Something Else Excites Me More
No… what really excites me is something else.
“The truth is… the way my brother was staring at your breasts with such greedy eyes… that look drove me absolutely insane with arousal.”
The confession was short, but its impact tore through the air in the room like shards of broken glass. Sujung, who had been imitating my sister-in-law and even letting out clumsy moans for my sake, froze instantly. The warm heat that had been wrapped around my neck cooled in an instant.
“……What did you just say?”
Sujung’s voice was low and calm. But beneath it, the dreamy haze from moments ago had vanished, replaced by an indescribable sense of revulsion. She shoved hard against my chest and pulled me out from between her legs. Our passionate union after two long years ended in such a hollow, frigid way.
“Sujung, that’s not what I—”
“Enough. I don’t want to hear it.”
Sujung gathered her clothes without even looking back. The afternoon sunlight that had filtered through the blackout curtains now felt like a harsh searchlight exposing our shame. She sat on the edge of the bed, roughly tying up her disheveled hair, and spoke with a cold side profile.
“It’s true that you glanced at another woman… someone like your sister-in-law. Fine. I’ll concede a hundred times over that men can do that. But how… how can you get excited imagining throwing me to another man?”
“Sujung, it’s because you’re so beautiful… it means you’re desirable enough that other men would look at you that way—”
“Don’t make excuses. That’s not love. That’s just treating me like an object.”
Sujung closed the bedroom door and walked out. After that day, a ghostly silence settled over our home.
A week passed.
We lived under the same roof but didn’t exchange a single word. When I came home from work, Sujung was never in the living room. Only cold side dishes waited on the table. Even in bed, we lay with our backs to each other, running parallel lines. I cursed the deranged excitement I had felt in the laundry room, and every time her stern face flashed in my mind, guilt crushed my chest until I could barely breathe.
It was Friday afternoon. I came home with the usual heavy steps and opened the front door. But instead of the usual silence, a warm aroma brushed my nose. The savory scent of stew and the rich smell of pancakes filled the air.
On the living room table, a neat drinking spread had been prepared. Sujung sat in front of it wearing an apron, waiting for me.
“You’re home? Go wash up. Let’s have a drink.”
It was the first time I’d heard my wife’s voice in a week. Instead of answering, I nodded and hurried to the bathroom. As the water poured over me, I thought, This must be the end. Is this table a sign of farewell? Anxiety gripped me.
After washing, I sat down at the table. For thirty minutes, we filled and emptied our glasses without a single word. The heavier the soju bottle grew, the heavier the air became. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore and spoke first.
“……I’m sorry.”
My voice trembled. Sujung only fiddled with her glass and said nothing.
“You tried so hard after two years… to make it work with me. I crossed the line. I shouldn’t have said something so crazy.”
Instead of answering, Sujung downed the rest of her soju in one gulp. The sound of the empty glass hitting the table rang out unnaturally loud. Her face was flushed—whether from the alcohol or a week of torment, I couldn’t tell. After a long silence, she murmured softly.
“……Sigh. I’ve been thinking about it all week. The things you said. That you get excited knowing other people see me as a sexual object… No matter how hard I try to understand, I can’t. It goes against everything I know.”
Sujung lifted her head and looked straight at me. Her eyes were filled with resentment, sorrow, and an unknowable fear.
“Do you… really want to show me off to other men like that? Do you actually like the idea of me looking so lewd in the eyes of strangers? What am I to you? Your wife, or just a doll that satisfies your perverted desires?”
“Sujung, it’s not like that—”
“Because I don’t understand, all I can think about are terrifying possibilities. Have you… grown tired of me? Is that why you think it’s okay to treat me however you want? Is that why you want a divorce?”
Her voice shook thinly as she asked the final question. The tears pooling in her eyes shimmered dangerously under the light. My wife was genuinely terrified. She was afraid that her husband’s strange desires might destroy our family.
I reached for her trembling hand, but she quietly pulled away and filled her glass again.
“I don’t understand… and it hurts so much. But do you know what hurts even more? When you said those things… I was scared, but your eyes looked so sincere… it felt like you weren’t the man I knew. That scared me the most.”
Sujung threw back another shot of soju. She was desperately fighting between her sense of morality and her love for her husband. Watching her, I couldn’t say a word. Because the monster inside me was still feeling a twisted thirst as it gazed at her wet eyes.
Another silence fell.
On the table, only empty soju bottles and cold side dishes remained. Neither of us spoke. We didn’t know what to say first. My confession had shattered the fragile peace of our marriage, and the shards had become sharp silence, pointed at each other’s throats. After fiddling with her glass for a long time, Sujung let out a short sigh and spoke.
“……Haa. No. When I think about it, I don’t have anything to say either. I… was the one who first told you to think of me as your sister-in-law. I even acted like her to help you finish faster…”
Her self-mocking tone made my heart sink. My wife was trying to find the cause of this abnormal situation within herself as well. The tears in her eyes trembled precariously under the light.
“……”
“But, honey. Let me ask you one thing. Be completely honest.”
Sujung raised her head and stared directly at me. Whether from the alcohol or the emotions she had been suppressing, her eyes looked much deeper and darker than usual.
“The reason you didn’t touch me for two years… was it really because of that tendency? Because I was just Park Sujung, your wife… so I couldn’t excite you? If I wasn’t an alluring ‘object’ that other men would covet, was I nothing to you?”
It felt like my heart had dropped to the floor. Her question was razor-sharp. The suspicion that our two-year gap wasn’t simply because of her frigidity, but because my twisted desires weren’t being satisfied. I shook my head quickly, trying to hide my panic.
“No, Sujung. It’s absolutely not that. It’s the opposite. You’re too precious to me. Watching you suffer from frigidity, I didn’t want to hurt you. That’s why I unconsciously suppressed my desires… and they ended up coming out in those bizarre fantasies. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world to me. That hasn’t changed.”
My cowardly excuse floated over the table. Sujung filled her glass again, whether she wanted to believe me or was only pretending to. As our conversation went back and forth, her expression grew increasingly solemn.
“Honey, this past week has been hell for me. If we drift apart again like this, I’m afraid the same darkness from the last two years will return… That terrifies me. I tried too. I even acted like your sister-in-law to make it work somehow… but for it to end up like this, I feel like I’m going crazy.”
Sujung grabbed my hand tightly. I could feel the cold sweat on her palm.
“I’ll try harder. I really don’t want to break up with you. From now on… I won’t say it hurts anymore. I won’t tell you to hurry. I’ll accept everything the way you want. So let’s try again… okay?”
Her voice was trembling. It was a desperate declaration that she would give up her rights as a wife and become nothing more than a vessel for her husband’s desires. Knowing how cruel it was for someone with frigidity to promise she wouldn’t say it hurt, guilt stirred in a corner of my heart. But even stronger than that guilt was the strange sense of dominance I felt from seeing my wife break herself for my sake.
“Sujung…”
“Let’s… have a baby. Before it’s too late. If we have a child and raise it, maybe you’ll stop having these strange thoughts, and I might change once I become a mother. Let’s stop living like the last two years, turning away from each other. I’m really scared, honey.”
My wife finally burst into the tears she had been holding back. They were tears mixed with pure longing to protect our family and the terror of facing her husband’s twisted sexuality. I stood up, pulled her close, and held her in my arms. Her hot, alcohol-scented breath touched my neck.
“I’m sorry, Sujung. It’s all my fault. I’m truly sorry for hurting you.”
I whispered as I slowly stroked her back. On the surface, it was perfect remorse, a tearful reconciliation. Sujung buried her face in my chest and sobbed for a long time. It felt like the week-long cold war was melting away.
“Can I… trust you? You won’t say those scary things again, right?”
“Of course. I promise. We’ll be happier than before—happier than ever.”
I wiped her wet eyes and kissed her gently. But my gaze was fixed over her shoulder, toward a dark corner of the living room. My wife was willing to sacrifice herself to protect our family, but I was already turning even that sacrifice into new material for my depraved fantasies.
A wife who would endure the pain and accept me.
A wife desperately clinging to the idea of having a child.
Every pure, well-meaning word Sujung had spoken for my sake was being reassembled in my head into disturbingly arousing scenarios. The more purely she tried, the stronger the urge grew inside me to defile that purity.
We held each other tightly. She trembled with relief, and I trembled with suppressed excitement. Like the empty soju bottle on the table, our marriage had already hit rock bottom, but we had placed a thin cover over it called ‘reconciliation.’
“Let’s go to bed and rest. You must be exhausted.”
I supported my wife as we headed to the bedroom. Leaning against me, she whispered a small thank you. We lay side by side in bed. Listening to her steady breathing, I stared at the ceiling.
For now, we had reconciled. We had ended the two-year darkness and decided to walk the path of husband and wife again. But no one could know whether the end of that path would be the peaceful home my wife longed for, or the destructive pleasure I imagined.
Between my wife’s even breaths, I thought I could hear my brother’s low laugh from when the bedroom door had closed yesterday. I gripped the hand of my sleeping wife tightly. It felt less like a token of love and more like the grasp of a captor who would never let go.