Just Until Tomorrow
The bed was filthy. Soaked through with my own fluids, the sheets had gone cold, and my body shivered without my meaning it to. My senior had left the room.
I hated myself for having climaxed. None of it had been my fault, and yet I hated the body that had felt pleasure all the same. Was this why women who'd been raped in the past were sometimes killed afterward? Because no matter what, they'd felt pleasure... no. That was a dangerous line of thought.
I shook my head hard.
The day hadn't even properly begun. A day without work, without drinking — days like that stretched on forever.
I wanted to wipe my mouth. Mine and hers were smeared all over it in a mess of fluids; the skin around my lips felt slick and shiny. The blindfold had been pulled off and left on the nightstand, a little of my wetness still clinging to the cheek side of it. I hoped she'd wash it before using it again.
A comfortable thought, that. As if I were already assuming she'd rape me again. My senior was truly pretty — beautiful, even — and even if she'd never done any of this, I might still have dated her or something. And yet the mere fact that I was thinking that way filled me with a deep, draining exhaustion.
And separate from how much I hated my own body, that sex — if you could even call it sex, that act where she'd barely moved her fingers — had left me feeling surprisingly nothing at all. No reflection on my first time. No shift in emotion. Nothing.
If my senior had shoved me into a break room one day and had sex with me then, would I have hated her?
"..."
Maybe this hollow feeling was just the comedown after sex.
Anyway — before any of those other considerations — the fact that I'd been forced into sex without consent carried a destructive power all its own. My mood began to sink toward the floor.
Thoughts of revenge against the person who'd crushed me would surge up, only for reality to crash back in: both arms and both legs bound, there was nothing I could do...
The door creaked open. My senior came back into the room, yesterday's tray in her hands. She smiled brightly at me and said she'd brought breakfast.
I didn't answer. I just blinked once. I didn't even want to speak.
I stared at her with vacant eyes. Without comment, she came to my side and set the tray on the nightstand.
"Not going to answer?"
She asked it like that.
"Ah— no..."
I managed that much.
"...Right. Today was hard, wasn't it? Come on, let's eat!"
She looked at me and — deliberately ignoring my state, or maybe because of it — spoke in an aggressively cheerful tone.
...Pork cutlet. Was she testing which foods would sit well with me?
"Heeyeon. Did you know? I posted those photos of you, and more people messaged than I expected."
"..."
She said something hard to ignore. So I pressed my lips even tighter shut. I didn't know why I didn't want to open my mouth. Rationally, I knew it would be smarter to play along, to coo and fawn and get even one restraint loosened — and still.
"Seolha? You know this one? She wants to meet up after so long."
"...Ah, uh, college..."
"...College what? A college friend? Are you close?"
"Ah, no, we're not close..."
Even if we had been, I would have said we weren't. Though we really weren't, either.
She'd always asked me to grab a meal together, and I'd always turned her down. Eating alone was just more comfortable.
Thinking about it now — if we'd been the kind of friends who texted every day, would I have been rescued the day I was kidnapped? Then again, my phone was with my senior. She could have just pretended to be me. Nothing would have happened.
My senior typed out a reply with rapid little taps, as if the account were her own. On the screen she showed me, I was off on a trip to Japan, looking wildly excited. Seolha seemed amazed at how happy I looked.
"You said you didn't have any close friends, but quite a few people are reaching out."
"...Ah..."
"Taejun? This one must like you."
She laughed — ahaha — and set the phone down on the bed without sending any particular reply.
"And the bed — hmm, can you put up with it just for today? A new one arrives tomorrow."
She said it while looking at the blanket between my legs, still damp. The thought filled my head at once: when she moved the bed, she'd have to undo the restraints, wouldn't she? My heart started pounding at the word escape—
"By the way, Heeyeon."
"..."
She turned toward me. The way her smiling expression slowly hardened as she spoke was almost a magic trick.
For a second I thought she'd read my mind, and I swallowed hard for no good reason.
"Why are you reacting like this? Hmm?"
She said it. And the words were so absurd — the person who'd drugged me on first meeting, who'd hit my stomach and my cheek, expecting a certain reaction from me — so absurd that—
"...W-why should I, why..."
The words tumbled out before I could stop them. Like a child sulking over a toy she hadn't gotten.
"Hehe."
Then she raised her hand high, and I flinched hard, bracing for the pain — but nothing came. She was just scratching her head. I felt awkward and dropped my gaze.
"If you keep this up... hmm, what should I do."
"...Ah, no, that's..."
"Mm, should I shove a dildo into you? Right now. While you're still dry."
"...S-Unnie?"
"Hmm, or should I hang you by the neck."
Hang me where?
I swallowed the words that had risen to my throat and rebuilt the sentence.
"U-Unnie. It's not—! I'm just, just tired, that's all...!"
"Tired?"
"Y-yes! I, uh, because it was my first time, I came, so..."
"Hehe. Fine. Anyway, just put up with it for today. In exchange, I'll bring you a fresh blanket to cover with. Got it?"
"Ah, understood..."
Relieved I'd gotten through the moment, I fidgeted my toes for no reason. There was something I'd been wondering about for a while, though.
"Um, Se— ah, no, Unnie."
"Hnn, you keep skating close to danger. From now on, no more 'Se—' — only Unnie. Got it?"
"...Y-yes..."
I cursed myself inwardly for opening my mouth at all.
"Mm. So, what is it?"
She stroked my cheek again as she asked.
"Um, so, when... when do I get to wash...?"
An ordinary kidnapper wouldn't care about bathing, but my senior hadn't taken me for money or anything like that.
"Ah, right. I figured you'd ask. Yesterday was too chaotic. We'll wash in a little bit. Okay?"
"Y-yes..."
She picked up the tray with the empty plates, added, "I'll just clear this and then we'll wash. You must be feeling sticky too, Heeyeon," and left the room.
The thought that a situation I'd have to wait until tomorrow for was about to arrive left me blank for a moment — then I steeled my resolve again.
Maybe twenty minutes passed. There was no clock in the room, so I couldn't be sure, but it felt like about twenty minutes before my senior opened the door again. My body, damp with sweat and fluids, had cooled and was starting to feel chilly when she came in. She looked at me with what might have been a touch of nervousness as she walked to the side of the bed.
In her hands was a nameless plastic bin of the sort you'd store a child's toys in. Inside it were two metal pipes and two more cuff-like restraints for my hands and feet.
"Um, so, Unnie, I'm not going to run..."
I knew perfectly well what those objects meant. When I said it, she glanced from me to the box, murmured "Is that so?" and set it down under the bed.
"You're really not going to run?"
"Uh, yes. I'm n-naked, and..."
"Fair enough."
She flicked my nipple with a finger. My breast jiggled a little. It felt like something a little too careful even for lovers, and shame washed over me.
"I wonder if Heeyeon would have the guts to walk around naked. Hehe."
She pulled a key from her pocket and fitted it into the cuffs. Same for the other hand. I noted that all four cuffs used the same key — something that might be useful someday.
For the first time in two days, my hands met each other. Watching her carefully, I rubbed them together gently. My wrists ached faintly. I rotated them once, then left my hands folded over my chest to show I had no intention of resisting.
I wasn't sure I could actually escape anyway. Walking out naked would definitely be humiliating — but less hard than being kidnapped, surely. And I couldn't imagine anyone laughing at a kidnapping victim who was just trying to get away.
Still with the same key, the cuff on my left ankle clicked open. Looking down, I saw my left ankle free of anything for the first time in so long. Without thinking I splayed my toes wide, then carefully bent my leg so it wouldn't touch her.
Just bending a leg that had been stretched out for so long felt like my brain was flooding with endorphins. My body was that stiff. When she finally unlocked the last cuff, I savored the freedom from restraint for a long moment.
She set the four cuffs on the nightstand, then held a hand out toward me.
"Come on. Shall we go wash?"
I reached out with an arm that barely wanted to move and took the hand she offered. Slowly I lowered my legs off the bed and stood.
The thought that I alone was naked made me a little embarrassed, and without realizing it I began to cover my chest with my hands. It didn't take long to remember that a woman's body has two places to hide — and after a moment of indecision about what to cover, I simply started walking a little behind her.