Cheryl Tan - Sarong Party Girls

“And the lucky lady this hour is… Sylvia Pereira!” a bloody stiff British man’s voice announced. I guess his mic had some special sound effect because his voice had some action action echo and all.

The crowd went mad, cheering even louder than the pounding music. A light-skinned Eurasian girl with long wavy brown hair, a leather bustier and red hot pants ran up to the chair. Two unicorns appeared to strap her wrists and ankles to the chair and recline her seat. Then one of them tied a fluorescent pink paper bib around her neck. The crowd cheered even louder.

“Ready?” the booming voice said. Two more unicorns appeared, each one holding a bottle of Diva. The girl closed her eyes, tilted her head back and opened her mouth wide. “Set? Go!”

The two unicorns were suddenly damn action—each one held the bottle up high, in a drama drama way. Then at the exact same time they started pouring Diva down the girl’s throat! Even from this far away, we could see the two steady streams of vodka slicing through the air in long sparkling ribbons before landing perfectly in the eager girl’s mouth. This went on for almost a minute! I was impressed—this girl was damn power. How could she drink for so long without vomiting?

“And…” the British voice came back. “Over!”

The two unicorns put their bottles down in sync, bowed and then marched away. The first two unicorns stepped forward to unstrap the girl, who seemed a bit wet around her face and chest.

“Let’s give a round of applause to… Sylvia!” the voice said. People were clapping; the lights were all brightly focused on her now. Sylvia gave a big smile, raising her hands to do that Princess Kate wave to everyone, then she started to sit up and her face changed a bit. Her smile was now habis—she had to sit back down and was bending over the side of the chair a bit. The four unicorns rushed to surround her, making a circle. The lights quickly started flashing and moving around the room again so we suddenly couldn’t see Sylvia or the chair anymore. The music got louder, much louder than it had ever been before.

“How— Jazzy, should we put your name in for the dentist’s chair?” Louis said, putting his arm around me.

“Tolong—no,” I said, giving him the third finger.

“Why not? Free double shots, you know!” Louis added, circling his arm tighter around my neck and pulling me closer so he can whisper, “You know how expensive Diva is or not? Each bottle is $2,888!”

My god. I tried to count in my head how many bottles we had already opened that night. Confirm three—and who knows how many they had had before I got there?

Louis didn’t seem to care though—so why should I care?

“No wonder so shiok,” I said, shrugging. “Come, another bottoms up!” This time I poured two shots for everyone and made them all drink quickly.

Around this time, I started to think maybe it’s time to call it a night. Tonight is confirm no new prospects—even though Inferno was filled with rich guys (or guys who looked really rich) I was there as Louis’s guest so I couldn’t leave him to go wander around the dance floor chatting up other guys. That really would be giving him no face. And his friends Francis and Ben were both quite cute—but if they were Louis’s colleagues then I definitely didn’t want to pok them. Too close to home. Since they don’t live here, whatever we did, confirm, would be a one-night stand. The worst would be the after—if they gossiped about it with Louis and Louis gossiped with Kelvin and Andrew. Better don’t mix business with pleasure.

“Eh, Louis, I think I’d better go home before I start feeling super mabuk,” I said.

Louis nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Me also. We’ve been drinking since six!”

The guys were not ready to balik kampong yet though so Louis just signed the bill and told the waitress to bring out more Divas if the guys needed them and put them on his tab.

“Come,” he said, after we said goodbye to the guys and were walking out the door. “I send you home.”

I was more mabuk than I first thought, so I was glad Louis was sending me home. Plus, he even had a company driver waiting outside in a silver Mercedes, so we didn’t need to finagle with the taxi queue, which I could see was already damn long. This life Louis had… damn difficult, eh?

When we reached my block and the car stopped, I leaned over to air-kiss Louis but he said, “Not yet. You’re so mabuk, I’d better walk you up.”

This was true. I couldn’t remember how many shots I’d had but I was feeling damn tired, even though it was only 2 A.M. Maybe safer to let him send me up.

When we got in the lift, I started to feel damn embarrassed though. Usually the lift smells a little like smoke and urine, but tonight the scent was even more thick—someone must have come home from clubbing and couldn’t wait to reach home. Aiyoh. I’m sure Louis, with his big Nassim Hill mansion, had never breathed in this kind of air in a very long time. I should have thought about this before letting him walk me up. No matter how mabuk I was, the embarrassment of this was just too much. I would have gladly preferred to fall on my face in a puddle of urine from being too drunk to stagger home than let Louis see my daily living environment like this.

Louis didn’t seem to mind though—in fact, he was humming one of the house music tunes from Inferno, half-closing his eyes. I had never felt more relieved as when the lift door opened. The air had also never smelled more sweet. I could feel my armpits getting wet. As we walked down the narrow corridor, carefully stepping past my neighbors’ giant pots of money plants, with leaves growing all over half the walkway, I realized why I was feeling a bit nervous. All the years that Louis has sometimes sent me home, he had always dropped me off downstairs. I guess now, for the first time, he’s really seeing how I live. Aiyoh—like that, how? Would he still think I’m atas enough to come out clubbing with him?

At the end of the corridor, I quickly opened my gate, hoping he was mabuk enough that he didn’t notice the brown rusted spots all over it. Before I opened the door, I leaned in again to air-kiss him.

“Can I come in?” he whispered, smiling, still with his eyes half-closed.

Guniang here was stunned. This. Now, this really had never happened before. I tried to think of how to be polite about it. My mind was cotton balls.

“It’s very late, you know…” I whispered back.

“I know—just for a bit.”

“My flat is very quiet—my parents would be unhappy if I had a friend…”

“I’ll be very very quiet—I promise,” he said, squeezing my hand.

We didn’t say anything for a moment—me, because I really couldn’t think of what to say. This was wrong. On so many levels. Forget Mary—she really was never a factor in anything. But Imo, sweet Imo. Not to mention Roy. Or the fact that I thought of Louis as a brother. And the fact that I didn’t want to. And I was drunk. And I just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep. And…

Louis sighed. His eyes had a slightly narrow look to them. He seemed impatient—something I had seen only a few times before because Louis was generally so good-natured. But the times that I had—just tiny tiny flashes of impatience—I had thought, My god, I never want that directed at me.

“Jazzy,” Louis finally whispered, “didn’t you have a good time tonight?”

Suddenly, I saw his point. I had no choice.

I tried to reason with myself. Well… I had always liked Louis a lot as a friend. And I guess I did think he was cute, even if I never found him attractive in that way, because of Imo. And, after all our years of partying together and all those free drinks, I guess I owed him as much as Imo ever did. What did I think—that this was all free?