“Thinking about that again all day?”
September still carried the scent of summer, the sky stained an inky black. Inside the room, even the hum of the air-conditioner felt cold. Ji-hye sat on the edge of the bed and roughly pushed my hand away.
“You ask for too much. Really.”
One sentence, and the world went dark. A remark tossed off as if it were nothing froze my body solid.
Too much? Me?
The shrinking core
My relationship with Ji-hye had been “just okay” from the start. We met in a university club; our knees bumped at the first drinking party. From that night on, two and a half years. I would have done anything for her: manicures, painkillers for her cramps, queuing at dawn for the film she wanted. At 3 a.m., fighting sleep, I’d cue it up.
In bed it was no different. The taste on my tongue, the heat I never let my fingertips lose, the faint red marks on the inside of her thighs—I bent everything to fit her. And every time, I came up short.
I haven’t… come yet.
Ji-hye whispered those words against the wall by the headboard. I tried to empty my mind.
Don’t stall. Faster. Deeper.
In the end my flailing body gave out first.
Second act: 112 days with Eun-ji
Eun-ji met me on the first day without letting me pour her a single glass of water. Our eyes locked while we smoked outside a convenience store; that night we went straight to a motel. I never even asked her name.
On the 112th day she said the same thing.
“You keep trying so hard to satisfy me.”
A storm broke inside my skull. I only did it because I liked you.
Eun-ji smiled with her eyes.
“I’ll take care of my own mood. Don’t try so hard.”
It sounded like a denial of every effort I had stacked up. Isn’t love effort? If effort isn’t enough, what’s left?
After that night Eun-ji’s body drifted farther and farther away. I was alone again.
Why are we drawn to this?
Psychologists call it an attempt to compensate for a sexual void. Whenever the other person doesn’t orgasm, we decide the fault is mine. Guilt flips into the illusion of deeper love, until I start hiding not just my body but my entire existence.
Sex stops being pleasure; it becomes an exam—a gate to pass, a guardian to appease. In front of that gate I can’t take a single step, and I keep shrinking.
Did I ever want her, or only her satisfaction?
“Still, did you love me?”
A year has passed since Ji-hye and I parted. When I think of her, I still press my ear to the wall by the bed, hoping the whisper of that night might return.
Perhaps the phrase “you ask for too much” carried the fear of I can’t satisfy you. And unable to fill that fear, I finally let go of love.
Back home I look in the mirror and ask:
Did you love me, even a little? Or did you hide your own inadequacy behind the word “love”?