by Guy Willard
Singapore, like Hong Kong, had had its image sanitized, sterilized and disinfected by its modern leaders, and almost nothing remained of its once-glorious reputation. Now it was just another modern metropolis whose sleek hotels and discos had replaced the fabled dives and opium dens.
I had duty the first day in port, so I didn’t have a chance to explore it until the following day. However, I heard reports that night from the guys returning from liberty. The general opinion seemed to be that Singapore was “dead”—in other words, it lacked bars and girls. The only hot spot in town, the one remaining vestige of its old immorality, seemed to be a place called Bugis Street. Apparently it was a mecca for transvestites throughout Southeast Asia...and a popular tourist spot where straights and their families could enjoy the entertaining show the “girls” put on.
The next day I spent the afternoon with a shipmate named Richie (the boy I’d witnessed masturbating in the forward crew’s head one time) exploring the outdoor markets. As darkness fell, he suggested we go to Bugis Street. He’d gone there the previous night and had enjoyed it so much that he urged me to join him on a return visit tonight. After an initial show of reluctance, I accepted.
We ate a leisurely dinner at a hotel restaurant, then had ourselves driven to Bugis Street by a tricycle pedi-cab whose tiny driver pedaled us with apparent ease up the wide, palm tree-lined boulevard.
At first glance, Bugis Street seemed like any other street in the city, located in what appeared to be the commercial district. The tables of outdoor cafes lined both sides of the street, with groups of tourists sitting at them as if at ringside seats of a show. Most of them were foreigners, but others looked Malay.
I noted sailors here and there who’d come out of curiosity—and perhaps a lack of any other place to go. Some of them were crewmates, while others were probably off the Blue Ridge which was also in port.
At this hour of night Bugis Street seemed to be the only area alive in this part of the city. The rest was dark and quiet. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was only 11:30, still a little too early for the show. As we strolled through the crowd looking for an empty table, we were hailed by a couple of shipmates. We joined them at their table and ordered drinks.
On the stroke of midnight the boy-girls began coming out, singly at first, then in pairs and groups. In their beautiful dresses and long black hair, boys who had been transformed into lovely girls strutted like rare birds of paradise released from their cages to be admired for their delicate plumes.
They stopped here and there to chat amiably with the tourists. Apparently they were almost like stars to the Malays for I saw them signing autographs on souvenir postcards with their photos on them. This show had all the air of a ritualized ceremony, and the boys were like performers who were well aware of the effect they were creating.
Since Singapore was a melting pot of Malay, Chinese, Indian, Islamic and European cultures, the boys were ethnically exotic to begin with, but with the added exoticism of blended genders, the resulting androgyny gave them an almost unhealthy pitch of beauty. They were like rare artificial hothouse blooms carefully nurtured by a mad botanist with a grotesquely twisted sense of aesthetics.
I was captivated.
Two of the boy-girls came over to our table and began chatting with us. Their English had been perfected by long practice. Though not among the most attractive ones there, they were easily prettier than most of the real girls sitting at the nearby tables.
Indeed it was sometimes difficult to tell the real girls from the illusions, though a certain exotic look about the latter immediately set them apart. With some of the boys it was obvious: slight Adam’s apples bobbed when they talked, and there was a certain hardness about the lines of their faces, an angularity to their limbs which made their movements awkward. But others had had hormone treatments which gave them a softer, rounded femininity. These boys wore low cut dresses which clearly revealed the generous swelling of their bosoms. And yet even among these, I knew there were some who still retained their masculine birthright down below, though others had been ignominiously “clipped.” It was a sweet guessing game to wonder which ones were...or weren’t.
Rather than their physical looks, what gave them away as imitations was their outrageous behavior. No real girl would dare to feast her eyes so boldly on a sailor’s delicious body, or make her desire so openly known. Beneath our table I felt the groping hand of one of the boy-girls eagerly explore my crotch. My friends were also being felt up, as was apparent from their feeble, joking resistance.
This was like a dream. Here in the very presence of my straight shipmates was a lovely Malay boy running his fingers over my erection. And my shipmates were protesting—but not opposing—the aggressive assaults of the “girls” sitting with them. They took it all as a joke, or a daring taste of an unfamiliar world of sin. But if any of these boy-girls had been dressed in an ordinary masculine fashion, my friends would have beaten them to a pulp. It was the dresses they wore which gave them an extraordinary license that they flaunted as much as they liked.
Still, beneath all the play lurked a dangerous tension, for at any moment the masquerade could be exposed, and the fraudulent girls unmasked. When I looked into their eyes I could see the boys hiding behind the facade of their make-up. My senses reeled at the magic mirror effect of it all, the topsy-turvy world of blended genders. Feeling a giddiness come over me, I suddenly stood up and said to my companions: “I’m gonna take a walk around. I’ll see you later.” They probably thought I was disgusted by the goings-on.
As I strolled along the avenue, I had the impression that this gaily-lit street was a cabaret roofed over by the spangled ceiling of a cool tropical night. It was hard to believe that this was a commercial street by day, crowded with vehicular and pedestrian traffic, and only at night was magically transformed into a giddy fairyland. I didn’t even have to feign my drunkenness. I felt as if I were inside a noisy, smoke-filled dancehall...an illusion, of course. Transvestites came up to me and boldly flirted, and I traded gibes with them. Their androgyny allowed me to combine my desire for boys with the socially accepted facade of a “healthy” interest in girls.
As I made my way through the crowd, a particularly lovely transvestite sitting alone at a table caught my eye. She was sipping her drink through a straw, and when she noticed me gazing at her, she returned my look with an unmistakable sign of interest.
Without a doubt she was the prettiest one there, and when she batted her lashes in an exaggerated parody of a girl’s flirtatious manner, I smiled back my approval—as if we both implicitly mocked and rejected the world of women.
I stopped where I was and stood watching her for a while. Men would stop at her table and try to make small talk with her, but she always shook her head and rejected them before casting a coy look in my direction. After a while I worked up my courage and decided to try my luck.
“Hi,” I smiled. “Mind if I sit down?”
She smiled back and nodded. I pulled out a chair and sat down.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Maya,” she said in a whisper.
“That’s a pretty name. My name’s Bill.”
“Bill? I like your name, too.” She smiled.
Looking into her face, I knew I just had to have her tonight.
I ordered a drink from a passing waiter and glanced around at the carnival atmosphere of the street. Making his way through the spaces between tables was a street vendor carrying an armload of dildos and vibrators. Wordlessly he went from table to table offering them for sale. He stopped at one and thrust a wriggling, corkscrewing vibrator right into a startled woman’s face. Disgusted, she shooed him away.
The hour was growing late and tables were emptying out. Most of the straight tourists had already had their requisite eyeful and gone back to their hotels. The majority of those who remained were either drunken sailors or clean-cut looking businessmen who were probably homosexual. I noted some of them going off with
transvestites, disappearing into rooms off the alleyways. One drunken sailor came out of a doorway with a big grin on his face, followed by a sulky-looking transvestite.
I looked into Maya’s eyes and wondered how I should make my move. I needed to buy some time, for I didn’t dare leave with her while there were still guys from my ship who could witness me do it. I was about to say something to this effect when I heard a big crash behind me.
I turned around to see one of my earlier companions come reeling past the table of an Australian couple nearby. Before I could look away he caught my attention.
“There you are, Billy-boy. Trying to hide from me, eh?”
I groaned inwardly and continued to watch as the drink in his wavering hand spilled all over the front of the Australian woman’s dress. At the sound of her gasp he turned around, almost knocking the umbrella stand off their table.
“Gosh, I’m sorry.” He was about to explain himself but she impatiently waved him away, then got up to leave with her husband. My friend continued his journey toward our table and without an invitation pulled out a chair to join us. I shot Maya a look of regret which I hoped was understood. There was still a chance, however, that my friend was only taking a momentary break in his drunken perambulations. I waited a few minutes but it seemed he intended to stay. I was forced to introduce him.
“Maya, this is a friend from my ship. We call him Mad-dog.”
She dipped her head slightly as he eyed her in a lustful manner, murmuring, “It’s too bad, you know...you could really pass for one, you know.” He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was not homosexual, but his intoxication had weakened his ability to hide or suppress his naked desire.
But Maya only had eyes for me. As it became clear that Mad-dog had no intention of leaving, I tried to signal my impatience. I was worried that Maya would think I wasn’t interested in her, that I was only talking with her to pass the time. But I couldn’t say anything openly to her with Mad-dog there...and in my panic I couldn’t think of a way to shake him. I could pretend to leave with him and come back later, alone, for Maya. But I was afraid she’d leave with another sailor before I got back. In fact she might leave at any moment to escape Mad-dog’s unwelcome company.
I had her hand in my grasp under the table and wasn’t about to let it go.
Just then we were distracted by a commotion from across the street. To the accompaniment of scattered applause, one of the transvestites was climbing up onto the roof of the public latrine next to the street.
“What’s going on, Maya?”
“Watch. It’s a Bugis Street tradition.”
While we looked on, the transvestite turned her back to us and bent over, pulling up her dress to expose her butt. She had crumpled up a newspaper and twisted it into a cone-shaped funnel, which she now thrust—small end first—into her anus, making it appear as if a trumpet-shaped flower had blossomed there. Then, as the cheering crowd watched, as assistant set fire to it with a lighter. The crowd went wild. In an instant the newspaper flower burst into flames before it was doused by the assistant.
The transvestite descended from the latrine to the sound of applause. But she’d barely taken her bows when a sailor from the Blue Ridge climbed shakily up to the roof she’d just vacated. To the accompaniment of even more cheers, he pulled his pants down and waggled his bottom in the air. Someone handed him a newspaper and he unhesitatingly repeated the feat. Wild cheers greeted his act.
Meanwhile, Mad-dog was becoming impatient. I felt an uneasy premonition which was confirmed when he said: “I’m going up there, too!”
I grabbed him before he could rush off, and had to restrain him by force. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “You’ll only make a fool out of yourself.”
I held onto him until things had quieted down a bit, and when I finally let him go, he muttered, “I’m gonna go take a piss. Really.” He got up to go to the latrine.
As I watched him weave away, I saw my chance. I leaned over to whisper into Maya’s ear: “Meet me out by the taxis.” There was a taxi stand located conveniently nearby, on the nearest main thoroughfare. She nodded, smiling, and I went to join my buddy in the restroom. Needless to say, I couldn’t leave with Maya just then, for Mad-dog would have become suspicious if he returned to see us both gone.
I took the urinal next to his and announced that I was going back to the ship.
“Not me, man,” he replied, “I’m sticking around.”
“Oh?”
He leaned confidentially toward me. “Is she...he...it still out there?”
I winced at the epithet. “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
“Hell, I don’t know about you, but that thing out there sure looked good to me—at least good enough to get a blow job from. I’m telling you I wouldn’t mind. It looked that good.”
We stepped out and to my relief Maya was nowhere in sight.
“I guess she went home,” I said dryly. I glanced at Mad-dog, wondering if he would catch on to the trick.
He was peering at the thinning crowd, muttering, “Shit, the lousy bitch took off on me.”
“You mean you were serious? I mean, about wanting her.”
“Shit, yes. I haven’t had pussy in so long that a sheep would look good to me right now. I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna look for her.”
“Then I’ll see you back at the ship.” I headed away, not waiting for his reply. As I stepped around the corner I spotted the huddle of taxis parked along the curb and picked up my pace. Maya was nowhere in sight and I had a sudden fear that she’d given me the slip. And then I saw a hand waving from the window of a cab. The door opened and I leaped in.
“Let’s go.”
The driver had been idling the engine. Now he put it into gear and we shot off down the empty street. Apparently Maya had already told him our destination.
Now that I was finally alone with her I felt strangely shy, like a boy on his first date. In the dark interior of the cab I kept my hands primly to myself. It was a silent 15-minute ride into the unfamiliar heart of the city where the exotic outlines of mosques were tucked away in niches behind blocks of grocery stores and pharmacies.
We pulled up in front of a row of small concrete apartment buildings. I paid the driver and slipped out, with Maya right behind me. The cool night felt empty after the clamor of music and laughter back at Bugis Street which still echoed in my ears. I spotted a lone woman strolling slowly through the shadows along the sidewalk.
Maya led me to the grilled entryway of one of the apartment houses. A sleepy turbaned old man sat nodding in a wickerwork chair in the vestibule. At a word from Maya he started awake and grumblingly unlocked the gate with a key from an archaic looking bunch which jangled like a stage jailor’s. I had the presence of mind to slip a tip into his hand before following Maya up a steep, narrow staircase. We entered the first doorway on the left, whose flimsy plywood door, I noticed, didn’t even have a lock.
At a glance it was obvious that she didn’t live here. The room had a temporary look to it, containing only an ancient double bed, a small bedside cabinet made of wood, and a washstand with a basin of water on it. The walls were bare. A yellow, half-squeezed out tube of KY lay atop the cabinet, and the sight of it sent a shiver through me. I shut the door behind me and, grasping Maya by the hand, pulled her against me, kissing her hard on the lips. She melted softly against me, for all the world like a real girl.
My head reeled at the curious conflict in my mind between the evidence of my senses and what I thought was real. I knew with my mind that I was holding a boy, yet everything else—the soft, clinging dress, the long, scented hair (which my exploring fingers verified wasn’t a wig), the press of soft breasts, the waxy taste of lipstick against my tongue—told me I had a girl in my arms. So authentic was this illusion that I found myself murmuring the usual banalities that girls love to hear; about how pretty her hair was, how lovely her eyes. My head spun. Just how far was this facade to go on? Up to what point w
ere we, for all practical purposes, a heterosexual couple? Did Maya want to be treated as a girl or a boy? Or as a boy playing at being a girl? The fine distinctions made me dizzy with feverish impatience.
As I reached for the zipper at the back of her dress, Maya evinced a sudden shyness and backed away. In a whisper she asked me to turn around while she undressed. I did so, and began to undress myself, feeling as if I were facing away from an enigma.
When I turned around again, Maya was already lying upon the bed completely naked. I knelt onto the floor beside her and ran my hand delicately over her smooth tanned skin, depilated and soft. With my fingers I explored the pliable firmness of her breasts with their large, cocoa-colored areolas. She had definitely been receiving hormone shots for a long time. The question was, had she gone all the way? I still didn’t know for sure because she had her thighs pressed demurely together, leaving visible only a dainty heart-shaped smudge of pubic hair. I leaned down to kiss her lips again, and felt the soft roll of her tongue gliding into my mouth. I sucked at it as she pushed it in and out, then I felt it wriggle against my own.
I ran my fingers through her hair which was fanned out over the sheets, then slid my hand up and down her body which she undulated like a wave in rhythm with our kisses. She was a real girl in every way. Slowly my fingers inched down into the prickly tangle of hair at her pubis, but when I tried to slip them between her thighs I felt a resistance.
I pulled away from the kiss. My mind rebelled at this cruel optical illusion. I had to see whether the sanctity of the boy’s body had been violated.
Gently, I prized her thighs apart despite her continuing resistance. What was the matter with her? Did she take me for a fool who didn’t know what she was? Or was I expected to carry out the charade to the very end, playing at hetero sex?
The discovery of her delicate manhood came as a relief. It had been squeezed back behind her thighs and held there forcibly for the sake of her silly illusion. I handled it lovingly. It was warm and slightly damp. I bent down to kiss it, then tenderly licked at it. I wanted to assure Maya that I found him attractive as he was—as a boy and not as a girl. And I wanted to chide him in a gentle way for trying to hide what made him more beautiful than any girl could ever hope to be.