She never looked at me once while removing her makeup and lying down beside me. It had been this way for a long time. When the scent of her night cream filled the bed, I tapped her shoulder, lightly, twice. My fingertips barely brushed her before she took out her nail clippers and began tending to her nails with quiet concentration. That, by now, was a familiar signal. Tonight—as for many nights—we were strangers in the same bed.
Nights When Body Heat Faded
Two years in, our language had changed completely. The mouth that once whispered, “I’ll be right back,” breathless with laughter, now offered only pragmatic requests: “Turn off the light.” When she changed into her sleepwear, I averted my gaze; when I collected the socks she’d dropped, I steadied myself. We moved like co-tenants of a 4.5-pyeong bedroom, negotiating space rather than bodies.
The desire hadn’t vanished. It had simply stopped aiming at each other. I brushed her waist the way one furtively checks a phone in the bathroom; she didn’t even blink. When our eyes met, we looked away in unison. It wasn’t awkwardness—it was the silence our taboo had built.
The Woman from Line 2
‘Ji-hye’ is thirty-one, a wife of two years. When her husband is late, it’s his forgotten cushion she hugs first, not him. Her husband, ‘Jun-seok’, seventeen years her senior, usually arrives after 2 a.m. She feels his hand slip beneath her underwear, but only pretends to respond. Eyes closed, she thinks: This isn’t love; it’s a collective duty.
“I don’t dislike his touch,” she says. “What I dislike is that his hand doesn’t feel me as a woman—only ‘the wife’ as an institution.”
At 4 a.m., while he sleeps, she slips to the living room. No television, no lights—just her own hand moving in the dark. The stimulus she seeks is no longer her husband, but precisely the fact that he is not there.
What We Cast Away
Why did we become strangers even in bed? Marriage promised protection, yet became a vast shield defending us from desire itself.
- Primordial desire: At first we weren’t each other’s scent preference; that uncertainty thrilled us. After marriage, the scent turned routine, the uncertainty evaporated—and so did the excitement.
- Utility of taboo: We no longer drown each other in affectionate gaze. Instead we practice ‘courtesy’, secretly masturbating and finding that secrecy sexier than any touch.
- Recomposition of desire: Our bodies have been re-sketched inside the institution. His hand does not reach for a lover but for the woman who exists under the title ‘family’. The same for her.
Desire Hidden Under the Bed
We keep a small drawer beneath the bedframe. Inside: separate secrets. I once found her vibrator; she once found the porn clips saved on my phone. We never scolded each other—simply closed the drawer again. Preserving each other’s taboo mattered more.
Perhaps we are nurturing a deeper desire within the taboo. On the mattress we don’t touch, yet under the bed we feed our illicit hunger—hotter, darker, impossibly unreal.
A Final Question
Tonight, as you reach across the sheets to touch your partner, ask yourself: do you truly want that body? Or are you obeying a desire merely to touch because the relationship demands it?