Patience
“……D-do you want to… touch them……?”
“May I?”
“……Yeah.”
But in that very instant the phone rang, and every bit of the tension between us shattered.
“Ah, s-sorry. Just a second…….”
The boss’s eyes, which had only just begun to grow moist, darted in a panic toward the smartphone on the counter. Not mine—hers. She hurriedly tugged her sweater back down and went to it.
A shame. But whatever. I already got my confirmation.
I clicked my tongue inwardly. It wasn’t really disappointment. If anything, I thought drawing things out like this only made the feeling thicker. It was simply that the tension we had barely managed to build had come apart.
I had wanted to tease her a little longer. I was hungry, too. The reason I had started this so suddenly was half mischief, and half a small bit of payback for the trouble I had suddenly put her through. More than that, it was the sexual curiosity I had never once felt in the way she usually carried herself.
Not into women, then. So she really has been holding it in. Impressive.
Only after I took her hand did tension finally gather in her eyes. I hadn’t felt it when we brushed past each other at the counter, and on any ordinary day she showed nothing of the sort—yet the moment I held her hand, added the slightest contact, and the mood settled in, sexual anticipation and nerves appeared. That was what struck me as strange.
I wasn’t blind to the way women looked at me. Most of the customers I had served today had watched me as if they were expecting something, and the register was piled with tissues scrawled with Instagram handles and phone numbers. So how on earth did the boss keep herself in check? Or did she prefer women? That was as far as the curiosity had gone. And the conclusion was simply that she was enduring it.
Figures. People like her have to exist, or none of this makes sense.
“Ah, hello. Yes……. That’s right, that one.”
Then I saw her with both arms folded over the counter, hips pushed back. For a second I wondered if it was meant as an invitation, but when I looked at her face it didn’t seem intentional. I was not the sort of man to let an opening like that pass. It was the perfect chance to shake off what little regret I still had. Grinning, I rose quietly from the chair and crossed to her on careful steps.
“Yes. We haven’t done cakes before, but this time I was going to place an order for—! Hah!”
The moment I stroked gently over the denim of her jeans, she jolted, her whole body jumping. Even I was startled. Her backside was more sensitive than I had expected. Close to a weak point, maybe. Her voice had spiked without warning; she clapped a hand over her mouth and froze, then twisted around to look at me with flustered eyes. I only kept moving my hand, slow, stroking her ass.
“Ah…… n-no, it’s nothing. Hah! I—I stubbed my toe, that’s all…… I’m f-fine…….”
Listening in, it seemed to be the supplier she had placed the order with earlier. The items and the quantities were different from usual, so they were calling to confirm. If it had been a closer friend, this would have been more fun. And the ass under my hand felt better than I had expected. It wasn’t the firm, trained muscle of Rahi’s or Hyunji’s. It wasn’t slack and ruined, either. More like a perfectly ripe persimmon—soft, with a real pleasure in the touching.
“Hah, no. Yes. I didn’t put the order in wrong! ……Yes, yes. I—I’m in the middle of…… mm, getting a meal ready, so…….”
“Hoh.”
When I quietly dipped my head and breathed against her ear, strength rushed through her whole body.
“Hnn…… Yes. Then today…… nnh, you can manage it? Yes…… hah, yes. Six o’clock? A little earlier, if you…… please.”
She obviously wanted the call over as fast as possible, but the employee on the other end, oblivious, kept saying something else. Thanks to that, I got to enjoy her ass at my leisure. I was a little grateful.
“Yes……. Four o’clock…… yes, yes…… th-that should be fine. Yes. Then…….”
She finished in a rush and practically threw the phone down, murmuring in a voice thick with relief. I answered with a bright, easy grin.
“Hah—haah. Y-you startled me…….”
“That much? Though I don’t think surprise was all of it.”
“Hnn…….”
If she had hated it, she would have turned around at once. When my hand first landed, and while the call was still going on. She had had plenty of chances. Even after she hung up she didn’t change her posture, and that was a kind of signal that she wanted my hands where they were. But today, this was as far as it went. Confirming she was straight was enough. There was time, and from here on the chances would only multiply. I was already looking forward to coming in to work. How far would I have to push her before people started saying I had done a thorough job of it?
“Let’s eat, then. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
“……Ah, y-yeah…….”
Disappointment was written all over her at my words. When I had asked her to show me her chest I hadn’t felt any of this, and a laugh slipped out of me. So an ass could be that sensitive. It was all the stranger because I myself had no sensation there at all. And then, without a thought in my head, I gave that ass a light smack.
“Haaahn?! Hah!”
“……Huh?”
A moan utterly different from anything before. She hurried to cover her mouth, but that one reaction was enough. Ramen was no longer the point.
Even after the sound faded, for a little while the café held nothing but the two of us breathing. Silence had settled over the room, and yet it was as if we were holding a wordless conversation again and again.
It could just be that she’s sensitive.
But I needed to check. It really might have been nothing but surprise. If it wasn’t, though, I might get a hint about that patience of hers. I hadn’t even considered this direction.
“……Want to offer it up?”
“……Ah, ah……. Sh-Shinwoo…….”
“Go on.”
It wasn’t long before her hips eased back, offered up. Over her shoulder, her face was full of anticipation and excitement. Even her breath felt damp. The face of a woman who had been caressed for a long while.
So that was it.
I thought I understood now. Even this morning, when we had met, there had only been embarrassment in her—no desire for me in her eyes at all.
It had been the same at the café, and the same as always. In a way, maybe the conclusion that it was patience had been the right one after all.
“Haa, haa…… gulp…….”
As I drew it out she swallowed and let a humid sigh escape. I looked quietly down at her, then swept a gentle hand over her ass. Timing myself to the metronome of her breathing, I brought my palm down all at once.
Not a light tap, not a crisp smack—a heavy thud rang through the café. Not a strike that only kissed the surface and pulled away, but a hand that stayed where it landed, pressing into her as if to drive the impact all the way into her belly.
“Ahaaack!”
And right on its heels, as if to drown that sound out, her moan burst free. This—she had gone a little.
The persimmon that had been holding on by a thread finally split, and the sweet flesh inside began to show.
The thighs beneath her ass started to tremble, and through the tight jeans the muscle twitched in little spasms. I waited quietly and let her ride out the afterglow.
“Ahh, hah, Sh-Shinwoo…….”
Somewhere along the way, even the way she addressed me had changed. She really did seem thrown. A touch like this was hard to get right if you didn’t know how the play worked.
The look she turned on me held the edge of tears, a strange anticipation, and pleasure, all mixed together. Not the sexual tension from before, but a flame of desire rising out of her.
Not the boss I knew, but the face of a woman drunk on lust. The illicit thrill of that difference made me swallow before I knew it.
“……Since when?”
“Haa, hnn……. Sh-Shinwoo…….”
She didn’t answer, so I waited, stroking her ass. Before long she seemed to catch my intent, and her breathing grew more and more ragged.
The way someone holding the lead waits on a partner. Drawing it out without forcing it, letting the mood ripen, making her remember where she stood.
Little by little, joy and anticipation began to fill her face.
“……Hnn, back in our day…… they ran discipline hard at university……. Back then…….”
“……Does anyone know?”
“N-no. I never told anyone. So…….”
“Don’t worry. I’m not enough of a bastard to out you.”
“Ah, ah…… nnh…….”
As my hand soothed the ass I had struck, she started to let out little sounds. But my touch was full of pity. Even in the world before, this inclination had never been especially accepted. It had only reached the public because of one famous film. And if it was a preference that needed a man as her master, this world was all the more brutal. On top of that, if her patience had snapped at that first glancing blow, she had either been holding it for a very long time, or gone a very long time without her needs being met. In fact, one proper strike—however large or small the peak—had clearly brought her to climax.
“……No partner?”
“……No……. Not even once…….”
“You looked, though?”
“……Yeah. I—I tried…….”
“Didn’t go well, I take it.”
“They all just wanted to film it and sell it……. As a group……. I—I didn’t want that…….”
“And women?”
“……Women, I don’t like……. I just…… can’t…….”
It was an awful thing to hear. Fortunate or unfortunate, her tastes were firm. So she had endured a desire she had realized in college, right around the time she turned twenty, for fifteen years. A single month without release was enough to drive a man out of his mind. Patience. Now I understood. She had simply chosen to endure, no conditions attached. She had given up entirely on the hope that some man might ever match what she wanted, so in her everyday eyes there wasn’t even expectation. She might have had to kill her own desire just to keep living. My chest tightened before I knew it. It struck me that her still being alive was a miracle.
“How have you lived all this time, bottled up like that?”
At my words she flinched, then slowly bowed her head, and soon her shoulders began to shake. The sorrow in what I had said seemed to have broken open. I listened to her crying and waited, stroking her ass as if to comfort her.
“……Hk. Sniff.”
“……It was hard, wasn’t it.”
When she had calmed a little, I said it quietly. I didn’t know this side of things all that well myself. Only that my first girlfriend—the one who had woken, if only slightly, the sadistic streak in me—had left me with the basics, and I had studied just enough to know that much.
“……I’m sorry. I’m—I’m dirty, aren’t I……?”
The voice that started to break made my chest ache. She wasn’t a stranger. I understood her circumstances well enough. And I was the one who had snapped the last thread of patience she had been clinging to. I kept stroking her ass and waited for the crying to stop.
I don’t know if I can be the one to fill that for her.
Meet her where she was, or pretend I hadn’t noticed. The answer was already decided. She wasn’t my only friend in the neighborhood anymore, but she had been. She was an attractive boss, and I knew well enough that she was a good person.
Of course I didn’t know whether she leaned hard or soft, so there was no need to go deep. I could just ask. But if I went any further here, I would have to take responsibility. And I was more than willing.
“I don’t really know this kind of play. I’m not skilled at it, either.”
At my quiet murmur she startled, still sniffling. She threw her head back in a hurry and the words came tumbling out.
“I—I am! It’s my first time! This, this kind of thing……. I mean it, I really do. I’ve never had another master!”
She seemed to have taken my words as a refusal. The joy and the anticipation were already gone. The boss—no. Ju Hayeong, now simply a woman—looked at me with eyes full of despair and fear. She dropped to her knees in front of me and hurriedly clutched the apron near my thigh. Tears kept spilling down her face, bright as silver beads.
There was a desperation in that heartbroken voice that tightened even my own throat. I stroked her hair and stopped her from saying more. Then I looked into Ju Hayeong’s face, soaked through with despair, and opened my mouth.
“If you’re still all right with that. Take off your pants.”
“……Ah…….”
At that single sentence, light—anticipation, and desire—bloomed all at once and gathered in Ju Hayeong’s eyes. At the drop into plain, commanding speech she swallowed, and her breathing was already a little rougher than before.