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Jinshi exhaled slowly, finally lifting his gaze to his reflection in the ornate glass mirror that hung in his bathing chamber.
Well, not just his bathing chamber any longer. Their bathing chamber.
As in his … and Maomao’s. Shared bathing chamber. Attached to their shared marital bedchamber.
After all that’s happened tonight, the butterflies in his stomach haven’t quelled. If anything, they’re more alight than ever, which is truly impressive considering that this morning, he and Maomao married. And this evening they consummated their marriage.
Despite it having only ended moments before, the memory and sensation of their coupling clings to him like a second skin. He is a husband now; he could be thinking of their future, the life he’s committed to providing for her, everything that lies ahead of them. But he’s also a man, one who has yearned desperately for years, to do what they’d just done, and so he is reminiscing already. He can never help but be sentimental in regards to her.
Truthfully, Jinshi had been nervous, and he could tell that Maomao had been too. He expected something awkward, akin to their bumbling around one another during the time between him rejecting her advances and her accepting his proposal. He had read the stupid books Maomao had left him, and blushed furiously as she lectured him on paying attention to the bits about lubrication. Jinshi still went into the bedchamber with low expectations for his own performance, and steeled nerves in anticipation of his new wife’s unpredictability in this arena.
But it was … natural. As if the ceremony had peeled away the last barriers of propriety between the couple. By no stretch was it flawless, but it certainly was precious. Without the constant force of wanting what he couldn’t have, and without Maomao’s incessant ignorance to his affection, Jinshi found it very easy to tilt her chin up and finish a conversation they had started many years before. It turns out when she is compliant, Maomao responds rather enthusiastically - to his kisses, his embrace, his hoisting her like a sack of rice before he laid her out on their bed.
For the first time in a long time, Jinshi experienced something without the overbearing feeling of self doubt or self consciousness. Equally unprecedented, he was allowed Maomao’s genuine responses, and not the performative courtesan's routine she used as a means of self defense. Where she usually acted indifferent, she met him with enthusiasm - it wasn’t equally matched to him, but he didn’t need more than she could give. Jinshi has enough love for both of them. And if her reactions to Jinshi were any indication, she’ll never be as unaffected by him as she appears.
She had given him the true gift of climbing down from her walls to meet him halfway in this exchange. He knows that’s not something she can give endlessly, but he was touched that Maomao knew when he would need to see it most. This moment had become such a mountain in their relationship, a point of no return. He was relieved they were both able to experience it earnestly together. Past versions of themselves would’ve never been able to handle this as reverently as they just had, and that in itself felt like a successful first act in their marriage.
Jinshi blinks at himself in the crystal reflection. There are angry red crescent moons pressed into his biceps, evidence of his cat’s claws. It’s been such a longstanding daydream it hardly feels real. The butterflies do backlips in his loins when he thinks of how he left her curled in bed.
With a shake of his head, he remembers that she is waiting for him. He quickly collects the rinsing bowl and cloth he came for before moving back to the bedroom. Bypassing the bed for a moment, he grabs the kettle from where he placed it to warm; it’s not boiling, but they’re not steeping tea, just cleaning up. Jinshi takes his ensemble to the side of the bed where Maomao lays and begins soaking and wringing out the cloth.
His new wife lays on top of the ornate silk bedding, unabashedly naked, which makes Jinshi’s heart leap as he remembers he’s still naked too. He doesn’t really know where to look when there is so much of her on display. Her eyes are coy, probably sensing his shyness, her body so delicate and pink in the afterglow. She is on her back with her feet flat on the bed, knees together. Jinshi inhales harshly as he tries to keep himself in check when he sees she has one hand resting on her breastbone and one cupped over her sex.
Jinshi’s voice, embarrassingly, cracks as he asks, “What are you doing?”
“It was starting to make a mess.” Maomao’s eyes glance between her legs. She uncurls her fingers and reaches for the forgotten cloth in his hand. “Can I have that now?”
His eyes track her fingers which are slick with the evidence of their consummation, and he just can’t help himself but lean forward and take her pointer and middle finger in his mouth. Maomao hisses, “ Jinshi!” and he closes his eyes contentedly because he can just hear the glare in her tone as he sucks lightly. Something rather primal is encouraging his misbehaving.
Maomao yanks her hand back with an exasperated sigh and Jinshi opens his eyes, basking in her scowl. She takes the same fingers and lightly flicks his forehead to get him to back off and takes the cloth from him. There is a comfortability between them that hasn’t existed previously. Jinshi wonders idly if it would have felt like this if they’d become lovers sooner. She ignores him in favor of cleaning herself up, while he watches hungrily.
“Should I even bother,” she drawls with the loveliest monotone he’s ever heard, “if you’re going to let that thing hang there so menacingly?”
“Hey,” Jinshi puts one knee up on the bed and feigns offense. “Don’t call it a thing! ”
Maomao flops back, scooting away to the pillows. “Well, I’ve been told it’s not kind to call it a frog , so what word should I use then?”
“I can think of like, five less offensive words.”
Feeling predatory, Jinshi pursues Maomao as she makes her retreat across the bedding. This was worth every day spent waiting. He swings his leg over her upper thighs, effectively trapping her, the aforementioned thing heavy over her belly. She hums and reaches for him, but Jinshi stills her at the wrist. “I’m not instigating. I just can’t help myself when I see you like this.”
“You’re tired already then?” The mischievous cat purrs, and Jinshi’s heart (and other thing) swells with her needling tone. There is clearly something animal afoot here.
“No,” he pouts. The wild dog of their teenage years desperately wants out, wants to nip at her, but he’s done so well to leash it. “But I…hope you don’t feel pressured to provide more, is all. I don’t expect anything beyond what you’ve given me tonight.”
Maomao reaches out her hand again and fits her fingernails into the receding marks on his arm, where she’d gripped him too tightly, too briefly earlier when she’d lost her composure. Her demeanor is not nearly as sentimental as his, nor as restrained. He can tell by her dictation she’s not interested in repeating the emotional coupling they’d just indulged in so soon, but she is interested. “Why not? Isn’t that what wives are for?”
“Huh!” Jinshi plucks her hand away to intertwine their fingers before glaring down at her. Her insolence baits him into their usual banters. “I know you love to play the fool when it comes to my heart, but if you truly believe you're just a body to warm my bed after all these years, after today, you have another thing coming.”
“Yeah?” She asks lazily as she twists below him. Maomao drops his hand and successfully rolls herself over to her stomach. If he didn’t know her so well, he would almost think she was bored. “What’s coming for me again?”
Jinshi groans, equal parts offended and aroused, but can’t help the smile on his face. “My goodness, you bed a man once, and suddenly the minx comes out. I stand by my allegation you’d make a fine courtesan.”
Maomao reaches behind herself to tug at his side and he obliges her by lowering himself over her, careful to keep his weight braced on his forearms. Their knees slide across the silk cover and knock together, the outside of hers to the inside of his, as she spreads herself out to accommodate him. He’s suddenly grateful for the years of diligent physical training he’s kept up with, as he concentrates on not crushing her. Jinshi has never been so close to another body like this, like they were the first time. He swallows thickly and allows himself to brush her hair over one shoulder and press a kiss behind her ear.
“Would you really have paid me to do this though?”
She is still feeling playful, so Jinshi goes along with it as he bites at the back of her neck. He doesn’t often embrace her pleasure district humor, but if there was ever a time. “What, to lie there and act indifferent to me? Yes, absolutely. I’d have made you a very rich woman.”
Maomao glares at him and pushes her backside into him. Despite her confident words, the movement is clumsy and imprecise but effective nonetheless. Jinshi briefly scrambles over top of her to meet her body in her movements, seeking to align what he’s still so unfamiliar with. He is nearly derailed at the thought that they’re fumbling through this together. His mind is drawing a blank on those books of hers, his body following along on pure instinct.
“I meant it,” he pants into her ear. She shifts onto one elbow and deft little fingers are beneath them, navigating their bodies back together. And he does mean what he is about to say, but that wild dog is taking over, and this feels just as natural for them as the first time. “I don’t need more tonight; I’m satisfied.”
“Shut up,” her face pinches briefly, but when she looks over her shoulder at him her eyes are still mirthful behind the stonewall. “Maybe I’m not.”
Jinshi stops his protesting.
__
Good gods, Jinshi thinks to himself, whatever we just did in there, they don’t warn you about in the reference books.
He’s back in the washroom, sizing himself up in the mirror. The man looking back at him seems to fill the frame in a new way. After the first time, he’d felt a paradigm shift of his heart that placed it intimately closer to Maomao’s. After the second time, he’s feeling a desire not unlike when he came off his suppression tonics - something urgent and prideful and exclusively directed at his little cat.
If the Moon Prince’s admirers could see him now, flushed and out of breath, bedroom eyes brimming with a well-earned sense of self satisfaction, they would certainly riot. He presses at the bruises on his collarbone that Maomao bestowed upon him, and grins when it stings. As he always has, Jinshi takes a moment to be grateful for having Maomao - her trust and her companionship, her ire and her wit, and today he gained both her hand and her body. Jinshi feels, not for the first time tonight, overwhelmingly in love.
Bizarrely, he finds it impressive that his hair has remained secured in its topknot all night, though his bangs are disheveled across his face. His checks flush, recalling how Maomao gripped them like reins as she maneuvered him through his introduction to the more exclusive parts of her body.
He drags a hand down his face as he snatches another cloth, a bit of deja vu adding to the dizziness he feels. With unsteady legs, he hurries back to bed. This time Maomao waits with her arm thrown over her face; her legs open as he approaches and it is a silent signal to clean up the mess he made of her. The last remnants of his wild dog begs him to leave her like that, but it wouldn’t be very comfortable for her to sleep.
Jinshi kisses the scar on her calf and wipes her down, lightening his pressure when she hisses at his contact. He minds himself, and tosses the rag over his shoulder, before negotiating her delicate frame enough to pull the covers back and over them both. She moans petulantly the whole time, murmuring about how she wishes he’d let her sleep.
“Alright already,” he gripes as he winds his limbs around her, tucked in. “Sleep then.”
Maomao, in an uncharacteristic bout of sweetness, nuzzles into his neck with a hum and a light press of her lips to his battered collar. “Thank you, Jinshi-Sama.”
Jinshi exhales sharply, sleep tugging his eyelids down. “No honorifics in bed.”
His wife doesn’t respond, which is fine by him. He lets his thumb stroke from where it rests in the dip of her waist. It has been a long, draining day.
___
Sleep has soundly found Jinshi, and he dreams of Maomao.
Maomao sprinting past him in the courtyard all those years ago, mumbling to herself.
Maomao dancing farewells on the tower wall, an ode to another life.
Maomao laughing, child-like in the wild grass while she forages for herbs.
And just today … Maomao’s face as her veil was lifted, her little freckles painted on just for him. Maomao’s fingers pressed into his as they parted ways post ceremony. Maomao’s soft groan as he laid singular claim to his wife. And again, her voice in his ear …
“ Jinshi…” That groan again!
“Maomao…” He gripped her tighter in his sleep, holding onto all the versions of Maomao he’d dreamed of.
“ Jinshi,” The groan was really loud now, and sort of excessive. Half asleep he moves his hands to make sense of her form, only to be swatted at. “ Wake up, you pervert.”
Confused, he blinked into the darkness. “Maomao?”
He could hardly make out her lips opening to respond, before another groan permeated the room. Wait, that wasn’t coming from her mouth! Incrediously, he yelped, “Is that your stomach?!”
“I’m starving.”
Jinshi sat up, “Clearly. Hold on.”
He fumbled around for a few moments, lighting the bedside lamp. As her stomach wailed, he looked around with alarm to see there was water, tea, even wine, but no food of any sort. Their robes and underclothes are strewn about the floor and he kicks at them before turning to her with his hands on his naked hips. “Did they think the activities occurring in the marital bed wouldn’t work up an appetite?”
Maomao huffed and puffed under the covers. “They probably figured we’d part ways after the act, as many do, and we would’ve dined after.”
Her words gave Jinshi pause. “Is it unusual to fall asleep in each other’s arms, as we did?”
“Jinshi,” Maomao glowered, unimpressed with his musings. “I’m starving. They hardly feed imperial brides on their wedding day.”
“Right!” He leapt to action, collecting a loose robe from the wardrobe and attempting to secure it. “I’ll call for Suiren then?”
Maomao didn’t respond. Jinshi didn’t think much of anything as he crossed the room and slid open the door. Only at the sound of it, did the man posted across the hall look up and did Jinshi remember to feel bashful. As Basen and Jinshi stared at each other in silence, Jinshi wondered absentmindedly what time it was, and if Basen had been here the whole time, or if he had switched out with another at some point. For the life of him, he could not remember who escorted him to the chamber earlier, but he’d been relatively distracted at the time.
Lost in thoughts of a world outside his marriage bed, it was only at Maomao’s impatient “ Jinishi-sama?” that he came to. Basen jumped at the sound, and asked “Yes, master?” in his squeakiest voice, which assured Jinshi that Basen had, in fact, been within earshot of them the whole night.
Blazingly red, Jinshi managed, “Could you send for Suiren?”
“Is everything alright?” Basen’s eyes slid past his master’s shoulder, as if concerned for what they’d find in there.
“Yes,” Jinshi pulled the door shut a bit tighter to keep his prize concealed as a territorial instinct weaseled through him. Unpack that later! “Just tell her it’s time to feed the cat, she’ll understand.”
Basen grimaced at the words but waved down another attendant. Jinshi retreated without a sound.
Once inside, he cast a glance to the bed where the growling was intensifying; he avoided making direct eye contact and returned to the wardrobe. As Jinshi collected a comb, a hair tie, and robes for Maomao, it occurred to him that she had not gotten up from the bed once since he had laid her fine form in it. How spoiled she already was!
He clambered onto the bed and tugged at the covers. Maomao peaked (glared) at him. “Suiren will be here soon. Would you like to be decent?”
“No.” She quipped but sat up on her knees nonetheless, presenting her back to allow him to fix her hair and secure the robe. It truly was like wrestling a cat with all the assistance she gave. Once complete, he set the comb to the side and kissed her clothed shoulder before maneuvering them both back against the pillows.
Jinshi and Maomao sat in silence for several moments, blinking at each other in the candlelight. He absentmindedly toyed with the tips of her fingers in both his hands, suddenly as nervous as when they had entered the room earlier in the night. It seemed odd to see her clothed now, after all that.
Unsure how long until her food arrived, he breached the quiet, deciding to find where her head was at. “How are you feeling after-”
“-it smells like a brothel in here.” His wife deadpanned.
Jinshi sighed, loudly.
Knock knock knock.
He glared at her, “Seriously?”
“I know you wouldn’t know,” Maomao touted. She pointed at the door. “But it really does. She’s going to know what we did.”
“Of course she’ll know,” he snaps as he stands, “it’s our wedding night .”
Maomao rolls her eyes as he moves for the door, and he is briefly surprised that she gets up as well to light some incense. She is arranging herself on the settee under a fur when he pulls the door open. Strategically ignoring Basen behind her, he tries to smile normally at Surien, but her shiteating grin makes it difficult.
“Hello, young master,” She nearly giggles. “May I enter?”
Blushing, Jinshi steps aside while she bustles in, making a beeline for the table in front of Maomao. “And hello, mistress!”
Maomao’s eyes are on the bowls being set in front of her, warm buns and rice crackers, pickled vegetables and cold fruit, simple things to pick at as opposed to a formal meal. She glances up, “Please don’t start calling me mistress , Surien.”
Surien bats at Maomao’s hand that is reaching for the buns. “As you wish, Xiaomao. But I have to insist on being your food taster.”
The older woman brandishes her chopsticks and takes her first sample. His wife watches, disgruntled, as Surien moves through each bowl. Maomao follows right behind her, barely waiting for a reaction. Jinshi’s eyes bounce between the two, this is really a formality after all, before deciding to snack too. “I can’t even taste for my own poison on my wedding night?”
“Especially not now,” Surien goads, “when there is the chance the young master’s seed may bare you fruit.”
Jinishi had just taken a too big bite of a too hot bun, and that was why he started spontaneously choking. He handed the rest of the bun to his wife so he could pound on his chest. Surien chortled out, “Oh heavens! You did tell him where to put it, didn’t you, dear Xiaomao?”
“Heh,” his cat laughed, at his expense. “Heh, heh.”
Finally clearing his throat, Jinshi waved in the direction of the door, face red and wondering where all his bravado from earlier had gone. “You’re dismissed, Surien.”
“I’ll be back in the morning to get you ready for the banquet. Try to get some rest!” Surien left with another giggle.
Maomao studiously ignored him while she picked through the bowls. Jinshi dropped onto the seat beside her, silently thrilled he didn’t have to be conscious of how close he came to her. “Maomao?”
“Hmm?” She turns to him with a pear wedge between her fingers, holding it out to him. He eats from her hands, and this too is natural.
“We never talked about it,” Jinshi leans his head against the settee and waves off the offer of pickled radish. “Children.”
“That’s not true. We’ve talked about it twice.”
And technically, Maomao is right. They had discussed it, however briefly, the night she’d accepted his feelings and he rejected her advances. Though to say it was about children would be roundabout, as they were really talking about political consequences and the dangers their affair would put her in.
Circumstances changed, but the topic only came up one other time after their engagement. Jinshi didn’t know what he expected when Maomao informed her sort of brother Lahan about their betrothal, but he did not expect Lahan’s face to light up and for him to make grabby hands at her abdomen.
“Dear sister,” Lahan said as Maomao shoved him off. “Is this due to your delicate state?”
Maomao simply pulled Jinshi past the nerd. “No. I wouldn’t marry over something so trivial. I’m doing it for the greenhouses.”
Alarm bells were ringing in Jinshi’s head at the odd interaction, and he was only slightly affronted by her greenhouse comment. As they walked through the breezeway, he tossed her a look. “Am I going to have to ask what in the world Lahan meant by that?”
Maomao glances up, lips twisting. Still walking, she says, “It’s nothing. He just - made this suggestion to me a few years back.”
“Which was..?” Jinshi leaned into her space, while no one was around.
“Which was that,” Maomao said with no emotion. “I should intentionally get you to impregnate me, and then give him the child to raise. Lahan thinks I would have done it purely for the scientific pursuit of experiencing pregnancy and birth firsthand.”
Jinshi stops walking. “When…when was this?”
“The first time we went West, before the banquet.”
“Ugh,” he moans into his hands. That was so long ago; that was before everything . “Would you have?”
He doesn’t even know why he starts with that but it makes her glare. “Obviously not, considering you won’t take me to bed.”
So she’s really choosing revisionist history? It’s a bit reductive to apply a blanket statement like that now, with their wedding on the horizon. There is a big gap of time and events between the banquet and her actually propositioning him. There’s also a number of times where she ignored his advances entirely. Jinshi suspects his rejection smarted Maomao more than she will ever admit. He has matured enough to not hold it against her, that she’s holding it against him, because he understands how it stings. It hurt him too, and he’s thankful she didn’t leave him alone entirely.
“I will. ” Jinshi may have matured in some ways but not all, and pulls her too close, until their bodies touch in places they shouldn’t be. He won’t point out the way her pupils dilate, which he’s been informed is a symptom of arousal. “And I would’ve then, if you’d offered. I hardly think I have to say I didn’t have the self control then that I have now.”
“Huh,” Maomao raises her chin. Ever since their engagement there has been a new thrill to their relationship. He suspects it is the anticipation. Where they have taken turns being the cat or the mouse in regards to their physical relationship, they both seem to be on edge as their wedding day looms. Jinshi privately thinks of these heated exchanges as akin to the foreplay she made him read about, and he rather likes it. Her cheeks are pink.
“I mean, would you have done it, just for the experience?” He grits, helpless to the way his eyes fall to her lips and the way he wishes to taste them. They are to marry in a matter of weeks and he can count their kisses on one hand. That thought is equal parts exhilarating and irritating.
“No!” Maomao looks at him with disgust, how dare he , and his heart soars. Then she grins maniacally. “But…I thought about it briefly. For the placenta.”
Jinshi reels back. What is there to say to that, exactly, other than -
“What would you have done with it?!”
So Maomao explains, and Jinshi nearly wilts.
The topic of children doesn’t come up again.
Shaking himself from his memories, Jinshi reaches for the bowl of grapes, grounding himself with the sour fruit. Maomao asks, around a mouthful of crackers, “What is there to talk about?”
Jinshi eyes her warily, trying desperately not to look in the general direction of her womb, well aware he’s acted unilaterally tonight in having his fill. He wonders if she is being dense on purpose.
“I’m simply wondering what you intend to do, now that we’ve…”
“Had intercourse?” Maomao states, with all the emotion of a log.
Jinshi shoots her a look and tugs at his bangs. “I just mean - yes, we talked about children. But only in terms of, of preventing them or ending them, or for some reason, giving them away to your weird brother! While that last one is off the table entirely, I want you to know I mean the same regarding children as I told you regarding marriage. I will never aim to trap you, or to leave you without choices. I mean to allow you as much agency as I can.”
Jinshi takes a breath as his eyes fall to his lap. “I was opposed, before, to you risking yourself to prevent a pregnancy for my sake or for the danger I brought you. I’ll speak plainly to you as my wife. If you wish to do so for your own sake, I will not oppose you.”
Maomao doesn’t respond, as she is rooting around in the fruit bowl. She shuffles around on her knees before arranging herself on his lap. She looks everywhere on his face before their eyes meet, and she presents him with another slice of pear wordlessly. Jinshi accepts it, and waits for her to speak; they’re really rather good.
“I don’t intend,” Her fingers are a bit sticky as she takes a hold of his chin. “To commit treason, Jinshi-Sama.”
They look at one another, intensely, while he digests her words. While he speaks plainly, she still hesitates. He hopes in their marriage, in private moments like these, he will be able to coax her candor out slowly and truly be her confidant. At the same time, he understands what she is insinuating. To harm an imperial pregnancy is a crime, to prevent it willfully is not far behind.
She continues. “Producing children is a reasonable expectation in marriage. I wouldn’t have married if I wasn’t willing to meet that expectation. If I wished to avoid it entirely, we would have carried our relationship out in other ways. But I appreciate your concern for me, sir. Always.”
Jinshi’s heart is doing something weird in his chest, and she knows it as she rests her hand over it. He has never thought particularly hard about children; she is right, they are an expectation, particularly of his station. But he finds himself thinking of Lakan and the way he fixates on Maomao. Strangely enough, Jinshi envies how it must feel for the only faces you can see to be the woman you love and the child you made from it. Jinshi only realizes he still hasn’t said anything when Maomao shifts in his lap.
“Does the prospect excite you, sir?”
“Uh,” immediately his thoughts are redirected. “It might, yes.”
She looks at him knowingly, letting her thumb stroke his jaw. Jinshi gets goosebumps.
“I’ll speak plainly then,” She hums. “It excites me too -”
His critical thinking leaves the room. Jinshi’s hold on her has been loose, but now his body acts on its own accord as he scrambles to pin her on her back on the settee. He paws at her backside, her thighs, her breasts, every part the wild dog. Maomao is gripping his shoulder now with one hand. She doesn’t discourage him as he ruts into her through their robes, but she does yawn in his ear before saying, “I’m really looking forward to my placenta.”
Groaning, not from pleasure but from exasperation, Jinshi sits up on his hands over her and scowls. “You’re really something, you know?”
“Yes,” she chirps. “Really excited.”
With a sigh, he leans down and kisses her, open mouthed and slowly. It is frustrating, in more ways than one, but loving and she responds without hesitation. That he can do this now is worth all of her teasing. They part ways with a bit of extra spit between them. He will pretend he doesn’t notice the way her mouth follows after his. Maomao tips her head to the side when he pulls all the up and off the couch to stand before her. He holds his hand out and pulls her up with him. “Jinshi?”
“I love you.” Maomao freezes, but he waits for her to thaw. “I love you, and you drive me crazy. You don’t need to say anything back. I just need you to hear it. I love you, Maomao.”
She doesn’t look away from him as he lifts her into his arms once again, but her eyes are curious. Jinshi walks them to the bed and settles them in. He pulls her small body back against his chest and sighs into her neck. Maomao shivers. “We have so much time now.”
He hopes she understands his words. They have time to figure out the other’s body. Time to have a child. Time to wait for her to be ready to love him back. It doesn’t all need to be tonight. He meant it, before. He’s satisfied.
Maomao finds his hand in the dark, and weaves their fingers together so her palm lays over the top of his hand. She brings their shared grip up to her own throat. Maomao is a master at indirect affirmations, and he is a master at decoding them. She reminds him of another time when he wasn’t so willing to wait and she wasn’t so willing to listen.
She squeezes softly. I hear you, she seems to say, just look where we are now.
Jinshi takes her encouragement and presses once in return. Just so she knows he is there.