Chapter 49

The start of our dual pleasure was great. The middle was great. But the end was not.

After the massage, I frowned as I was carried out of the spa room. Lee JiHan placed me on the bed different from where we were last night. Finally, he wrapped the front of my gown tight around me so it wouldn’t fall open.

“Ah! Are you fanning the flames?” I spat out angrily.

Lee JiHan just tightened the knot of my gown. “I’m extinguishing the flames.”

“Oh, why! Why! We’re married now!” I protested. “Doing this after marriage is like a campfire! You have to enjoy it together, why are you extinguishing it, why!”

“After a full recovery, we can enjoy it again,” he said.

“But I want to do it now!” I argued pounding my fists into the bed sheets.

Lee JiHan covered my lips with his. His tongue slowly started to intertwine with mine.

Oh... I want to do it more!

As if an electric fan had been turned on over a fire, the fire inside me danced around uncontrollably. Like he had disconnected the electricity, the movement in my mouth stopped. Lee JiHan’s lips fell away from mine.

“I’m sorry, but let’s resist. We can’t today,” Lee JiHan told me strictly and laid down beside me.

“Why? I’m saying it’s OK!”

Even at my insistence, Lee JiHan stayed lying straight in bed with the blanket up to his neck. He turned off the light with the remote.

As it went dark, I felt like ice water was tossed over me because I could feel Lee JiHan’s determined will.

“Really... Are you really just going to sleep?” I poked Lee JiHan’s shoulder with a glimmer of hope, but his body was as still as stone.

“Do you know how many women had to go get treatment at a hospital after their honeymoon?” he asked.

“What?”

“With the wedding planning and a prolonged flight, they are already drained of energy,” he said. “Then, they go overexert themselves. So, tonight we will sleep just holding hands.”

Showing not the slightest hint of compromising, Lee JiHan held my hand. With his other hand, he pushed the blanket up to my neck.

Ugh... Does he really expect me to go to nirvana just holding hands? I sighed as my expectations sizzled.

He was protecting me, so I wouldn’t overexert myself. So, why did I feel like he shoved me into a nunnery. I felt tears come to my eyes. I closed them and bit my lip, forcing myself to fall asleep. Just as I had done on the plane, I counted. One star, two stars...

Oh... I could hear that moktak sound again. Maybe I should memorize the Buddhist chants too...

***

Due to the immense service I received the day before, waking up the next morning was unbelievably comfortable. My thighs were still a little tense, but it wasn’t much to complain about. I moved around energetically to prove a point to Lee JiHan.

Look at me. I’m fine! We can do the campfire today! I repeated in my head as I circled around the bed.

He had just woken up and looked at me with a please expression. “Should we go Las Vegas sightseeing since our departure time is at night?”

“Uh, I thought we were doing the sightseeing another time?” I asked, not hearing the answer I was expecting.

“I said that thinking you’ll still be tired today, but you seem to be in good condition,” he replied.

“No, not that!” I scuttled to the bed and sat in front of Lee JiHan. With desperate eyes I grabbed his arms. “What we couldn’t do yesterday, we can do today.”

At my words, Lee JiHan’s expression hardened. “We can’t do that today either.”

“Why? Look I’m fine,” I said.

“We have to get on a plane and fly to New York,” Lee JiHan said. “It will take six hours, so you’re forbidden to do anything to overexert your body.”

All the strength in my body left me. My mind drew a blank.

“Today... Today too...” I mumbled incoherently.

Lee JiHan raised himself up and said, “Really. Why are you like this? Like a person that has no tomorrow.”

He grabbed my face with both hands and kissed me.

“There is a tomorrow?” I asked without hope or dreams. “Mister... Do you just not want to do it with me?”

“What?”

“You just don’t want to do it with me, so you’re making all these excuses, aren’t you?”

As I said this lacking confidence, Lee JiHan looked at me with a disbelieving expression.

“If it’s not that, how could you be like this?” I asked. “Other people say that they are the most passionate on their honeymoon. Like, the moment they make eye contact with each other electricity flies. How could you become a stone Buddha after one time?”

Lee JiHan sat without a word, looking at me like someone with a lot on his mind. Finally, he spoke with a heavy voice. “I’m not a stone Buddha.”

“Then what are you? A gold Buddha?” I sarcastically asked.

“Gold or stone. If I was Buddha, there wouldn’t be this raging fire inside me,” Lee JiHan said with his teeth clenched.

“What? Then, why are you holding back? Let’s just do it,” I said.

“I asked the marriage counselor about this, and he told me that a bad experience in bed can mess up a marriage for a lifetime,” Lee JiHan replied. “Like I told you yesterday, there’s a lot of women that overexert themselves during their honeymoon and have to get treatment. That pain caused a trauma they couldn’t shake off, and they developed a disorder against it.”

“Really?” Trauma. A disorder! I suddenly became scared after hearing about the seriousness of the possible damages that I haven’t even known about.

He folded his hands over mine and explained to me in a calm and soft voice. “My AhJung got on a plane for the first time and stepped foot on foreign soil for the first time. You already have weak stamina, so your body will have difficulty coping with it all. If I think about all that, then I can resist the fire inside me a hundred more times. The December first snow that we are welcoming as husband and wife has just began. I don’t want to dump ashes on it with negative and difficult memories.”

I could understand where he was coming from. No, I understood it completely. I was only thinking in the moment. This man was thinking far into the future, with forever in mind.

After the realization, I agreed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know... I was acting childish.”

As I said this hanging my head, Lee JiHan raised my head back up and said, “You can’t go back on your word when we get to New York.”

“What? What word?” I asked in confusion.

Lee JiHan repeated back what I said earlier word for word. “Other people say that they are the most passionate on their honeymoon. Like, the moment they make eye contact with each other electricity flies. How could you become a stone Buddha after one time?”

He added, “I’ve engraved those words into my head. You just wait until the honeymoon is over. We’ll see if the honeymoon is the most passionate time. If that’s the only time where our eyes meet and electricity flies, I won’t have a reason to resist like a stone Buddha any longer.”

Even though it was meant as a warning, I felt like I had tasted heaven. “Ah, I wish tomorrow would hurry up and come! I want to go hurry up and go to New York!”

Excited to start our new life as husband and wife in New York, I was unable to stay still and shot up. “Oh, why is time going by so slowly? Why is it not tomorrow yet?” I paced back and forth next to the bed.

Lee JiHan got up next to me and said, “Let’s go sightseeing. It’ll make the time go faster. It will be much faster than us staying in the room.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea! I love it! Let’s do that!”

At my nodding, Lee JiHan laughed.

***

On the last day of our honeymoon, we got out of our room and walked around the streets of Las Vegas.

What if we lose our way? What do we do if we meet a robber with a gun?

I would have been plagued by such thoughts if it was the old me. Now, even though I was walking in a foreign place, I had no worrying thoughts.

Oh, even just walking around like this holding hands makes me so happy!

I was drunk on this love. Consequently, everything in Las Vegas looked breathtakingly lovely. Even the dog feces rolling around the streets looked lovely. I thought nothing could break my happiness while we were roaming the streets of Las Vegas.

But... In the middle of the casino, I stood next to the slot machine with a large paper cup in my hand sobbing. “Oh, what do I do?”

When I had entered the casino, this paper cup was filled with coins. I had pulled the handle of the slot machine without much thought and ended up emptying the entire cup.

I couldn’t remember how many rounds I had played. If the entire cup of coins was gone, I must have played a lot. Yet...

“Ah, why! Why can’t I hit one jackpot? Why? Why only me?”

I am sure I heard other people hit the jackpot around me! Everyone seemed to hit at least a small jackpot once!

I jammed my head onto the slot machine wanting to throw a tantrum.

“If I knew this would happen, I shouldn’t have started... With my luck, how could I even dream of hitting the jackpot... I just wasted all this money....”

“There’s still one coin left,” Lee JiHan said to me as he held my shoulder. He took out the coin. “You can win with this.”

“Oh, I can’t. If I lose that then I’ll have nothing? I don’t want to, I want to keep that.” I shook my head.

Lee JiHan replied back with certainty, “You won’t lose it.”

Before I could stop him, Lee JiHan placed the last coin into the slot machine.

“Ah, that’s...”

I stretched out my hand a second too late. The coin fell into the machine with a clink. Lee JiHan grabbed my floating hand and placed it on the lever. He placed his hand over mine.

“OK, here we go.” He pulled the lever I was holding.

“Oh...”

Lee JiHan pulled the lever two more times since it was the rule for the game. Just then, the slot machine spewed out coins loudly. Unbelievably, we had hit the jackpot.

“Huh, what is this? How come we’ve hit it now?!” I was so flabbergasted that I forgot to be happy about hitting the jackpot. “How come when I pull it, it’s a bust! And, when someone else pulls it once, it’s a jackpot?!”

I felt cheated as I thought about it. “Why am I the only this doesn’t work for?”

Feeling discriminated against, I kicked the slot machine. Lee JiHan hugged me from behind. “This is how lucky I am. Born with a golden spoon in my mouth, riding a golden carriage, forever surrounded by gold.”

“Are you making fun of me?” I asked.

“Self-PR time. I’m this kind of man, so don’t ever leave me,” he replied.

Lee JiHan hugged me tighter. He sat down in the chair, which put me sitting on his lap. He hung on to me with his chin propped on my shoulder and whispered in my ear, “I might be the only one with the golden spoon in my mouth, but I’ll make sure to ride the golden carriage with you. I’ll make sure the rest of your life is surrounded in gold.”

Oh... Why was I mad at the slot machine?

I tossed the paper cup in my hand to the floor with no attachment and turned my body to face Lee JiHan. As the coins clanged as it hit the metal, my lips hit Lee JiHan’s.

What more can I hope for...

Making sure to keep our lips locked, I swept my hands through Lee JiHan’s golden hair. With my eyes closed, I saw a star. It was like it had fallen out of the sky and landed right beside me. It was a golden star that only I could hold. I was determined never to let it go.