Chapter 10: Clara (Freshman Year, Semester 2)
https://freeimage.host/i/Fb10zw7
(AI-generated image of Clara)
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.
Clara was the kind of girl your mother would instantly approve of.
Fair-skinned. Soft-featured. Always dressed modestly, crisp blouses tucked neatly into mid-length skirts, low-heeled sandals, hair pinned back with a tortoiseshell clip. Her voice was refined, her posture straight, her manners exact. Everything about her felt careful, like a girl raised in the pews of an old cathedral.
She came from a proper family. Her father was in merchant banking. Her mother taught piano at a mission school and volunteered at the cathedral’s soup kitchen. Their Christmas cards came with gold-trimmed edges and embossed calligraphy. You could imagine their home smelling of rosewood furniture and oolong tea.
We met during a cross-faculty seminar on ethics in modernisation. She took notes in a ruled exercise book with a fountain pen. I cracked a joke after class about how the speaker had never stepped into a wet market, and she laughed, politely, surprised by herself.
We shared a few more conversations. Then coffee at one of the university cafés. Then late afternoons in the library, where she would pass me Mentos without looking up from her reading.
She thought I was like her. And in many ways, I let her believe it.
I dressed neatly, spoke well, never swore around her. I could quote Auden and play simple Bach pieces on the piano. I didn’t interrupt. I didn’t push. I didn’t let slip that by then, I had already slept with at least half a dozen women, and wasn’t done. At that point I didn’t know that I have already had more lifetime sexual partners than the average male singaporean.
I didn’t lie. I just didn’t correct her imagination.
She called me “thoughtful.” Said I was “different from the rest.”
I liked her. Maybe more than I wanted to. She reminded me of who I might’ve been if I hadn’t taken so many detours.
Clara wasn’t flirtatious. She didn’t play games. Her innocence wasn’t affected, it was
real
. Her honesty disarmed me.
And that, more than anything, was what made what happened so hard to forget.
⸻
It happened one rainy evening.
We were at her hostel room in the arts hall, one of those old concrete blocks with crank windows and wooden wardrobes. Her roommate had gone home for the weekend. We had spent the afternoon working on a project proposal. I was lying on the floor, leafing through some notes. She sat cross-legged on the bed in a large T-shirt and cotton shorts, her hair tied up loosely with a ribbon.
The rain was steady. A cassette tape played Richard Clayderman softly in the background. The room smelled like stationery and talcum powder.
She looked at me and said quietly, “I’m really glad we met. I don’t usually… open up.”
She smiled nervously. “You make me feel safe.”
I stood, walked to the bed, and sat beside her. Her hand found mine. Small. Cold. Trembling.
“I’ve never…” she began.
I paused. “It’s okay.”
She looked down. Then up. “But I want to.”
I could have stopped.
I should have.
But I didn’t.
⸻
We moved slowly, reverently, as though approaching a sacred threshold. I kissed her gently, her lips soft and hesitant, barely moving at first. Then, sensing I wouldn’t rush her, she responded. A small flicker of her tongue. The way she held her breath between kisses. The deepening flush on her cheeks.
Her hands were tentative. One traced my collarbone. The other clutched the bedsheet.
I eased her shirt up slowly, and she raised her arms without a word. Beneath, a simple cream bra with a tiny ribbon in the centre. She was trembling. I kissed the side of her neck and whispered, “We’ll go as slowly as you want.”
She nodded, eyes wide, chest rising and falling with unsteady rhythm.
I unclasped her bra and slid it off, revealing her bare breasts, small, soft, her nipples flushed and firm from the cool air and rising anticipation. She turned her face away in instinctive modesty, but didn’t stop me. I kissed the gentle swell of each breast, took one nipple into my mouth and felt her body quiver beneath me.
When my hand slid beneath her shorts and panties, she gasped, her thighs tensing, then easing open. She was already warm and damp, her body awakening with curiosity and trust. I kissed her lower belly, then slowly removed the last of her clothing, baring her entirely.
She was beautiful, unshaven, untouched, her pubic hair trimmed but natural. She shifted slightly, her hands gripping the pillow beside her head.
I moved above her and looked into her eyes. “It might hurt a little at first.”
She nodded. “I know. Just… be gentle.”
I guided myself to her entrance, rubbing against her slowly, letting her get used to the pressure. Then, with a deep breath, I began to push in.
She inhaled sharply as the head of my shaft pressed against the resistance of her hymen.
“Relax,” I whispered. “It’s okay.”
With another slow thrust, I felt her body give, a sudden yielding, a tight snap, and she cried out softly, her nails digging into my back. A thin sting of pain flickered across her face. I held still.
“I’m okay,” she whispered, though her eyes shimmered with tears. “Just… give me a second.”
I glanced down and saw a small streak of blood, bright against the white of her bedsheet, delicate and unmistakable.
Her innocence, made flesh.
I kissed her forehead. Waited.
After a long moment, she shifted her hips slightly beneath me. “You can move now.”
I began to thrust again, slow, shallow strokes, feeling her tightness around me. Her body was learning me as I learned her, every movement cautious, exploratory. Her initial pain faded into discomfort, then into something else, something closer to pleasure. She let out a trembling sigh and wrapped her legs loosely around my waist.
We moved in rhythm, gentle and unsure, the rain outside keeping time. Her hands ran over my shoulders, my neck, then cupped my face as I kissed her again. There was no urgency, only tenderness.
She moaned, soft and breathy, her lips parting as she arched slightly beneath me. The room smelled faintly of talcum powder, skin, and sex. When I finally climaxed, I did so with a low groan, buried deep inside her, feeling her body tighten and tremble with mine.
Afterwards, I pulled her into my arms, drawing the blanket over us both. Her head rested on my chest, her fingers lightly tracing my ribs. A faint trace of blood still marked the sheets beneath us, a quiet reminder of what she had given me.
“Was I okay?” she whispered.
“You were perfect,” I said, and meant it.
⸻
In the days that followed, she glowed.
She brought me butter cookies in a tin with a note tucked inside. “Thank you for making me feel seen,” it read.
She saved me seats at lectures. Walked beside me, our hands brushing. I panicked.
I wasn’t ready for that kind of love, the kind that came without pretense. The kind that trusted you without needing proof.
So I did what cowards do.
I introduced her to someone else, my friend Jonathan. Polite. Steady. Church-going. Civil service dreams.
To my surprise, they clicked.
They were friends by recess week. Dating by the end of the semester. I stepped back deliberately, telling myself I had done something good. Something kind.
But part of me knew I had simply stepped aside before I could break her.
⸻
Clara never confronted me.
She didn’t need to.
Sometimes I saw her across campus, smiling, radiant in that soft way only she could be. Once, I passed her outside the music faculty. She waved. I waved back.
That was enough. Enough for me to know that real innocence is not fragile. It’s not something to be pitied; it’s something to be protected.
And sometimes, the truest way to care for someone is not to hold on, but to walk away before your shadow reaches them.
[End of Chapter 10]
Mirror Site:
Thanks everybody for the encouragement. I’ll be dropping chapters every few days. Continue to stay tuned.
Should anyone like the story and want to put it onto other platforms like Reddit or Medium, please PM me for permission first and credit the source.
The original story will be released on Sammyboy only.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
xcess
it started off as harmless reading, with the tinge of sexual tension waiting to be unfolded in words.
What i didn’t expect was the surreal, prophetic nuances felt and released with each journey. The connections, how immensely real (which many of us perhaps in our lifetimes have denied their existence), leaving visible footprints in our lives.
Blown away, bro. Blown away.
You have a gift of sharing deep and intimate thoughts, which is very endearing.
You have blessed us (or at least me) with an open wound that needs healing.
Thank you bro. This is only the beginning of the story. Stay tuned.
Chapter 11: Aisyah (University Second Year)
https://freeimage.host/i/Fb1G3n1
(AI-generated image of Aisyah)
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.
There’s a certain glow people carry when they’re tasting freedom for the first time, like they’ve just unzipped a skin they weren’t meant to wear.
That was Aisyah.
She arrived from Kuala Lumpur on a semester exchange, political science major, sharp-tongued, with a gaze that didn’t flinch. In tutorials, she didn’t just raise her hand. She reframed the question. She cited obscure clauses from ASEAN charters and poked holes in the lecturer’s argument like she was born doing it.
Dark-skinned, wide-hipped, her hair always wrapped in a bold batik-style tudung: orange, teal, indigo. Her earrings often peeked out anyway, mismatched on purpose. When she laughed, her head tilted back, full-bodied, as if the sound needed room to land.
After class, she stopped me at the stairwell.
“You’re quiet. But your eyes talk a lot.”
I blinked. “Maybe they’re waiting for someone worth listening to.”
She grinned. “Then talk to me.”
⸻
We became friends.
Not loudly. Just steadily. After tutorials, we’d walk to the canteen and sip lime juice under the whir of ceiling fans, talking about her hometown, her strict upbringing in Ampang, her family of UMNO loyalists. Her father was a retired senior military officer. Her mother hosted Quranic study circles in their living room.
“In KL, I’m on a short leash,” she said, chewing thoughtfully on an ice cube. “In Singapore, I’m on my own leash. That’s even more dangerous.”
She wasn’t wild. She was awake. She drank discreetly, with brandy slipped into her Sprite. Danced like she needed to sweat out an entire decade of obedience. She fasted during Ramadan, but didn’t flinch at my pork cutlet. She prayed, but missed zuhur lectures if the professor was worth listening to.
“I’m neither here nor there,” she said once. “And that makes me freer than most people who think they belong.”
⸻
The night it happened, we were out with classmates, a farewell dinner for a visiting prof, then drinks at Boat Quay. She wore a royal blue maxi skirt, her blouse fitted at the waist, tudung wrapped loose like a scarf more than a veil. When we danced, her fingers curled into mine like they’d been waiting for it.
We walked back to her hostel, past 7-Eleven and the sleepy hum of dorms. She stopped at the stairwell.
“You want to come up?”
There was no seduction in her voice, just certainty.
⸻
Her room was small, fan spinning overhead, the window open to let in the humid night air. A stack of political science papers sat on her desk. A teddy bear in baju kurung guarded the pillow. There was a faint scent of baby powder and minyak kapak.
The moment the door shut, we kissed.
Hard. Urgent. Lips crushed, breath shared. Her hands under my shirt, tracing ribs and chest like she was cataloguing something to remember. I undid the clasp at the back of her blouse, hesitating. She turned slightly, helping me.
She stood before me, her tudung now draped over the chair, her blouse sliding off her shoulders. Her skin was deep bronze, smooth, unmarked, gleaming slightly in the warm yellow light of the desk lamp. Her breasts were full and natural, swaying softly as she moved toward me, her hips rolling with a quiet confidence.
I remember thinking,
not for the first time
, how unfairly lucky Malay men were.
To have grown up among women like her.
To be allowed to court them, kiss them in daylight, unwrap them like presents every night without guilt, without explanation.
I knew it was a childish, slightly foolish thought, but I felt it anyway.
There was something intoxicating about the contrast: the modest layers, the soft hijab, the carefully presented self… and beneath it all,
a woman of heat
, of knowing, of wildness waiting to bloom.
She was bare from the waist up, her breasts full and warm in my hands. Her nipples were dark, puckered, firm. She gasped when I kissed her collarbone, then cupped the back of my head and whispered, “
Slower
.”
I obeyed.
I kissed her torso, the soft slope of her belly, the dip of her waist. Her skirt slipped off easily. No underwear. Her legs parted as she reclined against the mattress, one knee raised, eyes locked to mine.
“You sure?” I whispered.
She nodded. “You?”
I nodded back. Then entered her.
She was hot, slick, and tight, moaning as I slid in inch by inch, her hands gripping my shoulder, her thighs wrapping around my hips. We moved in tandem, slowly at first, then faster, the tempo rising with every wet slap of skin on skin.
She arched beneath me, gasping, whispering words in Malay…
Ya… perlahan… oh sayang
… as her nails raked lightly down my back. I kissed her mouth, then her breast, then whispered her name as I came deep inside her, heart pounding, body still trembling.
⸻
Afterwards, we lay tangled in each other. Her cheek against my chest. My arm wrapped around her bare back, fingers absently tracing her spine.
She pulled the bedsheet over us, smiled, and said, “I don’t usually do this.”
I turned to her. “You don’t have to explain.”
She kissed my shoulder. “I wasn’t explaining. I was declaring.”
⸻
We didn’t become a couple. Culturally, we couldn’t. A Chinese boy dating a Malay girl would face opposition from her parents on religious and moral grounds, and would have been a major scandal for her family.
But we stayed close,
intensely close
, for that semester.
We studied together. Argued about ASEAN neutrality. Debated Islamic feminism. Shared mee goreng by the Bukit Timah bus stop. Held hands at Chinese Garden when we thought no one was looking.
But we both knew it was temporary.
She told me, “After this, I’ll have to go back. Intern at a ministry. Smile at people I hate. Probably marry someone who won’t ask how I feel about the death penalty.”
When the semester ended, she hugged me, long and firm.
“Don’t romanticize me,” she said. “You weren’t my sin. You were my breath.”
⸻
We kept in touch, first by letters, then postcards. Years later, a phone call. Then silence.
Then, one day, a photo arrived by mail. No note.
She was in a gold baju kurung, her hands hennaed, standing beside a man in a songkok and suit. They looked like a perfect couple in a perfect life.
I flipped the photo over. Scribbled in blue ink were five words:
I chose peace. I’m okay.
And I believed her.
⸻
Aisyah taught me that rebellion isn’t always rejection. Sometimes it’s a pause. A window. A moment to remember that you had the power to choose, even if only briefly.
She showed me how fire can be gentle.
How a woman can be both sacred and fierce.
And how sometimes, the greatest act of intimacy is letting someone become who they need to be, even if it means watching them walk away.
[End of Chapter 11]
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Chapter 12: Lingling (University Second Year)
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(AI-generated image of Lingling)
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.
Not every chapter in a young man’s life is a proud one.
Some encounters are born from boredom. Others from ego. And once in a while, from the dark, quiet hunger of curiosity gone too far.
Lingling was one of those.
She was a postgraduate student from Hunan, studying development economics. She claimed she’d done her undergraduate studies in Beijing, not Tsinghua or Beida, she never said which, and made it a point to mention her “connections” with professors during every seminar.
She was loud. Direct. Assertive to the point of abrasive. During tutorials, she corrected lecturers with a clipped Beijing accent and scowled when they disagreed. She smoked in the stairwell. Chewed gum with her mouth open. Despite Singapore having become a “fine” city for bubble gum a few years prior. Once declared in the canteen that “Singapore boys are too soft. You all grow up eating sweet milk and can’t handle real women.”
I should’ve been repulsed. And in many ways, I was.
She wasn’t just not my type; she was the opposite of it. Broad-shouldered, fleshy, with a gait that seemed to carry too much weight at once. Her tops were too tight, her jeans clung unflatteringly, and her cheeks always shone with a layer of sweat or leftover powder. There was a pungency to her, not offensive, but undeniable. She wore loud perfume to cover it, which only made it worse.
And yet… I was intrigued.
There was something about her that I hadn’t encountered before. Even though she really wasn’t my type, by many kilograms and more than a few instinctive hesitations, she was unashamed. She was feral. And in the restless churn of my early twenties, that was enough.
⸻
She cornered me after class one afternoon.
“你是不是那个女生喜欢的那个？” she asked with a smirk.
(Aren’t you the guy the girls here all like?)
I shrugged. “没有啦。哪里有。”
(Not really.)
She looked me up and down. “你应该跟我吃一次饭。看看我们能不能聊得来。”
(You should have dinner with me. Let’s see if we can talk.)
I said yes.
⸻
We went to a hotpot place near Queenstown. Not the nice, air-conditioned kind, one of those sweaty, tiled shoplots with linoleum tables and portable gas burners. She ordered pig’s blood cubes, duck intestines, and a whole tray of luncheon meat.
She drank beer straight from the bottle. Told me about her ex-boyfriends in China, how they were “manlier,” how one of them once punched a professor. She said Singaporean girls were boring, and Singaporean men were “too polite to be sexy.”
I laughed nervously and reached for more tofu skin. She clinked her bottle against mine and said, “你也不是很有胆嘛。”
(You’re not that brave, are you?)
⸻
Later that night, back at her dorm in one of the off-campus HDB rentals, she unlocked the gate with one hand while tossing her keys and cigarette pack onto the floor.
Her room smelled like instant noodles and mosquito coil. Bras hung from the doorknob. There were papers everywhere, half-done assignments, packets of preserved plums, a cracked pink thermos. It was chaos.
She didn’t ask. She closed the door, turned around and kissed me, full, on the lips.
Her mouth was soft but overbearing. Her breath was hot, wet, a little sour. Her hands moved like clamps, dragging at my shirt until I raised my arms instinctively, not in invitation, but in resignation.
She pushed me toward her bed, a creaky single mattress with a plain bedsheet stretched taut over it. Climbed onto me, straddled my hips, her weight pressing down heavily. She said, “你躺好就可以了。”
(Just lie still.)
And I did.
⸻
There was no rhythm.
She grinded against me with force, her thick thighs squeezing in bursts of clumsy pressure. Her belly pressed against my chest.
Her skin was slick with sweat, and the scent of her, the mix of heat, musk, and something floral trying too hard, filled my nose and made me want to turn away.
I was hard, more from friction and instinct than desire, and she took me in with a grunt, riding me in a pace that felt transactional. There was no eye contact. Just breath, body, and effort.
When I tried to slow her down, she batted my hand away.
“不要管。这样比较爽。”
(Don’t interfere. This is better.)
Her breasts slapped against her chest beneath her stretched singlet, her moans loud and unmodulated. It wasn’t intimacy; it was exertion. Like she was trying to win something.
I didn’t finish. I couldn’t. I stared at the ceiling and waited for it to end.
When she finally collapsed beside me, panting, she lit a cigarette and exhaled toward the louvre windows.
“That wasn’t bad,” she said. “I thought you’d be more shy.”
I said nothing. My shirt was on the floor. I dressed quickly and slipped on my Bata sneakers by the door.
“I’ve got morning class,” I muttered.
She waved me off. “Good boy.”
⸻
We never spoke again.
She didn’t try. I didn’t want to.
I saw her once, weeks later, outside the bus stop near science faculty. She was holding a styrofoam cup of kopi and scolding someone over the public phone. I kept walking.
In hindsight, I think I was a checkbox to her too. The Singapore boy with the soft face. Another entry in a notebook. Another moment she could label, dissect, and file away.
⸻
Lingling didn’t cheat. She didn’t lie. She didn’t promise anything.
She simply was, coarse, unapologetic, and uninterested in who I was beyond the body I gave her for that one night.
And I,
restless, numbed, foolish
, said yes.
Not because I wanted her. But because I didn’t want to say no. Which made me know that sex, when untethered from attraction or affection, isn’t neutral. Sometimes it’s dissonant. Sometimes it leaves you feeling less like a man, and more like a mirror, cracked by your own reflection.
[End of Chapter 12]
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Chapter 13: The Twins (University Second Year)
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(AI-generated image of Chloe)
https://freeimage.host/i/Fb1NIG2
(AI-generated image of Clarice)
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.
If my early twenties were about thrill, this year was about confusion.
Because sometimes, the more doors you open, the more you start walking in circles, not forward.
It started with a group dinner at a friend’s rented flat in Bukit Timah. One of those potluck evenings where half the guests brought bee hoon from the kopitiam and someone always showed up with a four-pack of Baron’s Strong Brew like that made them classy.
They arrived late.
Identical twins.
But not really.
Chloe was the louder one: confident, flirtatious, always making eye contact a beat too long. Her fringe was curled, her cropped top a little too tight, her perfume bright and powdery. She talked fast, laughed easily, touched people’s arms when she spoke. She had that early-‘90s Spin the Bottle queen energy.
Clarice was quieter. Same heart-shaped face, same petite frame, but the difference was immediate. She wore a long-sleeved blouse tucked into faded jeans, no makeup, hair in a ponytail. She barely spoke during dinner except to offer someone an extra spoon.
They were small-boned, almost childlike in stature: same height, same mouth, same slight overbite. But where Chloe was fire and neon and tension, Clarice was stillness. Like she hadn’t figured out what to burn for yet.
I found myself sitting between them during dinner. Chloe asked most of the questions.
“So,” she said, resting her chin on her palm, “you’re that guy. The one from orientation camp Rachel talked about.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Depends what she said. I may deny everything.”
Clarice looked up from her plate. “Is this the ‘modern Casanova’ person?”
Chloe smirked. “Yeah. Cool, right? I want to study people like him.”
Clarice blinked. “I want to study why people become like him.”
Chloe snorted. “Ignore her. She’s still Catholic.”
⸻
Later that night, I found a note under the door of my hall room.
Lined paper. Green ink. Chloe’s handwriting:
We’re bored. Come visit. Blk C, #03-119. No need to bring anything. Unless it’s you.
⸻
Their room was warm and pink-lit, with two narrow beds, mismatched curtains, and a slow-spinning wall fan. The cassette deck was playing Lisa Loeb. There were Polaroids pinned above the mirror. Most had Chloe in them. Clarice only appeared in a few… always standing at the edge of the frame.
Chloe was bold. She sat on my lap, whispered in my ear, teased Clarice for blushing too much. She ran a hand down my chest like she was drawing something she’d already imagined.
Clarice sat on her bed, legs folded. “I’m only here because I don’t want her doing something stupid.”
But when Chloe pulled her over and hugged her from behind, Clarice didn’t pull away. When Chloe unbuttoned her own top, Clarice’s eyes lingered longer than she probably meant them to.
“I don’t kiss,” Clarice whispered, looking straight at me.
“Okay,” I replied. “I won’t push anything.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “She’s saving herself for a married man. Preferably a bishop.”
Clarice threw a pillow at her, but she was smiling. Nervously.
⸻
The first kiss came from Chloe.
Wet. Sweet. Eager. She straddled me, her hands slipping under my shirt, nails dragging down my back. She unzipped her shorts and let them fall carelessly to the floor.
She was already wet, I felt it through my briefs before I even touched her bare skin. She climbed on top of me again, whispering, “You want both of us, don’t you?”
I didn’t answer. I looked at Clarice.
She had removed her outer blouse. Just a camisole now. No bra. Her arms crossed over her chest.
“I’ll touch,” she said. “But no kissing. And only if you go slow.”
Chloe guided my hand toward Clarice, then back toward herself, alternating my attention like she was sharing a secret.
We moved to the bed.
Chloe mounted me first, grinding slow, her palms flat against my chest, her moans soft and deliberate.
Clarice lay beside us, watching. Her hand drifted beneath her shorts.
I turned to her, gently touched her waist, slid a finger beneath her waistband. She let me. Her breath caught.
Chloe leaned over and kissed Clarice’s shoulder, whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Clarice shifted closer.
“I’ll try,” she said, her voice barely audible.
Chloe stood and moved to the side, while Clarice climbed on top of me, awkwardly at first, her thighs trembling slightly.
We moved together, cautiously, like two strangers walking a tightrope.
She didn’t kiss me.
But she looked straight into my eyes as we moved.
Her hands gripped the sheets tightly. Her breathing quickened, her hips slowly falling into rhythm. She didn’t moan, but her body spoke for her, soft shivers, small gasps.
And when she came, quietly, almost imperceptibly, she leaned forward, rested her forehead against my shoulder, and whispered, “
Thank you
.”
I came soon after, overwhelmed by the surrealness of it all, the scent of powder, the brush of two very different hands, the sensation of being wanted by both and understood by neither.
⸻
Afterwards, Chloe collapsed beside me, laughing.
Clarice sat up quietly. Pulled her camisole back over her chest. Her face unreadable.
“You shouldn’t have kissed me,” she said softly.
I blinked. “But we didn’t…”
“I know. But still… I wanted something else.”
Her voice cracked slightly. Not angry. Just tired.
I sat up, chest heavy. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
She nodded. “You didn’t mean to. That’s the problem.”
⸻
We didn’t speak after that.
Chloe passed me notes under my door once or twice. I didn’t reply.
Clarice never made eye contact again.
The twins taught me something I hadn’t expected to learn from a threesome:
That more doesn’t mean better.
That permission isn’t always clarity.
And that sometimes, the cost of being wanted is becoming forgettable to the people who needed you to remember them.
⸻
[End of Chapter 13]
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Chapter 14: Ah Lian on the Train (Second Year, University Vacation)
https://freeimage.host/i/Fb1eId7
(AI-generated image of Yvonne)
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.
Not all encounters start with intent.
Some begin because you look up at the right moment, or maybe the wrong one, and lock eyes with someone who doesn’t blink.
It was a weekday afternoon during the semester break. The MRT was packed: sticky skin, schoolbags, students half-dozing, office workers reading The New Paper. The air was humid even underground. I was standing near the door when she got on at Dover.
I’d noticed her before.
Always in black jeans tight enough to see the outline of her coin pouch. A black tank top that showed off her pale arms, thin gold chain bouncing near her collarbone. Bangs straight across her forehead, fringe stiff with hairspray. A small scorpion tattoo inked just above her left ankle.
Every time, she had her Walkman on. Always chewing gum like it owed her money.
But this time, she looked up, and held the gaze.
She pulled one earbud out and said, “Eh, you always take this train one ah?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I stay nearby.”
She tilted her head, chewing. “You look like JC boy. But got decent face.”
“Thanks?” I said.
She grinned, eyes flicking over me. “Name’s Yvonne. I work at the bubble tea stall at the mall near Commonwealth. You know the one lah, always long queue, damn jialat.”
⸻
We started talking. Singlish, rough around the edges, warm in a way tutorials never were.
She lived in Clementi. Poly halfway dropout, or a PHD, but of a different kind. Had a drawer full of nail stickers and horoscope clippings from a free weekly newspaper. Her ex rode a scrambler bike, got detained for a gang fight in Woodlands two weeks ago.
“You not like those NUS boys lah. They all act atas,” she said, slurping her drink. “You blur, but not stupid. Got that quiet clever type. Like got trauma.”
“I just got a lot of notes to catch up on.”
She cackled. “Wah lao, damn emo. I like.”
⸻
Three nights later, I visited her after her shift. Her uniform still smelled faintly of pearls and syrup. She tugged off her apron, rolled her eyes, and said, “Sibei sian. Let’s go home.”
We took the 196 to her block. She lived on the 9th floor of a Point Block in West Coast. Climbed the stairs two at a time. The corridor was dim, a flickering tube light, potted plants near the lift, faint TV sounds leaking from neighbours’ units.
Outside her door, she turned, grabbed my collar, and kissed me.
Hard. Like she was stealing something.
⸻
Her room was chaos. The fan was oscillating on a broken stand. Bed unmade. Hello Kitty bedsheets. A CRT TV with no remote. Bras on the floor. Scent of smoke, baby powder, and strawberry body lotion.
She kicked off her slippers and yanked off her top in one motion. “You slow sia. Faster lah.”
I caught up.
She pulled me to the bed. Climbed on top. Straddled me. Her thighs pressed firm against my hips. She kissed like she fought,
fast, rough, insistent
. She bit my lip. Ground against me through her shorts. Moaned into my neck in broken Hokkien.
“Wah… you really blur ah. Don’t know how to open bra meh?” she laughed, slapping my hand playfully as I fumbled.
I kissed down her collarbone, tugged the straps aside. Her breasts were small, firm, the nipples already tight. She guided my head down, whispered, “Don’t shy. Just touch.”
We did it fast the first time, clothes half-on, her legs wrapped around my waist, the bed squeaking against the wall. She clawed at my back as I thrust into her, her voice loud, unfiltered.
“Faster… ugh… lagi deeper,” she gasped. “You want or not?”
I came hard, breath ragged, pulse in my ears.
We lay tangled on her bed after, limbs hot and slick with sweat, fan blowing damp air.
⸻
But she wasn’t done.
Later, under her thin Hello Kitty blanket, she reached for me again.
Massaging me softly, while my dick also rose to the occasion. Slower this time, impaling herself on my erect shaft. Her fingers traced my spine. Her lips softer, her hips rolling in rhythm. She pressed against me like she wanted to melt into something. Her thighs clamped around my waist as she whispered in the dark:
“You not like other guys. Don’t act one gangster. Just real. I like.”
She made soft sounds this time. Rocked with me until I groaned into her shoulder and slumped beside her, dizzy and raw.
⸻
We met once more that week. More of the same, kopi-O kosong at the kopitiam, banter, more kisses outside the lift, her bare back against the wall, me losing myself in someone I never expected to want.
But that was the last time.
She switched to night shifts. I got busy with coursework. We exchanged a few beeper messages, “
Where u?” “Slp liao. Tmr?
”, but life drifted.
Our worlds were never meant to overlap for long. She smoked at void decks and read Go magazine. I studied at Central Library and borrowed Newsweek from the reading room.
Still… I think about her sometimes. When I see faded Converse shoes. When I smell fake strawberry lotion. When I hear a girl laugh loud on the MRT like she doesn’t care who’s listening.
⸻
Yes, she was an Ah Lian. But Yvonne taught me that sometimes, connection doesn’t need a future to feel real.
That the wildest nights don’t always leave scars; but they can leave warmth.
And that there are some women you only ever meet once properly, because the universe knows: if you met twice, you might never let go.
[End of Chapter 14]
Mirror Site:
Chapter 15: The Zouk Ghost (New Year’s Eve, sometime in the 1990s)
https://freeimage.host/i/Fb18BLJ
(AI-generated image of Jezebel)
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.
Some nights feel like myths you lived through.
They replay in your head not as a sequence, but as a mosaic: sweat, noise, breath, heat. Like you fell into someone else’s memory and never quite climbed out.
New Year’s Eve, sometime in the early 1990s. Zouk, Jiak Kim Street. Before it became an institution. When it was still just cement floors, warehouse walls, velvet ropes, and legends in the making.
We started the night at a friend’s flat in Tiong Bahru. Drinks on the tiled floor. Someone brought Absolut and Lipton ice tea. Someone else spiked Ribena with vodka. There were leftover satay sticks, loud music on a portable Panasonic boombox, and no real plans except to get drunk.
By 11, we were in a cab to Zouk. It was madness, people flooding the carpark, dressed in midriff tops, baggy jeans, low heels, and too much CK One. The air reeked of clove smoke, hairspray, and cheap perfume. No one queued properly. We all just pulsed forward.
Inside was heat. That signature bassline from the Velvet Underground room thumping like a second heartbeat. Lights strobing like seizures. Sweat in the air like static.
That’s when I saw her.
Not her face. Her dress.
Deep red. Silk or rayon, backless, clinging to a long body like liquid. Her hair was dyed a muted burgundy, rebonded, thick, with a thin butterfly tattoo just above her left shoulder blade. One arm held a cigarette between two fingers like it was an accessory. The other curled around a green bottle of Heineken.
She caught my gaze. Held it.
Then walked over like it wasn’t a question.
“You look like you lost someone,” she said into my ear, voice raspy.
“Maybe I did.”
She tilted her head, took a drag, and exhaled into the lights. “Then dance. Like you want them to remember.”
We moved like magnets, drunk on rhythm. Her body pressed against mine. My hands skimmed the bare skin of her back. Her perfume was strong, musky, something like Elizabeth Arden’s Sunflowers, but thicker with sweat and Marlboros.
She turned, grabbed my wrist, and led me through the crowd.
Out of Zouk. Past the Singapore River. Across a bridge. Into a stairwell behind some quiet shophouses in River Valley.
There, under the flicker of a broken light, she pinned me against the wall and kissed me hard, tongue hot, breath sharp, hand already sliding into my waistband.
We barely made it to her friend’s place. I don’t know whose condo it was. One of those private units near Kim Seng Road, key left under the mat, lights still on, ashtray full.
We crashed into the guest room, door half-shut, clothes pulled and tossed in a trail behind us.
⸻
The sex was furious.
She undressed me like she was angry, yanking my belt, biting my neck, straddling me before I was ready. Her thighs gripped my hips, nails dug into my chest. She moaned in Mandarin, low and throaty. Something like “不要停…”… "
don’t stop
“.
I flipped her onto her back, thrust into her with force, both of us panting, drunk, skin sticky, the bedsheets twisting around our limbs.
She scratched. I slapped. We collided like people trying to shake something loose from themselves.
When she came, she arched up, mouth open but no sound. Just shuddering.
And I followed, collapsing against her, both of us trembling, wet with each other.
⸻
Later, she lit another cigarette without asking, curled beside me.
“You won’t remember my name by tomorrow,” she said.
I wanted to ask anyway. But I didn’t.
She pulled the blanket over herself, her back to me, shoulders bare, smoke curling around her like a veil.
⸻
When I woke, she was gone.
The sheets were warm. My shirt had lipstick near the collar. Her cigarette pack,
Mild Seven Lights
, sat on the bedside table, half full.
No name. No note.
No contact.
Just a room I didn’t recognise, a hangover blooming in my temples, and a mouth tasting of last night’s beer and her.
I staggered out sometime after 9am, past a sleeping roommate and a floor full of half-eaten snacks. Took the bus home. Didn’t speak the whole ride.
⸻
Sometimes I wonder if I imagined her. Gave her a name —
Jezebel
— to make it feel poetic.
But once in a while, I’ll hear that same bass thump from an old Zouk mixtape, or catch a whiff of Sunflowers in a crowded MRT train, and I’ll know:
She was real.
She just didn’t need to stay.
⸻
Jezebel, or whatever her name was, taught me something simple:
That not every body you touch will leave a scar.
Some just leave a scent.
A night.
A ghost.
And that some women were never meant to be remembered whole — only in flashes.
[End of Chapter 15]
Mirror Site:
Quick comment from the Casanova of SG:
Let’s be real, uni in SG is full of distractions. On paper, it’s all about lectures, projects, and internships. But anyone who’s been through it properly knows the real deal. You suddenly get freedom, no parents breathing down your neck, hostels full of young adults, and plenty of opportunities to mingle… a lot.
For a young guy who’s sexually active, uni can be a damn fun time. There’s always some party, CCA camp, hall event, or late-night study session that turns into something else. But nobody talks about this openly in SG. Too “
paiseh
”, too taboo. Everyone pretends it’s just mugging and studying, but behind the scenes? Plenty of action.
Problem is, a lot of dudes go in thinking they’ll ace everything, but end up getting sidetracked. Whether it’s chasing girls, wasting time on socials, or just enjoying the thrill of freedom too much, things can go sideways fast.
Not saying there’s anything wrong with having fun, just that we shouldn’t act like it doesn’t exist. Uni is one of the rare times in life you can really explore and learn
about yourself
, not just books. But better go in with your eyes open, cos if not careful, it’s easy to come out with regrets instead of results.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bermmet
Wonderful share TS, any more?
Thanks for the support and interest! Yes, more chapters are definitely on the way, just need a bit of patience. I’ll be releasing them every few days, so do stay tuned and keep checking back. Appreciate you following the story!