The neighbourhood hummed a subtle tune of peace and desolateness that seemed to spiral deeper into the wee hours of the morning this first night of the year of the boar. I emerged from the compound of my apartment and caught you standing across the street from the guard house.
It seemed like ages ago since I last did this, but it certainly didn’t feel out of place. We would stick to the universally accepted agenda of going for a drink, evaluating the chemistry, have sex or say goodbye.
Sometimes, it doesn’t work.
••
I landed on the fabulously cozy bed and let out a helpless gasp as I lost all mental facilities to fight the urge of joining the throng of other IKEA shoppers in various embarrassing acts like taking photos while lying down in the bathtub or in front of their dream kitchen, or having a make-believe reunion dinner around the dining table, or struggling intensely to figure out how the LACK storage sticks to the wall with no visible support. You came to my rescue, failed miserably and landed right next to me. We stayed in this position for time immemorial, digging ourselves further into the comforter, legs dangling freely off the edge of the bed. Our eyes met.
“Let’s do it here!”
“ … ”
••
You were frantically toying with my hand, scratching and slapping and pinching it, as though it was the puppet we saw at the children section just now. I moved our trolley further into the giant cargo lift to disappear behind the equally gigantic ang moh in front of me, and hopefully away from the glances of other shoppers. Felt like ramming the Gorm storage long post into you, and then you flashed me that cheeky dimpled smile which melted the post and brought me down with it.
••
“Can I hug you?”
You turned over and were already resting half your weight on me before I could say yes. The timber strip flooring beneath us felt dusty from the renovation works that were still in progress, but nothing could really hold our passion back. As I felt your lips roam my neck, I looked out the floor-to-ceiling window and caught the KL skyline, and was confused if my short of breath was because of you or the breathtaking view outside. At this instant, the world was divided between a stuffy empty bedroom with two naked guys making love on the floor, and a peaceful 4am morning this second night of Chinese New Year.
I'll need to get the blinds installed soon, and the bed fixed as well of course.
••
The neighbourhood hummed a subtle tune of peace and desolateness that seemed to spiral deeper into the wee hours of the morning this third night of the year of the boar. You jumped out of your car and came around to open the door for me. It still couldn’t be opened from within. There was a certain unmistakable sorrow in the air as you walked me to the guardhouse, we didn’t make the effort to put them into words.
I stood there at the pavement, long after you left, your dimpled smile stuck in my mind like a ravenous leech on a juicy limb, and then I wondered if the whole episode ever happened.
