Pavle Radonic ~ Threesome

Pistol

Guy usu­al­ly gave the big “Nigerian” Tamil pra­ta-mak­er at Har Yasin a lit­tle rab­bit-chop­ping mas­sage when he came in for take-out. Two-three minute vig­or­ous ham­mer made the fel­low gri­mace, but easy to tell he was the bet­ter for it. Scrunched-up face bloom­ing into a fine smile with­in the folds.

When the chap was found at the cashier one night some con­ver­sa­tion ensued. No sur­prise hear­ing of the TCM, a pro­fes­sion­al in fact who had com­plet­ed a course in ear­li­er days. After some loan defaults involv­ing friends the man had need­ed to move to the more lucra­tive con­struc­tion indus­try. It was OK, no complaints.

You could tell the chap had a voca­tion for his field. Meditation had been a long-term practice.

Impromptu demon­stra­tion: arms out before him and squint­ing, man showed how he could make the blood rush to his hands through sheer con­cen­tra­tion. Finger twist­ing at tem­ples illus­trat­ed the workings.

Deeply col­ored; clear­ly discernible.

Feel that.

There was heat right enough; a boy’s hot palms.

Slapping the crown of his head force­ful­ly with no ill-effects: anoth­er demon­stra­tion of some­thing less well-defined, before he was asked to please desist.

The big par­ty trick that fol­lowed promised some­thing-some­thing “cock” and “rock,” was that?…

Momentary start­ing at the uncer­tain devel­op­ment. A casu­al con­ver­sa­tion had veered off some­where not quite certain.

Cock most def­i­nite­ly half under his breath.… Did the old scarved Malay women hear? One hoped not.

Swiping over his phone. The English was pass­able with­out being per­fect and the place noisy at dinner-time.

One recalled the old wit­ti­cism from anoth­er locale about days of yore crack­ing wal­nuts on the train-line with the trusty weapon. This was some­thing of that sort, you guessed.

Finally found what he was after the man, turn­ing the screen out. A naked chap fid­dling with him­self?… Fellow in good shape, in his fifties, the TCM man sug­gest­ed, though that did not look right.

Took a short while to realise an erec­tion was indeed the actu­al object. An odd, dif­fi­cult to make-out and rather unap­peal­ing mechan­i­cal and unin­spired mas­tur­ba­to­ry scene.

Ah! This was not pleas­ant view­ing. You cer­tain­ly hoped the Malays could not see.

It need­ed some lit­tle while and only half-hard was good enough for what this screen-star was seeking.

The size was unex­pect­ed for a Chinaman. (In this neigh­bor­hood one heard com­mon com­plaints from the locals at their stunt­ing. It was unfair; impos­si­ble to com­pete with the white guy. Strangely the black was nev­er much of a worry.)

The screen actor was now twist­ing some kind of scarf, a long length of mot­tled black and white. It was not at all clear what this was about either; very dif­fi­cult to guess.

Again it took quite some time before the Stud was ready.

Camera zoom-out revealed a con­crete block on the ground. Large rec­tan­gu­lar con­struc­tion item.

Thirty or forty kilo­grams were with­in capac­i­ty, the TCM man informed before the object here emerged.

Oh! My, my…. You began to com­pre­hend…. This was rather an impo­si­tion. Uncalled for.

After knot­ting the cloth secure­ly around his mod­er­ate­ly engorged organ the actor tied the oth­er end to the block.

A short while was need­ed to budge. Soon there was clear­ance from the ground. Clearly airborne.

Rocking slight­ly, the man swung the pen­dant with some lit­tle, minor effort.

You had to be con­cerned what the old Malays could make out from their tables. Chuckles came from the new young Malaysian-Tamil wait­er passing.

A sec­ond exhi­bi­tion­ist hot on the heels of the first per­formed a sim­i­lar feat inside a gym­na­si­um, in this case perched on mounts of some kind so that once he was away the rock was made to fair­ly fly.

Slowly one under­stood this was not sim­ple vain-glo­ry either. Therapeutics involved; health and vital­i­ty. Retention of viril­i­ty and sta­mi­na was a seri­ous con­cern of health prac­ti­tion­ers, at least in enlight­ened quar­ters of the globe.

A year or two train­ing the TCM man sug­gest­ed was need­ed for good attain­ment. You would not mess with this in the back­yard otherwise.

Tubby and lumpy man; nonethe­less you would not put such a feat past him. The man did­n’t say explic­it­ly, but the impres­sion was conveyed.

Into one’s six­ties, sev­en­ties and eight­ies too, TCM man promised.

After the screen dis­play a free mas­sage there and then like for the pra­ta-man WAS DECLINED.

~

Curve Ball

Numbers gath­ered at the Saturday lunch queue in front of Mr. T. T. servery. A side counter around on the con­course had con­fused the prop­er order.

Patience of course was always required. After three Ramadans in Singapore a much bet­ter dis­ci­pline had been estab­lished where food was concerned.

Chap who at first had been iden­ti­fied as a queue-jumper turned the cor­ner and began hob­bling over. More than hob­ble here in fact, this was a grotesque gait that imme­di­ate­ly sug­gest­ed pins, rods and screws beneath the cov­er of the skin.

Another bik­er casu­al­ty. Catching a plane this man would cause pan­de­mo­ni­um at Security.

Clearing the way for his pas­sage the man answered a ques­tion that had not been uttered, — Fine, fine to now. Strong voice that made one start.

The fel­low had been sight­ed at the eatery there before. It had been a long time and clear­ly the man had not prop­er­ly revealed him­self on the ear­li­er occasion.

Tall Malay, thin and angu­lar; nim­ble and sup­ple in ear­li­er days. Legs made a kind of crab-like motion, with the trunk list­ing 30 degrees. A hand had tagged the counter, and when the chap arrived at the reg­is­ter he unex­pect­ed­ly straight­ened himself.

Street-wear: jeans, checked shirt beneath a wind­break­er, bright blue base­ball cap. In the States one would find the coun­ter­part in a trail­er, or sit­ting at a din­er with lum­ber­jack friends hav­ing a beer. Ray Carver territory.

It was dif­fi­cult not to stare.

Initially the man’s order had been tak­en at the side. Around to the reg­is­ter he came then to col­lect his plate and pay, where the Tamil Cricketer was serv­ing. The oth­er Tamil with whom the Cricketer worked was away some­where, which had length­ened  the queue.

There had been some kind of exchange between this pair—the cus­tomer and the Tamil. But what could that have amount­ed to with the Tamil Cricketer?

The Cricketer had as much Malay as English. Eight or nine months direct from Chennai, per­haps a dozen words of each lan­guage over and above the nec­es­sary for the orders.
Nonetheless some par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion had been passed with this crip­pled Malay. A ges­ture of some kind may have been missed; doff­ing of cap per­haps signed by the Tamil.

Like the rest of the Malay’s cloth­ing, the base­ball cap was spot­less. If the remain­der was some­what tawdry, col­or-fad­ed and washed-out, the cap worn by the Malay man was a dif­fer­ent mat­ter. It was a new pur­chase; very lit­tle trop­i­cal sun or rain had poured down upon this fabric.
Here in front of the reg­is­ter, fol­low­ing what­ev­er had passed between the two men some brief moment ear­li­er, a request of some form was now grant­ed by the Malay.

Standing close against the counter before the Tamil the man oblig­ing­ly removed his cap; doff­ing it like in the ser­vices before a supe­ri­or officer.

In the exchange of mon­ey and food on the nar­row ledge hard against the counter the two men had some­how achieved an inti­mate understanding.

The dis­play need­ed a few moments to gath­er properly.

On the right side of the fore­head, high on the crown and extend­ing to a cen­time­ter above the Malay man’s eye­brow, a base­ball-sized hol­low was revealed. On what would ordi­nar­i­ly have been a fur­rowed brow in a man of that age, the inden­ta­tion of skin on the Malay showed egg-shell smooth.

A third of a base­ball-sized object had entered this man’s cra­ni­um; any fur­ther or high­er the brain cas­ing could not pos­si­bly have giv­en protection.

In this instance the Malay man had lived to tell the tale. Legs, hips, spine bore hid­den dam­age; for the head there had been whiplashing.

Balding men in this com­mu­ni­ty on the Equator car­ried caps that were screwed down tight and nev­er removed.

In the dis­play here there was no doubt the Malay was respond­ing to an appeal of some kind from the oth­er, the Tamil man; a straight­for­ward­ness involved in the mat­ter which had not been tak­en in any way amiss. Not received as any kind of intru­sive­ness this Tamil’s curios­i­ty. A rea­son­able, frank and under­stand­able enquiry, received as such by the Malay man.

Unspoken pity must have been declared some­how here; a form that could not have been expressed in words by the Tamil.

It was this that was behind the request, and well under­stood by the vic­tim of the hor­ren­dous accident.

The mis­sile, the object that had made this impact with the Malay’s head, had been mar­gin­al­ly larg­er than a base­ball; an entry of a third of the cir­cum­fer­ence perhaps.

After the man, the Malay sur­vivor, swung off with his food tray, a brief, silent com­muning was exchanged with the Tamil Cricketer; a Christian from that south­ern Indian state, who had once shown the pic­ture of a mourn­ful Jesus on his phone.

Shake of head and eye-brow rais­ing as the Malay cribbed off. There were no words for fur­ther with the Tamil.

How had the man, the Tamil Cricketer, con­duct­ed such an exchange with per­fect under­stand­ing and accord? (Tamils from the Malaysian Peninsular, sons and grand­sons of the so-called inden­tured labor­ers, had good Bahasa Malay. Not this man recruit­ed by his employ­er direct from Chennai.)

Revolving the mat­ter lat­er, the fine­ly man­aged exchange between the men, word­less as it must have been, con­tin­ued to defy under­stand­ing. Ultimately the cir­cum­stance was inexplicable.
People accus­tomed to hard­ship and the cru­el­ty of fate man­aged mat­ters in a direct and open way of their own.

~

Siren

1.

This glo­ri­ous Venus walks into your tea joint from the blind, right side of the cataract, swans past the fire hydrant that has dam­aged many a knee, right up onto the fries plat­form on the cor­ner. The last part of the pas­sage revealed the extent of her cas­cad­ing tress­es. Would not be sur­prised if just then the author, uncon­scious­ly, like a jock­ey on his mount, had risen up from his chair in order to take the vision prop­er­ly…. Wow-wee! You seen it all now, Bud. How many men have looked upon the like? Never before this guy. The long lus­trous strands ran like a bur­bling brook all the way down to behind the crook of the lady’s knees. The bees knees! Blow me down Joe! Double knock­ing in stride—once against the small of her back and the sec­ond time the oth­er side of her mound, wav­ing & flap­ping. Catching her would have been like try­ing to seize the breeze and root­ed to the spot didn’t help any. Initially she had flit­ted past touch­ing dis­tance, but at that junc­ture you had no idea. Killing not so soft­ly. While she was on the plat­form a man still stood a rough chance if he could gath­er himself—wits, clear pur­pose &etc. Problem was the pil­lar and the cor­ner. If the angel had hung a left there she was away with­out any pos­si­ble hope. Straight ahead you were not out of the run­ning, maybe catch her up before the shops. The pang lat­er was thought of the hotel entrance thir­ty metres down Onan past the Cheers. By crick­ey, she must have got her­self along in there, dis­ap­peared up the stairs where the date wait­ed. Nowhere to be seen; not a trace. Had she gone straight up toward the mar­ket she could not have escaped, there was no exit point along there. Caught in time she might have been shown the por­trait gallery of her racial cousins, even­tu­al­ly enticed for a pho­to and a sec­ond in the room, where the snaking strands could have been coiled along her tor­so in the Titian or Manet pose—Venus & Olympia rolled into one. Down on your knees no shame nor hes­i­ta­tion; con­gress not required.

2.

How does one become the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of such largess? Guys ask for some­thing of the kind no doubt and pay hand­some­ly for the ser­vice. Over the sev­en years this lover had spun her­self a num­ber of times pre­vi­ous­ly, sud­den­ly going in her own direc­tion with­out any notice. (Ladies here have asked one thing or anoth­er when diverg­ing from the stan­dard, like any­where else; but with unusu­al cir­cum­spec­tion here.) Once in the midst of extend­ed love-mak­ing at Four Chain View it had been, after a term of absence, this same woman had abrupt­ly demand­ed wash­ing. Reason being she want­ed to suck­le, she had declared com­mand­ing­ly. Generals mar­shalling their troops in the field could not issue orders with more author­i­ty. Only imme­di­ate com­pli­ance could fol­low of course, like lit­tle Johnny sent to the bath­room by mum­my. Another time the same lady in anoth­er hotel room, in Yogyakarta near the rail-line, had awok­en in the mid­dle of the night, thrown back the bed sheet, and, like some kind of parched trav­eller in the sandy desert, imme­di­ate­ly bent to take in her mouth the suc­cu­lent stalk. All with­out word before or after. Here again in Jakarta this time, after almost three weeks of love­mak­ing, late one morn­ing the woman laid her­self down as usu­al close against the stem and after rais­ing the erec­tion slow­ly began to loll the pisang over her face. Over her lips, her cheeks; like a house­wife her rolling pin slow­ly and care­ful­ly; run­ning the head across her brows and fore­head and into her eye-sock­ets. Moaning and flex­ing a num­ber of times in jerks of elec­tric-like shocks. Recalling it one was unable to quite own the expe­ri­ence; in the midst of the event it had been sim­i­lar. This was not the first time for such an explo­ration by this unac­count­able lover of the ages. On this occa­sion how­ev­er the rap­ture had been pro­longed and numer­ous glimpses afford­ed from behind raised up on the pil­low. Usually fac­ing away due to per­haps a degree of mod­esty, the back of this myth­ic Eve’s head screened much of the action, leav­ing the pre­cise han­dling a lit­tle uncer­tain. (Asking for turn­around of course risked bring­ing the house of cards tum­bling down.) Not being a watch­er of porn, it was unclear whether such scenes were depict­ed on the sites. More than like­ly, but could a Google search hope to find that par­tic­u­lar delec­ta­tion? Returning to the jour­nal to pen the event it emerged that ear­li­er that morn­ing in the room in Jakarta the woman had been told of the pur­chased tick­et back to Singapore. Possibly that had been the prompt.

Geylang Serai, Singapore 2011–20

~

Australian by birth and Montenegrin ori­gin, Pavle Radonic’s eight years liv­ing and writ­ing in SE Asia has pro­vid­ed unex­pect­ed stim­u­lus. Previous work has appeared in a range of lit­er­ary jour­nals and mag­a­zines, includ­ing Ambit, Big Bridge, Citron & Antigonish Reviews. A moun­tain­ous blog hold­ing main­ly the Asian writ­ing is here
http://axialmelbourne.blogspot.com/