A LITTLE
PIECE OF CAKE

T he lights whirl and spin, and when I close my eyes they leave pale pink, blue and green trails behind my eyelids. The music is numbing to my ears, it is just a beat, a tempo that speeds up and slows down and echoes in my head. I am dancing and dancing and smiling at Naomi and anyone who dances near. Every now and then Naomi asks me if I want to leave, but I say no. Kim, Jussy and Marty have already left. I don’t want to. The dancing is the most important thing; I don’t want it to stop, the drug does exactly what it is designed to do. I am the dancing brain-dead. But then I see her, sitting there, in the place where moving lights meet darkness, and I think she smiles at me, and her eyes are so large and dark and her long, thick hair falls over her shoulders and her lips part so slightly with her smile, that I have to sit near her, just two empty seats away. I do not talk. I just look at her profile and I am hooked.

‘She’s lovely. Looks Indian.’ Julie has appeared from some dark part of the club and sits on my other side. She puts her mouth almost over my ear so I can hear. ‘Talk to her.’

‘What do I say?’

‘Ask her if she’s a prostitute.’

I look at Julie and she twitches her eyebrow and then the corner of her lip and then nods. ‘Go on.’

‘Of course she’s not a prostitute.’ Prostitutes are not like her. Prostitutes are…I don’t know what they are, but she certainly isn’t one.

‘Just say hi. She probably doesn’t speak English anyway. Then ask her.’

As Julie finishes saying this, the girl looks at me briefly and then back to the dance floor with that almost indiscernible smile; Mona Lisa on the pull.

I move across two seats without any thought of rejection or worry or any sign of Old Me whatsoever and say, ‘Hi.’

‘Hello,’ she says.

‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘No. Thank you. I am Eka.’ She offers her hand and I take it. It feels like a mix of satin and sand; hard work softened with moisturiser.

‘Are we leaving?’ Naomi has left the dance floor and is now leaning across Julie and shouting in my ear, her eyes on Eka. ‘Early rise tomorrow.’

‘No. I’m staying. You go. I’ll meet you at the bus in the morning.’

‘Oh. Fine.’ Fine, short and curt; the word that hides so many meanings. But I’m not going to worry about the meaning of that one. Naomi fades into the darkness like a body sinking in a lake.

Julie is laughing.

‘Nice one. You just don’t care, do you? Always thought she was a stuck-up cow anyway,’ she says. ‘Ask prozzie how much,’ a whisper-shout with a light thump to my arm and then she swirls her way back onto the dance floor.

‘Your girlfriend?’ asks Eka.

‘Just a friend.’

‘You want to leave?’

‘What?’

‘Come. We go.’

‘Wait. Stay there.’ I pause. I look at her. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Please?’

‘Are you a prostitute?’

Her hand lights up in the beam of a random spinning disco light as it cuts through the air. The sting of the slap is intense.

‘Sorry. It was a stupid question.’ I curse Julie and look back to the dance floor where she is punching one hand and then the other into the air. The slap tingles down my cheek. ‘Very stupid.’

‘You are very stupid. Very rude.’ She pouts for a second then her face relaxes again. ‘But OK. You say sorry very quick and many prostitutes here. But please do not ask again or I go home. You make me angry, but you are drunk, so I forgive you one time.’

I sit in silence next to her, savouring each little pinprick feeling on my face that her hand created. I also feel her eyes studying me, creating their own little prickling sensation.

‘You say stupid things, but I think you look like nice man.’ She stands up. ‘Come. Let’s go.’

I’m too surprised to say anything, so instead just follow her through the near-darkness and out into the humid night where boys sell cigarettes and taxi drivers yell, ‘Hey mister, hey mister.’ She leads me to a taxi and we climb in and she asks where I live and I tell her and she tells the driver and she puts a hand on my leg and a silent twenty minutes later we are outside my house and I’m paying the driver too much but so what. We enter the house and then my bedroom and we lie on the bed and she rolls away and says, ‘I am very tired,’ and falls asleep with her back to me, long black hair falling across the pillow. Her shirt rises two inches up her back revealing smooth, perfect skin the colour of light chocolate. I run my tongue over my lips. We stay like this, her asleep, me watching. As time dances around, fast then slow then fast, I come close to touching her flesh, but I don’t; it’s enough just to look, to savour the beauty.

‘Look at the arse on that.’

‘I’d rather not,’ I say.

We’re following some bloke along the high street. He’s all broad shoulders, thick neck and biceps pushing out of a T-shirt that he probably bought too small deliberately. His rear is hugging the inside of a pair of Levis. Laura’s eyes are fixed on it.

‘He’s fresh from the gym. No one’s ever that toned all the time.’ I try to keep the whinging tone of jealousy out of my voice.

‘Jealous,’ she tells me. ‘Don’t be. It might be a nice rear but the rest is just far too hard. It’d be like holding a lump of concrete.’ With this she yanks my hand and pulls me into her favourite ‘olde worlde’ tea room. ‘Time for a cup of tea and slice of cake.’

‘I’m not jealous. Looking is fine. Coffee and walnut?’ I point through the display cabinet at one of the homemade cakes coated in thick buttercream.

‘Looking is fine. You do it enough. No, carrot cake. You?’ She swings her bag around and fumbles around the clutter for her purse.

‘I do not. Carrot for me too.’

‘No, you’ll have the Pavlova, so I can have a bit too.’ She smiles her overwhelming smile at the girl behind the counter. ‘And a pot of tea for two please.’

The girl smiles back, then looks at me and does the same. It’s natural and charming and her light-blue eyes sparkle.

‘You’re doing it now,’ Laura says as the girl turns her back to make the tea.

‘Doing what?’

‘Looking.’

‘I’m being polite. That’s all.’

‘I’ll bring it over to your table,’ says the waitress over her shoulder. I notice she also has a nice arse and my eyes stay fixed on it as my body turns.

‘Saw that.’ Laura squeezes behind a wooden chair at a wooden table with real flowers in a glass vase in the middle.

‘OK, so I look. We both look. As long as that’s as far as it goes, we’re alright.’

Laura adjusts her top and pulls it down a bit, exposing a little cleavage.

‘And as long as I always see that look in your eyes when I show you a bit of flesh, we’re definitely alright.’

A pot of tea, two china cups and saucers and two large slices of homemade cake are put on the table.

‘There you go,’ says the girl with twinkling eyes. ‘Enjoy.’

‘Let’s set some ground rules,’ Laura says as she forces her fork into my meringue, sending splinters of white onto the table. Her eyes look at it as though they are still looking at Muscle Man’s butt. ‘I fancy your cake, and I’m going to have some of it. I admired that man’s butt, but I don’t want it and would never have it. I know this cake looks good and will taste good because I’ve eaten here so many times before.’

She slides the fork into her mouth and her tongue licks slowly around her lips afterwards. Her lips and mouth are the only things in the room. I lick mine.

‘And it’s the same with you. I know you’re a nice bit of cake because I’ve been with you so long.’

‘Only three weeks.’ I take a piece of her carrot cake. She slaps my hand and it drops off my fork.

‘Long enough. You look good, you taste good and you are nice bit of cake, mostly. I might look at cakes in other shops, but I’m not going to risk it, because the cake here doesn’t get any better. This is cake heaven.’

I’d agree with her if I could at least taste some of the non-metaphorical cake. As I move a fork of meringue to my lips she twists my hand around and directs the food to her open mouth. I let her do it without comment, as the watching is better than the tasting.

‘So, anyway, you can look, I can look, we can tell each other that we’re looking and we won’t be jealous, well maybe a little, but we never taste. We never eat that other bit of beautiful cake that’s actually going to taste bloody awful.’

She cuts into her carrot cake and slides the forkful into my watering mouth.

‘You’re only tasting what I give you. Got it?’

‘Got it.’ Crumbs fall onto my chin and I watch as she leans in and kisses my cake-covered lips. I watch her eyes come close to mine and look into me. I look into her. I look. I look and I can’t get enough.

I hear Kim showering and coughing. I don’t know how long it has been daylight; an hour or maybe two, a minute or maybe two. I don’t know how long I have been staring, living in the visual garden of her flesh. Everything is precise and super-real, except time. It has stopped dancing. It has gone. Time lives outside of this chemical state. Time is banished, leaving only the senses. Whatever the pill is that is going through its final stages of transformation in my stomach, it works precisely as advertised by the news and documentaries and the partygoers of the parties I never go to.

My arm is stiff where I’ve been resting my head on it, looking at Eka. I stretch it out and shake life back into it. She stirs and moves and straightens out on her front. Another inch of skin. I hold my breath and my hand hovers just above it, but I still don’t touch. My eyes see and feel all for me.

I stare and stare and marvel at that strip of skin between her shirt and the band of her cotton-white underpants which pokes over her skirt, and now day has come, I am blissful and satisfied and new. And I haven’t even touched her.

And Kim bangs on my door.

‘Hey, you there, man? Fucking get up.’

She stirs.

‘I’m up,’ I call. ‘Give me a minute.’

‘Got to get to the bus by ten. Shift your ass if you’re coming.’ I hear him barefoot-plop back across to his room.

She turns and looks at me, big brown eyes a little confused at where she is. She pulls her shirt down to close that magical gap.

‘I must go.’ She sits at the end of the bed, slides sandals on her feet. Her hair hangs over her face and nearly touches the floor while she slips the straps over her heels. ‘Please show where is road.’

‘Yeah. Sure.’ I pull my shoes on. She is already out of the door. I follow and check for Kim as we cross the main room. He must be in his bedroom.

We leave the building and I lead her up the passage beside the house and follow it towards the main road. She stops when she can see the traffic going by at the end.

‘It is ok. I can find my way.’ She pushes hair behind her ear. It reminds me of someone.

‘Are you sure. We’re a way out from the centre.’

‘Tidak apa-apa,’ she says.

‘Sorry?’

‘No what what. No problem. But please give taxi money.’ She holds her hand out and tilts her head. Black hair falls across one eye, the other glints at me. I am caught by it for a moment. Beauty. She is beauty.

I pull out my roll of notes and offer her ten thousand, which is enough.

‘No,’ she says, ‘more.’

I laugh and hold out the notes for her to choose. I am still a little high or on a comedown, I’m not sure which. She takes forty, not too much, but enough to pay for a taxi, a meal, another taxi and maybe another meal. I don’t care. With her sliver of perfect flesh the colour of which I never knew existed, I don’t care.

‘Terima kasih,’ she says and kisses my cheek. ‘See you at club next week.’ And off she goes, one ankle crossing in front of the other, catwalk-walking to the road, calf muscles flexing in the day’s light. I watch until she turns the corner and then watch a little more at the space she left behind. My head spinning, lips smiling, under the whitening sun.

Kim and I are squeezed in the back of the sudako, thighs intimately squashed against strangers’ thighs, leaning forward on our elbows, watching the world pass out of the open back. A scooter follows us and the helmetless rider smiles and waves at us. We smile back.

‘So who was in your room last night?’ asks Kim. ‘Naomi?’

‘No.’

‘Thank Christ for that, man. She’s a bunny boiler.’ He slaps my thigh. ‘So you had your first taste of Indo girl.’

‘No.’

‘Fuuuck. Not Julie?’

‘No.’

The rider waves again and swerves off to the right. The smells of the city seem stronger today; the sweet sickly scent of durian fruit and spices almost hiding the smell of rubbish. I lean my head out of the back and look up at the sky. It is bluer than normal. The world is a vivid and bright place this morning. I have a tingling warmth inside me that feels like a child’s Christmas.

‘Will you stop smiling like a fucking dick man? You did E last night, didn’t you?’

‘Yep.’ I smile at Kim and it does feel a little gormless, which makes me smile even more.

‘First time?’

‘Yep.’

‘You’re still spaced.’

‘Yep.’

‘So?’

‘I think she was Indian.’

‘Hope you wore your hat.’

‘Hat?’

‘Condom. Pre-fucking-caution.’

‘Didn’t need to. Didn’t do it.’

‘I hope you didn’t pay the bitch then.’

‘Only for the taxi home. And she wasn’t a bitch.’

‘Noooo. You paid her and didn’t even get your dick wet.’

‘Didn’t want to. She was nice. Didn’t want to.’

‘You Brits are weird.’

I say nothing. Just smile.

‘Weird.’

We arrive at Pinang Baris bus station, which is more of a lay-by than a station. Multicoloured buses pull in and pull out with horns honking and passengers in multicoloured clothes climbing on and climbing off. We get out of the back of the minivan and Kim leads me to the bus office. It’s packed with people and cigarette smoke and noise. For a change people are too busy to pay us bules much attention. Marty, Jussy, Julie and Naomi are waiting for us.

‘Hey, you made it.’ Julie is still wearing the same clothes from the night before. Her eyes are wide and her hands don’t seem to want to stay still. ‘I’m still fucking high. Ha haa.’ Not a laugh, a ‘ha haa’.

‘Ha haa,’ I say back.

‘Jesus Christ, I knew we should have taken them home with us when we left,’ says Kim.

Naomi just shakes her head and pulls the sunglasses down from her hair to cover her eyes. There’s some sort of invisible shield around her, warning me off.

‘Come on, guys, let’s find the bus.’ We follow Jussy up the road and through the crowds. He looks at the front of a red, blue and yellow bus and then says something to a man standing by the side who might or might not be the driver. The man scratches his stomach, which pokes out of a too-small coffee-splattered T-shirt, and nods.

‘This is the baby,’ yells Jussy.

We get in the bus and it’s surprisingly empty compared to the claustrophobic outside. I get a window seat and Naomi sits next to the window on the opposite side of the aisle, shoulders turned away. I tell New Me I really don’t care. Julie sits next to me. The others sit along the back seat like naughty school kids.

‘You looking forward to this?’ Julie puts her knees up against the back of the seat in front and nods her head in time to the music coming from a portable radio on the dash.

‘Yep. First jungle time. Can’t wait. Me and Laura always wanted to see orang-utans.’

‘Laura?’

Laura?

The Christmas feeling drops out of me like pine needles shaken from a dead tree and the gormless smile does likewise. I find myself examining the blue-red pattern of the seat in front.

‘Yeah, well. Anyway. Take it Laura wasn’t the prostitute from last night.’

I’m vaguely aware of Julie’s head now wobbling left and right.

—Are you never going to leave me alone? I ask.

—Left you alone last night, didn’t I? Actually I couldn’t even get in your messy head. Didn’t want to.

—I wish I could take a pill now. I was happy. I was happy.

—Perhaps if you’d shagged someone, I’d be leaving you alone today.

—I don’t want to shag anyone.

‘Have a smoke. You look like shit.’

How is Laura waving a cigarette under my nose? Julie pushes the side of my head.

‘Hellooo. Smoke.’

‘Oh, thanks.’ I take one and the bus starts pulling off. Laura shuts up but I can sense she’s sitting somewhere, probably on Old Me’s lap down there, watching. I drag hard on the cigarette and force a smile back onto my face, wobble my head to the music.

‘That’s it. Dance. Shake that drug back up.’

It’s Julie talking. Just Julie. She’s the only one here so relax. Fucking relax.

‘Love this dangdut music.’

‘Dangdut?’

‘Indonesian music. Love it.’ Head wobbles. Wobble wobble wobble.

We wobble together and the drug does a final burst for me and then I’m whirling my hands above me along with Julie while the others behind us and a handful of locals hum, sing and hand-dance along. Naomi stares out the window and Laura and Old Me swirl around in my gut.

—Fuck you all, I say to the three of them, fuck you all and let me live.

Wobble wobble.

Forced gormless smile.

A pile of pine needles between my feet. Christmas feeling gone.

The grass sways above us and above that a near-invisible plane silently cuts the sky like a surgeon’s scalpel.

‘Have you ever noticed how those really high, nearly invisible planes seem to cut the sky like a scalpel?’ Laura twirls a long blade of grass with her lips.

I’m too off-balance to answer. My brow creases while I try to work out if thinking the same things at the same time is scary or romantic.

‘If they could keep that white incision going all the way across the sky from horizon to horizon, do you think it would tear and all the sky’s innards would fall on us?’

My hand finds her naked thigh. For some reason the coolness and smoothness of it makes me sad for an almost unnoticeable moment.

‘Where does your brain get these things?’

‘Dunno, but can you imagine it? I bet there would be colours unknown to man inside the sky’s guts. And beautiful things that fall down on the earth in soft plops and they’d be so squashy and gentle we’d be able to climb out from under them and say, “Look at that. The sky fell on our heads and it was alright and actually quite nice.”’

‘You’ve been reading my Asterix books. Vitalstatistix is always scared of that lot falling on his head. I think he shouldn’t have worried.’ Something small lands on my cheek. I brush it off.

‘Do you worry about it? About everything falling in on you?’ Her hand strokes the back of my arm.

‘Not really. In the words of the chief, “The sky might fall on our heads tomorrow, but as we all know, tomorrow never comes.”’

‘Optimistic, those Gauls. But it does fall sometimes, you know.’

‘Well if it’s all soft and lumpy and colourful we shouldn’t worry. And even if it’s hard and painful and grey, it won’t fall on us.’ I get up on one elbow and smile at her dishevelled state: her T-shirt up over her breasts and her knickers around one ankle, shorts caught up in the long grass.

‘Oh yeah, why not?’

‘Because I won’t let it.’ And I kiss her on her forehead.

‘Oh, my hero the ice-cream man. You’ll protect me, will you?’

‘Yes.’

‘How are you going to do that with your trousers around your ankles?’

‘I’ll do it, don’t you worry.’ My finger runs along the inside of her thigh. Somewhere high a skylark watches and sings. ‘And you best make the most of my free strawberry splits, because in two weeks I become a manly trainee teacher.’

‘Oh, I can’t wait. We can compare board pens.’ She pulls me down by the neck and kisses me and then pushes me away. ‘Come on, we’re supposed to be having a walk, not spending the day shagging in the long grass and debating mortality.’

‘Is that what we’re doing? OK. Let’s forget the mortality and just shag.’

‘Uh-uh.’ She pulls up her knickers and shorts and straightens her T-shirt. I lie there watching. The only sound is the skylark and the grass bowing in the light breeze. ‘Walk, drink, food and then maybe, just maybe, I’ll let you protect me some more.’

‘I will never ever let the sky fall on our heads, whether it’s soft and fluffy or hard and deadly. We’re too good together to have anything happen.’

‘Pull your pants up, Mr Romance. Let’s get off this hill and find a beer.’ She walks away with the sunlit grass kissing her naked ankles. I watch with a smile on my lips. I look to the sky and will it to stay up there, high and beautiful and untouchable to all but the chirping birds.