“Thank you for dinner,” Leah said. She was relieved that it was over. The excitement was too much for her.
“You are a beautiful woman,” he said thoughtlessly.
Leah hadn’t expected this, and Charles saw that her cheeks stained again in that gorgeous peach color of hers from her forehead to her collarbone, and he wondered if her breasts would be rosy as well.
When she brought up practice, Charles said never mind. Could she come in an hour before service? he asked. “You don’t need as much work as the others.” So Leah drove him to the subway station. The green lamps at the station were lit. The darkened streets were empty, and the stores nearby were all closed for the night.
“I should drive you home. I didn’t realize you didn’t have a car.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It would take you an hour each way.”
Leah couldn’t insist because Joseph might still be awake, waiting up for her. Already she was almost late. He would likely be sleeping in front of the television set.
Leah parked in front of the subway station beneath the elevated platform. A truck drove past and cast a moving shadow across Charles’s face. He looked like the actor who played the bad son in a soap opera she used to watch on KBS. She shifted the gear to park. Charles reached for the door handle, and Leah bowed her head to say good-bye. He retreated suddenly and kissed her on the lips.
Her shoulders tensed, and she jerked away. This was her first kiss. Her mouth was closed. She had felt the pressure of his lips against her clenched teeth. It wasn’t something romantic like she had seen on television. She and Joseph did not kiss. It didn’t seem like something a proper Korean woman might do.
Charles cupped her face with his hands. He kissed her again with greater pressure.
Leah’s arms and hands froze in shock. Then in a few moments she came to, as if she were emerging from a cold bath. She pulled back.
“Uh-muh,” she gasped.
Charles smiled at her. “You’ve never kissed, have you?” It was a little mean of him to ask this, but he didn’t think she would mind.
Leah moved her head no.
“Hold still . .” Charles leaned in and kissed her again. “Do you feel me?” His eyes looked directly into hers.
She’d felt the force of his lips. Was that what he meant? This was absolutely wrong, she thought. “Professor Hong, I have to go home,” she said. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes.
“Don’t call me that,” he said. “I’m Charles. I’m Moon-su.” It had been a long time since anyone had called him that.
Leah opened her mouth a bit, but no words would come.
“Relax your face. I won’t hurt you.” He kissed her and put his tongue in her mouth, and Leah coughed.
“I. . . I. . . have to go home now,” she said. She was crying.
“I think you are so beautiful.” He pushed away the white hair from her face. “Like a goddamn angel,” he said in English.
There was no one in the street. It wasn’t past ten o’clock, but the streets were bare. The yellow streetlights flickered above them. Charles was the most handsome man she had ever known. He was telling her that he thought she was beautiful. If she weren’t married, she would have let him keep kissing her. But what she and her husband did on Friday nights was something that only married people did. Only sexual relations between a husband and wife were sanctioned by God. Leah did not think much about sex, except as something she should do to help her husband, but it crossed her mind that it might be different with Charles. The thoughts filled her with shame. Adultery could be committed in sheer thought alone—that much she knew. The great King David in the Old Testament had killed his trusted friend Uriah when Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, became pregnant with David’s child. David, the Lord’s anointed shepherd king, had fallen prey to lust. He had murdered his friend to cover his sin. At this moment, what Leah felt was a kind of desire, and the feeling itself was strange. The professor wanted her, too.
Charles stroked her hair, and Leah didn’t want that gentleness to stop. When was the last time anyone had touched her hair?
But he had to stop. Leah didn’t know how to make him leave the car. Instead, she asked if she could go home.
“Do you want to come to my house?” he asked her.
“I have to get home,” she said again. Was he out of his mind?
Charles got out of the car, opened the driver’s door, and took her hand. Leah stepped out of the car. Did he want to drive somewhere? But he had no license, she told herself.