“Excuse me, you’ve got a hair on your—” The waiter let the sentence trail off. Jae-woo shrugged and drew two fingers down the back of his neck. One long black strand coiled itself and slipped quietly to the tablecloth. Jet black. I wear a bob. He said nothing, only twisted the stem of his wineglass between thumb and forefinger. I didn’t ask whose hair it was or how it had settled there. The fact that I didn’t ask drove me closer to the edge.
The Smile in the Mirror
The private dining room for our first anniversary. Candlelight carved a clean line along Jae-woo’s jaw. The question Are you happy? was only a heartbeat away, but in that single pulse I saw another woman. The woman I had watched waiting wordlessly beside Jae-woo’s car in the parking lot behind this very restaurant—perhaps kissing him, perhaps only holding the door handle, willing him to stay. Since that night I began to look at him differently—no, I became addicted to seeing him not as my husband but as some woman’s man.
Is she pressing her lips to the nape of his neck right now? Each time the thought surfaced, a slow heat flared in my chest. Not anger. Arousal.
The Chemistry of Desire
Textbooks call this feeling burnout. Yet I still loved Jae-woo. Loved him so much I wanted to be soiled by it—I wanted to watch my husband be soiled by another woman. The craving multiplied like cells under a microscope:
- Whenever he came home late I stood in the bathroom sniffing his jacket: perfume, cigarette smoke, the green-apple scent of someone else’s shampoo.
- While he showered I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, breathing in the steam curling under the door and wondering if she had breathed the same.
- After he fell asleep I stole his phone. No messages, but in the gallery I found a selfie: Jae-woo looking exhausted into the lens, and in the corner the edge of a woman’s finger, a nail polished with pearly glitter. Each time I took one more photo of my own—secret, silent, mine alone.
Two Women in an Elevator
A chance meeting at a café near the subway station. Her name was So-hee, a junior from Jae-woo’s club.
— Did you see us today?
— …Pardon?
— Oh, my mistake. You just felt familiar.
She laughed easily and set her cup down. I glanced at her nails: pearly glitter. Exactly the same. We stepped into the elevator together. As the doors shut, she spoke again.
— You married Jae-woo-sunbae, didn’t you?
— …
— I thought so. You look like someone in love.
She lifted one shoulder in a small shrug.
— It’s not what you think. When you like someone, it shows.
The doors opened. So-hee walked out with a light tap of heels, leaving her scent behind—that scent—lingering like smoke in a closed room.
Why Do We Crave the Desire of Others?
One year in, my husband had ceased to be mine and become the object of someone else’s desire. Measuring the temperature of that desire turned out to be a way of measuring myself.
- When I watch Jae-woo through another’s eyes, I become the Other to myself.
- When he looks at someone else, I see in his gaze the lack I carry inside me.
- I want to look deeper—to find whether that lack is also mine.
Psychologist Robert Sternberg claims that when passionate love cools, only intimacy remains. We have learned, however, that to rekindle passion we sometimes need the gaze of a stranger.
A Final Question
One year married, I love Jae-woo. Or loved him. Or I can no longer be certain. What I do know is that even now I am still searching for the single hair that might still be clinging to the nape of his neck.
So tell me: when was the last time you looked at your lover with someone else’s eyes? And where did that gaze take you?