Don't Even Know Her Name
"Yes, hyung-nim. Five girls... fifty sessions... sixteen Jimyeong... total one million three hundred twenty thousand won. Hyung-nim, yes... yes... go ahead, hyung-nim."
Jeonghun hung up after calling Dongpal to report the day's sales.
When I'd checked the ledger before closing, every girl had done ten sessions. As always, Kkotnim was fully booked with Jimyeong requests. Pureum had done ten including one Jimyeong, Dambi ten including two, Mi-ho ten including two, and Eun-ha ten including one. Each Jimyeong carried an extra ten-thousand-won fee, and with sixteen of them plus the twenty thousand for Jeonghun's and my daily cut, eighteen thousand came off the top, leaving a final take of one million three hundred twenty thousand. The house's cut per session was thirty thousand won.
It hadn't even been a full month yet, so it was still early to say, but if daytime was pulling in around two to three hundred thousand in pure profit, roughly two and a half to three million a month was landing in Big Boss's hands. Money really did flow here. There were risks, sure, but in just one month Big Boss was already pulling twice my annual salary.
Jeonghun pulled two ten-thousand-won bills from the stack of cash, slipped one into his own pocket, and handed me the other.
"I should check the volume on the music I downloaded. Hyung-nim."
"Alright."
"Could you step out into the hallway and listen for me, hyung-nim?"
"Sure."
For some reason I kept wanting to drop the formal speech with him, but something about the bastard always put up a wall. He was younger, but he was still my direct senior and the one teaching me the ropes. More than anything, watching him handle reservations and time slots so smoothly made me acknowledge his skill without even realizing it—and that made me defer to him. When we talked girl groups the conversation could stretch out, but the second it turned to business he was all short answers. In other words, the guy was a total otaku.
I walked out into the hallway and stopped roughly in the middle. A moment later the music came through.
~~~!~~~!~~~~!~~~!~~~~!~~~~!~~~
Hmm. Still a little quiet. And fuck, if it was current stuff I usually knew every track, but this one I'd never heard before. I moved back to the hallway entrance, stuck my head over the counter, and told Jeonghun, "Still a bit low."
"Yes, hyung-nim. I'll turn it up a little."
~~~!!!~~~!!!~~~!!!~~~!!!~~~!!!~~~
"That seems about right."
"Yes, hyung-nim."
I almost asked what song it was, then dropped it. What the hell did music matter when you were sucking dick? It was just background noise. This wasn't even a full-intercourse place, so the sounds from the guest rooms almost never carried into the hallway—unless someone lost their mind like Dambi yesterday and started howling like an animal, or you were pounding so hard you were ready to punch straight through a pussy.
I went back to the counter, dropped my ass into the mesh chair, and quietly lit a cigarette. The bitches still hadn't come out of the waiting room. Man, I was especially wiped today. Fucking Dambi six times was part of it, but more than that, Eun-ha and Hyojin had been boosting their fingers and nuking the group chat, and answering them had worn me the hell out. Typical young bitches—most of it was completely pointless chatter—but if I wanted to eat that pussy I had no choice. Honestly, I hadn't joined a handjob parlor just for the money.
I didn't know about Jeonghun, but at least that daytime manager Hoyeol bastard seemed to be working for the same reason I was: to fuck the shop girls. Hell, you needed some kind of perk to work for a hundred twenty a day, right? Set up a decent joj-jib, move into her place, fuck her, and when you woke up the bitch would have slipped pocket money under the pillow from the cash she'd earned selling pussy. Then you could just wander around killing time. From the perspective of a middle-school dropout with a brain full of shit, the best you could hope for was factory work or a PC-bang job. The most realistic way to live well was to stick a straw into a joj-jib and suck her dry until she was a withered squid. Especially when you were packing a telephone-pole cock as a solid weapon. If things went well later, I could borrow some of the money my joj-jib had saved from selling pussy, open a handjob parlor or a full-service place of my own, put the joj-jib to work as a shop girl selling pussy, and live off the customers' cash. But that was still a long way off.
The sound of heels came from beyond the counter wall. I checked the CCTV and a moment later the pussy bitches came filing out one after another like a string of Vienna sausages.
"Good work today~ Make sure you come in tomorrow!"
"Yes~"
One by one they collected the money they'd earned sucking cock. Then I felt a gaze locked on me. I turned my head to find the source and saw the bitch standing next to Kkotnim staring straight at me.
What the fuck is that lingering look?
When I looked back, Mi-ho turned her head and dropped her eyes. Fucking oppressive, that bitch. In the three weeks I'd been grinding here we'd only ever exchanged simple work talk. Last night's company dinner was basically the first time we'd actually spoken, and even that had just been about the shitty customer drama that had gone down at the shop. There'd been no reason for her to catch feelings for me, and nothing for me to catch feelings over either—yet the bitch's eyes looked like she'd been stuck with me for thirty years, crying across the 38th parallel with a barbed-wire fence between them, cock in the North and pussy in the South, wailing about tragic love.
Does this fucking bitch like me?
It could've been a delusion, but if that look really had been aimed at me, it was worth suspecting. But a bitch who sucked dick for a living—if she just said "I'll suck you, drop your pants," I'd take her up on it. Why the hell was she shooting a drama?
Setting aside that she was Kkotnim's assistant, there wasn't a single thing about her that jumped out. She was less than average. Height around 160, permed hair, tits flat as a sticker on a cliff. Body wasn't anything special either—just ordinary, the kind of figure you saw every second walking down the street. Face, even being generous, was average; not ugly, but completely plain. In a place like Eden overflowing with delicious-looking bitches, there was zero reason to go crazy trying to fuck this one. If she spread her legs first and offered, sure, I'd hit it once.
"Manager oppa~ You look tired~"
While I was thinking, a familiar voice pulled my head around. Pureum was speaking to me with a bright face. That always-smiling look of hers left a really good impression.
"Yeah, good work today. I'm fine—you girls are the ones who work hard."
"Yes~ Take care of your health~ Good work~"
"You too, head on home~"
As always, Pureum was polite, careful with her words, and left you feeling good. She probably wasn't the type who'd originally do this kind of work; she'd chosen to suck dick because of circumstances that forced her to make money. I hoped she'd graduate from this life soon and be happy. If a girl like her got dragged through the mud of this industry, the world really would be a hopeless piece of shit. She'd already tasted hell once thanks to that bastard Dongpal's "field training." When the chance came, I'd use my solid telephone-pole cock to guide Pureum to heaven too.
"Ahh~ I'm so tired~"
Once Pureum left, Dambi stepped up to the counter for her money.
"Yeah, you look fucking exhausted. Go home and sleep hard."
"You look pretty wiped yourself~ Heh."
Dambi and I both knew exactly why the other was tired, but nobody else in this space did. To everyone else it was nothing conversation; to the two of us it was sticky sex banter. I shot her a burning look and she answered with a sultry gaze of her own. I wanted to rip her clothes off right then and fuck her in front of everyone just to show off that we were together, but for Dambi's sake I figured I should let her rest properly today.
After Dambi took her money and stepped back, Eun-ha came forward with a playful smile, politely greeted me, collected her cash, and left. She was old enough to know everything and didn't hesitate to suck dick for a living, yet somehow she still looked untouched—or maybe she was deliberately hiding her true colors. Either way, the bitch seemed completely empty-headed. I'd have to study how to train her, fuck her, and turn her into a joj-jib.
Once all the girls had taken their money and left, only Jeonghun and I remained.
"You're off tomorrow."
"Yes, hyung-nim. The music I downloaded earlier is right here."
Jeonghun sat in the counter chair, opened a folder on the desktop, and looked at me as he answered. The folder on the monitor was packed with countless tracks, every single one a song I didn't know. It looked like he'd only downloaded girl-group stuff, but seeing them sorted by mini-albums and singles, it was clear he hadn't just grabbed the hits—he'd downloaded entire discographies. And among everything visible, there wasn't a single track by any male artist.
"Okay, but how many did you actually download?"
"Yes, hyung-nim. About five hundred so far."
The bastard suddenly broke into a bright smile.
"Isn't that a bit much?"
"Since I'm off tomorrow, I'll download some more the day after, hyung-nim."
I almost told him he didn't have to, then stopped. Right now this guy was completely immersed in his own world and ridiculously happy. I'd asked if it was too many and he'd basically answered "fuck that, I'll download more," which meant shut your mouth, engrave what I'm doing deep in your heart, and just download and listen to the songs. The "current music" Dongpal had told him to download had, at least to Jeonghun, meant download every girl-group track in existence. At times like this, the best move was just to leave him alone.
Jeonghun and I rode the elevator down, shared a cigarette, then split to head home. I climbed into a taxi and headed for my place. I thought about calling Dambi or shooting her a text, then decided against it. I'd overworked her pussy today; the right thing was to be considerate of a girl who'd probably collapse the second she got home onto the bed where we'd fucked six times.
The things she'd said while we drank at her place floated back up. I'm embarrassed. Don't make me lose face. Otherwise I won't be able to look at you. Come to think of it, I hadn't understood what she meant and had just shoved it into a corner to think about later. From my perspective, I still couldn't easily grasp why she'd said that. So I needed to try thinking from Dambi's side. Let's switch places.
I'm a male host and I suck pussy for a living. Dambi is the manager. Nah, that's not realistic—better if I'm working at a host bar and Dambi is a female manager or madam. A host bastard has been exchanging sticky looks and sexual tension with the madam and they're right on the edge of getting together. While serving a difficult customer in a room, a female client tries to force herself on my cock. I can't let that happen, so I pour everything into calling for help outside the room, but no one comes. I have no choice but to shake off the client and bolt out of the room naked, cock dangling, clothes left behind, heading for the host waiting room. Embarrassed? Mortified? Can't face the madam? Not really. A little embarrassed, sure—you don't know who's wandering around outside the room. Even switching places, I still didn't fully get it. No—if I were deeply in love with the madam, then yeah, I could see it. Since I was the one selling cock, if I had real feelings for the madam it would be embarrassing and shameful. After all, I was basically a male whore. The madam was a manager or pimp-level, so she wasn't clean either, but you couldn't compare her to the guy actually selling his dick. When a shitty customer forced me out with my cock swinging and the person I loved found out—already doing a job that made me feel one step lower and not proud—showing that side of myself would be mortifying. If I really loved the madam in that situation and something like that happened, I'd probably keep selling cock but move to another shop.
Thinking about it, just knowing something in your head and having the raw, explicit reality of "that bastard sells cock" slam straight into your eyeballs were completely different things. I knew Dambi sucked dick for a living, but I'd never actually seen her sucking a customer's cock. At most I saw her come out in that sexy hostess uniform, towel rolled up with cock juice wiped off it, brushing her teeth like she was trying to destroy her mouth, and thought, yeah, that's how it is. But if I actually witnessed Dambi sucking a customer's dick, or if she came running out naked and got caught dead-center in my eyes, I'd think, ah, fucking whore bitch. So Dambi's line—"otherwise I won't be able to look at you"—made a certain amount of sense. Yesterday's shitty customer was just something I'd heard about, not seen, so it didn't hit hard, but if something like that happened again while we were working, Dambi might actually move shops. In the worst case, if I saw it with my own eyes, our relationship could fall apart. From now on I'd have to be extra careful so Dambi never went through that again. Thinking about it now, it was fucking disgusting.
But fuck—did that mean I had some feelings for Dambi too? Chewing on it, yeah, I did. Sorting my thoughts, I roughly understood why she'd said those things to me... and also didn't. It wasn't something I needed to reach a conclusion on. Unless we developed into the kind of relationship where we lived and died by fucking each other, I didn't even know that bitch's name. Not the stage name—her real name.
Anyway, fuck it. Today I was just going home to sleep for about twelve hours. My head hurt. The taxi soon reached the main road near my place. I smoked a cigarette, dragged myself inside, sprawled out like a starfish, and passed out.
"Ah... fuck, my head's splitting. What time is it?"
The clock said six. I'd slept a solid thirteen hours. I opened the fridge, dumped an entire bottle of water down my throat, quietly sat my ass down, and lit a cigarette. I unlocked my phone and checked for calls or messages. Now that I had a few pussies' numbers and chat contacts, I needed to pay a little attention. Hyojin and Eun-ha had completely ignored the fact that I even existed and traded 181 rounds of nonsense in the group chat. Guaranteed it was worthless dick talk or clothes talk. Nothing from Dambi.
I roughly turned on the water, washed up, and got ready for work. I took a taxi to the main road near Eden, got out, and quietly lit a cigarette. A familiar pussy shape stabbed into my eyes. It was Pureum.