The Forty-Day Doll (1)
The boss did not come to work for two full days. Only after the weekend, on Monday, did he finally show up.
As always he arrived after lunch, and he did not call for me until quitting time. It hardly mattered. Even if I went back to part-time work, there were plenty of places I could go — getting fired would have been fine.
He sent Secretary Choi home first, then called me into his office.
"You know why I called you."
So it had finally come.
I set the resignation letter I had prepared where he could see it.
"Quitting?"
"Yes."
He brushed the envelope aside. Then he slid a document pouch from his drawer across the desk toward me.
"Read it."
An ominous feeling settled over me. I could not ignore it, so I opened the envelope and looked through the contents.
At the top of the A4 sheet was the word Complaint, and under the purpose of the action: aggravated assault.
Attached as evidence were stills captured from the CCTV footage of that day and a doctor's diagnosis.
With them was an application for a damages order, and written inside it the figure two hundred sixty million won.
The amount was absurd. But when the income documentation used as the basis for calculation, the four weeks listed on the diagnosis, and the projected future treatment costs were added together, it became a realistic sum.
Given the way lawsuits inflate claimed amounts, I doubted the full figure would be awarded. Still — at least two hundred million.
Somewhere in the low two hundreds, most likely.
"Well? Like it?"
He took another envelope from the drawer and held it out to me.
Inside was a settlement agreement.
It stated that he would not pursue any civil or criminal liability connected to the case. And as a condition subsequent: if I was not still employed at this hotel through the end of next month, the agreement would be null and void.
In other words, if I neither resigned nor was fired for the roughly forty days until the end of next month, he would bury the matter.
"I'm willing to settle."
He had clearly prepared it in advance. His seal was already stamped on the agreement, and a certificate of seal impression was attached.
All that remained was for me to fill in my personal details and attach my own certificate.
"…"
"Shall I accept your resignation?"
He fluttered the letter lightly, then held it out toward me.
Taking it back would mean accepting his unspoken offer. And from everything I had seen of him so far, I was certain something ugly was waiting.
But refusing was hard.
Claims of this kind were usually dismissed and shunted into civil court. Once a criminal conviction was on the books, though, my chances of winning a civil suit approached zero. And under the Special Act on the Promotion of Legal Proceedings, interest would accrue at twelve percent a year.
With at least two hundred million certain to be awarded, even at the low end the interest alone would come to two million won a month.
For someone just starting out, ten years would not be enough to pay that off.
"Two hundred million isn't that much money to me."
"…"
"Still thinking it over? You're playing pretty hard to get."
He pulled out his wallet and tossed a ten-million-won check onto the resignation letter.
"If I like what you do, I'll throw in a tip."
I could not bring myself to move.
I knew exactly what that money meant.
"Still no?"
He tossed another check onto the letter.
Two.
"Aren't you pricing yourself a little high?"
Another.
Three.
Perhaps because he saw that my eyes would not leave the checks, he was smiling.
One more.
Four.
"At this rate I'm the one taking a loss."
Another.
Five.
Without warning, he brought his hand down toward the resignation letter.
And before I knew what I was doing, I caught it.
Only after I had grabbed him did my own action startle me.
When I shifted nothing but my eyes to look at him, he was wearing a deep, satisfied smile.
"That means you agree too."
He drew his hand free and sank deep into the back of his chair. Then he turned it away from me, as if he had finished with me for the day.
"Get out."
I was furious.
Furious at how completely I had danced in the palm of his hand.
"…I'll be going."
I gathered the settlement agreement he had shown me, along with the resignation letter and the checks, and left.
On the way home, white snow was falling. And a photo arrived from Secretary Choi.
A picture of him building a snowman in the heavy snow.
With tiny mittened hands, carefully shaping a pretty snowman.
The next day, after seeing the boss into the building, Secretary Choi sat down beside me and set a coffee in front of me.
"Something wrong?"
I can't say.
"No. I think I'm just tired."
"Is that so?"
He went on as if he had not really expected an answer.
"It snowed hard yesterday. Did you see it?"
"Yes. It came down a lot."
"Jaemin was so worn out from building a snowman that he fell straight asleep. Want to see the pictures?"
Looking thoroughly pleased, he showed me the photos he had taken the day before.
Watching the boy running happily through the heavy flakes, and rolling snowballs with his mother to build a family of snowmen, a smile came of its own accord.
It gave me a little strength.
"He's adorable."
"Right?"
He looked as happy as if the praise for his son had been praise for himself.
"I also have pictures from when we went to the sledding hill on leave last week. I'll show you those too."
I was still looking through the photos of his son when the boss called for me.
When I stepped inside, he watched me the entire way as I walked up to the desk. The moment I stopped in front of it, he rose from his chair.
"No matter how I look at it, Yeeun — your body is more spectacular than your face."
Just as he had on the first day I met him, he circled me slowly. Then he pressed in close behind me as if to embrace me and cupped the undersides of my breasts with both hands, bouncing them upward as if testing their weight.
"Heavy. What cup are you?"
"…"
I refused to answer out of defiance. His behavior was exactly what I had expected, so I simply stood silent.
He seized my breasts as if to crush them and scraped his index finger over the place where my nipples would be.
"Hnh…!"
At the sudden stimulation I hunched my shoulders and knocked his hands away.
"Shoulders back."
As if correcting me, he pulled my hunched shoulders open again. Then he kneaded my breasts once more, moving his index finger slowly.
It was clearly over my clothes, but the hand moving before my eyes and the sensation transmitted through the fabric were intensely stimulating.
I could feel my nipples gradually stiffening.
"What cup?"
"…"
I still did not answer. He undid the shirt button over my chest and slid his hand inside.
With rough movements he worked his way in through the neckline of my camisole. Then, as if savoring the skin, he crept slowly toward my nipple.
"Not going to answer?"
Something rose in me that I could not name — shame or rage. But I had to endure it.
Forcing that voice down, I said:
"A cup."
A mocking laugh reached my ear.
"A? That's a bit much for a joke."
"…"
"Shall I check?"
The hand that had been moving toward my nipple withdrew. He undid my jacket buttons, then began working down the shirt from the collar, one button at a time.
One at the collar.
Two.
…Three.
As the buttons came free the fabric parted, revealing the camisole underneath.
"…K cup."
The hands undoing the buttons stopped. A suppressed laugh brushed my ear.
"Well. That about does it."
His hand slipped back inside the neckline of the camisole.
The hand that had been stroking my upper chest dug into the bra and found my nipple. Then, playfully, he circled his finger around the areola.
The circles tightened — and just when he was about to touch the nipple itself, he drew away again.
"If you're going to touch me, just touch me and finish alrea—u—"
He pinched my nipple without warning.
"Hah!"
In a voice laced with laughter, he whispered against my ear.
"If you make a loud noise, they'll hear you outside."
Outside, Secretary Choi was definitely still there.
I turned my head and glared at him with a venomous look.
He did not care. A smile lingered on his face.
"I like that expression."
I stared at him with every scrap of irritation I had, but he was enjoying himself. He jerked his chin as if to tell me to face forward.
I turned my head and slowly swallowed the boiling anger. The more I did, the more he teased my areola and nipple, stirring me little by little.
Because of the pinch a moment ago, the nipple had grown sensitive. His finger felt sharper for it.
Bit by bit I could feel the arousal building.
My head was furious — but my body kept heating up.
Like wind eroding rock, the feeling of arousal was eating away at the rage.
He kneaded the soft flesh while circling the areola with his index finger, shrinking the circle until he was stimulating the nipple itself. Then he flicked it with his fingernail.
"Ugh…!"
I hunched my neck and muffled the sound as best I could, but when my guard slipped and he flicked me without warning, a suppressed nasal note leaked out.
My fully flushed nipple — and that strange sensation between tickling and pinching — drew every nerve into focus.
Compared to when I touched myself, the sensitivity felt nearly doubled, and my panties were growing wet. And then—
"That's enough for today."
As if cutting it off at the perfect moment, he stopped without warning. He came around in front of me, bent his knees, and tried to look up into my downturned face.
"Did you like it?"
In my head, the answer was clear.
"It was horrible."
But my body was not the same.
The thoroughly heated arousal made my breathing rough, and with the copious wetness it felt as if my pussy had been steeped in it.
With no further stimulation being added, the dampness in my panties seemed to double.
"How was it?"
He sank back into his chair and looked at me.
"It. Was. Horrible."
I glared at him with open contempt, but he seemed to be enjoying himself.
No — he was definitely enjoying it.