A Mark on the Collarbone
Every time I pressed the button it whirred—whirr, whirr. Something about it felt off. It only moved while I held the button down; the instant I lifted my finger, the motion stopped. Wasn’t there a way to make it keep running once you’d pressed it once?
Even while I was reading the manual I’d torn free from its battered packaging, Heeyeon kept trembling. I stroked the back of her head to let her know it was all right, and her face slowly lifted.
Then her eyes fell on the booklet in my hand. She stretched both arms out and set her palms flat against my thighs.
“U-Um… Unni…”
“Hm?”
Her voice shook so hard she looked like a rabbit caught in the rain; a smile tugged at my lips. A rabbit? No… maybe closer to a squirrel. If she’d had a tail it would have been tucked tight against her belly, so she was a little like a puppy too.
“Um… th-that is… w-would you… have s-sex with me…?”
“…Huh?”
The sudden words made my face burn. Sex—out of nowhere? It wasn’t as if I was embarrassed by the act itself, but hearing it thrown at me so bluntly was enough to flush my cheeks.
“Ahaha. Wow. Just like that?”
The words left my mouth without thought, and my fingers lost their purpose, waving uselessly in the air.
“…! I-I… um… I want to do it with Unni. Wh-whenever I look at you, th-that…!”
Heeyeon seemed just as mortified saying it. Tears welled right up to the brink and her ears turned scarlet. The sudden rush of desire felt almost strange; the cold splash of reason made me wonder if she was only trying to get out of the tattoo.
A short laugh escaped me and the corner of my mouth curled high.
“That? That what?”
“Ah… th-that.”
I shifted the tattoo machine a little farther away while we talked, and the relief on her face was obvious as she continued.
“I-I want to… want to do it, so… m-my heart… it… thumps… thumps…”
“Heh. You managed to say ‘sex’ just fine a second ago—why get so shy all of a sudden?”
Maybe it was the sound of the word itself. Saying “sex” out loud always felt a little awkward.
“Ah… th-that is… I’m… h-horny. Unni’s… b-breasts are big too…”
“…and they’re my type,” she finished, then dropped her head again. The hands gripping my legs crept upward until they closed around my wrists and squeezed. How much strength could those trembling fingers really hold? The slightest movement of my arm set her whole body swaying.
It was such an amusing sight that I gave a quiet chuckle and asked,
“Shall we, then? Skip the punishment and just have filthy, filthy sex instead?”
“Yes…! Yes! I-I’d like that…!”
Only then did the tension in her hands ease a little.
“Heh. Should we?”
I set the tattoo machine aside for a moment, seized her fragile shoulders, and shoved her flat onto her back. Her eyes flew wide with surprise. I climbed over her and slid an arm behind her neck.
Heeyeon squeezed her eyes shut; her lips parted slightly, as if she expected a kiss. Ignoring that hope felt a little mean, but I ignored it anyway and whispered against her ear.
“I noticed today—you really never got out of bed, did you? You kept the promise about not using your legs, right?”
“Hhk…!”
She startled at every little poke; I nearly just kissed her then and there, but I held back. The self-control felt almost miraculous, and I was rather proud of myself.
“Then how about we just cancel the punishment? Hm? One good thing, one bad thing—they cancel each other out? Something like that?”
As I spoke my heart began to race; heat climbed through my body and my voice kept dropping into a softer whisper.
“Hhk…! Y-yes. Yes. Th-that… s-sounds… good…”
Of course that was what she would say.
“Mm. Keep putting the punishment off and off… put it off again… and if something scares you, put it off some more. Right?”
“….”
Heeyeon opened her eyes. She seemed to sense that something else had slipped into my tone; the way she began to panic and grow afraid made it obvious.
“Do you remember what I told you before?”
“U-uh… wh-what…?”
“If you don’t listen to me, it’s punishment.”
The sound of a throat working—hers and mine both.
“Unni thinks it would be nice if Heeyeon took her punishment just for today and then lived carefully so she never has to be punished again. Hm?”
I laid a hand on her stomach and stroked it. When I slid higher, my palm followed the curve beneath her breast. Higher still, until I was caressing the hollow of her throat, and Heeyeon’s face went paper-white.
“…Hhk…!”
Sure enough, the tears came again. Even with my weight pinning her she fidgeted her arms and legs, as if she were fighting the urge to sob outright—or simply overwhelmed.
“How about it? A tiny ‘Inha’ right on the collarbone? It’s over bone, so it’ll probably hurt a bit. Yeah. They say it hurts. What do you think?”
My hand tightened. That slender throat threatened to snap if I squeezed even a fraction harder. A wet, gurgling sound rose; I loosened my grip and she answered in a voice half-choked with spit.
“Please do it…”
“Heh.”
The smile returned. I let go, brushed the sweat-damp hair from her forehead, and pressed my lips there.
The little power struggle that lovers always have ended that easily. Heeyeon had given a little ground for my sake, so I found myself wondering whether I should bring home flowers when I left work tomorrow. Would she even like flowers?
A cliché, sentimental, sudden gift that still manages to be touching—the title had grown old, yet I was curious how she would react.
When I stood she tried to rise too; I stopped her and told her it was fine to stay lying down. She wiped her eyes with both hands.
“I’ll be back in a little while, then.”
I put on a faintly sulky tone. The mood had dipped, after all.
I thought of the pig skin waiting by the first-floor sink. I had no idea how much ink each pass would use, but I’d bought two bottles just to be safe, so it should be fine.
The practice session was going to be tedious. Two hours ought to be enough, though.
Last one. I brought the buzzing tattoo machine against the inside of the third joint of my own finger. Pain flared at once, but I gritted my teeth and drew a circle. Not a bad first tattoo—something whose meaning you could invent on the spot, a finger tattoo.
Maybe I should give it a meaning too. Hmm. Ah—Lee Heeyeon. All three syllables contain the letter “ㅇ,” so that would work. To anyone else I’d just say it stood for peace.
The pain wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected, either. It startled me at first, but by the time the circle was finished I was already used to it.
Working in a related field made me proud: the circle came out almost perfect.
I shook out my hand while staring at the pig skin, now mottled with overlapping letters. A faint ache still lingered in the finger. If anyone ever asked why that piece of trash had turned up, I could simply show them my finger with pride.
And it happened to be the third finger, too.
Of course the investigation hadn’t even started yet, so it hardly mattered—but caution was still necessary. Heeyeon and I were a little far from an ordinary romance, after all.
I pinched my nose, stuffed the pig skin into a food-waste bag, and hurried upstairs. When I opened the door plastered with soundproofing panels, Heeyeon’s startled “Hik!” reached me.
“…I’m back.”
I wanted to greet her cheerfully again, but the last exchange hadn’t ended well, so my voice came out a little low.
I approached the bed where she still lay and sat on the edge.
“Ready?”
“I-It’s… g-going to hurt a lot… right…?”
“Hm? No, I tried it myself and it didn’t hurt that much.”
I proudly displayed the third finger. Her focus landed on it; she looked puzzled.
“Ah… s-so Unni did one too…”
“Hehe. Yeah. Practice, and a little something extra.”
“…Ah…”
“I did buy some numbing cream. Want me to put it on?”
I asked just in case. Heeyeon’s eyes lit up and she nodded, so a mischievous urge rose; I drew out a long “Hmm, what should I do—” and climbed onto the bed, lying down beside her. I traced a finger along her collarbone.
“P-Please put it on… I’m… s-scared.”
“Then what will you do for me?”
She hesitated, lips twitching in mild panic, then asked if there was something I wanted.
“Mm, well… Unni likes Heeyeon just as she is, so I haven’t really thought of anything…”
I grinned, checking the ink level in the machine.
“If I had to pick… I’d like to put my arm inside Heeyeon’s pussy.”
“J-Just… h-have sex. I-I’ll move. Okay? Unni, I can… m-make you come real fast…!”
I had only voiced the least extreme of the filthy desires tucked away in a corner of my mind, yet she fired back at once. I gave her a faintly puzzled look.
“Didn’t you say you’d never done it before?”
“Ah… th-that is… I-I’ve masturbated! S-so… I-I’ll use my mouth for you!”
…The image of Heeyeon looking up at me while her tongue worked between my legs… yeah, that would definitely be good. Especially if I grabbed her by the hair.
I smiled in agreement, stood, and rummaged through my bag for the high-strength topical anesthetic I’d obtained through slightly illegal channels. They didn’t sell anything that strong to private individuals, after all.
Heeyeon seemed to relax; she let out a long “Huu—” of relief. I popped the lid and squeezed a thick line of cream onto her collarbone the way you’d squeeze toothpaste, then took her hand and used those soft fingers to spread it—just in case the numbness would dull my own sense of touch while I worked.
After that I lifted the thoroughly sterilized machine, braced my arm against her chest to steady it, and her body began to tremble again in tiny waves. The way she shivered, paused, then shivered once more was so ridiculously cute I wanted to bite her shoulder.