Текст книги "Best of Asian Erotica, Volume 1"

Автор книги: O Thiam Chin

Соавторы: Stephen Leather,Alison Lester,John Burdett,Aaron Ang,Hari Kumar,Yusuf Martin,Christopher Mooney-Singh,Jonathan Lim,Erich Sysak,Annabel Pagunsan
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 11 страниц)

“Don’t think too much about what you’re doing. And cut the Pretty Woman crap about not kissing on the lips, okay? It was embarrassing when I called Gabriel to check with him and he told me about this. When did you devise this romantic-crap stuff? Too much movies in your head.” Shun and I were heading for our morning lectures at the university and he was admonishing me on what I had done wrong during the latest weekend assignment. Walking up the stairs towards the lecture theatre at eight forty-five on a cloudy, lazy Monday after a tiring three-tryst weekend, I was far from being awake or alert. But I listened anyway, nodding my head to what Shun had to say, paying what little attention I could muster.

As I listened to him, I looked around at the other students walking alongside us, heading for their respective classes, carrying their haversacks and files of notes, looking fresh and bright eyed. Some were munching on their breakfasts of buttered toast or freshly cut-up fruit, fiddling with packets of coffee or iced Milo; others were talking animatedly on their mobiles, checking on after-class gatherings with their classmates, making lunch appointments with their friends. I wondered what kind of lives they had, what after-school activities they might pursue. Did they, too, have secret lives they kept from their close friends? Did they have sex three times last weekend and earn almost three thousand dollars from it? Would they share this secret with anyone, if they had the chance to do so? Would they be ashamed?

As I stole quick glances at their faces, I realised how far I was from their way of life, their seemingly normal lifestyle of blind dates, late-night movies, furtive kisses, crushes or cramming for tests. I would never be like them, and I was half relieved and half scared by this fact. Half relieved because I did not want to be hiding from what I was, from my sexuality and my needs. Half scared because I was heading nowhere and was fearful of being ostracised by my peers, my family and the whole damn society.

Like any pimp worth his salt, Shun wanted to make sure I got the machinations of this trade into my head, and so he kept drilling these words into me, until I could repeat them word for word. By then, I was already onto my eleventh rich client.

“Just be careful in what you do or what the client wants. Always wear a condom and insist on one if he wants to fuck. Be persistent and show that you are in control over this matter. And never give in to bareback sex. Trust me, you don’t want to die from AIDS at your age. It won’t be the best experience of your life.”

I nodded like a puppet and agreed with what he said. “How long?” I had wanted to ask him several times before, but could not drum up any courage to do so. “Why did you go into this line? Was there no other way?” But I knew he would not entertain my questions.

His secret life as a rent boy was known only to me. “Why me?” I wanted to ask. Did his friends know anything about this life at all? Each time I saw him with his classmates or close friends, in the canteen or library or at the swimming pool, he would look away, ignoring me completely. He would feign that nothing was out of sorts and carry on the conversations with his friends, joking and laughing with them. And every time I would be hurt by his careless actions, no matter how hard I tried not to think about it.

But when he was with me, away from his friends, he displayed a completely different side of himself: a serious no-nonsense Shun, in control of himself and me as well. How could I ever confront him with this disparity?

His eccentric behaviour? He had every reason to back away from me, to head back to his normal life, to have anything and everything he wanted – great looks, peer admiration, good grades, and an attractive personality. What did I have that I could give him? My mouth and my ass? He could have that from anyone, anytime, so why me?

Slowly, Shun began to share other aspects of his secret life with me.

About the middle-aged banker who wanted to keep him as a toy-boy and almost bought him a condominium and a car. But Shun turned him down flatly “because he has a wife and two kids, and there are too many fucking complications.”

And about the creative director of a US-based international advertising agency, who wanted more than just normal sex: “He’s such a pervert and jerk, always asking me to do this and that to him, pull off the S amp;M acts on him.

But it’s hilarious, some of the things he’s asked me to do.” Or about a rich Indonesian-Chinese guy, who claimed to love him and wanted Shun to be his boyfriend: “You should be there, to hear him say the things he says. Taken straight from some trashy magazines or C-grade romance novels. Lovable, but too clingy.”

Where Shun got some of this clientele, I did not know and really did not care to know. But it bothered me to no end, to know that he was with these strange men, let alone having sex with them. And so I didn’t ask him anything about them.

I should have seen it coming sooner or later. Shun was planning to leave me on my own. We had been good friends, but our friendship was not something that could be carried along in our own separate lives. It would be incongruous, even absurd. Of course, by then, I already had a small but growing pool of clients generating a steady flow of comfortable income.

“Do you know what I’ve been doing? Teaching you everything that I have learnt through my mistakes, bad experiences and weird encounters?

It’s not about the money. It’s about strengthening your guts and mind.” Shun looked straight into my face, saying these words with a controlled demeanour, his eyes intensely lucid. “When I first saw you in the toilet, all I saw was a pitiable creature, crawling around on his fours, looking so helpless and lost, and I was so angry. ‘Why are you doing this to yourself?’ I wanted to ask,

‘Being at the mercy of the next person who comes into the toilet and gives you a sympathetic fuck.’ And I wanted so much to grab you there and then and give you a sound beating.”

I bit my lower lip so hard, it began to bleed slightly. Was this true? Was I so helpless? But I did not want his sympathy, and I hated his pity.

“But why me? I’m sure you can take your pity to someone else. Why me then? Am I your personal charity case?” I shot out vehemently, tripping over my own words, and as I heard them coming out of my mouth, I could feel the helplessness of it. I stared at him as coldly as I could, in silent defiance.

“I don’t know why. I don’t know why I’ve chosen you. I just did,” Shun replied, as he stirred his cup of mocha latte continuously, absent-mindedly, as if to blend his words into the murky mix. And he remained silent, his thoughts far away from mine, a world apart though we were sitting face to face in the Starbucks outlet in the university. The white noise of chatter and laughter from nearby tables drifted over in wisps. A young female student laughed heartily at the next table. A fly landed on Shun’s hand and he waved it away.

“I have an important client tonight who is organising a small orgy and wants the company of young men like us.” Shun looked into my face for any changes, and seeing no expression, continued with his proposal.

“He’s paying four thousand dollars for just one night. I want you to come along with me, we can split the money equally. Anyway, it’s good money.” He stirred up the dregs of his drink with his straw, took a sip and pushed the cup away rudely, as if it was an abhorrent object he’d just discovered. I’d already taken part in several orgies by this time, so I was not squeamish about his request. But I wanted to refuse him, for the very sake of saying no to him, to deny him my dumb submission for once. But something in me, a pure rush of impulses, wanted to give in without hesitation. There was no reason to refuse him but there was no reason to acquiesce either.

“Come on, tell me, are you interested or not? If not, forget about it.

Forget what I just said.” With that, he pulled back his seat and stood up. My heart leapt to follow him.

“Okay, okay, I’m in. Just tell me where and when. I will be there,” I said.

“I will call you later,” Shun replied casually, before grabbing his bag hanging from the seat, smiled at me and left the table. A heavy feeling overcame me and, like a ship’s anchor dropped into the depths, I was submerged and sunken.

The man answered the door almost immediately, as if he had been standing behind it, waiting anxiously for our arrival. He extended his hand solicitously and welcomed us.

“Hi, you’re finally here! We’ve been waiting! My name is Ben.” With that, he gestured us into the spacious living room of his bungalow. “For a while, we thought you guys were lost,” Ben said as he led us into the room. Which was almost impossible, I mused inwardly, since the bungalow stood apart from the rest of the houses along this stretch of road in the obsequiousness of its lavish facade. No one with eyes could miss it. In any case, Shun and I took a taxi from our hostel. Along the journey, we hardly talked to each other, except to ask the perfunctory questions. Shun looked out his window at passing streetlights, at people waiting at bus stops, at the traffic, hardly acknowledging my presence, while I stole long glances at him from time to time.

But upon entering the house, Shun quickly reverted to his amiable, almost businesslike self, a stark contrast to his other self, five minutes ago.

He took the initiative to answer all the questions posed by Ben with an old-school-friend candour.

The house was sparsely decorated and furnished, with Postmodern paintings hanging on several walls and a large faux-fur carpet covering the living room floor. A few men sitting on the couch looked up as we approached. There were three of them, smartly dressed in polo shirts and pants, drinking red wine, their faces slightly flushed. Like Ben, they were in their late thirties, professional looking, cultured and very loaded. The last bit of information was supplied by Shun when he called me that afternoon to inform me of the details of this orgy. All of them stood and began to introduce themselves. After which, one of the men, Chris, offered Shun and me each a glass of Pinot Noir.

We sat and began to chat. Shun turned to talk to the guy closest to him, a music company vice president named Tim, while I made chit-chat with Chris, an art gallery owner. While we talked, Ben and his live-in boyfriend Stan pulled away from us and began to whisper to one another animatedly, after which Ben turned to address the rest of the group.

“Guys, since we are all here, I don’t think we should waste any more time,” Ben remarked with a wink before adding, “Let’s go up to the room, shall we?”

With that, he grabbed hold of Stan’s hand and began to lead the way.

Chris, Tim and Shun stood up promptly and followed the two men. I held back momentarily, as the effects of the wine hit me. Shun looked back at me cursorily with a baleful frown. I got to my feet unsteadily and joined the group, my head pounding with spikes of brightness.

The bedroom was on the second floor of the house, at the further end. It was dimly lit with the warm orangish hues given off by two aluminum-cast table lamps. Stepping into the tepid room, I felt a rush of claustrophobia, as if the space had suddenly shrunk and was pressing in on all sides, pushing all of us together into this confining place. I drew in several inaudible breaths and oriented myself, trying to get a stable bearing. Ben and Stan had already stripped off their tops and were sandwiching Shun in their embrace, nudging him to take off his T-shirt, assisting him gently. Shun allowed them to strip him without any resistance. Meanwhile, Tim and Chris had surrounded me and were doing likewise, tugging at my shirt, undressing me as they moved their hungry hands over my body, as if appraising something they had just bought.

While they were undressing me, I looked over at the menage a troisof Shun, Ben and Stan. By now, all of them were naked. With Shun between them, Ben and Stan were pressing their erections against his slender, muscular body, as they kissed his face and shoulders voraciously, like hunters savouring their prey. Shun seemed to luxuriate in their passion, perhaps even enjoying himself; I couldn’t tell. As Shun kissed Ben full on his lips, he looked over at me piercingly. And with that look, I knew instinctively what he had been trying to convey for so long. He belonged to no one, not even me with my attraction and attachment. He refused to be claimed by anyone; no one should own him in any way. He chose to be free and his freedom created a wide chasm, uncrossable and unbridgeable.

A new wave of pain inundated me, numbing all my faculties and rendering them temporarily inoperative. I was devastated and dazed. But I had no time to think right then, with the hands of Chris and Tim all over me, caressing eagerly. I shut down my mind and gave myself over to them.

I sought out Chris’s mouth from the tangle of our bodies and kissed him hungrily. I did not hold back this time.

LESS THAN A DAY
John Burdett, Thailand

1.

Just because I’m going to Bangkok, doesn’t mean I’ll…

Since he was talking to himself Fred didn’t need to complete the sentence. His internal dialogue consisted mostly of such snippets: loath the exploitation of women… anyway have a relationship… whatever that means… at least think I do… giving it an effin good try anyway.

He was in a business lounge at Heathrow. To prove his point to himself, he fished out his mobile and dialled a number he knew by heart, but had not yet assigned to autodial. It rang until her voice began reciting her automatic reply. She had gone out of her way to be charming to callers both known and anonymous: do, do, try me again later, I’m in a meeting just now…Except she wasn’t in a meeting. It was quite early Sunday morning. Fred had to leave the UK on his day off in order to start work on his assignment Monday night, in order to get back to the UK, the office and herbefore the end of the week.

He knew it would be quite a squeeze, but no reason why he couldn’t manage. It was a straightforward story with a nice dark theme: middle-aged Englishman falls for Thai bargirl, buys a house in the country and a car for them, both of which he puts in her name: a magnificent two story Spanish-Asian fusion job with double car port and a Toyota 4×4. Then she dumps him.

Legally both house and car are hers: he no longer has the right to live in his own home. It turns out she had a boyfriend her own age just down the road in her village. Then, if that were not tragic enough, the poor guy-his name was James Conway, aged fifty-five-gets shot in the head when walking home from the local bar one night.

Cruelty and murder were like porn: readers were automatically hooked.

And there were enough middle-aged Englishmen living with ex-bargirls, both in the UK and overseas-perhaps a little paranoid about their relationships – for the story to improve subscription numbers.

That’s why Fred’s editor wanted him to chase it. Fred was heterosexual and under thirty, which pretty much made him the obvious choice. More: Fred had spent a year in Paris, so he was cosmopolitan; it had to be him. Of course, the big-time media had broken the story already, for about a nanosecond. As far as Fred’s editor knew, no one was doing it in depth though. Except Fred, who would end up spending a whole week of his life on it, if you took the travel time into account.

‘While you’re there, see if you can dig up a few more yarns, the kind we can store for a while… You know the sort of thing.’

Of course, Fred didn’t know the sort of thing, and neither did his editor, but any old dark stories would do. Everybody said what a lucky chap he was, whilst secretly relieved they didn’t have to go themselves: such a long trip, no friends out there, not as if he was going to a beach or anything truly exotic, the murder happened in deep country, a place called Isaan. And, let’s face it, Thailand, for all its charm, was Third World, even though it wasn’t PC to say so.

The fact that she—her name was Penny, but since he could not claim a romantic connection with any other woman, she appeared in his inner life as simply sheor her-was not answering her phone caused a mild panic, a fluttering somewhere in his stomach. She knew he was at the airport, waiting for a plane that would take him away for a week right at the beginning of their… whatever it was. He sent a text message with a much jollier tone than he felt: Off to the wild East in about an hour, missing you already.

He hesitated before pressing Send. On an emotional level the message expressed a deeper commitment than either had agreed to so far. All they’d done was get drunk and stoned and have sex, but the sex had been sogood-

they’d discussed it in real time over their mobiles the next day—that a re-run was certainly on the cards. Apart from that, their budding romance was conducted electronically: texts for short Hi theres, emails for longer, more structured sentences: God your tits are just, well, out of this world, I don’t just mean size, I mean everything, shape, firmness, proportion… I was thinking of them at five o’clock this morning… Sorry if this is too, you know…

Don’t worry, Sugarplum, I think we both had the bang of our lives, didn’t we? I know I did. I never would have guessed you were so big… I woke up thinking about your bits too…

Love? Hardly, whatever thatwas, but a beginning of something that had a chance of survival? Maybe. He was just sick and tired of the endless chase for emotional stability, but you couldn’t fess up to that, especially not at the beginning. Nobody could afford to be someone else’s crutch amp; crotch for life, not if you wanted to stay in the race, keep upwardly mobile, pay off the mortgage on your studio flat, think about buying a decent car—finally. He pressed Send, anyway, wondering if he was being uncool. To be honest, he hoped for a reply within the minute. She took forty and, to his own astonishment, the wait caused him to come out in a cold sweat and an inner voice started saying nasty, vengeful things about her, until his phone whooshed—it was his main life style decision that he preferred whooshes to bleeps: Have a great trip, see you when you get back, you lucky dog.

No missing you too, he noted. And who was she with at nine o’clock on a Sunday that she couldn’t answer her phone or reply to a text message without making him wait more than half an hour? He felt the onset of depression.

Then his phone whooshed again: I’m gonna miss you too, Sugarplum.

Now he felt like a million. The odd thing, of course, was that their relationship-if they had one-would not actually change at all. Neither had had time to meet again for the action replay, and they could text and email just the same while he was in Thailand as when they were ten miles apart in London. So, in terms of cyberspace, nothing was going to change over the next week. Was it?

Fred took out a book he’d bought the day before by some expat Brit who’d made a name for himself writing noirnovels about Bangkok bargirls.

He speed read it, skipping all the poverty-and-preaching stuff, grabbing what he needed. The main point was that Bangkok bargirls almost all came from this Isaan place, which was in the Northeast. He figured a smart move would be to spend Monday night doing the bars in Bangkok and learning about Isaan, so he’d have all the background he needed without having to schlep all over the countryside in a hire car. If he had any talent at all, he told himself, it was for finding the quickest smartest way to the guts of his stories.

2.

Fred wasn’t sure of anything except it was Tuesday and there was a body in the bed next to him. When he adjusted his mobile to Thai time, it was still Tuesday, but much later in the day and the brown girl was turned away from him. He stood up to walk around the bed and look at her. His first reaction was to congratulate himself on his good taste. This was a truly beautiful woman, with high cheek bones and an elegant gauntness, full sweet lips.

From the shape of the bed clothes, the rest of her was pretty well put together, too. When she smiled he felt even more pleased with himself.

‘Hi. I’m Lalita.’

‘Right,’ Fred said. ‘I’m Fred.’

‘I know. I wasn’t drunk last night.’

Fred nodded thoughtfully. ‘Would you mind telling me what happened?’

‘You got drunk and kept telling me how beautiful I was. You paid my bar fine, so I had to look after you. You were going to ring the bell, but I stopped you.’ Her English was almost perfect, with a mid-Atlantic accent.

‘Bell?’

‘Every bar has a bell. If you ring it you have to buy everyone a drink.

There were about fifty people there. I saved you about twenty thousand baht.’

He made the calculation. A thousand quid? Jesus. ‘Thanks.’

She smiled again. ‘But you were too drunk to get it up. You want to do it now?’

Fred blinked. ‘You want to?’

‘I don’t care. I want to get paid, but I’m not a beggar. So?’

He took a step forward, which brought him to the edge of the bed. He was naked except for his shorts, which she pulled down enough to expose his member. She rose to sit cross-legged on the bed, in T-shirt and panties.

He watched her cup one hand under his testicles and, with the other, slowly, expertly, and tenderly produce an erection. She made sure it was good and firm before putting it in her mouth. After a minute or so she took it out again.

‘You want to come like this, or you want to fuck me?’

‘I don’t know,’ Fred said, still half drunk, ‘to tell the truth I think…’ He put out a hand to steady himself on her thin shoulder. A spasm.

Now his sperm was all over her tiny brown hand. She shook it as if she was shaking off a cobweb. Suddenly anxious to save her from indignity-

beauty had that effect on him-he grabbed a box of Kleenex that was on the bedside table and handed it to her. She first cleaned him, then her hand.

‘Well,’ Fred said, still leaning on her shoulder and feeling dizzy.

She looked into his eyes. ‘You want me to stick around so you can do it properly? Or are you always like this? Are you alcoholic?’

‘How much d’you want?’

‘Two thousand baht, same as if you fucked me. That’s because I stayed the night with you.’

Two thousand baht: that was less than he’d spent on champagne on that one and only night with Penny. And it wasn’t even a full night. He’d had to get in his car at a freezing 3 am because she couldn’t sleep with someone else in the bed with her. ‘I understand.’

‘So?’

‘We don’t have to do it. Just stick around for an hour or so, I’d like to ask you some questions.’

‘Again?’

‘Was I that drunk? Did someone spike my drink?’

‘Why would anyone do that? Have you been looking at one of those websites?’

A pause while he looked around the room. ‘Maybe I do have a drink problem,’ he said, mostly to himself. He remembered, now, how wired he was when he hit the bars. When wired, he drank. It went with the job.

In London, if you wanted people to talk, you bought them drinks. No one likes to drink alone, so you drink with them.

He’d never had such a complete memory blackout before though.

Maybe it was the jetlag. He shrugged. ‘Did I ask you about Isaan?’

‘Yes.’

‘And about that case?’

‘The English guy who got shot to death? Yes.’

Fred pulled his shorts back up and sat next to her on the bed. There was something deeply troubling about this situation that he could not quite put his finger on. She was so friendly, chummy even, like they were old pals. It wasn’t right to feel this relaxed with a stranger, a whore, in a country he’d been in for less than a day. Culture shock: he couldn’t think of anything so thoroughly un-British. Where was the paranoia on both sides, the mutual contempt between prostitute and client, the guilt, the nausea? And how was it he was starting to feel horny after he’d just come? That hadn’t happened to him since he was sixteen. He slipped a hand up her back under the T-shirt, then round to her breasts. Full, young, firm. He felt that hand again, working the outside of his shorts this time. He groaned with a sense of foreboding: If this is as good as it looks where the eff have I been all my life?

She slipped out of her T-shirt and panties, pushed him back on the bed so she could pull his shorts off, straddled him, worked on both his and her private parts until both their bodies were ready for fluid exchange, then reached behind him to find a condom, which she spread wide and slipped on.

Now she eased him inside her. He couldn’t believe it. Exactly five and a half thrusts and he was jerking uncontrollably again. She eased herself off of him, carefully removed the clotted condom, cleaned him again, took the condom to the bathroom, returned, naked, with another of those incredible smiles.

‘Why are you crying, Fred?’

‘I don’t know,’ Fred said.

‘Don’t know?’

‘I think it might be because you’ve just made a fantasy come true, and that scares the living shit out of me.’

She blinked. He’d lost her in his culture shock. ‘You need an interpreter when you go to Isaan?’

‘Oh Christ yes,’ Fred said, wiping his cheeks with a Kleenex.

‘You’ll have to pay my bar fine for as long as it takes.’

‘Whatever,’ Fred said, ‘It’s all on expenses.’

‘Really?’

‘I mean the interpreting, not the sex.’

She pulled on her T-shirt and panties and fished a mobile out of a handbag. She spoke rapidly in Thai, then closed the phone. ‘You have to pay for a week, in advance. Give me the money so I can take it to the mamasannow. Or is a week too long?’

‘How about we make it a year?’ Fred said.

That made her laugh, an old-fashioned belly laugh like his granny used to have. In London they didn’t laugh like that anymore.

‘Eleven hours,’ Fred muttered, looking at his cellphone.