by Anna Ferrara
“I know. I got lots of those looks myself, growing up, because my mother was murdered. Except, they always wanted to know ‘how’ it happened too, since I had been right there. I hated those ‘sympathisers’ so much I didn’t even bother lying. I always just walked away in silence. I spent almost a decade in silence before the people around me finally got the idea I wasn’t ever going to talk about it. Nowadays, though, I just stay away from people with cookie-cutter lives. It’s how I remain happy. You should try it too. That way you won’t even have to lie.” She smiled and her eyes glistened in the dim light of the dining area.
She didn’t judge me. Not one bit. Not like those people with ‘cookie-cutter lives’. Not like Carla. I stared at her and suddenly felt as if I was breathing in my first breath of fresh air after having been surrounded by smog for decades.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.” I turned my eyes to my wine glass and held on to its stem for want of something to do with my hands. “Just that... you’re a genius.” I found myself smiling.
The next time I looked, C39’s girlfriend was looking right at me and grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, you wanna see pictures of me as a kid?”
“You have them here? You brought childhood photos with you on holiday?”
“Yes. You wanna see?”
“Yes, I do wanna see. Do you bring your childhood photos everywhere?”
C39’s girlfriend didn’t say. She simply took my hand in hers again—made my skin tingle again in the process—and led me over to the living area while grinning like the Cheshire cat.
I soon found myself seated next to C39’s girlfriend on her modern grey sofa, surrounded by longish green, orange and yellow cushions. She put a hefty personal-pizza-sized photo album onto my lap and leaned towards me as she flipped its pages.
“This is me as a baby and me at age one... and this is when I got my first ‘car’…”
“God, your cheeks! How were you so cute?”
“Are you saying I’m no longer cute?”
I laughed. “Yes. Now, you’re just…” I glanced up at her face and froze when I realised she was staring intently into my eyes with her face just a couple of inches away from mine. “...beautiful. But back then you were something else altogether.” I turned my eyes back down to the album as quickly as I could when I realised my heart was going wild with fear and I was starting to find it a little hard to breathe. Something in the wine or just my own nerves? I couldn’t tell.
“This is a nice photo,” I said, in an attempt to behave like everything was fine and dandy. I pointed to the photo of the platinum blonde toddler with smears of cake all over her tanned, puffed-up cheeks and thought she had just about the most contagious cheeky smile ever.
“Do you like kids, Sandra? Do you want kids?”
I could feel her eyes on me so I didn’t dare look up. My stomach churned like it would whenever I came down with something and I started to believe she must have drugged the wine or pasta because I was feeling abnormally jittery; I felt like I couldn’t keep myself still. “I do,” I think I said, before my throat became all dry. “Was this when you got silent?”
I moved my finger over to the photograph of the five or six-year-old with no smile to distract her from seeing all that was wrong with me.
“Yes.”
She flipped the pages and showed me how that sullen, unsmiling child’s hair and cheeks grew darker and flattened out as time went by. By the time the child transformed into a teenager, she was no longer cute but thoroughly mysterious-looking and serious. Exactly the look C39’s girlfriend wore most of the time.
I glanced at C39’s girlfriend and froze yet again when I saw her staring right into my eyes, and then... at my lips.
My body disintegrated into a mad chaos of nerves when I saw her look up and into my eyes yet again. Her face was too close to mine; her body too close too and too... hot. I could smell her perfume, her sweat... my own sweat too! I wanted very much to look away or better yet, move away, but as much as I wanted to, as much as I knew I should, I found myself unable to do so because...
C39’s girlfriend was extremely beautiful and...
I was starting to realise... I was so afraid of her not because...
...but because... she was staring at my lips that way and...
... I was... wanting...
... nothing but...
... to...
C39’s girlfriend leaned in and placed her lips on mine. When I didn’t move or react, she closed her eyes, put both hands on my cheeks and gave me a full, deep kiss.
Her tongue curled itself around mine and turned my body warm. My cheeks blazed under the touch of her hand as my nipples came alive. I felt my tongue moving in response to hers, seeking more of that sensation I now realised was thrilling me from head to toe. I felt my hands creep around her hips until I suddenly remembered—
Shit! I pulled away in a heartbeat, felt my face go rigid with dismay and could only watch like a spectator when the same dismay spread onto C39’s girlfriend’s face as well.
“Did I... do something wrong?” she asked, somewhat breathlessly, absolutely nervously.
“No.” I scrambled to my feet and skirted away from her—and the sofa she was on. “It’s just I’m not... I’m not a... a.... gosh, a ‘B’ word... I can’t…” Shit! Alpha would have seen me! I began pacing the huge orange rug in front of her big screen TV just as she had been doing earlier that day. The cameras would have seen me! Shit! Shit! Shit!!! I would be screwed... my prospects for a promotion would now be zero! Shit! Shit! Shit!!!
“A... butch?”
“Yes!” I said and threw both my hands over my cheeks to save them from being burnt to smithereens. “I’m not a butch!”
“I don’t need you to be a butch, Sandra. I like you exactly as you are—”
“No, that’s not what I meant! I mean I’m not... a... a…” Shit!! Shit!!!!
“Les... bian…?”
“Yes! I’m not a lesbian, Milla! I’m not a butch, I’m not a woman who likes... butches. I’m just a regular woman who wants to get married and have children and grandchildren. So, I’m sorry. I’m not... I... I just can’t.” I nodded furiously when I realised I was no longer able to think of anything to say.
C39’s girlfriend nodded slightly in return. She looked like I had just told her her apartment was going to be repossessed.
“Uh... okay…” she said when she realised I was unlikely to say anything else in the next hour. “Sorry, I thought... I thought you were... I thought you liked me. That... way.”
Did I? Yes, I did. I realised it when she said so, realised it when I looked into her stunned blue eyes, realised it when I kissed her. I wasn’t nervous around C39’s girlfriend because she was some lying mob boss’ daughter! I was nervous because, for whatever reason, somehow, I don’t know how, I had developed some sort of crush on her! How could I not have thought of that before?! “I don’t,” I said. I didn’t want Alpha to know that I did; I didn’t want my office or anybody else in the world to know that I did!
“Oh. I see.” She blinked and hurt welled up in her eyes.
I felt her pain under my skin and my heart sank and began to hurt along with hers.
To my horror, C39’s girlfriend noticed. The next time she blinked, her eyes became wider than ever, hopeful even. She lifted her feet and took four careful steps towards me. “If this is because you’re scared—”
“No! I’m not scared!” Don’t say that aloud for God’s sake! “I’m just... not interested. In that.” I made sure I sounded firm, as if that were all I had been thinking about. I hardened my eyes and heart and gave her the most disinterested stare I could muster.
C39’s girlfriend stopped moving her feet, then blinked twice till hurt returned to her eyes. I watched her as she took a deep breath, turned her eyes onto the ground and began frowning at it as if she couldn’t understand what she was looking at. “Ok
ay... Sorry, I thought... I mean you asked me to dinner and you bought me drinks?” She looked up at me and I felt my stomach do somersaults again when our eyes connected.
“Not because I was hitting on you,” I replied. I made sure the certainty in my voice was obvious.
It must have been because her face fell right away. “Okay…”
“I... was trying to make you feel... welcome! That’s just how we treat tourists here!” And I was just trying to get my job done, like a good employee would! Right? I nodded frantically as if doing so would make her accept the fact faster.
“I see. Okay. I know that now. Culture shock, I guess.” She gave me a feeble, twitchy laugh. “I am so sorry, I hope I didn’t scare you... or... I don’t know? Shock you?”
My nods turned into frantic shakes of the head instead. I gave her a half-hearted grin in return. “No, not at all. It’s okay, I’m okay. Just a little... surprised... that’s all.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
There was a gap of three metres between us at that point and it seemed as if neither of us dared to close it. I stared at her, she stared at me, and all of a sudden the world seemed too silent, too cold and too still for comfort.
“Okay,” I said after what felt like forty hours. “Uh, I think maybe I should just... go. Just, for now. Dinner was delicious. So very delicious, thank you so much for that and uh, I will still see you this weekend, if that’s what you... still want. We could just go to a tea house or a temple or another Starbucks, maybe?”
“All of which are public places. Okay. That sounds... okay. Yes, I’ll see you this weekend. At... noon? Here?”
“Yes. Weekend. Thanks again for dinner. Bye.” I turned and went right for the door.
When I got there, I turned back, just for one last look, and found C39’s girlfriend still staring at me.
“Uh huh. Bye,” she said when she saw me looking. She sounded crestfallen but looked more confused than she was sad.
“Bye.” I turned to open the door before she could see—or worse, point out—how much I wanted to stay and find out what would happen if...
“Sandra, wait!”
I took a deep breath, fought hard to keep my throbbing heart in and turned to her with a blank look plastered over my inner chaos.
She stared at me with wide, hopeful eyes. “I know you’re not... gay... but... would you... be open to... say... trying it out? With me?” She swallowed hard and took in a huge breath of air when she was done.
I couldn’t stop staring at her—I couldn’t stop thinking about that look that had come over her face right before she leaned in and kissed me—I didn’t want to stop staring at her but I knew I had to. Alpha was watching! Alpha could see everything! Alpha would tell my boss! Alpha could be my boss! Alpha could be a lecherous pervert for all I knew! I opened my mouth and tried to say what I knew I should but the words simply wouldn’t come out.
“I’m in love with you,” C39’s girlfriend—the enchanting Milla Milone—whispered.
My heart skipped a beat. “But I’m not, Milla,” I said, even though sharp little pains pierced their way through the depths of my heart as I did. I knew I would let slip a look of longing, or worse, love, if I stood there a minute longer, so I apologised, turned and went right out her door without looking back.
Milla didn’t say another word.
I made it out alive.
More alive than I had been in a very long time.
The lift ride down to the lobby was like a torture unlike any other. I felt as if I were at war with my own body, and losing, as I struggled to get the Nokia I had in my pocket and dial ‘1’ for Alpha.
“Alpha, it’s Sandra,” I said the moment the call connected. The hand which held the phone against my ear trembled. My cheeks felt like they were running a fever. I felt like I was high on some drug that was making currents of excitement shoot through my nerves nonstop. Good thing the lift had no mirrors or cameras in it! “I misunderstood the situation. No threat occurred. Please stand down the reinforcements.” My voice sounded calm despite everything that was happening under my skin.
“I am aware,” that creepy, raspy, deep voice said in my ear. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay. A little shocked but otherwise okay.”
Alpha laughed and for a while he (I was starting to think he was most likely a man) sounded like a cartoon villain again. “Good to know you’re coping well. I hope to see everything that happened tonight in your next report.”
“I will send it soonest.”
“Good. And goodnight.”
I wanted to say the same but the line went dead before I could even open my mouth.
Not that I minded.
I went to the nearest train station, went right into the only cubicle that wasn’t occupied and removed the glasses I had been wearing.
Once they were folded and tucked away in the depths of my pocket, I rested one hand on the cubicle’s squalid wall tiles, put my other hand over my mouth and I, at last, let my body do whatever it wanted to do.
I gasped, frowned and stood as still as a statue for ten minutes straight.
Chapter 11
1 Jul 1999, Thursday
I spent the night at my old apartment in Kowloon because I didn’t want to risk being seen going back to the new one; I still didn’t know for sure what Milla’s intentions were, you see. The whole way back, I was hoping to see 81M men jumping out of alleyways with knives and ropes in their hands, threatening me with vulgarities, but nothing like that happened. I made it back to my old apartment safe and sound, and found myself more distressed than before.
You would think being back in a furnished place after a week of living in an unfurnished one would be a treat, but it wasn’t. Being back in my old bed, wrapped in familiar smells, textures and sounds, didn’t make me feel any bit better.
When the alarm clock on my Nokia sounded at 8am, my eyes were already open. They were dry and sore from having been open all night long yet I didn’t dare close them. I couldn’t. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw only one thing—
Milla. Milla looking at me in that way. Milla leaning in and—
I had to keep my eyes open; I couldn’t bear the way my body felt each time I thought of—
No. I forced myself to think of more appropriate things. Figure out how this... thing between us started and when, perhaps. Was it behind the tape shelves at King George Hospital’s security office, when our bodies nearly touched? Was it when we smashed our cheeks together to get those happy shots in the Neoprint photo booth? When we had a candlelight dinner with good wine? When we sat too close on her sofa? When?
I didn’t know. I couldn’t even say when I started liking her that way, or whether or not I had been giving off signals that suggested I was into her. Had she seen something I hadn’t? And if she had, had anybody else? Shit!
I squashed myself into a tight ball and tried to disappear underneath my quilt. Just knowing a person had seen me kiss Milla turned my stomach; I didn’t want to be thought of as... gay; I didn’t want to be gay; I wasn’t even sure if I truly was gay. What the hell was being gay like anyway?
I knew I didn’t know the answer; I knew the people around me—family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues—didn’t either. Nobody in Hong Kong ever talked about what it was like to be gay; you didn’t hear about it in the news, at school, at work or at home. The only time I had seen two women kissing was in a Hong Kong movie, set in ancient China, that had a female actress playing a male villain who liked to dress as a woman, who at some point kissed another female actress who was playing a female villain when she was dressed up like a man. They both ended up in love with the male, hero, good guy character soon after, played by a real male actor so I wouldn’t say the movie explained gay relationships in any meaningful way.
As the minutes wore on, it became clearer: to get information on the subject of homosexuality, I was going to have to look outsid
e of Hong Kong.
Lucky for me, I had a tool that could do just that.
I got back to my new, unfurnished apartment on Hong Kong Island at 11am that morning. It was the first of July, Establishment Day, a public holiday, so I wasn’t obligated to work. What did I do first? My job, of course. I went right to the window in the bedroom and put my binoculars back over my nose.
Milla’s living room was empty. Her bedroom door was closed and the curtains in her bedroom were drawn. It looked to me like she hadn’t woken up.
Which was just as well, since I didn’t exactly want to see her again just yet. There was something else I preferred, or rather, needed to do in the meantime.
I switched my computer on, kept my office’s glasses back into the case as I had been instructed to, made myself brunch—instant coffee and a Cup Noodle, of course—then sat myself and my food down on the floor in front of my floor-top computer as I waited for it to dial up to the internet. Since I had time to spare, I got up and tossed my new bottle of moisturiser into the trash too.
Amidst the scent of steaming coffee and salty broth and the shrill lilting tones my modem made, I remained very still and stared blankly at nothing in particular. In my mind though, I was jumping all over the place; I wondered if my office computer would be bugged, and if it were, what I might say if they found out what I did on it. Could I say I was doing it for work? To understand C39’s girlfriend’s psychological state better? Just necessary research and nothing else? That would be explanation enough, wouldn’t it? I could easily deny any other interest in the subject otherwise, couldn’t I? I could, I guess.
The noise from my modem stopped; I was connected. I took a long sip of my coffee, loaded the Alta Vista search engine and typed—
—‘What is a gay woman?’