“Your hands are cold!” he shouted, and then giggled nervously. “Maybe you should warm them up first.”
Gi heard footsteps in the hallway, and Mr. Lee passed another customer to the young woman across the hall. He then shouted into Gi’s booth, “Are you almost done in there? There’s another one waiting.” His heavy footfalls disappeared once more out the door.
Gi rubbed her hands together, then placed them for a moment under her armpits. Then she reached for the man again. She grabbed his organ with the tips of her fingers, the way a person would grab a dead mouse by the tail—as if to hold it without actually touching it. It was soft and warm under her fingers. From watching the porn video and from the gesture that Mr. Lee made, she had the impression that the man would want her to pull on it rhythmically; so she gripped him gently between her fingertips and pulled. As she touched him, his body responded and she felt him get larger underneath her fingers. She tugged and pulled on it, much like how she would imagine one would milk a cow. The man closed his eyes.
“Put your whole hand around it,” he said.
Reluctantly, she gripped him in the palm of her hand and pulled.
“Not so hard,” he said.
She lightened her grip and began sliding her hand back and forth. The man responded by moving his hips to meet her hand movements. He then put his hand over hers, and began stimulating himself, through her hand. Gi understood what Jasmine had meant about men being turkeys. He didn’t really seem to care whether or not she was there. His eyes were closed, and he was making all of the movements himself. She was just a passive participant in his fantasy. It felt dirtier that way, somehow.
His breathing was getting faster and he stroked harder. Then he stopped, panting, and said, “I’ll pay the extra money. Give me a blow job.”
Gi looked up at his face.
“I want you to suck my cock,” he said. “Now!” He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her to her knees. A shock of pain went through her legs as she hit the floor. His stiff penis was directly in front of her, looming large from such a close angle. She had not expected the pungency of the man’s sexual smell. She had not thought of its having any particular odor, though now it overwhelmed her—a strong, sour, earthy odor—and it turned her stomach. She knew what was expected of her, but she could not bring herself to put her mouth on it. “Come on, I’m almost there!” he begged. “Suck it!” He grabbed the back of her head and forced it toward him. His penis mashed against her nose and lips, and he began to grind it into her face. “Open your mouth. I want you to suck my cock!” She parted her lips and he thrust himself inside her. The taste was powerful and the tip of his penis made contact with the back of her throat. He started thrusting himself in and out of her mouth, but sickness overcame her and she retched, vomiting all over him and his trousers and onto the floor.
“What the fuck?! You bitch!” he shouted loudly, pulling back. The swinging doors opened and Gi could hear footsteps running down the hallway. Mr. Lee pulled the curtain open, mouth agape.
“What happened here?” he demanded.
“I told her I would pay the extra money for a blow job, then the fucking bitch puked on me,” whined the man.
Mr. Lee whistled loudly and a man dressed all in black came running through the double doors. “Take this gentleman upstairs to a private room where he can get himself cleaned off, then send a girl in to service him properly,” Mr. Lee ordered. He then turned to the man in the booth, “I am awfully sorry about this. She’s new. We’re going to take you upstairs where you can get cleaned up, and then send you a full-service whore to take care of anything you need—on the house. Afterwards, come on down and have a free drink at the bar.”
The man stepped out of his spoiled trousers and followed the man in black out the double doors. Mr. Lee then turned to Gyong-ho, who was choking and crying on the floor. He reached in and grabbed her by the hair, lifting her up to standing. She made a swallowed scream. “Clean this shit up,” he said to her in a loud, angry whisper. He was still holding her hair, pulling her head back. “If you ever do that again, I’m going to take you in the back and teach you a lesson you will never forget. We have customers waiting, so get cleaned up.” He turned on his heel and marched out the door.
49
“
W
OULD
YOU
CARE
FOR
a glass of champagne?” Mr. Choy asked Il-sun as soon as her friends had been taken away. They were in his office, and his charm had been restored.
“What’s champagne?” she asked.
“I can’t believe a beautiful woman like you has never tried champagne,” he said, producing a bottle from a small refrigerator behind his desk. “Don’t the men up North know how to treat a lady?” He untwisted the wire restraint and removed the cork from the bottle with a loud
pop.
“All the most sophisticated ladies drink champagne,” he said, pouring golden, bubbly liquid into two tall-stemmed glasses.
“Thank you,” she said, receiving a glass. She was wary of Mr. Choy, but also curious. She lifted the glass to her lips and sipped. The liquid was sweet as it passed over her tongue and tickled in her throat as it went down. After she swallowed, it left her mouth feeling tingly and dry. It was wonderful.
“With your looks, you can go far in this business. I have a feeling about you, Il-sun,” said Mr. Choy
“You do?” She took another sip of champagne.
“Don’t let what you’ve seen here frighten you. I’m going to take care of you. Ease you into it. You only have to do what you’re comfortable with, and that’s all.”
Il-sun nodded, in spite of her apprehension. She pushed Jasmine’s earlier warning out of her mind.
“You’re a natural at this. I can tell,” Mr. Choy continued. “A lot of girls have the right body for it, but they don’t know how to carry themselves. But you—you have that special something. I know it can take some adjustment for a girl like you to get used to this business. But I can take you a long way. I could even make you famous.”
“Famous?” Even in North Korea there were famous people, movie stars and music idols, who were the pinnacle of glamour and prestige.
“You start here and get the hang of Internet dancing. Maybe we’ll have you try it once or twice at the club. If you learn fast, I can probably get you into the movies within a month or two. If you work hard and have enthusiasm, I’d say your success is assured.”
Il-sun smiled in spite of herself. She looked away to try to hide it—she did not want him to know that his flattery was having an effect. “But I don’t want to take my clothes off in front of anybody,” she replied.
“Why not?” he asked with exaggerated shock on his face. “You’re so beautiful, and everyone should get the chance to admire your perfect body. It would be a shame to keep it hidden. You’re a piece of beautiful art, like a sculpture, and you deserve to be appreciated. Have some more champagne.” He refilled her glass—the first one had gone down easily—and removed a hardcover book from a shelf above the desk. He handed it to her. It was a book of black-and-white art photography nudes. “Look at these pictures. They’re a celebration of the human body! A woman’s body is the most beautiful thing in the world,” he said, outlining her figure in the air with his hands. “And it should be admired. That’s what our business is: the appreciation of the female body. We celebrate it.”
Il-sun looked away again, hoping to suppress another smile that was tugging at the corners of her lips. It only made her feel coy, which was compounded by the champagne—it was very different from whiskey. She then focused on the book in her hands. It was mostly photos of women in waterfalls, or sprawled on rocks, and she had to concede that they were beautiful.
“Where are Gyong-ho and Cho?” she asked, attempting to conceal her being both embarrassed and flattered, and to remind herself that, even though Mr. Choy was being nice, she was still his captive.
“Look, everyone has a different area of this business where they can excel. You have something special that we need to cultivate, and we can do that best here, at the studio. I’m grooming you for the movies. If you’re successful here, then you will be able to take care of them. Those girls don’t have the same star quality that you do, but there are other things they can do. Don’t worry about them. They will be well looked after, I promise. When I’m done with you, after you clear your debts to me, you will have money and prestige. You will have all the rich food you could ever want to eat, a car, a nice house, people to do your cooking and cleaning. They can live with you in your big, fancy house, if you want.” He then brought a chaste, avuncular tone into his voice, and said, “Now let’s get you in the studio so you can show us what you’ve got!”
Il-sun followed Mr. Choy across the hall to a door with a sign that read, “Studio 1.” Just inside the door was an L-shaped desk where three busy men wearing headphones sat behind computers. They gave Mr. Choy a brief nod. Wires snaked from the desk to a long row of partitioned stalls, each with a camera, monitor, and lights facing into it.
“These are the dancing studios,” Mr. Choy explained. “Customers come to our website, select a girl they want to watch dance, and then the girl dances for them live. It’s that easy. They pay by the minute, so your job is to keep them interested for as long as possible. Do you think you can do that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Think of it as going one step closer to getting your papers.”
They went to the stall closest to the control desk, and Il-sun walked in. Mr. Choy turned on the lights, and Il-sun winced until her eyes adjusted to them.
“Now, you remember how you danced for me earlier?” Mr. Choy asked.
“Yes.”
“Just do that. We have a set routine here that maximizes how long the chump will stay online watching you. The trick is to draw it out as long as possible; so the rule is, you dance for two minutes without taking anything off. You can make like you’re going to, but your job is just to tease them. Remember, they’re paying by the minute. There are bells that chime every sixty seconds, to keep time for you. After two minutes, then you can start taking your clothes off, slowly. At five minutes you’re down to your bra and panties, at seven the bra comes off, and then at nine, the panties. After that, you start touching yourself. It becomes a masturbation show.”
“What’s a masturbation show?”
“We’ll worry about that when we get to it. For now, let’s just work on the first part. Remember, this is a celebration of your beauty, like in the book I showed you. Just so you can get used to it without any pressure, we’ll do a practice run. Ready?”
Il-sun nodded. She was feeling self-conscious and walked around the pole timidly. She had still not mastered walking in high heels, and the champagne made her feel top-heavy.
“Okay, here we go. This is just for practice. Going live in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”
50
M
R
.
C
HOY
FLAKED
A
couple of small crystals into a glass pipe.
Just a maintenance dose,
he thought.
Just enough to get me through.
He had almost lost his temper with the Northern girls; and losing his temper, he knew, would work against him. He struck his lighter and held the flame to the bottom of the glass. A moment later, the
hiroppong
began to bubble and smoke. He put his lips to the pipe—
just a small kiss,
he thought—and drew the smoke deeply into his lungs. Oh, how it hurt! Oh, how wonderful the hurt! He exhaled and considered reloading the pipe, but thought better of it. It was time to put the new Northerners to work.
Mr. Choy found Mr. Lee in Studio 2 on the second floor, and together they went up to his office. Jasmine was just finishing with the Northerners. The sassy girl was accustomed to whoring and did not really need training, so he sent her to the alley shop with Jasmine. The skinny girl he sent to the club with Mr. Lee, for lack of anything better to do with her. If she did not earn her keep, he would send her out of town with Mr. Lee, and he would—
No, it would not come to that. If he failed to turn a profit with his product, that was his own failing. The pretty one stayed. He knew just the right tactic to take with her, and he was eager to bend her to his will. This was the part he enjoyed—the seduction. He did this for every one of those giggly girls who wouldn’t give him the time of day when he was younger. Every time he brought a girl into the business, he felt vindicated.
He sweet-talked the pretty Northerner and plied her with champagne. He could see the fear in her eyes, but also the vanity. She longed to hear words extolling her beauty and, above all, her specialness. He doled them out, with just enough restraint to be believable. He then ushered her across the hall to the Internet studios, where he coaxed her to strike a pose on the pole. “Going live in five . . . four . . . three . . .”
Il-sun put her hand on the pole and arched her back stiffly. She knitted her brow in concentration and began to dance. It took a minute for her to start dancing away the nervousness, but it melted quickly enough. She was almost completely lost in the dance, but then she stumbled on one of her shoes.