Petra's present, pretty Serge, rarely came to see me on his own. Sexy, coke-carrying Serge was very sought after. When we got together it was usually because I spent half a day tracking him down, searching for him on his dealing route by Joe Banana's. If I couldn't find him there, I'd try other places he frequented, all of them full of females awaiting his attention. One was a house behind the paddy where Serge went for a massage from a host of damsels eager to indulge him.

'Cleo's here,' a bare-breasted woman in a sarong informed him. Serge lay naked on a satin covered mattress. From astride his back, a naked woman in a green turban rubbed coconut oil on his skin.

He raised his head from the cushion and, with an unlit beedie hanging from his mouth, said, 'Be right with you. I'm almost done. I love a massage, don't you?'

When he was ready, he extended his hand. 'Come for a ride, Miss Cleo?'

I climbed behind him on his bike, and we drove off over the sand, weaving through trees and sparsely scattered houses and onto the paved road. I still hated riding motorbikes, but in this case it meant putting my arms around this gorgeous guy. His velvet, Afghani vest was open, so my hands closed over naked midriff. Actually, I didn't mind riding behind him at all.

'Do you know Bernard and Sima?' he asked, turning his head so I could hear over the rushing air. His scarf flapped in my face. I pushed closer against him. No, I didn't mind this particular bike ride one bit.

He drove me to Bernard and Sima's house off the Mapusa road. A stone wall ornamented with ball shapes surrounded the property. As we drove in, Serge was waved at by a group of people sitting under a tree. He led me up the front steps, past a Goan lady washing the marble floor on her knees. A European woman in an outfit that covered only one breast swung in a hammock. Seeing Serge, she smiled and followed us into the house.

'Salut,' said Bernard. Serge introduced me to the group, most of whom were French. Sima, Bernard's girlfriend, was Iranian—an Iranian princess, it was said, who scandalized her family's title with her lifestyle. I liked her immediately. She was friendly and warm and clever.

Since wanting to buy coke was the excuse I used in my search for Serge, he now borrowed Bernard's scale to weigh me a gram, and then, business over, we sat with his friends. It wasn't five minutes after we were sitting dose, leg to leg, that the woman with the bare breast wrapped her arms around Serge's neck and swooped him out of the room. Sima noticed my sad face as I watched the octopus drag, him away and smiled sympathetically. 'Want to chase the dragon?' she asked.

'What’s that?'

'I'll show you.' She picked up a sheet of aluminium foil. 'This is how we do it in my country. This is Iranian smack.'

Hearing the word  smack, my ears perked up. The powder she held was brown instead of the white I was used to. I kept watch on the doorway through which Serge had disappeared. I wondered if it led to the kitchen, or a bedroom. What was the nymph doing with my Serge? Sima placed a rock of smack on the aluminium foil and, while Bernard held a lighter underneath, she inhaled the smoke with a rolled up rupee note. As the rock melted, the liquid flowed and had to be 'chased' with the bill. The burning-smack smell aroused my interest in this new method.

'Want to try?' Bernard asked me.

'Sure.'

I kneeled by the foil. It took a moment to get the right-sized rock into the right spot, and I waited anxiously with the rolled bill poised in the air.

'No!' said Serge, suddenly behind me. 'I didn't bring her here to get stoned on smack.' At one time Serge had been into smack, but he'd quit years before and was now against it. 'I'm trying to get her to stop using, and you teach her a new way to do it!' I noticed the nymph was no longer with him. Mmm, what a pretty face he had —even when it frowned.

Later, while driving me home, he asked, 'Shall I come by tonight?'

'Yes!' Though I wasn't crazy about sharing him with the rest of the female population of Anjuna Beach (not to mention his wife in Colva), he was definitely worth it.

Meanwhile, I saw Neal every day. He needed companionship during his growing problems with Eve.

'She steals from everyone,' he told me as we walked the path at the northern end of Anjuna Beach. 'Remember the first time I brought her to your house? I found out she'd taken one of your skirts—had put it on under her dress—and a brass figure too. I made her bring them back, but when she returned those she took a Kashmiri box. I don't know what to do. People cringe when they see us at their door. Pretty soon no onewill talk to me. They'll be afraid I may visit.' It was late afternoon, and the blazing sun had sunk behind the palms bordering the beach. 'She's strange too,' he continued, but I couldn't concentrate on Neal's words. I had something on my mind. 'I want to thank you for your support in this,' he said. 'Sometimes I need someone to talk to. I love the baby, probably the only one ever have. I'll be forty soon.'

'Forty! Yipes. I thought you were my age.'

'See why I can't let the baby go? Even if it means staying with Eve.'

'Neal?'

'Hm?'

'Neal, I have to tell you something.' I looked away and watched a crow loop in the distance. 'Neal, I think I've fallen in love with you.' We stopped and stood by a wall; a pig could be heard grunting oft the other side. 'I'm sorry, I don't want to make things harder for you.'

He giggled and pulled at his beard. 'Well you have.'

We sat on a rock by the path, not saying anything. I felt like I'd ruined everything between us, but at the same time I was relieved to have told him. He couldn't have been more surprised by the situation than I was. I'd never told anyone I loved him like that, out of the blue. Actually. I hadn't fallen in love like that before. For me, love never developed over time. It was immediately there at the beginning, then usually wore away with time. Neal wasn't my usual type, either. Good grief, forty years old! I never went with older guys. Serge, I knew, was my same age. And Neal had a beard. I hated that scratchy stuff. Maybe this was a new kind of love. Maybe this was really love and not lust. Uh-oh, what had I gotten myself into?

'Well, I guess we'll just have to see what happens,' he said.

When we entered his house we found Mushroom Jeffrey, an Englishman, sitting with Eve. 'Here he is!' Mushroom Jeffrey exclaimed when he saw us. 'Neal, I brought psychedelic mushrooms for you to try. They're supposed to be right-o super. Just received them in the mail.' I unfolded a packet of foil to reveal a pile of brown flakes. We each inserted a Finger and scooped some out.

'Tastes terrible.'

We then snorted coke and waited for the trip to come on. CLICK, CLICK, SCRAPE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK. Nothing happened.

'I think those are supermarket mushrooms, Jeffrey',' Neal finally decided. 'A & P brand.'

The first time Neal and I made love was one morning after a party. It was hot upstairs in my bedroom, but with the bed in front of the window, we were cooled by the sea-smelling breeze blowing from the ocean. A ray of sunlight lit a corner of the red, satin sheet where we cuddled as Neal recounted the months he spent as a political