"Take off your glasses and lie down."
Jae-min, seated on the edge of the bed, spoke quietly.
On any other evening he’d grumble that I looked different without them, but tonight was different.
In the faint light his gaze was fixed on me, unwavering.
I folded the glasses—click, click—and my fingers trembled as I handed them over.
For one brief second the sticky click echoed through the room.
Then Jae-min spoke. A single sentence.
"Ji-hye, what if you moaned another man’s name while I’m inside you?"
A taste that slid in like a serpent
My body froze.
"What?" I tried to ask, but my lips were dry and no sound escaped.
Jae-min sighed against my shoulder; the heat of his breath prickled my skin.
That was when I understood why I wasn’t angry, why my heart pounded like a drum.
It wasn’t anger at all. It was a different flavour.
As soon as the three syllables touched my tongue, a vivid scene with a stranger flashed behind my eyelids.
Who had I imagined? Not Jae-min, in any case.
That night we finished in silence, mouths sealed.
The hush was so complete I had to hold my breath.
When Jae-min’s hand clutched the sheet, it seemed another man’s name was carved into his fingertips.
The shadow we met in the elevator
Two months later, the company’s underground garage.
Each time the elevator doors slid open, regret surged in.
Just thinking tonight Jae-min will order it again made my pulse race.
The doors opened. Inside stood Seung-hyun—our team leader.
He nodded, black suit, sunglasses glinting.
Seung-hyun: "Going to the first floor?"
Me: "Ah, yes…"
Jae-min’s voice rang in my skull: Say “Seung-hyun.”
Before I knew it, the words slipped out.
Me: "Seung-hyun-nim… Oh, sorry—Team Leader."
His finger paused above the button. A reaction.
In the cramped space our breaths tangled.
This is the beginning, I thought.
As I stepped out, Seung-hyun’s hand brushed my lower back—accidental, yet not.
From that day on, I stopped calling him "Team Leader."
Back-row whispers in pink light
A month later, at the cinema with my friend Su-jin.
She had married the year before; all I’d heard were anecdotes.
She leaned close and whispered:
Su-jin: "Same thing happened to me. My husband asked, ‘Is it okay to imagine you loving another man?’
At first I was dumbfounded, but once I said it… I was insanely turned on."
I stuffed popcorn into my mouth.
Me: "And then?"
Su-jin: "Since that night I use the name ‘Jin-woo’—a junior in our team.
We’ve never actually met, but when I close my eyes I can picture his face.
Whenever I say ‘Jin-woo,’ my husband’s eyes roll back. Strangely, I love that look."
That day I learned my secret wasn’t mine alone.
Su-jin’s lips glowed scarlet.
Two women, addicted to the same flavour.
Why are we drawn to this taste?
Everyone carries a hidden door marked taboo; we knock in whispers.
Any name, any touch, will do.
What matters is the possibility of fiction: a lover who exists only in imagination.
The moment the lie is spoken, pleasure sharper than reality floods in.
The essence of obsession is the joy of being taken.
When I call him “Seung-hyun” instead of “Team Leader,” I have already detached from Jae-min.
And the more frightening truth: Jae-min knows.
Each time he demands the name I’m imagining, he feels his own place tremble, yet he cannot stop.
Instead of tasting each other, we are turning each other into other flavours.
A door that will not close
Tonight, seated on the bed’s edge, Jae-min spoke again.
"This time… try ‘Yoon-ho.’"
Yoon-ho. Not a name I know, not one I don’t.
Just two syllables of fantasy.
I pressed my lips shut.
But when his hand settled on my knee, Yoon-ho was already living inside my body.
Can we shut the door?
Or will we stay in this room forever, sharing someone else’s name, someone else’s desire, until we lose ourselves completely?