When I was younger – too young still to interest men – and had to stay hidden in the back rooms of the brothel, I watched a black-and-white documentary on television about the traditional fabrication process of rice wine.

The image of all those jars, in a neat row, filled with rice and yeast, waiting for fermentation, stayed with me for a long time. Maybe because I had never before realized that the rice wine served to customers, that made them wild and full of grabbing fingers, could have been so peaceful beforehand.

It was almost as if the jars were enclosing in their depths something that in itself was pure, but that one day would be soiled by the world. I always imagined that my life was a lot like that.

There are a hundred jars in my mind, filled with every nice thing that had ever happened to me - memories that are protected from the harsh reality of life by the sturdy ceramic. Sometimes I take them out, look at them and gather strength.

On a hot summer day Kai broke them all.

And then I shattered.

It is kind of ironic.

I always thought I would die while fighting for my life in one of Boss Kim’s missions, struggling to kill as many men as possible. But if there is one thing I’m certain of is that life has a way of screwing even the best laid out plans.

The gun is light in my hand as I walk into Sul’s old room. The strong scent of the perfume that Hyungnim had picked for her personally at Paris permeates the air all around me, but somewhere behind it I can still smell her natural vanilla aroma.

Ours relationship was a stupid and ed up one from the start – could never really amount to anything, but Sul could pretend like nobody’s business and I have always being too good at lying. So now that she is dead I pretend that there is a Heaven and that we will meet there.

The pretending reminds me of her.

I am not afraid when I press the trigger of my pistol or on the few seconds it takes my body to understand its dead. Truth is I have been dead for a long time now – I just had never realized.  

__________

i.

In the same way that chaebol children know that they will inherit their parent’s company one day, I always knew that I would became just like my mother – a open for the taking. Maybe it was as much as my fault as it was hers, because although she never made me believe I could be something else, I never tried to be either.

 I was destined to be a “pricey piece of ” as Safari often remarked and he was – as always – right. In just a few short months after my debut I had become the most expensive e working at the brothel. Men would fight for the privilege to have me for one night.

And during all of those nighttime encounters the jars were the one thing that kept me alive. Now that I think about it, it might have been smarter to hold onto to something that wasn’t so easily breakable.

1.

I can’t remember when I decided that I would join Boss Kim’s gang or die trying.

It might have been the day that my Mom got so sick because she didn’t have money for her drugs that I honestly thought she would die. I ran around the whole neighborhood, begging for help. The only one who heard my pleas was Tae Baek Hyungnim – right-hand man to Boss Kim.

Or maybe I was just born evil.

ii.

The night I met Kai for the first time I had already been with over five men. My body was sore and aching, my fingers bloodied from having clenched my fists too tight for too long and I just wanted to close my eyes and go to my jars.

But Safari ordered me to go – and if I knew something from all my years working here was that you never went against Safari, unless you wanted a beating. So I washed my hands, combed my hair and went to the reception area looking for the one that had been described to me as the youngest one, covered in blood.

 Kai was at the center of a bunch of shouting wild men, having a celebration. His white shirt was completely red, as if someone had bled to death on top of him. It gave me an eerie feeling - a premonition about my own death, perhaps.

Upon noticing me, his friends cheered and catcalled, pushing him into my arms. He stumbled and smirked letting me led him to the room assigned to us. I wondered if he was drunk, if he would be fast or if he would take his time. How much more would I have to take before finally resting?

But once we were inside the bedroom he pushed me away, hurled all the alcohol he had consumed at the floor and sat on the bed, with his head on his hands. And cried.

As I sat beside him and slowly caressed his hair, I wondered if he had jars inside of him, too.     

2.

It was the darkest shade of red I had even seen.

I had been in knife fights before, but I had never killed a man. It paralyzed me, the redness of the liquid dripping from his wound and the grunts of pain.

 The guys celebrated behind me, patting my shoulder and congratulating me on my aim. It never occurred to them to feel sorry for the groaning man at our feet. And I should have felt nothing either – surely he would have killed me given half a chance – but my eyes could not leave his hurdled form or the redness of his blood.

When the guys left to get the car, to bring me to a girl they promised me ‘gave the best s around’, I held the dying man in my arms. My shirt was soaked with his blood and there was mistrust in his gaze.

He died while I hugged him, swearing at me all the while.  

iii.

The crying man left without a backward glance, face red, probably feeling ashamed of his display. It was nothing to be embarrassed about – I, for one, had already cried so many tears to fill a whole sea.

But to see a man cry was a new thing.

Men were wild creatures in my mind, looking for instant gratification, caring nothing for what they destroyed on their path if they could have pleasure at the end of it. So maybe that was why from that first moment Kai was different to me.

It was why I would share my jars with him.

3.

From what I know of, I had only cried three times in my life. One was when my mother – so thin and wispy from all the drugs – died. The other was the day Boss Kim allowed me to be part of the gang, because I knew that I finally had found a place to belong.

I was alone both times, hidden from view, swallowing my anguish as not to seem weak to anyone – so that I could survive in this unforgiving world where I was born.

When I cried the night I became a murderer, there was a girl with me. She was extremely beautiful, this hooker who consoled me. She uttered not a word, just calmly patted my hair and sang.

Her voice reminded me of my mother.

So when a week later I told my gang-brothers of my intention to see her again, I let them think it was because of her amazing abilities in the sack.

iv.

I knew in my heart he would be back long before Kai decided to look for me again. The image of him crying while dressed in blood had become one of my most precious jars, one I would look at when men become too rough and life to bleak.

It consoled me to know that there was someone out there who felt like me – soiled, but oh so sad to be that way.

So when he finally arrived, no words were needed. We were kindred spirits.

He had little money, he murmured between heated kisses, so he only had bought the usual ‘treatment’. It didn’t matter – I did everything that I knew with him - gave it all (including myself) to this gang boy who had cried bitter tears that could have been mine.

4.

She was a very good laid, probably better than any other women I had been with, but that was not the reason that I kept coming back week after week, spending all the money I earned to pay for the few hours we were able to be together.

I didn’t know exactly the reason why I felt at peace with only her – this poor that was more broken than I. In another world people would call it ‘love’, but here there was no such thing as that.

v.

He didn’t really talk at first, kissing me as soon as we would tumble in the bedroom, holding me tight, usually bruising me. He was desperate, but not in the lustful way the other men were. His despair was deeper – it reached his very soul.

On one particular Wednesday, my cheapest day and because of that the one he came, he didn’t kiss me as soon as he arrived. He stared at me for a long time and as if he had just realized he didn’t know it, asked my name.

He was asking for much more than that, since he knew perfectly well that I went by Cherry in the brothel. He was demanding my real name, my soul – for me to be his.

And with a murmur to let him know I was named Sul, I agreed.

 5.

Buying a is quite a tricky business, especially if she was as rentable as Sul had proved herself to be.

It involved dealing directly with her pimp, a fat, smiley guy named Safari. He was adamant on a price, one that I never could have paid. Still, from that day on I agreed to go to more fights, steal more stuff and sell more drugs – just so that I could save money. As if one day I would have had enough money to buy Sul from the whorehouse and set up a little place for us.

What I would do after I was living with her – if I would ever be able to adapt to a life of relatively peace, I never considered.

vi.

Safari informed me that Kai was saving money to buy me with a sneer, insulting the gang boy for even thinking that he would ever have money enough to do so.

He was right, as usual. No matter how much money Kai saved, it wouldn’t be sufficient.

But the thought that he wanted to have me near him at all times warmed me. It fortified my jars – made me whole. So when I told him that I knew of his plan, I pretended that it was possible for us to be together someday.

Kai was, after all, much more fragile than I.

6.

Safari raised Sul’s hourly price every week, mocking me and making me spend more and more from my savings so that I could see her. He also booked more men for her, so much more than what she was used to that – when it was finally my turn – I would demand nothing and would let her sleep tucked safely in my arms.

He was killing her to have a laugh at me.

vii.

Not many people knew this, but I loved Safari. He was my mother’s lover for as long as she was alive, taking care of her even when she got HIV, taking her to a clinic in the countryside and promising to look after me.

In his own way that was he thought he was doing, saving me for someone ‘better’ than Kai. Even so, I could not hate Safari. Kai never understood, but Safari figured in many of my jars - maybe that just proved that I was as demented as anyone else in our world.

So that might explain why Safari cried tears of happiness and held me strongly when Boss Kim bought me, after trying me out.

7.

Boss Kim’s girl had died.

Nobody knew for certain from what, but one thing was clear – Boss needed another girlfriend to take the edge of his stress. He had charged us in finding someone suitable to his needs, some hooker that would be pleased and grateful enough to never betray him.

We looked around whorehouses all around the district, searching for the best one – someone that would live like a queen, if she only pleased Boss Kim. Sul was sleeping in my arms, tired again from her endless list of clients, when I realized that if anyone deserved to live an easy life it was her.

So I suggested that he bought Sul – and even booked with Safari a whole night for Boss to try her out first – which must say something very twisted about me.    

viii.

Boss Kim bought me a studio near his workplace. Its furniture was all white, its closet was full of expensive clothes and I had a maid to look after me at all times. Only my bedroom was red – blood red – Boss Kim’s favorite color.

It should have made me happy. Finally I had to entertain only one man instead of dozens, but it didn’t. It seemed so much more personal than before. At the brothel men would come and go – I knew nothing of their names, lives, habits.

It was different with Boss Kim. In the span of a week I knew what he liked in bed, the name of his children, the date to his wedding anniversary, his hobbies and his favorite food.

On the day I realized that I knew more about him than what I did about Kai, several of my jars got broken.

8.

Sul had always been beautiful, but now she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She dressed in the finest clothes and smelled only of French perfume. Boss Kim had been charmed by her, choosing many times to stay over at her studio rather than going home to his wife.

And although I was the one that had made it possible, it ached somewhere deep within when I saw their kisses and hugs – when I heard Boss Kim’s groans of pleasure behind their bedroom door.

I had never before hated anyone, not even all the guys I knew would like to do me in – but I started to despise Boss Kim.

ix.

Kai was often chosen by Boss Kim to guard me.

When that happened we would make love nonstop, hiding our pleasure from the maid, holding and kissing desperately. And even if we never touched each other inside the bedroom, I saw the redness in Kai – he was still dressed in blood.

We were cuddling in the white living room the day I told him about my jars. He laughed and mocked, but it didn’t faze me. Deep down he knew it – he too had jars like mine.

   9.

Boss Kim was suspecting Sul of betraying him. What set him off I don’t have a single clue, since Sul and I had been going behind his back for over six months now – but there it was, he wanted to catch the ‘son-of-’ who had touched his property and kill them both.

I had no alternative, unless I wanted to see Sul dead - my relationship with her, if this ed up thing we had going on could be even called that – had to end.

x.

Kai stopped coming.

Stopped answering when I called or texted him.

He stopped loving me.

And all my jars broke, one by one.

And then there were none.

10.

When we received the message from Boss Kim to go to Sul’s studio immediately, I though he had figured everything out and was calling me to my execution. All things considered I regretted that I couldn’t keep my in my pants long enough to give Sul a chance for a better life.

xi.

It seemed fit to die in a red bedroom, hanged by a red rope and dressed in Boss Kim’s favorite red dress. Red – color of desire and blood.

11.

It wasn’t that he had discovered our affair; it was that Sul had hanged herself in their bedroom and he wanted us to dispose of the corpse and find another to occupy the studio and please him.

As the youngest member it fell to me the task of dumping Sul’s body somewhere it wouldn’t be found. She was cold in my arms and so small, as if she had become younger in death. I used the money I had saved to buy her to arrange a simple funeral, where I was the only mourner, and to place her ashes in the middle of a plantation of rice that would be made into wine.

The money did bring her peace in the end, it seemed.

xii.

Safari told me that my mother had died in pain - so much pain that there was no time between her screams to leave a last message to me. I never forgave her for not having controlled her suffering long enough to let me know that she loved me – my life might have been easier if she had.

But in my last moments of conscious thoughts, before the lack of oxygen reached my brain making any thinking impossible, it occurred to me that maybe it was a kindness that she didn’t – not even my jars could have made me live if I knew that the only person who had truly loved me was gone.

It made sense then my lack of message to Kai. Dear Kai, dressed in blood, must live where I could not.

13.

She had covered me in blood again - invisible blood, but sticking to my skin like a leech.

Dear, sweet, deranged Sul, whom I had killed.

And who killed me.