Please, Untie Me
The wet sound of mixing saliva rang in my ears. Through my mouth, through bone and flesh, Inha's ragged breathing climbed into me.
My legs had been trembling, and now even after I let every last bit of strength go, the pain still rose and rose until I was pounding the bed with them.
"Hnnngh…! Hnnh…!"
My feet. My feet hurt so much. There was nothing sweet about the kiss. Whenever Inha exhaled through the tangle of our tongues — huu — the mint of her breath washed straight over me.
Then she pulled away with a soft phh. Through eyes that would barely open I saw her mouth — slick with spit that might or might not have been mine.
"Ahat. Cute."
"Hngh — u-unnie, i-it really, really hurts…!"
No matter how many times I said it, the cramp was not going to release itself. The pain kept climbing, and with it the thought that if this went on much longer I might never use my ankles again.
"P-please — please…!"
I begged. My legs kept shuddering, shuddering. Inha seized my calf and drove her thumb into the muscle.
"U-uaaah…! Aaaah…!"
"Shh."
"Hnnh…! Ugh…!"
The pain turned the world white. The only thing that eased it even a little was thrashing, so I thrashed — twisting and shaking my body any way I could.
"Ahaha. There's a little red spot forming. Oh no. What should I do? Hm? Heeyeon. Want me to let you go?"
"…!"
I nodded so hard my head spun. Inha slid her hand between my wide-open legs and pressed her index finger hard against my clitoris as she answered.
"Then come once. Do that and I'll untie you."
My toes kept curling in on themselves until I half-believed they would punch straight through the soles of my feet. I would have taken a dildo all day, taken blows to the lower belly — anything — if only I could straighten my feet again.
So I rolled my hips. Inha's hand did not move the way I needed it to, so I put everything I had into my waist and worked my pelvis. A warm current began to spread through the cramping foot and leg.
"Ghhk…! Uwaagh…!"
Pain-sounds kept spilling from my mouth while I rocked. Her fingertip skimmed over the skin.
"Ahaha! Ahat! Ah, your finger feels so weird!"
Inha laughed as she said it.
My legs had stopped trembling. I no longer even had the strength to shake them. I tried, somehow, to feel desire. I clenched my teeth and looked down at my own body through a swimming, tear-blurred field of vision — I didn't know when I'd started crying — and kept moving.
Nothing. No sensation at all. I opened the mouth I had been holding shut and shouted at her.
"U-unnie! Unnie!!! K-kiss me — please, kiss me…!"
Inha heard me and smirked. Then she leaned down. Her hair brushed my shoulder. At the same time an unfamiliar perfume bloomed thick around us, and warm lips met mine. I poured everything I had into that contact.
I did not close my eyes. I watched her eyes and her skin up close. When the corners of her eyes curved, something finally began to rise — a reproductive hunger that climbed even through the pain — and I worked my hips harder.
I opened my mouth to meet her tongue.
Her tongue came into me and played. The feeling of tongue against tongue was so strange — rough and soft at once — that it worked on me like an anesthetic. The moment I moved, she pulled the finger already slick with my wetness away.
"Mmph…! Huu…!"
I drove my tongue deeper, almost lunging at her. Only then did her index finger return, and I simply rocked my hips as hard as I could. The particular smell of cosmetics and perfume made my head swim.
When she finally lifted her head, her hands at last began to move toward my ankles.
"H-hurry…! Hurryyy…!"
People say the hardest moment to hold it is when you're punching in the door code. Leaving that aside — objectively, it was getting worse by the second. I shouted at her.
"Hold on just a little longer, Heeyeon. If you keep thrashing I can't undo them."
"Hwaaah…! Hwaaaang…! Please — please hurry…!"
Inha snagged my thrashing ankle and worked both hands. At last the restraint came free, and she flung the iron-bar-like thing off the bed.
"Hngh…! Hnngh…!"
My foot would not straighten. When I finally looked down and tried to open it, the place where the pain had lived was freckled with red spots rising sparsely across the skin.
Even so the cramp still had not fully released; the pain kept coming. Worse than the pain was the sudden terror that I might never move the ankle again.
"Ah — m-my f-foot. Why…? Why won't it — why won't it move…?"
My voice was calm. Inha laughed — ahahat — and said,
"Just a second, Heeyeon. Stay right there."
She pulled her phone from her pocket and photographed me with an audible click. Being photographed did not particularly bother me.
"U-unnie, I—"
"Ahahat! Ah — kh. Sorry, Heeyeon. I'll free you. Can't even take a joke, can you."
She put the phone away and carefully took hold of my foot with both hands — carefully enough that I felt no pain at all. Then she took my toes and slowly, slowly opened them, as if my foot had always been meant to live with its toes crumpled that way; I felt the muscle lengthen.
"Hngh…!"
I closed my eyes. I tucked my chin as far as it would go, shut my eyes, and clenched my jaw.
The toes that had been opening by degrees suddenly gave without resistance, and Inha began carefully pressing into the sole of my foot.
Little by little the muscle unclenched. The cramp began to subside. I could not see the sole well, but the calf where the cramp had risen had gone dark red, the way skin looks after a hard blow to the belly, and an ah slipped out of me.
"W-what do I do. M-my — my leg."
"Ahaha. No. It moves. Try moving it."
At her word I moved the ankle. When I rotated it a little, the wrist it was linked to moved a little too.
"See? It moves. Those are just burst capillaries. I told you they might burst."
"R-right — right. Ah — ugh…"
All at once my heart settled. The relief that the leg still worked, the relief that she had finally freed me — and the moment those thoughts arrived, something like nausea rose. My diaphragm climbed without end; I made a retching sound, and then the tears came in a flood.
"U-ah — hngh, hnngh…! Hwaaaang…!"
I could not understand why I had to endure this. I had done nothing wrong. I could not understand why this was happening to me. Was it because, in my senior year of university, buried under a graduation project, I had not picked up a stranger's phone when they fell in the street?
Still lying there with my legs spread, both hands still bound to my ankles in that ridiculous posture, I kept staring at my calves. The dark-red freckles slowly blurred, and then the whole of what was in front of me went milky until even keeping my eyes open was hard.
"Why are you crying, Heeyeon. Did it hurt that much?"
"Y-you're terrible…! You're so terrible…! Wh-why me…! Why are you doing this…! Uwaaaang…!"
Every time I spoke my breath hitch-hitched. Sobbing sounds jumped out of me against my will and broke the sentences apart.
"Well… it's a punishment, isn't it. Hm? Heeyeon."
Inha lay down beside me. Against my body that could not move in that stupid pose — against my forearm, specifically — she rubbed her chest as she spoke. Her face came close and buried itself in the side of my neck.
A soft inhale sounded at my ear; air moved across my nape and raised gooseflesh.
"Are you mad?"
She said it. My shoulder warmed under her breath.
"…Hic — kh — i-it hurts…"
"I asked if you're mad."
"Ah — nh — no, hic, I'm not…"
I was not so stupid as to tell her what I actually felt. So that was what I said.
Inha said she was glad and held me tight. When the soft fabric of her clothes touched my skin I finally realized how much I had been sweating.
"Heeyeon. Heeyeon."
I poked the gently rounded cheek of Heeyeon, who was sleeping neither too tightly shut nor half-open, breathing soft and even — and those peaceful eyes scrunched a little.
The bed I had finished installing while she slept as if she had fainted was clearly worth the price; she looked like she would have a hard time getting up.
"Heeyeon. Wake up. Hm?"
"U-uuh…"
From the mouth that had been quiet until a moment ago, that little sound slipped out. Those two plump lips were so cute I found myself catching them between my fingers and giving a gentle tug.
"Heeyeon~."
"Hnn… nh…!"
Still half-dreaming, Heeyeon opened her eyes slowly — then saw me and visibly startled, her whole body giving a little jump. It was so unbearably cute.
I wanted to pull the phone from my pocket right then and tell them I was taking the day off. Reality, however, was waiting for me.
"You awake?"
"Y-yes. Yes."
The sight of Heeyeon trembling with fear was lovely, but I found myself wishing that when she opened her eyes she would look at me with something loving instead.
I reached out and stroked her cheek. Her shoulders jerked up, then settled back down.
It was the behavior of someone who did not, in this moment, expect me to punish her. That made me happy. It meant the knowledge that doing something bad leads to punishment had already settled into her without her noticing.
It was a good look. Like watching a hamster shiver under a wolf's jaws, under its teeth. After today — no, from now on — would those raised shoulders ever come down again?
"Ah. What a shame."
The thought slipped out. Heeyeon was looking up at me with an expression that said she had no idea what I meant. Those bright, clear eyes — ah. Should I lick them.
"First, let's eat, Heeyeon. Unnie has to go to the company."
If only, when she looked at me, a smile would be the first thing to come.
If only, the moment she saw me, relief and joy and pleasure and satisfaction would be the first things she felt.
I pressed the button and half the bed began to rise. Startled, Heeyeon squeezed her eyes shut.
Bound so she could barely straighten her legs, her body started to slide downward, so I slipped my hands under her arms and set her posture right — and that brief contact was more than I could stand. Ignoring the food going cold, I kissed her.