Please Remain as a Prostitute

It’s rather strange to me.

I woke up half-naked, embracing the most beautiful woman in the world, yet I have no memory of passionately making love to her the night before.

We really just held each other, fell asleep feeling only each other’s body heat, and nothing else happened.

For some reason, that night, it felt like she had fallen asleep singing a lullaby rather than a song that summons ghosts. I lifted the blanket and rubbed my eyes as I got up. The short Tuesday holiday is over, and it’s Wednesday. It’s the day Zhou Lizhi returns after finishing the murder case, which also means I have to go back to the field early in the morning.

This morning, I left Churchill, who was reluctant to open her eyes, and slipped out of the blanket first to put on the pajamas I had taken off. Although Guangzhou is in the south, October mornings were subtly chilly. Is it the influence of the air mass? Or is it because it’s not actually that cold, but because I’ve just left the warm embrace of a woman?

Briar, who noticed that I had slipped out of her arms, raised her upper body, covering her chest with the blanket, and looked at me.

“Eun-young. Are you getting ready to go out?”

“I have to go to school. Well, not school but the field, but even that is part of the school routine.”

“I won’t wait for you to come to this room tonight.”

My eyebrows trembled. It wasn’t because I wanted them to tremble. The air was shaking. A subtle wave was flowing through this room, enough to make the hair on my body stand on end and my eyebrows tremble involuntarily.

“Come back, whenever it is.”

“I won’t be that late. Since tomorrow isn’t the weekend, I’ll have to come back to this room at night if I’m going to the field. I don’t think Zhou Lizhi herself would want… me coming out of her quarters with her.”

“Come back, whenever it is.”

She said the same thing. She’s probably not just talking about returning today.

“Bri, my friend.”

I put on the same workout clothes I wore yesterday and turned towards Briar. She was still looking at me from under the blanket, with her hair disheveled and without any underwear on.

A few tears fell from one of her eyes. A woman’s tears always make one’s heart weak, but I said what I had to say.

“The place I’m returning to isn’t you.”

“Why are you saying that?”

“Because you still haven’t given up that arrogance of thinking everything in the world belongs to you.”

I strode over to Churchill’s bed, put one foot on the mattress, and thrust my face close to hers. Even as my face came close, Briar Churchill didn’t avoid it or turn her head away. I grabbed her chin and said:

“Since when were you my hometown?”

“…”

“My hometown is in Seoul. Tell me, Bri. Are you Seoul? Are you Seoul? Is your name Jongno-gu, Seoul?”

“I don’t even know where that is.”

“My first lover is probably buried in the cold ground now. The flesh would have already rotted away, and the bones… since it hasn’t been many years, they’re probably still buried in the ground as they were. Would those bones be white? Or have they turned a dark brown, stained with soil? Don’t ask. Don’t ask why I don’t even know if my girlfriend went into a coffin or not, what kind of story there was. You’ve heard that my lover was Japanese. Just think that there must have been some reason for it, and move on. Yes. Is your name Mayumi?”

“You know it’s not.”

“If there’s a place for my body to return to, it’s Seoul, and if there’s a place for my heart to return to, it’s an unknown grave. Where are you telling me to return to? Which of the two!”

“Poor thing.”

Tears fell from Churchill’s other eye as well. Her hand caressing my face felt warm and tingly.

“You’ve lived suffering because of love. And for a long time, you’ve lived without love to avoid pain.”

“How can you assert that?”

“Because voice is music. I’m good at interpreting music. Poor child. Pitiful child. The most pitiful thing is that you can’t stand making others pitiful because of yourself.”

“…Yes, I suffered because of love myself.”

“What should I say?”

I had nothing to say. She was crying, and she was the kind of person who, at a glance, you could tell this was not a common occurrence.

Briar Churchill is crying. Though unintended, isn’t she shedding tears because of me?

I held her cheeks and pressed our foreheads together. I said:

“I’m not returning. Your words only make sense under the premise that I originally belonged to you. Give up. Sometimes, give up. The idea that everything that exists in the world belongs to you. Give up such thoughts that even the Son of Heaven wouldn’t dare to have.”

“Then can’t I even make one request to you? Eun-young, is that it? I can’t do it?”

“Anyone can make requests. It’s okay to do it anytime. But change the content. Repeat after me.”

Churchill nodded slightly with her forehead still pressed against mine. I spoke to her. She repeated my words exactly.

“Come to me.”

“Come to me.”

“Even if you’re not with me today, come to me when I call you.”

“Even if… you’re not with me today, come to me… when I call you…”

“Lie down beside me again.”

Churchill squeezed her eyes shut. The Maestro asked:

“Will you do that? Is that why you’re making me say such things?”

“I just taught you the right way to make a request. If I ever come to you, you must remember that it’s not returning but newly coming. Just thinking that I was originally yours and was taken away increases your pain. I wasn’t yours. I wasn’t your person. Even if there’s a possibility of gaining anew, it’s never being taken away. Believe that. And act like that.”

“What on earth happened?”

“What?”

“Who taught you that? When you lost your lover. Someone taught you that, right? That she wasn’t a woman who belonged to you. That it was just someone who was going to leave anyway leaving this world. Saying such things, telling you not to have lingering attachments, who said such cruel things? Who on earth forced you to believe that when you were already trembling from wounds?”

Jefferson’s face flashed in my mind.

But while I might tell Rebecca, I couldn’t tell Briar Churchill about Marilyn Jefferson.

“My teacher.”

“What a cruel teacher.”

“But it’s the truth. Our fates were misaligned, and it wasn’t a fate where we could bind each other. That’s why when she left this world, it was cut off. I forgot. At least consciously, I forgot. It wasn’t my fault, it was just that the world was heartless. She wasn’t mine. Just like I’m not yours now.”

“…I see, I understand. I understand, Seo-min.”

Churchill removed my hand from her cheek. I took my face away from her and got off the bed. Briar completely removed the blanket from her body and walked naked to the closet, starting to take out new underwear.

“Promise me one thing. I’ll wait.”

“If it’s something I can promise.”

“Even if you offer your body to Zhou. Promise me that you won’t become hers. That you’ll have the freedom to leave her on your own. Even if it’s the fate of a prostitute, promise that you’ll remain a prostitute who can sell your body to me too.”

“Is that all?”

“What more can I ask for?”

“Bri. Are you satisfied just by leaving the possibility that I could sell my body for you?”

“Your heart!”

Her voice rang out as if it was tearing. A high-pitched sound pierced deep into my eardrum. The Maestro was unable to control her emotions.

“That’s not buying. That’s no different from saying you want to buy the song itself, not the sheet music. It’s like saying you want to buy the performance, not the concert. That’s not for sale. Even if you want to sell it, there’s no way to sell it. You can only gift it. Only receive it as a gift.”

“Bri.”

“So at least remain a prostitute. Because that’s the last line I can accept as a romanticist.”

“I wonder. At this point, even if I wanted to sell my heart, would I have any heart left to sell?”

Maybe that ended five years ago.

Why did I take the hand of an American?

I don’t remember well. It seems I wanted to take revenge for something… Was it the Communist Party? Japan? The Soviet Union?

Anyway, the Communist Party killed my family, so I joined this organization because I could be hostile to them…

…I’m not sure.

Dating a Japanese woman. Infiltrating Russia and observing the lives of the residents there with my own eyes. Occasionally going to Europe, going to America, setting foot on Korean soil.

I’ve lost many things. Also, forgotten.

Among them is the desire for revenge I harbored in my teens. And the passion that put me on this path.

Even if I wanted to sell my heart, would I have any heart left to sell? Would I have any love left to sell?

“Maybe that’s why your luck with women has started?”

Briar Churchill, who seemed to have calmed down a bit, said.

“What do you mean, Bri?”

“You want to be loved. Because your heart is empty. I don’t know what kind of life you’ve lived. You’re really not an ordinary college student after all. But whatever you’ve been doing, here and there. I can see that you’ve lived while whittling away a lot of your heart. I can see that you’ve already used up a lot of love too. I told you I’m good at reading people.”

“…”

“Maybe it’s time for you to receive. To the point of overflowing and bursting. I have a feeling that maybe it’s time for you to fill up again too. If it were me now, I could only give you love that would hurt you. If that’s okay with you. If that alone can fill you.”

It will fill up to some extent. If it’s a heart like hers.