Everything Moved Slowly
Everything felt as though it were flowing in slow motion. I could tell easily enough that I had fainted, and so—ah. So it was possible to think even while unconscious. Fainting was simply the brain shutting its own eyes and ears when it could no longer accept anything from outside; it wasn’t entirely nonsensical.
Unfortunately I was not given time to devise a way out of my situation. Starting with my hearing, the senses began to return.
The soft texture of the blanket, cheeks burning as if on fire, the rustling of odds and ends knocking against one another, the thick taste and scent of blood filling my mouth. Senior’s perfume. My entire body was a crawling, nauseating agony. I couldn’t even tell where it hurt. The only place she had struck me was the cheek.
Soon Senior’s face came into view—her profile, looking down as if absorbed in something. I lowered my gaze to match hers and saw her turning over a black object that looked like some tropical fruit, then, as though she had found the charger, plugging the cord into its port.
At the same moment I understood what the thing was, yet no strength remained to move my body. My head was still ringing; every time my heart—split into four—beat, my vision ballooned and shrank. The dizziness was so fierce that I made a small “uup” and let my head drop toward the floor.
I was sitting. Both legs were loosely bound to the legs of the side table opposite me, so I could tell Senior had never planned to tie me in this position. One arm was fastened and hung against the wall in a banzai pose, but my right hand was oddly free. When I shifted the arm even a little, my stomach lurched as if I were about to vomit.
“Ugeuk, ueeek—”
For all the dramatic noise, nothing came out. My mouth flooded with saliva; I forced myself to swallow it back down.
“Oh, what. You’re awake. Long time no see, Heeyeon.”
Senior snapped her head toward me and spoke, looking as excited as someone drawing up travel plans.
“Ugh…!”
Bile kept rising. The sensation that I might throw up any second made me shudder. If I could just actually bring something up, maybe my insides would feel a little better.
My eyes kept stinging. The lighting was the same as always, yet it was far too bright, so I opened my mouth.
“T-the light… turn… turn it off…”
“Hmm? The light? Heeyeon gets scared when the lights go out. I’ll turn it off eventually, though.”
“Mood… uugh…! Light… kheup…”
When I moved my tongue to form the words I felt the inside of my cheek shredded by my own teeth. Strangely there was no pain, so I prodded the wound with my tongue for no reason. What had pooled in my mouth was not saliva; blood trickled out.
“Don’t lick it. I put medicine on it. You’re not a dog. Though a dog would be cute too. Heeyeon, want to be a puppy?”
“Ah…”
I returned my tongue to its place. Senior picked up that monstrous dildo still connected to the charger and came toward me.
“Heheung.”
She squatted in front of me and reached out, poking my lower belly with a finger. My brain was too busy finding its own dizzy swaying strange to spare any attention for my stomach; I felt nothing there at all.
Senior pressed harder and harder. A dull ache bloomed in my lower abdomen.
Then she pushed so hard her own fingertips turned white. I made a stupid “geuk” sound and opened my mouth.
“Ah… it hurts…”
“Puhut, does it? Sorry, Heeyeon.”
Even though I had spoken without any real hope, Senior took her hand away and ruffled my hair roughly. I thought my hair, unwashed for a full day, must look pretty matted.
“Ah, it hurts. It huuurts…”
My whole body hurt so much the words simply leaked out. I hadn’t meant to say them. My body felt clumsily controlled, only half mine.
“Eugh, ah, it hurts, uup… kheu…”
“Ahaha, feel like throwing up? Concussion? Can I hit you one more time?”
“A-no… no. No… ueeek—”
“Pff, look at me, Heeyeon.”
Senior seized my chin and lifted it. Having raised it herself, she smiled brightly as if thoroughly pleased and patted my head, murmuring that I’d done well.
“Your expression’s a little disappointing. You need to be sober for this.”
“Sa-save… save me… euk…”
Senior flicked the chin she held as if releasing it. The mere jolt of my head turning made the nausea surge; ugly sounds spilled out—uuk, uek, kkeureureuk, kkeup.
“Heeyeon.”
“…”
“Do you know what you did wrong?”
Senior asked. I shook my head side to side, then dry-heaved again.
“Aigoo, at this rate I can’t do a thing. Snap out of it, okay?”
She crossed her fingers in front of my face and clicked them. My eyes followed her hands, but simply watching something move so quickly made my head spin. I let the strength leave my neck and hung my head. It was a little more comfortable.
“What are you doing? Resting?”
Senior spoke, but I didn’t bother answering. There was no need. I already knew I was fucked; even if she suddenly shouted some famous line and carved open my stomach with a knife, I would only think, well, whatever.
The past in which I had feared death now felt merely curious. Death would clearly be far more comfortable than simply hanging my head.
“Tsk. This won’t do. You need to rest a bit more.”
Senior muttered. At the word “rest” I unconsciously lifted my head—and her hand was already rushing toward me.
The familiar crack of impact, the sound of something rupturing, and then the sensation of liquid flowing from my ear canal.
“Hwaa…!”
When I opened my eyes again the room was empty. In front of me stood that dildo, so massive it looked unusable on any human—or even any large animal. Beside it were the familiar pink rotors and two bottles of love gel. I could only pray she did not intend to force that thing inside me.
My head was far clearer than before. I felt almost absurd, wondering whether getting beaten really had been the correct answer.
I swallowed hard and looked around, but Senior truly was gone. Only the whirring motor of the pet camera—whose location I no longer remembered after picking it up—swiveled its head left and right.
Then the door burst open. Senior entered. I hurriedly dropped my head again and began pretending to be unconscious. No matter how I looked at it, there seemed only one thing she would do once she came in.
As I acted with closed eyes the way I usually did, my eyelids trembled; the terror of being discovered made my body go cold.
“Oh my. Still not awake?”
Again the soft thud of something dropping to the floor.
“Hmm… When will she wake up?”
Senior’s voice rang in my ears. Suddenly a high-pitched “beee—” sounded from the left; I barely managed to keep my body from flinching. I knew perfectly well that tinnitus was a common symptom of stress.
“Heeyeon. Sleeping?”
Her voice came from the right this time. I tried with everything I had not to react, yet my heartbeat felt deafening.
“Eung, really sleeping?”
Then a finger suddenly jabbed my armpit.
“Eut…!”
“Ah, you’re awake. Heeyeon. Long time no see, right?”
After that flinch there was no point continuing the act, so I slowly raised my head. Contrary to my expectation Senior stood directly in front of me, yet every time she spoke the sound arrived only from the right.
“Uh… ear… my ear…?”
“Hmm? Why?”
Senior squatted in front of me. Goosebumps rose all at once.
“Heut…! Ah, th-that… m-my left… the sound isn’t—”
“Eung, it’s fine. It’ll get better soon.”
“…”
In that instant I remembered something had flowed from my left ear in the last moment before blacking out, and my mouth closed by itself.
“Or well, you have two ears.”
Only then could I see her hands. They held an assortment of small items sealed in clear plastic packaging. A thin rubber tube rolled into a coil was among them; I had no idea what she intended to do.
“Heeyeon. Want to read this?”
My posture was exactly the same as before I fainted, so I reached out and took the paper she offered. Densely written across it were the rules Senior had left a few days earlier, telling me to study them before she went to work—the same rules from that day.
“…”
“What do you think Heeyeon did wrong?”
“…Th-that—”
The paper trembled violently. There was no wind; it was simply my body shaking that hard. An indescribable terror constricted me.
The shredded wounds inside my mouth were still there. I remembered being beaten as if I were truly going to die. After fainting I remembered the state of my body right up until the moment I lost consciousness. The thought that I now sat in front of someone who had twisted the jaw of a person who could have died at any second and knocked them out again made me feel I might piss myself on the spot.
“Heheung, you know you did a lot of wrong things, right?”
“I… that… so…”
When I habitually began a string of excuses, Senior pressed her lips shut and waited. There was nothing else to say. It was clearly my fault—
No. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault. How could struggling to stay alive be a crime?
“Nothing to say? Then you’ll take the punishment as well.”
Senior unfolded her legs and stood. She dragged a chair from the corner of the room—I had no idea when she had brought it—set it in front of me, and sat. Judging by its shape it looked like a dining chair that belonged in the kitchen.
“Still, well, I still love Heeyeon, you know.”
“…”
“But this time was really too much. Unnie was really mad too. After a day it eased a little, but still.”
A day?
Senior crossed her legs as she spoke. She picked up her phone and tapped so that the soft “ddooroong” of a recording starting could be heard.
“First, the dildo in front of you. Put it in yourself. If you can’t… eum… I’ll force it in without any love gel, stick a bunch of rotors on you, turn off the lights, and leave you alone for three days.”
“…N-nee?”
An awkward answer slipped out.
“Huhu. Instead you may use the love gel right there. If you want, I’ll take your clothes off too. Look at it and masturbate as much as you like. If you’re not wet it’ll really hurt. Heheung. Embarrassing.”
“Th-that… o-other things… a-no—”
Before I could finish, Senior’s foot flew toward my lower abdomen. I had the absurd illusion that non-existent belly fat jiggled.
“You’ll do it?”
I stretched both arms to shield my stomach and nodded at her words. My trembling hand reached for the dildo. It was so heavy I could barely lift it with one hand, so I left it on the floor, dragged it between my legs, and stood it upright. Then I brought my hand to my pussy and began to touch myself.
Hoping desperately that I would get wet.