The First Step Into the Taboo
The evenings and nights in July were oppressively hot, but the air inside the house had settled into something even stickier, heavier, and more suffocating.
Seojin had not slept properly for days after hearing that shame-soaked confession. Taehyun, too, had been going through the days without getting a single decent hour of rest.
Silence flowed between them.
In Seojin’s ears, Taehyun’s desperate voice kept circling like a cursed hallucination.
You... I want to see you... in another man’s arms....
“This is so annoying... seriously... he’s lost his mind...”
Seojin muttered under her breath as she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Ever since Taehyun’s confession, she had felt her soul and body slowly rotting away a little more each day.
The first thing that stabbed her was betrayal.
The husband who had sworn to love and protect her for the rest of his life was trying to use her as a tool so he could cure his own impotence.
That fact tore at Seojin’s soul. Her chest ached as if it might be ripped apart by betrayal alone.
And against that betrayal, Seojin clung to the shield of her own morality and endured.
I... I’m not that cheap a woman... This is insane... He’s insane...
She kept scolding herself, telling herself she was not that kind of woman. And yet, beneath that, there was a dark shadow that tormented her even more.
Ever since she had heard her husband’s filthy proposal, the memory of Yunsu’s brazen gaze at the reunion, and the shameless looks from the other men, had kept rising up alongside that voice in her head.
No... why would I even imagine something like that...? There’s no way.
Seojin washed her face with cold water, trying to clear her head, but the heat in her mind did not cool.
The unpleasant, brazen stares and obscene words refused to disappear from her thoughts.
Wouldn’t the sister-in-law be curious about that kind of stimulation at least once?
Even Yunsu’s words, which had only been spoken in passing, echoed now like an illusion.
The scene Taehyun had described kept replaying with hideous clarity: herself, being ravaged by an unknown man’s hands, gasping and trembling inside that situation.
It was humiliating. It was terrifying. The sensation of becoming an object of desire—something she had not felt from her husband in more than a year—was frightening enough to make her skin crawl, and at the same time, pitiful beyond words.
And yet, in the midst of all that confusion, what finally moved Seojin was love.
She had spent a whole year watching Taehyun’s back, watching him as a man whose pride had been crushed over and over again. Even seeing her husband like that had been a kind of hell for her.
The desperate wish in him—to stand back up, even if it meant sending his wife to another man—pressed into Seojin’s heart.
Yes... for you, then.... If only you could smile again....
But guilt rushed in right after.
No... I’m not doing this for me... I’m doing this for Taehyun....
Seojin convinced herself that way. She repeated the same words over and over, as if chanting a spell.
Otherwise, she simply could not accept the choice she was about to make.
If her own defilement could heal her husband, if he could regain his confidence, then Seojin decided she would willingly walk that road.
She covered fear and betrayal with a single word: sacrifice.
Then several days passed, and morning came. On the table was the breakfast Seojin had prepared as always.
But the air between the two of them was cold as ice.
“You’re up?”
When he came into the living room, Seojin broke the silence first and asked softly. Seeing her husband’s face—worn down and exhausted after days like these—made her chest feel tight.
“Yeah... you?”
Taehyun answered weakly, avoiding her eyes. The bitterness of the coffee Seojin had set down filled his mouth.
“Well... I’m okay...”
Seojin forced a smile that wasn’t really there, as if trying to reassure him. Even while they ate breakfast, the two of them did so in silence.
Only the sound of spoons and bowls clinking against each other echoed through the house, and neither of them could say a word.
While eating, Taehyun looked at Seojin.
He watched the faint trembling in the hand holding her spoon, trying to read her expression. Then Seojin broke the silence again and spoke to him.
“What you said a few days ago... did you mean it?”
“...I’m sorry...”
Taehyun could not even lift his head; he just stared at his bowl. Guilt weighed down his voice.
Seojin quietly watched her husband’s shaking hands and eyes for a moment, then spoke in a low voice.
“I thought about what you said then all night... no, for days.”
There was hesitation in her gaze and her tone, but there was also a fierce resolve. She set down the spoon she had been holding and looked straight at Taehyun.
“This time, I’m going to respect your opinion.”
“What?”
Seojin answered carefully, but she was trembling.
“Go ahead and do it.”
“What did you say?”
“That... you want it that badly, and you’re hurting that much. I can’t just ignore that... And we can’t keep living like this either... If there’s even a chance this could be the answer...”
Taehyun thought he had misheard her. Seojin’s eyes were shaking, but her voice was firm.
There was unwavering determination in it.
“Are you really okay with this?”
Taehyun met Seojin’s gaze and looked into her face.
“Even if I’m not, I have to do it.... If it’s the way for you...”
“Thank you... honey... really... truly...”
Taehyun’s chest tightened. His voice broke and grew wet with emotion.
“Just once... only once.”
“Yes...”
Taehyun got up from his seat and pulled Seojin into his arms. The trembling of her body came through to him clearly against his chest.
Seojin buried her face in her husband’s embrace and shed tears in silence.
Several days passed. Even after obtaining Seojin’s permission, Taehyun found himself repeatedly dialing Yunsu’s number, only to delete it again, tormented by hesitation over and over and over.
For days, doubt lingered over whether the path he had chosen was truly the right one, and every moment it tightened around his heart.
But in the end, Taehyun finally gathered his courage.
He picked up his phone and pressed the numbers one by one.
...This should be okay...
The ringing tone sounded.
“Hello? What is it?”
Yunsu’s voice came through the receiver. Taehyun steadied his breathing. Swallowing hard, he answered.
“...Hello. About what you said at the reunion... I wanted to ask about it.”
Through the receiver, it almost felt as though he could hear Yunsu’s sly grin.
“You finally remembered? If you want, I can send you the website address later.”
“Thanks.”
“A woman like Seojin will be treated like a queen later on. Do well for yourself.”
His mocking laughter seemed to linger in the air.
Taehyun felt irritated, but he ignored it and ended the call.
No sooner had the call ended than the address of the site was sent to him through a messenger app.
Using his phone, Taehyun entered the website Yunsu had given him.
The site was called Open Sex Club, or OSC.
A secretive red logo floated over the black background.
Even just entering the site made Taehyun’s chest pound so hard it felt ready to burst.
After signing up, the first place he went was the photo board.
Full of curiosity, he opened it—and found the screen packed with photographs of naked men and women tangled together in sweat, their faces warped by pleasure.
Just looking at the pictures made his breathing quicken and his heart hammer violently.
His imagination overlaid Seojin’s face on top of them. The thought of Seojin being photographed while having sex with another man, and then being posted on a site like this, made his head feel as if it were ringing.
“Ugh...”
But even as Taehyun bit his lip in flustered embarrassment, the part of him below the waist had swollen to a shameful hardness. Guilt surged in with it.
He shut off the screen and tried to calm himself with a deep breath.
“Haa... is this really right...?”
Over and over, the same doubt returned. Was this truly the right path? He had made the confession, he had set this in motion, but he still kept wondering whether this was really the road meant for Taehyun and Seojin.
And yet he thought of the stubborn hardness gathering in his groin, and of Seojin—who had struggled these last few days, leaning on him and trusting him, even while she had given him her courage.
Just this once... only once... if everything works out properly... it’ll be okay...
Taehyun gathered himself and picked up his phone again.
Since this would be his first time, he judged that a one-on-one couple meeting would be the safest option. He searched the board for a couple with conditions similar to his own.
They were a couple in their early to mid-thirties.
Their introduction was written in a courteous style and accompanied by alluring photographs.
The man’s face was blurred, but his confident smile still seemed to reveal his looks. The woman showed off a body with soft, graceful curves.
Taehyun was about to contact them through the posted number, but he could not bring himself to do it.
I’m a fucking lunatic...
He wanted to make the call, but he still did not have the nerve to throw his wife into a dangerous situation.
Even while eating, even while working, that contact number never left his mind.
He wanted to reach out, but courage still would not come.
And then, suddenly, he remembered that Seojin had found the courage to do this for him.
Seojin was brave enough too... so why can’t I...?
Taehyun took out the number again and made the call. The other man answered, and they arranged the meeting with surprising ease.
“XX Hotel, this Saturday, 6 p.m. I’ll be looking forward to it.”
After the reservation was made, the crash of reality hit him at once. He set the phone down and stared blankly at the ceiling for a long while.
He could not quite believe what he had just done.
He had proposed sending the love of his life, Seojin, into another man’s arms—a man whose name he did not know, whose identity he did not know—and gotten a firm promise in return.
I’m insane... I’m trash...
He cursed himself and tore into his own conscience. And yet, the eyes staring back at him from beyond the phone screen were bright with life.
The sensation of the lower half of him, dead for more than a year, growing heavy again. The pleasure that came together with guilt was swelling in direct proportion to it.