PRETEXT & PREDISPOSITION

You steal.

It's not overly complex. There's deception and a backstory, the playing-the-long-game and all that comes with it - the island's got everything you'd ever need: loose cash, a little sun, a lot of jurisdictional flexibility. The clay courts and those slow-silt surfaces that offer up more room for error. Everyone's got their own reasons for summering at the club, but the clientele's a constant. It's just got that kind of appeal.

"I don't kiss and tell," Wonyoung replies, breezily, when you bring it up once; when you realize she's just like you. "Well - that’s a lie. I kiss, I tell, I exaggerate for dramatic effect. But I'm very serious about keeping secrets."

She gives it a beat; lets it sit. There's a casual disinterest in her voice, the tone: oh, me? Never.

You lean back, stare at her. The doll-eyed, endearingly childish expression is still plastered all over her face; she can be cute, charming, infuriating. "What are you doing here, really?"

"Nothing nefarious," says Wonyoung, razor sharp, perceptively funny. "Thief."

The nonchalant answer is that she does this often - moves in, mingles, matriculates. "It's not like I need the money," she reasons, casually, all minted logic. "Just something to keep myself busy while the grown-ups talk." She slides forward, cups your jaw in one tiny hand - eyes fluttering down to your mouth, intent blatant and insinuating. "Besides," she says - and there, the golden age of everything; it's all crystal clear - "when else would I have time to fuck with you?"

She's honest, about some things. She doesn't actually pretend that there's some noble, altruistic cause for her sticky little fingers - this isn't charity, and, like you need some proof, she reaches up and snags the pair of sunglasses out from your shirt pocket. "Like that," she says. Pauses, raises an eyebrow. "And that, too." Your wallet, nestled comfortably between her little fingers.

You have it all backwards. There's not a shred of guilt in those huge, innocuous eyes: the blink-blink-blink charade of the perennially innocent. You've seen enough to know exactly why the siren-song fits.

"Thanks for trusting me with your fake ID, man," Wonyoung jokes lightly, and the rest goes unspoken, a mutual understanding: well, you already know you can't get away from me, anyway. Your driver's license flits back. "Real sweet that you're turning twenty-six this month. Who could forget that."

The point is: she wants what you want. Or, it's better. The two of you share a predisposition. One thing in common, if nothing else.

(Others would probably call that criminal, but you're not above admitting this:

It kind of feels like fate.)

-

If they ever do haul you in - and this is purely conjecture, what with you staying as far the fuck away from trouble as you can get (deflect, disengage, deny) - but y'know, on the offchance someone presses record, and says, let's take it from the top - you'll spin them this:

You're lying low, in theory. The island just has a way of filling in the blanks.

There's a timeline. Motives, methods, mistakes - a job goes bad; you lose your passport, falsify another, wash up on foreign shores; you're not planning to stick around for long. No one's ever heard the same version twice.

You'd make some offhand comment, just throw it out there. Reiterate that the premise is ridiculous, obviously. It's not even about the sport itself. The real story, you'll say, is the rivalry. I mean - you can't do tennis, not as a concept, without the drama, and the theatrics, without the full realization of the fact that it isn't actually very entertaining to watch on its own merits. So consider the analog, a metaphor maybe, about sex and intimacy and exclusivity; beauty in competition, and elegance in structure and form. The parallels: gamesmanship versus showmanship; technique and stamina; polite applause versus grand gestures.

You don't actually know what you're trying to say here - but the point is you picked up a racket young, and it all sorta spiraled from there.

-

Well-laid plans and all that. You know the spiel.

Summer's the season to get lost in the shuffle, and by all metrics, the resort's not the worst place to hole up: it's ritzy, and remote, which means discreet, which means it's a private piece of heaven for anyone too privileged for common sense; safe harbor for the eccentric and the elusive and the elite. It's off-grid, off-limits. Everyone on staff knows everyone. (And everyone’s fucking or fighting.)

You're sweating in the afternoon sun, stripping off your shirt, and that's sorta how you got here, really:

"You don't look like you need any help," says this voice on the baseline, with not nearly enough timidity.

You glance up. Oh, perfect. An obstacle in the literal sense of the word, one that's stepped right out of the middle of the court to interrupt your practice. You sigh, rolling your eyes. Some missing context is that you were a prodigy, for a bit. Gonna go pro. This was like ten years ago; but patellar tendinopathy isn't just a rumor and that's that. You healed up and you dropped out. Couldn't hack it, really.

"Let me guess," says your new friend. Her voice is deeper than you would expect, kinda husky. "You've been doing this since you were, what. Five?"

"Was either tennis or swimming." You bounce the ball, take a few steps back. Hit another serve over the net. "I hated getting my face wet, so."

The stranger fixes you with an obvious once-over. And like, hey, you're not dumb.

She rests a hand on one hip in a way that says she's at least partly familiar with what she's looking at. Dark eyes; long lashes. An air of casual confidence; a tight grip. She doesn't even have a racket on her: just tennis whites, bright-patterned and impeccably chic. You're mildly annoyed, but her sparkling little smile indicates this is supposed to be charming.

"Guessing you have a long reach," says this chick. There's an undertone.

You stretch an arm over your shoulder, lazy and showy - because that's the throughline, obviously: no choice except having a flawless physique. "Guessing you saw it," you return dryly, and point with your racket at her shoes, her outfit, the designer fucking haircut. "Do you play or something?"

"In the abstract," she says, imitating your cadence. There's an intuitiveness and a particular brand of aplomb - someone with too much money on their hands and a refined talent for killing time. She's beautiful, classically attractive: well, there it is, that's the island. It's hard to stay surprised. "Was hoping I could book some lessons, actually."

"Mm," you say, pretending to be a little too jaded to care about whatever this is. "Try the front desk at the clubhouse?"

"If you could get me signed up, that'd be great."

"I don't think that's my job, lady."

You're already starting to turn away, which seems to catch her a little by surprise. Maybe no one's ever told her to shove it before. She recovers fast, twisting the smile into a smirk, giving the scene another shot:

"I'm looking for an arrangement with a little more flexibility." She hums, contemplative; seems amused. "Discretion, maybe."

You flip the racket over your wrist, rest it on your shoulder, take the time to observe. There's nothing wrong with the straightforward approach. You have the basics: hot girl with access to capital, limited attention span. Okay, it clicks. "A practice partner," you amend.

Her eyebrows flicker. "Of sorts."

"I'd like to keep my job."

"Sure."

The ball machine is still filling the court with the quiet pop-pop-pop of balls hitting the surface; it'll eventually stop. After one last appraisal, and it's everything they say about raw talent, honed reflexes: well, your gaze rests in the usual places - her tits, her hips, the way her hair falls; she's very pretty, the glossy magazine definition of the word, made for flash photography and flattering lighting - yeah, yeah, the idea of working on her backhand, the concept of perfect form.

"I think you might want to stick to the abstract," you say, not really joking, not really not joking, either. "The pool's that way. Ask for a cabana. The lifeguards over there - well. They might like you, actually. You kinda have that thing going on."

"Normally I'd be inclined to agree with you." She shakes her hair out of her cap, shows off the set of identical gold bangles, the diamonds in her ears. A blank-check sort of lifestyle. "But my husband wants me to get into something that keeps me on my feet," she says, studying you, sizing up the staggering height-difference with blatant curiosity: "something to sweat out the afternoons."

She's not subtle. She wouldn't need to be.

"And well, here I was thinking I just found it." She tosses her cap back on, pushes the brim down. "Eunbi, by the way," and then the sun lights up her silhouette.

"Listen," you say, so exhausted by your prospects, "my slots fill up fast and last through the whole season," but you're stepping onto the baseline, into her space, the implicit agreement you already know you're going to make. "I mean," you continue, knowingly, "it'd be a lot of time, effort, energy-"

"I can commit to things," says Eunbi, clipped, like it's obvious. She holds out one hand daintily to shake yours and the gold hangs off the point of her wrist, glimmers. Her chin tilts up. "Obviously it's easier if they interest me."

This is the gist, the undercurrent: you're pretty, aren't you? It's grounding, you admit, figuring she watches the same porn as everyone else and thinks the same shit: oh, look, you've got your shirt off already. Look, you're sweating. Imagine the mess of you.

"So keep me entertained." There's a hint of condescension audible in her voice. "Make it worth my while" - not a question; a rhetorical. She’s got your number, and she knows it.

"I'm going to pretend I've never heard it put so succinctly," and you're mocking her in the same way that suggests you're having sex already: playfully - a little mean. "Maybe I can pencil you in somewhere," and you're not playing hard-to-get, but you don't mind prolonging it.

"I'm confident you can manage," she volleys back - it goes a lot like that - the metaphor's lost, the context is absurd. You're just the right level of scruple-free to have a real taste for it. You're perfect. You have no integrity whatsoever. You're exactly what she's here to find.

-

If that seems overly auspicious, the feeling's valid, the moment's precursory. It's prognostic. 

There's all the tropical scenery, the artificial niceties - this realpolitik that governs the island. Every axiom about business and pleasure turns out to be a huge over-exaggeration. It's more or less the central thesis to a place like this: a self-sustaining ecosystem, free-rein, zero responsibility.

Paradise, your ex would say. Isn’t that why you’re here?

-

In practice, there's more to it than white sand beaches and blue-water skies and days in endless succession. Faultless hours to kill.

You've still gotta hit the ground running here, to get a good feel for the major players and how all the pieces come together. There's a constellation of characters and it's worth gathering a map: eventually you'll have to narrow the scope. 

But for now, just enough to get by - a sense of scale, is all - when someone leans up against the locker, not giving a shit, and asks you, "So what's her name?"

"Eat shit," you say, and An Yujin smiles back brightly at you.

"It's weird," she says. "I have this like, super specific recollection of you telling me your talent would be wasted on 'housewives with rental rackets,'" and that's with air quotes and everything. Like: nice fucking try. "Are you that hard up for cash?"

It's just your co-worker with her nose in your shit, smart and observant and rude about both of these traits. Which - well, fine. Whatever. She's a pro, or going pro. She's got the finesse, the physique, and she's kinda rude about that, too.

"She found me," you insist, taping down the handle of your racket and trying to avoid a tell. You'll go right for the sarcasm: "Didn't realize this gig came with so many, like, relationship seminars."

"Hm," says Yujin, understanding instantly: you're hooking up with married women again, same as always - so, let's have a drink about it, huh? It's the middle of a weekday, but when is it not, in a place like this. She'll drink you under the table and circle back to it anyway.

"I know," you answer preemptively.

"Didn't say anything," Yujin says again - sing-song, flirtatious. On paper, you'd call her your ideal partner, perfect candidate; but also she annoys the fuck out of you, and generally isn't worth the aggravation.

You've got to draw the line at what's worth your while. That's your story.

"You implied," you argue anyway, to fill the silence, and shut your locker door a little harder than necessary. She laughs and bumps your shoulder with her racket case on the way out.

-

To set expectations, which are entirely irrelevant, you're not looking for anything - it's work. And so: you figure out how to compartmentalize. Yujin's advice is to keep it simple - she talks a lot about your habits, the patterns she's noticed. She says she has a degree in psychology and you tell her to go fuck herself; she's grinning right back, unoffended.

People need outlets, she says.

But then you've just got all this natural charm, that polished sort of wit, an innuendo here, a compliment there - flattery with intention, just to say - ha. Sure. Whatever makes you smile like you're gorgeous - which you are - you'll say it a hundred times over.

-

(They call that silver-tongued, you call it common sense: a cheat, really, a loophole; it gets you outta so much shit - well, except for this.)

-

"So," Eunbi says, the afternoon you finally book her in, looking around at the empty courts. "I thought there'd be a crowd."

"Just you and me until the hour changes," you say, which is a mistake, because you don't wanna oversell it.

"How refreshing," Eunbi observes, detached. "No lines. No interruptions." She tucks her hair back, ties it off with an elastic. "Can I ask how much of this is going to be tennis?"

"Could stick to the fundamentals if you'd like," you tell her. There's a pop of gum in her mouth, the gaudy watch hanging from the sharp point of a wrist. It's the closest you get to an answer - a double entendre, a suggestive remark: what else is there? "Maybe a little rally-work, we'll see how it goes."

"I'm familiar."  She looks at her nails - probably asking herself how she got here. "You're not selling it."

"I mean," you say, kicking yourself: stupid of you, forgetting who you're talking to, a vixen-kitsch with an empire-complex and this dimpled little smirk to match. You raise both eyebrows; half-exasperation, a friendly reminder. "It'd reflect poorly on me if you walk out here and can't play for shit."

She stares. That's bait she won't take.

"People might wonder what they're paying all this money for."

"Imagine," Eunbi deadpans. "I guess I should appreciate the sense of professionalism." She twirls the racket like it's a prop. She studies you, slightly disinterested. "Fine," she sighs - there's another understatement; her skirt lifts, slightly. There's the indication: knee-high white socks and the matching performance top, ponytail bouncing against the small of her back as she lines up.

Listen: the appeal isn't just a character flaw - you're surrounded by hot women, stuck, shackled - none of that shit is hyperbole, but you can't really put a pin in it here, beyond the blatant and the obvious: Eunbi is fucking stunning.

There's this precise sort of aesthetic sensibility to it; it's mesmerizing, it's good business; you're easy-going, all that bullshit. So you watch her hit. You stand and you simper and you lean.

It's her hips, probably. The definition of her thighs under the pleats, potentially - the shape of her ass when she bends forward: certainly. Her mouth tilts when she catches you looking and she does that thing with her legs where they fold over each other; the movement is feline. She has the audacity to be kinda cute about it.

"Do you care to comment?" Eunbi calls.

"On?"

She pops her hip, toys with her hair. "Whatever comes to mind. You're clearly dying to say something."

It's an incessant stream of one thing leading into the other.

She's barely got a few years on you, you find out from somewhere, an indiscernible source. Formerly a singer, now another society belle; she's insanely flexible, you learn for yourself, bitches endlessly about the pressures of celebrity: her skincare routines, her diet, the tabloids. It's so over-the-top - an early favorite for mistress material if she hadn't gone and done the wife-gamble-all-in; but hey, she'll land on her feet; she's worth millions; she's a fucking knock-out.

You watch her return a serve and her tits almost spill out of her bra: okay, so. You know what it is.

"I should've been born a decade earlier," you muse out loud, maybe by accident. 

"Meaning?" Eunbi's brow twists. The lessons accumulate, you pick up steam. That's the conversation.

"You're just," you gesture vaguely - a hard day's work, heatstroke, delirious, something, "out-and-out of my league," you tell her. 

That earns you an incredulous look, which you should know by now means you're either heading into or out of danger. It's always the next day, the next week; you fall into a routine. The sun's burning the clay out here and you end up sitting together on the court, sharing a water bottle - sweating up a storm. Her knee props your legs apart as you drink; this is objectively hot.

"You're what, twenty?" Eunbi asks. "Twenty-five?"

"I just turned eighteen last week," you joke, then lift an eyebrow. "Weird way to check if I'm legal."

"Well," Eunbi starts, flippant, unbothered by the insinuation. It's cartoonish. She says things like I read somewhere most boys lose their virginity at sixteen, so you were clearly going to get around to it eventually. She's casual with the intent, the offhand remarks about the shit she used to get up to when she was that age - the mental image, it's a little blurry. Did you know the concierge thinks you’re one of the most attractive people she’s ever seen? She brings you up all the time. There's no letting up: so, have you slept with her yet? Probably, don't act like you haven't thought about it.

She tips her head back, has a swallow of water. Your gaze follows the line of her throat - her delicate collarbones, the faint sheen of sweat. Her delivery is perfunctory: "I've gotten my shit together. You should really work on yours."

"I don't think we have a lot in common," you tell her instead of anything of import: you're playing the good guy, keeping it real - and there's the con - being polite while pulling it back.

Eunbi scoffs at your genuinity; it's how you know.

She saunters to the baseline, smacks another cross-court serve past you - it's a pretty good shot. One out of every ten balls she hits with some threat. Her wedding ring's sitting in her gym locker; because some women play best without the reminders of their restraints. You don't think of asking questions. 

(Don't act dumb: she's exactly your speed.)

"How's my grip?" she asks, tapping the back of her sneaker. She doesn't say, come and fix it.

"Not terrible," you answer, moving in and feeling the underside of her thigh - well, your fingertips barely grazing it, really. "Here," you add, because she's got that disinterest again: that pretty, vacant, maybe-you're-worthless expression. "And here." 

It's not unintentional, your hands landing where they do, the bend in her spine against you and - oh, so that's how you'd fit - that sigh, the shaky inhale.

"Feels tight," Eunbi exhales. "Yeah."

"It's nothing we can't correct," you finish, lightly pressing your thumb into her skin to punctuate the sentiment. "Keep practicing your footing."

She shifts, shakes herself a bit, muttering, "You're kind of annoying."

"Thought I was attractive," you retort, offhand.

She flutters her eyes - another manipulation. It's perfect timing, actually: you'd kill for her to lift her skirt up just a little. "Depends," Eunbi says, tilting her hips - and yeah, the instruction's lost on your account. "If you had any idea what I'm getting charged for equipment alone you'd be making an extra effort. It's borderline extortion."

It's been one-and-a-half hours of this and there's something pretty fucking rotten about her attitude, but you're not the person in charge of telling her that.

"You want my time, or my undivided attention?" 

Her eyebrows arch, expression tilting suddenly. You’re careful here: this kind of disrespect can only go so far. 

"Ma’am," you tack on, innocuous. 

The silence stretches, but, yeah - that'll do, because she's gonna get off on the power dynamic. The honorifics: yes ma’am, no ma’am; anything else, ma’am?, the slight derogatory edge: you've caught it - it's not one of her hang-ups, not even close. It's a character she can wear when she wants: over-indulged and petty and prone to fits. Demands to be adored. Her palm swivels onto your hip, on the front of your shorts. Well, almost there - you're half hard and she can feel that much: a gentle pressure, the suggestion, fingertips curling loosely and, oh. Okay.

"I want the better deal," she replies, tart and sour-sweet, almost pouty - a self-contradicting mix.

"I've got three hours open," you helpfully point out. "Nothing to do after you."

A mean little smile, then. "How generous," she replies, delighted, so incredibly condescending; the grip tightening: well, that's one way for her to sign the receipt, sure. "Fine. I'll take all three."

-

See, you get a woman like that: who's got time for nothing but results - and it necessitates the riskiest, raunchiest sex, all this reckless abandon - there's layers, juxtapositions. She's got these ridiculous pin-up proportions, an absent husband; there's her cunt, sopping-wet and gagging on your cock. The look she gives you, a bit stricken.

You're fucking her in the shower, and it's everything she's asking for.

The kind of heavy slap and suck and thik-thuk-thik of being fucked out that gets half-swallowed by the showerhead spray; the fog on the glass, the steam; how you've got her lifted off her feet, legs wrapped around your waist just to take all of it deeper. It's a perfect fit.

"Oh my god," Eunbi half-huffs, half-growls; head tipped back into the glass. Eyelids flickering like, are you serious.

She's less imperious when she can hardly breathe; panting every time you sink in, drag back out. Her back arches, eyes screw up tight. She's this close to cumming again and suddenly there's all these noises caught in the back of her throat; the smallest, prettiest whine when you shift your weight, slip your cock out of her and let her shiver into a series of moans - no, no, no, like she'd been right there, almost had it. Her brows crease. She tries to push back onto your cock but you angle her too high up, away.

"Fucker," she slurs, a hitch, you've never heard her swear before.

"Don't be dramatic." You're pinning her right in place. There's no obvious way to hold onto her without feeling like you're taking advantage - ass, thighs, fucking everything - you can't believe her tits are real.

It takes her a second to put herself together, meet your eyes - she's desperate for it. Drowned. Half-wrecked already. "Put it back in." There's a hint of hysteria. "Give it back."

"Sure," you promise, placating, like she's entitled to getting pounded out of her mind. Which she is: obviously. "Relax," you continue, drawing it out a moment, not quite letting her adjust: Eunbi whining, working herself into a panic. Slow, push. "Relax, relax," and her arms cling tightly around your neck - a sign of life - her forehead dropping. You tease each inch inside her again - because it's nice feeling her struggle with it; this entitled, pejorative princess coming undone in increments - the shudder in her spine, the catch in her breath. There's no keeping her quiet. Her voice trembles, rises in octave when you finally start pulling back; and pushing in.

Her pussy is all silky-smooth drag, drooling like she needs the damage. Your palms shift to cup the plush to her ass, pulling her back and onto your cock - all that vicious heat, a liquid sigh, teeth grazing her lower lip. 

"Like this?" you're asking while her brows knit; she's too tired, too high strung to do more than look at you when her mouth falls open like a red-carpet, money-shot still image.

"Yeah," escapes from her, with considerable conviction and effort. "Right there-"

You're fucking her up, doing it fast. 

Her lashes get all damp as she tries to explain why - a little contemptuously, like an afterthought - it's obviously chemical, okay. It's like that for all girls. It has to be. A bunch of shit about oxytocin and rough sex ostensibly. The causal correlation she can't quite communicate while you're stretching out her cunt, feeling it clench, making it cum. The brain-body problem - what it feels like to get filled up again and again.

(She's struggling to articulate this. It's killing her. It's just a girl's dumbest, weakest wet dream: you fucking into her like you can't believe she fits.)

"Do you have any idea," she breathes, dazed, a direct hit to all your senses, "what you're doing to this pussy?"

You bite back a wolfish grin. Fuck the hell out of her, make it messy. Pretend it's sweet.

"Like, my I'm just completely fucking soaked around you. It's just insane-" and, yeah, that's all true. Everything's precise, devastating: there's finesse and physique and you can be rude about it, too. "I-" She blinks rapidly, looks at you. "It's just your cock-," and the clipped, delirious, fuck-me-speechless rasp sounds perfect on her.

"Yeah." You look up, look away. "I can kinda gather a sense."

Her eyes slit open to give you a real mean look, something about the implication, something like do you even fucking understand who I am, don't you dare. But, also she's sopping down your dick: knees hooked over your elbows, this tip-toed balance while you fuck her straight into the glass and watch her fight back a shudder, the whimper, how pretty it sounds. 

How it twists out of her mouth anyway, every time you fuck her further up the steam-streaked pane.

"Seriously," she manages, barely coherent. "You're going to make me fucking cum again," like she's trying to decide whether to beg or complain.

That slick little grip to her tightens, goes silky-soft; there's the body language, and then there's this.

For a second it seems like she’s brand-new to getting fucked quick and rough and dirty - fluttery lashes, the hazy, slack-jawed expression, her brows pinching together; her bad luck that you've got all this practice.

"Jesus fucking christ," Eunbi gasps, knuckles skittering across the glass, searching blindly for traction. "Can't think," she clarifies, nonspecific, and that part's pretty obvious.

"That good, huh," you say, casually, then press in, close, until your nose grazes the edge of hers - swallow the dirty-cute yelp she lets out when you find that tight bundle of nerves, over and over.

She's cupped your mouth, looked at you puzzled like nothing's coming through past the orgasm-static, the dopey glow. Her pussy's clenched, drooling, and she's going to sit through cocktail hour with her trophy-wife coterie and think about the bruises you're pressing into her skin. She'll run a hand absentmindedly through her own hair, brush it off her shoulders, and she's going to shiver for a second, thinking, god, that was the wettest I've ever been.

Because you've sorta perfected this part. This bit. The whole what's the matter, ma'am: the angle not hitting where you need? Need me to get this slutty little pussy creaming again? You're grabbing fistfuls of soft ass and she's caught halfway between whimpering into your mouth or keening it to the ceiling. Do you always get all teary-eyed when you need to cum, or just when I'm grinding into that spot right, right - oh, right there?

"Your fucking mouth," Eunbi slurs into the hinge of your jaw, like there's an instinct there: maybe she'd slap you for it, maybe she wouldn't.

But she's nodding helplessly, angling her hips up, letting you rail her stupid - yeah, that's the catch: she's never gotten it this good, and it's such a cliché. All the dirty details: she's dripping. She's wrecked. She's happily married, and you've got the whole season to hear her complain.

-

Neither of you even have to say anything, buttoning up in companionable silence, all toweled-off and fresh-faced: there's that movie-magic post-fuck vibe lingering; she'll feel it sipping champagne poolside or lounging under the cabana later. There's no awkwardness here, it's simply her pointed glances, the swooning satisfaction - what's that, guilt? You're smiling like she said it aloud - no, no: just my default expression when you walk past me butt-ass-naked.

"Never done this before?" Eunbi remarks, slow and smug. It's an unfair question, but she's pulling a Fendi bag onto the counter - rifling through her toiletries case - uncapping beauty products, blotting at her makeup - she's neat, natural: her ring's back on her finger.

"What? Slept with married women?"

"Ha-fucking-ha," she says.

"You want the unadulterated truth?" you ask, rhetorical - it's kind of offensive, really: the idea. "I was a virgin up until twenty minutes ago. You totally deflowered me in there." You wipe the back of your hand against your mouth. It comes back clean. "I'm serious."

"Good," she tells you, taking her time with it. "I expect to see that adorably impressed look in your eyes for the rest of the month."

-

In any case, it breaks down neatly on your calendar: Eunbi owns your Monday mornings and your Thursday afternoons; if you're good, she says, batting her eyelashes, she'll get some of your nights as well. A little note written on the hotel stationery header tucked into your racket bag: The room number. A time. We can play house. A lipstick-stain. Cute.

You want to give her shit for being extra; really, but you're getting paid to be in awe.

There are probably occupational hazards to being young, beautiful, and talented - but it's just such an easy sell.

-

Honestly, probably your job too: the general hazards.

You run errands; sweep the clay, drag the lines, hose down the courts before the heat bakes them solid; you treat a jellyfish sting for some telecom fortune heir while his mistress flutters back and forth between you like she doesn't know who's doing what - whatever: all filler, you fish out his wallet in the chaos, toss his ID and keycard back into his beach tote while his ladylove titters, asking if it'll blister, oh my god. He's mostly just embarrassed - so you sell it to him straight: we could piss on that, you say, just to see what happens.

"It definitely worked its way down to his balls," says Chaewon, craning her neck behind you to catch a look. His shorts are tenting violently: he's got a halfie; it goes nicely with his panicked expression.

The thought makes it funnier when you tilt your head. Something something venom-induced priapism, a poetic sentence in there somewhere. Some people just have a piss kink.

(You're a few dollars wealthier for it. He'll live.)

"If it gets to your balls, that's like instant death, isn't it," she comments idly, wiggling her fingers to wave bye-bye to his lady friend, all blonde hair and daisy chains and nothing more substantial going on. You shrug - the truth is that you've seen enough stings to know better; also: what's he gonna say?

"Could be," you offer, and she just hums, unconcerned by the potential outcome. "We still on for later?"

"If you're not boring." It's sweet how quickly she gets to the point. "There's a new act playing the Bluebeard's Wife tonight. Heard a bunch of stuff from the bartenders; it's not too shabby." She leans into you, sniffs - whoa, you flinch, startled - then wrinkles her nose. "You smell like cheap liquor," she announces.

"Yeah?" That sounds right. "Guess you would know."

-

Chaewon picks up men easily, just because they're easier, generally, to dupe and rob than their counterparts. 

This is established fact.

All you have to do is flash a bit of leg and sit pretty while they get wasted - which is great when she's in the mood for it; it's not the best way to maintain relationships, but she's a natural at the grift: one-time cash grabs. Steady, long-con kind of affairs she has less interest in; her personality isn't a big seller and she says she doesn't give a fuck, so stop suggesting it, jesus, or I'll gouge your eyes out.

It's the basics: lonely dudes in a resort town, midsummer. They need to brag, show off - she's all soft and fawn-like with a mean streak once you get to it - but it's harmless, the initial interest. Oh, you've never been to Ibiza? How nice, your family works in tech! How interesting. There are these shoes she likes, she tells them. A pretty decent proposal, once the alcohol sets in. Oops. The fakest moans in the world.

(Okay. Right, fine - the story.)

You're soaking up evening sun and perfect weather in equal measure, doing the same old job, flirting with the same four or five girls on repeat - everything's pleasant enough, business-as-usual - until Chaewon catches on to your current occupation and becomes obsessed with dissecting the entire fucking affair.

"And she just-" Chaewon pauses, raising her eyebrows pointedly at the next word, "approaches you, and suggests the two of you fuck. Just like that."

"Listen, pal," you interrupt, hand in your hair, pulling lightly at the roots. "If you don't wanna be a grown-up about this, that's fine. I get it."

Chaewon doesn't laugh. Instead, she arches an eyebrow, real lethal. "How did she know you have no self-respect? Like, just intuitively?"

"A gift," you allow.

"Do you make it obvious on your resume?"

"Chae." You wave off the question with one hand. "What am I supposed to do, refund her money?"

"Don't call me that," she says, immediately indignant. 

"Don't ask dumb shit, then."

She rolls her eyes dramatically, tips her hand up like there's a glass of wine in it; very dramatic - something about catching the attitude lately.

It's just how these weekends start, end; it's casual like that, drinking at the usual haunt: a bar off by the casino, past the promenade, all neon lights and easy banter. The windows open straight to the beach, which means everything’s just a little damp: the counters, the coasters, you. People stare like they’re trying to figure out where things went wrong - you look too handsome to be broke, too tired to be anything but. Chaewon says it’s the cheekbones. Says it throws people off.

Someone teases her, at that - you wanna bone him, admit it - but Chaewon waves it off, keeps her attention on you. Tilts her head in contemplation. "You just give off a vibe," she reiterates, half-drunk on aperol spritzers. "Like, I don't even know how to explain it."

"Thanks," you deadpan.

Chaewon shrugs. "I'm not apologizing," she decides, and grabs Yunjin's attention for another pour of whatever she's drinking, maybe so you won't notice that she didn't elaborate-

(You're curious - "well, so aren't we all" - how are things? "I can't say."

You have to pry: is that your modus operandi or something? 

"My modus operandi is keeping myself entertained while I work out a situation I can't keep from escalating, thanks for asking."

Is it escalating or are we not allowed to know? Chaewon laughs, bright, magnetic - a girl gives her a wave from further down the bar, Chaewon shoots a grin back, tosses the same glance your way to watch for a reaction.)

"-forget it," she decides, sliding a glass towards you. "This isn't an apology, either."

It's funny, probably. In a different retelling, Chaewon is your slow-burn, your lifelong crush. The one that got away - but the truth is she just has that sorta rapport with everyone; you're both too selfish to sustain a relationship, kiss too frequently when you're drunk to be real best friends.

That's what the conventional wisdom suggests: you should stop hooking up with her if you value the company, which you actually do. It's a work in progress.

"I thought Sakura was working tonight," Chaewon tells Yunjin, always a quicksilver subject-changer.

It's a Friday, and The Bluebeard's Wife is packed, per usual: you've got to yell to hear each other over the chatter, the live music. "She owes me a drink. Where'd you hide the body?"

"Working the hotel terrace." Yunjin leans against the counter, studies Chaewon contemplatively. "What's the story?"

"It's complicated," Chaewon informs her, understated as anything. You're not going to get the full explanation. You don't have the clearance.

If gossip does trickle downwards, it does so in small increments: from the elite entrepreneurial crowd all the way to the hired-help rumor mill. Everyone’s whispering in corners, sure, but anywhere money flows this liberally, information becomes currency too.

"Well let me know how it pans out," Yunjin shouts, and Chaewon just says yeah, yeah - that's that for the grapevine-dressing. Or, that's Chaewon for you: in your peripherals, constantly in bed with a dozen different people at once, and you're pretty sure she'd ditch you in a heartbeat, should anything important pop up, but again: she's like this with everybody. 

"Hey," Chaewon says, beer-foam-moustache-smudge and tugging on your sleeve: "You wanna go shark some of these guys at pool? There's this asshole who thinks he can play. It's money on the table."

And, right: there's you for you, the easy shrug, the playful toss-back: "Don't you think your life would get kinda boring if you were always right?"

Chaewon downs her glass in two swigs, swinging off the seat, grinning: "Trust me, it doesn't."

-

It's always: we'd break up when the end of the world rolls around - that's the caveat; what a laugh that'd be. Chaewon would always pull that out, mid-argument, in between harping about your taste in film and music, half-sober rants about class struggle: I'm telling you, dude. You gotta start reading Zizek. I'm sick of your individualistic neo-liberal bullshit.

She plays pool like she hates it. Her nails are manicured; two on her right hand are completely filed down. She plays darts like she hates that too.

"I think I'm going to fuck the new bartender," Chaewon remarks, like it's nothing, and then proceeds to nail three shots in a row. Her form's atrocious - and, like: Chaewon's the sort of person to be entirely comfortable with any amount of confidence, including none; it's refreshing.

"Does he know yet?" you ask, amused.

She makes a vague sort of expression - uh, I don't know. Have you seen me? "He'll come around," she says, decidedly.

And it's almost the end of the night when the last set of guys leave, fuming. You've rinsed $400 apiece and it wasn't even hard. You flirt, you shoot, you score, you pocket the cash and make Chaewon buy you dinner. Or drinks. Or sometimes groceries - milk runs out fast around here, alright.

The details don't matter, and you've been around enough to know this.

Chaewon slides by the pool table, slips the cue under her arm and gestures a bit grandly. "Last call," she announces, pointing at you. "You're the only one left sober enough to play me."

"There's other people in this bar, genius."

"Incorrect," says Chaewon, pulling her phone out of her skirt pocket. She's holding onto her wallet for safekeeping - in theory, maybe, if you'd taken any real wagers, you'd be allowed to take a peek: her license has a dumbass picture, some ludicrous address, an alphabet soup of false information. Hey: a kindred spirit. 

"No one else is drunk enough to put up $400," she elaborates. "Besides, you owe me a game."

You roll your eyes. Grab the cue and rack 'em up anyway, for simplicity's sake.

And everything that happens next occurs in cinematic-sequence order: the shot, the break, the sink.

You're lining up a corner-pocket four rail when someone calls for a round of applause, which isn't totally odd: the Bluebeard's Wife always has this rotating cast of entertainment. It's also the end of a set, or a show, or something else: stage directions, and lighting cues. That hush that drops over a crowd right before a storm hits, like the moment between thinking and taking the leap. Then the upright bass croons out an eight bar intro - spotlights in your eyes, glittery backdrop - and Chaewon’s suddenly so close behind you, muttering:

"Oh my god. Dude."

It's not like the earth moves underneath your feet. It's just-

"Woah," comes Chaewon's comment after, legitimately dazed, so you look up, see the silhouetted figure of a singer in a strapless black dress, "Who the fuck is that?"

That's another half-measure, for dramatic effect; four hits of a snare drum like gunshots through your skull: it's supposed to be foreshadowing, sort of. Jang Wonyoung's always going to have one foot outside of the narrative - like, there's this insistence on non-compliance that's genuinely impressive, from the disobedient curve of her mouth, to the sugary tone that's polite when she wants it to be. Something about how she's already seen the story of her life. Something like this: a rising tide, a metronome ticking out time.

Wonyoung says it's nice to meet you, all smoky voice, clear eyes. Then her mouth spreads out a wide, dazzling grin. She looks like a Disney princess, a child's toy, a sex doll with a fairytale smile. Something hypersexualized, infantilized. Perfectly monstrous. She's saying, for the crowd to hear: thank you for having me on tonight.

She's unbelievably, unimaginably beautiful. There's that, to start. Not even a contest. You’re just staring. Your attention's captured, suspended in the amber of the moment.

She's impossible to describe without sounding insane.

"I've never seen her before in my life," you reply, like it's some totally tragic thing.

-

(Honestly, it might be, considering how you're sitting there frozen with the cue stick stalled between two fingers. Just looking at her and losing the breath in your lungs like they've been slashed, like she'd slit your throat while your back was turned. She smiles at someone in the audience. Someone who isn't you - fine, fair, obviously, whatever. 

Point is: you're basically gushing blood.)

-

The record skips here - a bit of sleight-of-hand bullshit: you lose 400 bucks. It's mostly inconsequential. There's some confusion, a hurried explanation. You're in your head for all of it, honestly. Fast forward a bit from there, roll tape, and we're back in reality, just like it is: a moment there away from the crowds and the lights and the music, amidst everything else.

It's a little past 1 AM, it's a picture-perfect shot, the uncut scene: Wonyoung, to her credit, looking much more puzzled than anything else that you seem to be losing all higher order function upon stumbling onto her smoking alone over the quay, facing the water.

There's moonlight caught in her hair and she's stunning and the moment isn't over.

You stand, staring dumbly at her glittery eyes and pretty pink mouth and delicate fingers wrapped around her cigarette. Trying to pretend you weren’t thinking about fucking her - fantasizing about this exact situation, albeit in slightly more detail: pressing her up against a wall, making her gasp - until thirty seconds ago, or so. Until a lot more time than that.

"Didn't realize anyone was up here," you say, gracelessly. Articulation: null. Poise: nonexistent. Awkwardness: all systems go.

She blinks owlishly in your direction like, yes, she's heard all the confessions, has borne witness to each and every daydream, has watched you stare at her for entirely too long, and she doesn't look away.

"Was looking for a spot," and you stumble into it, "away from the noise. The crowds and stuff."

Manic-pixie-dream-girl bullshit, you think; this is that. You can see the thought bubble above her head - a flash of light - yeah man, it says, me too.

"Can I get a light?" you ask, intelligibly enough.

Her gaze drifts, falls, lifts - settles unreadably on your face, a fraction too slow, like she could use the extra time to parse it out. No practiced smirk, no seductive glimmer of an expression. She blinks, and her eyelids are heavy, dark-rimmed, and it's the only thing about her that looks like anything you've seen before. She leans in and lights your cigarette with her own, the flame glowing gold in the cool blue of night, and says, "I'm trying to quit."

You inhale, you let it burn. "Me, too," you say, and it's a lie. It doesn't matter.

By the time the smoke unfurls, the damage is already done.

-

There might be a breaking point, you reason, an out-of-body experience to snap things back into perspective, where your focus should be. You might be, in a very casual way, in love with her and she might not know your name, and - depending on how you feel like stretching your suspension of disbelief - it's not relevant either way. There's blood in the water, salt in the sky; she looks the way she does on stage, only worse, and you’re absolutely fucked for the way she laughs, unruly, unrestrained.

"For what?" she asks, languid and curious.

"Huh?"

Wonyoung shifts, idly. Smoke rises and dissipates and lingers. She has beautiful hands, resting slack on the railing of the balcony.

"For what would you quit? Smoking," she clarifies, tapping ash off of her cigarette.

"Oh." You stare down the balcony's railing and watch the shadows move in waves over the grass. "I dunno," you say. "Health concerns, I guess? Social stigma? It's a downright terrible habit."

You breathe in, exhale shakily. There's the storybook crackle-burn-rustle of it.

"Maybe the carbon footprint," you add, considerately.

"Of cigarettes."

You nod like this is obvious. "I'm also trying not to swear this year," you say, innocuously, "which fucking sucks."

She snorts. "You're doing great." 

You're aware of it, still, a tingly, incendiary itch in the peripheries of your mind. She's distracting enough for all her background blurring, and yet the sentiment simmers, burrows deeper. Like - what do I have to give to get you out of my head. What do I get from all this? You inhale to get a break from wanting her: it doesn't work.

"It's worse when I smoke." You're dragging in an all-encompassing look. "And I really only ever smoke when I drink," you add, an afterthought. "It's like the only vice I have, pretty much."

"The drinking or the smoking?"

"The swearing," you say, wry, and it gets a genuine smile out of her, just a second: for the briefest moment she's human, and the normalcy is so staggering you almost don't believe it.

"Then don't smoke," she says, like she could decide that. "Drink less," she offers, next.

"Simple solutions," you drawl, skeptical; her mouth tilts like it was worth a shot.

And it's a funny little quirk: she gives you this sideways glance, then directs her attention straight ahead - she's even-keeled again. A moonbeam personified. A monumental piece of art. Making all her femininity look like it belongs in a museum with some plaque under her image stating - Jang Wonyoung. Masterpieces of the Modern era, 2004. She takes a long drag, and you trace her forearms up to her wrists and okay, actually, the story here is that you're sorta irritated by that, being unable to decide where to look, which part of her to be inexplicably smitten over. Like, eyes, hands, legs? Asking a question and being completely lost before hearing the answer? Absolutely a horrible idea, truly terrible concept-

"Okay I have to know," you demand, and uh-oh: off-script. "Do you do that on purpose?"

Wonyoung's brows twitch upwards; her cigarette's hanging precariously from between her fingers and you're seized with the impulse to grab her wrist and pull her closer, help her quit the habit. "Do I do what?"

"That." Gesturing vaguely in the direction of her mouth, where another thin line of smoke is escaping through her lips. "Be all-" Words, words, words, you're supposed to be good at those "-smoldering, intentionally sultry."

"Oh," she says, like she's caught between amused or genuinely baffled. She laughs. "Is that what this looks like to you?"

You open your mouth and promptly remember, no, in fact, there isn't a coherent reply to that.

Another dismissive tilt of her shoulders. "Smoldering, huh?"

There isn't a follow-up either. Wonyoung steps back from the railing and takes another long, contemplative drag. The moon and the streetlamps are the only real illumination, and if you squint, it almost looks like a desaturated monochromatic set. It's like the movies, and you really wish it wasn't. An ethereal scene, the title card drop, the audience holding their collective breath: once upon a time, somewhere, sometime - an unwelcome realization that creeps through you, bone-deep: I could be in love with you. It could be just like this: right here, right now, even with no romance whatsoever.

She leans forward, and blows the smoke out slow. Reality falls in, fragments and fractures and ruins; you didn't actually conjure her up, she didn't drop from the ceiling on a wire.

"Have a good night," she says, and walks off, leaving behind a menthol-coconut smell and the ineffable suggestion of something you can't reach.

"Yeah," you agree, because you have to say something. "You too."

She does the worst, most diabolical thing: she doesn't look back.

-

You don't particularly care much for the irrationality either - it's just how this fatal-attraction, fuck-you fantasy catches wind.

-

Some corroborating details, then, because the island is technically an all inclusive resort, but somewhere along the line, everyone's vacation has been extended indefinitely. This means several things:

1. the whole staff are pretty-faced extroverts, perfect tens, gorgeous physiques

2. the clientele is, for the lack of a better term, doing really really good, and

3. not a single day goes by without someone losing a limb or two (not any actual fatalities, it's all code words and colloquialism; the world's oldest profession tends to accumulate stuff like that, like a morbid, russian-roulette trophy case of - hey, remember when...? anecdotes and, on occasion, truncated, creative retellings)

4. having an affair never ceases to remain an open wound that bleeds fresh money, day after day

"Fifty, sixty.. two eighty, five- ninety," Eunbi rattles off, counting in small denominations, bills between her slender fingers.

There's some napkin-math and receipt-grabbing but you'll go ahead and get out ahead of it: you don't actually need the cash. Call it an over-correction. Call it an act of protest. You're a rogue and a rebel and the pickpocket-genius-maverick archetype doesn't require a fresh perspective.

"I'll give you another five-hundred on Monday."

She's so entitled, and it's so blatant that you want to laugh - and then she's pressing the wad of cash into your hand, and it's a lot more than you were expecting.

The more quantitative minds are betting against it: like, nine-to-one odds that she won't see it coming. That she's too shrewd, she's spent too many summers here. You've already gotten scolded for communicating via text because it's some sort of clandestine procedural violation, but then she keeps dropping hints about her husband's offshore accounts and his philanthropic initiatives, the significant art collection rotting in the vineyard villa overlooking some far-off landscape. Like she wants you to dig at it, test it out. Explore every angle.

"I can't take this," you start, but she waves it off.

"Think of it as a deposit," she says.

"On what?"

"The names of other women you're sleeping with."

You make a noncommittal sound. "Yeah, I don't give those out."

"I don't care," she says bluntly. 

Four-to-one odds she won't even call the police: it'll be a lot more violent. She'd tell it to you straight: if you were going to rob me, why weren't you thinking bigger? Three-to-one that she'd want in.

"They'd be cross with me."

Eunbi's nonplussed.

"They'll get over it."

Because it's the end goal: the tennis technicals, yes, the mindblowing sex, obviously - but where rich men gossip for leverage; their wives talk for fun, a way to pass the time. 

"You've slept with half the women's league, haven't you?" You stand up straight; let the physicality back into the room. Eunbi blinks. It's devastatingly attractive, the way she fiddles with the wedding band on her finger - not taking it off, just twisting it like she's forgotten it's there at all. "I won't hold it against you."

Sure she won't. "Seven-fifty," you counter, off-the-cuff. "And that's per name."

Her brows shoot up, all cool appraisal, casual interest. You'd worked up a sweat on the court, and she walked into the locker room looking for more: finders-keepers. Her eyes drift over the outline of your t-shirt, then settle on your shoulders like she's evaluating what a fair price is.

You offer her an open, guileless look. A knife in a bouquet. Then there's her palm in your collar, a push: you hit the bench and her knee swings over your lap to straddle your waist.

"I suppose I could always lie to you for free," you tack on, patently a-fucking-dorable, which is pissing her off, and that's obvious. Here's Androcles plucking a thorn from the lioness' paw. The getting away with it, unscathed. "I mean, if we're talking incentives."

Her mouth curls, an indiscernible tic. 

"I am very offended by all this," says Eunbi, the moment it becomes obvious that you're playing her, and grinds against you, slow. The lines of her body in motion: this is the enticement. The torture, maybe.

"That was pretty strongly implied," you note.

Her thumb hooks into the center of her sports bra. Starts peeling the elastic band up, slowly. 

There's no finesse, just the efficiency. 

You look. You keep looking: the under-cleavage, the definition, the perfect swell - like the start of a trainwreck, a near-implausible disaster. "Six-fifty," she tells you, imperiously, and tugs the fabric up, all the way-

Her tits drop out, sit heavily; your mouth snaps shut.

"Hm?" Eunbi blinks down at you.

"I- uh." 

She has her chin tipped, lashes fluttery: oh, we were discussing incentives? 

It's all double-entendres and uncanny profanity, the unsaid I-fucked-you-before, the would-fuck-you-again-even-worse, a little I wonder, how quickly I could have you under me, this time, instead. You're so much stronger than her, could pick her up and fold her in half. Her smirk reads fucking try it, and this is you, down the rabbit-hole, with barely any prompting on her part, a simple line of inquiry - she goes: "Maybe I'll let you fuck my tits." 

Then she leans in, a reminder that she's a dom with a billionaire to save face in front of, a blip in a perfect marriage. Her palms skate up her ribs, teasing the weight, the cup, the lift.

"It's obvious that you've thought about it," and she demonstrates with her wrists, the grip, the way they'd close in, the silky bounce, "putting these around your cock, hm? Just-" And her tits look even softer spilling through her fingers. She repeats it, up-down, slow and thorough. She's gotta stop. "Tight little fuck-toy fit," Eunbi breathes, peering down, "and you'd cum, like, all over them."

The worst, best part: she lets her eyes dart back to you. Chastised, over-indulged.

It'd be more patronizing if she wasn't so fucking hot, and yeah, you're thinking about it. You're kind of at her mercy. There's something sort of sadistic to it, this smug arrogance, knowing she's got you: it makes you want to reverse the roles, slam her flat on her back and rail her so thoroughly she can't do anything but squeak with delight and claw up your back.

Eunbi tuts, head shaking. She's built for being put into her place. She's built for everything.

So, naturally, when she slides two fingers under your chin, tips it upwards, and says, "I'm just left to wonder," in her best sympathetic voice, "what are all these women like?"

It’s not you being hoodwinked. It's not like there isn't an opening to turn the tables on her.

You tell her, "Seven-seventy-five," and watch her mouth purse into a single, stern line. 

-

It's half-serious, half-ridiculous: like, c'mon, what are you, in high school, afraid of girls being pissed at you? Well, yes. Obviously - and because it's been a sticky precedent: sure, you make your living off the generosity (a laugh a minute, really) of rich patrons, but it's still business. It'll throw things off balance.

These arrangements are precarious enough as is.

-

But, Eunbi's right about your handle on the ladies' circuit: people know each other, people recognize each other; and that's to be expected. There's always some kinda social stratification - always a general understanding when you show up on the tennis courts: Oh, we're all, of course, doing whatever the fuck it is we do.

It's just - Eunbi, for one - a goddess in her sheer beach-dresses and white-gold jewelry, that rich divorce-foreshadow temperament: you know it when you touch her waist, how fucked it gets her - when you follow her on a different weekday, a better afternoon - some cliffside-obscured spot on the beach against duned-motif and driftwood debris, where those fucking sunglasses barely stay in her hair while you fingerfuck her into a back-of-the-brain kind of high, a pitchy squeal - the social politics-

"Will you let me finish," she snaps, and drags you in against her ribs, forces a breath against your neck, or more technically - you'll recognize this as the preface to going soft, getting girlish. She's tugging on the ribbon at her neck; getting impatient. "You’re mistaking curiosity for jealousy."

"Feels like a distinction without a difference," you intone, come hither and such, circling knuckle-deep, right where you know she likes it.

"Don't be cute," she says, all huffy.

You raise an eyebrow: well, look at us. Might as well grin with, "You keep rewarding it," because fuck her, actually. You hold her down against the rocks, kiss up her jaw, under her ear; like a rifleshot to the soft spot.

You shove your fingers in deeper; twist one little thing, make the rest fall right in line.

Eunbi chokes a little and grabs at your jaw. This is a woman who always gets exactly what she wants, and you’re not going to be the one to break that streak; there's her cunt, and there's her cute little pent-up clit, and she's soaked - all spongy, indecent: wet sounds coming from under her swimsuit bottoms, her taut body arching up against your arm - it'd be easy enough to get hooked, just for all the slippery pretty parts of her. Hot and lush. A perfectly pouty mouth and delicate insides like she'd love you roughing them up in all kinda nasty ways (do it) and, yeah, it feels vaguely hypocritical until her breath peters wetly in your ear. 

She jerks, tight and erratic. 

Then the absolute slick drooling mess catches it off like some movie projector hitting a still frame - "fuck," another whimper (of course she's into the exhibitionism): I can't, I can’t - those are her soft lashes coming down, the hand clamping harder around your forearm like, please - for fuck's sake dial it back - you hold eye contact and palm her pretty, stupid-fast heart-rate with your other hand. 

It's too hard and too good and it's all over before she can even register the rest of it. 

Sure, you pickpocket the petty, needy details. That's your bad. An uncontrollable talent for wringing someone out. You leave her with the humidity in her hair, windswept, in shimmers where the sun touches it. A hand over her face, fingers steepled. A sloppy grin, like, don't let me interrupt when you're working - still orgasm-tipsy, still unbelievably gorgeous - like the cosmos ran through the family bloodline, all hot under the collar as you wipe the slick onto her dress.

"Did you just cum?" you laugh, casual; pretend to be new to all this.

"Well aren't you just fuckin' hysterical," Eunbi goads smarmily. Her hand slips into your shorts; grips you slow-like, testing the fit. "Mm."

It's that subtext to make note of, pull on the thread: she enjoys the performance - baby-chick confusion, utterly lost in the woods. You're cute when you're oblivious.

"Let's see how long it takes you," she hints. Kisses the snicker. Holds onto your cock loosely while she shimmies her swimsuit down to her knees, turns into the cliff-face and cants her hips up impatiently. There’s always all this pretense before you stuff your cock inside her. The angle of her wrist across her ass, for example, the presentation she makes of every supple inch, the spill through her fingers; solitaire-diamond pretty; tugging up, spreading - make yourself useful, honey; there's the way she’s looking over the shoulder like she’s entitled to the pounding. You could ask her one of those mean-silent questions, like okay sure: but what's in it for me?

But she's very straitlaced about it as she angles her hips back for emphasis and tells you, "We're on a bit of a clock, hon," wiggling a foot free from the cling of her swimsuit, "so."

Drop the bullshit; save it for later. You know exactly what's in it for you.

-

u are such a fucking girl, Yujin texts you, thirty minutes past when you said you'd be there, because you have to take a shower to wash all of it off: sand fucking everywhere. ur going to get all sweaty again anyway, is there a point? Theoretically, yes.

You don't answer. You just thumb up her text and send her a stupid sticker. Maybe you shouldn't be rubbing salt in the wound.

"Sorry," you toss out, casually, when you saunter onto the court where she's waiting.

She gives you an unimpressed look. "Your hair's still wet."

"It's hot outside." You're taping up your hand, preparing for the workout, but you shrug off the passive-aggression. You have a good guess what the cause is, and there's an inevitability, here. No one on this damn island keeps a secret. "Why do you care?" you reply, placating. "Do you have a date?"

"No," she says flatly. And then: "I do, actually. With a girl."

You roll your eyes. "Be serious."

She tosses her hair back, dramatically. "I am serious," she declares. "I met someone at the pool and I told her I'd come by her room later, which is why I need you to get your ass in gear."

You blink.

"She's gorgeous," Yujin continues, straddling her service-line: this smug grin, squaring her racquet up. Two-handed grip with little fanfare. Why play soft when you love to be provoked, right; and since we're on the topic: "Really fucking funny, too. Could've introduced you, but you were too busy playing fucking footsie or whatever with the princess out there-"

"I don't know what that is."

"Sure you do."

You squint at her across the court. The horizon's bleeding sunlight. "What's her name."

"Dunno," Yujin breezes. "I didn't ask."

"Oh, so not like a date-date."

"Oh." Yujin pauses, unhappy. "Are we going to get into the semantics of this?"

"Look, I really don't want to psychoanalyze your weird sex stuff either."

"I don't have weird sex stuff."

"Right, okay," you relent, rolling your eyes and loosening your shoulders. "Then shut up and serve so you can go meet your sorta-date."

Yujin pretends to not hear you. She ties her ponytail back, pulls her visor down, does the thing where she licks the corner of her mouth before a serve and then lets the ball absolutely fucking pummel it. Perfectionist shit.

You call it, "out" - yawn, stretch, the whole nine yards - and make a nice light go of chasing it down. It's the best way to piss her off.

-

So - to all the trophy-wives you've pretended to love before: hello again, yes, it's lovely to see you too, your outfits are gorgeous, the villa's been stunning this season; but, they'd already guessed you'd been busy - with all the new blood on the island, your abrupt departure and total absence for the better part of the season, that very strange thing you've got going on. You'd sat at the hotel cafe, fiddled with a tangerine, an empty chair beside you (cue your weak attempts at shrugging it all off: yeah, well, y'know. You're young and perpetually in debt and there's only so much flirting and self-congratulatory laughter you can stomach at once) - and by the time your gaze settled across the terrace, you'd felt it go like this:

Oh. It's you.

-

Wonyoung, then: looking soft and summery in some gauzy dandelion-print dress with her hair up, strappy stilettos and delicate wrists, a novel on the table next to her iced coffee with lemon. Whenever you catch a glimpse of her off the clock, she's always in these beachfront couture collections, sunglasses perched atop her head. The right lighting. All that good stuff.

You take it slow, a tentative approach: the clumsy off-the-track, just-met-you-kind-of-actually, didn't-really-get-a-chance-to-say-hello angle. A pretext, that kind of deal, like you're both stumbling, out of breath, a chance encounter on a bike-rental-staircase, knees scraped from a fall, staring down at your elbow and counting bruises and saying, Hey. What happened to you? 

Here's the rest, the unscripted:

"Your hair's up," you blurt.

Wonyoung rolls her chin onto the back of her hand. Surveys you with these insanely-grey contacts. Maybe she recognizes your voice. More likely, it's your shadow that's blocking the light - this is just how the story's written.

"Your hair," you manage again, with this weird mix of awe and fear: "Isn't down."

"Uh-huh," she says, raising a brow, already knowing where this will end up.

"I don't think I've seen that before."

It's before noon. Vacation logic dictates it might as well be the crack of dawn. It's weird to be running into anyone at all.

"Looks cute," you add, then promptly want to smack yourself in the head. "Um," a fatal fuck it kinda smile, "can I sit?"

"I think it's public property. If that's what you're asking."

It's a small island. It's about the familiar faces, this inescapable solidarity. You sit down. You'll say she let you.

"How long's your holiday?"

"Not on holiday."

"Yeah?"

"Working girl." Wonyoung tips her head, slightly. "But you already knew that," she murmurs, and the line of her jaw, the high arc of her cheekbone, makes a point, perfectly vicious. "That's why you came over."

You make it easy on yourself: oh yeah. Forgot. The day's brilliant; all of them are. She looks fucking divine.

"No offense," says Wonyoung. "It's just that this has a very familiar energy to it." She pauses, deliberating; in reality it's more like she's just dragging this out for you, purely for her own enjoyment. "It happens a lot," she clarifies. "Around here. The whole head-over-heels ordeal. Usually it lasts for like a week or two max."

"Wow," you say, genuinely impressed, "you run a tight ship."

Wonyoung nods to the horizon, the early-morning sky, like this is her audience, like there's something wrong with it. "Thought that was, y'know, self-explanatory, but you seem like you want me to break it to you personally."

"No," you say, and she purses her lips at you, like: okay, bud. "I mean, you do seem…"

"Sail-stealing? Illegally pretty?"

"Kind of-"

"-preternaturally off-limits?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"-in the middle of a book, perhaps?"

You clear your throat. "Like you have way bigger fish to fry."

Her mouth quirks. 

"Mm." She spreads her fingers across her mouth, taps the bridge of her nose. "You must think I'm your perfect stranger." Her hair slips: some waves unfurl, but just along the curve of her cheekbone; she doesn't seem to notice. "Like, the entire concept of this. Where you're at. In your own head. The shit that must be going on in there."

What you end up saying is just the truth - the complete opposite: "It's not like that," you mutter, defensive, "sorry that you're stunning, or whatever. Didn't mean to offend your sensibilities."

It's an end-stage desperation, and it's only a Thursday. It's only 10:33 AM. She knows she's got you right between the tongs. 

"This usually works for you?" she asks, conversationally. "Using a 'jeez, she's hot, who gave her the right' angle?"

"It usually is enough," you admit.

She rolls her eyes.

"Should we start over?" you ask, attempting damage control. "Fresh start?" You hold out a hand. "Hi, nice to meet you. I'm just here to return your parasol."

"You're kidding me."

"Come on. There's only so many well-adjusted people here."

"How about, 'Sorry, I don't know how to flirt properly.'" Then, pointedly, "'Sorry I don't know how to talk to girls.'" 

She's - in the off-again-on-again, going-through-the-motions, implying-and-not-implying way - at least slightly aware of the effect she has.

"I don't think anyone's going to buy that."

"Yeah," says Wonyoung, matter-of-fact. "That's why someone needs to be saying it." She shuts her novel, unnecessarily prim, tapping her nails on the cover, like, there, look: now I have nothing left to distract myself with. "Okay," she tells you, almost consolatory. "Sure. Whatever. Pick a lane and I'll see how nice I wanna be. Go on."

You huff, miffed. You were being genuinely nice. She smiles sunnily, indulges herself: a natural-born flirt; the preening sincerity, the brush-off charm. You say, "Right." 

Then realize: "You're having fun," which wasn't what you were going to say at all, but-

"I know," says Wonyoung, recrossing her legs, smirk plastered all over her face: like, all the sin-and-sunshine, simultaneously, so very deliberate. "Can't really help it." She extends a hand, so anodyne it doesn't ring right. "I might as well apologize. Hi. Please don't be dumb. As mentioned before but only theoretically, my name's Wonyoung."

Okay: shake on it. All above-board. "Pleasure," you offer back. Her hand is tiny, bones slim between your fingers, ridiculously fine. "Is that, like, your real government name?"

Wonyoung tilts her head. Backtracks: hair still out of place, god-damned sunlight in every direction.

"Fucking obviously, man." She points - a hint of chipped polish on her pastel-aquamarine nails. How convenient is light editing. "I wasn't made in a lab," she laughs, lightly, "my parents did do most of the work. Y'know, making me real and everything."

A coffee grinder starts whirring right behind you.

Then all those tiny flourishes: eyelashes gone wide; irises soft-espresso swirl; some weird tinting on the cheeks. "Which part did you get lost on there," like you have problems keeping up.

You snort. Get with it. You have time on your hands. You spend so fucking much of it here: at hotels, with hotel girls, bored brides and kept beauties. This is not like them, entirely distinct. She says: so the resort owns you?

Indirect sort-of. Can't leave the island for a few months. Things like that. Mostly if we end up talking-and-sharing. You should know it's not my life-story. I don't have one. You've got an idea, but it's not like you'd ever admit it. The world still turns.

"Fitting," she decides. "Can't get more escapist than your setting, now can you?"

"Shelved for the moment, is how I'd phrase it."

She clicks her tongue sympathetically, expression unraveling only a little at the seams. There's no preamble. You just get what she thinks: the company you keep. You remain entertained by it, amused. She laughs, quiet - but you notice the slight dimple, the white shine of her teeth - and goes for it anyway.

This is one version, the messy revisionist history: "Well, you can keep waiting," she says, slow, like she's getting more and more familiar by the second. "It's always sunny here."

-

And that part's unequivocally true: the paradise. You can confirm all your priors about myth and metanoia here, that most people can see everything better at high noon, get downright lucid; right angles, daylight exposure. Snakes in the garden.

You pickpocket some asshole on your way out, discreetly.

Habit. Malaise. Either way, this much proximity to the idyll and insouciance - yeah, of course everybody's gotten a little blasé.

-

The windfall covers lunch, probably, but you sort-of-don't care to check.

You're on your way back to the employee flats when Eunbi finds you again. Don't even think she intends to. Runs into you, honestly, on fucking accident, strolling back down the same direction from god-knows-what errand (beautification: brows waxed; waist smaller), new sunglasses (prada, tortoiseshell), a sort of baffled look crossing her features:

"Hold that thought."

"You haven't said any-"

A manicured point against your lips: dead-silent.

Then, a split second later, "Walk with me," Eunbi insists. Doesn't bother telling you if the statement's somehow rhetorical or actually peremptory. The sunlight here remains as beautiful as it is dazzling.

"My room's that way," you explain.

"This's the opposite," she says, decisively. "I need you to do me a favor," and drags you in by a belt-loop for emphasis; people do know you, know her, everyone's got an inkling at least. You let it stick. She sighs wistfully. Perfect pout; 5'1" gorgeous. Swimsuits and slinky little nothing-nighdresses do the rounds every season. 

All your colleagues would see this as a coup.

"Care to clue me in?"

"Don't overthink it."

The opposite, as it turns out, is the pool: white umbrellas, striped cushions, the white peonies spilling riotous from ceramic planters, all that glamour shot glimmer and seaside gleam. Two women lounging under a pergola by the bar, whispering over the tops of their lemon fizz cocktails and arranged with that same bored, long-limbed resort cruelty.

Eunbi doesn't introduce you so much as arrive with you.

A hand at your elbow. A little pressure. Not steering, exactly; more like presenting. Like she found you somewhere and decided, alright, you're worth the photo op.

You get these looks up and down when she leads you closer, gazes landing right between at-your-door amenities and room-with-a-view panache, and you remember right: you're still at fucking work.

"Hey," mutters the doe-eyed brunette, cute in a way that gets complicated below the waist; then the other - glacial, sunglasses lowered. Hello hello. A princess-chic little head-tip, and hair fluttering gorgeously; your first instinct: want to roll her hips a few times to smooth out, melt that tension. Packed tits, long legs fucking around underneath hemlines, an obvious, out-front money thing - yeah. Got pretty specific and yet here you are, perpetually spoiled on how hot girls on vacation love to dress down.

The latter leans on her palm, goes like-

"Okay, Eunbi."

-and leers all over you: hot, practiced - almost impressed, more of that unmistakable first look-over appraisal. 'Finders keepers,' yeah. Eunbi waves it off dramatically. Shakes her head. Acts scandalized. Doesn't bother hiding either - her motives, the devil-may-care, how dare someone blame her for bringing home a shiny new toy.

"Minju," she says, nodding vaguely toward miss doe; then back to the unholstered bombshell: "Hyewon."

You get maybe half a second to understand the whole arrangement: that you're not being invited over, not really; you're being passed through the sunlight for inspection. Minju's an actress, Eunbi explains, airy, and then casually - just filling you in - Hyewon's in finance if marriage market monopoly counts as personal capital investment. A total gold-digger, said without a hint of irony. Birds of a feather and all that.

By the time you catch up, her fingers have slipped from your elbow to your wrist, loose as jewelry.

"Be normal," she murmurs.

"Me?"

"Briefly."

You do your best: a nod, a smile, something plausibly housebroken. There's not much by way of conversation; Eunbi drags you around the opposite side of the pool, plants a delicate little foot at a chaise and hmphs at you when you keep finding your gaze wandering towards the loungers across the way - focus, please - then clamps her fingers around the straps of her bikini and unties it in the back. Expects you to be conscientious without a word, somehow, about slathering tanning oil and smoothing it into her skin and using your thumbs to work it into her lower back. 

She lays out flat on the chaise, adjusts the towel. Help me out here, yeah?

You stare at the bottle in your hands, can't really fucking believe it.

Then back across the pool, where Minju and Hyewon are no longer pretending they’re talking about anything else. Spare the gossip scene.

"I'm sorry, but are you serious," you deadpan.

"Which part," says Eunbi, kicking her other sandal clean off, legs finding their way from bend to straight to bend. Crossing prettily. "Because yeah, the whole lotion me up, you can get straight to that."

"Eunbi."

She lifts her chin off her folded arms, unheeded. "Hello?"

"This seems kind of, I don’t know - a little bit unnecessary?" Before her glance: scathing. Mock. "Come on." No one, hardly ever, sees through this gold-digger glamour faster than the people neck-deep themselves. In plainest terms known: "You brought me over here to play piece of ass."

"Wow," she says. "Got it in one."

Yeah.

You pause, half-exasperated, just a minuscule bit amused. Sorta turned on: this woman's thighs demand reverence, worship, all the stupid curves of her figure pressing flat to the cushion - her tits are visible from the fucking back, bikini top fallen flat beneath her - like maybe you can't do this.

Preening, she adds to this sort-of-parenthetical silence, "Don't fuck them."

You exhale straight away. "Why not?"

"'Why not' says my best guesser."

You splat a splodge of coconut-summer tanning oil onto your palm. You wonder if she'd let you use a lot more the further downward you'd work. Fingertips starting at the base of her bare shoulders is the easiest way to ask.

"So you just enjoy antagonizing your friends." A question on its way to a realization: "This fulfills you."

"They're just… pining," she huffs back as you skim along her spine to push some heat deeper. You pinch close. A simple trade; see the bones fit there, pressing underneath her skin, like fate if the idea wasn't worn thin. Indentations, shadows. A thousand ways to get lucky. Find faith somewhere between her ribcage - have no idea where. Have barely had time to look. "Hyewon would eat you alive, anyway," Eunbi adds - soft now because she needs softer, delicate. "So this is for us both, in a way - less red tape and more keeping with my personal moral inclinations."

Uh huh, got you.

"Also: went to the casino last night, and Hyewon cleaned us out," she confides, "which has become an atrocious habit of hers." Eyes the meridians: sun-gilded horizon. Unapologetic for it - god, she's in too deep. "She deserves whatever she gets out of today." Head turning to, whatdoyouknow? Inflexibly right. Hyewon stretches up towards the sun and manages to throw daggers.

Totally insane sight. Also zero surprise.

"And Minju made friends with this pretty pair of bartenders, won all her free-drinks by pretending sex is the dirtiest word she knows," rolls out with it. You soothe oil across the arch of her back, circle a balm-slick touch on those gorgeous, taut-in-position lower-back dimples. Just like that: you can trace the instant her façade changes, softens to silk.

A blink slow. "She'd fucking drool if she saw you're working with, FYI. I told her the other day - think she's still pissed." Breathing gently from all the fingers rubbing into the muscle. "Does all kinda things for my ego."

"Naturally," you reply, terribly dry.

Eunbi relaxes, pliant to the touch. "You gonna object when she flirts?"

"Might," you tell her, unable to help it: flattered by the direction, stunned by the way her ass eats up these bikini bottoms. "Y'know in general, this is kinda degrading," you point out, like you're newly broken in.

Her face tips onto her upper arm. She gets this look whenever she realizes she's one-upping you.

"Degradation, is it," muses Eunbi, voice trailing dry, dream-blinking. Her mouth slants. "My deepest sympathies, hon. How ever will you go on?"

-

In a less self-effacing, less-humiliating sort of way:

Eunbi's taken an immediate liking to you because you have precisely nothing to censure her on - only the vague idea that you share a few pathologies: too clever, too dangerously attractive; an all-around life philosophy. You'll float between whatever concept fits.

There are highwaymen and brigands, people hustling for a certain existence, always stuck at this stupid crossroad between 'don't have a pot to piss in' and 'way too much invested in small piss-pots.' The tennis, the private lessons, the whole flirt-for-profit arrangement. Eunbi's got an unofficial schedule that works a bit like the precision mechanics of a watch: make-out here, screw her there, she needs work on her backhand and she's far more competitive than she likes admitting, but hey, more kudos to her tenacity; all good ways to snag overtime.

Coin your character accordingly; might as well call this sugar-whatever it is you're doing.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck-"

Take the hint from her back arching in that mid-orgasm hitch, sighs tripping; you've had that whole headtilt side-eye twice; the look of abject satisfaction that lingers just a split second longer every time you fuck up, and in, like that - quick rhythm, perfect stroke - this pretty pathetic uh-huh when her gushy little cunt immediately soils the sheets of one of the pool cabanas, the hotel equivalent of a seedy bathroom stall.

You're holding her up by the hip and fucking her into pristine, wide-legged surrender.

She's a dream on her back, but gets there so much faster on her knees. Tits haphazardly clapping with each fresh split-second of her being filled up. Gulp some more wind. There's tanning oil literally everywhere. Makes it hard to pin down all this plush, slippery skin. 

A second later, and she's gasping:

"Yeah," and it's clipped, "harder," obviously - some kinda blissed look: her sunglasses drop to the concrete, and she untangles her hair in fits and turns. She's still wearing these gaudy hoop-earrings, a halfway-there expression that proves she likes you in control, too. Anything resembling common sense, decorum: your hand gripping her waist. An unfashionable clench as you pump in and in and lose your cool; okay, maybe your mouth is basically panting wet over her shoulder, nearly kissing up near her ear and her jugular in an attempt to fucking keep this right here. She feels so fucking good; too-good fit around your length; she's spoiling you; your nose keeps brushing her nape.

There. She's gripping your wrist. Not pulling, not pushing - just a sort of a hang-on.

Some gardener nearby is trimming hedge, is looking up; there's gotta be an obvious hit-it-from-the-back sort of silhouette in the sheerness of the curtains, how she gets totally railed; that slick wet-noise clings to the air, the humidity, draws in voyeurs. 

"God, you are-" she sounds out, "such a good fuck," and it sounds awed, almost resentful. You know what you do to her cunt; they aren't incompatible. "Fuck, you’re - yeah. Right there. Exactly, honey, use that pussy just like that."

Get as defensive as you want; nobody is covering for anyone.

"Yeah?" you repeat back - because apparently anything else is beyond you. You grip the side of her face instead, run something fingerbruise-furious from temple to jaw. Even her eyelashes are looking sharp. Perk up.

"Well, I'm not talking to myself," she tries, a lip-sneer.

It's not always conversational; it can't be. You get stuck gaping at each other's awed expressions, wondering who's going to admit first that it feels "really fucking good" or, "yeah, okay - that, fucking that." Because all the usual shit just falls out of reach. The part where she says something cruel and you say something worse. You just look at her like she looks at you, a little entranced. Unbearably into it.

You drag her in closer, find the better angle - the worse one too. 

She looks fucking gorgeous - looks about ready to tear up: "my pussy's real fuckin' tight on you right now, isn't it," like you aren't acutely aware. "Making my legs shake and everything-"

Your mouth opens, does nothing; her eyes snap shut. This is as close you get. Incoherency, nonsense. Unintelligible. The two of you going at it like you're both in high school again, fucking through all that heat-drunk summer vacancy because there's absolutely nothing else to do, getting completely delirious over the simplest shit. 

"I cannot believe-"

"Right?" nods Eunbi, dizzy on her satisfaction. "-just wrecking it. Yeah, I know-"

You speed up, lean in, lose the finesse.

It's not nice, obviously; it's barely even civil: she's fucking tiny, and you can press just a little at the base of her ribs to make everything mean something, make her swallow around shallow barely-there breathing and all these little pin-point nerves.

The kinetics go straight to her fucking tits when you pin her down a certain way, get leverage from behind; just unreal curves on a woman this petite. You end up with a palmful, and so does she. Slippery, sticky skin; the heavy spill between your fingers. You're about to make an embarrassing promise about breeding her, and Eunbi's mouth ticks unceremoniously - seriously, you get a little loose like this; only hers for a second, and then hers again. 

You swallow, wipe the sweat with the cuff of your wrist. 

"All that mouth on you," she says, "and you get so overwhelmed by it, huh?" which you think is stupid now because there's no winning, in a dialog like this: you wanna slap your fingertips over her clit and make sure nothing but blather comes from her perfect fuck-me pucker of a mouth, send her over again hard and flat on the belly where you'd fucking - well, gosh - knock her up. You're not usually one for theatrics, but her cunt's taking everything without complaint; so you draw her hair back, keep thumbing into the underside of those ridiculously heavy fucking tits while you really just rail her. Poor little spoiled thing, you'll murmur dirty. Get her cumming nice for it. Never once gets enough; needs you all up inside in every conceivable stretch.

"This pussy," you end up saying - two totally unexpected fucking words. Any inflection there: completely done for. 

Eunbi smirks. 

"Good isn't it?" she goads: perfect curves, tight cunt. The fuck is her husband's deal, honestly.

You try to recover, fuck her messy, right off the deep-end - that pained-in-concentration expression, muttering; the breathy little exhortations, the inescapable "ah" when she slaps a palm straight over her mouth and soaks the mattress again.

The whole thing stims - full-circle, getting fucked insane in her strappy designer-sandals and her entire backstory, wife-exit down and filthy; the luxury hotel on the brink behind her, all those high-strung nerves, the money: the entire shit-show.

"Think it's made for taking dick," and this is what passes for sweet-talk. Every part a set-up, a smash-and-grab - her head cranes to eye you sideways. It’s the first subtle fuck you. Just to see what else makes the façade slip, get her girlishly, hopelessly undone. "Must've been waiting patiently to get stuffed, huh. It's fucking gripping me." Pound harder. "It likes that," right into the twist of another grind. You kiss the side of her face when you think you've just about crossed a boundary: "sucking me in real deep" - you cannot believe how good she feels - "that pussy just fucking needs it, huh?"

You're only half-serious, half the opposite of that; you're just saying whatever shit you think will get her wettest. You're too close to the fucking sun.

All bets hedging on: "I wonder if it only gets this wet when it needs filling up."

Her fucking face.

"Oh, you think it needs filling? Like this?" she suggests snidely, breathlessly - like each pump rattles some logic loose. "Think it'd get that taken care of and keep coming back, mm?" And god help you, her smirk, haughty lilt perfect; she is so far over-you in an exchange, in almost, literally every fucking sense of the phrase. "No, keep going. Tell me how badly this 'fucked-dumb little cunt' here," dramatizes Eunbi, "'wants a huge load way right deep inside,' right?"

There were always possibilities there, in all that shit-talking. You already know what she sounds like taking it real rough, so your impulse-control has gotten that much lower.

"Can you imagine watching me push it out after," she murmurs. "See it all oozing out." There's a glint in her teeth and it's dangerous. "You'd never get over it."

Eunbi reaches back again to try and slap a little more purpose out of you - until you huff amusement, yank her back and pump her full of cock right fucking there. She's so soft where your fingers land, dig in; you already know you're going to leave a mark. You could leave more than just one.

It's so much more obvious how soaked she is when she's trying not to pant all pornstar-pretty.

"Guessing you're on the pill," and that's on instinct - how not to pull out. Like the tip-of-the-subconscious push: fucking fill.

She shrugs, archly. An eyebrow flickers, wicked: yeah, like I'd tell you.

Your motions are just. Ah. Almost mechanical; fuck.

And there's those tables, turning. "Gonna make me take it? Fucking 'good girl' for it at the end?" Eunbi draws the jet-black curtain of hair off her neck, to the other side. She looks immaculate; a fucking sculpture, taking it. The knowing little: "uh-huh."

"Well," you hum, teeth-bare. It's totally outta-the-script.

You preface this by kissing the juncture of her neck, keep your mouth off hers. That’s the trick. Keep it on her throat, her shoulder, the places that don’t ask anything back. Keep it practical, strategic, surgical; like that'll spare you the soul-selling deal.

"You're going to, like, lose your shit," you point out, not the most compelling voice on "if I do."

And you're actually thinking about it; no jokes involved; the mental image, like dominoes, falling.

"If?" she taunts, pant-breathy for added measure, she angles her torso seductively. Like look, this body wants a baby-rabid breeding - she cups her own breast, smirks over her shoulder; this is her wife-material moment; this is all very 90's rom-dom: just keep thinking about that, hm? Give your thick cum up to this greedy needy pussy - see what happens. "Oh, sweetie," and she slants forward into a gulf of velvet tight-fucks: "I think you've got it backwards."

Do yourself a favor. Don't bother fixating on the vague predator-prey sort of appeal for a second, that you might swallow each other whole. You think of asking, clarifying - who's who in this scenario? - but your brain fills in the gaps: of course you're the jaded, conscience-challenged motherfucker; that's a given. Her eyelashes are long and wet: you want to do terrible things to her, and she's just looking back at you like, yeah man, I know.

You knot a hand into the fall of her hair in retaliation, get that sweet oh. You tug back. Play rough, fuck out her prettiest sounds - adjust your grip, carve out the uglier ones too: this angle that makes her eyes glitter in raw chemical brain-bath ecstasy when you've got the leverage to just, simply, pound away.

There's sweat on the heels of your palms; kiss your nerves goodbye.

"There's a good boy," is Eunbi's assessment, totally manic. You fuck in deep. She can probably feel that, too.

Because she's all taut-muscle: hot, silky-fucking-heat searing up into your gray matter. It takes every ounce of resolve just to jerk out, off - and glaze her ass on the spot. She winces as the tip slides across her opening; it's too abrupt for both of you: an eleventh-hour type of maneuver - exactly, you think, what she deserves: thick ropes, brackish-spill. Cum fucking everywhere.

You fuck your fist, make it messy. Splatter on the designer beach-dress sheer; hit the crease of her back, her hips: thwap a sloppy handprint on a supple thigh as you try to right yourself, draw back, recover.

It takes her the three seconds to recoil.

She stares at you, then down at it; you slap your cock against the cum-smear (helpful) one, two, just to punctuate. She can extrapolate the sentiment from there. Point proven: all plucky. Like, well - how's that?

"Seriously," Eunbi hisses, appalled - blinking rapidly, glancing down like, oh, cool. So you just came, like, all over me. There are raised eyebrows. Yeah? Yeah. That dazed moment: climax recessiveness; watch-scan-regarding; this tremulous non-sigh.

That's what it looks like, at least.

"Did you," Eunbi asks, sternly, "Is it in my hair?"

Okay. Hard to dodge that one: it's all over her - your handprints marking wherever they fell - her ass, her tits - her tiny fucking waist, where you managed to get greedy.

"You fucking asshole," she complains, "Did you just cum in my hair?"

There's a lot of damage, indiscriminate as it is.

"Yeah," you tell her because, um. That'd be the general summation. "Yeah, it's pretty- uh - well, you'll have to see for yourself."

A beat to let her glare crystallize.

Every other word's gone out the window; you tug her closer against you and gather your own cum up with your flagging erection, organize all that jizz back inside her 'cause she keeps trying to turn on you; all fighting the good fight: ugh, what the ever-loving fuck are you doing? - now she's fucking pissed, which is admittedly hot, but it's amusing because getting pissed only means - whack, oomph: you slip your cock up into the swollen, needy-cumfilled mess you made - god, easy to re-enter (too much leverage) - and the lines in her face read entirely off script, too. "What are- fucking- fuck-" Like you genuinely have a clear direction forward at all after cumming all over her at the bare ask, the lightest tease.

You shove her down gracelessly and watch her mouth drop into some rarer O-shape; breath labored against the pillow, tits pressed under the weight.

"Well if you really wanted all that fucking cum in your cunt-" A rhetorical thereabouts;the slide back in is so fucking smooth, you do it twice. 

You want to see how well it stays put.

"You're such a fucking prick," she declares instead, rancor: cheeks flushed one minute, teeth gritted in the next - because even though she's trying to scowl like this is war (which it is), she goes from spitting invective to just rolling her head back on the laugh, or moan; can't take the bullshit; holy shit, you feel so fucking good - and look how patient you're keeping with her now: you were born for this really.

"Honey-" is also on the list of terms you'll be smacked through the chest for.

You'd die out here; you deserve it.

A pair of gardeners now, just trimming away, do not drop their gaze from across the greens; that's going south real fast; Eunbi fucking chokes when you grip the bottom ridge of her jaw, line your knuckles against her racing throat - the second hand goes by her ribcage, smearing any evidence remaining from the prior-load straight into her skin.

"Do you feel me dripping out?" 

She meets your eyes, seems genuinely upset.

"What's the matter?" you're prodding; she laughs, wetly, says that that's very rich of you - but then, you're pushing that cum right up to her womb.

Eunbi just grits down harder: "God." And her knees start to shake, unapologetic about this, knowing she's ashamed and getting wet anyways. She must be losing it.

"Wow," you try, casual - like your own ears aren't ringing like hell. "I think your husband's wrong about you."

"Shut," she snaps, then shudders. "The fuck up, before I hit you."

Before a minute passes and the afterglow falls off with all the rest of it - not ten, forty, a full sixty: the conversation's all shit-canned and thrown off the cliff, it's done, it's dusted (forgotten.) You pull her into a wet kiss, cup the weight of her tits, give into that thought: this stupid stupid lust; her mouth's got the shape of your name written all over it. You fuck her so fast it'd probably blindside everyone else she knows as borderline abusive; pushing through the copious cum-cream lather everywhere between her legs. Listen while she scolds, then squeals, wails through another orgasm: you're a shitty winner okay, you're operating out of spite. 

"Better," you mumble low into her neck - her nape damp now, from sun and sweat - where another person would soothe. "Don't want it going to waste," you emphasize to the side of her face; hold it briefly when those wet eyes find you, hooded. Like, there: two steps above her normal. 

She sorta looks astonished at everything.

It's all coming up rose-stained, to her absolute mystification, apparently: nobody's ever left her the courtesy of an orgasm hitting the pavement before, that's kind of, kind of, - "Jesus fucking christ" - okay, you were on the money about the exhibitionism; you can bank everything on debasing her - just like this too.

(Almost wanna gloat: you're never gonna come down this high.)

She stutters a high gasp, feels full for once like somebody means it.

She can't fucking breathe.

Oh.

There's the sobs; the keening; all whining through pretty-teary shut eyes. The shuddery: I can't and don't, please and yes; how she starts forgetting what she's sorry about; just opens her mouth wide whenever you need to try deeper, fill her up sweeter, make her sloppy - and twist: "how's that, miss?"

She will murder you later for it - but, right, that thrill, huh, the perilous shit. 

She'll be smarm about all of this. Over dinner or expensive wine, with some not-so-amusing little anecdote: you remember our tryst, the actual fucking debacle of it - and she'll act all ladylike about it. You two will play nice; then fuck worse all over again.

"I-," is as far she gets into all that, "I - can't-" voice crumpled up and raw, prettily broken through. She drops an octave to moan outright. The difference between hitting a nerve and striking several.

Her eyes go fuck-soft and dreamy. Brain-dead pretty. She cums so hard she ends up drooling. It's heartwarmingly gross, and that's not for you: that's for whoever gets to marry her next, inherit this habit of falling apart, these weak knees. 

You leave her open and used and swollen and whatever else she'd consider her money's worth - and there's still work to do: she needs this next load to get buried deep, a little mean - has to slop its way into her in thick, incorrigible waves. She wants it - is close to begging for it. You'll hold her waist where it's convenient; flip her onto her back to pound that cum right up against the very back of her wrecked cunt. 

A fucking dream, like you said: tits spilling everywhere while you pump each messy splatter deeper.

Eunbi's got stars and hearts in her eyes. Loves the shape of it, how you've got her legs folded, the heels dangling over your shoulders, toes curled: please, please, please fuck it into me - the absolute, raw-lust grip. You kiss her when it gets too much, feel the sigh behind her ribs, "I can't fucking believe you" as she paws weakly at your biceps, half-dead weight with that sweet look of you're a fucking problem - yeah, alright, baby, breathe.

You're a rogue; you're a thief. You were never above any of this.

-

Just some paraphilic, freudian field-experiments here - don't quote you on that; probably not even worth saying out loud.

Besides, they already have words to describe this: hubris and hamartia; raison d'être with a twist. Mating press: for a certain type, they get on their fucking knees begging you to make it happen. 

The only way to know it'll take.

Eunbi kisses you with finality - capriciously, by all objective measures. Grins like there's stuff nobody else will get out of her. Well: guilty as charged. Her hand lingers on your jaw, tilts your face the way she likes it.

You meet a lot of princess-types who love being told to hold still and behave.

It's basically Eunbi's one fatal flaw.

Oh, that's funny: you think you're corrupting me. She lets you grab ass and waist as she catches the leak of cum in her palm and ends up stuffing it finger-deep into your mouth. A 'good boy' muttered right there; a sweet nod when you swallow. Okay, maybe it's not so much the power-dynamic angle; the way it twists around on itself like a helix.

You'll need to meditate on it more. Read a book. You're more surface-level on this. The taste is super distracting.

"There," she says eventually at point-blank, in front of your half-done expression. Impudence, pride-of-the-vanity.

Eunbi hands you a black amex, telling you take this, go buy things, it's just some extra cash on hand. And you are, in some obscure corner of your brain, extremely, deeply aware that she wants people to see this. Nicer clothes, maybe. Whatever that entails. Favor and status; her point, succinctly: You do realize you're mine, don't you?

You turn it over in your head a little. Like watching a trick being done backwards, again: the exact cadence, the right length pause.

She's hooking your shirt with her finger. "Let's just say that you don't have to go making rounds."

"If that's what you think is best," you yield. A bit begrudging. 

"Well, now you have my number," and you do - had your chance; you like everyone thinking of you in the same rarefied light. "You'd better come running next time I need something or I'll throw you in the fucking ocean myself."

-

Things move fast on the island - or they move in the opposite, like molasses. The weather only gets hotter. People on TV are predicting monsoon-esque rain showers and tropical storms, but it's clear skies all week, seemingly out of spite.

Yujin's sitting in the afternoon sun on the semi-private deck outside your bungalow. Anyone on the beach below would see her lounging in nothing but a t-shirt of yours and her underwear. There's a line of thumb-shaped bruises blooming on her thighs, her skin marked up. It's summer and passing the time is always gonna look good on her. You never said the two of you didn't get along.

"Word gets around, apparently," she says, like you need telling - right now, Yujin'scy lolling her head over the back of her chair, mouth wide open and yawning in a surprisingly innocent display. "Not that I'm slut-shaming you."

"Sounds exactly like you're slut-shaming me."

"With my good name, all wrapped up? Never." Yujin pats your lap down with her foot, makes to fix your bathing trunks until there's an impression; shtick, yeah, never runs dry. 

Her whole thing is that she got this guy hooked bad, once: probably permanently. Assumes the entire gender is cut from the same meek, malleable cloth.

"All I'm saying," and, oh, here's her grand opinion, because her bitch-about-it genes know only so many contexts, "is there's gonna be a lot of women there who are more or less exactly your type."

Joke's as funny as it usually is. You give up the pretense and lie back down.

You're fried in both senses of the word - tan lines, broken logic, brain scrambled. Yujin fucks exactly like she looks.

"Any specific prospect I have to keep in sight?" All banter. Your type, as it were.

"No idea, man." Then a sigh with showmanship: a little contrite, faux-conscientious always turns Yujin to putty. "If I help you pick out victims," she's got this magnanimous tone, "do I also get what, a finder's fee?"

Sex, obviously. You'll use your mouth, let her get on top. You make a ring with your thumb and index, stick a finger through it like, gee, how should we do this, kiss first or what.

Yujin rolls her eyes, too fucking enamored.

"What are you going to wear to this thing?" she asks, too blunt for a segue into anything subtle.

You blink a few times, apparently blinded by her sunbathed, prettiest features and her darker-than-sin bangs, the ends of her hair skimming over her cheeks. You tell her: nothing special. A shirt. Pants maybe. You know the drill. Shoes, if they’re being fascists about it. 

Yujin looks at you like your mom might.

"It's a gala."

"That's generous."

"It's not generous. There's a guest registry."

"To stand around and eat shrimp?" you throw back, honestly confused.

"The menu's a bit more complicated than that," she supplies. "My parents already forwarded me the program catalog or whatever it's called."

"You do realize there are actual rent-a-boyfriend services for this?"

"Already told my mom I'd be taking you."

"No love lost for guys so starved for attention, I see."

"Also she thinks you have a degree from Columbia."

"Oh, what'd I study?"

"Major in finance, minor in journalism," Yujin rehearses. "So pretend you're pedigreed and thinking about putting babies in me for the evening, honey." Her smile is dazzling. "Not that you wouldn't otherwise."

"You got that from one trip down my pants?"

"Two." Then concedes almost pettishly: "It's kinda obvious." An Yujin's world view goes: fine, maybe the human condition's fragile and we barely manage anyway, but listen. There is art here and free food. You better wear the fucking suit. "Besides," she tells you. Takes out sunscreen. "When your sugar mommy fucks you until you see cartoon-circling stars, she's going to want you in tailoring."

"I don't have a sugar mommy."

Evidently her lack of answer makes that redundant. She crosses her legs.

"What-ever." Her fingers take a long rake through her hair: "Sober up already, I wanna go hit."

-

You fuck off a lot in this narrative - it happens quite unintentionally. Storm-avoidant tendency. Like the sea-glass, the serendipity, the chance to find something just because you're out looking.

-

But this is the problem - well, you’ve got a lot of those, honestly, but humor you for a moment.

Yujin is new money rich, and that's just for starters; skating by with big pretty eyes, a trust fund, she's the type of girl who goes through several flings every summer and thinks nothing of it, then flutters away for a fresh face come fall. Spoiled is putting it mildly, bratty is probably a bridge too far - but you've known her long enough to know she's never once extended any effort to blend in. From the hair, to the clothes, to the cool, casual indifference with which she walks The devil’s right there in the details - or at least, the tilt of her lips - how you'll never catch her without a grin that says, yeah well, don't you wish? 

She carries herself like she doesn't know better, like she doesn't pick up on the way men look at her with twitchy fingers and measuring, greedy eyes. Or she does, but she doesn't seem to care. The important details are simple ones: she's twenty-two; her favorite color is black and lacy; she has more followers on Instagram than you can conceptualize, is currently dog-walking you on the court because all of Yujin's prettiest friends came to watch you two play for it - none of which is up for debate or dispute, actually:

Everyone wants to fuck An Yujin.

"Out," calls Gaeul.

You stop dead at center court. She slouches in the judge's chair; lounges; and smolders like it should be illegal - staring directly across hardcourt - because holding grudges in person takes nuance and craft.

"Sorry," you offer, racket mid-fold against your hip. "Are we doing performance art, or are you just blind."

Gaeul does one of the laziest beckons, flick of fingers forward. She has this whole calm, administrative cruelty about her, like if someone told her to execute you at noon, she’d double check if eleven-forty-five was more convenient. Some people are capable of evil.

"It was out," she insists.

"It was on the line."

"It was not."

"It raised a family on the line. It’s got a mortgage there."

Yujin wanders to her water cool, all sweaty-tireless, towels off her neck: "My point," she takes this whole holier-than-thou tone on, playing like bad-cop-worse-cop. Terrible poker face, honestly. For someone with that much hand-eye coordination, she has almost no control over her mouth. "Your forehand's always tended to go wild; you've gotta find your range again-"

"I'm about to find a goddamn firing squad," you grumble, because you can be an obnoxious dick.

Of course Yujin catches this mood a mile away, laughs anyway. "Then at least you’ll have found something," she decides - blowing you a loud, obnoxious kiss.

Kiss my ass. "Great thanks," you holler back in her own goddamn direction. One less solid: you're getting what is known in professional tennis circles as absolutely-fucking-shellacked. Forty-love. You look up, at the gaggle of tiny, pretty bodies perched on the picnic benches, and smile. Leeseo and one of the other concierges wave: a perky brunette with really long hair - you think she's the newest one, but who the fuck knows these days. They really pack them in.

It's not the most emasculating defeat, per se. Or at least that's your perspective on things. Or at least that's what you'd just have to eventually conclude.

(Yujin's an honest-to-god pro, you could explain the circumstances; certified, sponsored rackets: she could crush your head between her thighs like a coke can.

Your sex life is so painfully complicated. You could wax your poetic or start crying, your choice.)

Fine. Whatever. You wave back. Leeseo blushes; Yujin's going to give you shit later because she brings out some personality issues in you. Because you're hitting on a nineteen year old girl at this stage in the game? Real strong impulse there. Congrats, here's your fuck up medal. Turns out there's more ways to rob a girl blind than just the wallet on the dresser and clothes on the floor.

Anyway, you get the picture:

Yujin's got you up for service and you're getting the brains fucked out of you, in the less sexy way. She hovers in an askance-sort-of-posture that basically broadcasts:

"Something wrong?" 

It passes for empathetic.

"Didn't sleep much." You stretch, bend at the knees. "Fucker."

This seems to amuse her when she turns around from wiping her hair back: smile turning with the whole dimpling twist and everything. Yujin's absurdly beautiful, and you try to remain disaffected - but literally, the whole venn-diagram of adonis and aphrodite and all this chiseled-mass that makes zero sense to your dumbfuck lizard brain. People everywhere who don't hold a racket keep thinking, oh, this shit must seem pretty fucking simple.

Except she just tucks a bobby pin back into place, smashes the fuck-all out of the next ball at take two; like that little smile was a big sorry in advance.

"Aha, point," Yujin doesn’t give a shit. "Stop playing like dogwater and actually give me a game."

Ugh.

There's how summer starts, you guess. Mid-defeat, being patronized for free, in absolute broad daylight. Or how your summer finds its start. Everyone else gets to have their own.

-

(A disclaimer by the way, about a place like this. Like the sea, something primordial - there's more below the surface; a more treacherous divide carved deeper to give weight. Let nature get rough - it'll raise the crest, height to heightening effect. Unrestraint.

The ocean's as blue as any palette, tincture to tone, and you could argue something dumb here and true in the same gasp: There's only two types of people.

Above, and waterlogged under.

Sink, or: resist drowning however you can.)

-

The megayacht parked at the end of the pier's called Austerlitz and is absolutely compensating. Never trust a shitty, borderline self-important name, but fair play: looks pristine.

Party's packed and starts right as everything transitions – sun gets low in the sky, sand loses its charm; open bar begins pumping gin fizzes and Old Fashioneds and Aperols by the time night falls out over the water.

"Wow," you hear ahead of a conversation, unmistakable for whom it belongs to. "Who did you have to fuck to get invited here?"

Chaewon grabs an aperitif from a passing tray, already smirking to her reflection on a champagne glass. More and more: she stands poised to be either your greatest champion in the future or someone you might stab through the heart with a dull letter-opener. Possibly not even mutually exclusive events.

"Not as many people as you, surely," you rip back, casually settling in at the only thing vaguely familiar about a party like this: one whiskey-neat, please. Chaewon hops up and tucks her dress up under her ass: silky-skirt split practically to the waist already. Not necessary.

She's got these sharp features half-dark like a grim fortune-teller, but hey - "hi." Brighter in proximity.

"Grandkids when, am I right?" She elbows you in the ribs, wets a cocktail napkin down on her thumb to right her eyeliner, check from her front-facing camera; "You'd make decent ones. Super hot genes."

"Thanks, glad to be broodmare to some billionaires."

"Good to be so flexible."

"Well," chimes a voice over your other shoulder.

Kim Minju, smile set somewhere between innocence and a double-flirt offer. Watch Chaewon sort through the layers of that: what this is, what it used to be, what it might still turn into. Women at their best, basically.

Sweet expressions gone syrupy, all dressed up how you're beginning to learn: laces, and straps, eyelashes untouchable. Girlish and disarming, too easy on the eyes already but everyone on this boat is gorgeous; Kim Minju always winds up the exception. Hair looks like it's mid-shoot-pretending; lipstick precisely stained cherry. Look at her, just in attendance: kind and quiet, the devil playing at chaste.

"Shouldn't gossip while I'm right here." Point in fact but oh still very pliant. Her chin tilts down. "That's, uh," she tries. "Poor etiquette."

"Tactless as hell." Chaewon chews while she talks.

"That too."

Minju tips her head, gets a better look at you - recognizes how she knows you: the where, the what, the Eunbi-dicking-down, casual-ridiculous encounter in passing. You do know her husband's here, right? the eyes seem to say; if you're wondering through things, hey there. Then worse: I noticed every fucking detail. Nice face. Yeah, this is one you wouldn't know not to duck and get out of dodge the minute things get sticky. Minju places her chin in her palm and gets all slow-blink-ingenue perfect; part adorable shy charm-offer, party-familiar allure and casual show; the come-what-may air: 'I don't bite, sweetheart' under too-thick lashes. Handed it right out.

"You know each other," Chaewon relays, then. "Huh."

"Not as well as you do," Minju remarks dryly. They have matching dresses.

"Pft," says Chaewon, utterly, terribly fond all of a sudden.

On another island: a different lifetime, some less convoluted miscommunication set up, Chaewon and Minju have this very stereophonic vibe playing as 'destined'. That's part: out in real life instead of their more romanticized fantasies, the telenovela's run its season, gone unfinished - no second renewal for you, keep the scissor-fuck daydreams spinning tight to yourself if you can; Minju and Chaewon come from the same deranged idol-actress circle. You had no idea.

"I think you're leaving out some relevant details," you accuse, and Chaewon shakes her head, hush-hush, getting bored real soon.

You're holding Minju's tumbler because she gets more giddy having both hand free - it's cute. Cute and dumb; dangerous combination, probably.

"Trade secret," Chaewon parleys, fake innocent. Your face registers appropriate skepticism. "Oh, like you're telling everyone the nitty-gritty deets of whatever-the-hell wound you up here."

"Me? Absolutely not," is as far as you care to go. Play it straight. Get that knowing scoff.

"He told me he just got out of prison when he showed up here," Chaewon says to Minju. Minju raises her eyebrows. "Walked in asking for a job. Real charming about it." A pause. "And then he threw up on the fucking carpet."

"She's exaggerating," you clarify, slowly; not a lie at all. You could explain it properly but that takes even more time.

"He's on the run then," Chaewon says, "he changes the story every time, I don't know."

Minju still wants the details enough to pry further. She gives you that look: that slow shake of her hair, hmm. "What'd you do, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Why would I mind you asking?" Throwaway question, throwaway response. Minju pulls back the sleek curtain of her hair, tucking it over her ear like an afterthought. And - that's a very particular brow-furling. You're just gonna call it that. You wonder if she wears a two-piece; how that waist would fit against your hand. You wonder if you're imagining the slight curl of her mouth. "I stole things," you confess, a bit conspiratorially, a bit like you know exactly what you're doing.

Chaewon laughs over your shoulder, close, some airy timbre: see? Like this:

"No kidding," Minju says. Soft. Mild reverb. Doesn't even blink. "Like what, jewelry?"

"Heian ceremonial lacquerware," Chaewon fills in dryly; there's a version she's heard before.

The light shifts, and Minju's expression smooths: she blinks, and she's exceptionally pretty all over again, an angel, a filthy-fucking-daydream. The last thing, mostly.

"Is there any money in... Heian - ceremonial-"

"Lacquerware, there's some."

"A shitload," Chaewon confirms, like she would know, and slides off her seat. "If you can move 'em."

You run a hand over your jaw. "Gotta have the network for it," you answer, a bit vaguely, like it's old-fashioned, an insider's secret. Like you're in with people, or something. Old acquaintances. Hiding in plain sight and all that.

"Then why are you on the lam?" Minju sounds unconvinced. "For the thrill of it?"

"That's been the running theory," finishes Chaewon. She downs her spritz. Fickle as anything. "Come back tomorrow and he can tell the one about drug running instead."

You smile thinly at Minju. You've been spotted for bullshit, evidently.

Minju has this little amused smile sitting on her lips right before she gestures for her tumbler. Doesn't want you holding onto her things, maybe; or she wants you holding something specifically, one less finger free that could fidget elsewhere; you'd guess - but fine, fine: you aren't looking for more complications tonight; you wanna go out smooth. Yujin's gonna be livid-mad if she's gotta hunt you down. Don't get me fucking stranded, here - gotta talk about stocks or golf or whatever else makes her ovaries stir with appreciation - Chaewon's already bored, wandering.

"Stay out of trouble," Minju calls, and you have no idea to which end it's directed.

-

A gloss over, details whittled away all gossamer-keen, here's the rest of the evening in snippets and stasis frames only somewhat made-up-out of time and order:

i.) Yujin finds your hands without too much effort once word gets out you're actually here; she whisks you off around eight-fifteen.

"How perfect you're still sober," she comments, a little too loud, taking hold of your upper arm like a handle. You notice new earrings. "My parents told me to bring you over for mingling. They want proof."

ii.) You've got the pretense of an upper-crust background and a long-con attitude and a fugitive's morality and the rush that comes from pushing it too far, from digging too deep.

Yujin's family says yeah-hello, look-there-he-is with effusive, obvious pride; at sixteen, Yujin made it to finals nationally ranked, championed her sport, then took a nice little burnout from the spotlight.

This is a point of constant patronizing conversation. Elite rearing; great tutors. Most prodigies retire.

iii.) "I can't wait," you murmur in Yujin's ear while you're only supposed to be staring lovingly into each other's eyes or resting chaste temple-nudges where her ear isn't so ticklish. "To have traditional family-values straight-couple-sex with you sweetheart," for starters. "Can make so many babies."

"Get me pregnant," Yujin whispers back, "and I'll shove a racket up your ass until I can watch that fucking smile tear right off your face. I'm not kidding."

Hot proposal? Sure thing.

Some people could describe it as alchemical: put that much cute determination in a bottle with someone who gets riled just holding still. Boils quick from there; you find there's already sweat in your hand curled down the bare small of her back where the dress drapes low. You're looking up into halos hung from lampwires; there's some bad piano play like soundtrack and everything, set the mood in E major.

You're allowing yourself some vanity; you're a virtuoso. You can perform to just about any tune.

iv.) Time gets into this loop: your eyes follow the stars that roll against low tides in the marina - as guests file in more empty-headed, easy-going. Everything starts to smell like salt.

You find out, in something of one of those flippant not-today-chats, that Chaewon's sleeping with the bartender from the topdeck piano lounge, that she's supposed to be on this double-date of sorts - but Minju keeps taking turns making out with both of these guys against the icebox behind cover in the liquor supply walk-in. You have to literally ask who? because you've kinda got a lot going on. The new bartenders, Chaewon explains impatiently. Keep up. They usually work the terrace. Have the faces for it, you could say. There's a lot of this 'one of us only tells the truth, the other only speaks in lies' dynamic that Minju's head over heels into - two-at-once bullshit and codependency like she was emotionally neglected for a solid decade before us. Like frenemy-with-benefits, type-thing, you offer: makes total sense. Chae slinks down her elbows on the table and says, "You can see which bartender to trust by the side-part, that's how we sorted them out early on, just little shit like this."

"Huh." You rub your palms to your cheeks: "I just thought they were the same person," honestly.

"I thought so too," Chaewon commiserates. "But then I walked in on Minju riding one and getting face-fucked by the other."

You pick up her drink and chug the majority in one go - yeah, get at the bottom of it, feels necessary. There’s this whole other story happening there, obviously. 

She sighs, big picture contemplation for you: "She thinks they're so goddamn funny."

"Sounds complicated," you try, and make a point not to ask if they were making lots of good-cop-bad-cop statements as they doubled her up. "Whose dick do you think was telling the truth there?"

She raps her knuckles along the countertop and says, "God only knows. How she can separate them better than I can, I'll never know," before getting pulled back again into private-life by the bartender she hasn't confirmed the facefucking for.

You raise an empty glass half-heartedly, wait until she turns her head: yeah, cheers. It's a party. A great environment; everyone's fucking or fighting or philandering or simply getting fed some sumptuous affair amidst all that lawlessness. No right idea; very hedonistic scene.

Welcome to the blue-night romance of an ecology like this: birds of paradise, drink spilling out of careless cups.

-

You end up alone on the star-lit aft deck, keeping close-invisibility over its railing to figure your shit out. Pretty straightforward. Drinks are more potent in thin glasses and you're fine, just taking a breather.

Someone next to you goes, are you avoiding somebody?

"No," you confess then exhale; just long and steady. Okay, alright: get the punchcard out again.

"Well, you have something of mine," Eunbi relays because the night's gotta catch up sometime.

It's true. You've stolen a lot of shit. You saw her husband for the first time a few hours ago and everything about that makes less sense; he's pretty, and you mean that about as empirically as possible. "You’ll have to narrow it down," you joke, sorta.

She comes and invades your personal space casually, this porcelain little thing with eminent-domain over your attention. 

"Cartier gold watch. Slipped off in the backseat yesterday. I’d like it returned before someone else finds it."

"Give me a time frame," you say, vaguely conciliatory.

"Now works."

"Eh."

Eunbi shoves her hair behind one ear rather aggressively at that reply - tiny dress, tiny stature. You can picture her tits spilling around this angle. Practically do; Eunbi sees it, waves the rest of the vodka soda under your nose. It lures you back. Maybe; you say after: thanks really appreciated - with almost every pretense dead.

"An hour," she requests, "by which point in time I expect it in my grasp without a story attached," before you can say it'll be funny, coolly and clearly, but life didn't shake out that way; she hands over a room key, like, okay. "Husband's in bed already, so."

Jesus in jeans; this woman's vicious.

"Is there an ulterior motive?" you inquire, at length.

Eunbi demurs. "No idea what you mean."

Which is about as subtle and incognito as one could ask from an affair-in-progress: the slipstreams, the yawning currents, all this perfect weather. Sunstroke. Blue horizons out front like eyecandy. The opposite direction she asks, innocently: who're you here with anyway? Doesn't matter if it's strictly idle curiosity at her end, because, ouch - shit flung towards a bladed fan – you wanna say none of your business, but really.

"With a girl."

She has a sip of whatever she has: cran and vodka in lieu of asking anything better. Realllll mulling over something.

"What kinda question is that?" says you.

"Depends what sort of truth I get back."

You look for a white flag.

"Fine. I have this fling. She grew up with money while you turned cougar."

"Ugh." A dismissive snort, vaguely disgusted maybe by your phrasing or worse.

Anyway: these are basic principles, standard ground rules as far as secret relationships - illicit or otherwise and whatever in between - go, that it's good to bring som expression as flippable-looking if possible to all these venues, an easy out, something attractive on your fingertips that's out of bounds and would absolutely draw the focus somewhere helpful if you really found the walls closing in.

Allegorically. There's room enough for all sorts of sins when you're ballroom-dressed; best foot forward; whatever other aphorisms get you sailing.

"An hour," Eunbi reiterates, making your compliance sound that much dirtier.

Yeah, well - life by an assembly of one thousand, tiny missteps.

-

(Oh right: a parting shot, off into the evening – eyes locked, back before things got really underway:

"Word of advice," comes that lilting sing, not quite dead-air to it, "Get better at sneaking around - the stairs here creak." Wistfulness played to whimsy. "Or learn how to apologize better, next time." Another lesson learned: yeah huh.)

-

This will later need to be scratched from official record, eventually: time spends here and you had every intention. All according to plan. That's the other side to that glossy resort brochure: the quiet, the calm - no riptides that tug you in, drowning you in waves. No, you've got this. 

You just lose track of when a game gets out of hand.

-

"There," you say, dropping the object of interest into her palm. "One missing watch."

Eunbi is lounging in silky blue camisole; sure, at two in the morning - husband (presumably) asleep, most of the resort dark, this vibe coming off her is seduction by principle, without even trying hard. She tucks hair from one eye to cast lazy derision - amusement not directed at anybody. Not angry. Not planning some tactical execution, because who the hell has that kind of personal time.

"You're fifteen minutes late," she points out politely. Like you went over timeframe, yeah: and water's kinda - y'know - consistently wet?

"Island time," you placate, still catching your breath from legging it full-throttle, so most of that evasion sticks. "Can I get some credit for not pawning it, scratching it, losing it, or dropping it into the ocean."

Now you get a squint.

"You want praise for not losing my things?"

A lift and drop of shoulder by way of response: okay; so also the small details. This level: pretty high-up suite. Ostentatious accommodations. And she's using it as a second-summer-cottage-from-the-in-laws situation - now with diamond-silver moonshine-shimmer between her fingers, clasped around her wrist to show off; her hands looks prettier like this. Little accents that say: too fucking bad.

"I pay for your time. I give you a key. You show up late and expect gratitude for returning my property?" is lobbied - in a polite oh-hey let me just add: - "Nice to catch you during working fucking hours."

"Well, when you say it like that I sound spoiled."

"You are spoiled," asserts Eunbi.

"By who?"

She returns an irreverent scoff: it's come up. Things that aren't going unnoticed. You try to get your hands on her hips, kiss her before anything else accelerates. She goes slippery-out of your grasp, pads into another room; says, "You can start by taking your shoes off."

"Bossy."

"Careless," she returns. "Late, sweaty, and tracking half the resort into my bedroom? Baby steps first I think."

"Yes ma'am."

"Don't say it like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're laughing - ah-hah?" Eunbi smirks right in your face and goes petulantly: oh, okay. Laughter stops. She points at the ottoman. "Shoes."

And the next interminable beat's solely your fault, no one else to blame:

"What are you, my mother?"

She glowers, pretty thinly over some serious feminine ire. Look where dissonance reigns in - cut straight-on through because: "Wow," she whips back, piques in full. Wow. Fucking wow; sure - "and you were going to psychoanalyze my marriage earlier," glib, scornful - the flip switch.

"Wait-"

"-so where are we then," snipes her attitude full-flight, "didn't realize the sugar-mommy dynamic was what got you off." Eyelash bat. Hands on her hip, mock-innocuous. "Should I buy you candy before we play?"

"Look I brought the watch," you point out. "You could at least acknowledge that."

"Congratulations." She pulls the camisole off, all of a sudden. No underwear underneath - yeah: ready to escalate. "Good boy."

That shuts you up. Just the split-second, right.

"Oh," Eunbi says, like she just struck a nerve, like the concept should maybe have occurred to her earlier: that sorta look; shoves you backwards and makes certain you land on the bed. "Oh. Is it the thought that gets you half-mast on short notice?"

"Half what?"

"If I said, suck my cunt, and be perfect for about five minutes?" hand already hovering her clit, testing: "Would you listen to what mommy tells you?"

You choke on nothing intelligible. Who're we kidding is precisely what that infers.

She reaches back, feels for your cock: so obedient there's a grin, the curve of her mouth scythe-like, blade keen before the weight drops and it settles into, full-on-possessive, don't start any shit with me again: it'll go that fucking south. "Lose your shirt." Drops to straddle you at the knees. "And those pants. Quickly," she finishes a perfect ten for queenry.

You look so fucking humiliated for a second she doubts herself, like what the fuck, where did she misaim, there, amidst the, like: this is a quick foreplay bit right. Stoking all these fires, yeah?

"Want mommy's tits on your cock?" She fills the palm of her opposite hand with one and jiggles it slightly, just to double-check – testing theories; look at how full that fuckin handful is - c’mere. Need mommy to titfuck you? Need to drain a load in between these? Her head tilts, she's got it all laid out bare: fingers already in the creases and demonstrating the slick up-and-down - christ, can fucking fit your whole dick in there.

"Want mommy to jerk you off with her tits?" All demure, eyelashes batting. All these shh intonations and sympathetic soundbites: "I bet you'd cum," she lilts in affectionately, "so fucking much."

She can lift a whole fucking nipple to her lips; suck on herself lazily like she knows what she fucking looks like.

Yes, says everything halfway to your fingers trying to clutch open air; it's pathetic. A hand across the face, maybe. Shock from every which direction: at perfect harmony, in some warped, shared wavelength; the idea blows your fucking door off.

"Yeah," she smirks victoriously: "it's the good boy-thing."

"Eunbi-"

Uh-uh.

"Mommy," she snaps right back, a swift kick of reminder across the chin. "Say yes please like you fucking mean it."

Her fingers pause, then pick the wide curves back up, cupping the shape like a proof-of-concept again: oh, maybe here, hand pushing tits together just to lift some weight for clarification-

Okay; cut that part.

"I want," says you, a completely undiagnosed problem, "to fuck your tits."

Her smile slides off a millimeter. Egregiously: your word choice could've been stronger.

"Whose tits, hm?"

"Please," you inhale, really do come up with: "let me fuck mommy's tits."

"What a fucking riot," she intones, "you are." Laugh track, here: A total capitulation, a complete rout - something pyrrhic and heavy-lidded about her yeahs spoken in complete calm.

Just gets worse.

You get through your zipper and your pants have barely cleared the edge of the mattress when she tosses her hair off her shoulders, crumples to her knees with none of your apparent talent for it, and wraps her fat, gorgeous tits in tandem all around your cock. That, right? She lifts them up, up - drops them all pretty-like back down at the base.

"Uh-huh," she goes knowingly, makes a look in the guise of reading your face right then. Perfect angle, perfect execution. Way down fucking line. Some snicker off her little haughty-ass shoulder, like she hasn't got her tits stroking you from base to the very fucking tip, all squeezed tight in between. "Gonna make a mess with your cum?"

She keeps lifting her tits around your cock, making it glisten. Runs her thumbs across the center in a way to make soft-sounding wet porn-squelch noises every time they close on yours. Licks her lips. Doesn't do anything except tip her head and mimic the starstruck-look on your face, dumb, stupid, jaw-slacked and brows pinched - right there, get you fucking close: Eunbi all cooingly, sympathetic, "Right here, huh: is this the exact spot-?" She drops herself prettily again. Lets both tits sink onto your girth with an emphatic slap, like see; all just sloppy sound-effects, porn-parody pouts, oozing temptation.

Submission's a really thin gloss right then. There are no in-betweens. You're about to find out which way you fall short.

Say mommy, be good for me and look what happens – it takes less than ninety seconds of getting your cock titfucked straight-up to being her whole, whimpering boy again, pleading mommy mommy please.

"Gonna cum for me?" she has to see your browline break with a wrecked shudder. The muscles in your legs about fucking lock-up - it has to be everywhere, transparent, and she drags slower: fuck, honey, don't run - "C'mon, cum all over mommy's tits."

Like that, right there – your waist jerks against the tug inside and you cum, fast as hell too over that tight-fucking, sloppy fit; she gives a sigh through your noises about seeing an expensive shot like some connoisseur, like if that last view doesn't tell her everything she needs; doesn't pull right away because she milks out the aftershocks like she thinks you might expire if the nerve-endings suffer neglect. Shaking the pressure. Bare minimum, get-off points.

Her hair swings when she finally angles upwards. The sound you're breathing when it hits you is probably the most human one she'll get.

You're too speechless and drained and fucked stupid to protest the way she climbs onto your lap with zero remorse - you think this. "Good boy," - what gets fed at length - "are we so empty now? Full drained-out?" Well that's no good, she's mock-closing her eyes: slipping onto your cock and taking the ride almost immediately, right-up, fast. "Mommy wants to use this cock, still," she announces, huffing with her own breathlessness. "Do me a favor, honey," she orders obnoxiously, tits in your fucking face, spill glazed all over them from your orgasm, hands pulling your head into it - "make mommy cum."

A mouthful of fat, silky-tit: really, you're eating more of your own spunk than you're used to - but you're a professional about the long-con. You're young; athletic, or at the very least flexible - flip: this happens all over her place. Ripe and fucking feral for it now.

"I know you're good at that," Eunbi goes, licking her nails, the cum off her wrist.

Some nonsense and sweet nothing being praised into your ear while she sinks down, more than taking it when you lift for leverage - doesn't punish you too bad for flipping power because no shit you'd want to control this just to fuck her deep, out of her hot, greedy mood. Take hold or whatever passes for it.

She cums hardest when you're too preoccupied eating up the topography, getting yourself nice n' lost again; wrecking her pussy and ignoring how it looks because she can’t stop fucking whimpering: please baby, your cock please, your fucking dick.

The sex is top-fucking-shelf, and she's not apologizing for sounding like that; keeps saying it too, right in time with your mind blanking out because it still fucks you up to be a whole foot taller and her a delicate little manicured woman in silk looking absolutely obliterated as she ruts against you. Cries out - gets hands in your hair.

You fuck up into her, hold her waist tight until she cums on your dick, has nowhere fucking else to go. 

It's all porn-script and cliché; you get her under you, on her side, on all fours, a leg on your shoulder, hands pinned above her head, thighs stretched out and shaking. 

You fuck her on her hands and knees; you fuck her facing the other way. You pick her up and rail her against the drywall on the opposite side of the bungalow, a full minute spent letting her climb the heights. Your name falls out her mouth, mumbled and obscene, over and over: yeah, inside me, yeah, take it all, don't stop, do you even know how good that feels? - until she's orgasming again, face buried in the breadth of your shoulder and crying out into the skin; her feet hooked around your thighs and her wrists gathered haphazardly around your neck. Cumming inside her pussy is the hottest thing, ever; knowing the shape of your hard length fits so snuggly against her little hungry womb and fucks all these cute and dirty sounds from her throat; this pretty little pussy getting pumped full of cum because that's what you do. That's how this goes.

Eunbi ends up biting your shoulder, breaking skin. That'll show up tomorrow. A reminder, just a small one.

She likes leaving things she knows she can return to, like she wants everyone else to know you're off the table. An excuse to be back on the courts in fucking uniform and batting her eyelashes. She'll weasel her hair up in a chignon around lunch break and you'll talk shit and laugh until it doesn't seem like a bad idea to eat her out or fuck her or both.

(She'll ask you: how's the gold-digging going? Zero ironic chagrin involved.

What gold-digging? and watch her give a side glance: oh, honey, that's cute. Pull her sunglasses up just atop her browline, all a game, a ruse.

She even puts the shades back on when she jabs a bit deeper: why anyone says they trust you about anything serious's beyond me.)

-

Eunbi kicks you out at 4:17 am.

Don't expect affection after - the sex doesn't require it; benefits from the lack, maybe. She asks you quietly what you're doing during the rest of the morning. "None of her majesty's business," you say around toothpaste foam, and slip out of the main doors and back down through the empty hallways and into the elevator.

The button goes G – lobby/amenities. As if someone were aiming for fucking convenience, at this forsaken hour.

The lift stops a dozen floors short, and the panel flashes P - garden-access pavilion. Doors part open: an exclusive sort of terrace with haphazard, rustling outdoor lights that must go off on their own whenever the misting dawn starts coloring the world -

Except it's six-forty-five in July.

"Hi," yawns this black-clad mess right there, blinking blearily; late-season tired, like someone working the ass-shift for far, far too long - up-all-night kind of fatigue.

Wonyoung. Rubs her eye. Her hair looks - mostly intact but disheveled in several places: a run-to-meet you situation? Hard to pinpoint in the din.

"You're supposed to be in the process of ghosting me," you manage to say. Still in shock that at nobody's alarm: from opposite fucking ends of existence, this is her showing up as real as you in flesh-and-blood context, a physical anchor where gravity works, weird angles, still life 101. Sometime around having-to-squint-to-suss-it-all-out status when a cigarette gets jammed straight between her lips like some impulsive self-soother.

"Oh, sure." Her laugh stumbles heavy in the wake of the shift-changes: look at it - pretty disaster-dropping; she fishes out her lighter. "For sure let me start again, then," is good anecdotal-foil before she even starts talking, "you look like absolute shit, by the way." Sparks flaring. Rhetorically, she waves with a snicker like: "So, like, whoever or whatever wrecked you that good - a round of applause."

It's five floors till morning, or whatever. Only sounds come through this mechanical mechanism.

"Says who." You toss-back dry retorts despite ample evidence. "You aren't any bouquet yourself."

"You've got hickies up your fucking neck." Wonyoung fakes the most obvious jaw-drop. Maybe impressed on secondhand principle alone, sorta cattily. Cigarette perched beautifully. Even running low on battery, everything elegant looks best juxtaposed against overwrought calamity, say all sources close to the situation: you pull back on the defense real fast. Check to clock her gaze moving.

The elevator hums. 

Fine: whatever.

You pull through the lobby, the ghost-protocol starting on your way out: early morning is too hard, you want food, and please fuck off, honestly. Wonyoung strikes the lighter and tries again: sucks one-two heated drags, paves the exit talking. The trail of smoke moves sinuous between red-lipped puffs.

"Well?" she asks sidelong.

"Well what."

"Oh, please. Enquiring minds, asswipe, thought you'd assume so much consideration."

She offers the cigarette bluntly when you finally pause, look over in annoyance - you guess by extension, for want. You eyeball it: sure there's lipstick on the filter. The implications of slipping that filter directly between your lips: copping a taste off her fuck-me-red lipstick. A cheap thrill, fine.

You exhale and, yeah, don't imagine how these plums-and-cherry tastes linger so casually; Wonyoung shrugging on denim like she was born into fucking bodycon jeans. Yeah - go imagine to hell that there's some part of her tasting you back.

Inhale. Exhale smoke. Focus.

"So," she asks drolly, like the lead-up wasn't completely necessary, deadbeat or not, on the way outside, towards the beach maybe; you kind of just end up here - justifying it with if you needed a quick exit, what better a place, the sound of lulling waves lapping shore breaking up the small patches of silence -

"My business," you finish as if she needed a subject to thread along; it was barely much to offer up all along.

Wonyoung laughs into her closed mouth with a humph! in it, scrubs her scalp with those long fingers and makes sure her silver bangles shake accordingly - for flair, because when does she not.

"If you say so, hey."

The island, you go try to explain instead, brings out the best and the worst in people. But you'll also say, in a place like this, money, influence, fame and sex - they all get weaponized, the people too. They change, and the shit they bring gets tangled: lies, infidelity, boredom, power. All sorts. In this place, especially. You're fucked and you've no clue. The cogs are grinding, spinning. You're only a piece, you'll say, and if it's money you're after, learn to pretend not to notice what it's costing, because most of the time that's what everybody else is doing too.

Wonyoung must be laughing you're speaking with such grave hyperbole when whatever happened last night was just that - the night shifts take a lot out of you. That's just banal fucking.

"Speak for yourself," she suggests, all non-dismissive, gazing at the open sky spreading and turning itself pinkish to bruised purple overhead.

"Everyone is complicit in something."

Mmmm yeah. Maybe. But most people - good point. Self-preservation aside.

"Guess we're in an ocean of sinners, then," she amends chipper-ironic. Exchanges eyes - easy. Playful.

Her fingers tug gently on the collar of her blouse, the first three buttons gone; trying out some see-what-sticks flirting on zero caffeine from the whole look of it - and before you can quip something about falling-in to said depths because on this job, you will - Wonyoung tugs a little further: bruises and bite. Wincing.

A line of fingerprints seared into her neck.

You say - on any reflex known - ouch? Because damn is that bruise already looking its brutal self.

"Evidently," Wonyoung tosses a breath of faux-composure right in return. "Something about me just makes people want to grab the fucking daylights out of my throat and squeeze," like: can you believe it? "No idea," she insists a second too late for this to be strictly news.

Anyway, you pass her the cigarette this time too. And offer up, at point blank range: "It's money-trouble to me," because that seems neutral enough. Relatable. Easily and universally detested. Your own cynicism – bite the bullet a moment so you don't spit when you tsk afterwards, you're absolutely drained at this point.

Wonyoung laughs, light and teasing and breezy amidst a long stream of smoke. What you get is, "not to sympathize or anything," just throwing out on you casually; "But there oughta be better options-"

"Where?" You look at her.  "Tell me. Make one from thin fucking air. That'll cut and polish nicely."

"Okay ok, cool it," she relents, takes this soul-searching drag off the cigarette. "I'm just spitballing."

"Kudos. That spit's working well."

Some mocking applause by the coffee-eyed roll - a look of ah, there he is again: y'know what; let's table this whole thought process, rewind it: there are these shitty movies, okay, that stay up a whole narrative cliff - any hint, or hook - maybe you shouldn't actually say the next thought out loud at your current level of (de)hydration, but you go and word-drop anyway: "You like it here? Long term ish." Okay: whatever. Not pulling punches. "You don't have any, like - goals, or anything?"

Wonyoung waves a fuck-you gesture somewhere off into the vicinity of the waves.

"I'm going to have to level with you," she says, because things must be getting serious - or at least, somewhere between personal and philosophical. There will be hints of past mistakes, later: her high school sweetheart, or the senior who'd given her her first kiss - someone a little off-kilter, maybe, a little messed up in their own way; her head's full of romantic nonsense - idealism, naivete, whimsical ideas - that's her early twenties. The details won't be important.

Point is she's trying to let you down easy: "or rather," she clarifies. "I was planning on marrying obscenely-fucking-rich."

"Yeah, that was pretty strongly implied," you deadpan, because you're not in love; because that's supposed to be a joke; the unspoken implication, then: we're the same fucking species. We both know that. You're a bandit like me.

She tosses the cigarette as proof of an end - some burn-your-bridges attitude, stamping its glowing embers under the toe of her sneaker; but before you figure you've gotten far more solemn than intended, she looks up smiling a real cute morning-rise dawn-bright one.

"I take it your plan was similar."

"Something like that."

"Ugh, copy cat."

You break: there's nothing really, by way of real argument but to agree to split-the-fucking-bill. And you say in near-breath, let it fester, fine - call it kismet, destiny, fate. You knew to share this vibe with Wonyoung, day-fucking-one, first-minute hello. Her hair sort of knotted from everything fucking her up; yet holding in place around her soft-soft cheek bones, mouth pained into a drowsy smile.

Her hand curls around the short sleeve on your bicep, fingers landing snug warm. Makes no move to leave. "Same same," she intones soft-like without any punctuation. "Then we'd better get to work, huh?"

Oh: too little, and way outlandish late. You're torn between feeling vaguely disappointed that you've played exactly into type, and vindicated that at least someone gets it - you get this all at once; and what other gold diggers of modern epoch actually feel both: all kinds of fucking doomed, because of all the ways love-and-moral-guidance-highways would fail spectacularly to get through to this brand. But the heart wants what it can't have.

That's obvious.

"A pretty late admission, yeah?"

Tonelessly dead humor - sort of sad if you're hearing right.

"What I mean is," amends that siren voice, arch in pitch. It is suddenly very interested again. Chin-lifting to send her gaze goddamn heavensward to test the distance, "We need to talk. Later."

Fair; everything's real haphazard to you, anyway. "Is there something you feel needs particular discussing?"

Like who's gonna hold forth a grand conversation:

"Yes" (admits this whole fuckable woman) "but who wants that," she laughs brightly at how little seriousness should make that admission, "first-thing in the morning, huh?"

And that's sorta how this whole story gains escape-velocity; this daybreak conversation along pink-pearled sands.

That unmissable sensation of oh-jeez, hello - what starts it all. Some very tectonic-shift tier shit. Very bad odds. The rest of life passes: you're gonna walk all kinds of tightropes to piece it back exactly how it came.

-