by Randy Ross
“The good luck,” she says.
I kiss the length of the chain, and then whisper between her thighs, “I take care of you.” She wriggles. I put a finger inside her, and another, and then I trace my name. Her breathing quickens.
She pushes my hand away, catches her breath, and then asks: “Condom, no condom?”
I give the belly chain another tug, and then reach under my bed, into my stash, and hand her one of my condoms, American-made, not Asian-made, which Ned says break easily.
Later, she lies on me, wet belly to wet belly, and falls asleep. I wrap my arms around her and kiss the top of her head.
I don’t think about the past or the future. In this perfect moment, I am connected. It’s a mortise and tenon, Sensurround, broadband, intravenous oxytocin connection. I don’t want to be anywhere else, with anyone else. And maybe this is enough. Maybe this relationship doesn’t have to go anywhere or even any further. If I were to think about the future, I’d want to remember this moment, here, now, far from Boston.
After ten minutes, all ninety pounds of her gets heavy. Once it’s time to sleep, I believe everyone should retreat to a neutral corner. I slide her off me. When I move away, she follows. When I slide her gently back to the other side of the bed, she groans, shoves me, and chases me back to my side. I fall asleep, content, and drug-free.
In the morning, while Katie showers, I lay out two twenties on her side of the bed. When she’s done, I grab my watch and pants, and go into the bathroom. When I come out, the money is still there. Katie is naked and has her head out the window smoking a cigarette.
As she turns to face me, I notice she’s wearing my sleep blindfold with one patch up. My little buccaneer.
“You funny girl,” I say, walking toward her. She slowly takes off the blindfold, as if she’s stripping. Then she holds it out the window.
“No!”
At her side, I look down: My blindfold is foundering in a giant puddle that is no doubt filled with infected mosquitoes. Slowly it sinks.
“Sorry, sorry.” She breaks into a smile.
I do not smile.
A spiritual person might think: The universe is helping me shed the accoutrements and fears of an old life.
I think: How can you stay mad at a woman with an ass so small both cheeks fit in one hand?
“Breakfast?” I ask.
She nods and says, “What you do today?”
“Angkor Wat. How about if we meet tonight for dinner?”
She nods again.
We dress, and leaving the room, I notice the money is gone.
In the restaurant, the patrons are mostly Western couples sitting and eating in silence. Katie and I order, and sit in silence.
When you’re with a woman who barely speaks English, silence is expected and comfortable, a respite from struggling to communicate. Instead of talking, you smile, you look, you admire her bas-relief collarbones and wild lips.
Katie’s cell phone rings. She checks the number. “Daddy,” she says to me and then answers. “Moon bong, prawn long. Climb on, climb on.”
I imagine meeting her family. I imagine supporting her family.
But what if that’s not her father but her lunch date in two hours? What about tonight? What time does the meter start running?
I notice a mosquito bite on my arm, and then notice a slight headache and a backache. Flu-like symptoms: Malaria, dengue, guinea worms.
Our food arrives. Katie ends her call and picks at her rice and pork dish.
“Peoples look to me,” she says.
“What?”
“Peoples look to me.” She points to other diners and then back to herself. Everyone is wearing T-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops. Katie is still wearing her ride-’em cowboy, lady-of-the-evening outfit.
“You mean people are looking at you?”
“Peoples look to me.”
She smiles, and leaves without even a “so long, partner.”
Once she’s gone, my headache eases, my back feels better. I eat my food and then start on hers.
I am nursing my second orange juice, when Katie reappears wearing a military outfit with fatigue pants and shirt, and Converse sneakers. Her ponytail has been replaited.
She looks at her half-empty plate and then at me. I spear a left-over sausage on my plate and feed it to her.
After breakfast, I walk her out of the hotel, kiss her, and climb into a tuk-tuk for the half-hour ride to Angkor Wat.
“I’ll meet you later, tonight, back here at seven for dinner. OK?”
She frowns and talks in Khmer to the driver. Their conversation becomes animated and continues for several minutes. My head throbs.
I tap the driver on the back. “What’s going on?
“She meet you here at seven.”
The driver starts the engine. We leave Katie standing there. I wave. She smiles.
The tuk-tuk consists of a two-wheeled passenger cart hitched to the back of the driver’s little motorcycle. The cart has two bench seats facing each other and an awning roof. There are no doors, or windows, or seat belts. My driver is maybe twenty years old and has agreed to take me to Angkor Wat and a few other temples for seventeen dollars. He hands me a brochure describing the temples, and then gestures for me to sit. I notice that he’s missing half his left pinky, severed clean.
On the road, he swivels around to face me and asks: “How much you pay for girl?”
“Huh?”
“I can get you younger, prettier who no smoke.” He gives me the little OK sign. “She do ice cream.”
“What?”
“Yum-yum.” He makes a gesture licking an imaginary icecream cone.
I’m not sure how to respond. Is he insulting my taste, my girl? What did he and Katie talk about anyway? Did he lose that finger in a pimping deal gone wrong?
It gets me thinking: Should I have invited Katie? Did she change her clothes for me? Am I an idiot or just coming down with P. falciparum? Is she looting my room right now and throwing what she doesn’t steal out the window?
The truth is I’m just as happy to have an afternoon to myself. I’ve been with Ned and Jorani constantly for the last week. And then Mary and now Katie. I haven’t spent this much time with other people since I left Boston.
Since my last girlfriend.
Since Ricki.
While the driver and I sit in traffic, in dust, surrounded by the putt-putting spitfire of a thousand tiny motorcycles, I think about Ricki’s last e-mail: She mentioned surgery. Maybe it’s just vision correction or an errant gall bladder. What if there are complications? What if it’s not a minor procedure, but something serious, like a brain tumor?
A fresh gust of dust, a break in the traffic, and we’re on our way again. I sneeze into the Angkor Wat brochure and wonder: Why am I going sightseeing again? I hate sightseeing. Probably the same reason I keep dating. I keep hoping the next time will be different.
Angkor Wat is one of the world’s largest religious structures, complete with a moat as wide as two football fields and outer walls two miles long. It was home to the Khmer Empire from the ninth to the fifteenth century, then it was ransacked and disappeared under jungle vegetation for more than 400 years. I must be here for some reason.
I enter the Wat, open to anything. I look around for a sign and find one: “Closed for renovation.” The famous pine-cone domes are under reconstruction. Crap.
Inside one of the galleries, a long, flickering hallway. Echoes of a lost civilization. Ancient, dark, cavernous. I feel like I’ve been here before. I follow the scent of sandalwood and cloves down a high, narrow corridor. Stone floors, stone walls, a stone ceiling, more darkness. A few other tourists pass in a guided group. I come to an intersection of hallways. In the center, there’s a large, seated Buddha, fatter than two Abes. An orange scarf is draped across three of his six arms.
A voice beckons.
“You buy incense, fifty cent?” A local man in flip-flops appears from behind me.
“No thanks,” I say.
I’m expecting the hustler to give me the little OK sign, so I beat him to the punch line and make a giant hoop with my arms. “You want American girl, big-big?”
A uniformed man appears from an adjacent corridor. He has big black boots. “Sir, please remove your hat when entering our temples. Also, it is recommended that you buy the incense. It brings good luck.”
Since “bad luck” probably means immediate arrest and a blindfolded stroll through a nearby minefield, I fork over 2,000 riel, about fifty cents, and move on.
The Wat’s outer walls are supposed to be decorated with bas-reliefs, which I’m guessing are these carvings of half-clad nymphs and guardian angels in spiky, towering headdresses. I think of Katie, half-clad in her white towel.
On another wall, I contemplate a scene from Hindu mythology, the “Churning of the Ocean of Milk,” which is supposed to depict good and evil, desire and suffering, consciousness and focus. All I see are carvings of a snake, a turtle, and a barefoot guy with limbs to spare. My head throbs. I’m suffering.
Then on to Angkor Thom, another major temple, more bas-reliefs, a belfry, and flying bats. I can’t get out of there fast enough.
My driver and I cap our day at a smaller compound called Preah Khan. My back is now throbbing.
During our ride back to Siem Reap, I reflect on my experience at Angkor Wat:
• The place took 300 years to build, and I made it out in less than four hours with nothing to show but flu-like symptoms.
• Greek ruins, Khmer ruins. Once you’ve seen one pile of rubble, you’ve seen them all.
• The forty-dollar entry fee was equal to a night with Katie. I tap the driver on the shoulder. “Where can I buy some Hershey’s chocolate bars?”
After a nap at the hotel, I wake with more aches: my neck, my elbows, my knees. It’s seven fifteen. I drag myself to the lobby. Katie is sitting on a bench, cigarette in hand. She’s wearing a black leather vest, black leather shorts, and black leather motorcycle boots. Stenciled around each eye, she has a half moon of purple flowers. I’m not sure if the stencils have any significance, but I assume she’s dressed for a big night out. I consider her various outfits: Cowgirl, soldier, motorcycle moll.
“You look great,” I say. “Ever heard of the Village People?”
She looks at me blankly. “You weird man.” There’s no smile. “Playboy man.”
Behind her, a familiar fat figure and a familiar reedy figure are talking to an unfamiliar night guard. I don’t recall inviting Ned and Jorani along for dinner.
Ned turns to me. “You’re in the doghouse, pal. Something about you taking boom-boom girls to Angkor Wat and leaving Katie here.”
“What?”
“Showing up late tonight because you’re getting yum-yum in your room. You’re an animal. I’m proud of you.”
“Look, maybe I should have invited her to Angkor Wat. And yes the driver offered me girls but I told him ‘no.’”
“The student has snatched the pebble from the master.”
“Ned, wait a minute . . .”
“Convincing me won’t do any good—I’m in the doghouse, too, for overindulging last night at Giddy Gordon’s. Let’s just all go for a nice dinner and you can smooth things out.”
I feel my head: warm. I rub my stomach: queasy. I realize I left Katie’s chocolates in the tuk-tuk three hours ago.
We take our Cambodian dates to a Thai restaurant. We look at our menus in silence. Ned and Jorani order Cokes, I order water, and Katie orders a beer with ice.
Jorani lays out some earrings on the table. Katie picks up a pair, fondles it, and puts it back. Jorani offers a second pair, in what appears to be the old two-for-one. No sale. This is the first time I’ve seen Jorani fail to close.
Katie’s cell phone rings. She checks the number, and excuses herself from the table. I give Jorani four dollars for the earrings.
Jorani tells me that Katie works at a bar in Phnom Penh, is here on vacation, and plans to meet some friends later to go dancing.
“If you go out with them,” Ned says, “be prepared to pick up the tab—for her and her friends.”
“I’m feeling kind of crappy,” I say. “Not really in the mood to play sugar daddy. I’ll probably go back to the hotel after dinner.”
“You’re not taking those antimalarial pills, are you?” Ned asks.
Before I can answer, Katie returns. I ask Jorani to tell Katie that I’m not feeling well and to present some options:
• She can go to my hotel with me now.
• She can come by later after she’s done partying with her friends.
• We can get together another night.
Katie listens and pouts. I motion for her to come with me, away from Ned and Jorani.
In the hallway: a Buddha statue, a poster promoting massage and free Internet, a sign promising jail for having sex with children.
I lean against the statue and say. “I like you.” I give her the earrings. “Want to give me your cell phone number?”
“No gold or silver?” She snatches the earrings, turns, and stomps off to meet her friends.
After dinner, I head back to the hotel alone. My room smells like insecticide with a hint of vanilla shampoo and ARA cigarette smoke.
I take a double shot of Nyquil and read the potential side effects of the antimalarial pills: headache, nausea, fever, and hallucinations.
I open the windows to air out the place. Fuck the mosquitoes. I toss the pills into the puddle and watch the package sink and join my blindfold somewhere in the murk.
During a recent session, Moody asked, “Have you ever heard of attachment theory?” as he started scribbling on his legal pad.
“Is that about how you connect with your parents as a child is how you’ll connect with your girlfriends as an adult?” I started scribbling in my own pocket notepad.
At this point in our therapy, we had begun practicing “extreme honesty,” which meant we both said what was on our minds with minimal filtering.
“I feel that your scribbling is an attempt to mock me and get negative attention,” he said.
I made another note, and then said: “Your scribbling makes me angry. I imagine that you’re holding out on me, that you’re being secretive and taking notes that you and your wife can laugh about tonight over Vouvray and vibrating butt plugs.”
“That’s very offensive, Randy.”
“You’re welcome.”
After a short break, another five dollars, we had an enlightening discussion about the Three Negative Attachment Styles:
1) Needy
Desperate for any relationship, a life preserver, someone to keep them from going under.
They agree with the following:
“All I want is love. Love, love, love. Hugs and kisses all the time. Why can’t I find someone to love me the way mama should have?”
Metaphor: The baby monkey whose mother has been replaced with a coat hanger covered in old dish towels.
2) Claustrophobic
Avoids relationships, claiming they don’t need one.
They agree with the following:
“Life is unpredictable. People are unreliable. I am unpredictable and unreliable. If you don’t depend on me and I don’t depend on you, we’ll get along fine.”
Metaphor: a sperm whale fighting off an army of giant squids.
3) Ambivalent
Their connections tend to be intense, but short-lived. In relationships, they oscillate between needy and claustrophobic with an occasional pause in normalcy, which they find boring, or scary, or boring and scary.
They agree with the following:
“Life is suffering. Love is suffering. Suffering is pain. So to live and love requires prescription painkillers.”
I told Moody there are worse things than ambivalence, such as insomnia and jogging injuries and dating a woman who loves pasta.
The overhead light in my room seems dimmer, the air cooler. A Nyquil nod
overtakes me and I drift into a familiar, deep oblivion.
Back in Phnom Penh, packed for my flight to Melbourne, I say good-bye to Ned and Jorani outside the Tamarind.
Ned’s tuk-tuk driver, Mr. Suk, pulls up to take me to the airport. “Thanks again for everything,” I say to Ned and mean it.
“Next year in Battambang,” Ned says, gripping my shoulder. He’s no scammer or weenie. He’s just a good guy.
I turn to Jorani. “Nice meeting you and thanks for being such a great hostess. I mean, for showing me around.”
“You nice man,” she says. “Katie no friendly.”
Mr. Suk and I head to the airport. It’s rush hour.
On the highway, a girl on the back of a motorcycle breastfeeds a child as her companion bobs and weaves through traffic.
I observe without snide commentary.
On the road shoulder, two men have dropped trousers and are peeing on the ground, russet-colored butts to the highway.
I keep waiting, but there’s no chatter, no snarky interior monologue. This is a different kind of perfect moment.
When a sign appears for the airport, Mr. Suk turns to me: “Next year, you come, I find you nice girl.” He points to the guidebook in my bag. “I know that book.”
“You know Pittman?”
“No.”
“Whatever.”
He gives me the little OK sign and I give him one back.
I’m OK, you’re OK, we’re all OK.
The Chronic Single’s Handbook
Chapter Five
The three alternatives to marriage
1)Long-Term: Committed Relationship
•Requirements: luck to find the right person.
•Rewards: clean laundry, matching dishes, a date on Saturday night, long-term appreciation.
•Risks: intimacy-induced asphyxiation, back-end loads, stretch marks, flatulence, hair loss, hair on back, hair in sink, eye rolling, palimony, asset reallocation.
2)Intermediate-Term: Serial Monogamy
•Requirements: steady supply of women, thick skin.
•Rewards: exciting sex, envy of attached friends, limited liability.
•Risks: high annual turnover rate, extreme volatility, loneliness between relationships.
3)Short-term: Fee for Services
