The Mysterious Alibi is part of a series of stories surrounding the author's experiences on the streets of Alor. Characters are not purely fictional. 2300 words.
the mysterious alibi by Jasmine Low
fiction based on hearsay‘So long as you remain mysterious, keep your lips sealed and keep your eyes peering alluringly from the boughs of your lashes,’ Herman barks, louder than he normally does in an overt accent. Staring at her, he softens his tongue and quietly whispers, ‘I get for you, you osso get, o’ cay sayang? Just smile and say dunno if you dunno o’ cay? You know osso say dunno cay? Now go, be good ge ge. Find mat salleh ham-some, you osso easy lah,’.
Kissie peers alluring at the Him and with her mouth slightly ajar asks the imperial question, ‘Hi, handsome…you single? You enjoys your stay in Kay Ell? My name Kissie Kissie. Yours?’
The Him stares with his thin upper lip unbroken, laced with yesterday’s traces of a brown shade overshadowing the lip, now letting out a guffaw.
‘Hiya….Kissie Kissie. How ya doin, gurrl? So what’s a gorgeous gurrl like ya doin teasin handsome men like me, eh?!’ The Him snorts and as though carefully choreographed, lands a slap of His large pink hands on Kissie’s $6,500 collagen-implanted buttocks.
Running through Kissie’s mind was the Him’s perfectly manicured lawns, just like the ones she’d seen in last week’s episode of Desperate Housewives on the hotel pay TV while that Him was handling her buttocks and breasts in clockwork motions. She saw the Him’s wife, dressed in lovely garments like the ones featured in last month’s collection on page 5 of Her World. And of course, the delicious gardener who kept the Him’s gardens trimmed perfect and the Him’s wife’s Brazilian trimmed to the rim.
Kissie’s reveries are abruptly interrupted by the seemingly immaculate foreigner patting her behind repeatedly, ‘You ladyboy? Ladyboy, you like to sing? You like a drink?’ Leaning over to the rest of his colleagues seated around him around pink tablecloths at Restoran Fatty Tuck, the Him motions for his mates to make a space for Kissie to join their table of eight, hoping that perhaps she might invite Him home for a taste of Asian hospitality.
b
‘Ah, tonight’s special, Sir. Our Fatty frog legs stir-fried with garlic and ginger. I highly recommend this to all visiting tourists, especially the French. They adore it! It’s also excellent for keeping a man’s heart strong! Ahhhh…’ winks the restaurateur cheekily while motioning to his waiter to pull out one of the caged amphibians on display.
Also our chilli lala – some kind of mussel. Cooked the way my grandma used to. Spicy but absolutely delicious. How’s that to start with? O’ cay?
‘Ummm… yes. Thank you. I’d like just a Pineapple Fried Rice. For one, please. And a Tiger beer in a mug. No peanuts, I’m allergic to nuts,’ the mysterious bearded man requests. Herman sensed this man secretly lived life on the edge. But he always remained in control. He seems the Tom-type, Herman thought.
b
Kissie had never seen such painful marks on skin. Wrapped like a band around His right arm were augmented circle rings of singed flesh. Kissie suddenly felt frightened. The red raw pungency intimated that the flesh was still fresh. ‘Never expect so nice man have this type fetish!’ she thought, deflating her usually high sexual appetite.
‘What’s the matter, baby? It didn’t hurt…..,’ The Him snarls, watching Kissie stare at His arm. His fever was getting worse. But it was probably just the heat.
‘Oo..I think it hurt bad. What happened?’ she asks, reaching out her index to touch it.
SLAP!!
The Him withdrew as quickly as he extended his heavy hand, ‘I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry’ he says, reaching out to touch her lip which had slightly parted to reveal a tinge of ruby red. It wasn’t her lipstick.
In shock, Kissie coiled up on a corner of the King-sized mattress and let out a livid cry from under her breath, ‘Don’t you e…v…e…r…! Away! Go Away!’
The Him tried to reach out to caress her hair. But he had lost Kissie. He lost her the moment he made eye contact with her.
b
‘Oh …this is beautiful! I so happy, Tom Tom! I never feel so happy, darling!’ shrieks Cassandra. Turning around to hug Tom, she stares at their reflection in the mirror with the imminent Ubud sunset in the background.
‘Me! Kissie is here. But so far away from my sistahs. Ummm…miss dem! I want them see me wit Tom. He my hero!’ Cassandra whispers, smiling and contently watching her hot humid breath condense.
Cassandra’s ultimate dream is to find a man who would never judge her, love her unconditionally and always open the door for her. And, to win the coveted title of ‘Ms Universe Dream Girl’, which she did six months ago. ‘Impossible dream,’ she and her sisters would lament. The girls in the neighbourhood would conjure up stories of their own personal heroes. This happened at their Monday afternoon ritual at the Three Sistahs Café. Late lunch, story exchange about their weekend ‘catches’ and with replenished pockets, the girls would be off to a polishing at the manicurist or for a new wave at the salon. Sometimes, if one sister had to throw away a bad fish back into the sea, the other girls would chip in for her weekly maintenance. Maintenance was expensive. But it had to be done. Because each one secretly believed in the ‘impossible dream’.
‘Ala….if only de gurls see me like dis now. I so happy happy! Maybe tonight I don’t sleep. After if I wake up, Tom become like the other evil Hims! Eek! Only enjoys me one night. I dun wan! So tired...dun wan…’
‘Darling, are you alright?’ he smiles, grasping her tight from behind.
‘Oh… Tom Tom…’ Cassandra puckers up her lips and places it against his. ‘Just now I feel little sick. Maybe flu. But I so happy! Happeeeee, honey! I am little person in big giant world. Still, you found me!’ she gleamed, teeth showing and rather unlady-like actually. But Tom didn’t mind.
‘I’m happy too, my darling. You’re every woman to me. Now, forget about your past, young lady. They can all say what they want. They will never understand us,’ Tom kisses her gently. ‘You, my sweetheart, will come home with me soon. I know it’s too soon but I knew from the moment we met. We will be amongst the 35% of people in my country with mortgages,’ he grinned, recalling the news report on Channel Ten the other night.
‘Huh? What is 35%? OK, hunnee,’ Cassandra nods nonchalantly as she was really not into politics or the economy.
‘You say is right. My past not matter, ya? Now, about our future… we begin tonight o’ cay?! I oredi call room service and order you Nenas fried rice – your favourites. No nuts…’ she teasers, leading him by the hand towards the Jacuzzi. ‘Darling, please off de lights. My eyes pain. You promise love me? I want my body be special present to you,’ Cassandra unbuckles and lets her white linen drawstrings drop to her ankles. The lovers embrace and lock. Tom rests his hands on her breast and lingers around her waist. She tenses. The moment has arrived for her to share herself with her lover. He loves her. She knows he does. She braves herself. And removes her thongs.
b
Herman prods Kissie’s lifeless body. He left Alor for Ubud the moment he received the phone call. He was her father, her provider, her only family, her lover. He was devastated.
The call came late in the evening. The person on the other line sounded blasé and that, already annoyed Herman.
‘Hallo? Mr. Herman? Selamat soreh. This is Roman Liem, Special Task Polisi Indonesia. I found your number in the deceased’s purse. Are you a relative of a Lim Ka San, 5’ 9” with shoulder length black hair, fair skin with a tattoo of a tiger on his breasts? Dia tu bapok, yah?’
‘Deceased? What?! How?! Tattoo. Yes, I know her. She has no relatives. No, not bapok. She is a transsexual,’ Herman replied, confused.
‘Her? Kissie? Enggak, nooo, Lim Ka San. Do you know Lim Ka San? On passport, date of birth is 25th February 1974,’ the caller rattles on.
Herman stiffened and blurted out an affirmative ‘yes’.
‘Well then, Mr. Herman, we need you to identify the body. When can we expect you?’
In a few hours, he would be on a flight to Bali to claim the body of his lover. Still in a daze as the airplane taxied down the runway, Herman started to recall the things Kissie had told him about her new lover. Herman had not paid much attention as he had assumed Tom was just another client. Just that this time, Kissie appeared to really like him.
After every rendezvous at city hotels around town, Kissie would come home and describe to Herman minute details of their bedroom secrets – hers and Tom’s. It seemed Tom was a gentle six-footer. An ex-sportsman, Tom was recently divorced and had been living in Kuala Lumpur for almost a decade. As much as Herman cringed at every detail, the more Kissie revealed, the less of a threat Tom became. Herman was entrapped with so much knowledge about the two lovers that in his reveries, he was the trois in a-ménage. So when Tom asked Kissie to go away with him for a week at one of the finest resorts in Bali, how could Herman say no? Tom seemed to genuinely like her. Funnily enough, despite knowing so much about Tom, Herman had never met him. He usually doesn’t meet them.
Herman and Kissie shared an unusual relationship. One which non of their friends would tolerate nor understand. How can you let your girl flirt with other men?! Herman’s friends would mock him. And hers would tease Your man? Huh! How come he let you play play with all the Hims ah? But they didn’t understand. It was a knowing. That’s what Herman called it. Just a knowing. Kissie felt the knowing too when she first set eyes on Herman’s cheeks - pink from his recent London stint as a cook at the restaurant on Piccadilly Circus.
They both knew that their time together was not possible in this lifetime. What’s possible is to establish their soul mate status in this lifetime and guide each other towards the next for their hiatus.
It was odd having to watch Kissie dress that morning. Pressed shirt neatly tucked into her pants with her hair lowered in a pony tail and no makeup. Handsome.
Herman sat there looking for awhile, hiding behind his newspaper, sipping his kopi-o. Unaware, he toggled his hairy mole vigorously, believing that each stroke ensured a sure-win for his four-digit punt. He remembers Kissie bolting towards him, smacking his hand from his distinctly poised mole at the centre of his chin before grabbing her handbag and rushing out the door. This was the man he truly loved but had set free. Kissie is free. And on her way to getting her first passport!
b
‘Suspected causes of death: meningococcal septicaemia and…’ the wiry man says matter-of-factly while pulling up the stained white sheet covering her corpse, abruptly interrupted by a bawling Herman.
She lay there taut, unyielding with maroonish bruise marks around her neck. Her $12,000 breasts stood still. Perfectly carved.
Herman had fully supported Kissie’s full transformation and sat through every mood swing, every hormone imbalance. Some days he would regret his investment. Some days he would revel in it. She remained as fine in death.
‘Kissie!!!!! Kissie!!!!!’ Herman weeps. He remains silent for awhile. The silence didn’t affect the Coroner. The cadaver did.
‘What is that? Meningo-what? Some kind of cancer?’ Herman vaguely queries, staring at Kissie’s lifeless visage. He picks up fragments of the Coroner’s drone.
‘…and suicide,’ the Coroner continues, intentionally lowering his voice to avoid being heard by a distraught Herman. There were more tests to be done anyway.
‘It’s a bacterial infection, Mr. Herman. An inflammation of tissues that cover brain and spinal cord. Symptoms: high fever, headache, stiff neck, flu-like symptoms, dislike of bright lights and nausea. In the deceased’s case, his brain just swelled so fast so quick it cut off all blood to his brain so there was no hope,’ explains the Coroner.
‘She. But how did she contract it?’ Herman asks, stressing on Kissie’s gender. How annoying it is when people do not acknowledge Kissie for who she is. Just because her ID renounces her gender.
‘We carry the bacteria at the back of our nose and throat without ever realising it. In some people, the bacteria penetrate the body’s immune defenses and passes through the tissue lining into the blood stream. Once in the blood, meningococcal meningitis or septicemia. There’s a possibility he was already dying of meningococcal septicemia…’
‘Tom! What happened to Tom?! Where is he?’ cries Herman, once again interrupting the Coroner. ‘What happened to the guy who was with her? Tom. Was he in the room too?’
‘You must understand, the bacteria cannot survive for long in the air. He.. uhm, she must have contracted meningitis by being very close to someone. It’s just a pity because it is a treatable disease if identified early. But it doesn’t matter anyway.’
‘How dare you?! It does matter!’ retorted an angry Herman.
‘He, uhm…Kissie was found sprawled naked in bed. No guy. He left. A local checked him in - we’re still questioning him. We suspect he was most likely paid by the unidentified alibi. Tom, you say?
She overdosed, Mr. Herman. Sleeping pills. We were all taken aback. We suspect she didn’t even know she was dying. It’s just a pity. So young, so beautiful this Kissie. There’s a note addressed to you,’ the wiry man’s voice echoes her name as he slowly draws the covers over her face. The Coroner slides the plump white note into Herman’s hands.
The knowing, Herman thought to himself. She knew. Now, at last, he could be free.
To be continued... the author welcomes comments and feedback.
-ENDS-
All works are unpublished but will soon be. Copyright Aug 2005 Jasmine LowCopyright 2004-07. Send comments and feedback to girl_gungho@yahoo.com