Taxi-boat-bus-taxi-boat. The Perhentian Islands can be reached using this method in just 16 short hours. Sleep is impossible on a suspension-free overly air conditioned Malaysian bus. I get through the night on Adam and Joe podcasts and chocochip cookies. At some point the driver is shaking me awake. It is 4am. We are at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. It is pitch black.
I'm ushered into an unappealing, unlicensed minicab, and driven to the ferry office, which doesn't open for another 20 minutes, so I loiter in the darkness, alone and friendless, tired and confused. Then, suddenly, the sun rises, three hours too early: a man enters, nay; an Adonis, a movie star, a model, God's Gift, and probably the most beautiful man I have ever seen in Real Life.
I am not dreaming. He is apparently a fellow tourist, like me, but not like me because he is tall and slender and full of grace, has chocolate curls and deep, dark blue eyes and full, very red lips. He has long, slim, pianist's fingers, which he waves around theatrically when he finally speaks, in a soft, slow, controlled voice, so soft I have to ask him to repeat things.
He walks in beauty, like the night, but he is not a model, not even a part-time one, but an English teacher in Seoul, so we have that little common ground at least. I feel very far away from Little Chrissy Two Towels right now. Every thought and expression is carefully considered and selected. He is aware of his beauty, no doubt, but mature enough to be quite dismissive of it. I struggle not to mention it.
I put the age of this gilded youth at between 20 and 28, but apparently he is 33, further adding to my conviction that there is a portrait of him rotting away in an attic somewhere.
I am not worthy to gaze upon his exquisite visage. My very presence cheapens and tarnishes his beauty. This angel should be surrounded only by Aphrodite and handmaidens and wood nymphs. Instead, he gets a crumpled, sleep deprived, sunburnt Essex girl.
His body almost groans with intensity and sensitivity and depth of thought. Little birds probably help him get dressed in the morning. He is a perfect creature but, here I fail my readership - both of you - so completely Not My Type. He is too ethereal, not of this earth, slumming it with us mere mortals for a lost weekend on an tropical island. Rare is the sentence that escapes his lips that does not mention "the vibe". He is a little bit hippy and a lot bit spiritual.
We wait for dawn, or the boat the leave, and find that one brings about the other. I excuse myself and slip off to watch the sunrise alone. I can only gaze on one blindingly beautiful thing at a time.
I eye him skeptically as we board the boat. He has added a ethnic-looking scarf to his attire, successfully achieving that Libyan terrorist look. A little way into the conversation and I discover that God does not give with both hands: James is not funny.
He lacks that quintessential shot of venom cursing through his veins that would give his statements bite and substance. Just a hint of sarcasm would illuminate his soul and perfect lips. He has no sense of the ridiculous, no affection for the absurd. Life is to be taken Very Seriously Indeed. We chase a red sun as the boat speeds towards the island and I think about how irritating this is going to be, alone in a tropical paradise with an Adonis with one fatal, uncompromising flaw.
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