Pandora's Box
"Um… I'm really sorry, but I'm not a pervert, okay? I'm about to do something, and it doesn't mean anything weird, so…"
"Huh…? What are you trying to do?"
"Well, it's… ah, how do I even explain this. This is driving me crazy. Look, I've just got this certainty. I'm going to make whatever's hurting you better, so just close your eyes for a second."
At my words, she really did squeeze her eyes shut.
Wow, she's pretty… Did she put on makeup while I wasn't looking? Why does she look even prettier than before? Crap. This is not the time for that.
I swept my gaze over her body again. The red spots started around her ankles and clustered thickly along her calves. From there they climbed upward, scattering from the backs of her thighs and spreading across the rest of her.
Instinct. Pure instinct. It had been the same when I gave her CPR earlier. As if trying to tell me I had my hands in the wrong place, the red spots had guided me to the right position—and the moment I set my hands on them, the woman came back to life. That wasn't all. While she was coughing up the water she'd swallowed, red spots had appeared all over her freezing body, and when I brushed them away she recovered her color almost at once.
You'd have to be an idiot not to understand what those red marks meant.
I started at her legs and slowly swept my hands down toward her ankles. A soft little mmh slipped from her lips.
Did I stroke her too suggestively…?
The sound was pleasant enough to make me wonder. A woman who'd been gasping with fever a moment ago was already improving just from my hands on the red spots.
I probably needed to apply a little pressure, the way you would with a real massage. I began kneading the cluster of red spots around her ankles. Every time my hands touched them, the spots blurred and spread like watercolor, their edges slowly fading.
The problem was that the second I focused on her ankles, the red spots elsewhere started multiplying like crazy—especially along her calves and the backs of her thighs. I shifted my hands at once and began rubbing those areas in firm, pushing strokes.
Her breathing had settled a lot compared to the beginning; now she was making soft, wet little sounds.
Come to think of it, this was the first time I'd ever touched a woman's bare skin. I had no idea it could be this soft. Her flawless, smooth flesh quivered with elastic give under every stroke, as if it had been waiting to be touched.
It was almost funny when you thought about it. Skin like this, a body this good to look at—and she wasn't having sex? That had to be a national tragedy.
I shook my head to refocus. Only then did I notice that the woman I'd thought had her eyes closed was staring straight up at me, watching whatever I was doing with open curiosity.
"Ah… this is kind of embarrassing. Could you look somewhere else?"
"Is this a massage? You should've just said you were giving me a massage. But it feels amazing. You must've trained for this."
Not even close. Growing up, my grandmother and mother had always said I had a strong grip. Friends used to beg me to work their shoulders, and even girls had occasionally offered theirs. That was always as far as it went, of course.
I didn't bother answering the training question. All I could see were the red spots blooming and spreading. They were almost taunting me—touch one place and they flowered somewhere else; chase them there and they bloomed again somewhere new. I worked from her lower belly to the insides of her thighs, the sides of her hips, every inch around her pelvis, then went back and thoroughly worked free the dense cluster at her ankles.
Even the soles of her feet had gone red. The moment I swept my hand across one, she twisted her waist and let out a ticklish little squeal of laughter.
"Is this still part of the massage?"
"…You're going to have to trust me completely."
I kneaded the sole of her foot, then swept back up her slender calf. This time I mixed in a little selfishness. When I reached her hips and started working them, I ran into a problem: a red spot straddled the edge of her panties, and as I followed it, it drifted lower and lower until it settled on the curve of her ass itself.
"Hey, sorry, but could you turn over? I think I need to work your hips."
She gave a soft snort of laughter and rolled over as asked. The fact that she could still look that composed told me she was basically fine now.
So why was she lying there taking a massage she no longer needed?
Even a ten-year-old who'd never had sex ed could figure that one out.
At first I only stroked the outer edges, but her reactions weren't bad at all, so I started kneading her properly—working her like dough. God. How could anything be this soft. It had the springy plumpness of a baby's skin, but without any sag; it felt firm, held in place by muscle. And because she'd just come out of the shower, her ass smelled incredible.
She made a little hah sound and brought a fist to her mouth.
I'd cleared almost all the red spots. Time to ease off the brakes. Trying to look as professional as possible, I moved my hands with deliberate boldness—kneading her ass, then tracing a natural circle downward until I was touching the soft flesh where cheek met thigh. From there my hands drifted, little by little, toward her crotch. I watched her carefully. No resistance at all.
I let out a long, satisfied breath and gave her panty string a light snap. That finally got a reaction—and it was absolutely not a bad one. She seemed to be enjoying herself. Looking down at the woman making pleased little gestures under my hands, I felt my lower half surge hard. My heart was hammering like mad. Ah… so the day had finally come. The moment Pandora's box, sealed away for a full thirty years, was about to open.
Holding my breath, I pulled her panty string all the way aside and laid eyes on that lotus-like place for the first time.
The shape was familiar from porn. But it was also different. Just as every man's cock looks different, so did a woman's sex. Hers was coiled as prettily as a flower. The color wasn't too dark—a soft violet tinge. There was none of that fantasy baby-pink, but the realism of it was actually reassuring.
She'd probably been with plenty of men. The thought only made me more nervous. The idea of being compared to someone else.
Then she curled her upper body a little and spoke to me through the gap she'd made underneath.
"D-does that… need massaging too?"
"Yes… it's deeper inside than I expected."
"W-what is?"
I almost said "the red spots," then realized that would only make things worse, so I covered.
"A knotted muscle."
I kept rubbing around her crotch as I talked.
"This thick, protruding part right here. This is the troublemaker. Your pelvis must have twisted pretty badly when you rolled that ankle earlier."
"Ah, I see… ngh! But it really… hhk. Y-you're good at this."
I couldn't tear my eyes from the flower bud I'd never seen before as I stroked all around it. There were rounded parts and slightly raised ones. In porn, this was about where guys buried their faces and started licking.
I swallowed the saliva that had gone sweet with dirty thoughts and ran my tongue over my dry lips. I lowered my eyelids the way a predator does when it's staring down prey already in its jaws. I needed to stay cold.
There's a piece of advice people always give virgins: rush it, get too excited, and you'll blow in three seconds flat. I'd heard stories like that in passing. Either way, this was my first time. If she was satisfied with me, she'd want more afterward. Be meticulous, Kang Junhyun. I soothed the ache building below.
Don't screw this up now that you've come this far. One step at a time, slow and steady. The more you hurry, the longer the way around.
I let go of the panty string I'd been holding and pretended to refocus on the massage. Looking again, I saw red spots still left on her upper body. I gently pressed around the erector muscles standing out from tension, then slid upward in a smooth glide toward the bra across her back.
"Can I undo this?"
I deliberately leaned in and spoke right against her ear. She startled, a full-body shiver running through her.
"It'll just get in the way of the massage."
"Okay. I don't mind."
Thump-thump-thump.
I unhooked a bra clasp I'd never undone in my life. I'd been worried I wouldn't be able to figure it out on the first try, but the structure was simpler than expected.
I was dying to see the front, but for now this would have to be enough. Her bare back was fully exposed. The sharp lines of her shoulder blades were quietly, intensely erotic. And the most erotic thing of all was that, panties aside, this woman wasn't wearing a single scrap of clothing.
I rubbed her back in broad strokes the way a real masseur would, erasing red spots as I went, and gradually worked sideways until I was stroking the soft side of a breast that had slipped free.
"Hah—"
Whoa. Judging by that reaction, this was one of her sweet spots. I gave her a taste of it, then took hold of her shoulders and the nape of her neck and worked them hard and deep. She made a sound like she was melting.
"Haaaah…"
For a second I thought the bed had grown a mouth. All the strength left in her body drained out at once, and she sank so deep into the mattress it looked like she was being swallowed whole.
When I finished with her neck and shoulders, she was fully recovered and full of wonder.
"Woooow. That was incredible… It felt so good."
"I hear that a lot. Though usually it's from ajummas…"
"No, seriously. I think you're better than a professional masseur."
"You're too kind… Now I'll do the front as well."
"The front… mm… okay."
She turned over, one hand covering her breasts, her eyes wandering.
"Hah, it's hot in here."
"Yeah, the place is pretty run-down."
"No… that's not what I meant. Whew. Where else still needs massaging?"
It must have felt amazing, because her eyes were full of expectation. I looked at the two soft mounds she was hiding behind her arm. The moment my gaze settled there, the face of the woman lying beneath me flushed pink.
"Here?"
"Yes."
"What kind of massage is this supposed to be…"
She said it, but there wasn't a trace of real refusal. I let one corner of my mouth lift.
"Should I stop? The massage."
We both already knew. Unspoken understanding. She looked back and forth between my thickened lower half and my face and felt it too.
This was a woman who'd walked into a single man's apartment without a second thought. Had she really not seen this coming? With a sighing breath, she finally took her hand away from her chest. As her arm slowly fell, her areolas came into view, and after that… her nip… ples…
Ah.
Right then, a shrill ringtone blared. I'd lost my own phone, so the sound had to be hers. She covered the breasts she'd been about to bare completely, twisted her upper body the other way, and answered the call.
"H-hello? Yeah… no… I'll be in soon. Yeah, no. I'll handle it. Tell everyone else to go home. Yeah… thanks. See you later."
She hung up and started fumbling the buttons of her loosened dress shirt closed.
"I think I have to go."
"…"
I'd been mid-massage, still on my knees, and I froze solid.
"I'm sorry. We weren't even finished… and I've just taken advantage of you and now I'm leaving. Wow, though—my ankle that I twisted earlier is completely fine. It moves perfectly."
I should've broken it so she couldn't walk!
I was pretty sure I'd just made the biggest mistake of my life.
Fully dressed, she pulled a pair of my socks from the wardrobe and put them on.
"I can just wear any of these, right? I'm really sorry. I'll definitely pay you back later."
"…"
At the shoe rack she rummaged around some more, then pulled out my slippers and slipped them on.
"I-I'll be going. We have to see each other again. Oh—and my name is Jin Ayoung."
She said goodbye and was gone.
I stayed frozen like a stone statue for a long time, unable to move.
What the hell just happened? If it had been a dream, I wouldn't even complain. She just left me like this and vanished? I thought of Kim Seoa from last night and overlaid her with the face of Jin Ayoung, whose name I'd only just learned.
I couldn't believe it. Was this what a fisherman felt when the catch of a lifetime slipped the hook?
No. What the hell would a fisherman know. Fuck.
Late in the afternoon, a doorbell rang so hard it yanked me out of sleep. I'd been deep under, which only made yesterday's events taste more bitter. God, the more I thought about it, the emptier I felt.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
As if the doorbell weren't enough, now there was knocking. Annoying—but if I stayed quiet, they'd only keep at it.
"Who is it?"
"Courier. I need a signature."
I couldn't believe my ears.
A… courier?