The Forbidden Condition
Taehyun and Seojin had spent the last few nights in fierce, burning passion.
It had become a new source of vitality in their marriage.
Taehyun believed, at last, that he had escaped the wretched prison of Erectile Dysfunction and could once again take his place as a husband.
So did Seojin. She had begun to feel more confident, as though she finally possessed a woman’s allure.
But that happiness did not last long. Soon, he had to face the cruel truth behind his own arousal.
The only thing that could make him hard was the disgusting image of his wife, Seojin, with another man.
Only in that filthy stimulation did his desire blaze to life.
The memory of the reunion kept tormenting him relentlessly. The brazen looks men had cast at Seojin, and Yoonsoo’s eyes, would not leave his mind.
“They’d be desperate to fill her up, wouldn’t they.”
“A new kind of stimulation.”
“Wouldn’t you be curious about that kind of stimulation too, sis-in-law?”
Yoonsoo’s words. Those scenes had been replaying in his head ever since that day, edited and looped over and over.
He loathed himself for such a monstrous truth and sank deeper into self-disgust.
“No. Forget it. I can’t obsess over thoughts like this....”
He tried desperately to think of happier times.
Memories of the Maldives, where they had gone for their honeymoon, and the happy days they had spent by the sea.
The things he had whispered while holding Seojin in his arms on the beach, the clear smiles they had shared.
Those memories warmed his chest for just a moment, but soon they were cruelly twisted into filthy fantasies and visions of Seojin drowning in that pleasure.
Taehyun loved Seojin. He still loved her now. But he hated himself for being drawn to such perverse imaginings.
Since then, every morning when he faced his reflection, it looked unfamiliar, as though he were seeing a different man each day.
His eyes were bloodshot from insomnia, and his skin looked dry, as if he had aged years overnight.
Is this... me?
The worsening self-loathing slowly swallowed him like a swamp. Under such circumstances, work had become a kind of torture.
Taehyun worked at a famous IT company, and yet the place felt like hell.
The fluorescent lights, the keyboards, the ringing phones in the bleak office—everything seemed to tighten around his chest.
Amid the pile of work, the clatter of keys filled the office, but after that it was only mindless clicking and typing, one empty motion after another.
“Deputy Section Chief Park, what the hell are you doing? Where’s your head at?”
At the section chief’s bark, Taehyun’s shoulders jerked. The report was full of typos. He kept making mistakes he never would have made before.
“I’m sorry. I’ll fix it right away.”
“Are you even awake? And what’s with that face?”
“I’m sorry... I haven’t been sleeping properly lately....”
The section chief sighed, clicked his tongue, and went back to his own work.
Taehyun sat down, scrubbed his face with dry hands, and sank into his chair.
Whenever he closed his eyes, the scene from the reunion came rushing back without fail.
Seojin’s face, overlaid with the photo Yoonsoo had shown him.
Damn it. Fuck...
He felt the space between his thighs growing hard.
He was in the middle of a company office, imagining his wife being defiled—what kind of man was he? In self-disgust, he tore at his own hair.
Unable to bear it, Taehyun headed up to the company rooftop. The staircase leading there was deserted.
The rooftop was the company’s unofficial smoking area. The scent of cigarettes drifting on the wind stung his nose.
Taehyun sat on a bench and tossed a piece of gum into his mouth.
“If I smoked, I’d be lighting one up right now...”
Sitting there, Taehyun looked up at the blue sky.
In the past, he might have stepped out for a cigarette, but now he couldn’t do that at all.
He had come this far only by clinging to his promise with Seojin and to the hope of rebuilding their relationship.
But whenever he remembered the condition his arousal depended on, his head throbbed painfully.
Why am I like this?
He was frowning when—
“Deputy Section Chief, what are you doing up here alone?”
At the bright voice, he looked up to find Jang Yerin, an employee from the neighboring department. Her short hair swayed cheerfully in the wind.
“Oh, Yerin.”
“You’re chewing gum again? Quitting smoking must be really tough. Your face looks like a country that’s just lost a war.”
Yerin giggled and sat down beside him.
“Yeah. It’s harder than I thought.”
“But Deputy Section Chief, you’ve been acting weird lately. You space out a lot. Did you and your wife fight?”
“...No, nothing like that.”
“Come on, you definitely look like you’ve got something on your mind. My brother got married and aged like ten years in no time too. Is married life that rough?”
Yerin’s innocent joke pierced straight through Taehyun’s heart.
For a moment, his mind raced through the whole chain of thoughts—reunion, sexless marriage, swapping.
He shook his head.
“What are you talking about...?”
“Oh my gosh, sorry! I was kidding, kidding. But seriously, Deputy Section Chief, you look awful. At least eat something good and cheer up.”
Yerin took an energy drink from her pocket and handed it to him. Taehyun accepted it and let a small smile appear.
“Thanks. I’ll do my best.”
“Fighting!”
She clenched her fist in a little cheer, then waved and headed back to the office.
Her pure encouragement briefly refreshed his heart, but the desire and fantasies he held about Seojin refused to disappear so easily.
That night, dragging his exhausted body home, Taehyun returned to the apartment. Seojin had gotten off work first and was sitting quietly on the living room sofa, reading.
“You’re home.”
“Yeah, I’m home? I’ll cook once I’ve had a shower.”
“Just a little while longer...”
Taehyun sat down heavily beside her.
Seojin had changed into a thin short-sleeved shirt and shorts.
The white line of her nape and the swell of her cleavage between her clothes stole his gaze.
If another man were kissing that neck and those breasts...
Seized by the fantasy, the lower half of him reacted at once. He panicked, but Seojin had already noticed the change.
“Honey, again?”
Her voice held both surprise and delight. She reached between his legs.
“Honey, this is really amazing. So the effect from quitting smoking is finally kicking in?”
“Seojin, wait a second...”
“What do you mean, wait? Look how hard you are.”
Seojin led Taehyun straight into the bedroom without hesitation.
Their lovemaking was fierce, but Taehyun’s eyes were unfocused.
He wasn’t looking at Seojin, but at something that didn’t exist.
After the sex ended, Seojin lay beneath the covers, catching her breath while damp with sweat, and asked,
“Honey, why have you been doing so well lately?”
Her voice was soft, but there was a sharp curiosity in it.
“I don’t know. It just suddenly started working.”
Taehyun smiled awkwardly. But Seojin kept pressing.
“Really? It’s because you love me, right?”
“Yeah. I really do love you.”
She stared steadily into his eyes.
Taehyun hurriedly tried to explain himself, but a woman’s intuition was a frightening thing. Seojin did not miss the hesitation.
“I love you too, more than anything... but right now, it feels like you’re hiding something.”
“....”
“You don’t have to hide it. We’ve lived together for five years. So tell me honestly.”
Taehyun stared up at the ceiling and drew in ragged breaths.
He could no longer keep gnawing on it alone inside his chest.
If he kept carrying this secret by himself, he felt like he would really go insane.
“Seojin.”
“Yeah? Go on.”
Taehyun’s mouth trembled.
“I... can’t say it...”
He could not bring himself to voice the emotion rising from his own body.
“No. Say it. It’s okay...”
“If I say it.... you might hate me...”
Taehyun looked as though he might start crying. But Seojin only gazed at him gently.
“It’s okay. You can be honest.”
Seojin tried to reassure him, and at that, Taehyun seemed to find a shred of courage and opened his mouth.
“I... haven’t been normal since the reunion.”
“Because of what Yoonsoo said?”
Taehyun nodded. His voice shook with guilt and shame.
“I imagine you mixed up with other men. And then... what never used to happen suddenly gets hard, like it’s about to burst. I hate myself for it so much, but I can’t stop.”
Seojin seemed to go rigid. Only silence flowed through the room.
Taehyun squeezed his eyes shut.
“It’s okay if you hate me... You’d have every right to leave. But... I think I’m really sick.”
“...So? You mean it isn’t enough to satisfy you just imagining it?”
Seojin’s voice was calmer than he had expected. She lifted both hands to his face and made him meet her eyes.
“You... don’t tell me you actually want to try it for real? What those people were saying.”
Taehyun swallowed dryly. It felt as if his heart might leap out of his body.
It was as though the morality and reason he had spent his whole life building were being tossed into a trash bin.
“So... what would you want me to do?”
Seojin’s voice trembled, but there was a sincerity in it—a willingness to understand, to share the burden with him.
Taehyun hesitated, stammering and unable to get the words out.
His heart was pounding so hard it felt ready to burst.
“...I want to see you in another guy’s arms... with my own eyes.”
Seojin sucked in a breath. The words she had just heard were so outrageous she could barely believe they were Korean.
What her husband had just said was a bomb, one that could blow apart the ordinary, warm home they had built over the last five years all at once.
Seojin was left speechless. The face of Taehyun at their wedding, swearing to protect her for the rest of his life, flashed across her mind.
She remembered them holding hands and laughing on their honeymoon, too.
She could no longer tell whether the Taehyun in those memories and the man now before her, head bowed and shaking with shame, were even the same person.
It felt as though some corner of her chest had collapsed.
It would have been right to get angry and slap him across the face, and yet her heart was racing with an unfamiliar pulse, not fear but something else entirely.
The sight of Taehyun’s shame-wracked face, as though he were trying to hurl her away like an object, sent a chill skimming through Seojin’s lower stomach.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Seojin. But......even yesterday, I did it while imagining that. If I don’t, I can’t get hard. I’m really a fucking lunatic, aren’t I?”
Taehyun buried his face in Seojin’s knees and sobbed.
Seojin, trembling faintly, brushed back her husband’s hair with her hand.
Over the image of her husband making this shameful confession, Yoonsoo’s eyes from the reunion overlapped—those eyes that had swept over her like she was an animal.
“...Let’s stop here for tonight.... I can’t answer yet...”
Seojin’s voice had gone ragged.
Her mind was crowded with anger and betrayal.
But lately, Taehyun had been collapsing so completely.