EARLY ENCOUNTERS
5.
A year later and I shelved those disturbing feelings because I found that evasion was often the most convenient resolve. However, it was almost part of some divine will which I would, at different points of my life, meet an individual who would rekindle these extinguished embers.
M was a junior during the freshman orientation which I was part of the executive commitee. The first thing I noticed about her in that sea of gormless faces was an inexplicable aura of inner peace, which I so jealously yearned for myself. She radiated her calmness from within in the way she spoke in her impeccable diction accompanied by a serene smile.
At first we only had brief encounters over dinner in the communal hall till she decided to pay me a visit at my dorm room to discuss an interview she needed for her course of study. Along the way we discussed religion and I confided my faltering faith to which she displayed an immediate understanding which moved me.
As the weeks went on, M made it a point to come over every time she saw a light in my room (cliche, I know) even on occasions when I was too busy with an assignment to be good company. She would sit on my bed and stare into a vacuum which I could not comprehend and ever so often drop a bombshell line like, “You seem to need a lot of love” which completely threw me from an appropriate reply. She was unnervingly perceptive and sometimes she would make an observation which reached the darkest depths of my soul.
I started to find her company rather stifling, if not annoying, because I perceived her neediness which I knew I was unable to requite. Yet I allowed her to perpetuate in that manner because privately I did indulge in her admiration and tenderness. In fact, I only acknowledged this when she one day broke down and asked me to hold her hand. I did so, but not without hesitation and feeling completely ill at ease with the conflicting sensation of breathless pleasure and fear when she in turn, gripped and stroked my arm with intense dependence. But I knew I could not sustain that connection because I was always phobic where any emotional commitment to anyone was concerned. And so within the next month, I made it a point to avoid her purposefully. Even at some point ignoring her messages left on my door and once, without intention, letting her walk in while making out with some boy from my adolescent past. In fact, that must have been a cruel moment when she realised I may not swing in that direction.
We never did discuss our intimate encounter (awkward one after included) and in fact, we both grew completely apart after it. A decade later, I wrote her a letter thanking her for her wonderful extension of love which I had now acknowledged without prejudice, to which I received no reply. Then a chanced meeting of all places, at a dingy coffee-shop near my house had us in a strange discussion about it, while she was carrying her baby boy and me my girl. She thanked me for the letter and quickly explained that she had been too busy to reply, but I think the child in her arms was explanation enough.
playing for the same team — hockey, i.e
6.
The strangest and I’d say most awkward transition in my sexual knowledge would be my sophomore year in the university. That year also saw a quaint friendship with a hall-mate who was a freshie and shared an instant chemistry of understanding, almost in that quiet comfort of a soul-mate. Let’s call her H.
She was in the hall netball team and I remembered how we bonded over the myriad of games we played during the Inter-block tourneys since we were the handful of athletic girls who could throw or hit a ball competently enough to win our block some medals. Other than that it was the fact that I’m very much a hybrid Peranakan (of Straits born Malay-speaking Chinese heritage) so linguistically we could banter in cheeky Malay euphemisms exclusive to the rest of our peers’ annoyance.
I even recall one evening when we sat on the highest point of a building with full view of the ships docked at the West Coast talking till dawn about almost anything. It wasn’t any wonder why we transcended as really emotional close buddies, only short of taking it to the level of lovers as she had a boyfriend in the army and I was still entirely internally homophobic and overcompensatingly flirty with boys. Which brings me to the unusual conflict which is what this section is about.
Enter OJ, well only blatant hint about his real name is it’s exactly like that acronym of a famous fast-food franchise. Anyway, he drummed for the band I played in and initially our working relationship was entirely professional, save for the occasional witty verbal sparring over dinner as he being an ACS boy we shared very similar wry humour typical of mission schools. We hardly hung out outside jam sessions until one evening on a whim decided to catch a jazz ensemble at the university theatre together when no one else expressed interest. He drove the rental pick-up we had used for a gig the day before and I’ll remember being thoroughly amused by his company when at some point he made “soo-weee” pig noises as we pulled up to the carpark in the rickety vehicle at an otherwise classy event with audiences mostly driving luxury cars and quipping that “we’re the farmers comin’ round to see them jazz concert.” Point is, OJ was really an agreeable friend who so happened to have the XY chromosome and for some reason we never ventured romantically, and possibly because I knew about his girlfriend studying in Aussie.
Then one evening, entrenched in the stress of final exams, I recall having a really heated argument with H on the phone which ended in a slammed handset and tears. So while I sat on my desk looking out the window while trying to mug for my paper the next day and stifling sobs, OJ enters with a bottle of vodka and offering more than an ear. Well, I suppose it’s a guy-thing to pour a girl a drink while fondling her thighs when he comforts her in her grief! And the thing is, in my emotionally vulnerable state, I didn’t do much about it except to down a couple of shots and let him. And in the months that followed, we had a few of these physical encounters which ended in a one-night stand for which I looked back in awful regret because that was the last time I’d ever naively mistake lust for love and strangely, all because a girl broke my heart and a guy helped me think he fixed it. He was also the last guy I slept with before the completely celibate relationship with my ex-now-gay-boyfriend, which was the closest thing to a lesbian relationship (in section 8 )!
20, chilling with the band (that’s the bassist/keyboardist couple with us)
Coming up… Part 4