Who Wears the Leash

On an afternoon when Return of the Legend was still exploding into a phenomenon—three million admissions in its opening week alone—Min-ho sat across from Seo-yoon in the executive office of Venus Entertainment.

"Min-ho. What we've been waiting for is finally here."

Seo-yoon set a black envelope on the table. No sender was written on it, but the gold-foil crest pressed into the paper was enough to tell him how heavy the thing was.

"What is this?"

"A message from Leader Shin Eun-hye. The Daehan National Party—the leading opposition party in the country."

Shin Eun-hye.

A former prosecutor who had walked into politics and, on nothing but her own charisma and her looks, climbed faster than anyone alive to the leadership of her party. A figure people already spoke of as a contender for the next presidency. A heavyweight.

"This isn't some fan letter, I take it."

"Of course not. She says she wants to offer her 'personal patronage.' In plain words, a sponsor proposal."

Seo-yoon held his eyes, serious.

"You can refuse. You're already a top star. You don't have to grab a dangerous line just because it's dangling. But..."

"If I take it, she becomes one hell of a shield."

He felt it on instinct. If he meant to survive the entertainment world—and this world beyond it—popularity alone would not be enough. He needed a power that sat above fame.

"I'll accept."

At his decision, Seo-yoon smiled.

"Good. You thought it through. The appointment is tomorrow evening. A private safehouse in Gangnam."

That evening, at Min-ho's place.

He sat the two people closest to him at the dining table—Mi-young, and Ji-eun, his manager—and told them.

"Shin Eun-hye... the opposition leader?"

Worry crossed Mi-young's face as she spoke.

"Isn't she far too high up? They say politicians are frightening. What am I supposed to do if my baby gets hurt?"

"Don't worry, Mi-young. If anything, once she's watching my back, nobody will be able to lay a finger on me."

"She's right, unnie. In this business, grabbing the right line is how you stay alive. Min-ho made the right call."

Ji-eun said it coolly, and took his hand.

"Even so, be careful. A woman doesn't climb that high unless she's anything but ordinary."

"I'll remember."

Once the heavy talk was done, a strange quiet settled over the apartment, and with it a loose, languid air, the tension finally slipping its knot. A film opening in triumph, and the eve of a meeting with a patron of that weight. It was too good a night to waste on sleep.

"Why don't we throw a little party? Unwind while we're at it."

Min-ho shifted the mood and offered it lightly.

"A party? With who?"

"I called Su-a from next door. She should be here any minute."

Ding-dong.

The bell rang almost before he finished.

He opened the door, and Jeong Su-a stood there shyly—thirty-two, the woman from next door—in a thin slip with nothing over it but a cardigan.

"Min-ho... oh. You have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠company?"

She faltered at the sight of Ji-eun, a stranger. She and Mi-young knew each other. Ji-eun's face was new.

"Come in, Su-a. Let me introduce you. This is my manager, and... my other lover. Kang Ji-eun."

"Ah... hello. I'm Jeong Su-a. I live next door."

Su-a ducked her head, awkward, and Ji-eun welcomed her with a bright smile.

"Lovely to meet you. I've heard so much from Min-ho. You're beautiful."

"Come on, everyone, sit. Or—would lying down be better?"

Min-ho spread a plush rug across the center of the living room.

Mi-young, Ji-eun, Su-a. Three women, gathered around him.

The moment it touched the air, the awkwardness vanished. The women's eyes went soft and molten.

"Haa... I could breathe this in forever and never get tired of it."

Ji-eun was the first to bury her nose in the nape of his neck. Su-a found her courage and laid a hand on his thigh.

"Min-ho, do you know something?"

Su-a stroked his thigh, her voice gone hazy.

"These days I startle myself every time I look in the mirror. My skin... it's gotten so good. The ladies at the community center won't stop asking what I've been taking. They say my face has come alive."

Mi-young nodded.

"Same here. I went to the salon and the owner asked if I'd found the fountain ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of youth. Said my skin was glowing."

She wasn't exaggerating. Mi-young looked nothing like a woman of fifty-four. It went past a young face. The elasticity in her skin, the color in it—you could have believed she was in her late thirties. The more often she was with Min-ho, the further she ran time backward.

"Unnie, it's true. You look younger every day. That's glass skin. Completely."

Ji-eun poked Mi-young's cheek, marveling.

"It's all thanks to my baby."

Mi-young undid his belt buckle, smiling with a slow, wicked sweetness.

The buckle gave. His trousers came down, and the brutal thing sprang free—thirty centimeters of it.

"Oh my... incredible again today."

Su-a licked her lips.

"Your semen, Min-ho... I think it tastes better all the time. At first it didn't taste like much of anything, but lately it's—how do I put it—sweet, and thick."

"Right. And the strange part is, after I'm with him my body feels clear. The fatigue just dissolves."

Ji-eun backed her up.

This was no trick of the imagination.

"Exactly... From this monstrous cock on down to what his semen does... Min-ho really is a gift the gods handed to women."

Mi-young's face was almost devout as she pressed a kiss to the head of him.

"A gift ought to be received with thanks."

Min-ho looked around at the three of them and smiled.

"Well then. Time for today's skincare, don't you think? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Everyone ready?"

"Yes! Hurry, give it to me! Min-ho!"

Ji-eun threw herself at him first.

On the living-room rug, the foursome began—one man, three women. Min-ho sat on the sofa. Ji-eun and Su-a settled in on either side, each taking one of his arms and caressing him, while Mi-young knelt on the floor and took the center.

The wet sounds of her mouth filled the quiet. A slurp, a soft choke, the drag of a tongue.

"Hnn—"

Not as his mother, but as his lover, Mi-young took him into the warm, practiced heat of her mouth. Ji-eun licked at his left ear. Su-a sucked at his right nipple.

"Mi-young. Deep today. All the way to your throat."

"Mmmph—! Ghk—! Schlrp..."

Mi-young's eyes rolled back as she swallowed that enormous shaft down to the esophagus.

"Unnie, me too! I want to suck him too!"

Ji-eun pushed her aside and buried her face. They went after his essence as if they were competing for it. To them he was an instrument of pleasure and a fountain of youth at once.

"I'm putting it in. Su-a first."

He laid Su-a down and entered her in missionary.

"Hyaaaah! Min-ho! I'm so full— it feels too good!"

Her pale legs locked around his waist. Every time he snapped his hips, her breasts swayed.

"Noona, come around back."

Still buried in Su-a, he lifted his torso and kissed Ji-eun, who had wrapped herself around him from behind. At their side, Mi-young kneaded Su-a's breasts, stoking the heat higher.

"Ah! Ah! Min-ho! Your tongue— your tongue feels too good!"

"Su-a, I'm going to come inside. For your skin."

"Yes! Come in me! Fill my womb— all of it, as much as you can!"

He let go deep inside Su-a—the first release of the night.

"Hyaaaahk!"

Su-a's hips jerked as she hit her peak.

"I'm next! I want better skin too!"

Ji-eun dragged him to her and climbed on, riding him.

"Hah—! It's hot... you just came, and you're huge again..."

She rolled her hips like she'd lost her mind. Min-ho spanked her ass, slap after slap, driving her on.

"Noona, shake those hips harder. That's it."

Last was Mi-young.

Without a trace of fatigue, he turned her around.

"Mi-young. You want to get younger, don't you?"

"Yes... baby... make me tight again... fill me up..."

He drove in to the hilt.

"Kyaaaah!"

He fired his semen deep into Mi-young's womb. There was far more of it than any ordinary man could have given, enough to round her belly.

"Haa... haa..."

Three releases, and he was still raging.

"We're nowhere near done. Tonight I'll take ten years off each of you."

All through the night he poured his vitality into the three of them. It was closer to a rite than to sex—a ceremony of injection.

The next evening.

Min-ho got into the car in a clean black suit. Ji-eun, his manager, was in the driver's seat.

"Min-ho, how's your condition?"

"Never better. Maybe it's all the energy the three of you poured into me last night. I feel light."

"God, you animal. Look at you, perfectly fine, after you put all three of us out cold."

She shot him a look in the rearview and stuck out her tongue, but a glow clung to her face. Yesterday's glass-skin injection.

The car turned into a quiet residential stretch of Gangnam. A grand house behind a high wall, no sign anywhere. A safehouse—the kind politicians used when a meeting could not afford to be seen.

"This is it. I'll wait outside."

Ji-eun stopped the car and squeezed his hand.

"You've got this, Min-ho. Don't you dare get scared. You're the best man in Korea."

"Don't worry. I'll handle it."

He stepped out and stood before a heavy iron gate. One deep breath, and he pressed the bell.

A heavy clack. The gate opened, and bodyguards in black suits were there to receive him.

"Jeong Min-ho? The Leader is waiting for you."

They led him down into a wide room beneath the house. The interior was luxurious, the lighting low, classical music drifting through it. At the center, on a leather sofa, a woman sat with her legs crossed.

Shin Eun-hye. Forty-three. Leader of the Daehan National Party, and a contender for the next presidency.

In person she was colder and sharper than she had ever looked on television. A neat bob. Metal-framed glasses. The beauty past those lenses could not be hidden. Under the intellectual air there was a strange erotic charge, the kind that made you wonder what her face would be without the glasses, and what expression she would wear once she came undone.

"Welcome, Jeong Min-ho."

She set her teacup down and looked at him. The voice was elegant. The manner was courteous.

"Even more impressive in person. I found the film quite striking."

"The honor is mine, Leader. Thank you for inviting me."

Min-ho bowed, properly.

"Sit. Relax."

She offered him the seat opposite. The early conversation was ordinary. No politics. Only light praise of his work, and of the film. But he could feel it. Behind the glasses, her eyes were not looking at him as a person. They were appraising merchandise.

"Min-ho."

Shin Eun-hye swirled her wine and went on.

"I have a very stressful occupation. Day after day, I have to wrestle idiots with words."

"I imagine so."

"So now and then I relieve that stress in my own way. A very primitive way. A very stimulating one."

She rose. She came toward him. Her heels rang through the room. Click. Click.

"I called you here because you looked like a very suitable tool for relieving ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my stress."

Her eyes changed.

The elegant, intellectual politician of a moment ago was gone. What glittered there now was only a predator's gaze, with the prey already in front of her.

The courtesy was gone. It was an order.

"Sorry?"

"I said strip. Right here. In front of me."

She picked up something that had been waiting beside the sofa. A whip of smooth leather.

"Do you know what they called me, back when I was a prosecutor? The Ferryman. Even the proudest men went to their knees and begged in front of me."

She laughed, cold, and tapped the whip against his chest.

"Little showbiz clowns like you... you're at your most attractive when you're under someone's heel, drowning in humiliation."

She was not looking at a partner. She was looking at a slave who would satisfy her sadism.

"Entertain me tonight, and I'll grant you whatever you want. But if you disappoint me..."

She tipped her glasses up a fraction and whispered at his ear.

"You won't crawl out of this room. Not even on all fours."

Min-ho swallowed.

It was the first truly hardcore play he had ever faced, and the sadistic whip was in the hand of the most powerful woman in the country. But deep in his eyes, fear was not what caught. A strange competitive hunger had begun to burn.

So she means to break me in...?

A queen, reaching for a beast's leash.