Cheryl Tan - Sarong Party Girls

I had no valid reason to say no.

My first reaction was to sigh but I stopped myself. I felt a little nauseous and took a deep breath and swallowed hard. OK, Jazzy, I thought, let’s just get this over and done with.

I put my finger to my lips to remind Louis to be quiet, then very very slowly opened the door so the creaking could barely be heard and then very very slowly closed it after we were inside. Then I took his hand and brought him to my bedroom.

Once we were inside and the door was shuffled shut, Louis quickly took off his shoes so I also took mine off. It was damn dark but the room was so small, if he even moved a bit, he would feel the bed bumping his knee. I sat on the bed and he sat very close to me—we had no choice. The bed was so narrow, after all.

Louis gently pushed me back on the bed so I was lying down, looking up at him. Then he got up, removed his Rolex Oyster and put it in his pants pocket, took something plasticky out of his wallet, then took off his pants and briefs, carefully setting them on the floor, right by the foot of the bed. Then he climbed on top of me and started kissing.

At the time, I was just kind of analyzing everything as it was happening—his kisses, quite interesting, actually. Considering how much money he has, I always thought that his kisses would surely be quite forceful. But in real life, it was actually soft and bloody wet. I wondered if that was what kissing a girl’s chee bye was like. Nice and warm and wet, but at the end of the day, the chee bye doesn’t give you much energy—doesn’t kiss you back.

I also suddenly realized how not mabuk he was. Even in the dark, he seemed to know where everything was. While he was kissing me, his left hand could still fasterly find the buttons of my tight shirt and undo them, then unhook my front-hook bra and rub my tetek. After a few seconds of this, he sat back up and fiddled with the plastic thing in his right hand. Ah—rubber.

I heard him slip it on, felt him roll my panties off me, then quickly slip inside. I was a bit wet, but actually even if I wasn’t that wet, it would also have been OK. Louis was damn small! He lay down on top of me again and started pumping away, fast and stabbing. I thought of the sleek Inferno waitresses breaking up ice in our bucket with their long silver picks.

Louis kept his promise—he was very quiet. So quiet that after less than a minute of this, he came without me even noticing. Guniang at first thought he was only taking a break—but when he pulled out and rolled over to lie by my side, I realized he had finished.

We lay side by side, squeezed together like sardines on my bed. I could hear him breathing damn heavily. I guess he had a good time?

“Sorry,” he finally whispered. “It’s been a long time. You know lah—Imo was avoiding me and then she was too sick to come out tonight.”

Imo! My god, thinking about her again, lying in bed with my bra open, my panties gone, the guy she loves lying next to me, panting and now, rolling off a soggy condom—this, this really killed me. Die lah. This one is really really die.

“No worries,” Louis whispered again. “I brought two rubbers. Rest a bit, then we can go again.”

What? One more time? Kani nah!

I could feel his head moving around a bit, like he was looking around the room or something. I guess maybe his eyes were now adjusted to the dark; he could see a bit more. I wondered if he could see my lousy desk and all my secondary school crap, how small the room was and how the paint around the window was peeling.

“What time is it?” he whispered.

I started to move so I could try and find my phone.

“No, no, don’t worry,” he said. “I know it must be late.”

His head was still moving around a bit—I guess he could probably see some things in the darkness. He was silent for a moment.

“Maybe,” he whispered, “maybe I’d better make a move first.”

“OK,” I whispered back. Before I could sit up he was already standing. I quickly buttoned half my blouse and slipped on a pair of shorts so I could walk him to the door.

Ten minutes later, after closing the gate and going to the toilet for a very long time to rinse everything off down there, I lay flat on my bed, still wearing my unhooked bra under my half-buttoned shirt, staring at the ceiling, looking around the room, trying to figure out how much of this room someone could actually see in the dark, but also wondering how on earth I could possibly explain any of this to Imo and Fann. My phone suddenly buzzed.

“Wow,” Louis’s text said. “I always wondered what it would be like to try you. Thank you.”

At first I thought I should be polite and text back but then I thought, no, it’s so late in the night, I have the right to not respond. I have a good excuse. I hoped he didn’t think I was rude though. I hoped that he thought I was so tired from his fantastic sex that I fell asleep.

A few minutes later, my phone buzzed again.

“I know you’re a smart girl and I don’t need to tell you,” the text said. “But this is our little secret.”

Sometimes, when I feel like everything is going to shit, I like to watch the old uncles play Ping-Pong.

From young, I was always like that. If I had exam stress or I thought my boyfriend was losing interest, I would go and buy a plastic bag of ice kopi, slowly walk to Tiong Bahru community center, sit on one of those old stone benches, shake leg a bit and watch the gray-haired uncles in their baggy white shorts and T-shirts running around the Ping-Pong table, whacking balls.

These uncles, no matter how old they are they also try damn hard. Win or lose, they also happy. Happy just to be alive, I guess. Happy they still have energy to run around killing each other at some cock pointless game.

Even if these uncles are all damn bloody toot—I still find them to be very inspiration.

I hadn’t been to see the Ping-Pong uncles in a long time—I guess that’s a good sign. That means life recently hadn’t been too stressful. But on Sunday in the early afternoon, the moment my mum started up with her nagging, I quickly left the house—too early to meet the girls for high tea, so I went to community center to shake leg for a bit.

When I got there, the Ping-Pong uncles at first stared at me a bit. Usually I show up in shorts and T-shirt, but today because I was going to the Shang for tea I was dressed up. Not like sexy nice, but heels and knee-length skirt, carry fake branded handbag type of nice. Walao, one uncle stared at me until a Ping-Pong ball almost whacked his face, man. But I just glared at him one time and uncle fasterly looked away. Pathetic.

Since I was wearing a skirt today, I couldn’t fully prop my leg up and think, but just sitting there made me feel quite shiok. The whole morning had felt damn weird at home. At first, I wondered if my mum or pa heard anything last night, so maybe they were acting funny around me. So I purposely spent time with my mum this morning, helping her cook porridge for my dad and all. Usually these are her primo lecture times lah—when she can corner me anywhere for more than ten minutes she confirm will start trying to tell me either some life story or her life lessons. (Either way, I also lose. Even when I’ve listened until my ears damn pain the woman will still keep talking.) But when my mum didn’t mention anything at all and even seemed a bit cheerful (perhaps thinking I’m turning over a new leaf after my obedient bean-sprout-peeling session in the kitchen with her yesterday), then I know she confirm didn’t hear Louis in my room last night.

When I thought about it more, I realized why I was feeling so strange. Every time I was in my room, sitting on my bed or even just looking at my bed, all I could think about is Louis there, Louis on top, Louis… aiyoh, I didn’t even want to think about that. But how not to think? I wanted to change sheets but also cannot—my mum confirm would scold me for making her wash the sheets when she just changed them a few days ago. (Plus, I figured it was better not to do anything to make her suspicious. Guniang here never paid any attention to housework, much less when my sheets are changed. If I suddenly asked her to change them out of schedule, she confirm would think that something had happened.)