Rate of Exchange
by Joe Dornich


There are always clues.

Sometimes it’s a simple as a new sound. It’s the clicking fingernails of a small dog scurrying against hardwood floors, when you have neither. It’s the way the air tastes. It could be that the pillows are too thin, or the texture of unfamiliar sheets against your skin. But it’s always something, and you know immediately. Without realizing how you got there, or even opening your eyes, you know that you are in a strange bed, and it is unsettling.

What clued me in was the arm draped over the small of my back. In my bed, in my room, I sleep alone, and therefore free myself from the search of wandering limbs.

My eyes open, and I am mercifully facing a wall. Above my head is a window, partially covered by drab soiled curtains that look like they were used to wrap a wound. Rays of sunlight stream in, thick and unapologetic. They canvas the sheets and uncovered flesh, eager to illuminate how the decisions of the night have carried over. The light shines on the dust, floating around the room like a miniature snowstorm. And as I lay there watching it fall, thoughts cross my mind.

80% of dust is human skin.

And. Where. The. Fuck. Am. I?

Close my eyes again, as if that will make all of this go away. I am not ready to face this new rung of compromised morality. I see myself back home, crudely fingering the antique globe your mother gave us. Measuring it out. Cambodia, Phenom Penh specifically, was as far away as I could get from you before I’d be headed back again.

I am staying at the Lucky Number 7 Guesthouse. The guidebook boasted of their budget friendly rooms and outdoor bar, both of which provide views of Boeng Kak Lake and its heralded sunsets. Of course the lake and surrounding air are heavily polluted, so those sunsets are enhanced by the unnatural colors that occur when man’s chemicals spill onto God’s canvas.

This arm draped over me now, this new touch, feels foreign. It is a pun I think you would enjoy. This buoys my spirits; knowing it is a new height from which they’ll eventually fall.

The streets here are lined with trees on crutches. Pieces of wood are fit under branches to support decaying trunks. The birds that nest in these trees line their homes with trash picked from the gutters. I watch these birds, living in their squalid homes, built on crumbling foundations, and already I’m thinking of us.

Young boys and girls compete with the humidity to see which can accost me first. All

smiles and eyes, they jockey for my attention. Displaying their carts, and proudly holding aloft their wares, they hope to barter and make a sale. A modest contribution to

their struggling families. They are children well versed in everything but childhood.

Lying here now, I find it amusing how fickle intent and desire can be. I’m sure during the night, protected by the shadows, I was overcome with a ravenous zeal when it came to touching and being touched. Submissive and pliable, nothing was out of bounds, no act or sentiment taboo. But now, awash in daylight, my passions faded with the moon, I do not wish to be touched. To be claimed.

Wanting to sleep with someone and wanting to wake up to them, are unfortunately, rarely related.

Are you disappointed in my behavior, my predicament? How it is that I’ve wound up in a strange bed, without any recall of how I got there, or what I may have done in it. Is this unlike me, that I am not myself? Or is it that you hardly knew me?

The night isn’t a total blank. Disjointed images flash in my mind like a poorly edited film. I see the guesthouse bar, lit by beer signs in various shades of dying neon. I see moonlight reflected off polluted waters. Faces of young women who patrol the bar. They hide in corners, or sit on stools, slumped and weary like broken dolls. Things once loved by a child, and then forgotten.

But every face holds the promise of a new memory. A history I can build which will be all my own. Something to cling to and counter with when you stomp around in my head, demanding to be heard.

One of these faces carries gentle eyes the color of weak coffee. Her name is Sophal. This I remember. We drink Tiger Beers and trade pasts. She is the mother of two young boys, each sired by a foreigner. A fa-rang. They no doubt came here eager for experience, fueling their desire with empty promises. A promise to save, to stay, to nurture. To pull out. And now their half-truths have manifest themselves into two young boys without the hope of a father.

Sophal suggests we go to another bar. She does not say where her boys are, and I do not ask. I see our table tucked into a corner. People appear and vanish into shadows. American pop music is extended beyond comprehension into techo dance beats. Sophal eyes our collection of drinks, the pile of change on the table, then meets my gaze and offers, “The exchange here is good for you.”

And I am foolish enough to believe she is referring to the money.

It’s been too long, and the raw feel of another has become unnatural, something to fear. Unaided by lust or alcohol, her hand is heavy and full of menace. And I know my head is crowded with words I can’t ignore, but this is not the touch of a lover. It’s the vestigial remains of a conjoined twin. Spiteful and cheated, he has watched my life from above, the decisions I’ve made. The gentle caress of fingertips on me are his, tapping out in Morse code along the knuckles of my spine - I could have done better.

Is this why you remarried so quickly? To save yourself from the trappings of alien flesh and misplaced sympathy.

The film cuts to a cab ride through the city. Our destination, unspoken, or unheard. In the backseat, her hands are on my thighs, my chest, cradling my head. More hands than seem possible. She climbs on my lap, her black hair tenting my face. Her breath is warm like the evening sun, and my senses are drunk on all the ways she is not you.

Then the blackness comes and swallows it all.

Gentle footfalls are added to my menagerie of unfamiliar sounds. Reluctantly I raise myself and find the gaze of two young boys. Inky black hair spills over their heads. Their eyes are a concoction of emotion. They are confused but curious, wary yet hopeful. They do not know how I got here, so close to their mother, but they silently plead for me to stay.

And oh Amanda, if you could see me now.