ” he demands. “Did something—” His eyes drop down to her suit, the yellow tie, and angry red patches blossom on his cheeks. “What is this?”
It’s a struggle to keep her placating smile in place… so she doesn’t. She stands at the head of the conference table with a stack of agendas in her arms and frowns at him, concerned but not apologetic. A few other employees have started to arrive. They filter in, but the tension in the air is thick, and the few who make it past the door look like they instantly regret it. Their eyes flicker between Meng Yao and her father.
“Is something wrong?” she asks, willing her voice to keep steady.
“Is something— Sunny Fields is going to be here in minutes— they are in the lobby— and you expect to meet with them looking like that? I don’t know what the hell this little adolescent rebellion is about, A-Yao, but you are not going to embarrass me in front of them. Get out!”
She swallows.
“You are not up to date on the details of this meeting,” she says, enunciating each word carefully so he knows that she could have just as easily said you don’t know what this meeting is . Jin Guangshan’s flush darkens, and his hand grips the back of a chair so hard the wood creaks. “I am. It will be much more efficient if I sit in, as scheduled, rather than risk missing agenda points. I am in compliance with the dress code, and there is no part of my job that requires me to wear a skirt.”
“We will discuss this later,” he growls, a threat if she ever heard one. He whips an agenda out of her hands and flings himself in the chair at the head of the table.
No one makes eye contact with Meng Yao as they take their seats. She finishes passing out the agendas and checks the refreshment table. The office staff has filled the coffee carafes and stocked the creamers, but have forgotten the sugar. The fact that it is on her to notice and fix this is the kind of thing that, as a female executive, Meng Yao is supposed to resent, if not outright refuse. But it gives her an excuse to leave the room, duck into the staff kitchen, and take a few deep breaths. She grabs the sugar basket—and then she sets it down and takes out her phone to text Nie Mingjue.
Meng Yao:
So my father didn’t take it well. If I get fired can I have my old job back? 😅
It’s a joke, but… it’s not. She’s looked it up. Companies are legally allowed to have different dress codes for men and women as long as they don’t place an undue burden on the basis of sex. She could try to make the case for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but that’s iffy—the kind of thing she would have to actually sue for, not just drop a bunch of scary words in a meeting with HR, and she’s not sure if she’s ready to go that far.
Just as she is about to give up and head back to the meeting, her phone pings.
Da-Jie:
Don’t worry about it. You’re too valuable for him to lose, and probably too valuable for me to afford at this point.
She snorts and takes the basket back to the conference room. The visitors from Sunny Fields have arrived and are mostly milling around the concessions table, but she slips unobtrusively into her own seat, where her travel mug is sitting. Just as she is about to call people back, her phone buzzes again.
Da-Jie:
But also, yes.
8b. Some people will be kinder than you expect. Enjoy it.
There is a knock on the door, and Meng Yao takes a measured breath. She would like to take five, to be honest, but that would take too long. At least her voice doesn’t wobble as she turns her chair towards the door and says, “Come in!” in a bright tone that suggests she is completely unruffled at having been publicly berated by her father at work. Twice. She had hoped that ripping the bandaid off before the meeting would have helped, but that was overly optimistic.
“Hi, sorry,” Su Minshan says apologetically as he pushes open the door. That’s how Minshan enters a lot of rooms. He holds out a mug of coffee and a fistful of creamers and sugar packets. “I couldn’t remember how you take it—cream and sugar?”
“One of each,” she replies automatically. “For me?”
“I thought you could use a cup. Unless you’d rather have tea. Better for settling the mind, right?” he adds with a wry grin, and Meng Yao takes the mug.
“No, this is good, thank you. You didn’t have to.”
“Yeah, well. You don’t have to do a lot of the stuff you do around here. I really like the new look, by the way.”
“Thanks,” she says with a weak smile.
“Seriously. Not many people can pull off that haircut, but it looks good on you. And that’s a nice suit.”
“Not really,” she chuckles, leaning back in her seat. “I got it from a secondhand shop. But it’s tailored.”
“Good find, then. It fits you perfectly. I’m not hitting on you,” he adds hastily, and Meng Yao gives in to the old instinct of flashing a polite smile. Minshan has definitely hit on her in the past, but he picked up on her not-a-chance signals and is one of the few men she’s ever met who can take rejection and still—apparently—like and admire her. Kudos for that, at least. “I just thought—you know—you might want to know. Not everything thinks… that.”
He jerks his head in the vague direction of her father’s office. Meng Yao takes a deep breath, sighs, and takes a sip of her coffee. It’s fortifying.
“Thanks, Minshan. I appreciate it, truly. Anyway, enough about me. How was your weekend?”
They make idle chitchat for a few minutes. Then, just as it’s winding down, Minshan looks around to make sure there’s no one nearby and steps further into her office, lowering his voice.
“Also, I just wanted to let you know… my firm’s contract with Golden Towers is set to expire with the new fiscal year in July…”
“Yes, I know,” Meng Yao says, whirling around in her chair to consult her paper calendar. “And we are still planning on renewing—I don’t have an exact date yet, but we’ll probably start negotiating new contracts in May. There might be a slight gap in services, like last year, but nothing that should alarm you.”
“Good to know,” he says. It sounds automatic. “But I thought I’d mention that—I’ve really enjoyed working with you, Yao. You’re great at your job, you’re a good boss, and you were really the only person who made me feel welcome when we first started working with Golden Towers. I’d definitely like to keep working with you in the future.”
Meng Yao pauses. She hasn’t spent much time reflecting on her knock-down drag-out with Mingjue over her job—there’s been a lot going on. But having seen Jin Guangshan’s reaction to her trying to claim a modicum of personal autonomy… it’s something she should think about. She smiles and thanks Minshan, being vague about it because she wants to stay well clear of the ‘corporate espionage’ boundary.
He leaves, closing the office door behind him, and Meng Yao spins her chair to face her computer. The screen has turned off, and she takes a moment to look at the vague outline of her reflection. She runs a hand over the back of her head, enjoying the bristles. Then she straightens her tie, and gets to work.
17b. Learn how to drink whiskey better than straight men.
Once a month, Meng Yao attends a meeting for the Chinatown Community Development Committee, where her primary job is to make inoffensive comments that make Golden Towers sound good and keep Nie Mingjue from rousing the pitchfork crowd against her father. It mostly works out; the CCDC is not a rabble-rousing kind of committee. Every once in a while she gets to make a genuinely good suggestion on behalf of her employer—one of these days she may actually get to implement one.
In the meantime, she dutifully attends both the monthly meetings and the post-meeting hangouts with the younger members at one of the local karaoke bars. She always leaves before anyone actually gets drunk enough to sing, but it’s a good way to soothe over any ruffled feathers while patronizing a local business.
Tonight, the bar is packed, and not just with committee members. She spots two birthday parties, and it’s baseball season so there are a few fans in jerseys glued to the TV over the bar. Normally Meng Yao would be mingling, trying vainly to wiggle through the crowd while appearing dignified and not spilling her drink—not today. Today she’s sitting at the bar, nursing her drink and chatting only when people happen to pass by. It’s a nice change of pace.
“Hey.” Mingjue slides into the seat next to her. “What are you drinking?” she asks under her breath.
“A manhattan,” Meng Yao says. It’s down to the last dregs.
“Good.” Mingjue leans on her elbow and effortlessly grabs the attention of the bartender, then holds up two fingers. She subtly nods her head down the bar at a guy in his mid-twenties, dressed in would-be finance-bro chic, working his way towards them. “Because this is why dykes drink whiskey.”
Finance Bro breaks through just as the bartender is turning back.
“Evening, ladies,” he says with a charming smile. “Oh—don’t tell me you just got another round. I was hoping I could buy you a drink,” he says, winking at Meng Yao.
She’s a little nonplussed—this is the first time a man has hit on her since the big transformation. Although admittedly it’s warm in the bar, so she’s taken off her boxy jacket and rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. Maybe it’s less obvious. She glances at Nie Mingjue, who winks.
“My bad, bro. But hey, don’t let me wreck your game. Have mine.”
The guy tries to protest, with a flash of alarm in his eyes at how to play it, but Nie Mingjue stands and insists she was just stopping by. Finance Bro takes her place on the stool and leans on his elbow.
“Well, then. Since your friend has abandoned us…” He picks up the glass. “To new friends.”
“New friends,” Meng Yao repeats lackadaisically.
They clink their glasses and sip—and Finance Bro coughs. The whiskey is strong, that’s for sure, richer-tasting and hotter-burning than the stuff she drank at Mingjue’s apartment. But Meng Yao’s palate has adjusted, and she was primed from her manhattan. There is a single ice cube in her glass, mellowing out the liquor so it goes down smooth.
“Damn, girl,” Finance Bro says, which was her least favorite form of address even before she made the big shift. “You can take your liquor. What is that, scotch, or…?”
“Whiskey. Irish whiskey.”
“Oh, like Jameson.”
“Redbreast, I think,” she says in a cool tone, like she can taste the difference. She knows it’s Mingjue’s indulgent choice and she spotted the bottle on the wall.
“Nice.” Finance Bro takes another sip, this one microscopic, and fails to disguise his grimace. “I’m Ryan, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Ryan,” Meng Yao says, sliding off her barstool. “You should get your gaydar checked out, though. Enjoy the whiskey.”
She leaves him there and crosses the room to where Mingjue is sitting at a table by the wall, already supplied with another glass. She grins at Meng Yao when she approaches, her elusive dimples on full display.
“Good one,” Meng Yao says dryly.
“Fun, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It also works with lifting weights, playing sports, and being out in the cold without a jacket. You know—guy stuff. But you’re a long way to get there, so, you know. Cherish what you’ve got.”
“Thanks, shifu,” Meng Yao drawls. Mingjue chuckles, and then she kicks Meng Yao’s foot.
“Hey. Manspread.”
Meng Yao is sitting with her legs pressed together and angled to one side, a default posture it’s hard to break out of. She sits up straight, opens her leg, and leans back against the booth in a deliberate sprawl. Mingjue nods her approval, and they raise their glasses in a toast.
22. Learn some DIY skills.
Meng Yao looks at the line of small, regular holes in the wall, and then down at the TV perched delicately on top of a coffee table that can just barely hold it.
“Couldn’t find a stud, huh?”
“We could not,” Huaisang confirms cheerfully.
“This wall doesn’t have studs,” his roommate scowls, crossing his arms. “It’s cheap construction. Probably going to fall down on our heads one of these days.”
Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng live in a cozy detached two-bedroom in a college town—close enough that Jiang Cheng (allergic to cities) can commute in on the train to work, but far enough away that Huaisang (magnetically drawn to amusem*nt) can actually focus enough to finish his degree. Meng Yao knows cheap construction when she sees it, and she knows the average household income of this neighborhood. She also knows how buildings are built. Just, in general.
She raps one knuckle in the center of the line of holes, then on the left side, then half an inch left of that.
“There.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jiang Cheng mutters.
“Are you a magician ?” Huaisang demands.
“Do you have a pencil?”
Huaisang always has a pencil, so Meng Yao marks the location of the studs for them. She really only came over to watch Queer Eye together—the plan was to order pizza, collapse on the couch, watch the show, and then trade all the good gossip for an hour while Jiang Cheng pretended not to care from the kitchen island.
But Meng Yao has never mounted a television before, and it sounds like an interesting challenge. Huaisang brings her the enormous toolkit that Mingjue had—optimistically—provided when he moved out, and Jiang Cheng googles “how to mount a TV on the wall” and reads out the Home Depot instructions with the air of someone who definitely knew each step already. She can’t blame him, though, because he’s also quick to help her lift the heavy things and arrange everything on the wall, while Huaisang watches from a distance and loudly admires the whole process.
When she’s done, it comes out that the various framed photos and art pieces leaning against the walls are not a deliberate interior design choice, so Huaisang puts on some music and they start hanging those, too, and then is it possible these skills are also transferrable to fixing that loose step or the leak in the upstairs bathroom sink?
“You are so good at this, san-jie,” Huaisang gushes, tapping his heel on the side of the porcelain tub. “Where did you learn this stuff? Is it just innate butch knowledge? Like you sign up and they send you a strap-on and a power drill in the mail?”
“Nie Huaisang!” Jiang Cheng growls, his cheeks flaming red.
“Not exactly,” Meng Yao laughs. She grunts a little as she tightens a nut, and then sits up and stretches her fingers. “I’ve always been good at repairs like this. We lived in pretty crappy apartments growing up, and the supers were never very forthcoming about repairs. My mom used to say our home didn’t need to be big, but at the very least it could be clean and orderly. There was this comprehensive guide to home repairs at the library, and we must have checked it out two dozen times.”
“Cute,” Huaisang says, allowing them all to glide over the implications of poverty in this statement.
It’s a talent the Nies have. When Meng Yao first took a job at the Nie Brothers Butcher Shop (an odd name for the shop, given that the sister is the proprietor and the brother has nothing to do with it, but it had been named for their grandfather and great-uncle), the pay had been relatively generous but barely enough to pay her rent while chipping away at her debts. Nie Mingjue had managed to supply her with most of her groceries by complaining about the unfortunate amount of food waste generated by retail enterprises, and asking Meng Yao if she could help out by taking some home. As for Huaisang, well, he just so happened to have the flakiest friends in existence. There was always an extra ticket to a concert or a new museum exhibit or a comedy show that wasn’t worth the hassle of selling, or a bar he’d been dying to visit and she would really be doing him a favor—and wasn’t it his round? Yeah, he was pretty sure—no, no, A-Yao, don’t worry, he’ll get the tab, he’s positive she got it last time.
So the least she can do is drill a couple of holes in his walls and fix a loose step that was about to snap off and cause him to trip and break his neck.
“Any particular reason you didn’t ask da-jie to do this?” she asks as she carefully places the tools back in the impeccably-organized box. “I’ve seen her work around the shop—she could have done this in two seconds with one hand.”
Huaisang waves his hand.
“I didn’t want da-jie to know we were living in a slum. She’d drag me back home and I really would never finish. Or worse—she’d want me to learn how to do it myself!”
“Fair enough,” Meng Yao laughs. “Now, is there anything else that needs fixing, or can we order the pizza?”
“Well, now that you mention it, I’ve always wanted a skylight in my bedroom—”
4. Contemplate the big question. Butch, lesbian, and woman are three different terms—which, if any, apply?
“So what do you think?” Xue Yang asks, smacking his bubble gum.
Meng Yao regards herself in the full-length mirror hung on Xue Yang’s wall. She turns to check her profile, and runs her thumb along the armhole of the nude-colored binder Xue Yang dug out of the back of his closet. He hasn’t worn it in a good three years, since he got top surgery, and he swore he would wash it before she came over, but it smells like cheap body spray and she thinks he lied.
“I don’t know,” she hedges. “It’s a little tight.”
“Well, yeah, it’s supposed to be tight. But also you’re more voluptuous than I ever was, so you’d probably go up a size anyway.”
She makes a face at voluptuous, and Xue Yang smirks.
“Don’t worry about the fit. Worry about the emotions, Yaoyao. Your heart, not your tit*.”
Meng Yao shrugs. She slips her t-shirt over her head and strikes a series of self-consciously masculine poses—hooking her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans with her weight on her back foot, then crossing her arms over her chest, then standing with her legs wide and her hands on her hips. Then she slips into her jacket—a tan leather bomber jacket that she agonized over for days, because is she really a leather jacket person, or is she just trying to look like James Dean?
But honestly, she looks too good in it to resist for long. She runs through her poses again.
“It completes the look, I guess.”
“Yeah, apparently everyone’s binding these days. Hot new accessory for gays and theys and people who say stupid bullsh*t like that. Try it out, if you want. I mean, not that one—you’re loaded now, you can afford your own, right?”
“How much are they?”
“I dunno, like thirty, forty bucks? Maybe fifty. sh*t’s expensive these days.”
“That’s not bad.”
“Nah. But seriously, measure first, because you can really f*ck up your back and your lungs if you don’t get the right size. Or if you wear it too long. It’s actually kind of a pain in the ass, because you’re like okay, do I wear it for work when I’m surrounded by idiot coworkers and the general public, a.k.a. the people I most want to punch in the face if they say sh*t, or do I wear it when I’m going out and trying to get laid so I want to look peak hotness?”
Meng Yao makes a noncommittal noise and falls back on the mattress beside him. She closes her eyes, trying to focus on the sensation of the fabric constraining her breasts. It’s not totally dissimilar to wearing a sports bra, but more… complete.
As she’s thinking, Xue Yang sprawls across her front, crossing his arms over her chest. In one sense, Xue Yang is definitely not her closest friend. He exasperates her. He is crass and inconsiderate—he disappears for weeks at a time, and then shows up at her apartment to inhale her cookie/ice cream stash while talking her ear off about his latest romantic obsession, who is inevitably inappropriate in some way. He cannot be relied upon in a moral crisis, like Nie Mingjue, or a crisis of confidence, like Lan Xichen, nor does he make her feel responsible by accepting her advice when he is in a crisis, like Nie Huaisang. In fact, she only ever goes to Xue Yang for advice when she has already decided to take the low road and wants someone to validate that decision.
But in another sense, Xue Yang is the closest friend she’s ever had. He’s the only one who has never been fooled by her sweet smiles, which she has long since stopped showing him. He does not have romantic ideas about the poverty she grew up in. He’s known her the longest of anyone, since they were foster kids sharing a dinky room in the same group home, and he knows exactly where she came from, what she wants, and what she’s capable of.
It’s telling how often they end up like this. Casually flung across each other in someone’s bedroom, like teenagers. Things are easy with Xue Yang. This is easy, too, she realizes.
“No,” she tells the ceiling.
“No?”
“This whole thing started because I decided I was going to stop letting someone else’s idea of femininity drive me to do anything uncomfortable or inconvenient. I’m not going to do the same thing to conform to someone else’s idea of masculinity, either. No offense.”
“I’m like sooooo offended,” Xue Yang drawls. “So that’s it? Cis for sure, no take-backsies? Or are you going to they/them it up a bit with your tit* out?”
“No, I really think I’m good,” she says thoughtfully. “It’s not like I’ve never considered my gender before, between knowing you and knowing Xichen. Especially lately. I get sir’ed sometimes—less now that it’s getting warmer, but it does happen. And it doesn’t feel like ‘oh, how nice someone has gendered me correctly.’ It’s more like—ha, I’m getting away with something. You know?”
“Gender: trickster,” Xue Yang grins. “Pronouns hee/ha.”
“Stop, you’re the worst,” Meng Yao groans. She shoves his forehead away with two fingers and Xue Yang blows another gum bubble at her.
“The worst? I dropped everything to help you sort out your little gender identity crisis. I was the first person you turned to, and I rose to the occasion as your Magical Wise Trans Friend and—”
“You are the third person I turned to. Mingjue was first.”
“Well, that’s different. You want to f*ck Mingjue.”
“I do not,” Meng Yao squawks, and Xue Yang—the worst friend she’s ever had—gives her a pitying look.
“Sure you don’t, meimei. And I don’t have a five-step plan to get my hot neighbor and his beefcake husband to rail me six ways to Sunday.”
Another thing Meng Yao appreciates about Xue Yang’s friendship: he always has some messy scheme going on in the background that distracts from awkward topics of conversation.
29. Butches don’t have to make the first move anymore. But… make the first move.
“Hey.”
Meng Yao nearly gives herself whiplash turning her head as Nie Mingjue leans on the bar beside her and raises her hand to get the bartender’s attention.
“What are you doing here?”
Mingjue raises an eyebrow.
“It’s a queer women’s mixer. I’m a queer woman. I’m mixing.”
“You never come to these kinds of things. Er-jie’s invited you. You always say no.”
“Yeah, well, someone recently pointed out that I should get out more. Where is er-jie, anyway?”
“She’s on an actual date.”
Meng Yao toys with the straw of her co*cktail, catches herself, and crosses her arms as she leans on the bar, very butchly. It’s been almost two months since she had her big breakdown/revelation, and she feels like things are settling. Her relationship with her father hasn’t improved, but she has a wardrobe that works, her walk is effortless, and she’s gotten better at dropping the people-pleasing act. Tonight is a sort of test. She’s been to a decent number of mixers—even gotten a few dates from them—but more often than not, she spends most of the time talking to Xichen. She’s too good at schmoozing; when there are this many people to talk to, it just feels like work.
“You’re not wearing a name tag,” she points out after Mingjue orders a draft beer and the bartender sets it down in front of her.
“Nah.”
“You’re supposed to wear a name tag.”
“Why, so I can start off every conversation with someone looking at ‘Mingjue’ and pulling a stupid face? Great way to set the mood.”
“Don’t you have an English middle name?”
Mingjue pulls a stupid face.
“I’m not going to let people call me Julia, A-Yao. Forget it. If people want to know my name and pronouns, they can ask me. You know, I actually saw some people put down their zodiac signs, too?” She shakes her head. “I don’t get it.”
“No wonder you don’t come out to things like this,” Meng Yao laughs. “You are such a downer, jiejie.”
“No, I’m just right about a lot of things,” Mingjue says, pointing aggressively, although the slight lift in her cheek betrays her amusem*nt. “You know the problem with modern dating? People treat it too much like online dating. They don’t want to talk to people unless they know their name, their height, their star sign, how they feel about smooth jazz and dogs in bars and that guy who got canceled on twitter last week, and they definitely don’t want to talk to someone unless they know that person is already into them. Nobody wants to send the first message.”
“I really want to see your Tinder profile, da-jie. How many photos from the top of a mountain? I’m guessing minimum two mirror selfies, one in front of the weight rack at the gym…. One-sentence bio. ‘Don’t be shy.’ No, no, wait. ‘Don’t be shy—I only bite if you ask nicely.’”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Mingjue says, an evasive answer that Meng Yao takes as proof that she has hit at least one nail right on the head. “Anyway, I don’t need Tinder to pick up women.”
This isn’t news to Meng Yao—she’s seen plenty of women lingering outside the shop for after-work dates, not to mention a few coming back to ambush Mingjue about the lack of a second date. But something compels her to raise her eyebrows and ask, “Yeah? You got rizz, da-jie?”
“Is that Huaisang-speak for ‘game’?”
“You are not old enough to use ‘game’,” Meng Yao says dryly.
“I’m just saying. Keep it simple.” She straightens and clears her throat. Then she leans one arm on the bar, twisting her body so she reaches her full height and faces Meng Yao head-on. Her eyes are liquid, and her voice comes out a low purr. “Hey. I’m Mingjue.”
She holds out her hand, palm up, to shake. Meng Yao does a performative toss of the long hair she no longer has and bats her eyelashes.
“Hi,” she simpers. Mingjue bursts out laughing.
“What was that?”
“What was what? I was responding. I was looking forward to seeing your rizz.”
“Why did you decide that I hit on bimbos?”
“Bimbos? Wow, da-jie. I didn’t expect that kind of problematic language from you.”
“Forget it. I won’t let you in on my secrets.”
“Your secret is being six feet tall with a jawbone that can cut glass. Be real.”
There was that raised eyebrow again.
“Like you don’t wield those eyes like a lethal weapon,” she says in an undertone, and Meng Yao’s throat closes up. She takes a sip from her co*cktail and peers up at Mingjue through her lashes.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she says primly.
“Right.” They lapse into silence. Mingjue glances around at the crowded bar. It’s a nice place, with plenty of velvet couches for seating and floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over a patio space—closed, as it’s a drizzly day, but glittering with solar-powered fairy lights. Patrons are still squeezing in, although the pace of arrivals has slowed. “All right,” she says. “I’m going to mix. Good luck out there.”
“Thanks,” Meng Yao says inanely. “You, too.”
Mingjue vacates her seat. Within thirty seconds it’s occupied again by a pretty blonde woman in a sundress that seems optimistic for the weather. She examines the menu for a moment and then orders one of the specialty co*cktails—an elderflower-lavender vodka tonic.
“That’s a good choice,” Meng Yao says with a smile, tilting her own glass with its sprig of lavender floating at the top.
“Yeah,” the woman says, flashing her a courteous smile as she takes out her phone and starts rapid-fire tapping at the screen. Meng Yao can make out the tail end of a “her” on the name tag, but no actual name, so she decides to try out Mingjue’s move. She lowers her voice by a note or too, makes it as smooth as good whiskey, and introduces herself.
“I’m Yao,” she says. She holds out her hand. The woman pretends not to see it.
“Jess,” she says. Meng Yao is slightly at a loss for where to go next and is about to resort to trivialities ( come here often? ) when the bartender slides an elderflower-lavender vodka tonic towards Jess. She tosses a few bills on the bar and slips out of her seat. “Bye,” she throws over her shoulder.
Cool. Okay.
Meng Yao gets up from the bar and does a loop around the room. Most people seem to have clustered in tight circles of friends, but there are a few other solo patrons looking around hopefully. She approaches a woman wearing a name tag that reads “Amara (she/her) Taurus” with a drawing of a sun. It’s something to talk about, she thinks with a smile to herself. Amara brightens when Meng Yao starts the conversation but seems a little perplexed when Meng Yao says she is a Pisces. She asks for her exact birthday.
“Oh! Cusp baby!” she says. “That explains it. I was definitely getting Aquarius vibes from the way you just—” She gestures sharply with her hand. “—came right over.”
“I didn’t mean to be aggressive,” Meng Yao says, bemused.
“Don’t apologize! It’s so typical Aquarius. Aggressive, adventurous, confident. So, what do you do?” she adds after an awkward pause.
“I’m in real estate.”
“There you go,” she grins, and Meng Yao is definitely done with this conversation.
The next person she talks to mentions after a solid five minutes that she’s only here to get out of the house while her partner is out of town, which is… fine… except Meng Yao is kind of here because it’s been months since she went on a real date, and now has to stick around for another two minutes so she doesn’t seem shallow. As she’s circling the room again, she spots a familiar face at the end of the bar. “Bennie, they/she” the nametag reads, with a heart over the i.
“Hi,” she says, squeezing onto an empty stool. “You were at Xichen’s equinox yoga class, right?”
Bennie lights up. They’re wearing very elaborate purple-shaded eye shadow, certainly fancier than anything Meng Yao ever attempted, and have a light chinstrap beard and one ear full of piercings.
“Yes! Hi, sorry, I don’t remember—” Their eyes drop to Meng Yao’s name tag. “Yao?”
“Yeah.” Meng Yao tries Mingjue’s palm-up handshake move, half-heartedly. It has not gotten great results so far, but Bennie is the first person to squeeze her hand without making it look condescending.
“Xichen was the one who told me I should come to one of these,” Bennie says, gesturing at the bar, and Meng Yao realizes very quickly that she is one of those people who is shy to start talking to strangers but not at all shy about keeping things going. “I keep wanting to make more femme friends and she said this was a great way to meet people.”
“Yeah, definitely. I usually come with Xichen, actually—but she’s not here tonight.”
“I know! I finally worked up the nerve to buy a ticket and then I texted her and she was like ‘oh no, sorry!’ Gah! I almost wasn’t going to go but then my partner was like no, really, go and have a good time. We’re poly,” they add. “He’s totally fine with me seeing other people. Especially since I’ve been starting to explore my feminine side more, you know?”
“Mm, I get that. I actually don’t date people who have serious partners. Personal preference,” Meng Yao says apologetically. There are only so many times your mother can get hopeful about a “recently divorced” (read: definitely still married) man before her emotional devastation starts to wear off on you. “But it’s great that he’s so supportive.”
“He’s so sweet,” Bennie smiles.
“I’ve been dealing with something kind of similar—”
She stops talking abruptly. Over Bennie’s shoulder she spots Nie Mingjue, her head bent to talk to someone with a short, violently magenta afro. Her hand is resting on the person’s elbow and her head is tilted towards the exit—Meng Yao has clearly caught her in the tail end of a want to get out of here? Her companion nods and Mingjue drains the last sip of her beer. Her hand slides to her companion’s lower back as she guides her towards the door.
Bennie looks around.
“What’s up?” she asks.
“Nothing,” Meng Yao says, shaking herself back to attention. “A friend of mine is just leaving.”
“Oh, if you want to catch them to say goodbye—”
“No,” she says firmly. She sips at the last dregs of her vodka tonic and tries to make eye contact with the bartender. “I forget what I was saying. So, how long have you and your partner been together?”
21. Bulk up.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Cooldown. 5:00. 4:59. 4:58.
The treadmill begins to slow underneath Meng Yao’s feet. She grimaces and reaches for her water bottle. It’s late and the gym is almost empty, eerily quiet except for the squeak of her sneakers and the distant clink of weight machines. Normally she prefers to go to the gym before work rather than after, but she got an email late last night informing her of a major regulatory problem that required her to come in early this morning. She has no idea how this error was introduced, or why it wasn’t caught earlier, or why her father was emailing her that late when she has never seen him work past four o’clock in the afternoon. She suspects that Outlook’s scheduled email feature was involved.
Her steps want to speed up, even with the treadmill slowing. She gives into her frustration and jabs the machine off without bothering to finish the cooldown. Her wired earbuds are crammed into the groove of the dashboard, along with her phone. Normally she listens to music when she works out, like a sane person—tonight she was too pissed off to fiddle with them. Too eager to get moving.
She wipes down the machine, gathers her things, and moves over to the weight rack. This time she puts in her earbuds and blasts an Asian folk metal playlist as she selects her weights. She did not ask da-jie for workout recommendations—too embarrassing, somehow—but she booked a session with a personal trainer, and she’s comfortable in her routine by now.
Chest press, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Bent-over row left side, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Right side, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Tricep extension, alternating, one-one, two-two, three-three, four-four, five-five, six-six, seven-seven, eight-eight, nine-nine, ten-ten. Thirty second rest.
Meng Yao is confident that she managed to bring Golden Towers into compliance. And she is fairly confident that her father is not going to invite legal risk to his company just to express his displeasure with the fact that she now pretends to ignore most of his hints to neglect certain properties, actually takes lunch breaks and leaves on time most days, and refuses to flirt with vendors in the hopes of getting discounts. But—
Rest over. She trades her dumbbells for a set that are five pounds heavier. Chest press, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Bent-over row left side, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Right side, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Tricep extension, alternating, one-one, two-two, three-three, four-four, five-five, six-six, seven-seven, eight-eight. Thirty second rest.
But the fact of the matter is, she is no longer confident that working for her father is what she wants for her career. She is not benefitting from the fact that she is his daughter. She is suffering for it, and she will continue to suffer the effects of Golden Towers’ sh*tty reputation. The idea of leaving suffuses her with cold dread. She has spent most of her adult life dreaming of this position, but—
Rest over. Five more pounds. Chest press, one, two, three, four, five, six. Bent-over row left side, one, two, three, four, five, six. Right side, one, two, three, four, five, six. Tricep extension, alternating, one-one, two-two, three-three, four-four, five-five, six-six. Two minute break.
But she needs to quit her job. She stares at herself in the mirror and breathes heavily, and then she closes her eyes and takes in a long, slow inhale and exhale. She needs to quit her job.
Break over. She returns the dumbbells and goes back to the lighter set. Shoulder press, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Lat raises, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Hammer curls, alternating, one-one, two-two, three-three, four-four, five-five, six-six, seven-seven, eight-eight, nine-nine, ten-ten. Thirty second rest.
It’s not going to be easy, especially with the familial connection. She has dinner with her father, his wife, and her sister-in-law and nephew once a week, and still, despite everything, she doesn’t want to lose that. She wants to be in A-Ling’s life. She doesn’t want to abandon Jiang Yanli or Mrs. Jin less than a year after Jin Zixuan’s death, because she knows as well as anyone the kind of damage grief can do. And, damn it, she wants a family because she deserves one, because it was what her mother wanted for her. But—
Rest over. Five more pounds. Shoulder press, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Lat raises, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Hammer curls, alternating, one-one, two-two, three-three, four-four, five-five, six-six, seven-seven, eight-eight. Thirty second rest.
But things are not easy, and they are not going to get easier. Lately she has gotten the awkward sense that she is arriving late to family events and dinners, even though she knows she is punctual to the time she has been given—she has caught Jiang Yanli pursing her lips in disapproval. Her father can berate her for her appearance at home much more easily than at the office, especially if Yanli isn’t in the room, and the other day Mrs. Jin defended her by saying “let her look ugly if she wants, why is it our problem?” She could stick it out, hope that eventually they’ll lose steam, but—
Rest over. Five more pounds. Shoulder press one, two, three, four, five, six. Lat raises one, two, three, four, five, six. Hammer curls, alternating, one-one, two-two, three-three, four-four, five-five, six-six. Two minute break.
But she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to. She wants to be done.
This hits her harder than anything else. She closes her eyes and feels the dangerous hitch of tears in her lungs. She covers her face with both hands. She does not have a mother, and she does not want a father anymore.
Meng Yao is still and silent for a long time, until she can get her breathing under control. She drops her hands and drains the rest of her water bottle, and glances at the clock. It’s late, but she has one more circuit to get through. She stands and returns the dumbbells, and as she does, she is distracted by the flex of her own arm in the mirror.
There had only been one other person at the rack when she first approached, but he’s gone now. There is no one else around. Meng Yao looks in the mirror and flexes again, first with one arm, and then with both. Yes, there is definition there. Quite a bit of it, or at least more than the initial hardening she noticed when she first started working out. All of the weight-lifting advice she’s read in the past few months has said ladies, don’t worry, you don’t have to get bulky, and Meng Yao felt conflicted about it every time. But she’s putting on bulk now.
Once, when she was six years old, the babysitter fell through and her mother brought her to work. She slept through most of the shift in the dressing room, but she remembers her mother carrying her back to the car. A customer was following her. Meng Yao doesn’t remember what he said, but she remembers not liking it, and she remembers her sweet-tempered mother’s voice going hard when she said “I have my daughter with me.”
She remembers Meng Shi putting her in the car, and then whirling around and punching the guy in the face. He stumbled backwards over a parking block and fell, and by the time he got to his feet, Meng Shi was in the car and driving away.
“It’s not good to hit people, A-Yao,” she had said in the rearview mirror. “Ladies shouldn’t hit people, except when they have to.”
(In retrospect, Meng Yao isn’t sure how her mother wasn’t fired for that. Maybe her manager put more blame on the security guard, who was supposed to make sure the dancers got to their cars safely. Or maybe the customer never complained, too embarrassed to admit that he was laid low by a 5’2”, 100-pounds-soaking-wet stripper.)
Regardless, she thinks with some satisfaction, her mother knew the power of a good punch. And she had knew that ladies sometimes have to make hard choices.
5. Be confident.
Meng Yao checks in at the reception desk, and then she sits down in a metal chair to wait. She does her best to appear unruffled. No fidgeting. No playing with her phone. She wants to make a good first impression.
But she does straighten the knot of her tie (sage green, with a subtle pattern of darker vines, not the one that matches the Golden Towers logo). The movement wafts the scent of her cologne into the air. She inhales and finds some of the tension easing from her shoulders. She spent half an hour in a department store a few weeks ago, dithering over different scents, before she smelled this one and thought that. Bright citrus and cardamom, with a base of sandalwood that gives it depth.
It’s the first time she’s worn menswear to an interview. She has two more scheduled in the coming weeks, and she has considered dressing more feminine, in case it helps her get hired—but she discarded the idea almost immediately. Her butchness is not something she is going to put on and take off for convenience’s sake. If they reject her for it, then oh well. She’s good at what she does, and she’ll keep looking until she finds some place that won’t.
“Yao Meng?”
She stands automatically and prepares for the usual call and response (“like the basketball player?” “backwards, actually”), but it doesn’t come. The woman who comes over to greet her is older, Black, with a tinge of grey in her hair and a sharp, no-nonsense gaze that peers at Meng Yao from behind chunky turquoise glasses.
“Hi, Ms. Walsh?” Meng Yao asks, shaking her hand.
“Oh, Deanna’s fine. Glad to see you found the place okay.”
Meng Yao blinks at that.
“It’s… City Hall,” she says unthinkingly. “Do people have trouble finding City Hall?”
It feels like a rude comment as soon as it leaves her mouth, but Deanna laughs.
“Listen, I’ve done a lot of interviews in my time, and you’d be surprised. Come on back.” She gestures with a manila folder and leads Meng Yao back through a long hallway lined with offices. “Love that tie, by the way,” she says over her shoulder.
“Thanks,” Meng Yao beams.
24. Family is who you choose, so choose wisely.
“Were you going to tell me?” Jiang Yanli asks, her kind eyes blazing with emotion. Meng Yao steps back, alarmed.
“Yanli? I—”
“Popo just told me you quit the family business and you’re probably never going to have anything to do with us again. You didn’t think this was something I might want to know? I can’t believe you, A-Yao, I really can’t. I know you’ve never liked me but—”
“A-Li!” Meng Yao says firmly, grabbing her elbows. Yanli is holding a black baby carrier in one hand, and she gestures towards it and makes her voice go gentle. “You’re going to wake A-Ling. Take a deep breath. Come inside and we’ll talk.”
Yanli takes a few deep gulps of air and allows herself to be led inside. Meng Yao speaks to her softly, like a spooked animal or an elderly hospital patient, and guides her to sit on the couch, and then she goes to make a snack. Her sister-in-law is pale and peaky, with dark circles under her eyes, and she has lost more than what can be called “the baby weight.” Meng Yao isn’t sure if she’s still breast-feeding and doesn’t think it polite to ask, so she plays it safe, comes back with a mug of lavender-chamomile tea, a bowl of strawberries, and a pack of fudge cookies.
Jiang Yanli looks at her balefully. The baby is asleep in the carrier on the couch beside her, and Yanli rocks it, for something to do with her hands.
“I’m sorry I didn’t reach out to you,” Meng Yao says, to begin with. “I have… been trying to have better boundaries with my family lately, and that’s complicated. But I never meant for you to get caught in the crossfire. And I’ve always liked you, Yanli; I don’t know what gave you the impression I didn’t.”
“There’s a difference between being accommodating and being affectionate,” Jiang Yanli says tersely. “I can tell. Things like planning my bridal shower but not attending . Sending a gift for A-Ling but never wanting to hold him. Saying hi at family events but always turning down invitations to lunch or coffee. And…” She swallows. “I’m not ungrateful. When Zixuan—”
She curls in on herself and wrests a crumpled handkerchief from her pocket. Meng Yao recognizes it as one of the dozen she had shoved in Yanli or Mrs Jin’s hand over the course of the funeral.
“You were the only one who really kept it together,” she says hoarsely. “We needed that. I needed that. But I had always wanted a sister, and it was one thing for me to get used to that disappointment, and another to suddenly not have a sister or a husband, and then for my child to not have an aunt either—” She picks up one of the mugs and cradles it between her palms. “I would like an explanation. Please.”
Meng Yao picks up the other mug. She sips it slowly, and then she takes a cookie out of the sleeve. It tastes like dust in her mouth, but she hopes that, by opening the package and putting it down in Yanli’s direction, her sister-in-law will be coaxed into taking one.
“Yanli,” she says delicately. “I think you may be laboring under a slight misunderstanding of my role in the Jin family. It’s not your fault—I’ve been trying to hide it. But let me start by saying that I tried to give two weeks’ notice today, and my father got angry with me and started shouting, at which point I decided to resign immediately and he told me I better not expect anything from him personally or professionally. So, to be clear—it was never my intention to cut off the Jins immediately, and I did not mean to blindside you. Things just happened pretty fast.”
Yanli’s eyes widen, and Meng Yao knows instantly that this is not the story she had heard. As to be expected.
“Exactly. In a way, I think you’re actually very well-positioned to understand my position. You’re an eldest Chinese daughter, aren’t you?”
Her lips twitch.
“So, imagine that in addition to being an eldest Chinese daughter, you were also brought to the family later in life by your father, and his wife was not your mother and was resentful of the whole business because she thought he was pushing out her children, and that people were going to think you were his bastard child. Then imagine that you actually were his bastard child, and everyone knew it, and also that your father was the type of person with so little respect for his wife that he cheated on her repeatedly throughout their marriage and spent most of your childhood dodging child support payments to a poor, immigrant stripper.”
“Oh.” Meng Yao almost regrets her candor; Yanli has gone even paler. She soothes herself by reaching in the carrier to stroke one of Jin Ling’s small, fleece-covered feet. “Yes, I can see how… but they always seemed so—”
“You really never noticed?”
“I noticed there was tension. But Popo—she could get snippy at Zixuan, too. She has high expectations. I thought that was all it was.”
“She told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t invited to the bridal shower or the baby shower. I made up excuses for the bachelorette because I didn’t want to make her angry. Sorry.”
“No, please,” she says, automatic.
“Fuqin was a lot better at hiding it. Always dangling that carrot… one more late night at work, one more family holiday, and maybe then I’d get full recognition.” She pulls her leg up in her armchair and helps herself to another cookie. “You know I was working 55-hour weeks at Golden Towers and I made 25% less than Zixun?”
Yanli, who has finally bit into a cookie, covers her mouth with her hand and does a double take.
“Zi xun ?” she repeats. “Not even Zixuan?”
“Zixun,” Meng Yao affirms. “Yeah. And like I’m not condoning nepotism, per se, but I feel like there should be some consideration for nepotism hires who would be hired based on merit.”
Yanli takes a strawberry from the bowl next and carefully plucks off the leaves.
“Zixuan said you took on some of his work so he could be with me at doctor’s appointments, and take that long paternity leave for my confinement,” she says in a soft voice. “He was grateful.”
“I wish I’d gotten to know him better,” Meng Yao says, muted but sincere. “He was kind to me. Awkward, but kind.”
“He was like that with everyone,” she smiles sadly. Her expression falters. “I’m sorry you have been dealing with this, A-Yao. And I’m sorry I didn’t notice. I would have liked to help before you felt you had to take… extreme measures… but it seems I’ve missed my chance.”
“I’m sorry, too. I’ll be honest—there were probably opportunities I could have taken to strengthen our friendship, but I didn’t because I was… resentful. Ashamed. I knew full well that you and Zixuan thought better of me than Fuqin and Mrs. Jin, but I didn’t have the heart to be around people who were so happy.”
Jin Ling wakes with a creaky cry, and Yanli leans over the carrier, cooing at him.
“Can I—?” Meng Yao’s voice cracks. “Can I hold him?”
“Of course,” Yanli says, although she sounds surprised.
She stands, lifting A-Ling from the carrier, and deposits him in Meng Yao’s arm. She adjusts automatically, tucking his head in the crook of her elbow and supporting his little baby butt and holding him closer than strictly necessary. He’s gotten so much bigger in the last few months. His hair is dark and thick and his eyes are riveted on her face, but he hasn’t lost the baby smell. She wants to gulp in the scent of his skull.
“Hi,” she whispers. “Hi, baobao. Been a while, huh?”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve held A-Ling,” Yanli says, but there is a tension in her voice that suggests she’s not entirely sure.
”At New Year’s, once. You passed him off to me because I was the closest. But Fuqin doesn’t like me to, and he keeps a pretty close eye.”
Yanli’s hands squeeze into fists. She picks up the mug of tea.
”I thought you didn’t like babies,” she admits, shortly, into the hollow of the cup.
Meng Yao shakes her head and bounces A-Ling in her arms, but otherwise doesn’t respond. There is nothing for her to say. In a way, it’s nice to have gotten this off her chest—but she’s sympathetic to Yanli’s position. She is a widow and a single mom, living on a different coast from her parents, and her in-laws have genuinely been kind to her. Meng Yao doesn’t want to chip away at that support system any more than she has to.
”What’s your new job?” Yanli says, forcefully changing the subject.
”I’m going to be working for the city. Housing and Community Development.”
“That sounds perfect for you,” she says, like she means it. She smiles. “So you’re going to be able to walk around with A-Ling pointing out buildings you approved… you’ll probably have to do site visits on occasion and wear a hard hat. He’ll think you’re the coolest gugu.”
“I’m his only gugu,” Meng Yao says, though her voice wobbles. She clears her throat and looks up. “Hey, I’m planning on going out to celebrate tonight with some people. So far it’s just Huaisang and Mingjue, and I was about to call Xichen. Would you like to join us? We’re going to that brewery on 5th. They’re fine with kids, and there’s plenty of space if you wanted to invite your brothers.”
“That would be nice,” Yanli says. Her smile is wobbly, too. “You don’t have to… I know things have been difficult with…”
“Huaisang says Wei Wuxian is getting better.”
“He is.” She swallows. “I… I understand why things happened the way they did, and I know he regrets it. He’s apologized. He’s sober now—”
“Oh, I didn’t think—the brewery—”
“No, no, it should be fine. They have good mocktails there. And if you don’t mind inviting Lan Wangji as well—Wangji has been good for him.”
“Xichen will be thrilled,” Meng Yao says dryly. She pauses. “Good for him, or… good for him ?”
Yanli giggles.
“Good question.”
It has been a very long day and Meng Yao has been shouted at a lot—and, frankly, she’s never been so glad to have stopped wearing makeup as when her sister-in-law knocked on her door five minutes after a crying jag ended and Meng Yao had no teary mascara to show for it. She is more than happy to relocate to the couch and distract her nephew with a rattle as she and Yanli move onto gossipping and devouring the remaining sleeve of cookies.
She’s always wanted a sister, too.
2b. Don’t let anyone else bullsh*t you.
Meng Yao is surprised at the number of people who show up at the brewery. Mingjue and Huaisang are there from the beginning—Mingjue is perhaps more boisterous than Meng Yao has ever seen her, and starts off the night by buying Meng Yao a manhattan with $50-a-glass whiskey before she can object. Xichen shows up with her brother, who has Wei Wuxian hanging off his arm (platonically?), and as Huaisang has shown up with Jiang Cheng and Meng Yao with Yanli, they all find it wise to retreat for a moment and permit this little family reunion.
She invites a few people from work—only Mianmian and Minshan show—and also Xue Yang, who arrives with his hot neighbor and his hot neighbor’s beefcake husband. It’s a little awkward, because Minshan is the one person Xichen really can’t stand, and Xue Yang is one of many people that Mingjue can’t stand. But that’s not Meng Yao’s problem, because they’re adults and they can figure their own sh*t out.
And they do. There are many toasts, and people mingle and ignore each other as needed, and after a few rounds Meng Yao is actually feeling so good that she texts Wen Qing. Wen Qing has always been in a very awkward spot in their social circle, and it’s only gotten worse. What exactly do you say to the sister of a guy you almost dated when your brother was deemed legally responsible for the car crash that killed her husband, but only because he was trying to be a designated driver for her much-beloved but much-troubled foster brother—and also, when her dickhe*d cousin-in-law was the one who beat up your brother and caused his seizure disorder in the first place?
If you’re Wen Qing, you deliver a very sincere apology at the sentencing hearing and then nope the f*ck out.
“See, this is what you were saying,” Meng Yao says to Mingjue. She has an arm slung around her friend’s shoulders and Mingjue is leaning down to hear her as she gestures at the end of the enormous wooden table where Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing are tearfully embracing following her joyful embrace with Wei Wuxian, soon to be followed by a lot of significant eye contact with Jiang Cheng. “Just honesty. No bullsh*t.”
“No bullsh*t,” Mingjue echoes, tilting her beer glass in Meng Yao’s direction.
“It all works out. Just a little bit of scheming to get the ball rolling—”
“Scheming,” she scoffs. “Only you would be scheming one second and saying ‘oh, no bullsh*t’ the next—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Xue Yang says, leaning across the table. “No bullsh*t. What are we talking about?”
“You are full of sh*t, Xue Yang.”
“He’s such an asshole,” Beefcake agrees, wrapping an arm around Xue Yang’s waist. Meng Yao should remember his name, because she remembers everyone’s name. She has learned tonight that Beefcake also works for the city in a related department and they’re probably going to work closely together, so she’ll need to figure it out. It will come to her.
“Stop it,” Hot Neighbor says, shoving at his arm, and Xue Yang bats his eyelashes.
Meng Yao should drink some water. She gets up from the table and heads over to the bar to order one. Jiang Cheng follows her a minute later and sits in the stool beside her. He tilts his glass at the bartender, who nods.
“Congrats, by the way,” he says. “I don’t know if I said it, in among the whole—” He gestures with his empty glass.
“Thanks. Yeah, I’m looking forward to something new. I appreciate everyone coming out.”
“Bit of a motley crew.”
They look back at their table. Xue Yang and Nie Mingjue are arguing fiercely, but they’re both clearly having fun with it, and one of Xue Yang’s boyfriends (?) is beside himself with laughter. Minshan is just leaving—he has some kind of rehearsal early the next morning. He catches Meng Yao’s eye and waves goodbye. Wei Wuxian is trying, loudly, to organize a game of Up Jenkins with varying degrees of success; Lan Wangji is listening devotedly, Mianmian and Wen Qing look dubious, and Huaisang appears to be voguing rather than listening. Xichen, meanwhile, is having a spirited back and forth with Jin Ling.
“God, all of our friends are such assholes,” Jiang Cheng marvels. “I wonder why we bother.”
The bartender places a cup of water in front of Meng Yao. She hasn’t paid for a drink yet tonight, so she generously leaves a five dollar bill as a tip without worrying about her pending civil servant salary.
“Don’t bullsh*t,” she says as she sips the iced water. “You love them.”
Jiang Cheng looks at her out of the corner of his eye.
“Well, so do you,” he says like an accusation.
“Yep.”
The bartender brings over his new beer, and they lift their glasses in a commiserating toast.
6. Be proud, always.
“Before we get too far—” Nie Mingjue says as they descend from her stoop to the street. She pats down her pockets. Her carabiner jangles. “Do we have everything? I’ve got my keys—A-Yao, if you need to meet back here, Xichen and Huaisang have my two spares. Wallet, phone—I put it in my battery pack case for today, and it should fit both of yours if your battery is running low.”
“I’ve got ear plugs if we get stuck too close to the drums or the speakers,” Meng Yao says, patting her fanny pack. It’s the genuine article—it belonged to her mother in the 90s, and she’s quite pleased that fanny packs are back in style. “Plus I have facial sunscreen, SPF 30, and a roll-on, SPF 50. Got my phone, my wallet, and Xichen’s phone. Er-jie, you get texts to your watch, too, right? In case we get separated?”
“I am so lucky,” Xichen beams, wrapping an arm around each of them, “to have two handsome, practical butches looking after me this Pride.” She kisses each of their cheeks, then takes their hands and drags them down the sidewalk. “But also, my loves, it is a festival that starts ten minutes away from da-jie’s house, not an overnight hike in the wilderness, so I think we will be okay.”
“Was she just sarcastic with us?” Mingjue asks Meng Yao over Xichen’s head. Her eyes are twinkling with mirth. Mingjue is not one for rainbows—her main concession to the occasion is exchanging her usual stud earrings for a pair of dangly silver double Venus symbols. And, of course, her shirt, which reads “I put the butch in butcher” along with an image of a cleaver and cow horns. It was a gift from Huaisang; she’s taken the sleeves off, and Meng Yao has already made a mental note to make sure her arms don’t burn.
“I didn’t account for a drunk and grumpy Xichen,” Meng Yao clucks, shaking her head. “We need to go back so I can stock up on electrolyte beverages and vegan gummy bears.”
Lan Xichen laughs and drops their hands. She skips forward and turns around, walking backwards so she can scold them.
“I am going to have a nice day,” she says breezily. “If you two want to stay behind and bicker about your post-apocalyptic survival plans, you are free to do so.”
She blows another kiss with both hands. Xichen is always beautiful, but she is at her most beautiful and most ethereal like this—dressed in white gladiator sandals and a crocheted trans flag halter top, with a gauzy blue beizi floating on the wind behind her. A half-shot of vodka already bringing an excited flush to her cheeks. Everyone halfway attracted to women is going to be in love with Lan Xichen by the end of the day, and she is going to be in love with all of them back.
There is something Meng Yao has not confessed to her friends: she used to hate Pride. She didn’t go at all for a long time, and then only when she was dragged by other people. There was something that festered inside of her in the middle of that crowd. A bit of prudishness, a dash of superiority, a resentful certainty that she could never look like that, act like that—whatever that was. She could never get away with it.
But this year is going to be different. She is going to be different. She has spent three months reading nothing but queer literature, even more than she had in that first giddy rush of self-realization when she was sixteen, acclimating herself to all the right ideas. She has undergone a radical personal transformation. She has done two shots of vodka. She’s ready.
They hear the crowd before they see it. A bustle of people, calling for each other and laughing and occasionally blasting music as they wait for the march to start. Passersby start to get more and more colorful the closer they get to the meetup spot. Meng Yao almost feels underdressed. She is wearing a t-shirt with a big yellow smile and the slogan gay as in happy, and Xichen done her up in rainbow eyeshadow that feels like drag after having a bare face for so long. But compared to all the people they passed wrapped in flags, she and Mingjue are practically stealth.
They arrive at the meetup stop. An enormous truck has become a portable stage, and some city councilmember is making a speech. Meng Yao can’t make out any words, between the crowd noise and the reverb, but the audience gives an occasional cheer.
“Oh, there’s Tanya,” Mingjue points out. She waves at a couple of women standing at the edge of the crowd with hi-viz vests. One of them notices and waves back. “She and Em are on medical services duty until 3. I told her I owed them shots or a half-price tenderloin when they’re done, so we might see them later.”
“Are those equivalent to each other?” Meng Yao asks skeptically. “For that matter, are they sufficient compensation for safeguarding human health—”
Mingjue grabs a fistful of her hair and shoves her in a joking complaint, and Meng Yao squawks. She’s quite pleased with her hair—she has decided to grow out the buzzcut, and while Mingjue trimmed the sides while they were getting ready, the top has grown out long enough that she has to use pomade to keep it from sticking out in all directions. She fusses at it and Xichen scolds Mingjue.
As they find a shady place to stand and wait for the march to begin, Meng Yao finds herself increasingly annoyed by a whistle that keeps punctuating the crowd noise. She cranes her head to find the source. It takes her a moment to realize what’s happening: there is a single sad protestor standing on the corner, across the street from where most of the revelers are gathered, in case gay is catching. He’s holding a tall post with two different unpleasant signs attached to it, and is occasionally ranting.
Or at least, Meng Yao assumes the signs are unpleasant. She can’t read them, because there is a man in front of him waving a giant leather flag that blocks them from view. He has a whistle in his mouth, and every time the protestor tries to talk, it gives a shrill wheeee-ooo! that some of the attendees have started to twerk to. The man with the flag is serene. He’s an older bear, beard and chest hair generously flecked with silver, wearing the classic leather daddy ensemble: trousers, vest, peaked cap, combat boots.
Meng Yao feels a sudden surge of a strange emotion. Affection, and… wistfulness. It must be nice to come to Pride with a purpose. Medical services. Guarding against hom*ophobes. Song Lan invited her to march with some other LGBTQ employees of the city, and she’d considered it but ultimately declined—she barely knows her new coworkers, and she had decided she wanted to spend the entire day with her friends. (Although Huaisang had, predictably, reacted with horror that the march was expected to start at 10 am on a weekend and announced that he would meet them at the festival afterwards.)
But maybe she’ll say yes next year. Maybe it will be nice to represent something.
Or maybe she’ll show up in leather, she thinks with a slight flush. She has never felt tough enough for that kind of kink, but this very moment she is wearing a pair of black leather combat boots and a thick leather belt, and she has come to appreciate the quality of them, the way they transform the way she walks and holds herself. Trousers seem like a bit much, in this kind of early-summer weather, but—
“A-Yao,” Xichen says in a tone of concern. “If you want to keep moving, we can find somewhere else to wait.”
“Hm? Oh, no, don’t worry about it, er-jie. I wasn’t paying attention to that asshole. I was just thinking… where would we be without bears and butches?”
Xichen lets out a surprised, delighted laugh, and Mingjue grins.
“Next year’s t-shirt?”
“Absolutely.”
15. Everyone loves a leather dyke. Might as well give it a try.
Meng Yao wanders past the shop twice while waiting for Xue Yang, and then she thinks f*ck it. It’s going to become obvious what she’s doing if she doesn’t hurry it along, and Xue Yang is already ten minutes late which means it’s going to be another ten minutes before he texts her whoops lol 10 min away, so she might as well browse.
She’s never been in a sex shop. It’s weird to think, but—well, by the time she was old enough to be buying sex toys, internet shopping was a thing, and it seemed preferable. But this is the sort of purchase she wants to be able to assess in person, so… in she goes.
The first floor of the building is entirely devoted to apparel. There’s a flurry of color at first—tutus and lingerie, tights, pride outfits. Then an abrupt shift to black. Meng Yao heads for the black and pulls out the nearest hanger.
“A-Yao?”
Maybe there’s another A-Yao in the store. There are 1.4 billion Chinese people in the world and 5 million of them are US residents, so in a metropolitan region of 6 million people, there must be at least a dozen Yaos and at least one of them must also be in this sex shop at 2:11 on a Saturday afternoon, right?
Wrong.
“Hi, da-jie,” she says, turning. She’s proud that she doesn’t choke on her words as she takes in the undeniably awe-inspiring sight of Nie Mingjue wearing a tight green tank top, slightly out-of-place Birkenstocks, and a leather kilt. A kilt. A black leather kilt with a built-in-studded belt. Meng Yao has never seen Mingjue in a kilt before, or a skirt or a dress for that matter. Her calves look amazing in a kilt. Who knew Mingjue was the type to wear a kilt?
“You shopping for something?” Mingjue asks, and then she blushes. Meng Yao can’t fathom why, but if she asks, then Mingjue might ask why she is blushing, so they both ignore it.
“Yeah, I was thinking of getting a harness. A chest harness,” she says, pointing. “I kept seeing them at Pride and I thought they looked cool. Xue Yang was supposed to come help me shop, but he’s late. That looks nice.”
She points at the kilt.
“Yeah, I don’t know. I did the same thing as you—saw ’em at Pride, thought I’d try it out. But in practice it’s a lot like a skirt, and I’m not sure if I can pull it off without facial hair.” She moves her knees back and forth, making the kilt swish. “I was just trying it on. But I can help you find a harness, if you want. If Xue Yang flaked.”
“Mm.”
“Okay. Cool. Be right back.”
Mingjue ducks into the dressing room and Meng Yao tells herself very firmly to get a grip. She presses the backs of her hands to her cheeks, willing them to cool down. There’s always been this thread of attraction for Mingjue—50% envy and 50% lust, maybe 70-30 with Meng Yao’s transition to baby butch. But she’s been handling it just fine, thank you, and Mingjue has been really good to her lately and it’s neither the time nor the place to burn it all down just because she wants to bite her friend’s calves.
Mingjue comes back out with the kilt on a hanger, wearing a pair of denim shorts.
Meng Yao wants to bite her thighs, too.
“So, got any ideas?” Mingjue asks.
“What?”
“For a harness. Color, material, style…?”
“Oh, uh.”
Meng Yao surveys the selection. There are racks of leather clothing—pants, shorts, vests, corsets, and kilts. Then a tall pegboard with collars, armbands, jock straps, and harnesses—mostly black leather, but interspersed with pops of white or red or pink leather, or nylon in vivid day-glo colors and the ubiquitous rainbow.
“Classic black leather, I think,” she says after a minute. “Real leather, not vegan. Don’t tell er-jie. I mean, literally, don’t tell er-jie,” she adds with full seriousness, and Mingjue laughs.
“Yeah, got it. Although if you show up next Pride wearing it…”
“Well, we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it. As for style—I don’t know. I was going to try some on.”
Mingjue nods. She is staring fixedly at the wall, her hands in her pockets.
“Yeah, good call.”
There is an awkward silence. Meng Yao picks the nearest black leather harness off the wall at random—it forms an X shape, with a single O-ring at the front and one at the back where the straps cross.
“That’s a good one,” Mingjue says. “But—”
She halts.
“But?”
“The fit can be weird,” she says in a choppy voice. “With boobs. Unless you’re wearing a bra. They kind of go—” She points out with both fingers in opposite directions. “So you just have to decide if you want to wear a bra with it or not.”
“I mean, black sports bra and a harness is a look, right?”
“Yeah,” Mingjue nods. “Yeah. How about something like this?”
She gestures at a harness with a series of thin straps that loop around the bottom of the torso and stomach. Meng Yao pulls a face.
“Too feminine, I think. Maybe…” She has to reach up on her toes to take down a bulldog hardness hanging above head-height for her—eye-level for Mingjue. “Oh, this one is a large. Can you check—?”
“Yeah.” Mingjue flips through the rest of the stack. “Try the small first,” she says, passing it down. “It’s supposed to fit snug. ’Cuz— just ’cuz.”
“Okay, yeah. I’ll just—”
She jerks her head at the fitting room and scampers away, drawing the curtain behind her with a sigh of relief.
She tries on the X-harness first, but Mingjue was right—the fit over her breasts is just odd. Even with a bra, the straps cross in a strange place, and she has to either loosen them so the whole thing jangles when she moves or tighten them to an uncomfortable degree over her chest. She doesn’t even bother to go out and show Mingjue; she just takes it off and tries the bulldog harness instead.
There we go, she thinks with satisfaction. She had been uncertain of how it would look on her, especially without the inherent masc-ness of the buzzcut, but there’s no dissonance at all. She picked one of the thicker harness, with studs in the leather and a big buckle across the chest strap that make it very clear she’s not trying to be subtle. It crosses just below her clavicle, above the swell of her breasts—it would probably look amazing if she were topless. But it looks pretty great over her white t-shirt, too.
Nie Mingjue is still waiting for her outside the dressing room. Meng Yao’s eyes flicker towards the curtain and she finds herself twisting the hem of her shirt in one hand, a nervous twitch she’s never been able to stop. She could just take the harness off and thank Mingjue for her help—she doesn’t have to show her. But is that weirder? She can’t decide, and also she can’t dither too long or it will become painfully obvious.
She takes her phone out of her pocket and snaps a few selfies in the full-length mirror, and that decides her. She looks f*cking great, and if a friend has helped you pick out fetish gear without making it weird, they can see the results without it being weird. She pushes the curtain aside, and instantly there is a wolf-whistle.
Oh, great. Xue Yang is here.
“You’re late,” she says crossly.
“You’re hot, meimei!” he crows. He flings an arm around her and presses a loud, obnoxious kiss to her cheek. “Baby butch’s first kinky sex gear, I’m so proud—”
“I am going to kill you in your sleep, ” she hisses, shoving him away.
“It looks good,” Mingjue says, clearing her throat. “Did you try the other one already?”
“Yeah, you were right. The fit was weird.”
“But that one fits good?”
“Of course it does,” Xue Yang says. He circles her, tugging at the o-rings and running his thumb expertly between the leather and the cotton of her t-shirt. “Nice tight fit, won’t cause injury if it gets yanked—good quality leather, too. Look at those burnished edges. It’ll be just as comfortable against skin as fabric. And you’ve got a little leeway in the sizing in case you bulk up any more in the arms and shoulders. Yao-mei’s been weightlifting, has she told you?” he asks Mingjue in a bright voice.
“Mm-hm. Sounds like Xue Yang knows what he’s doing,” she replies, addressing Meng Yao, which is the first vaguely-positive thing she’s ever said about him. “So I’ll let you guys figure it out. I’ve gotta—”
She jerks her thumb at the door and Meng Yao barely manages a goodbye before Mingjue is booking it out of the shop.
“I literally hate you more than anyone on the planet,” she informs Xue Yang.
He cackles and drags her over to the collars.
26. LGBTQ solidarity is important. Remember that gay men are your brothers—and, like all brothers, sometimes they are going to be annoying as f*ck.
Meng Yao is flopped on her couch, e-reader in hand and a fan pointed at her full blast, when there is an unexpected knock on her door. She frowns and sets the e-reader aside.
“A-Yao!” the visitor complains, knocking again before she’s taken two steps, and she rolls her eyes. “Open up, it’s me!”
“Huaisang—” She swings the door open. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Of course, why wouldn’t I be okay?” He breezes past her and makes a beeline for the kitchen. “Is there booze?”
“Liquor above the fridge, and there’s some canned co*cktails in it,” she answers automatically, and Huaisang lets out a delighted little “ooh!” and opens the fridge. “Huaisang, why are you here? You didn’t even text me.”
“Oh, I was in the neighborhood! And I thought, before my hot night on the town, why not stop in and see my dear friend A-Yao?”
“You’re having a hot night on the town… on a Monday?”
He is dressed to go out—denim shorts, strappy sandals, a Sanrio crop top and a bulging fanny pack that Meng Yao knows to contain sunblock, chapstick, lotion, a handkerchief, and a battery-powered fan (because if there is one thing Huaisang is, it’s comfortable), plus a packet of lube and condoms (because if Huaisang is two things, it’s comfortable and prepared). But if Huaisang is three things, it’s comfortable, prepared, and lazy. Monday nights are for painting his nails, eating ice cream, and watching Criminal Minds from the couch.
“It’s Pride,” he says, flapping his hand dismissively. “Thirty days of nonstop partying. Get with the program, jiejie.” He brushes past her and presses a canned vodka lemonade in her hand, dropping down on her sofa. He cracks open a mango vodka lemonade. “So anyway, while I’m here, can we talk about why you hate da-jie?”
“I don’t hate da-jie!” she protests, a knee-jerk reaction. She sits down. Huaisang pats his lap, and she smiles to herself a little as she rests her feet on his knees, crossing them at the ankle. “Why would you even think that?”
“Because you are literally torturing her, A-Yao. Da-jie has developed a terminal case of yearning and it is all your fault.”
“...What are you talking about, Huaisang?”
“I am talking about the fact that, while da-jie may refuse to admit that she has a type, statistical evidence and the observations of her closest friends and family suggest that there are three characteristics that she cannot resist in a woman. She likes ’em…” He holds up three fingers dramatically. “Short. Butch. And mean.”
Meng Yao considers this, fire rushing towards her cheeks. She clears her throat, sets her feet on the ground, and sets the unopened co*cktail on the end table.
“Get out of my house, Huaisang.”
“It is an incontrovertible fact!” he cries, indignant.
“It is not. I’ve seen quite a few of the people da-jie’s been with and most of them don’t fit that description. She dated er-jie, for God’s sakes.”
“Oh my god, are you serious? You are citing a one-month failed relationship with someone who is tall, femme, and nice as proof that I’m wrong? Come on, jiejie. I will concede that a lot of Mingjue’s past partners haven’t fit the description, but that’s only because everyone is shorter than da-jie and there’s a masc shortage out there, so she has made concessions for futches and femmes and people who are, technically speaking, average height. But she was already crushing on you when you first met, and then you show up telling her to go f*ck herself and asking her to help mold you into the perfect pint-sized butch? And then you show up at her local leather place? As her brother, I must step in and protect her honor. You have to make out with her, A-Yao. Please. For pity’s sake.”
“I.” Meng Yao rubs both hands over her face and holds them there for a moment, blocking out the apartment. “No.”
“Why not?” Huaisang whines. “She’s really into you, A-Yao. I swear. No joke. She is.”
“Okay. That’s—flattering. Thank you. For letting me know.”
“Are you not into her?” he frowns. “I mean, I won’t be offended. But… you always seemed interested in her.”
“You never said anything.”
“Eh. You were working together, and I didn’t want to, like, sexually harass you by proxy, and then things were weird for a while. But things have gotten way too dire. Seriously, are you not interested?”
“I… am…” She remembers Mingjue’s legs in the kilt. The way her voice goes high and soft and sweet when she sweeps Baxia into her arms. The long line of her body leaning against the wall as she talks to someone else. She sighs. “Not interested in the kind of relationship Mingjue wants.”
“How do you know if you haven’t asked her out?”
“Because I’ve known her for years. She doesn’t do relationships. I don’t do hookups. It’s that simple.”
Not that she hasn’t considered changing her personal policy. Especially lately—she’s been trying out so many new things lately, why not try sleeping around? But there are some things that are just foundational to who Meng Yao is, and apparently this is one of them. She can shave her head, she can turn her back on her father, she can stop trying to make everyone happy all the time. She can’t be casual.
Huaisang purses his lips and taps a finger against his can—Meng Yao wonders if he picked up that habit from Mingjue, or if it comes from the same source. Their father, Huaisang’s mother, one of their aunts or uncles.
“Da-jie didn’t do days off or doctor’s appointments until you bullied her into them. And I’m not making this up, you know. She is really, really into you. More than, like, anyone else I’ve ever seen.”
Meng Yao’s heart jumps to her throat, and she swallows. She stares fixedly down at her knees and shrugs.
“Well. If that’s true, then— no, this is ridiculous.”
“A-Yao,” he groans, diving close to hug her and rest his head on her shoulder. “Please, jiejie? Just one little text. Happy hour date. See how it goes. I am sooooo sick of listening to her pine, it’s so pathetic in an adorable puppy dog way.”
“No, Huaisang. Mingjue knows that I don’t do hookups. I haven’t changed my mind, and I’m not going to be the one to make a fool of myself if she hasn’t changed hers. If it’s true that she’s interested, then… she knows where to find me.”
“But she’s your ex-boss and current butch-shifu! What if she’s being all dumb and noble about the power imbalance?”
“Then go bother her about it. Don’t look at me like that, Huaisang,” she says sternly. “I was raised an only child. Didi eyes don’t work on me.”
It’s a lie. Huaisang absolutely can wear her down—maybe even quicker than he can wear down Mingjue—but if she uses a severe enough voice, she can sometimes scare him off before she breaks.
“Fine,” he huffs, sitting up. He takes his phone from his pocket and starts tapping rapidly at the screen.
“Are you calling an Uber?”
“No, I’m taking your advice,” he says. He stands and strolls away—it’s a studio, so there isn’t far to go.
“What advice?”
“Bothering da-jie about it.”
“Huaisang!” She leaps to her feet. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, A-Yao, just sending a little text to my beloved jiejie,” he says, power-walking away from her as she lunges at him.
“Show me the text,” she demands.
“Hey da-jie are you interested in A-Yao at all eyes emoji,” he reads triumphantly. The volume on his phone is up, and she hears the dreaded swoosh. “Oh, oops, there, it’s sent.”
“This is not okay,” Meng Yao says, a churning feeling in her stomach. “Huaisang, this is seriously not—”
His phone pings.
They stare at each other for a moment, Huaisang’s eyebrows raised in a silent challenge. When Meng Yao doesn’t say anything, he looks down at the screen.
“‘Why?’” he reads. He starts typing again. “Because… she’s… looking… for a… relationship.”
“Huaisang, I swear—”
He puts a finger to his lips—and then, almost immediately, lets out a loud peal of laughter as his phone starts ringing. Meng Yao’s stomach is doing backflips now, and he drops down on the couch and shushes her.
“Okay, sh, sh, let me do the talking, I got this.” He answers the phone on speaker. “Helloooo?”
“What are you talking about, Sang’er?” Mingjue demands. “What did she say exactly?”
“What did who say when?”
“I am going to repossess your birthday gift. The last ten years of birthday gifts. What did Meng Yao say that led you to ask me that question?”
“Oh, right. Well, we were just kind of talking about types, you know, like how people have types they go for? And I said to Meng Yao it was funny how people do or don’t get together, because like on paper she’s totally your type—”
“You told her that?”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”
“It’s— I don’t have a type.”
“Sure, da-jie. But then she said that it didn’t matter, because you knew that she doesn’t hook up, and you’re kind of a slu*t— I mean, not that she used those words,” he adds hastily as Meng Yao waves and draws her hand across her throat. “She would never. But, you know. She’s looking for a long-term relationship and you’re not. That’s why I texted you, because it got me thinking—are you really not open to a relationship at all? Because you’re not getting any younger and I want niblings.”
“I’m not… not open to a relationship. I just…” She exhales. “The whole getting-to-know-you stage. I can’t stand it. I don’t want to have to put up with strangers saying all the sh*t they say, or having people get all pissy because I’m not going to disrupt my life for someone I barely know. So, Meng Yao didn’t say that she was interested in me, or anything?”
Does she sound disappointed?
“Gee, I guess I didn’t think to ask,” Huaisang says with an innocent tone and a smirk. “Why, are you?”
There is a long pause.
“I’m not telling you,” Mingjue says decisively.
“Why not?”
“Because you are the world’s worst gossip, Huaisang. Anything I say, you’re just going to turn right around and tell Meng Yao.”
“So you do like her. I mean, like-like her.”
“I just told you, I’m not—”
“Yeah, but why would I go blab to Meng Yao if the answer was no? You know I would only tell her what you told me if the answer was that you do want to be in a relationship with her, because if the answer was no then I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings and if the answer is yes then I want to get this sapphic show on the road!”
There is another pause. Meng Yao’s heart is pounding—Huaisang’s leaps of logic do not always deserve the term, but this one sort of does.
“I don’t even need to repossess your birthday gift; I haven’t forwarded the tickets yet. I’m taking your roommate to see Chappell Roan.”
“Don’t you dare, da-jie!” Huaisang gasps. “Jiang Cheng will never appreciate the heights of camp artistry—” The call hangs up. Huaisang frowns at it intensely for a moment and then shrugs, slipping it back in his pocket. “It’s fine. She’ll never get Jiang Cheng to go to a festival, let alone in August. So, that went well, right?”
“Huaisang. Get out of my house.” But she walks him to the door and leans up to kiss his cheek when he crosses the threshold. “Have fun. Be safe.”
“I’m just going to the Quizzo Grandmaster Tourney at that British-themed pub like five blocks away,” he admits.
“What is a Quizzo Grandmaster Tourney?”
“It’s just trivia, except no pop culture. Science, history, music and literature as long as it’s like a million years old. I’m going to be unbelievably bad at it, and Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are going to be so good at it that they’re gonna get all nerdy-horny and start making out by the end of the first round.”
“Good luck,” she says, amused.
“You, too, jiejie.” He kisses her cheek, too, and departs as suddenly as he arrived.
Meng Yao takes out her phone and opens the timer app. She flicks the scroller with some aggression and waits for it to stop at random: 22 minutes. That will do. She cracks open her canned vodka lemonade, then settles back into her spot on the couch and picks up the e-reader again. It’s slow going, but she forces herself to stick with it until her timer goes off. Then she picks up her phone and opens her texts.
Meng Yao:
I need you to do me a huge favor. I’m about to send a group text, and I need you to agree to it and then back out later. Are you okay with that?
Er-Jie:
Oooookay? 😂 so mysterious, I feel like a spy 👀🥰
Meng Yao:
Thanks. I’ll make it up to you. Maybe we can go to that teahouse sometime this week?
Er-Jie:
Yay! ♥️
Meng Yao finishes her drink before opening the group chat between her, Xichen, and Mingjue.
Meng Yao:
Hey, feeling like I need to go out and be social some more this weekend—it’s still Pride after all! 🏳️🌈 Maybe go dancing somewhere in the gayborhood? Saturday night??
The first reply comes barely a second later, but not to the group chat—Lan Xichen has simply texted her four solid lines’ worth of exclamation points. Meng Yao returns an angel emoji, and then Xichen replies in the chat.
Er-Jie:
Ooh, sounds like fun! ☺️ I’m in! 💃✨🌈
It takes another three minutes for Mingjue to reply, not that Meng Yao is watching the clock.
Da-Jie:
Sure, I’m game. Where do you want to meet?
Meng Yao slides down so she’s lying flat on her back. She lets out a long sigh and rests her phone facedown on her chest.
17c. Learn to love the taste of whiskey on her lips.
“If you had told me we were coming here, I would have dressed for the occasion,” Mingjue says in Meng Yao’s ear, somewhere between a murmur and a shout, to be heard over the music.
They’re in the basem*nt of a leather bar, and Nie Mingjue is wearing the least leather of anyone, as far as Meng Yao can tell in the dim, red-tinged light—just her belt, boots, and a cuff on her wrist. Meng Yao has taken the opportunity to debut her harness, which, after long consideration, she is wearing over the same white t-shirt she wore when she bought it, but with the sleeves rolled up. She likes the stark contrast of black on white too much… and also she took public transportation here. Harness-over-sports-bra might be a look, but she’s not sure if it’s a look she is bold enough to rock on the bus.
“You look great,” she says. Not loud enough. Mingjue has to dip her head again, and Meng Yao slides a hand up her shoulder and around her back to keep her close as she puts her mouth to Mingjue’s ear and says, “You look good, da-jie.”
She’s wearing a black button down with three buttons undone, enough to show off a loose collection of necklaces, enough to tell that she is not wearing a bra. She’s wearing two more rings, in addition to the ever-present heirloom wedding ring, and black pearls in her ears, and her hair is done in two long braids down her back. A few wispy strands have escaped; they’re plastered with sweat to her forehead.
Meng Yao lets her hand glide down Mingjue’s arm, their eyes locked on each other. Mingjue’s are black, as black as the shadows in the corners of the room. In her left hand, Meng Yao holds a plastic cup with the remains of a whiskey and co*ke. She tucks two fingers of her right hand into Mingjue’s belt and rolls her hips to the beat. She doesn’t know the song—she can barely hear it, it’s just a beat, a vibration in her chest, the pulse that keeps the bodies thrashing around them.
Over Meng Yao’s shoulder, a redheaded femme in a corset, f*ck-me pumps and scarlet lipstick has been flashing sultry glances at Mingjue since they got here. Mingjue hasn’t looked at her once.
Mingjue puts a hand on Meng Yao’s hips and rests her forearm on her shoulder, matching her undulations. The air between them is sticky and sweaty, but neither of them pulls away. One beat merges into the next and the next, and they inch closer. Their dancing gets worse—vaguely rhythmic twitches, not lifting their feet at all so they don’t stomp on each other with their boots, barely moving their bodies so they don’t dislodge their hands.
“A-Yao,” Mingjue says at some point. Her lips keep moving, but it’s too loud and Meng Yao can’t hear anything but the pulse in her ears.
But she can feel Mingjue’s fingers caressing the short, bristly hairs on the nape of her neck.
She flings her arms around Mingjue’s neck, spilling ice down her front as she yanks her down. Mingjue lunges for her in the same moment, crashing their mouths together. Mingjue’s hands cup the back of her head and tilt it back, tongue forcing her lips open, and Meng Yao groans. She tastes like whiskey. Not good whiskey, cheap well swill, as hot and harsh as her mouth. Meng Yao can’t get enough.
She presses closer, yanks greedily at Mingjue’s shirt and settling between her thighs. They’re close to a wall—an unspoken agreement that they didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of the crowded dance floor, that they are here only for each other. Mingjue turns slightly and presses Meng Yao against it, leaning over her. They rock together, vaguely in time. Meng Yao can feel her heartbeat in her c*nt, and she’s convinced she can come like this, from grinding on Mingjue’s rock-hard thigh.
But then Mingjue’s hands slide down her ass, and with barely a moment to realize what’s happening, Meng Yao is being lifted into the air. She wraps her legs around Mingjue’s waist instinctively and leans back against the wall with a gasp. Maybe she comes—it’s hard to tell, especially when Mingjue’s lips twitch in that lopsided grin that brings out her dimples. Meng Yao has never been more aroused in her life.
“That’s better,” Mingjue says, leaning in for another kiss.
They make out like that for… forever, basically. One of Mingjue’s arms supporting Meng Yao’s lower back and groping her ass appreciatively, the other resting on the wall behind her, while Meng Yao’s hands roam her torso, yanking at her lapels and playing with her necklaces and massaging her breasts.
“You’re gonna undo my buttons,” Mingjue laughs in her ear.
“Good,” Meng Yao shoots back. “Take it off. You were the one worried about dressing wrong—take it all off.”
Mingjue kisses up the side of her neck.
“My place?” she asks into the hinge of Meng Yao’s jaw.
“Yeah. Yeah.”
She kisses Mingjue on the mouth one more time, pulls back with her lower lip still trapped between her teeth, and slides down to the floor. Mingjue drags her towards the stairs.
The redhead in the corset has given up and is dancing with the friends she came with. She looks disappointed. Meng Yao can’t help it—she catches the woman’s eye and waggles her fingers in a triumphant wave.
34. There are no rules for sex. Find out what you like. Find out what your partner likes. Do that.
Meng Yao grips the headboard tight with both hands and grinds her puss* on Mingjue’s face. She is panting, flushed all the way down her chest—the black leather of the harness stark against scarlet skin. Mingjue is flat on her back, staring up at Meng Yao with intent eyes even as her mouth works expertly between Meng Yao’s legs. But then her eyelashes flutter closed and she tips her head back, rubbing the tip of her tongue insistently against Meng Yao’s cl*t.
“f*ck,” Meng Yao hisses. “f*ck, baby. That’s it. So good. So good.”
She leans back, bracing herself with her hands on the mattress, and relishes the stretch in her thighs. She huffs a soft laugh when she realizes she can feel the little dots of Mingjue’s earrings against her skin. Maybe they’ll leave bruises—maybe they already have. She’s come at least twice already, and each time she briefly forgot that she needed to worry about suffocating her partner. Mingjue didn’t seem to mind.
She’s eased up a little in this position. Mingjue lifts her head, wresting a little control back, and Meng Yao fists a hand in her hair. With her other hand, she toys idly at Mingjue’s slit. She’s got a full bush—glorious, not even a hint of trimming—and Meng Yao likes parting the dark hair with her fingers, delving into the warmth and wetness and softness of her.
“A-Yao,” Mingjue groans. She turns her head, nips at Meng Yao’s inner thigh, and then licks her c*nt with a broad, flat tongue. Meng Yao gasps.
“Do that again,” she orders. “Yes—yes— yes— stay there, just like that, f*ck, f*ck, da-jie— ”
Her legs shake and she crumples in on herself, yanking at Mingjue’s hair as she whimpers through her org*sm.
She collapses on the bed beside Mingjue. Mingjue leans forward, opening her mouth like she’s seeking a kiss. Meng Yao puts fingers to her lips instead, and Mingjue sucks the taste of her own arousal off them.
“I want you to f*ck me,” Meng Yao says when she’s caught her breath.
“I thought that’s what I was doing. Do you have complaints?” Mingjue asks, kissing her neck, kissing the leather when it gets in the way, kissing her breast, grazing teeth over her nipple. “Constructive criticism?”
“Mm, no. But that was me f*cking you. I want you to strap on your preferred co*ck—don’t tell me you don’t have one—put me on all fours, and f*ck me—”
Her worlds are swallowed by Mingjue kissing her.
“You’re so f*cking sexy.”
Mingjue gets out of bed and makes a beeline for the bureau. Meng Yao looks away when she opens the bottom drawer; there is quite an array in there, and she wants to prolong the suspense. But she watches Mingjue step into the strap—not a harness, but a pair of tight grey briefs that her ass looks fantastic in. Mingjue gives her a sultry smirk as she works a dild* in the o-ring, and Meng Yao’s mouth goes dry. It’s purple silicone, not especially long, but girthy and with a delicious curve.
It has barely been three minutes since the last time she came. She shouldn’t be this desperate for it, but she watches Mingjue’s big hand wrap around the base of the dild* and give it a few good tugs, and she wants to pant like a dog.
“You want it?” Mingjue asks, strolling closer. “Hm? You like what you see, meimei?”
“Mm.”
“Yeah?”
Mingjue is close enough to grab her by the jaw. She’s looming over the bed—their height difference has never been as obvious as now, with Meng Yao kneeling on the bed and the strapon bobbing just below her chin. She’s at the perfect height to give Mingjue a tit job. She’s always thought a tit job was one of the stupidest, most demeaning and most ridiculous-looking sex acts and it has to be doubly so for a fake co*ck that can’t feel it, but she lost her dignity sometime on the Lyft ride home and she will 100% give Mingjue a tit job if she asks for one.
But Mingjue just kisses her forehead.
“Show me,” she says. She releases Meng Yao’s jaw. “Show me how much you want it.”
Meng Yao sits back on her heels. She hesitates for a moment—she isn’t sure what Mingjue wants, if she should talk dirty or pout or offer a blowj*b—but then Mingjue grabs the back of her harness and uses it to haul Meng Yao around, to turn her on her front and shove her face down in the pillows.
“sh*t, oh my god,” Meng Yao whispers. She settles on her knees and elbows, arching her back and spreading her legs. “f*ck me, da-jie, please. I want your co*ck. Please, give it to me…”
She turns her head to watch as Nie Mingjue slicks up the dild* with lube, jerking off lazily and then climbing on the bed. She leans over Meng, her small, firm tit* pressed against her back, and kisses her neck as she guides the dild* into the folds of her puss*.
“That’s it,” she said, her voice a low rumble. “Just like that. Good girl.”
Meng Yao had never found ‘good girl’ sexy, either, so it is quite a surprise to find herself moaning at that. She twists her hands in the sheets.
Mingjue sets a nice, relaxed pace at first, deep thrusts alternating with a slow grind of her hips. Her hands are constantly roaming—squeezing Meng Yao’s thighs, guiding her hips, thumbing her nipples, smoothing over the flat planes of her back. Meng Yao stretches like a cat, delighting in every point of contact as pleasure sparks up her spine.
Then Mingjue leans down to kiss her, cradling the back of her head, and Meng Yao hears the soft groans trapped in the back of her throat.
“Is it good for you, da-jie?” she asks breathlessly. “f*cking me gets you off?”
“Yeah, baby,” Mingjue says with a chuckle, kissing her forehead again. The angle is awkward—just an affectionate smear of lips against her skin. “The dild*’s got a, uh. Like a textured base. f*ck, that gets me going. That and I’ve still got the taste of your sweet c*nt on my tongue—”
“Can you come from this?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“That’s so hot, oh my god—”
“It might not be as good for you,” Mingjue says, kissing a straight line across her shoulders. “The angle—”
“I don’t care,” Meng Yao says immediately. “I don’t care, da-jie, seriously. I want to feel it. I want to hear it—I want you to come inside me, jiejie.”
Mingjue swears profusely at that, and then she rearranges Meng Yao like a doll. She puts one foot up on the bed and straddles Meng Yao’s ass, giving her a few spanks for good measure, and adjusts, pausing every so often to grind against the dild* until she finds the right angle.
It’s incredible, how many times tonight Meng Yao has discovered an entirely new apex of desire. Riding Mingjue’s face was fun, and getting f*cked by her was great, but being used like a fleshlight while Mingjue moans and pants and growls above her—it’s intoxicating. Mingjue paws at her harness and yanks her closer, and Meng Yao comes. Just like that, completely unprepared, her cries muffled in the mattress. Her puss* clamps down hard on the dild* and she wails, but Mingjue is totally lost. She mutters curses under her breath as she humps wildly against the base of the fake co*ck, before she finally gasps “A-Yao” and falls forward. She curls around Meng Yao’s body, rolling her hips in tiny circles as she rides out the aftershocks.
“f*ck, baby,” she whispers.
“Yeah?” Meng Yao breathes back, completely nonsensical, but Mingjue only laughs.
“Yeah,” she agrees.
She falls back on the mattress and wiggles inelegantly out of the strapon, tossing it towards the laundry bin. Then she opens her arms, and Meng Yao snuggles into her proper place inside them.
2c. There’s a difference between not bullsh*tting, telling the truth, and being honest. Whenever you can, be honest.
The room is dark. They’re cuddled close together, hands clasped on the bedspread, and whispering even though there is no one else in the world to hear them. It’s the kind of trite nonsense they’re not sure they’ll get away with past this earliest stage of the honeymoon phase, so they take advantage, giggling and poking each other, kissing between each hushed confession.
“It was so annoying… you were doing all of that stuff that I hated, but you were so sexy when you were doing it… rough times.”
“Huaisang said you liked mean women.”
“He did? All right. Okay, yeah, maybe a little. I liked that smoky eye look.”
“Mm, that was a good one. I don’t miss makeup, but I do miss the, like… mood shift? Like with makeup or long hair, it’s easy. You want to feel badass, you slap on some makeup. You want to get sh*t done, you put your hair in a ponytail. If you don’t have either of those things, you have to put more work in.”
“Poor baby.”
“Don’t flaunt your long-hair privilege in my face, da-jie.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Then again. Remember when you shaved my head? That was… the sexiest thing that ever happened to me.”
“Yeah, I could tell. Should have known you’d go butch-for-butch, the way you were staring at yourself in the mirror.”
“Maybe I’m just vain.”
“Nah. Hot, though.”
“Mm. Ditto.”
A deep, shaky breath, a kiss pressed to knuckles. And then, the most dangerous one so far:
“I’ve been a little bit in love with you ever since I first saw you.”
“No way.”
“Yeah. You were cute. And… forlorn. Wanted to wrap you up in a hug. Feed you soup.”
“You did.”
“Did what?”
“Feed me soup. You know. You got takeout from ayi on the corner but she gave you hot and sour instead of wonton and you didn’t want to complain, so I might as well take some for dinner… accidentally ordered an extra side of beef for the shop and we’ll never sell that much brisket, A-Yao can you do anything with it…? Oh look, Mr. Chang marked down last week’s veggies and you went so overboard, there’s a sackful in the back room if anyone wants some…”
“I didn’t know you noticed.”
“Mingjue, you are many things, but subtle is not one of them. Don’t—don’t, it’s okay. I thought it was sweet.”
“I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
“That was a lost cause, da-jie. Being poor is embarrassing. Accepting help is embarrassing. But you let me save face, and I appreciated that. I…”
“Hm?”
“I was a little bit in love with you, too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And I hated you a little bit. You know. The age old question—do I want to date her or be her? Except I couldn’t do either. It was… incredibly frustrating.”
“I wouldn’t want you to be me. I like you being you.”
“Yeah? I like you being you, too.”
“Good.”
“C’mere.”
“Ah—I should… you should know. I don’t usually like to come more than once a session.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It just gets kind of sore and, you know… intense.”
“Intense.”
“Mm. I guess I’m kind of—oversensitive.”
“Is that a hard boundary?”
“Um.”
“Or is that kind of thing that’s flexible—”
“A-Yao… Mmpf.”
“Like if your lover… dare I say your girlfriend… didn’t get to see your face the first time you came, and she really, really wanted to… maybe you’d let her.”
“Yeah—hah—maybe.”
“And if it really got to be too much, you could always say no so she would stop. Or use a safeword, like, say… ‘Go Mets.’”
”Ha! You are a menace. f*ck—mm. I want to-to take you to a baseball game. Or a football game—ah! This, ah, fall, winter, whatever. Wrap you up in a sweater—scarf—your little nose getting all red— see how tough you are then.”
“Are you feeling very tough right now, da-jie?”
“f*ck y— ah, ah, yes, A-Yao, yes, please, f*ck—!”
35. UHaul is a verb.
Light pours through the window, pools on the bedspread and the floor. Nie Mingjue sleeps like the dead. Meng Yao wakes at her usual time—habit—gets up and uses the bathroom, then returns to lie on top of the covers and stare. She’s fascinated by the dusting of freckles across Mingjue’s cheekbones and the kinks in her flyaway hair.
She left the door open behind her, and after a few minutes she hears the tapping of Baxia’s claws on the wood floor. Baxia jumps up on the bed and snuggles with her, and Meng Yao scratches her neck.
But after a while, the poodle gets restless. She jumps down and looks at Meng Yao expectantly. When that doesn’t work, she noses at her leg and whines.
“All right, all right,” Meng Yao sighs. She trails her hand up Mingjue’s bare arm. “Baby,” she tries, her voice quiet. “The dog wants you. Sweetheart. Honey. Baobao. Bao bei . Nie—Ming—Jue.”
She could raise her voice, or try to shake Mingjue awake, but she can’t bring herself to be more forceful. She’s making this adorable shuffling sound, and her eyelashes are so much longer than Meng Yao ever noticed.
Instead, Meng Yao gets out of bed and dresses. Last night’s underwear is disgusting to an unbelievable level, so she goes commando. She steals a short-sleeved button down from Mingjue’s closet and slips on a pair of Mingjue’s sandals at the door. They’re more comfortable than last night’s combat boots, and after all, they are her size. Baxia’s tail is wagging furiously as Meng Yao attaches the custom leash to her collar and takes Mingjue’s keys from the hook.
The day is dawning clear, warm, and beautiful. Mingjue lives on the second and third floor of a townhouse on a narrow, tree-lined street, and it really couldn’t be more picturesque. Baxia does her business on the curb, but it just seems like a missed opportunity to drag her back inside. The poodle prances towards the corner, and Meng Yao lets her take the lead as they meander for a few blocks. She spots a coffee shop with a takeout window and thinks that caffeine is a great idea. Baxia seems to agree—she makes a beeline towards it.
“Hi,” the barista smiles. “How can I— oh, hi, Baxia!”
“She’s a regular, huh?” Meng Yao asks, amused, as Baxia puts her feet up on a chair and yips happily at the window.
“Oh, yeah, one of our favorites. Is Mingjue out of town, or—?”
“No, I’m not— she’s, um. My girlfriend.”
The barista doesn’t challenge her. He only grins and says, “Oh, cool, nice to meet you. So what can I get for ya this morning?”
“Can I get a regular lavender matcha, iced, and a regular iced americano—two sugars, no milk? And also…” Her eyes dart over the pastry case, which is full to bursting. “One of each scone, an almond croissant, and a peach danish?”
“It’s actually a mango danish, that’s one of our summer specials,” he says, fingers flying over an iPad. “Is that okay?”
“Even better.”
“Great. And I’m really not trying to upsell, it’s totally your choice, but Mingjue usually gets one of our house-made dog treats for Baxia. They’re $2.49, and right now we have berries and cream or peanut butter flavors.”
“Why am I not surprised?” She scoops Baxia up in her arms. “ So spoiled. Let’s go with berries and cream, then.”
“You got it.”
She sits at one of the tables with Baxia on her lap and checks her phone to see if Mingjue has woken and texted her. Nothing—although there is a text from Lan Xichen asking “how did last night go??!?” with a record number of emojis. She responds with a simple smiley face, but she forgot to plug in her phone and her battery is dangerously low, so she powers down. Xichen will have to be content with that for now.
When her food is ready she drops Baxia on the ground and takes the bag and the beverage tray. It’s an awkward bundle, and she’s planning on heading straight back to the apartment, but then she thinks she might as well take a slightly different route back—three blocks east and two north, rather than two north and three east. This takes them through the outdoor market, and on the corner is a florist who is selling beautiful bunches of sunflowers for an extraordinarily reasonable price, so she buys a slim bouquet and tucks them in her elbow.
Somehow, she manages to balance it all and make her way up the stairs. She bends down to unhook Baxia’s leash so the little dog doesn’t yank her off her feet, and unlocks the apartment door.
“Hey… what. ”
Mingjue is standing in the middle of the apartment, dressed in a grey tank top and a pair of black boxer-briefs with her hair pulled up in a sloppy bun. She looks absolutely delectable, to be honest, and she is gaping at Meng Yao, ignoring Baxia’s happy chirping at her ankles.
“What,” Mingjue repeats, an awed declaration rather than a question. She drifts closer and takes the flowers and the bag of pastries from Meng Yao’s hand, leaning down for a peck on the lips. “You are such a f*cking overachiever,” she mumbles.
“Good morning, honey, how’d you sleep?”
“I slept great, ” Mingjue says, shaking her head, as she walks back to the kitchen table. She roots through the cabinets and comes back with a vase and a plate. “I woke up and thought, oh I’m going to find A-Yao trying to fiddle with the coffee maker, and I’ll get to be gallant and cuddle up behind her like ‘don’t worry about it, babe, I’ll take care of it, go back to bed and I’ll make you breakfast.’ And here you totally beat me.”
“What can I say? I woke up feeling invigorated. ”
Mingjue kisses her about it, then puts the sunflowers in a vase on the coffee table. They eat breakfast on the couch, leaning over a single dinner plate to catch the crumbs. Meng Yao’s legs are slung over Mingjue’s lap and they trade bites from the smorgasbord of pastries. They both agree that the mango danish is a winner, and since it’s a special, they’ll have to gorge themselves while it’s still here. Neither of them bother to point out that they’re planning on Meng Yao having a lot of breakfasts here. Baxia happily munches on her treat on the floor just beside them.
“So,” Mingjue says when she’s finished the last bite of an orange scone. She puts her arms around Meng Yao. “You’ve got an early lead on best boyfriend of the day.”
“I do, don’t I?”
“Coming back with flowers, food, and caffeine? You’re such a good provider,” Mingjue coos, kissing her temple. “What can I do to close the gap, huh?”
She presses Meng Yao back against the arm of the couch and brushes her lips over a hickie from the night before.
“If you really want to make it up to me, we can go back to that sex shop together…”
“I like where this is going.”
“…and buy that kilt.”
Mingjue barks with laughter, and the sudden burst of energy attracts Baxia’s attention. The poodle jumps up on the couch and wiggles, bouncing between them and yipping and trying to lick their faces, which sets a different kind of mood.
They end up cuddling on the couch and putting the TV on instead, watching a few episodes of some lesbian baseball show Mingjue is obsessed with, and then eventually Meng Yao’s phone has charged enough that she responds to Xichen. There are way too many texts to reply to, so they end up Facetiming, which is both sweet and embarrassing. And, of course, once Xichen knows, they have to tell Huaisang—they spend a good fifteen minutes taking different varieties of their first “couple selfie,” trying out different poses and backgrounds and levels of affection and amount of visible hickies.
It’s dumb, but it’s fun, and Huaisang’s reaction is just as entertaining as Xichen’s. And it gets them to the opening time of the sex shop, where they spend a good hour and a half browsing not only the first floor apparel section, but the second-floor toys. Then they go home and f*ck about it, and order delivery for lunch from the same place they got food from the first night Meng Yao showed up unannounced. Mingjue laments this—she prides herself on her cooking, and the fact that she hasn’t yet seduced Meng Yao through food is downright embarrassing. Dinner, maybe?
All told, Meng Yao never makes it home that day. At least—she never makes it back to her apartment. She never leaves home.
