MERRY 37

With heavy breaths, I kept scraping away at something nameless that threatened to boil over. I scratched at it until it yielded and faded away, leaving only raw traces behind. It wouldn’t disappear completely; it would linger secretly at the tip of my chin. It would remain a bomb planted inside my body.

“Phew… ngh.”

My genitals, which I had been stroking relentlessly, dangled heavily. I loosened my grip and slowed my pace, kneading as I imagined the scene on the other side of the wiretap. I pictured Ethan with earphones in, pressing a hand to his forehead and sighing. I wondered if he thought of me as an irredeemable, lowlife pervert.

“Hnnng, E…”

I almost accidentally moaned his name. Mocking myself for nearly becoming truly irredeemable, I pulled and stretched my nipples. I wished he would bite and suck them with his straight teeth and moist lips.

The targetless longing tried to aim itself at Ethan, so I cut it off hurriedly. Settling for second best, I sucked on my own fingers to get them wet and then touched my nipples. My other breast felt itchy too, but having only two hands wasn’t enough to satisfy me. One hand was busy constantly stimulating my lower half.

Feeling the warmth, touch, and breath of my solitude, the climax I was reaching was tainted with impurities. Boredom and futility. It felt as if the fluid wetting my palm might make me slip and fall into a pit.

No, perhaps I had already fallen. Before I knew it, my consciousness was wandering through a scene playing in a corner of my mind.

It was the morning of the third day Ethan had visited my room.

Even after washing up, I was half-asleep and dazed. I rested both hands on the windowsill and leaned out slightly. Soon, I saw Ethan coming out of the house next door.

His steps were leisurely yet purposeful. I could feel it—he knew my gaze was trailing him. We didn’t make eye contact, and he didn’t give any sign that he’d spotted me, but I just knew.

I had been standing there with my mouth hanging open like an idiot, and I only snapped out of it when he stood in front of my door. Flustered, I just paced around the room, unable to do anything until I finally had to welcome my guest.

In response to my frequent invitations, Ethan would pick between rejection and acceptance as if drawing from a deck of cards. Coincidentally, the frequency of rejection was much higher, but on that day, he showed up before I even had the chance to invite him.

Guided up by a servant, he knocked lightly on the door. The reality of his “considerate” behavior lay in the audacity of swinging the door wide open without waiting for an answer.

Ethan stood in the doorway, looking at me wordlessly before stepping inside. He moved his feet along the trajectory traced by his gaze. Cautiously and slowly, as if cornering prey. As he drew closer, I grew anxious, and my head bowed instinctively—guilty of rubbing my lips against his forehead and running away the day before.

As if confessing my crime, I toyed with my forehead and wiggled my toes. While I imagined jumping out the window, landing perfectly, and escaping, I felt a crushing sense of reality from the presence I could no longer ignore.

As usual, Ethan smelled wonderful. His feet stopped at a slight distance within my field of vision, but that scent washed over me. That was why I took a deep breath without realizing it.

“I didn’t come here just to look at the top of your head.”

At the low murmur that cut through the silence, I looked up as if possessed. Biting my guilty lips, I met Ethan’s eyes. Overnight, his face seemed to have ripened.

His beautiful pink lips were lushly full, and his lake-like eyes had grown even deeper. On his slightly twitching cheeks, restraint and elegance coexisted, and the way one eyebrow lifted and fell created a mature atmosphere.

“Did you sleep well?”

Having tossed and turned all night, I couldn’t take his greeting lightly. I only hoped my silence wouldn’t be seen as a protest.

“Did you reflect on yourself?”

Ethan looked like an angel descended to judge me. I had the fleeting, absurd thought that the faint breeze blowing through the window might have come from the fluttering of an angel’s wings.

“It seems you didn’t sleep much; you must have thought a lot while tossing and turning in bed. No?”

He guessed accurately, as if he had been watching me the previous night, and pressed me further. Thanks to that, the itch to speak—which was already there—became extreme. But I wasn’t the type to repent easily. Rather than begging for my sins to be forgiven, I felt an urge to defend myself.

“Somerset. Your behavior yesterday…”

“I felt like the wind blowing through your hair and revealing your forehead was fate. It felt like a situation perfectly arranged for me to kiss you. So I did it. I wanted to.”

I recalled the everyday scenery of a lush green Central Park. I could clearly see Ethan lying on his stomach on a blanket bought from a nearby shop, reading a cheap magazine. Smelling slightly of alcohol, he tilted his head, not knowing who an actor in the magazine gossip was.

When he asked if William Carter was famous, I nodded blankly. Actually, I had only heard the actor’s name; I didn’t even know any of his movies. I wasn’t interested in gossip so trashy it made Ethan cringe. I just felt like I was going crazy because the man in front of me was so pretty. I was perfectly sane when I committed the act, though.

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not the kind of guy who does that to just anyone. My lips are expensive. And I wasn’t drunk. I was sober. I kissed you simply because I wanted to.”

Refusing to dismiss it as a mistake or a joke, I clearly stated it was an act of my own will and squared my shoulders. At my sudden display of confidence, Ethan asked with his eyes:

Is now really the time for that?

I know that touching someone without their consent is wrong. I had intended to apologize for that part—at least until I thought he might not be an angel come to judge me, but perhaps a fallen angel.

If he hated me, if he resented me, if he felt he needed to throw a punch at me to be satisfied, if he wanted to punish me—he wouldn’t have eyes like that. Surely he knew the tenderness lingering in his gaze.

I stepped closer as if to wrap my arms around his waist and asked.

“But, did you sleep well?”

I would be sorry if he’d lost sleep because of me, but I wanted to hear a complaint about being tired rather than a claim that he’d slept soundly.

“We’ll see.”

Ethan, giving an ambiguous answer, used his hand to brush back the curly bangs on my forehead. He didn’t rely on the coincidence or fate provided by the wind. He created and seized it with his own hands.

The moment he leaned down and his soft lips touched my forehead, I helplessly closed my eyes.

“Ah…”

And then the low moan I let out was devoured by Ethan. He moved his lips and kissed me. He pushed his hot breath into me and tangled our tongues. I had my hands folded demurely. I didn’t know what to do with them. Then I wrapped my arms around his waist, and he cupped the back of my neck. It happened naturally. Binding each other in our own ways, we rubbed our lips together.

Surprisingly, I was rational. Accepting Ethan’s kiss was entirely voluntary, and it was also my choice to hand over the steering wheel of my control to my instincts.

The instincts that emerged boastfully turned the wheel sharply, staying true to the signals of hunger sent not from my stomach, but from my chest. I begged like a starving person, and conversely, I was consumed. The boundary between predator and prey collapsed. After greedily sucking on Ethan’s soft tongue, I submissively gave up the roof of my mouth.

Mucous membranes were crushed, and senses were stirred up. It only took an instant for the heat blooming in my mouth to spread through my whole body. It was such an overwhelmingly strong stimulus for my innocent self that the best I could do was barely shove fragments of consciousness into my blurring mind. My closed eyelids trembled slightly.

Engrossed in the passionate and lewd kiss, I was pinned against the wall. Ethan stood blocking my path, leaving no gap.

He was slightly taller than me. It wasn’t enough of a difference that I had to lift my heels to kiss him, but it was enough that I had to tilt my chin up to fully overlap and bite his lips. Conversely, Ethan leaned down slightly and overtook me.

Neither of us cared about our lips becoming swollen. We were thirsty and rough. We were like humans who had encountered an oasis after wandering the desert. We drank each other’s saliva well.

After pushing for a long time until our teeth bumped and the bridges of our noses were crushed, we finally pulled our lips apart. We rested our foreheads together, exchanging languid, loosened breaths. Ethan, who straightened out his messy breathing first, spoke in a low voice.