From the looks of him, you wouldn't think there was anything interesting about him. He was short with a pointed nose, a shaved head, and that was about it. I asked him the usual bullshit questions you ask when you meet someone at a foreigner bar. I asked him why he'd come to Korea to teach English, how long he'd been in Busan, if he had been to Seoul, and I'm still not sure how the conversation moved from such harmless fare to where it led next-like the switch on the railroad tracks was pulled, and we seamlessly moved in a completely new direction-but somehow we were discussing hookers. Suddenly he was a sexual Lonely Planet, telling us what he knew, and then what at first sounded hypothetical became very real when he said in an Australian accent, "You fellas want to go?"

I looked at Ricky and Ron to get a read on their reactions. We all kind of turned a little towards the rest of the foreigner bar, as if letting ourselves know what the alternatives were.

"Yeah, let's go. Let's do it right now!" Ricky said, which surprised the hell out of me. He had always been against the idea. That was it, really. Once he spoke up, something inside the three of us snapped and we were following this small guy with a pinched, bird-like nose out of the bar and into the street.
"Hey," I called to the guy, who was far ahead, trying to catch us a taxi. "I never caught your name." Somehow this information seemed important at that juncture.

I hadn't sought out prostitutes when I first came to Busan; it never really occurred to me. It actually came from a conversation with one of my Korean coworkers, and the conversation was more just looking into basic human needs to be found in the city, i.e. drugs, massages, that sort of thing. All of a sudden he was telling me about one of the major factors of doing business in Korea: the prostitute. The way he explained it, you took a client to a really expensive bar where beautiful women, college students working part-time, came over and fed you. For the right price, you can wake up the next morning with more than a hangover.

The allure of going to a prostitute was not the sex. Okay, well, partially the sex, but it was also the sense of adventure that came with it, the story for afterwards. It was the one guaranteed killer of a story, one that anyone would strain to listen to, right up till the end. Ron seemed to silently understand my need for this story, or at least he had his own reasons, because we had long before decided that one night, without planning, we would look at each other, and we would know: Now is the time. Ricky took a lot more convincing, and I even went so far as to break it down economically, citing the countless hundreds spent on conventional dating, as opposed to the one time no-hassle fee of about fifty bucks. Ricky wouldn't buy it. Yet somehow he was now our impetus. There we were, heading in a taxi to Haeundae Beach.

I only knew of two places in Busan to find prostitutes: One was Texas Street, where the women were tall, Russian, and had this expression that decades of American culture had trained me to fear and abhor. The second was in Nampo-dong, downtown. It was an area full of display cases, store-front windows looking into rooms with red walls and white floors. Sitting very properly, like dolls waiting to be played with, were dozens of pretty, clean-looking girls, all dressed in white, some playing with their phones, others waving with bright smiles. You knew they took money for sex, but looking at them, all you could imagine doing with one was looking through a photo album or playing with her new puppy.

Haeundae, on the other hand, was some houses clustered together so close that they looked like packed earth, and running down into the darkness were walkways that could have been the cracks of Hell itself, the ground run asunder. A red glow emitted from each of these three winding paths, and all we could hear was outside traffic. Silence on the paths.

Matt advised us to let him talk. These girls would try to get more from us because we were foreigners, but unlike the "cleaner" girls at Nampo-dong, they would actually consider sleeping with us. Apparently lots of them were afraid of dealing with foreigners, either because of bad experiences with soldiers, or certain assumptions about anatomy. We chose a path, and on one side were rows of glass doors, like a Florida room. In each was a glowing red carpet and at least two or three girls, sitting and watching television, squatting, doing their hair in the mirror. Some smiled and waved at us. Some locked their doors emphatically and wouldn't look at us. The ones who spoke to us wanted at least 70 grand. Ricky, Ron and I followed like boys at our first high school dance, being led around to find dates. We giggled, waved to the girls a little shyly, made jokes to each other and laughed a little more than we would have normally.

"Hey Matt," I said, interrupting negotiations at one point, "If I showed you a picture of my mother, could you find something similar?" And at that instant it occurred to me, That was pretty funny. Shit, I'm not drunk enough! It was true. I was close to sober, of all things. Soberly visiting a hooker.

We continued down the path, following Matt, letting him talk to prostitutes for us as though we were there for him. After walking the entire area, which wasn't very large, we came upon this one girl that made us all stop and for once really consider what we were doing there.

She looked like she stepped out of a video game. She was small, shorter than me, petite, wearing all white. Her shirt was cut at the midriff, and she had a spectacularly defined stomach. She wore a short white miniskirt, and the kicker, the absolute sell for all of us, were these white leg-warmer things that came up to her knees, and covered her feet. She could have been floating. We stared for a few good beats, and even Ricky seemed interested. Matt grew excited at our excitement, and went up to bargain. One hundred grand was her asking price, and for once I didn't feel like we were being overcharged. Still, none of us had that much money. Matt tried everything he could. He even told her we had small penises. Nothing would work. She went down as far as 80 grand, which was enough reason for us to give in to our fears and say no. We walked around a while longer, looking for someone else, but then we came back, and we knew she would be the one. She called to us, and we were about to go back to haggle some more when I pulled Ricky and Ron aside for a brief huddle.

"Before we dick around with this girl, we have to be sure we're going to do this," I said.

Ron shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know, man. Maybe another night. I'm not feeling up to it tonight."

I looked to Ricky. "I don't think I can do this!" he said in a voice that sounded more primal than rational. It was the first time I had ever seen real fear behind his eyes.

"Okay," I said, feeling a little better. "We checked it out tonight. No loss. It was an experience, so now we know for next time."

"She'll do it for 70, guys!" Matt suddenly called out, and we looked over. He was waving me over, and the girl was waving at me. I went over as the representative.

"Yeah, I don't think we can do it tonight," I said, staring at the girl, wondering if she understood anything of what I was saying. "Thanks, but it doesn't look like it."

"Okay, but 70 is a good price for a girl like this. I think that's as low as she'll go. I'd take it, man."

"Thanks anyway," I said, and walked back over to the guys. They were standing a lot closer together when I came over, and Ricky had a smile on his face.

"We'll both pay 30 thousand together for you to do it," Ricky said, and I felt the cold sting of betrayal, but also a sort of call to arms. It was a challenge, and I've never wanted to back away from one before, especially out of fear. It was my story, being offered up to me, and at a discount. I looked at them, then at Matt, then finally the girl.

"No worries," Matt said.

I walked into the open door, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" playing in my head. It was now a mission, and I felt like a sort of pioneer. I entered a small hallway, open doors all along. The girl was standing by one of them, smiling.

I took off my shoes before entering the room, like a restaurant, I thought. The room was only large enough to fit a bed, a dresser, a vanity, and a mirror. It reminded me of a girl's room in her parents' house. The colors were all white with pink fringe, and I looked around for stuffed animals, but there were none. On the dresser was a framed collage, various pictures of Nick Carter, from the Backstreet Boys, and Justin Timberlake, from 'N Sync, with the overlapping caption: Nick or Justin? She came up to me and held her hand out. I dug into my wallet and took out 7 ten thousand won bills, leaving only one ten left. She took it and counted it, then said, "Pal man chun" and held up eight fingers.

"Chil," I said, holding up seven fingers. Suddenly I had forgotten completely where I was and was arguing like she was charging me too much for fruit. She said eighty thousand over and over a few times, and even pushed me like she was throwing a tantrum, but I went for my jacket, and then she said okay okay and took my money and began making a pouting face, then left the room. I sat on the bed and stared ahead, wondering: Nick or Justin?

She came back and motioned for me to get undressed. She undressed as well, and I thought, Damn! The leg warmers!. I undressed slowly, and was still standing around in my boxers trying to find a pocket to put my watch in when she suddenly yanked down my boxers and giggled like it was a sleepover. My boxers were still around my ankles while she began to fondle me. Soon she took me into her mouth, saying, "Good service. Good service," the only real English words I had heard from her so far.

I stared down at her while she did it, not feeling inside my body, but rather like I was watching one of those porns back in America, then I looked at the mirror to my right, and saw a face that wasn't mine. He was someone unshaven, wild-eyed, cold and ugly-looking. His stomach was sticking out too much, I thought. In the reflection I could see the vanity, and Justin and Nick, still waiting for my answer.

She put a condom on me, took out a tube of KY jelly, which I pretended not to notice, and rubbed it into her crotch. Then she laid me down and got on top. I reached up to fondle her breasts and suddenly she rocked backwards and I was sitting upright. It felt like we were play-wrestling for a second, or maybe see-sawing. She pushed my hands away from her breasts and made a motion with her own hands, showing me how I should touch them. I looked at her, hurt at the idea that she thought I was being too rough with her, but we continued. I was on top of her, bracing myself against one of her legs, my face by hers, but turned away. I just held on to the bed and rocked back and forth. My nose became congested, and to my horror, I began to snort loudly, almost grunting, as I thrust. She began to moan, but I knew nothing had happened for her. I was already done, and was trying to stay inside longer, like the reluctant kid who wants a second ride on the roller coaster. When I moved away from her she cleaned up tidily, then used a small damp towel to clean me-again, like a restaurant-and she dressed as quickly as she had undressed and I was alone. The lights were on again, and I was left to dress and stare once more at the collage.

When I left, I thanked her using the polite form of the Korean and found Ricky, Ron, and Matt sitting around outside, drinking soju out of Dixie cups. We decided to walk over to the Paradise Hotel Casino for more alcohol, where I learned for the first time how to bet on roulette. I won twenty thousand won from that last ten in my wallet.

On the way home, we walked around in the light of seven o'clock in the morning, making jokes about AIDS and herpes and syphilis and countless other diseases they said I now harbored in my post-coital state. That, more than the condom, was my protection. I wrapped myself in laughter like you're told to do to the boogieman when he's bothering you at night. Just laugh at that old creep, laugh and he can't ever touch you. So we all laughed. I would need some backup against so many boogiemen.

The agreement made the next day at McDonalds was simple. Only a select few were to know. No girls, only extremely close friends. It was in the vault, though I secretly wondered how long it would be before I unleashed it and said, "Fuck it, I don't care what you think of me." At school, the next day, I sent an email to some old college friends, telling them the story and giving them the same coda, that this was strictly between us. In a way that's where it ended, between us men. I taught my students, flirted with the little girls who have a crush on me, and walked around without a thought about whether there was some inconsistency in being a teacher, a sensitive, caring human being, while also being a whoremonger. It was only in the shower that I felt like I wasn't going to come out clean. Yes, showers made me feel dirtier in their ineffectiveness.

By Tuesday I was completely over it, eager, in fact, to see the first responses to my story. There was only one response in my inbox, and the subject read, "That was stupid," and then it went on to point out that I hadn't worn a condom when she went down on me, listing the potential diseases I could have been carrying that very minute. My stomach bottomed out and threatened to take out the rest of the scaffolding. I couldn't move.

As discreetly as I could at work, I pulled Ricky aside to freak out privately, but I should have known where that would lead.

"Hey, don't worry," he said, but I persisted, telling him I was beginning to feel sick about the whole thing, and still I didn't want to regret it. I wanted him to tell me not to regret it, but all he said was, "Look, we knew the risks before we went into it. Maybe you should learn that sometimes it's better to know when not to experience something."

Christ! I thought, Of all the times, I don't need a lesson now, and I was granted the relative asylum of my own mind. I thought about my friends, my brother, my parents, a wife, a daughter, people existing and imaginary, how I would tell them the very same story. What would they say in response? Would I get some universal pat on the back? Looks of envy and awe at my worldliness? What could I really expect?

I'm not very good at keeping my face from expressing my emotions, so Ricky began telling me I'm probably fine, that I'm still the same person I always was, but he couldn't understand why I couldn't stand still and yet wanted to lay down somewhere and never move again. It wasn't that the sex was empty. God, no. What did I get for seventy thousand won? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

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