The First Move
I found myself wondering whether the man speaking in front of me was really the Jae-shik I knew, and the whole thing felt so unbelievable that I half thought he was joking about doing something straight out of an adult video with my own sister-in-law.
“Were you surprised?”
“Yes… but why would you—”
“You and your sister-in-law haven’t exactly been sleeping together well, have you? Jin-hee told me you were extremely conservative. I don’t know the exact details, but according to her, your sister-in-law seems to have developed some defensive habits in that area because of a man she used to date. She said it might be even worse with you… Since there was that problem, she’s probably being conservative with you.”
I couldn’t bring myself to answer that with a simple yes.
As I listened, it did occur to me that if she liked sleeping with me too much because of some past man problem, then she might actually start looking worse in my eyes, and that could have made her pull back even more.
While all sorts of thoughts tangled up in my head, Jae-shik went on.
“I happened to see some adult videos on my computer and looked through them. Nearly all of them were the sort of netorase stuff where the wife cheats. There was some incest content, some group stuff too… Well, a man watching porn isn’t exactly unusual, so I figured that could be the case. But then I suddenly remembered what Jin-hee had said before—she said your sister-in-law seemed conservative in bed. Probably because she feels guilty toward you. Anyway, you can watch porn and even save it on your computer, sure, but there was so much of it that it couldn’t be explained just by saying you happened to like a particular genre. I just got the feeling right away. You were clearly dissatisfied with your sex life with your sister-in-law. Am I wrong?”
He had hit the mark so precisely that I couldn’t answer right away.
All I could do was fill the glass in front of me with beer and gulp it down.
Jae-shik simply watched me drink, waiting for my answer.
“Yes… honestly, I am.”
“Yeah, I thought so. Jin-hee and I put sex first. We think that if that doesn’t fit, then nothing else can really be enjoyed without dissatisfaction. On the other hand, what if everything else is good, but there’s no sex between you at all and you’re just living a platonic love? Maybe that can happen when you get older. Maybe it’s possible for people who don’t have much sexual desire to begin with. Sexual appetite varies from person to person, sure, but when you do indulge yourself, it has to feel like, damn, that was really worth it. Otherwise the desire just keeps piling up and piling up until one day it finally explodes.”
I didn’t think everything Jae-shik said was necessarily right, but for me, it still struck painfully close to home.
It wasn’t as if I couldn’t meet other women because I didn’t have the money.
If I wanted to have fun, I could always pay a professional girl and enjoy myself properly.
But what I wanted was to enjoy myself with my wife. I didn’t really have much desire to enjoy myself with another woman.
Occasionally, whether I wanted to or not, I’d go to a business dinner or some entertaining event, spend money on women, and relieve myself to a certain extent. But the frustration of not being able to truly enjoy that with the woman I loved kept building little by little, and I could feel myself nearing my limit.
After Jae-shik finished speaking, my mind kept tangling itself into knots, and all I could do was keep drinking the liquor in front of me.
Once I’d finished the beer and started knocking back several straight shots of the hard stuff, the alcohol began rising in me and my head slowly started to cloud over.
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
I set down my glass after a few more straight shots and asked him.
“What do you want your sister-in-law to become?”
“I… I want So-hee to… huff… be surrounded by men, getting fucked while writhing in orgasm. Right in front of my eyes… while she sucks my cock…”
—————————————————————
“Ah… why is his phone off? Sis, can’t you get through to your husband?”
So-hee had come to visit her older sister and was having a light dinner with her, along with some beer, when she called her husband and snapped in irritation at the automated message telling her the phone was turned off.
“If men are out drinking together, that can happen. Why are you so obsessed with keeping Woo-min on a leash?”
“What if he and my brother-in-law went somewhere weird?”
“And why would that be a problem?”
“Aren’t you worried?”
“What’s there to worry about? It happens. Hold on a second—I’ll call him.”
Riiing.
“Oppa… uh… uh… ah… okay. Be careful getting home, and… yeah… ah… okay, okay… I’ll tell her. Then I’ll just sleep here tonight~ Okay.”
“What did he say?”
“He and Woo-min oppa were drinking liquor, and Woo-min oppa got carried away, started drinking it straight, and seems to have gotten drunk. Other people kept calling, so oppa turned his phone off. He said they called a driver and were heading home now, so he’d just let him sleep there and asked me to tell you.”
“Ugh… he can’t even handle alcohol, so why did he drink so much?”
“You really need to stop nagging Woo-min oppa and treat him better. He says he’s fine, but I doubt that’s how he really feels.”
“Anyone listening would think you were the wife of my husband.”
“Sorry, but I only have your brother-in-law in my heart. No matter how much Woo-min oppa there is, for my own man…”
“Ah, seriously, stop it already. You’ve been married almost ten years now—why are you still this into him?”
“Mm-hm. We just fit each other perfectly.”
“That’s lucky, I guess. Still, if it’s your brother-in-law, I can see it. He’s tall, and he’s got that manly face. He treats you well.”
“How would you even know whether he treats me well?”
“You’re always bragging about your husband, so I’m sure he does.”
“Ho-ho-ho. Hey, are you free next Tuesday?”
“Tuesday? I don’t think I’ve got anything.”
“Then come somewhere with me.”
“Where?”
“Let’s go to the High-end Women-Only Massage Parlor. You’ve been worn out from all that IVF stuff, haven’t you? Let’s go play around a little. Get some skin care too—your skin needs to be smooth if you want our man to stop looking elsewhere.”
So-hee had been consumed by the IVF process for years, with all her energy focused there, and she hadn’t even dreamed of much leisure time.
She had already been feeling that the stress had taken a toll on her skin, so she was genuinely grateful that her sister was taking care of her like this.
“How embarrassing. ‘Our man’ and all that…”
“Hey, seriously, keep acting like that and Woo-min oppa’s going to lose interest in you. Whether or not you have a baby is in heaven’s hands now, so if the two of you want to live happily together, you need to be faithful to each other. At this rate, you’re going to get dropped.”
So-hee answered lightly, but she did feel guilty toward her husband.
When she’d gone to the gynecologist because they still hadn’t conceived and heard that her uterus had been badly weakened by the abortion she’d had in the past, leaving her with a difficult path to pregnancy, she had truly wanted to die.
She’d felt awful toward her husband, who kept comforting her and saying it was okay, and because she wanted a child so badly, she had struggled for years trying everything she could.
It had been hard, but she kept telling herself it was all punishment for what she had done before, and she endured through several years of IVF. In the end it still hadn’t worked, and the reason was entirely her own.
Even in her sex life with her husband, everything had always been adjusted to suit her.
To be honest, it wasn’t as though she had never done things with previous boyfriends, but if he ever saw her get aroused and hear her moan from her husband’s touch, she was terrified he would think too lightly of her.
Even when he moved inside her and she felt a cry rising in her throat, she held it back, and in the end she kept avoiding sex altogether.
Whether it was lucky or not, her husband had never shown much dissatisfaction about it, and she had come to think it was fortunate that his sex drive wasn’t very high.
The recent trip with her husband, after such a long time, had been wonderful, and she had started thinking that she needed to live her own life now and be better to him, too.
She had always heard that if a woman in her thirties didn’t take care of herself properly, she could fall apart all at once later on, so it was only natural that her sister’s suggestion to go to a massage parlor made her happy.
More than anything, she liked the thought of living like this with the people she loved most: her sister, her husband… and her brother-in-law, whom her sister loved so dearly. And even Yoon-sung, the nephew she hadn’t given birth to but loved all the same. She found herself wishing that the people close to her could all look out for one another and live happily together like this.
———————————————————————
Hearing that the reservation was for Tuesday at eleven, she ate a simple breakfast and went with her sister to the massage parlor where they were meeting.
“Huh? Sis, isn’t this place expensive?”
“It is. Your brother-in-law told me to take you somewhere nice, since you’ve had such a hard time.”
“Seriously? My brother-in-law is the best.”
He had made his name as a writer, but So-hee knew he wasn’t really earning much money.
Still, her sister had told her that his parents were wealthy, and that he had inherited quite a bit in advance when he got married, so she entered the massage parlor without much concern.
“Welcome, customer. You’re getting prettier every time I see you.”
“Oh, Manager, you’re too kind… This is my younger sister. My real younger sister.”
“Oh my, hello there. Jin-hee is already so beautiful, but your sister is truly lovely as well.”
She knew it was probably just the manager’s practiced line, but if someone called her pretty, it was hard not to feel pleased.
“Ah… no, not at all.”
“So you booked two people because of your younger sister. Would you like the two of you to receive treatment in the same room? Or separate rooms?”
“Ah, since it’s my sister’s first time, let’s stay together today. Just the basic treatment today. Since it’s her first time, keep the staff basic too. That’s possible, right?”
“Of course. I’ll prepare everything. Please take a seat and have some tea for now.”
“Okay~”