Episode 2 – An Intense Impulse
He took out a new cigarette, drew once on the filter, and handed it to her. The moment she put it between her lips and inhaled, a fit of violent coughs erupted. The harsh smoke felt as though it were waking every organ inside her body.
Watching her cough until her face turned crimson, he smiled faintly.
“Guess it really is your first time.”
“I told you.”
Clutching her throat in distress, she firmly refused the man’s hand as he reached for the cigarette.
“I haven’t finished it yet.”
By the time she had repeated inhaling the smoke and coughing it back out until her head swam, the unpleasant mood she had felt in the bar had already faded.
“You really want to let loose tonight, huh?”
The red wound at the corner of the man’s grinning lips caught her eye again.
“What happened to your face?”
“Got in a fight.”
“With who?”
“Just someone I don’t like.”
“Why?”
“Well, sometimes you just want to stop thinking and go wild. Isn’t that what you’re doing tonight?”
Jian furrowed her brow.
“Why do you keep talking like you know me?”
“It’s all over your face.”
“Me? I’ve never heard that before.”
“Guess you’ve only been meeting idiots.”
At his words, Jian finally let out a hollow laugh.
“Do you even know how old I am?”
“I don’t know how old you are, but I know you’re a little attracted to me right now. And you know I feel the same….”
The man’s lips, curving in a faint smile, moved sensually.
“You’re really annoying.”
“So is that a no?”
Instead of answering, Jian fixed her eyes on his shirt, which had been casually unbuttoned. The firm muscle visible beneath the fabric was slowly reviving the desire for pleasure she had prematurely abandoned. To relieve the suffocating tightness in her chest, the man standing before her seemed far more suitable than any cigarette.
“Why don’t you button up?”
“Why?”
“It’s distracting.”
“What is?”
“I want to touch it. I’m not in my right mind, so I might actually do it.”
The man snickered.
“Are you seducing me right now?”
“Maybe. I think I want to, but maybe I don’t….”
In that instant, his hot breath drew close enough to touch her.
“I want to….”
His voice, dripping with urgency, made her tense. Alternating his gaze between her trembling eyes and red lips, he asked:
“Have you ever kissed a stranger?”
“No.”
“Then want to try doing something you’ve never done before tonight?”
She had never once surrendered her body to impulse. To build an impressive career at a relatively young age, she had moved solely according to plan without ever losing focus. Emotions like impulse or desire were luxuries to her, and at times, obstacles.
Yet now, an intense impulse she had never experienced was dominating her.
“What do you say?”
A damp, husky voice clung to her ear. He was asking for her consent, yet his tone suggested he already knew the answer. Jian looked into his eyes and exhaled a ragged breath.
“Do it.”
The gaze he tilted at her twisted playfully. He brushed the corner of her lips with wet skin.
“Have to get a taste before we get serious.”
The red visible inside his lips was unbearably obscene.
“So how is it?”
“Delicious.”
His low voice tickled the tip of her nose, as if it would reach her at any moment.
“Want to try too?”
Jian quietly looked into his eyes, drew close, and licked his Adam’s apple. The man flinched and squinted.
“That’s really stimulating.”
“Hurry up. I’ve never done this before, so I might change my mind any second.”
He smiled faintly, drew near, and pressed his lips to hers. Slowly sucking on her upper and lower lips, he pushed his hot breath inside. In that space dense with sensation, their desires clashed sticky and wet. Between their tilted heads, damp flesh moved rhythmically, making lewd, smacking sounds.
“Haah….”
The smooth friction sharply stimulated every cell in her body, and a thin moan slipped past her lips. After tracing the roof of her mouth, he invaded as if to devour her, making her head spin as if she had inhaled a lungful of smoke.
She exhaled in shaky breaths and pulled her body back slightly, putting distance between them. The intense pleasure she felt for the first time in her life left her legs so weak she felt ready to collapse. His lips, stained red with lipstick, moved suggestively.
“You can’t run away already. We’re just getting started….”
Swallowing her fragmented breaths, Jian spoke.
“I’m not running. I just want to make this last longer.”
He grinned and grabbed her head, pulling her. Pleasure coursed through her veins and spread throughout her body at his hand pressing down like a restraint. The sounds tangled with stimulation sent tingles all the way to her toes.
* * *
“Want to go further?”
The heat in the man’s voice clinging to her ear was palpable. Their unfinished desire hung thick and sticky between them. She steadied her heaving chest and spoke.
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. Somewhere we can be alone….”
“I have to get my bag. Wait here.”
“Okay.”
“I won’t be long.”
The man wiped the lipstick smudged beside her lips with his thumb and said:
“Take your time. I’ll be waiting.”
Before entering the bar, Jian looked back once. She could see the man leaning against the wall looking in her direction, but the alley was too dark to make out his expression. When she traced the lingering traces on her lips with her tongue, heat rose to her face. Somehow, she felt impatient.
“Professor Song, where did you run off to? You’re back?”
When she entered the room, Professor Choe, drunk, waved his hand. The cluttered table and flushed faces showed that the drinking gathering was winding down.
“Professor Bak, how about karaoke for round two?”
“I have to head down to Busan for a conference tomorrow, so that’ll be difficult.”
Jian hurriedly searched for her bag among the drunk professors.
“Professor Song, you’re coming for round two, right?”
When Professor Choe asked, a sneer curled around Professor Gim’s lips.
“Ah, you should ask the right question. Would her precious self go to a place like that with us?”
“I have some work to do, so I’ll be heading back first.”
She heard Professor Gim’s derisive voice, as if he had expected as much, but it didn’t bother her. She only wanted to escape this squalid space and return to the alley where he was as soon as possible. It was then that her darting eyes caught the bag pinned beneath Professor Choe.
“Professor, please give me my bag.”
Only then did Professor Choe realize he had been sitting on something; he reached behind him and pulled out the bag.
“Oh my, I’ve made quite the mistake. But are you really leaving? Professor Song, stay a bit. It’s not like you have a conference tomorrow like Professor Bak….”
“I have a paper I need to read.”
She pulled at the bag, but Professor Choe held the other side, and it was immediately tugged back.
“Ah, come on…. You seem pretty drunk. What paper?”
The drunk Professor Choe was being unusually clingy. Fatigue washed over her in an instant.
“Please stop and give me the bag….”
“You didn’t drive here, did you, Professor Song?”
Before a sharp tone could slip out of her, Professor Bak intervened.
“No.”
“Then take my car. I called a designated driver.”
“No, I’ll go alone….”
“How can I send a drunk person off alone at night? I’ll drop you off on my way.”
Jian was about to refuse again but understood Professor Bak’s intention and closed her mouth. He was worried that another unpleasant incident would arise in the process of her refusing Professor Choe’s insistence.
“Professor Song has had quite a bit to drink. Wouldn’t it be better to send her off when there’s someone who can take her home?”
Professor Bak spoke with the warmest smile he could muster so as not to hurt Professor Choe’s feelings. Only then did the hand gripping the bag relax.
“Then Professor Bak, you have to take responsibility and see our Professor Song home safely.”
“Of course, don’t worry.”
Professor Bak Taehun was Jian’s senior from university. When she had been an undergraduate, he had been in his master’s program, and he had always extended a helping hand like this whenever Jian found herself in a difficult situation.
To avoid an unnecessary scuffle, she decided to go along with Taehun for now.
“Then I’ll impose on you.”
Following Taehun out of the bar, she turned her gaze toward the alley. But because the entrance curved slightly, she couldn’t see where he stood very well.
“Hurry up and get in. The professors are coming up now. Stay here and you’ll get caught again.”
Once she climbed into the back seat, the car began moving along the narrow road. Jian watched the receding alley and hurriedly searched for an excuse to get out. She had to return to the alley where he was before it was too late.
“Don’t worry too much about Professor Gim. He worked hard for a long time trying to publish a paper in the QJE, and seeing you achieve that at such a young age must have upset him.”
“Yes. But senior….”
“Professor Gim is different from someone like me who came in after working at a government research institute. He’s someone who has lived his whole life aiming for nothing but scholarly fame….”
“I know.”
“Don’t be so confrontational…. This is all human work. Even if you’re capable, it’s hard if you have too many enemies. If you have a lot of people around to help, you can get past one or two mistakes. But if you’re surrounded by nothing but enemies like you, the moment there’s even a small flaw, they’ll all come rushing at you like a pack of dogs.”
“….”
“You know that, right? Everyone is just waiting for you to make one mistake….”
In that moment, the desire that had risen to her chin began to turn cold.
The sharp reality had already approached right to her throat, holding a cold blade.
It was a position she had climbed to with all her might. But maintaining it was no easy feat. The proportion of men in the field of economics was overwhelming, and within it, Jian couldn’t help but always be in the spotlight, whether for her gender or her ability.
The moment she stepped even one foot off the predetermined path, it was clear that everyone around her would rush at her like beasts and tear her apart.
Only then did the weight of what she had done in the alley earlier begin to sink in.
What had she done with a man she just met? What was she thinking, trusting him?
The fact that she had impulsively been swept up in a childish game was suddenly humiliating.
I’ve lost my mind. Doing something I never even did in my twenties….
Brilliant neon signs passed quickly outside the window. Before she knew it, Jian had stopped looking for a place to get out.
He probably left already. It was something done on impulse by both sides; there was no reason he would be hurt.
She tried desperately to rationalize her actions and erase him from her mind.
The car gradually picked up speed.