that JUST happened

“I thought we were a real love relationship. I did. I was very invested in love, but it was just this long long sex thing that could end at any moment because after all, it's just about getting off. Almost all the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love.”

Alistair & Kim Jung Il

So, my little ginger brit is in Korea teaching engrish to rittle Korean kids.
I got this e-mail the other day.


The other night I went out with Basil, an Irish friend of mine, and Mike, a Canadian guy I had never met before. Everything started out well enough. We ate and drank, just the three of us for a while, and were having a good time getting pretty tipsy. After two bars we started looking for a new place to go, and Mike suggested we buy a bottle of whiskey. Mike is about 40 and has a very stable job that pays him well, but Basil and I thought buying a $100 bottle of whiskey was a bit much for us so we suggested we find somewhere else a little cheaper. Mike then had the idea that we go to a noribong. A noribong is a karaoke place, but it’s different than karaoke back home where you sing in front on the whole bar. In a noribong you rent your own room and you sing with just the people you came with. There’s a booth, a table and your own big television that plays the music with the words. We he suggested this I said that it sounded like a good idea, but it might be a little strange with just the three of us singing together. Mike must have thought of this as well because we were then told that we would be ‘renting’ women to sing with us. Strange though this sounded I went along with it in an eh-why-not kind of way. And that’s really when everything went wrong.

We sat in the room drinking beer and singing a couple songs waiting for the girls to arrive and Mike filled us in on the etiquette involved with rental girls, according to him. We pay by the hour, we must look like we’re having a good time, we must talk to the girls, don’t ‘kiss on’ your girl unless she wants to ‘kiss on’ you and if you don’t like your girl say so, and he’ll get us another one. I was almost giddy with how ridiculous this was going to be.

The girls arrived and sat in the booth with us. The two that sat next to Basil and Mike seemed nice enough and happy to be there but the girl that sat next to me looked as thought she would rather be drinking a big glass of cancer than sitting with us. Despite being very uncomfortable from the moment she sat down, I would rather have sat ‘with my dick in my hand’ as Mike put it than ask him to get me a new one. Mike however wouldn’t stand for it and after the hour we had paid for was up he ordered a new girl for me. This sounds easy enough, but before you can get a new girl you have to tell the old one that she has to go home. Now, I’ve never fired anyone before let alone a prostitute who simply didn’t want to sing karaoke, but it’s much more awkward than I could have ever imagined. “I’m sorry you’re going to have to leave... Oh no, you’re friends are going to stay, it’s just you that’s leaving. We’re just looking for someone that’s more fun. Here’s $20.”

The new girl was ordered and we were assured that we wouldn’t be charged until she arrived. About an hour passed and my new girl hadn’t arrived and I was beginning to hope that she wouldn’t, but with 10 minutes left in the second hour she showed up. Thank God that I only had 10 minutes and then we could leave. Or so I thought. No, Mike insisted that we get the full hour we were paying for so the clock was reset. This time I think I was the one who looked as though I had ordered the glass of cancer, but instead was given a bubbly Korean girl who spoke no English and had the numbers of her favorite karaoke songs memorized from the thousands of other times she had been rented.

The hour slowly went by with us singing and Mike and his girl going to the bathroom together a lot. When it had finished the girls left quickly like someone clocking out at work at the end of the day. I think they had been watching the clock as much as I had, though they probably masked it better. And then the bill came. $300.

Through the rentals and all the ordering Mike did we managed to ring up a $300 tab at a karaoke bar. Basil and I laughed mostly as Mike figured it all up and then graciously the owners gave us 20 additional minutes free(!) to, I’m assuming, spend rubbing our very sore assholes following the violent raping we had just received and also to give them time to put on a straight face before seeing us again.

“Well, that’s a mistake we’ll only make once,” Basil and I agreed.

“Mistake!? Man I got my cock sucked! And I fucked ‘er in the bathroom!” said Mike.

“ …oh. Yes, well, at least we have that as consolation. Not a complete loss then.”

A great night.

Thinking back on it (now sober), I’m fairly sure that’s where the huge bill came from. Paying for another man to get a blowjob. At least I can say now that I have paid for sex. Not for me mind you, but I have paid for sex nonetheless.

Also, we’re pretty certain that towards the end of the night Basil’s girl shit herself. Oh, the people you meet…

Alistair