IT'S DAMNED COMPLICATED!

I missed a big boat party, one held last week to celebrate the reunification of Italy and was hosted by the Italian Embassy in Singapore. I was ready to go but had a change of heart as the hour drew near and the temperature refused to budge. It was just too warm to go to Sentosa, or anywhere for that matter, so I just decided to stay home and read.

I was still plodding through Grayling's Ideas That Matter but I picked it up again knowing that the worst that could happen was I'd fall asleep before I finish the entry on 'Big Bang Cosmology'.

But I didn't. I read through the section and was ready to move on to 'Biodiversity' when I heard a knock on the door. It was Han.

"I didn't see you at the party," he said as he settled at my feet on the couch.

"I can't go anywhere; it's too warm." I feigned distinterest.

"I thought so. Being lazy again." He lifted my feet and let them rest on his lap. I could feel he was looking at me but I continued reading.

"Why didn't you use your key?" I asked when he stopped, to keep him talking.

"I knew you were home mah," he said as he moved to the kitchen to get himself a drink.

I followed him with my gaze and took notes: new haircut, nice jacket, nice cologne.

He returned with a glass of Riesling.

"Sorry, did you want one?" he asked, torn between familiarity and politeness. "Let's just share this." He decided for me.

He recovered his place at my feet and sipped his wine quietly. He stood up again and turned up the music.

"I miss your music," he said. Handel's Water Music was playing. He reached out and ran his hand up and down my thigh, tentatively, playfully then with some pressure.

He put his glass down on the floor, bent over and kissed me. I found his hot breath, persistent tongue, and the aftertaste of a crisp Riesling too difficult to resist. I kissed him back with parted, lazy lips, our tongues flicking at each other. I was going mad, running my hands all over him and grabbing his crotch repeatedly weren't enough. I needed to fuck, get fucked, whatever. I didn't mind that I just changed the couch's slipcover. It didn't matter. I just needed sex.

But he dragged me - and I use the term literally - to the bedroom where we undressed while grasping and stuffing body parts into our mouths.

I was over in five minutes. Water Music was reaching crescendo - we never learned to make love with music, insisting on our own rhythm instead - and we were already done, apart on opposite sides of the bed and panting.

I suddenly became aware of his body odour and I snuggled into his pits to inhale his aroma. Musk? Vetiver? A bit of both? He obliged by spreading out his arm and letting me use it as pillow. We rested until we were breathing normally. I could feel semen drying on my face and pulling the skin tight around my mouth.

We showered together and the familiar routine come back to me. He dried my body, patted my butt and asked me to get dressed before I caught a cold - just as he used to.

Back in the hall, we sat together sipping wine. (He was wearing his house clothes, the ones that I keep in my wardrobe for him.) I had vintage Gaga on: 'Sorry, I cannot hear you I'm kind of beh seh...'

"Hey, why haven't you called, you bloody basterd?" I demanded.

"Hey, why haven't you called, you bloody basterd?" he challenged me.

He bent over and found my right shoulder. I waited for him to kiss it, but he bit me instead. It wasn't playful but he wasn't letting go. I just let him have a go at it.

And just like that I became attached again. You see it's rather complicated.