The Motel Photographs
"Wow... that smells incredible..."
"Go wash your hands first..."
The two of them sat facing each other across the little meal tray, bright smiles on their faces as they started in on dinner.
It was a studio apartment, so there was no dining table to speak of. All they had was the small folding tray Kang-soo normally used. The side dishes Hye-in had come down during the day to prepare with such care filled it completely, with a few more set down on the floor beside it.
Watching her husband shovel rice like a farmhand who hadn't eaten in three days, Hye-in spoke up carefully.
"Eat slowly... you'll make yourself sick..."
"You've been watching me for twenty years. You ever seen me get sick from eating?"
"Now that you mention it... I don't think I ever have..."
Hye-in answered with a light smile.
"Shall I pour you a drink?"
"Sure... just half a bottle."
Hye-in opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of soju, and poured a glass for her husband.
"Ahhh... that's the stuff..."
There were plenty of side dishes to drink with, and the soju tasted wonderful — but Kang-soo was holding himself back from overdoing it, with the next day in mind.
The two of them finished the meal that way and sat with a cup of coffee each. But Kang-soo didn't even wait for her to finish hers. He slid his hand straight down the front of Hye-in's dress, into her chest — and then simply stripped the whole dress off her in one go.
He hadn't had a single chance to work off his desire. Night after night he'd been too exhausted to do anything but collapse into sleep. And now, for the first time in what felt like forever, his wife had shown up in a short floral mini dress that put the lines of her legs on full display. The hunger he'd been holding down all this time was more than he could contain.
The weather was still brutally hot, so all Hye-in had on was a single mini dress of some light, airy fabric that flared out around her hips. When he pulled it off, what was left was a nude-colored T-back and a strapless nude bra. Her slender body was laid bare.
Kang-soo put her on her hands and knees, roughly yanked the T-back aside, and drove himself into her without another word. She was drenched below — soaked through, as if a flood had broken.
After a few hard, deep thrusts, Hye-in suddenly shuddered and spoke.
"H-honey... wait... I need to pee..."
She hurriedly got up and went straight into the bathroom in the corner of the studio. She didn't even manage to close the door properly, and a long, rushing roar poured out — a cool, cascading sound, like a small waterfall — and it went on for quite some time.
When she was done, she took the T-back off entirely, rinsed herself with water, and came back out. And then the real thing began.
Kang-soo had gone far too long without release. He hadn't even masturbated once in all that time — the daily grind had been relentless, weekends included, and there hadn't been a single spark of stimulation anywhere around him to stir that kind of hunger.
The sex that followed was fierce. Maybe it was because it had been so long, but Kang-soo was rougher than usual, driving into her without restraint. The T-back, the strapless bra that barely covered half her breasts — none of it was the kind of underwear an ordinary married woman wore. But in that moment, those racy scraps of fabric only wound him up further.
And then he came, hard and rough.
Sprawled across the floor, Kang-soo lay panting, his breath ragged.
"You've been having a hard time lately..."
"No. I'm fine. Thanks for coming. Honestly... I hated you a lot. I never gave you an easy life after we got married, I'll admit that. But I wasn't a rotten husband. I wasn't a bad husband, was I? I came down here and really thought about what I'd done wrong. But nothing came to mind."
"It's not that I did something wrong, exactly... more that it sat wrong with me. After I left the service and moved to the insurance company... over the past four years, how often we slept together dropped off a cliff. I know that. Lots of drinking after work, constant trips out to the provinces... honestly, we barely had the chance. Is that a crime?"
"I'm sorry... even if I had ten mouths, I wouldn't have anything to say. But I was lonely. That's the truth..."
His wife answered in a small voice.
"Yeah... what's the point of regretting what's already done. Still, I'm glad you seem to have changed lately. Coming home early every day. I even wondered if maybe you were out doing that kind of thing during the day... but come on. You're a person too. The fact that I even suspected you... that's on me."
Hye-in said nothing. She simply nestled into her husband's arms.
"Once the kid's in high school... they say more than half of couples just... stop..."
She answered from against his chest, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I know. Everyone around me says the same thing. Once a guy hits his mid-forties, his erection just tanks, and sex itself doesn't happen much. But even if that's true for me... you're still young."
Kang-soo spoke as his hand moved over his wife's bare ass, stroking it slowly.
The next morning, Hye-in was up early. She made him a warm bowl of rice and soup, fed him, and sent him off to work. They had slept together once more at dawn.
"Heading straight back up?"
"Yes... if I take the KTX, I should get there around lunchtime. I'll go into the office then."
"Be careful going up. Oh — and buy yourself a dress or something with this."
"What is this money for?"
Hye-in looked down at the ten fifty-thousand-won notes her husband had pressed into her hand.
"Yeah... I saved up some of the cash I get as an expense allowance. Not much to spend it on anyway. Honestly, it pisses me off that you're dressing up to go around cheating... but wanting to look pretty for men is just a woman's instinct, I guess. You look like a young girl in that short dress. You're really beautiful."
Kang-soo ran his hand lightly over his wife's ass once more as he said it, the mini dress still on her.
After she sent him off to work, Hye-in tore through the piled-up dishes and cleaned the whole place, then picked up her phone and placed a call.
She had been sending calls and texts since the day before — but Eom In-soo hadn't even read her KakaoTalk messages, hadn't answered a single text, and wasn't picking up the phone at all.
Since she had come down to see her husband anyway, Hye-in had been trying to reach In-soo, who lived in a nearby city, hoping to see him before she headed back up. She couldn't get through.
She took a taxi to the semi-basement studio she had visited before — the one In-soo was living in. The door was locked tight. She sent a text and a KakaoTalk message saying she was standing right outside. He didn't answer a thing.
Hye-in let out a quiet sigh. In the end, she went to the KTX station and headed home.
"Oh my... Chairman. What brings you here?"
When she arrived at the office that afternoon, the Chairman was sitting alone in the empty room. Several document envelopes were stacked on the desk.
"Ah... Hye-in. You lied to me, didn't you?"
"W-what do you mean?"
"They say a woman lives by her looks. I don't usually trust women. But I trusted our Hye-in."
"Um... Chairman... have I done something wrong..."
"I said don't go around getting fucked by anyone but your husband, because you might catch an STD. I've noticed you've been leaving the office empty a lot during the day lately... so I hired a private investigator to put a tail on you."
The association Chairman's face was dark with fury. He snatched one of the envelopes off his desk and threw it at her.
Hye-in caught it and pulled out the photographs inside.
A4-size color photographs. Large. Sharp. Unmistakable.
The subject entering a motel.
The subject leaving a motel.
Someone had secretly photographed her going in and out of motels — the rooms she used to host members of the cafe.
"Th-this is a misunderstanding, Chairman..."
Hye-in kept her expression as composed as she could.
"There's no photo of you going in with a man or coming out with one, so I knew you'd try to play dumb. So what — you went to a motel all by yourself to take a nap? You think you can play me like that?"
"How many times did I tell you? At my age, you think I want to catch the clap? You think I want to pick up some filthy STD? You put on that whole good-girl act, and I took you in my arms... you ungrateful bitch."