One of my friends’ (friend #2) favourite night spots is a club called CJ’s. It’s a fun place.
It’s one of several bars in Jakarta where old, white, guys go when they’re looking for small, young, Indonesian, girlfriends. I walk in and even the security guards aren’t quite sure why I’m there. The men and I take note of each other (I’m so white I glow in the dark), but there is an unspoken understanding that they’re not there for me, and I’m not there for them. I drink. I dance. I let loose. I’d get more attention in a gay bar; at least there they’d appreciate my really pretty shoes. Being ignored can be liberating. It can also drive you to talk to a Wilson volleyball with a finger-painted face on it.
‘Sex and the City’s Charlotte York once said that it takes half the length of a relationship, plus two weeks, to get over a breakup. My four month affair with Norway ended two and a half months ago. I wouldn’t say I’m over it, but I’m over being ignored and sending out ‘don’t touch me’ vibes. I was sitting at Starbucks watching the Swiss embassy boys strut in and out of Fitness First when I became very aware that I needed attention, and my mate’s wedding in Singapore that weekend would be a good place to start.
As far as wedding goes it hit all the marks. The venue was unique, the food was actually palatable, and the old ladies cried at all the appropriate moments. In six layers of French silk, adorned with 100 year-old Italian lace, the bride was beautiful (in a fluffy way). They kept it short and sweet. The speeches were out of the way early and we all got down to the very important ceremonial act of drinking (a lot). The bride is half Columbian, so it was less chicken dance and more Samba when I stepped on the dance floor, where I happened upon Cute Blonde Guy.
The previous night the groom had non-too-subtly thrown me at his short though, good looking and amusing friend, Johnny. He was fun to chat too, but with the CJ’s understanding in place (few men go for girls several inches taller than them) we got drunk together and gave one another crap until Johnny went home with Snow White The Dwarf. I’d all but made my piece with the fact that the only attention I was getting that weekend was when Dad said I looked pretty in my dress, then Cute Blonde Guy joined the Salsa. He was younger than my usual type, 22/23 I surmised (and the female parental unit agreed) and that was enough to make me distance myself from his advances… but at 6’2”, with a great body and the subtle easy confidence that leaves a girl feeling chosen, not drooled on, my resistance was dissolving steadily. Champagne is known for having that kind of corrosive effect on me.
We danced most of the night (in between champagne breaks) and Cute Blonde Guy didn’t ‘grind’ against me (ewe) once. How had I not seen him earlier? He was smart, articulate, didn’t need to start a conversation with “so what do you do for a living?” and I was laughing for the first time in a long time. I could also feel the cliff that was his lat flex under palm, but I’m far too sophisticated to be affected by that.
Cute Blonde Guy played national level water-polo. By midnight I’d decided if he could kiss, I was officially going to become his stalker. We already had in-jokes and a dance move that was as good as a secret hand shake. What more could a girl want?
I was in the middle of a conversation with a 28 year-old with a goatee and the unfulfilled dream of being a journalist, when Cute Blonde Guy came up and draped a hand around my waist. “There you are.”
“Hey, we’re all going to Clarke Quay, you coming with or do you have an early flight?”
Cute Blonde Guy scoped the crowd looking for whom ever it was he would need to confer with before giving his answer. It was at this point that the very drunk bride, now in a gold sequined micro-mini-dress, stumbled up and put an arm around each of us.
“I’m so glad you guys are having fun together, I was so worried you’d both be all alone not knowing anyone,” she slurred.
The Golden Bride took Cute Blonde Guy’s face between her hands and crooned at me over her shoulder, “Isn’t he gorgeous? Can you imagine the chicks he’s going to pull?”
An odd thing to say, surely.
“I mean look at him, where were guys like that when I was in high school? Can you believe he’s only 15?” Turning back to him she spluttered, “You have to come out with us, don’t worry, you’ll totally get in.”
For the first time in my life I was speechless.
I’d gone looking for a MAN and instead gotten stuck on a boy barely off the bottle.
“Are you really 15?” I managed to say, still not having blinked since The Golden Bride’s declaration.
“Yeah, why?” he said and then he scooted off to ask his mum (!!) if he could come out with us.
I don’t know what had shocked me more, that he was fifteen or that he was fifteen and didn’t think the 25 year-old woman he’d been working on would find that an issue of contention.
Cute Blonde Guy’s mum had given him a firm “No” (at least someone had a firm grip on reality), and two hours later I found myself playing wingman to the groom’s sister. We were in an area I can only describe as Asia’s answer to Surfer’s Paradise. Clad in a silver dress which had a hem line that met the neck line somewhere near her belly button, the sister was on a mission, and as the only other single girl at the wedding, that apparently meant I was too.
By two a.m. my little piggies were trying to go “wee, wee, wee,” all the way home through the peep toe of my high heels. I didn’t feel like dancing, I felt old… I was old and a paedophile.
The next day I was paying for the new ‘Vanity Fair’ at the airport newsagent when I looked over at the ‘Classic Reads’ rack and spied a copy of ‘Lolita’.
“I’ll take this too, please.”
