Best of Asian Erotica, Volume 2

And that ugly bedside lamp … then there was this thin rug which was a horrendous shade of green, and …” He looked up; it had suddenly come back to him. “And you said you would take me the next day to where you got your tattoos.” She said nothing, didn’t nod, but her narrowed eyes told him he was right. “You said you wanted me to get two just like them. You said it was …

necessary, that it was part of our being together.”

“So you don’t forget everything. You have a good memory for what you want to remember.”

“I want to remember it all. I want to remember your name, where we were, why we were there, how we got that far …” He stopped, suddenly realising that he had swept past what could be the key to the whole episode.

“And … why didn’t I go and get the tattoos?”

Her eyes narrowed further, as if they were turning into small creatures-

mythical beings, half-reptile, half-whatever-going into attack mode. He actually started to get scared, thinking she might be able to physically attack him, take revenge for some wrong that he couldn’t remember but deeply deserved to be punished for.

“The pact,” she whispered, and then smiled. The smile looked like it tasted of strychnine. But it seemed as if this was a taste she enjoyed.

Here, he closed his own eyes, tightly. For one thing, he didn’t want to see her face at this moment. But more importantly, he needed to dig deep within himself to recover what kind of pact they could have made. If it was still there, he would find it. Nothing. He opened his eyes again, slowly, half-believing she’d be gone when he looked. But she was still there, of course.

However, the smile was gone; this time, there were tears trickling down her cheeks. As they reached her mouth, she opened it slightly and eased her tongue out. It seemed like she wanted to swallow them, to wash the acrid taste from her mouth.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t … what pact was this?” She closed her mouth tightly, her stare fixed on him, and the tears seemed to stop instantly. “Look, I’m really sorry if I’ve upset you. I didn’t mean that at all. I just wanted to … to get the whole story on what happened there.”

“There’s no story,” she answered. “There’s just ways in and ways out.” She glanced again at her handphone, more as an excuse than to read any messages there. “I have to go.”

She stood, started pulling her shopping bags together, then turned slightly to grab something off the next chair. Only at that moment did the impulse seize him; he acted on it without hesitation. As she was turned slightly to the right, he lunged over and touched the spot where he thought he remembered the tattoo being. He was, as it were, spot on. At the initial touch, she stiffened.

As he pressed harder against her flesh, she gasped. Her face knotted in a look of unwanted arousal. But almost immediately, she recovered: she swung around, looking like she had just been bitten by a snake. The expression on her face now clearly warned she was quite ready to attack.

What the hell was he doing? He could be charged with outrage of modesty. He was a lawyer, he knew that. If convicted, he could be suspended from practicing law-for years maybe.

But being a lawyer, he also knew that he had a ready defence. He was just reaching out to flick something off her shift, there on the back. How did this constitute a sexual assault? To prove his guilt, she’d have to prove some offence was actually committed. Boy, would he love to see this in court: for her to stand up, expose the tattoo, have a deputy prosecutor touch the spot and watch her soar into instant ecstasy. The judge might even ask if he could touch it himself, just to be certain. He knew a few who would probably insist.

He laughed at this notion.

Of course, she had no idea he was laughing at some imagined judge, not her. So when she slapped him hard and jolted the laugh from his face, he was not, as he could have been, riled. But he realised it was useless trying to explain the matter to her. He would just accept the slap as a down payment on what he probably deserved from her.

“A joke, is it? Everything’s a joke for you.” She clutched her bags again and looked ready to pivot and leave.

“No, it’s not a joke, not at all. Look, stay just five more minutes.

I’m ready to fulfill my side of the pact. But I don’t remember what it is.

Honestly.” She looked at him hard, in a way he couldn’t read. Was she trying to judge whether to believe him or not? Or was she waiting for the perfect moment to do something awful to him, to gain what she must see as her justified revenge? “Honestly,” he repeated. “Honestly.” He shook his head in frustration, aware of how deeply dishonest the word “honestly” can sound.