The Second Nightmare
"......"
He kept his mouth clamped shut, eyes darting between the monitor and my wife as he scribbled notes on her chart. Then I watched him extend that thick, meaty hand toward her. I forgot to breathe, rolling just my eyes to track the movement so I wouldn’t be caught. His enormous hand drifted closer, aiming straight for the swollen curve of her breasts beneath the hospital gown.
"......!"
The filthy image that flashed through my mind nearly tore a scream from my throat. It looked as though that giant paw was about to seize her chest and maul it. Just as I was about to lunge forward, Nursing Assistant Jang Mansu’s hand simply adjusted the monitoring equipment attached near her breast, securing it in place.
"......"
He stood by the bedside a moment longer, glancing between the monitor and my wife several times before slipping out as quietly as he had come.
"Haa… haaa…"
A sigh exploded out of me. My whole body was slick with clammy, unpleasant sweat.
"......"
I wasn’t some paranoid patient, yet here I was. Self-loathing crashed over me. Sleep was impossible now; my mind only sharpened, fueled by a toxic mix of rage and twisted excitement. Disgust at myself boiled up until I could taste it.
"What the hell am I doing…"
I muttered the self-recrimination so softly my wife couldn’t possibly hear. The dampness of my sweat-soaked clothes made every shift of my body sound like thunder.
She didn’t wake up, did she?
I couldn’t tell whether she was truly asleep or not, and the fear that even checking would skew the test results gnawed at me. This was only an examination, yet it represented one of the few remaining clues to understanding her condition.
I need to sleep, but I can’t. What if my constant noise ruins the results?
The dread that I might destroy our last shred of hope because of my own restlessness swelled like an avalanche. My brain knew such a thing was unlikely, but my heart refused to listen. Doubts and self-blame frothed endlessly inside me, as though my nerves were fraying apart.
"......"
My gaze fell on the juice bottle containing the sleep inducer I’d left on the table. I reached out carefully and opened it.
"......"
Even in the dark, the swirling liquid looked unnaturally vivid. Was drinking this truly the right choice? At the same time, memories of my wife’s suffering from narcolepsy flooded my mind. The symptoms had grown so severe she’d been forced to quit the kindergarten teaching job she loved. We had dragged ourselves from hospital to hospital, desperate for answers. No matter how tightly I held her or how many comforting words I offered, the relief was always fleeting.
It felt like wandering through a maze with no exit in sight.
No—more like stumbling endlessly through a pitch-black labyrinth where we didn’t even know if an exit existed. The thought of my beloved wife in pain erased every last trace of hesitation. Anxiety and obsession took its place: I could not be the reason this crucial test failed.
Gulp…
Terrified of waking her, I drank the juice as silently as possible. I set the empty bottle back on the table with exaggerated care and lay down once more on the fold-out bed.
Even with my eyes open, only impenetrable darkness greeted me.
"Haa…"
I exhaled softly, as if shedding the last of my doubts, and surrendered to the growing heaviness of my eyelids.
It felt like dreaming. I believe I was dreaming. Even submerged in sleep, tension kept my nerves razor-sharp, my consciousness flickering in and out at irregular intervals.
Rustle. Rustle.
I sensed Jang Mansu entering and leaving the room to check on my wife. Lying on my side on the cot beneath her bed, I had a clear view past the frame. The space under the bed was drowned in darkness thick enough to frighten even the most jaded adult, yet that static scene kept changing. Sometimes Jang Mansu’s thick legs would appear, standing motionless beside her bed.
A dream…?
I couldn’t tell dream from reality. The same scene repeated on an endless loop—empty one moment, occupied by those heavy legs the next. Then, into that eternal nightmare, a new sound intruded.
"Chup…"
A wet, slurping noise, like something being sucked.
"......?"
What was that? My foggy mind screamed, but consciousness refused to surface fully.
"Chup, slurp… sluuuurp… slurp…"
The moist, licking sounds continued. Through blurred vision I stared past the bed. Legs. Whose legs?
Legs…? Whose legs are those…?
I didn’t know. Sleep dragged at me; thinking felt impossible. Just as I was about to sink back into that heavy tide, a sweet moan slipped into my ear.
"Ah… ❤️"
My body jerked violently, as if electrocuted. Consciousness that had been drowning in a muddy swamp of sleep was yanked back by force. What was that? What had it been? Thoughts refused to connect. But one fact pierced the haze: that sugary moan had come from my wife.
Rustle. Rustle.
Fabric or bedding brushing together—sounds drifting from above my head. My drugged, sleepy mind drifted like a boat lost in fog. It felt like a lucid dream: my body remained limp while my mind hovered in strange wakefulness.
"…Fuck… even like this she won’t wake…? Just a little…"
A thick, low voice crackled like a broken radio, words dropping in disjointed fragments. My foggy brain couldn’t process them properly. The part of me still submerged beneath sleep howled for me to wake up, but I was so unbearably tired. My eyelids grew heavier.
Squish… squish… squish, squiiish…
Wet sounds seeped into my ears, like stirring through saturated mud—sticky, viscous, obscene. The louder those moist noises grew overhead, the more violently the sheets on the bed wrinkled and shifted.
Creak.
"......?"
The bed that should have been motionless seemed to tremble. Had my wife stirred in her sleep? But would simple tossing make the entire frame shake like that?
Through narrowing eyelids I could only make out the scene beneath the bed and those log-thick legs. One of the two rooted, unmoving pillars lifted onto the mattress above.
Creak.
The bed groaned under the added weight. At the same time the muddy, churning sounds intensified.
Squish! Squish!… Squiiish!!!
The visible legs tensed with visible effort.
Why… would checking her condition… require that much force…?
My brain refused to function. Clinging desperately to reason as it drowned in sleep, I tried to picture the scene above. Jang Mansu leaning over the bed with one leg planted on it. A massive male looming over my wife, pressing down on her as she lay helpless beneath him. If he touched her defenseless body, what part would produce those wet, filthy sounds?
"......!"
A dark, horrifying image surfaced in my fog-bound mind. Molesting my wife’s breasts while she slept like the dead from narcolepsy. Yanking down her hospital pants. Probing her most sacred place—mine alone to touch—with those thick fingers. Forcing thick, brutish digits far larger than my own into her pussy and stirring her insides. My wife’s body reacting to the overwhelming stimulation, twisting until the bed creaked, limbs quivering in obscene pleasure.
As if to lend that nightmare weight, a sweet moan drifted down from above.
"Ah, ah…! Aah…??!!"
It was my wife’s voice. The same sweet cries she only ever let me hear in the privacy of our bed. Yet this time confusion threaded through the pleasure—an instinctive protest, as though her body sensed it didn’t know what was happening to it.
The legs I could see tensed even harder.
Squish!!! Squiiish!!! Squish!!! Squish!!!
The sticky wet sounds overhead swelled until they seemed ready to burst. The beast on my wife’s bed had pried open her pussy with his fingers and was thrusting so violently his legs bulged with effort.
Then, as if to sever the nightmare, the bed gave a violent lurch.
Thud!
Whoever had mounted it convulsed. The frame groaned as a thin, rapturous cry tore free.
"Hu, huuuuuuuuh…!!!"
Like a broken dam, I heard a violent gush—psheeeeeew!—as something sprayed hard.
I forced my immobile eyes upward. Nothing but absolute darkness met my gaze.
Plop.
"……!!!!"
Suddenly something pale flashed in the blackness. My wife’s left hand. The movement was far too abrupt to be mere sleep-tossing. But reasons no longer mattered.
Twitch! Twitch! Twitch!
Her dangling hand trembled as though in seizure, as if overwhelmed by pleasure, as if still drowning in lingering ecstasy. The wedding ring on her left ring finger caught the faint light, glistening as though drenched in sweat. I wanted to keep staring at that ring, but my eyelids finally slammed shut.
It was a horrible nightmare.