Andrew Penney - Best of Asian Erotica, Volume 2

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

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.’

You have to be fucking kidding me. A dude ?

She tucks her dick and balls between her legs and slips on the tight black trousers. Arranges her silicon tits inside purple lace. Practices her pout in the mirror. She is picked up and driven to the ambassador’s residence, showing her ID at the manned gate. ‘Hello Baby,’ she says to him.

They spend the evening doing all the things he likes, which are many and varied, and include, after the semen has dried on the sheets and used condoms litter the floor, talking about the international situation.

Over these last months, she has offered her advice on various matters, but this is the most important. Now the trouble has spread to several countries, including her own, and his country is considering sending in its military in support of its allies. Tomorrow’s negotiation is, as he puts it, the crunch.

She worries for him. She soothes him, says kind things, thoughtful things, insightful things. He will consider her advice, he says. Then she leaves, discreetly picking up the envelope of cash from the table on her way out to where a limousine is waiting, the driver trying not to make it obvious that he is staring from the side of his eyes in a fascination he would not admit to in front of his friends.

She asked him for a favour. There were so few flights, and her family were all back there, her children also, and she missed them, she was worried, and she was very sorry to ask and to bother him but she was due the vacation and he was so important and so smart, could he get her back home for Christmas?

No, he said, too dangerous, the jungle is full of terrorists, but when she wept, he couldn’t stand it. He relented and pulled a string or two. She was booked on one of the few flights still operating to Cebu City.

Now, in the quiet of the early evening, with the dark palms whispering outside in the garden and deep-throated bullfrogs honking in the trees like a broken accordion, the ambassador returns to his house with a heavy heart.