Foreign Affairs

by Jacqueline George

  The end of the other catwalk was moving from a couple of metres above his head, and then seconds later sweeping down until he could look at it a couple of metres below. When the bow dipped like that, he could look out over the pipe-deck to the accommodation at the stern. The arc lights sparkled in the rain and spray.

  Concentrating hard, Tim waited for his opportunity, the half second when the irregular seas let the catwalk opposite hang in the right place, not up, not down or to either side. It was a long wait, and he let a couple of half-chances pass. At last, the opening came. The tender heaved slowly up from way down and paused. He stepped forward.

  Even as he moved, he knew he had got it wrong. Instead of dropping again, some freak combination of waves moved the tender up and to the side. His foot clipped the end of the catwalk, and he fell forward, scrabbling with both hands for the safety railings as they accelerated away. With one hand he seized a flying rope tail and, perching on one knee with his other leg hanging free, he was rocketed upwards. He started to swing to the side on his rope end, round the end of the catwalk, out into the open air. He struggled frantically to get his free hand onto something solid as he felt his knee slipping sideways, ready to pitch him free. He knew he would not make it. The rope went loose in his hand.

  An instant later he felt himself slammed face-down onto the catwalk, his hips still out in space. His fingers stabbed through the grating and anchored him like a limpet. The tender must have pitched down in just the right place and at just the right time, anticipating his fall. He wriggled his body to safety. God Almighty! He had nearly bought it that time. On wobbly knees and with his heartbeat returning slowly to normal, he wove his way down the moving pipe-deck towards the accommodation. Taking off his boots automatically and stacking them upside down in the rack, he stepped over the deep threshold into the light.

  The office was empty. All the chairs were lashed in a group in the corner to stop them rolling free. The room looked abandoned. He went to get out of his soaking coveralls and examine the damage to his shin. His relief was not in the cabin. He was probably watching a video in the rec room. Tim piled his wet clothes in a heap and stepped into the shower. He did not stay long. He did not like the confined space of the shower when the tender was moving so violently. It made his stomach uncertain.

  As he stepped back into the cabin with his towel wrapped around his waist, there was a tap at the door, and Joan stepped in with a glass of coffee on a tray. She was dressed for work in a white drill jacket and black trousers, but it was strictly against the rules to bring coffee into the cabins.

  “I see you have trouble coming aboard, Mr. Tim. I think you had gone finish.”

  “Joan, you're an angel. I thought I'd gone finish too.”

  “Oh, Mr. Tim. Your leg is bleeding.” Joan dropped to her knees to look at the scrape on his shin.

  Hey! What's happening? I dreamed.... He put his hand under Joan's arm and pulled her back to her feet. “Joan, you shouldn't come here at night. People will think—”

  Joan shrugged his hand away. “Ha! People! I was only being friendly to you.”

  “I know, Joan. Really, I understand. And you are very nice. It's just that they'll get the wrong idea. But thank you, anyway.”

  Her mood changed instantly as he soothed her. “You take me out on-shore, Mr. Tim? Just friends? I know many nice restaurant, no problem.”

  “OK, OK,” he said, opening the door to show her out. “I'll buy you lunch next time we're on-shore at the same time.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Tim. I take your coveralls now, OK? You go sleep, and I make them ready special at breakfast time. You're good man, Mr. Tim.”

  He went to bed smiling and, sure enough, his coveralls lay neatly folded on the table with his socks and underpants when he awoke a few hours later.

  There would be no drilling that day. The seas rose higher, and the tender was pulled back a few metres to avoid being thrown against the platform. That stranded Chuck up there, and food was passed up to him and his crew on a line.

  Tim was due out the next day, but unless the sea dropped, the helicopter would not be landing. Just looking over the rail made him resign himself to at least an extra day on board. The weather slowly moderated enough to start drilling again, and the radio operator shook him awake at two o'clock in the morning to get to work. The widow-maker mocked him as he forced himself across the dark gap.

  When it came, the grey dawn showed the sea still running high. It would have to drop a long way before the chopper could land, but the Java Sea was a pacific sort of place and violent weather rarely lasted long. All the same, there would be no crew-change that morning, and he would have to work his shift out. Perhaps the chopper would delay until the afternoon.

  He got changed after lunch and waited nervously in the office for news of the flight. It was always the same on crew-change days. Another day more really would not make much difference when he had already been out for a fortnight, but he could not help himself. Any hint that his flight out might not happen and he got as nervous as a bridegroom. The radio operator came in. The chopper pilot would give it a try.

  Bag in hand, he stood on the steps peering at eye-level over the edge of the helideck. Viewed from there, the deck moved wildly against the distant horizon. Suddenly, the chopper swept towards them and, in a clatter of blades and rushing wind, hovered above the helideck, gauging the movement before setting down. From several metres up the pilot watched the heave of the deck beneath him and the seas rushing in. Picking his moment, he moved lower. The deck raced up, and as it slowed, the chopper dropped its skids onto the steel and kept dropping as the deck fell again. Tim started up after it.

  The business of unloading and loading took only moments. Rig hands were used to scuttling around under whirling helicopter blades, and soon Tim was clipping himself into a canvas seat. Both pilots sat motionless, poised, staring at the waves. The helicopter pitched up and down with the tender, powered up but not moving. The pilots waited for a crest that would lift the tender right up and allow them to pull off safely without the danger of the deck coming up under them again just as they got airborne. The seconds stretched on, and they remained still. For no apparent reason, Tim saw the collective pulled up and suddenly the bird tipped forward and flew. Almost instantly the tender shrank behind them. Jakarta here I come, he thought.

  Tim's apartment was in a shared house just off Jalan Thamrin. His company rented the place and gave out rooms to engineers. It was handier that way. The men could share the conveniences of a security guard and a hard-working amah who cleaned the rooms and did the laundry. They had private bathrooms but shared the kitchen. Not that anyone bothered cooking more than a cup of coffee when there were so many cheap, convenient food-stalls and restaurants nearby. Living together meant he usually had someone around to make company of an evening.

  When Tim first got in, there were a few men around, but over the next couple of days, they all flew out, leaving him alone. Alone until Michael turned up.

  Michael was an oddity. In a logical world, Michael would not be anywhere near the oil-field. He would still be at home with his mother. He was green, soaking wet behind the ears. Although he had left university nearly a year ago, something about him, his appearance of fresh-faced youth or his lack of confidence that made him seem years younger. If Tim had been told he had just left high school, it would not have surprised him.

  He did a passable job on the rigs, but he did not lead a happy life onshore. His colleagues were hardened drifters, paid up members of the foreign legion that made up the oil-field. They mocked him without mercy and led him into all sorts of embarrassments and scrapes. Tim tried to avoid him on land because his days off were too precious to be wasted on lame ducks. Tonight he must have been feeling generous because, against his better judgment, he felt sorry for Michael as he stood playing solitary darts in the front room. Tim invited him out to share some of the best carp in ginger sauce that the city had to offer.

  They w
alked because the restaurant was not too far away, and walking made for a better appetite. Their route ran up the busy main road, past the British Embassy and the roundabout with its ugly Stalinist statues and onto a parallel side street. Several times lonely women offered to accompany them, but Tim had another hunger to satisfy. He did not normally take women off the street, although if he was walking home, happy and slightly drunk after a pleasant evening, they could be difficult to refuse.

  The restaurant stood with several others on one side of the street. On the other was only the embankment of the raised main road. The street lighting here was poor, and it had become a favourite gathering place for billy-boys.

  “Hey, look at that!” Michael was looking at a couple of girls walking arm-in-arm towards them. They certainly knew how to catch a man's eye. Flowing hair, obvious jewellery, dresses that teetered on the tarty side of elegant.

  “Michael, my son,” he said, “You leave them strictly alone. They are not proper girls.”

  “But... But....”

  “They're billy-boys, Michael.” Where another man might have been intrigued, Michael was shocked. Goodness knows why, thought Tim. He's lived out here long enough to cotton on.

  Poor Michael. His talent as the world's natural butt was so obvious that even the girls picked it up as they drew near. They focused their attention on him, ignoring Tim. Michael tried to shelter behind his companion, but it did no good. His confusion took over, and the night did not hide the fact that he had turned red with embarrassment.

  “You like me, big boy?” asked one of them in a husky voice. “You like pom-pom?”

  “Er—I'm sorry….” Michael stuttered.

  “Look, I'm real lady,” She unbuttoned the top of her dress to show two firm, sculptured breasts with tight, brown nipples. “You like these, big boy? You touch them.” She moved nearer and reached for his hand.

  Michael gave Tim a look of despair and, seeing no hope of assistance in his friend's face, he turned and ran. With shrieks of delight the two girls gave chase, their skirts hitched up, hair and hand-bags flying. The three raced back towards the bright lights, Michael maintaining only a short lead. Waves of mocking laughter echoed in the narrow street as passers-by joined in the fun.

  Tim stood alone, chuckling out loud. That boy really should not be allowed out without his parents. Then he sighed and moved on. What the hell; he would probably be better off dining alone anyway.

  He had nearly reached the restaurant when he saw a movement in a dark doorway. “Hello, Mr. Tim.”

  Joan was wearing the same outfit as the evening when she had surprised him at the ship's rail. Even in the half-light she looked stunning. Natural beauty, of course, but a dress that on a normally pretty girl would have appeared merely chic, looked racy and enticing draped around Joan. Perhaps she saw these things with a male eye. However she did it, her heavy sexual aura was unmistakable, and impossible for a man to ignore.

  She looked at Tim expectantly. “OK, OK. Come and have dinner with me.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Tim.” She sounded delighted. “You are very good man.” Without waiting for a further invitation, she slipped her hand under his elbow and walked beside him, high heels tapping the pavement. It felt natural, but at the same time the unnaturalness sent a sinful shock through him. He became acutely conscious of the tall, slim figure beside him, of her perfume and the swish of her stockings.

  They attracted attention in the Chinese restaurant. Joan in full battle-dress would have attracted attention anywhere. The waiters did not know whether to be amused at the prospective surprise awaiting the ignorant kwailo foreigner at the end of the evening, or whether good manners demanded that exotic sexual tastes should be discretely ignored.

  Joan had no doubts about how to behave. She swept into the room behind the usher and allowed a deferential waiter to slide a chair under her without even acknowledging his presence. Tim gave in to an expansive urge and ordered champagne to toast his companion.

  A waiter scuttled out with the ice-bucket and expertly twisted out the cork with a soft pop. Joan's eyes sparkled as the golden foam splashed into their glasses. “Here's to the Queen of the Java Sea!” said Tim, and she giggled and raised her glass to clink against his.

  There are times in a man's life, brief moments for the most part, when the tide of happiness flows without a ripple, and the troubles of the world refuse to intrude. Later, when he looked back, Tim realised that meal in its simple perfection was one of those rare moments. Even the little old Chinese waiter in his starched white coat seemed to catch the atmosphere and stood nodding happily as they raised their glasses to each other. The meal passed timelessly.

  Afterwards, outside on the street, Tim was uncertain how to end the evening. Joan, the beautiful woman stood beside him, hanging on his arm, but the witching hour would soon strike when she would turn back into a billy-boy and be whisked back to where-ever she lived. She seemed to sense the doubt in him and over-rode it by waving for a taxi.

  “We go to your house, and I give you massage,” she said firmly. In the rattling car with its traditional frayed seats and square wheels, she held his hand on her lap but said nothing. They arrived at their destination too quickly for Tim to collect his racing thoughts.

  He paused at the gate. “Come in and have a coffee with me.”

  “OK, a coffee. And after, I give you massage.”

  “No. No massage.”

  She laughed at him. “Don't worry, Mr. Tim. Just massage for my friend, if you like. No sex, just massage.” It would have been churlish to refuse and they entered the house. Tim prayed that Michael had gone to bed. Not that it really mattered. He was too dumb to recognise Joan for what she was.

  In his room she took command immediately. “I go shower, Mr. Tim. You wait for me.” She opened her handbag and drew out a compact album of photographs. “Pictures of me. When I go in Singapore, but some here also. You will like them.” And she left for the bathroom.

  Tim sat down and opened the album. As she had said, it was full of pictures of her. Glamorous photos of her modeling cocktail dresses; photos on the beach wearing tiny bikinis; at restaurant tables posing with fat Australian couples. And then the more intimate ones; lying face down on a bed, nude; leaning against a bar wearing only shoes and feathers in her hair, with only a silver g-string in between; draped naked over an armchair with a coy hand concealing her secret. She looked beautiful, and Tim felt his temples beginning to pound.

  The bathroom door swung open and she stepped out wearing only a hand towel wrapped around her waist and carrying her dress over her arm. She looked even better than her photographs. “You go now,” she said as she started to hang her dress in his wardrobe.

  He came out wearing only a towel and feeling a little embarrassed. She jumped up and reached out both hands to him. She drew him close, and for a moment they stood in silence. She was waiting for him. He could feel a rubbery button brushing his arm, and he looked down at her breasts. Perfection. Rounded, firm, long nipples set on tight rippled circles coloured nearly black. But he could not touch them, not yet, and the moment passed.

  “Come. Lie down. Do you have Tiger Balm?”

  He had a couple of jars in the bathroom cabinet, and she came back with one of the green sort. “I take off your towel,” she said, and she pulled it away from his hips, ready to start.

  “What about your towel?”

  “You like me to undress also? Very good.” Tim leaned on his elbow to watch as she threw her towel onto the chair. “You like?”

  She wore black lacy panties, very modern, very narrow at the front. Nothing much could be hidden there. The sides swept right up over her hips, making her legs look even longer. When she saw she had his attention, she giggled and did a slow pirouette. There was very little to the panties. A lace band crossed the small of her back, and a small ribbon dipped down between the cheeks of her bottom. She was entrancing. “You like me, Mr. Tim?”

  “You're beautiful. Your figure's
fantastic.”

  “Ahh! It is good that you like me. Now I give you massage.” Dipping into the Tiger Balm, she smeared it onto his back. The sharp, medicinal fragrance filled the room, and his skin started to glow. Once she had covered his back from shoulders to hips, she went to her purse and came back with a coin. Using it as a scraper, she slowly removed the Tiger Balm from each square centimetre of his back. Long sweeping strokes of the metal edge woke every nerve-ending he had. Panting slightly from her efforts, she went over him once more with diagonal strokes.

  “You like, Mr. Tim? I do your legs now.”

  “No, no. That's enough. Come and lie down with me.”

  She disappeared into the bathroom. He heard the tap running, and she came back flicking water from her hands. Tim felt too shy to turn over, but she did not let that hinder her. Lying on her back she wriggled sideways, forcing her shoulder under him until he was lying half on top of her, his leg between her thighs. She put up her face to be kissed.

  Now came the moment of truth. Tim could never bring himself to kiss a man, but nothing now could stop him kissing Joan. With her hair spread like a halo over his sheets and her dark eyes opened wide, she drove him on. Passion brushed inhibition aside and he wrapped this woman in his arms and drank deeply.

  Once Joan felt truly accepted, she seemed to relax into the enjoyment of making love. Every caress he gave drew a whimper of pleasure. He lay cradled between her thighs and felt her delicate fingers run up and down his back. The attentions he paid to her breasts excited her beyond belief and she held his head firmly to their swollen tips, writhing her shoulders as he tried to suck the entire globes into his mouth.

  Tim let her struggle up and push him onto his back. She hung over him, looking into his face, while in the shadow of her hair the dim bed-side light reflected pin-points in her eyes. He lay in the dark tent of her hair as she kissed his brow, his eyes, his chin, the tip of his nose. Then, kneeling beside him and throwing her hair over her head, she let it wash over him, trailing from his head to his feet and back. The black wave lapped over his chest and stomach, drowning his jumping cock, trickling down over his thighs and knees, pausing and sweeping back, again and again until all his being became concentrated in the sensitive surfaces she was washing.