Chapter 10: A man seduces a maker of potions
A man, pale of skin and blue of eye, sat in the Revolver Espresso in Seminyak, eyeing the shop of an apotek across the street. Two years before he had sought out this shop, this apotek, watched the woman come and go, her routine fixed and unvarying, her craft producing more than idle fancies, overcoming all scruples that prevented fulfillment of physical desires.
He had heard of her first while ranging in Sumatra to the west, where he had been stalked by a seductress famous throughout that island, a delightful reversal of the normal order of things. Illness and an ambulance ride had somewhat marred the experience, but he had listened to the Indonesians chattering of an apotek in Seminyak, a maker of potions of lust unrivalled in the islands, someone to whom the driver should go to refresh his relationship with his wife. Their lyrical dialect of Malay was no challenge to his ear, having spent much of his early life in this region, not that he looked it or that the ambulance attendants had any idea that the pale buleh could understand them.
Over spicy Malaysian pork ribs in Kuala Lampur with an old lover, he heard again of a Balinese enchantress, capable of conjuring and capturing lust, tucking it securely into tiny vials and targeting it like a spear into a snapper’s side.
And then again in Hong Kong, this time over dim sum in Tim Ho Wan, talking to a friend who wished to start an opera there, he heard it again. One of the serving staff had been there on a holiday, realized that she had been tossed like a thistle into lusting after an Australian surfer and had paid a woman for a tiny flask of clear liquid to spike his Bintang with in order to get his mind off of the curves of the ocean and onto her curves instead, with remarkable results.
And so he had come here, to the west side of Bali, had observed her, had noted the unvarying routine, the precise times of arrival and departure, had slipped inside of her shop and seen the specifically placed vials and flasks and tins. He had followed several of her customers, seen the reactions to her extracts, heard the bleatings of requited lust on beaches, under boats, through windows and from car windows.
But she had no one in her life for herself despite her beauty, talent and skill. There was no one who waited for her in her home to the north and east of Seminyak, no one eager to draw her in doors once her scooter was parked. And worse, she seemed unaware of it, seemed to have accepted the lack of lust in her life, the shackles of routine she clung to. To his senses, five human, others more esoteric, she was wildfire trapped behind dark glass, she was a titan chained, she was a roaring river tamed within banks of habit and fear.
She was irresistible. And also extraordinarily resistant to his normal ploys and charms, the scythe of his wit, his usual areas of expertise. This was a dilemma. He was full of passion for her, yet all her passion went into tiny glass bottles to inflame a Clyde, a Jon, a Josephine, a random buleh or familiar islander.
This called for thought, assistance, a fresh pair of eyes.
He left Bali again, not omitting to stop in Ubud for the monkeys, the coffee and a yoga instructor who remembered him fondly. He paid a tithe in a temple there, nipped a blossom from a tree for the yogini and had his driver take him to Denpasar International Airport where he caught a flight back to Singapura.
He settled into the Pan Pacific in a suite with an enormous bathtub, wrapped himself in a robe from the closet and called his favourite dress maker, Joyla. She arrived promptly at 25 minutes past the time agreed upon, close on the heels of the room service tray with its ice bucket, the bottle of Cipes bubbly from British Columbia he had acquired a taste for, a cheese platter heavy on King Island and New Zealand cheeses as well as various fruits.
They ate, they drank, they played, they caught up. Hours later, they were lolling in the bathtub and he told her his dilemma. She was wickedly delighted that he’d reached an impasse, nipping him with her sharp teeth to make her point, laughing at his bafflement. She appointed herself to the task force of seduction, came up with the nonsensical title of Admiral of Carriers and promised assistance soon after he roused himself for more play.
Later, she lay in his arms in the huge bed, the lights of Singapura glimmering through the floor-to-ceiling windows. They murmured, mused, elaborated and then discarded ploys. Finally, she yawned and told him that the only way to unlock this puzzle was to have the apotek unlock it herself and make a potion to bring him to her. And he realized that she was right.
Time passed, he traveled broadly, free dove on wrecks in the Aegean with a Brazilian diver he knew there, a neoprene mermaid who favoured a single huge fin. He thought on how to turn the apotek to work on herself, how to awaken her desire to bring him to her, what ingredients she might require.
And with that, a plan was born. He spent months gathering freshly aired pheromones of lust, which he delighted in inciting and requiting. He preserved them in a wisp of space he evacuated for them, one that he could reach into at will. And he returned to Seminyak.
When the apotek left that night, he waited for cover of darkness, for the parties to wind down. He waited for the middle of the night. He walked up to the door of the apotek, placed his hand upon it and gathered his will. Had anyone been watching, they would have seen a buleh, perhaps drunk, leaning on the door for a minute, then walking on.
They would not have seen the wisp of space stay behind in a corner of the shop. They would have not seen a short fragment of yellow yarn crafted from spun pheromones drift out of it to the floor.
But when the apotek returned in the morning, it would be there. And another the next day, and another the next, subtly nudging her out of her habits, making her check her locks, talk to her former assistant, regard the world with fresh eyes.
And after a few months, a tawny man would appear in her shop, a mobile sculpture knitted from the yarn, oozing pheromones as normal men perspire in the Balinese heat, only to collapse at her touch into tangled skeins on the floor. It would ignite her, remind her of her own lust, make her desire the touch of a man again, and at the same time give her the most potent ingredient that was existed for her craft.
And now, here he was again, a two-year long plan coming to fruition. Last night at closing he had walked into her shop, spoken to her for the first time. He had seen the signs that her self-control was slipping, that she was ready to fall. He had described the woman he wanted to lust after him, told her of a woman known throughout southeast Asia for the potency of her craft, but a woman who had left lust behind herself. He told her that he would be back the following night to retrieve the elixir.
And now, here was the night. Her shop would be closing soon. He was beset with nerves, sure that this complicated plot must have left something out, unable to see a path of desire that he had not mapped out. He felt like a boy again, listening to a cellist on a stage.
Steeling himself, he walked across the street to the door of the apotek’s shop, opened it and walked in.