PD Ch3

‘This child doesn’t even have a girlfriend yet.

He’s definitely going to get teased a lot if he goes to Korea.

It’s even stranger here.

Don’t you perhaps dislike women?’

There was no way a man who ran a large business in both Korea and the United States would lack such perception. He looked neater than my mother had described, and he wasn’t the typical worn-out businessman type. He had an intellectual air, reminiscent of a university professor who would hole himself up in his lab for a week trying to solve a single problem. He had simply smiled and glanced at me when my mother said such nonsense.

With the help of the driver, I put the man in the back seat of the car and sent him away, wiping the damp saliva that remained on my earlobe with my sleeve. I hoped this was just a simple mistake or a bad joke. A man who loved my mother and could be financially supportive was as desperate for me as he was for her. Her desire to be a woman, not just a mother to her child, and her penchant for luxury were like an unbearable debt to me. I was the one who most desperately wished for my mother and the man to work out in some way.

A few days later, when my mother went out to a meeting and the man, who was supposed to be returning home soon, suddenly came to the trailer where I was alone and confessed his feelings, I felt like I had hot water poured over my head. In the end, I coldly told the man who had blindsided me,

“You must have misunderstood something. I’m not gay.”

I swallowed my beer and chewed on the peanuts that came as a service. They tasted of nothing, just fishy, perhaps because they were undercooked. I was running my finger down the surface of the bottle, which was covered in moisture, and recalling what had happened back then.

Where did it all go wrong…?

“Are you waiting for someone?”

I looked up. It was the man I had made eye contact with a little while ago. A black suit that hugged his body neatly, and on the end of his arm leaning against the bar was a four-thousand-dollar Hamilton watch that I had seen in the duty-free pamphlet on the plane. A handsome face and a sense of style that matched his tie, shoes, and watch with brands of similar name value. An ego that believed investing in himself was the highest value.

In an instant, I read him. His sophistication was irritating. I didn’t particularly like the style of openly promoting himself. I preferred men who naturally exuded intelligence. Although I had never met such a man.

I averted my gaze with a disinterested expression.

“Not really.”

“Does that mean I can sit here?”

“…”

That wasn’t why I came here. I didn’t want to care whether he did or not, so I didn’t answer and turned my head forward. The black suit smiled slightly and sat on the stool right next to me, ordering the same beer as me.

“Looks like you’ve been here for a while. Did you drink all this by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a student?”

The black suit took a sip of his beer and asked.

“Yes.”

I didn’t have the naivety to reveal my personal information in a place like this. I hated revealing my identity, so I deliberately went to another town far from where I lived. After mingling with a man I would never contact again and returning home in a car, feeling the hazy dawn air, I resolved never to do this again, and I would endure until masturbation was no longer enough, and when my mother fell asleep, I would quietly leave the trailer in the old Camry we shared. Desire would habitually come and mess me up.

“I’m a regular here, so I know, is this your first time here?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

He seemed to think that my reluctant monosyllables were due to fear and naivety, wary of unfamiliar places and unfamiliar people. The black suit persistently threw questions at me without showing any displeasure. Yes, no. Yes, no. The conversation couldn’t continue like this. He stopped talking. An awkward silence flowed for a moment. The words that came out after that were completely unexpected.

“Want to get out of here?”

“…?”

Only then did I give the black suited man a proper look. He seemed embarrassed, as if my staring eyes were asking what kind of trick he was playing.

“No, not in that sense, I mean let’s go somewhere quiet.”

“I’m not really interested.”

“Not fond of me?”

“It’s not that, I just came out because I didn’t want to be alone.”

“So I’ll be with you.”

“…”

“I’ll pay. Let’s go.”

“…”

I scolded myself for blurting out that I didn’t want to be alone after drinking a little, grabbed the field jacket I had placed on the stool next to me, and stood up.

He paid. As I pushed open the glass door, the music faded heavily into the distance. The man, who had grabbed my wrist to stop me from heading to the stairs, gestured towards the elevator. I saw the elevator door painted in matte black. The walls were also painted in matte paint, so I didn’t even know there was an elevator.

“People who come here for the first time get confused.”

“…”

“What’s your name?”

“Why do you want to know my name?”

He raised his eyebrows as if he didn’t quite understand what I was saying.

“What’s the point of knowing a name that you won’t even remember tomorrow morning? Let’s not ask each other about that kind of thing.”

“…Ha.”

Rather than being funny, a slightly unpleasant look of hurt pride flashed across his face. The man didn’t ask any more about names. He didn’t say anything else and turned towards the elevator with his hands in his pockets.

The door opened and spat out a few people. As they got off and disappeared towards the glass door, I got on the elevator with him. It was a cramped elevator that could barely fit four or five people. As I stood with my back against the wall, my shoulder bumped against the black suit.

As soon as the elevator doors closed, something hot suddenly pressed down on my lips. I frowned. Hot, flushed lips forced mine open and aggressively pushed a tongue inside. As my lips parted, something slimy rushed in. The black suited man’s hand was painfully twisting my shoulder.

“Ugh…”

My breathing became erratic. As soon as his lips left mine, I twisted my body and pushed his hand away.

“What are you doing?”

“Haa, do you know how fucking hot you look?”

“Get your hands off me.”

The hand gripping my shoulder didn’t let go. I struggled once. The man came at my lips again. I twisted my shoulder but didn’t turn my head. I left it as if abandoning myself to the lips that were painfully chewing and the tongue of a stranger that was poking around inside me. Our bodies bumped against each other in the narrow square box. When the elevator doors opened, the man fell away. I unpleasantly wiped my wet lips with the back of my hand, looked ahead, and flinched.

Someone was standing there.

A tall, lanky man was looking inside with a blank expression. Our eyes met. I quickly averted my gaze in shame at having been caught showing something I didn’t want to show. After all, this was a place where only people who came with such thoughts entered. There was nothing to be ashamed of. I knew that, but my face flushed at the sight of the piercing gaze that stabbed me so clearly.

“Let’s get off.”

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me out. As we got off, the tall man got on the elevator and disappeared.

We came out of the building. The vibrant night view of Itaewon unfolded. It was more dazzling and complicated than I had expected. Cars were parked haphazardly, and people were standing around in groups of three or five. Black and white people were laughing with beers in their hands. They were flirting with women who had their legs exposed in short bottoms, exhaling long, white breaths. I scanned the chaotic scenery of the street.

“Want to go to my apartment?”

The man asked. As I straightened my disheveled clothes, I realized that my phone wasn’t in my pocket, so I twisted the wrist that the man was holding to free myself.

“What’s wrong?”

“My phone is gone.”

“Did you leave it at the bar?”

“Lend me your phone.”

He readily unlocked his phone and handed it over. My heart suddenly became anxious.

Imagining my stepfather or mother calling the lost phone made everything terrible. The name of the gay bar in Itaewon might come out of the mouth of the person who answered the phone, and if that became an excuse and my stepfather found out that I was gay, it would be like setting fire to flammable material.

My stepfather, who might be masturbating while thinking of my naked body, couldn’t bring himself to reveal such shameful lust. Both he and I knew that the fact that a man desired a man meant that there was a fundamental revulsion that ordinary people could not understand. I had to find it before my stepfather or mother called.

I hurriedly dialed my phone number. It was a number I had opened after arriving in Korea, so it didn’t come to mind easily. I pressed and deleted the numbers, hesitating for a moment. The man with the Hamilton watch was watching me silently, waiting without urging me.

“Hello, yes, did you pick up a phone? I’m the owner of the phone. Where are you now? I’ll come pick it up.”

The person who answered the phone was a man. The jazz I had heard in the Trax could be heard beyond his voice. I became anxious.

“I’ll go down now. Yes. Would you do that? Thank you. Yes.”

It was a relief. The man who picked up the phone said he would come out to the entrance. I returned the phone to Hamilton.

“Since we’re people who won’t even remember each other’s names tomorrow morning anyway, is it okay if I leave my number?”

He asked as he took back his phone. I had just used his phone to call my own. The number would be left intact. I raised my eyes to him.

“Find my phone and I’ll wait for you in the car.”

He, who had been cleverly walking the line between sarcasm and playfulness, took out the car keys from his pocket and walked towards the parking lot. I went back inside the building. I waited for the elevator to come up. The door painted in black paint didn’t even have a button to indicate the number or a light to indicate up or down. I could tell that the elevator was moving by the sound of the rails turning. Soon, the door opened.

“…”

This was a disaster. It was the man I had met in front of the elevator a little while ago. The tall man looked surprised to see me. He took out his phone from his pocket and handed it over silently. His meaningful eyes stared intently at my face. I didn’t know where to look, so I couldn’t bring myself to look at him and lowered my gaze as I took back my phone.

“…Thank you.”

I barely managed to say hello, and when I looked up, the man, who had been hesitating about something, opened his mouth.

“Excuse me.”

“…Yes?”

Before he could say anything, the elevator doors closed. Ah, we both paused, but the elevator completely closed its doors and descended. I held the phone he had handed me in my hand and looked down at it silently.

“Yes. In the elevator. No. I’ll go up.”

A low voice that made one side of my chest sink.

I didn’t know if it was because of the voice or if my heart was pounding because I was simply recalling the voice of the man who had witnessed my shame. The voice with a tone that was low enough to be confusing and the man’s expression remained vividly in my mind.

What was he trying to say?

“…”

He was someone I would never meet again anyway. Moreover, I didn’t have the mental space to meet a man right now