Author's note: this is her valediction. My thanks to her for her editing skills, and everything else.
This story has been published in 'Kerouac's Dog' magazine.
*****
He stroked her slippy thigh as they sat at the pavement cafe sipping cheap local beer. The day was humid and grey, as the previous days had been: hot and sultry but unsunny on this busy tropical island. The smells of the street pervaded them: spices and sweat, the flat sourness of the open street drains with just a hint of sewage. Sweat dripped from them both after a morning sightseeing on foot. They had explored a mosque and a Chinese temple positioned cheek-by jowl, bartered cheerfully for batik in the market. He wiped the beads from her brow delicately, his eyes unwaveringly on hers.
- I think it's time love.
The woman started. She'd been expecting this, had agreed before they arrived here that it was the time and place to take things a step further. But the blunt statement still caught her offguard, and she shivered, holding his gaze, a frisson of fear and excitement running up her spine. She sipped her drink.
- Yes love. I want us to push things further, you know that.
- In the top of this -- he touched his rucsac -- there is something which confirms your acquiescence. You will have the opportunity to use it, or not. The choice is yours.
She bowed her head:
- Yes love. I understand perfectly.
- Thank you darling. Now pay the bill. Let's get back to the hotel before the rain starts.
She rose. The short cotton skirt scarcely covered her arse as she walked to the Chinese lady and paid for the beer, the little lapdog licking her toes through the sandals. He smiled, knowing the effect of this unsought-for addition to the script, watching her face carefully for its betrayal. But her smile remained fixed as she took the change.
Her arm slid possessively round his waist as they wandered down the street, thronged with vehicles and people of every description in this once-outpost of the British Empire: Chinese, Tamil, Indonesian, Malay. Only the occasional white tourist in a teeming working city far from the top of the list of must-see places in the guide books. That was precisely why they were here: because it was off the tourist trail. And for the deeply personal reasons they both understood.
Street-smells engulfed them as they walked.
When they turned into Love Lane, they were faced by an untidy phalanx of uniformed schoolchildren escaping for their lunch-hour, spilling from uneven pavements onto the street. He stroked her arse under the skirt as they stood aside in the doorway of a crumbling building to allow the throng to pass. Felt her delicious shiver. Noticed the fading lettering beside the door: 'Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China'. Overcome by the familiarity of the woman in the incongruous strangeness of this place, he breathed faintly:
- Soon, sweetness.
His fingers dug momentarily through the silk and into her arse. He relished her trembling. She was fragile, a bit frightened: very excited. She couldn't speak. She was ready.
Then the sky opened. The thunder had been rumbling all morning, occasional lightning streaks across the lowering grey, but there was no herald to the downpour. It just came: hard rods of warm liquid turning buildings yards away into shimmers, like reflections on disturbed water. The streetsmells exploded with the moisture. The woman tugged his arm and they ducked into a cafe.
A table under the thrumming awning cleared of card-players as they entered the space, and a smiling Malay lady bowed them to the empty table. He smiled at his woman as they took their seats:
- That was providential. I think you need something stiff?
