He laughed at this notion.

Of course, she had no idea he was laughing at some imagined judge, not her. So when she slapped him hard and jolted the laugh from his face, he was not, as he could have been, riled. But he realised it was useless trying to explain the matter to her. He would just accept the slap as a down payment on what he probably deserved from her.

“A joke, is it? Everything’s a joke for you.” She clutched her bags again and looked ready to pivot and leave.

“No, it’s not a joke, not at all. Look, stay just five more minutes.

I’m ready to fulfill my side of the pact. But I don’t remember what it is.

Honestly.” She looked at him hard, in a way he couldn’t read. Was she trying to judge whether to believe him or not? Or was she waiting for the perfect moment to do something awful to him, to gain what she must see as her justified revenge? “Honestly,” he repeated. “Honestly.” He shook his head in frustration, aware of how deeply dishonest the word “honestly” can sound.

Her features softened significantly. Had he reached her? Was she willing to listen to him, to give him back those parts of the story he was missing? Or was this just a trick to lull him before she struck again? She said nothing for about a minute, just stared at him; he felt like a cord was twisting inside him, slowly pulling his throat down further into his chest.

“No, I really have to go. I do.” She reached down, picked up a sheet of paper from the table, slightly torn at the top, coffee stains at one edge. She held it out to him. “This is yours.”

“No, you can keep it. It’s… it’s a present.”

She smiled at him for the first time, a smile without the strychnine anyway. She then reached into her soft black bag, extracted a pen, and inscribed something on the sheet. She extended it to him once more. “Now it’s my present to you.” After a slight hesitation, he took the drawing back.

“I have to go.”

“Can you give me a number or something where I can contact you?”

“No. You can’t contact me.”

“Okay then, how about… at least tell me where was it? Where did we?

No, better, why are those tattoos so… so powerful?” She smiled again, more warmly this time, whispered, “It’s there,” turned and moved off quickly. He rose, but then just stood there, watching her go. Until she disappeared, he had almost forgotten that he was holding the drawing. He quickly looked to see what she had written. He read, “What you can touch is just the beginning of what you can feel.” He frowned, then folded the sheet in half and slipped it into his wallet, next to the credit cards. “The beginning of what you can feel?” Well, he should be able to work this one out. He was a lawyer after all, someone who used logic to herd and corral the irrational.

And what was that last thing she said? “It’s there?” What’s there? The secret of the tattoos, the place where they met, the reason she couldn’t tell him?

Hmm… it was like his cappuccino, probably: at the bottom of all the foam, all the clouds, you eventually found what you were looking for. As she said, it’s there. And, somehow, he knew that it was.

MIRRORS

Christopher Taylor, Singapore

1. Caroline

He is reclining in his leather armchair, reading the newspaper and she is watching him from the other side of the room. She has just come home from work. She has mixed a gin and tonic, easy on the tonic. She sips the bitter liquid and watches him flip the page.

‘What’s new?’ she says.

‘The world is fucked,’ he says.

‘Lucky world,’ she says. He doesn’t react. She takes a few paces, stops behind the armchair and puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘Anything I should care about?’ she says.

‘Another stewardess has been raped… Forest fires in Sumatra. Protests outside terrorist trial in Manila.’

‘Nothing new, then.’ Her hand slides up his collarbone, her thumb massaging the back of his neck.

‘How was work?’ he says.

‘Oh, you know. I’m still working on that deal, the one with Jakarta. Lim’s still his pig-headed, sexist self. Company stocks holding up surprisingly well, considering.’

His gaze flicks back and forth. She sits on the arm of his chair and lets her hand rest casually on his chest. He manoeuvres his arm around hers to turn another page of the newspaper. She looks out of the plate glass windows beyond the balcony to the golf course, and further, to Sentosa Island and the harbour. ‘Manchester won,’ he says.

Some time passes, and then she says, ‘How about Bintan?’

‘For what?’

‘For a weekend.’

‘Ya, okay. Can.’

‘Okay. I’ll book it.’

‘Wait. What weekend? I have golf next three ones.’

‘Honey,’ she says, looking her husband straight in the eye. He looks up at her, meets her gaze and smiles. ‘Can you make an excuse? Let’s just go. Can’t we?’ He frowns. This is not part of his plan, she can see that. For a moment, she is intensely annoyed with him, almost to the point of hatred.

But then she thinks, Of course: everyone is like this. Nobody really wants to be spontaneous. And she doesn’t really want to go to Bintan anyway; it’s a stupid island, covered in golf courses.

‘Can…’ he says, half-heartedly, but she knows he is saying it to please her. It would be better if he just refused. She walks to the window and looks out. She hears the rustle of paper behind her. She turns and looks at him, then, with a purpose, walks back to the chair and kneels down.

‘Keep reading your paper,’ she says as she unzips his trousers and slides her slim fingers with their fuschia-polished nails inside. ‘Keep reading, honey.’

2. Lim

‘The amazing thing is, when you perfect this…I can’t call it a technique, lah. It’s more like a kind of… attitude. The thing is, what I’m getting at, they come to you. You don’t even have to try. I mean this girl… married. And beautiful. Seriously.

‘I mean, she was just there for eye candy, right? That’s why we employ these MBA babes, to flick their rebonded hair and flutter the lashes. Clicky clicky on the mouse, oh-so-deh-lick-cate-ly. I could see these Jakarta guys getting all hot under the collar when she went through her Powerpoint slides.

I want her to say, “Oops, I dropped my pencil, lah” and just, you know, bend over in that tight skirt, but she doesn’t have to. The professionality of this girl is much more of a turn-on, and when she walked up and fingered that laser pointer, I knew we had them. I was hard already from the fucking, excuse my French, from the deal. I just had to reel them in like fish. Too easy.

‘So, anyway, the point is, I had no designs, absolutely none on this girl.

I mean, she’s married, I even played golf with her hubby once. I was quite shagged out anyway, you know what I mean, I went straight from Geylang to the airport and into the damn meeting and there I was, wired on coffee and just kind of winging it. We were in the hotel bar afterwards, and I was just thinking about my big, fat bonus, and it turns out she was thinking about my big fat boner… Sorry, lah, sorry. I know, I know, don’t cover your ears, it’s okay, I just get carried away telling the story. So damned sweet.

‘Anyway, there we are, in the hotel bar, at the bar, drinking Chivas and green tea to celebrate. I’ve got one eye on her, one on the television, which is showing the news, nothing interesting, no football, just some kind of riot being put down in the Philippines. And she says “So how is Mrs Lim?” and I’m like “She’s a wonderful woman, I would do anything for her, she’s a saint” because I’m in such a good mood. And is she pouting just a little at this? I don’t know, they always look like they’re pouting a little bit anyway, and anyway I don’t notice, and she says “Your wife really understands you, then?”. And I say “Well I suppose she does, as much as anyone understands anyone else” because I’m kind of a philosopher sometimes, you know me.