Ties That Bite

Jansen Lim

Description

In this collection of eight loosely connected short stories, Jansen Lim explores the gamut of human condition from love and loss to karma and insecurity: a woman whose deep-seated love for canines threatens to rupture her relationship with her dog-averse, cantankerous beau; a corporate executive in his fifties who loses his job and finds it challenging to secure employment; a sarong party girl who'd rather settle for less than excise her objects of desire; a casual fling between two men which devolves into a game of unexpected consequence. Inspired by real-life events and anecdotes, these stories allow the reader to burrow into their layers, honing each instance of exploit, affection and confrontation to a precise pitch.

Sujets

• Short story

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528919821
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Ties That Bite
Jansen Lim
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-07-31
The Ties That Bite About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgments Temptation Redundancy Fear Karma Light Deceit Yearning Consolation
About the Author
Jansen Lim is a writer, lecturer and videographer, and has lived and worked as a project manager in various countries including Italy, Japan, United States, Canada and Australia. His feature articles have appeared in Frequent Traveller, Marketing, Designare, Anima and The Straits Times . He currently teaches communication and humanity and lives in Singapore.
Dedication
For my loved ones…you know who you are.
Copyright Information ©
Jansen Lim (2020)
The right of Jansen Lim to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788789431 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528919821 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgments
This novel wouldn’t have seen the light of day had it not been for the guiding forces of my literary life – Ryan Reuben, Liana Garcellano, Renee Stahlmann, Terrie Gutierrez, Sam Lam, Eunice Wong and Andy Chen KC. They have each invested time and effort in getting my work published while allowing me ample room to forge my own opinion, style and creative output.
I would also like to thank Austin Macauley Publishers for their faith in my work, helping to shape this book into what it is.
Temptation
The late morning sun bounces off cars parked by the side of the swimming complex, the pool’s bouquet, an amalgam of chlorine and oxidiser, is heavy in the air, and Moaz enters his favourite chill-out haunt, regarded as a celebrity with many an admiring eye trailing him as he ambles from the self-administered ticketing machine to the changing room. He’s used to such attention betrothed to his presence, certainly more welcome than the ceaseless tumult of traffic outside, replaced in a flash by lush Serayas towering into the sky and the sun dissolving into images of glistening water as he steps inside the compound. He embraces the equanimity as if ready to suss out the inscrutable machinations of life.
In the changing room, almost empty save Moaz and another man with an oiled helmet of mostly white hair and drooping eye bags, skin all craggily wrinkled, probably in his seventies, there’s a faint background murmur: the humming of wall-mounted fans in motion, water dripping slowly from a leaky faucet. Fug has taken possession of every corner while sunlight catching dust suspended in the air invades the rectangular room, flanked on one side by toilet cubicles and the other door less shower stalls.
The old man glances at Moaz and then continues to pack his belongings – trunks, towel, several bottles of bath gel and shampoo used up in varying degrees and a pair of strikingly faded shoes – into his bag, his face marked with the boredom of a retired elderly. He seems to be having difficulty zipping his carry-on, obviously stretched to the limit with one too many items. The occasional fidget of his hands, a hunched posture, and several pauses in his reflexes seem to communicate something about the kind of life this person must have led, Moaz muses. He reckons the old man is probably married to a woman who must have been making all the major decisions on his behalf so much so he lacks even the panache to snuff the living daylights out of an insect, and that he may have been pandering slavishly to a boss whose every command threatens him to further disappear into the rabbit hole of his diffidence. I certainly don’t wish to end up insecure and frail like him at that age, Moaz reminds himself.
A tap on his shoulder from behind startles him. Turning around, he finds Pek Win flashing a mischievous grin, his lean body compacted in a pair of tight-fitting jeans and an equally tight-fitting blue T-shirt that says Don’t Stare At My Shoes , reverberating with the delight of seeing the person he covets.
It’s no secret that Pek, as he’s often called by people who know him, has been drooling over Moaz in the gym where both, on the grounds of their work schedules, happen to work out on the same days around the same time. That he would often eye Moaz when the latter is doing his bench presses, watching his chest rise and fall, feeling his acme of strength, or that he would park himself as near to Moaz’s locker as possible merely to catch a glimpse of what he considers as beauty incarnate is an open testament to his desire for him under the glare of the gym-going public.
However, the attraction is strictly one-way. Moaz doesn’t even fancy him. For sure, they’ve never hung out together on a friendly casual basis. In Moaz’s mind, Pek gets a ‘5’ on his food chain which depicts one’s standing in the attraction scale. ‘1’ would mean crème de la crème and ‘10’ either commit suicide or turn straight. To be fair, Pek wouldn’t exactly be too far down on anyone’s food chain given his genuinely uplifting smile and his pair of biceps with a heartbeat of their own. What’s more, he’s only thirty years old, five years younger than Moaz; after all, youth has always been a prized asset come gay judgement day. Still, Moaz has been largely dismissive of Pek, sometimes even bordering on contempt.
“Good to see you here.” Pek’s chirpy greeting slices through the quiet in the room.
Instead of greeting him back, Moaz simply stares at the print on Pek’s T-shirt followed by his footwear which happens to be a pair of sandals rather than shoes, something that’s incongruous with the context of the print that he’d just read.
“Gotcha!” Pek chuckles. “Every time I put this shirt on and when people see it, they are bound to look at my shoes for some strange reason like they have to disobey the command. Isn’t it cool?”
“Are you here for a swim or a tan?” Moaz questions nonchalantly, dismissing Pek’s enthusiasm with an acknowledgement of chilly friendliness he tends to express in response to someone he doesn’t particularly fancy.
“Both, I guess,” Pek replies, thinking this must be one of the most stupid questions ever asked of anyone at a swimming pool. But since Moaz happens to be the culprit, he is willing to disregard the asininity. “You’re here by yourself?”
“Uh-huh,” Moaz mutters without even looking at him. He tightens the drawstrings of his trunks after adjusting in no uncertain terms the bulge underneath for ample breathing space, at the same time noticing a balked smile that crosses the old man’s lips as he peers over the rim of his glasses at presumably a text message on his mobile phone.
“How about we grab two deck chairs side by side?” Pek asks.
“Don’t think so.” He continues to glance in the direction of the old man who has since put his phone back into the side pocket of his trousers.
Embarrassment could easily be read in Pek’s face, the colour of bashful red rippling to its surface, cheek muscles tightening around the edges of his mouth. In a matter of seconds, he changes into his trunks, makes a perfunctory valediction and moseys out of the room with a kind of wounded politeness normally seen in the body language of panhandlers being brushed aside curtly by those whom they’ve been begging for loose change.
Unruffled as ever, Moaz takes a sip of his bottled water and checks the time on his watch. He invariably does that to ensure the amount of time he spends almost unclad under the sun will be stringently monitored. Sunburn would be the last thing he needs, protective tanning lotion notwithstanding.
Oblivious to what’s happening, the old man runs his fingers greased with hair gel in a sliding back motion through his pompadour, eyes warily fixed on his reflection in the mirror, his hunch more pronounced than ever. He coughs a little in the wake of clearing his throat. Once he’s done oiling his hair, he washes his hands and leaves in effacement similar to the impact of his presence throughout the brief conversation between Moaz and Pek Win.
After selecting a reclining deck chair that’s located at the far end of the pool, decidedly away from Pek who prefers to hover near the entrance so that he can conveniently check out any cute fellows coming or leaving, Moaz places his bag on the floor next to the chair and makes his way to the open shower patio, a semi-circular, two-metre-long concrete wall tiled up in Mediterranean blue with showerheads jutting out, each mounted within hand-holding distance from the other. A jet of water washes over his hard-muscled body, obviously hospitable to two groups of patrons – those with covertly roving eyes and the rest who fix their gaze on him with varying degrees of compulsion. Of course, it goes without saying that the ones who see him for the first time tend to precipitate longer piercing stares than the habitués who merely acknowledge his presence with no more than a scant yearning, having seen him on many past occasions.
That no one else apart from Moaz is at the patio further intensifies the spotlight on him. And even if there were, few could measure up to his pulchritudinous stature. Aware of the attenti