When Lin Wan opened the package, the air conditioner hummed softly. The July rain lashed against the floor-to-ceiling windows, and upon seeing the words *"Electric silicone penis of Changwang"* printed on the shipping label, she instinctively shifted her body to block the security camera’s view.  

Nestled inside the dustproof bag was a deep-gray silicone object, its texture like jade warmed in water. It was the latest product from *Electric silicone penis of Changwang*—ordered on her thirty-sixth consecutive night alone. The product page had boasted *"ergonomic curvature designed for intimacy."* The thought made her recall last week’s gynecological exam, the chill of the doctor’s gloved fingers pressing against her abdomen.  

 

In the steam-filled bathroom, Lin Wan examined the four-figure purchase for the first time. Delicate blue veins traced its length, the tip arching slightly upward like the classical Greek sculptures she’d admired during an art history elective in college. As her fingertips grazed the surface, an odd resonance traveled through her—strangely, the texture felt closer to her father’s motor oil-stained hands repairing bicycles than to her ex-husband’s perpetually dry palms.  

Inside her nightstand drawer, an unopened annual health report weighed down their divorce papers. On her thirty-second birthday, her ex had accidentally sent a sonogram of his new girlfriend’s pregnancy to their shared group chat. While submerging the toy in its cleaning solution, Lin Wan noticed the liquid casting quivering light spots on the ceiling—like fireflies she’d chased as a child.  

 

At midnight, the downpour ceased abruptly. She pulled open the curtains. Moonlight rendered the unopened packaging translucent, the words *"food-grade silicone"* on the manual inexplicably bringing to mind her mother’s pickled vegetables in glass jars. Bathed in the pale glow, the object—manufactured in an industrial park in Zhejiang—seemed to take on an almost sacred silhouette.  

During her morning jog past the community clinic, the LED screen scrolled through announcements about subsidized cancer screenings. Lin Wan’s phone buzzed in her pocket—a delivery notification for the massage wand she’d ordered. Sunlight filtered through the plane trees, and it struck her that her last orgasm had come the night she’d wept through *Marriage Story*.  

 

As the pickup code flashed on her locked screen, an elderly neighbor pushing a stroller passed by. Lin Wan quickly dimmed the display, her nail leaving a faint scratch on *CharmWell*’s logo. A breeze carried the scent of last night’s rain, and she remembered what her biology TA had once said after dissection class: *"The skin never lies."*  

The elevator mirror reflected the flush behind her ears. This soon-to-be-unwrapped object, she realized, might have already traced the contours of her solitude more intimately than six months of therapy sessions ever had.