Bliss (16 page)

 

9

my brain is a dirty sponge

Afterward, as the sweat dried, Leandra asked Charlie, “How many women have you been with before me?”

They were in their queen-size bed in their small but comfortable house in the fashionable Bang Rak district. Ninety-nine percent of the citizens of Bangkok would consider it the lap of luxury. By Leandra's standards, it was okay. Only six rooms, and two bathrooms. The ceilings were only ten feet high. They were living with the former resident's furniture, which Charlie didn't mind, but kind of grossed Leandra out. She was sleeping and fucking on a used mattress. It was a Tempur-Pedic and less than a year old. But still.

“Why do you want to know?”

Sensitive subject for the former tubby? She assumed he wasn't all that experienced. Sexually, she was the
sensei
, and Charlie was the
senpai
. But, Jesus, had he been a
virgin
? It wasn't possible, was it? She had to play this right, or he'd feel awkward and ashamed, the first step down the road to romantic ruin. “Forget it. I don't really want to know,” she said. “I'll get jealous.”

He turned it around, and asked, “How many men have you been with?”

She had lost count after twenty. “It's embarrassing.”

“Wow, that many?”

“Three,” she lied. “See? You
are
embarrassed for me.” She buried her head under the sheets.

“You learned a lot from three guys,” he said. “I should thank them.”

“I did not! They would just, like, roll on top, and then roll off. Not a lot of imagination. I've learned more from magazines and movies—and from you. Being with you puts crazy ideas in my head. Dirty, filthy ideas that make me wonder about myself. But you make me feel so safe, I just go for it.”

“So you've never done … that thing with your tongue … before?”

Eyes wide, she was convincingly offended. “Of course not! I wouldn't do
that
with someone else! Oh, my god. You think I'm a total
whore
.” She pretended to throw the covers back, like she was about to storm off in a huff.

Charlie held on tight. “You are the opposite of a whore.”

She pouted. “I'm a nun?”

“You're a good person. A dream come true,” he said. “Before you, I've only been with one other woman. We met in business school. She was willing and I was grateful. We stuck it out for a year. She's a good person, too, and is still a friend, but I never got all that excited about our sex life. I figured sex just didn't live up to the hype, and that was that. When I got into Muay Thai, I put all my energy into it, until the night you walked into Sky Bar. Heaven cracked open. The oceans rose up. You've shown me a world I didn't think existed for me. I can't thank you enough.”

Still pouting, she said, “I'm willing and you're grateful?”

“I'm worshipfully, madly in love with you,” he said, cupping her cheeks and staring into her eyes.

Leandra gazed back, a bit warily at first, then softening and reflecting back the same emotion he poured into her. Voice trembling, she said, “I love you, too.”

He pressed his lips to her forehead, and, to her horror, started weeping, rocking, repeating, “Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

Leandra was tempted to say, “You're welcome, you're welcome, you're welcome,” but he probably wouldn't think it was funny. Instead, she said, “Oh, baby,” and stroked his back like the emotional infant he was.
He'd only slept with two women?
She assumed his number was low, but she had no idea it was
that
bad. Leandra's ovaries shriveled at his soft, interminable whimpering. She breathed into her own discomfort, flooding her cringing impulses with calm and oxygen. She took the Zen approach, knowing that, at some point in the very near future, this mortifying moment would end.

And it did. Eventually, she shifted him onto his side, and rubbed his back until he snuffled into sleep.

Leandra got out of bed, wandered through their house toward the desk where Charlie kept the laptop. She booted it up. It was midnight in Bangkok. She sent an email to her parents, assuring them she was fine. (They were over the moon about the match, her mom taking full credit.) Then Leandra did her nightly perusal of Charlie's bookmarked pages, his bank accounts and investment portfolios, just keeping track of where they stood. It wasn't snooping, or devious. She wasn't secretly transferring money into a Swiss bank account, not that she had any idea how one would go about doing such a thing; although it seemed like an important life skill to learn, like playing tennis or riding a horse. She was just peeking behind the curtain.

A text chimed in from Sophia. “Miss you,” it said.

A lump formed in Leandra's throat. Two words of longing from her old friend hit her a hundred times deeper than Charlie's weepy confession.

“I miss you, too,” she texted back.

“Toronto just isn't the same without you.”

Leandra pictured Sophia thumbing the text, her hair dipping down her shoulder, dark eyes focused on the screen. Not for the first time, Leandra wondered if she were gay for Sophia. She'd toyed with the idea many times over the years, but always came back to the same conclusion. She loved Sophia, was jealous of her other friends (especially Demi), found her breathtaking, could easily imagine kissing her. But the fantasy screeched to a halt when she got to one part of Sophia that left her cold: vagina. Leandra just wasn't into girl bits. She was barely interested in her own. Men had described her cooch as magical, mysterious, and “alive, so alive” (a film student boyfriend in college). Did she delve into the magic, the mystery herself when she was alone? Meh. Leandra would rather keep her hands clean.

“I might be heading west,” she typed, although, until that second, she hadn't thought about leaving Asia.

“What about Charlie?”

“He's okay, but the world is full of big fish.”

Sophia wrote, “Sounds like true love. Got to go. Stuff to do before work.” She tacked on the winking face with a tongue-out emoji. Not the declaration of undying love Leandra had hoped for, but it would do. She felt a lot less alone just knowing that Sophia was thinking about her. Charlie loved her, had never loved like this before, and would never love like this again, etc. The truth was, he didn't even know her. During his waking hours, Leandra became exactly what he wanted her to be, a good person, his dream come true. When Charlie finally fell asleep? Leandra lay awake or padded through the house, letting herself breathe. There was little comfort in being herself. She just felt empty.

*   *   *

“Tell me the truth,” said Leandra, watching Charlie eat a bowl of shrimp pad thai she'd made from scratch at her cooking class today.

He took a bite, and smiled. “It's perfect. I love it!”

She'd cajoled him into eating a quart-size portion to prove it. Charlie was so whipped by her magical pussy, she could shit on a plate and he'd slurp it up and ask for seconds. “I'm glad you like it.”

“Yeah, keep at it,” he said. It was meant to be encouraging, but it struck her as an insult. Why did he insist she take a cooking class anyway? They could just go to restaurants—something other than Thai food, please. Noodles and curry every night for weeks on end? She was sick of it. And now, she was being asked to cook it, too. What Leandra wouldn't give for a big bowl of poutine (French fries smothered in cheese curds and gravy; it's a Canada thing).

“I have a special surprise planned for tonight,” he said, rising from his chair.

Tonight?
She'd spent hours over a hot stove, and she still had dishes to do.
Whoa. Did I just really think that? My brain is a dirty dish sponge.
Charlie got excited watching her cook (fun … for ten minutes) and clean (hate), but he couldn't possibly like the nagging and insecurity that were part of the wifey package.

She had to snap out of this mood. Charlie wouldn't lavish jewelry and designer goodies on a dirty dish sponge. She would shine like a diamond, because that's how precious she was to him.

“I love surprises!” she said. “What should I wear?”

“What you're wearing is fine.”

She was in a halter dress, dotted with food stains. Was he taking her to a Laundromat? “I'll just shower and throw on…”

“Double quick. The car arrives in five minutes.”

Half an hour later, Leandra looked sexy and elegant in a black Armani minidress, diamond earrings and bracelet from Cartier, and strappy Stuart Weitzman heels. Their limo pulled up to the temple complex called Wat Pho. They'd been there before to see the Emerald Buddha and the Reclining Buddha (the statue was the length of a football field with feet as tall as she was), immediately followed by a trip to another Wat to see the Golden Buddha (solid gold, but not
that
huge).

“Here again?” she asked, trying to sound excited about it.

He said, “Remember that Ram Thai dance concert you loved at the Grand Palace?”

“Of course!” Leandra wasn't such a dance fan, actually. It was the most absurd of all art forms, people prancing and leaping around while the audience stared at their crotches. Meanwhile, why did everything in Thailand have to tack on the word “thai” to it? Pad thai, thai tea, Muay Thai, Ram Thai. It was like saying Canadian bacon, but for everything.

The driver parked and they walked toward the temple entrance. A guard at the gate thrust a folded-up few yards of fabric at her. Charlie said, “Oh, I forgot. You have to cover your legs. Just wind this around your waist and tuck it in like a skirt.”

“My outfit,” she said. Last time they'd come, she wore pants.

“It's a sign of respect,” he said.

Now in a yellow print maxi skirt, Leandra followed Charlie as they walked between gold-shingled A-line structures with scary sharp spindles jutting heavenward from the roof corners. If one of those spires cracked off and fell, it could slice you in half.

“Why are there two thousand statues of Buddha in every temple?” she asked Charlie. “Sitting, standing, lying down, one hand up, hands together, hands on knees. Pick a position already. Can you imagine a church back home with a thousand statues of Jesus—eating, drinking, anointing, playing golf?”

“Keep your voice down,” he snapped. Jeez, she was just making a joke.

Charlie guided her to their assigned folding chairs set up in the courtyard of the complex. The chairs were on cobblestones, so every movement caused rocking. He seemed distracted, so she brought his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. Charlie snatched his hand away. He'd corrected her a few times about being affectionate in public—a major no-no in Bangkok—but she felt entitled to sulk anyway.

The dance was nearly identical to the last one they went to, girls with white face makeup and pointy hats, doing the twisty wrist movements and lifted-knee poses that anyone who'd seen
The King and I
would recognize as Siamese. A small band plunked on sitars and xylophones for an hour. Then there was the meet and greet. Charlie chatting away in Thai while Leandra smiled and nodded in a thick fog of ennui.

In the limo home, Charlie said, “You seem upset.”

“I'm not upset,” she said. “It's just … I've reached my Wat limit. If I see one more Buddha or one more girl in a pointy hat, I'll scream.”

Charlie looked at her like she'd grown a third head. It'd taken eight weeks for her mask to slip, which was a good long time for anyone to pretend, even a pro like her. She backpedaled. “I don't mean that. It's just that”—she groped for a phrase that would trigger an emotional response in him—“I miss you.”

“We live together,” he said.

“You work all day, and then you go to the dojo after dinner. When we go out, we can't touch or talk in public. I love that you have Thai friends and speak the language, but I feel left out.”

He seemed irritated. “So what do you expect me to do?”

“We're in Bangkok! Sin City. I want to go to the Patpong, and do shots with ladyboys. Or ride an elephant while feeding a monkey. I want excitement.”

“I thought I was exciting.”

Christ, was he a woman?
“You are!” she said. “You're all I need!”

“Me, and a monkey.”

“And an elephant.”

He laughed and hugged her, forgiving her momentary lapse of decorum. She was able to readjust her perfect girlfriend mask. It chafed, though. One day, Leandra would have an honest relationship with someone and not have to wear a mask at all. She'd had that with Stacy. Born a year apart, they might as well have been twins. They could read each other's thoughts, without judgment. When Leandra lost that, she always felt off when relating to other people, like she couldn't completely trust anyone. Even with Sophia and Demi, she felt compelled to put on an act. One day she'd be able to say to a man, “Let's just have great sex, eat the world until we can't stand the sight of each other, and then go our separate ways.”

Until then, Leandra would play the part as best she could, for as long as she could. Charlie bought a house so they could live together. She did feel some moral obligation to be the woman he wanted her to be, for a while.

As they pulled up to their house, Charlie said, “I'm sorry, Leandra. I didn't realize how isolated you are here. I was dreading bringing this up, but now I think it's good news.”

“What news?”

“My boss wants me to go to London next week. Why don't you come with me? A change might do you good.”

“I love London!” she said, although she'd never been. “Yes, let's do it! You're a genius, Charlie! You know me so well. We'll have so much fun.”

“I'm going to be working a lot,” he warned her.