Andrew Penney - Best of Asian Erotica, Volume 2

‘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.’

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.

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.