Her Master's Voice Read online

  Ranji called out to the others as she hurried to a corner table and started to strip off her shirt and jeans. Her leotard shone shiny electric blue and bore the Nike swoosh across her barely contained breasts. It was very small and designed to cover an absolute minimum. Ranji seemed to overflow it. Nearly naked, she looked strong and capable. The other women were also undressing, all uncovering the latest in exercise fashion, either revealing leotards or a tight top paired with the smallest of bikini panties. Their near nudity made their make-up and jewellery shine more brilliantly. All wore earrings and bracelets. Everyone had rings on both hands and several had ankle chains. Some had jewelled nose studs, always popular with Indian girls, and one shy girl in a short yellow top and tiny matching monokini had a large rhinestone glinting in her navel.

  Papi often lectured them on the importance of their feminine principle in the cosmos and the necessity of projecting their God-given beauty in their dress, make-up and ornament. In particular he stressed the role of the female bottom in representing all the richness, fertility and passion brought to the world by the Goddess Rati. Following his guidance all of the leotards and bikinis had a Brazilian cut to them and a variety of barely covered bottoms came into sight as the women stripped off their outer clothes. Sherry had been shocked on her first visit at the sight of so many apparently ordinary women standing around and chattering naturally while wearing next to nothing. Now she realised the importance of the feminine symbols and she was happy to feel the floorboards directly with her own bare bottom.

  Ranji strode to a spot in front of the dais and folded herself rapidly into the lotus position. As Sherry bent and stretched to loosen her muscles, she looked at Ranji. Her lotus position might be correct, but Ranji was no retiring nun. She had closed her eyes, thrust her chin out and stiffened her back. She looked far from relaxed. She was still very present. Sherry settled down beside her, pulling her feet up onto her thighs and sitting up straight. Around her she could hear the other women settling down. She touched her thumbs to her fingertips and closed her eyes.

  She felt proud of the progress she had made with her meditation. The lotus position had made her suffer initially. Even though she had thought of herself as flexible, her first attempts had turned into agony after very few minutes. Meditation had been out of reach because of the pain, but she persevered. Then one morning Papi Bombar had smiled just for her, and she had coasted through the rest of the session. Since then meditation had stopped being a battle with her body and she could concentrate on what Papi Bombar taught them.

  Sherry performed her yogic relaxation and allowed her mind to focus on the past week’s exercise, the concept of joy or ananda without objects. She lost all sense of time and of her body.

  She returned to the rustle of movement and knew that Papi Bombar had arrived. She slowly opened her eyes and gazed on the beautiful face in front of her. He was already seated on the dais, in position, and apparently meditating with his eyes open behind his round, Gandhi glasses with the pink tinted lenses. His plump face radiated serene contentment. She loved his solidness and poise, his receding hair and wispy moustache. His brown colour, his full lips and above all his deep, dark eyes with their unusually long eyelashes. She loved him like a grandfather.

  His young male assistant, seated beside the dais, rang a small hand bell and Papi’s eyes came to life. His gently fluting voice started the chanting and the room filled with the soft sounds of the women behind her. She could not join in because she could not learn the chants. She had tried, even forcing Ranji to write a basic sutra in phonetic letters. She had worked hard for the following week but when she repeated her homework, Ranji had collapsed in laughter and she felt foolish. Now she let her spirit join in their communion and her mind caressed her feeling of inclusion in the family. Although she could not understand their words, she recognised many of the voices chanting behind her as friends to share gossip and a coffee or ice cream with after the session. She wondered which lucky friend Papi Bombar would select to receive his blessing today.

  Her mind drifted over the time she had been chosen. A bittersweet memory. At the end of his homily Papi had blessed them as always and with the others, Sherry had bowed deeply in return. She had just started to brush the dust from her bottom when Ranji grabbed her elbow and started to pull her towards the door in the corner where Papi had just disappeared. Sherry had understood immediately. At last, Papi had chosen her for his private blessing. She had not known what to expect because whenever she had asked the other women, they just laughed and told her to wait and see.

  In his private office, Papi had a modern office desk complete with an electronic typewriter and a grand swivel armchair. Behind the desk, glass-fronted bookshelves reached up to the ceiling. Papi had already arranged himself cross-legged on a low wooden tablet against the wall, his helper beside him. He gestured Sherry to sit on the mat in front of him and she quickly folded herself down until she sat with her knees touching the front of his tablet, only inches away from Papi’s own knees. Ranji settled next to her.

  Papi Bombar was so close that she could see that his loose robes were made of silk. She looked up at his kind, beautiful face, and he smiled gently. In a low, mellow voice he spoke to Ranji.

  “Papi says he is pleased with your progress and is happy to have you in our community,” Ranji translated. Sherry lowered her head and blushed.

  “He says you are a very proper student, and so he has decided to bring you here to allow you to take his blessing.”

  “Thank you,” said Sherry, wondering what would happen next. A long silence followed, until Papi gave what seemed to be an order to Ranji. Awkwardly she leaned across Sherry’s lap and reached into Papi’s clothing. Sherry’s mouth opened in shock as she watched Ranji’s hand delving in the silk folds until it returned with Papi’s erection. Her ringed fingers clasped the growing shaft as she moved her hand gently up and down. She reluctantly let go and resumed her place. Sherry stared at the dark pole with its moist, half hidden, purple head that stood pulsing in front of her. It was long, slim and beautiful.

  Then Papi spoke to her directly for the first time. “Drink, Little Sister. Kiss the stamen of the lotus and drink its blessing.” She did not know what to do. She was confused. She had not known he could speak English. Ranji rescued her with a hand on her shoulder, easing her firmly forward. Conscious now of her duty, and of Papi’s generosity and affection, she bowed her head into his lap and dropped her mouth over the head of his erection. He smelt clean and spicy. She used her lips to push back his foreskin as she took his hot plum into her mouth. The smooth leathery texture felt divine as she explored it with her tongue. She sucked in hard and held him still. A feeling of immense contentment washed over her as if she had permission to suckle on Mother Earth herself. Then she felt Papi shift slightly and she realised that she had to give something back to him. She started to bob her head up and down, sucking all the time and waiting to receive his blessing.

  After a few moments she felt his gentle hand on the side of her face easing her back up. She let him slip from her mouth and stared at the wet pole swaying in front of her.

  Papi said something to Ranji and she pushed against Sherry’s knee. “Move over,” she whispered. “I’m going to do it now.” She shuffled sideways to let Ranji sit in front of him and watched as she reached confidently for Papi’s staff.

  Ranji brought energy as well as skill to her work. With one hand deep in Papi’s clothes, presumably clasping his jewels, she worked the other slowly up and down his shaft. Her mouth and tongue were never still over the head of his sex, licking and sucking in a frenzy, and moaning with delight as she did so. Her hand set up a steady rhythm and she occasionally dipped her head to take more and more of him into her mouth. Papi closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.

  Sherry watched in fascination as Ranji’s sucking and licking became more and more frantic, and the stroking of her hand faster. Her swoops down his shaft came more often and she seemed
to take an impossible length of him into her mouth. Sherry became conscious of Papi’s breathing and a growing stiffness in his body. Picking her moment exactly, Ranji put her hands on his knees and dived into his lap. She hung there, still, tense and rigid, her face buried deep in his clothing. Papi and Ranji formed a stone statue, the master with his beautiful female student worshipping at his root. The room had fallen silent and the only movement Sherry could see was the rhythmic swallowing of Ranji’s throat as she received her blessing. Then they both relaxed. Ranji pulled back until only the plum remained in her mouth. She breathed deeply. Papi put his hand to her face and guided her upright. She let his sex fall from her ripe lips and it lay in his lap, wet and shrinking.

  Ranji put her hands together and bowed. “Thank you, Papi, for your blessing.”

  Papi touched two fingertips to the centre of her forehead. “You are a good student, Little Sister. You have truly been blessed by the Goddess Rati.” He turned to Sherry. “And you, Little Sister, have much to learn. Ranji will teach you. It will be her duty to you and the rest of your sisters. Listen to Rati, Little Sister, and learn to become a woman again. Let your hair grow long, decorate yourself with paint and gold, wear the clothes that show you love Rati, and when you are worthy, you may come again for a blessing.” He touched her forehead also and dismissed them both.

  When they left Papi’s office, Sherry had been glad that no-one was in the main room and only Ranji saw her tears. She was lost and the feeling of having let Papi Bombar down overwhelmed her.

  “Why did he ask me in?” she had asked through her tears. “He must know I’m not good enough. Why didn’t he leave me alone?”

  Ranji had an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t cry, Sherry. Everything Papi does has a purpose. Perhaps he just wanted to show you that you must study more. Learn to live more like Rati.”

  “But I can’t do that! I’m not, I’m not pretty enough. I can’t be like he wants me to be.”

  “Now you’re being silly,” Ranji had said. “You’re the prettiest girl here. We would all like to have a figure like yours and blonde hair, but your spirit is sleeping so you are not beautiful.” Ranji could be very brutal sometimes. “Sometimes, when my spirit is correct, I can be very beautiful. When I feel I am truly Rati’s servant, I am beautiful even if I am fat.” And then she had taken Sherry shopping for jewellery. The flute playing lessons had come later.

  The chanting stopped and Sherry jerked back to the present. Papi Bombar started his address. Today he spoke in English, something he had done more frequently recently. When he did, she felt he spoke especially for her. His topic today was the importance of morning and evening, dawn and dusk as the juncture times for sandhya meditation. He told how the Vedas sing of the half-light pair being like two boats coming to take the devote practitioner across. These two made the ideal times to recite the gayatri mantra. He made them all recite the mantra with him, even Sherry, and she tried her best to fix the gentle sounds in her mind.

  At last Papi’s assistant came to them in turn, bowing and presenting a photocopied sheet containing this week’s homework. Then Papi stood, pressed his palms together and bowed. The women returned the gesture and chanted “Thank you, Papi Bombar” as he left. Teri, a slim Malay girl, followed him into the office. She was the lucky one today.

  The chattering started immediately as the women got up and went for their clothes. Ranji took Sherry’s arms and called out “Girls, Girls! What do we think of Sherry this week?”

  Sherry hated this ritual. Once a week, ever since Papi had criticised her, Ranji called all the women to criticise her as well.

  “Her hair is too short!”

  “Yes, yes. I know that, Rossi,” said Ranji. “I cannot make it grow any faster, but what about her face?”

  “Better!” said one. “She is too thin,” said another voice. “Not enough having love with her husband, of course she is thin!” “It is true…” “Yes, look at Ranji…”

  “Stop, stop!” called Ranji. “You are like market women. Tell Sherry she is beginning to look beautiful. Look at her new rings!”

  “Yes, Sherry, soon your beauty will come.” “Soon, your hair will grow, Sherry.” “Yes, soon, but you must eat more and make more love.”

  None of the voices sounded malicious. They thought no more of criticising her than of telling her it was raining outside. Sherry shrugged her shoulders in frustration. She really did not know what they expected of her. She could no more be like Ranji than she could fly to the moon. She could not help it that Ranji was a woman, a real, fertile, voluptuous, pleasure-loving woman. Even as she started to hide her generous curves under her long shirt, she still looked as if she might tear her clothes off and run out into the tropical rain to grow food and babies under the coconut palms. She had the divine gift of creation, and Sherry did not.

  “Come on, Sherry. We will go for lunch and then we will buy you a new leotard and new earrings. No flute-playing today. I’m too busy and I couldn’t organise a flute. Tomorrow, I will call you on the telephone. Now we will eat lunch.”

  Chapter 3

  Tim scrambled through the railing in the dawn half-light to join the crew in the whaler. Raymond fired up the motor and the over-burdened boat slid out into the river. The air was still and a morning mist obscured the far bank. The nipa palms loomed larger and, alone in their sphere of mist, the journey to CampDua for breakfast seemed longer than normal. Tim went first to the radio room for the mail and came back with the program for the next operation. They would be busy today after all. He read it as he sat over breakfast in the crowded mess hall. PetroFrance wanted a big, slow acid job as soon as they could get ready. Mixing the acid would take them most of the day, and then tomorrow after breakfast they would start pumping, probably for seven or eight hours if the well proved as tight as most of them were on that side of the field. Oh well, he thought, it beats having a proper job.

  He nodded to the other expat workers on his table, and walked back to the jetty. Raymond sat waiting at the boat, together with a large box of packed lunches and another of canned drinks, two cokes each for the crew and a couple of beers for Tim. One of the fine things about working with Raymond was that he always seemed to know the daily plan before Tim did, and he felt confident enough to organise the necessaries. Working all day meant no time to come to the canteen for lunch, so he had asked the kitchen for packed food. Raymond made life easy.

  Back on board, Tim started his calculations while the men went through the daily oil and water checks on all the equipment. Then he walked around the mixing tanks with Raymond, chalking on each one the amount of clean water they would need. The supply barge would soon bring them the chemicals and acid. Tim went back to his accommodation for a coffee. He was free to read a book until the supplies got in.

  The hoot of a tug’s siren woke him from a doze. The tall pusher tug was nudging a loaded barge in beside them and Raymond stood on the crane platform to guide it in. The barge carried stacked pallets of concentrated hydrochloric acid and drums of additives. Tim went to the end of his verandah to watch the crew secure the barge.

  Abdullah, the smallest and slowest crewman, stood just below him and waited to moor the cargo barge. He jumped onto it and, pulling a painter over from Sea Sprite IV, he took a turn around a mooring bollard. He slowly took the line in as the barge slid into place. Then he quickly doubled the rope back on itself in an ‘Indopet hitch’, the common local way to secure lines. Tim coughed and Abdullah looked up in surprise. Sheepishly, he undid the hitch and rearranged the rope in figures-of-eight around the double bollard. Turning the locals into anything like bargemen was a slow job. Tim pulled on his boots and went down to help Raymond check the shipment.

  The crew dragged a Wilden air pump across and soon the pump was chugging and spluttering as it emptied fifty-five gallon drums of acid inhibitor, surfactants and demulsifiers and pumped them across into the mixing tanks aboard Sea Sprite IV. The men stacked the empty drums on the far side of the
barge, ready for collection. Tim left them to their work and went off to check the spares inventory.

  By the time he had finished, the men had brought the air pump back on board and started emptying the small acid jerry cans using a steam-age peristaltic pump from France. It was slow, irritating work bringing each heavy plastic container down onto the barge deck and holding it tipped as the pump sucked it empty.

  When lunchtime came, Tim grabbed his sandwiches and told Raymond he was going for a walk. He climbed through the railing onto the wellhead platform and then out onto the cable tray. He walked into the swamp and turned right along the pipe racks as they followed the shoreline. The noise of the Sea Sprite IV generator died away and he walked on in peace accompanied only by birdsong and cicadas stridulating.

  Eating his sandwiches as he walked, Tim strode on with a purpose. No stopping to sit on the cable tray today to wait for any passing wildlife. He had a meeting to attend. The air hung heavily around him and directly overhead the mid-day sun was uncomfortably hot. He walked for half an hour before he came to Darti’s rickety jetty and the duck-walk snaking into the swamp. He swung down from the cable tray and started cautiously along the split logs. Down at the swamp level, the path led inland away from the fringe of nipa palms that lined the riverbank. Tall trees with grey trunks and small round leaves towered over him. The sun could not reach the floor of the swamp and this was the shaded world of insects. Tim walked briskly to keep some of the mosquitoes off his face.

  Suddenly he stepped back into the sun again. A clear pool lay at his feet, a contrast to the muddy waters of the Mahakam. The vegetation had been cut back and here the way ran along a beaten earth path worn in the grassy bank of the pool. He passed a vegetable patch rich with corn, tapioca and plantains, and stoutly fenced with split poles against the wild pigs. Just beyond it stood Darti’s house, raised on stilts and roofed with dried leaves. The walls were grey weathered clapboard. Smoke rose from behind it where Darti did her cooking. Tim called out to warn her.