“Down this way,” Danny or Benny said. We slipped into a dark alleyway, between a beachside hotel and a three-storey shophouse. He pressed me to the wall, his arms moving down my back to my ass, his tongue frantic in my mouth. He pulled back—a gaping pit of desire opened up inside me—and grabbed my hand, then led me through the darkness. I followed, drunk on lust.
As we progressed, I could feel the dense, salty air of the sea on my face, the night breeze tunnelling through the alleyway, through our hair and sweat-drenched clothes, touching our warm skins with light, ephemeral brushes. And then, as though we had finally broken through the diaphanous veil of the night, we were out in the open, on a patch of sand, facing the sea. The waves, glittering with moonlight, broke on the shore, sending up sprays of froth. I stopped, out of breath, and stared mutely at the dark sea.
Danny or Benny was looking at me, a smile on his face. He stretched out his hand, sweeping across the view.
“Beautiful, right?” he said.
He took two steps forward and glided down the small dune, swinging his arms to balance himself. I followed him and fell on my back into the sand. He reached out to pull me up, and guided me towards the deck chairs hidden in the shadow of a wide umbrella on the beach.
There, he held his body against mine on the deck chair and straddled me, his hands kneading my chest and arms. He lifted my head and pressed his lips to mine; I tasted beer, cigarettes and mint. I bit his upper lip. Our tongues met. I moved my hands across his muscled back and into the back of his tight jeans. He arched to allow my hands to slip easily under his underwear, breaking our kiss, releasing a soft breath into my ear. I felt the firm curve of his buttocks and trailed down the smooth groove between them with my fingers. He pressed his erection to my stomach, grinding it against me, then unbuckled my belt and unzipped my jeans. Already I could feel the dampness on my underwear, the strain of my erection against it. Tracing the contour of my cock against the underwear, he whispered into my ear: “I want you to fuck me.”
He removed his shirt, and I licked his chest, tasting the salt on his skin, nibbling his hardening nipples. The sea breeze swept over us, drying the sweat on our skin, raising goosebumps that heightened the sensitivity of each touch, each kiss. Against the lapping of the waves, we could only hear our own breathing, and the soft groans that escaped our mouths.
He reached into my underwear to free my erection, touching his forefinger to the tip of my cock. “You are dripping wet,” he said, and brought his finger to his tongue, licking it. Then, throwing me back on the deck chair, he bent down to kiss my chest, moving down my torso till he came to my crotch. I arched towards him. Teasing the head of my cock with his tongue, he looked up at me suppliantly, as if waiting for me to give the go-ahead. I grunted my approval; he took my cock all the way into his mouth, slowly. I closed my eyes and sank into oblivion.
After a while, he stopped and looked up at me. “Let’s go back to your hotel room,” he said, his look expectant.
“Sorry, I can’t.”
“Why? Don’t you like me?” he said, his hand gripping me tighter.
“My boyfriend is staying with me.”
“Oh.” His voice registered a hint of irritation. He released his hold on my cock and pulled away, putting his shirt back on. After straightening up, he planted a light kiss on my cheek.
“You should have told me earlier,” he said. And then he left.
I shook my head, suddenly overcome by a surge of crippling lethargy. I sank back onto the deck chair and stretched out the heavy sack of my body. The wind had turned chilly, stinging my face and arms, but I made no move to leave. The light of the crescent moon played on the rippling surface of the sea. I folded my arms across my chest, curled up my legs and closed my eyes. As I listened to the waves, I could only think of Cody, alone in the hotel room, waiting for me to come back to him.
Yet, even if I could muster all my strength and brace myself for what was to come, I knew it was impossible to return to the way things were before, to the lives we had.
10
CODY
Your mind is raw and foggy, skinned of any real memories, floating without thoughts. You close your eyes and, almost instantly, they flip wide open, unable to rest. Your shorts are damp, and the fabric sticks to your legs. Have you pissed without knowing it?
Your body is now a separate being, acting on its own will, keeping your mind hostage. You force your mind to sharpen, to will your arms to move. Your fingers twitch and your hands tremble; you ball them into weak fists. It’s enough to send a tightening ripple along the length of your arms. Slowly you lift your hands to your face, and stare at the creases on the palms, the deep lines that crisscross across the surface of the skin.
It’s bewildering to think how the years can pass so quietly, so mercilessly; you looked up one day and noticed the deep, unseen shift in the things of your life—the places, the people, how they had changed, imperceptibly and fundamentally, over time. You know, in the core of your heart, that you too have changed, and in ways that are completely unknown to you; and in this newly-unravelled knowledge, you are left grappling, surprised not by the facts—because these changes have taken place right before your eyes, even though you could not truly see them yet—but by the realisation that time changes everything in its sweep, always moving in one direction, ahead of you, leaving you behind, stranded.
Your life is in your own hands—but how foolish it is to think that one could have any real, permanent control over one’s life, over every aspect of it, when life is as random and faithless and fragile as it comes. For a moment, your existence is a thick fog that hangs in the air, obscuring the landscape; in the next, it lifts and vanishes into nothing.
What Cody remembers from his nine years with Chee Seng: late-morning breakfasts, ten-kilometre runs around Bishan Park, Chee Seng’s failed attempts at baking raisin scones, visits to the rental shop to get DVDs for their Saturday movie marathons, three-hour games of badminton with friends on Sundays, and the urgent lovemaking of their early years. They did almost everything together, because they wanted to be with each other all the time—and never stopped to consider where they were going, and soon became forgetful, careless, complacent.
First year: they watched movies, ran, cooked meals, made love everywhere, travelled, pooled circles of friends together for gatherings, read the same books.
Second year: they opened a joint savings account and split the bills equally. They travelled to places they had always wanted to visit: Krabi, Hanoi, Shanghai.
Third year: they took up volunteering and different activities, to “broaden their lives”: aikido for Chee Seng, rock-climbing for Cody. They became more visible to their respective families and attended family gatherings together—weddings, funerals, baby showers. More places: Taipei, Tokyo, Sydney.