Encounters of the Third Kind

Stanley my sex bunny friend asked in our "Just the Boys" WhatsApp group the other night for our thoughts on relationships.

More particularly, he wanted to know how Carl and I felt about people who're husband snatchers.

"I mean, I guess I'm okay with them," Stanley wrote, answering his own question immediately before I had any chance to form thoughts.

Carl the dense one didn't reply because he simply couldn't form thoughts, full stop.

"Cos, you guys know, I'm all loving, all encompassing and I don't judge," Stanley continued.

"So, husband snatchers, I'm ok with. Cradle snatchers, I'm okay with too," he wrote, tagging Carl to that statement.

Carl, who once dated a boy nearly a decade his junior (Carl was then 26 and his then-boyfriend was only in JC 2), didn't take the bait.

I guess, understandably, sleep was more crucial to Carl.

The reason Stanley stirred the group chat to life at 3am Singapore time on a Thursday night was that he needed us to know he was kinda seeing a man who's attached.

So basically, Stanley has broken yet another rule of his - the first being to never date his One Night Stand (which he briefly did but failed).

This time, he's flirting with fire.

And the temptation of tasting the forbidden fruit was too much for Stanley to bear.

Stanley got to know B at a party - one of Stanley's badminton sister gang's birthday parties which was held at someone's place.

Long story short, B was introduced to Stanley. They got along. They drank. They giggled. They left the party early. They made out.

"And may I just add that the fruit basket was very abundant," Stanley wrote, telling us his interpretation of a long story.

"Did you make out with him before or after you knew he was attached?" I typed, still feeling reasonably awake given that it was 1.30am my time.

"That's not the point," Stanley replied coldly.

Okay, so we know Stanley made out with B despite knowing B was attached.

But hey, no judgement from me.

I mean, in my thirties, I would have flared up and possibly held Stanley by his shoulders and shaken him awake like he's a human bottle of protein shake.

Stanley my sexually active friend said later he wouldn't disagree that he's a human bottle of protein shake, given that he has personally served it to happy customers before.

While I see myself as someone with a strong sense of righteousness, it's sorta changed now.

Like how age adds on optical degrees to our eyesight, it's also added extra lenses to the way I view things.

And when I see Stanley's situation, I still view it with a sense of righteousness but with extra wisdom that can only be cultivated over time.

So, I decided to be less impulsive and more patient.

Turns out, Stanley's encounter with B was anything but brief.

In fact, all their encounters didn't involve briefs or undergarments of any kind.

And Stanley, well, was sliding further into the dark hole.

The next day, at exactly 7.24am Singapore time, Carl replied us with a series of icons that needed to be sent to forensics to have them deciphered - a face icon with a lone sweat drop, a series of middle fingers, followed by a series of thumbs-up, a party icon with confetti and two applauding hands. Oh, and a "good morning boys".

"I'm so listless," Stanley wrote back.

"I feel fresh," Carl replied proudly.

"I just want to stay in a horizontal position and not do anything for a long, long time," Stanley wrote.

"Oh, I'm also doing planks!" Carl replied happily, no doubt starting his day at Fitness First in Bugis.

Later in the day, Stanley supplied us with more context.

He knows it's wrong to be a third party.

"But you know, I love parties," he said, still having the cheek to joke around.

"And you know, B is HUGE," he continued, still having the cheek to sleep around.

But it's more than that, for Stanley.

I've known him for two decades and he's the classic wham bam thank you man who won't hesitate to block his flings.

For Stanley to be emotionally involved with not just a fling but an attached fling, he must really feel something for B.

I shared this with J my partner (who's not allowed in Just the Boys group chat).

I had expected J - my wise and practical boyfriend - to cluck his tongue rapidly and shake his head at Stanley.

I later copied and pasted J's response to Just the Boys.

"So?"
"You know Stan. He's not going to intentionally hurt himself - or others."
"So for him to get himself in this situation, it must be because he really cannot help himself"
"And you of all people should know this. There's no permanence in life."
"So when you're suffering, know that there's an end to the pain. And when you're having a good time, know that it wouldn't be forever too - so treasure those moments while you can."
"Stan knows this love-triangle is not going to last. He's not stupid."
"So my take is, love that guy briefly but passionately while Stan still wants to. Because eventually that too, will die off. So why waste time worrying about right and wrong when you can spend time loving that guy for that brief moment"?

Stanley later told me privately that he teared over J's wise words.

In the group chat though, Stanley wrote this: "omg, J has an answer to every question!!!"

To which, Carl, who has a question for every answer, replied: "actually, what's going ah?"

The next few days, we didn't hear from Stanley.

Until Tuesday afternoon.

"So I thought long and hard about us," he began.

"Cos anything involving me and B are long and hard," Stanley wrote, injecting his trademark sense of humour.

"And I've decided to take J's advice."

Apparently, over the weekend, Stanley had asked B out.

On a date.

The type where no body fluids are exchanged.

A date which is decent, and which would allow both B and Stanley to focus on each other's company and personality.

And it turns out that Stanley really, really likes B, who he says has a very good sense of humour.

"Your type of humour, or a normal person's type of humour?" I had to clarify.

Stanley later said in the group chat that they both didn't avoid the elephant in the room.

"?" Carl typed, asking if they had gone on a romantic date at the Night Safari.

"We talked about us. As in, us. Me and B," Stanley said.

"We didn't talk about labels. So it's not Stanley the third party versus B's rightful partner. It was plain - Stanley and B both like each other," he typed.

Carl - who once had a mental block and panic attack at a crowded and fast-moving KFC counter while deciding what chicken combo to choose from - remained silent, no doubt overwhelmed with, a) the quantity of the plain facts, b) the complexity of those facts, and c) the need to further apply critical thinking before being able to comment.

But Stanley is on the other end of the spectrum - always filled with analogies and always able to articulate.

Stanley says he told B that men are not meant to be monogamous.

"This is why our sexual organs are hanging out. They're designed for frequent use," Stanley wrote.

"Plus, people should really stop being so hypocritical," Stanley said, without specifying who those people are.

"If gays want other people to be open minded and accept that homosexuality is not unnatural," he explained, "then we have to go one step further."

"People also need to start being open minded about gays naturally being promiscuous."

"It's simple - if you want to be open minded, you have to be open all the way. Open very wide," Stanley said, speaking from past experience.

"And what did B say," I ask.

"B says he loves that I'm so open," Stanley wrote, attaching a gif of a guy raising an eyebrow suggestively.

"And I guess open is the theme now," Stanley wrote ruefully, referring to B's relationship.

"B also says he likes that I'm not one to hide my feelings. He says I'm like an open book."

"So I told B... don't judge me by my cover."

"And I added that if I really were a book, I'd be the type of book popular among boys, and I'll have very, very sticky pages."

Stanley said B and him ended that date on a sticky note.



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Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people

By Hook or by Cook

One of the things I love doing these days is to cook.

Cook and cook and cook.

And store.

I had never imagined that meal prepping can be so fulfilling.

I've come to love spending Sunday afternoons labouring over the stove to cook up big pots of food, portioning them out, and then freezing them for the rest of the week.

Stanley my sex bunny friend worries about my newfound hobby.

"You're so damn inward you're acting like a Martha Stewart," he says.

"And you're so damn outward you're acting like a Martha Farker," I replied.

My newfound hobby is actually inspired by Sasha Natasha, my university classmate who's career woman by day and Stepford Wife by night.

Sasha - or Sasa as we call her - loves her kitchen.

You'll love it too if you'd stepped foot in her magazine-featured condo unit, which boasts a lovely kitchen island.

It's literally state of the art.

Her kitchen appliances are also very high tech.

And pretty useless.

I remember questioning Sasa the value of buying a $200 pot, made purely out of copper which is fully capable of conducting heat - including the bloody handle.

"It's French. It's Mauviel 1830. And I went to great lengths to get it," Sasa said, feeling slightly amused by my lack of taste, as if it were layman knowledge to know about vintage pots.

I asked if Stanley knew what Sasa was talking about.

Stanley, who has heard me speak of Sasa, and is one with lots of taste, was appalled.

"You need to introduce Grindr or Tinder to that girl," Stanley told me urgently.

"I've acquired vintage French through those apps - for free - and trust me, they also have great lengths," Stanley said with pride.

But Sasa does have other nifty kitchen gadgets - such as an automated wine opener that does all the unscrewing and sucking of the cork out for you.

Stanley was naturally intrigued by that product when I told him about it later.

That night, Sasa messaged me to say she's meal prepping.

The two of us had always been in touch, having been through thick and thin in university, which normally revolves around hanging out at the campus cafe, or having rowdy house parties at someone's place.

I'm making collagen soup tomorrow, Sasa announced to me that day.

And it'll take 10 hours.

I immediately thought of her gas bills, but with the Stepford Wife, gas bills, water bills, all bills are no issue.

What is an issue to Sasa though, is her health.

Sasa, unlike Stanley, is very careful and particular with what she chooses to put in her mouth.

Collagen soup keeps her young, she'd say.

Stanley, who hasn't met Sasa in person, raises objections when I relayed that bit of info to him.

"Surely it doesn't take that long... the ones that I take - which  keeps me young - needs only 10 minutes of my skillful extraction," Stanley said matter-of-factly.

I can bet that Sasa and Stanley won't be dinning together anytime soon.

Apparently, Sasa has to use 10 litres of water to boil chicken feet and bones to death.

Sake is added and constant stirring is needed, a task that no doubt will give you the python-sized biceps that Carl my dense friend has, by the end of the assignment.

The next day, mid-way into her culinary project, Sasa sent me a video of her large bubbling pot of milky goodness.

"My broth" was her caption.

When I forwarded it to Stanley, he replied with a video of his bathtub, also captioned "my broth".

Not to be outdone, Stanley also offered a follow-up video.

"You want to see my milky goodness?"

Oh my goodness. Hell no.

Back to meal prepping please.

It's a very therapeutic activity.

Plus, I get to be in charge of planning hearty meals for the week.

Among the things I'd prepped: Chicken curry, meatball sauce for pasta, fried rice, stir-fried ginger pork.

And with a microwave, I get easy, warm meals after a long day at work.

But truth be told, the joy of meal preps has its origins with my boys Carl and Stanley.

In our younger days, we loved having cookouts.

Sometimes, it'd be at Carl's place when his parents are out of town.

Sometimes, it's at J's.

Most times, it'd be at my place before I moved overseas for my current job.

Those cookout sessions were really fun.

We would typically start our day with hawker breakfast, then stroll along Cold Storage, each grabbing ingredients for the dish we'd prepare.

Stanley always insists on preparing tang yuan for some strange reason.

We'd then lug those fresh ingredients and get to work.

Music is supplied, wine is poured and passed around before we each channelled our inner Master Chef.

For Stanley though, his inner Master Chef was literal.

The chef who was briefly in Stanley whipped up a good meal for him after their hookup.

Stanley was rightly impressed with that encounter that he would always share that romantic One Night Stand at Christmas parties.

As you can imagine, time passes very quickly during our cookouts - there's free flow of wine, and Stanley's never-ending flow of sex stories.

Often, by the time we sat down for dinner, we're already filled with laughter.

Cooking alone overseas reminds me of those happy cookouts.

While I can invite my new friends over to a meal or have such cookouts, I don't do that because cookouts have a very special place in my heart, and it's selfishly reserved for my gang of Stanley, Carl and J.

I relayed that to the boys in our group chat the other night.

Stanley said: "I'm so happy we have a special place in your heart."

"But," Stanley said, suddenly feeling all nostalgic with his old fling the Master Chef, "the true way to a man's heart is through the stomach... but only after making a trip first through his anus."



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Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people

The Lust Supper

One of the hardest things about uprooting is the saying farewell part.

Having said that, one of the nicest things about uprooting is the saying farewell part.

Because, like a funeral, people whether they're your close circles or friends whom you haven't met for a while, would suddenly make time for you, all lining up to meet you and say their goodbyes.

And tonight, it is one of those nights, but with people who matter most in my life.

My partner J, whom I fell in love with in 2002, as well as my besties Stanley the sex bunny and Carl the dense one, whom I also fell in love with as my gay best friends, in 1999.

And then there are Terry my straight best friend and Nisa my straight best girl friend, both of whom I fell in love with since 1991.

"Oh, I'm so happy to meet your puberty friends," Stanley said to me that Friday night. "I especially love Nisa," he said.

That night, we were all gathering at Nisa's condo, beside Haw Par Villa.

She's also known as the capable one who singlehandedly bought a condo unit without breaking a sweat or her piggy bank.

She's also known as the capable one who climbed the corporate ladder within six years of her career.

Stanley would sometimes ask me why Nisa is so successful at her work place.

"My question is, did she climb the ranks vertically... or, " Stanley paused for effect, "horizontally?"

Truth be told, Nisa wouldn't do it.

She would never in her life sleep her way up.

Nisa doesn't need to.

She has what it takes.

Stanley, to be fair to him, also wouldn't sleep his way up.

Stanley also doesn't need to.

After all, Stanley would just simply just sleep around - whether it's to go up or down, or sideways or backwards. It's one of his passions in life.

At exactly 7:13pm, a grand total of 40 minutes late, Stanley sheepishly walked into Nisa's condo with Carl the dense one behind him.

"Sorry we are late," Stanley said.

"I have no excuse," he said, looking defeated.

"I can't even say we're fashionably late," he said, looking at Carl with disdain.

Our dense friend Carl, who was dressed in a super micro tight top that looked like what Spiderman had worn when he was 11, paired with an ultra short pair of shorts which looked like what Wonderwoman had worn when she was 11, smiled like a goon at his hostsess.

Nisa the ever gracious hostess with the mostess immediately said heartily, "welcome boys, welcome. Make yourselves at home."

J was as usual making himself useful by helping out in the kitchen.

"You have such a lovely couch," Stanley said, plonking himself onto Nisa's leather sofa, making himself useless.

Terry my best friend began pouring white wine and passed it to Carl and Stanley.

That night, as my farewell dinner, Nisa had insisted on cooking me a warm, Peranakan meal.

All my life, I am surrounded by Peranakans.

Stanley, who used to respond to the nickname Little Nonya, is a true blue baba who grew up in a three-storey house with his matriarch of a mum Mrs Monica Ong, in a household that spoke a mix of Malay and Peranakan-accented English.

Nisa, meanwhile, would probably have to respond to the nickname Large Nonya, given that she's rather large and in charge.

She's a typical nonya - she's a feisty chilli padi when she needs to be, but is by and large everyone's best friend 'cos she has a hearty laughter.

For my farewell, Nisa had laboured for an entire week, I kid you not.

She had planned this party with precise execution.

It started seven days ago when she went to Batam to source for Buah Keluark.

Though Stanley grew up eating his family's Buah Keluark, he had once sampled Nisa's version and had for once, said hers tasted better than his family's.

A rare remark for true blue Peranakans. 

Nisa is also making my favourite chap chye, as well as home-made achar.

"We love our achar crunchy so we let our cucumbers sun a little longer," Nisa would say.

And then, just to balance out the richness of the meal, Nisa whipped up a simple cabbage and fishaball soup dish.

By exactly 7:24pm, the food was all dished out on Nisa's dinning table.

Photos were taken, and rice was passed around, and dinner was about to begin.

Carl the dense one, who had just finished gym at Fitness First, began eating hungrily, eating five successive spoonfuls of plain rice.

That idiot was on one of those diets where they eat to bulk up.

The rest of us were on one of those diets where we eat to light up.

"Oh, my, god," Stanley said with his mouth full.

"Your Buah Keluark is better than my mum's," Stanley said sincerely for the second time.

Terry, who's one of those irritating straight men who ate a lot but never got fat, scooped extra rice in anticipation of the good meal.

Carl the dense one grinned at Terry encouragingly and shoved more plain rice in his mouth.

J ate quietly, and mindfully, to enjoy Nisa's spread.

Stanley, who was eating slowly so that he could talk, would soon want us to enjoy his spread.

"I was having sex the other day," he began with his favourite dinner topic.

Carl stopped chewing and looked around warily to assess the situation.

"And it was so bad that I feel the need to start a workshop for these 20-somethings to teach them how to give good blow jobs."

Carl, who was chewing yet another mouthful of plain rice, gagged.

J continued enjoying his meal, carefully pairing some belacan with the Buah Keluark.

Nisa and Terry, who have both heard about Stanley and his fey ways, looked amused.

"Now, as a favour to the host, the lovely Nonya Nisa," Stanley said as he put his cutlery down, "I shall impart to her - and maybe to you boys too, the art of blow jobs."

Terry let out a guffaw, tickled by Stanley's randomness.

J remained calm and continued putting, this time, achar and prawn crackers in his mouth.

Carl, who looked pale, put nothing in his mouth.

"Nisa," Stanley said.

"What do you know about blow jobs?"

Nisa, who has one thing in common with Mother Mary, said, "it's fellatio isn't it?"

"Yes. Half mark," said Stanley, Professor Penis.

"In years to come, our descendants will come to refer to tonight as the night of remarkable Oral History," Stanley said proudly.

Nisa was genuinely amused.

"Fellatio is what you tell your 2 year old," Stanley said.

"In my world, we call a spade a spade. It's suck dick."

Carl coughed and sputtered out half chewed rice.

For the next 10 minutes, Stanley was in his element, giving us the low down of blow jobs, paying particular attention to Nisa whom he hopes will benefit.

"The basics," Stanley said, "are that you do not use your teeth."

"Oh, I've heard that," Nisa said.

"Yes, hunny, that's 101."

Next, Stanley instructed the table to not give blow jobs like they're in a hurry to catch the last bus afterwards.

Go slow. The slower, the better.

"If you're sucking it so quickly like it's a melting ice-cream popsicle, then trust me, that thing will get smaller. If you suck it slowly, it'll do the opposite - it will get bigger," Stanley said like a sage.

J looked at me and winked cheekily, then continued to calmly carry on his dinner.

Carl looked like he could no longer eat.

Terry was enjoying this - he had always found gay men to be such true entertainers.

"Now, I'm getting to the interesting bits - things you would have never known," Stanley said like he was about to decode David Copperfield's greatest secrets, "unless you have done all your leg work. On your knees."

Terry laughed and slapped his hands on his thigh, obviously having a good time.

"For the person giving the blow job," Stanley looked pointedly at Nisa - and then glanced at Terry, adding "you listen up too. You never know when this might come in useful."

Terry giggled again but was slapped sharply on the shoulder by Nisa.

"Shhh," Nisa the diligent student said. "I'm listening."

"Always eat a mint before a blow job," Stanley said.

"This way, your man can feel the lingering coolness in your mouth."

Nisa nodded dutifully.

Carl nodded too, and began to snore.

"But that's not all - your lingering coolness will eventually go away.... so you should have prepared a cup of hot water and a glass of ice by the bedside," Stanley said.

"So first, you take a sip of hot water and keep it in your mouth, and then let his tool slip into that warmth."

Terry who was just about to drink his water changed his mind.

"And then, juxtapose the sensation with ice cubes."

Nisa looked like she had attained Nirvana, her eyes enlightened.

"It's like giving your partner's member an onsen experience," Stanley said proudly.

And then, turning to Terry, he said: "Here's a tip for you, buddy. When you are about to get your next blow job, wash your dick with listerine."

Terry paused, and looked at Stanley sideways as if to say What the Hell.

"Because when she takes it in, she'll be pleasantly surprised by the cool - and sweet - sensation of your member," Stanley said.

Terry nodded sagely, joining Nisa in Nirvana.

"And that," Stanley said picking up his cutlery, "is my contribution to society."

The rest of the dinner topic remained civil, and light hearted, with Stanley occasionally tweaking something innocent into a sex joke.

It was familiar territory - good food, good wine, good company, and uninhibited sex jokes.

By far, Nisa's farewell dinner for me was one of the best.

Forty-five minutes later, the six of us were so full we felt like we were about to give birth to Peranakan babies.

But no.

Nisa the hostess with the mostess would not let us go scot free without dessert.

She ushered the rest of us to her balcony and ordered Terry to light up the tea light candles and turn on the string of fairy lights made up of large, colourful balls.

As I joined Nisa in the kitchen - she scooping vanilla ice cream on her homemade brownies and me making cups of Nespresso coffee - I felt a very warm sense of love.

I put my head on Nisa's manly shoulders and said "I love you. I'm gonna miss this."

That night, the six of us had too much to eat, too much to drink, too much to laugh about.

Although the theme was Farewell Adam, no word of goodbye was uttered.

As Stanley had so wisely summed it up, "we're not here to say goodbye to you, bitch. It's just another gathering until we next see you."

"You had better make time and fly back to see your beloved circle," Stanley said, spreading both his arms to point at the group of us.

"Plus, it's not hard to do that," Stanley added.

"I always use a mirror and some yoga moves to see my beloved circle," he said, pointing to his own buttocks to illustrate the point.



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Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people

Love Me Tender

These days, when I chat with my fellow 1979-ers, a few topics would pop up - health, money, ageing - but one of them recently stood out for me.

Self love.

And it's a deep issue.

Stanley agrees.

My sex bunny friend says since he discovered self love at pre-puberty, he had gone on to invest in that area, often partnering others to do deep, mutual exploration.

I don't really want to know Stanley's interpretation of self love.

But Jac's version is definitely something to think about.

Jac - short for Jacqueline Tan, my secondary school mate - was, for the lack of a better word, a haggard mother of two who had recently left her cheating husband.

"Cute or not?" is Stanley's question to everything related to a man. "Cock big or not?" would be his immediate follow up.

"Why is that important," I demanded to know in the group chat, regretting immediately about discussing this with the boys.

"It's context, Adam dear," Stanley replied smoothly.

"Why is it important to give the age of Tan Bee Bah and list her occupation if Tan Bee Bah were to be interviewed in a Straits Times story? Same reason. Context!" said Stanley, sounding like an unethical defence lawyer.

"Who's Tan Bee Bah?" Carl the dense one asked, late to the conversation as usual.

"Cute or not? Cock big or not," he persisted.

Sigh.

Let's leave my boys at home, just for today.

Back to Jac.

Last week, I met Jac for coffee and boy, has she changed.

For the longest time that my schoolmates and I remember, Jac had always been burdened with juggling her job, two kids - a six-old-girl and a four-year-old boy - and was always quarrelling with her husband.

Age - and her cheating husband - had not been kind to Jac.

Once, I bumped into Jac while I was with my partner J and I almost couldn't recognise her.

Her face was oily and pimply and had trapped strands of her wispy hair - most of which, drained of the lustre it once had - on her face. She looked pudgier than I remember her from secondary school. She didn't see me - she was busy balancing a small boy on one arm and bags of groceries on another, all the while shouting commands at her young daughter to "hold on tightly to mummy's skirt."

Jac was once a pleasantly plump girl - the head prefect whom we all loved. She was friendly, humble, and had big dreams in life.

When she married that scum bag, the dreams dwindled and she was only left with big.

That day over coffee, I almost couldn't recognise Jac.

"It's been a long time," she said with a sigh.

It wasn't a burdened sigh.

It was a sigh that said other things - chief of which, relief.

Jac had asked me out to coffee because we had once been very close friends.

But she drifted apart from me - and all other male specimens in our group - after she married the scum bag.

Now that she's divorced, she's determined to pick up the shards in her life.

And that determination was very clear.

In front of me is Jac version 2.0.

In the last eight months after her divorce, Jac told herself she will not loathe her life any more.

She realised how, for the longest time, she had been giving her all to everything else but herself: She spent time fussing over her kids, struggling to upkeep a failing marriage, putting on a brave front for her elderly parents, and throwing herself into her job which she coudln't afford to lose.

There was no Jac in Jac's life.

And she was a dull girl.

Her divorce jolted her up.

And she realised how she must now start loving herself.

And boy, she did.

Jac, who moved back to her parents' two-storey house to heal from this episode, took a sabbatical.

She started her journey by reflecting on her life, and listing all that she loved and hated about it.

She had read somewhere on the internet that such an exercise helps the person see the good and bad of herself.

On the bad list, Jac listed ways to turn things around.

On the good list, Jac wrote down why she was thankful for those items.

And then she went to the gym.

Exercising her heart out.

In fact, she also exercised her butt, her flabby arms, and her muffin tops out.

Out, out, out.

Out of her life!

In the course of eight months, Jac had dropped 8 kg. Her face was radiant - reddish from blood circulation. And her face, with the help of facial products, was once again youthful.

That night, at her hotel lobby, I had the most meaningful discussion with Jac.

She had flown all the way to Myanmar to meet me and spend some time by herself visiting pagodas.

She's on that part of her recovery journey where she wants to spend time alone while reconnecting with her old friends.

But that night wasn't just about Jac.

She didn't fly all the way here to show off to me how well she bounced back.

As much as Jac talked, she also listened.

Listened to how I had been so busy with my work overseas, how I often have trouble managing my staff, and how I always fear that I will screw up my work.

She also listened as I went on about how I'm now the one looking like a sack of sweet potatoes due to the lack of time to exercise.

"Don't be a Jac," Jac interrupted gently.

"You're great, Adam. You have it all - your partner is supportive, and you have a great life here."

"I didn't. But I survived," she said.

Then, she looked me in the eye and said to me earnestly, "you need to love yourself more."

That night, I thought about Jac - what she had gone through, what she must have felt, and how she had been so headstrong and taken charge of her life.

And the notion of self love stuck with me.

The next day, before Jac flew off, I messaged her, thanking her for reminding me something so basic. Something so often forgotten.

Love and good wishes were exchanged, and just like that, Jac came and left my world.

One thing though, is for sure.

The head prefect Jac is back, and she's once again guiding her junior prefects one by one, by being a role model to us.



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Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people