Crusade

I wish I could say I was one of those sweet, saintly characters you see frequently in Chinese drama serials here - the ideal of feminine beauty with fair skin, liquid half-crescent eyes and almost always dressed in flowy cotton dresses.

She is the filial daughter who forgives her father after he has gambled away the family fortune and makes him realise the error of his ways. She is the faithful newlywed wife who gives up her career so that she can take care of her paraplegic husband full-time. She is the lowly-born servant girl who falls in love with a prince she cannot marry and sacrifices her life for him.

There is almost always one in every series. She is the moral touchstone for the entire show, the angel of light and virtue. On-screen, her character is beset by various trials and tribulations, but she bears what life throws her with such serene grace and fortitude that you can’t help but fall in love with her. (Most times, the producers ensure that she also dies halfway into the series, but I digress.)

Needless to say, if I met her in real life, I would find her extremely irritating. You see, people like her make me look bad. I am not a good sufferer. I am not a good Job. I am a fretful, unloveable and whingey beast when things don't quite go my way. And I am quite capable of spewing my bile on the nearest victim.

When life throws me a curve-ball, I like to throw a pocketbook of credit cards and a mouthful of profanity back. And then some.

Recently, I have been getting acquainted with my inner demons. Readers, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Pettiness. Suspicion. Greed. Selfishness. Jealousy. Cynicism. And yes, they're pleased to meet you too.

Don't mistake my irreverence for flippancy. I know these are not particularly admirable or loveable qualities. And it is unworthy of me to own up to feeling them, but I do.

I wish I could use the excuse that it is the unconventional arrangement of my current relationship that forces these demons upon me, but that would be both unfair and untrue (even though the situation does play a part in strengthening their hold on me). Because I have felt them before and under conventional circumstances. They live inside me - as permanent residents, not squatters - they just have been asleep for a long time.

I do not underestimate their power and their capability to consume me. They are dark, suffocating passions with vice-like grips that all the girly lunches and retail therapy cannot shake. They are afflictions with the ability to eat me up from the inside.

They are adversaries of the night. They need to be fought, exorcised, beaten off with the fiery stick of courage and conviction. If not to preserve the dynamics of my relationship, then for my sanity.

So my life of late has become a bit of a battleground of good versus evil. The combatants are all me. The sanguine me versus the choleric me. The phlegmatic me versus the melancholic me. And so far, the line has held fast. After all, the key to winning is not to gain new ground but rather to push back the enemy.

In this case, the triumphs of omission are more significant and meaningful than all the front-line campaigns of commission put together.

They are the questions I don't ask because I know the answers would not satisfy either of us. They are the things I don't say because it would prematurely lead us down the path to destruction. They are the calls I don't make because I know it would be difficult for him to talk. They are the tears I don't shed because I choose to be the carefree, skippy-la-la girl he adores, the one who can cheer him up at a moment's notice even though she is crying inside.

These unsung, uncelebrated victories provide the invisible glue that hold our fragile union together.

And the spoils of each internal battle, I let him plunder. I entrust him the secret treasures of my heart and let him into my life, little by little. With each intimate confidence I share and each story I tell, I give him parts of myself that cannot be taken back.

I let my lotus heart unfurl for him, even as he runs his knife through it. His presence is a natural anaesthetic. I bleed, but I laugh. Because for those glorious moments, I feel so intensely alive. It is only when I am alone, sobering up to grim unforgiving reality, that I realize how deep the wounds go and how much it will take to heal.

I have sacrificed the plateau of comfort and security that comes with standard monogamous relationships for the bipolar-battle of emotional peaks and troughs that this blog is fast becoming testament to. I apologise for that. But until I can definitively emerge the champion of my crusade, you will just have to come along for the ride.

It was only last weekend that we took ourselves off to a place where no one would find us. Or us, them. And for the first time I was actually at peace. It was a sublime feeling and so precious because for once, I didn't have to share. It was the best birthday present.

I luxuriated in every single textbook-bliss moment. I wore my temporary tranquility as a cloak. I floated. I head-waggled. I jeted and pirouetted.

And I stored up anecdotes and memories, as many as my brain-bank would accomodate. Little rays of sunshine that would take me through the darkness of the days to follow. The flash of his sea-green eyes in the light. His protective hand on my lap whilst we drove around the island. The postcard setting. The stories. The laughter. The playing. Even the morning sex.

It was a much-needed respite from the tortured passions of the past month. A pitstop for us to refuel and reflect - before rejoining the mad rush of the race.

I knew though, that the weekend would extract its own pound of flesh in return. The higher I reach, the lower I fall – that is the contract I have signed with the devil-legion inside myself.

So here I am now, locked away in the abyss of my apartment, paying the price for my time in the sun. Thinking that maybe the thundering sounds of Maria Callas might drown out that uncontrollable craving to hear his voice. Or that forcing my leaden fingers to slug this entry out on my computer might exorcise the fiends of my spirit. Or that watching a funny DVD might keep my eyes dry for more than five minutes.

I check my mobile constantly – each glance at the bright blue LCD a sub-conscious test to see if he could have sensed the subliminal SOS signals I was sending him. Nothing.

Yet I am paralysed to pick up the phone and dial his number. To start with, I never call. And if I did call, I know I wouldn't be able to disguise my nakedness – the sadness, the pain, the jealousy that he is having fun without me. It would concern him and impair the enjoyment of his holiday. It would be inconvenient. And it would not be appropriate.

You see, I have sworn never to be a burden. Or worse, a liability. That is not my role to play in this particular piece of twisted theatre. The victims have already been cast, and I am not one of them.

I am the wildcat. I am the agent provocateur. I am the id – his pleasure principle - the part of him he indulges and gratifies to the oblivion of grown-up considerations like Consequences or Responsibility. And for once, I need to stick to the script.

So I bite my lip and force my carcass out to Lan Kwai Fong to lose myself in being gay, in partying, in flirting. But my heart is not in it. My heart is not in anything. It has retracted so far and so deep inside the upper left cavity of my chest that I know it will require slow, tedious efforts to excavate it later.

Sometimes I think it is my karma to make up for the pain I have, and probably continue, to inflict on others. It is my punishment. At other times, I think that it is a bitter medicine – a lesson –to force me to grow up, to be a bigger, better person than what I actually am.

It is a difficult process, learning how to be selfless. And I am a reluctant and dull student. I cling stubbornly to my childhood vices of possessiveness and jealousy. They are comforting in a strange way. After all, most people suffer from them too. Why struggle to give them up when they are so convenient, so conventional? Why wish and accommodate someone else's happiness to the detriment of your own? Why not just aim for the 21st century Anthony-Robbins ideal of having it all?

Maybe because I want to test myself. To see if I can overcome my emotional cowardice and take the path less trodden. To know exactly what I am capable of - the possibilities and the restraints of my temperament. Maybe because he is worth it, and I am slowly discovering a much greater joy in making someone else happy than myself.

Whatever it is, we all pick our battles, and I have picked this one. It is a living-will choice to reject the lithium of common sense and pragmatism for now. And though the black madness rages about me, I will stand by that decision.

Of course the constant skirmishes take a toll. There is the sheer exhaustion of it all. When sometimes I dearly wish I had time enough and breath–to sit and be still, to un-think and un-feel, to Zen. But I am afraid of the mallet of truths that might hit me in those moments. That in a moment of weakness, I might give into mean-spiritedness and despair. And simply give up.

So instead I fill my life with frenetic activity, with deadlines and appointments and parties and events and hobbies. I need distractions like a junkie needs a quick fix. Will I wear myself out this way, only time can tell.

Even more sinister sometimes, is the feeling in my core that my life-essence is being leached out from under me. Like the petrification of a beautiful forest, I am turning to stone in the places where I should be richly bursting with life. But there is no one to tend to me and turn me towards the sun.

I don't want to become hard - no, that would mean points for the other side. But one can be habituated into wearing emotional armour after doing it for a long period of time. And inadvertently, it blocks out love as well as hate, joy as well as sadness, optimism as well as cynicism.

I do realize though that it is important to constantly recognize and evaluate the boundaries of my little character-building crusade. There is a shifting line in the sand between courage and stupidity. Between faith and fundamentalism. Between half-full and half-empty.

So when will I stop fighting the good fight? I like to think that it will be when I have learned all that I have to learn and I can move onto the next stage of enlightenment. But more likely, it will be when I begin to lose the upper hand–when winning the battle is no more important because I am losing the war. When I can barely keep the petty, vindictive harpies at bay and they crowd around choking me and threatening to scratch his face.

Make no mistake, I am no deserter. But I would rather quit whilst I'm ahead, than pass the point of no return and have total destruction all around me. That is still a fair distance away. So until then, I soldier on and hope for the best.

Stop. Start. Squirt.

“God can you hurry up, I really need to fuck something…” I pleaded with a moan. I stood propped up by the doorframe, tearing my skirt away from my waist and peeling my lace halter-top down from my shoulders.

It was a sultry Hong Kong night – the air was dense and implacable, making our clothes stick like paint to our bodies. I was glad to be the first one naked. My skin, slightly mottled and moist to the touch, was only too grateful to be liberated from its restrictive accoutrements.

“I know you’re horny, Baby. But we’re going to take you up level by level tonight –but we’ll only let you cum if you cum all over the bed.” Anthony sat at the edge of the bed still in his jeans, casually fiddling about with the battery of his video camera.

I looked over at him with lust-addled eyes and made a bestial sound at the back of my throat. High on an intoxicating cocktail of alcohol, sleep deprivation, dirty talk and pent-up lust, I was not in a patient mood.

But that night, I had an audience. Anthony’s friend Seth, had agreed to film us fucking. The premise / plot / raison d'etre of the video was exceptional porn-star sex. Now it only remained for me – and my pussy – to put up a good show.

“Oh she squirts, does she? I love girls who squirt. I had an ex-girlfriend who used to do that,” Seth said, increasingly relishing his role in the upcoming activities.

Besides being our cinematographer, Seth was also my designated ‘fluff-boy’ for the night. (And if you don’t know what the term ‘fluff-boy’ makes reference to, you haven’t been watching the right kinds of movies. Tsk tsk.) I undressed him whilst Anthony tested the camera.

“Put your two fingers like this and position them on each side of her clit. Just rub her up and down,” Anthony, the night’s self-appointed artistic auteur, called out directions whilst demonstrating to Seth exactly the way he wanted me touched.

Seth’s fingers began working magic on my clit, flicking back and forth, pushing the hood back and stimulating it with increasing rapidity. We were all naked by that time and Anthony sat up against the wall watching, pulling his cock away from his body and playing with it.

Under his instructions, Seth brought his tongue to play in the same fashion as his fingers. A sheer runoff of juice seeped out of my pussy, coating everything from my labial lips to the tip of Seth’s tongue with a slick, milky veneer.

“Ok, stop, stop, stop…don’t let her cum,” Anthony said as he saw my pleasure mount. Then, he turned to me: “Now calm down, and we’ll start again.”

I must have called out several colourful names as I gritted my teeth in frustration. We rested a few minutes. My throat parched, I tipped my head back and took a miscalculated swig from the bottle of cold water next to the bed, spilling a significant amount down my neck and onto my hair in the process. Stop.

Start. This time, we got to the point where Seth’s stubby fingers filled my pussy and probed tantalizingly at my g-Spot. Stop.

Start. This time, I am allowed a period of g-Spot stimulation and the tip of Seth’s tongue furiously dabs at my clit. I have worked myself up into a considerable lather by now. My body is flushed, I am soaked with sweat and I can feel the blatant heat radiating from every pore of my body. Stop.

Start. “This time I want you to use the width of your tongue and give her a long, hard lick from her pussy to her clit,” charged Anthony. He still held his cock in his hand but I could see its head was darkening with blood. Beads of fluid were forming at the tip. I stretched my body out on the bed and laid my head on his thigh. With leisurely strokes, I began to lick him off, occasionally moving my lips away such that he could see the thin trails of silvery pre-cum that clung to my chin.

At the opposite side of the bed, I ground my mound into Seth’s face, as he, like a dedicated soldier, did exactly as was instructed. My molten pussy was beginning to explode, giving out little ‘pops’ of air as its slippery walls clamped down tightly in spasms. I arched back and sat down hard on Seth’s fingers, my moans began to take on a familiar cadence.

“Take your fingers away, Seth. Now.”

My hips writhed against Seth’s fingers in defiance of the orders to stop. Seth hesitated for a split-second and that was all I needed. As he pulled his fingers away, a thin rivulet of clear juice trickled out to follow. Stop.

Start. I clambered onto Anthony’s cock. I knew I was ready. And it only took me a few minutes of rocking myself back and forth before an immense pressure within my pussy began to build up. My whole lower body felt engorged and distended – as if I had taken a deep breath and held it until I turned blue. Powerful contractions were rippling through me. I began to gasp and shudder. I cried out. I pulled myself off Anthony’s cock abruptly, thrusting my mound upwards, my body seized up taut as a bow.

And then, I erupted.

It started as an incredible wetness in between my legs, as if I was a pitcher of hot nectar tipping over. Pools of warmth diffused from my core. I looked down. A jet stream of clear fluid shot straight out of me. Even I was surprised at the distance and strength of its trajectory.

And all I could do was repeat incoherently “I’m wet I’m wet I’m wet I’m wet” to no one in particular, which given that there was a dark wet spot about the size of my palm left on the sheets was pretty much stating the obvious.

I flooded myself again and again, my body buffeted by consecutive peaks of pleasure. This time there was no letting up in the pace or pressure. Each orgasm was just a cue for Anthony to shift me to a dryer spot on the bed and pound himself harder into me.

When he finally pulled away for a quick break, I had surrendered so completely to the river inside me that I continued to gush and flow even without the need for direct penetration.

“Let me drink you up honey,” he said as his fingers flicked furiously at my clit. “Tell me when.”

“Only…if you let me…kiss you after…I want to taste myself,” my words punctuated by short staccato breaths. Within a few minutes, I felt the familiar spasms of a liquid release overcome me.

“There you are…Mmmm…Mmmm…” he murmured, rubbing his face into my mound and slaking his thirst with my juice.

When he came up for air, I saw his features were glistening wet. Not just his lips, but the bridge of his nose, his chin and the sides of his bristled cheeks. It was like a layer of dew all over his face. It gave me a brief animalistic thrill, to see the evidence of my emissions so blatantly mark him in such a manner. (See boys, I get the cumming on the face thing – I get it.) I lapped lovingly at the sides of his mouth as a kitten would, before pulling him down for a deep tongue-kiss.

Then completely spent – with sweat evaporating off my back, a lattice of hair matted around my face and hardly any strength left in my bones – I melted into him and slept. Stop.

In this day and age where self-help masturbation manuals become bestsellers and vibrators fly off the shelves at Watson’s, the female orgasm has become commonplace. Nobody bats an eyelid when we touch ourselves during sex or choose to spend Wednesday nights with The Rabbit instead of with our boyfriends. It is expected, nay desired, for a woman to be comfortable with her body and openly orgasmic with merely the aid of some water and Clairol shampoo.

So it is only natural that most of us who count ourselves as part of the sexual liberati aspire to – or at least express a healthy level of interest and curiosity for – the Mack daddy of orgasms, female ejaculation.

And rightly so. Female ejaculation is hot. Intensely horny. A head rush for a girl. But also an absolute ego trip for the guy she’s with. One little 5CC squirt is the most irrefutable testament of how much he pleases her in bed. It does the job of 120 decibels of screaming, a contortionist’s lifetime of writhing and entire decades of vigorous protestations. Because when it comes down to it, there is just no faking a gushing, squirting, spurting orgasm.

Having the ability to ejaculate on command is also an empowering act. And since men do it, women should be allowed to as well, if only in the name of egalitarianism. I can tell you firsthand that there is immense sexual gratification in being able to make a mess of one’s partner. To see a geyser of hot cum hit a man in the lower torso and stream down his balls is an intensely intimate and dirty experience. And the best sex always consists of a combination of these two qualities.

However aspiring to female ejaculation and achieving it are two different things. Female ejaculation is a curious phenomenon, a bit like the Loch Ness monster or that six-pack under your belly – you’ve read about it, you know it’s there and you can spend your lifetime trying but somehow you can’t quite persuade it to come out of hiding. Then one day when you least expect it, either if you’re very very lucky or very very well-behaved, it rears its head and you’re hooked.

To embrace one's inner Niagra, you first need to understand the fundamental science behind it. Female ejaculation is caused by the swelling and secretions of the urethral glands, usually during / after prolonged stimulation of the g-spot and the clitoris. The orgasms that accompany ejaculation are usually deeper and more intense because the contractions originate around the uterus, as opposed to clitoral orgasms that originate only around the pelvis.

In my experience, the best positions for hitting the g-spot jackpot and thus maximizing your chances of gushing are: doggy-style fucking, fucking with your legs help up above your head, anal penetration or dedicated manual motivation (a la fingers AND a helpful tongue on the clit). It goes without saying that sometimes, a little patience is in order and time and effort go a long way.

And if ejaculation is the Holy Grail, then one's cum-juice must be the elixir. The first night I tasted myself I was slightly salty. The next night I was sweet. The flavour of female ejaculate like all cum, depends on a woman’s time of the month, the number of prior ejaculations she’s had and how many chocolate truffles she’s eaten with dinner. It does not possess the musky, syrupy qualities of male semen. Rather, it is more akin to champagne – a burst of lightly acrid bubbly on the tongue.

There is much debate about the nature of the liquid expelled during orgasm. Female ejaculate is a clear, odorless, alkaline fluid. However seeing that it emerges from the urethra, it can sometimes contain traces of urine but there is no way to discern the exact proportions (it can vary even within a single sex session) without taking one’s soggy bedding to the medical lab. And to be honest, we all have better things to do with our time – like working on releasing that next 5cc cupful.

Besides, what's a little bit of pee between friends. There's probably more of it in a handful of bar-snacks than there is in a cupful of cum.

Now I hope you’ve enjoyed this wet and wonderful post as much as I have. If you want more information on the topic, please read more here (this one has pictures) and here. And of course, anecdotal evidence rates highly on this blog so let me know if you have any wet stories of your own to share.

I would say the only drawback to female ejaculation is that it really raises the bar in terms of what I expect from my own body in bed. This of course, translates to how I evaluate the skills of the men I shag. The poor things – as if trying to impress me in the sack wasn’t difficult enough.

Multiple orgasms, bah! Somebody tell them multiple ejaculations already.

And for all of you who think I’m going ‘soft’ or becoming boring or riding off into the sunset of coupley-bliss, please you are invited to steal my mobile phone and watch the aforementioned video. For educational purposes of course. You can be sure I’ll be demanding a generous cut from all bootlegged copies.

Love YA

“I have to go soon Baby. I have a big day tomorrow,” he says. I glance at the time on my mobile. It is 1:30 a.m.

“Sure no problem, sorry for keeping you up. Have a good sleep in the suite!”

“I will Baby. Gotta go. Love ya,” he says cheerfully.

“Oh. Alright…” There is a split-second pause. “Ok. G’night!” I hang up awkwardly.

And instead of going to sleep, predictably I lie in bed tossing and turning.

Love ya. Love YA? Love Ya?

Is Ya even a word in the dictionary? If so, then it must come with ketchup, a smiley face, and possibly a stoned hippie attached to the end of it.

I know, I know. We’re in the age of snappy soundbites, rampant SMS and 30-second attention spans, where “C u tonite”, “thx” and “hot 4 u” are regarded as acceptable forms of communication. It seems that nothing in the English vernacular is sacred anymore, especially not statements of affection:

Want ya, miss ya, need ya, love ya!

God, the last thing we want in this day and age is to sound genuine or worse, emotionally committed.

Love ya is just another one of those ambiguous turns of phrase that help us fulfil our superficial destinies. It says everything and nothing at the same time. It is so airily casual, so shamelessly daft, so nauseatingly sappy…so extremely (dare I say) Paris Hilton-esque that it would certainly qualify as a useful nugget for inspiring lifelong devotion between you and 350 of your closest “friends”.

To be fair, there are a few occasions I can think of where the usage of a truncated Love YA is absolutely appropriate, nay even inspired, such as:

1. Band camp. (Love ya, mean it. Really? Really really. How really? Really REALLY.)

2. Gay men saying goodbye. (Love ya! And love the Prada glasses, you sexy beast!)

3. Bryan Adams song lyrics. (Love ya yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)

But there is a time and place for every phrase. And you can be sure that when Adam first met his perfect helpmate Eve, he didn’t convey his gratitude and affection with an underwhelming Love YA. Devotees of Aphrodite who reverently visited her temple in Delphi to win favour would never have accompanied their votive offerings to the goddess with a Love YA.

And horrors, had Elizabeth Barrett Browning penned the lines “How do I love YA, let me count the ways…” she would have been categorically banned from the reading list at O-Levels.

Fine, I admit I might have used the occasional Love ya myself - but only in the most innocuous and benevolent situations - with my friends, my surfie brother, and possibly tacked on as a slightly embellished afterthought to the back of a note before running out of a man’s apartment.

So I get it. It’s karma. All the Love ya-s that have gone around, have finally come around.

Frankly, I really wouldn’t mind the term so much if I knew what it actually meant. Is it like? Is it love? Is it just a nice thing people say to each other? Most importantly, does this mean you won’t stick your cock up my ass and call me a horny bitch in bed any longer? What? A girl needs to know these things, ok.

Also, the sheer ambiguity of the expression leaves me fumbling for an appropriate response. This is not acceptable. I hate fumbling. It makes me feel like I’ve left the house with the wrong pair of shoes and take it from someone with a shoe collection they don’t build cupboards big enough to accommodate, I never leave the house with the wrong pair of shoes.

But I’ve brainstormed this with my girlfriend and we came up with a list of possible Love ya responses, none of which are quite right given the reasons I have stated below for your amusement:

1. Love YA too – I'm agreeable to the general sentiment, but it just doesn’t have a good ring to it.

2. Me too / Ditto – only possible if one fancies bowl haircuts, high-waisted trousers, and the idea that pottery is up there with the Kamasutra in terms of erotic technique.

3. What did you just say? Huh? Huh? Huh? – maybe if I was a neurotic 47 year old child-woman-spinster undergoing regression therapy to understand why she’s about to name her 5th cat “All men are putz”, then ok. Give me another 20 years and we’ll see.

4. Right back atcha Baby! – my personal favourite, but I’m thinking of saving this gem for a time when I can execute it properly with a cocked trigger-finger and cowboy wink.

Given these flawed options and the possibility of committing a monumental emotional faux-pas, is it any wonder that I engaged in evasive tactics Curtis LeMay would have been proud of. Ok. G’night! – bland, inoffensive but militarily effective. If you can’t say the right thing, don’t say anything at all. This is the Asian way. See, I’m applying cultural lessons here, people.

I realise that any normal girl would be thrilled to hear the word Love at some point in her life uttered by the man of her dreams. And I am no exception – thrilled, delighted, vexed and a little bit apprehensive of getting in over my head, that is. When it comes down to it, I think I just don’t want to jinx anything by being my reckless, idiotic self and putting my foot so far in my mouth I can taste my own neck (made even less palatable seeing I'm wearing the wrong pair of shoes).

I know you probably think I am making mountains out of molehills with this post – and you’d be right but it is an entertaining exercise nonetheless and it gives me something to do instead of tossing about in bed all night.

Maybe I should be focusing on the positives instead of fretting over the issues I have with the execution of this particular expression. It would probably do wonders for my insomnia.

But wait a minute. Maybe I am ascribing him too much credit.

Maybe it wasn’t Love he said…

Christ, maybe it was Luv. That would make it Luv YA. Ouch.

Please, its late - won't somebody slip me Valium and knock me out already?

Back To Mine

Is it possible to scrub away memories with a rag, a bottle of Quikclean and sheer upper body strength? No, but tomorrow I will try.

I’m not sure why I invited him to come and stay at my apartment in the first place. It was one of those intemperate gestures of largesse made on the spur of the moment when I was flush with endorphins and the discoloured memories of him were still freshly manifest on my inner thighs and knees. Obviously post-dirty weekend.

The invitation was intended for the weekend of the Rugby Sevens, which took place last week in Hong Kong. He was flying in with a mixture of friends and colleagues, for a long - and predictably big - weekend, of which I was to be a highlight.

He called earlier in the week to double-check the arrangements for the weekend.

“I’ll be flying in on Thursday. And I’m staying with you right? You sure that’s ok?” He had even made that line sound persuasively unsure and hesitant – bless his conniving little heart – such that any retraction on my part would put him in the category of Wronged Plaintiff and me in the category of Evil Indian Giver.

“Of course it’s ok!” I said a tad shrilly, knowing that I had now officially committed myself to delivering on my impetuous promise.

My mind was racing. Did I have enough sheets, enough towels? Did I do my laundry last week – if so, where was it? Should I tell the maid to come in on Wednesday instead of the usual Friday? Where should I store my empty shoe boxes? Was the stuff on my shelves up to snuff – did it accurately reflect my (ahem) oh-so well-rounded but eclectic tastes in literature and music? And most importantly, how the hell was I going to get my recently-bought miniature oven off the couch? Shit.

To those of you that think I was being a typical woman and making an awful fuss about nothing, I would probably have to agree.

It’s not that I have never had other people over in my apartment. No, I’ve had both visiting friends and family stay with me with nary a complaint. I’ve even had dinner parties where my friends were more than happy to sit around a coffee table placed in the middle of the floor - listening to Pink Martini, eating pasta, drinking wine and wiping their bums with Kleenex because of course, I had run out of toilet paper.

But then, since when Sash, have you even had toilet paper, they tease me affectionately.

So what then is the problem? I’ve never had a man, any man, and definitely not the man who gets me more hot and bothered than all others, in my apartment. I mean I don’t usually let most men stick around long enough, anyway. And if they do, what is wrong with their place – so I can come and go as I please – or failing that a lush designer hotel suite? Before, when I used to live in Singapore, “back to mine” was not even an option given the consideration of my parents’ continued health and longevity.

But having hopped across quite a few apartments in my time (I prefer to think of this as an efficient way of ‘house-hunting’), I know that observing a person's habitat often reveals more about their character, priorities in life and predilections in the sack without one having to explicitly ask.

If you must know, I once dumped a man who arranged his CDs in alphabetical order because predictably, he was only any good as a missionary-style fuck. Another had vats of protein and creatine supplements lined up in his kitchen instead of normal olive oil, pepper, salt and garlic. He turned out not to have a single hair on his body (and I’m talking chin, hands, pubes, armpits, toes – nothing!) and loved to fuck in the mirror.

So what sort of real estate gets me wet? I like residences with big hot tubs on the roof, well-stocked kitchens, huge libraries, coffee table books, cosy shagpile carpets, lived-in colonial furniture, houseplants, quirky designer chairs, cool audiophile sound systems, contemporary art (preferably drawn by you), the list goes on but you get the idea. These don’t have to be lavish postal code 10 or 11 addresses – just homey-homes that are clean, interesting, original, tasteful, full of character and well, you.

I wondered what my apartment said about me. But first, let me give you a little more by way of description: I do not live in a fussy apartment. In fact having moved to Hong Kong with nothing but 2 suitcases of self-belief and good intentions means my home is more sparse and unfurnished than anything else.

Second, I do not have a painfully stylish pad straight out of the pages of Vogue Living. My mother sealed its fate when she convinced me that my holding out for a Minotti-style red suede couch was plain silly and talked me into buying an infinitely more practical sofa bed instead. In the rousing shades of charcoal-grey, no less. (I still have regrets about this and will apologise for my couch’s uninspired existence given the slightest opportunity.)

Third, my apartment is definitely not in the fanciest residential district – my walk to work every day takes me along streets of antique shops and the sights and smells of the bustling wet market. It is in an old building with tiny little grey-and-red Chinese tiles and has few working modern amenities i.e. no bathtub, no washer, no oven. But it has oodles of character and is a hive-reaction from the unrelenting uniformity of peach-brown pantones foisted onto my retinas by competent Singaporean urban planners at birth.

I don’t intend to stay in this apartment forever, but when I do eventually move, I will have moulted and shed a skin.

Every possession I have in my home survived the initial journey to Hong Kong with me and I love them all like a parent loves their idiot offspring. I have my favourite CDs – and yes, Michael Jackson (who incidentally I think is a maligned musical genius) is one of them. I have the books that sustained me over the past few months in Hong Kong, my most loyal friends in a new city and my salvation when I needed respite from unforgiving reality.

And that? That over there is what one calls a shoe collection. Oh yes, the force of Imelda is strong in this one.

“They don’t build shoe cupboards big enough for 70 pairs of shoes”, I pertly informed him, as he regarded a diamante-encrusted pair curiously. He had just breached the maidenhead of my apartment and was now looming threateningly like a conquering crusader exploring the 700 square-foot spoils of territory.

“What do you eat, girl?” He had poked his head into my fridge but gave me no chance to retort or reply because he had already moved onto a different part of the room. Damn him.

“Mmm, 50 Floor Fillers! And a little bit of Michael…” he said, with a bemused laugh in his voice, which I immediately interpreted as mocking derision of course. It was all I could do to keep myself from unceremoniously ejecting him and suggesting that we check into the nearby Four Seasons.

“You are too ‘man’ for this apartment,” I wailed, somewhat self-consciously.

And he was. His tall frame had to fold up to fit into the contortionist box of my bathroom. The pinstriped Paul Smith jacket that hung hanging casually on the rack jarred with the other lacy, sparkly frippery that was the norm. We bumped into each other twice from the corridor of the living room to the kitchen and back again.

I gulped back the tension building in the back of my throat. We had to leave, but not before I reached into a small box by the door and pulled out something with a familiar clink.

“For you,” I said lightly. “In case you get lost.”

I did not want my gaze to betray the significance and intimacy of the gesture. Rather I just dangled the bunch of spare keys deftly in the space between us. It surprised him. But also pleased him inordinately. From then on and for the rest of the weekend, he would insist on beating me to my front gate just so he could grandly insert his keys into the lock and hold the door open for me.

During his stay, we broke in different parts of my apartment. First of course was the bed – on which we fucked, cuddled, slept, played, filmed and chatted on. Then, the kitchen counter table – on which I perched with my legs spread-eagled next to the microwave as he very patiently (and torturously) taught me step-by-step how to eat pussy. The bathroom – in which we washed off sweat and semen together and where I took the first leap of faith and told him about this blog(!!!). And finally, the couch – where he laid naked on top of me until daylight, alternately kissing and stroking, whilst I read aloud in a hoarse, subdued voice what I wrote about him.

My favourite activity all weekend was to watch him lazily stretch out in bed or use my computer in the living room whilst I busied myself cleaning up or getting dressed. These were Martha Stewart moments – picture-perfect pockets of comfort and normalcy – rare in a relationship like ours. And thus, all the more treasured.

Then, as quickly as he came, he is gone.

But my apartment has traitorously and indelibly retained the feel of him. I smell his sweat on my towels, and the trace of Issey aftershave lingers hauntingly in my spare room. He is on the empty champagne glass, and most CSI-certifiably on my sheets. He has used a reasonable amount of my mouthwash. And I miss the unmistakable ivy-creep of masculine garments from his bag to the counter stool to the clothes rack.

Presently, I stand back, objectively surveying the damage. My apartment suddenly feels cavernous. A shabby, yellowing, old shell that was temporarily colonized and now abandoned, threatens to crumble to dust. Thanks, but no thanks.

Today I will let it grieve. I will sleep on the outer side of the bed – and imagine the full-length of him outstretched beside me in a diagonal imbibing the sounds of Hong Kong construction into our collective subconscious. I will keep his champagne glass by my bed – and think about our last night together and the peculiar visitor who came to make it special. I will keep my vibrator visible on my bedside shelf – and envy the little mauve protector-bag that somehow managed to accidentally fall into his luggage and now travels with him.

And then tomorrow - I will clean and do the laundry.

P & T

Ok ok, I do dearly love the attention but please, stop with the vexed and concerned mothering emails already. :)

I am alive. This blog is alive. I haven't melted off into the sunset with Prince Charming (as if). I have not contracted bird flu. And I am certainly not so bored to tears that I have decided to 'end it all'.

I am just sorry I haven't written for a while. So spank me! Actually that's not accurate, I am still writing, I just haven't been posting. In fact, I have quite unexpectedly found dedicated, adoring new audiences for my writing that I am trying to accomodate at this moment. More on this later.

This doesn't mean that I am abandoning you, dear readers, especially not the ones of you who have stuck with me since the very beginning. You realised that you were onto a good thing before anyone else did - even me - and I am nothing but grateful.

But it is time for me to ask a favour of you and I feel a little shy just saying the words (or letters rather) but you know how I love to push the envelope. Ready? Well, here goes - P & T. Now, settle down folks! No, we haven't gone back to the days of high-school gyms and sweaty armpits. P & T for Private Time. Peace and Tranquility. Patience and Tolerance. Don't jump the gun, we're not breaking up. But I do need a bit of P & T on the emotional front and here's why.

I am having the time of my life right now. Personally, socially, sexually and for once, a little bit emotionally. This is unique, unusual and unexpected. And for someone with as unconventional a view of life as me, it is also extremely hard to come by. There is a lot going on that I am not ready to write about yet. Not because I am afraid of looking silly and absurd in front of you (now that is a long lost cause if ever I saw one!) but because I don't want to chase away the delicate grace-notes that are floating by and ground them into a structured orchestral opus as yet. As beautiful as that score may be, there is a time and place for everything.

And now is my time to capture the moment, to feel inspired, to think foolish thoughts and dream imprudent dreams. I am storing up nuggets in my life-bank, stashing away as much as I can for the rainy days I see ahead. And if I suffer, for now I prefer to do so in silence. I am sorry I can't be more than just annoyingly vague but I know that you will understand. And be happy for me. You know, I will reveal more with time.

So a moratorium on the personal affairs of Ms Sash for now. But where does that leave you? In your favourite ringside seat, of course! God forbid that I am so busy being mindfucked, I neglect the wonderful feelings of being bodyfucked. In that regard, I have been having way too much fun...

I have not turned monogamous on you - although quite a few of these episodes feature returning stars, one you will soon notice returns more frequently than the others - I have just been terribly backlogged. So no promises but here's a peek of some of the threads and ideas that I am in the process of spinning the next few posts on:

1. My Inner Porn Star - Call me Pam/Paris/Tammy but making a sex film with various guest directors was a strangely intimate and raunchy experience.

2. Back to Mine - Hosting the man of my dreams in my Hong Kong apartment

3. Ready, 1-2-Squirt - Learning how to time and control my hot ejaculate all over the bed, and all over my man. Please, someone say "consecutive cupfuls" to me in a husky voice and keep a bucket nearby!

4. My first FFM threesome - yes, I finally ate pussy!

5. Double Penetration - In its various permutations. Cock - fingers, cock - vibrator, cock - buttplug, and oh yes, we can't forget the ultimate cock-cock.

6. Much much more about me as the mood and inclination dictates. There will still be emotional posts of course, but please don't keep asking because I will tell when the time is right. It needs to be an organic process. But in the meantime, stay tuned. I will be writing...

You know you're Mindfucked when...

...you fantasise more or less about the same person every time you touch your pussy. (And it's not Brad Pitt.)

...you notice and delight in the charming minutiae about him. The way he spells Baby with a capital B in his texts. The way the freckles are sprinkled like party confetti over his back. The way his thighs involuntarily shudder when you run your fingers up his spine as he's sleeping. The way he pokes his head round the shower curtain to watch you pee.

...you find yourself only halfheartedly contemplating the idea that you could get laid when you’re out at Lan Kwai because sex with him is so much better than anyone else. You just have an instinctive sense of each other's bodies and are dedicated to bringing each other the most amount of pleasure. Everytime you wander elsewhere to test the market, it just validates this hypothesis.

...following on from the previous point, it takes six drinks, two Luftansa pilots and the promise of a good 'man-wich' to finally coax you into bed. And then only if your girlfriend agrees to watch.

...every time he fucks you, he bites and bruises you in places that mark you as his sexual property for the next week or so. Instead of being annoyed with this, you luxuriate in the fact that you look like a week-old apple and then cheerfully proceed to give him a long bloody scratch down the middle of his chest.

...you save all his messages and read them over periodically, especially the one that says: "Some things are strange that I want to tell you but it's hard. When I see you Baby. You're killing me. Just make sure you are ok."

...you tell your girlfriends over dim sum that you "really like this one guy" and relate the details of the relationship. They look slightly worried. You even tell your best fuckbuddy in Hong Kong about him. He looks amused and now keeps asking to be allowed to watch you fuck.

Nauseous? I don't blame you. I write this feeling a bit like a postmodern Emperor parading about in new clothes, nevertheless I can't stop myself. And please, I am already anticipating the jeering comments from you to that effect, so spare me.

Over the past few months, you have been privy to my reasonably casual take on sex and relationships. I can - and do - fuck like a man. You know this. I know this. Even my mom knows this and has pretty much given up on my marriage prospects.

In fact, I have spent 4 years earning my stripes in terms of relationship independence and invulnerability. To mentally inure myself from the situations I find myself reluctantly describing above. So I'm not sure why the system is turning all Bridget Jones on me suddenly.

I will not reveal much more of my paramour's identity than to say that he is certifiably a naughty boy. A devastating flirt. A charming alpha male. He plays my game. He flaunts his virility in front of me and tries to persuade various other women to come back with us. But he treats me well, he pleasures me in all the right ways and we have incredibly tender moments. Of course, he is unavailable in every single way except sexually.

And yes - you knew this was coming - I like him, and in a bad way. Or if one is to be technical about it, I am hopelessly mindfucked about him.

A mindfuck is a device that when applied, leaves one feeling shocked and disoriented. It’s what passes off as entertainment nowadays to us been-there-done-that types and is a curious thing. It works in an insidious way, allowing you to feel mastery over your sense of perceived reality until that pivotal 'a-ha' revelation where everything tips out of balance and you are forced to re-interpret past events with the filter of subjective enlightenment.

I'm pretty sure he started it. But in these scenarios of star-crossed inevitability, it doesn't really matter does it.

We met through mutual friends and the original pretext of the meeting was really to have a bit of fun. We had an intense sexual chemistry and within 20 minutes, I was sucking him off in a cab quite happily back to his hotel. However, since he doesn't live in Hong Kong I was quite happy in my role as a stopover fuck.

We would exchange text messages every few days, usually relating within 160 characters or less sexual scenarios to each other. And then as we built more equity into our real-life encounters, the tone of the messages become more witty banter and less horny fantasy. I hit it off with his friends, he hit it off with mine. But I pretty much led my life, and he led his, save for the incidental jealous thought (him) or sentimental text (me).

And still I thought - rather misguidedly - that things were above board except now I fancied myself as having a slightly elevated position as his favourite stopover fuckfriend.

Then somehow someone changed the reel of my life without asking. On one of his trips to Hong Kong, he casually said "I have something important to tell you but I'm going to wait till the time is right." I could feel the hairs on my arms prickle. I knew, of course. Like every intuitive woman knows these things. And I could have bugged him to tell me, but I wasn't ready to plunge into the depths of altered reality. Yet.

So I just gave him a long look, shook my head imperceptibly and dismissed it, cloaking myself as well as I could in a shroud of reasonable doubt and plausible deniability.

It would be two months later over our first aborted attempt to have a dirty weekend that he told me how I affected him. And within the 160 character limit, no less. He then delivered the same message in person last weekend. I told him I knew already. And that he had just put words to what I thought but was unwilling to say.

It goes without saying, I had a fantastic weekend with him. With truth and context held at bay, we played together with the desperate carelessness of the damned. He was a man in his element and I was the perfect aphrodisiac. For that stolen slice of time, we allowed ourselves to be as the Immortals were, masters of our universe and savouring every minute.

But now with more than a hundred hours and two countries between us, the mindfuck begins. He has become a splinter embedded in the rabbit-hole of my altered consciousness. I reminisce. I daydream. I wonder. It irritates me. And if he is to be believed with his messages in the wee hours of the night, I have infiltrated his subconscious. It scares him. And I'm glad.

The thing is, I - of all people - should know better and believe me, I smell the deja vu in this situation, as do you. You'd think that age and experience would keep me from making the same mistakes. But alas, it contends with the sheer obstinacy of the human temperament and I must be biologically hard-wired to behave in the same impulsive, foolhardy way that I have since birth.

In popular culture, the way a mindfuck ends is that it usually destroys the host (a la the film "Fight Club"). And up to that point, things are just suspended in an unpredictable tangle of red herrings and ambiguity. And so I predict it will be with this particular mindfuck. It is thrilling, stimulating, exhausting and goes against every fibre of rational thought.

Do I think it will end in disaster? Yes. Do I think I will end up hurt by all this? Yes. Do I go along with it anyway? Of course. And thus I wait patiently, alongside you, like any other obedient mindfuck victim for the plot to unfold.

Dirty Weekend

What does one pack for a dirty weekend...

Leopard-print 3 inch heels
Dancing shoes
L'Occitane Massage oil
Marc Jacobs satin top (his request)
Narciso Rodriguez perfume and body lotion
Assorted Condoms

Oh and Toothbrush - electric.

Yay. I'm excited.

Too much Whiskey & Champagne...

...do not a turgid cock make. But is the modern self-serving woman really complaining? Not really. I had one of my best nights of sex recently with Felix, who had consumed both of the abovementioned beverages in reasonably significant quantities.

Felix and I have a running joke called "Truffle Night", which usually takes place on Thursday. Because that was the day he initially invited me over to his house on the ostensible reason of helping him consume his stash of Godiva truffles, washed down with ample amounts of champagne albeit. And we've just made a habit of it. Now he sends me text messages with the words "Truffle" or "Thursday" in them and instantly I perk up.

However this being Hong Kong, Felix and I have friends in common and we bump into each other at all the usual public entertainment venues. In these instances, we are friendly but leave the other enough breathing room to pursue fresh game as necessary. Such are the joys of a good fuckbuddy. It is an enjoyable arrangement.

It is on one of these so-called unscheduled nights - a Friday I believe - that I see Felix and instantly as he approaches to greet me, I know he wants me. Or maybe I want him. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it is the unhurried assessment we give each other the once-over from head to foot (although for him it is more accurately described as foot to chest). Or maybe it is the teasing way he whispers in my ear. Or the way I let him "accidentally" discover I am not wearing any underwear.

Whatever it is, at some point of the night he leads me to a remote area of the club and starts playing with my clit under my skirt. By the time we are in a cab, we are busily thrusting against each other and he gives the driver an extra tip for being so "quiet and discreet" about the frenzied punishment being borne by his back seat. There is no question that Felix is incredibly turned on by the time we get back and I am ripping his clothes off (we find out the day after that half his shirt and belt are caught in his front door) busily sucking, kissing and licking.

Except that he has a raging non-erection. We speculate that someone might have put a pill in his drink. Or perhaps he is suffering from post-marathon fatigue. Or simply - and most likely - we have drunk too much whiskey and champagne. This is the first time his member has been so strangely uncooperative but undeterred, he flips me over and says the magic words, "its your night tonight - just let me please you".

Now boys, if there is any surefire way to make a girl your eternal love-slave say those words and really mean them. (She will thank you kindly the morning after - regardless of whether she is a morning person or not - and for as many successive mornings as you two deem necessary to work off any endorphin deficiencies.) It makes such a difference from just humping her like a piece of plywood and then slumping over her semi-consciously slurring, "God, I'm so drunk".

Oh sure I feel sorry that he didn't have a hard-on and wasn't going to be able to fuck me (not immediately anyway). There, there baby. And then as with all these little setbacks in life, I recover. I know, what resilience.

It feels great to be liberated from the preoccupation with the male erection and orgasm once in a while. It is ridiculous how much we pander to it and measure our success in the sack by it. Me included (but this isn't due to any insidious socio-anthropological gender conditioning I swear, I just love cock). It dictates the rhythm and tempo - and indeed, the start and finish - of the majority of sexual interactions between men and women. Such that, an erection is taken as an unspoken cue to start having sex. And consequent ejaculation means time to dim the lights and ask for that extra toothbruszzz...zzzz.

But true to his word, Felix was on fire that night. I showed him exactly how to nibble at my nipples with his teeth, how to stroke my g-spot with his fingers, how to flick my clit with his tongue. I never had more of an apt or willing pupil. He got so good he could get me worked up to a gasping-tear-at-the-sheets orgasm within 2 minutes.

And all the time he keeps his eyes open. Again maybe because he doesn't felt the need to hold back his orgasm (read: close his eyes and think of granny). Nor is he at all fussed with reaching his own climax (read: close his eyes and grunt with effort). We would kiss, fingers would stray, tongues would quest, and all the while, his blue eyes would drink me all in. He would watch me orgasm and lose control. And as my own eyes slowly opened and I came slowly back to earth, his chin would be propped up against the side of my thigh, and he would be watching and smiling. It was sexy as hell.

I would turn the spotlight back onto him. I know he is extremely aroused, but a non-erection is a different kettle of fish. It needs to be handled delicately. Indeed, almost deferentially. I put a glob of cold lube on my fingers and spread it over him, gently pulling back his foreskin. Slowly, sensuously, my lips lock up and down his shaft. I find it is also a good opportunity to lavish attention on his other erogeneous male parts, the underside of his balls. The rim of his arse. In the absence of an erection, he has grown extremely sensitive to me touching him. Its like being with a virgin. The feel of my teeth against his nipples sends him into shivers. When I gently ring my fingers round his cock, it drives him crazy.

And then he makes me lie back and decides to kiss and lick every single inch of me. "Like the way when we first learned how to make love." He is unbelievably gentle and takes his time with me ("lie back, you don't have to do anything") such that it becomes a complete torment. My toes start to tingle and soon enough my whole body has turned into a writhing erogeneous zone, I beg for release. He indulges me, and I surrender in a gush of desire, such that my juice drips down his chin and onto the sheets. "I love the way you taste," he says and licks his lips.

We play like that for hours. Perhaps because there is no full-on penetration, we don't get tired. There is no beginning or end. The hours merge crazily into each other until we realise the sun is rising and we laugh. One of us reluctantly checks the time. It has been almost 5 hours. I am so tired after cumming for the upteenth time, I am beginning to just lie there hoping for the curtains to fall but of course, we find we both can't sleep.

So I make him lie down facing me and stroke his hair with regular motions as one would do a restless child until I hear his breathing steady and deepen. I listen to him breathe for a good period of time and then some time later kiss him slowly to rouse him. At this point, his cock also emerges from its inebriated slumber (thank God for the humble but trusty 'morning glory'). And the rest of the story is quite predictable really. ;)

How Does It All Fit Together

Yesterday, you surprised me with a wonderful SMS when I thought I'd never hear from you again. I replied in kind. I was happy that day.

And then today, you hit me again. Another SMS. Commiserating about Hong Kong and how you had told me so. Only right at the end, embedded in all that kindness and sweetness, a grenade telling me you knew about my blog and what I wrote about you.

I was apologetic. Embarrassed. Guilty. Exposed. And then Sad. Oh so sad. I offered to take down the posts about you, but to add insult to injury, you had to be gracious about it. The least you could do is be affronted. Or infantile. Or hate me. Never talk to me again. Let me off easy.

In retrospect, it was all quite inevitable. I'm pretty good at protecting the anonymity of my subjects, because it is inextricably tied to my own. But this was something I had written quite a while back - when there were 200 reading my blog daily, as opposed to 2,000 - and I had accidentally let slip a few too many distinguishing characteristics. And as things go in the world of the big bad Internet, I got found out - by your jerk colleague who probably spends his time gratuitously wanking at his desk over my blog.

I wasn't so much ashamed of what I wrote. I meant those words. And I have never lied or hidden my sexual asides from you. No, I was ashamed that you found out when I had taken so many pains in real-life to prevent you from knowing. Knowledge that would make me vulnerable. That would make me look silly. Strung along like the rag-puppet I swore I would never be again. I was protecting my pride. And whatever was left of my heart.

We never had a future together. So on that pretext, I never felt I owed you the truth. In fact, I was never even sure you cared. Might as well get on with the rest of my life and the two Italian stallions fitted the bill at the time. It would just hurt me more if you knew. Sometimes the heart needs mindless sex to chase its foolish notions out of existence. And to remember the real world it lives in.

But I never expected you to want to discuss what I wrote and ask me what I meant by this or by that. I never expected you to have so many questions I couldn't answer. I never expected you to dredge up old wounds and kindle old memories. You upset me. I thought I had healed over. I don't torture myself with the what-could-have-been. I'm just not that sort of girl. But I guess there is too much unresolved. There is too much we haven't talked about. And maybe we never will. You sent me these lines...

"The thing is...it doesn't work together at all. I would never judge your sexual preferances or desires no matter how off putting I might find them. And I know that the stuff you wrote about me came from your heart. I have always felt the same about you and you know that. But when you write heartfelt feelings about someone in one sentence and then fanciful 3 way action in the next absolutely everyone that will read this associates one with the other which puts into question and lessens the belief in anything said...But aside from all that I find it hard to believe that you honestly thought that this would be something private and personal?"

...and I was just at a loss as to how to respond. There are just too many unexorcised spirits buried in that SMS. You are too late. (And this is from someone who doesn't usually believe in 'too late'.) I am too far away. Mentally. A chasm of unanswered questions and consequent misunderstandings stand between us.

You broke my heart but never shattered it completely. And that is the cruelest thing to do to somebody. It broke into one thousand parts. So that piece by piece it flaked off. Like bad paint off a humid Hong Kong wall. Carrying off fragments of the hopeful, optimistic me that you once knew and cared about.

Maybe I was too forgiving. All I needed from you was a simple dealbreaker. Something to definitively label you a bastard and thus make me avoid you forever. The worst relationships are the ones that wear away at you by attrition. One modest disappointment after another. A neglected call. A missed dinner date. A forgotten gift. Love isn't always about grand gestures and flowery apologies. You know I'm not a needy chick. You never had to spend much time with me. And I never asked for much - just the certainty that when you said you'd call back, you would. Or that if you couldn't make it in time, you'd let me know. Simple courtesies like that.

Do you know the amount of time I spent waiting for you to call? Or keeping my fingers crossed in agony over whether you'd make it to see me? I would put my plans on hold for up to a week on the off-chance that you were in town. Of course I grew tired of waiting. But then I'd wait some more. Of course I'd tell myself that I would never let anyone else string me along this way. But when the opportunity presented itself, I'd just do it all over again. That's why I said that knowledge makes me vulnerable. Nobody but me should know that I suffered like that.

I never told you because I just wanted the few times we had together to be happy and free of these banal little irritations. I just assumed things would get better with time. I never told you because I needed to preserve my dignity. I was a strong, confident woman who didn't need anyone else in her life, who had a string of people who loved to spend time with her, who went through men like water. Why was I being over-sensitive and needy and pathetic like this? Absolutely out of character. I had to disown that part of myself.

And thus, I had to disown what I felt about you. And so I did things to sabotage our relationship. I kept the truth from you. Because that was the only thing I had control over. I had to convince myself that I didn't care. I had to numb myself to what I felt. I used other men with their tokens of affection to fill the gaping void you tore inside me.

That's how it all works together, okay? Like a bird with a broken wing. Looking out at the sky and wanting to fly but knowing it never will. And so it begins to eat away at its feathers and starve itself in despair. Knowing that the more it destroys itself, the less chances it will have to escape the cage it's in.

I wanted to respond to you today. And I began to, in a rather clumsy and inadequate way. But you see, I started crying at my phone and everyone started looking at me funny. And I had to stop myself. It's not that I wanted to shut you out. (What would be the point since you know too much already.) It's just that I can't talk about it right now. I just can't.

Maybe one day we will have a "Before Sunset" moment. Or not, as life sees fit. You asked if I thought about you. Well I do - and I did especially when I watched that movie. Sentimental me. If you want answers, come find me another day - at the right time and in the right place - and I will tell you everything.

Or maybe you will read this and you'll know. Whatever it is, until I next hear from you, take care of yourself.