Best of Asian Erotica, Volume 2

Her features softened significantly. Had he reached her? Was she willing to listen to him, to give him back those parts of the story he was missing? Or was this just a trick to lull him before she struck again? She said nothing for about a minute, just stared at him; he felt like a cord was twisting inside him, slowly pulling his throat down further into his chest.

“No, I really have to go. I do.” She reached down, picked up a sheet of paper from the table, slightly torn at the top, coffee stains at one edge. She held it out to him. “This is yours.”

“No, you can keep it. It’s … it’s a present.”

She smiled at him for the first time, a smile without the strychnine anyway. She then reached into her soft black bag, extracted a pen, and inscribed something on the sheet. She extended it to him once more. “Now it’s my present to you.” After a slight hesitation, he took the drawing back.

“I have to go.”

“Can you give me a number or something where I can contact you?”

“No. You can’t contact me.”

“Okay then, how about … at least tell me where was it? Where did we?

No, better, why are those tattoos so … so powerful?” She smiled again, more warmly this time, whispered, “It’s there,” turned and moved off quickly. He rose, but then just stood there, watching her go. Until she disappeared, he had almost forgotten that he was holding the drawing. He quickly looked to see what she had written. He read, “What you can touch is just the beginning of what you can feel.” He frowned, then folded the sheet in half and slipped it into his wallet, next to the credit cards. “The beginning of what you can feel?” Well, he should be able to work this one out. He was a lawyer after all, someone who used logic to herd and corral the irrational.

And what was that last thing she said? “It’s there?” What’s there? The secret of the tattoos, the place where they met, the reason she couldn’t tell him?

Hmm … it was like his cappuccino, probably: at the bottom of all the foam, all the clouds, you eventually found what you were looking for. As she said, it’s there. And, somehow, he knew that it was.

Mirrors

Christopher Taylor, Singapore

1. Caroline

He is reclining in his leather armchair, reading the newspaper and she is watching him from the other side of the room. She has just come home from work. She has mixed a gin and tonic, easy on the tonic. She sips the bitter liquid and watches him flip the page.

‘What’s new?’ she says.

‘The world is fucked,’ he says.

‘Lucky world,’ she says. He doesn’t react. She takes a few paces, stops behind the armchair and puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘Anything I should care about?’ she says.

‘Another stewardess has been raped … Forest fires in Sumatra. Protests outside terrorist trial in Manila.’

‘Nothing new, then.’ Her hand slides up his collarbone, her thumb massaging the back of his neck.

‘How was work?’ he says.

‘Oh, you know. I’m still working on that deal, the one with Jakarta. Lim’s still his pig-headed, sexist self. Company stocks holding up surprisingly well, considering.’

His gaze flicks back and forth. She sits on the arm of his chair and lets her hand rest casually on his chest. He manoeuvres his arm around hers to turn another page of the newspaper. She looks out of the plate glass windows beyond the balcony to the golf course, and further, to Sentosa Island and the harbour. ‘Manchester won,’ he says.

Some time passes, and then she says, ‘How about Bintan?’

‘For what?’

‘For a weekend.’

‘Ya, okay. Can.’

‘Okay. I’ll book it.’

‘Wait. What weekend? I have golf next three ones.’

‘Honey,’ she says, looking her husband straight in the eye. He looks up at her, meets her gaze and smiles. ‘Can you make an excuse? Let’s just go. Can’t we?’ He frowns. This is not part of his plan, she can see that. For a moment, she is intensely annoyed with him, almost to the point of hatred.

But then she thinks, Of course: everyone is like this. Nobody really wants to be spontaneous. And she doesn’t really want to go to Bintan anyway; it’s a stupid island, covered in golf courses.

‘Can …’ he says, half-heartedly, but she knows he is saying it to please her. It would be better if he just refused. She walks to the window and looks out. She hears the rustle of paper behind her. She turns and looks at him, then, with a purpose, walks back to the chair and kneels down.

‘Keep reading your paper,’ she says as she unzips his trousers and slides her slim fingers with their fuschia-polished nails inside. ‘Keep reading, honey.’

2. Lim

‘The amazing thing is, when you perfect this …I can’t call it a technique, lah. It’s more like a kind of … attitude. The thing is, what I’m getting at, they come to you. You don’t even have to try. I mean this girl … married. And beautiful. Seriously.