The Odalisque

Honor Banet ran her fingers over the stainless steel surface, allowing a small satisfied smile to blossom on her lips as she admired the machine in front of her. It was three years old, fairly used but recovered and expertly refurbished by the manufacturer and put on sale online with a full year's guarantee - as opposed to its original five - at just about half its original price. And yet, a bargain though it had been at the price she had bought it, it had still cost enough that she would need to rely on her loan application being approved somewhat more than she had initially planned.

But it was worth it, she thought. The nearly six by four foot unit was the small business-scale chocolatier's dream tool; a chocolate conching, enrobing, tempering, and moulding machine all-in-one. She knew how it worked, even though she had trained on different machines designed to do just one of those things. The all-in-one unit in front of her was something of a first-in-the-industry innovation by the manufacturing company. Seeing it on sale at half price online had been an immense stroke of luck, and she had excitedly called the company to confirm and secure it within the day.

Buying three or four separate single function machines would have cost her more than twice as much as she had spent on the one machine in front of her, even including the fact that it had to be loaded unto a ship and then put on a truck to get to her. But in the end, less than three weeks since she paid for it and its delivery to her doorstep, she'd happily signed the delivery note and watched as it was carefully maneuvered into its place with the other large pieces of industrial sized kitchen equipment in the increasingly cramped confines of the concrete and steel locker she rented on the outskirts of town.

The storage space contained two neat long aisles of stainless steel and hardened ceramic surfaces; cookers, ovens and counters holding up all sorts of mixers, bread makers, cutting and molding surfaces and everything in between on the concrete tile floor. The chocolate machine stood next to the refurbished pasteurizer and the two large batch freezers that had come in just a few weeks before it, the tight fit conveying the fact that its addition to her collection had not exactly been planned for.

It had taken her most of two years - twenty odd months - to accumulate everything inside the steel and concrete room, and despite the vast majority being refurbished second hand equipment, her collection had cost her thousands in many of the world's major currencies, not including delivery.

Dreams were expensive.

She ran her hand over the chocolate maker's control panel, experimentally pushing buttons to feel them spring back against her fingertips. Without the tiny superficial scratches on the gleaming surface, one would think it had just rolled out of the factory brand new. Smiling in satisfaction, she looked around, taking in the sight of her soon-to-be kitchen's equipment one last time before she left for the other side of the world.

"Time to lock it up, Ms. Banet?" Jim, the security guard was standing just outside the entrance to the storage space, leaning against the wall by the control panel with a clip board in one beefy hand.

"Yes." She replied as she stepped out of the locker.

"Alright then," he said, pushing off the wall. "you know what to do."

Honor brought out the special key from her purse and went over to the control panel. The key was special in that it had a paper thin magnetic strip along its main groove so that its insertion into the keyhole made the locking system prompt her for a PIN number. She entered it while Jim purposely turned his back to look away. The small screen flashed green and she turned the key in the lock. The heavy steel door immediately began to descend to the floor.

Jim turned around and stood silently beside her until the door finished its descent and the loud snaps and thuds of locks snapping into place told them both that the locker was well and truly secure. As was standard procedure, Jim went to the control panel and pressed the status button. The screen flashed red and the word, 'LOCKED.'

"Good. Everything check out?"

"Yes," she said, with a smile.

"Okay then, Ms. Banet." He held the the clip board in front of her, which had a pen on a retractable elastic string clipped to its side. "Sign you know where."

Honor signed both places with a flourish and received Jim's courtly inclination of the head with one of her own, amused. Grinning, they both began the walk to the reception area, the paunchy middle-aged security man in his ankle high boots and dark grey uniform and the young woman in slip on sandals, jeans and cotton blouse, a handbag slung over her shoulder.

"Same time next week?" Jim asked when they were through to the reception area.

"No, actually," she answered, "I won't be coming around next week."

Jim raised both bushy eyebrows - Honor Banet had visited to check on her locker every Thursday week after week ever since she started filling it with one big piece of machinery after another, something he had once put down to paranoia but which he had since come to appreciate as the woman's own way of making herself remember that she was on a schedule. Dreams were not only expensive, they all too often came together with time limits.

Honor saw his surprise and added, amused. "I'm going on a holiday."

"Oh, that's great!" Jim's face cleared, privately thinking that it was about time the young woman in front of him took something resembling some down time, "Where are you going? That is, if you don't mind my asking...?"

Honor considered; if she told him, he would only be the second person who would know where she was disappearing to. Not even her boss at work knew that she would not be in the country for the next week. Keeping it a secret made it seem more daring, more out of character... even wicked.

She had even set up a call forwarding arrangement with her mobile phone network so her calls would be forwarded to any number she was going to call their special set-up number from. The only other person who knew was her best friend, who was very much behind strait-laced, sensible, organized and disciplined Honor Banet throwing caution to the winds and doing something impetuous for a change. Like buying a ticket to the other side of the world, flying there, and as Sarah put it, getting a 'good long hard fuck.'

"Thailand," Honor finally said, not able to come up with how it made a difference for her to tell him.

"Nice," Jim said, grinning broadly and nodding his head in approval. "I heard it's really beautiful over there."

"My fiancee's over there in Bangkok for a few weeks," Honor said. "He says it is."

"That's great. Would love to take my wife somewhere around those parts..." Jim looked up as a car screeched to a stop and honked its horn just outside the storage center's doors - there was a lit yellow taxi sign perched on top of the car's roof. "Well, there's your taxi, Ms. Banet."

"Thank you." Honor gave him a friendly nod and a final smile goodbye and began to walk for the front doors and the taxi cab waiting for her beyond.

"Have a safe trip!" Jim called out as she passed through the revolving doors. She waved in response before she opened the taxi's rear seat door and slipped inside.

"The dispatcher say you want to go to airport?" the thin bearded man in the driver's seat asked. He smelled like his car; a combination of stale tobacco and a liberal splashing of cologne. His accent was strongly Eastern European.

"Yes," Honor answered. She noted the expectant expression on the driver's face. "Err... I still want to go to the airport."

He eyed her curiously. "No luggage?"

"No. No luggage."

He shrugged away his disappointment; sometimes he got lucky and the fare would ask him to first of all drive to their house so they could get their luggage before going on to the airport. Other times, like now, all the fare would have on hand is a handbag. "Okay. You're the boss." He switched the meter on, put the car into gear and pulled out of the storage center's driveway.

________________________

Honor directed a grateful smile at the uniformed doorman as he held the door open for her. He touched his fingers to his cap in a remarkably British salute of greeting and answered her with a wide and obviously well-practiced welcoming smile of his own, revealing straight if gradually yellowing teeth.

"Welcome to the Bangkok Excelsior," he said, with only a small hint of the lilting Thai accent. Honor noted the three national flag pins on his lapel, British, German, and Thai - showing the three languages he could speak.

She came out of the backseat with her new duty free bought suitcase, her only piece of luggage in addition to her handbag. Bright red and small and light enough to fit in a 787's overhead cabin locker, she had not bothered to check it in, and so she had simply gone from the immigration station, skipping the long lines and jostling crowd around baggage claim carousels, and walked out into the arrival hall. It was a simple matter of minutes to use her card to withdraw some local currency from one of the many ATMs lining the interior walls of the immense hall and another three minutes to get to the taxi stand outside the terminal, pulling her suitcase behind her on its little wheels.

Thirty-something minutes later, the thankfully taciturn driver was pulling up at the hotel entrance, having asked her in broken English just one question as she slipped into the backseat "Where going?"

"The Bangkok Excelsior Hotel?"

"Bangkok Excelsior. Good." The driver was all business and no talk, which was fine by her after countless hours in the air. "Close door please. We go."

The dusk sun was well on its way below the horizon and the city's lights had begun to flicker on as they left Suvarnabhumi. For a moment, the bone-deep weariness of long haul flight warred with the wonder and excitement that accompanied being somewhere so new and alien. In the end, excitement and wonder won, driving away the urge to lay back in the seat and shut her eyes. The temples, so many of them, with their striking pagodas, columns and spires, often so very similar to each other and yet just as often so very different, simply took her breath away. The drive brought her close enough to see the water and the sails of boats moving up and down the Chao Phraya river, close enough to catch a glimpse of the massive towering spire of a temple on the other side - her first sight of the Temple of the Dawn - before the driver made a turn off the main road, leaving her unconsciously twisting around in her seat and staring out the rear window to keep the view in sight for as long as she could.

Towering seventeen terraced stories into the Bangkok sky, richly tiled with emerald green and white marble, and sporting windows tinted gold, the five star Bangkok Excelsior was in the central business and embassy district of the Thai capital, ideally situated for the travelling businessman and diplomat. Yet it was close enough to the Chao Phraya river - the famed River of Kings, and Lumpini Park - the 140 acre oasis of green in the middle of the city, and easy transportation to the many sights and sounds of Bangkok to make it one of the hotels of choice for the city's many visiting tourists.

Honor felt a tingle of anticipation as she entered the lobby and took in the opulent surroundings, her sensitive nose picking up the smell of cinnamon, coconut and lavender in the air, and with a happy smile on her face she started walking over to the reception counter. Her suitcase was small enough that she could politely wave away the porter that came up to assist her - he smiled, nodded just as politely and moved on. She got to the counter just as a newly arrived European couple in their forties collected their room keys from one of the smiling young women standing behind the counter and walked away arm in arm.

The very pretty receptionist put her hands together in front of her chest and bowed her head in the traditional Thai greeting of welcome. "Sawadee. Hello and welcome to the Bangkok Excelsior. How may I help you?" Her English had an unexpected trace of a British accent, in addition to the expected hint of Thai. She was dressed in the hotel's green and gold colours; the green skirt long to her ankles and belted with a golden sash around her waist, the white blouse tastefully long sleeved and high collared with a long intricately detailed shoulder cloth passed through the sash and slung over her shoulder - beautiful, elegant and very distinctly Thai. Her nametag announced to the world in English and Thai lettering that her name was Sumana, and the three flag pins under her name tag said she could speak English, Spanish and Thai.

"Hello," Honor said, leaning forward to put her handbag on the marble countertop and open it. "I made a reservation for the weekend up to Tuesday?" She found the post-it on which she had written the reservation number the hotel's online booking system had sent to the computer screen at home and handed it over to the young woman together with a credit card. The woman happily took both, taking a look at the scrawled number on the small green square of paper and typing it into the computer in front of her.

"Ah... yes," The receptionist said, looking up with a smile as wide and obviously well-practiced as the man at the door, "I have just the room for you, Ms. Banet. It's on the twelfth floor and it has an absolutely beautiful view of the river and the Wat Arun just across from it. Is that alright?"

"That sounds wonderful," Honor said, voice going somewhat high pitched in genuine delight. A room with a view of the Wat Arun - the Temple of the Dawn - along with the river, the sight that had so easily captivated her in the taxi on the way to the hotel, was very definitely an added bonus. Another omen, she decided, apart from the ridiculously low promotional fare, that her decision to be impetuous and just get on a plane and fly thousands of miles away to an entirely different part of the world was less crazy than it appeared.

"Excellent!" Sumana typed something in and hit the enter key, then she slid the credit card through the slot on the card reader attached to her computer, making Honor Marina Banet the Bangkok Excelsior's newest guest on the twelfth floor. "Just give me a moment to program your room keys... " As Sumana talked, she smoothly opened a drawer and took out two cardkeys from the neat stack inside, slotting one into a small machine by the computer. She moved the mouse a little on its pad, rolled the tiny scroller button in the middle and clicked. Immediately, the card programmer lit up and whirred, and a second later, the cardkey popped out.

Honor waited for the young Thai woman to repeat the procedure on the second card and watched her proceed to place both card keys in a small card holder bearing the hotel logo embossed on a picture of the hotel brightly lit against the night sky. She wrote the room number inside it, and, with a graciously welcoming smile and flourish, handed the credit card and the holder with the keys inside to Honor. "Do have a pleasant stay with us, Ms. Banet."

"Thank you very much," Honor said smiling back. Then Honor leaned forward and spoke in a low conspirational tone "I was wondering if you could help me with something..?"

Sumana leaned forward, seeing the nervous anticipation on Honor's face and finding herself intrigued "Yes...?"

"I'm actually here to surprise my fiancee..." Honor said, licking her lips and beginning to feel that small tingle of excitement coursing through her body and settling around her abdomen "... he's a guest here and I didn't tell him I was coming. I was wondering if you could help me...?"

Sumana's smile was one of genuine pleasure as she took note of the ring on Honor's hand. "Of course. Do you know his room number?"

Honor's face fell, heat rising to her cheeks, inwardly cursing at herself. Given that her fiancee and his team were jetting back and forth across three countries, liaising with Malay, Singaporean and Thai counterparts and trying to come to grips with the various customs, intricacies and peculiarities of Malaysian, Singaporean and Thai corporate law, she was aware at the back of her mind that she was being a little harsh on herself - his trips in and out meant that his hotel room numbers were not likely to be a constant. In any case, there had never been any need for her to know his room number - his company issued cellphone carried a 'GlobalSIM' card, so he could be reached on just the one number for the entire duration of his firm's latest project in the Asian Far East no matter which country he happened to be in.

Interestingly, she too had bought a 'GlobalSIM' card on the plane to Thailand, and on the drive to the hotel, she had made the call to the special number her mobile phone network had given her and punched in her phone number and then a secret four digit password. Two more punches to confirm and her call forwarding set up was complete.

Despite all that, she still felt silly for not having his room number on hand. "Umm... I don't know it, to be honest. I didn't ask."

"Oh." Sumana's smile didn't waver however, she just moved her fingers over her computer keyboard. "What about his name?"

"David," Honor piped up at once, relieved, and Sumana started typing. "David Brenner."

Sumana's smile didn't waver this time either. It instead disappeared entirely to be replaced by a frown of confusion. Her fingers frozen over the keyboard, she lifted her head up to look at Honor. "Mr. David Brenner?"

"Y-yes... what's wrong?" Honor asked, a little taken aback at the change in the receptionist's face.

"There must be some mistake," Sumana said, frowning, "I mean... there is a guest here named David Brenner. I checked him in myself when he came in last... but he is already married."

Honor's mouth dropped open. Then her brain kicked in and it snapped shut. "Brenner as in B-R-E-N..."

"... N-E-R, yes," Sumana completed. "David Brenner."

Honor blinked. The thought occurred to her that David may have somehow found out about her trip and arranged some elaborate joke with the Thai woman. But she had told virtually no one about it, least of all him.

Then another thought occured to her.

"How do you know he is married?"

"He checked in with his wife," Sumana answered without hesitation. "Three days ago."

Honor stared at the young Thai woman. "That's impossible," she whispered. Honor put her handbag back on the counter again and began to rummage through it, heart pounding as she brought out her wallet. She opened the black leather cover and displayed the photograph behind the transparent plastic of the picture compartment to the Thai receptionist. It was a picture of her and David with his arms wrapped around her stomach and her arm slung around his shoulders. They were on a bench in the park near her house and she was smiling widely as she sat on his lap in jeans and an autumn coat. His mouth was open in laughter, relaxed in jeans and a suede jacket. It was taken less than a week after he had given her the ring that was sparkling on her finger... both in the picture and as she stood in front of a hotel reception desk many months and thousands of kilometers away from where the picture was taken.

"Yes..." Sumana said immediately, needing no more than a half-second's look at the picture. "That is Mr. Brenner..." Sumana's voice trailed off as she took in the smiling woman sitting on the man in the picture's lap - the same woman standing stock still in front of her, her face locked in an expression of shock and despair. The receptionist's face was full of sympathy as she looked up from the picture to the woman holding it.