Ultra Luxury
Once we left the crowded commercial strip and cut down a side road, the throng thinned at once. Then the street grew so quiet it was hard to believe a busy thoroughfare had been so close. Only cars passed by, and none of them were public transit — private vehicles, every one.
The streets were darkening by degrees. I checked the address again and walked on at an easy pace. This was a district of luxury villa complexes, so vast I couldn't begin to guess how many houses there were or how large the grounds ran. That anyone had managed to carve out something resembling a country estate on Seoul's gold-standard real estate was astonishing enough. The scale of wealth required to live in a place like this was beyond imagining.
The trouble was, if these people had earned their way here through honest work, that would have been one thing — but plenty of them hadn't. How many of them had started on the same line as everyone else, paid every tax they owed, and still made it this far? Most of them, I suspected, were the sort who threw around lines like Do you know who I am? the moment something didn't go their way, and the thought left a quiet undercurrent of resentment. Walking along with nothing but dark and cynical thoughts, I could feel what should have been an enjoyable evening starting to lose its light. I shook my head, trying to change the channel.
The moment I stepped into the complex Minhwa had given me directions for, a guard came running out. In most apartment buildings the security staff tended to be older men, but the one jogging toward me was young and solidly built. He stopped me and asked where I was headed. I almost laughed. It put me in mind of the watchdog we'd kept years ago — the one that had inspired someone to slap a Beware of Dog sign on the gate, a detail that had sent me into a long fit of laughter at the time.
I told him my destination. He radioed someone, then waved me through. Surely he hadn't been calling Minhwa's house directly — or so I hoped. I learned later that if a resident registered an expected visitor, the management office simply verified it.
Inside the complex was an entirely different world. It was so still and snug that the noisy entertainment district just outside might as well have been a rumor. It felt almost like the deep countryside, tucked away in the mountains. There wasn't a single car visible at ground level — only trees and greenery. I couldn't tell one tree from another, but the ones here looked as if they cost a fortune. Or perhaps a first-rate gardener came through on a regular schedule. Almost certainly both. And through the foliage, the sky showed none of the surrounding skyscrapers at all — only a glittering stretch of open sky.
I looked around as I made my way toward Minhwa's house. Even within the complex, it was a long walk in. The residents here clearly didn't do much walking. From the gate all the way to her door I didn't see a single person on foot, and I never caught so much as a silhouette through a window. Did anyone actually live here? After a while I finally arrived at Minhwa's place. The address she had given me sat deep inside the villa grounds.
It was a large three-story building — enormous for only three floors. A broad lawn stretched in front of it, looking for all the world like a private garden. A small directory of sorts told me the whole structure held just four households. Most likely the first floor consisted of the ground level, the basement, and the garden, while the second and third floors formed duplex units — two households on the first floor, two above.
I forced my hanging jaw shut and went inside. Minhwa's home was on the first floor — the unit with the ground level, the basement, and the garden, by the look of it. When I pressed the doorbell, I heard a soft click as the lock released, and the door eased open on its own. Even the opening was automatic. I fought the urge to let my mouth fall open again and stepped carefully inside. The moment I entered, a rich, refined fragrance washed over me — elegant and calm. The door closed behind me of its own accord.
The entryway was the size of my studio apartment. I carefully removed my shoes, slipped into the house slippers provided, and followed the long corridor. At the end of it, a living room the size of something out of a movie opened up before me. A massive chandelier hung at the center; between the large paintings lining the walls, ornate sconces glowed. In the middle of the room sat a sofa so enormous I had never seen anything like it in my life. It could have seated twenty people without strain — a size I had never even seen on film.
"You're here?"
Minhwa was walking toward me from deeper inside. I looked at her and had to catch my jaw again. She was wearing something like a nightgown, her hair loose around her shoulders, coming toward me as if a goddess had simply decided to step into the room. In my memory, she would forever be walking in slow motion.
As she reached my side, a wave of her perfume rolled over me. She linked her arm through mine.
"You haven't eaten, have you? Come on."
We crossed the living room into an enormous dining room. As far as I knew, the household consisted of her husband, this woman, and a young daughter. Looking at the table, though, you would have thought the family numbered ten. Sit a little closer and twenty could have fit. Ah — so that was why the sofa was sized for twenty.
The vast table was covered in dishes of the kind you only saw at a hotel buffet. For two people to eat at a table like this, we would have to keep getting up and moving around. Minhwa seated me at the center and said,
"I didn't prepare this myself, to be honest. We have someone who cooks for us. I told her we wouldn't need any serving tonight and sent her home."
She crossed to one side of the dining room and came back with a bottle of wine. She poured a glass for me, filled her own, and sat down beside me. Her makeup tonight looked a little bolder than usual. I kept having to hold back a smile. We toasted and drank. On an empty stomach the wine went down with a pleasant warmth, and my mood lifted at once. I didn't know much about wine, but the aroma that rose after each sip was superb.
"Your husband isn't coming home tonight?"
Even with the subject of her husband raised, Minhwa answered as if it were nothing at all.
"No. He said he'll be back tomorrow."
Asking more about him felt like overstepping, so I left it there. I looked at the food for a moment, then asked again.
"You said you had a daughter, didn't you? Is she sleeping somewhere else tonight?"
Minhwa smiled softly and took another sip of wine.
"That's what I meant when I said I needed to make preparations. My aunt lives in America, and my cousins are there as well. I sent my daughter to them. Early study abroad — something along those lines. My cousins have children around the same age, so she'll be fine. Of course, she has a dedicated tutor looking after her as well."
Tutor. It was a word I had only ever seen while memorizing English vocabulary; I had never heard anyone use it in ordinary life. I didn't press her further. She didn't seem especially eager to talk about it. She set her glass down.
"Come on. Let's eat slowly and talk. Right now it's just Jisin and me in this house, and no one else is coming until tomorrow evening. So make yourself at home."
I managed a wry smile and began to eat. I was hungry, but more than that, every dish was extraordinary. Food prepared by a professional — it was almost unfairly good. I lost myself a little, eating with unseemly haste, and Minhwa watched me with quiet satisfaction.
Conversation could wait; I focused on filling my stomach. Only after some time, when I was finally getting full, did I realize how I must have looked. Seeing that, Minhwa said,
"There's a hinoki bath downstairs. After we eat, let's soak in the warm water together. It'll ease the tension and wash away the fatigue."
They really did have everything here. For a woman who lived in a house like this to have come naked into my tiny room — and spent a whole day there with four people, no less — it must have felt unbearably cramped. Tonight I intended to accept every kindness she offered. I already knew that the finest hospitality of all was waiting at the end of her welcome. Delicious food and a fine bath were one thing, but the greatest luxury of all was the beautiful woman herself — Minhwa.
While I finished my meal, she ate only a little and mostly drank wine. When I was done, I patted my stomach and drained the rest of the bottle. Smiling contentedly, she led me down to the basement.
Even downstairs there was a living room roughly half the size of the one on the first floor. The room she guided me to was like a large private sauna. Every wall and the floor itself were lined in fragrant cypress. In the center stood a wooden tub already filled with warm water. She opened the sauna-room door to show me the interior, then turned back to me.
"Go on in and wait. I'll bring another bottle of wine."