Singapore Noir

Naked, she was far more beautiful. In the claustrophobic shower she soaped him from head to foot and nestled against him as she used the shower head to disperse the suds from his chest and back. As she did so, he looked down at the tattoo. It seemed to have been carved into her marvelous skin with a laser, the lines crisp and elegant. They washed each other’s hair and began to laugh. She held his erection with one hand and caressed the back of his neck with the other soaped hand, running her nails into his hair.

He had the impression at once that this one would not keep a faithful eye on the clock by the bed. When they were half dry they rolled onto the bed in their white towels and his guilt subsided and he plunged his face into her hair, holding a shoulder in each hand, and kissed her throat.

During the hour his ear picked up what seemed like distant sounds. Cars passed in the rain, men walked along the street looking into the brothels while a soft thunder rolled across the city. His initial hysteria also calmed and he realized that to take this sort of pleasure one needed a measured coolness, a sense of righteousness. That was the trick. The jittery fear and guiltiness of the newbie were faintly ridiculous to these girls who saw so easily beneath the male surface and who, unlike other women, did not heap facile scorn upon it. But now he also realized that this diversion away from Natsuo was in fact a boomerang motion back toward her. It didn’t matter at all, and nor did it matter that if she discovered his pecadillo she would not understand it in the least. It was one of those things that only explanations and expiation make sordid.

The people we think we know the most are always the people we know the least. They carry their secrets within them with a greater discipline, that is all, but those secrets can be larger than oceans, deeper and more critical by virtue of being skillfully kept out of view by a surgical paranoia.

Afterward, he lay on the bed exhausted while she brought him tea. The girls chattered in Mandarin in the next room.

“I was wondering,” he said at last, while she carefully combed her hair in a dresser mirror, still naked but for a towel wrapped around her hips. “That tattoo on your shoulder. Is it a Chinese character?”

Without turning, she caught his eye in the mirror. “Of course it is. But it’s an old character.”

“I thought so. What does it mean? Do you mind me asking?”

“I don’t mind you asking, but I won’t tell you unless you come back to see me again.”

They smiled.

“That seems fair,” he laughed. “You’ll tell me next time.”

“Maybe, if you make me happy.”

Ah, the tip. He would make it a handsome one.

“Maybe you’ll tell me where you are from?”

“So curious, lah! I am from Penang.”

He guessed it was not quite true. He had heard her speak a quick, native Mandarin to her sisters in the other room. Whatever, he thought in amusement. She is allowed to lie, given what she has to do for a living. She can lie to me, or any man she likes. It’s not the same as a real lie.

He accepted it and admired instead the almost military tension of her spine, the vertebrae visible through that delicate skin. She had a smell like bergamot tea. When she half turned toward him, her eye moved like that of a gecko, ironic and quick.

On the way out, he kissed her more warmly than he should have and was sure that she responded in kind. It produced in him a grateful moment of crackpot pride. There was, then, the hitherto distant possibility that this hour in bed had not been merely a financial transaction, and even if this was an illusion, he clung to that moment of pride all the way back to Bayshore Park.

He ate dinner with Natsuo as usual, Tomiko quietly asleep.

“You were late,” she observed as they were halfway through the curry their maid had prepared. “Are management leaning on you?”

“A bit.”

“That means they want to promote you.”

“Perhaps,” he said absently.

He was still thinking about the shoulder scented like bergamot tea and its ancient tattooed character.

“It’s just a thought,” she said tactfully. “It would be wonderful if they promoted you. We could get a jeep.”

“What would we do with a jeep?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Couldn’t we drive to a jungle somewhere and swim in a waterfall?”

What a foolish idea, he thought. Why would anyone want to buy a Jeep and swim in a waterfall?

“Whether they promote me or not,” he said instead, “I am quite content. The salary is more than enough but I might have to work a little later on some nights. It’s normal, I guess.”

“Then I’ll contact Koyabashi and ask her if she’d like to play cards at the Raffles. They have a group that plays there every week. Just the girls.”