The Voice File (2)
I’d once overheard my friends complaining that trashy men completely change the moment they get into bed. Back then, I’d thought to myself, Isn’t that just your own fault for not being able to handle your own body? and looked at them strangely. A woman who falls for a man who only approaches her with the intention of sleeping with her is the fool. Why would you fall for it? It’s obvious if you just look. Guys who stare only at your chest. Idiots who spew nothing but greasy lines. That’s what I’d believed.
I never imagined I would end up like this.
⋯I didn’t even realize I was being deceived.
The man’s voice flowed out. Low and thick, the kind that had messed with my head countless times. That sound.
Of course I wasn’t okay. There wasn’t a single reason to intertwine my body with a man like this. Hearing this voice again was something that should never have happened.
“Hey, you, you—what the hell is this!”
“I record my drunk habits. If I do something stupid, I have to sober up and apologize, right?”
“That’s not—!”
“Shut up and just listen.”
How could he say such shameless things with that shameless look in his eyes? I’d gone out of my way to worry about him out of some squeezed-out sense of goodwill, thinking he might actually end up on the news if I left him alone. And what I got in return wasn’t gratitude—it was nothing but the filthy lust of a disgusting man.
The man currently pinning me down and looking at me didn’t say a word, but three hours ago he had been toying with me in that same greasy voice. And stupid me had given my clumsy consent to a man who didn’t mean a single word of it.
“Hey, hey, turn it off! Delete it! You crazy bastard⋯!”
“Why would I delete it? It’s all memories. Evidence.”
The events that followed were hazy in my memory, and I wanted to shove him away and smash the phone to pieces. But that was impossible. After tormenting me for three straight hours without showing the slightest sign of exhaustion, there was no telling what this man would do if I showed him any hostility. Something even rougher than before. More violent. He would simply violate me again.
That was why I couldn’t stop the screams that followed.
I couldn’t stop the man who gently soothed me even as I screamed in pain. No matter how many times I listened, it was clearly an act—why hadn’t I noticed it then? I already knew that any man who spoke in that kind of voice was a woman-obsessed piece of shit. So why… why had this man shown me such a pitiful look in his eyes?
“Turn it off, you son of a bitch—!”
“You need to know exactly how much you clung to me. Looks like you were too drunk to remember.”
“Clung to you? You piece of shit! You just got me drunk and raped me!”
“If you listen to the rest, you won’t be saying that.”
“Let go—! Just⋯, mmph⋯.”
He laughed with a disgustingly refreshed expression and began hugging me tightly, as if he found me adorable. Then, as if he had no use for my now-sober voice, he covered my mouth with his filthy one. With my tongue captured, he pressed the phone right against my ear and crushed my entire body with his so I could hear every second of the three-hour recording clearly. I couldn’t cover my ears, I couldn’t run away. Even screaming to drown it out was impossible.
The voice of a lewd woman tickled my ears. Moans. Whimpers. Sounds I had never made once in my entire life. Even when I masturbated, I would bite down on my t-shirt and hold my breath—I had never cried out so vulgarly before.
He even acted cute. A woman with the exact same voice as me was whining and throwing a tantrum toward a man she didn’t even like. I had never acted cute with my friends. Never thrown a tantrum with my family.
Toward a man I barely knew, someone with no connection to me at all. I was clinging to him, spilling every kind of obscene sound. Just like back then—crushed beneath him. Tongue captured.
It was the same even now. My hands, my feet—they moved exactly as he wanted, reacted exactly as he wanted. Even my struggling while my mouth was covered was the reaction he desired.
Back then, I had believed it was just a mistake. I hated Kang Juhyuk, and Kang Juhyuk hated me. Wouldn’t it be easier if we just took scissors and snipped through the tangled thread⋯? When he whispered it into my ear, it somehow sounded like it might actually be okay.
But hearing that wet, sticky sound again, I realized it was never a comfortable solution.
It was a choice I should never have made.
He was rude, had a filthy temper, and on top of that he was disgustingly tall—so tall that just looking up at him made my neck hurt. His muscles were so grotesquely bulky they looked repulsive. A perverted piece of trash who pretended to make eye contact while sneaking glances at my chest whenever he felt like it. I should never have given my first time to a man like that. I should never have nodded my head, even by mistake.
“Hah⋯, haa⋯. Get off me—!”
“You don’t like kissing? You seemed to love it earlier.”
“You’re heavy, and filthy! Haa⋯, haa⋯.”
“Ah, then should I hold you from behind?”
Once a run in your stockings starts, no matter how much nail polish you dab on it, it eventually keeps tearing wider. The man freely groping me from behind had no intention of letting me go. He had no intention of letting today’s mistake pass as a simple mistake. That pitiful face he had shown me earlier, the sly attitude at the bar, the pure joy when I gave him my autograph—every single one of them had been fake. Lies he performed because he wanted to hold me.
Schlick, schlick. Obscene sounds spilled from the phone placed beside my head. Loud, filthy, vulgar. The three hours I had spent drunk and drowning in pleasure slowly became clearer.
It was a voice I had sometimes imagined. The gentle voice that would whisper to me after I met a good man who understood me, dated him, got married, and on our honeymoon—after we saw each other naked for the first time—during our first loving experience together.
His voice was similar, yet completely different. Filthy, vulgar, black inside. A wet, sticky voice filled to the brim with nothing but lust. My pure, innocent first time was being covered by a skilled, manipulative piece of trash.
“⋯How is it? Hearing it yourself. I was really considerate of you, you know. Do you have any idea how much I held back?”
“Held back? You didn’t hold back at all, you—!”
“Ah, seriously. It’s so fucking cute how obvious it is that you have zero experience⋯.”
Since around the time I graduated middle school, countless men had stared at and harassed my chest. I never wanted to give it to a man like this. To this kind of trash⋯. Even if it was a complex, I didn’t want my pride trampled on.
“Let go, let go—! Blegh⋯, dirty⋯.”
“I washed my hands earlier, it’s fine.”
This time, instead of his tongue, a thick finger filled my mouth. I wanted to bite it off, but if I did, he would probably devour me mercilessly in return. It was scary. Terrifying. Disgusting. That I was being toyed with by a man like this.
My own voice—whining and acting cute after being deceived by a man—annoyed me. What the hell did I think I was doing, giving away even my chastity and babbling in that sticky voice? What are you doing? Who are you? Just because you were drunk, that makes it okay? Were you always such an easy woman?
No matter how much I scolded myself inside, I was panting in pleasure and surrendering my body to him. I couldn’t deny his words.
I had clearly given him my body. I had cried out sharply. I had never once told him to stop.
I had nodded. I had begged him to take my first time.
It was far more vulgar than the dirty fantasies I had occasionally imagined.
I had handed over every bit of control.
With my entire body entrusted to this man.
I was being violated by Kang Juhyuk.
I was being raped by the man I hated.
To the man I had once hated most in the world, I felt guilt—
—and apologized to him with my body.
⋯Like a fucking idiot.