Belinda was having boy problems again.
"How?" She'd unboxed the iPhone and laid it on her desk. They both regarded it as if it was a snake.
"I don't know what to do," said Belinda. "I told Euric to take it back. But he said if I give him back he'll sell it on eBay."
"Give back and let him sell on eBay lah," said Sham.
"But that'll hurt his feelings," said Belinda.
Sham snorted.
Belinda and Sham were best friends. On Sham's side, this was because she did not have any other friends. Belinda's reasons were more mysterious.
They'd met at the Malaysian Society freshers' tea party in their first week at Cambridge. Sham had been filling a backpack with Walkers crisps from the table of refreshments when Belinda had said to her:
"I'm so sorry! I took the last prawn cocktail. But I didn't eat much. You want?"
Sham had looked down her impressive length of nose at Belinda. Belinda had glowed back, offering the packet of crisps with one trusting hand. She bore an extraordinary resemblance to a Shih Tzu puppy.
"I find prawn cocktail revolting," Sham informed her. "You can keep it."
Belinda had put her hand on her chest.
"Xing hao!" she'd said.
Belinda made a great best friend: she was considerate, humble, and infinitely anxious to please. But the same characteristics sometimes made her tiring.
"I don't know why you're so concerned about Euric," said Sham. "He's a dick."
"But he's my friend."
"Just because people want you to be their girlfriend doesn't mean they are your friend," said Sham. "This is, what, the fourth unwanted present this year?"
"The others were from other people," said Belinda. "This is the first thing Euric give me."
"But isn't he the one who printed out a picture of you and stuck it on his bolster?" said Sham. She paused. "Wait a minute, isn't he the guy who told you he has wet dreams about you?"
"That make me very uncomfortable," admitted Belinda.
"Give the thing back," said Sham. "If you don't nip this in the bud, next thing you know, the presents will be flooding through your door."
Outside the window there was a tinkling noise, followed by a dull thud.
They were two floors up. On the ledge outside lay a necklace, glinting in the orange lamplight. There was a note attached to it:
For the most beautiful girl in the world — Belinda.
"Oh my god," said Belinda.
"Next thing you know, bags of money will be falling out of the sky into my lap," said Sham hopefully, but nothing happened.
Belinda was training Sham to be normal. Her first step had been to create a Facebook account for Sham.
"How can you live without Facebook?" Belinda had marvelled. "How d'you keep in touch with everybody back home?"
"I don't have an ‘everybody'," said Sham.
"If you want to meet people here you have to have an account," said Belinda, ignoring the fact that Sham had never expressed an interest in meeting people. "Anyway, I put all our photos up there so you gotta log on to see."
Belinda loved having photographs taken of her and was constantly coaxing Sham into self-portraits. It was all right for Belinda. She came out looking twice as cute as in real life. In photos Sham was mostly nose and acne. Her face, lurking behind all of this, looked like an enraged hawk's.
But Facebook turned out to be more fun than Sham had expected. By scrolling through her feed for fifteen minutes every other night, she extracted more information about her compatriots than the sociable Belinda had any idea of.
"Hui Fern used to date Josiah back when they were at sec school," she told Belinda.
"Kidding? But Hui Fern and Josiah are so different!"
"She reminds him of his mother. He's still in love with her, but nowadays Hui Fern tells people she has no idea what she was thinking when she was going out with him," said Sham.
Belinda was round-eyed. "How you know all this stuff?"
Sham steepled her hands. "It would spoil the fun if I told you my methods."
"You FB stalk them, is it," said Belinda wisely.
"Hui Fern's put Josiah on limited profile. He always comments on photos posted by mutual friends where Hui Fern's been tagged, but you never see him commenting on her wall," said Sham. "Josiah has long conversations with his mother in the comments to his status updates, and his mom 'likes' all his pictures. She's an obstetrician with a perm. Hui Fern is a medic with curly hair. It's elementary, my dear Belinda."
"Stalker."
"It's not about the availability of the raw data, but the quality of the analysis," said Sham, with dignity.
She was browsing Facebook when she saw the pictures. They were of Belinda, and had been posted by a name Sham didn't recognize.
That in itself would have been nothing unusual. Belinda had tons of friends Sham didn't know. But there was something strange about these photographs.
The first picture in the album was of Belinda standing on one leg, flamingo-like, outside Sainsbury's, chatting to the Big Issue seller. The next was of Belinda playing frisbee, frozen in mid-air. Another was of Belinda with a group of friends, walking out of the law faculty.
These were all taken from a distance. Belinda didn't seem to be aware that she was being photographed — she had a preferred angle for photos, one that made her face look sharper and her eyes larger. She hadn't arranged her face in these pictures.
It got weirder. Here was Belinda applying eyeliner in the bathroom. Belinda's hair spilling over her arm as she drowsed in bed, a textbook propped on her stomach. Belinda studying with her elbows on her desk, her room lit only by the table lamp. It looked like the picture had been taken from outside her window.
The window which was two floors up. The ledge was wide enough for a pigeon or a necklace, but not to support a human being with a camera.
Sham lifted her hands from the keyboard and touched her neck. Her hands were freezing cold.
"Sham, do you know where the necklace is?" said Belinda.
She had begged Sham to keep it. "What if I lose it before we figure out who it's from? I bet it's super expensive."
"If you lose it, so what?" Sham had said. "It's not like you paid for it what."
But Belinda had insisted, so Sham had taken the necklace. She'd put it in a box under her bed, behind the eleven toilet paper rolls her mother had given her when she'd left home to go overseas.
Sham lived up the steep slope of a hill, half an hour's walk from Belinda's college, and it looked like Belinda had run all the way. She was panting, looking so discombobulated that Sham didn't even scold her for coming into the room with her shoes on.
"You found out who gave it, is it?" Sham said.
"No," said Belinda. She put her arms around herself.
Sham pulled the box out from under her bed, saying, "If you're cold, turn on the heater lah."
She opened the box. There was nothing inside it.
"Huh," Sham said. "I know I put it in here."
"Are you sure?" said Belinda. "Are you sure I passed it to you? Did I just keep it? You sure you remember or not?"
"You know I have an eidetic memory," said Sham.
"Then how did this happen?" said Belinda. She opened her bag and took out the necklace.
It glittered like ice in her hand.
"I found it in my closet," said Belinda. "You know how one of my closets, you open it and there's my sink inside? This morning this was hanging over the mirror. And got note."
The note said: It's for YOU.
"Creepy," said Sham.
"How?" wailed Belinda. "What should I do?"
Sham was not well-equipped for this kind of situation. The division of labour in their friendship meant that Belinda did the cooking and feelings, and Sham did the cynicism and proofreading.
What would Belinda do?
"Take off your shoes and sit down," said Sham. "I'll make Milo."
She didn't have condensed milk, so it wasn't quite as good as home Milo. Still, there was nothing as comforting. Sham waited till Belinda had gulped down a mouthful and was beginning to look less wild-eyed. Then she announced:
"I know the answer to this mystery."
"What?"
"A bedder has fallen in love with you," said Sham. "Who else could get in?"
"Porter," Belinda pointed out. "They have all the keys."
"OK, a bedder or a porter has fallen in love with you," said Sham. "This is progress. We've narrowed the field down from everyone to two groups of people, both of whom you should be able to identify. You don't like this theory?"
Belinda hesitated.
"Lately sometimes I've been seeing, like, as if got something outside my window," she said.
If Belinda was being obscure, it showed she was frightened of what clarity could bring. Belinda seemed to think that using tactful words for unfortunate things could make unpleasantness go away. The tactic had not worked with the eleven boys unrequitedly in love with her, but she kept trying — as did they.
"A face," whispered Belinda. "Sometimes I see it at night."
"Who is it?" said Sham.
"Cannot see," said Belinda. "Can see face only, out of the corner of my eye. But when I look, he's gone. As if — as if he just vanish like that."
"A bedder, a porter or a night shift window cleaner is in love with you," said Sham. She sighed. "Your mom would be disappointed. Should've stuck to ensnaring Econs PhDs."
"Don't joke!" said Belinda. She put her mug down and drew her sleeve across her eyes. "It's not funny!"
"Cry for what?" said Sham. "Did I say it was funny? Of course it's not your fault whether some new idiot starts to like you. But don't you wish it was just Euric Liew and Harminder Singh? You look at those guys' physiques, no way they're gonna be able to get up the side of a building."
Belinda started laughing through her tears. Sham handed her a tissue.
"Don't freak out first," Sham said. "I got something worse to show you."
To her relief, Belinda didn't freak out when she saw the Facebook pictures. She seemed sunk in the calm of despair.
"Who is this guy?" she said.
"Don't know what kind of name is this," said Sham, peering at the screen. "He's called Bullet Sri Kaya. He's friends with all the Malaysians, see."
They scrolled through his friends list. Bullet Sri Kaya seemed to be acquainted with every Malaysian at Cambridge.
"Bullet must be a flower name," said Belinda. "Where got parents give such name, right? Is he our year? I haven't seen him around."
"I think you have seen him," said Sham. "I think he's the face outside your window. How else can he get these photos?"
"But how did he get there?" said Belinda. "And some of these photos, it's impossible, nobody could have get them. When I'm wearing my make-up, nobody is there! And the bathroom got no window!"
"Don't freak out first," said Sham again.
"You got more to show me?"
"No," said Sham. "Don't freak out, 'cos I'm gonna fix it."
There had to be things they could do about Bullet Sri Kaya. Official things. Sham didn't like to ask Belinda because Belinda wasn't very good at law and it stressed her out when people assumed she knew anything about it just because she was studying it. But there had to be some kind of law against hanging around outside strangers' windows taking photos of them and putting them up on Facebook.
She would figure out what the offence was that they were going to charge him with later. First she had to find out who this guy was.
It was strange that Belinda had never met him. She knew everybody in the claustrophobic core of the Malaysian student community, and everybody seemed to know Bullet. Sham studied his Facebook profile picture, but it was unhelpful: a dimly-lit artsy shot of a guy with a baseball cap drawn low over his eyes.
Out of the shadow veiling his face, his teeth gleamed in a yellow-white smile.
The next day in the chemistry department lounge Sham put her hand on the back of Khoo May Ling's chair and said,
"Do you know this guy called Bullet Sri Kaya?"
May Ling jumped. Sham had once sat next to May Ling for the duration of three lectures without saying a word. It took a lot to make Sham feel awkward, but it seemed May Ling was more sensitive. She'd avoided Sham from that day onward.
But she was a nice girl. After a moment of astonishment she pulled herself together and said, "Oh, hi, Shamini. Sorry, what did you say about Bullet?"
"Is his real name Bullet?" said Sham. She sat down.
"No lah, must be his real name is something else, right?" said May Ling. "But he asks everybody to call him Bullet. Alwyn is at his college. He says even their supervisor calls him Bullet."
"He's doing engineering?" said Sham. "Which year is he?"
"Same year as us," said May Ling. "You really don't know him?"
It was as if Sham had confessed to never having heard of David Beckham, or Siti Nurhaliza.
"Is he very popular?" said Sham.
"No lah, it's not that," said May Ling. Sham took mental note of the second of hesitation before she'd spoken. "But he's everywhere. He's at all the Malaysian Society things."
"Maybe I just never notice him," said Sham.
"He's a loud guy. Hard to miss. Don't you go to a lot of the events? Me and Alwyn always see you there with Belinda. Eh—" she leaned closer — "is Belinda going out with Euric?"
"Do you think Euric and Belinda should get together?" said Sham.
May Ling blinked. "He's a nice guy."
"Is Bullet a nice guy?" said Sham.
"Yes," said May Ling. "Very friendly."
But there was that hesitation again. Sham pressed her advantage.
"Sometimes too friendly?" she suggested.
"He's kind of a buaya," May Ling admitted. "But he's OK lah. Means well."
Bullet was chasing four different girls at the last count, was adopted "big brother" to another three. ("All skinny Chinese chicks," said someone, with a knowing look.) He was a regular participant in the engineers' weekly online gaming sessions. Everyone Sham spoke to had heard of him, and everyone had an opinion.
"He's funny," said Alwyn. "Wouldn't say we're BFF lah, but we're close enough. He's close to a lot of people."
"Wah, Bullet really likes girls, man," sniggered Rohan. "I've met some gatal guys but that bugger is like king of the hamsap lo."
"He's a hero to the engineers," said Ambika. She snorted. "Mascot for all desperate single guys everywhere."
"That guy is dangerous," said Fairuz.
"Dangerous?" said Sham.
Fairuz was a tiny, pretty, soft-voiced girl, with a round face framed by a gauzy tudung. The way she pressed her lips together did not make her look any fiercer, but her voice was grim.
"My mother always told me, don't trust men who don't respect boundaries," said Fairuz. "Bullet tu, either he doesn't know or he doesn't care what is boundaries. Men like that is dangerous."
Fairuz was only half right, thought Sham. It wasn't just men who didn't understand boundaries that were the problem. What made them dangerous was the people who found their lack of understanding funny, endearing, normal. The danger lay in everyone else.
"I know a secret about Bullet Sri Kaya," said Sham.
Belinda had crawled under her desk to search for something. Sham could only see the upturned soles of her feet, clad in polka-dot socks. The socks quivered.
"Not sure I want to know Bullet's secrets," said Belinda.
"Since he knows so much about you, better know as much about him as you can," said Sham. "That's called strategy. Ignoring him won't make him go away."
"But—"
"I see you still have Euric's iPhone," Sham observed. "Gonna give it back to him?"
Belinda emerged from under the desk. She looked rueful. "OK, OK. What's the secret?"
"I talked to a few people about Bullet," said Sham. "It's like everybody knows him except us. Bit weird, right? I thought you knew all the Malaysians. You even know the postgrads who have kids and live out in Grantchester. Party Malaysian, hermit Malaysian, hangs out with Mat Salleh only Malaysian ... whoever they are also you know.
"But not Bullet. Everybody else, seniors and juniors also — if they haven't talked to him, they've heard of him. And to us it's like he didn't exist until you got the necklace. What happened to that, by the way?"
"I threw it in the Cam," said Belinda.
"Thought you were going to give to Oxfam?"
"I did," said Belinda. "It came back."
"Did throwing it in the river work?"
Belinda got up and opened the door to her sink. For reasons that were unclear to them, her sink was nestled inside a closet in her room.
At the bottom of the sink lay the necklace, coiled around the drain like an evil, sparkling worm.
"I threw it in the Cam on Thursday evening. Friday morning open the door to brush my teeth and here it is," said Belinda. "I haven't touch it since then."
"Good move. It's probably all gross from the Cam," said Sham. "Who knows what goes in there. Drunk people puke and whatnot."
Belinda shut the door on the sink. "What was the secret you were talking about?"
"When I heard Alwyn Goh was at the same college as this mysterious Bullet, I thought why not give him a visit," said Sham. "Alwyn is a bit weird, you know? He hangs his matriculation photo over his bed."
"How you know?"
"Facebook, duh," said Sham. "May Ling is a serial self-photographer and she often uses Alwyn's room as a backdrop. Me and Alwyn had a very nice chat. He's a gentleman. Pretended he wasn't weirded out by my visit."
"Yah, have you even talked to him since first year?" said Belinda.
"I asked to pinjam his notes on Professor Delmann's supervision. That was my excuse for the visit," said Sham. "But I'm obviously smarter than him, so it's not like it was a very good excuse."
"What did you find out?"
"From his notes? Nothing," said Sham. "That guy's heading for a 2:2 if he doesn't buck up. But it was still useful to see them. You know I like to keep an eye on the competition."
Belinda huffed; the word 'kiasu' hung in the air. Sham ignored it.
"Plus I found out Bullet Sri Kaya wasn't in their college's matriculation photo," she said.
"What does that mean?" said Belinda.
"Doesn't mean anything," said Sham. "He could have been sick, or late, or forgot. But it makes you wonder, right? So I went to their college's admin office and asked about Bullet Sri Kaya. He's not registered as a student there."
"Maybe you got the name wrong?" said Belinda. "How can he not be a student? Alwyn and May Ling know him."
"I'm not sure anybody knows him," said Sham.
Belinda sighed. "My mother always says, one day I'll be old and I'll miss having all these boys chase after me."
"It's OK to be angry," said Sham. "You didn't ask for this also."
Belinda was blinking rapidly.
"I'm not angry, though," she said. "I'm scared."
"That's OK also," said Sham. "I got enough anger to cover two people. I can borrow you some."
Belinda smiled in a crinkly fragile way, a crêpe paper smile. She shook herself like a dog after a bath and got up.
"One more try and then I'll make dinner," she said. "You don't mind waiting?"
"What are you looking for anyway?"
"Malaysia Night T-shirt," said Belinda. "You know I'm helping backstage, and Jin wants the crew to wear the official T-shirt."
To forestall Sham saying something pointed about Jin's ego, Belinda hurried on: "The T-shirt design is really nice actually. It's off-white with hearts on the top here, near the shoulder. Quite stylo. But I don't know where it went. Are you very hungry?"
"I can wait," said Sham graciously.
The next time Sham saw Belinda she knew something had happened. Would it never stop? Did Bullet Sri Kaya not have anything to do besides stalk girls? Did he not have supervisions to keep up with and lectures to nap through, like everybody else?
"What's the matter?"
"You're wrong about Bullet," said Belinda. "He's definitely a student. Maybe May Ling got it wrong. Must be Bullet's at a different college from Alwyn."
"Why?"
"He emailed me and he's got a Cambridge address," said Belinda. "You know that T-shirt I lost? He said I forgot to take it when the Malaysia Night committee was handing them out. So he took it. But he no chance to pass to me, so he put it in my pigeonhole."
Sham took the T-shirt from her.
"I didn't forget," said Belinda with quiet certainty. "I took it from Chia Wen and came home and put it in the drawer. I remember I put it just on top of my Hello Kitty T-shirt — what, what?"
"Ugh!" Sham dropped the T-shirt. "It's—"
The T-shirt unfolded to show a great stain across the front.
"Oh," said Belinda, sounding like she was going to cry. But Sham snatched the T-shirt up and rubbed her finger on the stain.
"No, it's OK! Don't stress! It's oil only. Look." She sniffed her finger. "Smells familiar — oh, it's palm oil. That's all it is."
"OK," said Belinda. She sat down shakily. "OK."
"All it needs is some detergent," said Sham. "We should get our minds out of the gutter."
Belinda tried to smile. "Is he still posting pictures on Facebook?"
Sham nodded. She was tracking the impossible pictures Bullet put up of Belinda, and taking screenshots so they had a record.
"What do you want to do, Belinda?"
Belinda held up her hands and shrugged, a little despairing movement of the shoulders. "What's there to do?" her shoulders said.
"If he's really a student, we can report him to the uni," said Sham.
"Do you think that'll work?" Belinda was trying to sound normal, but her breath was coming in funny hitching gasps, and her nose was turning red. "Will that make him stop?"
Sham was not by rule a toucher, but she put her arm around Belinda. Belinda's thin shoulders jerked under her arm.
"I should —" said Belinda. "I should have —"
"Should have what?" said Sham. "Calm down."
"I should have said yes to somebody," gulped Belinda. "One of the eleven boys. I should have said I'd go out with one of them. B-but I didn't like them that way. I d-d-didn't ask them to like me also."
"Who said you did?"
"Feels like I'm being punished," sobbed Belinda. "Because I didn't say yes to any of them. Bullet was sent to punish me."
"This is what comes of being religious," Sham told her. "You all think everything that happens is because God wants to teach you something or other. Sometimes things just happen lah."
"Who is Bullet, then?" said Belinda. "How come he can do all this thing — the necklace and the photos? What is he? You don't know!"
"You think I don't know?" snapped Sham.
She didn't, she hadn't a clue. But if Belinda was scared, then somebody had to be angry for her. If Belinda didn't understand what was happening, Sham would pretend she did.
"He's an asshole, that's what he is," said Sham, and as she was saying it her eyes fell on the T-shirt. The grease stain on it made her mind suddenly light up.
Sham was desperate. She would never have believed what she was thinking at any other time. The fact that she turned out to be right she could only ascribe, later, to Divine Providence: Belinda's God stepping in and helping out for once.
"And he's something else also," said Sham.
The next day she persuaded Alwyn to let her into his college's computer room. She checked all the computers and found nothing.
She refused to feel foolish. She had to try everything.
"You all only have one computer room?" she said.
"Yah," said Alwyn. "Eh, no — actually there's another one at T staircase. Nobody really uses it. Why?"
"The printer here is not working," lied Sham. "We better go to the other one."
The second computer room was in the basement. Small and windowless, it might as well have been a converted dungeon for all its cheeriness and warmth. The computer she was looking for was in an especially dark corner of the room.
Of course this was where he'd have done it. The perfect den for the perfect stalker.
"Shamini," said Alwyn, as Sham bent over the keyboard. He looked awkward. "Look, I know this is going to sound kind of perasan. But I really like May Ling. I mean, we're pretty serious. And I think you're a nice girl, but —"
"But you always thought I was a lesbian," Sham finished. She stood up. "Don't worry, Alwyn. I'm not trying to court you or what. Just trying to find out something."
Alwyn's mouth was open. "Are you?"
"Yah. I might make it my fallback if the scientist thing doesn't work out," said Sham. "Become PI instead."
"No, I mean, are you really, um, a lesbian?" said Alwyn.
"Oh, that," said Sham. "Yah, but didn't you know already?"
"Everybody says, but —" Alwyn clamped his mouth shut. Even his pimples looked embarrassed.
Sham took pity on him.
"Thanks, Alwyn," she said. "You've been very helpful. I won't waste any more of your time."
Sham's chance landed in her lap.
"Rohan and Wei Na want me to come for dinner on Friday," said Belinda.
They were meant to be going to a play on Friday. Belinda's New Year resolution had been to make an effort to keep up with the local drama scene. ("What if the next John Cleese is here, right now, and we miss him?" said Belinda. "We missed the last John Cleese and we're doing OK," said Sham.)
But Sham didn't mind tagging along. Belinda went in for Beckett and Brecht; Sham preferred musicals.
"Tell them we're going for the Narnia musical," said Sham.
"I did, but they insisted. I told them if we came we'll be late, and they said never mind, they'll wait for us to eat." Belinda paused. "I'm scared Bullet's going to be there."
"Did they say he's coming?"
"No-o. But Rohan said, 'If you don't come, the cook will be very disappointed.' It was just the way he look at me. He and Bullet suppose to be super close, right, you said?" Belinda flushed. "I'm becoming really paranoid."
"It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you," said Sham absently. "Belinda. If Bullet's gonna be there, you have to go."
"Why?"
"Because you have to tell him no to his face," said Sham. "I tell you, that's the only way to get rid of this kind of guy."
Belinda's mouth twisted. "What if it doesn't work?"
"You try first. If it doesn't work, I'll get rid of him some other way," said Sham. "Tell them we're coming."
Dinner did not get off to a promising start. Rohan dropped a pan of vegetables on the floor when he saw Sham.
"Shit! Where's Belinda?" he said.
"Your carpet is burning," Sham said to Wei Na, whose room it was.
"Rohan!" wailed Wei Na.
"That's gonna cost you," Sham observed, enjoying a pleasant sense of schadenfreude. "My college fine me £50 once just because I leave an electric fan in the room outside term-time. Burnt carpet will probably cost a million."
"Where's Belinda?" said Rohan. "Shit! You weren't even invited, and now Belinda's not here pulak—"
"She just went toilet," said Sham. "But sorry, I interrupted. You were saying how you didn't invite me?"
"Ignore Rohan. He's so stressed about this veg he doesn't know what he's saying," said Wei Na smoothly.
Rohan grasped at the excuse. "Yah, I burnt the cabbage."
"Don't worry," said Wei Na. "That's the only thing he made. The other things not he cook one."
"Oh right?" said Sham. "You cooked the rest, is it?"
Wei Na had the grace to look uncomfortable.
"No, no," she said. "We got an actual good cook to make. You'll see in a minute. Er — I'll go get the rice cooker from the kitchen."
"There's someone else coming for dinner?" said Sham to Rohan. "Thought you all only."
Rohan's eyes slid over her.
"Got another friend," he mumbled.
Sham felt a draft. The door shut behind her. Rohan's face brightened.
"Belinda! Sit down," he said. "How was the show? Good thing you came, man. I'm starving!"
"Sorry," said Belinda. "You all didn't have to wait."
"Have to wait," said a deep voice. Not Wei Na's voice. Not the voice of anyone they knew. "You're the whole reason we're here."
Sham turned around and saw the creature that called itself Bullet Sri Kaya.
It was shaped like a man. Not a bad-looking man, with curly hair and skin a few shades lighter than Sham's. He would have looked human if not for two things.
His whole body was covered with a thin layer of grease. His skin glowed. A buttery film submerged his eyes. Oil shone in the part in his hair. As he walked across the room towards Belinda, the grease marked dark footprints on the carpet.
The other thing was that he was nude.
Sham caught his arm before he could get to Belinda where she sat petrified. The flesh was slippery and horribly warm, the texture more like plastic than human skin. Sham was shuddering, but she forced herself to grasp his wrist and pull him down to the floor next to her.
"Come, sit here," she said brightly. "Tell me about yourself. I've heard so much about you."
"Can't believe you all haven't met Bullet before," said Wei Na, coming into the room with the rice cooker. "He's everywhere!"
"Seems like it," said Sham. The muscles in Bullet's arm were moving as if they each had a mind of their own, pushing against her hand. She bared her teeth at the thing.
"I didn't know UK also got things like you," she said.
"You know what I am," said Bullet. His blank eyes swiveled around to Belinda. "You also, darling?"
Belinda looked like she was going to throw up.
"Orang minyak," said Sham. She was so terrified she could barely hear what she was saying, but she kept talking to distract him. "The saddest ghost. The most loserish hantu. At least give us hantu tetek lah. Even that is more scary."
Bullet ignored her. His eyes were fixed on Belinda.
"Don't worry," he said. There was something funny about the timbre of his voice. If you closed your eyes, you couldn't tell where in the room it was coming from. It seemed to well from the walls and seep into the spaces inside your head.
"You can see me now," said Bullet to Belinda. "But not for long. When I touch your eyes, you will forget. I will look like a human to you. Like they all—they don't see anything funny."
Rohan and Wei Na were moving around the room with plates of curry and vegetables and rice. They seemed oblivious to the conversation.
"They have oil in their eyes and ears, but it didn't hurt them," said Bullet. "They're very happy. You don't have to be scared."
Sham let go of Bullet and got up. He didn't seem to notice.
"You can be happy too," said Bullet. "We can be together, darling. I came all the way here for you."
"One thing only I want to know," said Sham. She took a bottle out of her bag and twisted the cap off carefully, to avoid any liquid splashing out. "How did you find Belinda?"
"Facebook," said Bullet. "She is the sixteenth most beautiful girl I ever saw."
"All the hantu are online now eh," said Sham.
"I bought my flight here online also," said Bullet. "AirAsia X sale. Very cheap only."
"And what happened to the first fifteen most beautiful girls?" said Sham.
Bullet smiled. Even his teeth were oily. A shining bead of grease rolled out of his mouth and slid down his chin.
"I found them," he said.
Sham had to move quickly, but there was something to be done first. She said:
"I think Belinda has something to say to you."
Belinda's mouth worked. She shook her head slightly, her eyes fixed on Sham's in mute appeal.
"I could tell you," said Sham. "But it needs to come from her."
Belinda cleared her throat.
"I-I think you're a creep," she said. "And I want you to leave me alone!"
She gave Sham a delighted, unbelieving look. She had never said anything like this to any of her suitors before.
"You won't feel like that after I've touched you," said Bullet. He smiled.
Sham nodded.
"Thought you'd say something like that," she said.
She upended the bottle over his head.
The smell was awful, the scream Bullet let out even worse. Where the liquid had splashed his hair, it turned into black grease. His face blurred. His head started collapsing, his features folding in on themselves.
He pushed up off the floor and staggered towards Sham. He reached out, but the flesh on his arms was already melting away, revealing bone, until that too liquefied and dripped on the floor.
"Bitch," he said out of a misshapen mouth. It was probably a fitting word for him to die on.
His dissolution left a foul-smelling pool of grease on the carpet.
Sham was conscious of a sense of relief. She hadn't been sure the dispersant would have any effect on Bullet. It was good that it had worked.
She stared at the stain until Rohan's voice jolted her out of her daze.
"Shit!" said Rohan. "What the hell happened?"
Sham's face felt stiff. She looked down and realized Belinda was holding her hand. When Bullet had started screaming, Belinda had sprung up. Sham had thought she was going to run away, but she'd come closer instead.
"What's all that shit on the floor?" said Rohan.
"Somebody else's problem," said Belinda. "Come on, Sham. Let's go back."
Sham's hands were trembling, but Belinda's hand around hers was still and warm.
"Next time," Sham said, "you save the day."
"I know," said Belinda. "Thanks, Sham."