11:47 p.m. Each time the living-room light goes out, a shadow lengthens by an inch, and the fermented breath leaking from the kimchi jar on the sink lays a skim of ice across the bedroom threshold. Thwack—even the lid closing sounds damp and slick. He approaches. The moment his boxer-only body presses against my back, I stare at the solitary drop of broth on the table. The scarlet oil cradling it, the sliver of vegetable that had floated there, and the thought—if this drop lands on the sheet—the dreamy brutality of it terrifies me.
“I just want one night of easy sleep.” “Again? That’s a week straight.”
I turn on the tap. I wring the dishcloth hard and whisper, just today, only today. He rolls away without a word. The glow of his phone leaks through the door; each time the lock screen opens the white wall blinks twice. I nudge the kimchi back into the fridge and shrug—apology and relief rise together.
Eight years married, our bed has always been warm. It is only I who have cooled.
In front of the bathroom mirror I pluck lashes one by one and confront thirty-four. Everyone says I still look young, yet my body keeps only the weight of a black night’s edge. When my fingertips brush skin, the first sensation is fatigue: must I pass through this ritual again? I love him, but I do not wish to be touched.
“Back then, I was fire.” I remember the newlywed winter when I woke him at 3 a.m. for kisses. The more familiar the act becomes, the more alien the feeling grows. My body has already arrived at its limit, while his still stands at the starting line.
Daejeon summer. The soju glass throbs like a pulse. “We do it every day,” Sujin whispers, tilting her glass. “But even once a week exhausts me.” She pauses, then lets the weight drop. “One morning I woke up and the person beside me… was my junior.”
I was shocked then; now I understand. It was simply that her body moved ahead of her. Skin never lies, and I feel that truth in my own.
Miyoung’s diary—Year Six, the chronicle of vanishing desire
Dec 3 Junho wanted me again. When it was over I felt irritation. He never asked what I wanted.
Jan 8 Junho asked, ‘You never start anymore—am I strange as a husband?’ I dodged the answer.
Feb 14 Valentine’s, yet no kiss. Junho couldn’t quite hide the hurt in his eyes.
Mar 15 Minseok lightly caught my wrist. Sunbae, you’re really beautiful today. After dinner, as we parted, the back of his hand grazed mine. For three seconds I trembled. A current I hadn’t felt in six years. I lied to Junho about the bill. Minseok’s kiss lasted forty-seven seconds, but my body remembered. I was frightened by how unfamiliar I felt to myself.
Same bed. Same shampoo. Same toothbrush cup. When that very comfort becomes the enemy of sex, desire hides. Even in silence the script is complete—where he will first touch, what sigh he will give, how long it will take.
Each time I refuse I carry two kinds of guilt:
- toward my husband
- toward myself
Society still carries the residue that a good wife welcomes her husband’s desire, so refusal feels like treason. At the same time another question pounds—Am I the strange one? Do other couples end up like this? The two guilts devour each other. I am sorry to him, and sorry to me. The more the apology repeats, the smaller the bedroom becomes.
What has slipped between us is not the absence of love but the tedium of desire.
If he comes to me again tonight, what words will I find? And in that answer will there be any real desire of mine, or only the ashen mixture of fatigue and guilt? I leave one small light glowing on the nightstand and curl quietly into myself.
Whose touch does your body truly crave right now?