The Devil's Bargain
Kim Ho-chang was born in 1972.
A man of the early 1970s generation—born into the first flush of sexual permissiveness, he had spent his youth in the golden age of hunting bars and after-hours revelry.
Back when he was in college, those same bars were already crawling with women.
He had ridden the wave of prosperity that preceded the IMF crisis, and by the time the economic storm hit, he already had a robust list of partners and a pocket full of money.
In an era before dating apps or messengers, young men like him often showed fewer total sexual partners than today’s thirty-somethings.
But if you counted every encounter—every orgasm, every rough night, every willing or unwilling partner—the number was staggering.
He had been the most prolific generation of all.
(117 partners / 2,223 encounters / 1 year and 7 months ago)
Kim Ho-chang was simply overwhelming.
Among every man I had ever scanned, his partner count was the highest by far.
Even assuming he had started at sixteen, the arithmetic was merciless: at least four new partners a year just to reach one hundred seventeen.
In his prime he would have been closer to ten a year, steadily climbing while running his company at the same time.
He was, by any measure, the worst kind of amateur.
His wife was a whore, and so was he.
The age gap of sixteen years meant the playing field was almost level.
The fact that they had fallen into the same bed with one another was not the problem.
The problem lay elsewhere.
“One year and seven months ago. That’s impossible.”
Almost six hundred days.
A man who had once fucked at least once a week, no matter how empty his schedule, suddenly deciding he would live a celibate life after a single night?
He had a wife who looked like she had stepped out of a magazine, and the financial means to buy something fresher and prettier than her whenever he wished.
Kim Ho-chang was clearly not impotent.
The real question was why.
The cause could have been anything.
Years of hypertension and high-cholesterol medication finally triggering side effects.
A bad batch of stamina boosters laced with steroids.
Or perhaps one too many dubious tonic tonics from China or Southeast Asia that had quietly wrecked his endocrine system.
And as I saw it, Kim Ho-chang still hadn’t surrendered the hope of recovery.
The massive muscle mass I had seen yesterday was proof enough.
Why would he keep injecting himself with steroids when his dick wouldn’t even stand up?
It was far more likely that he had paired high-dose testosterone and HCG therapy with whatever he was already doing, willing to destroy his liver and prostate because the damage was already done.
“Naturally he would keep it off the books.”
No self-respecting man would advertise that he was castrated—especially not one whose wife was sixteen years younger and who had already bedded over a hundred and ten other women.
The only person alive who knew the full truth was Han Chae-kyung.
Once I finished the analysis, I sat down and wrote the email at once.
Of course, anonymously.
I rented a ProtonMail account on an old tablet and sent it straight through.
The recipient was one of Han Chae-kyung’s closest aides in her election campaign.
A high-school and college classmate of Kim Ho-chang’s.
Of course his paycheck came from Kim Ho-chang, not her.
[I am the therapist helping Kim Ho-chang’s representative recover his sexual function. It’s good to make money, but I’m afraid we might actually kill someone if we keep going. Mr. Kim… he’s sliding toward ruin. His liver enzymes—AST, ALT, and GGT—are all more than double the normal upper limit because of the procedures.]
I framed it as if I were running an illegal hormone clinic, but I wasn’t worried about his health at all.
[The GGT is three times the normal range. Do you know what that means? It’s worse than the steroid-damaged bodies of professional bodybuilders. And it’s not just the liver. Blood pressure is 160 over 101. Prostate-specific antigen has crossed 5.5. Benign prostatic hyperplasia and inflammation are severe.]
I laid out his grim medical situation in cold, clinical language.
Tachycardia, night sweats, mood swings, abdominal bloating, chronic fatigue, jaundice—
Of course, the symptoms and numbers were mine.
Kim Ho-chang’s old schoolmate and Han Chae-kyung’s aide would read them and say nothing.
He was being paid by the man who couldn’t get it up; he wasn’t about to interfere.
Recovering potency in a wealthy man was not exactly the kind of thing that made headlines.
But the next line would be harder to swallow.
[I receive 500,000 won per month for the hormone-HCG therapy I provide. Considering Mr. Kim’s wealth, that’s almost nothing. But the overseas procedure and stem-cell injection costs run into hundreds of millions. Naturally, everything is illegal. You could end up in prison trying to get your dick up.]
I added the fallout that would hit the couple the moment the truth broke.
As an aide, I had no choice but to sound concerned.
Would Kim Ho-chang accept that concern?
It was certain he would not.
And whether he knew it or not, the man who had been bleeding his own secrets to strangers would be hunting them down.
That same evening.
“Are you leaving work, Councilor Han Chae-kyung?” (1 / 676 / 4 days ago)
“Yes, Team Leader. I’ll see you tomorrow.” (73 / 887 / 1 year and 7 months ago)
“Councilor! Did you receive the documents from the medical team?” (32 / 219 / 19 hours ago)
“I did. Manager Kim So-young worked late, too.”
It was the moment the regular session ended.
Han Chae-kyung shook hands with the other city councilors, smiling politely, then turned to me and my colleagues.
“Thank you all. See you all tomorrow.”
Her expression looked noticeably lighter than before.
When our eyes met, she gave a small nod and a smile.
“Take care, Investigator.”
She wished him well, the same way she had wished me luck earlier.
***
When Han Chae-kyung reached home, she let out a long sigh.
And without thinking, she caught the faint smell in the air.
“It’s gone. Lucky.”
Joo Sung-hyun.
The madman who had demanded, in my office right before the plenary session, that I let him suck my dick.
Maybe the bitterness was just in her head, but until yesterday the taste had still been there.
For the first time in years, Han Chae-kyung had kissed a man with her mouth.
Despite the size, the intensity, and the insanity of it, she had still been surprised.
“But now that man has finally shut up.”
Joo Sung-hyun had returned to the appearance of a proper civil servant.
She had to keep an eye on him, but something strange was happening—he was maintaining an unexpected distance.
She didn’t trust him completely.
In truth, Han Chae-kyung was still torn.
Should she promote her father-in-law, Joo Sung-hyun’s boss, to the position of shift supervisor to win him over?
Or should she take a harsher approach and quietly warn him?
Whichever way, she needed her husband’s help.
Every ounce of influence she possessed came from him.
“Mommy, you’re home early.”
“Oh, honey. You’re here.”
She had come from the managers’ seminar in Cheongdam-dong today, but had she skipped it?
From her husband’s perspective, it was a fortunate coincidence.
They had wine together after a long time apart.
Of course she had to be careful not to misunderstand his intentions.
Last year, when he was still trying to force a confrontation, she had gone along with it.
Now she no longer bothered.
“Honey, where are you…”
“Get in here.”
The voice came from the study—commanding, cold.
Han Chae-kyung didn’t flinch.
That was the man she had married.
Especially after he had become “that man,” he had grown even more authoritarian.
She understood the bitterness, so she let it slide.
She stepped into the study with a polite smile.
“Sit.”
Her husband’s tone was wrong.
He was wearing tight black cycling shorts, his belly protruding obscenely, thick arms like tree trunks.
That part was the same, but his face was twisted.
His skin was yellow, oily sweat dripping down his cheeks as he stared at her.
This was…
“Is something the matter?”
“You know I was supposed to go to Cheongdam-dong today.”
“I know. The business seminar.”
“The seminar was bullshit. A bunch of men whose dicks won’t get hard together, sticking electrodes to their heads and meditating while a Chinese masseuse massages their entire bodies from toes to head.”
“…”
“They’re all desperate because they’re afraid their dicks won’t work. You know that, right?”
The atmosphere was heavy.
Han Chae-kyung knew her husband’s efforts well.
She knew that the man who once believed he was the pinnacle of sexual stamina could not let go of the hope of regeneration.
She knew he was still trying all sorts of things.
Of course they were married; why wouldn’t she know?
Up until now she had simply ignored it.
She had prayed it would never happen.
Potency? She was fine with that.
After all, they were more like business partners now.
But why now?
“So. I can’t get it up.”
“Husband? I don’t understand why you’re saying this…”
“I admit it—I spent money trying to buy something. I got hormone cocktail injections… but I don’t know why you raised the monthly fee to 500,000 won. …Of course that’s not the whole story. The seminar was 150,000 per session, and vascular reconstruction surgery was five thousand dollars just for the operation.”
“Wait a minute, honey.”
She had to stop him.
Han Chae-kyung forced a smile as she stepped closer.
“But… fuck. Is spending my own money wrong?”
Her husband’s curse came faster.
At the same time, a gurgling sound came from his swollen belly, but it was not funny in the least.
Taehwa Industrial Development’s Kim Ho-chang.
A man who had clawed his way to success in Annam City, a slightly rougher city than Suwon or Guni, through real-estate speculation.
It hadn’t been skill or luck.
He had several criminal records—negligent homicide among them—and several cases he had beaten.
“You’re asking if spending my money is wrong. Why is there no answer?”
Kim Ho-chang’s mouth curled in a smile that was hard to erase.
Han Chae-kyung wiped the smile from her face.
“It isn’t wrong. But it’s not me.”
“You look like you know something.”
“I’m sure you think I tampered with your mouth. I’m just trying to save time. Is there something you want to say?”
Kim Ho-chang’s lips curled up in amusement.
Han Chae-kyung could finally see why his eyes had turned black.
“It was you who sold that therapist and twisted my body. By the way, I’m not the therapist. I’m a nurse-turned-surgeon. You should have looked into it properly.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I looked into it enough to know. Don’t make excuses. It wasn’t the dealers who gave you the injections. Then who else could it be? The only person who would warn me not to get surgery while complaining about the risk is you, isn’t it?”
“Husband, wait.”
“Illegal? If it’s not caught, it’s not illegal.”
She had been painted as the traitor who exposed her husband’s weaknesses for her own risk management.
“And Chae-kyung. Is it really a man’s right to go around telling the world that her husband is impotent?”
Another crisis struck the moment he heard about the one leak.
Han Chae-kyung’s face went blank as she muttered, “I didn’t do it.”
“A shameless bitch who doesn’t even know gratitude.”
Her husband was clearly not convinced.