During the days of the week women would discuss amongst themselves to decide
which woman would get which man, but during the nights of this week, each woman would
sleep with her legal husband. At the end of the week, the ladies would finalise who would stay with whom for the next year. Each lady would continue in her own house for this
experimental year, but with a different partner. Each man would take his car to the new
place where he’d live for the year. This time more rational judgement was required, so it was decided that they wouldn’t decide this by lottery. Each woman ranked the men in order of preference with the most highly preferred man receiving a score of six and least
preferred a core of one. Though a lot of research was carried out, the final decision involved much negotiation among the women and those with better negotiating skills prevailed. Pairs were chosen unanimously for the year-long experiment.
On the day when the final outcome was to be announced, the men were all
assembled in one room. The ladies entered the room and blindfolded their respective
husbands and left the room, thus making sure the men wouldn’t be able to see unless
someone else removed the blindfold.
Minutes later the ladies entered the room one by one. First Hye-jin entered and took
the hands of blindfolded Kun-woo and led him away. Kun-woo made a noise to say ‘bye’ to
his friends; the other men realised that Kun-woo had been selected but they didn’t know
which lady had chosen him.
Hye-jin led Kun-woo to the road where all the cars were parked, removed his
blindfold and said: ‘My darling Kun-woo, you’re my husband for the next year. Please lead me to your car and drive to my place’.
It didn’t take long for Myung-sook to collect Young-ho. As planned, she led Young-ho
to his car and then removed his blindfold, saying, ‘Young-ho, my darling, please take me in your car to my place, where we can see more of each other for the next year’.
Next Min-ji came for Woo-jin. Although blindfolded, Woo-jin tried to put his arms
around Min-ji and tried to recognise her from her smell. Min-ji pushed him away and
dragged him out of the room, saying: ‘I couldn’t speak inside the room lest other men find out who is taking whom. Now, you must have realised that I’m Min-ji—your boss for the
next year. Don’t try to do any mischief with me. Let’s go to your car; you’ll drive to my house and you’ll stay there for a year’.
When Chun-ja came for blindfolded Do-hyon, he was very polite. He didn’t try to find
out which lady would be his spouse for the year. He thought he was on another assignment, where he was ready to offer himself for 24 hours a day, seven days a week for one full year.
A woman came calmly, took my hands without any noise and led me to my car.
When the woman removed my blindfold, I could easily recognise Soon-ja from her abaya;
she was fully covered with clothes. I looked at her eyes and felt the welcoming smile before walking to my car.
When Su-bin entered the room, there was only one blindfolded man in the room—
Min-jun. Su-bin opened his blindfold and looked into his eyes. ‘You’re a very decent man, as I’ve seen you so far as Chun-ja’s husband. For the next year, you’ll be with me 24 hours, not with Chun-ja. You have to love this one-breasted girl and you have to love my son, Ye-jun.
Are you okay with it?’
‘Seems to be very good fun, Su-bin. Let’s see how we go. I’ve always envied Kun-
woo, now I can touch the moon.’
Min-jun held Su-bin in his arms and kissed her cheek. They spent almost an hour in
the room before walking to Min-jun’s car for a ride to Su-bin’s place.
This experiment involved lots of adjustments, especially with the children involved.
The children continued to stay where they were, in the same house with their mother. The
men had to make adjustments to their new houses, wives and their children as well.
Fortunately for Hye-jin, her son was no longer living with her, so Kun-woo needn’t
make any adjustment for living with Joo-won in the same house. When Joo-won wanted to
meet either Hye-jin or me, he would make an appointment; when he wanted to see both he
invited us together to meet at some place of common interest. Hye-jin and I still remained married though each lived with someone else’s spouse.
A few dramatic aspects were explored. Young-ho, the unemployed entrepreneur,
established a good relationship with Myung-sook. He easily won her trust and she posed as a model for Young-ho’s new venture advertising for private health insurance, funeral
insurance and such with mature models. Myung-sook had never worked before and
depended on the allowance Woo-jin had given her. At this mature age, she was asked to
model in a TV advertisement. It didn’t take long before she was asked to act in a TV serial.
Young-ho started earning as her manager as well.
Woo-jin was very happy to get Min-ji, the model, for a year but soon he realised that
he needed to win the trust of not only Min-ji but also Seo-jun and Ji-min before he could come anywhere near Min-ji. On the very first day, he proposed to have a shower together
with Min-ji and she promptly slapped his face, saying: ‘If you are to stay with me in the same house, behave as a gentleman. You’re old enough to be my father and grandfather of Seo-jun and Ji-min. You need to earn our respect by restricting your lust and greed. I don’t need your money to run the family. You’re welcome to stay away from us’.
Woo-jin couldn’t give up his habits of looking for girls. He tried to meet Myung-sook
a few times, but she was busy with her new occupation as a mature-aged model. Woo-jin
continued to stay with Min-ji, but whenever he got any opportunity he tried to build
relationships with some young girls on Facebook. He even visited prostitutes occasionally when he had some money to spare.
Chun-ja and Do-hyon carried on as the family friends they had been for so long.
Neither of them earned high salaries, but cared to budget well for the expenditures of the house. Chun-ja’s only daughter, teenager Mi-sook, was a good friend of Do-hyon, as they
supported the same teams in soccer and cricket. She was a fan of Min-ji as well.
Do-hyon didn’t mind spending his time painting the rooms of Chun-ja’s house where
he was a guest for only a year. Min-ji and Do-hyon often fought with each other regarding choice of food and places to travel; no such disagreement appeared between Do-hyon and
Chun-ja, they were always keen to look after the interests of each other. Each one thought the wishes of the guest must be honoured.
Min-jun and Su-bin really fell in love with each other from the very first day. Min-jun
didn’t take long to become the affectionate father of Su-bin’s son, Ye-jun, who wasn’t
getting enough attention from Kun-woo who was busy with his own career. Min-jun
organised an implant for Su-bin’s left breast so that she could wear a normal dress and look like her friends, if not better.
One day, Woo-jin came home with a copy of Men’s Weekly and showed the cover
page to Min-ji—a dazzling picture of Min-jun in Abercrombie and Fitch swim trunks and
standing close to him on the beach, Su-bin in her push-up two piece halter bikini.
‘Look Min-ji,’ said Woo-jin, ‘at Subini in her bikini. Beautiful—isn’t she? Who would
say that she has only one real breast?’
Min-ji was impressed as well. Together with Woo-jin she went to visit Su-bin and
showed the cover of Men’s Weekly to Su-bin and Min-jun who turned the pages and found another picture of Su-bin showing only her face, belly button and breasts, the rest of her body submerged in water. Su-bin’s curves were mesmerisingly beautiful. Both Su-bin and
Min-jun were surprised as they were unaware that their intimate moments have been
captured in a magazine for the world to see. They contacted the publishers of Men’s Weekly who apologised to them and promptly paid them $10,000 for their mistake in publishing the photos without their permission.
Su-bin liked travelling and so Min-jun organised a 14-day Trafalgar Tour—Best of
Europe—during the school holidays of Ye-jun. Min-jun even visited Su-bin’s home country
and met her parents. Su-bin had a difficult time introducing Min-jun to her parents who
didn’t like to accept the fact that Su-bin and Min-jun were living together while their
wedded partners were living with some other persons. When Su-bin asked their opinion of
having Min-jun permanently as her partner, they couldn’t say anything but smiled; Min-jun could win anyone’s trust easily, even anyone’s heart.
During this year Min-jun and Su-bin researched breast cancer and observed that
breast cancer awareness programmes were mainly run by commercial organisations to
derive more profits for their own business rather than the prevention or cure of cancer.
Some of these commercial organisations ran breast cancer awareness programmes, while
they used in their products carcinogens that caused cancer. Min-jun couldn’t wage war
against big commercial organisations, yet he tried to raise people’s awareness through his letters to the editors.
Min-jun and Su-bin heard in the TV news: ‘A woman who has drunk a glass of breast
milk a day since being diagnosed with cancer believes it is saving her life. She has had a daily
400ml dose of milk from an anonymous donor after being diagnosed with multiple
myeloma, or bone marrow cancer, seven months ago’.
While the unusual treatment had not been prescribed by her doctor, her decision
had been supported by doctors at the hospital where she was treated. The TV news of the
62-year-old woman together with findings of researchers in Sweden showing that breast
milk could kill cancer cells caused Su-bin and Min-jun to ponder on the inconsiderate
wastage of human milk. They talked to the local hospital about starting a milk bank in the same way they maintained their blood bank. The milk from this bank could be used as
prescribed doses to cancer patients. Pharmaceutical research could also be carried out using milk from the bank to manufacture medicines that could cure cancer.
Three months after this milk bank was started, Su-bin and Min-jun found that their
mission of preparing medicines from human milk was being defeated by profit-making
ventures of the hospitals and the allied pharmaceutical companies. The women in the
society had an ingrained aversion to the idea of milk donation; this couldn’t even be
discussed among people because of local taboos.
The hospital had to offer a lucrative price so that women from poor families were
lured to sell their milk for extra income for the family; even women from middle-class
families soon followed suit. But the hospital’s price of selling the milk from their bank was substantially high—around $100 per litre—and most patients couldn’t afford to buy this
milk, which was much dearer than other available medicines. Some considered getting wet
nurses at $100 per 30-hour week instead of buying milk from the milk bank.
The hospital invested in milking machinery so that incumbent women could be
automatically milked without any human intervention. This machinery reduced the running
cost substantially but they needed to recoup the investment cost as soon as possible. They started a show of women being milked by machines. The hospital managed to get
permission from the local government for this show on the grounds that similar shows had
been already permitted in some milk plants, where people can freely view the milking of
cows.
Somehow it wasn’t considered that women were members of the society—
taxpayers with voting rights. Some taxpayers would find special pleasures in seeing their fellow female taxpayers milked and the taxpayers, getting milked, would be adequately
rewarded; so it was a win-win situation for all taxpayers involved.
The tickets for these shows were quite expensive at $100 for an hour, but many
people, mostly men, found this price was very good for an hour of fun—considerably more
fun than viewing cows being milked. They enjoyed viewing many topless women resting
their bare breasts on the machine that pumped milk off both breasts simultaneously and
the milk flowed through the glass tubes to the milk bank containers while a meter showed
the quantity of milk extracted. They would have liked to see the facial expression of these women being milked, but their faces were hidden beneath masks lest their identities be
revealed to the spectators.
Spectators were not allowed to bring any camera or mobile phone so that no snaps
could be taken, but they could hire binoculars before entering the viewing corridor to have a close view of these women. Many artists liked to watch different shapes of breasts in one go; some were even fascinated to watch the varying forms of nipples before and after the
breasts were engaged on the pumps and how the shape of the breasts changed during the
process of milk extraction.
Regular visitors could easily recognise the women who regularly sold their milk from
the shape of their breasts and nipples, even without having any glimpse of their faces. The women being milked, however, couldn’t see any of the spectators as the walls were made of one-sided viewing glass.
They concentrated on when to engage their breasts on the pump and when to
withdraw; they also noted the meter readings before and after the procedure for their own record as they were paid 10 cents for every millilitre. The average quantity of milk expressed per session was 300ml giving them $30. Some women turned up for more than one session
a day.
The women couldn’t even view the women in the adjacent cubicles through the
opaque glass walls between them. The entrance to and the exit from the cubicle was from
the other side of the corridor. Before entering the cubicle, the woman had to take off her top and put a mask on her face. The women were instructed that they could be seen
through the glass walls, so they should be careful about what would be shown.
Women usually didn’t spend $100 to visit these shows, except a few who were
brought by their husbands to see other women getting milked before convincing them to
offer their own milk for sale.
The business of milk banks prompted pharmaceutical companies to introduce some
drugs and injections that would generate more milk from the women. Many families selling
human milk bought these drugs to get more milk from their women. This was a much
cheaper alternative than buying more vegetables to feed these women. Some families
provided their milky women the food that cows are fed so that they could be profusely
milked. To these families, milk production was of paramount economic importance. The
welfare and health of their children were of very little concern. Infant deaths were on the rise in these families.
These milk-producing drugs, in particular, told upon the health of the incumbent
women and their milk. Instead of killing cancer cells, the milk from the drug-affected women helped the growth of cancer cells. The cancer researchers then realised that bovine milk was good for health, as long as the cows were not injected with those drugs for producing more milk. When bottled bovine milk was no good for health, human milk was still available fresh without any contamination of drugs, but when milk-enhancing drugs spoiled the human
milk there was no use extracting breast milk for curing cancer cells. Health professionals considered closing all milk banks and caring more for restoring bovine health to produce
pure cancer-curing cow’s milk.
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