Brothel in the Jungle

By Jon Gresham

Andrew Chan wondered whether anyone else had noticed the bees. In the night they flew through the condominium air conditioning ducts to buzz around the Swedish modular furniture. Exhausted and spent, unable to get out, looking too long for escape. They died.

Andrew was a partner in a multinational law firm on the twenty fifth floor of Marina Bay Financial Centre, but his clients did not concern him. He lay awake in the early hours worrying about his wife, Juno, turning in her sleep beside him. Their relationship was dying. Seeking distraction from the enormity of his gloom, he thumbed through work emails on his phone.

One email attracted his attention. The image of a man grinning in reflective sunglasses and waxed quiff, which, to his surprise, Andrew found quite beguiling. His message hit a nerve.

“Tired and stressed by the drudgery of modern life? Get back to nature. Pay us a visit. Forget all your troubles, get on down to the Brothel in the Jungle.”

Andrew deleted the email and ploughed through his inbox into the early hours of the morning. As dawn broke, Andrew laid his phone to rest on his bedside table and picked up their ten-month-old baby, Angel, from the cot at the end of the bed. In the living room, hundreds of bees lay scattered across the marble tiles—frozen-still, with their tiny, pollen-swelled legs pointing upwards. To pacify Angel’s tiny urgent cries, he rocked her gently in his arms. He kissed her on the forehead. She quietened and sniffled into his armpit.

Andrew’s phone vibrated and a pre-recorded message rang out: “Get back to nature. Come to the Brothel in the Jungle. A visit will fix everything.”

Andrew hung up, trusting that the sleeping Juno had not heard.

*

Andrew would have forgotten all about the Brothel in the Jungle if he hadn’t received an invitation to connect a week later while doomscrolling through social media. There was no mistaking the cocky grin and cresting coiffure of that aging lothario. Andrew declined the invite only after he’d memorised the link in his bio.

Later that morning, alone in his office with the door and blinds closed, Andrew typed the link into his browser and waited for the website to appear. He recalled the tales he’d heard several years before of steamy, sweaty places in the jungle near Mandai Estate where pirated DVDs, illegal cigarettes and furtive copulations were hawked to punters. Shielded from the sun by blue plastic tarpaulins, lonely men waited for a thirty-dollar blow job and a tumble over rotting, mouldy mattresses sprawled across the dirt. The police raided these places so many times that it was not unusual to see girls—high heels in hand—hurtling down the rail corridor, trying to escape. The blokes too flabby to run protested their innocence as the police led them away. Then there were the Health Centres that had little to do with health, the ‘rub’n tug’ spas behind Boat Quay, the private rooms in karaoke bars and the saunas in Chinatown. Hadn’t the four floors of whores on Orchard Road closed? He hoped the Brothel in the Jungle was nothing like those sleazy paeans to male lust.

A lilac screen with dark green text emerged and Andrew felt reassured.

“Imagine a place where you can get anything you want. All desires satiated. This is the Brothel in the Jungle. Let nature have its way. Come inside and find who you need to be. This is where the lonely people go. Come. Escape to a place beyond your wildest dreams. Let us be your catalyst for change. Get out of your comfort zone. Do something. Live.”

Would Juno care, he asked himself, if he indulged? Surely, she dabbled in her own unknown pleasures.

Andrew became increasingly intrigued as he clicked further through the website.

“Go wild with us, friend. Enjoy the ultimate experience in high-end pleasure. Forget your Apps. We’re exclusive. In our oasis, we have vodka martinis, frozen white cotton handtowels, tropical showers and dark amber, blackcurrant scented body-wash.”

Andrew flicked through images of an air-conditioned yurt and an underground chamber bedecked with purple velvet and lined in ermine. Gentle youths dressed in silk robes, with orchids draped around their necks, padded about. Good on them, Andrew smiled. A far better way to make a buck than the drudgery of unpacking soap powder at Cold Storage.

“Choose a girl or a guy, all shapes, ethnicities and styles. And if people don't do it for you, there is an array of penetrative mechanical devices constructed from 100% sustainable materials, flesh-textured rubber, chrome, vinyl or leather. Make a booking. Tell us what you want. The Brothel in the Jungle will deliver.”

He couldn’t seriously be contemplating cheating on Juno? He shrugged. How would she ever know?

He could not hide his excitement when he spotted the physical location of this pleasure place. The jungle was within sight of his condominium, Spottiswoode Suites. If he walked a couple of hundred metres down Spottiswoode Park Road, he’d find the jungle in front of the abandoned railway station. Andrew had walked past this impenetrable, misshapen clump of vegetation many times—without a single thought as to what lay within. What was this place that he never knew existed but had always been there on the periphery of consciousness?

Andrew imagined writhing bodies and rhythmic crop-tops, pulsing midriffs, and svelte hands. His mind’s eyes hovered over surfaces, explored orifices, drank in the spank and splodge, the throb, press and pull of other people. This place sure was something. It promised the most extraordinary fuck he’d ever experience.

*

At twilight, Andrew jogged around Spottiswoode Park. He trundled around the estate under covered walkways and through void decks while Angel slept in her cot under the watchful eye of their helper, Sisi. Juno, who was head of public relations for a large property developer, was working late. Again. He knew not to expect her home soon. Running helped him slow down and switch off, forget his troubles, and try not to think about the Brothel in the Jungle.

Under the darkening sky, Andrew felt a fuzzy sensation high inside his left nostril. At first a minor irritation, the vibration within his nostril soon became erratic. He bent over and blew hard, but the buzz kept going. Andrew, caught in frantic agitation, flapped his hands at his nose. The friendly waste collectors from the bin centre hauled an abandoned mattress along in their motorised trolley and waved back. He ran past in a state of panic, worried that he’d been stung.

The bee took micro steps up his nasal cavity as he waggled his throbbing nose. Fearing it would reach his brain, Andrew whacked himself in the head. He careered through the playground and tripped, sneezing over a spring-mounted rocking horse. This action jolted the offending insect from his nose. He plucked it from the ground and held it in his palm. A tiny fuzz against his skin. He anticipated a sting. A last act before dying. But no, the bee buzzed and Andrew tossed the creature into the air, watching with relief as it tumbled away.

The light had nearly faded by the time Andrew cut through Spottiswoode Estate to Raeburn Park. He lurched along the long, straight path shrouded by towering Binjai trees leading to the vacant railway station. A steep grassed slope led to the jungle at Spottiswoode Park on his left. No matter how hard he rubbed, he couldn’t get rid of a tickle in his nasal passage. He was tempted to grab a twig when he noticed a burgundy BMW parked in darkness alone at the side of the road. A couple embraced each other in the front seats.

At least some people were having a bit of fun.

The man leaned over the woman, his back to Andrew. His body writhed across hers, producing a look of delight in her upturned face. A familiar look of joy. There was no mistake. Her mouth a little open. Her eyes closed. Her hands caressed his neck. They seemed oblivious to the outside world, lost in each other. In shock, he halted along the path. It couldn’t be.

At that moment, the woman’s eyes opened wide and her whole body froze as she spotted Andrew. A bite of her bottom lip, a hand held over her face. She turned away. Despite the evening darkness, he knew it was Juno. The man pulled back and slid into the driver’s seat. Andrew had not seen his face. His wife turned away, shook her dark-brown hair, and smoothed the crumpled folds of her silk blouse.

Andrew turned and ran back the way he’d come, his nose forgotten. The BMW reversed quickly and sped back down Spottiswoode Park Road. What was she doing in the arms of another man? At the outdoor fitness centre by the playground, Andrew vomited onto a Tai Chi wheel.

*

That night, Andrew drank half a bottle of vodka and spilled the rest on his jogging gear as he waited on the couch for Juno to come home. He didn’t care about the bees. They could die in his hair and dance in his sinus cavities. He worried about the future of his marriage given his efforts to cheat on her, and her success in cheating on him.

Once, they had loved each other. Holding hands at East Coast Park, scoffing cheeseburgers at McDonald’s, wandering along the beach as the cluttered lights of freighters and oil tankers twinkled on the horizon. They were married at Bethany Presbyterian on Upper Paya Lebar Road with a reception celebration her family could not afford in the ballroom of the Shangri-La Hotel on Orange Grove Road. It had never been perfect. She frustrated him with her frivolous chatter. He could annoy her with a smile. They had tried to make it work.

Over time they drowned their relationship in their careers. They were no longer curious about each other. Their togetherness sank into neglect and eventually turned toxic. Jealous of the other’s promotions and bonuses, they resented that they each found more happiness at work than in one another.

How had they conceived Angel? They were both drunk at the time and slid into each other like loose sausages jostling for supremacy in a reused grocery bag. Before her birth, he was under the misapprehension that the child would remedy the defects in their relationship. A feeling of hope surged through each of them as they watched the ultrasound. The joy of a pea-sized heart pulsing in a sea of speckled grey. The gynaecologist turned up the volume and they smiled at one another with tenderness.

When Angel was born, he found himself in love, not only with his daughter, but with Juno all over again. He didn’t understand why she hadn’t felt the same. But she only loved their daughter. She scolded him for his milk preparation and his trick of balancing her on his belly. She didn’t trust him with the baby.

Andrew loved to suck Angel’s toes and share a giggle. She was so fragile, and he wished she could stay that way forever. The first time he put her pinkies—like soft caramels—in his mouth, she gasped, let loose a tiny cough, and started to cry. He didn’t know how to comfort her. He didn’t know whether it was hunger or constipation, whether she wanted to be picked up and held, or if her porridge lacked milk, turning her pooh hard. Thankfully, Juno came to the rescue, edged him out the way, and Angel stopped crying. Saliva bubbled gently through her lips as she chuckled. Her little fingers clutched at the flesh around her mother’s wrist.

*

What if they had tried harder to love the unlovable in each other? In retrospect, Andrew knew he should have made more of an effort. He ignored the warning signs. The failure to say goodnight to one another. The coldness. Accustomed to the growing distance between them, each blamed the other for their own unhappiness. This and the lack of sleep, the dribble, the pooh and piss, and the vomit line of regurgitated formula leaking from the corner of Angel’s mouth, made fertile ground for new yearnings. The Brothel in the Jungle for Andrew. The man in the BMW for Juno.

Six months before, Juno exhausted and exasperated—her nipples torn apart—gave up trying to breastfeed Angel. She was fed up with minuscule secretions and soothing her breasts with frozen, wilted cabbage leaves. Over coffee at NYLON in Everton Park, he reached out and touched her on the wrist.

“You can do it. Keep trying. Don’t give up,” he had said. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. We’ll be okay.”

“Why do you keep telling me that? Don’t make me feel weak, when it’s you who’s weakened me.” She pulled her hand away and sipped her flat white.

Only the other week, Juno had left her phone unlocked on the dining room table while she bathed Angel. Had she wanted him to know? He had snuck a glimpse at the lines of text in the open Notepad App she used as a diary:

“Everything is a transaction. When I add it all up, he no longer has sufficient currency to fund my attention. Let alone respect or love. Am I better off alone? Or with another?”

*

The morning after Andrew saw Juno with another man, he awoke to dead bees between his buttocks. He felt listless and pallid, as though his body didn’t belong to him. His nose was swollen and red. Juno must have let herself in after he’d fallen asleep because he heard her in the kitchen, cooing over Angel above the hum of the microwave defrosting an avocado and oatmeal puree.

He swept away the bees, extracting one from the curl of his ear, and went to her desperate for an explanation. A response he could address and fix. He didn’t want her to be unhappy. He recognised his responsibility too. If the problem was him, then he would change, but he wanted to know why.

She laughed when she saw his red and swollen nose.

“What the hell happened to you?”

He sighed and took in her olive, silk chemise and pale, bare shoulders and the steady rise and fall of her chest.

“Was it you?”

She shrugged and held Angel tight in her arms.

“I care about us.”

“Is there an ‘us’?” She replied. “You’re a tourist in this marriage. Coming and going as you please. It’s over. I’m speaking to my lawyer. You do what you want. You’re free.”

A precarious, sickly sweetness rose in his gut. She turned her back, left the kitchen and fed Angel puree as she gazed through the condominium window at the clump of jungle at Spottiswoode Park.

Andrew reached out to embrace them from behind and Juno stiffened. She prodded him with an elbow. Angel squirmed. He felt warm moisture on his wrist. A squish of brown fecal matter leaked from Angel’s nappy and trickled over his hand, and he recoiled with a jolt. Angel writhed and arched her neck backwards, breaking free from Juno’s grasp. At that moment, a white-hot, searing pain tore across his lower-back. At the base of the spine, his muscles spasmed and locked and he fell to the ground trying to catch his falling daughter. Almost had her. But she wiggled from his grasp and tumbled towards the clean, white, marble tiles.

Juno shrieked. “My darling! What has he done to you?”

Angel chuckled and gurgled as though it was all one big adventure. Juno lifted her up, searching for any sign of injury.

“I’m really sorry, Juno. It was an accident.”

“Get out. Just leave,” she said.

When Juno spoke, there was nothing to say. He left the apartment and hobbled around the neighbourhood, hoping to God that Angel had suffered no lasting damage. It was only a fall of a few feet. Babies are tough. They put up with lots of things. They have memories like fish. As long as she gets her milk and a good pooh, she’d be right.

As he walked around Spottiswoode Park, Andrew ground his teeth. He was no longer fool enough to believe that he could mend his marriage. He had more hope of reviving the lifeless bees he’d swept from his body that morning. There was no way back.

He took a deep breath. He didn’t hate Juno. He feared the burden of new possibilities. He was numb. He needed a break. He rang his personal assistant and took the day off. His clients would have to survive without him.

He walked to calm himself down, intending to grab an early lunch and plan the end of his marriage. The break-up would be expensive. Juno would get half, and he’d need to negotiate access. The Brothel in the Jungle rose to the forefront of his mind. He began to feel a little more optimistic.

The sky hung grey and a gentle breeze blew. He shuffled past a Singapore Land Authority sign on his left declaring:

STATE LAND

This site is for casual community and recreational use.

Please exercise caution and be responsible for your own safety.

Ancient Binjai trees towered above him. They seemed to regard him and his petty, self-inflicted crises with disdain. Their pale, bronzed roots sprawled across a grassy slope, rising at the crest of a knoll to the large untidy clump of jungle at the heart of Spottiswoode Park. These gnarled limbs reminded him of the tentacles of a washed-up, dried-out, giant squid. He walked past the multi-storey car park to the road at Raeburn Park. Near the spot where Juno was with the other man the previous evening, a collapsed, sodden condom lay alone on the concrete footpath. Where had this come from? Left over from whose assertions? Or flung from a window high up in one of the HDB blocks or condominiums nearby, tossed by a strong wind to his feet?

He halted on the path and turned to squint at his apartment on the upper levels of Spottiswoode Suites. There was movement. A thin, dark, blur swayed from left to right and back again. From that distance he couldn’t tell whether there was someone inside or the reflections of clouds crossing the sky.

He imagined that Juno’s lover had seen him leave the apartment, then sneaked in, embracing her with passion. Swiftly entering and leaving. She would be passive, distracted, certain to be on edge, always with one eye on the cot at the foot of the bed. At least, that was the way she was with him. Afterwards, she’d roll the used condom off her lover’s semi-flaccid cock and step onto the balcony to toss the evidence of betrayal into the sky. She’d see him in the distance walking around Spottiswoode Park, and she’d know where to aim.

Of course, this was an absurd, impossible fantasy. He was standing on a footpath beyond the reach of anybody’s arm.

The Binjai trees loomed and seemed to judge his thoughts. Dark and brooding despite the heat and clear light of day. Should he give his relationship one last try? All he had ever wanted was to be a good husband and father. And a successful lawyer too. Was this too much to ask?

In the shadow of the jungle at Spottiswoode Park, with one last roll of the dice, he texted Juno. Hoping for a response.

>We need to talk. Let’s work things out<

But there was no answer. It struck him that she really did not care. She had told him it was over and he could do his own thing. He had nothing to lose. The Brothel in the Jungle beckoned.

*

Andrew turned the corner and trudged along a footpath. Past saplings spaced at regular intervals. A grass slope, supported by a concrete and stone retaining wall, rose steeply into the southern clump of jungle on his left.

Andrew’s phone beeped with a message. He hoped it was Juno offering a conciliatory sit-down. Instead, it was a proposal for an instant loan at an interest rate of fifteen percent per month. A tiny, emerald gecko squirted across the path between his feet. One way or another he needed a change—a cleansing, cathartic enema to flush out all the frustrations in his life. A light breeze on his skin cooled the beginnings of sweat. A column of ants dragged the dried carcass of a dead bee past a crumpled packet of cigarettes on which had been printed a distorted pair of accusatory eyes. In the distance he heard the smooth, reassuring drone of traffic and the hiss of tyres on concrete as vehicles sped along the nearby flyover. A dog barked over the incessant shrill of cicadas. The irritation in his nose no longer bothered him. He headed towards Cantonment Link past the empty Tanjong Pagar railway station and took a left down Outram Road.

On the grass verge before a bus-stop, a sagging, half-deflated, yellow balloon floated gently into the oncoming traffic. Juno had not replied to his text. He turned left after the hoardings hiding the pile of bricks and concrete where once Maritime House had stood. Intending to cut through Everton Park estate, he’d grab some duck rice at Everton Food Place after enjoying the Brothel in the Jungle.

What’s the point in trying to save your marriage if it doesn’t want to be saved? The Brothel in the Jungle would relax him and he’d be in much better shape to deal with Juno. Andrew input the URL in his phone’s browser. After flicking through several thumbnails, he clicked on an unnatural blonde. He provided a false identity and made a booking for that afternoon. If she had her bit on the side, why couldn’t he? God, he needed this in his life. Juno and Angel would never know. He owed this to himself. Sex would be nice, but he especially yearned for someone to touch him with tenderness. Or at the minimum, the pretence of love.

He walked with purpose away from the estate, five minutes down the hill to Chinatown, and took the escalator underground to the entrance of the MRT station at Outram Park where he withdrew a thousand dollars from the ATM. His nose was feeling a lot better. At Pearls Centre, he bought a surgical mask and cheap sunglasses from the pharmacy and strode incognito back to Spottiswoode Park.

When he reached the jungle there appeared to be no visible way in. The website had advised:

Be patient. At first glance, you won't see an entrance. Do not give up. Just circle around towards the train station and stand next to the streetlight on the footpath at the southern side of the jungle at the corner of Raeburn Park and Spottiswoode Park Road. Remain there. Wait at least fifteen minutes. Maybe longer. Something will happen, eventually.

Andrew stood there trying not to think about Juno and Angel. Instead, he looked down at decaying cigarette butts, expired 4D tickets and the grit on the concrete path sparkling in the afternoon light.

Twenty minutes passed, then half an hour. His courage failed. Nothing happened. He found himself unable to enter. Just as he was about to go home, a segment of green shimmered, several branches swayed and parted to reveal an irregularly shaped entrance leading into the depths of the jungle. Somebody in a hoodie appeared out of the darkness. The man—he assumed it was a man—smiled, stumbled and blinked in the light. Gathering himself together, the man clambered down the slope onto the concrete footpath and strode away.

His phone beeped. It was a text from Juno.

>Ok. Let’s talk. Come home<

Andrew lingered for a moment. It was too late. He had made up his mind. After checking no one else was around, he walked into the jungle at the exact point where he’d seen the man emerge. He felt as though he was walking through a waterfall, except this was a thick, curtain of verdant foliage, rippling in the breeze. There did not appear any way ahead. He looked down and could not see his sneakers on the path. Still, he could not stop. He pushed forward. His feet slid on the soft mud and damp, decaying leaves. The wind sang through the tops of the trees. He heard muffled groans, a scratching nearby, and, further away, a creak and tear, as a branch fell through the jungle canopy. As he walked into the green, the leaves parted, and he trod deeper on uneven ground, through mottled light into darker spaces, through sheets of dangling vines. Always there was the interminable screech of insects. And the buzzing of bees. He willed himself on. Swatted several away without being stung. God, they liked his nose. He headed further into the undergrowth, brushed past branches—like wan carefree arms—preparing for a caress, seeking him out, pulling him in. Where was the Brothel in the Jungle? His eyes filled with sweat. In amongst the foliage, he swore he saw a tangle of dreadlocks under a crown of thorns. He clambered over a shopping trolley consumed by weeds. He slipped on an old track shoe and fell on a hornbill casque lying next to the skeletal remains of a cat’s pelvis and tail. I must be getting close, he told himself.

A shredded, white plastic bag stretched over twigs, appeared right in front of his face like a hand, with fingers splayed, beckoning him onwards. He glared through the tops of the trees at the hazy sky. It appeared dull and desaturated, as though veiled in a shroud.

 He had the sense of something watching him. These roots, this fertile field concealed a seething mass of teeth and claws, spikes and talons. All needed to forage and feed. What manner of beast would be attracted to his maudlin, office-cubicle stench—the aroma of LCD screens and isotonic energy drinks? Another bee buzzed around his head. What skills did he have to protect himself here? Drafting complex legal agreements and an efficient elegance with PowerPoint would only get him so far.

He tried to use the digital compass on his smartphone, but the needle would not stay still. It spun in a blur like an out-of-control roulette wheel. He recalled the website had said: “Don’t worry. Just when you think you’re lost, the jungle will find you, and fold itself inside you. When you’ve come so far that you can’t go back, then you will discover the Brothel in the Jungle.”

*

As darkness fell, he wobbled along for minutes that seemed like hours. He stumbled against a clump of soil and vegetation stuck to a tree swarming with a mass of writhing creatures. A beehive. He waved his arms and twirled around. They seemed to be everywhere. He slapped his body. Smacked his face. The bees stung his eyelids, the inside of his mouth, under his armpits, around his groin. His purpose was no longer desire but survival. A far more frantic need to escape overwhelmed him. He wished he’d stayed at home, bumbling along in ordinariness. The way he always had.

He tumbled to the jungle floor and let it gather him in. He rolled over trying to crush the bees. The ground gave way, and he found himself within the earth. He cried out to the snakes and spiders, dragonflies and frogs—and the bees under his skin. He begged and whimpered but received no response from the creatures of the night as he dropped further into the green.

For years, no one could find him. Even though the police scrutinized CCTV footage of Andrew entering the jungle, no one could find him. If he’d been around, he would have been pleased that Juno wept at his funeral, genuinely bereft.

Then one morning, the last trees in the jungle were cut down and the ground broken on another extension to the Circle Line. A backhoe driver from Chittagong found a ribcage, bleached white and tangled in weeds, tarnished by the remnants of dried skin. Bees had made a hive in the pit of his pelvic bone, and their own dead were tattooed along each femur. Alongside the bees and the other restless, yearning animal spirits, Andrew’s speechless soul flew through the last remaining clumps of vegetation around Spottiswoode Park, looking for the Brothel in the Jungle. Once found, he would fly over orange-tiled shophouse rooves, around concrete stanchions and condominium balconies to peer through tinted plate-glass apartment windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of his daughter.

The jungle could not care less about his yearning to be loved without loving back. The jungle needed him not. Nature would not pander to human desire. Despite encroachment, the jungle would answer in the only way it knew. Despite everything, the jungle would persist and grow. The leaves would fall, the cicadas would sing and the bees would buzz.

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Jon Gresham is the author of Gus: The Life & Opinions of the Last Raffles’ Banded Langur (Shortlisted for the 2023 Epigram Books Fiction Prize) and We Rose Up Slowly (Math Paper Press 2015). His writing has appeared in various publications and his story The Visit was shortlisted for the 2020 Short Fiction/Essex University Prize. He also co-edited In This Desert There Were Seeds (Ethos Books and Margaret River Press, 2019). He ran the Asia Creative Writing Programme, a collaboration between The School of Humanities at the Nanyang Technological University, and the Singapore National Arts Council from 2019 to 2023. He is a co-founder of Sing Lit Station, and founded Book A Writer.

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