Cheryl Tan - Sarong Party Girls

But Singaporean guys, aiyoh, if you hook them properly and fasterly, they will pamper you for a long time. So when I told Louis we wanted to go, he texted his guy at Lunar to book a VIP table. Since it was our first time there, Louis agreed to come out earlier to meet us. This wasn’t easy. His wife, Mary, usually doesn’t start her mah-jongg game until 11 P.M. so Louis cannot leave until then. But tonight was a special case—we were not meeting at the usual club and in this Lunar world, we quite toot, China girls are quite fierce. So, Mary—once she heard where we were meeting, even she was OK with Louis coming out early just this time. After all, she probably thinks, if us girls slowly one by one get married, maybe Louis will see his friends settling down and he’ll start staying at home more. Even though Louis never talks about it, we all know that it’s getting to be time for him to pop out a son. And Mary, of course she wants that too—once that happens, she’s really set for life! Dowager status—earned.

“Eh, Jazzy, tonight is really happening ah?” Louis said when Imo, Fann and I finally got there and made it through, past the VIP bouncer. I tell you, this was the first time he was so on time. Must be he’s a bit worried for us. Louis of course was nice as usual, holding up the bottle of Chivas after we double-kissed. We used to just hug when we saw each other, but then last year he and Mary went to Paris for a holiday. When he came back, he started doing that Frenchy double kiss that you see those atas people do. So now, like that lah.

“Jazzy, you’re looking good,” he said, running his right hand through his nicely styled fringe and smiling. He was not bad-looking for a Singaporean guy, actually. Married lah, but I still might have considered. His family is so rich—who wouldn’t want? Except that we all knew Imo had her eye on him. She never told us if anything happened, but sometimes we could see her drinking very little and then waiting for Louis to offer to send her home. Sometimes she had to wait for hours, watching him drink Chivas after Chivas, pulling random girls from his office or sometimes me, Fann or Sher close to him if we happened to be nearby during one of his favorite songs. Whoever it was, he would wrap his arms around the girl as he sang each word, his mouth so close it sometimes felt as if he was eating our ears. Imo never got upset—pointless, after all. Dancing is just dancing. And she knew she didn’t have any real right to be upset. Not that we knew whether anything was going on, or wanted to ask. These kinds of things, better not to know too much. It made it easier on those few nights when Mary actually agreed to set aside her mah-jongg game and come out with us. If none of us actually officially knows anything about Imo and Louis, when his wife is out with us, we all can still smile, say hi hi and everything is OK one.

“Of course lah,” I said to Louis, pulling back my new sexy black tank top and puffing up my small boobs. “People went shopping all—just for you!” Louis rolled his eyes, stuck out his third finger and then held up his other finger to ask me whether I wanted one shot or two. “Aiyah, two lah, two lah,” he said, shaking his head and starting to pour. I could see him looking around to mentally count how many drinks he had to pour, and he had a slightly confused look for a moment when he saw that Sher wasn’t there. “Married,” I said. I could see him sighing and blinking his eyes; he shook his head and started pouring.

After handing out glasses to the three of us, he rubba-ed my neck a bit and whispered in my ear, “China girls! They are havoc, man. You sure you want to be in their territory? You can still change your mind, you know. Terence is holding my table at Studemeyer’s until one A.M. if we want it.”

“Crazy! You think I’m scared?” I said, holding up my hands and hitting my left palm into my right fist. “Lumpar lah!”

Louis thought for a moment, then just raised his eyebrows and nodded, smiling. He raised his right hand and gave me a big thumbs-up. He should know better. He’s known me for how long already—and he still dares to ask me this kind of rubbish question? China girls are nothing compared to us!

Actually, to be honest, we were a bit scared when we walked in. When we walked in, the first thing we heard was this damn loud Hokkien singing. Yes, I know some Hokkien but walao, this song was so cheena that even I couldn’t understand what the guy was singing about. Something about girls and love and other cock stuff, I’m sure. The waitresses were all wearing these bright red glittery cheongsam-style bodysuits that were super tight and super short. From the looks of them—hair dark dark and straight straight, fair skin, flat nose, crooked teeth, concave chest—I could tell that they were all really from China.

When we first started seeing China girls popping up in the 1980s—at first in Geylang around the brothels but then after a while, everywhere—we at first thought these girls were so plain-looking, what harm could they be? With faces like that, how can they win? Especially back then, those SK-II type face creams were all still quite expensive so not everybody had fair skin—some were still a little dark-looking, like those coolies in padi fields type. But I tell you ah—these girls are quite cunning. They only look simple—if you see their eyes close-up… scary! Each and every one of them, they all have that hungry look. Even if a guy has a wife, girlfriend, kids, grandkids, they also heck care one. All they care about is what they can take—Singapore citizenship is number one. Coach handbag, condo, car and cash even better—nice, but not so necessary. If they win the man then everything set already—no need to go home to their longkangs in China.

At Lunar, the whole place was filled with these girls—the cheongsam sluts were fawning over the guys, some even daring to sit in their laps out in the open. Walao eh, we couldn’t believe it—this place is a decent club in Clarke Quay, you know. It’s not say super atas like the Orchard Road bars—but it’s also not sleazy like Geylang at 3 A.M. Kani nah—so daring! And in all the little white shiny banquettes on the side there were groups of China girls just sitting around, looking pretty—as pretty as they can try and look lah—and trying to catch guys’ eyes. Fann and Imo were quiet, looking around quite shocked. We were dressed up rather nicely—that day, Imo came from stylo work drinks so she was wearing a little black dress (new one—Marc Jacobs, don’t play play!) and Fann, well, Fann was looking as nice as she can. And I was feeling quite chio in my new Seven jeans. If any guy is not staring at my backside tonight, I tell you, he is confirm agua.

When we came out, we knew we were looking damn steam. But these cheongsam sluts—walao. The competition really was a bit unfair. I stared at Louis and he shook his head, leaning over to my ear. “Woman,” he said, “don’t forget—it was your idea to come here.”

Aiyoh. Well, since we were here, we might as well stay, I thought. Better don’t waste a Friday night. Louis poured another round of double shots to make us feel better. It worked. After a few sips, we could actually relax a bit. Soon after, when a few of Louis’s guy friends showed up, we were already a bit high. So high in fact that we actually forgot why we went there. Until the Ah Beng emcee in the sparkly purple suit and the Elvis Presley hairstyle got in the middle of the stage and started shouting some nonsense in Hokkien that we couldn’t really understand. But from the way he was pointing at the crowd and shaking his mike around, we could tell that something was about to start.

In our VIP section, Fann, Imo and I all stood up so we could see better. We were all squinting squinting at the stage, trying to see what was going on but eh? Nothing was happening. At this point the lights had gone down and the place was quite dark except for these two bright red circles of spotlight that were chasing each other around the room. This kind of light show—fucking toot, man. I was just about to whisper to Fann, “My god, this is damn boring,” when Louis tapped me on the shoulder. “Guniang, look over there,” he said, pointing toward the center of the room. When we first walked in, I had noticed this big divider in the middle of the room—there were two long lines crisscrossing in the middle, separating the room into four parts. Quite strange. Usually these clubs like to have a large, more open space so people can have more dancing dancing and all. But then I thought, well, Lunar is owned by some old man from the Mainland, after all. These kinds of modern stylo design features, how is he supposed appreciate?