A Tangible Reality
After finishing up the cleanup, I stepped into the office.
The Boss was sitting stiffly at the table in the center of the room, her posture rigid with tension.
"Were you waiting for me?"
"Huh? Oh... yeah."
Click.
The moment I turned the lock on the door, she snapped to her feet like a fresh recruit in boot camp. The metallic snap of the latch echoed with exaggerated clarity in the quiet room.
On paper, we were employer and employee. Yet ever since we crossed the line and tangled our bodies together, the dynamic of a man and a woman had begun taking precedence. In a workplace, personal feelings were supposed to be kept strictly at bay, but maintaining that boundary was proving easier said than done. To be precise, she was probably the only one agonizing over it, considering I was the one deliberately blurring the lines with plenty of ulterior motives.
"You could have gone ahead and gotten ready without me."
"Ah... sorry."
Flustered, she hurried to shrug off her cardigan. Beneath it, the shoulder straps of her white slip dress were extraordinarily thin, framing a daringly plunged neckline. A single careless tug looked like it would peel the whole thing right off.
"Are you warm? It doesn't seem that hot in here."
"Huh? Oh. When you said to get ready, I thought..."
"I made you a lunchbox today, Boss."
I watched her nervous fidgeting before reaching into my bag to pull out the container. If I left her alone, she looked ready to strip down to her bare skin right on the spot, so I kept the conversation flowing while setting it down.
"Why are you clutching your shoulder straps like that?"
"Huh? Oh, it's—it's nothing."
"Hmm... You weren't letting your imagination wander, were you?"
I narrowed my eyes playfully, and she instantly squirmed in place. Her expectations were written plainly across her blushing face, but I acted entirely oblivious.
"N-No! Ah... I mean, I had no idea you packed lunch, that's all."
"Ah. I suppose I forgot to mention it."
"Right, right. Exactly. So I thought maybe... No, never mind. Thank you. I'll enjoy it!"
She babbled in flustered fragments, her cheeks flushing a deeper shade of crimson. Ever since our first encounter at her place last week, we hadn't slept together a single time. I had spent the entire seven days teasing her with casual skinship, keeping her on edge without ever sealing the deal—dangling the prize just out of reach while withholding the main course. In a way, I was inflicting the exact brand of wicked, agonizing coquetry that women in this world so bitterly complained about when men toyed with them.
"Go ahead. Eat up while it's fresh."
"Yeah. You must've worked hard on this since early morning. Thanks, Jeongseo, I'll eat well!"
The reason I had deliberately walked the line during work hours, driving her to distraction, wasn't purely for amusement. Naturally, watching her reactions was entertaining; seeing her squirm, flustered and visibly holding back her urges, was a delight in its own right. But there was a far more practical purpose behind it.
Clatter.
"Whoa. This looks amazing! Look at all this."
"Boss."
As she opened the lunchbox with open admiration, I called out to her, dropping my voice low and steady. Of course, no matter how much I tried to lower my tone, a voice that naturally sounded youthful and soft couldn't muster much genuine intimidation.
"Huh? What is it?"
"With me standing right in front of you, is food really all you can look at?"
"...Huh?"
Her expression went utterly blank. Her eyes darted over me, practically screaming, What am I supposed to do here? To her, my sudden shift into stony-faced seriousness must have felt like a bolt from the blue.
"Jeongseo... did I do something wrong?"
I had only meant to set a slightly stern atmosphere before getting to the main point, but a wave of genuine unease was visibly creeping across her features. Seeing her look so genuinely perturbed made me second-guess whether I was pushing too hard, but the arrow had already left the bow.
"Yes. You did something wrong."
I cut my sentence there and fell silent. For a brief moment, neither of us said a word, our eyes locked as we measured each other's reactions.
"I'm sorry. Really, I am... but even if I rack my brain, nothing's coming to mind right now."
I could have taken it a step further if I wanted to. I could have repurposed those classic, venomous lines women in my past life loved to weaponize:
'Do you seriously not know what you did wrong?'
'You're always like this.'
'Forget it.'
Those phrases hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them down. There was no need to keep her dangling any longer; it was time to lay down the real issue.
"You used brute force on me."
"Huh? Me? Force? When did I ever... Ah!"
The entire reason I had spent a whole week stringing her along was to tame her. My goal was to accustom her to yielding to my touch and following my pace, because life would be significantly easier for me if she adopted a submissive stance in bed.
From what I had learned, the standard sexual posture in this world involved the woman mounting the man from above. It wasn't a gentle, considerate cowgirl either; it was a pinning posture that bent the man's legs back into an immobilized fold, rendering him utterly incapable of resisting. Being crushed and folded beneath her once was more than enough for a lifetime.
"Are you talking about... what happened at my place the other day?"
"Yes. You used your strength and just handled me however you wanted."
Her pupils trembled as though an earthquake had struck behind her eyes.
"Jeongseo... didn't we both want that?"
"You're going to justify it to the very end? Fine. I guess there's nothing I can do. If you say you didn't, then that's that."
The conversation had drifted slightly off the exact mark I intended, but I played along with a cold brush-off.
"No! Jeongseo, that's not what I meant!"
Unintentionally, I had cornered her even harder than planned, right when I had meant to loosen the reins.
"I'm sorry. Truly, I am. What can I do to make it right?"
Deep down, she probably felt I was being unreasonable. Even so, she lowered her head and apologized. Women in this world, cursed with such overpowering reproductive drives, were fundamentally the weaker party when it came to romantic leverage—especially now that the era where women could roughly manhandle men at their whim had long since passed.
"Come over here and kneel in front of me."
"What?"
"You don't have to if you don't want to. I won't hold it against you."
"Ah..."
Thud.
"I'm sorry. I apologize with all my heart. Did I really hurt you that badly?"
Coupled with my appearance, a demand like this actually carried weight. I had thrown the challenge out on a whim, yet without taking more than a second to hesitate, the Boss stepped forward and dropped to her knees before me.
I hadn't intended things to look quite so severe. I had orchestrated the tension to an extent, but I never wanted her acting like a condemned criminal on trial. All I wanted was an understanding that no matter how aroused she became, she would never overpower me with raw strength.
How do I smooth this over?
I had only wanted a simple promise, but she had panicked far beyond my expectations. Now I had to figure out how to dismantle the suffocating mood.
"I was just so excited... I must have failed to consider how you felt."
"Boss."
"It's shameful, honestly... but living to this age, I've never had a man say something like that to me."
Her head remained bowed as she muttered in a breathless stream of self-reproach, completely deaf to my voice. She had other choices; she didn't have to indulge my petulant attitude. Yet after a fleeting moment on the scales, she chose to lower her head to me. It was a genuinely risky concession on her part—if I possessed malicious intent, I could have easily used an admission like that to frame her.
"You're the very first person, Jeongseo... to ever tell me—"
"Boss!"
"Huh? Oh... Jeongseo."
Raising my voice finally snapped her attention back, and she lifted her gaze to meet mine.
"Do I look like someone who is deeply wounded and enraged right now?"
"Ah... your face looks fine, but if you're holding it in..."
"I'm not holding anything in. Come a little closer. Actually, never mind. I'll come to you."
I stepped down from my chair and stopped directly in front of her. Bending forward, I wrapped my arms around her in a light, reassuring embrace. Naturally, I had no desire to harm her. Right now, she looked exactly like a submissive dog rolling onto its back to expose its belly. Why go to such lengths over what had only been a single night together? Whatever the reason, it worked in my favor.
"What I said back then was genuine."
"Ah... thank you."
"What I actually wanted to tell you was this."
Holding her small head gently against me, I continued. She had styled her hair into a neat, lovely braid today.
"I want you to stop using brute force on me."
"Huh? No... I really never meant to force anything on you against your will."
"No, that's not what I mean."
"Then what?"
After giving her that brief hug, I eased back into the chair. Her eyes were faintly rimmed with pink.
"I enjoyed having sex with you, Boss."
"Having... yeah."
"What I hated was having my body moved and handled against my will through sheer physical strength."
"Ah."
"So please, don't use brute force on me."
I stated my terms plainly and honestly. She nodded with earnest intensity.
"That's why I want you to match my pace."
"Jeongseo... I understand. Anything... I'll match whatever you want."
"I prefer being the one in control. You might have things you desire as well, but..."
"It's fine! I can adapt to everything, really!"
A profound wash of relief settled across her face. The tension had dissolved far more easily than expected.
"I'm a little different from ordinary men."
"Yeah. It really feels that way."
Perhaps it was because she didn't impose any heavy emotional burden on me. Unlike Yeo-eun or Leehyun, she didn't stir up complicated, guilt-ridden sentiments. That made it far easier to speak with an unburdened, relaxed heart.
"So promise me. You won't use brute force on me ever again."
"Ever again? Does that mean... you'll keep seeing me...?"
"Yes. Why? Would you rather not?"
"No, no! I promise! I won't ever use force again, and... well, I'll be careful. I swear."
"And if there's ever something you want, make sure you ask for it with your words. Understood?"
I held out my pinky. She eagerly hooked her finger around mine and nodded over and over. Before I knew it, a wide smile had returned to her lips, carrying an almost touched, emotional glow. It seemed being given clear, unambiguous boundaries was far more reassuring for her as well.
"Shall we get up now? You must be hungry."
"Yeah... a little."
Her reddish hair, her flushed face, and the slight, inexplicable moisture clinging to the corners of her eyes—looking down at that expression stirred the impulse I had kept firmly suppressed all morning. The stress from earlier in the day made it even harder to resist.
"Boss."
"Yeah?"
Pushing herself up from the floor, she braced her hands on the table, her legs clearly a little numb from kneeling.
"With me standing right in front of you, is that lunchbox really all that catches your eye?"
"Huh? Wait... not this again... why?"
She looked up with a flustered start, but when she saw the teasing smirk playing across my lips, her guard dropped in an instant.
"Don't you want to eat me instead?"
Her eyes snapped wide in utter shock.
"Is food really your first priority?"
"No! Of course not!"
Still seated, I slid my hips forward toward the edge of the cushion and slowly spread my knees apart. Her gaze, which had been locked onto my eyes, drifted helplessly downward. She swallowed hard, an audible gulp slipping past her throat.
Tap, tap.
I patted my thighs lightly. As if breaking out of a hypnotic trance, she blinked, startled, and looked up at me.
"Why don't you come over here and sit down?"
"Like this?"
She crouched down directly between my legs. The framing was nearly identical to when she had been kneeling moments ago, but her posture and expression were entirely transformed—radiating raw excitement and breathless anticipation.
Zzzzp.
I pulled the zipper of my trousers down, looking down with quiet satisfaction at my obedient boss. Taking in the sight of her pale, bare shoulders and the deep swell of her cleavage, I freed my cock from my briefs. It was already primed and standing at full attention, but I phrased the command as a polite favor just for her.
"Blow me."
Without a single heartbeat of hesitation, the Boss buried her face straight into my crotch, falling upon it with voracious, ravenous hunger, like a starving woman offered a feast.