The First House Call

When I woke up that morning, Seoa was gone from the spot beside me.

I checked the time in a panic, then face-planted straight back into the mattress. I was already way past my start time.

Shin Iseol had bombarded me with an absolute flood of texts.

Thankfully, the last of those messages had come in only a minute ago.

Cursing Kim Seoa under my breath for not waking me, I fired back a reply.

Crap.

I scrambled to check Lee Mikyeong's messages. She'd promised to introduce me to a younger acquaintance as a client — someone who wanted a house-call massage. I'd been so preoccupied with the prospect of sex with Jin Ayoung that I'd completely forgotten to reply.

And honestly, this woman had some nerve. She texts me on a day off and then throws a fit when I don't answer? If she weren't one of my biggest VIP shareholders, I would've had a few choice words for her. Capitalism, however, had me bowing my head.

My head was a blank white fog. Morning brain at its finest.

But why had Seoa vanished without a word? Come to think of it, my memories of last night were full of holes.

I'd been completely lost in sex with her when, at some point, a purple spot on her body had caught my eye. I'd touched it, found it rock-hard, and worked it free out of pure curiosity... Then the sweet kissing, the way my brain had pickled itself in pure ecstasy until I couldn't think straight — I remembered all of that. Everything after was a total blank.

I called Seoa right away. The dial tone barely rang once before she picked up.

That was no exaggeration. From Jin Ayoung in the morning all the way through Gu Somin and then Seoa — and with Seoa we'd basically gone all night — I'd gotten hard at least ten times and come nearly as many. My entire groin was throbbing. A massage would fix it, sure, but still.

I kept kneading the area around my cock while we talked.

I brushed it off with a half-hearted goodbye and hung up. But something about the whole exchange left a bad taste in my mouth. The missing stretch of last night's memories, Seoa's oddly loaded reaction — both of them nagged at me.

I turned it over for a moment, then called Lee Mikyeong. My hand was still shoved down against my groin.

If even Lee Mikyeong called someone particular, just how high-maintenance was this client going to be?

Loaded, I got. But what did gorgeous have to do with anything?

She said she'd texted me the number, and I thanked her and hung up.

Put in a little effort with Lee Mikyeong and she'd keep laying golden eggs for me — a steady pipeline of high-value clients. That much was obvious.

Before you're a service worker, a masseur is a salesman. Your skill is measured by how many VIP clients you can pull in.

Before Mikyeong's contact even came through, I messaged Lee Yeondo. A few worried check-ins from her had piled up in my inbox.

Hah.

Putting out those fires left me feeling lighter. The second anything happened to me, the texts from women came pouring in.

All this warm concern was something my old life had never known, and I still didn't know how to handle it. Especially when every single one of those women wanted to share something more than concern with me.

Ahh — the feeling I'd had holding Seoa last night bloomed again, spreading warm through my chest.

But I had no intention of letting lust yank my life back to where it used to be.

One thing I needed to keep crystal clear: the reason ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd come this far was my ability. Without it, none of this existed.

If I hadn't followed Jin Ayoung's advice and become a masseur, who knows where I'd be? No — I knew exactly where. Still a virgin shut-in, living the same dead-end life.

A man needs money! A man needs skill! Put the two together and you get power!

Make money! Money!

Every woman who'd treated me like a cockroach was going to get thoroughly fucked.

And for that, I had to work my ass off.

I got the new client's address, then slowly started packing for the house call.

Time was on my side. The house-call location wasn't far, so I dressed at a leisurely pace and headed out.

The problem was that this was my first house-call massage.

The venue, the equipment, whether the space would be open or private, how to negotiate the price — a dozen worries flickered through my head. In the end, though, the answer was always the same.

Don't overthink it. Everything so far had worked that way. Whatever I'd fretted about beforehand had never been half as hard as I'd imagined. Take the problem in front of you, solve it one step at a time, and eventually an exit appears.

And more than anything, as long as I had these Miracle Hands of mine...

I held my hands up and stared at them for so long that the person sitting next to me on the train gave me a weird look.

All the way to the destination, I did something I'd never done in my life: phone-scrolling chat. Back when I took public transit, there was never a reason to look at my phone unless I was playing a game. Now I was juggling double and triple text threads with multiple women at once.

Even if one of them couldn't reply, another would answer — and by then a third would be starting a conversation. Sometimes I couldn't keep up with the replies.

The truly strange part was how fickle people are. Picking a number-one was nearly impossible.

Choosing just one among them felt like an impossible task.

Jin Ayoung — the thoughtful, generous, gorgeous noona with the killer body who always bought dinner.

Kim Seoa — who'd started out as a total brat and was now absolute obedience, doing whatever I told her.

Lee Yeondo — flat-chested, but with a face that was number one without question.

Park Yuyoung — so cute I wanted to pocket her and carry her around like a pocket girl.

And Gu Somin, freshly added to my call list, already handing me a whole new challenge.

Beyond them there was Kim Yujin, perfect for verbal abuse, and Shin Iseol, still an absolute pain in the ass. Yujin's personality was garbage, but when I just wanted to do whatever I felt like, no one beat her. I'd casually drop, "Hey, you fucking bitch, when are you free this week?" and she'd go, "Haaah... that's so fucking hot. Talk dirtier." That kind of woman.

As for Iseol, we mostly texted about work, but every so often she'd veer into completely unrelated territory. "What are you doing tonight?" "Huh? Nothing planned. Why? Want to grab dinner with me?" "No, I was just checking if you'd be back at the shop by then. Dinner? With you? Don't even dream about it." That was her. No wonder every time I looked at Shin Iseol the words "total fucking brat" sprang to mind.

Speaking of which... what the hell is this place...?

Standing in front of the address Lee Mikyeong had given me, I felt like my feet had been glued to the ground. So this was one of those legendary, jaw-dropping mansions you only ever heard about.

Does Lee Mikyeong live in a place like this too?

No. No way. She couldn't possibly live in a mansion like this.

Because I had never, in all of Korea, seen a private residence this enormous.

I swallowed hard, like a monster drunk on the smell of money.