I run past a sandstone wall and come back to the entry. Staring at the large house number 88 with its warm glow, I steady my short breaths in relief before ringing the bell. A vague voice comes out of the speaker but is cut off suddenly and the silence resumes. The man is not following me. I check, looking over both shoulders. The gate swings open. Ken is standing behind it, one outstretched arm gesturing to my grand entry. As I follow him into the house, my hands tremble – I’ve been gripping the bottle of wine for too long.

“I thought you’d bailed,” Ken jokes.

I look down at the dirt on my high heels and apologise for being late but just then Ken’s phone rings. He takes it out and puts a finger on his lips, disappearing upstairs.

“Must be a client,” a blonde calls out in a high-pitched voice. A stack of shiny bangles clinks as she walks towards me along the dim hallway. When she smiles, the wrinkles around her eyes deepen. She wraps her arm tightly around mine as if guiding a blind person, leading me to the open-plan area under skylights.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, the gorgeous business student Angel. Ken told me he’d found you at the salsa class.” Her sharp eyes study my face and, finally, she lets my arm go.

“Hello, nice to meet you.” I remember what I should say and hand the wine to her.

“I’m Mary, the – you know – free-spirited housewife.” She laughs, fills up a glass with wine and slides it across the island bench towards me. “It’ll help you relax.” Mary urges me to drink the wine, eat the crisps, olives and cheeses. She asks me about my educational levels, family background, the reasons I came here, my short-term goals, long-term plans….

In the nine months and twenty-three days since I arrived in this country, I have been asked the same questions, by Immigration Officers, English test examiners, and almost everyone I’ve met. I like these questions. They create the illusion that my English is good, as I’ve become fluent repeating the same answers numerous times. They provide me with an opportunity to evaluate my life, to ensure I’m on the right track. Now, as I’m repeating the answers, seeing Mary’s eyes locked on me, my back tenses. I want to sound like an educated person. Sounding less educated is dangerous – it shrinks me, the size of my body, the volume of my voice. But I can’t concentrate. The man jumps back into my mind, his face hidden in the dark, away from the street light.

“Stop interrogating the poor girl. Clearly, she’s come to this country to meet us.” Ken pops an olive in his mouth.

Mary pours more wine. “How can this be perceived as interrogating? I just want to know Angel better.”

“Okay, Boss.” Ken winks. “She wears the pants in this house.”

I hesitate. “But she’s wearing a dress.”

Mary chortles and says I am right, she hates wearing pants. She slides off the bar stool and points at me. “Oh, look at your flushed cheeks. Such a cheap drunk. How endearing!”

I cup my hot face with both hands, embarrassed by my inability to drink and the words I can’t pin down. Perceive. Interrogate. Endearing. But I smile politely.

“Come on, let me give you the grand tour.” She takes my hand. Downstairs, Mary shows me the library, gym and the wine cellar. Upstairs, I follow her to the yoga room, another living space, and four guest bedrooms. “You can live here if you like. Free of charge,” Mary says. I nod and thank her, trying not to lower my head too much. In the Master bedroom, above the bed, a large nude portrait of Ken and Mary makes me blush more. Mary asks if it’s a great painting and if I like it. I nod and say yes and quickly look away. As we walk back downstairs, I wonder if Mary feels lonely living in such a big house, if she is scared at night when Ken goes on business trips. Perhaps I can move out of the crowded unit I share with three other international students and live here rent-free while I keep Mary company. I imagine myself living with them. We’d drink wine and talk or maybe I’d just listen to their conversation, taking in all their words. When they laughed, I’d laugh with them. But what if the man waits for me in the shadows again?

Through the sliding door onto the deck, I look out at the swimming pool glowing with blue light, and to the river beyond. “We can go for a swim later. You’d look nice in a bikini.” Mary’s glossy red-manicured fingers caress my arm, “So smooth.” Her perfume is strong.

The man’s breath had smelt like old grease and his arms were thick with hair. “Excuse me!” he had called out as I was about to turn the corner. I stopped, watching him stagger across the street, wondering if he was lost, like me. When he emerged from the shadows cast by the trees, up close, he whispered, “Isn’t it big?” His stomach bulged under his white t-shirt. My hands clenched the bottle of wine against my chest.

Lights are dimmed in the dining room. Candles are lit and the cutlery glints silver. Mary and Ken talk about their trip to Malaysia, how they had an amazing time there. “People took photos with us, like we were celebrities.” I tell them no-one took photos of me when I lived in Malaysia and no-one does it here either – not that I’d like it anyway. “I’d be happy if no one tells me to go back to where I came from, ‘cause I can’t afford a return ticket,” I say and they laugh. I pretend it’s a joke.

I watch Mary and Ken stab their pink steaks, sharp knives slicing through with ease, mopping the blood off their plates with bread, and realise I have no appetite. Mary cuts up a piece of steak and hovers her fork near my mouth. “Give it a go. You’ll like it.” The meat brushes my lips. I shake my head, my eyes pleading with Ken. “Go on, eat it,” Ken urges, grinning. My stomach twitches but I close my eyes and take it in, washing it down with wine. “Tastes good, hey,” he says. I fiddle with the cutlery. I reach out for the wine bottle. I become thirsty for wine.

“Angel is so quiet. Why are Asian girls so quiet? So serene, I like that,” Mary says, filling up my wine.

I wasn’t just quiet, I was mute. Why hadn’t I said anything to that man? I didn’t even make a sound.

“She’s just like the girls,” Ken says, pointing behind me. “Aren’t they gorgeous? Mary took the photos.”

I turn around to the photographs on the wall. A young Chinese woman in a traditional Qipao, the other a Japanese Geisha in a Kimono.

“Our friends posed for Mary when they lived with us. You look just like them, Angel.”

“I like Asian girls.” The man’s voice had cut through the silence and then I had run, rushing down the deserted street dotted with parked cars. The bottle of wine became sweaty in my hand. A roaring car belted past me. The sharp whistle from its open window sliced the air.

I swallow half my wine and then let the story of the man escape my mouth.

Ken laughs, “You should’ve said, ‘oh, too bad, I can’t see anything. Too small!’”

Mary leans back in her chair and folds her arms, “I’d say, gross, no-one wants to see that!” They laugh. She looks as proud as I am ashamed. I look down, plucking at the torn edge of my Qipao. Why did I agree with Ken to wear this to dinner as if I’m not foreign enough?

“They take advantage of Asian girls. But those scum shouldn’t be in our suburb.” Ken’s legs bump against mine and stay there.

At our salsa class, Ken’s grip has always been tight. Once, his thing, hot and stiff, brushed my inner thigh as we glided on the dance floor.

“We can’t get enough of you girls,” Mary’s arm locks around my waist. “See, who doesn’t want to have a piece of this? Isn’t your boyfriend lucky?”

“Angel doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

“Oh, good.” Mary sneaks a look at Ken and smiles.

No one knows I have a “boyfriend”, the first Australian guy I’d met while waiting in the bus line. Some days, he smells like kids’ vomit after his work at Daycare. He doesn’t own a suit with a pocket square, or smell of cologne purchased from the well-lit department store in the CBD.

I sip my wine. I watch and listen to Mary and Ken spilling out long and rapid sentences, but soon give up trying to understand them. In my fogged mind, the man appears again. A bruised toe poked out from his thongs with Aussie flags. “I want to lick you,” he’d said, sticking his tongue out. His sentence was short and effective. The word “lick” circles in the air and sticks on my face like a dirty band-aid, wet with his saliva. I scratch my cheek hard.

Ken snaps his fingers in front of my eyes. “Hello, Angel? What’s on your mind?”

I shrug. “Dunno.”

Mary says now I sound like one of them.

Ken says we should all stop thinking and just dance.

“Ken told me you were very good at salsa. Why do you like it, beautiful?”

I went to the class to find potential marriage material. My parents wanted me to move to a rich country, marry a rich man, and live a better life than theirs. And it was here I met Ken. We went out for dinner a couple of times before I learnt he was married. Now I say I like salsa because I like to experience different cultures through dancing. I tell Mary more lies to sound like an educated person. I listen to myself speaking English; my voice drifts in from far away, sounds strange, sounds like someone else.

Dance music fills the room. My arms wave in the air, but my legs are trapped in the tight Qipao. I hear myself shout something I can’t understand and see my hands ripping the silk up to my thigh. I laugh at myself. It is my turn to laugh. I watch Mary shake her heavy breasts up and down to the beat and swing her hips, dancing in circles, and I copy her. Ken dances with me, then Mary, then me again. I clap my hands. I kick off my heels. I slowly close my eyes and then open them. I’m here and I’m not here. I’m no longer a student whose parents borrowed money from their relatives to send her overseas. I’m an angel, floating in the void, falling gently. Someone opens the sliding door to the deck and the night breeze eases in. It is black outside. I can only see flecks of lights on the other side of the river and wonder if life is better there, or if it’s just the same, no matter where you go.