His Birthday

We met on his birthday 6 years ago.

I agreed to turn up at his birthday party even though I had already decided that he was not the one for me 6 months before. His lifestyle and attitude towards life were just too different from mine. For one thing, he smokes. But I guess one is blinded by such details when one is lonely. I was going through a difficult period in my life and he was convenient.

He was a good drinker but his friends managed to get him half-drunk by midnight. For some reasons that I cannot recall, everyone decided it was time to relocate the party to Niche, the gay pub on Pagoda Street*.

He knew the bartenders at Niche and got them to make a specially strong long island tea for me. I sipped my tea as I watched his friends teased him with more liquor. It was a Saturday night and the club was packed with 18 year olds jerking to the blaring music. In the dark, I saw him standing intimately close to a man who was seated atop some velvet-covered boxes by the bar counter. His arms were around the man and he looked like he was all over the man.

I knew then that I had been right to give him up 6 months ago because I felt more amusement than jealousy. I knew he was drunk "all-the-way" when he started behaving tartishly. I took my tea and went towards him to see just how drunk he was.

The man looked disinterested but did not try to push him away. Hands by the sides, the man remained uncomfortably motionless. I think the man was unattracted, yet at the same time flattered by the attention.

His hands, however, were all over the man, round the neck, round the waist.

The man looked at me as I walked by and I smiled.

Finally, he was too drunk to stay any longer. I helped him out of Niche only to have him stumbling towards the side of the club where he immediate bent over and puked into the drains. As I stood by him, I realised I was out of tissues. I left him there telling him I would try to get some serviettes from the pub.

In the dark, I bumped into the man he was caressing a few moments back. I asked if the man had any tissue and was given a pack of O'Darling 3-ply, the one with the anime girl's face printed on the packet.

"Thanks," I said.

"Take care of him," you replied.

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*Niche Pub & Cafe on Pagoda Street has since closed down.