"Spread it like this," Stanley said in the dinning room of his beautiful apartment that he had just bought.
"And this is how it gets laid," he said with satisfaction in his tone.
I was very scared to find out what exactly was going on in Stanley the sex bunny's dinning room but I ultimately had to face my fears.
"Nice of you to join us, Adam, now place that pot of curry on the newspapers, and can we start eating this life time please," Stanley said.
Carl immediately stopped chewing and started fussing over our fork and spoon placements.
Last evening, Carl and I gathered at Stanley's place since it was still illegal for three people to eat out.
But just as well.
These days, the three of us avoid the masses because, as Carl would point out, we are old and ageing and dying and we shouldn't speed up the process by exposing ourselves to COVID.
Stanley, who on most days is quite receptive to exposing himself, nodded fervently.
"Why do you still have newspapers," asked Carl, who gets all his news updates from messages making their rounds in WhatsApp group chats.
"Who reads the newspapers anyway," I ask and Carl nodded rapidly like a woodpecker.
Well, turns out, nobody.
Stanley reveals that the only reason he orders the daily broadsheet is so that if he slips and knocks his head in the bathroom at 4.20pm after post-nap bath and dies from overbleeding from the gash in his right eyebrow, five days later when the newspapers get accumulated in his gate, somehow, his neighbours will be concerned enough and call the cops.
"You have it all planned out?" Carl asked, incredulous.
"Should we be concerned that you're so detailed in those scenarios?" I eyed Stanley suspiciously.
"Life is short," he concluded.
We ate the curry chicken and toasted French loaf in silence.
Five minutes later, Stanley continued.
"Living alone has made me think a lot of bad things."
Carl was unable to decide what Stanley meant by bad, so he stopped chewing and wisely waited.
"When I do flip open the papers, I often pay extra attention to the obituary pages," he admitted.
"On quite a few occasions, I've actually come across people whom I know in there," Stanley said morbidly.
Satisfied that the bad things Stanley had in mind weren't related to sex -- which often causes Carl indigestion -- our dense friend smiled happily and sank his teeth into the French loaf, making delicious crunchy noises.
"The other day, I got up in bed too quickly and I sort of experienced vertigo. There and then, my life flashed in front of me," Stanley said, wide eyed.
"There was lots of panting, sweating, moaning, and the fella from last night was still lying in my bed the next morning, but it was very scary, this rush of blood to my head."
Carl put his French loaf down immediately.
The fear of dying alone, to Stanley, became more pronounced since moving in to this flat.
And it doesn't help that among the COVID deaths reported in Singapore of late, Stanley knew two of them.
Well, they were elderly to begin with anyway, but it doesn't help that the notion of death is lurking around the corner.
"Life is short," Stanley said.
Carl, who is obviously starving, knows Stanley well enough so he persisted in not taking his next bite of food.
"So we need to just keep having sex!" our sex bunny Stanley continued, not disappointing Carl.
Like a puppy given the Eat command, Carl began chomping down his French loaf on cue, eager to eat up before Stanley spews unpalatable topics any further.
But the rest of the dinner was quite grim.
Gone are the days when the three of us would just talk about men, sex, clothes, gym membership (that's Carl's contribution).
As we grow older and wiser, real topics that concern us creep up into our dinner discussions.
Stanley said that he's started talking about death with his elderly parents.
It started with Stanley updating the formidable Mrs Monica Ong who's the same age as my mum, the bossy Mrs Lee.
Recently, Mrs Lee had a slipped disc surgery and Stanley was talking to his parents about Mrs Lee when he causally slipped in the question to his parents.
"Have you thought about death?"
Carl was wide eyed. "You ask them such questions?"
"Yeah... we talk about all sorts of stuff," Stanley said matter of factly, "and this is one topic my mother won't reach for the soap to try and wash my mouth."
I didn't want to ask Stanley to further elaborate on that, so I nudged the conversation along.
"What did your parents say?"
Turns out, the Ongs have it all planned.
Stanley's parents had long bought niche slots in their parish church and they've written their wills.
It was a most sobering conversation, Stanley admitted.
But knowing that both my parents are not avoiding the topic of death, and treating it as normally as they can, is a comforting feeling.
Indeed, while we, at age 42, can see the tip of our gravestones from where we are, for our parents' generation, they're a step closer to theirs.
Mrs Lee's recent hospital admission and Stanley's sightings of familiar faces on obituary pages once in a while are grim visual reminders that life is short.
Carl, who loves his parents very much, was pouting throughout dinner.
"Guys, this is such a sad dinner topic," Carl said.
He took a deep breath and said, "can we just stick to sex instead?"
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