Her Master's Voice (12 page)

After a long moment, Yhee abruptly broke up the tableau. He pulled out and Sherry could see his shiny sex starting to droop. He covered it with one hand and walked rapidly to a door facing his desk. With agonizing slowness, Ranji let Sherry’s clit and petals slip from her mouth and withdrew her fingers. Sherry shuffled back to give her room and her head slumped to lie on the table. Her eyes were closed.

Then a smile crept onto her lips. “Mmmmh, that was fantastic. Oh, I can hardly move.” She opened her eyes and looked up at Sherry from between her knees. “You like?”

“I—I don’t know,” said Sherry. She did not understand what had happened. “I never…”

“You were wonderful,” said Ranji and raised herself onto her elbows to examine Sherry’s pussy, “and so sweet, and so pretty down here.”

“No!” yelped Sherry, embarrassed at being stared at so closely. She threw a leg over Ranji’s head and turned away. “Where’s he gone?” she asked to divert Ranji’s attention.

“I don’t know, but I suppose we’d better get dressed.” She picked up her choli and started to get into it. “Oh, oh, oh. I’m going to drip on the carpet, damn! Bring my bag over, will you? It’s got tissues.”

Sherry opened the handbag and passed her a tissue. She wiped herself and then crouched on the floor to insert a tampon. “That’s better,” she said with a smile, “I like going out with no panties, but sometimes…”

Sherry threw her dress on and went to help Ranji comb and rearrange her hair. In turn she stood still as Ranji straightened hers out. They had just finished as Yhee returned. Now he was all business. “Thank you, you go now. I call Bombar and tell him OK,” and he ushered them out and closed the door.

They were left to walk the length of the outer office by themselves. If Sherry had felt uncomfortable under the gaze of the working girls on the way in, it was nothing to the disapproval she felt now.

Chapter 11

He felt tired as he clambered back up through the barge railing that evening. It was not late, but he had had a long day. He said good night to the men and climbed the steps up to his cabin. He kicked his boots off and unlocked the door. Inside, he heard the shower running.

He pushed the bathroom door open. “Darti?”

Darti rushed out wet and soapy to throw herself at him. “Timmee! Mmm—you so late.” She let herself be cuddled and kissed. “Come on, mandi and then we make pom-pom.” She pushed into the shower cubicle with him and started to wash him.

Later that night, squeezed into his single bed, she listened to his encounter with Inspector Hangchi and the missed opportunity. “Captain Rais is not happy, I think,” was her only comment, but she took Hangchi’s letter with her when she left to walk home along the cable tray next morning.

Tim had a tedious day; tubing tests were usually boring. Hooked up to the wellhead, Tim had to maintain pump pressure on the tubing while a slick line unit ran a leak detector slowly up and down the tubing looking for a pressure drop. Raymond and the crew were busy around the barge, chipping rust and painting. Tim was tied to the pump unit, monitoring the pressure in the tubing and occasionally bleeding a little off as the water in the well warmed up. He had turned the pump unit engines off and he sat on an upturned drum reading a paperback, with one eye on the pressure gauges. The slick line operator did not locate the leak until mid-afternoon. He pulled out of the well, and they could rig down the pumping equipment from the wellhead.

That evening Tim stocked up on beer and food. Their next operation would be a pressure test on a new pipeline in the northern delta, and they would be out of reach of the canteen.

The tug came for them in the morning and they started the long journey north. Tim sat above it all on his verandah and watched the riverbanks sweep by. Behind him the powerful engines of the pusher tug throbbed as it pushed
Sea Sprite IV
rapidly upstream. The square bow of the barge rode the brown water and curled a coffee brown bow-wave away on each side. Tim watched as the waves slapped the banks, disturbing the quiet of the nipa palms. In the few places where the muddy banks broke through the nipa palms, monitor lizards sunned themselves and scuttled away from the encroaching water. Green macaque monkeys chattered at them from the taller trees and once a large family of proboscis monkeys hurried away from the noise, their old boss man posturing in the nearest tree while his charges disappeared further into the swamp. Satisfied that all were safe, he turned disdainfully and followed them.

The sun had fallen into the palms before they reached their goal. A new pipeline trace had been cut through the jungle and trestles driven into the swamp to support the pipe. CCB-1, a Canadian crane barge, had moored at one end of it, with its bows pulled into the trees. It sat in an island of arc lights glaring into the dusk, and the sound of its generators came across the water to them. On the deck the electric flash of welding added drama to the picture.
Sea Sprite IV
nosed into position alongside and the tug cast off. Tim was delighted. He had expected to be alone, but now they would have company and cooked food. He climbed through the railing and went in search of the Man.

They spent that evening on the crane barge, sitting on the deck along with the crew, watching a video. A civilised evening, Indonesians and foreigners sitting together to watch the television set mounted outside the accommodation block.

Breakfast started at five next morning, and dozy workers fumbled numbly to the local and foreign canteens. Tim took advantage of the
viande fumeé
that the French Canadians in the barge crew brought with them. He promised himself that, one day, he would take Sherry to Montreal and show her how good a breakfast it made.

They had a slow day. The riverbank manifold was a day or so behind schedule and would not be ready for testing until tomorrow. They rigged up as far as they could and mixed up a 60 barrel gel plug, and then waited. The old oil-field story. Hurry up and wait. Tim crossed over to the canteen looking for cornbread and coffee. It was mid-afternoon and the canteen was empty. He sat with Renaldo the Mexican cook/camp boss and gossiped.

Renaldo hated Indonesia. He hated it so much that nothing could stop him coming back hitch after hitch, year after year, until his cooking had become a by-word in the delta. He even moved from company to company as contracts ended so he could keep coming back. Now he happily sat and told Tim how bad a life he led, how everyone and everything conspired to make his life hell. The locals, the Canadians, the insects, snakes, even crocodiles, everything. And, of course, The Man Who Ate Pork hung in the background.

“I tell you, my friend, next time I think I don’t come back. Why should I? My boys are finished college, good. My girl, she married and ready to make her mother to grandmother. I pay for my house, my car, don’t owe no money to no-one. Why should I come back?” Renaldo shook his fat head in disgust.

“Because you love us, Renaldo. No one cooks like you do. Where else would I get hot cornbread? And proper coffee?”

“Huh! You only thinking of your stomach again. But me, I have to do everything. Everything! The people they give me, all ignorant. Know nothing. Now they give me another billy boy. This one look exactly like girl.” He snorted in disgust.

“Well he looks as if he works hard. Perhaps they thought they were doing you a favour. Not everyone has their own billy boy, you know.”

“Oh, he works, I suppose,” Renaldo conceded, “but he makes more money to give blowjobs and the rest. So in the evening he doesn’t like to do the laundry until the crew is sleeping. He takes their money instead and in the morning he is tired and lazy. Now he is sleeping again so he is ready for this evening. He must have blown every cock on board. Even most of the foreign ones.”

“And yours?”

“Ah-ha, no! You think I am maricon? You think I let man play with me?”

“Well, some of them make pretty convincing women.”

“Not for Renaldo. I think when they came for The Man Who Ate Pork, I think they take him too. Maybe they don’t know. Maybe they don’t care. I think it is no problem for their religion. Hah! They think OK to eat cock, but not to eat pork. Stupid!”

“You saw it then?”

“Sure I see. Everyone see. First they run all over the barge, waving guns and shouting. They get everyone on the pipe deck, everyone. Then they are calling for him and they went through the accommodation with two locals, looking for him. They bring him back with his hands tied behind. He was smiling, you know them, they always have shit-eating grin when they’re embarrassed. Then their captain throw him down on the deck and he stand on his head. With his boot! Then the man trying to move and the others kicked him so he stopped. Then the captain gives big speech, shouting this and that, like he gone crazy. Waving his arms and all shouting, and then by surprise, he pulls out his machete and swings it and cuts his neck. I tell you, Tim, looks very ugly. So much blood coming out and the man like jerking ‘til he died. Then they all come and cut him. Like they kill him again one thousand times. Absolutely crazy. Cut, cut, cut, still I see the machetes going up and down, up and down.

“Then they leave. They get back in their boat and leave. The man, he is one bloody mess on the deck. So we put tarp on top of him, and radio for police. We are shut down for three days. No work except for me and the billy boy. Cooking and laundry, and feeding the police too.

“Afterwards, the police say he is a bad Muslim and he eating pork, that is why he is killed. Crazy. This whole country is crazy.”

“You think that’s why they killed him?”

“Sure, why not? They crazy enough, believe me, but he didn’t get no pork from me. No bacon here.”

“My guys say there was more to it than that. They say the man was working for the Army and the men who killed him were Islamic terrorists. Someone must have passed his name to them.”

“Maybe, maybe, but I tell you, those men crazy like dogs. Blood, life, that is nothing for them. I could see in their eyes. Crazy.”

Tim was thoughtful as he climbed back onto
Sea Sprite IV.
The Man Who Ate Pork had become posthumously famous across the delta but until now the murder and its purpose had not touched him. Today it all seemed very much more serious.

Next day they laid treating pipe across the crane barge to the point where the pipeline snaked on its trestles out into the swamp. It was a great luxury to have the numerous barge crew to carry the heavy pipe joints and chiksans, leaving Raymond and the guys to hammer them together while Tim did the pre-start checks. Then they had the safety meeting to keep the barge crew away from the pressurised lines, and Tim pumped the gel plug, pushing it down the line with 5000 barrels of delta water. The sun had already fallen by the time the pipeline was full and they could start the pressure test.

Next day two pusher tugs came for the crane barge and they left
Sea Sprite IV
alone until another tug could come for them. Renaldo left a big pot of
daging rendang
for them all, and a cardboard box of ground Brazilian coffee and cornbread for Tim. They waved as the crane barge disappeared down the river and left them isolated in the swamp. Tim felt they had left the ghost of the Man Who Ate Pork with him.

When they finally made it back to Camp Dua, Tim found a backlog of acidising waiting. They worked hard, day after day, moving from location to location, preparing batches of treated hydrochloric acid and pumping them into under-performing oil wells. The flurry of work meant that he could not visit Darti until she sent a summons via Raymond. He had Raymond drop him off at Darti’s jetty at dusk. He would spend the night with her and be picked up again for breakfast next day.

He had a delightful evening. Darti welcomed him and closed her door behind him. She did not allow him to do anything. By the light of her old-fashioned hurricane lamp, she served him a meal that she must have been preparing all day. Fish, eggs, vegetables, all in exciting sauces and served with a large bowl of rice.

Then, with dishes cleared away, she laid out her bedding on the floor and made love to him. Again, she would let him do nothing. He watched the lamplight shining in her black hair as she devoted herself to his cock, kissing and teasing him until he could resist no longer. She turned to kiss him with the taste of his climax still in her mouth and lay for a while in his arms while she massaged him back to stiffness.

He watched in the soft lamplight as she knelt over him and raised his soft sex to her pussy. Lifting his head, he looked over his body to the delicate woman kneeling over him. Dream-like, she rubbed him through her wetness, pressing him into her furrow and using him to paint her clitoris with bold strokes. She made an artist’s picture of golden skin and black shadows. He hardened and made her manipulation more difficult.

When she judged he was ready, she sank down onto him, tight and slippery. Her eyes closed and for the moment she rode in a world of her own. Her hands pressed down on his chest as she sat firmly on him, rolling her hips to stir her depths with his staff. She was panting with the effort.

Seeking more, she lifted herself until she balanced with the fingertips of one hand on his chest while her other hand reached for her sex. Tim raised himself on his elbows to watch more closely as she pressed her clit and rubbed fiercely. He had never seen a woman do this before, and it fascinated him. Her shuttling fingertips butted against his shaft as she rubbed and he could feel her pussy vibrating around him. She had her eyes pressed closed and she was frowning and biting her lip.

Her climax surprised him. Her hand flew from between her legs and she threw herself onto his chest. He caught and held her as she jerked and spasmed in his arms.

“Oh Timmee,” she whispered into his shoulder. “You like? You like to see me?”

“It was fantastic! Do it again.”