Chapter 142: The Flight Delay
https://freeimage.host/i/fRu6hVS
(AI-generated image of Rowena)
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.
Incheon International Airport, Seoul — 2011
It was the kind of delay that turned minutes into mist. A tropical storm had grounded half the outbound flights from Seoul, and I found myself stranded for nine hours with nowhere to be and nothing urgent to do.
I had just wrapped a three-day consulting workshop in Busan, with loads of early-morning plenaries, grilled eel dinners, and the polite but hollow banter of men in suits. My connecting flight to Singapore was pushed back to the early hours, and I booked myself into the transit hotel, half out of convenience, half out of instinct.
That’s when I met her… Rowena.
She was seated alone near the massage chairs, scrolling on a cracked Android phone with the weariness of someone used to waiting. A petite Filipina with almond eyes, porcelain-olive skin, and a heart-shaped face framed by black hair tied in a no-nonsense ponytail, she wore a grey cardigan over a Uniqlo blouse, black stretch pants, and slightly scuffed sneakers. Her luggage was small, just a cabin roller and a sling bag with frayed edges.
She looked up when I approached the vending machine.
“Coke or coffee?” I mused aloud, more to myself than anyone.
“
Coke. Coffee here tastes like regret,
” she replied with a faint smile.
Her accent was soft but unmistakably Filipino, with gentle vowels, slightly clipped Rs, and a musical cadence that made even sarcasm sound like a lullaby.
We struck up a conversation. She was an IT systems engineer, heading back to Manila from a three-year stint in Dubai. Divorced, with no kids. She still wore her silver crucifix necklace, even though she admitted she’d stopped praying the same way after the marriage ended.
“
I used to believe in signs,
” she said. “
Now I just believe in paperwork and flight schedules.
”
We sat together at the lounge café, sipping lukewarm drinks and talking about nothing: airport food, Korean dramas, the loneliness of working abroad. She told me about her colleagues, some kind, others predatory, and how millions of Filipinos worked overseas to send money back to families they’d barely see. Teachers became maids. Nurses worked as receptionists. IT engineers like her were told to smile more and ask fewer questions.
“
It’s a country of leavers,
” she said quietly. “
But no one really teaches us how to come back.
”
There was a pause. A flicker. A choice neither of us voiced, but both understood.
We checked into the same transit hotel. Just a few hours, we said. Just to rest.
—
The room was small but clean, with pale green walls and a faint citrus scent from a plug-in air freshener. She placed her bag neatly by the door and sat on the edge of the bed, removing her shoes. Her socks were mismatched, one navy, one black.
“
I don’t do this often,
” she said.
“And I won’t ask you to explain,” I replied.
But I wanted to know her. Even just a little.
She stood and slowly removed her cardigan, revealing the slight curve of her shoulders. Her body was slim but strong, the kind shaped by years of walking quickly through airports and city streets. Her breasts were small, firm, high-set. Her stomach bore a faint scar, an appendectomy, she said later, almost as an afterthought. On her back, a tan line shaped like wings, the residue of Dubai’s relentless sun.
She kissed me first, tentative, almost hesitant. Then again, deeper, her lips parting with a sigh that felt like both an apology and a need.
“
Use a condom,
” she whispered, reaching into her bag.
“Yes,” I said. Always.
Her body was warm and pliant beneath me, her hands clinging not out of lust, but for reassurance. She moaned softly, more with breath than voice. When I entered her, she tightened around me, hips rising with a rhythm not of passion, but of longing.
She guided me with surprising skill, arching her back, biting her lip, whispering Tagalog phrases I didn’t understand but felt in my bones. She kissed me like someone trying to forget a name, held me like someone afraid I’d vanish. We moved slowly, then faster, then slowly again, with each climax a quiet unraveling.
Afterwards, we lay in silence, the bed still warm.
“Do you regret this?” I asked.
She looked at the ceiling. “
I don’t know. Maybe in the morning.
”
She turned on her side, facing away. Her silver cross rested between her shoulder blades like a question mark.
—
When we parted, she hugged me quickly, awkwardly. Then walked away, her roller bag clicking over the tiles.
I didn’t ask for her number.
She didn’t offer.
Just before boarding, I saw her again, seated by the gate, earphones in, eyes closed. I watched her for a moment, wanting to wave, but didn’t.
Maybe I was just a layover in her life.
Maybe she was mine.
I boarded my flight in silence, and that night, in the sky between Seoul and Singapore, I felt even lonelier than I had in a long time.
[End of Chapter 142]
⸻
Mirror Site:
Chapter 143: The Wild Zookeeper
https://freeimage.host/i/f5dQGEu
(AI-generated image of Pimchanok)
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.
Singapore, 2011
It started with a favour, taking my colleague’s son to the Mandai Zoo while she attended a last-minute meeting in Bukit Timah. I hadn’t been to the zoo in over a decade, but something about the heat, the shrieking school groups, and the smell of grass and dung felt oddly grounding.
She appeared near the elephant enclosure.
“
Want to guess how many kilograms of food an adult Asian elephant eats in a day?
” she chirped, crouching beside the boy and winking at me.
I glanced at her. Tanned skin, small mischievous eyes, and full lips that tugged up more on one side than the other when she smiled. Her zoo uniform hugged a slim upper body but flared at her waist, her hips wide, thighs powerful, with a bounce in her step that made her ponytail swing like a metronome. She was wearing rubber boots, a name tag, and too much charm for one person.
“200 kilos?” I guessed.
She nodded. “
Close enough. I’m Pim. Well, technically Pimchanok, but I’ve accepted my fate.
” Then she turned to the boy. “
And what’s your name, little explorer?
”
She was 25, half-Thai, half-Chinese, and part-time staff while waiting for her admission to vet school, “
maybe overseas,
” she said, with a shrug. “
NUS doesn’t offer it.
”
“
Unfair, right?
” she added, brushing her fringe from her sweaty forehead. “
I’ve wanted to be a vet since I could say ‘puppy.’ But here I am, counting elephant poop and explaining giraffe mating calls.
”
We walked through the enclosures together, the boy between us, feeding goats, watching otters, laughing at the orangutans. But I kept stealing glances at her, the confident way she explained facts, the irreverent way she teased the staff, the way her eyes softened every time she looked at an animal.
After the boy was picked up, she asked if I wanted a quick after-hours look at the reptile house. “
It’s cooler at night,
” she said. “
And I don’t mean the temperature.
”
There was a moment, right between the iguana tank and the terrapin pond, where we stopped walking. She turned to face me.
“
You smell like expensive soap,
” she murmured.
“You smell like lemongrass and heat.”
Then we kissed.
⸻
We didn’t make it to the exit.
Behind a staff utility door, in a quiet corner of the zoo where only the crickets bore witness, we gave in to a brief, urgent lust.
She pushed me against a wall, standing on tiptoe, her fingers tugging at my belt. “
Quick
,” she whispered. “
Before the komodo dragons file a complaint.
”
I peeled off her uniform polo and saw her sports bra, damp with sweat, clinging to her. Her belly was flat, but her hips flared deliciously beneath khaki shorts. She laughed softly as I kissed down her neck, guiding my hand between her thighs.
“
Been a while,
” she breathed.
I laid her down gently on a cushioned bench inside the small rest station. Her thighs spread, one boot still on. I slid the condom on as she held me, her lips parted in anticipation.
Our bodies met like a spark catching dry kindling: quick, hot, but not careless. She moved under me with rhythmic grace, her laughter turning to soft moans, fingers clutching my back as I thrust deep and steady.
Her climax came suddenly, her mouth forming a silent “
oh
,” her legs locking around me. I followed soon after, pulsing inside her, feeling every gasp, every tremble, every shared exhale.
We lay there, sticky and smiling, like two kids who’d broken into the candy store.
⸻
Then her phone rang.
I watched her face change as she listened. The light drained from her eyes.
“
My mum,
” she said. “
In hospital. Heart issue. I need to go.
”
She stood, redressed in seconds, pulled her ponytail tight. “
Sorry. I…
”
“No need to explain,” I said.
She looked at me like she might cry. But didn’t.
She left with one last sentence: “
You made today beautiful. But I don’t do second times.
”
And that was that.
⸻
I never heard from her again. No reply to messages. No trace online. It was as if she’d slipped back into the jungle where she belonged, feral, fleeting and unforgettable.
For days, I could still smell lemongrass on my fingers. Still hear her laugh over the rustling leaves.
But all of it faded.
Just like the animals, just like the magic of the zoo, only alive when you’re looking.
[End of Chapter 143]
⸻
Mirror Site:
Chapter 144: No Longer a Symbol
https://freeimage.host/i/f52l6Bf
(AI-generated image of Yuki)
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.
Singapore, 2011 — MacPherson
⸻
It started as a business obligation, one of those post-meeting rituals Singapore’s sleazier deals often required. After wrapping up an electronics logistics contract, my Chinese client leaned over his whisky and grinned, “Let’s celebrate somewhere with music… and women who know how to pour a drink.”
We ended up at a KTV lounge near MacPherson, where many foreign hostesses worked under “
entertainment
” permits. Permits, frequently abused by “syndicates”, that were eventually revoked as of 2025. (
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapo...-by-syndicates
) The lounge glimmered with dim chandeliers, velvet booths, and the scent of imported perfume covering stale smoke. There, karaoke wasn’t about singing; it was theatre, service, and seduction.
Yuki was assigned to our booth. She introduced herself with a practiced smile and a faint bow. Pale pink bodycon dress, chestnut-dyed curls falling just past her shoulders, Hello Kitty necklace… a soft contrast to her otherwise sharp gaze. Her voice was light, slightly accented. Thai-Chinese, maybe.
She poured drinks with grace, laughed softly at my client’s crass jokes, and clinked glasses without sipping. Hostesses like her learned quickly: flirt without entanglement, charm without surrender.
When the client finally stumbled out drunk and satisfied, Yuki lingered.
“
You don’t seem like you enjoyed that,
” she said, finally looking directly at me.
“I’ve seen too many nights like this.”
“
Then why do you still come?
”
“I guess I’m still pretending it means something.”
She chuckled, then asked quietly, “
Can we talk somewhere else?
”
⸻
In my luxurious condominium, she kicked off her heels and padded barefoot across the floor.
“
I used to be a dental nurse in Chiang Rai,
” she said, sitting on the edge of my bed. “
Came to Singapore because my cousin said there was good money.
”
“And this?”
“
The only job that let me send home three times more than any clinic would. My sister’s in nursing school now. I pay her fees.
”
I didn’t ask more.
Instead, I kissed her.
It was not urgent. Not transactional. She closed her eyes as if shutting out the world she wore like armour.
Her dress came off. Her bra was beige, practical. Her breasts were soft and full, with a small mole just above her navel. Her thighs bore faint stretch marks, natural, and real. A body built not for Instagram, but for endurance.
She straddled me gently. “
Use a condom,
” she murmured. I already had one in hand.
Our bodies met like a quiet agreement. Her hips rolled slow at first, then deepened with breathy whimpers. She didn’t fake moans or arch theatrically. It felt… real. Intimate, even in its impermanence.
We climaxed together. I held her as she trembled slightly, fingers tracing the small scar near her hip.
“
I don’t sleep with customers,
” she whispered.
“I’m not your customer.”
“
That’s why I stayed.
”
⸻
Before dawn, she dressed without a word and left a note on my kitchen counter:
“
Don’t fall in love. I’m just working.
”
I never saw her again.
But that night, I stopped thinking of hostesses as symbols. They were real people: daughters, sisters, survivors.
And maybe, just for a night, I was something more than a client.
⸻
[End of Chapter 144]
⸻
Mirror Site:
Chapter 145: The Barista Who Sang Jazz
https://freeimage.host/i/f5DoMjS
(AI-generated image of Amira)
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.
Singapore, 2011
There are voices that don’t just sing; they
ache
.
I heard hers on a Thursday evening, somewhere between the second glass of wine and the first real exhale I’d had all week.
Cry Me a River
never sounded fresh, but from her, it felt… lived in. She didn’t just perform the song; she
remembered
it.
Her name was Amira.
She was tall, with cascading black curls and large, expressive eyes that carried the weight of someone who had seen too much and spoken too little. She had the kind of mouth that made silence seem like a decision. And she wore silver teardrop earrings that swayed as she moved, a kind of quiet punctuation.
⸻
I lingered after the café lights dimmed. She was closing the espresso machine with precise movements, her hands still smelling faintly of citrus and roast.
“
You don’t seem like someone who drinks alone,
” she said, wiping down the counter without looking at me.
“I wasn’t, until tonight.”
She glanced up then, something flickering in her eyes. Not flirtation. Something more dangerous. Recognition.
We talked. About Chet Baker. About her mother, who worked nights, and her younger brother who still needed school fees. About staying when everyone expected her to go.
“
I thought I’d be in Montmartre by twenty-five,
” she said. “
Instead, I’m in Telok Ayer singing to empty chairs and accountants who clap politely.
”
I told her she was the best part of my week.
“
I hope that’s not a compliment,
” she murmured. “
Just the truth.
”
⸻
Her flat above the café was small and warm, lit with old bulbs that buzzed faintly and bathed everything in sepia. There was a cracked leather armchair and stacks of records sorted by mood, not genre. Her bedroom door creaked as she pushed it open.
She looked at me and said, almost absently, “
I don’t need company tonight. But I don’t want to be alone, either.
”
That was all.
⸻
She undressed by the window, backlit by the city’s orange glow. Her blouse slipped off her shoulders like poured cream. Her breasts were full and natural, the weight of them gently swaying as she moved toward me.
When I kissed her, she tasted faintly of bergamot and wine. She undid my shirt with slow, deliberate fingers, grazing the skin of my chest as if taking inventory. Her nails traced my ribs, my navel, before she guided me to the bed.
We didn’t speak again for a long time.
Her body welcomed me like a rhythm she’d long practiced but rarely shared. Her hips moved with a lazy grace, circling mine, her thighs squeezing gently with each thrust. She moaned in a way that felt musical, not loud, but resonant, as though her pleasure was part of the song she’d been singing all along.
She climbed on top, hair falling around us, her body rising and falling like a tide held in check. Her breath caught in her throat, her brow furrowed as she chased something… then slowed.
She never reached it.
She exhaled sharply, then pressed her lips to my shoulder, as if apologizing for something neither of us could name.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “This isn’t about endings.”
She didn’t reply. But her body softened against mine, and she let me hold her, not tightly, just enough to feel real.
⸻
Later, as she lit a cigarette by the window, I sat on the edge of her bed staring at the floor.
“
You’ve got someone,
” she said flatly, not accusing.
I nodded.
She didn’t ask more. She just tapped ash into a coffee mug and said, “
Be careful. When the music stops, it gets very quiet.
”
⸻
As I walked home, the streets of Telok Ayer felt too wide, the silence between cars too deep.
I told myself this had been an escape.
But the truth was simpler.
It felt easier to be understood by a stranger than to explain myself to Elya anymore.
[End of Chapter 145]
⸻
Mirror Site:
Chapter 146: Softness and Love
https://freeimage.host/i/f5DWQwB
(AI-generated image of Sri)
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.
Bintan, 2011
I told Elya I needed space.
What I meant was:
I couldn’t hear myself think anymore.
What I didn’t say was:
I had already begun drifting too.
So I booked a last-minute weekend retreat to a wellness resort on Bintan. The kind that promised serenity in the form of herbal teas, mosquito nets, and warm stone footpaths. I packed lightly, swim shorts, linen shirts, nothing that required ironing.
The sea was quiet, the staff too polite, and the silence loud enough to unspool something inside me.
⸻
Her name was Sri.
Ketut Sriani, she clarified later, but everyone called her Sri.
She was Balinese, twenty-seven, with high cheekbones, sun-warmed skin, and long black hair tied in a low knot. She wore no makeup, only a string of wooden prayer beads around her wrist and a linen wrap that brushed against her calves when she walked.
When I first met her, she bowed slightly and asked if I wanted medium or deep tissue.
“Just… enough,” I said.
She gave a faint smile. “
Then we’ll start with the parts you’ve forgotten how to feel.
”
⸻
She didn’t talk much during the massage. But her hands… they spoke.
Not just pressure, but presence. When she touched my back, she seemed to be reading it… finding old sorrows lodged between my shoulder blades, misplaced regrets curled around my lower spine. Her thumbs pressed into places I hadn’t realized were sore, coaxing out tension like pulling threads from cloth.
When she reached my neck and leaned close, I felt her breath along the edge of my ear. I closed my eyes, not from arousal, but something deeper, the feeling of being seen without being judged.
Afterward, I stayed lying down longer than I should have. She didn’t rush me.
“Thank you,” I said finally, rising.
“
Don’t thank me,
” she replied. “
Your body did the work. I only reminded it.
”
⸻
That evening, I returned to the villa. The room smelled faintly of lemongrass and rain. The sea murmured in the distance. I had dinner alone on the balcony: grilled fish, jasmine rice, one glass of white wine. I watched the moon rise, unsure if I felt healed or simply hollow.
Then a knock.
She stood there in her linen wrap and sandals, her hair now loosened and tumbling down her back.
“
You left your watch,
” she said, holding up my timepiece, a parting gift from a widow I once knew.
I thanked her. She didn’t move to leave.
“
I don’t usually do this,
” she said… then stopped, catching the cliché before it could land.
So instead, she stepped inside.
⸻
There was no urgency. No game. Just two people suspended in a moment neither of them would ask about tomorrow.
I reached for her, slowly, brushing her cheek. Her skin was warm. Her lips were soft and yielding, parting under mine with a sigh that didn’t sound like surrender… more like release.
She undressed in the candlelight, revealing no bra, just the linen wrap slipping to the floor. Her breasts were small and high, her belly flat, hips gently flaring. She stood still, letting me look, without invitation or shame.
On the bed, I kissed her shoulder, her collarbone, the hollow of her navel. She breathed in whispers, arching subtly, responding with a grace that felt older than language.
She guided me inside her with a steady hand. Her body was wet, warm, and close.
We moved in silence, not from lack of pleasure, but reverence. Her arms wrapped around me, her heels grazing my calves. She met me stroke for stroke, her breathing synchronized, rhythmic. I traced the curve of her waist, the hollow of her back, my lips brushing the sweat blooming at her temple.
She didn’t moan. She didn’t tremble. She stayed. Present. Focused.
I came quietly, buried in her neck, exhaling her name like a prayer I hadn’t meant to say out loud.
I didn’t ask her to stay. But she did.
⸻
In the morning, she was already dressed and sipping tea on the balcony. The sky was pale, the horizon blurring between ocean and cloud.
“
You look better,
” she said.
“Do I?”
She nodded. “
Just don’t confuse softness with love. Sometimes touch is only touch.
”
I watched her walk away, barefoot, beads swinging gently at her wrist. She didn’t look back.
⸻
Back in Singapore, I didn’t tell Elya where I had been.
We were still sharing a bed most nights… but the silence between us had changed shape.
And I found myself thinking of Sri’s words far more often than I expected.
Just don’t confuse softness with love.
[End of Chapter 146]
⸻
Mirror Site:
Chapter 147: The Night I Learned What It Meant to Be Really Used
https://freeimage.host/i/f7vElK7
(AI-generated image of the orgy)
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.
⸻
Singapore, 2011
It was supposed to be a fantasy.
A final indulgence.
A rite of middle-aged virility.
Five women, all Chinese, all stunning, all seemingly eager, arranged by a wealthy friend who said, with a wink, “You’ve earned this. Just enjoy.”
We met in a penthouse suite near Orchard, where the city glittered like glass over water. The room was scented with jasmine oil and vanilla musk. Dim lighting. Silk sheets. A chilled bottle of Krug waiting in an ice bucket. Someone had even scattered rose petals across the bed, like it was a wedding night for no one.
They greeted me in coordinated lingerie, satin and lace, red and black. One kissed my cheek. Another loosened my tie. Their laughter was practiced, their touches choreographed.
At first, it was exhilarating.
One undressed me slowly while the others circled. Hands on my shoulders, lips on my neck, fingers tugging at my waistband. The first woman knelt and took me into her mouth with expert grace while another kissed my chest, whispering in Mandarin-accented English, “
So tense… relax…
”
I closed my eyes.
Two women began kissing each other beside me, theatrically moaning as they removed each other’s bras. One climbed onto the bed, guiding my face between her thighs while another slid a condom on me, stroking me with rhythmic confidence.
They took turns riding me… each with a different style.
One slow and sensual, eyes locked onto mine like she was making love to my soul.
One fast and ravenous, clawing at my shoulders as she slammed down with reckless urgency.
Another crouched beside me, pressing her breasts to my face while her tongue teased my nipples: gentle, playful, calculated.
They moaned. They gasped. They begged me to last.
They kissed each other, spanked each other, guided me from one position to the next like I was a prized specimen in a showroom.
At the first climax, it was pure bliss.
By the third climax, I thought it was mildly pleasant.
By the fifth climax, I felt lightheaded.
By the eighth, I was mechanical.
By the tenth, I felt nothing.
My body moved. My voice grunted.
But my heart had disappeared somewhere between their thighs and the silk pillows.
When it was over, they didn’t cuddle. Didn’t ask if I was okay.
They wiped me down, offered a warm towel, and began reapplying lipstick.
One checked her phone. Another yawned.
One said, “
Next week, same place?
”
I didn’t answer.
I lay there, exposed, limp, slightly trembling.
For the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to be used.
Not desired. Not respected. Just consumed, like meat at a banquet, chewed and discarded.
They hadn’t done anything wrong. They were professionals.
But it was the transactional purity of it that gutted me.
No intimacy. No shared breath. No soul.
Just bodies performing a choreography I had paid for, a performance I thought I wanted, until it was done.
⸻
In the days that followed, I couldn’t stop replaying their faces.
I didn’t remember their names. Only fragments: the mole on one woman’s inner thigh, the faint stretch marks on another’s hip, the smell of cheap perfume masking something older, deeper… weariness.
I thought about how many women I’d treated the same way over the years.
How often had I focused on the performance and not the person?
How many had smiled for my pleasure, while dissociating inside?
And what kind of man did that make me?
⸻
I began researching the lives of sex workers. Not from curiosity, but from guilt.
That’s how I discovered Project X, Singapore’s only nonprofit dedicated to supporting the sex worker community.
They weren’t there to moralise or rescue.
They were there to listen. To help.
To remind society that behind every seductive whisper is a life, often burdened by poverty, trauma, or simply circumstance.
They offered:
• Mental health services, including trauma-informed counseling.
• Legal protection from harassment and abuse.
• Health services, STI testing, and safe sex education.
• Community advocacy, fighting stigma with dignity.
⸻
I tell this story not for shock, or titillation, but as a warning, to men who think sex without meaning is power.
It isn’t.
It’s escape. A delusion.
To those chasing conquest:
you will lose yourself
. Slowly, quietly, until one day you won’t feel a thing even when five beautiful women scream your name.
To the women in the industry — prostitutes, health centre masseuses, KTV girls, sugar babies, escorts, freelancers:
You are not the sum of your transactions.
You are not weak for surviving. You are not invisible.
But the world will try to make you forget who you are.
And men like me, even the kind ones, will try to pretend we’re different.
That we see you.
We don’t.
Not unless we’re willing to feel.
That night broke the mirror I’d been using to admire myself.
And when I looked up, really looked, I saw not a man fulfilled, but a man empty.
That was the night I ended my fantasies of orgies.
[End of Chapter 147]
⸻
Mirror Site:
Chapter 148: The Line Between
https://freeimage.host/i/f7vQvnf
(AI-generated image of Elya 3)
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.
Singapore, 2012.
It didn’t happen with a fight.
It happened the way concrete cracks, starting slow and invisible at first, then suddenly deep enough to split a foundation.
Elya had started spending more time out of the house, visiting her Kalimantan friends and attending Indonesian cultural events I never understood. She insisted on cooking things I didn’t grow up tasting and turning the radio to Bornean folk songs that made our sleek, urban condo feel like a wooden longhouse trapped in the wrong century.
One night, as I finished replying to a work email, she looked up from the other end of the couch and asked me something simple:
“
Do you think you’ll ever move back with me to Sarawak?
”
I paused too long.
And then I said the worst possible thing:
“Why would I?”
⸻
The silence afterward was louder than any argument we’d ever had.
She didn’t cry.
She didn’t raise her voice.
She just nodded and turned back to her phone.
⸻
Over the next week, the details unraveled everything:
• She hated how I spoke in terms of efficiency and logic when she wanted emotional language.
• I couldn’t wrap my head around why her extended family still expected bride-price rituals and land inheritance.
• She teased me for being emotionally repressed.
• I told her she romanticized poverty and tradition.
There were no villains.
Only two people who loved each other deeply, but saw the world with a different set of eyes.
⸻
When she started packing, I didn’t stop her.
I sat by the window, watching the sky bruise over the city.
She folded her clothes neatly, like someone used to leaving.
When she closed her suitcase, she said, “
You’ve always needed too many stories. But I wanted to be your last.
”
I didn’t have the right words. Only the wrong ones.
So I said nothing.
⸻
That night, I opened my laptop and logged into a place I hadn’t visited in years:
Sammyboy Forum.
I scrolled.
Not to find women.
Not to post.
Just to feel the rhythm again… the old voices, the late-night bravado, the anonymous confessions of lonely men pretending they weren’t.
Threads about massages.
Threads about regrets.
Threads about women who were always described by shape first, name later.
FRs… MRs…
It was vulgar. Funny. Sad.
And in some strange way, comforting for men like me.
⸻
I clicked on an old thread under Matters of the heart titled: “
Ever fallen for the wrong one?
”
A guy wrote (
paraphrased
):
“
She made me believe I could stay, but I was never built for her world.
”
And someone replied:
“
Then learn to build differently. Or accept the ruin.
”
⸻
I logged off.
Closed the laptop.
Sat in silence.
The pillow still smelled of Elya’s hair.
⸻
https://freeimage.host/i/f7vyBKG
(AI-generated image of Elya 4)
Mirror Site:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/68...ters/197870091
[End of Chapter 148]
Chapter 149: The Girl With the Familiar Eyes
(Singapore, 2012)
https://freeimage.host/i/fYcELap
(AI-generated image of the girl with the familiar eyes)
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 should have known from the eyes.
But when you’ve spent years blurring memory with motion, it’s easy to look without seeing.
She called herself “Elsa” on Sammyboy forum. Twenty-three, the profile said. In a private University. New to this, it claimed.
Her photo was modest by sugar baby standards: a black slip dress, an unreadable smile, one shoulder bare.
I wasn’t proud of it.
I told myself it was just dinner. Conversation. Nothing more.
We met at a bar in Tanjong Pagar. She wore a long beige trench coat despite the heat, hair pulled into a messy bun, no makeup except for a slash of red on her lips. She was younger than I expected. Maybe not 23. Maybe closer to 21.
Her accent was strange, a clipped, almost European English, with something Slavic underneath. She said she’d grown up all over… Dubai, Shanghai, Bangkok, and “
briefly in London, but I was small.
”
We talked. She asked if I was married. I said no.
She asked if I’d pay her rent for a month in exchange for “
intimacy without pressure.
”
I nodded.
We drank whisky. We didn’t speak about feelings.
I took her to a hotel in Bugis. A small one, discreet.
The kind of place that always smelled of jasmine air freshener and disappointment.
In the room, she hesitated. Took a long shower. Then stepped out in a towel, water glistening down her shoulders.
“
I don’t do everything
,” she said. “
No violence. No photos.
”
“I’m not that kind of man,” I replied, softly.
But what
kind of man
was I, really?
She dropped the towel.
Her body was slim, curved in the right places, still carrying the softness of youth. There was a faded tattoo on her hip: blue, round, smiling.
Doraemon.
The moment flickered. A memory surfaced, a small girl clinging to a plush toy, calling me “
Mister Cloud.
”
My breath caught, but she was already climbing into bed.
We kissed.
Her lips were warm, but unsure. Her hand reached down, wrapped around me with practiced caution. I touched her thigh, felt the slight tremble beneath her skin.
She was quiet when I entered her, just a gasp, a hitch of breath.
She didn’t resist. She didn’t guide either. She stared at the ceiling while I moved inside her, slow and deliberate, trying not to think.
But I did.
Every curve. Every murmur. Every brush of skin. It all felt like déjà vu and dread.
Afterwards, we lay tangled in sheets. I traced the Doraemon on her hip with one finger.
“I knew a girl with this tattoo,” I said, trying to sound amused.
She smiled faintly. “
Everyone knows Doraemon.
”
“What was your name again?”
“
Ilka,
” she said absently. “
Sorry. No, I meant Elsa.
”
And that was the end of my breath, before she finished her sentence.
The room collapsed into silence.
She looked at me, and blinked. “
Why are you pale?
”
“You’re Mira’s daughter,” I said, barely audible.
She frowned. “
How do you know my mother’s name?
”
I sat up. Covered my face. The world tilted.
“I used to know her. In London. In the 90s. She called me ‘
Mister Cloud
’. So did you.”
The silence stretched like a knife between us.
She rose, wrapped herself in the towel again. Her face changed, from curiosity to fury to something more fragile: confusion.
“
I didn’t know,
” she said. “
I swear, I didn’t…
”
“Neither did I.”
We dressed without looking at each other.
She left without saying goodbye.
⸻
I never saw Ilka again.
Her Sammyboy forum thread vanished.
For weeks, I couldn’t sleep.
I told no one.
But here’s what I want to say now, to men like me.
To those looking for “connection” in the bodies of girls with rent to pay.
Stop.
You’re not a saviour. You’re not discreet. You’re not immune to shame.
What you’re doing is buying moments that should belong to someone’s youth, someone’s dreams, someone’s safety.
You’re borrowing their brokenness to patch your own.
And to sugar babies, if you’re reading this:
You are not the price on your profile.
You’re a full person. You have history. You have power. You don’t owe anyone access to your body just because they offered comfort in dollars.
I wish I’d never logged into Sammyboy forum.
I wish I’d recognised her sooner.
I wish I could have told Mira I remembered her laugh, her yoga, her strange pasta.
But wishes are for boys.
Regret… is for men.
[End of Chapter 149]
Mirror Site:
Final Chapter
Chapter 150: When the Monsoon Comes
https://freeimage.host/i/fYcm6WN
(AI-generated image of Elya 5)
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.
Singapore, Dec 2012.
The air was thick that morning, not with heat, but anticipation.
Like something old and precious was about to break.
Elya stood barefoot by the balcony window of my condominium, the cityscape behind her gleaming in the distance. She wore one of my T-shirts again, the same soft, threadbare one she’d always claimed as hers. The last of her luggage sat by the door.
We had done this many times over the past years.
Flights. Returns. Weekends. Gaps.
But this time, we both knew.
There would be no return.
⸻
“
I used to think,
” she said softly, “
that love could bend around anything. Culture. Expectations. Parents. History.
”
“And now?”
She turned, smiled gently. “
Now I think love doesn’t bend. It deepens. It settles. But it doesn’t fight forever.
”
⸻
Eleven years.
Eleven years of warmth, chaos, sex, silence, laughter, departures.
Of whispering in the dark,
of her curled against me while the rain fell,
of her wiping my face clean after long flights and longer nights.
of us pretending that forever was a problem for other people.
⸻
She walked toward me. Reached up. Straightened the collar of my shirt.
“
You’ll still write about me?
”
“Always.”
“
Even the parts that hurt?
”
“Especially those.”
⸻
We didn’t kiss.
We held each other, a long, silent embrace that said more than words could carry.
And then she picked up her bags, opened the door, and left.
She didn’t look back.
I did.
And when the lift doors closed, I crumbled, back against the wall, fists clenched, face wet.
Since Angela, I hadn’t cried for any of the others.
Just her.
Elya
.
⸻
I don’t remember how long I sat there. Maybe an hour. Maybe the length of her flight to Pontianak. Maybe forever.
But when I finally rose, I walked to the coffeeshop across the street, needing light, company, distraction.
And that’s when I saw her.
Not Elya.
Someone else.
A slim woman in a light pink blouse, her hair combed back carelessly, sleeves rolled up.
She was reading a book, sipping teh-o kosong, and scolding a mynah bird that wouldn’t stop hopping near her kaya toast.
She looked up. Our eyes met.
She smiled, small, but with weight behind it.
“
Long morning?
” she asked.
I nodded.
“Long decade.”
She scooted her chair slightly, gesturing to the seat across her.
“
Sit. You look like someone who just lost something important.
”
I did.
And I sat. And told her my story. All of it.
⸻
[End of Final Chapter]
Mirror Site:
Epilogue 1: The Man Who No Longer Counts (Today - 2025)
https://freeimage.host/i/fYlfcS2
(AI-generated image of The Man Who No Longer Counts)
I wake before the sun now.
Not because I have to, but because it’s the only time the house is quiet.
The woman beside me still breathes in that soft, rhythmic way she always has.
One of the kids, the youngest, will come clambering into our bed in another half hour.
There’s a school lunch to pack, an inbox to check, and a meeting I’ll probably over-prepare for.
But in this brief silence, I think.
Not always.
Not every day.
But sometimes, when the light is just right and the house still holds its breath…
I remember.
Not names.
Not details.
Those are best left behind, scattered like petals behind a wind that’s stopped blowing.
But I remember the version of me who used to need them.
The man who wore lust like a badge.
Who counted women like they were currency.
Who thought pleasure was proof he mattered.
That man is a stranger to my children.
To my wife.
To my colleagues.
Sometimes, I wonder what life would be like if I’d stayed on that path…
never settling, never choosing, always chasing.
A permanent guest in someone else’s story.
But those thoughts don’t last long.
Not when a sleepy child hugs me from behind,
or my wife hands me coffee before I ask,
or a younger colleague asks for advice and looks at me like I might actually have some wisdom to offer.
I still keep a notebook, though.
Old habit.
Not for names anymore.
For moments.
The first time my eldest child rode a bike.
The day my middle one told me he wanted to be “
the kind of man who shows up.
”
The time my wife whispered in my ear at a wedding reception, “
I still like the way you look in a suit.
”
Many of the women from my past have moved on.
Some married.
Some vanished.
One or two have even reached out, decades later, with a quiet hello or a memory we shared.
I reply warmly.
But I don’t linger.
Because I am no longer that man.
And more importantly —
I no longer want to be.
⸻
I once thought passion was measured in how many hearts you could hold at once.
Now I know that,
true passion is holding one heart, fully, without needing to let go.
The chase is over.
The stories are done.
I’ve lived a thousand lives.
But this one,
the one with her,
and them,
and mornings like this,
is the only one I’d live again.
[End.]
Mirror Site:
