Sugar Daddies

They are very much fun to have. All the better if they are single, fit, easy-going, with modesty that is of inverse proportion to the money they make, and funny. Screw youth and beauty, I appreciate kindness, intellect and the capability for vast generosity more then anything in the world.

Had lunch with Dr. Seuss today, and was finishing up with coffee when Martine called. I felt terribly awkward and probably sounded rather apprehended over the phone. I didn’t call him, but he’d gotten an odd sms and a missed call that said, ‘I’m all alone and lonely at the moment’.

‘How can that possibly be from me? I don’t send weird shit messages like that. Mine was the silly one about how love spelt backwards formed the first four letters of evolution.’

I must say all that turned out to be one undesirable mess. Martine probably knew I was with another guy, it’s one thing perhaps to know that I was seeing other people, and another to be talking to me while I was with them. I’ve no idea, honestly. I don’t have a single drop of jealousy or feel any sense of apprehension when they talk about their other loves, or when they are talking to their other loves.

I was embarrassed, and decided to be really blunt with Seuss. ‘Look, I feel genuine about you, and I’m not bullshitting when I say I do like you, but I do see other people, you know it, and I hope you don’t hold it against me. Or make it seem as if I were pretending just to appease you.’

He shrugged and said of course it was not a problem and that I honestly should not bother to pretend around him. ‘After all, I’m married. And unless you wish to agree to be my mistress exclusively, which I doubt you are ready for, and neither am I, you’re free to do whatever you want, and I will accept that.’

So that’s that, and he’s sent me a couple of rather flattering emails in the meanwhile. After I left him, I went on to meet someone who had picked me up at an airport quite a rather long time ago, and whom I had decided to tease over email just for the heck of it, because I didn’t believe anything could possibly come from it. He had offered to fly me Bangkok almost immediately after I’d met him just because he would like some company and thought I was a lot of fun to be with. I’d been bored then, and thought why the hell not. And while I’m at it, and since he seems kinda loaded, why not throw a wild card and tell him I’d exchange sexual favour for material pleasures. I came up with a story where I played escort occasionally, had fixed rates… the whole Belle DeJour thing. I’d asked for a health report though, and surprises of surprises, he’d actually went for one and presented me with a completely clean bill of health today. Of course he expected one from me as well, which I am to obtain tomorrow, because being the procrastinator that I am, I postponed it till the last possible moment to get the check done. In other words, I went for yet another STD check yesterday. The G-Spot thinks I’m completely mad (‘How many times in a year must you get yourself checked for Christ sakes’ To be completely honest, I do it about 3 times a year. I’m just paranoid beyond belief).

He told me he’s never done anything like it before, and said that he was still considering my companionship. I shrugged and said it didn’t really matter to me. I don’t care for the money, and if he’d just like to hang out with me, that was fine too. Especially since he was suggesting hanging out in Paris, which does sound particularly attractive. He told me he’d come down to Singapore especially to see me, which made me feel mildly embarrassed, and a little stressed out.

‘My goodness, then I do hope you’ve not been disappointed!’
‘Hell no. I’m very pleased, actually.’

He’d even wrapped me a box of Godiva pecan bouchee-s and given me a book he’d written, swearing that everything I needed to know about making money was in there, except from what he would tell me personally.

‘I actually had gotten two boxes of chocolate for you, but I’d been about to wrap the marzipan ones when I’d decided I’d help myself to a piece on the plane. And well, you know how these things are. You have one, then you have another one, and before you know it, it’s all gone.’

He then asked me quite bluntly where I’d like things to go. I raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘Frankly? I don’t bullshit anyway. I like new experiences, I love traveling, and I like cash. I know it sounds cheap, but it’s no problem for me to trade something you want for all that. But it’s honestly up to you, I won’t bother push it, and we can still be friends and you can drop by Asia anytime and give me a ring if you want a weekend break completely devoid of any sexual favour or what not.’

‘I’m trying to figure out if our relationship should be completely cash based… The last time I did something like that, where I actually paid for sex must have been two decades ago. And that was the one and only time, it’s no me to do so.’

‘Certainly I’m whoring myself, but that’s sex is so often used as a means for women to barter with. You said it yourself, with your occasional mistress back in the states. You’ve got something she wants, whatever that could possibly be, and so hence. I’m honestly not a prostitute, I’m not looking for hard cash, and it would sooth my conscience that you don’t think in such terms. Put really bluntly… I’m really a student attempting to make some extra pocket money and trying to have fun while at it because I’m too lazy, or perhaps too proud, to work in most jobs that I can qualify for. Besides, I don’t wish to waste my time in occupations that do not enrich me.’

He looks at me, nearly incredulous, and I laughed and told him that was exactly what he’d asked for anyway. No bullshit, init?

‘I’m not going to pretend and tell some retarded story like, oh, how I have three younger brothers who are starving in a crappy HDB flat with abusive alcoholic parents and an illegitimate child, whom I’ve to raise by feeding, god-knows-what, pigs?’ (We had been talking about Paris Hilton wrestling in the mud with ferocious, fat, beasts earlier on).

He laughed really hard and slapped my back with a little too much force.

‘I like you, I think you’ve got an incredibly sharp mind, and yeah you’re pretty, and sexy, but that’s not it. I love the way you think more then anything else. You know, I almost died when I found out your age. That was when I’d been trying to fly you over to Vegas sometime back, remember. The lady on the line had asked for your date of birth, and I’d not noticed it before. I actually said it, and went what the fuck when it hit me which year you’d been born in. You cannot have been half as shocked at my age as I was at finding out yours.’

I shrugged, ‘I thought you were 10 years younger, and you thought I was 6 years older. But yes, oddly, even so, I do not think I was even half as shocked as you were.’

He said he’d like to go to bed because the jet-lag was starting to kick in, and I walked the length with him to the MRT station where I told him I’d be going.

‘Cool, I’ll call you tomorrow.’ He said. ‘You need like, cash for cab or something? Ah whatever, here, take some money’. And with that, he shoved a couple of bills into my hand.

I knew American people thought about money all the time, and talked about it most times, but this was something else. This was certainly not annoying. No, avarice, I swear, is not becoming a besetting sin in me. I didn’t ask for it, nor had I expected anything. Money’s nice to have, but not worth fussing over, or doing things you’d rather not, just for the sake of having some of it in your hands. Money, I think, is a quantitative exchange, experience, and stuff you can learn, and well, a load of other things, friendship perhaps, is qualitative. I think that’s more important, and without doubt, more beneficial.

Of course, money is always a nice incentive to cap it all up. But it’s not completely essential, and I’ll not be anal about it.

xoxox