Midnight Molasses

There are only three sounds that you can hear as the four walls of your room tighten around you in this moment. First, the lazy and unmetered clicking of stilettos against the polished floor. Second, the gentle patter of your phone screen against your bedside cabinet as it is taken from your grasp and set aside. And third, the unsteady pounding of your heart as it threatens to escape the confines of your clasping and raking ribs.

It’s happening. This is really happening. And you can’t believe it.

You see the whole of her as she’s steadily coming into view, approaching your unmoving form sitting at the edge of your bed. You scan her form and mark the details like you’re ticking items off a checklist. Five-foot-five. Raven hair that curled at the tips by her lower back. A body so slender that you could wrap your arms around her twice. You could pick her up and throw her across the sheets. Lightly toned abs that sink to profusely childbearing hips that then connect to curvatures so undulated they are absolutely hypnotic—all tucked neatly under a tie-dyed mini-skirt that covers as much skin as underwear did. She’s a slender woman, but she’s by no means lacking in substance. Her body fills out in all the right places, and you just know that if you spent any more than half a millisecond staring at the outline of her top-heavy bust, you’re bound for a scolding and a half.

She’s a woman unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. And thanks to your friend’s little ‘favor’, she’s completely yours for the night.

Just yours.

But as she sits on your lap and caresses the side of your face, pulling you in to her own visage to have a taste of you, why do you find yourself stiff in the neck and spine?

As she pushes you towards the pillows cramped against the headboard to crawl over your laying form, why do you find yourself staring past her and into the dimly-lit ceiling?

As she’s squirming onto you, bucking against you, grinding into you, why do you find yourself seeing through her well-practiced facade and glancing right into the soullessness of her actions?

Your friend paid one of the most expensive fucking hookers in all of Seoul, and yet, your mind was anywhere else but here.

Parting from your lips with an audible gasp, sounding almost as if she wants more but is actively stopping herself from indulging excessively from right off the bat, she slides backwards a few inches before placing her hands on your thighs. You don’t know what face she’s making right now, but you gather it’s a sultry one—one aiming to seduce you into a stupor with but a glance. But you don’t clock it, eyes transfixed at some invisible point behind her—past her. One only you can seem to see.

“I think you might want to focus on me for this part, big boy. The first taste is always the most delicious. Wouldn’t want to let it go to waste,” the woman entices, breaking the thick and dry wall of ice between you both. Her fingers find purchase into the garter of your shorts, tucking them down to your knees and letting them bundle there. You’re relying on your peripheral still, but you notice the ever-so-slight shift in her expressions as she sees what she’ll be working all night on bulging within your boxers. “My my, seems like someone’s all pent up and packing. Mmm, I think this will be as fun for me as it will be for you. Go lay back—let me handle the rest.”

You don’t even respond. You just sit there with your head tilting towards your right shoulder, hands and arms limp by your sides, just … watching it all unfold before you. Just letting it happen.

She knows what she’s doing. God, even if you aren’t present present, your body acknowledges all the stimuli it’s receiving.

Before you’re even released, she’s cupping your underside through the fabric, feeling the heft, letting it bounce and roll across her fingers like she’s weighing it. The slight tremble of her fingertips an indicator that she’s oh-so-tempted to give it a good squeeze. When her free hand crawls across your sheathed length like a spider, her nimble digits tug and tweak at the garter of your underwear know like they might yank it at any given moment, keeping you guessing from the constant push and pull she gives it.

After a tantalizing few minutes of this warm up, she digs both thumbs into your skin and draws a straight line down towards the part of your legs. The woman strokes your tensing thighs with her palms in an attempt to soothe you as she drags your boxers into the inside of your shorts, then tugging both articles of clothing off and away fro your feet. 

You don’t know where they disappear to because almost immediately your line of sight is obstructed by her towering form.

The day a goddess might descend upon your half-nude body could not have come any sooner. As she stalks forward on her hands and knees, imprinting into the mattress at ever-shifting spots, your breath ceases when you feel the soft of her face presses against your nether bits. She glances up at you while your crotch is being served on the silver platter of her visage but you know better than to even remotely catch a glimpse of this sinful scene.

No matter—she can sense your budding desire. She presses on.

She licks your underside. A stroke. Maybe two or three. You feel a wet and tender engulfment around your tip, and just like putting on a pair of warm and fitted socks on a cold winter day, you indulge in the comfort her mouth can offer as she consumes your length.

She’s skilled—no, she’s beyond that. She’s done this many times before, you can tell. She’s clearly got the experience to justify the price your friend complained about paying her for. His money, your luxury. And you allow yourself a breath to feel the repeated motion of her craning neck straining to take your full length inside of her.

“Need a pill? I won’t judge,” she says right after a wet pop. She’s stroking you now in slow motions like one would rock the cradle of a child to comfort it. Her thumb even knows to swipe at the swath of skin beneath your crown to keep what little attention you still had on her. “Cold feet? You know, many guys need a good dose of viagra to help them get in the flow of things. Its normal.”

You let out a sigh. Whether that’s from trying to restrain yourself from fully relishing in her ministrations or from a desire to expel all these motes of tension bubbling up inside you, you’re not too sure.

And she senses that too.

She leans your member against the inside of your left thigh and withdraws herself. This is the first time you look at her—the first time you really take a good look at her. She’s got round brown eyes that shimmer and swirl when they fixate on you, drawing you in. Her lips are coated with a shade of lipstick so red that it would be impossible to notice anything else on her face if you stare at them for too long. The tight choker around her neck, adorned with a sprinkle of varying accoutrements gave her a gentle trickle of allure. But it’s the way she raises one brow, smiles with only one side of her face, and dips her chin as if in gesture that really captures your attention.

“It’s way past foreplay time, big boy. Keep at it like this and all you’ll get from your time with me as a sad handy with some drool,” she matter-of-factly states. You imagine a part of her is serious about that warning, but you couldn’t be bothered to think of it too much.

“Ya, are you gay?”

“What …?’

She shrugs, eyes daring towards your flaccidity still sprawled against one of your thighs. “I don’t know—you tell me. I’ve never had a client staying this soft for me for this long. You sure you aren’t gay?”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “No, I’m not fucking gay. I’m just …”

“Just what? Not into me?” she snaps, wiping her lathered hand against the back of her mini-skirt, which you perceive is a bad sign right about now. “Huh, never been told that before. You should have picked a cheaper girl then. Instead of wasting your money on me.”

“You’re not … I-I wasn’t …”

She chuckles, and you watch her professional facade drop in real time as she has this mocking smirk on her now. “Can’t even finish a full sentence. Look, you have me for three hours. That’s what you paid for. Either we do this, or you just formally let me go, so both of us can be on our way. You don’t get bothered by me, and I don’t get bothered by … this.”

You’re left at a bit of an impasse. On one hand, you know this isn’t going anywhere. There’s just too much going on right now. But on the other hand, your friend spent all this money on you just to make you feel better. You might as well at least do something with one of the most highly-rated companions in all of Seoul.

So you reach for your underwear and untangle them from your shorts, pull them both back on, and then sit back on the edge of the bed—the same way you had been sitting previously when she walked into your apartment. You turn to her now and purse your lips. “Is there anything in the rules about staying with a client even if there isn’t any sex?”

She knits her brow in disbelief, unable to immediately make heads or tails of this foreign situation. “I mean, I guess it’s fine. I’d rather just be finding the next john, but sure. Why not?”

The woman sits across from you on the other edge of the same side of your bed. Hands on her lap, fingers tugging at the holes in her fishnets, lips twitching from side to side restlessly. “So what now?”

What now indeed. You hadn’t really thought this through. What could you do with a hooker outside of sex?

“I guess we just … chill like this then, you know? Just vibe together,” you offer. “I’m sure you could use the break. Do you work every night? Did you … have someone before me?”

She’s shooting you a glance that’s halfway between ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ and ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’. “I work nightly. I usually get booked by the higher spenders past midnight—right around now. So yeah.”

“Higher spenders? Is there a difference in what you … ‘provide’ if they pay more?” you naively ask, meriting a snarl from this woman. “What …? I’m just curious, ok?”

“Tch, if you put it that way, then yeah. Need to treat those types of clients better so they keep coming back. One to two of them per week is usually enough to cover an entire month’s wort of rent.”

You think back to your friend. You think back to the bullshit he was spouting when you were at the bar, head tucked between your folded arms, bawling continuously over the counter. You remember what he said about the types of escorts he knew how to access, and how they might help you with your situation.

Then the reality sinks in and you just stare at her. “So, when I—when my friend … booked you, what … what exactly did you agree to…?”

“Based on how much you spent? Everything,” she replies without a hint of uncertainty. “You have me fully for the evening. Just nothing gross, please.”

You tug on the hem of your shorts and chuckle a little. “Yeah, you can see how that went.”

“Enough about me,” she pivots, right knee now on the mattress as she turns to face you. “What about you? Got a story to tell?”

“A story?”

She nods, resting her elbow on the same knee, propping her head up against an outstretched palm as she continues, “Yeah. What’s your deal? Virgin? Bored? Curious? Breakup?”

Your body shudders upon hearing the word. The diction of this woman did little to weaken the lightning that strikes your mind as you think back to what that single word implies.

“Oh, so it’s a breakup. That’s rough,” she spouts, huffing aloud. “Is that why your little buddy was struggling earlier? Yeesh, and here I thought you were gay. I’ve had a couple clients before who wouldn’t admit it either. Can you blame me for making sure?”

“For the last time, I am not fucking gay.”

“Then tell me about it,” she requests, hugging her raised knee now, eyes still looking up at you. This time, you see more of a lighthearted expression on her. Not performative, not fabricated—just present in the moment. “Tell me more about her.”

You clench your teeth, lean back against the headboard, and sigh. “Where do I begin?”

“I don’t think I have enough patience to hear it from the start, so why don’t you cut to the part where things got rocky between you two? How about that?”

You scoff, chin tilted upwards as you’re staring at the ceiling once more. “What is this—talk therapy?”

“You tell me. I’m not the one who poured millions of won into a woman like me. Spend your money however you want to,” she retorts, scratching the back of her thigh. “Go on.”

Beyond the practice perfection she exudes at the foot of your bed, making her look terribly out of place against the backdrop of your mess of an apartment, you know that she is just another stranger to you. She’s not anyone significant. She’s just a vessel. Previously a vessel for your inactive lust. Currently a potential vessel for your woes.

But even then, as you ponder on this, you find the words constricting your throat, leaving you unable to even get a syllable out. The woman notices this and sighs. “Maybe that’s why she left you. Can’t even—.”

“She cheated on me.”

You have never acknowledged it before. You never allowed yourself to even think of it. But the moment that those words escaped your lips, there’s a sense of finality that’s attached to it. A sense of certainty. A sense of definitiveness.

“Yeah … yeah, she cheated on me,” you confirm. Whether it’s to yourself or to the woman, you’re not so sure either. You try to play it off and instead snowball down the discussion while you still have the false bravado to do so. “I uh … Girlfriend of five years. Five … long years … and I caught her cheating on me. She didn’t … didn’t even try to defend herself. Said she needed time, and I just … I couldn’t take it anymore. And we—yeah. We broke up.”

Silence. 

You hear shifting before you but you don’t have it in you to look up. You just let your head hang between your knees as you’re hunched forward in almost a fetal position, gripping the tops of your feet. 

The woman is beside you now, and you only notice this when she sighs more audibly close to you. “So you wanted to fight fire with fire. Cheat right back at her for cheating on you?”

Her response sours your palette. But you gather there’s some truth to her words. “For the last time, it wasn’t me who booked you. It was my friend.”

“So you mean to say you not only agreed to the idea of cheating on her in return, but you also didn’t have the balls to say no to him?” she presses. As you figure out what to say in reply, she eyes your comfortable bulge resting within the confines of your shorts and smirks. “Didn’t seem that way when I was handling you earlier. What gives?”

“I … I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you even if I tried—.”

“Then don’t try, dumbass. Don’t even think about it,” she interjects, eyes training on you rather intensely as she rocks herself back and forth against your pillows. “What’s inside you? What have you been keeping locked up in there? Let it out. Go on.”

You shake your head. “Like that would do any—OW, WHAT THE FUCK?”

After she retreats her hand, she crinkles her nose all innocently and taps her pointer and thumb together in a taunting fashion. “I’ve got a mean pinch. There’s plenty more where that came from. So out with it. Out with it now.”

Rubbing your aching side, you close your eyes and relent. “Fine. I guess … I guess I just don’t know if I’m happy—.”

She bursts into laughter, hiding her mouth behind a raised hand. “Sorry, I jut can’t take you seriously when you start with something like that. Aren’t we all though?”

“Are you going to let me monologue or what?”

The woman raises her hands in faux surrender allowing you to continue.

“I just—how do I explain this. I don’t think I’m doing bad … not in the slightest. Graduated college with a good degree. Got into a job with a manageable workload and a beyond decent pay. Have a few close friends. Have a girlfriend—well … had one. I hit the gym. I binge shows. I have some investments accruing—which, by the way, is something everyone should be doing these days. I just … i have all of these things and they’re just … there.”

“Just there?” she echoes our final words.

“Yeah. They’re just … there. They’re there. In my life. Just existing. Just existing like me. I live with them in my daily life. I go through the everyday motions of things. It’s comfortable. It’s safe. It’s … routine. And it just happens. It just is. I just … that’s me. That’s all I have. This … this is all I am.”

“You know you don’t make any damn sense right now, do you?” 

As she says this, she’s looking up at the same patch of the ceiling as you. “But for some reason I get that.”

Silence trails her muttered words.

When her breathing predicates her own musings, you keep quiet and let her speak her mind too. “You’re afraid, aren’t you? That this is all you’ll be? That this is … all you’ll ever amount to?”

You never even thought of it that way, and yet she took the words right from your lips. “Yeah … yeah that. It feels like … it feels like I’m trapped here and I can’t be anything … more.”

“Why do you want to be more?’

That next question catches you off-guard. But when you see her looking directly at you now as she asks this, you can’t help but feel like you’re next words will be answering for more than just yourself. “Why do you need to be more? Isn’t this … isn’t this kind of life enough? You said it yourself, right? It gives and it takes, it’s predictable, it’s calculated or something. Why give that up? Why need more?”

“It’s stupid, isn’t it?” you raise, polishing the backs of your teeth with your tongue like you’re absolving yourself of the dirty and sinful thoughts in your mind. “Being ungrateful like this? I don’t—fuck … I guess I just feel like this isn’t it.”

“Like something’s missing?”

Your eyes connect. Two wandering souls that are slowly realizing that they are kindred in spirit. When she smiles and her cheekbones lift, and you see a sliver of her teeth between her soft lips, you can’t help but feel a tinge of warmth spreading across your face. “Yeah, like something’s missing. Are you sure my friend didn’t tell you anything about me before … before this? You’re surprisingly … spot on with some things.”

She forms a ring with her lips and huffs like she might puff out a drag of smoke from a cigarette she isn’t even smoking. “Maybe it’s just that two can play at that game. That’s all.”

“Oh yeah? Then what’s your story. How did you … how did you get to this point? How did you get here?”

It’s her turn to lock up in place.

You didn’t want to bring it up, but you’ve been noticing for a while now that she’s got a bit of a habit with her fingers. Whenever she seems to be listening, she would always draw circles on her thighs. Whenever she’s restless, she’s drumming her digits against any surface she can find. And whenever she’s expressing even the faintest bit of emotion, she’s quick to tug and pluck on the material of her fishnets. 

But when she’s deep in thought, you observe that her fingers remain incredibly still.

“What is it? Broken home? Ran into debt? Trying to get over trauma—?”

“A breakup.”

The spotlight is on her now as the mention of but that one word is enough to draw your entire attention towards her. “It was … it was also a breakup. She … We dated for about three years. Her family was constantly relying on her to the point that it bled her dry. She almost … you know?”

She drew a line from the bottom of of one side of her jaw towards the other with her index finger.

“So of course I had to help—I needed to help. But loans and favors can only get you so far in the world, so I … I turned to this,” she explains, gesturing towards the entirety of her get-up. “If you think for a second that I enjoy doing what I do because it helps pay for things, then you are terribly mistaken.”

“I-I didn’t really—.”

“No, but you thought it,” she presses, as if scanning your subconscious with but a glance. “And you’ve also thought that I might be someone who needs saving—I don’t. I … I chose this. Ultimately, the responsibility is mine. And I have to live with it. Every. Single. Day.”

“But then why did you break up? Was she not ok with it? Did she find out the hard way? Or …?”

She chuckles and swats a hand at you, holding both of her knees tightly against her chest now. “Bold of you to assume that she’s the on with the issues. I … I didn’t want her dating someone like me. I felt so … disgusted. With myself. Stooping this low. Even if it was for her. If our positions were swapped, I just know she wouldn’t have sold her soul just to make me happy. But I … I guess I wasn’t strong enough. Not like I’m any stronger now either.”

You allow her a moment of solemn silence to grieve what she had once lost again before saying, “And are you happy?”

“Take a good long look and tell me what you think.”

You in fact do just that.

It never really occurs to you—or anyone for that matter—that there is a physical aspect towards ‘seeing someone in a different light’. You speculate that maybe it is in fact the lighting. Maybe it’s the way the flicker of the apartment light bathes her pristine skin in a dull glow. Maybe its the way her clothes are all crumpled and folded now compared to her earlier presentability—despite the lack of any considerable ‘activities’ between you both.

But upon taking a closer look, the woman right next to you stars to appear differently in your eyes becomes she’s become something else altogether.

No longer is she a vessel, a passive recipient of your misgivings and ill sensibilities. She’s become a figure of your own in your mind, and you start to see the cracks along the surface.

“I still think about her,” she begins, glancing out the window like how a wolf might gaze at a full moon, longing for its light. “But she’s doing better now. Think she’s seeing this rich girl—chaebol heiress. Saw it on Instagram. They’ve been going on fancy dates here and there, and … I’ve never seen her more happy.”

“And you’re fine with that?”

She shoots you a look as if to tell you to back down. “I’m sorry—what?”

“Are you … are you fine with that?” you repeat yourself, finding more courage to press your thoughts into the conversation. “Can you live with it?”

“What about you, can you live with your decisions as well?”

It’s become abundantly clear now that you’re both waltzing around the same set of predicaments, and neither of you are willing to cave. But through the myriad of things you two choose not to say to each other, you feel as though you may have gained something here—something more important than either of you might ever think.

Dribbling her lips, she shoots her limbs forward and stretches, ending the motion with a satisfied sigh. “Well, we still have an hour. Still want a handy at the very least?”

You glance at her fingers. Every single one of them on her right hand is drumming a different beat into the bedsheet. 

“Can you promise me something?”

“It’s going to cost you though,” she quips, finding it in her to still act casual about all this. “But considering how tonight went, let’s say I’ll put it on your tab.”

“Just … just promise me to do whatever it takes to make yourself happy. Even if it interrupts other people’s lives. Even if it means interrupting yours. Just … go for it.”

As you’re bracing yourself over her pondering on your words that emerge from out of the blue, you can’t help but feel like you’re taking to a mirror. That, perhaps, you have been doing so this entire time tonight. When she returns to the present moment with you and finally recollects herself, she gives you what can only be described as a semblance of a nod. “Yeah … Yeah I think I can do that.”

And that’s enough for you. “Then I guess we’re done for tonight. I think … I think I’m satisfied now.”

“Satisfied? You’re not the one taking a blow to the ego after tonight, big boy,” she jabs, actually jabbing you in the spleen with her elbow as well. “If that’s all you’ll be needing from me, then I’ll be on my way.”

Just when you think she’s already by the door, you feel a pair of lips press against your cheek from behind.

When you turn around, it’s only then that you actually see her by the door. You don’t even know her name. You don’t know how old she is. You don’t even know what kind of life she lives outside the veil of midnight. But she’s got her hand on your doorknob, and she’s waving goofily right at you.

“You go chase your own happiness too.”

And as the door closes behind her, you take a deep breath and head over to your bedside cabinet.

There are only three sounds that you can hear as the four walls of your room begin expanding around you in this moment. First, the diligent rapping of your fingers across the screen of your phone. Second, the thorough ringing of the dial tone that echoes throughout the now silent expanse of your apartment. And third, the determined cadence of your heart as it races towards the only direction it knows..

Click. “Hello?”

“Hey … Rei,” you mutter into the line, teetering on the absolute edge of your final drawn breath. “Are you free right now? Can we … meet up? I want to talk about what happened.”

“I … Sure. I thought you’d never ask.”

Silence. Then, it’s overtaken by the rampaging pulse drumming inside your ears.

It’s happening. This is really happening. 

And you can’t believe it.