CH 26

Enjoyment and Torture

The next afternoon, Yi Zhize was working in his office when An Rong knocked on the clear glass door, "Yi Yi, there's a delivery for you, shall I bring it in for you?"

"Okay," Yi Zhize looked up from his computer screen, "thanks."

An Rong handed him a paper bag of documents, "You're welcome. I heard that you had dinner with Victor yesterday? What did you talk about?"

Yi Zhize opened the file, "Nothing, we talked about a case."

"Was it the British doctor murder case?"

"En."

Inside the file was a beautifully drawn invitation, the cover read: Dear Mr. Yi Zhize.

An Rong lowered her voice and said, "I heard that the doctor was particularly perverted. He has a special sexual fetish and likes to play with that! Ahem, you know!"

Yi Zhize said helplessly, "An Rong, I thought you were concerned about the legal content."

"How are the details of the case not considered legal content?" An Rong pursued, "I also heard that this doctor was having fun with his sympathetic young lover and accidentally failed to grasp the right degree, so someone got killed. Is that right?"

"Yes." Yi Zhize was reading the invitation with no fluctuation of emotion.

An Rong said excitedly, "Then this case is too exciting!!!"

Yi Zhize sighed and said, "You've been in the industry for so many years, this level is nothing, what's there to get excited about."

"I've been bored with all the cases I've been working on lately, why can't I gossip about a new one?"

"You can ask Victor."

"No, I don't know him well. Besides, he's a special thief!" An Rong complained, "As soon as I asked him about the key points, he didn't want to say anything, so he pretended he didn't understand and spoke English to me."

Yi Zhize thought of a certain witty image and couldn't help but chuckle softly.

"Ah, English! I hate English the most! It's a torture with all the gibberish!!!" Seeing that Yi Zhize kept holding the invitation and reading it, An Rong asked in passing, "The whole cover is so festive, who invited you? A friend got married? Drinking wedding wine?"

"No," Yi Zhize said, "it's a college friend's birthday."

"It's just a birthday, is it necessary to be so exaggerated?"

"He's always been like that."

"Oh I see, rich boy!"

"Sort of." Yi Zhize put the invitation in his handbag, "In terms of work, you can trust Victor, he's very capable. But if it's a personal relationship, it's better to be cautious."

"Why?" An Rong wondered, "He seems to be very pleasant to deal with."

"No reason," Yi Zhize didn't want to say more, "it's just my personal advice."

After work, Yi Zhize drove to Ou Tingyun's residence.

As promised, he had come for his hypnotherapy session.

Was it better or worse since meeting him?

Yi Zhize himself could not tell.

On the bright side, the quality of his sleep has improved.

The insomnia had not been cured, but there was finally a way to sleep peacefully.

The bad thing is that the unpleasant past was always lurking in the shadows like a haze.

He had a sense of crisis.

Like at the moment, on his way to see that doctor.

He had mixed emotions.

The desire to see him.

Was it out of a thirst for hypnosis, or was it something else?

He didn't know.

Yi Zhize frowned, and some sweat broke out on his palms as he gripped the steering wheel.

He didn't know.

But he understood that he wanted to see him.

Let sickness be the excuse, he thought.

Let being sick be the cover for what was rightfully his.

He had only come to fulfil his rights.

As his patient, to see his doctor.

Everything seemed so legitimate.

So inevitable.

So...

Urgent.

———

Lying in the treatment room, the doctor's voice was the same as ever.

Gentle and delicate, it teased a tingling itch in his ears.

Yi Zhize closed his eyes, his anxiety having long since subsided, but giving way to an overflowing nervousness.

It was one of anticipation and longing.

And yet with a kind of panic.

Mixed with a stirring that he had never experienced before.

Ou Tingyun's head dropped and he unbuttoned his shirt.

The brush of his fingers against his neck sent a jolt of electricity through him.

The knot in Yi Zhize's throat rolled.

Ou Tingyun smiled and said, "Zhize, relax."

Yi Zhize exhaled softly, "Okay."

"Tonight, we won't touch the forbidden areas of our subconscious." Ou Tingyun rubbed his hair, "You'll be comfortable."

Although the words were soothing, Yi Zhize's heart beat faster and faster when he heard them.

Ou Tingyun asked, "Do you remember the touch-guided depth method?"

Yi Zhize nodded.

In truth, he didn't remember it at all, his mind was a mess.

"Very well," Ou Tingyun explained, "I will touch your body parts, and afterwards you will recite numbers silently in your mind. With each number you recite, your body will relax more. Together, we will gradually enter a deeper state of hypnosis."

In such a long sentence, Yi Zhize only heard the word "touch" and his breath hitched.

Ou Tingyun said, "Shall we begin?"

"Okay."

The room was eerily silent, the light a hazy darkness.

Ou Tingyun's fingertips brushed over his teardrop mole, "One."

The warm touch felt like a direct hit to the heart, and Yi Zhize silently recited: one..

His fingertips left his skin and it cooled.

Instinctively, Yi Zhize began to feel unsatisfied.

Until he made contact with him again.

This time, he touched the knot of his throat.

It was no longer a single finger, but a fondling touch.

In the ambiguous atmosphere, the slightest stimulation was the most tremulous, like an invisible titillation, and Yi Zhize was caught in a situation of two extremes.

He had long since peeled himself away from the mundane world and dipped into this little world.

It was like a deep sleep, but not like a deep sleep.

His only senses were completely tied to the doctor's touch.

It was both enjoyable and torturous at the same time.

He felt as if he were floating in a hot air balloon above the vast wilderness.

At one moment it was searing hot, at another it was cool.

One moment it was the touch of a cloud, the next a sharp descent.

Through a thin layer of shirt, the doctor's fingertips roamed above his collarbone.

His breath trembled slightly, his body began to tremble, and all that rose up in his mind was a steaming pleasure.

"Comfortable?" The doctor asked him.

En, he replied.

He didn't actually make a sound, he couldn't notice that he was so engrossed.

"Don't suppress yourself." The doctor's lips seemed to be on his ear, "Let your senses go, let your body vent in the most primal way."

Okay, he replied, okay.

The touch went from his collarbone down, every inch of his skin screaming for more.

Even wanting to rip away the obstructive clothing barrier.

A faint red flushed at the corners of his eyes, the true bareness of desire, so unabashedly presented to that doctor

Ou Tingyun's eyes darkened a little.

He was restraining himself.

Looking at the patient in front of him, who had completely given himself over, a forbidden scene came to his mind.

It was an image that should not be in a therapy room.

It was a line that should not be crossed.

But at the moment,

they both seemed unable to contain it.

The impassioned surge of emotions and the increasingly obvious physiological impulses,

were pushing them —

each other's defences,

completely destroyed.