That was probably why, when he suggested we go to his apartment, I accepted.
… If I could make a wish
I wouldn’t know what to say
What should I wish for
Bad times or good times …
*
He asked me to tie him up. The tools, methods, and positions differed slightly each time, but he was always very thorough in explaining what he wanted.
He was asking me to tie him up, not the other way around, and it seemed like such an important thing to him that I didn’t ask any questions and just did it. It goes without saying that I had never tied up a person before in my life. Even tying knots was awkward for me. Patiently, he explained what he wanted over and over again and was grateful when I had bound him up tightly in the way he wanted.
It wasn’t so much a fetish as it was an obsession. He had a fixed script for the whole thing from beginning to end. Only when he and the other person （me, in other words） followed this script precisely could he calm down. But if one thing went off-script, he became very anxious and repeatedly asked me to correct it until we followed the script precisely once more. But that script was solely his own, and the problem was that I didn’t know it at first.
On the surface, I was the one doing the tying and he the one being tied, but in practice, he was the one ordering me around and I the one trying to adhere to the script. He didn’t seem aware that he was following some imaginary script. He kept using words like “correct” or “wrong” to describe my attempts. But on a fundamental level, there is no wrong or right way of tying up your lover in bed. It was tough for me when I didn’t understand his highly subjective judgment regarding what was correct or wrong. He would patiently repeat himself or try using easier words, but that only made me feel like I was stupid. He wasn’t angry when I was “wrong,” but I could see he was getting nervous, which made me feel even more stupid and useless.
“I’m sorry.” He would apologize when I seemed frustrated. “I know this is unpleasant. I know I’m strange, too. But please, bear with me.”
I didn’t think tying him up was in itself unpleasant or strange. There are many kinds of tastes in the world, and if I had found his so unacceptable, I wouldn’t have stayed. I just wanted to do something that was important for him because I didn’t dislike him as a person, and to do that, I had to understand the general picture he possessed in his head, the script he stored in his mind.
It took quite some time for me to understand the context. His apartment, to speak in Korean terms, was a “one-room.” Small and narrow, but the ceiling very high, with a skylight through which you could see the stars. Gazing at my body and his own tied-up self reflected on the glass panes above us against the black night, he would murmur, “Beautiful.”
I’d nod mechanically. From my perspective, things were a little too unreal for me to really appreciate them. Things like Poland, this tied up man, myself.
Then, he told me about his grandfather.
*
It was the summer of his eleventh year when he went to live with his grandfather. His grandfather had survived the Nazi concentration camps. Not only did the Nazis have the notorious death camps with their gas chambers, they also ran munitions factories using forced labor. This was where many Polish people with no Jewish ancestry ended up. When labor was in short supply toward the end of the war, the Germans would roam the streets snatching up anyone they could find to send to munitions factories or farms. His grandfather was one of the people who had been taken from the streets.
“But Grandfather never told me what life had been like in the camp. Not even once. Isn’t that strange?”
It genuinely seemed to perplex him.
His Grandfather was taken up with other concerns. According to his grandson, the older man’s purpose in life could be summed up in one word: “survival.”
The old man never left the house. His life consisted of practicing how to survive without ever leaving his home. Once the sun went down, it was forbidden to turn the lights on or even turn the faucets to take a shower, as was making any kind of sound. They spared their water and food as much as possible, which was why their home was always stacked with canned food.
“My favorite times were Easter and Christmas and Catholic saints’ days. We got to eat things that weren’t from a can.”
His grandfather also regularly cleaned the house and did the laundry—their home was as neat as a pin and their clothes were immaculate. But there were always fully packed suitcases by the door in case they ever needed to make a run for it. A crucial part of his life with his grandfather was checking the contents of those bags, making sure the food and batteries were regularly replaced.