LONTAR issue #2 (14 page)

Only the Achan could have arranged it so symmetrically: twelve brown angels trooped in, sexy as Soi Cowboy on a Friday night, smiling as only Thai girls know how. Kline came up behind her and laid that great paw on her shoulder, which was as light as a baby's foot. She held it for a moment, then, amidst a great chorus of cat-calls, whoops, yells, whistles, laughs and giggles, led him out of the kitchen to the master bedroom.
Her
master bedroom.

When she had Kline naked on his back and started to administer his reward she realized that at this moment in her own apartment, you had death and triumph side by side in a state of mutual eclipse, just like the teachings foretold. She massaged Kline's vast thighs with aromatic oil and sent compassionate messages to all those poor Thai boys whom she had liberated from their Third World torment, including the one she personally shot; and to those horny white boys who could not imagine the real reason why they had an appointment with Asian flesh this night. With the giant lying peacefully beside her—content, he said, just to be there after the fight—she gradually ceased to massage, for the Achan was lifting the veil an inch or two more. She saw the spirits of the dead Thais making a bee-line for local wombs in which to be reborn. She also saw why this particular band of cops had been sent to help her out: former Bangkok gangsters to a man. She gasped, for that sly Achan Po was showing her that this had been going on for quite some time: the Thais would mostly grow up to be New York cops, as they had so often before, whilst her brave white boys would soon be on their way back East, once their stint in Caucasian bodies was through. Kline asked what she was thinking.
 

"Alien thoughts," she said.

"Like what?"

After a moment's hesitation, she told him. He didn't seem as surprised as she had expected. "So what was I last time around?" he said.

"My brother," she murmured, staring at one of the bullet holes in the door in a kind of trance, "and the cutest dwarf in Thailand."

MATH
PAPER
PRESS
, an imprint of
BooksActually
, is an independent publisher of poetry, new wave novellas, full-length novels, short story collections, and essays. Its eclectic range of literary and visual works also includes photography collections, memoirs, graphic novels and young adult fiction. Math Paper Press also distributes books by selected small presses.

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