The Courtesy of the Trade
"……Ah……."
"Then rest a bit and come on down. Oh—the screaming. That's sort of a local thing, though."
"……Yes……?"
"It's a thing. Anyway, I'll see you later."
"I'm sorry……."
"Don't be sorry."
I'd expected yesterday's clothes to feel grimy, but there wasn't so much as a smell, let alone that clammy unpleasantness. I never did give off much of a sweat-stink, and yet I hadn't thought the scent of fabric softener would still be clinging to them. I studied myself in the mirror for a moment, then picked up my bag and took out my wallet.
"Here. My ID."
"……Why that……?"
"Once you're feeling better, go to the community office and file it."
"……Ah……."
At my words Go Yewon covered her mouth with both hands, and tears began to gather in her eyes as she looked at me.
"What? You didn't believe me?"
"……Are you... really... all right with this……?"
"When I say you're mine, I don't just say it."
"……sniff. Yes……."
"From what I saw yesterday, you're kind, and you listen. I like your body, Yewon. And your heart."
"……I'm so glad……."
"I'd like you to get along with the others, too. I'll introduce you next time."
"……Yes. I'll do my best……."
"Then get some rest."
"Yes……. Shinwoo."
"Hm?"
She only looked at me, tears running, her face so full it almost overflowed, and I swallowed and looked quietly back.
"……If you'd kiss me... just one more time……."
"All right."
I stepped in and bent toward her again, and she met me like she'd been waiting, arms winding around my neck, mouth finding mine. I tasted her lips for a moment, then slowly drew my face back—and hers had filled so completely with joy and happiness that I was the one who ended up embarrassed.
"……Then rest."
"Yes……."
I stroked Go Yewon's cheek and turned away. Before I left I gathered the security fob and the keys and headed straight down the stairs. Whether she meant to leave the elevator running from now on, I couldn't say. She'd handle it.
"Haaahm."
I shook the damp out of my hair, disarmed the gym's security, and opened the door—and that was when I heard footsteps from below. Heavy ones. A man, by the sound of them.
"Oh, hyung."
"What, you're here already?"
It was Changsu. He came over shaking the water from his own hair, smiled, and offered a greeting, and when our eyes met neither of us waited on the other. We looked each other up and down and laughed at the same time.
"Yeah. Figured as much."
"You coming straight from there too?"
"Yes. Caught hell for slipping out before she woke up."
I opened the gym door and stepped inside, and the smell of dust settled overnight came out to meet us.
"Ventilation first?"
"Yes. Start over on that side, then open the window in front of the treadmills. Air purifier can go on after. By the way."
Changsu drifted up beside me and went on, bumping my arm with his elbow, playful.
"……Seeing you open the place yourself. The director's still alive, right?"
"Hey. Don't cross that line."
"Aw, come on. Between us."
"Even so, not that far. Would you like it if I asked how you spent last night?"
"I could tell you."
"……I don't want to know, all right?"
"Got it. Same as always."
Still, Changsu wasn't unaware that I hated digging all the way down into things. There had to be a reason.
"……What? Something happen?"
"……It's just, I guess I'm really not that good."
"Why?"
He answered on a sigh, looking a little deflated.
"She says it was good, and she wants to do it again. You know how it is. Whether she actually got there or not. Obviously, putting on a huge show of how much you felt it is creepy too, but."
Something about the way he said it struck me as odd, but I let him keep going.
"……Yeah. That tracks."
"But I've never felt anything like that. Not once, up to now."
Who was I to be handing out counsel. I scratched at my cheek, then asked anyway.
"Not sure I'll be any help."
"……Still, who am I going to ask if not you, hyung?"
"Fair. So what's snagging you?"
"When I put it in, she's not even really wet down there……. And the moans are all awkward and fake……."
"How do you do foreplay?"
"Foreplay?"
"Yeah. You've got your own routine, don't you?"
I asked it while opening a window, and the answer was slow in coming. I turned. Changsu was thinking hard, scratching his cheek.
"Not really."
"……What?"
"I mean, what am I supposed to do? Aren't women supposed to get themselves ready? And foreplay is something they do however they feel like, isn't it? I'm ticklish, so I'm not really……."
"……What did you just say?"
"Huh? No, I mean, that's how it's been. A guy just has to get it up, right?"
"You little—"
A curse nearly slipped out of me before I could stop it, but the nature of this world flashed through my head. No. No way. I refused to believe this was just the old world's all you have to do is lie there and take it, with the words swapped around.
"……What, exactly, do the women do on their own?"
"Well, I just lie still on the bed, and they come up by themselves, touch a little, climb on, and move. If they say they want to kiss, I indulge them a bit."
"And?"
"Once they're worn out and panting I do move, but usually that's about where I finish, I guess."
"……So the second the clothes come off, that's it?"
"Yes. Isn't that normal?"
"……No fondling, no foreplay—no. Have you never once done something for her first?"
"Me? Why? They're supposed to already be wet before that, aren't they?"
I couldn't tell whether this was Changsu's own thinking or the thinking of every man in this world. But the way he said it didn't feel like his alone. The trouble started with the idea that caressing and foreplay only had to produce the state of wet, and not a woman's pleasure. Put back in the terms of my old world, it was like saying a blowjob had served its purpose the moment you got hard.
"……I suddenly have a headache."
"……??"
"Sit your ass down, you bastard."
"……Yes……."
The curse came out of me anyway, and Changsu flinched, startled, then quietly sat on the floor. Dumbfounded, I sat down right there with him, let out a breath, and went on.
"……You feel good when you come. Right?"
"Obviously."
"Then, man, if you took it, you've got to give it back."
"……Me?"
He cocked his head as if he were the one who didn't understand and answered me, brazen as anything. I wanted to smack that head of his. I held it in, barely, and kept going.
"Even if you don't take it all the way deep, there's such a thing as the courtesy of the trade, you brat."
"Isn't that something the woman is supposed to enjoy on her own? That's what being together is for."
"……Then let me flip it. If you satisfied your partner, how do you think she'd take it?"
"That's why I asked. She doesn't seem satisfied. Maybe it's my size……."
We were talking straight past each other. Where I was even supposed to start explaining this, I had no idea. Bleak.
"……So what you want is for her to feel good too. That it?"
"……Mm. I think so, yeah."
"You think so?"
"Honestly, I don't really know. I definitely feel good just from coming, but at the end they always look at me with this weird, almost regretful face, or afterward they smile like nothing happened, and every single one of those faces is the same. It gets to my pride. Strangely."
"……That's because you're coming up short."
"Coming up short?"
"Yeah. A man is done when he comes. A woman isn't."
"……??"
He cocked his head and stared at me like he was the one who couldn't follow, and I laid it out for him piece by piece. I made sure to say, first, that what I knew wasn't automatically the right answer.
"To start with, nothing I'm telling you is the absolute correct answer."
"Yeah, well. You always say that."
"Listen, you brat."
"……Yes."
"Women are a little different. The women I've been with, their orgasms—you know what an orgasm is?"
"I know. Don't treat me like an idiot."
"……Right now, that's exactly how you look. Anyway. A woman's orgasm isn't like a man's. Sometimes it simmers up slow. Sometimes it crests hot and sudden, the way a man comes. There's more variety."
"……Really?"
"Yeah!"
"Ah, why are you yelling."
"……Sorry. You have to know that much before anything else can start. If she's the type who climbs slow, then you're the one who has to warm her up. Either way, you begin by reading her style. What she feels. Where she likes it."
"Mm……. So for the sake of her pleasure, I figure out her style, and I, the man, match her?"
"Yes."
"……Do I really have to? If we just lie down together, she ought to handle it herself……."
"Can you go thirty minutes? Holding the urge to come the whole time? Then fine. If that alone does it, I've got nothing to say."
"Come on, that's ridiculous. There's no reason to, either."
"No reason?"
"……Isn't finishing faster better? For me, and for her too, isn't it?"
"Why would it be better for her?"
"The faster you come, the more it helps with getting pregnant, right? If fertilization fails, she has to go find another partner, even one more time. It's inefficient. Time-wise."
For a second his words stopped my mouth entirely.
……So because pregnancy is the bigger goal, finishing fast became the obvious thing.
Only then did it click. I remembered him saying his recovery was slow. I also knew the women wanted pregnancy. Put it together and a man's own pleasure was still pleasure, but it came second. There simply weren't enough men, and there weren't enough times a man could go, so the point of sex had slid toward getting a woman pregnant. Was that how this whole mess had come about?
"……If you're going to do it anyway, it's better when you both feel good. That's why you asked me, isn't it."
"That's true……. I didn't know it would be this tiring."
I let out a breath and nodded at that.
"Right. If you hate foreplay, then you'll have to solve all of it with the penetration. When you feel yourself about to come, hold it a little. If you really can't, pull out and rest."
"……Do I actually have to? Then when do I get to come?"
"Is there a reason not to? Is somebody standing over you with a knife, telling you to finish fast?"
"……So what you're saying, hyung, is that efficiency isn't the point……?"
"……If you insist on putting it that way, close enough."
To think I'd live to see someone calculate time-efficiency in the middle of sex. No matter how I turned it over, I could hardly believe it. At the very least, even porn wouldn't have fed me a line this absurd. Which reminded me—I hadn't actually watched any since coming to this world. I'd only searched.
"You don't watch porn either?"
"……Hardly at all?"
"……What?"
"I mean, if the mood hits, one message and I can do the real thing, so why bother……."
"……That's also a point."
"And most of it's videos made for women's tastes, so not for me. Even without that, anything that actually suits mine is way too rare."
"……All right. Anyway, it starts with considering the other person first, and understanding them. A conversation between bodies, you could call it."
"Aha……. When you put it like that, I think I get it."
Everything that followed felt like sex ed for a middle schooler. Or an elementary schooler. A younger cousin just stumbling into puberty.
"Mm, but this is all stuff I'm hearing for the first time in my life."
Same here climbed all the way to my throat. I swallowed it and answered.
"……Start with the foreplay. Like I said. At the very least you've got to do the triangle, you caveman."
"……The triangle?"
"Yeah. Both nipples, and down below. Draw the lines and it's a triangle."
"Ugh. Down there? Me? It smelled weird."
He screwed up his whole face, genuinely horrified, and I figured down there was going to be a hard sell.
"……At least do the nipples. It'll change things a little. And if you don't know, keep asking. Whether it feels good, or if it hurts. Where it feels good."
"……Whenever women ask me if it feels that good, I'm kind of not into it."
"Try it once, and then we'll talk. Got it? If you don't know, just lick somewhere. Kiss her. Sooner or later you'll hit a spot that answers."
"……I'll give it a try."
"……Yeah. This is draining the life out of me."
Now I understood. Why all of them had looked so entranced, in bed, at my hands and at my kisses. I'd been glad, taking it for granted that it was my skill. This was what it felt like to learn a secret I hadn't wanted to know. Of course I believed it couldn't be only that. No. I wanted to believe it.