What's your age ceiling when it comes to sex.
There was no question mark in Stanley my sex bunny friend's voice.
Just a full stop. A tone that says, "discuss".
Carl the dense one tilted his head and thought very deeply.
"Warm water please," he finally told our server at Winestone, a restaurant which, judging by its slogans pasted throughout its interior, empowers alcoholics.
"My throat is a little scratchy," Carl explains, "so I thought warm water would be better for me. Where were we?"
Stanley rolled his eyes and repeated his topic of the day.
"What is your age ceiling when it comes to sex."
It was one of those Sundays when it's just the three of us. Something we'd been doing since we were in our early thirties. And when we meet to catch up, there's always topics of sex.
Now that we're turning 46 (a very young 46), we're still at it.
Time flies.
And it's about to fly even faster with Stanley insisting we delved deep into old men and sex.
"I don't know, 35?" said Carl the dense one as he tore his bread and rolled it into a round lump as if he were moulding clay.
"Let me rephrase my question," Stanley said. "What's your age ceiling when it comes to sex -- an age that's higher than our current age."
Carl tilted his head and thought about it. Then he tore off a bigger piece of his bread, rolled it into another round lump, carefully dabbed a tiny bit of butter on it, before placing the smaller lump on top of it. "A snowman!" Carl said with glee like a happy child.
Stanley and I exchanged looks that said many things, all of which aren't positive.
"Carl, my dear," Stanley said to him in a tone that one would take when speaking to a stupid child. "That's a very nice snowman."
Stanley turned to me, hoping to hit some adult wavelength.
"Hmmm, 55?" I ventured.
"Really. Why that magic number?" Stanley leaned in as if he were an investigative journalist trying to expose my political wrongdoing on national TV.
"I mean, you asked, so I thought about it, and I came up with it," I said, standing my ground.
Stanley nodded, digesting that number.
"And you. Carl," he said accusingly, "you're saying the oldest you'll ever sleep with is 35, never mind you're turning 46."
Carl was about to eat his snowman, but he paused to reconfirm his answer to Stanley Ong, intrepid investigative journalist.
"Yes, your honour," Carl said, and chomped his bread snowman to death.
"And you're asking because?" I finally said, allowing Stanley to move on to the next stage of this discussion which I hope to kickstart before our order of medium-rare meats, honey-baked camerbert, warm beef salad, gambas and fries arrived.
Turns out, Stanley's investigative line of questioning was indeed related to some sort of probing.
Probing which he had done recently.
He gestured to Carl and me to lean forward as if he were about to reveal life's mystery to us.
"I had sex recently with an older man," he said.
Carl the dense one decided there was no news point in Stanley's remark, considering that our sex bunny friend has sex with random strangers of all ages and sizes since he was 14. He turned his attention back to his bread, no doubt, thinking about what he could make out of that dough next.
"Let me rephrase," Stanley said when he saw our nonchalant looks.
"I had sex recently with an old man."
"How old," I ask with some fear.
"Old," Stanley said sheepishly.
Just then, our Korean manager returned to our table and showed us a bottle of wine.
Stanley glanced at the label, nodded zestfully and said "we won't need to taste the wine. Just serve it."
As the Korean manager who has porcelain skin served us our Shiraz, Stanley had to say. "Wine. The older, the better."
Korean manager with the porcelain skin smiled and agreed.
"How old," I said urgently as soon as the manager left for the next table to take orders.
It was my turn to be the investigative journalist.
Stanley smiled and raised both eyebrows.
"60?" Carl asked.
Stanley smiled and raised both eyebrows.
"65?" I asked.
Stanley smiled and raised both eyebrows.
"What is this? The price is right?" I asked.
Stanley gave me a dagger stare for breaking momentum.
"70?" Carl said and held his breath as if he had placed all bets on the high-stakes casino gamble.
Stanley smiled and raised both his eyebrows.
I felt my blood pressure rising with all this excitement.
"75?" I asked, wondering why we were reciting the 5-times-table.
Stanley kept his expression as stoic as possible. Then he revealed a smile and raised both his eyebrows.
"80?" Carl asked, his eyes as wide as our sharing plates.
Stanley stretched his smile even wider as if he were Joker.
"My god. Stan. 85?"
Stanley pointed at me and said "SOLD".
Carl let out a yelp that sounded like a puppy which was accidentally stepped on.
"Well, not quite 85. Close," Stanley said.
"Close to what? His grave?"
"Hey, Adam. That was mean," Stanley scolded. Carl frowned and looked at me.
Okay sorry. That was mean. But 85?!
"He's 84," Stanley corrected. "A young 84."
Carl and I exchanged looks silently. Then we fired Stanley with questions, the way any media conference revolving around a scandal would unfold.
And so, Stanley unfolded for us.
"His skin is not soft to touch, that much I can confirm. It felt like I was touching leather. Smooth leather. But wrinkly leather. But he smelled very nice. He smelled like a gentleman."
I wondered how a gentleman would smell like, but now's not the time to ask such irrelevant questions.
Carl, whose oldest person he would have sex with is 35, shivered.
"And yes, I know what you guys are thinking," Stanley said.
"I no longer know what to think," I replied.
"He can still perform you know. He can still get hard."
Carl gasped.
Yes, Stanley nodded with satisfaction. There is hope for us in future when we're 84.
According to Stanley, mister 84 does not disappoint.
Sure, our senior citizen friend cannot sustain an erection, Stanley said. But the first half of his performance was commendable. He was hard at the right time, and soft and lumpy all the time. His muscles, his sagging skin all felt aged.
Carl closed his eyes in fear but like how we cannot peel our eyes away from an accident happening in front of our eyes, asked "And... who topped whom?"
"I did."
Carl yelped again, this time silently. All these details are killing Carl.
Stanley was also afraid of killing.
"While doing the deed, I was so scared he might die of a heart attack from all the excitement," he said.
"Which made it all the more fun," he added guiltily.
I was really dumbfounded.
"Why," I asked Stanley. "Just, why?"
It was a random encounter, Stanley explained. He was in the CBD area when his Grindr alert sounded.
This 84 year old isn't exactly senile. He's wealthy, smart, extremely great a conversationalist.
I wanted to say he has had 8 decades to practise but thought I shouldn't be so mean.
Stanley was at first drawn to him because firstly, he did have his real profile photo on the app. Maybe it was a younger photo of himself but the old guy didn't hide his age.
They were chatting and flirting and Stanley was really curious how things would pan out.
"What the heck" was Stanley's thought when the elderly man invited him to his place (a very luxury unit located just above Lau Pa Sat) for a drink.
One thing led to another and Stanley soon found himself strangely attracted to the man.
"I felt so many things. Curiosity, awe, fear, adventurous, guilt, wonderment, bravery," said Stanley whose list of adjectives would make any primary school English tutor proud.
And how do you feel about all this now, I ask.
Stanley thought about it deeply.
"I didn't regret it. I thought I would. But the mix of fear and guilt and excitement... I think it was a good experience," he said.
"Would I do it again? I don't think so. Because I didn't set out to have sex with an 84 year old. But the circumstances leading to it... I think if they conditions were right again, I might repeat it."
Carl could take it no more.
"My grandfather is 84," he said.
"Now I'm going to have nightmares," Carl added.
"Well, if it's Stanley, he would have wet dreams," I had to respond.