Vulture Peak, page 30
My turn to sigh. “I already told you, I didn’t have sex with anyone in Phuket.”
“Okay, you didn’t have intercourse. She gave you a blow job?”
“Nope.”
“Something sent you to the moon and back. You were in an incredible state when you got back one time.”
“What was I doing?”
“You would sing that old Isaan song you used to like.”
“Okay, a tiny thing happened. It’s so tiny it’s embarrassing.”
“What?”
“I licked her nipples.”
“How did her nipples get naked?”
I come clean and tell her the story of Om. She sits, stunned for a long moment, then says, “Maybe she was nuts.”
“That too. Now: the cop?”
“He invited me to lunch. We had lunch.”
“And?”
Chanya’s speech has suddenly accelerated: “And then he invited me to a short-term hotel, butwedidn’tdoanything.”
“You went to a short-term hotel with a good-looking cop six years younger than you, and you didn’t do anything?”
She is blushing and staring hard at the rearview mirror at the same time. “Okay, you really want to know? We were undressing each other, he started caressing me, and I realized the only reason I was doing it was because I was sure you were cheating on me and that you didn’t love me anymore. So I apologized and said I would pay for the room but I couldn’t go through with it. I decided I was past all that, I didn’t need the karma of starting a whole complicated chain of negative events. I was bigger than that now. I decided to go be a nun instead. Or maybe just shoot you with your gun while you were asleep and claim you tried to rape me.”
I’m staring hard at some people on the street, but I’m not seeing them. Waves of jealousy come and go. The same is happening to her. I’m surprised at how easy it is to forgive, however. I reach out to hold her hand. “So did he let you pay for the room?”
“Yes.”
“What a cad.”
“I can’t get over it, the little shit.”
She leans against me in a relaxed way and doesn’t say anything more. After a while, just before we turn into our soi, I feel a tongue start to examine my inner ear. By the time the cab stops, I can hardly pull my wallet out of my Zegna pocket. As soon as we enter the house, however, we are possessed by a higher need. We each gather a bunch of incense sticks, light them, summon samartit, and bow three times to the gaudy shrine. A more thorough exorcism of the evil that so recently passed will have to await a visit to temple in the morning. Time for love.
DFR, I am yours in dharma, Sonchai Jitpleecheep.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the course of the narrative I have made use, from time to time, of both arguments and vocabulary found in the excellent pamphlet The Last Commodity, by Nancy Scheper-Hughes (Multiversity & Citizens International), and in Commodifying Bodies, edited by Scheper-Hughes and Loïc Wacquant (London: Sage Publications). Such use is entirely in the frivolous context of a fictional narrative, however, and cannot be construed as a representation of the serious purpose of these publications or their contributors.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Burdett was brought up in North London and worked as a lawyer in Hong Kong. To date he has published seven novels, including the Bangkok series: Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo, Bangkok Haunts, The Godfather of Kathmandu, and Vulture Peak.
John Burdett, Vulture Peak
