Sarong Party Girls

by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

  “Louis,” I said. “Louis . . .” Babi, I was blanking on this—­what was his surname again ah?

  But luckily I guess either Louis spends enough here or is considered rich enough that they definitely radar him. So, I didn’t need to say his surname at all.

  “Ah, yes,” she said, smiling more broadly now. “This way, please.”

  I followed her to a small door hidden in a dark corner of the room, which was damn quiet until she pressed a button next to the door and half the wall slid open. Wah! All of a sudden there was house music and lights flashing flashing all over the place.

  Not bad, I thought—­now, tonight is confirm on!

  The room overall was quite dark, even with the laser lights shooting all across it, except for a fluorescent pink glass walkway that cut diagonally across everything. The walkway was a little raised and on each side there were ­people dancing or drinking at big cushioned booths.

  The hostess led me to the back of the room, where there was a grand glass staircase where each step was a glowing white light. At the top of the stairs was a thick neon pink velvet rope. The bouncer let us through immediately and Louis’s VIP table was in a corner—­it was a dark spot but it had a terrific sweeping view of the whole room.

  “Jazzy! Finally!” he said, getting up when he saw me. From the way he was wobbling a little, I could tell he was already a bit mabuk.

  After I double-­air-­kissed him, he introduced me to the two ang moh guys with him. “Francis, Benedict—­colleagues from Hong Kong,” he said. “And this is Jazzy, one of my closest friends.”

  Wah, “closest”? I had known him for how many years and had never heard him call me that before. How mabuk was he? Or maybe he meant it? Guniang actually felt a bit touched.

  “Come, come—­Jazzy, you are definitely not high enough,” he said, grabbing this atas-­looking tall glass bottle that said “Diva” in cursive on the side. In the center of the bottle there was some kind of long tube filled with shiny red and pink stones. Louis poured everyone one shot and poured me two.

  “This vodka—­don’t play play! There are Swarovski crystals inside,” he said, pushing the two shots in my hands. “You’d better catch up—­bottoms up!”

  After the first two shots, Louis just kept pouring, ordering more bottles of Diva whenever we ran out. Even though I was high, I wasn’t so high that I felt sick—­I guess because we were dancing like crazy in between shots. At one point the boys even cleared away some of the bottles off the leopard-­skin (“Real one,” Louis whispered to me. “The owner says he even shot some of these buggers in Africa himself so he had enough for his VIP section.”) table so that Francis and I could climb on top and dance for ten minutes.

  I felt the stresses of Seng and Andrew facing off—­and my god, being even remotely associated with Seng’s super Ah Beng friend Richard in a club—­all of that, I felt it fading. After all that action, and my night with Alistair, which was still making me cringe whenever I thought about it (and every time I felt my phone vibrate), I felt like I earned one night where I could just have some simple fun. Drinks, dancing—­checking out a new club, the richest hottest club in Singapore—­this was just the right medicine. I wished Fann and Imo—­and yes, Sher—­were here but this was fun anyway. I looked over at Louis, feeling grateful that we were friends—­one of his closest friends, in fact! In life, it’s true lah—­you are nothing without good friends. I raised my glass and caught Louis’s eye. He smiled and winked at me.

  All of us didn’t talk much as all this dancing was happening—­the music was too loud. This was a pity because on my way here, I had been thinking about work and Albert’s hints about the circulation department and all, and I was thinking of asking Louis for some career advice, maybe tell him that I was thinking of switching jobs, maybe trying something I was actually interested in like event planning or something. Besides the loud music though, Louis was probably too mabuk to have any conversations like that. Although, as mabuk as he was, the other two guys were even more gone and mostly just closed their eyes and danced like possessed mediums in those dusty Chinese temples. Suddenly, the music got more quiet and all the laser lights focused at one spot near the center of the room, where there was a shiny white dentist’s chair with silver handles.

  “And the lucky lady this hour is . . . Sylvia Pereira!” a bloody stiff British man’s voice announced. I guess his mic had some special sound effect because his voice had some action action echo and all.

  The crowd went mad, cheering even louder than the pounding music. A light-­skinned Eurasian girl with long wavy brown hair, a leather bustier and red hot pants ran up to the chair. Two unicorns appeared to strap her wrists and ankles to the chair and recline her seat. Then one of them tied a fluorescent pink paper bib around her neck. The crowd cheered even louder.

  “Ready?” the booming voice said. Two more unicorns appeared, each one holding a bottle of Diva. The girl closed her eyes, tilted her head back and opened her mouth wide. “Set? Go!”

  The two unicorns were suddenly damn action—­each one held the bottle up high, in a drama drama way. Then at the exact same time they started pouring Diva down the girl’s throat! Even from this far away, we could see the two steady streams of vodka slicing through the air in long sparkling ribbons before landing perfectly in the eager girl’s mouth. This went on for almost a minute! I was impressed—­this girl was damn power. How could she drink for so long without vomiting?

  “And . . .” the British voice came back. “Over!”

  The two unicorns put their bottles down in sync, bowed and then marched away. The first two unicorns stepped forward to unstrap the girl, who seemed a bit wet around her face and chest.

  “Let’s give a round of applause to . . . Sylvia!” the voice said. ­People were clapping; the lights were all brightly focused on her now. Sylvia gave a big smile, raising her hands to do that Princess Kate wave to everyone, then she started to sit up and her face changed a bit. Her smile was now habis—­she had to sit back down and was bending over the side of the chair a bit. The four unicorns rushed to surround her, making a circle. The lights quickly started flashing and moving around the room again so we suddenly couldn’t see Sylvia or the chair anymore. The music got louder, much louder than it had ever been before.

  “How—­ Jazzy, should we put your name in for the dentist’s chair?” Louis said, putting his arm around me.

  “Tolong—­no,” I said, giving him the third finger.

  “Why not? Free double shots, you know!” Louis added, circling his arm tighter around my neck and pulling me closer so he can whisper, “You know how expensive Diva is or not? Each bottle is $2,888!”

  My god. I tried to count in my head how many bottles we had already opened that night. Confirm three—­and who knows how many they had had before I got there?

  Louis didn’t seem to care though—­so why should I care?

  “No wonder so shiok,” I said, shrugging. “Come, another bottoms up!” This time I poured two shots for everyone and made them all drink quickly.

  Around this time, I started to think maybe it’s time to call it a night. Tonight is confirm no new prospects—­even though Inferno was filled with rich guys (or guys who looked really rich) I was there as Louis’s guest so I couldn’t leave him to go wander around the dance floor chatting up other guys. That really would be giving him no face. And his friends Francis and Ben were both quite cute—­but if they were Louis’s colleagues then I definitely didn’t want to pok them. Too close to home. Since they don’t live here, whatever we did, confirm, would be a one-­night stand. The worst would be the after—­if they gossiped about it with Louis and Louis gossiped with Kelvin and Andrew. Better don’t mix business with pleasure.

  “Eh, Louis, I think I’d better go home before I start feeling super mabuk,” I said.

  Louis nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Me also. We’ve bee
n drinking since six!”

  The guys were not ready to balik kampong yet though so Louis just signed the bill and told the waitress to bring out more Divas if the guys needed them and put them on his tab.

  “Come,” he said, after we said goodbye to the guys and were walking out the door. “I send you home.”

  I was more mabuk than I first thought, so I was glad Louis was sending me home. Plus, he even had a company driver waiting outside in a silver Mercedes, so we didn’t need to finagle with the taxi queue, which I could see was already damn long. This life Louis had . . . damn difficult, eh?

  When we reached my block and the car stopped, I leaned over to air-­kiss Louis but he said, “Not yet. You’re so mabuk, I’d better walk you up.”

  This was true. I couldn’t remember how many shots I’d had but I was feeling damn tired, even though it was only 2 A.M. Maybe safer to let him send me up.

  When we got in the lift, I started to feel damn embarrassed though. Usually the lift smells a little like smoke and urine, but tonight the scent was even more thick—­someone must have come home from clubbing and couldn’t wait to reach home. Aiyoh. I’m sure Louis, with his big Nassim Hill mansion, had never breathed in this kind of air in a very long time. I should have thought about this before letting him walk me up. No matter how mabuk I was, the embarrassment of this was just too much. I would have gladly preferred to fall on my face in a puddle of urine from being too drunk to stagger home than let Louis see my daily living environment like this.

  Louis didn’t seem to mind though—­in fact, he was humming one of the house music tunes from Inferno, half-­closing his eyes. I had never felt more relieved as when the lift door opened. The air had also never smelled more sweet. I could feel my armpits getting wet. As we walked down the narrow corridor, carefully stepping past my neighbors’ giant pots of money plants, with leaves growing all over half the walkway, I realized why I was feeling a bit nervous. All the years that Louis has sometimes sent me home, he had always dropped me off downstairs. I guess now, for the first time, he’s really seeing how I live. Aiyoh—­like that, how? Would he still think I’m atas enough to come out clubbing with him?

  At the end of the corridor, I quickly opened my gate, hoping he was mabuk enough that he didn’t notice the brown rusted spots all over it. Before I opened the door, I leaned in again to air-­kiss him.

  “Can I come in?” he whispered, smiling, still with his eyes half-­closed.

  Guniang here was stunned. This. Now, this really had never happened before. I tried to think of how to be polite about it. My mind was cotton balls.

  “It’s very late, you know . . .” I whispered back.

  “I know—­just for a bit.”

  “My flat is very quiet—­my parents would be unhappy if I had a friend . . .”

  “I’ll be very very quiet—­I promise,” he said, squeezing my hand.

  We didn’t say anything for a moment—­me, because I really couldn’t think of what to say. This was wrong. On so many levels. Forget Mary—­she really was never a factor in anything. But Imo, sweet Imo. Not to mention Roy. Or the fact that I thought of Louis as a brother. And the fact that I didn’t want to. And I was drunk. And I just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep. And . . .

  Louis sighed. His eyes had a slightly narrow look to them. He seemed impatient—­something I had seen only a few times before because Louis was generally so good-­natured. But the times that I had—­just tiny tiny flashes of impatience—­I had thought, My god, I never want that directed at me.

  “Jazzy,” Louis finally whispered, “didn’t you have a good time tonight?”

  Suddenly, I saw his point. I had no choice.

  I tried to reason with myself. Well . . . I had always liked Louis a lot as a friend. And I guess I did think he was cute, even if I never found him attractive in that way, because of Imo. And, after all our years of partying together and all those free drinks, I guess I owed him as much as Imo ever did. What did I think—­that this was all free?

  I had no valid reason to say no.

  My first reaction was to sigh but I stopped myself. I felt a little nauseous and took a deep breath and swallowed hard. OK, Jazzy, I thought, let’s just get this over and done with.

  I put my finger to my lips to remind Louis to be quiet, then very very slowly opened the door so the creaking could barely be heard and then very very slowly closed it after we were inside. Then I took his hand and brought him to my bedroom.

  Once we were inside and the door was shuffled shut, Louis quickly took off his shoes so I also took mine off. It was damn dark but the room was so small, if he even moved a bit, he would feel the bed bumping his knee. I sat on the bed and he sat very close to me—­we had no choice. The bed was so narrow, after all.

  Louis gently pushed me back on the bed so I was lying down, looking up at him. Then he got up, removed his Rolex Oyster and put it in his pants pocket, took something plasticky out of his wallet, then took off his pants and briefs, carefully setting them on the floor, right by the foot of the bed. Then he climbed on top of me and started kissing.

  At the time, I was just kind of analyzing everything as it was happening—­his kisses, quite interesting, actually. Considering how much money he has, I always thought that his kisses would surely be quite forceful. But in real life, it was actually soft and bloody wet. I wondered if that was what kissing a girl’s chee bye was like. Nice and warm and wet, but at the end of the day, the chee bye doesn’t give you much energy—­doesn’t kiss you back.

  I also suddenly realized how not mabuk he was. Even in the dark, he seemed to know where everything was. While he was kissing me, his left hand could still fasterly find the buttons of my tight shirt and undo them, then unhook my front-­hook bra and rub my tetek. After a few seconds of this, he sat back up and fiddled with the plastic thing in his right hand. Ah—­rubber.

  I heard him slip it on, felt him roll my panties off me, then quickly slip inside. I was a bit wet, but actually even if I wasn’t that wet, it would also have been OK. Louis was damn small! He lay down on top of me again and started pumping away, fast and stabbing. I thought of the sleek Inferno waitresses breaking up ice in our bucket with their long silver picks.

  Louis kept his promise—­he was very quiet. So quiet that after less than a minute of this, he came without me even noticing. Guniang at first thought he was only taking a break—­but when he pulled out and rolled over to lie by my side, I realized he had finished.

  We lay side by side, squeezed together like sardines on my bed. I could hear him breathing damn heavily. I guess he had a good time?

  “Sorry,” he finally whispered. “It’s been a long time. You know lah—­Imo was avoiding me and then she was too sick to come out tonight.”

  Imo! My god, thinking about her again, lying in bed with my bra open, my panties gone, the guy she loves lying next to me, panting and now, rolling off a soggy condom—­this, this really killed me. Die lah. This one is really really die.

  “No worries,” Louis whispered again. “I brought two rubbers. Rest a bit, then we can go again.”

  What? One more time? Kani nah!

  I could feel his head moving around a bit, like he was looking around the room or something. I guess maybe his eyes were now adjusted to the dark; he could see a bit more. I wondered if he could see my lousy desk and all my secondary school crap, how small the room was and how the paint around the window was peeling.

  “What time is it?” he whispered.

  I started to move so I could try and find my phone.

  “No, no, don’t worry,” he said. “I know it must be late.”

  His head was still moving around a bit—­I guess he could probably see some things in the darkness. He was silent for a moment.

  “Maybe,” he whispered, “maybe I’d better make a move first.”

  “OK,” I whisper
ed back. Before I could sit up he was already standing. I quickly buttoned half my blouse and slipped on a pair of shorts so I could walk him to the door.

  Ten minutes later, after closing the gate and going to the toilet for a very long time to rinse everything off down there, I lay flat on my bed, still wearing my unhooked bra under my half-­buttoned shirt, staring at the ceiling, looking around the room, trying to figure out how much of this room someone could actually see in the dark, but also wondering how on earth I could possibly explain any of this to Imo and Fann. My phone suddenly buzzed.

  “Wow,” Louis’s text said. “I always wondered what it would be like to try you. Thank you.”

  At first I thought I should be polite and text back but then I thought, no, it’s so late in the night, I have the right to not respond. I have a good excuse. I hoped he didn’t think I was rude though. I hoped that he thought I was so tired from his fantastic sex that I fell asleep.

  A few minutes later, my phone buzzed again.

  “I know you’re a smart girl and I don’t need to tell you,” the text said. “But this is our little secret.”

  chapter 17

  Sometimes, when I feel like everything is going to shit, I like to watch the old uncles play Ping-­Pong.

  From young, I was always like that. If I had exam stress or I thought my boyfriend was losing interest, I would go and buy a plastic bag of ice kopi, slowly walk to Tiong Bahru community center, sit on one of those old stone benches, shake leg a bit and watch the gray-­haired uncles in their baggy white shorts and T-­shirts running around the Ping-­Pong table, whacking balls.

  These uncles, no matter how old they are they also try damn hard. Win or lose, they also happy. Happy just to be alive, I guess. Happy they still have energy to run around killing each other at some cock pointless game.