The Stranger in the Mirror
“Hey, you—the new girl in the black dress in the middle. Get over here and sit next to me.”
The arrogant voice exploded from the deepest seat of honor in the room, under purple lighting so dreamlike it bordered on grotesque as it rippled across the center of everything. The man’s finger pointed straight at Dohee. He was a massive figure, the buttons of his expensive Italian silk shirt undone all the way down past his belly, a glittering gold chain hanging around his neck. His face, which looked easily past fifty, was already flushed deep red from far too much alcohol. On the table lay top-shelf single-malt whiskeys that ran into the millions of won per bottle, a basket of half-melted ice, and cigarette butts scattered in a filthy mess.
While Dohee stood frozen and dazed, the floor manager shoved her roughly yet discreetly in the back and hissed a rapid stream of words into her ear.
“What are you doing, Sea? You hit the jackpot room. That man is Executive Director Choi from Samjeong Construction. He’s a whale who throws around tens of millions of won a day like it’s nothing in the Gangnam nightlife district, so you keep him happy no matter what. Got it?”
As she forced her trembling legs toward the sofa, Dohee was seized by a nightmarish hallucination that she was livestock being dragged to the slaughterhouse. With every step, the sharp click of her high heels against the marble floor struck her ears like a scream. The moment she settled her hips onto the high-end leather sofa that sank under her weight, the crushing stench of expensive Chivas Regal, the man’s sweat, and the sticky scent of foreign cologne knotted together and instantly seized her throat.
“What did you say your name was?”
The moment Dohee perched on the very edge of the sofa, the man called Executive Director Choi pressed his enormous bulk right up against her. The plush leather could not bear his weight and tilted hard to one side, sliding Dohee’s body unwillingly toward his massive frame.
“…It’s Sea.”
Dohee managed to force the words out with one hand pressed to her chest. Her rapid breaths rose and fell openly along the bare nape of her neck above the halter-neck dress.
“Sea? Hoo, that name just rolls right off the tongue. And that face is even prettier than the name. Manager Han, that fox of a guy, was going on and on, practically drooling about how he’d finally snagged a fresh college-girl rookie who hadn’t been under a Gangnam plastic surgeon’s knife. Turns out he wasn’t exaggerating.”
Executive Director Choi gave a satisfied, throaty laugh and casually draped his thick, hairy arm over Dohee’s slender shoulder. The heavy, hot mass of the man’s flesh wrapped heavily around her bare shoulder and white nape. Every time the tip of his large finger brushed along the delicate line of her collarbone and then slyly stroked the deep plunge of her neckline, Dohee felt every fine hair on her body stand on end and fought the urge to scream. She wanted to slap the old man’s hand away right then, bolt from the room, and scrub her entire body raw under freezing tap water.
I have to endure this. Yoon Dohee, it’s only one month. Once I earn Mom’s hospital bills, it’s all over. This isn’t me—it’s just a doll named Sea.
Dohee clenched her knees, exposed beneath the short dress, so hard they might shatter, and recited the mantra inside. Tears threatened to burst free, but she pulled on the capitalist smile she had practiced thousands of times in front of the mirror during her trainee days at the agency, fitting it over her face like a mask. Forcing the corners of her mouth up through a fine tremor, she carefully reached for the whiskey glass on the table to refill it.
“Ah-ah, big brother’s got to pour the first drink. Where does a rookie get off grabbing the glass like that?”
Executive Director Choi gently took the bottle from Dohee’s hand, filled an ice-packed rocks glass with deep golden whiskey, and mixed in only the faintest splash of Ceylon tea. It was practically neat liquor, brutally strong. The man shoved the glass right up to Dohee’s red lips with rough insistence.
“Here. To celebrate Sea joining our room, let’s do a nice clean one-shot.”
“Um… Director, I really can’t hold my liquor well. Could I maybe sip it a little at a time…?”
“Come on, you walked into this business and you’re already making excuses? If you turn down the first drink big brother’s offering in a good mood, you kill the whole atmosphere of this room, yeah? Drink.”
The man’s eyes flashed cold and sharp for an instant. It was the cruel gaze of a predator who had paid millions for the table and therefore demanded absolute obedience and submission in return. Dohee instinctively understood that if she showed weakness or tears inside this narrow, dark room, the hyena-like men would only trample her more savagely and leave her more wretched. In the end she took the glass with a trembling hand, squeezed her eyes shut, and poured the liquid down her throat.
“Ugh…!”
The searing burn of the strong alcohol racing down her esophagus and setting her entire stomach on fire twisted Dohee’s pale, translucent brow hard. She bit her lower lip and barely held back the cough that tried to explode out of her. Executive Director Choi burst into a hearty laugh thick with sadistic pleasure and slapped her smooth back with his palm hard enough to make loud smacking sounds.
“Hahaha! See? You can drink it just fine—all that coyness! Young blood really is the best. That skin’s so firm and fresh!”
The fierce liquor raced through her veins and slammed straight into her head; Dohee’s vision blurred dreamily under the purple lights. In that fleeting moment when her brain went fuzzy and her body’s tension loosened, Executive Director Choi’s thick, damp hand dropped heavily onto the smooth thigh completely exposed beneath her black halter dress. The man’s rough palm, abnormally hot, pressed insistently against her delicate skin and began to push slowly, stubbornly, toward the softest, most sensitive flesh of her inner thigh.
“Director… ah—”
Dohee twisted in panic, trying to shrink into the corner of the sofa, but the man’s massive bulk already blocked any path of escape. His thick fingers kneaded the flesh of her inner thigh and inched steadily under the tight hem of her dress. Bare skin—she wasn’t even wearing thin stockings—rubbed against the man’s rough palm, raising a strange heat, while his ragged breath dampened her ear and the nape of her neck.
“Sea, looking at you is driving me crazy. Big brother’s really taken a liking to you today, so… instead of wasting time stuck at this messy table, how about we just wrap it up clean and head out? I’ll talk to the madam and, instead of the weekly settlement, I’ll slip a nice fat check straight into your wallet. How’s that sound?”
It was a blatant proposal for a second round. When the tip of the man’s finger reached the very edge of the secret underwear line beneath her skirt and began to feel the thin fabric, Dohee felt an extreme terror and shame that threatened to shatter her reason. Even as her brain spun from the alcohol, Miran’s warning in the waiting room and Manager Han’s voice crossed in her ears. The choice is yours. You have to fox your way out of any level you don’t want.
Dohee told herself she had to keep her wits about her. If she collapsed here, it would truly be over. With every ounce of desperate strength she possessed, she firmly caught Executive Director Choi’s thick wrist and stopped it. Then, with a faint sheen of tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, she squeezed out the most alluring, coaxing little nasal tone she had learned as a trainee and gently pushed against the man’s broad chest with her palm.
“Oppaah… today’s my first day, so I’m still learning manners from Madam unnie. If you take Sea out already just because you think I’m pretty, I’ll get on Madam unnie’s bad side starting tomorrow and end up stuck cleaning the waiting room. Tonight Sea will make Oppa feel the absolute best right here, so just look at Sea’s pretty face and enjoy your drinks even more, okay? Oppaah.”
When she finished speaking, Dohee lightly rested her forehead against Executive Director Choi’s chest, then immediately squinted her eyes as if shy and looked up under his chin. It was a precise fox-like performance, completely different from the mechanical, fake hospitality of the jaded veteran sisters of the industry—a skillful blend of unspoiled freshness and a college girl’s pure innocence. It was the perfect defense, simultaneously stroking the man’s fierce desire to conquer and his protective instinct.
Executive Director Choi looked momentarily dazed, as if he’d been struck over the head, then let out a hollow laugh and quietly withdrew his hand from under Dohee’s skirt. Still reluctant, he wrapped his arm tightly around her slender waist as if it might break, stroking her skin through the thin fabric and burying his nose against the nape of her neck to inhale deeply.
“Mm, that skin scent is unreal. You’re not even wearing perfume—why are you so sweet? Fine, you little thing. Big brother will hold back and treasure our Sea tonight, so in exchange, you don’t leave my side for a second. Keep that glass filled the moment it’s empty.”
“Of course. Sea is Oppa’s doll tonight, so I’ll stick right next to you.”
Dohee smiled sweetly and filled the man’s glass with whiskey again. Even as his hand continued to knead and grope her waist, the line of her back, and her side, Dohee numbed her senses as if separating her soul from her body.
Inside the room, karaoke accompaniment blasted loud enough to shred the speakers, mixed with the bright jangle of tambourines, while the older sisters on other sofas climbed onto clients’ laps, pressed their chests against them, and filled the air with screams of laughter over vulgar drinking games. In the midst of that hellish scenery, Dohee did nothing but refill Executive Director Choi’s glass, mechanically laugh at the filthy jokes he threw out, and keep swallowing whiskey without end.
Only at half past four in the morning did the bright fluorescent lights of hellish Room 9 finally snap on with a hard click. With the glamorous lighting gone, the room’s bare face was pure chaos—vomit, shattered ice, and cigarette smoke. As the clients staggered out, Dohee tugged down the crumpled hem of her dress, raked her ruined wavy hair into some order with her fingers, and stepped into the hallway. Her entire body was caked in the sweat of a strange man, the reek of strong whiskey, and the cologne of the hands that had roughly groped her flesh; revulsion surged up all at once.
She staggered to the settlement counter, where Manager Han was waiting. He flashed a wide grin of large teeth and pressed a thick wad of crisp cash directly into Dohee’s hand.
“Sea! Didn’t I tell you you were the real deal? First day and you already got locked into Samjeong Executive Director Choi’s room, and he even left a fat tip just because he thought you were pretty. Here—your base settlement plus the tip comes to exactly 1.2 million won. Check it.”
The heavy thickness of twenty-four yellow 50,000-won bills sliding into her wallet.
In a single day, in just a few hours, the money she had earned by surrendering her body to an old man she had never met and enduring his sticky touches was a fortune that would have taken an entire month of sleepless nights and bone-grinding labor at a convenience store or tutoring job. The moment she felt the crisp, cold freshness of the cash against her fingertips, she clearly heard, from the deepest place in her heart, the sound of something precious—some moral conviction—shattering to pieces alongside a vast sense of liberation.
The shame, the tears, and the self-loathing that had surged up in the hallway only moments earlier vanished without a trace before the visual overwhelm of the cash bundle, as if they had never existed. Dohee clenched the wallet until it nearly burst and hardened a twisted resolve inside herself.
See? It’s nothing. I just get my body a little dirtier and suffer a bit, and that’s all. Do this just a few more times and Mom’s overdue surgery fees and the deposit will all be taken care of. I’m different from those empty-headed sisters, so once I’ve made the money I can walk out clean on my own two feet anytime.
Heading to the bathroom to wash her face, Dohee stopped in front of the large mirror. Inside it stood the vacant figure of “Sea,” the decadently made-up ace of the flower-and-willow world, her eye makeup smeared black and her lipstick completely gone from biting and tearing at her own lips in tension, the light of her soul extinguished. There was no trace anywhere of the pure, clean college student Yoon Dohee she had known only a few hours earlier. Yet Dohee looked at the unfamiliar monster in the mirror and wore a precarious, cruel smile—deliberately turning away from the terrifying reality that she had already stepped deep into an irreversible swamp of greed, that she was beginning to become a twisted slave to money.