Sarong Party Girls (13 page)

“Come, bottoms up! Bottoms up!” Big Boobs said, holding up her glass. This time I also joined in, throwing my head back as I drank and really cleaning out my glass. The ragged feeling of the whiskey burning down my throat warmed my face and nipped the feeling that my eyes were about to tear up. Even then, when I did tear up a bit, I just told Keith, who had noticed, “Whiskey sometimes does that to me—­too strong, too strong!” I even fanned my mouth with my hand to make him believe.

The thing is, I always knew shit like that happens in these places. Growing up in Singapore with KTV bars in so many neighborhoods—­how not to know? But to see it happening in front of me—­girls getting packed up to go just like a box of noodles at a hawker center—­is a bit too much lah. How can these girls possibly be paid enough for a job like this to be worth it? And these guys—­I don't know about George or Nigel but Kin Meng is married, Sam's wife is seven months pregnant with their first kid. Even if you marry someone who seems like a good guy, in this kind of working environment, is it confirmed that this kind of thing will happen anyway?

“Do you want to get out of here?” Keith asked.

My god, yes. I grabbed my handbag. Keith whispered to Kin Meng, who nodded and tilted his head to look at me, waving. Keith took my hand and led me toward the door. Just before we closed it, I saw Big Boobs climb onto Nigel, straddling him and lifting her long hair up at the neck so he could run his hands all the way up her back as she gave him a lap dance. I guess now that the boring gay guy and square female colleague are not there anymore, the fun could really begin.

I was still a bit dazed as we slowly walked down the stairs, which seemed as grand and beautiful as it did earlier—­maybe even a little bit more, since Keith was still holding my hand and guiding me down the stairs. I tried to block out everything I saw that night—­if I did, I could at least pretend in my head for a few minutes that he was my date and he was leading us down the stairs to our Rolls-­Royce outside.

“Why were you here, Jazzy?” he asked.

“Well, Kin Meng thought you might need some normal ­company . . . you know,” I said.

Keith's face got serious a bit. “Oh goodness—­I never need the company in that kind of setting that badly,” he said. “He really shouldn't have brought you there. I'm very very sorry, Jazzy.”

At the foot of the stairs, we heard music. Some kind of Mandopop in the background, layered with waves and waves of cheering and laughing. Eh? Were ­people watching a football match in there?

I followed the sound to a heavy bronze door on the other side of the lobby. A stocky Ah Beng in a tuxedo opened the door for us even before Keith and I got to it. Once we stepped through, the cheering and laughing got louder all around us. The room was quite big—­not as big as Lunar or any of those clubs but larger than your usual bar. And all around us were cushioned circular banquettes filled with men in suits—­a floor of padded pods all facing a stage. Onstage, a row of nine girls in strapless mini sequined dresses lined the background while one stood in the front, her shiny gold heels just a few centimeters away from the tip of the stage, where a row of men were seated on bar stools, leaning forward.

“More! More! More! More!” The guys were shouting all together. A short Ah Beng, also in a tux, was walking up and down the stage with a mic in one hand, using his other hand to wave and rile the crowd up even more.

“Hallo, hallo, gentlemen! Are there any more ­people who want to hang flowers on this beautiful lady? Look at how chio she is! Her hair like silk, face like fairy, legs long long,” the Ah Beng said. “Hallo, little girl—­come, show them a bit!” The crowd cheered louder. The girl tucked her hair behind one ear, winked at the crowd and bent over to pull up her minidress very very slowly. The guys started shouting even more, but she stopped just before getting close to her panties. (As if she was wearing any.) A few started booing but a young guy in the front row jumped up and said, “OK—­I buy her the five-­thousand-­dollar garland!”

Once there were really no other bids, a fresh-­faced girl got onstage holding a garland of red plastic flowers. The minidressed girl bent her head so the garland could be placed around her neck, then she waved at the crowd, blew a few kisses to the guy in the front row and joined the rest of the girls in the back row.

“Don't worry,” Keith said. I guess he noticed the worried look on my face. “He's not buying her ser­vices—­well, not really. She does have to come and sit with him for a drink—­and if she is open to more, she can negotiate. But the five thousand dollars doesn't buy him a night or anything like that.”

“Then—­why is he paying so much?” I asked. I tell you ah—­guys sometimes are damn fucking crazy. Pay that much—­at least must get some product out of it! What's the point of throwing away thousands of dollars on a few plastic flowers. If you go to a wet market, you can buy the same thing for fifty cents!

Keith shrugged. “Competition? Winning? Showing other guys that you are the one who can spend the most? Isn't that what guys care about in Singapore?”

The room was very quiet now. The Ah Beng onstage was in the middle of introducing a new girl, one who looked exactly like all the others except that her minidress was powder blue. (Each girl was wearing a different color—­it made me think of
Teletubbies
.)

“One hundred dollars!”

“Two hundred dollars!”

“Five hundred dollars!”

“Eight hundred eighty-­eight dollars!”

A bidding war was going on between two banquettes of balding Chinese guys in the middle of the room.

Keith elbowed me softly and leaned over. “Shall we?”

“Are you crazy? How would I have that kind of money?”

“Kin Meng's company does,” he said, grinning. “Don't worry—­I'm going to sign that contract they want tomorrow. Well? Go on.”

So I stepped into the center of the main aisle, waved my hands until Ah Beng looked over, probably wondering what in fuck's sake I was trying to do. Before he could say anything, I shouted, “Ten thousand dollars!”

 

chapter 9

It wasn't that I had a cock day at work.

No—­I guess what was more disturbing was that it wasn't as obvious as that. I mean, things were still a bit weird with Albert after our talk in his office yesterday and that whole crazy business about asking me to think about the circulation department and all. I kept wondering what he might be planning, but thank god he didn't bring it up again. So, who knows?

I was distracted all day, however, because I couldn't stop going over all the things I saw at Temple of Heaven last night. China Girl, New China Girl, George going down on Long Legs right in front of us. I thought about texting Fann and Imo about it, but I didn't even know where to begin. (At least Kin Meng was nice and texted me in the morning asking if I had a good time. Of course I said yes. Though I was mainly just glad that he didn't seem angry about my ten-­thousand-­dollar garland. I guess the deal Keith signed must have been fucking huge. I wish I had thought of exchanging phone numbers with Keith when he dropped me off. Even if he's gay, if he's in that kind of money range—­who knows? I'm sure he has straight ang moh friends who also make that kind of cash! Aiyoh, Jazzy here sometimes really doesn't think straight.)

Just thinking about that KTV room, that night, that club, made me feel damn dirty. Of course I'm not so naive as to believe that girls like that don't exist everywhere in the world. But to see respectable men—­husbands!—­like Sam or Kin Meng in that environment, just going along with all of it. Aiyoh—­how can? But what was making my heart the most pain right now was the thought that Sher—­our sweet Sher—­now had one of these exact types of lousy Singaporean husbands. My god! What did she do to herself?

I still remember the night when I first realized that things were really going to shit for Sher—­and, I guess in a way, all of us as a group. The four of us—­and Ah Huat—­were all squeezed around a small table at Chin Chin Eating House. We had just finished eating our pork chops and chicken rice; we still had beer on the table, so the Chin Chin uncle still hadn't come over to ask us to fuck off yet. Just before that, Ah Huat had invited us to come see his tuition school over at Peace Center. Walao, I tell you, this locale is a damn funny place for tuition school, man—­with all those sleazy KTV lounges surrounding it, which parents in the world would want to send their kids there for physics and chemistry tuition? But Ah Huat had told us his school was actually quite successful—­and since I didn't believe him, we agreed to go and look-­see look-­see.

It turned out that I was wrong. Ah Huat, in the end, was quite an entertaining teacher, jumping around the front of the class, madly scribbling all these crazy equations on the board, explaining science and all this super complex maths in his Ah Beng lingo, swearing and telling dirty jokes all the way. His students all called him “Ah Lim,” and his classroom was very small but somehow he managed to pack in forty to fifty students each hour. He just rotated his subjects all day—­one hour teaching chemistry, one hour teaching maths, then physics next, etc. He was quite funny lah—­even if I don't know pythar gorass theorem is what cock, when Ah Huat explained it with his smelly Ah Beng attitude, I also listened. I guess if you can make ­people laugh they confirm will pay more attention. And I could tell so did the students—­they were all ­leaning forward at their desks, listening carefully to every single thing he was saying. Even I could see that Ah Huat was actually teaching them something. For a former teacher from some lousy government school, he really had made something of himself lah.

So, no choice—­I had to admit that I was wrong, and Ah Huat almost dropped his chalk when I did. “You know,” he said, staring at me with his squinty Ah Beng eyes and stroking his chin as if he had a Confucius beard, “you should come and work for me. The school is growing so quickly I can't handle all the admin and managerial work. I really need some sort of assistant or business manager . . .” I tell you—­if I was drinking anything at the time I would have laughed so hard I'd spit it out right in Ah Huat's face. So typical of these kinds of ­people—­you say one nice thing to them and suddenly they think that they are equals with you. Please—­my god! As if I'll ever work for a smelly Ah Beng!

I didn't want to be rude, though—­he had been nice enough to show us around his tuition school and all. So I just laughed and said, “Aiyah, come, come, I'll buy everyone dinner.” So we all walked over to Chin Chin for pork chops. Everything was going OK—­it wasn't say, very fun but it also was not terrible. We all didn't know Ah Huat that well—­because hello, do we look like the sort of girls who would actually be seen with him? But Sher had known him since they were teenagers because their mothers were mah-­jongg friends for donkey's years. At some point in our early twenties, of course both aunties had started hinting to the two of them that maybe they should go see a movie or something. But when Sher mentioned it to us—­aiyoh—­the three of us laughed so hard that she looked bloody embarrassed for even mentioning it.

That night at Chin Chin though, we knew that Sher had started hanging out with him a bit—­we had not been so successful with ang moh guys for a few months, I told her I guess it's OK to just hang out with him lah. Better to keep busy otherwise we might lose practice. Also, if you have someone to buy you dinner now and then, what's the harm? As long as I don't see Ah Huat's fuck face so much around the four of us—­in public—­I also don't really care.

Halfway through the dinner, Fann poked my elbow—­her eyes rolling from side to side, asking me to look over at Sher. Aiyoh, Sher was picking out nice pieces of chicken from the big platter to put on Ah Huat's plate! I remember thinking, this girl—­my god—­she's really getting out of control. “Kani nah—­tomorrow ah,” I whispered to Fann, “we'd better talk to Sher. Acting so romantic? We must stop this!” I think Sher noticed us whispering because after that she didn't feed him anymore.

When we finished eating, Ah Huat pulled out his box of Marlboro Reds and lit one up. Imo was telling us about how her dad was saying that day that the new HDB flats were quite nice-­looking, asking whether she had a serious boyfriend or not. Apparently the new flats were so nice that Uncle was saying that ­people should fasterly get married just so they can buy one. So he was advising her, “Imo, if you even have a not-­so-­serious boyfriend, maybe you can at least consider whether can get more serious lah—­the new flats are so beautiful. They're a very good investment! Just go to the registry of marriage, quickly buy a flat first, then deal with everything else later.” Wah, when we heard Uncle's advice, Fann and I started laughing and laughing. Please! Yah lah, if you want to buy a government-­subsidized flat then sure, you have to get married and preferably do it by a certain age. And it's true lah—­the whole country had been talking about how nice the new ones are. Some are located downtown and all—­and look even more atas than some private condominiums! In fact, the other day Fann almost got slapped for saying to Imo that Waikiki Towers looks more like an HDB flat than the new HDB flats. Even so, is Uncle blind? Surely he should know by now that his daughter and all of us are never going to be like those loser Singaporeans who get married just so they can buy a flat.
Cheh!

Ah Huat also laughed a little bit, then he sucked hard on his cigarette and nodded his head over at Sher. “Eh, how?” he said, smelly puffs of smoke coming out of his chubby hairy nostrils as he talked. “Want to register for flat or not?”

Fann, Imo and I started laughing and laughing. We laughed for so long that we actually had to stop and take a sip of water—­that type of laughing. Until we suddenly realized that Sher and Ah Huat were not laughing! Then all of a sudden, everything felt quite scary. Ah Huat was looking at Sher. We were staring at Sher. Sher was looking down at the chicken bones next to her orange plastic plate.

“Well, it seems like a good deal—­those flats are quite nice,” she finally said. “OK.”

Ah Huat was suddenly so happy he actually pumped his fist into the air as if he won some cock competition. He raised his beer glass to try and cheers with all of us but we were so stunned we didn't move. Sher couldn't even look at us.

Imo was the first one to say something. “Sher, are you sure . . .”

Sher just cut her off and said, “It's a good time, Imo. OK?”

“Sher,” I said, reaching over for her hand. I suddenly felt like throwing up.

Sher grasped my hand in hers first though. “Jazzy,” she said, looking very seriously at me. “Please—­just don't. Not now.”

I couldn't believe it. I tried to look at Sher one more time but this time she not only could not look up at me but she also actually turned her head and looked away.

Oh, for fuck's sake. I took fifty dollars out of my wallet and threw it on the table. “Come,” I said to Fann and Imo, “let's go.”

Thinking back to that day, I wish I had said something—­anything—­that could have made that cock marriage proposal disappear. Instead I'd gotten angry like a baby and stormed off. I should have reasoned with Sher, taken her out for drinks after. If I had, would we have lost her forever to a loser Singaporean who's probably going to behave just like Kin Meng or Sam at those KTV clubs before too long?

I mean—­forget Kin Meng and Sam. Even the Singaporean guys who don't have the money—­or expense accounts—­for KTV lounges are also doing funny business outside of their marriages. A few years ago, the girls and I really liked Hard Rock Cafe—­we had just started hanging out with this group of English ruggers that we had met there, so we were feeling a little hopeful. One Saturday at Hard Rock when we girls had just climbed onto the dinner tables and were still sweating from swinging our long hair and going crazy to “Sweet Child of Mine,” some guy near our feet suddenly said, “Eh, Jazzy and Sher ah?” At first we didn't recognize him. Some Singaporean guy at Hard Rock—­who cares? But then Sher said, “Eh, I think it's Aileen's husband.”

My first thought was, “Cannot be.” Aileen just got married—­how come her husband is already going clubbing without her? But it confirm was him! Well, we liked Aileen, so we got down from the tabletops to say hello. Her husband bought us a pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea and we talk-­talked with him for a while, passing around the pitcher with two long straws so everyone could sip it. When the pitcher was empty, he bought another one. That was when I noticed he was suddenly standing right next to me, rubba-­ing more and more as each song came on. I asked, “Eh, what you think you doing?”

“Aiyah, Jazzy, don't be so serious lah. Let's just get high and have a good time. Come, later I send you home.” Aileen's husband kept rubba-­ing—­even using his left hand to hold on to the back of my neck so I felt like I was in one of those thick dog collars. At first I thought, OK, be nice lah, Jazzy. ­People just bought us all drinks—­better to just swallow it, smile and say nothing.

But then I thought—­kani nah, Aileen is our friend!

So I elbowed him and pushed him away. “You think we who? One of those China girls who can actually pretend they like sucking your small cock?”

That was when he got angry. He just wiped his mouth and spat on the floor. “You all ah,” he said, pointing slowly at each one of us, “are nothing but a bunch of lousy sarong party girls. You think all these ang mohs will treat you any better than we will? Lan jiao, lah!” And then he walked away. I just couldn't believe it—­even the not good-­looking, not rich Singaporean guys are like that. So you tell me—­what kind of hope do we girls have?

My head felt like it was going to explode thinking about last night at the KTV lounge, about Sher, about Aileen. So after I knocked off from work, I took the MRT down to Orchard Road and walked over to Paragon. Walking along its gleaming corridors and peeking into its perfumed cocoons filled with handbags and shoes always made me feel better. Prada, Loewe—­even Coach. No matter what happened, these were the friends who could always instantly cheer me up.

I know this kind of thinking is quite materialistic lah. (Although, at the same time I also think—­what the hell is wrong with that? Doesn't PM Lee always say it's good to have goals?) But since teenage times, I guess I've always been like this. And I guess walking these expensive corridors now always reminds me of the first guy who actually made me think that this was the life I could have someday.

There is only one Singaporean guy I ever considered worth marrying. Maybe.

This was a long time ago when I was still young. I knew about Gavin from the first week at JC—­we were both in the same year in the commerce faculty, so even though we weren't in the same class I always saw him in econs and maths lectures. He was damn hard to get to know at first, because we were nowhere near being in the same circles. Even though he only managed to get into lousy Changi Junior College, his family was fucking rich. So each day, from the moment he parked his older brother's BMW in the teachers' car park to the time he left, he always had a big group following him around. Mostly guys, but since he was the richest guy in school, of course there were always a few girls—­all the pretty ones, even a few Eurasians. The fucker knew this, of course—­you could always see him walking around the school corridors with major attitude, like he's George Clooney at that atas French film festival or some shit.

So even though I thought he was cute—­tall tall skinny skinny one, with small backside and sweet cheeky smile, and his school uniform shirt collar was always turned up a bit, like Cantopop singers in those paparazzi shots of them on vacation and all—­I thought, this kind of guy, I confirm have no chance with him. If he has Eurasian girls wanting to date him, why on earth would he consider me? For me to dream about being his girlfriend—­waste time only lah. I might as well try to date George Clooney. Same same.