Clothes Soaked by Drizzle
Ji Hye-in had accepted Chairman Wang Gil-nam's rape. She had put on a light show of resistance—just enough to look like she was fighting him—but the truth was that she had felt a deep, startling pleasure that day.
Physically, he had been the first man besides her husband. Mentally, though, she had already prepared herself for this, dozens of times over, in the long conversations she had shared with Eom In-soo.
On the day Chairman Wang Gil-nam forced himself on her, Ji Hye-in had messaged Eom In-soo and told him everything. They had even spoken on the phone, talking for a long time. She had been raped by Chairman Wang Gil-nam—and yet, because of that very incident, she had felt herself drawing even closer to Eom In-soo.
Ji Hye-in knew it, and Eom In-soo knew it too. On the surface, that day had been a rape, an act of coercion. But in the chats they had already shared, her heart had been ready. She had already made up her mind to accept it. Both of them understood this perfectly.
Chairman Wang Gil-nam was a former athlete, a man in his sixties at the time, but he stood six feet tall with a powerfully built, imposing frame. He was a man of new money, someone who took excellent care of his health and ate only the finest of everything, and his stamina was formidable.
The day he had stripped her panties off by force, Ji Hye-in had felt once more that same electric, provocative thrill—the sensation of having her underwear ripped away against her will, a sensation she had first known at twenty-two, when Yoo Kang-soo, then still her boyfriend, had done the same thing to her.
All the while, Eom In-soo had been quietly steering her heart in that direction. And yet the two of them had never actually met, not even once. The fact that he never rushed their meeting only made Ji Hye-in trust him more.
He had always said the same thing. If she wanted to meet, she should tell him first, and he would come up right away. The moment her heart was ready, he would come and see her. That was what he had always told her.
Ji Hye-in had gone on meeting him in that other space they shared—a bond entirely different from the one she had with her husband. If he had been nothing more than a man trying to get a woman into bed, he would have hurried the meeting along. But Eom In-soo had been different. That difference had given her a powerful, unshakable trust in him.
And because she had listened to him talk—over and over, until the words were drilled into her ears—about sexual tastes and inclinations, about the sexual identity and agency of adults, she had been thoroughly conditioned. So when she ended up having a physical relationship with Chairman Wang Gil-nam, a man who was not her husband, she had felt little guilt from the very beginning.
There was only one thought she had always held onto: she must never get caught. She had given her body, but not her heart. Therefore this was not infidelity—it was a matter of sexual agency, of claiming her own identity. That was how she had minimized the guilt.
At thirty-six, she had been raped by a man she had, without quite realizing it, already been drawn to—a man a full twenty-seven years her senior, practically old enough to be her father. And in the end, she had entered into an ongoing sexual relationship with him.
Ji Hye-in had liked being dominated by Chairman Wang Gil-nam. That was why, even as he raped her, she had felt something else entirely—another kind of feeling altogether.
A year later, at thirty-seven, the two of them had finally met in person. Perhaps because they had already exchanged photographs and video calls hundreds of times, there had been no awkwardness at all. They had gone straight to a motel and had their first encounter in a way that was, in its own fashion, special. And that day, Ji Hye-in had made up her mind to become Eom In-soo's woman.
Becoming his woman did not mean neglecting her family or failing in her duties as a wife. Those things she kept exactly as they were, while carving out a secret private realm that belonged to her alone.
If this had been an affair that caught fire overnight, she would have been shaken. She would have felt guilt. But it was not that. Eom In-soo had spent more than a year gaslighting her through chats and phone calls—nearly every weekday. By the time they met, her guilt over a secret sex life had all but vanished.
Of course, their relationship had not continued unbroken through the past six years. About three years ago, the construction business Eom In-soo had been running went bankrupt, and he had been forced to go on the run. Circumstances beyond their control had torn them apart—and it was right then that Ji Hye-in's life at the cafe had begun.
But even before the cafe, she had already, under Eom In-soo's influence—a man with a strong dominant streak who nonetheless trained women with a certain warmth—experienced a variety of sexual play with any number of men.
After she started her life at the cafe, Yeom Seong-bong had put a stop to it. During that time, her connection with Eom In-soo had been completely severed.
Then her husband, Yoo Kang-soo, had been sent on a long-term business trip by his new insurance company to a region near where Eom In-soo lived. On her way to visit her husband, she had met him again after years apart, and they had picked up where they had left off.
After that, however, Eom In-soo had been in no position to help anyone—he had his own disasters to deal with—and he had avoided her. But this time, through a text she sent, he had learned that something very serious had happened in her life. He couldn't pretend he didn't know. So he had come back up to the city where she lived.
And so the two of them were sitting across from each other once more.
"I'm sorry. Back then, before I went bankrupt... you tried so hard to borrow money and bail me out. And now, when you're the one in trouble, I can't even help you financially."
"No. All the money I used to help you back then came out of the Chairman's pocket anyway. And he says he has no intention of getting it back. Besides... I'm not hard up for money. I just... I needed somewhere to lean, mentally. And there was nowhere. Thank you for coming up, Oppa. Honestly... I feel most at ease with you."
"Yeah. Make sure you're eating properly. When's your husband's trial?"
"They said the first hearing is in ten days."
"Not long, then. The incident happened not far from where I live. It was all over the local papers for a while. God... how does something like that even happen? It's staggering that there are still guys out there waving knives around in the street."
Eom In-soo shook his head as he spoke.
"You haven't eaten, have you? I'll buy you a meal. Let's go."
"No... I've already eaten. Oppa... I haven't seen the Chairman in a long time. And it's been a long time since I cut off contact with the people at the cafe. They all know my situation. If I went around offering my body right now... they'd all call me a crazy bitch."
She paused, and then a tiny smile touched her lips as she spoke again.
"No... they probably already think I'm a crazy bitch, I mean."
Eom In-soo looked at her—at that peculiar, Janus-like smile playing across her face. The innocent woman from those first chats had changed so much over six years.
"Let's go inside somewhere. Don't call anyone else tonight. Just... stay with me, Oppa. You didn't bring any toys or anything, I assume?"
Eom In-soo gave her a slightly incredulous look and lifted the bag sitting beside him.
"You texted me to bring some toys. So I figured I might as well, just in case."
"Good. There's no need to lie to me, of all people. Let's go in. Quickly."
The two of them went straight to a nearby motel.
Eom In-soo did not find her behavior strange. She had always been this way. No—from the very beginning, she had been trained to be this kind of woman. She gave her best to her husband, in the way a wife should. She gave her best to Eom In-soo, in the way that belonged to him. She gave her best to the association chairman, in the way that belonged to him. A woman conditioned to give each of her partners, in their own fashion, everything she had—soaked through the way clothes are soaked by a drizzle, so gradually you never notice the rain.
If she were caught, she would taste hell. But if she were not caught, then she was simply doing her best at her own life—making every possible effort to enjoy it. That was the thought that filled her heart, and Eom In-soo understood it perfectly.