Sample from 'Bali Highs'

Before Anything

Right from the start, Permata’s life was not a normal one.

She was born in a Muslim village in Eastern Java. While her mother was still pregnant, her father rediscovered the joys of love with a Chinese woman and left them.

That was the first time a man let Permata down.

Life was a struggle for her mother and for her, but Permata was a very clever, very pretty girl who grew tall and matured quickly. Though her mother was forced to send Permata away to live with her grandmother in Malang, she was a fast learner and did well at school. A world of possibilities could have opened for her.

Then her scheming father noticed how desirable she had become and thought of the dowry she could fetch. He forced her mother to agree to betroth her to a local boy, for a lot of money. Permata objected at first, but eventually grew to accept that this would be her life. She even persuaded herself to love the boy. But, like any man, when temptation offered itself with open arms, the boy yielded. Permata only found out when she discovered he had made her best friend pregnant.

That was the second time a man let Permata down.

She ran away to Bali where, lonely, vulnerable and with hardly any money, she met a young Swedish guy on the beach. For the first time in her life she fell totally and completely in love. He was an experienced and accomplished lover. Permata sacrificed her virginity to him, felt her first orgasms and became addicted to Bjorn. He would be her salvation. He became her whole life. But Bjorn was just a guy on holiday. He was young. He was only in it for the sex with a fresh brown-skinned virgin. He didn’t want any commitments. So he ditched her for a Balinese girl before he went back to Sweden, and that devastated Mamik.

It was the third and last time a man ever let her down.

She returned to her village only to find that fate had another shock for her. She was pregnant.

She had no choice. All she could do was go to see the village swangi. Every village in Eastern Java had swangi. They were a sort of cross between a witch and a psychologist. The swangi gave her potions to kill the baby inside her and asked her what she really wanted out of life. Did she want to be rich? Did she want to take revenge on men? After all, men will always dominate women and do what they want with them, unless women seize control. Permata listened.

The swangi told her that the secret of controlling men was to make them fall in love with you. Love is the most powerful spell because it can leave a man or woman totally helpless, as Permata had been to her Swede. All a woman had to do was appeal to the secret desires which every man has but keeps hidden. She would then find men to be willing victims.

First, the swangi explained, Permata had to enrapture them with her smile and her body, for which, it had to be said, she was ideally equipped. Tease them and beguile them with exotic promises; tell them what they want to hear; make them believe what they want to believe; feed their fantasies, most of all their sexual fantasies; yet still confuse them with contradictions so their mind won’t know where to turn. That is the way to overcome their natural instincts and whatever guardian angels they have.

“I will show you how to get into mens heads and stay there, play with their minds, hypnotise them with your body, eyes and voice so they are mad with desire for you and will always be your slaves.”

The swangi could see that Permata had a huge advantage in her sultry beauty. She could improve her figure; get her breasts a bit bigger lose some of the fat round her hips and tighten her vagina by judicious use of Jamu: herbal medicines and drugs that would drive the moisture out of her body. She also knew that Permata was very clever, that her English was excellent and that, of course, most white guys spoke English. Permata would be her star pupil. She would even give Permata the nice sounding name of ‘Mamik’ to replace her ordinary village name that had meant ‘precious stones’.

For an entire week, the swangi contined her instruction and her remodelling of Permata into Mamik. This included the psychology of sex. “So far you have been acting like a woman, not a witch, and look where it’s got you.” The swangi told Permata. “You have to forget about love. Use sex as a weapon. Use your face and body to entice men and tantalise them. Hold out a promise of fulfilling their dreams. And once you’ve hooked them, play them like a fisherman with a rod and line plays a fish. Always be nice to them. But never give them anything. And leave them hanging on. Make them come back to you, not you to them. That’s the way to get right inside their minds. Make them always want you. Never forget you.”

“Three little words in English must mean nothing to you but will mean everything to the men you meet. “I love you”. Use it to end every phone call and they will think you think like them. They will believe you are in love with them.”

“Of course, sometimes you will need sex to keep yourself going. I certainly do. So, for that, choose someone different, only for the sex. Never mix pleasure with work. Always one guy for sex. But you want the other guys to fall totally in love with you. And you do that by withholding the one thing they want more than anything else in the world, which is to get their cock inside you.”

“You’ll have fights with these guys,” the swangi went on. “That’s normal. You have to pretend it’s like a real girl and boy love affair. So you have to become a good actress. But soon it will become second nature to you, and you will even enjoy it. That’s why guys on holiday from the other side of the world are your best victims. You see them once or twice in Bali, then it’s all over the phone. They’re never there with you. They can’t keep coming to find you. They can’t hurt you. But they will send you money. Big money. Far more than a hooker earns. You can be sure of that.”

“Older married guys, aged forty to fifty are best. Something happens to them round about that age. They’ve probably been married for twenty to twenty five years. Their kids have grown up. Their wives have lost their figures. Sex has lost its sparkle. They’re starting to worry about growing old. So they’re suckers for a teenage girl who plays to their ego, makes them feel young, revitalises them.”

“Then there will be the big prize and you will have to make a decision. You might quite like a guy who is one of your victims. So you might choose to enjoy the sex with him, pretend to fall in love with him, pretend it’s the real thing, but all the time make sure you stay in control. Because your mission is not to fall in love with him. It’s to get as much of his money as you can. For you. For me. And for your family.”

Finally the swangi warned Permata of the price of taking that path as ‘Mamik’. Because once she went the way of a swangi, of feeding from men’s souls and sucking their lives away, there was one thing she could never have. She could never achieve happiness. Could never ever again enjoy the helpless ecstasy of being in love. And she could never be saved, even if she wanted to love a guy who loved her. The swangi spirits would see to that.

“The one and only kind of guy you can go for is a guy just like you. A guy who lives on his wits. A conman. A pimp. A guy who lives on his wits. Then you might just meet your match. But you’ll never be totally happy because you can never completely trust each other.”

Despite this, Permata was determined. She could see no other way, so the swangi chose the evil spirits that she, as Mamik, would carry with her for the rest of her life and keep her to the life of a swangi.

Every spirit was of a person or animal that had not died naturally.

One was of an ancient ancestor cruelly murdered by the Dutch and forever seeking revenge.

One was of a wolf and one of a monkey, to give her extra cunning.

However, the strongest, most powerful spirit Mamik was to carry with her was of a young girl unwillingly sold into prostitution in Surabaya by a family crippled by debt. The girl’s virginity had been auctioned off in a brothel, then ripped out of her by a huge white bastard who simply laughed at her cries and her tears. She didn’t last long in the brothel because she was always crying, never sweet and submissive enough for the customers. So eventually the mamasan sold her to a gang of sailors who filled her with drugs and raped her unmercifully, one after the other for seven hours until she died, then left her ruined body in a stinking drain. By the time the dead girl’s soul took possession of Mamik she would have been 38 years old. Sometimes she would take over Mamik so strongly, that Mamik actually became her and looked how she would have looked at 38 years old. From that day onwards Permata would be Mamik and could never escape from the soul of the tortured girl.

Chapter 1: Bad Girl

Mamik wasn’t wearing the short, black ‘Bad Girl’ label skirt the first time I saw her. Yoka was. With a frilly blouse and flip-flops on her feet Yoka was tiny and skinny enough to appeal to a paedophile, though I later found out she was twenty. Mamik was the opposite: much taller, slim, with a real figure; face hidden behind sunglasses, tarty pink lipstick, faded flared jeans, leopard skin wedge sandals, toe-ring and the outline of a mobile phone in her back pocket. She’s the one this story is about. But I’ll get back to her later.