Jalan Jalan by Mike Stoner Page A

tempo that speeds up and slows down and echoes in my head. I am dancing and dancing and smiling at Naomi and anyone who dances near. Every now and then Naomi asks me if I want to leave, but I say no. Kim, Jussy and Marty have already left. I don’t want to. The dancing is the most important thing; I don’t want it to stop, the drug does exactly what it is designed to do. I am the dancing brain-dead. But then I see her, sitting there, in the place where moving lights meet darkness, and I think she smiles at me, and her eyes are so large and dark and her long, thick hair falls over her shoulders and her lips part so slightly with her smile, that I have to sit near her, just two empty seats away. I do not talk. I just look at her profile and I am hooked.
    â€˜She’s lovely. Looks Indian.’ Julie has appeared from some dark part of the club and sits on my other side. She puts her mouth almost over my ear so I can hear. ‘Talk to her.’
    â€˜What do I say?’
    â€˜Ask her if she’s a prostitute.’
    I look at Julie and she twitches her eyebrow and then the corner of her lip and then nods. ‘Go on.’
    â€˜Of course she’s not a prostitute.’ Prostitutes are not like her. Prostitutes are…I don’t know what they are, but she certainly isn’t one.
    â€˜Just say hi. She probably doesn’t speak English anyway. Then ask her.’
    As Julie finishes saying this, the girl looks at me briefly and then back to the dance floor with that almost indiscernible smile; Mona Lisa on the pull.
    I move across two seats without any thought of rejection or worry or any sign of Old Me whatsoever and say, ‘Hi.’
    â€˜Hello,’ she says.
    â€˜Can I get you a drink?’
    â€˜No. Thank you. I am Eka.’ She offers her hand and I take it. It feels like a mix of satin and sand; hard work softened with moisturiser.
    â€˜Are we leaving?’ Naomi has left the dance floor and is now leaning across Julie and shouting in my ear, her eyes on Eka. ‘Early rise tomorrow.’
    â€˜No. I’m staying. You go. I’ll meet you at the bus in the morning.’
    â€˜Oh. Fine.’ Fine, short and curt; the word that hides so many meanings. But I’m not going to worry about the meaning of that one. Naomi fades into the darkness like a body sinking in a lake.
    Julie is laughing.
    â€˜Nice one. You just don’t care, do you? Always thought she was a stuck-up cow anyway,’ she says. ‘Ask prozzie how much,’ a whisper-shout with a light thump to my arm and then she swirls her way back onto the dance floor.
    â€˜Your girlfriend?’ asks Eka.
    â€˜Just a friend.’
    â€˜You want to leave?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Come. We go.’
    â€˜Wait. Stay there.’ I pause. I look at her. ‘Can I ask you something?’
    â€˜Please?’
    â€˜Are you a prostitute?’
    Her hand lights up in the beam of a random spinning disco light as it cuts through the air. The sting of the slap is intense.
    â€˜Sorry. It was a stupid question.’ I curse Julie and look back to the dance floor where she is punching one hand and then the other into the air. The slap tingles down my cheek. ‘Very stupid.’
    â€˜You are very stupid. Very rude.’ She pouts for a second then her face relaxes again. ‘But OK. You say sorry very quick and many prostitutes here. But please do not ask again or I go home. You make me angry, but you are drunk, so I forgive you one time.’
    I sit in silence next to her, savouring each little pinprick feeling on my face that her hand created. I also feel her eyes studying me, creating their own little prickling sensation.
    â€˜You say stupid things, but I think you look like nice man.’ She stands up. ‘Come. Let’s go.’
    I’m too surprised to say anything, so instead just follow her through the near-darkness and out into the humid night where boys sell