by Marguerite Colson
(06/07/06)

I sway on the elephant, clinging to the back of my wooden seat. Her name is Phenom and this is the fifth day of my Thai jungle trek, a journey chosen to lighten my soul. I have explored temples and holy mountains and swum in a sacred river, but still my soul weighs me down. Phenom is old, yet she treads lightly along the narrow, muddy, rutted path. Every now and then, when I decide to walk, I lumber along, stumbling as though it is I who am ungainly and weary and old.

Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world...

Niran, my mahout, sings the only English song he knows. His father learnt the song, along with creditable English, at a mission school, passing the knowledge on to his only son. He is twenty-four years old, much younger than most mahouts. His father and Phenom worked for a logging company until the company, and logging in the forest, was banned. Niran and Phenom must now pander to rich tourists who wish to unburden their souls.

I join Niran in the song, as I have many times throughout this journey. It raises both our spirits, lifting our individual troubles high into the sunny canopy of the teak forest. He will never have a wife. Girls know that mahouts have no prospects.

I wish I could tell these girls about prospects. I could tell them about marrying a lawyer and bricking myself into a trendy townhouse overlooking Sydney Harbour. I could tell them how there is no wall separating the bedroom from the bathroom. Every morning, I strut around the bathroom, naked, in full view of my husband.

Every morning he purses his lips, looks at his watch, and admonishes me for taking so long.

Niran is strong, copper-brown, wiry. His voice rings high above the gentle pitter patter of a tropical summer shower that has enveloped us. My thin sarong sticks to my body. I drip with raindrops and sweat as the humidity rises. Earlier, we had left the Karen village ahead of the other members of our party. At noon, they were still nursing hangovers from last night's illegal, potent moonshine.

The girls who worry about prospects do not see Niran whispering to Phenom in rhythmic, lilting Thai, encouraging her, guiding her each step of the way. At night, he spends hours washing, massaging, and feeding her. He always sleeps near her, starting immediately if she makes a sound. It is a singular devotion. I weep at the thought of it. The raindrops do not fall fast enough to wipe away my tears.

Throughout the trek, I have been spellbound by Niran's small, capable hands. He is forever moving them, touching Phenom, controlling her movements without the cruel use of a bullhook. Sometimes, in fleeting moments of fantasy, I imagine him using them to instruct me.

The rain shower eases. Sunlight dapples through the ancient trees, tripping across my damp skin and tear-streaked face. Suddenly, Niran turns around.

"Laura? You have stopped singing."

"Sorry. I was lost in thought."

I sniffle.

Niran stares at me, his dark eyes registering the same concern he shows when Phenom seems restless or tired. He touches Phenom on the ear, then speaks to her in a low, deliberate tone. She stops and remains still.

For the first time since our trek began, Niran leaves his spot where he leans over Phenom's head and nimbly climbs towards me. He kneels on Phenom's back, facing me. He only wears a baggy pair of shorts. I am acutely aware of his bare torso, rippling, sleek with moisture.

Our hands entwine. We stare at each other in silence under the giant green canopy of the forest. Burning. Unspoken yearning. A droplet falls from a leaf far overhead. It lands on the spot where the valley between my breasts begins and stays there, a gleaming, unspoken invitation. I resist the urge to wipe it away.

I shiver as Niran licks the droplet with his tongue. Cold. Ice cold, with trepidation. He unbuttons my shirt and breathes on my cleavage. Heat. A sizzle of desire.

I fumble to find his lips, full and dry and slightly cracked. I lick them. I press my own soft mouth against them, reveling in their parched roughness.

I absorb Niran's scent. He reeks of rain and fruit and leaves. I roll my tongue inside his mouth as he presses towards me. It hints of a familiar taste.

In my open-plan bathroom, where my husband could watch me bathe but doesn't, I wash my face with Yves Roche New Bamboo soap. When it froths into my mouth it tastes fresh and green and exotic -- a forest in bloom. The taste of New Bamboo. The taste of Niran.

My sarong and panties slide from my tiny frame. Shafts of sunlight speckle my lily-white, office-worker skin. Niran studies my flesh, a decade older than his, as though it is sacred temples and mountains and rivers all rolled into one. His raw, creviced hands pumice my delicate breasts. All the blood in my body rushes to my chest. I quake and try to shrink away, but he persists. My moans thread themselves into the shadows of the jungle.

The oppressive afternoon heat repels the impulse for body-to-body contact. It is a heat that requires crisp, cool linen, iced drinks and air-conditioning. The mixing of carnal sweat on sweat in such conditions as this is unthinkable. Yet Niran grazes his worker's hands across other neglected parts of my body and I savour the clammy moisture that oozes from my every pore. An unmistakable damp forms between my legs. I exude a musky, feral odour, and Niran responds to its call. He uses his crude fingers to stroke the length of my sex, roughly flicking my clitoris. Inexperienced, hungry, he slams them inside my boiling vagina.

In the trendy, open-plan bedroom where we occasionally touch, my husband will clinically roll one finger into the tightness of my sex, a sex pristine and preserved through hours of pelvic exercises at the gym. I slide my bottom to the edge of the seat and watch in mesmerized shock as Niran boldly destroys my hard work, stretching me with one, then two, then three fingers. The muscles inside me divide and distend, aching in protest, begging for more. His fingers are caked with earth and I feel grit grating against my interior walls. His assault is jagged, savage, untempered. I grip his shoulders with my nails and call out.

I blaze. I am blinded by the heat and light of it.

I recover in stages. I look up, squinting at the fragmented cloudy sky through gaps in the trees.

I look at Niran's face. It is a void in which I cannot read his thoughts.

But my desire is still growing. I seek to answer the building tension in my pelvis by curling and thrusting myself toward him.

The transition is instantaneous. Niran's entire hand has been swallowed by my hole. My inflamed lips wrap unnaturally over his thin wrist. Terrifying. Arousing beyond measure. My vagina thrums with a pulse of its own. My pelvis contracts. My muscles clamp hard around Niran's fist. I blaze again and claw at his back. I am sure I cry out, my throat ragged, but I do not hear it.

After, I watch in fascinated horror as Niran remove his gleaming fist, knuckle by knuckle, finger by finger, till there is only a gaping wound where my tight, controlled sex used to be.

Niran speaks a breathless command in Thai, and Phenom resumes her amble along the forest path.

He lifts himself onto my lap. I clutch his thin waist to hold him in place, and he guides himself with a single, deft stroke into the slickened gape of my vagina. I am afraid that I will not be able to feel him, but I pull my legs closer together and his shaft is clamped and constricted by my tingling flesh.

He rolls rather than thrusts into me, letting the movements of Phenom's gait determine the pace of the dance he dances inside me. I am only vaguely aware of Niran's mouth, coaxing, pleading, breathing against mine, whispering words I do not need to understand.

It begins to rain again in earnest. Warm, pounding rain.

Niran quickens his tempo in the deluge, hammering himself into me. Rain lashes my nipples, my eyes, my ears. Now I can barely hear Niran as he grunts and hisses. I barely hear my own shrill cry as Niran floods his seed into my friendless womb.

Phenom lifts her trunk and gives a long, loud bellow which resounds throughout the jungle. The rain ceases.

Niran slips between my legs, kissing and licking, prostrating himself before me. He croons to me like I am a child, or as if he is.

"Laura?"

It is an apology, and a question.

I sing.

Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world...

Niran resumes his position on Phenom's head.

Tomorrow, when the trek ends, I will insult him with an embarrassing amount of money. Our rightful places in the world will be restored.

He might find a wife with his newfound wealth. I will return to my trendy apartment with secrets my husband cannot share.

Ahead, the jungle opens to reveal a wide, swift river. On the horizon, the sun is beginning to set. A magnificent, round, orange sun. I stare directly into its heart. It is easy to imagine that I see my soul.

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