Текст книги "Best of Asian Erotica, Volume 2"

Автор книги: Miss Izzy

Соавторы: Suzanna Kusuma,Amir Muhammed,John Burdett,Lee Yew Moon,Andrew Penney,O Thiam Chin,Dawn Farnham,Amirul Ruslan,Ricky Low,Richard Lord
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 11 страниц)

As he pressed harder against her flesh, she gasped. Her face knotted in a look of unwanted arousal. But almost immediately, she recovered: she swung around, looking like she had just been bitten by a snake. The expression on her face now clearly warned she was quite ready to attack.

What the hell was he doing? He could be charged with outrage of modesty. He was a lawyer, he knew that. If convicted, he could be suspended from practicing law—`for years maybe.

But being a lawyer, he also knew that he had a ready defence. He was just reaching out to flick something off her shift, there on the back. How did this constitute a sexual assault? To prove his guilt, she’d have to prove some offence was actually committed. Boy, would he love to see this in court: for her to stand up, expose the tattoo, have a deputy prosecutor touch the spot and watch her soar into instant ecstasy. The judge might even ask if he could touch it himself, just to be certain. He knew a few who would probably insist.

He laughed at this notion.

Of course, she had no idea he was laughing at some imagined judge, not her. So when she slapped him hard and jolted the laugh from his face, he was not, as he could have been, riled. But he realised it was useless trying to explain the matter to her. He would just accept the slap as a down payment on what he probably deserved from her.

“A joke, is it? Everything’s a joke for you.” She clutched her bags again and looked ready to pivot and leave.

“No, it’s not a joke, not at all. Look, stay just five more minutes.

I’m ready to fulfill my side of the pact. But I don’t remember what it is.

Honestly.” She looked at him hard, in a way he couldn’t read. Was she trying to judge whether to believe him or not? Or was she waiting for the perfect moment to do something awful to him, to gain what she must see as her justified revenge? “Honestly,” he repeated. “Honestly.” He shook his head in frustration, aware of how deeply dishonest the word “honestly” can sound.

Her features softened significantly. Had he reached her? Was she willing to listen to him, to give him back those parts of the story he was missing? Or was this just a trick to lull him before she struck again? She said nothing for about a minute, just stared at him; he felt like a cord was twisting inside him, slowly pulling his throat down further into his chest.

“No, I really have to go. I do.” She reached down, picked up a sheet of paper from the table, slightly torn at the top, coffee stains at one edge. She held it out to him. “This is yours.”

“No, you can keep it. It’s… it’s a present.”

She smiled at him for the first time, a smile without the strychnine anyway. She then reached into her soft black bag, extracted a pen, and inscribed something on the sheet. She extended it to him once more. “Now it’s my present to you.” After a slight hesitation, he took the drawing back.

“I have to go.”

“Can you give me a number or something where I can contact you?”

“No. You can’t contact me.”

“Okay then, how about… at least tell me where was it? Where did we?

No, better, why are those tattoos so… so powerful?” She smiled again, more warmly this time, whispered, “It’s there,” turned and moved off quickly. He rose, but then just stood there, watching her go. Until she disappeared, he had almost forgotten that he was holding the drawing. He quickly looked to see what she had written. He read, “What you can touch is just the beginning of what you can feel.” He frowned, then folded the sheet in half and slipped it into his wallet, next to the credit cards. “The beginning of what you can feel?” Well, he should be able to work this one out. He was a lawyer after all, someone who used logic to herd and corral the irrational.

And what was that last thing she said? “It’s there?” What’s there? The secret of the tattoos, the place where they met, the reason she couldn’t tell him?

Hmm… it was like his cappuccino, probably: at the bottom of all the foam, all the clouds, you eventually found what you were looking for. As she said, it’s there. And, somehow, he knew that it was.

MIRRORS
Christopher Taylor, Singapore

1. Caroline

He is reclining in his leather armchair, reading the newspaper and she is watching him from the other side of the room. She has just come home from work. She has mixed a gin and tonic, easy on the tonic. She sips the bitter liquid and watches him flip the page.

‘What’s new?’ she says.

‘The world is fucked,’ he says.

‘Lucky world,’ she says. He doesn’t react. She takes a few paces, stops behind the armchair and puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘Anything I should care about?’ she says.

‘Another stewardess has been raped… Forest fires in Sumatra. Protests outside terrorist trial in Manila.’

‘Nothing new, then.’ Her hand slides up his collarbone, her thumb massaging the back of his neck.

‘How was work?’ he says.

‘Oh, you know. I’m still working on that deal, the one with Jakarta. Lim’s still his pig-headed, sexist self. Company stocks holding up surprisingly well, considering.’

His gaze flicks back and forth. She sits on the arm of his chair and lets her hand rest casually on his chest. He manoeuvres his arm around hers to turn another page of the newspaper. She looks out of the plate glass windows beyond the balcony to the golf course, and further, to Sentosa Island and the harbour. ‘Manchester won,’ he says.

Some time passes, and then she says, ‘How about Bintan?’

‘For what?’

‘For a weekend.’

‘Ya, okay. Can.’

‘Okay. I’ll book it.’

‘Wait. What weekend? I have golf next three ones.’

‘Honey,’ she says, looking her husband straight in the eye. He looks up at her, meets her gaze and smiles. ‘Can you make an excuse? Let’s just go. Can’t we?’ He frowns. This is not part of his plan, she can see that. For a moment, she is intensely annoyed with him, almost to the point of hatred.

But then she thinks, Of course: everyone is like this. Nobody really wants to be spontaneous.And she doesn’t really want to go to Bintan anyway; it’s a stupid island, covered in golf courses.

‘Can…’ he says, half-heartedly, but she knows he is saying it to please her. It would be better if he just refused. She walks to the window and looks out. She hears the rustle of paper behind her. She turns and looks at him, then, with a purpose, walks back to the chair and kneels down.

‘Keep reading your paper,’ she says as she unzips his trousers and slides her slim fingers with their fuschia-polished nails inside. ‘Keep reading, honey.’

2. Lim

‘The amazing thing is, when you perfect this…I can’t call it a technique, lah. It’s more like a kind of… attitude. The thing is, what I’m getting at, they come to you. You don’t even have to try. I mean this girl… married. And beautiful. Seriously.

‘I mean, she was just there for eye candy, right? That’s why we employ these MBA babes, to flick their rebonded hair and flutter the lashes. Clicky clicky on the mouse, oh-so-deh-lick-cate-ly. I could see these Jakarta guys getting all hot under the collar when she went through her Powerpoint slides.

I want her to say, “Oops, I dropped my pencil, lah” and just, you know, bend over in that tight skirt, but she doesn’t have to. The professionality of this girl is much more of a turn-on, and when she walked up and fingered that laser pointer, I knew we had them. I was hard already from the fucking, excuse my French, from the deal. I just had to reel them in like fish. Too easy.

‘So, anyway, the point is, I had no designs, absolutely none on this girl.

I mean, she’s married, I even played golf with her hubby once. I was quite shagged out anyway, you know what I mean, I went straight from Geylang to the airport and into the damn meeting and there I was, wired on coffee and just kind of winging it. We were in the hotel bar afterwards, and I was just thinking about my big, fat bonus, and it turns out she was thinking about my big fat boner… Sorry, lah, sorry. I know, I know, don’t cover your ears, it’s okay, I just get carried away telling the story. So damned sweet.

‘Anyway, there we are, in the hotel bar, at the bar, drinking Chivas and green tea to celebrate. I’ve got one eye on her, one on the television, which is showing the news, nothing interesting, no football, just some kind of riot being put down in the Philippines. And she says “So how is Mrs Lim?” and I’m like “She’s a wonderful woman, I would do anything for her, she’s a saint” because I’m in such a good mood. And is she pouting just a little at this? I don’t know, they always look like they’re pouting a little bit anyway, and anyway I don’t notice, and she says “Your wife really understands you, then?”. And I say “Well I suppose she does, as much as anyone understands anyone else” because I’m kind of a philosopher sometimes, you know me.

‘Anyway, then she says something like “I have a wonderful marriage, my husband is taking me to Bintan next weekend” and I say that’s nice, and I drink some more Chivas, and she gives me a really long, kind of weird look, like I’ve said something really irritating, and after while, she says “How about Champagne?”. And I say “I think that is a very wonderful idea, and the company would be delighted to pay for us to drink Champagne given how we have nailed the Jakartans and all”, and so she orders a bottle and we polish it off in about twenty minutes, and by this point I suddenly start to think perhaps she might be MBA in more ways than one…

‘What? You never heard that one? Married But Available… ha ha… anyway, at this point I am definitely starting to suspect that something may be on the cards, so I’m thinking, well I will just try something subtle, so I say “Have you checked the movies on the hotel TV?” and she says “Let’s go check them now” and she orders another bottle of Champagne and off we are going upstairs, leaning on each other and the walls but we get to her room, and…

‘No, lah. No, I know you don’t want to know the saucy details, man, but seriously, her ass is the cutest thing I ever saw. Oh my god. Sorry, lah. Sorry.

You’re such a good guy. I think it’s just my hormonal make-up or something.

I am overactive in that department ever since I was—hey, beer, over here!—well, you know me.

‘Well, if you insist. Yes, we did. Yes, she was. I mean, seriously, I never… the things she can do with those hands, even though I was a bit drunk and all. And I hardly had to move a muscle, just lay back and let it all happen. There was a movie on the TV too. It was a funny one, you know, that American one, with the students. Pie something.’

3. Marlene

She cannot decide whether he is an Epic or a Romantic. Clearly, according to the theory, he must be one or the other. So, she must work it out: which one is he?

It was not clear at first even that he was one of those two. It has taken her some time to narrow it down. But now he is inside her, pushing into her over and again, and she is lying there on her belly, her face muffled in the pillow while he shunts behind her and she tries to work it out.

Consider the evidence, she thinks. For the Epic hypothesis: he cheats.

Clearly. Repeatedly. This is obvious. And he doesn’t feel guilty. The Romantics still do it, but they have this tragic look on their faces, like they hate themselves. He doesn’t have that.

On the other hand, he clearly knows what he wants. There is a routine to this for him, she can see it. There is not enough adventure in this for him for it to be an Epic encounter.

So, it’s an enigma. Unless, that is, there might be a new category. What would she call it? She frowns.

He finishes with a grunt and rolls over. She waits the usual length of time before showering, puts her clothes back on, checks herself in the mirror, and kisses him on the cheek.

‘Thanks,’ he says.

‘Welcome,’ she says, and heads out to the street, getting into a taxi.

When the driver drops her off at the shopping centre, she picks her way up a halted escalator to the second floor, and shows her ID at the entrance to Club Island.

Inside, the band has started. A group of Western guys is being served beer. She stands nearby. One of them is very drunk, wearing a fright wig, a dog collar and a pair of frilly pink panties over the top of his jeans. ‘My fiance,’ he is saying, ‘is the best… the best… you know. Lovely, lovely, lovely. Lovely Keiko. I bloody love her.’

Marlene walks into his line of sight and gives him the look. He glances at her and smiles. Mine,she thinks.

As she is walking over to the group, it comes to her. That Chinese businessman does need a new category, she thinks, and now she knows what it is.

4. Keiko

 
Seven weeks of silence
I break on you like a wave
Why are you absent?
Follow in bare feet
We trace our cold apartment
Our soles on cool tiles
You, the setting sun
Falling always away from me
I run too slowly
Dark air between us
My fingers ask a question
Half your heart answers
Divide and divide
Love leaks, an ebbing fluid
Diminishing us
 
 
When did you leave me?
Why did I not notice it?
I don’t understand
 

5. Brett

No work this week. Only essential travel to the Philippines is advised. Unrest has spread from the cities to the countryside. The rice fields are alight. Some flights are cancelled, including the ones he was due to pilot.

He arrives at Boat Quay at seven-fifteen and takes a table by the river, ordering a Heineken. Jazz drifts from the bar next door. Luminous towers dwarf the shophouses.

She arrives. He checks her out—small, cute—he approves—before standing and waving to catch her attention. She has the slightly knock-kneed gait of many Japanese women, as if modestly keeping her legs together. He will see about that.

He has made the most of these free evenings, and this is his fourth date of the week. God bless date-or-not.com, he thinks.

‘So, you’re an airline pilot,’ she says. ‘That must be very interesting.’

It’s a good sign. Impressed by his job. He checks her out subtly while sipping his beer. She will certainly do.

He is already thinking about the mirrors on his ceiling, how she will look, how he will look doing it to her when he sees them reflected. He has lost weight recently, buffed up a bit. He spent a full twenty-five minutes before heading out examining his reflection in the full-length wall mirror in his bedroom.

‘You have lovely ears,’ he says. He means it. She really does. Each woman has her own special part of the body, he thinks. Like Juvita, the air hostess who kept blowing him in the aircraft toilets. Perfect neck. Tragic what happened to her.

‘Thank you,’ Keiko says, modestly. She insists on pouring his beer for him.

‘Would you like to see a great view of the city?’ he says.

‘Of course,’ she says.

She is under him, her eyes wide. He shifts position so that she is on top. He grasps her slim hips with both hands, then lets the back of one graze across the gentle curve of her breasts, feeling the hard small nipples against his skin. Her mouth is open in a silent exclamation, her eyes tight shut, pelvis rocking. He glances upwards, taking in the sight of her moving on him, and his own body, taught under her. She opens her eyes, looks upwards, then squeezes them tightly shut again and digs her nails into his chest. For a moment, he looks up into his own eyes as if into those of an adversary, one who acknowledges him silently in the dimly lit room.

6. Juvita

She meets Andrew at her tennis club. They have sex that afternoon, in the showers of the ladies’ changing rooms, with the water running. They have sex at dusk, behind a bush in the Botanical Gardens, and in his car, and in the disabled toilets at the Esplanade in the interval of a classical concert, and on the beach on Bintan, and in every room of his apartment, and she sucks him off in the cable car between Harbour Front and Sentosa and wanks him off in the back of a multiplex on Orchard Road during a car chase. He is her thirty-second lover since it happened.

‘I love you,’ he says one day. She stops returning his calls.

7. Andrew

May is cooking rice and some kind of Japanese soup with seaweed in it. He stands in the kitchen with her, opens the wine and pours it into two blue-tinged, thick-stemmed glasses. The trick is not to look too desperate, he thinks. He discreetly checks out her buttocks and then feels guilty.

‘How was your friend’s birthday?’ he says.

‘Not bad,’ she says, tasting the soup. ‘Although we had a few too many, I’m afraid.’ He chuckles complicitly. ‘We had to send the birthday girl home early in a taxi. And then I got talking to a very nice couple, and, um, did that for a while. And then Saturday was shopping. How about you?’ She stirs more rapidly.

‘Pretty boring, I’m afraid,’ he says. ‘I just watched the news. Seems the Philippine thing has spread.’

‘Really?’ she says, absently. The rice cooker light flicks from red to amber.

‘I hope I’m getting some sex tonight,’ she says as he takes the last spoonful of soup. He swallows heavily and looks at her, startled. ‘It doesn’t have to be right now,’ she adds quickly. ‘We can let our food settle first. Drink?’

Several very large gin-and-tonics later, he gets up, sits down, gets up again and they stagger together to her room. He fiddles with the portable CD

player while she removes her clothes and lies back, ready. Barry White starts playing. They laugh together at the cheesiness of his choice. He falls back next to her and begins kissing her. Her tongue probes his mouth. He clutches her breasts, then licks them. She makes noises of approval.

He pushes his hand down inside her panties and fingers her. She is already wet. He finds her clitoris and makes small circles with his finger.

He pulls off her, and then his own, underwear. She lies back, legs open, eyes closed.

After a little while, his member is still, at most, half-mast. The room is turning gin-flavoured circles around his head, which he lowers to the bed to rest a little. It is a little worrying, but he optimistically reasons that if he just carries on, eventually things will sort themselves out.

He is about to suggest that she offer him a hand when she speaks. ‘Can I say something direct?’ she says. His middle digit keeps making small circles, the room large ones. ‘If all I wanted was a finger,’ she says, ‘I wouldn’t have bothered to cook for someone. I could have done that on my own.’

‘Sorry,’ he says.

‘Perhaps,’ she says,’ you would like to just talk some more. We could exchange knitting patterns. Would you like to do that instead?’

He withdraws his hands from her and lies staring at the curtains. She sighs and looks him in the eyes.

‘Let me introduce you to my best friend,’ she says. She reaches under the bed and pulls out a smooth black dildo, a foot and a half long. His eyes widen. She grasps it two-handed, rolls sideways and impales herself on it, groaning convulsively as she comes, and then lies still, smiling. It is like watching someone commit Japanese ritual suicide.

Andrew gets up and pulls on his boxer shorts. ‘I have to go,’ he says.

‘Really?’ she says, looking surprised. ‘Why?’

8. May

‘That just gave me a great idea for a story.’

‘You want me to stop?’

‘No… just. Ah. No… Listen. I’m thinking…’

‘Seriously, Alex, at least finish fucking me before you start work.’

‘Okay…’

‘Okay… Ah. Yes.’

‘…’

‘Is that good, baby?’

‘It’s… um. Yes.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes… in the conflict. It’s set on one of the rebel-held islands…’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. I’m not going to stop, you know.’

‘No… keep going, it’s good.’

‘I know. I’m damn good. They all say that.’

‘…’

‘Oh…’

‘… and the rebel leader has a kind of harem, of girls from the local population…’

‘For fuck’s sake, Alex.’

‘Sorry… Ah! Is that a new trick?’

‘Do you like it?’

‘… but his favourite one escapes, and it kind of ruins his… Oh My Fucking Christ… Ah!’

‘Okay, I give up. Keep going with the story. I’ll just…’

‘Jesus. And he goes looking for the girl…’

‘Wait, let me try it like this.’

‘And he finds her. In a…’

‘In a?’

‘In a brothel, in a local town…’

‘…’

‘…and he can’t touch her any more, because to him it’s as if she was… polluted.’

‘People are shit.’

‘Yep. This guy especially so.’

‘…’

‘Oh.’

‘Touch me here.’

‘…and he’s so pissed off that he goes back to the jungle and brings his rebels and burns down the brothel and burns and massacres half the town for good measure, just out of pique…’

‘…’

‘…and after the battle, he’s in his tent and a girl comes in at night and…’

‘And…?’

‘…and does… what you just did… and it… blows his…’

‘Uhuh?’

‘…ah… his mind. And he wakes up next morning and sees that it’s the same girl, escaped from the burning brothel.’

‘And?’

‘…and he realizes the error of his ways and embraces true love.’

‘…’

‘Oh God, May…’

‘Okay…’

‘Don’t stop… keep going…’

‘That’s it. That’s it. Oh yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.’

‘Jesus… fucking… Christ… on a… fucking… bike…’

‘…’

‘…’

‘That was good.’

‘You’re not kidding.’

‘But you know what?’

‘What?’

‘Your story sucks.’