Red dress | Her husband smokes across the table

Story notes: a red dress, a lamp, and three yeses

Hua is thirty-five, her husband Chen is thirty-seven, and their friend Bo is thirty-six. All three are adults, and this dinner was booked by all three. Hua chose the red dress herself. Half a glass of wine is still on the table, and nobody is past the point of a clear sentence. Chen sits across the table with a cigarette because he asked whether he wanted to stay and watch, and both Hua and Bo said they want him there. She looks at the lamp instead of at her husband because the note says so: a bright lamp means this round continues, and if anyone switches it off, they stop.

The zipper stops halfway because Hua stops her own hand there. She asks Bo if he wants to go on. Bo says he does. She asks Chen. Chen sets the cigarette down and says he wants to stay in the chair, and that he can walk to the balcony whenever he likes. Nobody is cast as a viewer who was never told. The lock turns from the inside after all three are in the room. There is not another person outside who was kept in the dark.

At 0:20 she brightens the lamp one step and looks at Bo until he nods. At 0:55 the zipper stops and she says they can stop. Chen smiles from across the table so she can see he is still there and still clear. At 1:20 the three of them touch glasses and nobody finishes the wine. At 1:45 Hua asks whether they should end it by switching the lamp off. Bo says he wants ten more seconds. Hua says yes. Then she ends the recording herself.

Before the lamp goes dark, Hua slides the half glass back to the middle of the table. Nobody finishes it. Chen says he would want to stay by the balcony door and skip this round. Bo says he wants ten more seconds, and then they can stop. The three of them keep the beats inside about two minutes. The zipper of the red dress stays where Hua stopped her own hand. On the way out they fold the note together and put it in a bag. Nobody is left outside the agreement, and Hua says yes to ending on the lamp.