Words that stung

“Yes.”
Selene answered without hesitation.
“…Why?”
“For new inspiration, a man who is good at it would be better than a man who isn’t.”
“What are you talking about being good at or not?”
Ah.
Realizing she had omitted the subject, Selene made a short sound.
“s*x, that’s what I was talking about.”
Theron didn’t react.
He seemed to be in a daze for a moment.
Since it wasn’t the first time he had reacted this way, Selene decided to wait.
“So you’re saying… because of my experience, I’ll be skilled in bed, and that will actually be helpful?”
Theron lowered his voice as if afraid someone would hear.
Even though there was no one around.
“Yes.”
“Does that mean you’ll sleep with me?”
“Yes.”
Theron, who she thought would have a slightly embarrassed face like when she had suggested a kiss, instead looked as if he were dumbfounded.
“Ha…”
Not only that, but Theron, looking as if he had been unexpectedly beaten up by someone, ran his hand through his neatly pomaded hair several times.
“…Isn’t it even a little bit unpleasant that I’ve had experience sleeping with other women?”
“The fact that you lied is unpleasant, but the experience itself is fine.”
Funnily enough, Theron looked somewhat hurt by Selene’s nonchalant answer.
His crumpled eyes at the same time as her answer made it seem so.
Selene couldn’t understand why he was looking at her as if she were shameless.
‘Who’s the one who did wrong?’
Even though her gaze was gradually turning unpleasant, Theron was still serious.
“Still, we’ve kissed several times. I don’t understand how you can be so nonchalant about my past.”
“That was just for the piano.”
“That damn piano…! Is the piano so important to you that you’d think of sleeping with a man you don’t love?”
“Of course.”
Selene answered without hesitation this time as well.
As she spoke, the unpleasantness in her eyes disappeared, and a cold chill lingered.
“There’s nothing more important to me than the piano. So much so that I’d choose the piano no matter what other options I have. That’s the same even if you’re one of my options.”
“…”
“In the same sense, if it didn’t help the piano, I wouldn’t have even thought of sleeping with a man my entire life. As you know, I don’t particularly like the male species.”
“…”
“Because what’s important to me, no matter what, is only the piano.”
At the emotion that felt close to madness in her cold eyes, Theron was momentarily dazed.
Then he averted his gaze and said as if chewing on his words,

“Honestly, I still don’t understand what the piano means to you. What I’ve heard and your attitude, Selene, are so different.”
‘What he’s heard…?’

Selene didn’t understand what Theron was talking about, but she didn’t ask again.
It wasn’t an important issue in the current conversation.
Selene, focusing on the topic, looked at Theron and asked, “So, is that a refusal?”
Theron, who had been avoiding her gaze, lifted his head.
His eyes, which had shed their confused emotions with a short breath, were much clearer.
“If I refuse, you’ll try to find another man, just like with the kiss.”
‘Well…’
Although she would try, Selene actually knew it would be difficult.
Just imagining kissing someone else made her stomach turn, so how could she sleep with them?
However, Theron’s eyes, who had taken Selene’s silence as an affirmation, hardened grimly.
“That’s not happening. You promised to only use me. Whether the reason is for some damn inspiration or because you’re curious about a man’s body, all of it.”
“…”
“Whether it’s kissing or s*x, you have to do it all with me.”
Selene didn’t know why Theron suddenly seemed angry.
After all, she hadn’t said anything.
He was as rough as if he were fighting an imaginary enemy.
Theron, who had once flapped his shirt in the not-so-hot weather, met Selene’s eyes.
“Do it. Let’s do it. I’ll make you burst with inspiration like crazy.”
Selene slowly closed and opened her eyes.
“When?”
“…When?”
“When are we going to do it?”
At Selene’s casual question, as if she were making a lunch appointment, the strength in Theron’s eyes gradually faded.
“Your ability to act is really something else…”
Theron, who had muttered in a hollow voice, said to Selene, “How about next weekend?”
“Alright.”
Since her piano practice hadn’t been going well lately, Selene had planned to focus on practice over the weekend, but since this was also part of her piano practice, she was willing to take the time.
As the date was set, Theron asked, “Is there a way you want it? A preference, perhaps. I can accommodate everything. From behind, sitting, lying down, standing up are all possible. Ah, but I can’t do anything sadistic. I can accommodate if you want… but I don’t particularly like it.”
“I’ll leave that to you.”
Since she had never done it before, she naturally had no preference.
She also hadn’t understood half of what Theron had just said.
“And I don’t know how much you know about s*x, but I’ll be touching your breasts then. More than just fondling them like they’re mine.”
Theron said that and naturally covered his mouth with his hand.
Although he didn’t add any words, Selene felt she knew.
He covered his face like that when he had strange fantasies.
His neck was faintly flushed, and even without seeing his covered lower face, she could picture his reddened face.
Selene’s gaze landed on the tip of his reddened nose.
“Theron, I think your nose is bleeding.”
“Damn it.”
Theron hurriedly wiped under his nose with the hand that had been covering his mouth, but nothing came off.
“It’s not bleeding.”
“I guess I was mistaken because your face was so red.”
At Selene’s nonchalant reply, Theron lowered his hand from his face, embarrassed.
“Then… is your anger about me deceiving you completely gone?”
At Theron’s subtle question, Selene stared at him.
“For a moment.”
Just as Theron made a questioning sound, “Huh?”, Selene swung her hand towards his cheek.
Slap!
At the unexpected action, Theron couldn’t block her swift hand.
A sharp sound of friction echoed through the cool air.
“Because you blocked me that day, I couldn’t hit you.”
Fortunately, Theron’s natural reflexes couldn’t block Selene’s hand this time.
Since she had put as much force as possible, he would be bothered by his stinging cheek for a while.
Theron rubbed his reddened cheek.
“I’m sure You kicked me in the shin instead…”
“But I couldn’t slap your cheek.”
“Yes, well… anyway, am  I forgiven with this?”
Selene nodded.
Since she didn’t hold grudges, Selene had no intention of making it an issue anymore.
“If you have nothing more to hide from me.”
At the words uttered without any particular meaning, Theron paused his actions for a moment.
“…Of course.”
Ting-a-ling.
Just then, with the cheerful sound of a doorbell, other customers entered the empty coffee house.
Realizing she had stayed here much longer than planned, Selene stood up.
“Let’s go now.”

‘Selene Ashcombe and I finally agreed to sleep together.’
However, even though the long-awaited event was approaching, Theron found himself spending more days in a daze rather than with a pounding heart.
It was strange even to himself.
Hadn’t he gotten an erection like a dog in heat just imagining that event?
Besides the deep kissing, he had gotten excited like a crazy person just by stealing glances at her almost-touching shoulders or her large breasts.
But now that he was given such an opportunity, Theron felt as if he were drinking lukewarm carbonated water.
It was probably because the result he had finally achieved after enduring a time of patience and pain was far from the picture he had drawn.
Yes, in fact, this was Theron’s imagined first night with Selene.
Kissing as if to devour each other in a dark place where only the two of them were, getting impatient, Selene touching his body and him touching hers, then tumbling onto a bed or sofa, naked and tangled together, a romantic and lewd fantasy…
But she had said the reason she wanted to sleep with him was not because of such a pull of desire, but for the sake of the piano.
Setting aside his resentment for her hypocritical pretense of being serious about the piano, being treated as a tool was not a pleasant thing.
No, it wasn’t just unpleasant.
For a fleeting moment, a bitter feeling swept through his chest, as if his heart had been slapped, not his cheek.
That’s why Theron regretted it a little.
‘Maybe I should have just lied to the end instead of admitting it so readily.’
‘That I was a virgin, and that she would be my first for the rest of my life.’
‘Then I wouldn’t have had to hear it.’
‘The words about sleeping with me just for the piano, the words that it didn’t matter if I slept with other women, and also.’

“If you have nothing more to hide from me.”

‘Such words that make it impossible to meet her eyes.’