“Ouch!” I said.

I looked at the corner of the boy’s toilet. Two men walked in, laughing and poking each other’s arms. Their eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when they saw me sitting in the men’s toilet.

It was an interesting boy’s toilet, to be honest. A guy saunters into the toilet, walks up to the urinal, finds one that is vacant, proceeds to unzip his trousers and does the deed while looking at girls gyrating up and down each other’s waists outside. Whoever that designed Lola’s boy’s toilet surely had a penchant for looking at girls while peeing. The row of urinals faced the whole dance floor, where each man could pull down his zip, pee and watch everyone else in the bar dancing through a panel of glass in the wall. The panel of glass in the wall was approximately three inches in height and was placed strategically at the average Malaysian men’s height, so every man that stood at the row of urinals to pee could see everyone else dancing.

And it was at this special urinal peephole that I was staring out from the toilet. One will never miss a beat by coming in here for a breather. I sat on what I would call a powder table with the exception that I do not think men enjoyed the fact that their boy’s power room had a powder table. If furniture were French, then this powder table was masculine. It had long straight lines, made of dark wood. A grand mirror against the wall with three rattan balls in a bowl on the other end of the table. Very zen.

“I’ll try look for something,” David said, “Sorry about this.”

He gripped my hand tight for a second.

A man walked into the toilet, only to stop and stand aside when David passed him at the door. David smiled at him and walked into the sea of people, who parted as he walked into them. David should be renamed Moses for leading the fashionable who-is-who in KL through the wilderness of carnal living, I thought to myself as I swung my legs gently.


***
It has been four weeks since I had the 0500 hours conversation with David, three weeks since I have been in Lola, two weeks since he avoided me and one week since David began warming up to me again. I guess time do heal some things. I wonder if David saw the eyes looking each time he leaned over to give me a peck on my cheeks. I wonder if he knew his close proximity evoked strong stirrings in the hearts of many.

David’s table is no ordinary table. It is the table to be seen in Lola, if not the whole of KL. A large chandelier hung above, an eye catching light source in the darkness of Lola. It was as if a reminder to everyone that it was at David’s table that nightlife began.

And in this night time heaven, David was god. Eve summed David very well one evening not so long ago. David makes every girl look good. Beautiful car and free flow of drinks in the hottest bar in KL. What’s not to love?” Eve is right. The most beautiful girls are found at the next few tables. Always perfect looking, dolled up and dressed to stop traffic, these beautiful creatures will do almost anything to get noticed.

But will they go as far as to physically hurt someone else?


***
I looked up towards the ceiling each time a male patron came into the toilet to pee. Some random guy whistled as he peed. I wondered whether he whistled out of habit or as a distraction from me bearing witness to his call to nature.

“Where are you?”

“In the boy’s toilet,” I said. “My toes’ a little cut.”

The mobile went dead. I swung my two feet, one black satin heel still strapped onto my left foot while the other side at the end of the black table. I smiled when I saw Indie walked in.

“She dropped the bottles of beer and that’s how I got these cuts,” I said.

Shrugged nonchalantly as Indie knelt in front of me. He placed my left foot on his lap. He then took my remaining dangling, bloodied foot and looked at it closely. A healed scar was visible on the top of the ball of my right foot, approximately two centimetres long. Blood flowed along the arch of my foot. Indie looked closely and pressed the ball of my foot hard. More blood flowed from the cuts.

“Ouch!! Indie!!!” I said.

“Here, I got some tissue and a first aid kit,” David said, as he walked into the toilet. “Oh … Hi, Indie.”

Indie stood up that moment. He took my handbag, the right side of my black satin high heels and said to David, “Her foot’s cut deep. Pieces of glass stuck. I’ll bring her to the doctor.”

In one swift scoop, Indie carried me into his arms. He adjusted his grip a little and walked out of the toilet.

“I can walk, Indie,” I said to him gently. I waved to David and my mouth worded out the words “thank you, sorry!”. David stood there, numbed by the experience, the sight of us leaving the boy’s toilet. I held onto Indie tighter as he walked me out from Lola. Everyone was looking as Indie carried me. And my bloodied toes.

I heard a few girls giggled. They must have thought it was a romantic gesture. Probably they thought that Indie proposed to me, I accepted and thus, he swept me off my feet literally and carried me home, to eternal matrimonial bliss.

How far from truth it would have been. I was being carried out of Lola because I bloodied my toes. My toes were bloodied because a girl accidentally dropped a bucket of Heineken just inches from me. She accidentally dropped the bucket of Heineken just inches from me because she was angry. She was angry because she has been eyeing David the whole of tonight and the previous few months.

And David had eyes for no one else while I sat at his table. He knew it. She knew it. I knew it.

“Why are you doing this?” Indie asked.

“I didn’t wish for my toes to be bloodied, Indie,” I said.

“No, you know what I mean. You knew that girl was eyeing on David from the beginning. She did this to you on purpose.”

“She did not,” I said.

“She did, Otto. Face up to it. She has been hunting David down and you stood in the bloody way and now you have a bloody foot,” Indie said. There was hurt in his eyes.

Indie walked at a quick pace towards his car when I tried to etch a smile. I stroked the back of his neck. I could hear his heart beat fast as we walked closer to his car. I could not see my right foot but I knew where it was since it hurt a lot. The scar on top soon will have a matching scar at the bottom.

“Why don’t you choose a good man and let him take care of you? Why all these men? Why David? Why Seven? Why Adidas Boy?” Indie said. “Why are you punishing yourself this way?"





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Short talk
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