A Strange Woman Was There
A strange woman was there.
Thud!
“Haa… haa… haa…”
I collapsed onto the floor of my room, half-unconscious, and let out a thin, whimpering breath. God, I felt like I was going to die. For the first time I truly understood what it must have been like for the camp inmates and serfs I used to read about back when I was obsessed with Russian literature—it no longer felt like someone else’s story.
I never knew I could miss my tiny one-room place this badly. The floor against my cheek was cold and unpleasant, yet it felt like the only thing welcoming me home alive. So I just lay there face-down for a long time, mind blank, breathing. And I remembered.
“All right, get out.”
“Hngk!”
“What? Falling over all by yourself. People are going to think I pushed you.”
Lee Seonwu stepped out of the car and looked down at me sprawled on the ground with an expression of pure disbelief, then scoffed. My legs simply refused to hold me. The method he had used to “extract” the semen from my womb had been the absolute worst. Wasn’t a simple syringe or something normal for this kind of thing?
Instead he had jammed a metal instrument that looked like forceps deep into my vagina and forced it open. The icy metal and the cold air rushing into the gap made my body seize up on its own. Then came the brutal scraping.
He shoved something that felt like solid gold deep enough to touch the very end of me, and I had no choice but to scream while clutching the exam-table mat. My feelings clearly meant nothing to him. He roughly scooped and dug until he had pulled everything out. It felt… like what an abortion must feel like, something I had never experienced.
The truly absurd part was that even while the merciless treatment hurt, another part of me was trembling with a bizarre, electric thrill that climbed my tailbone, raced up my spine, and reached the back of my neck. So this was the orgasm the thing he planted inside me had been detecting?
This couldn’t be right. Thinking about it… I had never really experienced an orgasm before. As a man I had just assumed the satisfaction of ejaculating was the same thing, but that had clearly been an entirely different, lesser kind of release.
This was closer to the harmful sensation of being electrocuted. Like a broken machine—which, to be fair, wasn’t far from the truth—I endured his hands for what felt like forever before he finally finished scooping out every last drop Kangho had left inside me.
“Ugh… all this extra work thanks to a female test subject.”
With a look of pure distaste, Lee Seonwu scraped the fluids he had pulled from me into a petri dish and dumped the whole dish into the same machine he had been about to use to dispose of my suppressant. I stared at it blankly, strangely unsettled by a faint sense of loss I couldn’t explain.
Only after that ordeal was I finally allowed to put my clothes back on. Then, even though he didn’t have to, he drove me all the way to my building and let me out. When the car door opened and I saw the entrance to my one-room place, I nearly cried with relief.
I tried to hurry away like I was fleeing, but the moment I stepped out my legs gave way and I sank straight to the ground. They truly had no strength left. The place that had endured unimaginable things yesterday and today was only now, with the tension gone, screaming in pain.
Still I clenched my teeth and forced myself upright. The last thing I wanted was for him to get out and try to help me if I kept stumbling. Honestly… I didn’t want to spend even one more minute near the man who had nearly murdered me psychologically and broken my will.
But he spoke as if confirming the firm new order of our relationship.
“Hey? Just leaving like that? A mere female test subject? Don’t you have something you should be doing?”
“Ah… th-thank you for today, Director Lee Seonwu. And… thank you for giving me the suppressant. I won’t forget this kindness.”
“Hmph. Looks like you’ve gained a little self-awareness. Have you, legitimate heir of Hexagon?”
It was a deliberate provocation. Clear as day. I flinched, shook my head hard, bowed again, and answered in a trembling voice.
“N-no… I’m not that. I’m… just a female test subject. Your… guinea pig. Please don’t call me that. I’m begging you.”
“Huu… Fine. Good to see you finally know your place. Go on in.”
He went back to the car, and the large medical vehicle disappeared from our neighborhood. Only long after it was gone could I stagger toward home. I wanted to go. I wanted to return. To my house… old and filthy and empty, but I wanted to go back.
I wanted to be alone. Right now I couldn’t think about anything. So please… just let me collapse somewhere no one else was. That was the only thought left in my head. Feeling like I was climbing a high mountain, I dragged my shaking legs up the stairs and finally reached my door.
With that thought still looping, I lay motionless on the floor for a long time. Only when my breathing slowly steadied did my mind begin to feel like it was returning to normal. But “normal” had nothing to do with recovery. It was the opposite—worsening.
All the physical pain and mental collapse I had been too tense and disoriented to notice came crashing over me at once, like a dam bursting.
“Heuuuugh!!! Ah… it hurts!”
My back arched and the pain I had been forcibly holding back between my legs surged forward. Being violated all night by Kangho had been bad enough, but Seonwu’s subsequent cruelty made it even more horrific. And though not as intense as that, every muscle and joint Kangho had twisted, bent, and squeezed all night was screaming too.
My body convulsed, replaying yesterday’s nightmare over and over. But worse than any of it was the psychological agony.
I had been raped. By another man.
The fact that I had spent the entire night wailing in his arms while he raped me shattered my mind. Yet because I had already faced that once when leaving the motel, the damage was somehow lesser. What came after hurt far more.
I had submitted. To the bastard who held my identity hostage.
The things I had crawled to him ready to do just to get the suppressant made me want to die of shame. Being mocked and kicked for those same actions was just as humiliating. Even if Kangho hadn’t known who I really was, in front of someone who did… I had completely broken and surrendered.
Only endless sorrow and despair filled me. I curled in on myself. But that only made the feel and smell of my clothes more unbearable. I had left without washing after last night’s ordeal; the sticky residue and stench of his fluids still clung to everything.
“Disgusting!”
I frantically tore the clothes off. Even that didn’t come easily. The fabric, glued to my sticky skin, refused to let go. I had to rip them away as if peeling a layer of my own body, pain flaring with every pull.
And then… the naked woman in the mirror was looking at me again. A shabby woman. A pathetic woman. An unfortunate woman. A stupid, horrifying woman who seemed to have gathered every misfortune in the world onto herself, yet still wore the tragic-heroine expression like she was acting. Looking at her, I muttered,
“Fucking… bitch!”
I collapsed right there. Consciousness faded. Thankfully it wasn’t anything serious—just exhaustion dragging me under. But as my eyes closed I sincerely wished that this wasn’t mere sleep, but death itself.
Please let me never open my eyes again. With that prayer I sank into the dark.
When I opened my eyes it was the next morning. Sadly my wish had not been granted. And the ridiculous part was… after everything I had endured, the first thought that hit me was absurd.
“Huh? I’m late for work… Ah! Today’s my day off.”
I sat up in a panic to check the alarm, then realized today was luckily the second of two consecutive days off and exhaled in relief. Right. That was why… I had been able to drink so freely with Kangho the night before.
If I had needed to go to work, maybe I wouldn’t have lost my mind so completely. Fresh regret that felt like dying washed over me. The dull, lingering ache deep inside and in my hip joints kept reminding me it had not been a nightmare. And on top of that came another ridiculous feeling.
“Ah, it’s cold…”
Maybe because I had slept naked on the floor for nearly a full day, my body was freezing. Cold. Hah… and the fact that I was completely naked yet had somehow left my socks on was almost funny. Really… what a stupid, idiotic woman. So I peeled off the clammy socks and looked at the clothes I had thrown aside.
Honestly… I didn’t even want to touch them. The fishy stench was still vivid, and they looked sticky as if still wet. The white crusted patches here and there were disgusting to look at. Worst of all was the smell of Kangho clinging to them.
“Son of a bitch. Leaving the smell of the thing he shoved into me however he wanted…”
The afterimage was intense. The scent of that beast that had forced my lips open, burrowed deep inside me, and made me scream had followed me all the way home like a brand burned into livestock. I staggered up, gathered everything, and shoved it into the washing machine.
Then I immediately turned on the shower right next to it and let the water pour over my body. Standing under the spray I realized something.
“He came a lot… on my hair too. I didn’t even notice it was all matted. Heh heh heh… fucking hell.”
I washed my battered body under the shower, thinking it would almost be better if the water were hydrochloric acid so this filthy body could just melt and wash down the drain. Only after standing under the hot water for a long time did I finally step out.
Towel on my head, I left the laundry-slash-shower room and returned to the main room. The machine was still running, but the smell had not vanished. It still rose from the spot where I had thrown the clothes. So… I wiped the floor with the towel. I scrubbed until the floor itself seemed about to wear away.
“Haa… haa… haa…”
I had wasted so much strength that I was sweating and out of breath. But at least I was free of the smell. Only then could I finally breathe. Pain still lingered and tormented me, yet for the moment I felt I had taken one step away from the nightmare.
I sank down where I stood and drew a deep breath. Then, on impulse, I turned my head and looked at the mirror again. And felt a strange sense of dissonance.
“Did I… always look like that?”
A strange woman was there. It was me, yet deeply unfamiliar. A girl-like woman wearing a faintly sad expression… Why was that face looking back at me from the glass? The question went unanswered. I turned away from all of it and lay down again. I just wanted to sleep. Right now… I only wanted to sleep.
Perhaps still praying I would never wake up.
“Good morning.”
I clocked in while listening to the staff greet one another. Even after two days off, my mood was still pure gloom. When the morning alarm rang I had sat for a long time debating whether I should even go to work. But the answer was already decided. I had no choice but to stagger out the door.
This was the only place left in the world where I could keep myself alive. So my heart felt unbearably heavy. Goddamn it. A rape victim was walking straight toward the place where her attacker worked. I used to not understand why separation measures for sexual assault cases mattered. Now the thought of having to see him made fury boil up inside me.
I want to kill him. I sincerely want to kill him. Burning with that hatred, I dragged my unsteady steps toward the sales floor. And that was when it happened.
“Ha! Why isn’t the ajumma moving faster? Coming back all worn out after playing around. Right, oppa?”
Jeonga’s sharp jab made me look up in surprise. There they were—Jeonga and Kangho. Jeonga hadn’t changed at all. She still hated me and treated tormenting me like her personal right and entertainment. She was hanging on Kangho’s arm. And Kangho…
“Ah, let go, you bitch. I told you not to do this on the floor.”
“Aing. What’s the big deal? You stood me up, so you can at least give me this much.”
He forcibly peeled her arm off and turned his gaze away from me. Right. Nothing had changed. He wasn’t looking at me. Not even a speck of guilt showed on his face. He was exactly the same as always. That fact made my anger surge. So that was all I had been to him?