Sugar, Oh Honey, Honey

Sugar, oh Honey, Honey

I am not queer. My wife had an affair with another woman so, in the spirit of kiasu (fear of losing), I had one too. Of course with another woman. Didn't I say that I'm straight?

I call her Sugar. That's my wife. The other woman I call Honey ' she's a really special person. My wife was even more special before she changed, though she will insist that I was the one who changed from the doting husband I once was.

Anyway, my wife's woman is called Mickey. Yes, as in Mickey Mouse, except that she's catty. Suits my wife just fine. You know, she used to be kittenish when we first met. She was still, in the early days of our marriage. As the years passed, she grew up and turned into a tiger. Still is.

These days I still call my wife Sugar. Not because of her sweet temperament or how sweetly she treats and adores me. No. To me her "sugarness now is like how the late John Gardner describes it:

... sugar's poison. ... smart to stay clear of it. Pancreas can't handle it except if vitamins come with it, the way they do when you eat fruit. Take sugar without vitamins ' sugar with your coffee .... or sugar in a candy bar ' the pancreas has to steal vitamins from elsewhere. Sugar robs you of nutrients ' thief in the night..... worst of it is that the sugar turns to fat ' fat on your heart among other things .... murder in the end. First a little harmless pilfering, a little vitamin snatching....

In the same manner, my sugar's turn to fat. Or is that "too fat. Of course if she hears me, I'll say "too phat just to let her know I'm still cool and hip, you know, just to save my skin. Not my hair, I've none now ' she has the habit of grasping my hair like one would hang on for dear life to the mane of a wildly buckling horse during our very frequent-during-those-days-full-of-joy lovemaking ' and now each time when I'm in the mood, her excuse is that she wouldn't want to do to my ears what she did to my hair. Yes, that's what she said then. Now we don't even bother go through the motions of that argument.

And she's no longer sweet to me but a vile poison, pilfering my happiness and throwing her sweetness for Mickey to savour, in every nook and cranny of her body. Since she's doubled her weight at marriage and it goes without saying, her girth too, Mickey sure has lots of room and surface area to do whatever she favours and does best.

I just couldn't believe it when I was first introduced to Mickey. With her Maggie Winters look, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how she's what she is. I'm not a bigot, mind you, but I have a certain notion about everything.

To my mind and terms of reference, Mickey doesn't fit the les category. Why, I could fall for her myself ' yee hah, that got me thinking some naughty thoughts, those threesome or orgy kind where everyone does everything to everyone else. But no matter how much I try to remove my wife's visage from those fantasies, I can't, for she appears larger than life, literally, in every frame of the x-rated VCD playing in the theatre of my mind.

My wife and I actually have very similar taste in most things, perhaps that's the root for the contempt now. So I don't blame my wife, you know for falling for Mickey. Mickey's something and more. But of course she couldn't hold a candle to my Honey.

How can I describe Honey for you? Let's see. When you see her the very first time, I bet you're going to be arrested by her eyes. I'm not too sure if the description of "almond-shaped eyes would do justice to her eyes that has a certain kind of pull ' makes you want to become tiny enough to jump and swim in those limpid pools ' and sort of cast a spell on you.

Once you're spellbound by her eyes, you'll forget that she's bald, even if you know that she is, under the wig of really lush black hair that frames her dimpled chin, high cheeks and pale, curved lips over the Meissen china pearls that are her teeth.

Sugar and I just had a serious quarrel right in the midst of the crowd in KL Central. She left me in a huff, took the escalator up to the upper level, bought a taxi token and zoomed off in one. I headed for the stairs that go down by Brickfields way.

I was angry too and my glasses must have got steamed up that I could not see clearly enough. I banged into this 'child'. The plastic-bagged books she'd just bought from Payless flew off, hitting the MacD drinks & ice cream booth. She flew off diagonal to her books and landed a crumpled figure by the glass door. Her wig fell off and some cruel witnesses laughed. At her baldness and her mishap that was unfortunate for her and I, but fortuitous for them ' something was added to the dynamics of KL Central that day, so they could have their laughs.

Automatically I dashed to pick her up. Only then I realised that she's a woman, albeit in a very small packaging. Seeing her crying and conscious, I said "sorry a thousand times. I clumsily tried to get her wig back on.

Seeing that her head had been exposed to all and sundry she felt so ashamed. I was embarrassed, of course. Luckily for us, a couple of guards quickly took action and brought us into the then unused KLIA shuttle area.

I was glad that she was unhurt and that she forgave me. Still I offered to accompany her home or to where she was originally headed. To cut the story short we took a cab to her place near Damai though Putra LRT would have been more convenient. And cheaper too. She thanked me for accompanying her home. Her aunt was there to take over her care so I left.

That would have been just that, had we not met again and again and again. The second was still accidental, the subsequent ones weren't.

To tell you the truth, I always had this thing for petite women, even though all my life I had been close or intimate only with big-framed women. Perhaps this is due to my discordant nature. My heart homes in to what by my reckoning are mother figures while my mind hankers for waifs or what I assume to be waifs.

So when I was sent my Honey, how could I refuse, even if I tried or wanted to?

I never did. And after her aunt's accidental death, I spent more time with her than my sugar, four or five days with Honey and only two or three days with Sugar ' just to see that all's safe and ok with her albeit even though Mickey's doing a damn better job than I. To my mind that's fair and in accordance with the line in the Archie's song : "sugar, oh honey, honey. Yes one for sugar and double for honey.

Warped mind you say? That's exactly what Honey said to me too. She asked what I see in a midget. And one whose days are controlled by how protracted her leukaemia is. She wondered how come I didn't bother with the smans of members of the public on those rare occasions we stepped out.

I told Honey that good and expensive things most often come in small packages. And she was the best thing that happened to me. Expensive? Of course. All my life, I've toed the conventional life and I was quick to react when folks looked askance at me. But with Honey I unhesitatingly crossed the so called conventional lines and I could control my quick temper when folks laugh at our odd-couple quality. I am gangling and Honey's as petite as you can find, just 3' 10 of her.

When folks look at us, I can see the contorted images that play in the video of their mind's eyes. Hell, of course our relationship was and is not a platonic one ' I for one do not believe that there could ever be such a thing between members of opposite sex.

We know our days together are numbered and we'll savour each one as if it's our last. Whilst Sugar and I have similar tastes, Honey and I share similar physical attributes, except for our difference in height. Both of us are bald and just like the upheaval in her bloodstream, my liver is hardly functioning now and there are blotches and moles all over my skin. Yes the melanoma that I was diagnosed with a couple of months ago had spread too far before its detection.

And that makes it even more interesting for both of us. We arrange our futile chemotherapy sessions such that they are scheduled simultaneously. We are both consciously racing to be second, not that we want the other to pass on earlier, but because each of us wishes to be at hand while the other is at death's door.

I think Honey and Mickey know this now. In fact both affairs were transparent and known to both parties, even if I was shocked at first when it happened to Sugar and Mickey. They regularly visit and sit by our bedside, keeping our hopes up, ensuring that the apartment is tidy and there are sufficient provisions. Sugar can now draw my disability pension from the National Savings Bank to provide for her needs and ours too and even Mickey chips in too.

Honey and I are happy to know that when our friends have finalised the purchase of the apartment next door and move in, they'll be around and at hand for any eventualities.

Praise the Lord for spouses and friends no matter what their natures and inclinations are. It's the heart that matters. One can and should only judge oneself and no one else. The Lord wants witnesses, not lawyers and most certainly not, judges.

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