Stealing Asia Read Free

okay?’ I asked.
    ‘Thanks to you,’
she replied.
    She raised her
right arm to her chest whilst her other hand remained wrapped around the warm
coffee mug. Her fingers gently stroked the casing of a silver locket.
Underneath the chain a slight break in her otherwise perfect tan told me that
she had rarely taken this item of jewellery off. She was not carrying a purse
and I assumed this was what the mugger attempted to take when they had
struggled.
    ‘That must
really mean a lot to you,’ I said. ‘Is it valuable?’
    Not the cleverest
question to have asked. She might have thought I was fishing for a reward. It
was bad enough how I had come to be in that alleyway in the first place. I
would not normally follow a girl out of a bar like that. We had not even
spoken, just held eye contact for three, maybe four seconds. I could easily
have misread the signals.
    ‘It belonged to
my mother,’ she replied. ‘Wearing it makes me feel like she is close by.’
    I did not ask
her to elaborate. To do so would be too personal, maybe even intrusive given
that I did not even know her name. Belatedly, I asked what should have been my
first question.
    ‘Asia,’ she
replied.
    I raised an
eyebrow.
    ‘If I’m asking
too many questions just tell me.’
    ‘Why would you
think that?’
    ‘I didn’t
picture you as an Asia. It kind of makes me think that you could just as easily
have said you were called teacup or window.’
    As I gave voice
to my suspicions, I felt a little embarrassed for doubting her. After all, she
had no reason to lie and it was not like I was trying to pick her up. At least,
I hoped she did not think I was trying to pick her up.
    ‘You think I’d
give you a fake name?’ she asked, seeming puzzled rather than hurt.
    ‘No, it just
seemed a little coincidental, that’s all.’
    ‘Well, trust me;
my name is Asia. How about you? You still have not told me yours.’
    ‘I’m Ben.’
    ‘Well then, Ben;
if that is your real name. I’m just about out of coffee, so perhaps you
wouldn’t mind escorting me back to my guesthouse. It’s not safe for a girl to
be walking these streets alone at night, as I’ve recently discovered.’
    My heart sank.
Despite the unfortunate circumstances of our meeting it disappointed me that
she was ready to leave. I paid for the drinks and then accompanied her on the
short walk back to where she was staying. The adrenaline had long since faded
and my nerves were starting to return. Even after what we had been through I
had still not fully shaken my earlier misgivings.
    At least now I
did not feel quite so much like I could not look at her. She wore no make-up,
but a delicate sprinkle of freckles was all the decoration her face needed. Her
eyes appeared green from a distance, but up close they revealed themselves to
be light blue with an inner halo of yellow. One of them was tempered by a small
speck of orange, like a leaf floating on water. I cursed fortune for teasing me
with such possibilities and then cruelly taking them away. When we arrived at
her door I tried my best to keep from losing her completely.
    ‘Perhaps we
could do this again sometime,’ I suggested.
    I knew that my
anxiety showed. She glanced down at my Hobbit feet then looked up with an
amused grin on her face, but did not say anything.
    ‘I mean the
drinks, not the mugging; obviously,’ I added, rather clumsily. She remained silent.
I sensed that she enjoyed watching me squirm. ‘Or maybe I should just go.’
    ‘You don’t have
to go,’ she replied. ‘It may be forward of me, but after everything that
happened earlier I don’t really want to spend tonight on my own.’
    The hostel
reception staff had long finished for the day and this enabled me to accompany
her to her room without any questions being asked. I expected her lodgings to
be more upmarket than what the typical traveller is used to, but they were not.
Her room was small and sparse, with a double bed covered by a wafer thin
mattress that