- Swedish-American. At least 1.8 metres tall.
Chapter 84: The Girl Next Year
https://freeimage.host/i/KjBHplR
(AI-generated image of Faye)
Disclaimer: All names, characters, and events in this chapter are fictional, although inspired by the lived experiences and memories of the protagonist. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Settings and timelines have been adapted for narrative purposes.
Late 1999. Singapore was crawling out of the rubble of the Asian Financial Crisis.
The smart money had already started trickling back into the market, and I made my first grown-up decision. I signed on a unit in a new condominium development near Redhill, putting nearly everything I had into the down payment. The developer threw in air-con units and free legal fees. I just wanted the morning sun and a corner to call my own.
It wouldn’t be ready for a year.
In the meantime, my previous lease was up and I moved into a rented room in a low-rise walk-up near Tiong Bahru, with concrete walls, ceiling fans, and the scent of curry leaves wafting through floor vents. There were cats on the stairwell and neighbours who never locked their doors.
That’s where I met Faye.
She was twenty, or maybe just slightly younger. Tanned and wiry, with short auburn-dyed hair, luminous, liquid eyes, and a black tribal tattoo coiling around her upper left arm. I saw it first in the corridor as she hung out laundry in a tank top. She caught me looking and smirked.
Her parents were the landlords. Reserved, proper, always wearing house slippers. Faye was their opposite: free-spirited, unbothered, half-rebellious and wholly aware of her effect on people.
We started with nods. Then came idle talk by the mailbox. Then one night, I caught her by the stairwell in a singlet and FBT shorts, reading a magazine and humming to herself.
“You look like you just conquered something,” she said, smiling, giving me a sidelong glance.
“Half a thesis and a property market,” I replied.
She eyed me up and down, exhaled deeply toward the landing light, and said huskily, suggestively: “Wanna conquer something else?”
⸻
We made love in her bedroom. A small space cluttered with clothes, half-read magazines, and a lizard clinging to the ceiling.
She pulled her top off first, revealing small but perky breasts, firm and high, her skin bronze and smooth. Her nipples were taut, round, already anticipating my tongue. Her arms were toned from netball or something like it, and that tattoo seemed to wrap tighter as she pulled me close.
Her underwear slid off easily, revealing tight, toned thighs and a trimmed patch above a glistening slit. She lay back and opened her legs with complete confidence. I knelt between them, kissing her tattoo, her thighs, and finally — her womanhood. She gasped as I licked upward, her hips bucking gently, fingers twisting in the bedsheet.
When I entered her, she arched into me. She was tight, slick, and responsive, moaning freely with every deep stroke. I cupped her ass, pulling her harder onto me, watching her breasts sway, her eyes flutter.
She wrapped her legs around me as she came, her moan sharp, urgent… almost a cry, and I followed soon after, pulsing deep inside her as the fan rattled overhead.
⸻
The second time was mid-afternoon. Her parents were home. But she whispered, “My room locks.”
We slipped in silently. She pushed me against the wall, dropping to her knees, unzipping me with a grin. Her mouth was hot and eager, her tongue working with surprising skill. When she climbed onto me afterward, straddling me on her bed, I gripped her hips and drove upward. She rode me fast, moaning into my neck, tattooed arm braced against the wall.
We came within seconds of each other, collapsing in a tangle of breathless limbs.
Afterward, she lay on my chest and said, “You’re lucky you didn’t meet my cousin first.”
“Cousin?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Fair, long hair, wears way too much makeup. Hot. Feisty. She’s crashing here sometimes while doing her attachment.”
“Is that a warning or an invitation?”
She smiled and bit her lip. “Let’s call it foreshadowing.”
⸻
Weeks later, that foreshadowing would come true, but Faye and I never spoke of it directly. Just one lingering look when we passed each other at the lift, her eyes saying
you did, didn’t you
? and mine replying
only because you smiled like that first
.
It became a secret we shared silently, like smoke drifting in the stairwell.
But for now, Faye, with her inked arm, sharp tongue, and eyes that glowed in the dark, was enough.
She was youth and thrill and rebellion.
And in the liminal space between what I owned and what I was building, she gave me something
fleeting and unforgettable
.
[End of Chapter 84]
Mirror Site:
Chapter 85: The Cousin Clause
https://freeimage.host/i/KjQ5IFs
(AI-generated image of Melanie)
Disclaimer: All names, characters, and events in this chapter are fictional, although inspired by the lived experiences and memories of the protagonist. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Settings and timelines have been adapted for narrative purposes.
She arrived on a Friday afternoon like a rumour taking shape: fair-skinned, long-haired, and unapologetically extra. Red lips, high-waisted jeans, and eyeliner sharp enough to slice through assumptions.
“Hi,” she said, peeking through the front gate. “You’re the guy renting the spare room, right?”
I nodded, pausing mid-laundry.
“I’m Melanie, Faye’s cousin. Call me Mel. Staying over this weekend.”
Then she gave me a look, not shy, not flirty. Just…
interested
. Like she’d heard things.
⸻
She wasn’t like Faye. Where Faye was subtle and teasing, Mel was bold, direct, with that confident body language of someone used to being noticed.
She strutted around the common area in spaghetti straps and terrycloth shorts, her ample chest barely contained, her scent a cocktail of vanilla body mist and heat. When she bent to get a drink from the fridge, her top slipped low, exposing cleavage that seemed sculpted for sin.
I caught her watching me from across the hallway more than once. Once, she smirked and licked peanut butter off her finger in slow motion.
Faye noticed. Of course she did. She gave me a single look that said:
I warned you
.
And I answered with a look that asked:
Are you stopping me?
She turned away, smiling to herself.
⸻
It happened one rainy Sunday.
The rest of the household was out at church. I stayed behind, claiming a headache. Mel emerged from the shower in a towel, just a towel, her wet hair cascading down her back like a shampoo ad come alive.
“You alone?” she asked.
I nodded, heart already racing.
She walked past me toward the kitchen, deliberately brushing her arm against mine.
“You always this quiet?”
“Only when I’m thinking about things I shouldn’t do,” I said.
She leaned in, eyes gleaming. “Then maybe we should do them fast, before they come back.”
⸻
We didn’t make it to a bed.
It happened against the wall of the narrow corridor leading to the back of the flat. She dropped her towel, revealing creamy skin, full breasts that swayed slightly, nipples taut and dark, and a flat belly with a silver belly ring catching the light.
I pressed her against the wall, kissing her roughly. She kissed back with fire, biting, moaning, grinding against my thigh. I lifted her effortlessly, her legs wrapping around me, her wet slit hot and ready as I slid into her in one deep thrust.
She gasped, throwing her head back, fingernails raking down my back. I pumped hard, fast, her breasts bouncing with every motion, the sound of wet skin and breath filling the tight space.
“Harder,” she whispered. “Make me forget we’re being bad.”
I did.
She came with a cry muffled into my shoulder, her body trembling as she clenched tight around me. I followed, groaning into her neck, the orgasm ripping through me like a flood.
⸻
Afterward, we cleaned up fast, silent and giddy, listening for returning footsteps.
She winked as she pulled her shirt on. “That was fun. Let’s not make it a habit.”
“Deal,” I said. Though I wasn’t sure I meant it.
⸻
Later that night, I passed Faye in the corridor. She was brushing her teeth, her hair tied up, no makeup.
She didn’t say anything. Just gave me that same unreadable look.
And then, without a word, she reached out, gently tapped my chest, and walked away.
Some secrets don’t need to be spoken.
They just hang in the air like perfume, or sin.
[End of Chapter 85]
Mirror Site:
Note from Author: Remembering the Cousins
It’s been decades now, and every so often I catch myself thinking back to that strange, bright chapter of youth… the days when we were young and wild and free, when the nights were too short and the mornings came too fast.
I heard through the grapevine that Faye and Mel have long since settled down. They’re living what you’d call normal Singaporean lives now: with families, responsibilities, school runs, mortgages, and all the everyday routines that slowly replace fire with steadiness. And honestly, I’m glad. That’s the way it should be.
But in my mind’s eye, they’ll always be those radiant cousins: one wiry, sharp-eyed and rebellious with a streak of ink running down her arm; the other bold, confident, walking into a room as if the walls had been waiting for her. They were contrasts and yet kindred, each pulling the air around them in different ways.
I remember the stairwells and corridors of that old walk-up, the quiet conversations and louder silences, the laughter that echoed just a little too freely, and the secrets that never needed to be spoken. There was a kind of electricity in those days… the sense that anything could happen, and sometimes it did.
Looking back now, I don’t feel regret. Just gratitude. Gratitude that, in the liminal space between what I was building and what I had yet to become, they gave me fleeting glimpses of freedom, daring, and fire.
So here’s to them. To the cousins who were once wild, unforgettable, and impossibly alive. I wish them happiness in the simple lives they now lead. And I’ll keep those memories, those vivid, untamed, and unrepeatable ones, tucked safely in my heart.
Chapter 86: Tempo Rubato
https://freeimage.host/i/KwMSV2a
(AI-generated image of Lisa)
Disclaimer: All names, characters, and events in this chapter are fictional, although inspired by the lived experiences and memories of the protagonist. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Settings and timelines have been adapted for narrative purposes.
She was already on the way down when I was on my way up.
I met Lisa on a rainy afternoon, under the canopy of the old music hall where musicians still gathered to haggle for gig work.
She was leaning against the wall, cigarette in one hand, drumsticks in the other, dressed in a worn tank top and jeans torn at the knee, her leather boots damp from the rain, and her long black hair pulled into a loose knot. I wouldn’t have noticed her, except for the tattoo of a treble clef curling behind her left ear.
She was in her late 30s, somewhat older than most women I’d been with so far, but her figure was lean, tight, with arms that hinted at hours of rhythm and shoulders sculpted by years behind a drumkit.
I asked if she played.
She looked me up and down and said, “Not lately. The gigs dried up when the venues did.”
⸻
The Asian Financial Crisis had shaken everything including banks, marriages, musicians. She used to play at Harry’s Bar on Boat Quay, backup drums in a jazz trio. The night they closed temporarily, her bassist boyfriend left. The keyboard player vanished to Dubai. The manager promised to call when things picked up.
He never did.
Now, she picked up odd tutoring gigs and taught percussion to primary school kids for fifty dollars a session. Her beeper hadn’t gone off in three days.
I bought her kopi and stayed to listen. She told me about Malcolm McLaren, how rhythm isn’t always about keeping time, and how she once punched a club manager who tried to grope her after a set.
“Everyone wants to sleep with the singer,” she said, lighting another cigarette. “But the drummer? We just keep it together.”
I smiled. “So maybe I’m wired wrong, then.”
⸻
We began meeting weekly.
Her studio was gone, but she kept her drums at a friend’s storage unit in Queenstown. Sometimes we walked there just to sit on the floor and thump quietly on the snare with our fingers. Sometimes she talked. Sometimes we drank and said nothing.
One night, we were sitting on the edge of the disused railway track near Tanjong Pagar, watching trains rumble past in the distance.
“You’re a little young for me,” she said.
“I’m good with tempo,” I replied.
She laughed. “You’re too smooth.”
“Only when the music’s worth it.”
She didn’t kiss me then. She just leaned her head on my shoulder. Her scent was woodsmoke and shampoo. I didn’t push.
⸻
It finally happened the next week, after her friend’s birthday party at Zouk. The others had gone home. She was buzzed but not drunk. I offered to walk her back to the hostel in River Valley where she sometimes crashed. She stopped at the landing, turned around, and said, “Let’s do this before I change my mind.”
We didn’t use a bed.
It happened in a small, dusty rehearsal room she had keys to, a soundproof space with torn acoustic foam on the walls and an old red velvet couch at the back.
She kissed me hard, pinning me against the door, tongue probing, breath heavy. I stripped off her tank top, revealing perky, muscular breasts, a flat, toned belly, and a faint trail of ink, some forgotten lyric, fading across her ribs.
Her jeans came off fast. She wore no underwear. I dropped to my knees and kissed her thighs, her hips, and finally the center of her. She was already wet. Already hot. She moaned as I licked, her hands bracing against the door.
Then she grabbed me, pulled me up, turned around, and bent over the couch. I entered her from behind: tight, impossibly so. She clenched down there with the strength of someone who knew her body, every muscle under perfect control.
I gasped. She smirked.
“Like that?” she asked over her shoulder.
“
Fuck yes
.”
I thrust harder. She met every motion, slamming her hips back, moaning louder with every deep stroke.
Her walls clung to me, pulsing, rippling as if sucking me in. I gripped her hips and rammed into her, faster, deeper, until her body convulsed around me and she cried out in sharp, rhythmic gasps.
I came inside her (
capped, of course
), shuddering, collapsing against her back.
We didn’t move for a long time. Just the sound of breath and blood and silence.
⸻
She lit a cigarette after. Sat cross-legged on the couch, naked but unashamed.
“You’ve got good hands,” she said.
“You’ve got good…
everything
.”
She laughed. “Don’t fall in love, young man. I’m not your encore.”
“I’m not your song either,” I replied. “I’m just your bridge.”
She exhaled, looked at me differently, then kissed me on the forehead.
⸻
We met once more, a week later, just for coffee. She told me she was heading to Bali to work at a small bar, drums and vocals. Said I should visit if I ever needed a different beat.
I never did.
But every time I pass a jazz bar or hear the sharp snap of a snare, I think of Lisa, the woman who played rhythm like it was breathing, who let me inside her with fire and control, and who taught me, in one unforgettable night, what it meant to be held tight, body and soul.
[End of Chapter 86]
Mirror Site:
Chapter 87: The Names They Gave Me
https://freeimage.host/i/KNzDzxV
(AI-generated image of the mirror)
Disclaimer: All names, characters, and events in this chapter are fictional, although inspired by the lived experiences and memories of the protagonist. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Settings and timelines have been adapted for narrative purposes.
I never introduced myself as a Casanova.
Never winked or bragged.
Never showed off a list.
Half the time, I didn’t even save their phone numbers, not out of cruelty, but because I lived from moment to moment.
The main records were in my logbook and my memory, and even that was selective.
But names have a way of following you,
especially in a city as small and murmuring as Singapore.
It started subtly.
At a networking event, a colleague said, “You’re so and so, right? The… ah,
legendary one
.”
A friend’s girlfriend, drunk at a house party, whispered in my ear, “I heard you’re
the Casanova of Singapore
.”
And another, a French intern in the consultancy I worked at, called me “
the Libertine of the Lion City,
” laughing as if it was just a clever joke.
But it wasn’t a joke.
Not really.
The names stuck.
And they echoed.
⸻
In modern Singapore, having a body count (or lover count) in the hundreds isn’t a number. It’s a myth.
In a city shaped by cautious conservatism, where marriages are measured and sex is still wrapped in euphemism,
Here I was, unintentionally, an anomaly.
Most people in my circles had been with five, maybe ten partners.
Some married their university sweethearts.
Others dabbled, then settled.
And then there was me:
with nearly a hundred already behind me by my early thirties,
and still more to come.
It wasn’t always public knowledge, of course.
Discretion was a survival skill.
But stories leak.
Whispers travel.
And soon, I had become
an idea
, not just a man.
A man who could seduce anyone.
Who’d slept with executives and housekeepers, heiresses and hostesses, Singaporeans and strangers.
A man who understood women.
⸻
The truth?
Sometimes, I did.
But more often, I was just listening better than most.
I wasn’t afraid to ask what turned them on.
I didn’t flinch at tears.
I didn’t rush the first kiss or the goodbye.
And that, more than sex, made them remember me.
But here’s what the monikers never captured:
• That I was
lonely
, more often than I let on.
• That I carried several heartbreaks like shadows, even as I danced with new ones.
• That I wasn’t always chasing pleasure, sometimes I was just running from silence.
⸻
Being called Casanova is flattering… until it isn’t.
It suggests confidence, control, charisma.
It hides the days I was lost.
The nights I stared at the ceiling wondering why connection never lasted beyond the morning.
The “
Libertine of the Lion City
”?
That one made me smile.
It had style, edge, irony.
But I also knew that behind every title was a truth:
They saw what they wanted…
A man who
could
.
But not a man who wanted to stop.
⸻
These days, when I recall those names,
I just raise a glass to those memories and laugh.
But inside, I knew I carried a quieter truth:
I wasn’t a legend.
I was a mirror, reflecting what each woman longed for in that moment.
And eventually, I learned this:
Even mirrors get tired.
Even reflections fade.
⸻
[End of Chapter 87]
Mirror Site:
Chapter 88: Pale Fire
https://freeimage.host/i/KNmkV9I
(AI-generated image of Annika)
Disclaimer: All names, characters, and events in this chapter are fictional, although inspired by the lived experiences and memories of the protagonist. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Settings and timelines have been adapted for narrative purposes.
She stood at the edge of the MRT platform like she didn’t belong to the world around her, looking tall, radiant, and absurdly golden, like someone had airlifted her in from another climate.
Her name was Annika.
In Singapore on a stopover to Australia, part of a post-graduation self-exploration trip before she started her job at a lifestyle media firm in Los Angeles.
She looked like a younger Taylor Swift before fame carved the edges sharper, all light-blonde hair, pale porcelain skin, and ice-blue eyes that scanned crowds like she was still making up her mind about the world.
We met on a Heritage Walk tour I’d been helping a friend facilitate. She was the last to arrive, wearing a loose white tee knotted above her navel, and denim shorts that barely covered her long legs. She smiled at me politely, then asked:
“You’re the guide?”
“Sort of,” I replied. “Only charming if you make eye contact.”
She laughed. Her accent was crisp. Her confidence immediate.
⸻
The group dispersed after the tour. She lingered.
“You talk like you’ve lived in London,” she said.
“I did. One year. Picked up a few bad habits. Like staring at tall girls.”
She arched a brow. “You’re not intimidated?”
I stepped closer, still half a head shorter. “I’ve been shorter than everyone who mattered. Height’s just an angle.”
She didn’t answer. She just smiled.
We had kopi at Holland Village. She tried kaya toast, then durian ice cream, and decided one was a culinary crime.
⸻
She extended her stay by a week.
We met every evening, with museum trips, supper at East Coast, and even a jazz set at Clarke Quay. She was witty, grounded, curious. And sensually unafraid, like someone who had already outgrown her insecurities.
One night, on the way back to her serviced apartment off Orchard, she leaned against me in the lift and said,
“I’ve always had a thing for Asian men. But not boys.”
I kissed her before the doors opened.
⸻
Her room smelled like citrus and vanilla lotion. Her playlist was full of chill Nordic jazz.
She pulled off her shirt first…
no bra
. Her breasts were round, firm, pale with soft pink nipples, stark against my skin when I leaned in to suck them. She groaned softly, her hands threading through my hair as I kissed down her flat stomach to her bellybutton, where a tiny silver stud gleamed.
Her panties dropped easily. She stood tall and bare, all long limbs, wide hips, and glistening desire, her blonde curls trimmed, soft, the skin between her thighs a delicate pink. I undressed and she looked down at me, amused.
“You’re muscular and lean,” she said. “You work out?”
“Enough to hold your legs up.”
“Prove it.”
⸻
She lay back on the bed, arms above her head, watching me with those impossible eyes. I started slowly, kissing her inner thighs, sucking gently on the flesh near her hip bones, letting her writhe in anticipation.
When I slid my tongue over her clit, she gasped, with her legs falling open like invitation. I worked her steadily, circling, flicking, drawing her out. She came once with a moan, thighs clamped around my head, hands pulling my hair.
Then she rolled me over and straddled me, her long blonde hair falling forward, breasts swaying, her core warm and wet as she slid down onto me. Her hips moved with slow, practiced rhythm, riding me with control and hunger.
I cupped her ass, firm and round, thrusting upward into her. She gasped louder, the height difference gone now, her pale skin glowing above mine, her body riding the tension like a wave.
We flipped. I entered her from behind next, gripping her hips as she arched her back, her moans filling the room. I noticed the dimples on her shoulders, something I’ve never seen on any other woman before or since.
She clenched tightly,
incredibly tight
, every muscle around me squeezing in perfect rhythm. When I reached forward to cup her breasts, she shuddered and came again, crying out in high, musical bursts.
I finished soon after, collapsing beside her, both of us slick and breathless.
⸻
She lit a clove cigarette. “You really aren’t a boy.”
“And you really aren’t just a tourist.”
We lay tangled in sheets and secrets. She left three days later, kissed me at the MRT exit, and vanished into a taxi bound for Changi.
We exchanged postcards for a year. Then not at all.
But sometimes, when I pass tall women with pale eyes and confident smiles, I remember Annika, and how she towered over me in every way… until the moment she lay beneath me, wrapped in sweat, sound, and surrender.
[End of Chapter 88]
Mirror Site:
Chapter 89: Service Smile
https://freeimage.host/i/KOWFuhg
(AI-generated image of Rika)
Disclaimer: All names, characters, and events in this chapter are fictional, although inspired by the lived experiences and memories of the protagonist. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Settings and timelines have been adapted for narrative purposes.
She had the kind of face that could disarm a complaint in five seconds, with those big, round doe eyes, pretty lips that always curled upward even when she was tired, and a voice that sounded like it belonged in a Japanese maid café, chirpy with just enough hush to make you lean closer.
Her name was Rika. Not Japanese, though she styled herself like one, in dyed copper hair in soft curls, bangs just brushing her lashes, and a ribbon choker always tied snugly around her neck. She worked in customer service at a call centre along Anson Road, answering queries and dodging irate aunts six days a week.
I met her during a phone plan sign-up.
Earlier, she called to confirm my address, and her voice was so cheery I almost didn’t hang up.
“You sound like you smile even when no one’s looking,” I said.
She giggled. “That’s in the script.”
⸻
We met for teh peng after she knocked off late one Friday.
She arrived in a tight, blush-pink cardigan stretched across her full chest, a short skirt that revealed soft thighs, and heels that made her just a little taller than she needed to be.
She walked like a cartoon girl trying to blend into the real world: sweet, bouncy, and a little too eager. But there was something tired behind her eyes, a flicker of survival that gave her away.
She told me she had once wanted to study design. Couldn’t afford the diploma. Father left early. Mother ill. She’d started working before she turned twenty-one and had never looked back.
“It’s not glamorous,” she said. “But I’m good with voices.”
“And bodies,” I said, eyes glancing down, deliberately.
She blushed. “You’re not shy, are you?”
“Not since London,” I smiled. “I don’t believe in letting beautiful things pass by unadmired.”
⸻
We didn’t wait long.
I brought her to a hotel room near Outram Park. Small, old-school, the kind where you paid cash in advance and the aircon buzzed like a refrigerator.
She undressed slowly, almost theatrically… cardigan first, revealing a black lace bra that barely held her ample, creamy breasts, the upper swell quivering slightly as she breathed. She turned to unzip her skirt, and that’s when I saw it, a full-coloured phoenix tattoo, tail feathers curling around her lower back, wings spreading up toward her shoulder blade.
“You like?” she asked softly.
“I love,” I said, stepping in to kiss her shoulder. “That’s not just ink. That’s resurrection.”
She turned and pulled me into her, kissing me with unexpected hunger. Her lips tasted of milk tea and mint. Her tongue moved like she’d been waiting for this longer than either of us realised.
Her bra came off, and her breasts fell heavy into my palms, nipples already hard and flushed. She moaned softly as I sucked them, first with slow circles of my tongue, followed by little nips that made her shiver.
She dropped to her knees and unzipped me, her eyes wide, locked onto mine, lips parting around my length. Her mouth was warm, wet, and eager, she took me in deep, moaning faintly as she moved, her hands gripping my thighs.
I pulled her up and turned her toward the mirror.
“Look at yourself,” I said, voice low. “Tell me you don’t deserve more than just being nice on the phone.”
She whimpered as I entered her from behind: tight, velvety, soaking wet. Her body rocked against me, the flesh of her ass slapping into my hips, her breasts bouncing with each thrust as she braced herself against the dresser.
She was now loud and unfiltered… moaning, panting, calling out my name. She clenched down around me in short bursts, her orgasm coming like waves, her walls tightening with exquisite rhythm, until she collapsed forward, panting, skin slick with sweat.
I flipped her onto the bed and finished on top of her, kissing her deeply as I exploded inside her, her legs wrapping around me, locking us together.
⸻
We met three times over the next month.
Always in secret, always in rooms with flickering lights and floral bedsheets.
She cried once, afterward. Not from sadness; just from being touched like she mattered.
“I don’t want to be a fantasy,” she whispered.
“You’re not,” I said. “You’re a phoenix.”
She smiled. Then said goodbye first.
⸻
Years later, I heard she’d started her own flower shop in a mall, near Yishun. Someone said she married an older man who treated her well. Another said she was doing night classes in business.
We never spoke again.
But when I hear that chirpy, practiced tone over customer hotlines today, I remember Rika.
And I hope the phoenix still flies.
[End of Chapter 89]
Mirror Site:
Chapter 90: Stamped and Departed
https://freeimage.host/i/Ke3Tcss
(AI-generated image of Qiuyue)
Disclaimer: All names, characters, and events in this chapter are fictional, although inspired by the lived experiences and memories of the protagonist. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Settings and timelines have been adapted for narrative purposes.
I met Qiuyue at a guest lecture at the Mandarin Hotel, one of those regional seminars on logistics, cross-border trade, and the ASEAN growth triangle.
She sat two rows in front of me, wearing a cream-colored silk top and a khaki pencil skirt. Her hair was long, jet-black, tucked behind her ears to show off her soft jawline and arched, precise brows. I remember staring too long at her neck.
We spoke at the coffee break.
Her voice was low, with a slight Guangdong lilt, not the harsh factory cadence, but something polished and almost lilting. She told me she was based in Shenzhen, had worked on export compliance, and was “
in between assignments
,” which really meant she was flying around the region closing small contracts for herself.
“I’ve been to Maldives, Krabi, Langkawi, Kuching,” she said, brushing hair from her face. “每个地方我都住得像本地人。”
I live like a local everywhere I go.
When I asked what she thought of Singapore, she shrugged.
“干净，贵，男人保守。”
Clean, expensive, and the men are boring.
“I’m not like the others,” I said.
“I hear that often,” she replied.
But she smiled. And that was the first yes.
⸻
She met me a few nights later after her last meeting, as she was flying to Bangkok the next day. We had supper at a late-night dim sum place in Geylang, where she nibbled on har gao and picked chili off with the tips of her chopsticks.
After the meal, we walked down a quiet back lane, the yellow sodium lights glowing like fog. She leaned against a railing and lit a cigarette, staring at the still night.
“You’ve been staring at my mouth,” she said.
“I like how you say nothing until you want to.”
She exhaled. “That’s because I travel too much to bother with things that don’t last.”
I took her cigarette. Flicked it away. And kissed her.
She kissed back.
⸻
We ended up at a boutique hotel in Little India, tucked behind a curry house and flanked by bars playing Teresa Teng covers.
She undressed methodically, just like her business manner.
Her blouse slipped off to reveal a lacy black bra, which she unclipped and let fall to the floor.
Her breasts were firm and small, beautifully shaped, with nipples a soft mauve brown.
Her skirt came off, revealing toned thighs, a flat, sculpted belly, and a small tattoo of a koi fish on her left buttock, nestled just where the curve met her hip.
“You’re staring again,” she said, turning.
“I like your symmetry.”
“Do more than look.”
I took her from behind first, slow and deliberate, her hands braced on the headboard, her ass arched upward.
She was tight, wet, and incredibly responsive… every moan measured, every shift in her hips deliberate. I gripped her waist and slid deeper, letting her gasps guide my rhythm. Her head tilted back, her long hair brushing my chest as she whispered:
“别太快。”
Not too fast.
When she came, she clenched around me like a vice, her moans sharp and clear, like silk being torn. I pulled her onto the sheets and kissed her hard before finishing inside her, gasping against her neck.
⸻
The second time was weeks later in Bangkok.
She was passing through, and I was there for a short academic workshop. We met at a rooftop bar off Sukhumvit and ended up in her hotel suite by midnight.
She pulled me onto the bed and straddled me reverse cowgirl, her back straight, her hair loose and flowing down her spine.
She slid down onto me slowly, inch by inch, and then began to grind, rolling her hips in a slow, deliberate figure eight.
Her ass was glorious: tight, smooth, and tattooed, the koi rising and falling as she moved.
I reached forward, cupping her breasts from behind, my fingers teasing her nipples while she rode me to the rhythm of her breath.
She leaned back, resting her weight on my thighs, moaning softly as I thrust upward to meet her movements. Her body tensed and shuddered, and she came clenching tightly around me, legs trembling.
I flipped her over and finished inside her missionary, kissing her full lips as she whispered, “
You’re getting better
.”
⸻
The third time happened months later in Penang, where I had taken a short solo break after submitting my dissertation.
She was coincidentally there…
or maybe not
.
We spent the day wandering George Town, eating laksa, riding rickshaws, and visiting temples. That night, we returned to her serviced apartment, where the windows were wide open and the ceiling fan hummed above a large teak bed.
She undressed with ease, familiar and comfortable.
I kissed her neck. Her shoulders. Down her chest and belly.
She spread her legs and guided me in, holding eye contact.
This time, she wrapped her legs around me and whispered,
“别让我忘记你。”
Don’t let me forget you.
We made love slowly, tenderly… her hips rising to meet every thrust, her fingers tracing patterns on my back.
When she came, she bit my earlobe and whispered my name over and over.
I followed, pouring into her as she pulled me deeper, tighter.
⸻
We sat on the balcony afterward, sipping warm ginger tea.
“You’re better than Angela,” I said without thinking. “Body-wise.”
She laughed. “Angela must’ve been someone.”
“She was. For two years.”
“And me?”
“You’re a memory I won’t be able to hold on to.”
She nodded.
Didn’t smile.
Just looked out toward the Penang sky.
⸻
She left the next day.
Back to KL, then Jakarta, then who knows.
We texted a few times. Then stopped.
I saw her name years later in a trade publication, and found that she’d started a boutique shipping consultancy between Ho Chi Minh and Singapore.
I smiled.
And then I turned the page in my notebook.
⸻
[End of Chapter 90]
Mirror Site:
Chapter 91: The Shape of Desire
https://freeimage.host/i/Kev8auS
(AI-generated image of Kara)
Disclaimer: All names, characters, and events in this chapter are fictional, although inspired by the lived experiences and memories of the protagonist. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Settings and timelines have been adapted for narrative purposes.
She walked into the Japanese film screening at
The Substation
like she was trying to blend in, in a pair of dark jeans, loose black tee, and a canvas tote with French scribbles on the side. But she stood out.
She had shoulder-length copper-blonde hair, the kind only Asians in 1999 would dare bleach and keep. Her skin was pale and luminous, her nose aquiline, and her eyes… greenish-hazel, with a shape that made you do a double take.
She looked Caucasian, like someone you’d find in a European art school or wandering Orchard Road with a Lonely Planet tucked under her arm.
But she wasn’t.
Not at all.
And that dissonance was magnetic.
⸻
After the screening, a quiet, black-and-white Japanese film about a woman losing her memory in Kyoto, she lingered in the courtyard, flipping through postcards at the front desk.
I walked up beside her, casually.
“You liked the ending?” I asked.
She didn’t look up. “She forgot everyone but still remembered the scent of incense. That part was real.”
Her voice was soft, but confident. No accent. Clear Singapore English, with the faintest touch of somewhere else.
“What scent do you remember best?” I asked.
She finally looked at me. I now noticed that her lovely eyes were topped with a pair of greenish hazel contact lenses. She smiled.
“Gunpowder green tea. And the back of someone’s neck just after a hot day.”
⸻
Her name was Kara.
We had kopi the next day at a tucked-away stall near Duxton Hill. She told me she was of mixed descent, ethnically Chinese on both sides, but with recessive features that skipped generations. Her father was from Nanning. Her mother, a Shanghainese painter who had spent her 20s in Paris.
“I’ve gotten ‘
Russian
?’ before,” she said, sipping her teh C. “Once someone called me a ‘
Siberian princess
.’ Whatever that means.”
She laughed. “I’m just
me
.”
I liked her immediately, not just for her looks, but for how she knew what people saw in her and let them be wrong if they wanted to.
That night, we met again, this time at Zouk’s
Mambo Jambo
night, where the retro synth hits and uncoordinated dance moves helped blur the usual boundaries of self.
I didn’t touch her all night.
I just danced nearby. Let the anticipation simmer.
At 2:00 a.m., we walked down Jiak Kim Street together, the river breeze brushing our skin. I told her I couldn’t bring her back to my place.
She smiled, brushing her dyed hair behind her ear. “Good. I didn’t want to see your fan anyway.”
We ended up at a boutique hotel in Chinatown, red lanterns hanging from the corridor, a dragon decal peeling slightly from the stairwell wall.
⸻
The room was small, warm, and dark.
She lit a stick of incense and cracked the window.
Then she turned and peeled off her top, revealing that she had no bra underneath.
Her breasts were perfect: not large, but full and round, with pinkish nipples that responded instantly to the cool air.
Her skin was pale, unblemished except for a tiny birthmark on her left hip.
She stepped out of her jeans and stood in front of me in black lace panties, the fabric sheer enough to show the gentle contours of her mound, the promise beneath.
I undressed slowly.
She sat on the edge of the bed and ran her fingers down my chest, then lower… her touch
electric
.
I kissed her thoroughly, lips, neck, collarbone.
She lay back, legs parting instinctively.
I kissed down her belly, nuzzling into her thighs. She moaned softly as my tongue found her.
She tasted warm, clean, subtly sweet, just like jasmine and sweat. I flicked gently, then sucked, circling with rhythm.
She arched, one hand gripping the pillow, the other clutching my hair.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Stay there.”
I teased her longer, first with slow strokes, then fast flicks, then slow again, until her whole body tensed and she came with a long, breathy cry, legs trembling.
She pulled me up and rolled onto me, kissing me deeply.
“I want to ride you,” she whispered, “but I want to watch your face when I do.”
She straddled me slowly, her thighs tight around my waist as she sank down.
She was tight and hot, enveloping me inch by inch.
Her breasts bounced gently with every movement. Her hips moved with slow, deliberate rhythm: up, down, twist, press.
She leaned back, supporting herself with both arms, her green-hazel eyes locked on mine.
She clenched around me, intentionally, teasingly, her inner muscles rippling like a wave, pulling me deeper with every thrust.
I grabbed her hips and bucked upward, letting her ride out another orgasm, watching her jaw slacken, her body tremble as she gasped:
“Fuck… yes… don’t stop… don’t…”
She collapsed onto me, panting, her skin slick with sweat, her hair tangled across both our chests.
I flipped her onto her back, thrusting hard now, the rhythm raw, urgent, final.
We kissed as I came, groaning into her mouth, her nails dragging down my back.
We lay there for a long time.
Breathing. Listening to the incense burn down.
⸻
Later, in bed, she whispered:
“You thought I was
ang moh
, didn’t you?”
I smiled. “At first. Then I looked at your hands. And your ears. And your eyes in the morning light.”
“And?”
“I saw someone who didn’t fit into boxes.”
She grinned. “Neither do you.”
⸻
I walked back to Tiong Bahru just past sunrise.
The streets were quiet. A few uncles setting up stalls. A cat sleeping on a newspaper stack.
I didn’t feel triumphant.
I didn’t feel sinful.
I felt…
reminded
.
That race is a skin we wear.
But desire is deeper:
cellular, electric, ancestral
.
And what we call “
preference
” is sometimes just a doorway to recognising ourselves in another.
⸻
[End of Chapter 91]
Mirror Site:
Chapter 92: Northern Silence
https://freeimage.host/i/Kk59fI9
(AI-generated image of Shumei)
Disclaimer: All names, characters, and events in this chapter are fictional, although inspired by the lived experiences and memories of the protagonist. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Settings and timelines have been adapted for narrative purposes.
She said her name was Shumei, but she pronounced it with a softness I hadn’t heard before… almost like a sigh at the end of a sentence.
I met her during a language exchange gathering at Bras Basah Complex, organised by some Chinese expats and literature students. She was from Liaoning, and worked quietly for a state-owned steel trading company based in Shenyang, here in Singapore to shadow a logistics conference.
She spoke little that night.
She sat at the edge of the group, sipping warm chrysanthemum tea while others fought for attention in overlapping accents.
But it was the stillness that drew me.
Her droopy eyes, lowered in thought. Her posture, which appeared relaxed but alert.
There was a quietness to her that wasn’t meekness, but reserve. Like she had no need to prove anything.
I asked her what Liaoning winters were like.
She looked up. “冷。风吹得像刀子。”
Cold. The wind cuts like knives.
And then she smiled. Just a flicker.
That was all I needed.
⸻
Over the next week, we met twice for lunch. She preferred quiet corners, choosing a bakery café in Katong, followed by a teahouse near Chinatown. She didn’t speak much, but when she did, it was thoughtful.
She told me she grew up in Dalian, not far from the coast. Her voice lingered when she described the winter sea, how it smelled of rust and salt, and how the gulls there circled the harbours “
like bored sentries
.”
“Dalian is modern,” she said. “But the wind there remembers the old times.”
Something about her features, her creamy porcelain skin, those long, slightly droopy eyes, and the way her cheekbones caught the light, which made me ask, half-jokingly:
“你是不是有点蒙古或者满族的血统？”
Do you have a bit of Mongolian or Manchu blood?
She looked at me, bemused, and said softly:
“我是中国人，就这样。”
I’m Chinese. That’s all.
And then she returned to her tea.
She told me she used to draw birds as a child. That her mother read her Eileen Chang stories at bedtime, and that she’d once dreamed of being a tattoo artist, until her uncle called it “不正经的手艺” (
an indecent skill
).
I asked if she had any ink now.
She hesitated. Then whispered, “A small bird. 画得不太好。已经褪色了。”
It’s not very good. It’s fading already.
⸻
Our third meeting was in the late evening, after a final conference session at Suntec. She was staying in a business hotel nearby, and I offered to walk her back.
“你想上来看风景吗？”
Do you want to come up and look at the view?
I knew what that meant.
But with her, it wasn’t about urgency.
It was something else. Like she was letting me into a room she rarely opened.
⸻
Her room was tidy, unlit except for the glow from the city skyline.
She took off her shoes, poured us water, and sat on the edge of the bed.
I watched as she pulled the clip from her hair and let it fall, a thick, dark glorious cascade against her pale shoulders.
She stood and walked toward the window. The shape of her back silhouetted against the glow of Marina Square, the hem of her cotton blouse riding just above her hips.
I came up behind her. Rested my hands gently on her waist.
She didn’t move away.
Instead, she reached behind and guided my fingers under her blouse.
I slid it up, inch by inch, until she raised her arms, and allowed it to fall off gracefully.
Her back was smooth, porcelain-pale… and then I saw it.
A fading outline of a bird, wings spread, just above the small of her back. The ink had softened over the years, almost like an old memory dissolving.
I kissed it softly.
She shivered.
⸻
She turned to face me, undid the front clasp of her bra with practiced ease, and let it fall.
Her breasts were natural, round but modest, with dusky pink nipples that hardened in the cool air. I kissed her collarbone, then slowly moved down, cupping each breast gently, circling with my tongue.
Her lips parted, but she said nothing… only a soft breath escaped.
I unzipped her skirt.
It slid down easily.
She stepped out of it, revealing simple grey panties that hugged the curve of her hips. I slipped them down, kneeling as I did, and kissed her inner thighs as she leaned slightly against the window pane for balance.
I pressed my tongue gently between her legs, tasting the warm wetness already building. She moaned, softly, her fingers threading through my hair.
She was quiet, but never passive, as her hips rolled slowly, guiding me, her thighs trembling slightly as I brought her closer with every flick and pull of my lips.
When she came, she gasped and bent forward, hands gripping the windowsill, her body trembling against the glass.
⸻
She pulled me up, her eyes heavy now, her lips slightly parted.
“Now you,” she whispered.
I undressed, and she watched, not with hunger, but with patience.
She pulled me to the bed, lay back, and opened herself slowly.
I entered her in one slow, deep stroke.
She was tight, warm, and impossibly wet.
Her arms wrapped around my neck, her legs around my waist.
Each thrust was met with the barest moan… a rising, breathy hum in her throat.
I kissed her neck, her shoulder, her cheek.
She whispered between breaths:
“慢一点…再深一点…”
Slower… deeper…
I buried myself in her fully, pausing only to feel the pulsing rhythm of her body around me.
She clenched as she came again, soft cries muffled in my shoulder, and I followed soon after, groaning as I released inside her.
⸻
We lay in silence for a long time, our bodies slick with sweat, our breaths syncing under the ceiling fan.
She curled against me, tracing circles on my chest.
“你知道我快要回国了吧？”
You know I’m going back soon, right?
I nodded.
“这是秘密，不是习惯。”
This… is a secret. Not a habit.
I gazed at her lovingly.
And for a moment, I wasn’t the Casanova.
Just a boy who admired quiet women with fading tattoos and snowy pasts.
⸻
[End of Chapter 92]
Mirror Site:
