Another Hole 2
Somnophilia.
In psychiatry and sexology it is classified as a paraphilia—the tendency to become sexually aroused by a person rendered helpless, someone asleep or unconscious. Within BDSM circles it is sometimes practiced, with consent, under the name sleep play. I myself do not possess any extraordinary fixation on the act.
What draws me is simply the absolute imbalance of power that opens between a conscious subject and an unconscious object. When I confront that perfect defenselessness, the raw, instinctive excitement that rises from the strange dynamics grows a little more intense. The reason I had been so aroused while Nayeon slept, and the reason I now gripped Jieun’s ankle at the head of her bed and tried to slide a fresh pair of panties onto her, both stemmed from the same peculiar imbalance.
The moment another person’s consent or resistance becomes meaningless, the pleasure of looking at, touching, and controlling that unprotected body at will is more addictive than any sadistic act. It resembles the omnipotence a god must feel when gazing down upon its creation. Especially the memory of that freshman year—when I had once more caressed Jieun’s fresh, modest breasts—swelled uncontrollably the instant my fingertips slipped beneath the panties and revealed the secret place between her legs.
A twenty-year-old body laid bare under the dim night light. Those fresh, unprocessed curves, mixed with heavy drunkenness, dragged back into this precarious bedroom the most vivid residual image of the fetish I had buried deep in the recesses of my mind.
It had been one day during finals week. Summer of my freshman year, when humid air drifted in through the open windows. My parents had rushed down to the countryside for a relative’s funeral, leaving the entire apartment empty.
Using exam preparation as an excuse, I invited my girlfriend over. Instead of the stifling air of the library, a peculiar tension wrapped around the quiet space left to the two of us alone. I gladly yielded my desk and chair to her and spread my textbook on the floor beside the bed to study. The soft rasp of mechanical pencils and the occasional rustle of turning notebook pages filled the room.
After a late lunch of delivered food, postprandial drowsiness and accumulated fatigue struck. She nodded off at the desk, finally giving up and folding her arms to rest her head.
“I’m just going to sleep for ten minutes. You have to wake me up after ten minutes, okay?”
Watching her profile as she lay slumped over the desk, I suggested she lie down properly on the bed instead of sleeping in that awkward position. When I promised to set a thirty-minute timer and wake her, she extracted several more assurances from me before climbing onto my bed and stretching out.
Perhaps because she had been pushing herself through all-nighters the entire exam period, she sank into deep sleep the moment she lay down. Even, fatigue-laden breaths rose from her face, soon joined by soft, faint snores. The instant I saw her completely exposed in that defenseless state of sleep, a strange lust lifted its head inside me.
At the time, the farthest we had gone was a few touches of her breasts. Whenever I wanted more she always grew stern, angry, drawing an absolute line that must never be crossed. To me her lower body was a forbidden sanctuary I dared not invade.
Yet seeing her lying unconscious on my bed, the urge to test the solid latch of that forbidden zone paralyzed my reason. My heart began to pound as if it were fixed to my eardrums. In the silence where the second hand of the living-room clock sounded unnaturally loud, I carefully approached the bedside.
Swallowing dryly, I slid my hand inside the thin training shorts she wore. The sensation brushing the back of my hand was startlingly foreign. Through the thin cotton panties I gently cupped the soft, raised center. Afraid she might wake, I barely dared breathe, lingering and hesitating for a long time; yet the mere fact that I was touching her most precious place over the fabric drove my excitement to its peak. At the end of that brief standoff I finally slipped a fingertip beneath the elastic. The first thing that caught against my skin was the texture of pubic hair—coarse yet soft, downy.
When I carefully stroked that tender flesh and the fine hairs, uncontrollable arousal mixed with the terror of discovery left my palm damp with sweat. Once the tactile craving was satisfied, a visual thirst surged over me like a tidal wave. I needed to see it with my own eyes.
Not the fantasy I had only encountered in porn, but the pure place of a girl my own age who actually existed. The stories the so-called experienced kids told—about one-night stands with someone they met at a club—were mostly male bravado, or if true belonged to a world different from mine. That unknown sanctuary that had circled only inside my head, tormenting me with curiosity, was about to unfold before my eyes without reservation. Yet if I rashly pulled her pants down she would certainly wake.
After some thought I worked my hand beneath her hips and eased the panties downward only a fraction. Under the faint light of the room, the most precious place she had kept so tightly hidden revealed its shy shape. Holding my breath, I turned my head close against her waist and stared for a long time, lost, at the miraculous sight exposed beneath her thighs. A clean sanctuary standing on the razor-thin boundary between a fresh twenty-year-old and a woman.
Once the visual conquest was complete, reason went numb. Unable to hold back any longer, I lowered my head deeply and pressed my face against the edge of her panties. The distinctive, faintly sour, secret scent, together with the fragrance of young skin, I greedily drew deep into my lungs. Extreme rapture that felt as if my brain might burn struck my entire body.
Even in that fleeting moment I remained meticulous. To keep her from waking and discovering this hellish situation, I suppressed my hammering heart and hurriedly restored the panties and shorts to their original place. After perfectly rearranging the disordered clothes, I raced to the bathroom, locked the door, and began to masturbate. The eyes reflected in the sink mirror were bloodshot, glittering with red desire. The climax I released then was the most destructive and overwhelming pleasure I had ever felt in my short life up to that point.
When I finally woke her well past the appointed thirty minutes, she rubbed her heavy eyelids and sat up. Roughly smoothing her mussed hair with one hand, she lightly grumbled that I had let her sleep longer instead of waking her earlier.
“Ah, why did you wake me so late? I still have to study.”
There was not the slightest hint of suspicion on the sulky face that complained. Even after returning from the bathroom she simply looked a little refreshed as she sat back at the desk and buried herself in exam preparation. She never knew what had happened while she was sunk in the deep mire of sleep, never knew in what way her most intimate sanctuary had been observed and swallowed into my lungs. Behind her as she murmured the exam scope without the faintest awareness, I lifted the corner of my mouth in a strange, silent smile.
In the end I never progressed any further with her; as the school year changed we drifted apart naturally and finally broke up. We never once formed the ordinary, heated physical relationship others spoke of, yet what remained with me was a far deeper and more vicious mark. The spiritual satisfaction of knowing that I alone possessed and kept the most pure and clean of her most secret secrets. It was an enormous emotional resonance that shaped the form of my soul, far beyond the mere discharge of lust. Perfect domination that the other person would never know for the rest of her life, held and shaken by me alone. That was the grand beginning of my twisted world.
That secret experience at twenty settled deep in my unconscious as a private point of orientation. The power dynamic in which another’s consciousness is erased and only I exercise complete dominion. Sleep play—indulging solely in a silent body without the refusals or performances of a waking partner—also settled as one of the many amusements I enjoyed.
Of course the communion and sex shared while bodies collide in full awareness possessed their own fierce flavor. The process of gradually training a partner to my touch through progressive lovemaking until she finally craved and submitted to me alone always brought a fairly addictive sense of achievement. The stimulation when I shattered the “mouth only” contract with Nayeon and violated her defenseless sleeping form had also been considerable. Yet the present situation was of an entirely different texture.
With Jieun I had obtained neither consent nor tacit permission of any kind. She had flirted jokingly during the drinking game, but between people who had met for the first time today that was most likely only atmosphere. Crossing the line would mean absolute taboo that led straight to ruin without a single word of excuse. Precisely that raw danger was driving me mad with stimulation.
The fact that I was forcibly violating another person’s sacred territory without any right, any justification, any consent whatsoever.
The primal fear and sharp excitement that recklessness produced paralyzed my mind. The final shred of morality that had been veiled by alcohol tore away in tatters, and my lower body burned as if it might burst.
And before me, small and pure, a hole lay open and defenseless, ready to receive every drop of that heat.