They only made it a few miles, Lian giving Tang as much quiet as he needed, before the rain started to come. As the sun set the rain became heavier and the wind picked up. The tarp on the cart started to come loose and the thin forest provided hardly any protection against the sting of the driving droplets.

Then the lightning started and Lian decided they had to find shelter.

“There!” She pointed past Tang towards a rundown shack that had probably been a checkpoint some decades earlier before the latest census had redrawn the administrative lines. Tang nodded and together they ran into the invisible sting, the rain feeling like tiny daggers and the wind making it hard for Tang to pull at all. When they reached the shack they tucked the cart against the outside wall and rushed inside through a broken doorway.

They were not the first travelers to seek refuge in the shack. A small stack of reeds and grain stalks sat in one corner, kept dry by the thin planks and the heat that stagnated in the enclosed space. The roof had only one hole, where a bird of some sort had until recently kept a nest. There was even a small circle of stones for a fire. Lian grabbed a handful of the makeshift bed and started a fire, dimly illuminating the room and taking some of the chill away from their soaked clothes.

“Use this,” Tang offered, pulling out a small jug that smelled of heating oil. “I grabbed it when the tarp was breaking loose.”

Lian accepted the oil and carefully poured it onto the fire, where it hissed and jumped before catching and filling the room with light and heat.

“You’re hurt,” Tang said, his voice filled with concern.

Lian was similarly concerned. She hadn’t noticed anything. She looked to Tang then followed his eyes to a small scratch on her right thigh, already scabbed over. “Don’t worry about it,” she assured him. “I’ve had worse cuts from pet cats.”

“Please,” he formally bowed his head, “allow me to look after it. I was training to be a doctor, at school. I should make sure it won’t become infected.”

He looked up at her, and for the first time she really saw his face, untainted by confusion or grief or the exertion of carrying the cart. His hair slightly cleaned and slicked back by the rain, it had turned into quite a face. Handsome, probably the same age as Lian, with only the hint of a beard and thick, straight eyebrows that framed long, beautiful brown ovals for eyes.

Those eyes locked on hers and she knew he was not lying – he wanted to treat her wound. But he wanted more than that. And so did she.

“Ok,” she nodded. He bowed his head again but kept his eyes on her, then knelt at her side as she slowly loosened her tunic and pulled her trousers down to reveal the wound, and several inches higher.

Tang brought a hand up and ran his finger along the skin surrounding the wound before announcing, “You were right, this will be fine,” but it was no longer fine because that slightest touch had electrified Lian. It had been a few months for her, and she assumed it had been a while for him as well.

She kept her clothes exactly where they were and responded, “Are you sure? Perhaps you could take another look?” Before loosening her top entirely and letting it fall next to the fire. She watched him take her in, his eyes lighting up and a smile – sly and exhilarating – showing everything she needed to know.

“Maybe…” he swallowed, “maybe I could take a closer look. You Shuli Go are…” another swallow, “special cases after all.”

She gently pushed his shoulders until he was on his rear, then kept pushing him towards the pile of dried husks, slipping out of her pants as she did so. “It’s true what they say about us,” she said as he fell horizontally onto the pile, “every single thing.”

“Infertility. Such a shame,” he responded as she reached down into his robe and found his cock hard and ready.

“It has its advantages,” she whispered into his ear as she brought herself down onto him and was flooded with the overriding sensation that a few months had been a few too many. She too had become a desperate person, almost without knowing it.

As they fucked though, she realized it had been even longer for him. As in never before. She had assumed a student, let alone a student physician, would have frequented the brothels of his university town on a regular basis, let alone formed at least a few illicit relationships with the female students. Especially a doctor-to-be as good looking as him. But Tang’s movements were bumbling, hesitant, and misdirected. After the initial waves of pleasure had taken her past the stage of tingling excitement, she reoriented, grabbed his face in her hands, and kissed him, softly but fully. She did not want his first time to be an awkward mess he would regret. She slowed her rhythm, undressed him fully, and pressed her body against his, guiding his hands and encouraging him with the movements of her body. And she kept encouraging him as the oil began to burn out, the smoke lifted out the small hole in the roof, and the storm pounded on the walls of shack.