by Erik Swill
As they reached the bike, Adrian noticed Ketut smiling—the kind of smile you make when you are thinking about something and don’t realize people are watching you.
“What are you smiling about, mate?”
Ketut’s grin grew when he realized he had been caught.
“I usually come to this market a few times a week with tourists. I’ve never had this much fun, though. Carefree fun. Is life always like that with you?”
“Only when it matters.”
Ketut smiled again. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t smiled before this. But he seemed to enter into a new level of comfort with Adrian, like they were close friends who had known each other for many years already. Ketut wrapped his hand around Adrian’s waist, indicating they were perhaps even more intimate than close friends could be.
“Today is going to be a good day.”
Adrian reciprocated by reaching his arm around and embracing Ketut in the parking lot. “I’m counting on it, mate.”
IV
ADRIAN ENJOYED the sensations of being on a motorbike. The wind blew through his hair, reminding him that he could use a haircut soon. The loud purring of the motor under the bike also gave him the sensation of riding a vibrator. These Balinese motorbikes didn’t have very powerful engines—they were more like glorified, two-wheeled lawn mowers. Still, it offered him a pleasurable buzz around his pelvis.
Something as common as riding a bus could give Adrian an erection. So the motorbike-cum-vibrator caused his dick to come to life by the time they got to their first intersection. The vibration also inadvertently moved Adrian’s body forward to where his erection was now pressed up against Ketut’s backside. Ketut didn’t make any indication he knew what that was, and Adrian wondered if the vibration was having the same effect on its driver as it was on him.
He also imagined what it would be like to have sex on the back of a motorbike while driving through town! Judging from the size of his dick, he was physically ready to try and see. He knew he would need to be discreet so as not to alarm others on the road. He also lamented that Ketut had switched into a pair of jeans. The sarong he had had on earlier this morning would have made rear-entry comparatively easy. He would simply loosen the sarong around the waist, slide it down, and have Ketut sit on the edge of his lap after having removed his dick through the zipper. The vibration of the bike would likely do most of the work.
Unfortunately, by the time Adrian had finished concocting his motorbike sex fantasy, Ketut had pulled off the road onto a gravel patch in front of what looked to be a shop that sold traditional masks from the Balinese dance dramas. Adrian understood that tour guides in Bali often received commission from bringing their tour groups to stores that sold tourist trinkets. Even after visiting the main market, he still couldn’t care less about bringing back any masks for household decoration or even key chains for his friends back home. He hoped stops like these wouldn’t be too frequent.
Ketut jumped off the bike and hung the helmet off the handlebar. “I’ll be right back.”
Again, he left before Adrian had time to react. Maybe the masks aren’t for me? He looked down the road for any other interesting sights but saw nothing.
A minute later, Ketut returned with a guy he introduced as Wayan. He looked a little younger than Ketut and was considerably shorter and skinny to boot. He had a sweet face and a smile that was contagious. Ketut explained that Wayan was normally the driver for the tours while Ketut was the actual guide.
Ketut apologized, though, because there weren’t any other tourists to take their tour that day. It would just be Adrian. But because of the cost of fuel, it wasn’t possible to take a single person on the tour at the standard rate. After being given a few options, though, Adrian decided it was best to just continue with the two of them on the motorbike. He had thought that was how they would do the tour anyhow.
Ketut said a few parting words to Wayan and hopped back on the bike. As he turned the bike around to merge into traffic, he leaned back and told Adrian he had hoped he would prefer taking the tour without needing to include Wayan. Adrian smiled, happy they were on the same wavelength.
It didn’t take long before Ketut slowed his bike to a stop. The road dead-ended at a forest reserve in town. It was either an odd place for a forest or really poor planning for road infrastructure. Ketut didn’t seem bothered by it, though.
“This is the backside of Ubud’s Monkey Forest. It’s not really an entrance, but it is quieter than the main entrance, where the macaques swarm the tourists who bring bananas and other fruits for them.”
“Wild monkeys?”
Ketut thought a moment. “Wild, yes. But they have lived so close to people for many generations here that they aren’t afraid of us. In fact, I’m a little afraid of them.”
Adrian laughed. From what he knew, macaques weren’t that big—smaller than chimpanzees, at least. “Why? They’re like little kids. Do they climb on you too?”
“Little kids?” Ketut shook his head. “Little kids with three-inch-long teeth. I’ve seen tourists bit before. Nothing too serious, but a lot of blood. If you have something they want, let them have it. One way or another, they will get it.”
Adrian let that information sink in as he saw a large macaque chase a smaller one down the path in front of them. They were fast too! Adrian looked over to Ketut to make sure it was safe to be here, particularly without any other people around.
“Don’t worry,” Ketut reassured him. “We will probably be okay.”
Ketut led Adrian deeper into the forest until they reached a large bridge with wavy serpent railings that spanned a small creek. They crossed it and came upon a clearing in the forest just big enough for a sizable temple that was ornamented with monkey statues. How fitting.
Ketut reached into his bag and pulled out some miscellaneous items, including small flowers, a little bag of rice kernels, a tiny square basket, and some spiny ball Adrian had never seen before. Ketut passed Adrian the bag and asked him to put it on so the monkeys wouldn’t take it. He then approached the temple, which Adrian noticed was covered with both real and stone statue monkeys.
Ketut set the little basket on the steps of the temple and arranged the miscellany in it before raising his clasped hands to his forehead in prayer. Within a few seconds, he turned and came back to where Adrian had watched him. Before he even got halfway back, though, two monkeys had swooped in and destroyed his offering, taking the fruit and the basket.
“Sorry. Just something I needed to do quickly.”
“But the monkeys destroyed your offering! Don’t you need to do it again or something?”
Ketut laughed. “Well, of course they took it. It’s food. And in part, it’s for them too. The essence was offered to the gods. The physical remains are for the monkeys. Or ants, or dogs. Whoever gets to it first.”
“It seems like a waste of time. I mean, you might as well just leave a big pile of food for the monkeys and pray from your home if your offering is going to be destroyed that quickly.”
Ketut put his arm around Adrian’s shoulder and guided him back to the serpent bridge. He pulled out a handful of those spiny balls Adrian had noticed earlier in Ketut’s offering basket. Adrian carefully took one, unsure how sharp the spines were.
“They’re soft!”
Ketut smiled and showed Adrian how to peel it open to get to the fruit on the inside. “It’s called rambutan. ‘Rambut’ means ‘hair’ in Indonesian. So it’s hairy fruit, kind of.”
Adrian took a bite of the sweet but small fruit, nodding approvingly. Ketut was already peeling his second one. The skin and pit were tossed over the side of the bridge.
“It’s all very natural, you see? Creation, destruction, and rebirth. This is the way the world works. I made the offerings, the monkeys destroyed it, but will eat it for nourishment for when they have more babies. It’s a cycle, you know?”
Adrian nodded but offered his protest at the same time. “But it would have been nice if the monkeys
just took the rambutan and did not destroy the whole offering you made.”
“Like us with the rambutan,” Ketut continued. “It grew on the tree, we killed its growth cycle by pulling it off and eating it. We get the nourishment and throw away the skin and pit. The pit will grow into another rambutan tree and the skin will decompose and act as fertilizer. When it bears fruit, someone else will pick it and start the process all over again. Life is cyclical. It can’t be altered.”
Adrian was suspicious of this claim and held up his hand to prevent Ketut from continuing. He racked his brain to try and think of a scenario to disprove this cycle. Ketut waited patiently as Adrian tossed ideas around his head before striking them down without sharing verbally.
“Damn, Ketut. You’re a modern-day philosopher!”
“Ancient knowledge. I take no credit. Plus it is common sense here on Bali. It’s just how we orient ourselves in life. That’s what religion does, after all. Allows us to make sense of the world around us.”
Adrian cynically thought of all the Catholic doctrine and rules and restrictions he had been taught as a kid. In comparison it seemed more bent on shaping the way of the world rather than trying to understand it for the way it already was. He refrained from sharing any of this with Ketut, still impressed with his perspective on life. “Simple but profound. I like.”
“I don’t know as much about the spiritual world as I should. So I try to compensate with learning more about the physical world.”
Adrian rolled his eyes. “Listen, mate. We obviously have different standards for understanding religion. I couldn’t even begin to sound that deep talking about my religion. You’ve got me there. It’s kinda cool the way you can slip it into your everyday life like this. And without it being a burden either. I’m impressed.”
Adrian hadn’t noticed the large alpha macaque that approached him from behind along the serpent railing of the bridge. He jumped when it shoved its way past his arm as he leaned against the railing. Ketut acted quickly by extending his hand with the last remaining rambutan in it. The macaque took it out of his palm authoritatively and hurried off for a few feet before stopping to peel into the fruit.
Ketut suggested they head back to the motorbike unless there was something else Adrian wanted to see in the forest. Adrian agreed, looking over his shoulder at the macaque that broke up their chat. Just like Ketut had said, one way or another, the monkeys would get what they wanted and probably wouldn’t disturb them otherwise.
V
“WE ARE here. At the Elephant Cave.”
Ketut purchased their tickets, and they ventured into the manicured grounds. A busload of Japanese tourists had just arrived and another busload was already in front of them. The boisterous Aussies and Americans were in sharp contrast to the well-covered Japanese as they were mostly sunburned to a crisp in their tank tops and short shorts. There were several rough patches of gardens with dried grass and assorted plants that didn’t seem to be arranged in any particular order. The pool, with its Hindu deities carved ornately into the stone walls, was green. Adrian noticed on the far side, however, a cave with some sort of demon’s face carved around the opening.
As Ketut offered a history of the place and its connection to harboring Japanese soldiers toward the end of World War II, they hurried across the grounds to get ahead of the slow-moving crowd of people. Adrian found what Ketut was telling him interesting. It was definitely a perspective of world history he had never learned before. But the sun was beating down on him with a vengeance. There wasn’t a single tree tall enough to take refuge under. Adrian picked up the pace to get to the cave as quickly as possible.
They dodged out of the way of camera-wielding tourists, careful not to be part of their collection of photos. By the time they reached the entrance of the cave, Adrian could feel the sweat on his back and dampening his shirt. He squeezed past a cluster of tourists standing in the opening of the cave and stepped inside. The temperature was immediately cooler but did nothing for his already wet shirt.
Ketut got caught behind the crowd and waved for Adrian to go ahead without him as the cave itself wasn’t deep enough to accommodate that many people. Adrian looked around the shallow cave but couldn’t figure out what the big deal was. He saw the small elephant statue at one side but mostly took note of the trash strewn on the cave floor by the number of visitors. An elderly couple standing nearby asked Adrian to take their picture with the small elephant statue. He obliged, but the lighting was not suitable for a good photo. As soon as he passed the camera back to the couple and smiled in response to their subsequent thank-you in unison, he left the cave and joined Ketut, who was now smoking a cigarette.
“Let’s go.”
Ketut looked confused. “Don’t you want to see the temple over there first?”
Adrian glanced over at the temple. “Nice.” He then indicated with his head that they should return to the parking lot. He liked the carvings around the mouth of the cave, but there were too many people standing around it to get a good impression of it. And the inside of the cave was even more crowded. It wasn’t very comfortable, particularly since there was no shade from the sun as there had been at the market and in the Monkey Forest earlier in the day.
“How was the cave?” Ketut asked him as he threw his mostly finished cigarette to the ground.
“Dirty and crowded. But the cave opening was interesting. I guess I was expecting something else here.”
“Like a real elephant? We can do that if you want. You can even ride it around. But it is a lot more expensive. If you have never seen an elephant, maybe it will be good for you, though.”
Adrian sought to calm his nerves from the stress of the crowd. “Mind if I bum a smoke off you?”
Ketut looked quizzically at Adrian for a moment before he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Smoke?”
They joined a cluster of drivers sitting under the shade cast by a row of palm trees at the edge of the dirt-and-gravel parking lot. These men had obviously been to this tourist attraction countless times. They passed the time smoking and sharing stories under the trees while their tourists burned their skins walking around the grounds outside the cave.
Ketut talked with another guy as they found a place to sit on the edge of the group of drivers. Adrian sat on a dried frond like most of the others had done. He inhaled deeply on his clove cigarette. Smoking was a treat he only allowed himself under the most stressful of occasions. He reflected on why looking at a demon-mouthed cave with an elephant statue inside it should warrant a cigarette. Other than because of the crowds, he wasn’t sure. Despite enjoying the sights, and particularly the company, he could feel a certain anxiety building up in him as the day progressed. He hoped the cigarette would help.
“So what next?” Adrian was getting a little impatient that Ketut wasn’t directing enough attention to him. Or was it just the heat?
“What do you like? What do you do for fun?”
“Clubbing. Dancing. Bars.”
“Um, I think that is better at night. What do you do in the day?”
“Work? I don’t know. Maybe go to the park or the beach. Sit at home and read if I have a good book.”
Ketut considered the possibilities. “Reading is nice. Did you bring anything to read in your bag?”
Adrian grabbed his backpack while recalling its contents. There was no book, for sure. In fact, he wasn’t really certain what was in there. Of what he could remember, there was a small umbrella, a bottle of sunscreen lotion, breath mints, a pen or two, and his passport and travel documents. None of it was very useful. He shook his head.
“Okay. Better to read a book on your flight. You should see Bali while you are here. If you like the beach, I can take you to a good one without any tourists. It has black sand. Sound interesting?”
Adrian perked up a bit. “Black sand? Like real sand? Not just dirt, right?”
“Real sand.” Ketut lifted his hand as if taking an oath, his face solemn. “It is caused by the vo
lcano in the center of the island. Over there.” He pointed behind them to the mountain that always seemed to be in the background of wherever they went. “It is a very holy mountain.”
“That? That is a volcano? That huge mountain?”
Ketut didn’t understand his line of questioning. “Yes. Gunung Agung. It gives, and it takes back. We make offerings on the mountain every day. Would you like to go to the mother temple up there?”
Adrian shook his head. “No, mate. I think we’re close enough already.” He stared at the lush greenery covering the flanks of Gunung Agung, nearly all the way to the top. It amazed him how something so beautiful and peaceful could be so destructive. “So… that thing could, like, blow at any moment, right?”
Ketut smiled nervously. “Sorry, I don’t understand. It is windy at the top, yes.”
“No, no. I mean, it could explode. You know? Kaboom!” He gestured with his hands for added effect. The hand motions alone, though, were explanatory enough for Ketut, or anyone, for that matter.
“Relax. The mountain will only kaboom if we do something wrong. So we make daily offerings on the mountain.” After seeing Adrian’s concerned face, he added, “Plus, the scientists say it is asleep now.”
Adrian laughed, shaking off most of his anxiety as well. He wasn’t too sure offerings to the volcano god or whatever would be enough to keep the island from drowning in lava, but he trusted the scientists would keep an eye out for anything unusual up there. He took another puff of the cigarette, the wonder that it was. He had calmed down, and they even had their next destination determined.
