Lord of the Flies

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Of Shoes & Due Diligence

"Oh you see, but the problem is that I'd never wear Jimmy Choos to the club. They wouldn't last 10 mins in here." Sonia replied into my ear loudly over the Neyo flooding even louder now into the bar space. She was only half paying attention to me as the song caught her by surprise and she started doing a little semi-bop in front of me. After briefly closing her eyes and getting "jiggy wit it" she turned back to me as if awoken from a really great power nap, smiling and proud of herself. "I'm perfectly happy wearing Nine West shoes. As long as they're comfortable and besides, no one can really appreciate them in this lighting. We both looked down to her shoes again for what I think was the fifth time. I was beginning to really enjoy this.

When men compliment women on their shoes, there is a 50% chance they actually mean it. The other half of the time, they're just checking out the legs and subliminally making the women conscious of it. "Hey, I really like your heels..." another way of saying, "Hey, I'd love to lick your naked calves.. and it'd be A-OK if you kept those heels on, while I made my way to the top." Something along these lines anyway.

I complimented her on her shoes, and this gave me a launch into a discussion about heels vs platforms. And I noticed something important and new having a discussion about glossy heels versus shooting a passerby compliment.

Diving into a debate over heels, swooshes, or anything Dior brings two people closer. Once I've anchored myself to the bar and pulled her close, we need to be talking pretty intimately to exchange ideas, fighting the volume of the music. This means our heads are close proximity. When two people engaged in a conversation tip their heads forward, something magical happens.

Our faces fall into the sensitive hot zone between the lips and the collar bone. And this is the perfect excuse to release eye contact, granting full permission to visually roam her body without being rude - because, after all, it's the clothes you're checking out - even though both of us know it's grounds for a quick due diligence site visit to flavour country. So the body mapping ensues as follows:

1. Not only does it warm her up to the idea of having you in that space, but it also warms her up to the idea of being close to you, what it feels like to be safe in your arms, and let's be frank - everyone love the neck zone. It's phermone heaven.

2. From the shoulders looking down, you have a perfect depth of view starting from the cleavage to the tips of her toes. From here I could see very clearly the fullness of the breasts from the bra lines peaking through her full sequence dress. Keeping one hand around her waist guarantees she won't pull away too far. And a gentle squeeze gives me a brief and stealthy assessment of her real waist size. (Loose cami tops must be discounted immediately to guarantee better disclosure.) Sonia's a big boned girl, but she clearly works out and she's giving me a tight tummy as I turn her hips out to get a better view of the patent leather pink heels parading as Christian Louboutin's. In the mid-focal field, I could make out the muscle lines on her thighs, and while I'm not a big fan of big legs, hers were rather attractive and suited her fuller proportions nicely.

3. "They're very nice... lemme have a look at the heels," and with a gentle pull at the waist, Sonia doesn't resist and turns her hips slightly in, and voila - a full view of her booty. Round and delicious. I make a quick glance at the shoes as well and see a small metalic detail that acccents the stilletos nicely.

"Ooh. Nice hardware in the back." She smirks and swats my hand away turning back into the bar pretending to be indignant. I close in and speak close to her hear putting one hand across to the opposing hip. "What? I'm a big hardware on heels fan," in mock protest. She giggles.

The reality is, I really do notice shoes, and most of my team do as well. Half the time, they don't realize that they're looking at the shoe, but it's like anything shiny or sparkly - it's going to catch our eye, and it's going to draw us in. They're an even better reason to get up close and personal. With the summer circuit in full swing, it's nice to see all the leg action as we did this past weekend.

Oh yes, I'm a big fan of high heels. I know they pinch the toes, cut into the skin, and sprain the ball of your foot, but I assure you, they are worth every inch.

Water sports

Prive, like most clubs, don't have toilets for men. They just allow the men to use the women's washroom if they need to yak or go for the number 2. And number 2 happens at clubs alot more often than people think, mainly for 2 reasons: 1. Clubbing comes after dinner, and most people have big meals on friday or saturday nights. You do the math. 2. Everyone gets a little nervous going out, it's a biological response. Our bodies know where doing something exciting and different so our bowels move. (It's like going to the strip club in college, I always really needed to take a dump before I went to Whiskey A-Go Go, because I was so nervous to see a hot naked women on stage - and I know alot of guys who were the same.)

Indeed, I've come to enjoy my number 2 at Prive, especially since it's, for the most part, much cleaner than clubs I've been to in the past (especially in college back in Toronto, like the Phoenix or the Joker- a time and places when and where open sewage was widely tolerated and too this very day is brought up frequently in third year Greek bathhouse architecture classes at UofT.) I also do prefer hitting the club early, so I can have some well needed chat time with my boys before they turn up the volume.

As for keeping the seat clean, I am a big subscriber to the diamond formation toilet paper treatment. I usually tear off four medium-length pieces of toilet paper, each approximately three squares, and lay them down in a diamond shape so that all the important angles on the seat are covered. What I don't understand, however, is how these seats get wet in the first place. All too often I will one of the first guys in the evening to get in one of the stalls, a women's stall. And I don't mean "drizzled" - I mean completely soaked. It's unnerving.

I like my nasty, but even after closing the door behind me, and turning around to see that kind of a mess gives me pause. One day, I gathered the nerve to ask a friend of mine. She explained that most girls just squat over the seat, some girls actually stand on the toilet and squat down (semi-mainland styles), and a only small population actually bother to clean it up. They do it sometimes together so that one girl can hold onto the other for balance.

After she told me this, my imagination went wild. Before, it was really a mystery to me and something I never gave much thought. Sometimes, I'd secretly hope that the men's washroom was full, so that I could wait in line and gaze at the talent coming in and out of the stalls. These really hot girls go in...and then they come out. They tease their hair up a bit, put on that bitch cold look on their faces for the boys looking in from the line, and that's it. What happens in between is something of beautiful myth. Maybe they have a little squirt, spray a bit of perfume, and then come out. Sometimes they go in together, and the guys - those of us waiting in line - we just assume they're in there snorting a few lines of coke followed by a brief but hot closet bi-sexual make out session. That's what they do, right?

Turns out they do that and more - they also get naked, kick themselves up into a frenzy, waterjet the walls, seats, and soda fountain each other - like it's Songkran in Samui. It's one big golden car wash in there! And it must be alot of fun, because by the time I get in there, the place is soaked in fluids.

There is also the slight possibility that a guy was in there earlier, and he was just peeing with the seat down. But I like my version better.

Four Minutes

We had a flight scheduled the next morning for 5:30am to Liberia, and yet there was little resistance against where we planned to go that night. Ever since we arrived, we joked about the possible night life and the skirted around the prospect of finding something fun – business trip styles. And it wasn’t until Day 2 did one of us break down and ask what was on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

“So where are we going to find some girls tonight?” Carlyle blurted, his mouth half full will juicy local steak. I didn’t know if he was talking about hookers or club life. It’s normally hard to tell with my partner, but typically on business trips, I just assume he’s referring to hookers.
“Strip club,” George replied. “There’s some great places here, get yourself a Latina girl, and unlike the U.S., you’re allowed to touch. In fact, they encourage it.”

“Really? They don’t let you touch in the States. It’s hands to your side and don’t move.”

“CIA calls Costa Rica the ‘Client Nation,’ now you know why.”

Carlyle nodded as if he understood. I didn’t think he did.
$20 a song and a dance. Private room. It was standard price, but it was also the year of the credit crunch and spending that kind of money in Central America at the same rates as San Fran seemed ethically wrong especially for someone in finance. I indicated to the girl that I wanted just one song. She was cute, short, young looking but she had soft dark skin and big eyes. She looked Philipino with a small nose and round face. I’d find out later she was 21, and she had the bone stature of a teenager but fully blossomed booty. Then again, a full booty is standard issue in these parts of the world, so I remind myself that I shouldn’t be at all surprised.

The room itself was small and remarkably clean. Management obviously made a concerted effort to maintain an image of poshness. The lazyboy chairs out in the main room however made me feel like a fat American rather than a refined gentleman. They were deep leather bucket seats shaped like TV chairs they sold on the ground floor of department stores, and were specially hinged to rock like a rocking chair or an EZ crib. We were like adult babies rocking to the rhythm of young hot mamas on stage, mesmerized by mounds and curves. Old guys sat in rocking chairs. Fat guys sat in Lazy Boys. The dancing was full disclosure. I remember a line that some comedian said a few years ago, “9 months to get out of womb and the rest of our lives trying to get back in.”

Inside, the dancing booth was a short sofa built into the wall and a small speaker filling the room with the same hip hop remix playing outside. She dived right into the dance, turning around so that her backside came right up to my shoulders, a pair of perfectly round soft cheeks hovering close, jiggling up and down, bristling against my shirt; so close I could probably guess the tensile strength the red g-string hiding in the valley. Nelly Furtado was playing, "Say it right." I kept my hands to myself politely on my lap, but she pulled them from my sides and placed them gently on her thighs as she curled lower towards my groin. My hands were cold and from my touch, I could see the goose bumps on her skin, from the shoulders all the way down to the sphere of her young booty. She let loose a shiver and inhaled sharply. I apologized. She turned to look at me over her shoulder and dismissed it with a wave and a giggle.

It took me half the song to relax and allow myself to adjust to stranger in front of me. The smell of her perfume and hair was not stereotypically strong, and she was in fact a very pretty girl; I could tell she was friendly with no airs about her. I tried to take in the full view of her body, but I couldn’t fully settle into the moment. The last time I was in a strip club was about 7 years ago, and I thought maybe I was just out of practice, but it wasn’t that. It was something else entirely.

Something inside was holding me back from an otherwise very “guy” moment. I was distracted, and I felt thoughts and worries skitter against the walls of my consciousness. My mind was filled with clutter. I felt burning vile of stress pour down my chest and into the pit of my stomach like a bad shot of tequila.

I realized I was thinking about my life, all the changes that were happening, all the same time. Images of all my previous trips, the work, the numbers, the spreadsheets, the endless pitch books, my friends come and gone, family, death, swelled in my head. It looked like a mental monopoly board and me, a silver plastic board piece teetering across the squares, struggling between other players’ properties, houses and hotels towering over me. And yet it all seemed inconsequential. The deals, the travelling, the status, the shop talk, and all the small steps taken to build my mini-empire; all of it seemed to be reduced to nothing.

It was like an epiphany, but instead of elation, I felt morose.

The dancer took off her bikini top revealing two swelling teardrops, and with one hand, she pulled me in for a closer inspection, the smell of her hair rushing into my head. But I didn’t flinch, no chubby, no heightened senses, no twinge, no priapism on demand. And then suddenly, from having my head filled with everything, it evacuated and a quiet came over me, and there was nothing.

It was all nothing to me. And I felt nothing. Nothing mattered and I realised that was the problem.

I bought 4 minutes of her time, and it felt like years as my adult life flashed before my eyes. Maybe that’s because it was precisely how long it would take to describe the last 10 years at that moment. Four minutes. The second song ended and I left without saying thank you. I felt shitty and just wanted to go to sleep.

Enter the Green Machine

So now for something a little different. Those of you keeping track will already know me as The Hulk that Phalimus has parachuted into several of his stories. Here is the first of my guest blogs. With thanks to Phalimus for this prime piece of web real estate.

I used to fight that nickname - Hulk - at least inside, but not anymore. In a way, I guess it's apt. Underneath the raging green exterior I seem to project, lies a sensitive soul. You're as likely to find me at a poetry recital as you are cranking out supersets at the nearest free weight stack.

Recently I was propping up the bar at Prive with Phalimus and Saks. It was your standard Prive night, full of attrition, Team Catfish hogging their end of the bar, the Dorks and Dicks crowding out the talent on the dancefloor. I wasn't looking too hard. Truth be told, I do my best work when I'm doing nothing at all. It sounds arrogant but that's how it inevitably works out. The silent, aloof thing works for me. I've tried bulldozing my way in a few times, cocktalking and gun-toting, but this tactic tends to work on those I've already made a connection with, by and large. Of the random pick-ups, the random one-nighters, the silent tactic pays better dividends.

I didn't sex anyone up on the night in question, so if you want to jizz over some erotic clit-lit then I suggest you turn away now. But yeah. There I was with the boys. Prive. 4am. Haven't so much as made eyes towards any prospective target. A girl pushes up against me at the bar. She's not hot. In fact she reminds me of the back end of a London bus. She's got a big mouth, figuratively and literally. Now, ordinarily, this is the point where I make some really cutting and probably grossly unfair remark and samurai slice them off at the pass. The Boys got man stuff to talk about, run along sugar. But this one persisted. She "borrowed" a cigarette from Phalimus' unattended pack. She gestured at me to light it. Believe me, such rash assumptions as to my willingness to play Mr. Subservient on a night out have left some pretty little things broken beat and scarred. But I played along.

She fluttered her hideously over-mascara'd eyelashes at me and said:

"Do you think men can determine what they think about a woman on the first date?"

Fuck. Is that the best you can do?

She persisted so I mumbled out some half-assed responses hoping she would go away. But she stood there, jabbering away. I really wanted her to leave. My annoyance level was rising. I'm standing sideways on, drink turned away from her. None of this cosy body language BS. I wasn't drunk enough and she was clearly teetering as if about to fall off the precipice of sobriety. She yammered on about how she hadn't dated anyone for two years. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Yeah, like I'm gonna be the sucker to break that drought, right? Shit woman. No date for two years and you want to come to the top table to dine?

Now, this is already way past the point when I usually tell the hag to fuck off. But this one held my interest for a moment longer. She was monotonous and freakish but in my 4am pre-Tsui Wah state I probably would have taken a handtug round the back of Prive. She kept throwing obtuse hints at me, prying for a number exchange. I didn't bite. I rarely do. But funnily enough, I didn't snap either - a rarity in itself.

It was obvious she was alone (or perhaps abandoned) as no friend had come to badger her during this brief-but-awkward interlude. But I couldn't help myself. A mini-Hulk moment bubbled to the surface. For the first time, I turned around to face her, looking her straight in the eye:

"Look, do you have any friends to introduce to us or not? Cos if you're here with some girlfriends, maybe we could go talk to them instead."

Her face fell and finally the moment dawned on her. I'm a blabbering round-faced dinosaur who is wasting this guy's time.

She promptly made some lame excuse about having to leave, and hightailed it out of there. Of course I'm being a dick. Yeah, praise the girl for taking a risk. She saw the guns and wanted my pistol in her holster. But a girl's gotta know when to exit with dignity. Even I know my limits, and I stay within the confines of what is achievable. If you're looking to bat in the major leagues, at least offer me a few curveballs. Say you'll wear a paper bag over your head while you suck it and then promise to disappear into the night. Then you might have my attention. Yeah, you can still feel sorry for her. But I didn't go full green on her that night so I'm gonna say she got off lightly.

A couple of beers later and we're out on the street. Saks and Phalimus bump into some old friend and I idle off to the side of the club to check my messages. There I'm accosted by Katie, who once tried to lock me in her office after hours and mount me. She's cute, but I just can't bring myself to make nasty with her: she's got that innocent twinkle that I don't want to ruin.

Y'see, as Phalimus probably told you already, I go for the bitch. The power-hungry office-dominatrix. And this girl, for all her relative business acumen, doesn't look like she could dominate her way out of a pair of warm chocolate handcuffs. I don't have many female companions I count as friends, in fact you can count them on one hand, so alienating one of the very few by pulling my usual hump and dump routine doesn't seem like a good move.

I try to break loose, but she forces me to tell her what movies I haven't seen; she then tells me that she'd like to see those too, and that the "ball is in my court". I don't reply, in fact I barely nod in acknowledgment. She grips my hand, and rests her head on her shoulder. It's 4am and out of the two badly packed kebabs on offer I think I'm leaning towards the one at Ebeneezer's. I push her head off my shoulder and leave her there, sitting alone.

She texts me almost immediately afterwards, as I clamber into a taxi. It's bawdy and it's a come-and-get-me plea. I ignore it. My crotch didn't twinge, and that's the death knell, my unassailable litmus test.

Like I said, doing nothing at all.

Turning Japanese

I had a dream last night I slept with my ex. I've had this one before but last night was more vivid. We're in a modernish looking village which looks nothing like but my brain remembers as Berlin. We were my flat near the train station and there's some kind of time restraint - a train I need to catch, a flight, or something. We're doing it on a tatami mat and the room is very japanese with compartments and hidden drawers all over the place. It's around dusk, And I'm fucking her doggy style, from behind, and I'm a little concerned about meeting that deadline but not really. The sex is amazing and even though my legs are getting tired, I want to keep pumping it out. It's tantric and I'm in the zone. Meanwhile, in the living room, there's a dog
chewing on my LV sunglasses case.

We finish up and I'm packing up to go. I would later find my shades cases gnawed and battered, but I'd be relieved to find my glasses unscathed. I put them on and strut to the train station. In the next scene, I'm at the train/plane station and Saks and Hulk are with me. They're asking me if I can hang out with Hulk on the next flight to London. I'm apprehensive, but the flight is only a couple of hours and for some reason all the flight attendants in my dream look like Alessandra Ambrosia. They're all wearing blazers and only thongs, so I could see their cheeks bounce and jiggle as they stomp up and down the platform. So I'm thinking about taking this flight with Hulk. The dream ends, and I wake up with a hard-on so painful, my legs hurt. I'd rub one out, but I'm late for work.

Thank god it's Friday. Traffic is so easy these days on Hong Kong island now with more and more expats leaving and fewer Porsches on the road. I normally don't have to wait longer
than two minutes for a bus. I can't imagine going back to Canada - sitting on the 401 for hours at a time, scheduling my entire day around a bus schedule that frequents once every 22 minutes assuming it's on time and not counting the 5 minute buffer time. Don't even get me started on shoveling snow.

****

3 weeks ago we had a big KTV night. The whole crew was there, but a few of us were drinking harder than the rest. Well, 3 of us were drinking harder. Thor, Hulk, and myself. Saks, Kal, Johnson were being responsible and stayed close to the sofas. The rest of us were screaming off the walls giving our best over backstreet boys crowdpleasers and, quite frankly, pretty awesome rap covers of Will.i.am "I got it from my mama."

Standard issue mixer in Hong Kong is the greentea. I picked up the taste years ago during my toxic days rolling with the small time gangsters in TST. It's now pretty mainstream. The funny thing about mixing anything with greentea - be it whisky, vodka, or in this case, cognac - is that you don't really feel wrecked before or after, and there's a reduced hangover effect in the morning. The anti-oxidant effect of the greentea keeps you from feeling the drunken 'lactic acid' lethargy we normally get with regular drinks. This doesn't mean you don't get hammered - you do, but it jumps on you very very quietly, and it makes you feel a lot stronger than you really are. So KTV never ends with just KTV. There's always an afterparty. Tonight, that after party was at Volar.

I was at the foyer bar at Volar with the girls waiting for the boys to arrive, and we were just ordering our first drinks. Fifth and Tiff were with me, and maybe they looked like mainland hookers or maybe they were just too friendly, but some dudefella in a suede black jacket made a play at them while we were at the bar. Obviously, I didn't look threatening enough. He whispered something in their ear and took Fifth by the hand, turning them away, and started introducing the girls to his buddies. Let me introduce you to my little friend. I moved in quickly and touched one of the girls on the elbow. As they turned, so too did Dudefella. He looked at me quizzically.

I really didn't have anything to say, and I was drunk as fuck from cognac and whiskey still pouring through my veins, and somehow I found his intrusion more funny than offensive, so I was smiling incongruously whilst mumbling something terse, "... mumble mumble very sorry." I tipped my head down ever so slightly. I think I was trying to keep my balance. But Dudefella gave me the strangest reaction, pulled his hands away from the girls... and then he bowed at me.

Maybe the music was too loud or maybe I was being too courteous; maybe it was the way i tilted my head or how with a touch, the girls responded to me. Maybe it was the way the girls acted dumb but friendly, because Fifth thought he was Tiff's friend, and Tiff thought he was Fifth's friend; when, in fact, he was neither. They were just being accommodating. Maybe the whole package of me and two hot tall girls who look like mainland hookers, but are in fact under dressed Australian-born Asians - made him cautious. Whatever the reason, something made him think I was Japanese. It was ridiculous and I read it. So I went along with the play.

So I bowed back.

Then he bowed back.

I started laughing, but I think mistook it for embarrassment, because he then put out his hand as a friendly gesture.

So I shook his hand.

And while shaking his hand, I bowed again. Of course, he bowed back.

And we were shaking hands, bowing at each other - mumbling apologies at each other, "Ah. verysorry. veryverysorry. Ano - verysorry. No. very very sorry."

It was fucking hilarious. It was an apologetic Japanese cockblock. What the fuck.

Finally, they left us alone, and I took the girls back to the bar, and they asked me if I knew the man. "No clue."

That had to be one of the most awkward cockblocks I've ever executed.

***

There's a house party tonight that will attract models, gangsters, and blow. It's been a long time since I've rubbed elbows with the dark side, and I'm mildly excited about the prospect of getting fucked up again. We've given ourselves a midnight deadline. If there's no clear path to getting laid by 12am, we're on the next ferry to Macao. I'm thinking of Aces rolled over Kings, punishing flush draws, and stacks and stacks of other people's dirty money. Aw yeah.

Phalimus Prime rolling out...

5:30am thoughts

I wouldn’t call Mandy unattractive, but she’s certainly not a 7.8. In fact, she’s closer to 7.0. By that, I mean, I probably wouldn’t kick her out of bed. She’s not thin, but she’s not fat either. Maybe it’s because she’s 22 and still has that youthful pout about her and a general air of dominance that most young co-eds haven’t earned the right to grow into yet. They play hard to get, but they are often disarmed by mild negligence. After that, it’s easy pickings.

It is a game of patience and control coupled by a trickled reward system – an sms here, small peck on the cheek, followed by a stern comment about their poor posture or bad hair – a neg for good measure – then maybe a round of snowballs. They eventually open up, and you can find yourself an actual date. From there, we can see how the tumblers fit.

It was Saturday morning at 5:30am. Sitting in the cab crossing the harbor tunnel with her head in my lap and the rest of her stretched across the backseat, I slipped my hand between her thighs with the meat of my thumb just touching her panties and her miniskirt slightly hiked up to the hips. I didn’t stroke her though, didn’t move my fingers, letting only the car’s vibration create a small friction that would undoubtedly make her wet over the 15-minute ride.

She pretended to sleep, but she moaned just loud enough for me to hear but not enough for the cab driver to take notice. It was an invitation to explore further, but I consciously ignored it. I’d have her beg for it later and suffer regret after, rather than have me impose myself forcefully now - only to be shot down with my cock half drawn before the main event.

I felt Mandy’s hand creep up my thigh. I swept it away with my right hand without moving my left – which was still secured snug at the Y. Hush. None of that. Foreplay is where you stake your dominance, but it does not begin at the bra strap. It begins hours before, in the club, across the bar. I remembered this suddenly, and I turned to look out the window deep in thought.

Watching the harbor tunnel lights flash by in rhythm I reflected on how my team differs in each their own style. The hardest part is breaking through the barrier that makes us all strangers without baring so much that we become ordinary.

Hulk is good at this. He has a no-nonsense in his approach, penetration, and command of the game. As I explained in an earlier entry, it is in his carnal nature.

Saks is slightly different. He is ambivalent and nonchalant, often misinterpreted as controlled and cool. His dorky history as a Street Fighter 2 champion and unhealthy obsession with manga soap comic books would suggest otherwise. A manager at a respectable financial firm, his specialty is the junior office girl; the young and ambitious. They draw from his terse, even callous, tone – feel abused by his dismissive comments whilst secretly yearning for his approval.

Kal is naturally good looking and a brilliant speaker, but he grew into his looks and so he’s inexperienced. Furthermore, his new found Eurasian powers are shackled by a serious 1-year relationship. Women are drawn to his superman features and captured by his unique ability to remember small details about them. He was born the most powerful of us all, but the life of fighting crime, the cape and shield, these were the opportunity costs. In 2008, he chased the girl of his dreams and so he had not time to play. He knows this.

We often talk about what life would have been like if he had chosen our path, imagined glorious battles with phalanxes of 3-sets, 4-sets, and perfect 10s. Maggie Q, Athena, Jessica Alba, and the girl who works the door at M1NT – they would have all fallen naked before the Son of Krypton. But we respect his wishes, and we are committed to the disco wars in his absence.

Johnson, on the other hand, is the quiet and fearless one. He’s a surgeon, so his credentials put him heads and shoulders above the ‘i-wankers’ and ‘senators’ that flood Lan Kwai. Add back the fact that most doctors in Hong Kong don’t party or even have time to go out, he becomes a genuine rarity. We suspect Johnson draws his confidence from a particular physical talent. You see, Johnson has a black man’s cock. He is an Asian man with a black man’s cock. We once proposed that he change the first letter in his name to an exclamation mark - like in Africa. It would be spelled kinda like, "!ohnson."

We once shared a room in Cebu while on vacation, and he was tapping the girl he picked up from the club in the bed next to me; she was devouring him with a voracious appetite, but after their 2-hour marathon, she turned over and whimpered, ‘it feels like you’re pressing up against my chest. I can’t breathe. It feels like you’re puncturing a lung!’ The monster giggled before entering her again. I heard her take a deep breath in anticipation. I chuckled into my pillow. The man is a monster. Sometimes we introduce him as Obama’s 3rd half-brother, but few seem to appreciate the joke.

‘All the different colors of the rainbow,’ I thought to myself. Coming out of a fantastic run over Xmas holidays and CNY, I felt rejuvenated and ready to take on 2009. I had a full team at my disposal and a long laundry list of targets. Rebirth, I thought to myself.

The cab finally arrived at Mandy’s apartment complex. The lobby looked nice and new, and I imagined what it would have been like to go up with her in the elevator stripping her down to her heels. She got out of the cab, and she lingered by the door - her body language showing urgency and she expected me to follow. She fixed her skirt and pulled out her lip gloss. I got out briefly, gave her a kiss on the cheek goodnight, hopped back into the cab, closed the door and gave the man my address back to Central. In the side view mirror, I could make out her parted lips, mouth agape in surprise.

The cab driver turned to me in an uproar, ‘Yo, buddy. Why didn’t you go home with that girl? She was hot, man! And ready to go!’

I chuckled politely, ‘Aiya, thanks for the encouragement. But I’m not in the mood tonight. No point in raising expectations. Besides, I have tomorrow in mind.’

He nodded as though he understood, ‘Deem ar? What’s up? Too much booze tonight? Maybe you’re not trying hard enough! Next time don’t drink so much lar. It makes you slow!’

I smiled and nodded as I looked back out the window, rubbing the tip of my thumb and index fingers together, feeling the silky ooze glide in between.