The NG Clauses

"ID."

It was eight o'clock on Saturday evening, in the interview room on the kennel's first floor. The woman in the black work uniform standing across the table held out her palm. It was the same voice that had asked over the receiver on Thursday night whether she was the dog — and had hung up, telling her to come and ask in person.

Ha-yoon took her ID out of her wallet and laid it on that palm. Beside her, Jae-hyuk drew his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket as well. Today, no one had told them to come in on their knees. Crossing the lobby tiles on the soles of her heels, Ha-yoon had glanced down at her own knees any number of times.

In the chair across the table sat a man in a white shirt with his sleeves rolled to the elbows. The woman in work clothes stood beside him, holding the two IDs up to the ceiling light to check them before writing on her clipboard. A thin chain was wrapped twice around her left wrist.

"Occupation."

"I'm a lawyer."

One corner of the woman's mouth curled up. She shifted her eyes to Jae-hyuk.

"And you, Guardian — how long have the two ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of you been playing?"

Jae-hyuk pushed up his glasses. "Five years... now."

"And what did you play at?"

"I'd tie her wrists with my necktie, and with my palm—"

"Palm."

The woman repeated just that one word and wrote it on the clipboard. Ha-yoon laced her fingers together on top of her skirt.

The man in the white shirt slid a bound set of documents in front of Ha-yoon. At the very top of the first page was printed the title Admission Agreement, and beneath it, the parties section.

The man in the white shirt was Kang Mu-hyun; the woman in work clothes, Oh Soo-rin. Instead of his name, Ha-yoon called the man by the word printed on the paperwork — in her head, the Owner.

She leaned forward and traced the clauses down with her fingertip. Inside her blouse, the cup of her bra dragged across a stiffened nipple. Without straightening her back she flipped through to the last page, then returned to the first.

"There's no termination clause."

The Owner spoke for the first time, his voice slow and low. "The door isn't locked. Termination is walking out through it."

"One more. What about a clause for stopping partway?"

"Say a person's name in here and you go back to being a person. Everything stops on the spot, and the night is over."

"A person's name — whose name?"

"Your own name, Counselor."

Ha-yoon rolled her own three syllables around inside her mouth and closed it. Even unspoken, those three syllables were heavy.

Soo-rin took a red rubber ball the size of a walnut from her work-uniform pocket and rolled it across the table. A little bell chimed inside it.

"Mouth's plugged, you can't call out a name."

Soo-rin picked the ball up and held it at the height of Ha-yoon's mouth. "When that happens, you drop this. The bell rings, everything stops. If your hands are free, slap the floor twice with your palm. That's a stop too."

Soo-rin slapped the table twice with her palm. The Owner turned his head slightly toward Jae-hyuk.

"If the Guardian says stop, that stops everything too."

Jae-hyuk nodded. Soo-rin dropped the rubber ball back into her pocket.

"It's not only about stopping. A dog can't ask with words, so it asks with its body."

Soo-rin unfolded her fingers one by one. "Wants a slap, it presses its cheek to a palm. Wants to be hit or fucked, it lifts its ass. Wants to be led, it takes the end of the leash in its teeth and offers it up. Wants to hand over everything, it lies on its back and shows its belly."

The hand, opened to the fourth finger, folded back into a fist. "Anything besides those four and a nod counts as a no. A wet pussy doesn't count as an answer."

Soo-rin came around the table and stood at Ha-yoon's chair, holding out her open palm at the height of Ha-yoon's cheek. "Try it."

Ha-yoon only looked at it. Perhaps from winding the chain, the center of the palm had calloused hard.

From the right, Jae-hyuk was watching. She had never once pressed her own cheek to another person's palm. The nape of her neck went cold.

Ha-yoon tilted her head and laid her cheek against it. The callus met the bone beneath her cheekbone. Soo-rin's hand was cold and dry. The instant skin touched skin, Ha-yoon's thighs pressed together beneath her skirt all on their own.

"Three seconds. Don't think before you press. A dog just presses."

The Owner reached across and turned a single page of the documents in front of Ha-yoon. The section heading was printed NG, and beneath it nine blank lines had been ruled. "No one will do anything you write here. Only you, Counselor, can erase it."

Ha-yoon laid her briefcase across her knees and took out her fountain pen. Black barrel, three letters engraved on the cap: H.Y.S. Jae-hyuk had bought it for her the year she passed the bar. When she pulled the cap, she heard him swallow beside her.

She looked up at Soo-rin. "Are there examples of what people write?"

"I'll call out a few things the others write."

Soo-rin retreated to the back wall and called out, leaning against it. "Ashtray. Piercings, tattoos. Nights without the Guardian. Gags, tails."

Ha-yoon waited for more. Arms crossed, Soo-rin called out nothing further. Not one of the things that had happened on the showroom stage was named.

Ha-yoon set the nib to the paper. The men who had climbed onto the stage to Mio one after another surfaced first. While she wrote the first line, her pussy tightened beneath her skirt.

Behind it came the high ring of a bowl struck on its underside, and Mio's lifted leg. Ha-yoon did not lift the nib from the paper.

The words Soo-rin had called out she reworked to fit the form and slotted in between her own lines. Even the night three men had mounted Mio one after another shrank to a single line.

Everything Soo-rin had called out fit by there. Ha-yoon looked down at the last blank line. Mio, circling beyond the waiting-room glass, had not spoken a single word all that night.

The Owner turned the documents toward himself and read them line by line. He said nothing. At the ninth line his finger paused for a moment, then moved on.

"The cooling-off period is seven days. We take your signatures next Saturday."

I wrote them all. Too fast.

Soo-rin pushed off the wall. "I'll be looking at your body. Next room."

The next room was larger and barer than the interview room. Beneath the fluorescent light at its center stood a stainless steel examination table that came up to Ha-yoon's hips, its top covered with a black rubber mat. Seen from the door, a bench ran along the left wall, a tissue box at its end. The Owner sat down in a chair by the door, and Jae-hyuk sat on the bench.

"Strip."

Ha-yoon's hand stopped at the first button of her blouse. The Owner was in the doorway, Jae-hyuk on the bench, Soo-rin one step in front with her clipboard. The fluorescent light was white and shadowless. Here, not one nipple, not one hair of her pussy would be hidden.

She undid the buttons one by one. She took off the blouse, unhooked the skirt and let it drop to her feet, stepped out of her heels and rolled her stockings down.

When the bra came undone, her breasts were bared under the fluorescent light. Last of all she drew her panties down and freed them at her ankles.

As she stood holding the removed clothes, Jae-hyuk held out his hands. He folded each piece over his knee as he took it. Beneath his fingers as he folded the panties, the crotch soaked with her arousal glistened.

Soo-rin stood Ha-yoon in front of the measuring gauge fixed to the wall. When she pressed her back to it, her breasts thrust forward, and a wooden board came down on the crown of her head.

"168."

When Ha-yoon stepped onto the scale, Soo-rin read the dial and wrote the number down without calling it out. Then, clipping the clipboard under her arm, she cupped the underside of Ha-yoon's breasts with her palm, lifting and releasing them as if weighing them.

Soo-rin pinched the right nipple between thumb and forefinger and examined its tip. Ha-yoon's shoulder flinched. Without a change of expression, Soo-rin let the nipple go. Released, it shriveled under the fluorescent light.

"Open your mouth."

When Ha-yoon opened it, Soo-rin's index and middle fingers entered. The two fingers pressed her tongue down and checked her molars one by one. It was the first time a body other than Jae-hyuk's cock had entered her mouth. When Soo-rin had swept the inside of her cheek and withdrawn her fingers, saliva spilled over her lower lip and ran down her chin.

"Teeth are fine. Just don't bare them when you're biting a cock."

Soo-rin wiped her wet fingers on her work trousers. There was no order to wipe the chin. The saliva pooled there dropped and struck Ha-yoon's breast.

"Up. Head toward the door."

Bracing on the edge of the tabletop, Ha-yoon drew herself up knees first. The rubber mat was thin; the stainless steel beneath it held her kneecaps, cold and unyielding. When her palms came down too she was on all fours, and her hanging breasts swayed once.

The Owner in the chair by the door sat directly in her line of sight. He rested his eyes neither on her face nor on her breasts. He looked at the two hands braced on the tabletop, then at her knees.

Soo-rin set the clipboard down next to Jae-hyuk on the bench and went back to the foot of the table. Behind Ha-yoon now. Two hands settled one on each buttock, thumbs hooking the rim of her anus.

Ha-yoon's shoulders went rigid. On the showroom stage, Mio had offered up her pussy and her anus just like this. That night, Ha-yoon had been on the other side — watching from the dark before the wall.

Soo-rin drew the buttocks apart. When cool air touched her anus, Ha-yoon clenched the hole without meaning to.

"Relax."

Ha-yoon breathed out and let the tension go. Soo-rin's thumbs slid lower and parted her labia to either side. Air touched the opened mouth of her pussy. The thumbs only pressed the rim of the entrance; they did not go inside.

"Labia are fine. Anus is closed, too."

One thumb traveled lower and pushed aside the flesh hooding her clit. Light and air from the fluorescent tube struck the bared clit all at once. Ha-yoon's buttocks trembled, and arousal welled from her entrance, wetting Soo-rin's thumb.

"Pussy's wet in the middle of an inspection."

Soo-rin turned her head toward the bench, thumb still slick. "Guardian, at home too — does it get this wet from a mere touch?"

Jae-hyuk gave no answer. In the corner of Ha-yoon's right eye hung Jae-hyuk's knee, and the blouse folded over it. Soo-rin wiped the arousal from her thumb against the flesh of Ha-yoon's buttock.

Soo-rin pressed the pedal at the foot of the table several times. Carrying Ha-yoon with it, the top sank a handspan at a time with a hiss. Her lifted buttocks and spread pussy sank with it.

When the top stopped, Ha-yoon's eyes were almost level with the seated Owner's. Soo-rin rounded the table to beside Ha-yoon's head — a spot from which she could take in Ha-yoon's profile and the foot of the table at once.

"Guardian — do it the way you do at home."

Jae-hyuk half-rose from the bench and stopped. Caught at the edge of her vision, the front of his trousers bulged in the exact shape of his cock.

"You mean... now?"

"The bitch is already holding her pussy open, isn't she."

Ha-yoon drew her knees back a little and lifted her buttocks as high as they would go. It was what she had just been taught in the interview room. Her waist dipped, and her wet pussy offered itself toward the foot of the table.

Soo-rin tipped her chin at Ha-yoon's buttocks. The parted lips of her sex were cool in the open air. "The bitch raised her ass begging to be fucked. What are you doing, Guardian?"

Jae-hyuk set the folded ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clothes down on the bench and came to the foot of the table. Behind her came the click of a belt buckle, the rasp of trousers and underwear dragged down to his thighs. His thighs met the underside of her buttocks. He bent his knees to bring his cock to the right height, and the point where they touched sank a little.

The tip of his cock found her entrance. At first it slipped on her wetness and skidded up over her labia. Ha-yoon lowered her hips a fraction and set it back against the entrance. On the second stroke his cock parted the lips and drove in to the deepest part of her.

After Jae-hyuk's cock had drawn out and pushed back in slowly a couple of times, Soo-rin spoke. "Too slow. Do you fuck her at this speed at home, too?"

Jae-hyuk's hips quickened. The slap of his lower belly against her buttocks echoed off the bare walls of the room. With every thrust Ha-yoon's knees crept forward across the rubber mat. The inner walls of her pussy grew hot under the friction of the quickening cock.

Past Ha-yoon's impaled buttocks, Soo-rin flicked a glance at Jae-hyuk's knees. "Bend your knees more and drive up from below. Right now the bitch is just rocking in place."

Jae-hyuk bent his knees deeper. His cock drove up at a slant from underneath, raking the back wall of her pussy. Ha-yoon's elbows wobbled, and her braced hands slid a handspan along the mat — that much closer to the Owner in the doorway.

Jae-hyuk's two palms lay cupped around the small of Ha-yoon's back. Soo-rin looked down at them. "Hands on the ass, not the waist. Your hands are soothing the bitch, Guardian."

His hands slid from her waist down to her buttocks and seized a handful of flesh in each. As his fingers dug in, his cock hammered the inside of her pussy all the harder. A short moan leaked from Ha-yoon's mouth.

Soo-rin spoke, her eyes still on Jae-hyuk's fingers buried in the flesh. "Grab her like that from the start when you fuck her."

Gripping her buttocks, Jae-hyuk fucked her while hauling her back onto himself. Each time she was pulled back, her knees slid backward across the mat; each time she was shoved away, they returned. The tips of his gripping fingers dug in close to the crease, to the very edge of her anus.

Soo-rin bent down beside Ha-yoon's moaning mouth, her voice pressed close to her ear. "Dip your back more. Get that pussy standing up toward the Guardian."

Ha-yoon lowered her waist further. Her buttocks rose higher, and the angle of each thrust changed. His cock came in straighter than before and struck the deepest point of her, and Ha-yoon's mouth fell open of its own accord.

"Head up. Let the boss see your face while you take it."

Ha-yoon raised her head. The Owner sat directly in front of her. He was still not looking at her face but at her two hands, nudged forward bit by bit across the mat with every thrust.

Under that gaze, Ha-yoon clenched around the buried cock from her side. She wanted him to look at her face.

Jae-hyuk only fucked, gripping her buttocks, his palms never leaving the flesh. Without taking her eyes off the Owner, Ha-yoon spoke to the man behind her.

"Hit me."

Jae-hyuk's right hand left her buttock. A beat late, the palm came down on her right cheek. The sound hit the bare walls and rolled around the room. The struck flesh flared hot, and around the buried cock her labia quivered.

"Does it hurt?" Jae-hyuk asked from behind her, the returned palm already stroking the spot he'd struck. His cock had gone still inside her pussy as well.

Soo-rin dipped her face beside Ha-yoon's ear and snorted. "Hurts? You've spent ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠five years with a man who asks that?"

Ha-yoon's pussy clamped down hard at those words. The buried cock was caught in the grip and for a moment could not pull free.

Jae-hyuk's rhythm fell apart. One stroke shallow, one far too deep, and the fingers gripping her buttocks bit into the flesh. A short sound broke from his throat. Inside her pussy his cock twitched two, three times and spilled its hot seed.

Ha-yoon could not go over. Caught a hair's breadth short of the edge, only her clit throbbed on, alone.

She folded her elbows and sank down onto the tabletop. Her forehead met the rubber mat, her slackened nipple pressing into it. The mat smelled of antiseptic.

Jae-hyuk withdrew. Semen leaked from her gaping pussy and ran down the inside of her thigh toward her knee. His fingertips touched that thigh, then fell away.

A single sheet of tissue descended. It did not go toward the thigh where the semen ran; it stopped before Ha-yoon's eyes, still pressed to the mat. Soo-rin had drawn it from the box at the end of the bench.

"Wipe."

Ha-yoon took the tissue and climbed down off the table. Jae-hyuk withdrew his waiting hand and pulled up his trousers. Standing, Ha-yoon wiped the semen from her inner thigh with her own hand. The single sheet was soon soaked to shreds, and what she hadn't caught cooled on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the inside of her knee.

Jae-hyuk gathered the clothes from the bench and held them out. Ha-yoon put the arousal-soaked panties back on just as they were. She fastened her bra, drew up her stockings, hooked her skirt, buttoned her blouse to the throat, and stepped back into her heels.

All the while, Soo-rin had picked up the clipboard from the bench and was writing something into one of the check boxes. The clipboard stood at a slant against Soo-rin's chest. With her pussy still slick inside her panties, Ha-yoon watched nothing but the moving tip of the pen.

When they returned to the interview room, the Owner was already seated, waiting. The admission agreement lay spread open on the table. The fountain-pen writing had fully dried. Even upside down, Ha-yoon's eye found the word penetration in the first line before anything else.

As she sat down, the damp panties clung to her labia beneath her skirt. Jae-hyuk took the seat beside her.

The Owner turned the document in front of him half a circle with one fingertip and slid it in front of Jae-hyuk. Below the nine lines Ha-yoon had written, the final box stood empty.