You were challenging me, maybe even baiting me. You dangled the information in front of me like a piece of chocolate cake, daring me to resist. Didn’t you know that I don’t scare easily? You were testing what I claimed when I told you I did research on human trafficking. You pointed to a map in my travel guide and said, what did you think of the four floors? You did not weigh my response when I said I had no idea what you were talking about. Instead you explained, describing an indoor red light district, a corporate playground that was legal/not legal. Then, you offered to take me there.

You could not answer my questions, at least not all of them. That told me you had been there but I suspected you were more of a participant than an observer. You and I did not speak the same language. You said pimps, I said traffickers. You and I did not see the same things. You said there were none and when the taxi dropped us off, I pointed five out to you. You led me into the first bar that turned us away because they said id was insufficient. Did you see how they didn’t even id the group of Australian men that followed after us? We went into a smaller bar then. You search my face carefully when you realize, when I realize, that all the women in the bar are Filipinas, just like me. You order a round of drinks just as I instructed you to and then two girls join us. You are probably chiding me for using the word “girl” because there is a part of you that always insisted they were of “legal age” even though I tell you that they could not possibly be and even if they were, there is nothing magic about the number 18. They talk to us and tell us stories about how they got there. They are remarkably open believing that I am planning to open my own bar. They are so open, they begin drop red flags like how their papers are taken away once they arrive, how they have to all live in the same place, how they are not allowed to leave unless they are escorted. At one point, we go into other areas, traveling each floor through some bars where the women dance naked on top of stages or where men receive blow jobs right in the middle of a lounge. Do you see how I never blink? Maybe I am trying to prove to you how much I have seen in the world, how many of these places I have gone into. But never like this, with you at my side. You do not hesitate to ask the questions that I sometimes find difficult. At one point we have to separate and you balk at the idea. You say, I don’t want to leave you alone, who will be with you? It makes me smile. It has been a long time since someone wanted to protect me. I tell you I will be okay and when we come back together, you know that I was right. In the last place we go to, you lay your hand on my knee. It is the most shocking thing that has happened to me all night, the hot feel of your fingers flexing around my knee, drawing lazy circle up my thigh while you lean closer to talk to me. I put my own hand on top of yours and raise my eyebrow. Surely, you cannot think this is the place for such things? You come back to the present but are not apologetic. Instead you shrug and say, I couldn’t help it. I smile. It’s been a long time since someone has felt compelled to touch me.

When we walk back to our hotel, we are quiet in the consistent humidity of Singapore. It does not let up even at two in the morning. Your hand is light on the small of my back. I like the ways it feels there. You ask me more questions about what I thought. I answer you. You ask about how this will inform my research, if it will. I tell you my plans of writing a book. Our conversation is robust and full. It’s not taking the place of anything else I feel. It is not a distraction. I want to hear what you think and you must feel the same, because the conversation does not digress, you continue to look into my eyes and not anywhere else. The hotel is quiet when we enter and there is no negotiation when we go upstairs to your room. We lay side by side on your bed, on top of the sheets and you throw your arm over me to pull me a little closer. We keep talking into the morning. That is all. The sun rises slowly lighting up the pale skies. Your car service has arrived and your flight leaves soon. We fumble sleepily and I watch you get ready, pick up your luggage and turn to me. You kiss my cheek or maybe I imagined that. And, then you say goodbye.

Last night you bought me tequila shots, shaken with ice so they were slightly chilled. I grew up in the borderlands but it never tasted like this. We talked for hours. I liked the sound of your voice and the tenor of your stories. Did you know we would see each other again? I sit here in the deserted lobby bar, tired, worn out. My colleague, across from me, taps the table and says, definitely, we absolutely need french fries. I smile in agreement, noticing you stride from the elevator. You see me and walk over and ask if you could join us. I push a chair out and gesture for you to sit. My colleague looks at you and I stammer out an introduction. Nothing has happened but I know that it will. I am embarrassed over my future actions. It makes me lose my words. You turn to her and start to build bridges, connecting countries, islands in deep blue seas that hold shared memories of food and place. You nod and laugh and she does the same. She asks if you want some our fries and when you nod again, she goes to the bar to order more. This is when you turn to me. You lean towards me, your hand lightly on my arm. You ask, are you okay? and your eyes feel like they are searching mine. Yes, I say, why? You say, I don’t know. You seem quiet, not like yourself. I smile at you and then you shrug like it’s not a big deal, like it happens all the time that someone sees me… like really sees me.

You were in my orbit. Or I was in yours. The first moment was a slight cataclysm which happens when the universe aligns. Did you feel that alignment of the planets? You would tell me later, that you were startled by the connection you felt. You said it was deep and instant and surprising. I was surprised to. You couldn’t know how many times, my hands have reached out to take a strangers or how many smiles ask to be returned. You couldn’t know how many rooms like this I have been in. You couldn’t know how many of those moments I dismissed, ready to move into the rest of my day. But not you. You, I wanted to know. You intrigued me. Maybe it was your eyes? They seemed to see right through into the center of me, that part that no one ever saw. Did you feel the world still as I did when we exchanged names, when you touched me? I looked into your eyes and all the noise in my head, the constant churning of chaos stilled. Could you guess that my whole body filled with surety about you that should not have made sense. Did you think we made sense? Maybe you heard my exhale of acceptance. Right before the world started again with the soft shush of waiters setting the tables around us and the discreet answer of a phone, you began to speak but all I saw were words dancing all around you, sentences, stanzas, falling over each other in a way they had been absent for me for years. A rush. A whoosh of inspiration. 21 floors high, a dwarf in terms of Singapore’s stratosphere but high enough to see that everything would change. And so it began.