“When my furlough is up, I’ll report for duty at the Fifth Division in Yeoncheon. Two months there and then my military service is over.”
“Seems like you’re having an easy time.”
“I know this doesn’t carry much weight, but it is still the army.”
“What will you do after you’re discharged?”
“Guess I’ll be unemployed at first.”
I was standing in front of the bookcase and Cheolsu was by the closed drapes. His arms were resting awkwardly against the wall, as if unable to find the right spot. Time passed clumsily. Cheolsu came closer and put one arm around me. The silence was stifling. What came next? Neither of us knew. The whole time I’d known him this had never come up. How were you supposed to comfort a boy in the army?
“What do you want?” I asked, unable to bear the wait.
“To sleep with you.”
“Why?”
“I dreamt about you.”
“I don’t have much time.”
“It doesn’t take that long.”
“You’ve done it before?”
He just laughed and didn’t say anything. Cheolsu’s body looked drawn and hot, as if feverish — just being so near a girl’s body seemed to excite him. So I pulled down my stockings and my panties, and after Cheolsu had touched me there for about three seconds, he said he couldn’t wait any longer.
“Can I put it in?”
Cheolsu’s room was silent and devoid of any draft; the air was as still as jelly. A drop of water falling in the bathroom sounded unnaturally loud. On instinct we tried to avoid making any noise. I nodded.
“But,” I added, “you know you can’t finish inside of me, right?”
“I know.”
I wasn’t at a risky point in my cycle or anything, but when boys are too selfish in their insistence, you always have to say that: you can’t have it entirely your way.
It took him three tries to get inside me, and then he ejaculated too fast. It was probably over before he realized it. He didn’t keep his promise to pull out. We got some tissue, cleaned up my soiled skirt and the floor, and got dressed. Just as he’d said, it didn’t take that long. Then we sat apart from each other, looking in opposite directions.
That was what he’d wanted so badly? Boys were so strange.
Up until then he and I had never even held hands at the movies. So at that moment, touching Cheolsu’s body was unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
“Cheolsu, did you turn off the record player?” I asked.
I thought I’d heard a faint sound coming from the living room a moment ago. During the very brief time that Cheolsu was inside me, I had sensed behind my back the bedroom door cracking open slightly and then closing again immediately. I was certain someone was in the living room, but I didn’t mention it to him. He stood up, as if rescued from the moment by having something else to do, and said he wasn’t really sure. When we went out to the living room, Cheolsu’s mother was clearing away our coffee cups. Caught off guard, Cheolsu turned bright red. The zipper of his pants was still partway down.
“Mom, I thought you weren’t coming home until later.”
“I wasn’t planning to but the wedding ended right away and there weren’t that many people there. Who’s this? A friend?”
I was certain that his mother had spied on us in his room, but she looked me right in the face and feigned ignorance. She didn’t look anything like him. I never would have guessed that she was his mother. She was overweight and had a double chin, and her hair was as dry and curly as steel wool. Her face was shiny, like she’d just smeared on night cream. Her lips, painted brick red, were thick and crude, and the corners were drawn down wryly as she struggled to suppress her curiosity. There was nothing about her that brought to mind Cheolsu’s pale skin and cool demeanor. But she smiled at me.
“Silly me, you must be his girlfriend! Is that why you two didn’t hear me come in?”
“We were looking at my books,” Cheolsu said dumbly.
His mother offered me some fruit. I told her I had to leave right away, but she insisted. I had no choice but to sit on the sofa and eat slices of banana and apple, and cookies that had grown mushy with age. Cheolsu was silent, and his mother studied me from head to toe with a sharp look in her eyes.
“Are you the same age as Cheolsu?”
“She’s two years younger.”
When Cheolsu answered for me, his mother glared at him.
“Was I asking you?”
Then she asked me a string of questions. What college had I gone to? Where did my parents live? How many siblings did I have? What did I major in? How was my health? Did I have a driver’s license? A teaching license? Where did I work? How much money did I make? And so on, and so on. Far past the point of politeness.
“Mom, you just met her,” Cheolsu said. “You can’t grill her like that.”
His mother ignored him and continued to ask me questions.
“What does your older brother do? You said there’s a big age difference between you two?”
“He’s preparing for a job in Japan.”
I thought, to hell with it, and answered the question truthfully. I had already missed my chance to get to work on time.
“Oh, really? Fancy that. He must work with computers. Or something to do with art.”
“No, he’s applying for a job at a janitorial company.”
“Janitorial?”
Her face changed color slightly, and she closed her mouth.
“Well, I’d better get going,” I said. “I have to go to work.”
“So soon? I hope you’re not leaving on my account. It’s okay — you should stay. Don’t mind me.”
“Mom, she said she has to go. She was supposed to leave by seven.”
“When did I say she couldn’t? So what does your father do for a living?”
As she walked me to the front door, she finally asked the question she’d wanted to ask in the first place, the one that had been driving her crazy with curiosity. Cheolsu’s face turned red.
“He works for the government.” He was on the verge of shouting. “The government! Are you also going to ask where he went to college and how much he makes and what he drives and what brand of tennis shoes he wears?”
Aghast, Cheolsu’s mother looked at him as if to say, Who would ask such an uncivilized question? It was true that my father had once worked at city hall. But not anymore. Cheolsu didn’t add that part, though. As soon as we got out of the house, he and I ran like mad for the bus stop. Luckily, the bus I had to take was just about to pull away. Cheolsu waved his arms wildly, while I ran until sweat broke out on my forehead. By the time I managed to clamber aboard the bus, I was too out of breath to even say good-bye.
Cheolsu waved and yelled, “Come see me next month on base?”
I nodded.
If you gently…
If you gently stroke my lips and the palm of my hand right now, you will find them strangely cold and icy, a feeling of endless distance that even I can sense. Someone once said to me, “You’re so cold that I shake with despair. The whole time we’re together your lips never once flush, and your body is like slippery ice. You have the eyes of a wolf-girl whose heart has never once been moved. When I press my ear to your chest, I hear only wind and emptiness.”
Rain falls inside the dark, abandoned house. It streams down the walls of the kitchen and front door like a waterfall. Burn me. Pour gasoline over me and set my body on fire. Burn me at the stake like a witch. Wrap me in garbage bags and toss me in the incinerator. I’ll turn into dioxin and make my way into your lungs. Stroke my face lightly with a razor blade and suck the blood that comes seeping out. Lap it up like a cat. I want to be covered in blood. I’ll cry out in the end and weep for fear of leaving this world without ever once discovering the me inside me, the ugly something inside me. But then I see her: another me passing by like a landscape of inanimate objects outside the window of the empty house quietly collapsing in the rain.