Salty (3 page)

“Always first time.”

…

She felt it first—the thump, the vibration under her feet. It felt like the floor in their house when Turk was in his studio playing the bass. She turned as she heard the sounds of heavy chains rattling and chiming to see four large elephants being led toward the clearing. A group of mahouts, scrawny Thai men wearing vibrant blue cotton shirts with matching pants cut off at the calves—looking like some bizarre surgical team—were leading the elephants along. Sheila saw the beautiful animals—when you were up close to them, they really were bigger and more amazing than you could ever imagine—and immediately felt conflicted. Large metal shackles kept the elephants hooked together as they shuffled forward like a prison
chain gang. The driver sensed her distress, or maybe he was just used to animal lovers from the West pitching a fit when they saw the elephants chained together like that.

“No problems, miss. They take the chains off.”

“Why do they have them on?”

The driver looked at her like she was an idiot.

“So they don't run away.”

It never occurred to her that an elephant might do something like that. Where would an elephant run?

The mahouts began whistling and shouting, tapping the elephant's legs with sticks, bringing the coffle to a halt. Sheila was relieved to see them take the chains off as several of the mahouts, using the ears for leverage, pulled themselves up to the top of the animals. They straddled the elephants' heads, their legs dangling just behind the giant flapping ears, and expertly guided them into a line, steering by rubbing their legs against the elephants' necks and pulling on their massive ears with sticks.

Sheila had been so awed by the size of the animals and so distracted by the chains around their ankles that she hadn't noticed what was tied to the elephants' backs. They looked like seats from an old school bus, cushioned by some blankets and stabilized by a couple of planks, roped tightly around the animals. She turned to the driver.

“We ride up there?”

He grinned.

“Don't fall. Long way down.”

There was more whistling and shouts from the mahouts as Sheila and the other tourists were led up a wooden walkway and past a kiosk selling film, drinking water, booklets about the animals, and dozens of pachyderm-themed T-shirts
that the couple from Seattle deemed a “ripoff.” A well-worn rope stretched out to keep the paying customers from stepping off the edge and dropping ten or twelve feet into piles of elephant dung below. It was here, raised off the ground, that they boarded the bench on the elephant's back. There was no climbing up the trunk, no holding on to the ears; it was all about comfort and safety. Like a ride at Disneyland.

…

Sheila had been on the elephant only a minute or two when she realized that, as far as transportation goes, this was easily the most uncomfortable ride she'd ever taken. Perched on a hard bench a good fifteen feet off the ground, she was thrown from one side to the other, left, right, forward, and back, as the animal strolled down the jungle trail. She had to hold on tight and shift her weight as counterbalance to the peculiar force whipping her around. At one point, as her bench pitched violently forward, she thought she might fall, and let out a startled squeak. The mahout turned to check on her. She waved him off.

“I'm okay. I'm fine. Just getting used to it.”

The mahout smiled to reveal teeth stained a vibrant red. He used the back of his hand to wipe crimson drops of spittle off the side of his mouth. Sheila was taken aback. It looked like he'd been smacked in the mouth and was bleeding, but then she saw him dip his hand in his pocket and pull out a betel nut. He grinned as he popped it into his mouth. He chewed vigorously for a few minutes and then let a long stream of bright red saliva fly off into the forest like some kind of wayward arterial spurt.

A sweet breeze, heavy with the scent of rain, came off the ocean and rattled the palms. It felt good, cooling her skin as the sun continued to beat down. Despite the constant lurching, or maybe because of it, she began to feel sleepy. Like she was being rocked to sleep by the heat and the slow-motion rhythm of the elephant's gait. Every now and then she'd hear one of the other elephants trumpet or honk and she'd look behind at the other couples. They seemed to be enjoying the gut-churning ride as much as she was.

They meandered like this for about an hour—the mahout spewing cherry-colored drool into the woods, Sheila clinging to the seat with white knuckles, and the elephant stopping to grab morning glory vines with her trunk, rip them out of the ground, and stuff them into her mouth with a big wet crunch.

Sheila thought she might be dreaming, might've dozed off for a second, but all of a sudden she was awake and there were men shouting. Men pointing serious-looking guns, like the rebels and insurgents you see on the news. They were shouting in Thai at the mahouts.

They wanted her to get off the elephant.

I want to rape you.”

At first Turk wasn't sure what she'd said. He was taken aback, startled by her aggressiveness. The door to his cabin wasn't even closed when she grabbed him, pressed him against the wall, and whispered those words in her breathy Swiss-German accent.

“What?”

“I want to rape you. Right now.”

She pressed her lips against his and reached down for his crotch. It was then that he understood that English was not her first language.

“‘Fuck.'”

She stopped and looked up at him, batting her blue eyes like she'd done something wrong.

“I'm sorry?”

“You want to fuck me. That's the word you should use. ‘Rape' is not the word for what you want to do.”

“Yes. Okay. Thank you. I want to fuck you. Right now.”

Turk pushed her away, gently.

“Honestly, I'd love to. But I can't. I'm married.”

She didn't look like she believed him.

“But you are famous for screwing with girls.”

Turk shrugged. It was true. He was famous for screwing girls.

“That was before.”

He walked over to the mini-fridge and pulled out a can of beer. He offered it to her, but she shook her head.

“You don't like me?”

Turk looked at her—the lean young body, the Swiss Miss pigtails, the pale and perky breasts, the big blue eyes—and popped open the beer. Of course he liked her; what's not to like? He knew the drill. She wasn't going to go away until she got something from him. A story, a stain, an experience, some kind of souvenir.

“I don't want to cheat on my wife.”

“I won't tell.”

Turk flashed on the years of counseling, session after session where he slowly came to realize that his addiction sprang from a deep feeling of inadequacy that had haunted him from childhood. Having sex with her, giving in to his promiscuous nature, would only open up those feelings again. He had worked hard, he had struggled, but he eventually overcame the urge to fuck every moving thing in his vicinity. He wasn't going to backslide now. He looked at her and shook his head.

“That's not it. I promised myself I wouldn't. And I'm not going to.”

He wasn't going to go into all the gory details of his newfound sexual sobriety. She put her lips in a pout and walked toward him, unwrapping her sarong to reveal a thong bikini bottom. She stroked her bare nipples for a moment and then turned her attention to his crotch.

“Can I see it?”

“What?”

“I read in a magazine that you have a very big cock.”

Turk shook his head.

“I'm not going to show you my cock.”

He knew that once it was out, she would need to touch it, and once she touched it his willpower would crumble. She must've sensed that, too, or maybe it's just common knowledge. Once that thing sees the light of day … well, we all know that the rest is inevitable.

“Please?”

“Sorry.”

She gave him her sexiest look.

“I will be very, very nice to it.”

“No.”

“Just a look? I won't touch it. I promise.”

Turk shook his head, he was about to say something to make her feel better, but then he saw her expression change.

“Schiesse!”

And with that she turned and stomped out of the cabin.

Turk heaved a sigh of relief and flopped down on the sofa. He'd been tense. They didn't understand, did they? They didn't know how hard it was to say no. When something was so ripe and ready, so juicy and sweet, it took superhuman rock star strength to say no. For Turk it was hell. Being monogamous was the hardest thing he'd ever tried to do in his life. It'd have been easier to do a triathlon, or climb Mount Everest while figuring out his income taxes. For him, monogamy was a slow and brutal torture, a battle to the death between good and evil for control of his soul. The only good thing about it was that now he could look at himself in the
mirror and not think that he was a bad person, a pig, a drunk, a waste, a loser, a fucking asshole. Now he felt good about himself. He might still drink too much, he might not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but at least he didn't cheat on his wife. It was something.

…

Turk turned and caught his reflection in the mirror. He raised the beer in a little salute to himself and his all-around monogamous goodness. He was proud, and rightly so. He'd been tempted by a very sexy half-naked Swiss-German teenager who wanted to rape him, and survived. Turk considered jacking off as a kind of reward for his display of willpower—while the image of her standing naked and pleading was still fresh in his mind—but the beer and the heat got to him and he slowly faded into a nap.

The hood smelled like dried shrimp. Briny, fishy, and hot. It was loose at the bottom—otherwise she might've suffocated—but it was tight at the top and she could feel the equatorial sun beating on her forehead through the coarse, rank fabric. As Sheila struggled to breathe through the thick cloth, she felt her arms and legs attacked by a ravenous swarm of bloodsucking insects. Her hands were bound behind her and she was powerless to stop the mosquitoes' feeding frenzy. She had tried flapping her arms and kicking her legs to shake the hungry bugs off her flesh, but every time she did she received a sharp poke in the ribs from the barrel of a gun. It was safer, she realized, to let the bugs eat.

It was only when they started moving that she felt the insects stop. They were in a small boat; she could hear the sound of outboard motors and water slapping against the hull. For a while she'd heard the outraged shouts and complaints of the couple from Seattle. They made belligerent demands and grew increasingly irate, threatening everything from lawsuits to a full-scale invasion by the United States Marines to the nuclear annihilation of all of Southeast Asia. Then she'd
heard the distinct sound of a blunt object cracking skull. The kidnappers, skinny brown people without access to expensive legal counsel or nuclear launch codes, apparently didn't appreciate being harangued by the overfed, white, and privileged.

Sheila didn't know how long they'd been on the water. Despite her fear, the heat and lack of air had caused her to swoon. She didn't know if she'd been asleep or just kind of out of it, but she'd lost track of time. They could've been traveling for twenty minutes or two days, she couldn't tell. She felt the boats slowing, the men chattering to each other in Thai, and then someone removed the hood from her head. Her first reaction was to gasp and suck in air like she'd been holding her breath underwater for an hour. Then she looked around.

She was riding in a long thin boat—like a strange canoe with a V-8 engine hooked to the back. Made from wood that looked like teak, the boat was barely wide enough for one person, yet long enough to accommodate herself, the two couples, and a half-dozen kidnappers sitting single file. She saw that one of the kidnappers, a young man who looked to be about twenty-two, was smiling at her with a disturbingly random-looking row of teeth in his mouth, a few large incisors littering a pocked, dark gumline. Even though Sheila's father had been a dentist and she found rotting gums and unruly teeth repulsive, she smiled back. She didn't want them to put the hood back over her head.

The kidnapper was wearing Army-issue fatigues and was cradling some kind of scary-looking machine gun casually in his lap. When he crossed his legs, Sheila saw that he was wearing Nike brand flip-flops.

…

Sheila wondered where her sunglasses were. They were Chanel and expensive. She didn't want to lose them. She'd expected to be blinded by the light, but they were in some kind of swamp, the boat gliding under a canopy of mangled trees, the roots rising up from the water in a riot of skeletal fingers, branches twisting out like tortured ligaments, the dappled gloom sporadically punctuated by shafts of searing tropical sun. The water smelled brackish, like dead shrimp, like the hood that had been over her head. But the swamp was alive; snakes slithered on branches, fish jumped in the water, hundreds of birds honked and hooted all around them, and, as the boat slowed even more, a dense cloud of bloodsucking insects descended like a fog.

His assistant, a handsome young Thai with a name so long and convoluted that the Americans at the embassy just called him “Roy,” had brought in a durian for Ben to try. It was large as a pineapple, brown, and covered in hard spikes like some kind of alien football. Just looking at it you wouldn't want to eat it. Smelling it you definitely didn't want to eat it. In fact, you didn't want it in your office. Now he understood why it wasn't allowed on public buses and why shops kept it piled on the street; even the locals didn't want the stinky fruit brought inside. Ben tried to think of what it smelled like. The only memory that came close was the time his Siamese cat—named “Nomo” after his favorite baseball player—got run over by a car and he'd sadly bagged her body in a plastic bag and dropped it in the trash can. Five long hot summer days later and the smell coming out of the can was unbelievable: a fetid, overripe, and rotting carcass, it made you gag to go near, as if the boils of hell had been lanced and were oozing into the atmosphere. That's what the smell of durian reminded him of, only sweeter.