2:47 a.m. on a summer night, beneath Jamsil Bridge. The switched-off Hyundai had turned into a cauldron. You couldn’t take your hands off the steering wheel. The leather was slick with sweat. On the pad of your right thumb his dried spit still clung. Forty minutes earlier, when he took that finger into his mouth and sucked, the air inside the car had grown steadily toxic.
"Take it out."
You spat the words one syllable at a time. Even as you pulled your finger from his mouth you couldn’t shake the feel of his tongue flicking the tip. The back of your hand glistened where his saliva mixed with your sweat.
An hour since the air-conditioning died, the cabin temperature had climbed past thirty-eight degrees. You lowered the passenger window a finger’s breadth. Outside, the air smelled of scorching asphalt. He pressed the cherry-scented diffuser you’d given him last month against his forehead. The fragrance had long since expired. The glass bottle still held a thick crimson sediment, but no scent. Instead, beads of his sweat soaked the reeds.
At your feet a plastic bag rolled about. Inside: the torn wrapper of last night’s condom, the red lipstick you wore, and blotter strips of a men’s cologne his ex must have sprayed.
Each time your shoe brushed the bag it crinkled like brittle bone.
"Remember the first time we did it here?"
You didn’t answer.
That April evening had been much the same. A spring rain threatening to fall, the far end of the Jamsil parking lot. In the CCTV blind spot he’d tipped your head back with one hand while you sat in the driver’s seat. You closed your eyes, then opened them again. The terror you felt in that split second remained intact: how much he wanted to possess me, and how willingly I hurled myself into that wanting.
He leaned closer. Between the steering wheel and his chest, barely thirty centimeters remained. His breath grazed your ear—hot. You caught the lingering scent of the kimchi-jjigae he’d eaten for breakfast. He pressed his lips to the hollow behind your jaw and sucked. You felt his saliva trail down your skin toward your collarbone.
"Why are you leaving?"
This time the words came out between ragged breaths. You couldn’t answer. Why are you leaving meant why are you abandoning me, not give me the reasons love ended. You laid his hand on your thigh. His fingers slipped beneath the hem of your shorts. No farther. You seized his wrist. His pulse hammered against your fingertips—too fast, much too fast.
From the first ride you’d known. The moment you fastened the passenger seat belt his hand had settled on your thigh so naturally you flinched, yet he started the engine as if nothing had happened. From that day on you held your breath every time you got into his car. He tasted your fear and pushed deeper because of it.
Inside the car you mapped each other’s lives. You dug through his phone for photos of ex-girlfriends; he tore the pictures of your ex-boyfriend from your wallet. Still, neither of you let go. Because that very terror was what you called love.
Now the cabin shrank. His arm circled your waist. Your spine pressed against the steering wheel; the wet leather squeaked. His knee slid between yours. You couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. His breath filled your mouth and you smelled yourself inside it: the morning’s kimchi-jjigae, last night’s beer, and your own body.
"I... I want out."
Your voice broke. He offered no reply. Instead he devoured your lower lip until it split and bled. You tasted the salt of your own blood on his tongue. His hand traveled down your back, hiking up your T-shirt. The nail marks he’d left last week still striped your skin—raw, unhealed.
The car was no longer a car. On this sweltering summer night, with the air-con dead, it had become both coffin and cradle. You lay pinned beneath him. His pupils bored into yours; in them you saw yourself—small, shabby, terrified. His hand closed around your throat. Gentle pressure. No air.
"Shall we end it here?"
You couldn’t speak. His grip tightened. Your vision blurred. Still, you reached around his waist and pulled him closer, deeper. Against his ear you whispered:
"Finish it."
The car is our private grave and cradle. Here we kill each other and bring each other back to life.
And still, your breath circles my throat.