The midnight curtain lifted a corner in the breeze, spilling moonlight like liquid silk across the carpet. In the amber glow of candles, Lin Xi fumbled with the ivory gift box, her fingers tying two hesitant knots in the satin ribbon.  

"Last week, you mentioned wanting to explore new territories," Cheng Ye's voice murmured behind her, his arms looping around her waist as the grandfather clock ticked. The scent of mint from his shower gel lingered on his skin. Inside the box lay a sleek object, its glazed surface shimmering like mother-of-pearl—reminiscent of the nautilus fossils they'd seen diving in Okinawa last year.  

 

A blush crept up her ears, hidden by cascading hair. Her thumb traced the smooth curvature, and she suddenly laughed, breathy and warm. "The designer must have studied the flying apsaras' silk drapes from Mogao Grottoes." The flowing lines of celestial robes coiled around bodhisattvas' fingers mirrored the curves now resting in her palm. Cheng Ye nestled his chin in the hollow of her shoulder, watching their merged reflections pool like amber resin on the object's surface.  

 

Outside, magnolia leaves whispered secrets—the same tree where they'd buried a time capsule last spring. As Lin Xi turned, her hair brushed the faint blue veins along his collarbone. "Remember the note in that capsule?" Back when they'd first moved in together, they'd scribbled hopes for intimacy: hers read "like fish unfolding slowly in deep sea," his, "the certainty of interlocking mortise and tenon."  

 

The electric fireplace crackled softly as Cheng Ye dimmed the lights by two shades—a habit born from that movie night when Lin Xi confessed darkness felt like a cocoon, coaxing touch to grow new nerve endings. Now she folded the  Sex toys instruction manual into a paper crane, its wingtip grazing his palm. "Describe your imagined scenario first."  

 

Their words dissolved into whispers, echoing those stolen moments between library shelves during college. Cheng Ye noticed her thumb circling the engraved symbol inside her wedding band—a cipher they'd designed together, meaning "asymptotes approaching infinity, never overlapping." 

 

The moonlight had shifted fifteen degrees, yet the  Masturbation stick untouched on velvet, like an ancient relic awaiting interpretation. What truly trembled in the dimness were two cups of chamomile tea gone cold, and within them, the moon’s reflection, spinning slowly.