Work Text:
Love in the Afternoon
He stood on the verandah with its vines creeping down its slight columns, watching the thunderclouds roll in from the distance. It was going to start pouring any minute. The gate to the café was ajar, although he could see no one on the winding road outside. There was bound to be no one coming this way in this weather at this hour even though the sign outside still said open. Maybe he could close up early and seek out the warmth of his living quarters upstairs. He went back inside to wipe down the counters and put the chairs up on the small square tables and quickly swept and mopped the floors before coming back outside. By then it was pouring cats and dogs. He grabbed an umbrella off the bucket on the side of the verandah and ran down the three steps and to the gate to close it. Just as he reached it, someone ran in from outside, crashing full on into his body.
“Oh, I’m so sorry…” he heard the voice, a sort of musical tenor to it as the words flowed right into his ear.
“Are you okay?” he asked, pulling back, noticing that his shirt was wet from where the man had crashed into him. He looked back up to check.
There was an immediate tightening in the pit of his belly as he took in the face, the long lashes sweeping down as the man stared at the wet spot he had made on his chest, his lower lip pulled in at the side unconsciously, showing of a tiny mole just under the lip, in the corner. Just below was a smooth sharp chin and the long line of a neck that ended in a sharp dip between the collar bones where the rain lingered. A short expanse of skin could be seen before the navy blue of his button-down shirt took over, fully plastered to a slim frame and narrow waist and the longest legs that he had ever seen in black pants.
He swallowed hard as he looked back, suddenly becoming aware that he was staring quite openly.
And noticed that he was being stared at too from those eyes that had now lifted to show themselves. They looked like that cartoon deer… what was its name… Bambi.
Bambi eyes.
“Wang Yibo.” He saw the man’s lips form his name and started in surprise.
“Wang Yibo.” The stranger said again, this time tapping on his forearm.
And he opened his eyes.
Bambi eyes were staring back at him, although now it was no longer a stranger in a navy blue shirt plastered to his beautiful body, water dripping off of wet strands of hair, raindrops clinging to eyelashes and the softness of his lips….
This was…
“Hello Xiao Zhan.” He straightened his neck and felt the awkward crick from how he had fallen asleep on the chair in Dr. Xiao’s waiting room and winced.
“Come in.” Dr. Xiao said and Yibo looked around the waiting room. There was no one around, as expected. Yibo was always the last appointment of the day, always scheduled thirty minutes after Dr. Xiao’s last patient leaves so that there is no one to gawk at the idol in the waiting room.
He follows Dr. Xiao into his office, which really looks like a cozy living room with a large chesterfield couch on one end and a matching single-seater just adjacent to it. There is a soft tall lamp in the corner and several plants by the windows, all green and large enough to offer decent air purification, he assumed. He could feel his heart rate slowing down just by entering the room. He knew it was only a matter of time before it sped back up once he started to fantasize about his therapist, but that was a delicious sort of heart racing and not at all the sort of palpitations that he felt at night while trying to fall sleep. This was his one hour of reprieve per week, his lust and leisure and relaxation and fantasies all rolled into one. With his therapist in the starring role. This had been going on six months now with no end in sight.
Even though the first few sessions he had been anxious about being here, once he realized that Xiao Zhan, as Dr. Xiao preferred being called by all his patients, was as sweet as he looked, he had calmed down. He still wasn’t keen on talking, he didn’t know why his manager thought “talk therapy” would work for him or that it would somehow help with his insomnia, but she had been after him for so long that he had agreed to try just to get her off his back. But he came religiously, week after week, and at some point, started to have the most explicit visions of doing filthy things to his therapist as he tuned out listening to his soft voice. The x-rated fantasies that he indulged in during waking hours had eventually given way to sleeping dreams filled with the sappy cheesy shit where he was a baker or a cafe owner or a bookseller or some shit like that. And always running into Xiao Zhan in some PG-13 romance fashion, ending in all sweet kisses and tender caresses. Which was bullshit because what he really wanted to do to Xiao Zhan was to bend him over that mahogany table of his and pull down those neatly pressed pants to press his enormous cock inside and slowly wreck him until those prim square glasses fogged up and they were both reduced to monosyllabic grunts. Fuck all this talking about feelings.
“You slept the whole twenty-five minutes that you were in the waiting room.”
“Twenty-five minutes? What time is it?” he looked at the wall clock to check. It was thirty minutes into his session time already.
“What? Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asked irritably. He did not enjoy the notion that someone had been watching him sleep, or was aware that he was sleeping away in a waiting room, even if no one was around.
Xiao Zhan’s eyes crinkled in concern. “Yibo, you don’t sleep well. That’s the whole reason you are here. It would be cruel of me to wake someone up who needs sleep as much as you do.”
Yibo shrugged noncommittally. He still didn’t like falling asleep anywhere other than his bed.
“Do you at least feel a little better? Was the nap restful?”
“If you were going to wake me up, you should have at least let me finish my dream.” He muttered.
“You dreamed in twenty-five minutes?” Xiao Zhan asked, sounding more concerned.
Yibo looked up in alarm as if Xiao Zhan could actually see what he had dreamed about.
“Why, is that weird?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
Xiao Zhan held his gaze for a long moment before gently shaking his head. “No, not weird. It just means that you are quite sleep-deprived. Are you sleeping at all, Yibo? Is there any leeway in your schedule? I see your billboards everywhere and you are on two different variety shows and shooting two dramas. When is there actual time to sleep?”
Hearing his schedule said out loud like that made him anxious and Yibo put his head back against the couch and slid down.
Xiao Zhan didn’t say anything and within a few minutes, Yibo felt his eyes start to close.
“I think I want to fuck you on that table, doctor.” He murmured, his brain wanting to shut down and stay awake all at the same time, leaving behind little in the way of resources to filter what came out of his mouth.
“What?” he heard Xiao Zhan’s voice as if from far away. And heard his own deep gravelly voice, whispering out all the filth that gave it some much needed fuel to get through his suffocating days and nights.
“Yes, right there, against that table. I want to fuck you hard and that thing is solid. Sturdy. Would keep you nice and tight between it and me as I fuck in and out of your wet, snug…”
His brain went black then and the words disappeared and the images took over. And all of them were Xiao Zhan’s… the eyes, the lips, the mole, fuck. His couldn’t get that mole out of his head. He wanted to lick it. Suck on it. Suck on his nipples too. And his cock. Fuck fuck Fuck. And now he was hard. He unzipped his pants and took his dick out to rub himself up and down. And up and down, his other hand sliding under his shirt to lift it up as he imagined Xiao Zhan’s tongue licking its way down his abs, teasing the fuck out of him. He was coming within a few pumps, his body exhausted from lust and fatigue, nothing more to give because there was nothing it had received in a long time that stirred the mind or the flesh. And he felt empty and dead when it was over, Xiao Zhan’s face fading like a chimera. Out of reach really. Always out of reach, existing really only in these moments when his brain short-circuited and showed him all the things that he wanted and couldn’t have. For all that it seemed like he had an overabundance of all other things that ultimately didn’t matter.
Xxxx
His heart was hammering so loudly in his chest that for a moment he couldn’t focus. His glasses were fogged up and his dick was so hard, it was painful. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then pressed in so hard that he saw stars. He shouldn’t have taken this case on, he told himself for the hundredth time. Should have known when he stopped bringing this up during his peer supervision, after initially vaguely asking about the merits of continuing with a case when it was starting to become apparent that you were attracted to your patient. But that itself was not unusual. Being attracted to at least some patients was just normal. Something you worked through in peer supervision. Ensured it did not affect your objectivity and ability to put the patient’s best interest first. As long as the attraction did not become a hindrance in therapy and you worked through it yourself, it inevitably abated, as all attractions did and then it was smoother sailing forward. And they could do the real work. Except…
Except… this one had not quite worked out that way.
He had been astounded when he had gotten the referral from a physician who referred to him quite a bit. Telling him that this was a special case as it was someone well known. A celebrity whose face was plastered all over the place nowadays. Discretion was key. He was uninterested in therapy, but had been struggling with insomnia for close to two years. His management was starting to become concerned. He was falling ill more frequently; those IV drips and hospital stays merely putting a band-aid on the fact that the kid was overworked and exhausted. It would make everything better if he could just sleep better. But his manager thought he had a lot of anxiety. She was worried. And thus the physician had thought some CBT would help, along with any other treatments that would be needed to tackle insomnia.
He had not expected the client to be Wang Yibo. He had been a secret fan for ages. Since the kid was in his teens and had actually been part of the band, UNIQ. Xiao Zhan had been in college then and there had been a small group of his friends who had been fans of the whole group. But years had passed, he had completed his doctorate in counseling psychology and had basically grown out of his idol worship days. Until the idol had appeared on his couch, looking surprisingly human in his vulnerability, although just as genuine and likeable as he came across on screen. He was quiet, as expected. Slow to warm up, he had known that. Did not care for talk therapy, he wouldn’t have expected anything else. But also, honest to a fault and quite sweet in the most unexpected moments. More beautiful than he looked on screen, if that was even possible.
And currently, covered in his own cum and dead asleep on his brown leather sofa, the Xiao family’s gift to him when he had opened up his own private practice.
While he had always struggled with his own attraction, he had never even contemplated that Yibo might reciprocate that attraction or that he was so sleep-deprived as to confess his… fantasies… so openly.
He thought of how to handle the situation now. He should leave the office and wait for Yibo to wake up, allow him some privacy. But he couldn’t imagine how embarrassed Yibo would feel waking up like that, alone and humiliated that someone had witnessed him in such a vulnerable moment, not fully in control. And then left him there.
Before he knew what he was about, he was walking back over and sitting back down on the chair that he had vacated in shock when Yibo had started to sleepily masturbate on the couch.
He closed his eyes so that he wouldn’t look at Yibo’s body – thus resurrecting his erection that had flagged from the sheer anxiety of this situation – and called his name, gently.
“Yibo.”
No response.
“Yibo.” A little louder.
He could hear movement now. And kept his eyes closed.
A moment later, he heard a gasp and then Yibo sitting up.
“Yibo, I am right here, but I am keeping my eyes closed to give you some privacy. Please don’t leave until we have a chance to talk. Please.” He tried to keep his voice as soft and gentle as possible to not startle or embarrass Yibo any further.
He tried to even out his breathing as he heard the sound of the zipper and then of footsteps across the room.
“Please don’t leave, Yibo.” He said again and he could hear that his voice is not as steady as he would like. He is definitely in way over his head. He didn’t know if it was the height of hubris or stupidity to think that he could successfully manage his attraction to someone like Yibo. Especially now that he knows how Yibo feels. He was going to be no good as a therapist to Yibo. He wouldn’t be able to focus on anything other than self-indulgent fantasies. And therapy wouldn’t be about Yibo anymore. He just didn’t have the mental prowess to tackle something like this. Not to mention, if someone even got a whiff of what happened in the office today, even if it was not his fault, he could imagine the fallout. Ethics violation? A complaint to the licensing board?
He has to tell him that he can’t work with him anymore. He has to be truthful. That his own feelings are too involved and given what had just happened, he wouldn’t be able to ignore it any longer.
He kept waiting to hear the sound of the door opening, not expecting Yibo to actually listen to him and not leave.
His heart was hammering again as he waits. And waits.
“Xiao Zhan” he heard after what seemed a long while.
And he finally opened his eyes.
He couldn't quite hide the sigh of relief when he sees that Yibo is sitting once again on the couch, jeans zipped back up, shirt pulled down, no evidence on any bodily fluids anywhere.
“Are you going to stop our sessions? Tell me you can’t be my therapist anymore?” Yibo sounded resigned as he sat back, looking even more exhausted than before.
And for a moment, Xiao Zhan felt an almost overpowering compulsion to reach over and push Yibo’s hair back, like he has wanted to do almost every session from the first time Yibo had walked into his office.
He doesn’t.
But he does say, throwing some caution out the window, knowing that if he couldn’t be at least this much honest, he didn’t deserve to have a patient like Yibo.
“I am attracted to you Yibo. I have been for all six months that I have worked with you. Being attracted to your patient or your therapist is not that unusual. There is some intimacy in this sort of a relationship and to some degree it is expected and something you just work through. With you, though, it has lasted significantly longer than I anticipated. But it was still something I could manage. But if you… you feel even remotely the same way about me, then you understand… it will make this relationship quite difficult, if not impossible.”
He took a short breath and stopped, now looking straight at Yibo.
Surprisingly, Yibo looked less worried now than he had before.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why?” Xiao Zhan repeated questioningly. And then attempted to answer. “Well… the focus wouldn’t be all about you if there is even an inkling that I’m focused on this…” he gestured a line back and forth between them.
“How is that bad?” Yibo asked.
“Oh Yibo. How can I focus on fixing your sleep issues if I am preoccupied with… my own fantasies?” Xiao Zhan asked honestly, his tone breaking once again from the neutral stance that he kept aiming for. Then his eyes widened at what he had said.
“You have fantasies about me?” Yibo asked, his eyes widening slightly.
Xiao Zhan closed his eyes and gave himself a mental slap. “Who doesn’t have fantasies about you once they have met you, honestly.”
Then he opened his eyes, gazing at Yibo more directly. “See this is how it starts. We are talking about my fantasies. You’re not paying me to talk about my fantasies.”
This time, there was a quirk to Yibo’s mouth as he said, “But I am paying you to talk about my fantasies… isn’t that right?”
“Well….” Xiao Zhan started and paused. “I am not a 1-900 service, Yibo.”
“Oh come on… Don’t cheapen my fantasies.” Yibo said then, raising an eyebrow, and Xiao Zhan immediately felt contrite. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Sexual fantasies are a part of a healthy imagination.”
Yibo tilted his head, as if to say, I’m glad you understand.
“So… it is really not my concern, as your patient per se, what you fantasize about. But you, as my therapist, should be able to handle…” he paused as if considering what words to use and then restarted, “the full spectrum of my emotions… whatever they are…” there was a definite smirk on his face now.
“Yibo…” Xiao Zhan said, his voice a sort of plaintive warning.
“So if I tell you I have had months and months to think about how I would take you in every corner of this room, that is just an honest sharing of my experience.”
Xiao Zhan exhaled forcefully and leaned back against his couch.
“And if I tell you that I fantasize about fingering you open while I suck on that pretty mole of yours…”
“Stop!” Xiao Zhan said, getting up from the couch and walking to the other end of the room.
“But when I actually manage to fall asleep, all I dream of is kissing you, sort of breathless and desperate, smelling honey on your skin, nosing the light pulse at your throat, running my fingers through your hair, the sort of things I never think about when I am awake.” Yibo continued as if Xiao Zhan had not spoken, now lying back down on the couch, legs crossed at the ankles, glancing out the window, his view a smattering of the tops of buildings given that they were on the thirty-fourth floor.
“Like out it that waiting room, I was dreaming that I owned a café somewhere. I had on an apron and everything. It was about to rain. I was standing on a verandah with like columns and vines, some quaint little place like they pick for those hallmark movies that used to come on tv on Sunday afternoons. I was covered in flour and waiting to close up and go upstairs to my apartment, looking forward to a steaming cup of tea and fresh bread that I had baked myself. And when I went to close the gate to the café, you run in, drenched to the bone, literally almost knocking me down.”
Yibo stopped talking, still staring out the window.
It took Xiao Zhan a long moment to realize that he had stopped breathing. He was in so much trouble, he realized, feeling his insides twisting up into a pretzel of tender ache and desire.
“My waking fantasies are all about wrecking you eight different ways while my dreams are always these silly things that are full of…” he petered off.
“Warmth and love.” Xiao Zhan filled in.
“Is that what it is?” Yibo asked, turning around to face him.
Xiao Zhan doesn’t answer, but he returns to his seat next to Yibo’s couch.
And then it strikes him what Yibo said before.
“When do you dream?” he asked.
“When I sleep?” Yibo tilted his head in confusion.
“No, when do you have these dreams? In your house?”
Yibo thought about that.
“Well, sometimes. Sometimes on the plane. Sometimes in hotels.”
That is not helpful in narrowing down a location.
“Okay, so we have determined that where you dream is not the issue. When do you dream? Weekdays? Weekends? After a long shoot? Before a long shoot? During…”
“When I have our appointments.” Yibo interrupted.
“If you are dreaming then, it means you are sleeping then too. Hopefully longer than 15 minutes.”
“Actually when I have those dreams, I usually wake up feeling ok. Better than ok actually, depending on how far we got…” Yibo looked at Xiao Zhan suddenly, his lips turning up at one corner.
Xiao Zhan flushed, but he didn’t address the comment as he asked instead, “Does seeing me help you sleep?”
Yibo turned around and moved up so that his chin is balanced on folded elbows on the arm of the couch. His eyes are soft now as he nods and says, “Seeing you helps me sleep.”
Xiao Zhan ignored the fluttering inside his chest and belly once again. “Okay, this is not a long-term solution, but it should work out in the short-term, at least until we get you back into at least four or five hours of uninterrupted sleep per night. Would it help to have a zoom call every night for maybe 20 minutes or so before you sleep?”
Yibo’s head popped off the arm of the couch, his eyes wide. “You would do that?”
“Well, I would charge you an arm and a leg for it, but yea.” He smiled.
Yibo sat up now, his face visibly brighter than before.
“Yibo, if we continue, we have to both understand that regardless of whatever we discussed today, or likely exactly because of all that we discussed today, we have to be in agreement that this is still a professional relationship. You have way more latitude than me in how far you can push the boundaries, but I beg you to not push it so much that I can’t tell right from wrong anymore.”
Yibo simply looked at him without saying anything.
“See even that… you can already see how it’s impacting my ability to be your therapist. I am asking you, my patient, to prevent me from getting to a point where I can’t tell what is right and wrong. This is exactly how this will start to cloud my judgment. But I also don’t want to abandon you as a patient and I genuinely believe that I may be able to help with your sleeping problem, even if it’s just by being a brief moment or image or memory that you presently associate with warmth or comfort. When I stop being that, fire me.”
“Are you not a person in this? You are asking me to just use you up and then let go when you stop being useful.” Yibo said, not without annoyance.
“That’s the definition of a professional relationship, Yibo. You are using me for my services. Aside from payment, you don’t owe me anything else.”
“And basic respect and dignity as a fellow human being.” Yibo said, now cross.
Xiao Zhan closed his eyes and nodded, wondering how many personal failings he would have to account for later when he took account of how this session went.
“Indeed. Payment and basic respect and dignity. I would expect nothing less from anyone, Yibo.”
“Alright then.” Yibo said and Xiao Zhan opened his eyes.
Yibo got up to leave and Xiao Zhan stood up as well, feeling a bit unsteady on his feet that he tried to hide by standing just against the couch.
“I will try not to tempt you too much with how fucking sexy I look just before bed.” Yibo winked and then he was out the door and gone.
Xiao Zhan could not tell if that was meant in jest, because how could such a truthful statement be used as humor.
He dropped down onto the couch and wondered what he had signed up for.
xxxx
Maybe he should have established some ground rules around setting up zoom calls just before bedtime. Aside from just the time. Yibo had texted saying that his schedule would end by 10 and that he would be home 10:30. He had asked if that was too late. It was. But Xiao Zhan didn’t say that. He would just have to charge extra for the irregular hours. That made him feel like he was on more solid ground professionally. Yes indeed. Irregular hours required time and a half pay. He was not making allowances for late hours because of his personal feelings. He was being remunerated for his time and efforts, as he would charge anyone else who would require such accommodations.
His work phone pinged then.
WY: I am here, Xiao Zhan. Is this still a good time?
XZ: Yes, I already send you the zoom link.
He logged in and waited and a moment later, his screen changed views as Wang Yibo’s face came into view. Xiao Zhan schooled his features into neutral deliberately, not reacting to the boyish sweep of Yibo’s hair, falling carelessly over his forehead now that it was no longer held back by whatever hair products his stylists typically used on him. His faced looked softer too, no leftover makeup that always sharpened his eyes or jawline or cheekbones even more than it already was.
Xiao Zhan took a deep breath and wondered if he should have just had this as a regular phone call. There was really no need for video. Audio would suffice.
“Hello Xiao Zhan.” He heard the greeting offered in Yibo's deep voice and felt the stirring in the pit of his belly.
Maybe texting would have worked just as well.
Yibo smiled a slight smile, mussing up his hair a bit.
Xiao Zhan’s brain blanked for a moment and he tried to recover his power of speech, nodding and adjusting his glasses.
Good thing he had made a plan of action for these 20 minutes. He had learned his lesson from their last session and written down a script and the steps to follow to get through this session with his professional integrity intact.
He looked down at his notes in front of him.
1. Check in with him. Keep it brief (That’s for you). He is brief already. So you keep it brief and allow him to talk. Watch if he bites on his lips. If he does, slow down your breathing. Get him to relax.
Whew. Okay. He could do that.
“How was your day?” he asked.
Yibo rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh busy, you know.”
He waited. And when Yibo didn’t continue, he asked, “Nothing exciting? Nothing upsetting?”
“Not really.”
Okay. That was okay. He could leave that there. Either way, exciting and upsetting things can wait until a person-to-person session in the afternoon. It did not need to debriefed right before bedtime.
Yibo did not bite his lips, but he had rubbed the back of his neck.
He looked down at his notes again.
2. Ask him if he has had coffee or alcohol. If so, when?
“No” Yibo said when he asked.
3. Ask if he has eaten dinner.
Yes, he has.
4. Lead him through a short hypnosis exercise.
It could also be called guided imagery, which is what he calls it. Hypnosis sounds threatening. Yibo is familiar with that routine as they have done it several times in the office and he is open to it now as Xiao Zhan guides him through the routine that Yibo has preferred in the past.
5. Wish him good night. Don’t linger. Don’t look directly into his eyes. Log off.
Dear God, he makes Yibo sound like a vampire. But if their last face-to-face session has established anything, it is that he is weak. Looking into Yibo’s eyes will definitely not be making him any stronger to log off. So he listens to himself, hears himself say, “Goodnight Yibo.” And is about to log off when Yibo lifts the edge of his shirt to rub a non-existent speck of something on his face, showing off all six of his abs, contracting slightly with his movement. It’s deliberate of course. And to confirm that indeed it is, he does look Yibo in the eyes. His anger must have shown on his face because Yibo’s smirk disappears. “I’m sorry.” He whispers.
Even that whispering does things to him that he does not wish to examine at the moment. He holds onto the anger instead, but tries for a neutral tone as he says, “Good night, Yibo.” And logs off before Yibo can say anything in return.
xxxxx
The next evening when he logged on, Yibo looked more exhausted than before, making him worried.
“You didn’t sleep well last night?” he asked.
Yibo shook his head, rubbing his eyes.
“Why?”
“How could I sleep well when you were mad at me?”
Xiao Zhan closed his eyes and thought of logging off for a moment.
“I wasn’t mad at you.” He said instead.
“Now who’s not being honest.”
“Okay, I was mad at you for deliberately provoking me. Is it fun to dangle something in front of someone that they can’t have?”
“You can have me.” Yibo said, his eyes darkening even on screen.
“I can’t have you. Not that way. Not any way actually.” He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Should we stop therapy then?” Yibo asked.
“What? Why?”
“Because I want you. And you want me too.”
“It’s not as simple as all that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, first of all, it is taking advantage of a patient’s vulnerability when you try to date them, no matter how strong the attraction is. But in the rare event that it is not merely a passing fancy for both parties involved, in our ethical code you have to wait for two years after therapy ends to even think about dating. Not that that’s what I am recommending. I’m just saying, even if you wanted to do something, it would definitely not be something that would be possible for a long while, and you know the vast majority of people would be over their infatuation by then.”
“Fuck.” Yibo said.
“Yibo, you can still have fantasies. You can, you know… take care of the situation yourself too… sometimes that makes it easier to fall asleep.” He reminded.
“You want me to jerk off every night thinking of what you look like under those button-down shirts and pants?”
He tried not to sigh. Or to palm his erection under the table. He wouldn’t touch it until it flagged on its own. Shamed into retreating to where it belonged.
“I can’t tell you what or who to fantasize about. That’s your prerogative. I’m merely brainstorming all avenues of relaxation available to you before bedtime.”
“Should I start now?” the smirk was back. This time instead of getting angry, Xiao Zhan smiled. “I would rather you wait until we get through our guided imagery and I log off.”
Yibo smiled too.
xxxx
The next few weeks allows them to fall into a rhythm like that. The zoom calls, however, go from 20 minutes to 30 minutes to 40 minutes to 50 minutes. Yibo talks a lot more now, like this. At the end of the day, in his space, out of his idol clothes, after a shower with his hair flopping around and his face smoothed out of his worries, lounging on his couch, the words come easier to him. He has a lot of friends, but he thinks he is somewhat of a loner by nature, counterintuitive as it seems. He needs alone time, but he likes people around, not just any people, just someone who makes him feel comfortable enough to have silence – if silence is what is needed – or to talk – if talking is what is needed. He has a hard time saying ‘no’ to work, riding high on the successes of the past two years because he has been in the industry long enough to know that fame doesn’t last. He wants to cash in as much as possible and then retire from the limelight. He thinks by 28, maybe before. Isn’t that young? Xiao Zhan asked. Not in this field, Yibo answered. Besides, while his looks and some of his skills are a good fit for the entertainment field, his personality not so much. That’s his self- evaluation. The intrusion into his personal life and lack of privacy makes him feel like he is being eaten alive. But he has handled it alone for too long to ask anyone else for help now. Not his parents, because they will ask him to leave it behind. Not his friends, because a lot of them are struggling to make it to the top and would likely not appreciate the viewpoint of wanting to leave it behind – at least not yet. He no longer talks about any explicit fantasies or tries to push the boundaries in that way and Xiao Zhan is glad. Mostly. Although he worries that even without all that, he may be falling in love with Wang Yibo.
xxxx
Yibo is finally sleeping better, he says after two months of zoom calls. His schedule had become increasingly busier, so they have no time for actual office sessions anymore. This format works better anyways, Xiao Zhan decides; the more he is aware of how deeply his feelings are involved, the more determined he is to not encourage face-to-face sessions. Virtually, he has more control over his own reactions, knows when the session starts to veer off into a space that is more self-indulgent, and gently veer it back right. He knows he is in love with Yibo, but he also knows that Yibo is not in love with him. Oh, Yibo is infatuated, attached as he would be to anything providing unconditional positive regard, helping him sleep better, and occasionally – if indeed it still happens –fulfilling his sexual needs, even if through the imagination. Hell, what is there not to like about that? It’s not a real person, it’s an entity that holds you emotionally, excites you sexually - it’s hard to not have an attachment to that. But Yibo is not in love with Xiao Zhan because Yibo knows nothing about Xiao Zhan other than what he looks like, where he went to college, and where his office is. Other than that, Xiao Zhan is a blank slate. And you can’t really fall in love with a blank slate. It’s a reassuring thought for Xiao Zhan, to remind himself of that on a daily basis. He is starting to think of developing a plan to start to fade their sessions. Yibo no longer needs daily zoom calls. In fact, often times now, half an hour into their session, Yibo is practically falling asleep and Xiao Zhan is the one who disconnects the calls, whispering, “Good night Yibo, sleep tight.” And he does. At least five hours steadily. He thinks they can go down to four days a week; Yibo can handle that now. He has made a plan to explain it to Yibo during tonight’s session. Developed a plan to highlight what a great job Yibo has done and this fading of sessions is a merely way of lessening his dependence on Xiao Zhan for sleep.
Yibo looks a bit more tired than usual that night, but still in good spirits. He wonders whether he should share the plan at a later date, but that is merely prolonging the inevitable. So he plugs on ahead, presenting what he envisions step by step. Yibo listens to the whole thing and then at the end says, “Actually, I’ve been thinking…” He pauses and looks at the screen and Xiao Zhan tilts his head.
“I have a trip coming up to Canada for a drama shoot for two months. It will be hard to keep up the sessions with the time difference and everything. And I feel like I have been sleeping better for a while. So, maybe… we can stop?”
For a moment, Xiao Zhan is not sure that he heard it right. But he has too much experience in schooling his features into neutral to not have it kick in now automatically. “Alright. If that’s what you prefer.” His mouth says while his chest feels like it is struggling with a strong case of arrythmia.
He tells himself to hold it together until he can log off. His hands feel cold and he pinches himself under the table make sure there is still feeling.
He barely hears anything else Yibo says, although he thinks his ears do and his mouth says some perfunctory things until his fingers press ‘leave meeting.’
He doesn’t know how long he sits there, staring at the computer screen, but when he sees his reflection after a while when his computer shuts down from inactivity, he finally gets up.
He walks to his bathroom to wash his face, running the water icy cold to know that his skin is not numb. Then he walks to his bed and crawls into it, a sort of paralysis spreading everywhere. He closes his eyes and hopes that insomnia is not contagious.
xxxx
True to his word, Yibo doesn’t contact him again. The abruptness of their ending takes a while to sink in. In the beginning, he tries to tell himself that it is better this way, that this is what he had been aiming for anyways, Yibo’s termination of their sessions had merely sped things up. And for a while that is enough. He manages to stay alert enough for his patients, which depletes him fully by the time he gets home each night. Even though he no longer sees Yibo personally, his image is difficult to get away from. It’s everywhere, on billboards and DiDis and TVs. Briefly, he wonders if he should go away on vacation for some time. He does, eventually, six months later. Six months later, when it becomes clear that he may have fallen deeper than he had given himself credit for. He goes alone to the US where he has a cousin sister who is as close to him as a real sister, as they had grown up together. He stays with her for two weeks and finally after a full week of moping around, tells her in a drunken weeping session that he is a terrible therapist who should lose his license for falling in love with his patient. She reminds him gently that he had never crossed any boundaries and that he had taken all precautions to make sure that they wouldn’t cross any boundaries while still attempting to help his patient. In fact, continues to sees the patient until he is improved and terminates the sessions himself. If that is not the pinnacle of dedication to the profession, then what is.
“But really, I just wanted to keep on seeing him, no matter how I spin it.” He is not willing to absolve his own selfishness in the whole thing. And the fact that he still can’t move on. That he is still moping around. She takes him out the next evening. And the next. And if not fun, it allows him to forget briefly.
When he returns back home, things are bearable, he thinks. And for a while they are. At least enough to work. But it still takes another six months until he realizes that he should just make peace with the fact that he is likely suffering from a broken heart. From a decidedly one-sided relationship in which he has, by definition, contributed much more than he received. He wonders whether he is masochistic by nature.
xxxx
When fifteen months have passed, Xiao Zhan starts to seriously think about giving up his office space. His practice has gotten busier, but mentally he is exhausted. It doesn’t help that Yibo has gotten even more famous and between the 20 or so products he is endorsing, Xiao Zhan cannot go anywhere without seeing him. A month later, a grad school friend from Chongqing calls him up to tell him that he is selling his practice in town and whether he knows any city therapists who wants to move out to Chongqing. Five months later, he closes his private practice in Beijing and moves to Chonqing, taking over his friend’s old practice. It doesn’t have quite the referral base or patient stream that he had in Beijing and he is glad. He is financially secure enough to take it easy for a bit. And he needs to mentally recharge. Sometimes you needed to come back home for that.
His parents are beyond thrilled even though he doesn’t move back home and instead buys his own little house. It is walking distance from the town center where his office is. It has a little verandah and thin columns with vines twirling around it. He puts up a garden in the back too. Even gets a few rabbits. Learns to bake. He decides that bread is the best just when it comes out of the oven. He is thinking he could live here, learn to be content, grow old and fat and hopefully happy too… one day…
xxxx
Three months after his move, he came to the conclusion that even though drastic, it had been the best decision that he had made. He was at least at the start of the journey to nursing his heart back to health. He worked only half days on Fridays, because he could do that now. He went to the town library afterwards and came back home, tending to his growing vegetable garden or playing with the bunnies for a bit. He had a porch swing that he liked to sit on in the afternoons with a cup of tea and a new book. Or an old one, its musty smell filling him with nostalgia for something he couldn’t even name. His mother occasionally visited during Fridays, bringing over whatever she had cooked that morning. She liked experimenting with recipes, and so did he, an old love that he had reconnected with.
He was in the kitchen one Friday afternoon, pulling a fresh loaf of bread that he had baked out of the oven when he heard the doorbell ring. He didn’t think he had locked the door, he usually left it unlocked so his mother could come in.
“I’ll be right there, ma.” He said as he pulled off his oven mittens and walked to the door, only belatedly realizing that his apron was still on, flour dotting parts of it. He could see the sky out through the windows and thought it was going to rain. He needed to make sure the door to the rabbit hutch was open so that the bunnies could run in when it started to pour.
He opened the door, checking to see whether it was locked – it wasn’t. “This is not locked, ma.” He said, looking up.
He thought his heart was in his throat for a moment until he reminded himself that was physically impossible.
“Hey.” The deep voice said, sounding distant, hesitant, familiar, and intimate all at the same time.
The face hasn’t changed much at all, maybe a bit more mature. How old was he now? 26? Still young. Still blindingly beautiful. And very much out of sorts standing on the doorsteps of a quaint little house off the beaten path with its porch swing, vines, verandah, and bunnies. Facing a man with an apron and flour smudges. And then it struck him, what this was. It was incredible that he hadn’t been conscious of this before. This was not his dream. This was Yibo’s dream. Literal dream. He had convinced himself that he had simply moved back home, but he had somehow fallen into living out the dream of the man he was unsure he was ever going to be out of love with.
Well, that was neither here nor there. For now, he needed to know what he was doing here and send him on his way.
“Hey” he returned the greeting, coming out onto the verandah and shutting the door to his home behind him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. This was way out of the way from anything related to Yibo’s life.
“I think I’m lost.”
Xiao Zhan walked out onto the verandah and looked out onto the street outside his gate. There was a motorcycle parked there with a helmet hanging off one handlebar.
“Yea?” he asked, looking around for Yibo’s posse. Where were the bodyguard and the manager?
“I’m looking for a Dr. Xiao Zhan who used to be a therapist in Beijing. I heard he moved to somewhere around here.”
“Why do you need to see him?” he asked, watching absently as his bunnies gathered around the gate that was left slightly ajar when Yibo came in.
He ran out to the gate to close it so that they wouldn’t run out. The sky opened up at just that moment to pour out an entire ocean and he only managed to latch the gate before he noticed that the bike outside was getting wet.
When he turned around, Yibo was right behind him and he backed away, out of touching distance as he pointed at the bike outside and asked, “Is it okay for the bike to get rained on?”
Yibo nodded and then Xiao Zhan turned around and ran to the hutch to make sure the latch was open for the bunnies. Two of the four immediately rushed in, the other two lagging behind as if wanting to test out how strong the rain really was before taking refuge in the shelter.
When he turned around, Yibo was still standing by the gate, his head completely drenched now and his denim jacket soaked, his boots already digging into the mud beneath his feet.
“Come in.” Xiao Zhan called out before running back onto the verandah. He took off his shoes and walked back into his home, leaving the door open while Yibo shrugged out of his boots. He walked to the kitchen, pulling his apron off, and grabbed a couple of towels from the linen closet on the way there, using one to rub vehemently at his scalp.
He left the other towel on one of the barstools next to the island in the kitchen – one of the number of updates that he had done to the house – and turned back around to check on his bread. It was still warm. He took a serrated knife and started running it through the loaf as he heard the footsteps coming into the kitchen.
He tried not to look back as he heard the rapid motion of the towel rubbing back and forth and then of the jacket being removed.
The kettle that he had put on started to boil and he grabbed two cups and two teabags.
The barstool pulled back as Yibo took a seat and Xiao Zhan took a deep silent breath.
“What are you doing here?” he asked again, pouring the hot water into the cups and waiting for the tea bags to release its aroma, hoping that the chamomile that he had grabbed would calm his erratic pulse.
“It’s been two years.” Yibo answered.
He didn’t understand.
He turned around with the cups and placed one next to Yibo before passing him a spoon and a plate.
“What does that mean?” he asked, once he sets his own cup down.
“Two years since our last session.” Yibo repeated, his fingers running along the edge of the cup.
“What does that mean?” he asked again, feeling unaccountably warm even though his skin is still clammy from the rain.
“You said… after two years of ending therapy, you are free to do as you please.” Yibo looked down at his cup.
“You came here to have sex?” The words were out before they were even fully formed in his brain.
“No, of course not.” Yibo looked up, his eyes wide.
“Oh.” Xiao Zhan turned back around and focuses on grabbing the butter from the fridge. He focuses on the texture of the loaf in his hand as he spreads the butter on it before turning back around and putting it on a plate next to Yibo’s cup.
“Did you stop doing therapy to become a baker?” Yibo sounded entirely serious, looking down at the bread.
“Just a hobby.” Xiao Zhan said now, offering a small smile, why he does not know, although it’s enough to make Yibo smile too, and then it’s as if his heart had never had the last two years of break, all kinds of breaks, it’s as if it’s right back there in his room in that flat in Beijing, watching Yibo’s soft eyes through the screen, wondering how he was going to keep himself from drowning.
Xiao Zhan looks away first, losing the appetite for his fresh-out-the-oven bread.
“And you have… bunnies?” Yibo asks, rhetorically obviously, although he feels inclined to peevishly correct it to, “Rabbits. I have four rabbits.”
There is a long moment of silence when Yibo munches on the buttered flaky bread and then he looks down in surprise and then back up. “This is really good.”
Xiao Zhan shrugs.
“You’ve stolen my dream life.” Yibo says and Xiao Zhan turns back around to face the sink, looking out the window above it that opens into his backyard. The screen is doing a poor job of keeping out the rain, although the pitter-patter of it is loud enough to offer some much-needed background noise when they lapse into silence.
“I missed you.” Yibo says.
Xiao Zhan closes his eyes and wonders if this is some sort of late afternoon hallucination. It couldn’t be real. Nothing about it seems real. Neither Yibo, nor the rain. And yet, he hears it, heavy on his roof, the shingles crackling with its force, the leaves outside lush and dark. Just like what is swirling inside his belly.
“I know I ended things abruptly.” Yibo says now, and Xiao Zhan is rushed back to that day. That day when he had been cut off so harshly without even the right to ask why. Why so quickly. Had he done something wrong? Had he not helped? Could he have a little more time? But no, he couldn’t ask any of those questions because it hadn’t been about him. It was not about him. It was about what the patient wanted. And if the patient wanted to terminate services, there was really nothing else to say. There was not even the argument that he had not improved much. He had improved a great deal. There was no valid reason to hold him back. And thus everything had ended.
“It was within your right to do so.” He replies, looking down at the tea cup in his hand and taking a sip. The tea had grown cool. The chamomile tastes bitter now.
“I was just starting to go a bit mad with wanting you.” Yibo says.
Xiao Zhan takes a sip of the bitter tea again, reminding his body to not get overexcited by just words.
“And two years seemed a long time. A long time. And the longer I kept having sessions with you, the longer those years would take.”
Fuck. There was something like molten gooey chocolate inside his eyes, velvet and smooth as it spread over the rest of his senses.
“Our last session was April 18 two years ago.”
Today was April 18th. Did he really time it to the exact day two years later?
Xiao Zhan moved forward to the sink. Dumped out the rest of the tea and put the porcelain down.
He heard the scrape of the barstool and then footsteps and felt his belly clench tight.
Then it was a large hand, that same ring still on the index finger, extending the cup down into the sink. All the tea was gone.
He moved a bit forward when he felt the heat of Yibo’s body behind him.
“Was I too presumptuous in coming here without giving you any sort of warning?”
“Yes.” His voice came out as a whisper though, betraying him.
He cleared his throat even as he felt Yibo move a little closer behind him.
“You no longer feel the same way you used to feel?”
Xiao Zhan didn’t trust himself to speak and so contended with simply shaking his head.
Yibo’s hands came around either side of him, holding onto the sink, but not touching him. But it was like being enveloped by heat all around him. Every molecule of desire his body was capable of producing was pooling into the pit of his belly and he closed his eyes again.
“Fuck, you smell like rain and apple pie.” Yibo’s voice dropped an octave as his lips ghosted just around his ear, making his breath hitch.
Yibo smelled like expensive cologne. The kind that reminded you of old school commercials that had men with baritones sexy enough make you wake up from wet dreams.
“Yibo…” He had wanted that to sound like a warning, although it came out as anything but.
And then Yibo’s entire body was pressing into his, his hands still grasping the sink.
“You know how difficult it was to find you…” Yibo whispered before he felt his nose against his neck, the touch feather light. He pulled in a corner of his lower lip to keep from whimpering.
“How much planning it took to get all my shit in order with only two years to plan for it, not knowing if what you felt for me back then was strong enough to linger around for that long. But fuck, you had gotten inside my head, under my skin… and even after months passed, I just couldn’t let go. You know how many times I wanted to call you, show up at your office? But then you would go back to seeing me as a patient and the clock on this infernal two years would reset. When all I wanted to do was kiss the slope of this neck, suck on those lips, lick those nipples…”
“Yibo…” he called again, his head now falling back, his dick so hard as it pressed against the wood below the sink.
“Fuck, don’t send me away. I think I’ll go mad if you do.”
Xiao Zhan held his breath as Yibo’s entire body thrummed with energy even though Yibo’s lips and hands still remained not touching any part of him.
“Aren’t you going to go back anyway after this is over?” he found enough strength to ask.
“What’s over?” Yibo asked.
“This…” Xiao Zhan moved his hand behind him to feel Yibo’s hard length through the soft denim of his jeans.
Yibo growled as his mouth opened over Xiao Zhan’s neck, the wet heat there sucking hard as he palmed his erection.
“You think I retired from the idol business to come and have a one-night stand with you?” Yibo asked, pulling Xiao Zhan’s hand off his dick.
Xiao Zhan found it hard to focus on words when Yibo’s hard length was once again pressing into his back.
“I have rented a house nearby. I am going to come see you every day here and fuck you so good that you’ll agree to keep me for life.”
And then Yibo was everywhere, his hands, his lips, his skin, and Xiao Zhan was so delirious with lust that it took a moment to realize that the doorbell was ringing.
“Fuck!” he pulled back and turned around in panic, disoriented for a moment.
The doorbell sounded again.
“Did you lock the door when you came in?” he asked.
“Yes, should I not have?”
“Oh Thank God. That’s my mother, I’m sure. She usually just lets herself in. She knows I’m gay, but I don’t think she’s ready to see me getting railed against the sink by some idol that she has seen on tv.”
“Is that what was about to happen?” Yibo asked, that old smirk back on his lips.
Xiao Zhan elbowed him, which only served to hurt his elbows, but Yibo pulled him back before he manages to walk away.
“You have lube here?” he whispered.
Xiao Zhan flushed and shook off his elbow before shaking his head.
“You’re not sexually active?” Yibo asked, pulling him back again.
“Fuck you, Yibo. If you came here to get me all worked up, you should have brought your own lube.” He said, although without quite the heat that he meant to say it with, before walking to the front door to let his mother in before the doorbell rings again.
xxxx
The interruption by his mother serves to return some semblance of reality to his brain even as he watches her fumble over her words as she fawns over Yibo. Yibo looks at him over her head at one point and he raises an eyebrow as if to ask Yea, what? And all he gets back is a wicked wink.
Just after his mother leaves, he pushes Yibo out the door too, whispering in his ear that he is not that easy that a few sweet words – husky and filled with some sort of sex magic though they may be – were all it took to fill him with cock.
Yibo’s eyes almost glaze over at that, but he leaves, a smile on his face. And when Xiao Zhan watches him put on that helmet and get back on his motorcycle, he presses against his belly to calm the hunger gnawing at its insides.
True to his words, Yibo comes over every evening after Xiao Zhan gets home from his office and has enough time to shower and get started on dinner. He helps with the chopping and the stirring, although the former is always as if he is butchering meat no matter what he is cutting and the latter is either too slow or too fast. He doesn’t let up though, and by the end of the third week, does a semi good job at both. He also washes the dishes at the end of the night, so Xiao Zhan can’t complain. Yibo always leaves at the end of dinner, conversation and maybe an occasional glass of wine all he wants now it seems, all the ardor from that first afternoon forgotten. Seemingly. Xiao Zhan had even managed to procure some lube and condoms, which starts collecting dust by the time they are onto the sixth week with nothing more than dinner and conversation.
It seemed though that Yibo had been telling the truth. He had retired from the industry some five or six months back, Xiao Zhan deduces through some internet research, although still has endorsements and motorcycle races for which he travels to Beijing on occasion. But for all intents and purposes, he had up and relocated to Chongqing.
“For what?” Xiao Zhan asks.
“What do you mean for what? I followed your sexy ass all the way here. That’s what. I have never even been here before, although it’s a cute town. I can see its charm.”
“You can’t stay here for me.” Xiao Zhan says, a bit panicked.
“Oh why not? Are you planning on moving elsewhere?” Yibo asks.
“No, this is home.”
“Well, then why can’t it be mine too?”
“That’s not how home works.” He says.
“Home is what I’ve been chasing for two years, biding my time. And home is just where I’ve ended up.” He says unequivocally.
That night after dinner, rather than sending him off home, Xiao Zhan asks whether he wants to stay for a movie.
“Which movie?”
Xiao Zhan shows him the small cabinet where he keeps his movies before he goes to get two wine glasses and a bottle of red.
Fuck, he is on the verge on having wet dreams like a teenager with all this seeing and not touching that’s happening.
The movie is half over and one glass of wine each gone when Xiao Zhan thinks he is going to lose his mind. Yibo is actually watching the movie. Meanwhile Xiao Zhan can’t even remember who is in the movie and he has been staring at the screen for 45 minutes.
He slid down on the couch, his head on one of its arms, taking a second glass of wine in his hand. He can’t help but watch Yibo, the slant of his eyes, the fullness of those lips that he used to pick apart to distraction, the sharp edge of that Adam’s apple. He swallows hard and can’t stop himself when he reaches inside his pants to grab his own cock.
It takes Yibo a moment to figure out what he is doing and then he turns his way, watching the movement of his hands under the cloth of his pants as he strokes his dick up and down slowly. Yibo’s eyes cloud over and his lips part and a moment later, he reaches over to pull down Xiao Zhan’s pant, just enough to get his dick out. He watches Xiao Zhan pumping that length up and down and waits until he sees precum leak out before leaning over to take it into his mouth. Xiao Zhan’s hips almost come off the couch and he grabs onto Yibo’s hair, pulling, knowing that he won’t last given how incredibly long it’s been since he had been with anyone. At least a year before even meeting Yibo and certainly not since falling for Yibo.
“No no… don’t let me come until you’re inside me…” he whispers, pulling on Yibo’s hair again. “I’ll get the lube.” He adds, wondering why he didn’t think of getting it when he got the wine.
“I have it right here.” Yibo pulls out a small vial of it from his pocket.
“Are you carrying it around everywhere?” he asks, distracted for a moment.
“Just when I know I’m going to see you.” Yibo answers seriously, opening it to pour some into his hand as Xiao Zhan pulls his pants off fully.
His eyes close when he feels Yibo’s fingers, first one, then two, inside him, whispering, “Then why did you wait all this time? Fuck, I have been ready for weeks…”
“I wanted you to initiate first.” Yibo looks up with a smile, although a moment later, his eyes darken as he catches Xiao Zhan’s expression when his fingers rub against where it feels so good.
“Why? Argh… Fuck, right there…” his hips are bucking up and down now and Yibo gets up to pull out his dick to rub the lube against its length.
He leans over Xiao Zhan until they are face to face and gently pushes in, knowing that he is bigger than most and there’s bound to be some discomfort especially given how tiny Xiao Zhan is.
“Because I want to make sure that you want it whole-heartedly, not just because you feel obligated because it looks like I made some grand gesture for you – I didn’t. I did it only for me. Sometime in between all those pre-sleep sessions when all you did was give and give – and could take nothing back from me that I wanted to give – I knew that one day, I would figure out how to give myself to you. For life. If you would have me, that is.”
Xiao Zhan’s eyes blinks once, then he lifts his hips and pushes up, taking all of Yibo in, making him groan hard at the tightness.
“Didn’t that hurt?” Yibo whispers when he can open his eyes.
Xiao Zhan’s eyes had watered and Yibo leans down to suck that lower lip into his mouth. He bites the edge and tongues the mole before lifting his head back up.
“It’s… I’m… I feel… so full.” Xiao Zhan says finally, his lips red and bruised, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes hooded.
“Wrap your legs around me.” Yibo’s deep voice is just by his ear and he lifts his languid limbs to wrap them around him.
Yibo doesn't move for a while, just letting him get used to the size. And then, he is eager to feel that fullness tease that spot inside him in that way that made him see stars.
When he moves his hips gently, Yibo grips him around the waist, saying huskily, “If you do that without care, I’m going to flood you before long.”
That only makes Xiao Zhan move even more.
They don't quite make it to five minutes before both of them are coming just moments after the other.
Yibo doesn't even have the energy to pull out and they fall asleep like that, arms wrapped around each other, the movie murmuring on in the background, a drizzle back on the rooftop, it’s pitter patter a soft rhythm accompanying the glow of the lamp inside the little house with the retired idol, the full-time therapist turned part-time baker, and their bunnies.
In the middle of the night, long after the movie has stopped, Xiao Zhan pulls Yibo close and whispers sleepily, “I’m never letting you go.”
In answer, Yibo kisses that little mole under the lip, curling his arms around to hold on even more tightly.
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