About Nude Not Naked

“Gong xi, gong xi, aunty,” I said as I walked through the gates.

She was watering the plants in her garden when I came, some time after 6:00 p.m. She was a petite lady, in her late 50s. I got to know her son, R, on a drunken weekend more than two years ago. A great conversationalist, especially when we spend a whole evening or weekend locked in the room, drinking vodka and painting.

Oh I loved his paintings. I don’t want a Picasso. I don’t want a Da Vinci. No other paintings speak to me quite like R’s paintings. He grows suspicious whenever I tempt him with some vodka. Often time, it meant that I was searching for an excuse to visit his paintings again. And I would pay, just to watch him paint. It has the most trance-like feeling whenever he works with his tub of white putty, applying layer after layer on the canvas, ever so patiently birthing a woman, an image of Buddha or my favourite, a dragonfly or two.

I remember clearly how I got R to buy a puppy dog – just because I wanted a puppy. I loved to have a Miniature Schnauzer but could not keep one as I had two cats at home. The best idea I could come up with was, “Why not R keep one? I get to visit and play with it often.” Did not manage to sell the idea of buying a Miniature Schnauzer because R got himself a beautiful male Beagle instead. And we aptly named him “Vodka” after our favourite alcohol.

Vodka was jumping up and down, excited to see his master, R returning home from work. That pup has grown into a strong and beautiful dog. He even had his little private space with a fan switched on 24 hours. Vodka was one spoilt Beagle, I am telling you.

R was busy cleaning the koi pond. The fishes were getting big and fat, eating the super food his father bought from the pet shop. Some lilies were growing in a pot, placed in the center of the pond. The sound of the water rushing down the mini waterfall was familiar and comforting. That was R’s routine: return home as soon as he possibly could, then worked on his mini garden and waterfall project, cleaned up all the fallen leaves and checked on his fishes.

“Did you snip him?” I asked.

“No,” R said, still with his back facing me, cleaning the side of the pond. “Why did you ask?”

“R,” I said as calmly as I could, “I think you are responsible for this.”

Darling Vodka was humping my left leg. He was enthusiastic about the whole process but I cannot say the same for myself. I glared at R and screamed at Vodka, “Stop it, Vodka! Stop it!”

R was enjoying himself too much to ask his dog to stop. When I finally managed to yank off my left leg, Vodka raped my poor right leg. I was screaming, trying hard to shake the dog off my legs. Vodka humped my legs so hard that my whole body shook as he continued humping.

I tried running. Well, I can safely tell you that it did not put the dog off. I tried to raise my voice, commanding him to stop. Yet he did not. I was short of whacking the dog’s head and I think R knew that too because he then said, “Vodka, no!” The bloody dog stopped and walked towards R, sat by his side and was patted gently. I do not think one should reward a dog for humping me but R enjoyed the scene so much, he gave Vodka a biscuit for the fine performance.

For the next hour, Vodka humped my legs whenever he felt bored. By chance, I devised a grand plan, whereby I stood by the garden hose and sprayed at him whenever the brown furry four legged thing came anywhere remotely close to my legs. Vodka ran away with his big ears flapping each time while R laughed as he smoked his rounds of joints.

We walked Vodka around the housing area after R cleaned his pond and counted his little aqua friends - two HUGE black kois, a couple of orange white medium sized ones, a lobster with a broken antenna and two escargots that laid two small patches of orange-yellow eggs. The sensation of the cool breeze against my skin was welcomed, especially since Vodka practically wet my lower legs with what I would like to think was his saliva.

We returned to R's house, locked Vodka in his huge pen and proceeded to R's bedroom. Each visit heralded a surprise - a change in drawings, progression of paintings and last night, a pink bedspread and blood red pillow covers. His security pillow was clearly missing. I wondered what happened to it as I blurted out, "What is with this pink thing? Even I don't do pink in my bedroom!"

R waved the question away as he lit a cigarette. He looked through a small cupboard and took out a box. "Want to see some erotica?" he asked, then inhaling the smoke for a few seconds. I shrugged my shoulders, paying no heed to his warning. I have seen a lot of things in my time and it took a lot to surprise me these days.

He opened the box, filled with memorabilia collected from his four-month travel stint last year. R sounded so much happier since returning from the trip, as if he had found peace. So side by side on his bed, we laid and looked through the ticket stubs, maps, photos, stuff he picked from the ground everywhere and a book filled with old man Mao’s quotes, translated from Mandarin. He laughed as he read a page of it. “Come on, it is funny,” he said, giving a chuckle as he flipped the next page.

By 0100 hours, I felt hungry and so the kind soul offered to treat me to some nice milk tea. Putting my hands together, I clapped, feeling rather satisfied that R would feed my hungry tummy. I have a tummy that makes its hunger known and I hated my growling stomach because it is darn un-sexy.

“It is the greatest love story,” he said, "and you must promise to write about it."

I smiled at him. It was about J, the girl he was most infactuated for the pass seven years.



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Short Talk
Visit Grey Boy With A Leap to view R's collection of artwork and stories.
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