get married.’
‘Not yet. Give it another week, don’t want to rush things.’ She presses a finger to my lips. ‘Silence for the best intro in the world coming up.’
We listen to the opening of ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’. I don’t disagree with her, mostly because she’s strumming along on my penis. Slash’s fingers dance up and down his instrument while Laura’s dance up and down mine. When the song’s finished and all strumming is over, we kiss.
‘I think we need to see each other often,’ she says, once her lips have separated from mine.
‘You haven’t even asked if I’ve got a girlfriend.’
‘Have you?’
‘No.’
‘Want one?’
‘If you’re offering?’
‘I am.’
‘Cool.’
She rests on her elbow and looks so deep into my eyes and for so long my vocal cords seize up.
‘Do I scare you?’ She leans her face in close and our lips are nearly touching again.
I shake my head, although I am scared, but not for the reasons she’s asking. I’m not scared she’s a psychotic stalker or scared she’s moving too fast. I’m scared because I don’t do this. I don’t fall for girls I hardly know. And I’m scared in case it goes wrong and in case it breaks me. I’m scared because I’m scared of all that and I’ve only known her for about twenty-two hours. It’s scary shit, being scared.
‘Don’t think I’m a slut for sleeping with you on the first day?’
Shake my head.
‘Not worried I’m rushing you?’
Shake.
‘Believe in love at first sight?’
Shake. Nod. Shake. Not sure how I should answer.
‘I don’t either, but you do make my heart very, very fluttery, and I’ve never had that before.’
Smile.
‘And I’ve never ever slept with someone so quickly. Normally he’d have to swim the Channel or climb a metaphorical Everest to get in my sheets so easily. So what’s going on, Mr Whippy Man?’
I shrug my shoulders, kiss her lips, hug her. I haven’t a clue what’s going on.
‘How about we just go with it,’ I whisper. ‘It feels, it feels…’
‘It feels good.’
An understatement, but I say, ‘Yes. Good.’
We lie there, skin on skin, legs intertwined like ivy, strands of her hair in my mouth, my hands on her back. I sense her life moving around her body and can feel it seeping through her flesh, her breasts, her hands, and every part of her body that touches me, into mine.
Into mine.
Into mine. A scratch. A jump. A moment stuck.
ALBINOS AND
ACTION MEN
K im and I drink kopi susu under a blue tarpaulin at a lean-to made from a few pieces of wood. We sit at a wobbly bench watching the owner of this fine establishment pour boiling water into something that looks like an old sock. From the bottom of the sock comes very good coffee. There are three men also sitting at the one and only table in this roadside shack. Two are playing chess and the other is watching intently through the haze of smoke that pours from the cigarette hung from his lips. Traffic passes by just a few feet away. Blown exhausts and horns mean conversation has to be turned up a little. And it’s bloody hot. Kim keeps picking his shirt up at the front and shaking it. Each time he does this he says, ‘Fuuuck, it’s fucking hot. Whoa, it’s fucking hot.’
I’m enjoying the heat. My shirt sticks to my neck and back and every now and then a little trickle of sweat runs down my temple. The heat makes me know I’m somewhere different, it confirms I’ve changed my world, that I’m being different. My old life has gone.
‘Fuuuck, it’s fucking hot.’ A shirt waggle.
‘I know, Kim, I’m sat here next to you.’
‘But fuck, I know this country’s supposed to be hot but this is fucking hot.’
‘You hot, my friend?’ asks the chess-watcher.
‘Fucking hot, man.’
‘Hot is good,’ he laughs. ‘Is my country. Is good country. Hot is good.’
‘Yeah man, good country, very bagus country, but fucking hot today.’
‘Where you from?’
‘Canada. You?’ asks Kim.
‘Ha. You not American. Good. Me from disini, from here, Medan, my town.’ He throws his cigarette out onto the street. ‘And you, my friend? You Canadian?’
‘English.’
‘Ah, David Beckham, you know? Very good footballer.’
‘I know. Yes. But I don’t like football.’ Not bloody Beckham again.
‘Manchester United? You like?’
‘No, I don’t like.’ I smile at him and sip my coffee. A drop of sweat plops into it from my nose.
‘Shame. Very good team. David Beckham very good.’ He lights another cigarette and his eyes focus on the chess board again.
Kim waggles his shirt and opens his mouth.
‘Don’t say it.’
He looks at me mid-waggle as if I’ve just told him I’m sleeping with his sister.
‘But it is fuc…’
‘Kim.’ I raise my eyebrows at him. ‘Anyway, I’ve been meaning to ask, is it true bule means albino?’
‘Around this part of Indonesia it does, apparently. We’re albinos to them. All white and sickly and albinoish.’
‘Racist buggers.’
‘Yeah I know, but I bet you’re racist to them too.’
‘No.’
‘Confident answer, man.’ He scratches the side of his head. ‘So you don’t generalise and think they all want to talk about Man United and are all a little simple when they ask “Where you going, misterrr?”’
I pause to think of a response that doesn’t confirm I’m something
