Three Words

Oh my god.

Can it be?

He loves me!

No erms or ahs, no luv-s or ya-s this time. It was so unexpected. We can talk about anything and everything but in our terms of engagement, there are certain invisible barriers we will not cross, and hot-spots we will not touch - lest we erupt and blow away in a plume of sulphur. It is a precarious balancing act, but one we have learned to navigate.

Besides, why show your hand if there aren’t any aces? Sometimes the kindest things we could have said were spoken only with our eyes.

I told him never to make me a promise he couldn’t keep. Promises were luxuries that we could not afford – they were niceties that could only be fulfilled with the extravagance of time, by people who had a future (boy did I despise that word). We were here-and-now people, always planning the next trip or the next fairy-dust adventure but no more than that. In many ways, it was intense and always interesting. In others, painful and perennially frustrating.

So far we had treated each other with due consideration – the only emotional disclosure we did came closely accompanied with guarded confessions, qualified caveats and irony in spades.

It was rare for us to speak plainly. Even though through intuition and the general reading of the tea-leaves, I suppose I should have known what was coming. But I didn’t ask – I never ask – and thus would never have received direct confirmation, except that he decided to sit me down on that anonymous hotel bed at 4 o'clock in the morning and tell me in the most direct possible way where our ridiculous roller-coaster journey had taken him.

He looked unflinchingly into my eyes as he said it – it wasn’t a spontaneous slip – rather he had been thinking of telling me for a while and biding his time. He knew I wouldn’t have appreciated it any other way.

He chose his moment well. I was ready to hear those words spoken from his lips. Any earlier and I might have scoffed or made a wry face, given my skepticism towards the entire concept. But over the past few months, I guess I had grown to believe in him. Or maybe I had grown to recognize how much more convenient it would be for us to be together without those three words, how things could have been much more sane, much more efficient.

Yes, the grubby Singaporean in me knew firsthand how much those three words cost him, and how they could function as much of a curse as a blessing. What underlay those words was not merely bland, self-congratulatory sentiment, but difficult, often uphill effort. For us, it would never be a case of just saying those words, it would be a matter of sweating them and squeezing them from a stone. Only then could they be true.

“How many people have you been in love with?” I asked curiously. I suppose it was a mini-test, to give me a benchmark of where I stood in his affections and maybe subconsciously, to size up the competition. “Its ok, just be honest.” I placed a reassuring hand on his chest.

He hesitated, as if searching for the right answer. “Three. Two of whom are my children.”

“Ah.” I paused and smiled wanly into the darkness. It wasn’t his answer that grazed me, but how he had said it, his voice stripped bare of any artifice. It was so truthful, it seemed as if I could see right to the bottom of his heart.

We looked at each other for a long time. “Baby, I’m not saying this to hurt you,” he touched me tenderly.

“I know.” And I wasn’t really hurt. Not at that moment, anyway. I didn’t feel the usual selfishness or jealousy, just a twinge of quiet resignation to the way things were. I gave a little shrug to dispel it. Then, I felt the odd sensation of a little soap-bubble rising up from deep inside me and popping somewhere behind my eyes. And another, and another. They left fizzy pinpricks all over my body. It was then that I realized I was really happy.

Tell me again, I demanded, suddenly serious. This time I wanted to make sure I was really ready for it. He did so, and the three words tipped over his lips one after another so naturally that I suddenly couldn’t imagine how we had gone on for so long without saying them before. Because suddenly they seemed so self-evident, almost obvious, like rough diamonds hiding in plain sight.

The words hovered in the air for a few seconds, serenading us together with the graceful sounds of Henry Mancini, a soundtrack I had in an act of prescience put on earlier that night. And as I internalised them, they swelled and became voluptuous, billowing through the fibres of my entire being.

I surrendered myself to them.

It was as if I had become atomised, and particles of my element were being pulled in discrete directions to fill all four corners of the room. I lay back in bed airborne and lissome on the wings of that enchanted expression, drunk with delight.

It was a natural high, a metaphysical fullness from another realm. So much so that I must confess the idea of making love to his naked form didn't even cross my mind. A physical joining would have seemed so ordinary and so earth-bound, compared to how I was feeling.

Perhaps because I have always perceived sex as a kind of desire as opposed to a grand finale. And for those moments, I desired nothing. I was pi, a perfect number that went on for infinity, neverending yet complete.

Yet from my giddy cloud of contentment, I could feel the tangential fragments of my heart coalesce and settle like a kaleidoscope in my chest; my joy, exhilaration, fear and absolute wretchedness creating stark but dynamic patterns of demented beauty.

The words were so simple. And once they were said, they could not be un-said. But the implications were so intricate and densely complex, that I didn’t quite know where or how to start processing it all. And I didn’t want to. What I wanted was for those taffy-pulled moments that night to last forever.

Tell me again, and again. And again! I laughed with daft delight as he complied. The repetition of those words and his reassuring embrace were enough to hold my dark thoughts at bay, as I raced towards that blissful oblivion that was the sun.

Ok enough, I ordered gently touching a finger to his lips. I didn’t want him to dilute the magic of those words by saying them too often. Just the knowledge that they were out there, and they existed as an explicit part of the world’s collective verbal consciousness was enough. They were accessible and yet they were mine. I could draw strength from that.

I would need it. I knew an Icarus moment awaited tomorrow.

Need for Speed

Every fast car needs a fast woman – and I am as fast and racy as they come. There is something about being in a vehicle hurtling along a street at 200 mph that stirs my loins and brings out the sexual beast in me.

My need for speed started off in the U.S. where I learned how to drive along 5-lane freeways and park in lots the size of hangars. I loved driving – and it seemed that the beautiful Californian indian summers and my general teenage bravado conspired to make me drive like a fiend everywhere I went.

Even 10-minute grocery runs in the suburbs would be executed at hazardous speeds, sometimes with nothing but my raised knee on the steering wheel and a very short skirt. After all I reasoned, one free hand was required to snap my fingers in time to my Missy Elliot CD whilst the other fiddled with my clitoris. (Dude, was I cool or what.)

It wouldn’t have been entirely accurate to say that I drove like a typical chick – more like a typical chick with a personal vendetta against pedestrians and a possible death-wish. Two totalled cars, countless tickets and a massive insurance premium hike later, I realized reluctantly that driving was better left to the experts – or at least the spatially-competent – and not to me.

I was heartbroken. And since then, I’ve constantly had to find men to fill the void and feed my speed addiction. Have a gut and mid-life crisis? A spanking new Ferrari? Let’s go to your place. Have a Ducati? Red? Let’s go to mine. I was the stuff that global marketer’s wet dreams were made of.

Alas, I quickly discovered that in Singapore as well as in Hong Kong, there is an inverse correlation between the price of a man’s automobile and the number of kilometers he does an hour. Tell me people, what is the point of buying a sports car with high-performance torque and even higher-performance bragging potential, and then granny-shifting it in and out of second gear?

Might as well buy an automatic. Better still, take a cab. Don’t mind me, I’ll just walk home in my 3-inch Jimmy Choos, thank you very much.

Suffice to say, I find the ability to drive well and drive fast, a very desirable quality in a man. I’ve always reasoned that if you can go full throttle in a vehicle, it would be likely that you uphold an equally no-holds-barred policy in the sack. And if you can power-shift like a pro, then surely you can bring me from a purr to a roar with a similar amount of finesse.

In that way women aren’t that different from automobiles – we’re all finely tuned machines that have a brake, a clutch, an accelerator, several gears that will bring us from 0 to 160, and damn can we make you look good when you rev us at the lights.

Adam was living proof of my hell-on-wheels-heaven-in-bed theory. He was one of those ‘good bad-boy’ (or is it ‘bad good-boy’) types that I just can’t help but have a complete weakness for.

A lawyer by trade, he used to race motorbikes in Australia before foot injuries compelled him to stop, and had that easy, effortless way of assuming control of any situation. You know, the sort that would instantly know what to do in any form of ‘crisis’ – say a friend in need, a brawl on the street or a sexy stranger offering him a blowjob in a cab. Needless to say, I was instantly infatuated. And he turned out of course to have his own excellent methods of shall we say, maneuvering his way around my gearbox.

I hadn’t seen Adam for a while, but as fate would have it we would be at the same place at the same time. A little beach destination off the Andaman. He promised to pick me up from the airport. And I promised to give him something that would alter his perception of commuting. Forever.

He pulled up in the parking lot in a rather innocuous Honda Jazz – with tinted windows. Chicken, I said under my breath as I pulled my legs up onto the seat and shut the car door behind me.

“You smell of sex,” he informed me, with a crooked eyebrow, perusing me lazily through his shades. His hands rested gently on the steering wheel, looking tanned and relaxed, the loosely-rolled up cuffs of his white shirt shone brightly in the sun.

“Well it was a 3 hour plane ride. I had to get started without you…” I retorted unapologetically. I rifled through my suitcase with deliberate nonchalance and inserted a CD – Gotan Project’s latest album, Lunatico - into the car stereo.

However, even I couldn’t ignore how the heavy muskiness of my pheromones, diffused with the spicy woodiness of his cologne, was filling the car with an unmistakeably rich, pungent scent. Compelled to inhale this vaporous concoction, we grew imperceptibly intoxicated. The car was transformed by our olfactory senses into a clandestine alcove, and it was as if we were a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde plotting something dangerous, something forbidden.

“Skip to Track 3. Now, drive,” I said, giving him a challenging look.

As we languorously pulled out of the parking lot, I began to fiddle about with the buckle of my left shoe. Oh fuck it, I muttered and lifted my legs, spreading them out on the dashboard. The husky, passion-drenched female voice that emanated out of the car speakers exhorted me to hike my skirt up even further and run my fingers lightly across my clit.

Thus, with my head pressed into the seat, my chunky heels making marks on the passenger-side windscreen and my freshly-waxed pussy wantonly exposed to the gaze of oncoming traffic, I began to work myself up the ladder of arousal.

“I’m creamy today,” I announced and languorously reached over to draw my soiled fingers across his lips.

Adam’s eyes strayed from the road frequently. I could see the tension tugging at the corners of his eyes and sides of the mouth every time I moaned. Occasionally, he would take a hand off the wheel to push my skirt up and give himself better access to my swollen opening.

I looked over at the speedometer. “60? That’s below the speed limit! Drive. Come on, show me what you can do.”

He did not reply except to make a slightly scornful sound and apply more pressure on the accelerator. 80 – 100 – 120 kmh. I leaned my body over, unzipped his jeans and found his already erect cock with my tongue. As I sucked away, my mouth gripped and loosened according to the humps and holes of the uneven island road.

130 – 140 – 150 kmh. My throat began to swallow his cock at a feverish pace and I could feel it swelling between my cheeks. Droplets of my spit splattered on the inside of his jeans as my fingers, tongue and mouth raced up and down the length of hiim. He made sounds low in his throat as he fought for control over both his body’s impulses and the oncoming traffic.

155 kmh and I removed my mouth sharply from its endeavours. His eyes were glued to the road but I knew that they would have registered momentary surprise and possible relief. I took off my seatbelt and motioned for him to reach over on his side for the lever that pushed his seat back. He complied willingly.

“You need to lose this timber truck up front,” I said matter-of-factly. Traffic was not heavy just irregular, but it required a certain amount of concentration for us to maintain the speed we were going at. I could still see his cock, red and veined, poking out from between the fly of his pants.

160 kmh and we were driving on the wrong side of the road, overtaking the truck. My erogenous zones were humming with the adrenaline of velocity. I took one of his hands off the wheel and slid over the transmission in a smooth motion to sit on him, blocking his line of vision momentarily. The car veered to the right, I could feel the crunch of gravel underneath us. He cursed and swung his head to the side to get a better view of the road, abruptly steering us back to our own lane.

I whooped. I had the best seat in the house; I had bent my body in such a way so as not to obstruct his line of sight and my head was pressed against the corner of the windscreen such that I looked out at all the action at extremely close-range. His hands were positioned around me on each side of the steering wheel and I could feel his breath hot on my back.

Then, I lowered my pussy onto his lap, coating his cock with my proprietary brand of creamy perfume and grinding away with my hips.

We fucked as we dodged slower-moving potential roadkill. Scooters, bicycles, trucks, animals, pedestrians flew by Daytona-style. I was not especially bothered. I had faith in his driving abilities and having sex at high speeds had made me embrace a new level of recklessness. Besides, I reasoned that our fellow commuters would have the common sense to just make way for the speedaholic weaving maniacally in and out of traffic and the woman in heat fucking him on the front seat. (I mean, who wouldn’t?)

We arrived at the hotel in one piece - suitably stirred (not at all shaken) and in superbly high spirits. His fly had been re-buttoned, my dress had been pulled down demurely to my knees and I smoothed my hair. We looked like any other respectable couple on a leisure getaway. There was nary a trace of bad behaviour.

Except the car reeked of sex.

The heady fumes of our bodily emissions (cum, sweat, pheromones) and respective fragrances (Issey on him, Agent Provocateur on me) had been recycled countless times by the rental car air-conditioning and soaked up by the upholstery. We realised this too late, as we were pulling up into the lobby. And no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t dispel the odoriferous cloud that we had built up with our misconduct.

The door staff stepped up to welcome us. A porter efficiently took our bags and an unsuspecting valet waited expectantly. Adam and I exchanged wry looks. He shrugged and dropped our keys into the valet’s outstretched gloved hand as I bent over double, convulsed in laughter.

Period Delay

In many ways I am very much a product of the 21st century. I understand why French women don’t get fat, I have 50 Cent on my iPod, I know the name of Brangelina’s new baby, I eke out a good work-life balance, my house has good fengshui and so on.

But there is a certain time in every month where all that gets thrown out of the window and I am reduced to being a hopelessly cranky, whingey, tetchy female. Like my generations of sisters before me.

The monthly curse, eumenorrhea, the menstrual period – call it what you will, its just one of these things that we women have to put up with on a regular basis. And spare us the scorn and pity guys, I’ve heard pattern baldness starts as early as 30, so why don’t you let that keep you busy.

Anyway, after mopping up more than 100 periods, I am thoroughly fed up with the concept. More pressingly, I am threatening to turn into a walking faucet right smack in the middle of one of my lover’s sponsored getaways (this time to Saigon), which is simply unacceptable.

I am not on the pill. And my half-hearted attempts at a few hokey old-wives’ methods to trigger / delay my period – from exercising violently in spurts to eating pineapples – predictably don’t work. Mars and Venus will not align. And I am fast approaching my 28 day deadline.

So I do what every self-respecting modern woman does. Stride into her GP’s office and offer herself up to the vagaries of medical science. I say I am ready to embed a microchip in my ovaries if it will solve the problem.

My GP assures me that my sacrifice, whilst noble, is a tad melodramatic and completely unnecessary. She is surprisingly sympathetic to my plight and calmly prescribes me a round of hormone pills (northisterone) to take 3 times a day, starting 3 days before my scheduled period.

And this is how I learn I can delay my period for restricted lengths of time. Just until after that much-anticipated birthday or that special holiday or that secret rendezvous or whatever. I feel incredibly liberated.

No more will I be a slave to plugs on strings, maxi pads with wings and extra-absorbent hydrogel! There is nothing sexy about having your man watch you waddle to the toilet once every few hours to stick a wad of cotton between your legs. Not to mention the little adjustments we have to constantly make to the offending pad with our legs crossed, our bums shifting imperceptibly on the seat, and the occasional hand down the back of our pants.

And no more will I swear violence on the fair-faced talent in tampon commercials that prance around in tight white shorts and wiggle their asses tauntingly at the camera. I’m sorry but one Vivienne Westwood skirt ruined, twice shy. Those innocent Tampex girls just annoy me.

Some of you profound types might scoff at using medical means to delay a period for the sole purpose of enjoying a holiday or more spontaneous sex with one’s lover, finding me both shallow and self-obsessed (and who am I to argue otherwise). And some of you traditionalists might think doing this subverts God’s master plan for a woman to bleed every month.

But it is now widely accepted that women don’t need to have monthly menstrual periods. In fact modern women endure up to nine times more periods than their great-grandmothers, who began menstruating later, married young and naturally suppressed periods for years while they were pregnant or breast-feeding.

Frankly, what this all means is that monthly periods are not necessarily by Nature's design. Rather it seems to be a means of punishing women of our evolutionary ilk for shirking our baby-making responsibilities - and we can get away with a lot fewer. And there is nothing to stop us from demanding 'period holidays' from our bodies. This is what has partially driven the popularity of contraceptive pills like the newly-FDA approved Seasonale.

So I am happy to see that nowadays menstruation is becoming optional, if not downright obsolete. As I, for one will not miss it. At this point, I’m still happy to bleed but only when I want to and not when I don’t want to.

Actually, it is not the bleeding I object to so much. Rather it is all the other nuisances that come with my period I detest – let’s call it Beached Whale syndrome – the bloat, the cramps, the occasional migraine.

Not to mention, that mistimed first gush. The most gauche of which would be in a man’s mouth as he is eating my pussy out hungrily. And oh yes, I’ve been there. It wasn't pretty.

I’m not squeamish at all about the idea of fucking with the flow – it’s a surefire way to alleviate cramps after all. But it sure is hell on the sheets. And blood just isn’t a very good lubricant for long periods of intense fucking. It dries out too quickly and naturally I’m not quite prepared to use the full faculties of my mouth or tongue to re-lubricate. Also, much as I adore giving head, a girl gets tired of doing it without any possibilities of reciprocation.

Now armed with my period-delay-in-a-packet, I’m off to Saigon.

To go commando under my linen mini-skirt, my neon bikini and my skimpy little fuck-me-here-and-now dress. To wank furtively in taxis and planes and feel my cum-juice trickle down my leg. To cream my guy’s cock in a public place and wipe it off with the underside of his fresh, white shirt. To have his best friend worm his fingers under my skirt and make me cum publicly on the barstool in front of an appreciative audience.

Ah. Bless thee Northisterone, you have made a 21st century woman of me.

Nature Takes Its Course

“Let me look at this…” he says taking the plastic object from my hands and examining it closely. “So this is what they look like. I always thought that they were these weird, nasty things that came with five tubes and a bag or something to put your shit in.”

I laugh. “Well there is that kind of enema, but those are, ahem, an acquired taste. Not for beginners like you. I prefer these, a bit more civilized, medically safe and readily available from your neighbourhood pharmacy. Clears you out and the best bit? No bags of shit to tote around!”

“So you just stick them in and it all comes out?”

“Yup! I’ll show you! In fact, you are going to do one with me!” I pronounce smugly. “That will be the rule from now on ok? If I do one, you do one – for solidarity! C’mon it’ll be fun! These are the things you do with someone you feel completely and absolutely comfortable with. The things you don’t see in porn!”

“For good reason…” he mutters under his breath.

I see him hesitate - caught between curiousity and dismay - and ruthlessly press my advantage. “Pwease? Pwetty pwetty pwease? Friends for life, right? And besides, it’s my birthdaaay…” Faced with all the earnest and enthusiastic cajoling, he knows his only option is to gamely capitulate.

I make him lie back and tell him playfully – and quite unnecessarily – to “just relax”. I lube up the tip of the plastic tube with my forefinger before carefully and tenderly inserting it into him, subsequently pulling it out in exactly the same fashion.

“See? Easy-peasy! Now you do the same on me!” I squeal, reclining horizontal on the bed and positioning my buttocks at an angle to give him the best access. He obediently returns the favour and looks suitably serious whilst admistering it.

“So now we wait.”

We stretch out on the king-sized bed next to each other. And wait. And giggle. And wait some more. It gives me great amusement to see him just lying there looking somewhat uncertain and vulnerable, anticipating what will happen next.

The irony of the situation is not lost on him. “This is a real bonding experience huh, waiting with somebody to shit!” he exclaims with great amusement. “Actually I could feel it working the minute you inserted it, like my insides were relaxing. Matter of time Baby, matter of time…”

The urge hits me first and I run off to let nature take its course, forgetting in my haste that he is still lying in bed a few feet away. My body begins to release and induced by the enema, I begin to make some reasonably loud and explosive bathroom sounds (subtext: farts that echo throughout the entire villa).

Suddenly I hear a loud yell of encouragement: “YOU GO Baaaby! YEAAAA. Giiiive it to me. C’mon, LOOOUUD! Just the way I like it!”

“FUCK OFF!” I shriek back in laughter, helpless to stop my body from completing the course of its natural functions. “I’m sooo fucking going to sit outside the toilet when you gooo!”

“Ok ok, I’ll switch on the TV,” he says, as a concession. I hear the sounds of the tube and I recognize the drone of a newscaster reading the news.

Great, I muse. Just great. Now I’m shitting to the sounds of car bombs detonating in Iraq. Poetry in motion indeed. I vow silently to feed his innards to the flies when I finish.

When I finally wander out of the toilet, he is nowhere to be found and I conclude (correctly) that it must be his time. Out of general politeness and the reluctance to intrude, I sit on the bed idly flipping channels, looking for something remotely inspiring on the small screen.

It doesn’t last long – my half-hearted attempt at courtesy and self-control - and after a few moments, I run over to the other room and press my ear to the glass door of the toilet. “Knock knock! How’s it going?”

“Good. The miracles of science are…miraculous! Everything’s coming out in a rush!”

“I don’t hear anything! Where are the fucking sound effects?”

I arrange myself cross-legged on the floor outside and wait patiently but receive no audio gratification for my efforts. I must have mis-timed it. Drats. He emerges from the cubicle a little while later, careful to shut the door firmly behind him. He chuckles when he sees me sitting outside. And this sets me off on yet another round of mirthful spasms.

“What will you say to the people who ask what you did on your birthday, Sash? Sat outside the toilet and listened to a guy shit,” he teases me, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Stop it! For your birthday next month, I’m going to make you carry a 2 gallon bag of shit around. You best not shoot your mouth off, buster!” I gasp out a warning, wiping the wetness of hilarity from my eyes and holding my sides tightly.

Thus, with our bowels so unceremoniously emptied, we have set the scene for an all-night session of hot, heavy backdoor action later on (subtext: no mess, no embarrassment and no need to call the hygiene police, people!) Just thinking about it gives me a quick pucker from anticipation and arousal.

But for the immediate moment, first things first – we head out for lunch. Chocolate fondant is predictably not on the menu.

Animal Sex

"Play with me," I commanded softly, pushing a leg against his chest as he attempted to move closer to me on the bed.

We were naked in our secluded little villa. It was a full moon that night. Everything was still around us except for the voices of various night creatures – the deep-throated hiccup of the frogs and the restless buzz of the mosquitos in particular - that made the night-air thrum with an expectant energy.

He looked at me curiously, trying to discern what mood I was in. I had been sick earlier in the night – something I ate – and he had patiently held my hair back as my guts made mutiny against me. When I had finished, he had laid down with me in bed, stroking my tummy as I laughingly railed against the indignity of retching in front of another human being.

Apparently though, I had recovered. “Come on, play with me.” I kicked again, harder this time. I taunted him from between the part of my hair, a challenge bright in my eyes.

He pushed at my shoulder, tentatively at first, trying to gauge my reaction. I landed another kick, this time on the side of his pelvis, close to his already hardening cock.

A split-second feint, and he had my arms pinioned to my side, the body weight of his chest crushed me to the bed.

"So this is how you want to play, huh?" he whispered huskily, his hot breath tickled my cheek. I growled at him from the back of my throat.

"Is this how you get all your women to sleep with you, old man?" I bucked my body against his, struggling to pull myself free. "You can't even get your limp excuse for a cock anywhere near my pussy."

"Why would you think I even want to sleep with you, you cheap slut?"

"I don't know and you know what, I don't fucking care," I hissed contemptuously. "But I've seen the way you look at me. You want me. But then we all want what we can't get."

We circled each other on the bed, panting and sweating. The blood was pounding in my head and my body flushed from the combination of physical exertion and sexual agitation. I could see the dilated pools in his green eyes and his stiff, red member standing rigidly between his legs.

I lunged at him, taking him by surprise. And as I impaled my pussy onto his cock, I gushed cum all over him.

He let me savour my presumptuous victory for a few precious moments. Then with one swift movement, he flipped me over expertly like a croupier with a full deck. He pressed my knees down such that I was forced spreadeagled onto the bed, naked and vulnerable. I gasped.

And then he did the unthinkable. He raised himself cobra-style between my legs and spat. A white projectile flew out of his mouth and landed squarely – warm and viscous – on the folds of my labia.

"That's what I think of your cunt," he sneered dismissively.

"Fuck you!" I screeched in outrage. I wet the back of my throat and before he could duck for cover, I expectorated back. Huge beads of my saliva splattered across his face and he flinched instinctively.

"Now we're even. Not feeling so great anymore, are we?" I said with as much scorn as I could muster.

Without warning, he plunged himself into me. Over and over again. Deep, hard thrusts that scraped my core as I shrieked for more. It seemed the more we hurled abuse at each other, the more savagely we fucked.

In fact, fucking was a barely adequate description for what we did. Homosapiens with opposable thumbs fucked. We on the other hand, tore into each other like savage animals that night – a wolf and a wildcat – driven by nothing but a frenzied, feral sixth sense.

We coupled. We mated. We bred.

I had never uttered so many epithets in my life. We called each other names that the respectable gentlemen Merriam and Webster would have thrown a conniption fit at. We battled on all levels. Physically, we bit, clawed, bruised each other for mastery. Sexually, we exploded over and over again – each time scaling new heights of ferocious intensity.

But the heart of the engagement was 100% mental – ultimately, the individual who had the most colourful vocabulary and who could strike the lowest (and most inventive) verbal blow won the day. Too late, I discovered that for someone reasonably well-mannered in real life, he was a surprisingly adept trash talker and indeed a worthy adversary.

And therein lay the illicit thrill of our little game – acute provocation as the stimulus with completely uninhibited animal sex as the stipulated response.

Even though he was bigger and stronger than me, I never felt like I was in any actual danger. I knew that he would never ever have hurt me. Even whilst we played, he always ensured that we were evenly matched and that he never brought his full physical advantage to bear upon me.

The verbal slurs we exchanged were never hurtful because they were underlaid with a fundamental understanding of the way we felt for each other. The idea that I was his "whore" and his "slut" was sacred because I knew no one else was, or could be.

There was also a raw, stripped down intimacy to the way we transformed into absolute beasts that night. It was so completely removed from the way we usually treated each other. Yet it felt entirely natural, as if we had each unlocked our rightful soul-creatures and set them free.

We continued to work each other over in this manner for an hour or more. It was only when the mattress threatened to topple off the bed that we stopped, slightly reluctantly, for breath. We gazed at each other warily for a second. And then I broke the spell – with a barely-suppressed giggle.

"Well that's a first," I said, my face luminous with a combination of mirth and incredulity as I mentally registered what we had just done. "Have you fucked like that before?"

"No only with you, you crazy nut," he shot me a crooked smile and we winked simultaneously.

He added: "I think I've never heard you make so much noise. And you squirted all over. I could feel your juice running down to my ankle!”

We ran our hands over the sheets, tacitly congratulating ourselves whenever we came across significant wet patches. I tidied up whilst he went to take a quick shower. The sheets had been half-pulled off and most of the bed was indeed, soaked. We would have to leave a big tip for housekeeping tomorrow.

I joined him a few minutes later, leaning lazily on the doorframe of the bathroom as I watched him dry off, his alpha-animal qualities sheathed partially in a fluffy white towel.

"Want some?" I asked, handing him a bottle from the mini bar. He walked over, took a swig and... artfully - ejected - a - big - mouthful - of - icy - Evian - all - over - my - breasts.

I stood rooted to the spot, dripping, my eyes wide with shock and disbelief. He grinned, amber devils dancing in his eyes. I continued to stare at him dumbly for a few more seconds. And then, a fire ignited in between my legs and blazed through my whole body with a blistering, defiant heat.

"You asshole!" I screamed and immediately sprung into action. "Fuck me. NOW." I put my hands on his shoulders and yanked him towards me sharply, intending to force his cock into me. He pulled away abruptly.

"Fucking's too good for you right now," he snarled. So instead of giving into my desire for penetration, he started to slap the length of his cock vigorously against my pussy. Huge, forceful smacks that only increased in vigour and velocity. I howled my frustration and arousal.

I had positioned myself on the nearby dressing table because it was the nearest platform available that could hold my body weight. And I half-sat, half-squatted on the varnished wood as a frog would if it were held upright with its soft underbelly exposed. In that position,the lips of my fully-bared pussy swelled and grew a dull red. My clit constricted up and down in time to the contact.

The sounds changed as his cock encountered a wetter and wetter surface – from tight, precise slaps to deeper, more mature cuffs. Then suddenly, I flooded the table with my essence. He entered my pussy as it was still contracting. A few deep thrusts later, he joined me in release.

Lathered and gorged on our own juices, finally we were still. We had acted out the horniest of our fantasies, plumbed the depths of desire for each other, unleashed our inner brutes and all that was left was just an incredible feeling of tenderness.

He brushed away strands of my tangled hair away and caressed my cheek gently, as if I had suddenly become a fragile flower. I smiled. This time, there was no need for words. The silence enfolded us like a warm fuzzy blanket. It bound us with a temporary truce and sang of our hard-won peace, honouring our efforts.

We ran our fingers over each other lightly and just lay there for a long while - completely immobilised and utterly satiated. It was close to morning when I climbed on top of him like a limpet and fell asleep.

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.