I look around the beach, my heart hammering like crazy. I don't know if I can really go through with this!
It has been a hot though not particularly sunny day in Bali. Actually, it is late in the afternoon and the sun is going to set in the next hour or so. If I don't do this now, I shall never get another chance, as I shall be flying back to Hong Kong tomorrow. As usual, I hesitated far too long.
The scorching heat coupled with the tangy sea breeze is making me drowsy. I take another furtive glance around but nobody seems to pay me attention.
"Do it, you coward!" A voice screams inside my head.
Timidly, I retract an elbow through the armhole then the other. With a deep breath, I wriggle the tank top awkwardly over my head, baring my milky-white breasts to the whole world for a first time!
What brought me here, you may wonder? To start off with, I broke up with my boyfriend two weeks ago after catching him in bed with Fanny - my workmate and best friend at the travel agency I work with. Then I thought I needed some time by myself and booked a flight and a five-night stay at a hotel here.
The first night I arrived, I promised myself that I was going to have a good time. So I wandered into a street bar. After drinking a couple bottles of Bintang on my own, a tall and very dishy Australian guy, in his early 30s, came and tried to chat me up. I just freaked out and flee to my hotel, as I was so scared of what I might be getting myself into. For one, I had never dated another man before. With my ex-boyfriend, it was love at first sight, or so I thought, and he had me literally. Shit, I was still thinking of him, even here, alone in my hotel room. Oh, sod it... sod him, Bastard!
The next morning, I donned my boring one-piece Arena swimsuit and headed for the beach. The tropical sun was burning fiercely. I squinted my eyes and was surprised to see quite a few girls were baring their top. I gave each of them a good looking over. They were of different ages, shapes and sizes but no Chinese. I thought to myself if they could do it then why couldn't I, knowing that I have a younger and firmer body than those with drooping flaps, otherwise I am curvier compared with those rather plain girls, all of whom strutting out there in just their bikini bottoms.
So I decided that I was going to try topless bathing, if only for once before I flew home. What's the big deal, you may wonder? Well, for me it is! Back home, I wouldn't even dare to wear a bikini on the beach.
Then each morning, I put on the swimsuit, a tank top, a pair of towelling hot pants and headed for the beach on my flip-flops; sitting on the sand, waiting for the right moment when there were fewer people around, to slip off the shoulder straps, roll down my swimsuit to waist for a quick dip and then to run like hell back to the hotel, just to say that "I've done it!" Well, that moment never came.
I waited and waited. In the second afternoon, just to find something to do, I had my hair braided in tassels with colourful beads at a beach stall. The girl pulled the hair so taut my scalp hurt like hell, and which almost beat some sense into me to quit trying anything silly. However, when I looked at my new hair-do in the mirror that night, I was so chuffed with what I saw that I immediately went to the beauty saloon in the hotel and had my finger and toe nails varnished in the colours of Smarties to match with the beads.
Anyway, soon I learnt that there would never be a quiet moment on the beach. It was then I tried persuading myself, "What's the point of doing it if no body sees you?" But every time just when I thought I had summoned enough courage to peel down my top, I was seized by a sudden apprehension, "What if I run into familiar faces?" Then it was another day wasted. However, each night when I arrived back at the sanctuary in my hotel room and stripped, I couldn't help admiring my curvy 33B-22-34 figure that I am so very proud of.
This morning, I did something daring. In a last kamikaze attempt, I left my swimsuit behind and went topless underneath a loose tank top, ever so self-conscious of the jiggling of my breasts as I timidly hurried through the busy hotel lobby. And so, here I am. I've finally done it, well almost!
Now, sitting ill at ease with my knees drawn up to my chin, my arms bracing myself and trying desperately to hide my naked breasts, I look around me sheepishly. Immediately, I notice that a few guys are checking me out. I take a sneak peek down the chest and find to my embarrassment that my pastel pink nipples are protruding rather lewdly on my firm though modest-sized breasts. Then I notice a fluttering at the side of the ribcage and realise that my heart has all along been galloping at a maddening pace.
"Put your top back on and stop this silliness at once!" A solemn voice demands inside my head and I should have listened to it.
"Don't give it up now, you are just one step away!" Yet, another quiet voice keeps pleading from deep in my heart.
So what is it going to be, returning home and be a coward and a loser, or finishing off what I've come here to do? I struggle with the alternatives; my head is going crazy.
Then I seem to a decision. With a shrug of the shoulders, I lower my arms to unveil my perky breasts. Out of the corner of my eyes, I see heads are turning. Oh God, people are staring at them! My body is suddenly shaking like a leaf and my heart is pounding wildly. After just brief moments, a small group of men begins to loiter round me, ogling unashamedly at my naked breasts, sending a weird tingling through my puckered nipples; my cheeks and my upper torso become flushed with embarrassment.
What now? Finally, I make up my mind.
Biting hard on my lower lip, I raise myself on my knees, slip my fingers under the waistband of my hot pants and give it a push. When I get up and kick it away, I find myself standing in a sea of wanton males, in a skimpy pair of pink cotton knickers. Suddenly, everybody around seem to have stood very still and with lustful eyes are blatantly caressing over every square inch of my 24-year-old body. There is a sudden flutter of butterflies in my tummy and my chin is quivering visibly.
"Don't chicken out now and please, don't make a fool of yourself!" I will myself forward.
Wobbly, my left leg takes a step towards the sea then my right. The hot sand is burning under my soles, hurrying me on. Then I find myself taking bald strides on the balls of my feet, unwittingly adding a couple more inches to the already long slim calves of my 5'5" frame. Not bad for a Chinese girl, I keep reassuring myself.