Sarong Party Girls (23 page)

Bulbul? Bird-­watching? This guniang was definitely in new territory here. If it had been any of my friends telling cock stories like this I would have just laughed and whacked them on the head and said, “You talking what cock? Don't pretend to be deep lah!” But I remembered Roy's car. And how tenderly he wiped down the bench for me, for us. And I decided to just be quiet a bit. Let him talk. See how. And actually, by the time we finished our coffees and walked back to the car, I was feeling like maybe—­just maybe—­even if the oil refinery career is not quite part of the big plan, even if he has that bloody hairy nose, maybe Roy has real potential.

Just thinking about our walk while at Studemeyer's with Fann and the guys was still making me smile. That's how happy I was, I guess. I took out my phone and thought about texting Roy, wondering what he was up to tonight. But I thought, I just saw him earlier today. Just let it rest for a bit. See how. I put my phone back in my clutch.

At that moment, Kelvin pointed to the small oblong podium in the middle of the dance floor that was, as usual, jammed with four or five ­people trying to action for everyone to see. When Studemeyer's first opened and they were still trying to be a bit atas, they actually selected podium ­people—­sexy sexy girls and guys who actually know how to dance, dress well and also look quite steam lah. At that time, those podium ­people were quite inspiration—­you see them dancing like in those music videos (sometimes even making the exact moves—­this was especially effective with Janet Jackson songs), it just makes you want to dance harder and look sexier. Everybody feels good. But as I mentioned before, their standards really dropped after the Ah Bengs started coming. Now, they just anyhow let ­people go on the podium and dance. Good clubs—­how can they let such things happen? No wonder all the serious clubbers don't really like coming here anymore.

The podium tonight was a perfect example of this—­my god, the variety of losers on it were A-­plus-­plus, man. There was one classic Ah Beng with the gelled hair and lumpar face, two Ah Lians, both wearing sequin cheena dresses like those KTV bar girls, one fat ang moh guy who confirm is a tourist—­must be American, some more, judging from his T-­shirt and baggy berms. I tell you—­sometimes being ang moh is quite the good life. When they go to a club, they're not Singaporeans so they don't need to watch the dress code. Whatever you wear also any club will let you in.

And then—­wah, this one I actually had never seen on the podium before—­there was one vainpot auntie up there, a bit chubby chubby but still damn bloody vain. Auntie looked quite old—­maybe thirty-­something?—­but even so, somehow she was the most energy, the most action of all the podium dancers. She was wearing tight jeans—­but not those fashion fashion dark blue one. Hers were light blue; the denim looked like those cheapo, buy from the “fashion” stalls at the wet market kind. And yeah, her jeans were damn tight on her—­but I can tell you it's not because the jeans were designed to be tight. Even though the dance floor was quite dark, I could see from here that her legs were blown up like two sausage rolls. But lagi best was her top—­she wore this loose, a bit see-­through white tank top with such big arm holes that you could see her lacy bra. And this auntie's bra—­don't play play! Fluorescent orange! Plus, she danced until so powerful that her bra straps kept slipping, so every few minutes auntie had to stop dancing, catch her breath and pull up her bra. She would stop, rest for a few seconds and then—­action again!

I tell you, the four of us watched her for a few songs—­and we laughed until we almost fell over the railing, man!

“Ladies,” Kelvin said, raising his glass to cheers with us again. “Please—­promise me that when you are that old I won't see your saggy backsides up on that podium!”

Aiyoh, socks-­crotch tonight was really quite daring—­having the balls to arrow us like that.

“Eh, Kelvin,” I said, clinking my glass with his. “Thanks for the advice—­I see you are listening to your own advice as well? You and auntie over there are both the same age but I don't see you joining her up there on the podium.”

Kelvin stopped smiling—­his face had this bang balls look. He gave me the third finger but Andrew, Fann and I just laughed and laughed.

Just when I started to be in OK mood, settling into the clubbing scene and not really thinking about texting Roy anymore or wondering what he's doing tonight, I saw someone waving at me from the dance floor. Kani nah—­it's Seng! Why does he have to be so bloody GPS—­know how to find me and all? I didn't want to be rude, so I just waved back then looked away. But ten minutes later, the fucker showed up on our level and was standing next to me in our booth!

“Excuse me?” Kelvin said to Seng and the even bigger Ah Beng friend he had dragged up with him to the VIP section. “Sorry, but this is a private table that we have reserved.”

“It's OK,” Seng said, giving Kelvin a big fuck-­off face. “That one,” he added, pointing at me, “my friend.”

Kelvin laughed, then looked at me. “Jazz? Real or not?”

Seng look at me; I look at him. I felt quite bad, especially after thinking about what my mum told me the other day, about how he bought her and Pa breakfast last week and all.

“Yeah, yeah, no problems—­he's my old friend,” I said, feeling damn bloody embarrassed. “But this one—­is from a very long time ago!”

Kelvin just shook his head and gave me a dagger look before going over to whisper to Andrew. Fann looked at me and mouthed the words: “Why is he here?” I had nothing to say.

“Jazzy—­this one, my friend Richard; Richard—­Jazzy, my neighbor,” Seng said. His friend was one of those really smelly-­face Ah Bengs—­the kind of face that always looks like he just ate something wrong. Richard just looked at me, tilted his chin up and nodded. When Ah Bengs say hallo—­is like that one. They never shake hands.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Seng.

“I sometimes come here,” he said. “Studemeyer's is damn happening!”

Aiyoh, my god. Of course Seng is the exact sort of guy who would think this club is still happening.

“Don't angry lah, Jazzy,” Seng said. “Long long time never see you in club already. Let's just dance a bit.”

I was trying to think about what to do when the deejay started playing Black Eyed Peas and everyone around us started dancing like crazy and singing, “I gotta feeling . . . that tonight's gonna be a good night!” and all. I didn't want to kill the mood so I decided to dance along, but each time I looked over at Seng and Richard, my blood would really boil. The Ah Bengs were just happily dancing along, ignoring the dirty looks that Fann, Kelvin and Andrew were giving them. Why on earth was Seng here? Isn't it bad enough that he harasses me in my own neighborhood, he comes to my house when I'm not there, but now he has to talk to me in clubs when I'm with my atas friends? And he even dares to bring his mega Ah Beng friend along when bothering me! Please. He really doesn't understand his place in life.

Halfway through the song, Andrew slowly danced closer to me, moving between me and Seng, who gave him a dirty look. Andrew leaned close to my ear and said, “This bugger—­is he really your friend?”

I nodded but made sure to roll my eyes.

“He keeps giving me dirty looks—­bodyguard, is it? Or boy toy?” Andrew said, purposely putting his arm around me now. I've never been Andrew's type so he's never done anything like this to me before—­and I knew that this move tonight wasn't about that, really. And I knew his strategy worked—­I could see Seng glaring at him even more.

“Aiyoh, Jazzy,” Andrew said, getting closer and really whispering in my ear now. “We've been partying together for so long, why are you giving us no face by bringing an Ah Beng cock blocker? Want to make us jealous, is it?”

Andrew was rubbing his nose on my ear now and kept looking over at Seng to make sure he was seeing everything. This was getting out of hand. I don't know what Andrew was playing at but guniang tonight had no mood to flirt with anybody. Not even with Chairman Andrew with his millions of dollars, thank you very much. After last night with Alistair and then today's sweet walk with Roy, all I wanted tonight was some good clean fun—­no hooking up, no drama. My god, that Alistair guy was still texting me! Guniang here just wanted to forget that it ever happened.

I sweetly smiled and moved away from Andrew. “No lah,” I said, smiling even more. “This guy is my teenage friend—­from a long time ago. I also don't know what longkang he came from tonight. Trust me—­this kind of guy, I definitely didn't invite him.”

I looked over at Fann, who had stopped dancing awhile ago and was sitting on the banquette, texting and looking grumpy. I looked over at Seng, who was staring at me and Andrew, probably trying to figure out if he should interfere and try to whack Andrew's face or something. Like that—­how?

My phone was in my pocket vibrating—­actually, it had vibrated a few times that night but I didn't care about answering since it was probably Alistair. But at this moment, I needed an excuse to take a break from all this manhood crap so I sat down next to Fann and checked my texts.

There were two texts from Alistair. I didn't bother to look at them.

Then, from Louis: “Jazz—­Inferno is damn happening tonight. You girls come here lah. I'm not going to Studemeyer's.” After that he sent a few more saying, “Hello? Hello?” then “Coming or not?”

“Fann,” I said, “let's go.”

“Thank god,” she said, quickly picking up her handbag and getting up. “Bloody boring here, man.”

“Andrew,” I said, giving him a hug. “We make a move first.”

As Fann and I ran out, I gave a quick wave to Kelvin, Seng and Richard. They all looked a bit blur. I could see them wondering if we were going to the toilet or leaving for good. Whatever, lah.

Once we were outside, Fann said, “Eh, I think I'll go home first.”

“Home your head lah—­it's only eleven
P.M.
!” I said. “You think I don't know where you going—­to see Melvin, right?”

At least Fann had the decency to look a bit embarrassed.

“Aiyoh—­it's Saturday night!” I said. “Come on, woman—­this is not nice.”

“Jazzy,” she said. “Weren't you the one who told us that we must be focused on our mission? I am being focused! Melvin is a good catch. Things are going well,” she said, smiling as if she was remembering something about him, and then giggling a little.

Watching her made me feel bad. It's true. I shouldn't lose sight of the mission. If Fann has a chance to be happy, then I really shouldn't be so selfish. I guess this is how it is lah—­when ­people have wings already, they know how to fly. You cannot hold them back.

“Aiyah, OK fine—­just go and give your backside to him lah!” I said, smacking her pantat one time and smiling.

Fann pointed her third finger at me. “You? What are you going to do?”

“Don't worry—­I'll join Louis at Inferno,” I said. “The night is still young—­maybe I'll meet my ang moh billionaire tonight!”

 

chapter 16

There was a unicorn at the door when I got to Inferno.

Of course, not a real unicorn lah. But some tall, buff guy dressed like a unicorn; the horn at the top of his mask was even long and sharp—­sharp enough to seriously hurt someone, probably. Wah, I thought, if there's a fight here tonight, this guy no need to carry parang also can win. Nowadays in Singapore, you cannot be too careful. Just last month, some guy was walking by the ­McDonald's near the cinema on Orchard Road minding his own business when some Ah Beng gang thought he was acting too ya ya or some shit and whacked him with a parang! That guy was slashed with that machete I don't know how many times, go hospital all; blood all over the place. There were even kids all around watching this happening—­the Ah Bengs just didn't care.

Ah Bengs these days—­really getting to be too much. That's why I don't really understand Seng. Picking up all these Ah Beng habits is a slippery slope, you know—­one day you are growing a long fingernail to dig your ears and saying “jee-­lo” instead of “zero” and the next day you may find yourself holding parang and whacking innocent ­people on the street just because you think they're staring at you. All I know is, guniang here better just stay out of it all.

Inferno is safe though—­this kind of club, confirm will have no Ah Bengs. Since it opened last month, it's not only one of the hottest clubs in Singapore, but actually, in the world! Just yesterday, the
New Times
wrote a big story that the
Perth Tribune
called Inferno the “Best New Bar in Southeast Asia,” all. If a newspaper in Perth is actually saying that then this club is confirm happening!

Once the unicorn ushered me into the club, a tall and pretty Eurasian girl in a sexy black dress—­short, yes, but with a classy classy cut—­welcomed me and led me to a reception room. “And you are with?” she said in a British accent, pulling out an iPad wrapped in zebra skin. I was quite impressed—­I whole life never see this kind of iPad cover before. I wanted to ask her whether I could touch it or not but thought, Jazzy, please, wake up your head. You cannot be so LC!

“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 been 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.