Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon (100 books to read in a lifetime txt) 📕

I take Tom’s hands and he jumps in surprise as I bring them to my mouth. He smells of salt and curry, and his thumb rubs up against the angle of my jaw. He pulls back and I reach up and brush my hand over his neck. His shirt’s starched, smelling pungent and bright as a naphtha flame. His face glimmers in a flare from the hurricane lamps on the verandah and just when I think he’s going to turn away he takes my hand instead.

I tug him through the room and out into the pitch-black corridor. The kitchen door’s swinging open and a breath of wind comes in. It stinks of the Jelai. That river-swamp smell reminds me of Peony, and I drop Tom’s hand with a jolt. I remember us all playing hide-and-seek here fifteen years ago. Me behind the door, Tom under the settee where his white skin wouldn’t show. Peony in the attic, always the last to be found. You were good at hiding, Peony. You still are.

‘Come on,’ I tell him.

Karthika slams the kitchen door again as we creep past. She’s burning banana leaves in the back compound. I wait until her back’s turned, then pull Tom quickly past under the curve of the stairs. There’s a side door to the yard, and the bolts are covered with a floss of spider webs. The path outside is luminous and milky with phosphorescence. Mud squelches under my feet and something squirms just beyond my toes.

‘Durga, are you sure we –’

I lead him round the side of the house, under the durian tree. Everything’s lit with a shifting, flickering light from Karthika’s bonfire. We reach the annexe that spiders along the back wall, and I stop. Tom puts his shoulder to the annexe door, shoving it open against the piled-up dirt. I’m chilled, but Tom glows like that yard fire. He shuts the door behind us and it’s like a weight of darkness coming down over my eyelids. In here, he could be any colour at all.

I brush my fingers over his shoulders. His heart jumps, like a clean and friendly animal nudging under his skin. I want to lick him, my tongue rough as sandpaper coating his skin. He’s flesh and bone and sweat, and I want more.

He slides down the wall, pulling me onto his lap, and kisses me. I feel his legs under mine and his hands unbuttoning my blouse. He smiles at the feel of silk underneath, at the soft give of it under his fingers. I run my hands down his spine and pull at his temples, running my lips over the creaseless line. He pushes my blouse down to my waist, and then his shirt is off too, tugged over his head and dropped carelessly on the floor. I feel brand new, as though he’s touching something almost at the core of me. Everything’s pulsating, slippery, thin as icing drizzled into cold water, and Tom’s face is close and invisible in the breathing dark. He’s muttering something – a private, urgent whisper I’m not meant to hear.

‘Peony.’ It’s a spit of cold water. ‘Peony.’

‘What?’ I pull away. Tom startles, letting his arms drop from around me. I’m still tight-wound inside, but I can feel myself loosening, ratcheting down. Becoming slacker, back to something that feels dull and heavy inside. Back to my bones and my skin, which doesn’t sing any more.

‘Tom …’

My eyes have adjusted, or it wasn’t as dark as I thought. Light comes filtering in through cracks in the door, and round the sides of the boarded-up window. I can feel my daytime face again, frown-lines re-emerging. There’s a sudden sound outside, and I jump.

‘Who’s that?’ Tom moves sharply. He pulls away from me and the air sucks at my damp stomach. Cover yourself up, Ammuma would say. I grab for my blouse, shaking dirt out onto my skirt.

There’s another noise and a sound of footsteps outside. The far wall dims slightly as someone passes in front of the door. Stands there for a second, close-up with an ear pressed to the wall. A smell comes wafting in: pandan leaves and fish with an undercurrent of shit. Karthika.

Tom springs upright, pushing himself off the wall to wrench the door open. Light spills in from outside.

‘She’s gone,’ he says. ‘It was Karthika. Durga – come on. We need to get back.’

He holds the collar of his shirt between his teeth while he buttons it. I’m still struggling into my clothes, pulling my blouse around me and feeling the itch of dirt working its way under my breasts.

‘Durga …’ he says, one foot already out of the door. He’s dressed now, and his hair isn’t even ruffled. No half-naked indignity for Tom, nothing he’ll regret tomorrow morning. Nothing he’ll regret tonight, come to that. Clever Tom.

‘Wait!’ I stumble after him into the compound. The electricity must have come back on because I can see yellow light spilling onto the path. Tom pulls the door open and steps into the warm hallway with its lemon smell of overheated lightbulbs. I stop on the threshold.

‘You were imagining Peony, weren’t you? Not me.’

Karthika’s voice comes through from the verandah, whispering frantically. Carrying tales to Ammuma and wallowing in self-righteousness.

‘Durga …’ He swallows, and his eyes dart sideways to the verandah.

‘You didn’t want me, did you? For God’s sake, Tom, you had to pretend I was her?’

I fold my arms. There’s a rash above my wrist, where Tom pressed me against the annexe wall.

‘At least most men obsess about models, or – or girls from Playboy. Not fifteen-year-olds, Tom; not dead fifteen-year-olds.’

He looks stricken. ‘Durga, don’t, don’t be so angry. Peony was your friend, too, remember, Peony –’

‘I’m not interested in Peony!’

The words hang there. Tom looks shocked, as though he can’t quite believe I’ve said them.

‘What’s all happening?’ Ammuma comes stamping through from the front room. Her mouthpiece hangs down from her chin and she’s dragging the oxygen cylinder on