‘Maaf,’ he apologized quickly. In public he was a man of very few apologies. A scandal in Parliament two terms ago as a result of a remark deemed racist had effectively cost him a minister’s post. It wasn’t racist, it was a fact of life, he reasoned. A man must speak with conviction, and never back down. That last saying was his father’s… again. God, why did he have to come down from Heaven to advise me now? he thought, returning his attention to Dahlia.
She had taken to the far end of the bed, propping pillows to support her back. She spread her covered legs but pushed down on the middle edge of her skirt, limiting what he could see. ‘For a whore, you are really…’ But that was the best his English could say. His words faded away. She paid those words no mind.
Still pressing down the hem of her skirt as she spread, a twinkle in her eye, a rare approving one, invited him to come get her. ‘Unbutton my blouse,’
she commanded again. He positioned himself between her legs and leaned forward. It was timid, careful. He started with the top; she only ever let him start with the top. The politician’s fingers no longer had the dexterity of his sketching days, and they groped for the button. He released each button with the sort of precision he knew she wanted, and then with each, she sighed a little. These micro-moans were so soft it seemed as if it were only for her own ears. He was three buttons down when he felt Dahlia’s hands wrapping his neck. She felt his neck, and with thumbs she began to choke him.
He finished unbuttoning, having tugged out the tucked-in portion of her blouse, and now her blouse was no longer tight and precise, but dangling out, releasing those breasts. He thought in Malay, and then in English, that there was no truly accurate word for them in both languages. They were not just breasts, they were more than that. Bosom was too formal. Tits was the closest that he could think of, but that word was too dirty and American, and not a word he would ever think of using.
‘What are you thinking?’
He looked up at her, wrenched away from that distraction. ‘Nothing,’ he assured her.
‘You never think.’ It was the end of the conversation already. She had incredible power in her words; no party leader had that sort of authority. The Prime Minister, all the Prime Ministers in the past, none of them could match up to her sovereign vocal will. The word he thought of, for some reason, was supremasi. Supremacy?
Next she placed both feet on his chest, blocking him. He rubbed the back of her thighs with his hands, feeling light sweat on her skin. He leaned closer but she pushed him back, still. She made a minor striptease as she removed her stockings. Each move was elegant as she writhed to free herself. Her feet dropped, toes catching onto the band on his pants, and with adroitness he had never seen before, even from her, she was able to unzip his pants, her feet doing all the work for him. Her hands moved behind her and slipped under her blouse. She undid her bra, an elegant French piece with laces and frills she wouldn’t let him see or touch, and it slipped right off, falling forward.
The politician looked at his Rolex, but that moment of inattention earned him a brief kick to his chin. He apologized again. ‘Kiss my feet,’ she said, speaking seductively, brushing her feet up against the politician’s face.
He did as she said. It was a strange feeling for him to be treated like this, to be instructed. He kissed up from her legs, up, up, until reaching her moist inner thighs, sweat-slicked, perspiration the only reminder that she was as mortal as he was. As beholden to urges as he was.
He waited for her to instruct him to pleasure her, but she never did.
Without this permission, he seemed to be unable to kiss further, tentatively rubbing where he couldn’t kiss with a thumb. He could smell her, now. She wore dark grey nylon panties similarly laced and frilled as her bra. She still remained stoic and silent.
‘I want to—’ he attempted, before she shot him down with a glare. He kept that gaze for a while, before she prodded him with a foot down against his groin. She probably wanted him to continue, but not progress further. This teasing was just like her.
This went on for another ten minutes. Up and down, up, slightly, then down, slightly, tracing this invisible iron curtain. He knew she liked it, because he could smell her getting heavier with lust, a stronger, more potent, physical scent. At one point, licking her thigh, he even tasted something different, other than the taste of moist flesh and salty sweat. Earthier, more real. Surely it would not be long, the politician thought.
Eventually she relented, two fingers moving the panties aside. He stretched forward, an instinctive motion. He somehow could sense his late father chiding him, though this time not because he was some deviant adulterer, but instead because he was now this servile, obsequious pathetic creature made to follow specific instructions from this whore.
But ayah, he thought, she is not just any woman! She could control anybody if she wanted to. His father shot back an angry, otherworldly retort: Be a man and take what you want, when you want it. When you grovel, you bring disgrace to your so-called achievements, you bring disgrace to your role as a leader of men, head of your family.
He lapped her up when she unthinkingly allowed him, with no other desire than to give her pleasure. He was not actually there; he was arguing with ghosts. If he were there, he would have heard Dahlia’s moans, first starting short and small, and then growing in volume.
His face was full of it, all in it. He faced his father and asked aloud, antagonized, ‘What do you want from me?’
‘More,’ he heard a confident, salacious response, but it came from Dahlia, not his father. This brought him back to where he was. No ghosts were here.
He pulled back, wiping his face. He simply could not go on. Dahlia didn’t look like her usual self anymore, suddenly. She no longer looked flawless and professional. Her hair was slightly untidy, and she was blushing, and she bit her lip and looked… different. She was partially undressed, and so was he. He looked around and no ghosts were here.
He reeled back in horror. ‘Go, just… go.’
‘What?’
‘Please, go,’ he pleaded. He took his wallet out of his pants pocket and pulled out crisp notes. Fifty ringgit. A hundred. Another hundred. Two, three, five, eight hundred. He flicked them her way.
This broke her icy coolness. She was confused, but so was he. ‘You haven’t even…’ she stuttered.
‘I don’t want to.’
A long moment passed, tense between them. She collected the notes from the bed, repositioned her panties. She took her bra and didn’t even ask him for help putting it back on. He just stared at her. She put her shoes back on and walked over to the door. She gave him one last look, and this time he saw some strange vein of pity in there. Pity for who, for him?
When she left, he exhaled. He stared to the ceiling as he lay down in bed. Her scent was strong, and her lasting presence was damp on the covers.
As he stared up, he tried to conjure those ghosts, begging for their approval, that now she was out of the way, they could talk. But no ghosts were here.
No ghosts were here.
FEMME FATALE
O Thiam Chin, Singapore
Revenge was topmost on Pearlyn’s mind as she entered the master bedroom.
She had done a quick headcount of the number of people in today’s sex group. Eight men, five women. Thirteen, a good number—and ironical too, she thought, chuckling to herself.