I NEED CHOCOLATE. Ma-ri hangs her head so that her chin nestles in the nook between her collarbones. If she hung her head any further, she would look like a marionette with broken strings. I wish I had some dark chocolate, she thinks, rummaging through her desk. But all she finds are crumpled pieces of silver paper, smudged with chocolate on one side. She's so desperate she almost smoothes out the paper and licks it.
On her desk is a heap of motor show invitations she needs to send to her customers. The invitations are more than a pile of thick paper; they signify the emotions she will soon experience. Her customers will come to the motor show, find her, expect her to smile and welcome them, then go back home without buying a single car. The manager will give her a hard time. So every time she looks at the pile she wishes she had a piece of chocolate. But she doesn't have any. Last month, when her waistline ballooned to nearly twenty-nine inches, she quit cold turkey. But her waist didn't return to its normal size. Song-uk told her he liked the slight pouch on her belly and her fleshier waist, but she didn't believe him. "You're just saying that to make me feel better. I know I'm getting old."
"No, really, I like it like this."
This conversation repeated itself several times, like codes shared between soldiers at guard posts. Song-uk admired Ma-ri's midsection, stroking it, Ma-ri was unbelieving, and Song-uk reiterated his love for it.
One day, he said, "Girls my age just have all of the negative aspects of women."
"What do you mean?"
"They're critical and picky and self-conscious and they want so many things, like kids. But they don't even know what they really want. You're different, because you have only the good parts of a woman. You're warm, you're a good listener, and you're confident. You're ready to accept what life gives you."
You have no idea, do you? You will never know, and you never should. I'm not that woman, it's just that I'm in love.
She tried to smile like Raphael's Virgin Mary, but she couldn't help smirking. Her young lover didn't notice and they kissed instead of speaking. His tongue burrowed in her mouth, attacking, as if it were a knife about to slice off her tongue. You're really confident about life. You probably think you can do whatever you want with the older woman in front of you. I used to think I could change the world, but now I realize that I can't even control my urge to eat something sweet.
Ma-ri hangs her head again. She feels a masochistic pleasure in having an affair with a twenty-year-old guy. As if she were hanging naked from the ceiling, revealing her private parts to the whole world. As if her sensitivity to criticism were becoming more and more acute, leaving her so self-conscious at meeting people's gazes that she's forced to look away, punishing herself even as she sinks deeper into the relationship.