Diary (for The Writer's Tower, June 2014, Theme : Mirror)

A good friend just broke up and she was crying hysterically. I hugged and patted her for quite some time before she calmed down.

A French guy aged 27 fell in love with a Malaysia girl aged 40.

No, these two events are in no way related to each other. I just happen to have a weird train of thought.

Love is a funny thing no?


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Title : Diary
For The Writer's Tower, June 2014, theme : Mirror.

18th February 2008

As usual we did not follow our colleagues for lunch. They loved going to The Ship; something temporary staff like us could not afford.

We were talking about the boys (or girls, in Jack's case) who had chased us. Carina told us about the boys who chased her; some boys even followed her home.

"Interesting stories from Carina," I said when we took the escalator back to office.

"I don't understand why so many boys would chase her," Jack replied.

"Because she's pretty I guess?"

"I don't think she is. You are prettier. Much prettier."

That night I stared at my reflection in the mirror for a very long time, smiling so widely that my face almost cracked.

21st February 2008

Standing in front of the mirror, I tried very hard to put mascara. I wanted to look perfect for our first date.

It was my fifth attempt but I still looked like I had spider legs clumped together on my lashes.

Jack was quite metrosexual and he knew more about fashion and makeup than me.

Wiping it off I tried again. I won't give up.

22nd March 2008

I walked towards the bookstore alone, face still red. His manly taste lingered on my lips.

That was my first French kiss. My first French kiss. My first French kiss.

We were in his car camwhoring. When he showed me the pictures we took he accidentally showed me a picture of him and his ex.

Maybe I was jealous. Maybe he was guilty. He hastily deleted the picture and then we...

It was rude to open your eyes when you were French kissing but I couldn't help it. I opened my eyes and saw him kissing me passionately in the mirror.

There was nothing to do except reciprocating.

His arms were on my waist and then they moved upwards.

My mind went blank completely. Should I stop him? We were doing this in his car. In an open car park. Anyone can see us.

Perhaps reading my mind, he withdrew his hands and stop kissing - rather abruptly and there was something in his demeanour that suggested he was pissed.

"My parents are overseas. We can have the whole house to ourselves," he suggested.

"I - I need to get something from the bookstore," I didn't know what I was saying, but I knew I had to say something. "See you!"

Got out of his car before he could say anything and walked away as fast as I could.

1st April 2008

A new girl called Orange joined our department. Rumours spread fast in office and soon everyone knew she was the kind of slut who would sleep with anyone with a dick.

Not sure if I was being paranoid but I felt neglected.

While touching up with my compact powder I caught a glimpse of him guiding Orange with her new job.

Not sure if my eyes were deceiving me but his arms seemed to be touching her breasts.

And it looked like it was accidental on purpose.

5th May 2008

Standing in front of the full length mirror naked, I hated everything I saw.

Flabby tummy. Panda eyes. Dull skin. Small breasts. Thick thighs. Puffy eyes.

You are fat and ugly, I told myself. You sucks. You deserve to be dumped.

Woke up four times in the middle of the night without alarm. Each time I would be playing Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girl and cried while listening.

That was our song. Then it became their song.

He promised I would never experience the pain of breaking up. He promised I would never have an ex-boyfriend. He promised we would be celebrating birthdays and anniversary till the day I die.

I threw away all the folded and torn receipts in my handbag. He loves paper planes and he taught me a method of folding paper plane that somersaults halfway flying.

Gone were the days when he patiently taught me which part of the receipt I had to tear to achieve the desired flying result, I thought bitterly, tears falling down uncontrollably again.

18th February 2014

"You are not perfect," Zac says. I pretend to be angry. "But that's what makes you perfect."

Zac and I, we have been together for six years and still counting. He is much shorter than me, a little plump and wearing nerdy glasses. No one in their right mind will consider him handsome.

But he is such a fun guy to be with. He is romantic, humorous, full of surprises but most importantly, he is loyal.

Being a religious Christian, he also believes that we should not have sex before marriage.

Six years and his love for me had not changed since the day he asked me to be his girlfriend.

"Let's take a selfie," he says suddenly, after I finish my durian cream puff. He hates the smell of durian but he never stop me from eating durian.

Unlike some other guy I know, Zac respects me.

"I thought you hate selfie," I laugh. He thinks duckface is the dumbest thing in the world.

"Not when you are involved."

I take out my mirror to tidy up myself. Just tidying the hair as I don't have any makeup on. Zac thinks I'm beautiful without any makeup on.

My reflection looks happy.

Je Te Veux (Written for The Writer's Tower, May 2014, Theme : The Evil Within)

My second entry for The Writer's Tower. 

When this was written, I had my first French colleague joining our company. Previously we had Philipino, Indian, Taiwanese, Indonesian... but French, it was our first time; so all the girls were getting excited (and the way our manager kept telling us how good looking he is didn't help the matter).

When we saw him for the first time it felt like a dream-come-true. Blonde hair, blue eyes, charming smile - it felt like meeting some Hollywood hunk in real life. 

Of course we soon discovered that he is a crazy, funny (and like most of us, he is exceptionally good at verbal bully) guy. Apart from the fact that he couldn't adapt to Malaysian food (Chinese sesame dumpling balls look like eyeballs to him), he was pretty much very Malaysianized - he used "tak boleh tahan" and "balik kampung" more often than us. 

The way he cracked lame jokes ("Who wants my eggs?" he asked during lunch), it didn't take long for us to stop having romantic fantasies about him.

Anyway, he was the inspiration for this story. 

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Title : Je Te Veux

Written for The Writer's Tower, May 2014. 

Theme : The Evil Within

I could relate to One Republic’s Counting Star so much. Yes, I felt something so right doing the wrong thing.

It felt so good to wake up and realize that the person who hugged you to sleep was not your fiancé. I could feel the heat from every inch of his body and it melted me.

 I just wanted to stay in this moment forever.

He was my new colleague; a French guy my company hired to give our company a global presence so we can penetrate the international market. The first time our eyes met I knew this is one guy I got to have.

Did not matter that he was in a relationship. Did not matter that I was getting married in two months time.

I wanted to kiss him, hug him, sleep with him, at least once.

Call me slut, bitch, whatever. Like I care.

Being his team mate I had all the excuses in the world to make him work overtime so he would not have any time to date his girlfriend. I made sure I wore low cut dresses to work. And my skirts kept getting shorter.

We spent so much time together it was only a matter of time that something would happen between us.

All I needed was an opportunity… And opportunity came, in the form of our company’s team building trip at Phuket.

It was the perfect chance. I made sure both his and my room mate were too drunk to walk back to their own rooms to sleep.

Let them catch a cold sleeping on the beach. Who cares?

I made sure I looked drunk. Face was red, who cares if it was alcohol or blusher. I made sure he was reasonably sober to carry me back to his room. Or my room. Whichever. Did not really matter.

You can imagine what happened next.

I turned a little to look into his face more closely. Sensing my movement, he opened his eyes and greeted me with a morning kiss.

“Cereals for breakfast? That’s the only thing I have in my luggage, and I don’t think you’ll want to join other colleagues for breakfast hmm?” I poked his chest.

“Whatever you say,” he mumbled as he kissed all over my neck.

My cellphone rang and the word across the screen said “Darling.”

“I’m at the beach having team building session with my team,” I smiled, cuddling up to him.

*

Daydreams like this happened when you had too much rice for lunch.

“You’re staying late again. I’ll fetch you home alright?” he asked when he passed his proposal to me.

“Merci.”

It takes him an hour to drive home from my place but whenever we work overtime, he made sure he fetches me home.

Not sure if he’s being flirtatious. Maybe French guys are more polite and gentleman than Malaysia guys.

Every time he reaches my house I wish he’ll kiss me goodbye before he leaves. Or come into my house and…

But he’ll just say “see you at office tomorrow!”

Leaving me feeling disappointed and frustrated, talking to my fiancé (dull and boring conversations as usual, after being together for donkey years) before I go to bed.

Perhaps things would be different if we were single when we met each other, no?

Perhaps I really need to take some action. It’s 21^st century, anything can happen, there’s no need for me to be a good girl.

It’s time to wake up the devil in me.

What's Good for Skin? (For The Writer's Tower, April 2014, Theme : Ostrich Pee)

Once again I'm blogging, thanks to my writing buddy Joe Wai.

(No idea how long I can keep this going but it's a good start.)

No, actually it started with The Writer's Tower, a Facebook group dedicated for enthusiastic writers. Every month someone will come up with a theme, and all of us have to write something. A story, a poem, a haiku - there's no limit.

And how did I get to know The Writer's Tower?

It started with a yumcha session with my bestie. As usual we talked about everything, and that day we ended up talking about a friend she got to know at her church.

"This guy posts funny stuff on Facebook all the time," She told me while showing me his profile. I wasn't really interested at first because after all, it's our differences that brought us together in the first place.

I thought it'd probably be some jokes so complicated that only engineers, scientists and doctors can understand.

(My bestie is an engineer.)

However as I read on I realize she was right - this guy really is funny!

Being the Facebook stalker that I am I decided to add him. It's good to have something to laugh at when you log on to Facebook. Jokes help us stay positive no?

It's hard not to get cynical reading about MH370 all the time.

And on one boring day I discovered that he started this group called The Writer's Tower, which brought the writer in me (who had died for five years) back to life.

This is my first post on The Writer's Tower.

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Title : What’s Good for Skin?


Written for The Writer's Tower, April 2014


Theme : Ostrich Pee

175cm, 50kg, 34C, 24 inch waist, 34 inch hips, fair skin, big eyes, pouty lips with long smooth wavy hair, this modelling friend of mine - Ariel is no doubt a head turner - with or without makeup. With a successful modelling career, a seemingly happy marriage and a bunch of men who are dying just to be her slave, she is the envy of all girls and the sex fantasy of all men.

Correction : She is the envy of all girls and the sex fantasy of all men who do not know her personally.

John had complained about Ariel to me almost every time when we hang out at Movida.

"I wish I had married a fat, ugly, dark woman," he sighed.

I remained silent. I know what's coming. This conversation had repeated itself countless times that I can memorize it backwards.

"I think sex would be more enjoyable with an ugly chick," John would continue. I don't have to say a thing - all he needed is a listener. Somebody who can listen to him complaining about how Ariel would stop him from ejaculating because it is time for Ariel to take her beauty sleep, or to apply a hydrating mask, and how he had to resort to masturbating because Ariel would not have sex with her on certain days of the month because "having sex on these days is bad for my skin!", or how Ariel would not experiment on certain sexual poses that he had been dying to try because "it is bad for my posture, you are ruining my modelling career!"

As for us ladies, yes we do admire Ariel's beauty, but it had never been fun hanging out with Ariel.

"Oh my God it's 9.30pm already!" she would yell suddenly in the middle of our karaoke session. "I must go home and sleep. I don't want to have dark circles!"

And she'll never join us for cycling at Putrajaya or hiking at Broga because she can't bear the thought of getting dark.

She does not drink, she does not smoke, she does not eat desserts because they are too fattening, she dips pieces of barbequed meat into green tea so she would not be absorbing fats that she does not need.

But that's not all.

She will do anything - I mean anything - to stay beautiful.

Her latest obsession is ostrich meat.

"It's rich in iron, something which all ladies desperately need as we lose so much blood every month," she told us as she bit into ostrich burger. "It's also rich in protein which really helps us maintain our muscles, and the best of all, it is incredibly low in fat!"

Those of us who are adventurous when it comes to food gave it a try and they gave us an expression which clearly shows "I was so wrong to think that smelly tofu is the worst thing on Earth."

A month had passed since Ariel started her ostrich diet. Just when we thought she could not come up with something worse, she managed to exceed our expectations.

"It is not enough to eat ostrich meat," she said, as she swirled her wine glass (which we wrongly assumed it to contain champagne), "We have to drink ostrich pee as well."

We almost choked to death.

"That's ostrich pee in your glass?" Jessica asked in disbelief.

Ariel nodded as she took a sip from her glass. "Ostrich pee is highly nutritional. Although it has not been proven scientifically, I have reliable source of information telling me that ostrich pee contains plenty of collagen, which is very good for our skin. I am now applying ostrich pee mask daily to maximize the effect."

We almost died of disgust.

Another month passed and surprise surprise, instead of having baby smooth skin, Ariel actually had a breakout. Her skin was so unprecedentedly horrible. We couldn't help but to laugh when she's not around. Whoever her "reliable source of information" is, we thank him or her for giving us something to laugh at.

Oh, and isn't it human nature to feel good when we see something better than us is finally falling down? Hmm, the sense of satisfaction is so great, all of us are in such good mood that if we somehow drop dead instantly, we will have no regrets.

Surprisingly a month later Ariel's skin improved drastically. Her skin was super smooth - even smoother than before.

"I thought ostrich pee didn't work? What other secret ingredient are you using this time? Snail serum? Gold?" I was just too curious. I had to know.

"Oh, ostrich pee DID work," Ariel smiled mysteriously. "I misunderstood the meaning of ostrich pee. When my friend told me ostrich pee, I thought she meant ostrich pee literally. Turned out it wasn't. What was good for women's skin is actually peeing ostrich."

My eyes widened. "You mean fresh ostrich pee? As in, you consume it as the ostrich is peeing?"

Ariel's mysterious smile got even more mysterious. "My dear, you are so naive! Peeing ostrich is an erotic sexual position."

I can foresee that John will stop complaining about Ariel to me.