“Did you once murmur the very same words to her?”
I hear the soft rustle of her moving lower—an almost inaudible kiss, the stubborn brush of long hair against skin. Eighteen weeks heavy, I cradle my belly and flatten myself against the far end of the corridor, angling for the sliver of light leaking from the half-open bedroom door. My body is still light enough to hurry, yet in this moment my knees slacken as though begging for a steadying arm.
Was this scene truly what I longed for?
Black smoke rising
Can the child inside me hear the hushed moans of his father and a stranger? Each time the thought sharpens, I wonder why anger never arrives—only a feverish heat in my chest. Instead of remorse or betrayal, I feel the reckless urge to embrace the very contamination. It is as if my fear—that my altered, pregnant body no longer excites him—has been inverted into a deliberate dare. What I called “permission” now feels like a command.
If you grow filthy, then I may plunge into the mire with you.
The words I whisper slip down like silent tears.
Jiyu & Dohyun, and the future lover
First house
Jiyu, five months married, twenty-two weeks pregnant. Her husband Dohyun tosses the accusation over his shoulder like an old coat:
- “Hey, remember you once said ‘I’d understand if you slept with someone else’?”
- “That… was my way of begging you never to.”
Yet Jiyu has already trawled his phone and learned the woman’s name: Seoyun, twenty-six, the newest hire at his firm. While Dohyun showers, Jiyu opens KakaoTalk and sends the girl a spare, almost polite invitation.
Hi, I’m Dohyun’s wife. Come to our place tonight—no one will be home.
Seoyun hesitates, then her curiosity sparks at the farcical premise of a sanctioned affair. That evening Jiyu simply switches off the living-room lights. She hears every tentative footstep, the tremor of fingers on the doorknob. Softly, she murmurs the name they have not yet chosen for their baby.
When you finally have a name, will you remember this night whenever you think of your father?
Why does it burn so brightly?
The door barring the bedroom is only a transparent wall exposing our inner borders. The surge of pregnancy hormones is not the culprit; rather, it is a raw deficiency—you may now escape me—that ignites. The self-hypnosis repeats:
- I am no longer desirable.
- If you touch me you might hurt the baby.
Thus the “permission” is a perilous wager: Surrender, so that you will crawl back to me. The more taboos we shatter, the more fiercely we believe something incandescent will leap between us.
Cherry & Taeho, at the returning door
Second house
Cherry, three weeks before delivery, makes Taeho an abrupt proposition:
- “I’m afraid you’ll be disgusted by how fat I’ve grown. So… be with someone else.”
Taeho flushes, then quietly nods. Cherry presses a motel key into his palm. This time the woman is a nameless streamer. That evening Cherry turns on a YouTube livestream; for a flicker, the camera catches Taeho’s back. Comments erupt. Cherry rests her hand on her belly and wonders, Who, exactly, am I watching?
Next morning Taeho shakes water from his hair.
- “I’m sorry. Never again.”
- “It’s all right.”
Cherry’s blink carries not forgiveness but the chill of an opening curtain.
After the door closes
The baby still somersaults. The sheets are freshly laundered, yet last night’s scent may linger. In this hush, the expectant mother speaks to the life inside her.
Darling, once you are born, we will invite yet another stranger—neither father nor mother…
What waits beyond that threshold is an undreamed-of taboo, pristine and unmarked.
Did you truly wish your lover to be soiled, or did you believe that within that very stain you might shine anew?