bullshitter I ever met!”
At the end of the night, as the bar was closing, I reached out and took her hand and said, “Come to bed with me, Li.”
She seemed to hesitate. She looked at me as if calculating something, then gave one quick nod and jumped from the bar-stool.
I followed her up to my room in a state of heightened sexual arousal, watching her tight bottom switch from side to side beneath the red dress as she climbed the stairs before me.
And what followed? Enough to say that it was the most fulfilling night of passion I had ever spent. Li was wild, and relentless, and totally uninhibited. She was an animal, sometimes frightening me with her savagery. Hers was an unrestrained display of primal lust which made me realise that the sex I had shared until then had been a pale imitation, a mere shadow-play, when compared to the real thing.
We were inseparable, after that.
I worked on the script in the mornings, then returned to the hotel for afternoons of delirious sex with Li. In the evenings she hurried to the Café Bar to dispense her Oriental magic, and returned to me in the early hours, re-energised, and ready for another bout of passion.
At one point I held her in my lap, her slim legs clamped tight about my waist, and stared into her wide, child-like eyes. “What’s happening, Li? Why us?”
“Because is meant,” she said. “Sometime, two people, they come together, and it is right. The gods, they say ‘Yes.’ And the two never part. Ah...”
I held her to me, as if attempting to pull her into me, become one with her. What the gods decree as right, let no man put asunder.
~
Tak Buri was a town not much larger than Khon Khai, occupying the banks of the same river. The bus drew to a halt in the busy main street at sunset, after six hours on the road. I unwound myself from my seat and, feeling as if I might faint at any second, climbed out and stood stretching amid a crowd of curious locals.
I made for the nearest bar, ordered a Singha, and then a second. I asked the proprietor if he knew where I might find a young woman by the name of Li Ketsuwan. I expected a long evening of fruitless enquiry before I was successful.
But the bar-tender gave a gold-toothed grin and said, “Li? Sure I know Li! She has big place in bend of river. One kay out of town, to the north. Can’t miss it, okay?”
I celebrated with another beer, then turned and watched – as clear as day, no word of a lie – Karen walk past the bar. I hurried out, but of course by the time I emerged from the bar she had vanished.
I returned to my beer. I told myself that I should have been unsurprised by these spectral visitations, but the fact was that the reminders of my past never failed to fill me with fear.
~
I had dated Karen one week after the disaster with Sonia. She was a young, bubbly blonde who worked in the marketing department of a big London publishing house. She was the baby sister of a friend, and until then I had always considered her off-limits. Perhaps what made her fair game now had something to do with my failure with Sonia the week before, the need to boost my flagging ego.
I manufactured a chance meeting at a coffee shop I knew she frequented, and invited her to a swank party I planned to attend that night.
The rest was like stealing candy from a baby.
Back at my apartment, on the settee, I pulled her towards me, kissed her, slipped a hand beneath her cashmere sweater, feeling the soft puppy fat of her flank.
She screamed, and pulled away as if scalded.
“Jesus!” she cried. “What did you...?” She was staring, incredulous, at my right hand.
“You burned me, for fuck’s sake! You burned me!”
And she lifted her sweater to show an area of rib-cage pulsing with an angry red weal in the shape of my hand.
Exeunt Karen, in high dudgeon.
After that came Gina, a sultry Italian beauty of twenty-three, who fainted when I so much as laid a finger upon her person.
And then Samantha, an ex-porn star
At the end of the night, as the bar was closing, I reached out and took her hand and said, “Come to bed with me, Li.”
She seemed to hesitate. She looked at me as if calculating something, then gave one quick nod and jumped from the bar-stool.
I followed her up to my room in a state of heightened sexual arousal, watching her tight bottom switch from side to side beneath the red dress as she climbed the stairs before me.
And what followed? Enough to say that it was the most fulfilling night of passion I had ever spent. Li was wild, and relentless, and totally uninhibited. She was an animal, sometimes frightening me with her savagery. Hers was an unrestrained display of primal lust which made me realise that the sex I had shared until then had been a pale imitation, a mere shadow-play, when compared to the real thing.
We were inseparable, after that.
I worked on the script in the mornings, then returned to the hotel for afternoons of delirious sex with Li. In the evenings she hurried to the Café Bar to dispense her Oriental magic, and returned to me in the early hours, re-energised, and ready for another bout of passion.
At one point I held her in my lap, her slim legs clamped tight about my waist, and stared into her wide, child-like eyes. “What’s happening, Li? Why us?”
“Because is meant,” she said. “Sometime, two people, they come together, and it is right. The gods, they say ‘Yes.’ And the two never part. Ah...”
I held her to me, as if attempting to pull her into me, become one with her. What the gods decree as right, let no man put asunder.
~
Tak Buri was a town not much larger than Khon Khai, occupying the banks of the same river. The bus drew to a halt in the busy main street at sunset, after six hours on the road. I unwound myself from my seat and, feeling as if I might faint at any second, climbed out and stood stretching amid a crowd of curious locals.
I made for the nearest bar, ordered a Singha, and then a second. I asked the proprietor if he knew where I might find a young woman by the name of Li Ketsuwan. I expected a long evening of fruitless enquiry before I was successful.
But the bar-tender gave a gold-toothed grin and said, “Li? Sure I know Li! She has big place in bend of river. One kay out of town, to the north. Can’t miss it, okay?”
I celebrated with another beer, then turned and watched – as clear as day, no word of a lie – Karen walk past the bar. I hurried out, but of course by the time I emerged from the bar she had vanished.
I returned to my beer. I told myself that I should have been unsurprised by these spectral visitations, but the fact was that the reminders of my past never failed to fill me with fear.
~
I had dated Karen one week after the disaster with Sonia. She was a young, bubbly blonde who worked in the marketing department of a big London publishing house. She was the baby sister of a friend, and until then I had always considered her off-limits. Perhaps what made her fair game now had something to do with my failure with Sonia the week before, the need to boost my flagging ego.
I manufactured a chance meeting at a coffee shop I knew she frequented, and invited her to a swank party I planned to attend that night.
The rest was like stealing candy from a baby.
Back at my apartment, on the settee, I pulled her towards me, kissed her, slipped a hand beneath her cashmere sweater, feeling the soft puppy fat of her flank.
She screamed, and pulled away as if scalded.
“Jesus!” she cried. “What did you...?” She was staring, incredulous, at my right hand.
“You burned me, for fuck’s sake! You burned me!”
And she lifted her sweater to show an area of rib-cage pulsing with an angry red weal in the shape of my hand.
Exeunt Karen, in high dudgeon.
After that came Gina, a sultry Italian beauty of twenty-three, who fainted when I so much as laid a finger upon her person.
And then Samantha, an ex-porn star
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