Best of Asian Erotica, Volume 2

‘Yes, tempoyak.’

‘I didn’t know the ancient Javanese ate fermented durian.’

‘This isn’t exactly for eating.’ And then he described in some detail (he was translating a whole page, after all) how the tempoyak should be used.

She was incredulous, then amused, then intrigued-but still rather mystified.

‘But why would that be pleasurable? It doesn’t seem logical,’ she said, after the ritual had been described so vividly she felt like a 3-D demonstration had taken place in front of her, like a triple-X version of Avatar.

‘Don’t know. Maybe it was true in the early 19th century but no longer so now.’ He wanted to put the book away, but she stopped him. His right hand continued to touch parts of her, and now she placed his left hand, which still held the book, over some other parts of her. As the exquisite burgundy binding of the hardcover travelled over her skin, she thought of the possibilities.

The next day, as per their usual weekday routine, they took their separate routes to work. She ended up lunching with three of her colleagues at a Malay restaurant. The place was packed, and the whirring fans didn’t do much for the humidity, but the food was good. While she had a little

sambal petai

with her rice and

tenggiri

fish, she also asked to take away a Tupperware of tempoyak

.

‘You actually like that stuff? It’s so sour,’ her colleague Mel said.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Sarah said, vaguely. She reached for her phone to call Zeb and was dismayed to see that the battery had run out. She could wait to use the charger in the office, of course, but she felt an urgency within her. She asked to borrow Mel’s phone.

She dialled Zeb’s number from memory, and he took his time answering.

Sarah knew she had to keep her part of the conversation discreet because her three colleagues were within hearing distance. She didn’t want to seem like some kind of pervert.

‘It’s me. Borrowed phone. I bought the tempoyak,’ she said, when he was finally on the other end. ‘Should we try the … recipe tonight?’

He laughed. ‘Serious?’

‘Yes’ she said, keeping her voice light. ‘I’m curious to see how it will taste.’

‘Okay, but there are a few other items we’ll need to get. The tools.’

‘Yes, I remember the items. Can we get modern-day equivalents? Some of those ancient ones won’t be available now.’

‘I will check with IKEA after work,’ he said, and she could almost see him wink.

After the call ended, her other colleague, Rini, said, ‘Waah, I didn’t know you two cooked.’

‘There’s a first time for everything. It’s a Japa- … Javanese recipe.’

‘Those things tend to be spicy, right?’ asked her third colleague, Ling.

‘We shall see,’ was all Sarah said.

As promised, he had a bag of IKEA products. They spent a bit of time preparing in the kitchen, and when everything seemed to be in place, he asked, ‘Are you ready?’ and she replied, ‘Sure!’

They did it in the kitchen itself because there were already paper towels and power sockets there. And it was, in a word, awesome. She tingled in places she didn’t even know existed; at a precise moment during the ritual, she actually thought her head would swivel around like in a movie possession, because she really felt like she was being taken outside herself, into a more primitive but more vital realm of the senses. Perhaps she was taken out of the Earth into the mythical sky kingdom of Kayangan.

When it was finally over, she wanted to start all over again. He was willing, but there was no tempoyak left. When they both stopped panting, he said, ‘Tomorrow you can bring a bigger Tupperware.’

That was the start of the most amazing week of her life. She couldn’t concentrate at work. The simplest things, such as watching creamer dissolve in coffee, would make her blush with remembered pleasure. It was like everything else became black-and-white while the sex thing with the tempoyak every night was not only in colour, but the swirling, explosive palette of a Bollywood musical sequence. (Why deny it: she’d always preferred Bollywood to classical music. The Malaysian Philharmonic could safely be ignored now.)

She was sure that the sounds they made would sometimes alarm the neighbours, some of whom were terribly nosy, but she didn’t care. Couldn’t a couple resuscitate Javanese rituals from the early 19th century in the comfort of their own kitchen-or, as was the case, in every other part of their apartment?

Things can’t get any better than this, she thought. But she was wrong.

She got back one evening and started undressing immediately. She somehow knew he was in the bedroom. (Since they’d started the sex thing with the

tempoyak

, they had achieved an almost ESP level of communication.

They could not only finish each other’s sentences but anticipate the other’s thoughts. This was probably because the ritual took them into more intimate territory than either had thought possible.)