I Want You, Not Your Body

Lara's room was full of lamps.

On the ceiling, on the walls, on the floor.

Wicks were packed in so densely it was hard to believe this was the wagon of a traveling dancer — could a nomad's cart ever have any business being this bright? Even a single small lamp cost money for oil. On this continent, one bottle of lamp oil was worth a bottle of soju — which is to say, roughly the price of a Magic Tower research grant. Pure luxury. And Lara was burning it without the slightest restraint.

"Why do you light so many lamps?" I asked.

Lara laughed. Her shoulder, draped in red silk, swayed with it.

"Because I have to be seen," she said. "A dancer in the dark doesn't fetch a price."

Price. There it was again. Price.

Every time this woman spoke of her own body, she did it like reading a ledger from a merchant house. No emotion. Just numbers.

"You said one lamp burns a bottle's worth of soju." I looked around the room. "You're burning an entire Magic Tower right now."

"You've got to burn at least this much to make a good impression on a customer." She shrugged. "The brighter it is, the higher I can name my price."

The brighter it is, the higher the price. That was the world this woman had learned.

"You remember what I said yesterday?" Lara drew closer.

Her outfit left very little to the imagination. Adult clothing in this world tended that way by default, but Lara took it to another level entirely. Now I understood — it was deliberate. The more a woman hid, the less she was worth, so this woman had never once learned how to hide.

"I told you I could sell you, or I could have you." She lifted my chin with a fingertip. The edge of her nail traced coolly along my throat. "I said the latter."

"I remember."

"So here I am. — To have you."

Out of habit, I opened the system. Scan.

Glitched again.

It had been like this yesterday too — the moment I scanned Lara, the reading fell apart. I couldn't see into her at all.

Made sense. She was an information broker; concealing her own intel was her trade. A woman who bought everyone else's secrets while refusing to sell a single shard of her own.

Directly.

Convenient bastard. The moment things get hard, it dumps the work on me. It eats my coins all day long, and in the end I'm the one who has to find the answers.

But — with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the scan dead, I could actually see her better.

What I'd been reading through a screen, I now read with my own eyes.

Lara was smiling. But that smile was a smile for sale.

The face of a woman quoting a price to a customer. Corners of the mouth turned up, eyes running calculations.

"Lara." I shut the system down. "You're not seducing me right now, are you?"

Her fingertips stopped.

"...What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're making a deal. The only way you know how. With your body."

Lara's eyes wavered — just barely, just for an instant. And I caught that hairline fracture without any scan at all.

"What's wrong with that?" She shrugged. "Everyone's bought me that way. That's what a dancer is. Show the body, take the price, sell a night."

"How old were you?"

"...What?"

"How old were you when your body first got a price tag?"

Lara, for the first time, couldn't answer.

The selling smile slid off her face like melting frost. The lips that had been quoting numbers pressed shut.

"...No customer has ever asked me that." She managed at last.

"I keep telling you. I'm not a customer."

"Twelve." She said it a long moment later, the laughter drained from her voice.

"I was twelve when I first took the stage. People looked at me. Called me pretty. Asked what I cost."

She touched her own red silk. Her fingertip brushed down the hem of the fabric.

"I thought that was who I was. A body on display. A body with a price tag. — What else did I even have?"

"Lara."

"That's why I became an information broker, too." She smiled bitterly. "Other people's secrets sell high. But you know what's funny? I can read anyone's heart, and not a single person in my whole life was ever curious about mine."

She looked at me.

"They only ever wondered about my price. What does a night with this dancer cost? What does this one piece of information cost? — Not one soul ever asked what the woman named Lara was worth."

"So that's why you priced yourself so high?"

"...You got me." She gave a short laugh. "The higher I priced myself, the more I felt like something valuable. But an object is an object no matter how expensive. What good does a rising price do? Once it's sold, it's over."

She wound the hem of the red silk around her fingertip, twisting it over and over.

"When they first priced me at twelve, I thought it was a compliment. Look, they think I'm pretty enough to be worth something. But somewhere around sixteen, I figured it out. A price tag means — you're merchandise. Something to be bought and sold."

Lara was still smiling. But this time it wasn't the smile for sale.

It was worse. It was the smile of a woman expecting nothing at all.

I took her hand. Pried it away from the red silk.

"Lara. I'm not buying your information."

"...What?"

"And I'm not buying your body."

Lara's face went rigid. Her hand stiffened inside mine.

"Then what did you come here to—"

"I need you." I said. "Not your information. Not your body either. — You."

The lamplight in the room seemed, for a moment, unbearably bright.

Lara's eyes slowly welled up in that glow.

"...Saying things like that is cheating." She laughed softly. This time, it was real. "You're the first customer who never quotes a price."

"I'm not a customer."

"Right. — Not a customer." She wiped at her eyes. "If you were a customer, this wouldn't be so terrifying."

Lara pushed me back. Into the very heart of the lamplight.

"Should I put out the lights?" I asked.

"Leave them on." She said. "...I'm someone who survives by being seen. Someone worthless in the dark. But."

She swallowed.

"Tonight — I want you to look at me. Not because of the price."

Lara laid her hands on the knot of red silk at her shoulder. For a heartbeat, her fingertips hesitated. It was the first time in her life she was taking off the clothes she'd always shed for a price — shedding them for free.

Siiip.

The silk slid down from her shoulders. Her body emerged beneath the lamplight. Her sun-kissed skin caught the flames and seemed to glow from within, warmth spreading outward like a ripple.

The body that had always been on display. But tonight, it was a body she was choosing, of her own will, to show.

"Are you nervous?" I asked.

"Yeah." She laughed. "First time. — Being nervous like this, I mean."

I took her in my arms. The lamplight washed over both of us. Everywhere our skin met, her warmth transferred over like an ember catching.

Lara's hands undressed me. Practiced, fluent movements — but her hands were trembling. In those skilled fingertips, for the first time, there was the tremor of someone learning something brand new.

"Look at me." She whispered, hot breath spilling against the nape of my neck. "All of me. — Not just the body. Me, too."

My hand swept down her back. From the line of her shoulders to her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠waist, slowly.

Lara flinched. Like someone receiving a touch that wasn't appraising her — a touch that simply wanted to know her — for the very first time.

"...That tickles." She laughed. "Don't touch me like that. I don't know how I'm supposed to react."

"What do you usually do?"

"Usually? — I act." She dropped her gaze. "But right now, I can't act."

I hardened. Lara wrapped her fingers around me. Her hand was hot. When her fingertips rolled over the head, my lower abdomen pulled taut as a bowstring.

"...Big." She laughed. Out of habit. "I wonder how much I could charge for this."

"No charging. Remember?"

"Right." Her eyes welled up again. "No charge. For real."

I pressed my lips to her breast. The moment my tongue circled her, Lara's back arched slightly off the ground.

"Ah..." A low sound escaped her. "That's... something I always did for customers. I've never once been on the receiving end..."

"Receive it now, then."

I slid my hand lower. Past the soft inside of her thigh, to that place between them.

She was already soaked through. The instant my fingertip grazed her, it made a wet, obscene sound.

"Ah, nnh..." Lara shuddered. "Under the lamplight... you can see everything."

"Embarrassed?"

"No." She shook her head. "I like it. — Because it's you looking. I like it."

I eased a finger inside, and with a squelch her depths clenched around it. Hot and narrow. Every time my fingertip moved, her wetness ran all the way down to my wrist.

"There..." Lara's voice climbed higher. "There, it feels strange... I keep wanting you to look. I want you watching me."

"I'll keep looking."

"Yes... yes, look at me." She spread herself open toward the lamplight. Far from hiding, she was trying to be seen even more. "Like this... even with everything showing, I'm not embarrassed at all. It's terrifying."

The lamplight traced her body from top to bottom.

Her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. And the place between.

Lara spread her own legs wider.

"Like this?"

"You know how. Do it yourself."

"Is this how you want it?"

Her pussy was laid completely bare beneath the lamps.

Already soaked, glistening where the firelight caught it.

"Lara."

"Yes."

"You're the one showing me right now. Nobody's telling you to."

Lara looked down at herself.

At her own body, the way one looks at another person's possession.

"...I really am the one spreading them. Right?"

"You are."

"And I don't need to take payment for it. Right?"

"It's not about payment. It's yours."

At those words, Lara's hands rose to her own breasts.

She grasped them herself.

"Ah—." The moment she reacted to her own touch, Lara was the one startled first.

"My nipples... even though it's my own hands..."

"That's because they're yours."

"Then... what about this?"

Her fingers rolled one nipple, as if leaving the other to me.

"Is this one yours to do?"

"This one you can leave to me."

When I pushed two fingers in, her inner walls spread open with a louder, wetter sound. Lara's thighs trembled violently.

"Ah, nnh..." She moaned low. "I've never felt this before... liking it not as a body, but as me."

A woman whose excitement came from being watched. But this time the gaze on her wasn't a price. It was me.

I laid her down. In the very center of the lamplight.

Lara spread her legs. With her own hands, she opened the place she'd been taught all her life to conceal.

"Look at me." She panted. "All of it... let me show you all of it."

I pressed the tip of my cock against her entrance. The moment the head touched her soaked flesh, Lara's hips rose to meet me first.

"Can I put it in?"

"Yes. — Where you can see everything. Slowly."

With a slick sound, I slid inside.

"Ah, nnh...!"

Lara's back bowed. The lamplight traced every curve of her. Her depths clamped down hard on my cock and shuddered as though taking me for the first time.

"Can you see it?" Lara wedged the question between breaths. "My face. Right now."

"I can see it."

"How is it?"

"Your face right now — no price could cover it."

Lara tried to laugh. The laugh was cut off by a moan.

"Ah, nnh — ha."

I picked up the pace.

Squelch. Squelch. Squelch.

The lamplight threw our two shadows onto the wall, tangled and swaying.

Lara matched my rhythm, moving with me.

Watching everything she was doing to herself, from above, in full view.

"Spread open like this, with everything showing — aahn."

"Feels good?"

"It feels good." The answer came instantly. "I didn't know it was allowed to feel this good."

Her breasts swayed with the rhythm.

Lara pressed a hand over them, too.

"Ah, nnh — ! There, both at once."

I drove into her slowly. So she could see all of it. Exactly the way she wanted.

Squelch. Squelch.

The sound of flesh meeting flesh echoed under the lamplight. Every impact made her breasts shake, and the firelight caught even that trembling in full.

"Keep looking..." Lara moaned. "Keep... keep looking at me..."

"I'm looking. At you. All of you."

The woman I could never read had opened the door herself, on her own two feet.

Lara's body tightened beneath the firelight. Her inner walls rippled as though trying to swallow me whole.

"There...!" She clutched at my back. Her nails dug in. "There, more... so you can see...!"

I drove deeper. Every time my cock buried itself to the hilt, the wet sounds grew richer.

Lara's voice started low and climbed higher and higher.

"Ah... aah... ah, nnh...!!!"

She arched like a drawn bow. Beneath the lamplight, her whole body laid bare.

The body that had spent its entire life only being looked at — for the first time, it trembled because it was wanted. Not priced. Wanted.

"Me... are you looking at me right now?" Her voice broke. "Not my body... me?"

"I'm looking at you." I took her face in my hands. "Not pricing it. Lara — you."

Tears spilled from Lara's eyes. She cried while she smiled.

"Can I come?" I asked.

"Inside." She gasped. "Where you can see everything, inside me... come because it's what you want."

Lara's pussy clamped down hard. It pulled my cock in to the very root. Her depths quivered like a convulsion, begging.

I surged forward and came deep inside her.

My release poured out hot and thick, filling her to her deepest end.

"Ah, nnh — !!!"

Lara crested. The lamplight caught even that final trembling in full. Her toes curled, her back bent like a bow, and her sun-kissed skin glowed across the fallen red silk.

Lara collapsed on top of me.

The lamps were still burning bright across the room. Our two shadows overlapped on the wall, swaying together.

For a long while, neither of us spoke. Her breathing slowly settled against my chest.

"...The lights. You can put them out now." She drew a breath.

"Why?"

"Because I've shown you everything there is to show." She laughed softly. "My body, and me. — Both of them, for the first time."

Lara pressed a fingertip to my chest. Not a hand that priced things — just a hand resting there, simply because it wanted to.

"Hey." She said quietly. "Just now, for the first time in my life, I couldn't put a number on something. On what kind of night this was."

"Don't price it."

"I won't." She buried her face in my chest. "I couldn't even if I tried. — Because it's not for sale."

After a long silence, she laughed a little.

"But honestly, it scares me. If something has no price, how would I ever know how much it would hurt to lose it?"

"You won't lose it."

"...That's cheating too, you know." She poked my chest. "Don't make groundless promises to an information broker. Verifying claims like that is literally my job."

"Then verify it." I stroked her hair. "Stake your whole life on it."

Lara held her breath, then let it out in one long exhale. That breath spread warm across my chest.

Lara sat up and draped the red silk loosely around herself.

"Kang Dohyun. I'm an information broker."

"I know."

"But starting today — my entire information network is on your side."

"Why?"

"Because you bought me." She laughed. "No — you didn't buy me. — Because you wanted me."

"Is it really okay for an entire intelligence network to defect like that? Aren't you taking a loss?"

"It's a loss, all right." She shrugged. "A woman who lived her whole life by price alone, making her first losing deal. — And yet, strangely, I don't regret a thing."

She drew her knees up and sat.

"Here's one piece of information, on the house. First-customer service."

"Free?"

"One piece of my intel normally runs the price of a single bottle of cola." She winked. "That's a dancer's weekly wage on this continent. But for you, a special rate. — Free."

A bottle of cola was a week's wages. And a single piece of information was worth that bottle of cola.

The exchange rate of this world was still completely insane. Which meant what Lara had just handed me for free was the equivalent of tossing a dancer's weekly wage straight into my lap.

"What's the information?"

The playfulness drained from Lara's face.

"The Bureau has moved."

The door boomed.

Lara tucked the red silk closed over herself. I grabbed my clothes.

Through the gap under the door, a rolled document was pushed inside with a soft thud.

A wax seal. An unfamiliar crest. In the lamplight, the wax glistened the color of blood.

Sera came up from downstairs. Her face was frozen hard.

"Dohyun. — That's a Bureau seal."

I broke the seal.

Forced acquisition.

Beneath those words, my fingertips went cold. The same fingertips that had been warm in the lamplight mere moments ago.

Lara took the scroll and skimmed it — an information broker's eyes, taking it in at a single sweep.

"'Registration'." She snorted. "Registration, my ass. This is a confinement permit. They mean to lock a National Treasure inside the state vault. A piece of paper that turns a person into property."

"Can ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠we stop it?"

"Not alone." Lara looked at me. "But you're not alone, are you?"

She smiled at me through the gap in the red silk — a smile I'd never seen on her before.

A smile that named no price.

"A duke's political power, a tavern stronghold, — and my information network besides. Let's teach the Bureau a lesson it won't forget."

The system gallery lit up.

Word that her intelligence network had already turned to my side — was spreading across the continent.

Lara glanced sideways at the screen.

"See? My network's fast, isn't it?"

"...Scary-fast."

"It's me bragging about my lover." She shrugged. "That's what we should call each other now. Us."

A woman who had been valued only by the price on her body had, for the first time, named a price for herself.

And that price was the one thing that could never be sold.