another teaser for you SLM ( but also because i saw someone use the term "attention whore" in the Gallery whereas i thought i had invented the term ).
also because i need to psyche myself up to go out tonight. i have been in HK for the last mth and very well behaved and will be travelling for maybe the next 2 mths.
Alan is barefoot, and wears running shorts and a T-shirt. I’m taken to meet him by Olive, a spectacularly sexy 28-year-old Filipina who has performed the door duties. She’s small, barely up to my chest, and a keen smiler. The beam from her teeth coordinates nicely with her dark slender arms and white singlet. She covers the short distance between door and lounge with catwalk hips. She hasn’t overdressed either. Alan introduces himself while Olive retreats to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
“Guess what my views are on the war in Iraq?”
It comes just after the handshakes and hellos. I glance at the split-level apartment and the acres of glass-topped coffee table, the full-size billiard table, the imperial quality of the lounge leather. We’ve only been going five minutes and Alan has asked the first question. I’m nervous. If he’s a George W. Bush man things could get ugly before we’ve even hit the dinner table. I roll the dice. It’s the weekend’s first gamble.
“Pro?” I say, wincing.
“No!” he says, with a burst of passion. “I’m totally against the invasion of Iraq.” I fall over myself to agree with him, and we spend five happy minutes kicking the shit out of the neo-cons and the Christian Right. It feels better doing it under a chandelier.
“Once upon a time one of my friends described me as so right-wing I was to the right of Genghis Khan … whereas these days, bizarrely, my views seem to have shifted.”
We make our way to a dining table crowned with prawn salad and pasta. Conversation is relaxed and easy and refreshingly free of small talk. Until now I’ve only known “email Alan”, a man whose bold, staccato replies weave through the body of my messages and who signs off with: “I don’t have an attitude problem, you have a perception problem.” Real-life Alan is friendlier and more expansive. By the end of dinner we’ve discussed Iraq, Roe v Wade, gun control and the day he won HK$20 million. I’m well enough at ease to have eaten 11 prawns to his two.
The table is cleared by another beautiful, twenty-something Filipina who Alan introduces as Ruby. “Ruby’s younger – very sweet but maybe not so bright. Olive is smart, extremely witty and funny, but Olive is an attention whore. I sometimes call her the world’s biggest bullshitter. Whereas Ruby would never tell a lie, unless she’s being corrupted by Olive.”
He invites the girls, whom he calls “The Girls”, to share fruit salad with us. But they are happy in the lounge room, drinking wine and listening to a Spanish pop song – “Gasolina” by Daddy Yankee – on repeat. At some point it becomes clear Alan’s going out with both of them.
Olive is gone a couple of mths ago --- she used to jokingly ask would i marry her and my response was "do you think i am insane" so she is now nagging some other guy to marry her..
Ruby is in her province for another 36 hrs before we leave for Sydney.
Ruby pointed out the bit about "Whereas Ruby would never tell a lie" was not even close to true.