‘Kampung.’
The restaurant was small and intimate. Their table could not have been better chosen or the service more solicitous. The lighting was low but still bright enough to show every fleeting expression on the faces of the couple as they kept up an animated flow of conversation as though they had been friends for many years parted for quite some time. As they sipped their beers and attacked their food, the last few flimsy barriers between them fell away and the seduction of each by the other became complete.
Paul favoured Tiger beer from Singapore but Inga was a Budweiser girl. In fact it was the strong European forefather of that American institution that she favoured, and it was part of the magic of the evening that Kampurg had some of both in stock. They sipped their drinks, as cold as any Martini, and contentedly ravished the menu. Inga had some experience of what the restaurant could offer, but Paul had intimate knowledge of Malay cuisine. So they guided each other through great classics and chef’s specialities unerringly and the starters alone lasted them until after ten o’clock.
Elegant satays on bamboo skewers were ordered, slivers of pork, beef, chicken, duck; curls of fat prawn and crab all marinated and deep-fried and brought to the table in aromatic bundles to be dipped in fiery peanut sauce and savoured as much as consumed. The jewels on her long white fingers caught the light as they moved. The polished perfection of her long almond nails glimmered liquidly. Kuay pie tee came next, tiny crisp baskets of savoury pastry filled with bamboo shoots, grated vegetables and minced prawns. Her lips caressed them as her perfect teeth bit into them. She took away his breath, his self-control; everything but his appetite.
Kuay pie tee were followed by chicken wings, their bones pulled out and the flesh deep-fried to the lightest whisper of crispness. Then came tiny, exquisitely savoury spring rolls. Prawns returned, not skewered in satays but wrapped in pastry and deep-fried to golden crispness, followed by stuffed won tons and light-as-air prawn crackers. The seafood theme was interrupted by spare ribs marinated in soy sauce and deep-fried; but it returned again in crisp, aromatic seaweed, in a mau tan kar of prawns served with a chilli sauce even hotter than the peanut sauce which began this banquet of appetisers. By now they were leaning forward across the little table, their faces separated by little more than candle light. Beneath the crisp linen and the strong wood, their knees touched then leaped apart as though from an electric charge, only to come into contact once again. As they dipped their delicacies, their fingers, too, became used to contact. The tactile freedom thus achieved allowed for further intimacies. For every glance he sent directly across into her eyes, another fell lower, especially when she leaned forward.
She had exiled him to the sitting room in her flat and he had taken his ease lengthwise upon her sofa and waited while she showered and changed. The frustration of remaining immobile while sounds and movements beyond the closed door set his imagination afire was rewarded when at last she returned. Her dress had an air of fifties elegance about it as though she was Grace Kelly stepping out of a classic Hitchcock film. It was the brightest of emerald velvet, hugging her hips and thighs down to the tiniest swirl below her knees. Above the tight waist it was equally tailored, rising to square shoulders and a high collar which stood behind her neck before falling into two tiny lapels. And the lapels fell further, in a long V down towards her waist, revealing at last in all its glory the cleavage he had so vividly dreamed of seeing.
A dream which lay opposite him through all that meal, emphasised by a thin necklace of garnets, its slopes contained in emerald green, its warm depths clad only in candle shadows.
The main courses were preceded by bowls containing the accompaniments with which they would be eaten. For her a nasi goreng of fragrantly spiced rice flavoured with ketjap manis and sambal oelek, and for him a bahmi goreng of noodles full of clouds of deep-fried bean curd. To go with these they chose rendang daging lambu of beef in coconut gravy, ikan masak asam of fish in hot and sour sauce, lemon chicken, and sizzling king prawns which came to the table in a shallow iron dish which was so hot that the air above it wavered, the wood on which it sat smoked aromatically and the food within it bubbled and spat in clouds of mouthwatering steam. Thus, wielding chopsticks with equal adroitness, talking nineteen to the dozen and sipping their beer as though it was finest wine, they passed the better part of the two hours left to midnight.
For pudding — and they both turned out to be sufficient trenchermen to require pudding — there were pisang goreng battered banana fritters, kueh dah pancakes stuffed with creamed coconut, and ram-butan, as scented as lychees, stuffed with fresh pineapple.
The cab dropped them off at her flat just before one and Inga said, ‘Send him away and come on up for coffee.’
Her flat was quite spacious and very well appointed. He had been restricted to the sitting room earlier; this could not be the case now, the beer alone had seen to that. And she was content to let him wander into the kitchenette too, continuing their lazy, intimate chat as she made fresh coffee in a French cafetière.
They carried the coffee through into the sitting room and placed it on the low table there. ‘Would you wish a drink?’ she asked. ‘I have here kirsch and vodka.’
He chose kirsch and she poured herself a vodka, then they sat companionably side by side on the sofa. They had hardly taken a sip of either liquid before he reached for her. Their first touches were as hesitant as their first social contact had been, but the shyness which both felt was soon overcome and fingers which had stroked tight braids on the first soft pressure of lip upon lip were soon sliding under green velvet lapels as tongue tip touched tongue tip.
The clumsy, increasingly irritating thigh could not dampen Paul’s ardour, but it did threaten to cramp his style. It was bandaged — lightly but tightly to support the surgeon’s work and still fit inside the trouser leg of his best suit. He could bend his leg, but only a little and not for long as the muscles were stiff and tender. Increasingly, too, there was an irritating itching on the outer side, where the long incision was. There was no way in which he could take things on the sofa to any kind of conclusion, or even escalate them appreciably beyond a kind of heavy petting. This point was made frustratingly obvious at last when his leg hit the coffee table and nearly upset the cups and glasses standing on it. At this point, Inga pulled away decisively and rose. She paused, looking down at him, her hands automatically straightening her much disarranged clothing, and he could not read her expression. She stooped, caught up the tray, straightened and left the room.
Silence and stillness without. Within, Paul Chan fought for some kind of control. He tried to regulate his breathing, calm the beating of his heart, rearrange the agonising tightness of his clothing — every bit as disarranged as hers had been. He concentrated so much on these things that he was only vaguely aware of the passage of time but as soon as he had restored himself to some kind of order, he found himself looking at his watch and frowning, struck suddenly by how long she had been gone. He had no sooner registered the length of her absence, than she returned.
On Paul’s right, away beyond the end of the sofa, stood a tall double door, much grander than the single door leading out towards the bathroom and the kitchen. These doors opened now and Inga stood there, outstripping in every detail each point of his most erotic dreams. He looked up and looked again, breathless, feeling every hair on his body come erect.