Scatter His Attention
Never coerce. Never force. That was the cafe's unspoken rule — and it was precisely why the place had run for eight years without so much as a whisper of trouble.
But there was a side effect. The male members' sexual identities were growing increasingly ambiguous.
Dr. Hwang Jeong-geon dipped a piece of boiled pork tail in sauce and held his chopsticks out toward Ji Hye-in's face.
"Eat. Open up..."
Ji Hye-in parted her lips and accepted the meat he fed her.
Watching her, Hwang Jeong-geon spoke again.
"Your husband... anything going on with him lately?"
It was a completely different tone from earlier, when he had stripped her naked and made her kneel while they talked. The two of them were conversing as easily as old friends.
"No... he's struggling with it. After he scared that managing director the way he did... he seems to be looking at other insurance companies. He's torn between staying through the end of the year and then moving, or transferring right away."
"And you, Hye-in... what have you been saying to him?"
"I... I haven't said anything. It happened because of me, so... out of guilt, I haven't given him any advice at all."
"No. This is the moment you need to step in. Tell your husband to move to a new insurance company — quickly. Nudge him. Gently."
"Why... why?"
"Anyone who moves into a new organization needs time to adapt. It takes months. Everyone's like that. When I was younger and went on long-term fellowships at hospitals overseas, I'd spend months just trying to settle in. Men — well, men or women, it doesn't matter — once they leave a group they know and enter one they don't, they have nothing left for anything else. All their energy goes into fitting in. That means the attention your husband has been paying you will drop off considerably. There's a great deal still ahead of you. If you're truly certain you won't quit as a public sub... then you need to get your husband to change jobs. You need to scatter the focus he's been concentrating on you. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Yes..."
"Whether you do it or not, your decision matters most, of course. But think it through carefully. Which is better for you. And it would be better for your husband, too. Honestly — you go after your superior, and then you stay at the same company? You think that's going to be easy? It would be hell for both of you."
"......"
Ji Hye-in said nothing. She nodded, slowly.
His wife, Ji Hye-in, was massaging Yoo Kang-soo's neck and shoulders as she spoke.
"Honey... you've been having a hard time lately, haven't you."
"Yeah... right there, that feels good. Keep going... keep rubbing."
Yoo Kang-soo lay face-down on the bed, soaking in the massage his wife was giving him.
"What about looking at other insurance companies? How's that going?"
"I'm still looking. One place told me if I'm interested I shouldn't hesitate — just come over. But the working conditions look like they'd be brutal."
"Why?"
"They've got fewer investigators than my current company, so the caseload per person would be heavier. If it were just the capital region it wouldn't be so bad, but the provincial trips look like they'd be constant. Money-wise, sure — you get a travel allowance, so the out-of-town work actually pays better. But if it's like that, we'd basically be a weekend couple. I'd be in the provinces all week and only come home on weekends. And my stamina isn't what it used to be. I don't know. I'm still thinking it over."
"The way I see it... you went after someone that high up. They're not going to renew your contract, are they? End of the year is renewal season for almost everyone in your line of work. If you wait until then, won't the competition for other positions be fierce? It would be wonderful if they renewed you, but if they don't... if you end up in some miserable situation... wouldn't that just feel awful? If there's a place that wants you, it's better to leave on your own terms. It's better for the company, too. Let's be honest — you're a thorn in their side. They can't even touch you, not with a personality like yours..."
Ji Hye-in laid out her thoughts for her husband, carefully, one by one.
"Wow. Our Hye-in's been doing a lot of thinking. Well... everything you're saying is right, I'll give you that. But if I'm gone all week... what if you cheat again? They say once you've tasted it, it's a flavor that's hard to forget. You've kept your mouth shut tight, so I don't know a thing. How many men were there with Yeom Seong-bong? I have no idea. Ko Dong-seok seems pretty much confirmed... Fine. Even if we say it's just those two for certain... that still means you cheated on your husband with two other men. At minimum."
At Yoo Kang-soo's words, Ji Hye-in stopped the massage. She turned her back to him and lay down in the corner of the bed.
"Hey. You sulking? Just keep going. We already agreed we'd acknowledge the past and live with it."
"Director Ko Dong-seok said it was a misunderstanding. You beat the man half to death and he still didn't confess. So why do you still suspect him..."
"Ko Dong-seok told you that? That he didn't confess?"
"No... that's not what I mean. If he had confessed, would you have left me alone?"
"And what would I have done to you? In twenty years — from when we were dating until now — have I ever hit you? Even as a joke? Have I ever so much as cursed you out?"
"Th-that's true... I'm just upset. You treat me like some washed-up woman whose life is over..."
Ji Hye-in turned back toward him and wrapped her arms around her husband's chest as she spoke.
"Shall we do it tonight?"
She slipped her hand into Yoo Kang-soo's underwear and fondled his cock as she said it.
"Go ahead."
Yoo Kang-soo yanked his underwear off, and Ji Hye-in lay down between her husband's legs, took his cock into her mouth, and began to suck him with devoted care.
"Haha... look at that. All five of us here today are in the medical field. A pleasure."
Kim Min-hyeok, an ophthalmologist, was smiling as he spoke. Three doctors and two pharmacists had gathered, and one woman was with them.
For Ma Kyeong-il, the fifty-three-year-old pharmacist, this was already his third experience with a public sub. The first had been Ji Hye-in. The second had been a public sub named Yoo Mi-ran.
Honestly, the atmosphere surrounding Ji Hye-in and that of Yoo Mi-ran, his second, had been so different that Ma Kyeong-il had found himself faintly bewildered. The afterglow of Ji Hye-in still lingered in him. But Yoo Mi-ran — though, to be crude about it, she had given him his first experience of anal sex — left no such residue. All that remained was a single thought: how had an ordinary-looking married woman fallen this far? Being with her had felt strangely like coupling with a married woman who had simply gone mad with lust. That was his honest impression of his second public sub. It had even seemed to scrape away some of the afterglow the first one, Ji Hye-in, had left behind.
To shake off that confusion, Ma Kyeong-il had quickly put in a request for another public sub, and after waiting a week, his turn had come. Of the four public subs, he had already experienced two. Today he would experience the third. And today, Ma Kyeong-il was treating everyone to premium Korean beef short ribs.
The five members sat over a light round of drinks, swapping stories of their exploits at the cafe gatherings. Nobody was showing off. Everyone spoke with a humility that seemed ingrained in them, and Ma Kyeong-il found the atmosphere deeply pleasing. Deference and restraint looked as if they had been worn into all of them.
Wedged among the five men, Ma Kyeong-il quietly drank, and watched the middle-aged woman who was filling the men's glasses as well as her own.
This was a completely different atmosphere altogether.
The cafe had boards the public subs could not see — boards only the male members could access. Reviews, ratings, and profiles of the public subs were posted there.
The public sub Ma Kyeong-il would experience today was the oldest of the four who remained. And she was said to be the longest-serving public sub in the cafe's eight-year history. She had become a public sub at the cafe's very beginning, and for a full eight years her position had never changed. She was still serving in that role. A woman named Yang Ji-hwa.
She was the only public sub in her fifties. Her profile listed her as fifty-six by Korean age. In her late forties she had been trained by the cafe's founding members, and from then until now — a stretch of eight full years — she had been playing the part of public sub without a break.