Blackmail
I climbed off her body and lay down beside her. Yeonsu sprawled with her arms and legs flung wide, still dragging in ragged, heavy breaths. As her breathing slowly settled, her small voice rose into the quiet.
"I've had plenty of chances to cheat. Plenty of men who made passes at me, too."
I turned my head to look at her. Yeonsu still had her eyes closed, limbs open, her belly rising and falling.
"I kept my principles all that time… and now, at this age, I've finally broken them."
I propped myself up a little and turned toward her.
"Do you regret it? Too much to drink?"
Yeonsu shook her head hard.
"No. The opposite. I'm just sorry I only met you now, Jisin. I wish I'd met you when I was a little younger, a little prettier…"
She opened her eyes and looked at me. Her damp, tangled hair half-veiled her face, but the smile she wore was utterly captivating.
"Back then our Jisin would've been far too young, wouldn't he?"
I reached out, cupped her breast, and drew her into my arms. She held me in return. Smiling, we looked at each other and kissed. After a deep, lingering kiss I pulled back and said,
"You're more than beautiful and alluring enough right now."
Yeonsu kissed my mouth again and murmured,
"There's still time before morning. Do me more. No… meet me often and do me."
I pulled her close. Her face crossed mine, and she whispered against my ear,
"I've been having such a hard time lately. I woke up one day and realized I had nowhere to rest. So if I'm being a little clingy, please understand."
I released her, took her wrist, and guided her hand to my cock. She closed her fingers around it while I laid my hand over her sex, still slick with my semen and her own fluids. Her body twitched again.
"If it lets you rest easy, I'll hold you for a hundred days, a thousand. But if the real problem never gets solved, you're only running away from reality."
Yeonsu met my eyes steadily, though my fingers made her flinch from time to time. Her gaze was slowly clouding over.
"You're unfair. Making me this helpless… nn… where are you…"
Her eyes grew hazier still, and the wetness under my hand only increased. I rubbed her clitoris and waited for her to speak of her own accord. She really was a woman who heated up fast.
While my fingers kept her twitching and slowly winding her body tighter, Yeonsu laid a hand against my cheek and said,
"It was a very big deal."
She wanted to talk. I watched only her face, careful not to shatter the resolve she had so hard-won. My hand, of course, never stopped moving.
"There was a high-ranking civil servant I once helped buy an unsold luxury villa at a good price. That villa has skyrocketed since then. Not long ago he treated me to dinner out of gratitude, and at that table he gave me a piece of information. Something a public official should never do—but he said it was a token of thanks for how much I'd helped him grow his assets."
I started to lift my hand from her sex. Yeonsu hurriedly caught my wrist. I smiled faintly and left it where it was. She kept rolling her hips, wanting more of my fingers, and even so her story continued.
"Nn… At first I didn't think much of it. My instincts aren't so shallow that I'd run wild on the word of some real-estate amateur. But I was grateful for the consideration, so I figured I'd at least have people look into whether there was anything to it."
I asked in a low voice,
"What was the information?"
"The new expressway they'd been debating for years."
I read enough books and news to know the project. It had been hailed as infrastructure that would revolutionize the country's logistics, yet for a long time it had gone nowhere—too much money at stake, too many interests tangled up in it. I nodded.
"I know. The logistics overhaul project. Last I saw on the news it was still stalled…"
Yeonsu looked at me with unfocused eyes and nodded.
"Yes. The experts said that under the current conditions it had a ninety-nine percent chance of collapsing. The profits from the development would be enormous, the factions fighting over those rights were many, and their power was formidable. The biggest problem was that land prices all along the planned route had already exploded. The well-moneyed had been locked in a vicious scramble for parcels in the area, and prices had shot through the roof. Eventually the feelings among those heavy hitters turned so ugly that it stopped being about profit and became a pure contest of pride."
As her story went on, her sex gradually dried, and the restless motion of her hips eased. I slowly withdrew my hand and brought it to her breast. This time she didn't stop me.
"But the information he gave me was absurd. They were going to scrap the entire route that had been discussed and put it on a completely different course. He said only the president and a handful of people at the Ministry of Land knew. To keep speculation from overheating, the plan was to buy up the land first for construction, then make the announcement."
Yeonsu's breathing was settling now, and her voice found its balance again.
"Around projects that size, every kind of rumor always flies. I trusted the official who'd given me the tip, but I still didn't get my hopes up. Even so, out of respect for his sincerity I put investigators on it. And their reaction was… strange. On the surface nothing was happening, and land prices were stable. But my people have been in this business for decades—they have a feel for things. They said it seemed like someone was quietly buying up land in small pieces, under many different names, so no word would get out. It was only just beginning, but still."
Yeonsu let out a long breath.
"I thought, this is it, and I bought up every remaining parcel. Farmland and hillsides—nothing that expensive. I've been in real estate long enough to have instincts, a gut feel."
Her expression darkened markedly.
"The problems started after that. First, the high-ranking official who'd given me the information suddenly committed suicide one day."
I had been smiling; the abrupt twist startled me.
"Huh??"
Yeonsu looked as if she had expected exactly that reaction and went on in a calm voice.
"I had the same reaction when I first heard. He had no reason in the world to kill himself. Retirement wasn't far off, he'd built up a solid fortune, his children were grown and pairing off one by one… and he owned a luxury villa in Gangnam, so even his later years were secure. There was no reason for suicide."
She pushed herself up a little on her elbows.
"Then one day a man contacted me. Open, outright blackmail. He told me to sell every last plot. I've had plenty of experiences like that. Most of them are empty noise—just talk. So I didn't even bother snorting. This time was different."
I was drawn into the story enough to ask,
"Different how? You mean the threats were real?"
Yeonsu nodded.
"Yes. At first, every deal I'd lined up started getting canceled. So many contracts falling through all at once was unsettling, but I told myself it could happen. When it kept going, though, I began to wonder whether that man's threats might actually be genuine."
My hand, which had been kneading her breast, went still. Yeonsu continued.
"I was uneasy, but there are people like that in this business, and I decided I wouldn't fold easily. Once you get on your knees, something told me it wouldn't end there. Then the man called again. Asked if I still had no intention of selling. I cursed him out thoroughly. Yes, the massive margin from the project mattered—but what made me angrier was the idea of blackmailing someone and trying to take what was theirs."
Her voice had risen; it settled again.
"Then the man's tone changed. He said I'd touched something I should never have touched."
Goosebumps ran over my entire body.