The Minorities Read online

  “Okay, since we’re all friends now,” I said, leaning, in a manner I believed to be jaunty, against the arm of my chair. “Your names aren’t actually Bianca and Valentina, are they?”

  “No,” said the escort formerly known as Bianca. “It’s Aisyah. And she’s Rachel.”

  Her friend quickly interjected, “Aisyah!”

  “What? They’re not going to tell anybody!”

  “You have nothing to worry, sweetheart,” said Shanti assuringly.

  “How about from him?” Rachel was pointing at me.

  “You have less to worry from him than from the rest of us,” Shanti said. Cantona and Tights nodded along. “He’s the reason we’re all here, safe

  and together.”

  “And paid,” Rachel said in a huff.

  My housemates laughed.

  Aisyah laughed, too. It was deep, throaty, infectious. She began her laugh by holding her hands up to her lips, only to uncover her mouth as her laugh gained momentum. It was only then that I noticed the fullness of her lips, accentuated by a rather alluring shade of blood-red lipstick. I found myself wondering what it would look like smudged haphazardly across my neck.

  And past those lips, she had slightly crooked teeth whose porcelain contours I wanted to trace with my tongue. She would have been perfect had she gotten braces when she was younger, but she would not be as perfect as she was now.

  The conversation flowed more easily as we took nibbles of dessert. Aisyah and Rachel—well, Aisyah, more than Rachel—shared stories of nightmare clients. One about an unnamed local politician who would shout “Merdeka!” every time he climaxed made me nearly choke on my Mysore pak.

  After we finished our dessert, Shanti and Cantona helped clear everyone’s plates and carry them to the kitchen. The gush of water from the sink and the clank of plates followed. Occasionally, we could hear the two of them laughing to some joke that did not filter outside the kitchen. Tights, Rachel, Aisyah and I spoke awkwardly about how good dinner was, and how cool the weather had been. Even Aisyah’s rather candid sexual interjections (“Now I have one more palate I need to satiate” and “This is fantastic weather to fuck in”) did not ease the mood.

  And then, Tights said, “My mama prostitute also.”

  This, I did not know.

  “She like sex,” Tights explained, as if he were merely elaborating on his thoughts about rain. “I no like.”

  Aisyah laughed gleefully at this, while Rachel and I gaped at him.

  “You like sex?” Tights asked, and I realised to my discomfort that he had directed the question to all three of us.

  Aisyah instantly gushed, “Yes!” as Rachel rolled her eyes. “I like touch. It’s the most basic of human interactions. Through touch, you can convey anything—love, hatred, anger, pain.” She looked me in the eye before adding, “Pleasure.”

  Tights turned to Rachel. Her immediate reaction was indignation, but as three pairs of eyes bore down on her, she stammered, “Y-yes,” and left it at that.

  My reply was, “I don’t know. I love sex, but I’m also afraid of it. I’ve only ever been with three women. I loved the way they looked and smelled and tasted and moved. I loved the sounds they made. Sex is such an incredible thing, and yet I cannot define women according to that—according to the kind of carnal passions they draw. They are human. And sometimes, when I’ve been with a woman long enough, and she is a fellow human being who farts and burps as much as she is a goddess whom I venerate upon the altar of my bed, the kind of searing power in that dichotomy scares me. So, yes, I like sex, but I’m also afraid of it.”

  There was a heavy silence. Then, Rachel and Aisyah laughed.

  Aisyah mimicked speaking into a microphone, “Dr Freud, paging Dr Freud, we have a patient for you here, Dr Freud.”

  Tights laughed along, hesitantly.

  About two long minutes later (most of which the two ladies spent reenacting and laughing at my earlier monologue), Shanti and Cantona emerged. “Well, dishes done,” she said louder than necessary, smiling wider than necessary.

  “Thank you,” I said to them. Cantona simply smiled sheepishly.

  Shanti then yawned very dramatically.

  “We’re glad to have met you,” Shanti said to our guests. “But I need to crash.”

  “Already?” Aisyah got up and hugged Shanti. When they broke the hug, Aisyah kissed Shanti on the cheek and said, “Thank you so much for having us. This has been my nicest assignment in a long time—possibly ever.”

  Rachel said, “Our clientele is usually made up of foreigners or expats. This is the first time in a while that I’m with a client—well, possibly clients—who are local. Can you keep all of this to yourselves? My parents don’t know.” I think the sudden display of vulnerability moved Shanti, for my housemate pulled Rachel in for a hug.

  “Your secret is safe with us,” Shanti said.

  “We won’t do anything to jeopardise your integrity,” Cantona added, his voice calm and reassuring.

  Aisyah said, “See, now I feel like I need to fuck all of you.”

  Cantona and Shanti laughed. Tights did so nervously.

  “Even you, strange Chinese man,” added Aisyah, ruffling Tights’ hair.

  Cantona put an arm around Tights, and the latter smiled slightly. It was the first time he and Cantona touched since after the vernissage. “I have to put the strange Chinese man to bed,” he said.

  “Have fun, you three,” Shanti said. “I’ll be blasting music into my earphones.”

  Aisyah laughed again. “You’re more than welcome to join, babe.”

  “No, no, no.” Shanti smiled at me nervously, before throwing a quick glance towards Cantona. “I need to crash. It’s been a long day.”

  After my friends went to their respective bedrooms, I led the two ladies to mine. As soon as I closed the door behind us, Aisyah and Rachel locked lips. I pulled off my T-shirt, and placing a hand at the small of each lady’s back, I joined in. I kissed Rachel first—it was tentative, slow, a marked departure from the way she kissed Aisyah.

  I broke the kiss and turned to Aisyah, and for the next moments, I lost myself in her. She smelled of flowers whose names escaped me. Her lips were soft, inviting. She moaned as soon as I pressed mine against hers.

  We were a heady concoction of skin and dancing tongues and wandering hands.

  When we broke our kiss, I realised I was holding Aisyah fully in my arms, Rachel relegated to trailing kisses up and down her colleague’s neck. Her eyes not leaving mine, Aisyah whispered, “Rachel, help me with my zip.”

  Rachel moved her kisses down to Aisyah’s shoulders as she pulled down the zip at the back of the short black dress, and it unravelled. Underneath the dress, Aisyah was perfect. The first thing you noticed were her collar bones, wide and jutting above the full swell of her breasts. She had a birthmark shaped like a twisted horseshoe just underneath her right ribcage, and I found my thumb tracing it.

  My eyes trailed down with Rachel’s kisses. Aisyah had freckles on her chest. Her belly was a soft swell. She last shaved, or waxed, at least a week ago. She had a long scar along her thigh, which ended just underneath the hem of her black boy shorts. She was human, and she bared all the symptoms of life’s hardships and pleasures. She was perfect, so brilliantly perfect. I had so many questions I wanted to ask her under the cover of night. I wanted to hold her hand just to see if she would recoil, and I knew she would not, because she was paid not to. I suddenly wished the two girls—or at least Aisyah—were here on their own accord. And just as much as they were getting paid for this, I too had my reasons for having them here.

  I took a step back, and both ladies looked at me, puzzled.

  “I’m sorry, Aisyah, Rachel, I can’t do this.” I pulled my T-shirt back on. I wanted to add, “He will see”—“he” here referring, of course, to the ghost of my father—but as soon as the thought came to my head, I realised how stupid it would sound to them, so it came out as a barely audible mutter.


  They didn’t seem to catch it, as Aisyah was putting her dress back on, looking visibly annoyed.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated.

  “Why, though?” asked Aisyah. She sounded genuinely disappointed, and I felt like a genuine disappointment. “You clearly wanted it.”

  “You’re not gay, are you?” asked Rachel.

  “No, it’s not that. I just…have issues.”

  Rachel said impatiently, “Well, if this is not happening, let’s go.”

  Aisyah looked me questioningly in the eye, and I said, embarrassed, “It’s not happening. I just can’t.”

  Rachel was first out of my room. Aisyah followed, slowly, looking confused and still trying to zip her dress up.

  “We’re still getting paid,” Rachel said flatly once she reached the gate.

  “Rachel!” Aisyah snapped, throwing a frown at her friend.

  “Oh yes, of course you are—the two of you—no doubt.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “You’re very kind, Aisyah.” I looked at Rachel, her arms folded as she cast invisible daggers at me. “But I must insist.”

  I went back into my room and returned with twenty fifty-dollar notes.

  Rachel snatched them from my hands and counted them in front of me. Aisyah remained where she was, smiling sadly at me.

  “You’re definitely one of my more interesting clients,” Aisyah said. “Possibly the nicest.”

  It warmed my heart to hear that I was interesting, to someone who met people and got to know them intimately for a living. The two turned to go, but I quickly called out, “Hey, Aisyah?” Rachel made an impatient sound and continued walking, but Aisyah stopped, and turned, smiling. “You wanna go out and grab coffee sometime?”

  She looked like she was expecting it. “In another life I would love to,” she began, to the hushed crack of my heart thundering apart. “But sweetheart, I’m married. I do this for fun, but I cannot do any more than that.”

  “I understand,” I lied.

  Aisyah kissed my cheek. Then she departed.

  A suffocating loneliness settled on my chest as I watched Aisyah walk away, Valentina—no, Rachel—next to her. The latter was still counting money.

  I closed the door and against that wooden monolith, I rested my forehead—and, without realising it, began to cry. “Father, please.”

  I hit my head against the door, again and again. It wasn’t enough to hurt me, but it was enough to shake my brain in its jar. “Father,” I said, with every knock. “Father, father, father, father.”

  “Please.”

  Chapter Five: Gula Melaka Dreamsicle

  I dreamt I was fighting sentient white bedsheets, their misshapen hands flapping in the wind. There was a music to the battle: one of thunderous percussions and strings strained so hard they were almost snapping. The bedsheets rose in legions from under a giant familiar-looking hospital bed in the desert. Upon the bed was Aisyah, sultry and sun-kissed, with upturned eyes fiery with green flames, the freckles upon her chest glowing like the rose-gold stars above. She was reclining, her smile suggesting some unknown euphoria. I tried to reach her but kept getting wrangled in twists of sentient bedsheets. Then, they pulled me into the sand. I tried to fight them, but I was sinking, sinking into the desert. I tried to yell, but I could not. I felt a terrible, inhuman helplessness, as though all my faculties had betrayed me, leaving my brain alone, desperate, screaming.

  I remembered thinking that this was it, this was how I would die—drowned in sand and sheets. For a mad second, I was okay with it. I would see my father again. My lungs and my brains screamed in protest. Not today, they were telling me. Not today.

  And then, with a great heave, I broke free and I rocketed upwards. Hands of cloth clutched at me, but my rise was meteoric, too fast, too powerful. I felt cool air rushing against my cheeks, pulling my hair back. I was now leagues above the desert, affording me a vista of the landscape. I tried to move even higher, towards the sun above. But the higher I went, the colder it got, until my veins ran blue and my deep brown skin paled to a mulchy chestnut. I felt my blood flow more laboriously, clotting at my joints.

  I slowed my ascent, noting with relief that it did not equate to my falling back to the ground. Eventually, I came to a stop.

  In the clouds, a yellow speck, growing rapidly larger, had caught my eye. It elongated as it approached, and I could soon make out its shape. It was a school bus, flying through the clouds in a ramrod straight line towards me.

  I immediately recognised the person driving the bus: it was my father, laughing gleefully.

  “Who you gonna call?” I heard my father’s voice ask, taunting, just before the bus hit me square in the face.

  I opened my eyes. My bedroom ceiling stared back. I sat up. Outside, the dark of night was giving way to a rather listless sunrise.

  I got out of my room.

  At the corridor, I heard a soft moaning and the distressed shuffling sounds of somebody struggling against bedsheets. They were coming from Cantona and Tights’ room. I peered past their open door.

  There was a black humanoid figure floating above Tights, reaching for him with outstretched claws. The sound it made was a raspy, inhuman sort of screeching.

  Above the manic percussions of my heart, I whispered, “Father?”

  The figure turned its shadowy head towards me, its eyes glowing brown like cooling lava. There was a chittering snarl, and then it wafted into the walls.

  I did not bring up what I had seen, or what I imagined I had seen, at breakfast later.

  Breakfast was a quiet affair, a small sinfonietta of cereal crunch and shuffling feet and groaned-out greetings. Tights looked particularly tired, complaining of horrible nightmares. I remained silent, trying, to no avail, to erase the memory of the terrible black figure that had hovered over Tights. Guilt, suffocating and prejudiced, hung over me like a dark cloud. I wondered if I had indeed summoned my father from the dead, only for him to come back as a malevolent spirit.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  There was a bowl of almonds and oats before me. Their haphazard motions in the milky medium made horrid, mesmerising shapes. I saw a demonic, feminine figure. Another spoonful stirred the mix into a violent amalgamation that looked like an upturned, decapitated head.

  Then finally, as I sipped the milk from my bowl, the remnant almond slices and oats formed an image that looked like my father, fleshy as almonds and oats. This startled me somewhat and I banged my knee on the underside of the table. Some of the milk spilled out of my bowl.

  After breakfast, the four of us gathered in my room.

  Together, we completed the SoundLoft. Shanti and I finished building the neural decoder to link the BrainScan to its audio output—a small, electronic auto-piano called a Pianola. Cantona assisted Shanti, typing code into my laptop while she dictated, and Tights, as usual, documented the entire process on camera.

  It was early afternoon when we finally put down welder and laptop and camera and pen and paper.

  We laid the entire SoundLoft out across the floor of my room. It began with the wHelm, the metal bowl-shaped contraption that the subject would wear on his or her head. The wHelm was plugged in to my laptop, where the software we called the BrainScan waited, its interface empty in the absence of a brain to scan. If it did have a brain to scan, however, the BrainScan would receive data in waves of brain activity and, by attaching peaks and troughs of the brain waves to corresponding musical chords, it would extrapolate a symphony of the mind, played through the Pianola.

  The four of us stood together studying the SoundLoft. For Shanti and me, it represented the culmination of months of hard work. For Tights and Cantona, it was the only evidence they had of the life Shanti and I used to have, like looking into a recoloured old photograph.

  “We need to test it,” said Shanti.

  “I can go again,” Cantona offered. His voice dropped to uncertainty. “Does it involve making another Mentos volcano?”
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  “No,” I told him with a small laugh. “In this one, you have to be asleep.”

  Cantona nodded. “You want to make sure it picks up delta and theta brain waves as well?”

  Shanti looked at Cantona, smiling. He obviously had been listening to her.

  I looked at Tights, who seemed to be nodding off. “I’m thinking it should be Tights.”

  “Huh?” He rubbed his eyes, and it only served to make the dark rings around his eyes more pronounced.

  Shanti put a hand on his back and rubbed it, as if she could transfer some rest into his bones. “You okay, Tights?”

  Tights shook his head morosely. “I cannot sleep. My dream—bad, very bad.”

  I felt my heart pick up pace. “What did you dream?”

  “Scary woman. Scary, scary woman. Long hair. Blood at mouth. I wake up. Then I go to sleep, she there again.” My heart eased somewhat, not from relief but from confusion. That did not sound like my father at all. Unless perhaps there was no barber in the afterlife and he grew out his hair.

  Shanti said to him with tenderness in her voice, “It’s just a bad dream, Tights. Listen, the next test needs the subject to be asleep, and you look like you could use the rest.”

  “Yes,” said Tights. “Sleep. I want sleep.”

  “Go lie on my bed,” I told him.

  “If you have bad dreams, we’ll be right here,” Shanti added.

  He lay on my bed and gave me an uneasy smile. I placed the wHelm snugly on Tights’ head while Cantona and Shanti turned on the BrainScan.

  “You comfy, Tights?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Tights replied. From my vantage, he looked absolutely drained. His lips were parched, his skin sallow and dry. I could clearly see the lines of his reddened eyes, meandering and branching like sleepless rivers.

  “BrainScan ready,” Shanti called from my desk.

  “Is it picking up any brain activity?”

  They did not answer immediately.

  “Yes,” Cantona replied. I glanced over at my laptop. The striations on the digital cerebrum occupying most of the BrainScan’s interface began to twist and weave, representing synapses connecting with other synapses.