MCMH | Chapter 2.2

Wondering what to practice with, I remembered the teaspoons I had collected under the pillow. It felt like I’d be punished for playing with utensils, but I rationalized that they couldn’t be used since they smelled like my head anyway.

“Phew…”

I lay down with my pants off, legs spread, holding a teaspoon in one hand.

Afraid, I couldn’t insert the thick part of the teaspoon at first and fiddled with the handle. But my damn hole couldn’t even accept that properly. Though the handle was a bit thick and oval, it was still ridiculous.

‘Cain’s thing is ten times this…’

I felt pathetic for not being able to handle even the teaspoon handle. Even my hole was pathetic. Was there any part of my body that was useful?

But I didn’t give up. I didn’t want to feel that terrible pain again when accepting Cain.

I poked inside with all my might, but the hard spoon only scraped sharply inside, not making it soft.

After poking around a few times, I gave up, exhausted. In my head, unorganized melodies floated around.

Notes that didn’t find their place were meaningless. I was just like the floating notes, sprawled out like debris in someone else’s space.

But this was Cain’s house, and I was practically sold to him, so I had to obey him.

I forced myself to focus. First, I tried to gauge time as best as I could based on when meals came in.

To avoid losing my mind to withdrawal symptoms, I bit my hand. Blood started to bead on my index finger, always calloused from playing the guitar.

When meals came, I hummed the three songs I was composing in my head in order. Then I did exercises. Even without windows, I acted as if facing the sun, energetically. Moving my limbs vigorously.

You have to be energetic no matter what. Rock failed because it wasn’t energetic music. My conclusion is that you have to be energetic to survive in any situation.

After exercising, I hummed the three songs I was composing in order again. This time, I generously let the scales find their place. Some notes brought friends. That’s how measures were filled, and spaces between notes were filled. I bit my bleeding index finger hard, resisting the urge to do drugs.

After that, I took a bubble bath. Because I hated Cain, or rather, his huge thing, I used bath products generously. The wound on my index finger stung and itched, and after soaking until my body was swollen, I walked fifty slow laps around the large room and did stretches, then another meal came in.

Taking advantage of the slight clarity, I gathered the bills Cain had given me and counted them. Surprisingly, it was enough to pay off the mafia debt and Jasmine’s hospital bills, with plenty left over.

‘…Awesome?’

If only I could escape, but the problem was finding a way out.

Sometimes I heard noises from outside. The sound of running, or laughter.

‘Is someone else here?’

Cain was famous, so it made sense for his mansion to have many guests. Among them, there were probably people who slept with Cain and those who received songs from him.

Naturally, I envied the latter more.

‘I want to get a song too…’

Now I couldn’t get a song from him. That opportunity was gone forever. I had become Cain’s prostitute, not his artist.

An artist can become a prostitute, but a prostitute can’t become an artist again. If I knew how, I wouldn’t have sold my mouth to the audience at The Box.

The fact that I could never be Cain’s artist again was painfully sad, but I tried my best to be energetic. Because only then could I get money from Cain, leave here, and meet Jasmine and Sandy again.

And even if I couldn’t get a song from Cain, I was still a rocker.

‘Is Jasmine… okay?’

It would be nice to call again.

If I let my guard down for a moment, hallucinations would overwhelm me again. My father cursed, my mother bled, and I trembled with my head in my hands. It was a mess, but rock grows in chaos, so it’s okay.

I did the homework Cain assigned every day. Thinking of his monstrous thing, I diligently loosened my bottom with a teaspoon.

How many days passed like that? Cain opened the door again.

“Hi, babe.”

Cain wasn’t drunk or in a robe, but in a clean suit with pomade hair.

It happened to be when I was poking my bottom with a teaspoon.

“Oh, hello, Cain?”

I greeted him with the teaspoon handle in my hole. I felt like dying of embarrassment, yet there was a small thrill in greeting him with my butt.

“I was doing the homework. You told me to loosen it up in advance…”

As soon as Cain’s gaze turned to my hole, I quickly answered.

“Aha. Homework.”

Missing the timing to remove the teaspoon, I lay on my side, looking up at him with it still in my hole. Cain approached.

“You were preparing in advance because you don’t like pain?”

“Yes, yes…”

“Good.”

Despite the kind words, his face was expressionless. His odd eyes felt colder today.

Cain came to the bed and stared down at me. Then he smiled. A smile with only the corners of his mouth, the same strange smile I’d seen before.

“Keep it loosened like this in the future. Got it?”

Instead of answering, I nodded. It felt like sweat was coming from my hole.

At a glance, his front was already bulging, as if he was aroused. Knowing its menace, I swallowed dryly.

Soon, the teaspoon in my bottom would come out, and Cain’s thing would enter the inside I worked hard to loosen but hadn’t at all. As I braced myself, Cain reached out and gently stroked my head before pulling away.

“I’ll give you a reward next time.”

And he left the room.

I was left dumbfounded. I thought for sure he’d put that monstrous thing inside me.

‘What… what’s going on? No sex?’

Without sex, I wouldn’t get paid, and I couldn’t satisfy Cain, so I couldn’t leave here.

I got goosebumps. I even thought maybe Cain’s impotence was cured.

‘Then maybe he doesn’t need me?’

I suddenly thought I might be kicked out and unable to earn more money.

‘That would be perfect.’

It meant I just had to wait to be kicked out. No more getting impaled by that hideous thing. Maybe Cain would even pay me for curing his impotence. Once again, I realized that living energetically makes anything possible.

Thinking I could soon leave this fancy, grand, suffocating, gloomy prison made me excited. I sang loudly and jumped on the bed.

I knew I shouldn’t jump on the bed, but who cares? And it had been so long since I’d slept in a bed that I needed to use a bit of the trampled bed.

“Oh! Oh! Under the hot summer! My New York! New York!”

I sang one of the top 100 rock songs to sing in summer—Cherry’s selection. It was a song Cain composed. It felt unreal to be singing his song in his house.

But my excitement didn’t last long.

I still couldn’t leave here.

Maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow will be okay. When I wake up, someone will come to kick out the useless Cherry, I thought, as days seemed to pass. The wound on my index finger started to heal, moving to my middle and ring fingers.

And Cain didn’t come.

‘Is he busy?’

Yeah, Cain must be too busy to pay attention. In just a few days, I’ll be free from this fancy prison.

But contrary to my expectations, no matter how much time passed, the door wouldn’t open. Cain didn’t come.

That’s when I realized something was wrong.

What if Cain never comes for me, and I’m trapped here forever? Even though I knew that couldn’t be, my heart sank.

When you’re alone, you tend to think all sorts of strange things. The fact that Cain could do anything to me drove me crazier.

‘What should I do?’

Did I do something wrong? Is that why Cain is leaving me like this? Meals still came regularly, but an inexplicable anxiety slowly consumed me.

Anxiety is a nasty thing that seeps in whenever there’s a gap. No one can beat it. It’s like trying not to smell by not breathing.

I kept waiting helplessly. Even pretending to be energetic was no match for anxiety.

It was strange. Every man I’d met before never left me alone. They tried to subjugate me, to pin me down. Most of the time, it was sexual. They said shaking their thing in my mouth made them feel like they were dominating me.

Cain should have been the same. Everyone who thought of me as a prostitute was like that.

So why wasn’t Cain trying to pin me down? Could it be… I didn’t even have value as a prostitute?

Then why was Cain leaving me here? Did he forget about me?

I could tell how grand and enormous Cain’s mansion was just by glimpsing it. There were countless other guests besides me.

In such a mansion, would anyone notice if someone like me disappeared? Would anyone even know?

Even the person bringing meals no longer showed their upper body, just slid the tray in and left. Before, there was at least a chance to talk, but now even that was impossible.

Moreover, the intervals between meals seemed to be getting longer. It might be my imagination, but without a clock, I couldn’t confirm.

What if the intervals between meals kept getting longer, and eventually, I was forgotten here?

Rational thinking was impossible. If there were windows, I could curse at the sun, and if I could see a person’s face, I could scream to assert my existence, but this place was a prison where everything was blocked.

I was never sane. From a very young age, ever since I saw my mom stab her neck and die in front of me, I’d grown up seeing hallucinations.

It wasn’t hard for my already messed-up mind to become more chaotic. Just like water mixed with ink can never become clear again.

I hated Cain for only a few days. My messed-up mind didn’t even have the strength to hate him.

More than that, I wanted to do drugs. That damn drug I only had once was turning my mind to mush. Or maybe my mental illness was the culprit. Who cares who the culprit is?