Her Master's Voice (5 page)

She slipped into heeled sandals and stood in front of the mirror with approval. She knew she looked good. She smiled and swung her hips to make her skirts twirl. She looked desirable, but the pricking thought that she had been having more frequently came again, what would Tim think if he could see her now?

Ranji waited for her in the hotel lobby, dressed grandly in a dark green sari with a delicate pattern picked out in gold thread. She had plaited her black hair and it hung far down her back. She looked severe and matronly, if such a thing was possible for Ranji.

“Ranji! You look so formal you make me feel terrible.”

She smiled and took her by the elbow. “Come on, the Professor is waiting for us.” They hurried to the elevators.

“Professor?” asked Sherry, thinking of the tweed-jacket-with-leather-elbow-patches professors of her own university days.

“Yes, Professor Rhee. He is very important.”

“An important professor?”

“He is an important politician from Calcutta and also, of course, a business executive. He is a VIP!”

Perhaps Indian professors were different, thought Sherry as the elevator rose. She began to feel nervous. Just stage fright, she told herself.

“Now, I have told him that you are Swedish and that your father is a diplomat, and that you are still a student, and you are not permitted to speak to him. There, that should make things easier for you.” Ranji marched confidently towards the professor’s room. “Don’t let me down, Sherry. Show me all your lessons.” She tapped at the door.

The professor looked unimpressive. Short, bony and wearing tinted glasses with thick black plastic frames. Receding hair and a moustache, both white. He wore a white cotton sarong wound around his skinny waist. Sherry’s heart fell.

If the professor’s looks let him down, his self-confidence did not. “Ranji, my dear, come in. Come in.” His accent was unmistakably English public school, and probably Oxbridge. “And this is your student. Welcome, young lady, welcome.” Sherry muttered something low as she shook his small hand.

His room sat high in the hotel and looked out over the trees towards Orchard Road. Sherry stared out of the window in an effort to erase the room and the professor from her life.

“Sit down, sit down, Ranji. Can I bring you something to drink? What is the young lady’s name? Where do you want me?” The professor sounded excited and nervous, and Ranji tried to cool him down.

“I think you should sit on the bed, Professor, and I will come and sit next to you. There, that’s a good thing, I think.” She guided him down and settled her generous bottom beside him. The bed sagged beneath them and, like a hammock, tipped them closer together. Sherry registered the contrast they made—youth and beauty, age and dryness. Ranji looked rich and alive. The professor’s nervous activity made a poor substitute. She wished she were somewhere else.

Without ceremony, Ranji reached for the professor’s sarong and started to unwrap him. “So, let’s see what you have for Ingrid to play with…”

The professor’s flute looked surprisingly large as it lay dark and half-inflated on his thin thighs. A small tuft of white and grey hair covered its roots. “Oh very nice, Professor. I’m sorry I brought Ingrid now. Let’s get you nearer to the edge of the bed.” Her arm around his hips levered him reluctantly forward. “That’s it, now we’ll open your legs, and it’s Ingrid’s turn.”

Sherry lowered herself to settle between his knees. The three of them stared at the flaccid beast, willing it to raise its head, but there was no sign of life. Sherry caught Ranji’s eye, and then reached out for it.

It lay on her palm like a sleeping bird. She trailed her fingertips backwards and forwards along its length. It felt dry and smooth, gentle and harmless. “Oooooh – look! It’s growing,” cooed Ranji, but Sherry felt nothing to support her optimism. She reached underneath to cup her hand around the pendulous balls below. They too felt larger than such a small man should have. Gently she pulled back his sheath, bringing his wrinkled mauve mushroom into the daylight. Dry. This was not going to be easy.

Sherry lowered her head to suck the soft plum into her mouth. “Oh yes!” whispered Ranji, “That must feel so good.” She gave the professor a squeeze. “Ingrid is so fortunate.”

What do I do now? Sherry asked herself. It’s like a soft condom half-full of water; I’ll never be able to make this one work. Holding it firmly in her mouth she started to nod her head, pulling on the reluctant stem. It did not have the strength enough to slide in and out of her mouth.

“Oh, that looks so sweet, Professor,” Ranji enthused. “It must feel wonderful. Ingrid is such a clever girl.”

Feeling far from clever, Sherry remembered to moan quietly to indicate her enjoyment of the process. The professor gave no help at all and all her tugging and sucking at his root made no difference. She decided on another approach. Taking his plum between finger and thumb, she pushed his foreskin back with her other hand and gripped the shaft so that only the soft head of his sex stuck out of her fist. Now she could attack it. She suckled at it and used her hand to slide it from side to side in her mouth.

“Oh yes, Ingrid,” encouraged Ranji. “Make love to the Professor’s beautiful cock. You’re making us both so excited. Here, Professor, touch me...”

From the corner of her eye Sherry could see Ranji unbuttoning her top and sliding her sari from her shoulder. Her full breasts swung free and she offered them to the professor. He reached for her and at last Sherry felt some life in him.

Ranji teased one dark brown nipple into erection while her other breast filled the professor’s hand to overflowing. “Do you like them, Professor?”

“They are very beautiful, my dear,” he whispered and suddenly it was all over. The professor shuddered and Sherry’s mouth filled with salty cream. She sucked him in and stopped still. The professor had buried his face in Ranji’s breasts. She had her arm around his shoulders, patting him gently, and looked at him with a condescending smile.

It did not take long for Ranji and the professor to replace their clothes. “Wait outside for me, Ingrid my dear. I won’t be a moment.” Sherry left as the two others conversed in quiet Hindi.

Ranji was silent until the elevator doors closed. Then she started to giggle and set Sherry off too. They went arm-in-arm to the coffee shop. Sherry ordered coffee and Black Forest cake for both of them. She felt they deserved it.

“Stupid old man!” Ranji said. “He said you looked too beautiful. That’s why it wouldn’t stand up. I think he was frightened of you.”

“Frightened? That’s stupid! I felt terrible. It’s just as well you showed him your breasts or I would still be kneeling there sucking like an idiot.”

Ranji’s laughter was infectious. “Indian men!” she said. “All wanting to be mothered. You looked so funny down there, sucking and sucking and getting nowhere. Trying to light a fire with wet wood, but you did very well in the end. The old fool finally got there. In the end, after a lot of work.”

“And with a little help from Mother Ranji.”

“Never mind. I suppose it is good that you have an experience like today. It can happen to any man, especially if they have had too much to drink. Next time I’ll get you a proper flute to play. One that you have to work at to make
soft
. I want to see how good you really are now.

“Tim must be very happy with the way your lessons are going.”

Sherry looked down at the table. “I haven’t done it with him, I mean, not properly. Not all the way. Never.”

“What?” Ranji looked shocked. “How can you not do it for your husband? But you must do it, it’s your duty.”

Something inside Sherry hurt that anyone should think she was not a good wife. “Oh yes, and I suppose you’ll do it every day when you get married.”

“Of course, if that’s what my husband wants. I know my mother does it to my father very often. Not just when she has her period or is too busy to have love properly. Sometimes she does it first, and then he takes her bent over the back of his bedroom chair. She says she likes that because he lasts so long and she can take her time and enjoy it properly.”

Now it was Sherry’s turn to be shocked. “Your mother told you that?”

“Why not? We hear things from their bedroom, and we know that the house is a happy house. My room is next door and sometimes the chair bangs against the wall. It makes me hot and I have to do it to myself!” Ranji chuckled at herself.

Is it really as simple as that? thought Sherry as she rode the taxi home. Making love is the important ingredient of a happy home? Wistfully, she wished it to be so.

Chapter 5

Another day and Tim again hurried along the swamp path to Darti’s house. An unreasonable amount of work had kept him away. One of the rigs had been completing a well in a soft sandstone reservoir.
Sea Sprite IV
moored beside the swamp barge to prepare and pump the carefully crafted sand slurry that would surround the well screens and keep the reservoir rock from collapsing.

Tim preferred not to work with the rigs. True, it made a change to have other foreigners around, and to visit the French tool pusher for a chat and a
pastis
at sundown. It was good to have the mess serving meals every six hours, and coffee and ice cream whenever you wanted it, but the fact remained that drilling rigs run twenty-four hour operations. Moored alongside the swamp barge, as close to the rig floor as possible, Tim’s raised cabin lay beside the big Cats that provided all the rig power. At least two of the three massive diesels thundered all the time. He had grown used to continuous noise and vibration, even the loud, shuddering bursts as the rig pulled out of the hole stand by stand. He could sleep through it, but he missed the tranquillity of mooring at an isolated well far from the nearest human.

When
Sea Sprite
worked away from the rigs and shut her generator down for the night, Tim and his crew were alone in the swamp. Late at night, when the mosquitoes had gone, Tim often sat on his verandah and just stared over the swamp, listening to the frogs, the insects, and the muddy Mahakam flowing past. The dark velvet of the night sky wrapped around the islands, damaged only by the glow of the gathering station gas flare beyond the trees. In contrast the noisy, brutal, mechanical intrusion of the drilling rig into the swamp drowned the surroundings and the glaring arc lights drove even the night away.

Added to the noise and the bustle, sleep yielded to the need for long, delicate and precise pumping operations. The last well had completed three screened zones, in a continuous program that made no provision for undisturbed sleep. Tim and the crew slept in short naps of two or three hours whenever they could. It left them all feeling drained, and relieved when the tug finally arrived to push them off to an operating well that would need stimulating in a day or two. They could catch up with sleep, cleaning and maintenance, and Tim could visit Darti again.

A shock awaited him as he emerged from the swamp. Sitting on Darti’s verandah was Captain Rais from Security. His immaculate uniform with its rigidly pressed grey shirt, insignia and gleaming shoulder lanyard looked grotesque against the clapboard house behind him. His pencil moustache and oiled black hair, his expressionless face, all made Tim suddenly unsure of himself.

“Ah, Mr. Armstrong, it is very good to see you. Darti promised me you would come soon. Come and sit down.”

Feeling like a fish out of water, Tim slipped off his boots and climbed up to sit beside Captain Rais.

“Hello Timmee,” came Dart’s voice from inside the house. “You like
teh air juruk
?”

“
Teh
air juruk
?” asked Captain Rais in surprise.

“I like tea with lemon,” said Tim. “It’s refreshing.”

“With lemon? I have never tried tea like that. Then I shall join you.” He called to Darti and soon she appeared with two small glasses on a tin tray, and left them alone. They sipped their tea.

“This ... interesting,” said Captain Rais. “Is it a common thing in England?”

“No, not common. We normally have tea with milk there, but I’m sure you’ve tried that.”

“Yes, but I did not like it. This is better. I shall introduce this to my wife.” He sipped again.

“Do you know Darti well, Captain Rais?”

“Ah, you are a gentleman, Mr. Armstrong. I’m sorry I do not know her as well as you do. She is my cousin. I come here to visit sometimes, it is very peaceful here. Darti sometimes reads my future for me, and sometimes she will give me medicine if my health is not good. Does this make your mind rest?”

Tim felt himself blushing. “Darti is a very nice lady.”

“She is very much more than a nice lady, Mr. Armstrong. She is very, very wise. I always listen to her advice, and she likes you. That is why I wait for you here.”

Something gripped at Tim’s stomach. Oh dear, he thought, does he want something for Darti? Does he know I’m married?

Captain Rais continued. “I have a great want for help from a person living in Singapore. Will you help me, Mr. Armstrong?”

Now he felt relieved and shocked. Relieved because he was not in trouble, and shocked that someone as important as Captain Rais should ask for help. “Of course,” he mumbled. “Anything I can do.”

“Very good. I was afraid you can say no, and that is a problem. Good. Now I tell you about my problem, but this is just for us. You will not talk to anyone about this. You can talk with Darti but no one else.

“You know, I am not from here. Not from Balikpapan or Kalimantan. They send me here from Jakarta because Indopet is very strong and rich, and we do not want for them to become also political. So my manager is in Balikpapan and I speak with him every day, but I also speak with my department in Jakarta. I must look to see the money from Indopet goes only to Jakarta. The Kalimantan people want money from the oil here, but they must not have it. Their money comes from Jakarta, only Jakarta.