Cheonsiman-gyo
Once Yongjin had finished speaking, Myeongsuk took her turn and described how she had been gathering people. Roughly a hundred and fifty had come to today's meeting, she said, and among them she planned to hold a second gathering with those who already functioned as leaders. Those leaders, in turn, were already out recruiting others. What confidence she drew it from I couldn't say, but she openly declared that they would soon have five hundred.
Miryeong had been organizing the doctrine and the precepts. After every one of my gatherings she would listen to what I had said, then revise and expand the material. Once that work was complete, she intended to finish a proper scripture and produce pamphlets for outreach as well.
Hearing all of that, I realized we had become a full-fledged religious group. A part of me felt a little afraid, but I had already decided to throw myself into whatever direction these people were taking us for the time being, so I let it stand. The only thing I checked was whether they were doing anything unethical or illegal.
While I was turning that over in my mind, Miryeong looked from me to the others and spoke.
"We ought to give our gathering a proper name now. I've been thinking about it — if we want it to carry a religious air, it should include the character for heaven, cheon. And isn't the greatest strength of our Jisin the way he brings peace to the hearts of the faithful? So what about Cheonsiman — Heavenly Mind Peace? Cheonsiman-gyo."
We looked around at one another's faces. Every one of us was smiling. I smiled too. Somewhere inside me a quiet tension stirred at the thought that this was where things truly began.
Giving the gathering a name carried a strange weight of its own. The people who had built this circle seemed to feel they were finally embarking on something real, and they threw themselves into preparation with even more zeal. When I stood before the crowd, I began to slip in, almost casually, the doctrine and precepts Miryeong had been shaping. To people whose ears and hearts were already open, my words were hardening into truth and into faith.
By then, anyone who had come to one of our meetings found it hard to stay away. My talks had always tended to pull people in, but before it had been little more than a pleasant story, a moving story, a brief rest for the mind. Now I was pressing into those same hearts the reason they needed to keep coming — and stressing that, with something to gather around, we could lean on one another.
Of course, among the first-timers there were still those who watched me with half-trusting eyes. But I knew what I was doing. For the time being I chose only the stories that could melt that suspicion. If I had begun by telling them they must engrave our doctrine on their hearts and believe, they would have dismissed us as just another cult. I never said anything of the sort. I held firmly to the posture of a man who simply wanted to give strength to people who were struggling. More and more force entered my words, and the level of their faith rose with them, little by little.
I began introducing myself as someone who had received a mandate from heaven, and I called our gatherings the place where that message was delivered. The people who sat there, I named Sindo — believers who had claimed the foremost seats among the many I would lead into a world of peace. They looked grateful that they, of all people, had been able to join our meetings ahead of everyone else.
So the number of Sindo grew by degrees. Those who had been with us from the start began voluntarily promoting Cheonsiman, bringing neighbors and acquaintances along. In truth, the first people Myeongsuk had brought already had a gift for that sort of thing; I suspected she had chosen them deliberately. She seemed to hold separate meetings with a handful of middle-aged women, and those women went about spreading our message with energetic, voluntary zeal. In their own way, they had taken the vanguard of missionary work.
At our settlement meetings, Yongjin's face began to break into broad smiles, and the amount of offerings he reported was climbing steeply. Of course more people meant more money — that was only natural — but I still felt the need to ask.
"Those offerings… they really are voluntary, right? There can't be even the slightest coercion."
Yongjin smiled brightly.
"Don't worry about that. The offering box is simply set out in front of the hall. We don't even look at it."
At some point we had started using formal speech with one another at the settlement meetings, and the habit had stuck; even when we met privately we still addressed each other with respect. Myeongsuk and Miryeong scolded me every time I slipped into honorifics out of habit, but I never made a serious effort to break the pattern.
"Once the remodeling of the building is finished, we'll need to start putting a little more money into outreach. Brochures, activity funds for the missionaries…"
"Missionaries?"
I repeated the word; I had never heard it used among us. Myeongsuk stepped in.
"It's a working title. Spreading our doctrine is something any of our Sindo can do, but I've been selecting people who can move more aggressively and actively. They'll produce results worth a hundred ordinary believers."
She meant those women she had gathered.
"And since the building came up… there's something I need to speak with you about separately, Jisin."
I nodded as if it were nothing much.
"After the meeting, then. In my room."
When the meeting ended I went back to my room, and about ten minutes later Myeongsuk came in. The moment she entered she began undressing. Once she was fully bare she took my hand and led me to the bed. I was a little startled, but I wasn't unwilling. I had barely left the place in all this time, so there had been no chance for private moments with her. She stripped my clothes off with a certain hurry.
"I have to leave early today," she said, once she had me naked and was crouching on the floor with my cock in her mouth.
"You said you had something to tell me about the building. Is this it?"
She pulled her mouth free.
"No. This is just my own greed. Let me finish this first, then I'll talk."
I found her oddly cute for saying it. She was far older than I was, and yet the thought still rose unbidden. She pushed me down onto the bed and climbed on top of me. The tattoo of a womb on her body came into view.
"From now on, Jisin, you'll be in this position often. You should get used to it."
Even here her lessons never stopped. She guided me inside, closed her eyes, and rolled her hips. The Myeongsuk who always stayed so composed when she coached me felt, today, just a little rushed. I closed my eyes as well and let her do as she pleased.
Her body, as always, was like a swamp. Once we started, I sank deeper and deeper, the way a man drowns in mire. I felt my reason dulling and closed my hands around her breasts. She laid her hands over mine and bent her upper body toward me.
"Ah… ah…"
Until now she had breathed hard but had never really cried out. Strange little sounds were spilling from her mouth. Her eyes were thoroughly unfocused as she looked straight at me.
"Will you kiss me?"
I caught the back of her head and drew her face to mine. Her lips covered mine, and her tongue pushed deep into my mouth. The brilliant play of that tongue nearly drove me out of my mind, and all the while her lower body never stopped moving. Her sex clung to my cock with a sticky, almost synthetic grip, and that stickiness only seemed to grow as time passed.
"Ah… ah… Jisin…"
She tore her mouth from mine and dragged in rough breaths. It wasn't only her hips that moved; her breasts swayed and brushed against my chest.
"Is Miryeong… good?"
I had been lost in a fogged, illusory world; the question yanked me back to reality. When I opened my eyes, Myeongsuk was staring at me.
"A slim young woman like Miryeong has to be much better than an ajumma like me, right? From the looks of it she's had some experience, too."
I began to understand, dimly, why she was like this today. I wrapped my arms around her and rolled us over until I was on top. I drove my hips hard. The eyes that had been fixed on me went hazy, and her head tipped back.
"Ah… I'm… going to lose my mind…"