Burning Moon (21 page)

“Smooch? You didn't tell me about that.” Annie nudged me.

“It was so hot.” Mark jumped in. “And I said to Francoise right there and then…they are meant for each other. You can just tell.”

“Mmmm.” I sipped my champagne melancholically. “It didn't really work out like that.”

“No, my babes, that's shit. Don't you think, Fransi?” Fransi just grunted as usual.

“That's why I'm here actually. I'm kind of here to—”

Mark cut me off as he laid a tender hand on Francoise's shoulder. “Hear that, Francoise? She's here to win him back. Isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever heard?” Another grunt from him.

“I'm hoping that I will—”

Mark cut me off again. “Find him at the party. Ahhh. So divine.”

Suddenly he jumped up clapping. “Well, you guys must come with us, we must all go together! We'll help you find your guy and get you there safely. It would be mad fun! Don't you think, Francoise?” He looked at his partner and, this time, I noticed a small smile quivering at the corners of Francoise's mouth. I was completely taken aback. It was somewhat disturbing actually.

“We'd love to come,” I said.

“Let's drink to it then!” Again another round of expensive champagne, which I must say wasn't mixing too well with the two shots from earlier and the puff of weed that
had not
given me clarity of mind—remind me to never do that again.

“I'll drink to that,” I said slightly reluctantly before we all clinked glasses. Then suddenly, and almost scarily, Francoise opened his mouth, and it looked like words were finally about to come out.

And they did.

“
Pouvons-nous dîner avant tout?
” he said in a high-pitched voice that took me by total surprise, since it completely contradicted his über-manly exterior.

“Of course, dear,” Mark said to Francoise before leaning over to us and whispering, “He's French. We've been together for five years and I swear I don't understand a word he says!”

Do you remember when cell phones first came out? How they were the size of small children and how when you needed to talk on them, you had to pull out the long antenna that could easily poke someone in the eye? Remember when texting was cool and futuristic and predictive text was new and revolutionary? Phones didn't have cameras and GPS and Facebook, and you couldn't tweet that you had just posted a picture on Instagram while tossing birds into pigs and simultaneously tracking how many steps you were taking on your pedometer app.

Soon our phones will be capable of reading our minds and sending friend requests to people we haven't even met yet. I was terribly grateful for all this technology when Mark suddenly screeched…

“The map! They've sent the map.” Within seconds we were all huddled around his phone looking at the precious GPS coordinates lighting up his screen.

Mark quickly typed the coordinates in and soon a polite-sounding American lady with a soothing yet strangely commanding voice was telling us to travel north. By now I was practically bubbling over with excitement, while next to me Mark seemed to be exploding with it.

“I've always wanted to do this!” He jumped up clapping his hands and almost losing his phone in the process. “This is going to be awesies.” He was still clapping so wildly that Francoise, Annie, and I felt compelled to join in, even though we had no idea to what we owed the enthusiastic clapping and jumping up and down to.

“We're going to be going on an elephant ride through the jungle and then canoeing…yay!” He shrieked even louder.

“Yay!” I joined in, too, because that really did sound exciting. I mentally chuckled as I tried to imagine what my reaction to those two things would have been this past year.

Surprisingly Francoise seemed to be quite the organizer, and in under two minutes he had hailed a taxi (a proper one, one with four wheels and real doors that opened and closed), loaded our luggage into the trunk, bought snacks and ice-cold beers, and was ushering us into the backseat while talking loudly in French.

And then we were off.

The drive out of Phuket went by in a flash of excitement, and we soon came to the great Sarasin Bridge at the northernmost tip of the island, an impressive long bridge that joined the island to the mainland. Some hours later and we arrived at our final destination, the Phang Nga province. Even though it was morning, the humidity and heat was already unbearable and we felt it the second we climbed out of the air-conditioned taxi.

“Oohhh, this is amazing,” Mark said while looking around. And it was all pretty amazing. We were surrounded by an enormous lush green tropical jungle. The jungle was so dense and thick that in between the massive green foliage, everything was pitch black. Every so often the green was punctuated by a splash of red, where a large alien-looking flower peeped out from behind the thick green curtain. Huge vines hung from the branches above us and also wound themselves around and over the trees in an intricate weblike structure that seemed to cover the entire jungle.

“Your man is somewhere in there.” Mark was suddenly behind me pointing into the dense bush. “Oh em gee, maybe he'll come swinging down for you from a vine, hopefully with his shirt off like Tarzan.” He nudged me in the ribs. “No, I have a better idea. You should go swinging down from the tree without your top on!”

Annie laughed at this. I wasn't convinced. “Um…” I gave Mark a stern look. “There will be no swinging from vines!”

“Fine.” He sighed dramatically, seemingly genuinely disappointed that I wouldn't consider some form of vine swinging. “But I hope you've planned something—some kind of big, grand gesture?”

I glanced over at Annie—she was very aware that I still hadn't come up with a plan. “Not yet,” I admitted.

Mark looked at me with wide blue eyes. “Please tell me you at least know what you're going to say to him. I mean…you've come all this way, what are you going to do?”

He suddenly put his hand on his hip and flicked his hair back, I assume in an attempt to imitate me, although I don't think I've ever done that before. “Surprise, Damien, it's me!” His imitation of me was horrible, and he made me sound a little like a drunken Cher.

“I don't know what I'm going to say yet, but I'm sure it will come to me.” At least I hoped to hell it would.

I think Mark must have seen the worried look on my face, because he was suddenly by my side taking my hand. “Don't worry. I'm sure it will be fine.”

“Don't they say love conquers everything?” Annie said as we all started walking through the dense jungle.

“Yes it does,” I said faintly, hoping with all my heart that it would be the case this time round. Love
had
to be enough this time. It had to be, because I needed Damien in my life as much as I needed air to breathe.

Being inside the jungle felt like being inside a hot, suffocating greenhouse, and I instantly broke into a sweat. We continued carefully down a small path, following some small red arrows as we went. Although I couldn't see any animals, any giant hairy spiders or whale-sized snakes, I got the distinctive feeling that the jungle was alive with all sorts of creatures: hidden under the moss, disguised on the leafy floor, and concealed suspiciously behind the large leaves. I tried not to think about the TV show I suddenly remembered watching a week ago about the king cobra, which was indigenous to Thailand and had a venom that could kill a person in minutes. Instead, I focused on what I was going to say to Damien. Was I prepared to leave my life behind and travel with him? This time, a year down the line, the answer was definitely
yes!

We soon came to a large clearing in the bush where we found a small village, made up of only a few bamboo houses. They were all very quaint and well built; some of them even balanced elegantly on stilts and one or two were actually built into the trees like a child's dream tree house, complete with rickety rope ladders. A few local village children ran around outside playing, while others busied themselves with the morning duties of washing clothes and cooking. Our arrival caught their attention, and they started calling out to us in greeting, waving and smiling as we approached, prompting a young man to appear and gesture for us to follow him. He ushered us to the back end of the buildings, where about ten other people had already gathered. My eyes immediately scanned the crowd for Damien, but he wasn't there. Some of the other people looked vaguely familiar but that didn't seem to matter at all, because within a matter of moments everyone was hugging and greeting one another like long lost friends. You really couldn't help but get caught up in the party spirit. I had felt that contagious feeling the year before, and this year was no different.

We were still talking and laughing when another man came around the corner pulling two elephants behind him. I'd never been this close to an elephant before and I was momentarily taken aback. They were incredible to behold, imposing and intimidating with their strange gray leathery skin and long trunks. But despite all this, and despite my steadily growing misgivings about riding one of these beasts through the jungle, they were, in fact, remarkably calm and surprisingly affectionate—especially after we'd fed them some lettuce.

Each elephant had a kind of box strapped onto its back, which allowed for five people to climb in quite comfortably. So my BFFs and I hopped in, together with a gorgeous—and I mean simply stunning—German woman named Friederike, whose profession could only be model or actress or Miss Universe (if that counts as a profession?). Although I've never been attracted to a woman, have never “kissed a girl and liked it,” I simply couldn't help but stare at her. Women like this always make me feel self-conscious and at least two sizes bigger than I really am. But I had other things to think about right now, like holding on to the sides of this little box for dear life as the elephant stood up.

Riding an elephant is an amazing experience; you move through the world in a kind of slow, rhythmic sway. None of us said a word, and the only sound we could hear was the cracking and snapping of the jungle under the elephant's huge, deliberate feet. Our journey took us deeper and deeper still into the rainforest, crossing green rivers as we went and climbing up steep rocky slopes, until we finally stopped at a large green pool of water.

A soft, delicate mist hung over it, giving it an ethereal quality. It looked like something plucked directly from the mystical Middle-earth depicted in
Lord of the Rings
. Once we'd disembarked, we made our way to the shoreline, where a few canoes patiently waited for us.

The water was a deep emerald color, surrounded by a brilliant palette of deep greens and blacks created by huge rocky overhangs. As we rowed across the water a gentle tide softly pushed us forward, making it much easier to navigate down the winding river. But some parts the river became so narrow, framed on both sides by large rocky cliffs, that you had to use your oar to push yourself along.

“We're almost there,” Mark shouted, his voice echoing around us.

Although the last stretch was short, it felt like it took hours to get through, as we carefully weaved our way through a series of dark caves and tiny tunnels carved out of the enormous limestone rocks. As we got farther into the cave's rambling maze and closer to the party, we could feel the deep bass reverberating and echoing around us.

We finally popped out on the other side of the cave and straight into a lush green paradise—a small green lagoon that was surrounded by pebbly beaches and thick jungle. Directly across from us a waterfall cascaded down into the pool, whipping the water up into a white, foamy frenzy. My eyes followed the sheet of water all the way up, but I couldn't see the source with all of that thick misty-white foam shrouding the top of the hill. On the other side of the lagoon, the music drew my eyes to the familiar sights of Burning Moon. The dance floor—a large wooden platform that seemed to be floating on the water—was already filled with gyrating bodies, all swaying together to the loud beats that were reverberating all around us. There were the usual tents that had been erected on the shoreline, and beautiful floating candles had been released into the water.

“It's amazing.” Annie gasped. “It's…it's more than you described.”

I smiled to myself, remembering how I'd felt last year when I'd seen the party for the first time.

But it felt completely different this year, and it wasn't just the setting.

The loud, exuberant fun of the previous year had been replaced by a slower, smoldering sexuality that could already be seen in the bodies moving together on the dance floor, driving a deep thrill up along my spine.

The closer I got to it all, the more my heart thumped, my breath quickened, and my pulse raced in anticipation of seeing Damien. I methodically scanned the surroundings as far as my eyes could see, wondering where he would have decided to settle. I skimmed straight past all the blurry faces around me and landed my gaze on a large limestone cliff dotted by some rickety-looking wooden stairs, trailing the path of a rope bridge that joined it to another, even higher cliff. My bets were that Damien was there, at the highest possible place—the best vantage point from which to admire the eclipse that attracted him to this party every year. I didn't even wait to ask anyone. My instincts just told me that I was supposed to go that way and without a second of hesitation I pulled my canoe onto the shore and ran in the direction of the cliff.

“Here.” I tossed my bag over to Annie. “Please keep this for me.”

“You probably won't be needing clothes anyway,” Mark said with a wink.

Annie ran up and pulled me into a hug. “I love you. Go get him.”

And then Francoise's mouth opened again, and it was enough to stop me dead in my tracks. “
Bonne chance
,” he said. I smiled at him, feeling so touched that he'd actually spoken to me.

“Thanks everyone!” I shouted over my shoulder as I started making my way up the rickety, and in places very rotten, wooden steps. I had no idea when I set off on my journey up the cliff that it would take over an hour of steep, sweaty climbing to get to the top. God, if my instincts about this were wrong, then I would have a long, angry walk back down. By the time I reached the top, it was already early evening. The journey to get to this point from that strip club had taken almost a full day. Luckily we had all managed to get some sleep in the car or I probably wouldn't be standing. I took the last step, somewhat exhausted and stiff-legged, I immediately walked onto a road. A short distance away I could see a large SUV parked in front of an enormous Balinese-style home, perched at the top of the hill that looked over the entire bay area. The home was beautiful, a wooden deck with an infinity pool stretched out toward the edge of the cliff, and it seemed to strangely fit perfectly in this remote setting.

At this stage, I had two thoughts: The first was if there was a road and a car, why the hell had we all not just driven here? Although I guess the adventure is part of the Burning Moon experience. But driving would have brought me to Damien a whole lot faster! And thought number two: I had just walked into the front yard of someone's private, exotic villa. Clearly I was in the wrong place and now I was going to have to walk all that way back down in search of Damien. This was a complete disaster, and I made a mental note to never trust my gut again as I felt pretty close to collapsing at the thought of the long journey ahead, and I was positively dehydrated.

To my relief, I spotted a tap next to the deck of the villa and crept a bit closer. The deck itself was lit up with what seemed like hundreds of candles, and it was scattered with bright-pink flowers. A makeshift bed had been made on the floor with large blankets and pillows, next to it a bottle of champagne and two glasses were chilling in an ice bucket. Someone was obviously planning on getting a little
somethin' somethin'
tonight, and I was going to take this as my cue to leave. But as I was about to turn around, I saw someone walk onto the deck.