Sarong Party Girls

by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

  “Well, if you ask me,” Albert suddenly said, when it looked like I was about to open my mouth and say something, “I think life in Singapore is great for women of Jazzy’s age now.”

  I could see him gesturing to the waiter on the side to bring his bottle over even more fasterly before he continued. “They get to have good jobs like hers, the freedom to dress however they want—­look at how sexy she is today! And the independence to date whomever they want! They are in the real positions of power in Singapore today, Leonard. We men are nothing but peons!”

  Leonard didn’t say anything—­though he did look at me a bit funny. I almost felt as if he was still half-­waiting for me to jump in and say something. And kani nah, guniang here actually half-­considered it! The one time Jazzy miraculously thinks of something that might be even halfway smart to say and Albert cuts me off. Bloody hell. I looked at Albert, who was now cheerfully chitchatting about some other cock topic and thought, I really don’t want to go to circulation. So I just smiled and quickly looked away, pretending that I needed to take some tissue paper out of my handbag, and hoped that Leonard wouldn’t still be looking when I actually did manage to find the stupid packet of tissues. At that moment, Albert started laughing—­even winking at me and everything. So of course Sean and I quickly laughed along with him. Luckily, at that moment the bottle arrived so Albert could just start pouring. After that, Leonard asked me a few more questions—­but those were more easy. Like, Did you grow up in Singapore? What do young ­people do for fun? That kind of no-­point question. I think, in the end, Albert was a bit relieved when I said I had to leave.

  “Eh, woman! Daydreaming about me ah?”

  Finally. I looked at my phone. Fucker was thirty minutes late. I made sure Kin Meng could see my third finger before opening the car door.

  “Hey, don’t be like that—­not nice, you know,” he said, leaning over a bit so he could pinch my cheek. “Be a good girl tonight, OK?”

  Once we started driving, Kin Meng explained some things. “So I have these clients who are in town from a bunch of places. They’re here to . . . aiyah, you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about these things. You won’t understand anyway. They are all quite fun guys—­my assistant thinks one of them is gay. And you know lah, those types of guys can feel a little weird in KTV lounges sometimes, so it’s good to have a girl from the office or someone normal to just chitchat with them while all that other shit is happening, take their minds and eyes off the action a bit. So when we get there—­the guy’s name is Keith. You just make sure you sit next to him and help me keep him entertained and distracted, OK?”

  This one is confirm can for me lah. Jazzy here is happening, OK—­so of course I’ve had some gay friends in the past. Usually we just went clubbing together lah. But even if there’s no dancing involved, they usually can be quite fun. “Can,” I told Kin Meng. “As long as you are buying drinks.”

  “Of course I’m buying lah! Please—­don’t be stupid. Hallo, we are going to the best KTV lounge in Singapore. You save up for six months also cannot afford tonight’s bill, I can tell you right now.”

  It’s true—­I had heard that KTV places were damn fucking expensive. Sometimes one night you can end up spending tens of thousands of dollars—­and that is not even counting what you might have to pay your individual hostesses for extras and bed rental. That’s why most of the guys who go are either on expense accounts or they have a super-­rich lecherous friend who’s happy to pay for everything so he doesn’t feel like the only dirty old man around. Kin Meng at least is one of the decent guys—­I can tell that he only goes to KTV lounges out of duty. Business is business—­if you have to go to a KTV lounge for it, then you really have no choice. But many guys out there—­I tell you—­they are just sitting around waiting for clients to come in from out of town so they can finally have some fun. When clients finally fly in, wah—­they get excited like hell. Finally! They have an excuse to go to KTV! Company will pay some more. Being a guy in Singapore—­sometimes it really is a good life, man.

  “Jazzy, when we go in, don’t talk to the guys—­except for Keith,” Kin Meng said as his car slowed down near a bright car park near Tiong Bahru. “Keith is OK because he’s gay. Mamasan will know that tonight, he is a losing proposition. Since she confirm cannot make money on him, it’s OK for you to hog his attention. But the rest of the guys? Hands off, otherwise mamasan will stare and stare and then later come and whack your face. If that happens, guniang—­even I cannot save you. The mamasan at Temple of Heaven is damn fucking power.”

  As Kin Meng turned into the car park, his SUV was suddenly filled with bright neon lights. I had passed by this place many times before—­usually in a taxi going to Tiong Bahru for supper after clubbing, so I’m definitely quite mabuk at those times. And when you are busy trying not to throw up you don’t really notice a lot of things around you lah—­so I never really looked twice at Temple of Heaven even though the flashing signboard outside was so large it almost covered the entire front of the three-­story building. The sign was shaped like a pagoda—­like the actual Temple of Heaven in Beijing, I guess—­and outlined in Chinese New Year red and lucky yellow neon lights. And right in the middle were the two Chinese words for Temple of Heaven: Tian Tan. And underneath that, in words that were almost as huge: MARTELL.

  Even before Kin Meng stopped his SUV, two tall slender women wearing tight red cheongsams (and at least five-­inch high heels) ran up to open his door. “Hi, hi—­ni hao!” they both said, smiling and ushering him in. One of them came to my side to open my door too, but when she saw I wasn’t a guy, her smile disappeared. Kani nah. I wanted to slap her face one time.

  Kin Meng was already halfway up the steps by the time I got out of the car. Wah, these steps were crazy—­covered in thick red carpet, with a shiny gold railing on each side and big lights shining down on you from the ceiling. Taking each step up made me feel damn high-­class—­I felt like I was in one of those Hollywood movies where Marilyn Monroe is walking up the steps to an old glamorous hotel in Italy or some shit and all these guys in white suits are all around, treating her like a queen. I never thought that just walking up steps could make you feel beautiful.

  “Miss? Miss?”

  I turned around to see an Ah Beng in a black tuxedo chasing me up the stairs.

  “Miss? Stop! Stop, please!! What are you doing here ah?” he asked.

  Luckily Kin Meng bothered to wait for me at the top of the steps.

  “Boy—­she’s with me,” he said. The Ah Beng bowed and ran back down again.

  Aiyoh. This one—­North Korea is it? Want to enter KTV lounge also get interrogated until like that.

  “Jazzy—­stick close to me ah?” Kin Meng said. “Oh, and remember—­don’t try to get friendly, even chitchat, with any of the girls. That kind of lesbian shit—­not allowed. They confirm will throw you out.”

  The mamasan appeared as soon as Kin Meng stepped through the round doorway—­kind of like the ones I saw in the Qing Dynasty Village years ago when I went there on primary school excursion. It was quite a toot amusement park lah—­no wonder so quickly close down—­but I remember thinking those old doorways and Chinese buildings looked quite authentic.

  “Huanyin, huanyin! Long time never come!” mamasan said, leaning forward so Kin Meng could kiss her on the cheek. When he mentioned a power mamasan I had expected some old, powdery, sharp-­chinned dragon lady with fierce eyes and one of those Chinese fans that you know she’s just waiting to use to whack you on the head. But this woman looked young and she was quite pretty—­a bit like Gong Li. Not the Gong Li now lah but back when she was still a young hot actress and Zhang Yimou still wanted to fuck her. The fierce eyes were definitely there though.

  “We booked the usual room, Mr. Tay—­your colleagues are already here,” mamasan said, turning to walk up a wide grand marble staircase in the middle of the room.
If it weren’t for the gaudy gold lights and cheongsams all around, this place could perhaps pass as an old French palace, man. The ceilings were so high; everything looked so drama.

  At the top of the stairs, mamasan led us down a long, wide hall, opening the door to a room that looked like a dark red nest. The walls were lined on three sides with plump cushioned seating and on the fourth wall, there was a big flat TV screen. Leslie Cheung, wearing silver sequined hotpants, no shirt and a tight white jacket with feathers sewn all the way down each sleeve, was dancing around onstage. Seeing this almost made me cry. So classic—­1980s Cantopop is really the best.

  Everything in the room was red—­the walls were covered in shiny red wallpaper; the cushions were all covered in slippery red silk. Maybe the dim lighting wasn’t red (I couldn’t be sure) but it really looked that way since everything else was red.

  Once my eyes adjusted I could see three ang mohs and one Chinese guy, who seemed to be busy mixing whiskey sodas. “Hey, thanks for hurrying so much to come and see us ah?” the Chinese guy shouted. “Boss, we were waiting for you until our balls were turning blue, man.”

  “Sorry, sorry—­I had to pick this one up,” Kin Meng said, pointing over at me. “Jazzy—­meet the guys: Sam works with me in the Singapore office; Nigel and George came in from London; and Keith over here just flew in from Hong Kong.”

  After shaking everybody’s hand, I felt Kin Meng nudge me in the back to go and sit next to Keith.

  Keith was quite a good-­looking guy in that slightly nerdy British way—­tall, clean-­cut and skinny; he even had a thin boyish face. (And since Kin Meng was entertaining him in Singapore’s number one KTV lounge that means Keith must have money—­or at least must be quite important.) Aiyoh, so wasted. If only he liked girls! And this one is confirm true lah—­I could tell from how he didn’t even look for one second at my tetek or backside that I’m not his type for pok-­ing.

  “Hi,” Keith said, leaning close to me to whisper. “This is a little awkward, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t know what to say so I just covered my mouth and giggled. Keith laughed too.

  After Kin Meng settled in next to me, the mamasan got serious.

  “Tonight, do you want butterfly or by the hour?” she asked.

  Kin Meng looked at his watch—­it was 9 P.M. “Not much time left in the early shift,” he said. “We’ll do the hourly girls. Butterfly—­wasting time only.”

  Butterfly? Kin Meng could see from my face that Jazzy here catch no ball so he came closer and whispered, “Butterfly girls fly from one room to another. Those girls split one hour among four rooms, so you only get each one for fifteen minutes. It’s cheaper, yes, but not so worth it right now. The late shift is starting soon—­the girls, the drinks, everything gets much more expensive then. Better get our fun in quickly.”

  “Mr. Tay, the girls—­the usual kind?” mamasan asked.

  Kin Meng looked around at the guys—­he seemed to be mentally calculating something.

  “Tonight we have a range of tastes—­just bring a variety so ­people can pick,” he said. “You know what kind I like, but also throw in one with big breasts, a tall one with very nice legs . . . eh, Sam, these days, what are you in the mood for?”

  “Hmm—­you got new China girls?” Sam asked.

  Mamasan nodded.

  “OK, then China lah,” Sam said. “Madam!” he shouted after the mamasan as she started to leave the room. “Very young ones, OK?”

  Mamasan disappeared, returning a few minutes later with ten girls, all of them looking cheerful and smiling, all of them wearing sexy shiny dresses. Mamasan was good lah—­the group had a few girls fitting each of Kin Meng’s descriptions. Plus, the young China girls Sam ordered were wearing dark red lipstick and tight mini cheongsams with big slits down each side.

  “Aiseh!” Sam said quite loudly, jumping up so he could inspect them closely, as if he’d never seen women in his life before.

  Nigel got the big-­boobs one, George picked one with such long legs she looked like runway model and Kin Meng chose a Korean-­ish girl with the same look as the girls he had in his phone. (But later when she had to introduce herself to him I realized she wasn’t one of his previous girls.)

  Sam was taking quite long to pick from the three China girls. “How?” he said, turning to look at Kin Meng as if he was begging him. “Boss—­cannot take it lah. All of them also make me steam! How—­can I have two?”

  “Don’t even think about it—­as if you can handle more than one!” Kin Meng said. “Hurry up—­you’re holding everyone up.”

  So Sam just did an eeny-­meeny-­miney-­moe and ended up with the shortest smallest one—­so small in fact that she looked like she was about fourteen. The leftover girls quietly left.

  Once the girls sat down next to their guys, they started mixing drinks for themselves.

  “Come, come,” Big Boobs said. “Let’s bottoms up!”

  Everyone clinked their glasses and drank. Even though I never say no to free whiskey—­I’d already had a few at Front Page so I only drank half. When I put my glass down, I saw that Keith also only drank half.

  The girls immediately noticed Keith’s glass and started pestering him. “Wah, how can be like that? Must bottoms up!” They kept cho-­cho-­ing him until he agreed to bottoms-­up the whole thing. None of them bothered to say anything to me. Once Keith put his glass down, Big Boobs and China Girl made another round of drinks for everyone. Everyone except me, that is. Wah lao, guniang here was invisible.

  Sam started frenching China girl the moment she finished making drinks. I could hear her giggling and saying, “Aiyoh! You’re so naughty!”

  “Come! Another bottoms up!” Big Boobs announced.

  Everyone clinked their glasses again. (Only Keith clinked his glass with mine. Kani nah.) While China Girl started making another round, Sam got up to walk toward the door. Before closing it again, he looked back, nodded at Kin Meng and said, “Boss, I go toilet ah?”

  As soon as we heard the door close, Kin Meng said to China Girl, “Xiao jie—­sorry, but my friend’s not feeling well.”

  The girl actually looked angry for a second, then quickly went back to smiling. “No problem,” she said, smoothing down her cheongsam and getting up to leave. Now that her business in this room was over, her English suddenly sounded much more Singaporean than broken Chinese-­y. “I hope he feels better,” she said, not even looking back at Kin Meng.

  As soon as she left, mamasan reappeared with three more young China girls—­none of them were the ones from before. First, she came over to talk to Kin Meng though. Mamasan’s face was blank, but even I could tell she was irritated.

  “Madam—­he just had a quick taste only, nothing serious yet,” Kin Meng said. “But if there’s a problem, just charge me for her also. No trouble, OK?”

  Mamasan nodded and went over to wait by her girls. Sam reappeared so quickly I could tell he didn’t go to the loo. This time, he quickly picked one—­the one with the biggest eyes and fairest skin.

  “What happened?” Kin Meng asked when Sam sat back down.

  “Bad breath,” Sam said, picking up his glass and downing his drink, taking a long time to swirl the last sip around his mouth before swallowing. New China Girl grabbed the whiskey bottle to refill his glass even before he could set it back down.

  Kin Meng just nodded and put his arm around his Korean girl again. When he saw me staring at him, he whispered, “It’s always easier to have someone else get rid of your girl. More polite.”

  Everything had happened so quickly once we got to Temple of Heaven that I was still trying to absorb what I had seen. I had heard what happens in KTV lounges of course, but to see it happen in front of me . . . young girls getting picked or rejected like chickens in a wet market? I am very open-­minded, but even I think maybe this is not quite right. Even though I d
idn’t have that much to drink that evening—­usually I only start to get high after six or seven whiskeys and maybe feel sick after ten or so—­I started to feel something in my chest and coming up the back of my throat. Jazzy, I told myself, you’d better buck up! You promised to help Kin Meng out—­and you asked to tag along anyway. Don’t be a spoilsport!

  New China Girl had switched off the Leslie Cheung concert video and was starting to sing some Elva Hsiao song. That singer is a good choice lah—­although a lot of guys still think Sammi Cheng is damn pretty and has the better songs, hallo, she’s forty already! Who wants to hit their own handgun while thinking about someone their auntie’s age? So even though Sammi’s songs are all very nice to hear and sing, in a KTV room, if you’re one of these lounge girls, maybe it’s better to choose a younger singer. Elva is not say that young but at least she’s not antique.

  Big Boobs was trying to instigate a few more rounds of bottoms up—­if the two bottles of Chivas quickly disappeared then she could try to persuade get Kin Meng to buy Veuve, after all. (Which is not more expensive than Chivas, but ­people always drink champagne much faster. So in the end, Kin Meng’s bill confirm will be bigger.) George and Long Legs had disappeared god knows where and Sam was rubba-­ing New China Girl all over—­her backside, under her skirt, up her thighs—­as she sang. Kin Meng wasn’t doing any of that shit—­I guess he meant it when he was telling me that one time that he only does naked Japanese baths with these girls; no hanky panky. But he had his arm around Korean Girl, her head on his chest, her right hand stroking his knee.