CHAPTER 9

Relationships between boys at DR Residential and, I assumed, at other similar schools were not uncommon. Shut in an enclosed and protected environment, boys would always be, well, boys. Having been "involved" with Tony, I had expected to encounter similar situations at the school. The incident with AJ, however, came too soon after Tony. My heart was still bleeding.

In the following weeks, I avoided AJ like a plague. He sent me several messages, some marked "URGENT". I read but ignored them. Fearing that I might slight my Cinema Club responsibilities, I quit, and the messages stopped coming.

I spent the rest of the year hitting the books as my grades were falling considerably. My sister was concerned and wrote letters laden with advice and encouragement, topped with wishes that I would do well in the coming year-end examinations.

The exams ended, and I reinstated myself in the ranks of "A" students. I was elated and quickly sent the good news home. My sister wrote back, happy that I was happy. She had just returned from her annual vacation and had enjoyed herself very much. She told me that she also bought me a present. A surprise, she said.

In the last paragraph of her letter there was a brief mention about my father. He passed away two weeks earlier.

I was never close to my father. As far back as I could remember, he had always been sick. When I was little, my mother used to deposit me at a neighbour's house as she needed to look after him. When I was big enough to understand the gravity of his illness, I often had to stay away from the house, partly to escape contagion as well as his wrath.

However, after reading my sister's letter that day, I was hit by a strange, empty sensation. I went about feeling dazed the whole afternoon. Later that night, my room-mate Ben found me sobbing into my pillow. In between sobs, I told him that my father had been dead two weeks and I only learnt about it that very day.

Ben did not say anything. He brought me dinner from the dining hall and left it on my desk. Next to it he placed a small prayer book and a rosary.

CHAPTER 8

The rest of the term at DR Residential passed rather quickly. I went through the days going to classes in the morning, tuition and games in the afternoon, and study sessions in the evening. A friend persuaded me to join Cinema Club as a committee member.

Club activities were nothing more than maintaining an approved list of feature film titles, securing the films from a distributor in town, and screening them during weekends in the school auditorium. It was about the only form of entertainment for the student body. The committee members were rostered to fetch the film, screen and return it to the distributor within four days after the screening.

My turn came after three weeks of shadowing a fellow committee member. Summer of '42 was on the list for that particular week, and proved to be hugely popular. Most of the students stayed till the end of the movie to read the credit. I was putting the reels into their cases when someone handed me a message that the club's president was waiting for me in a club room at the back of the stage.

The club room was a cramped affair next to the auditorium's green room. Committee members held their weekly meetings in it. One wall was lined with shelves supporting stacks of files, magazines and movie catalogues. A cabinet below served as perfect stow-away for the movie projector. A small black abd white TV sat on it. The room was devoid of furniture safe for a sofa pushed against the wall. Folded wooden chairs were stacked in one corner near the door. On the door was a notice board where duty roster and other announcements were tacked on.

AJ, the club's president, was a dark and handsome fourth-year student. He was also the captain of the school's hockey team. When I walked into the room, he was on the sofa watching TV, but got up to help me put away the projector. He then inspected the movie case, snapped it shut and sealed it with masking tape.

"So, how was Summer of '42?" he broke the silence, putting the case on the shelf.

"It was OK. No problem with the projector either," I replied. "And they seemed to have enjoyed it very much."

"Yes. It's one of my favourite films, too," he smiled and went back to the sofa and resumed watching TV.

"Umm. You want to see me?" I timidly asked.

"Not really. I just thought you might want to watch the late night with me. It starts in a couple of minutes."

"Oh. What's on?"

"Marie Antoinette."

"OK." History was, after all, one of my favourite subjects.

I settled next to AJ on the sofa. From out of nowhere he produced two cans of Coke and a bag of potato chips. He dimmed the light as the movie started. The scene opened with the storming of the Bastille. Hundreds of French peasants were tearing down the heavy doors of Louis XVI's notorious fortress prison. I could not remember anything else about the movie, as on the sofa, a different kind of storm was about to brew.

AJ took my right hand and gently squeezed it. He grabbed my other hand and guided it to his lap, over his crotch. I could feel his hard member pushing against his tight jeans. As he fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, he urged me to relieve him of his jeans. I slowly pulled his jeans down. He wasn't wearing anything underneath; his swollen member stood erect and proud. The sight of his naked body took my breath away. It was beautiful. His limbs were long and well proportioned, his skin so brown and exotic.

A small appendicitis operation's scar marred his lower belly. I bent down and kissed it. AJ gasped in anticipation. My lips worked their way upwards, kissing his chest, nipples, neck, nose, eyes and forehead. Then I sought his moist hungry mouth and as we kissed, images of Tony flashed in my mind. I stopped and withdrew from AJ's embrace.

"What...what's the matter?" he asked.

"I'm sorry. I just can't," I said and rushed out of the room, Tony's eyes staring accusingly in my head.

CHAPTER 7

DR Residential was one of the 20-odd of such boarding schools in the country. First established during colonial times, it had initially served to educate children of the foreigners. During the Japanese occupation, the school was completely destroyed. It wasn't until after the country's independence that the school was rebuilt four hundred miles south of its original site. Every year, about one hundred and twenty new students would arrive at the school, selected from various primary schools all over the country. Its 55ha compound housed some seven hundred boys aged twelve to nineteen. The school was situated on a hill overlooking quaint little houses in the village below. It was well-planned and beautifully maintained. I fell in love with it at once.

My first year at DR Residential was quite uneventful. I found out that being around boys my own age was an overrated idea. They were noisy, rowdy, played childish games, fancied infantile ideas, and they behaved like immature morons. To be fair, they were being twelve-year-olds, but I decided that I was special and did not meet anyone I liked. I missed Tony terribly.

Came the first term break, I could not wait to go home. School would be out for three glorious weeks. I was so excited. Three months of eating mass-produced meals made me long for my mother's cooking. I longed for my own bed in my own room. And I longed for Tony.

On my first night home, Tony stopped by to say hello. He had grown bigger and taller. He could only stay a few minutes, politely refusing refreshments offered by my mother. I took him to my room and showed him my new school scrapbook and filled him in with what happened that first term. After I had turned to the last page, Tony got up to leave. Seeing the protest in my eyes, he quickly whispered: "Meet me at our house. Tomorrow. Three o'clock." I saw him to the door and he left quietly on his bicycle, riding off into the night.

The following afternoon, I arrived at Number 178 Melody Lane at 2.45pm. The house had not changed much, only the weeds and creepers were now taller and thicker. Once upstairs, I noticed that Tony had cleaned up the room and brought some of his personal things over. The mattress on the huge bed was now covered with sheets. There were pictures on the walls. On the mat on the floor were a couple of cushions. Next to them was a neat stack of Tony's favourite magazines. The room looked quite lived in.

I was leafing through one of his magazines when Tony walked in, clad only in his running shorts. I put the magazine down as he came towards me. Without a word, he led me to the bed, undressed me and began touching and kissing me. The urgency was contagious. Within moments it was over. A few minutes later, we were at it again.

Afterwards, as we cuddled, Tony whispered "I missed you" into my ears. I kissed him and we both drifted off to sleep.

The weeks that followed we only saw each other two more times. My mother had decided that she needed to visit her brother and his wife in another town and inisted that I went along with her. "They don't get to see much of you nowadays," she dismissed my argument, reminding me that they were after all my aunt and uncle who happened to love me very much.

The term break came to its end too soon. Tony called to say goodbye and said he would see me off the following day. Uncle Dean drove me to the train station. Mother couldn't come because my father had been taken ill again. My sister volunteered to come with Uncle.

We reached the train station as the station master blew his whistle for final boarding. I quickly kissed my sister goodbye, shook my uncle's hand and boarded the train. There was no sign of Tony.

I did not hear from him until two months later. He apologised for not showing up at the station; he had a lot to do that day, he explained. He had been accepted into a local university and had written from his dormitory. The first couple of months had been rough, but he said he was learning to cope with college life with the help of fellow students. Tony in college. My chest swelled with pride and my heart sang with joy for days.

Tony's second letter came the following month. It was much shorter. He was coping and adjusting well to college life. He had also made friends with a few students, among whom a "sweet" girl named Serena. Tony said she had suggested that they went steady and he liked the idea very much. Tony's first college girlfriend. My chest was heavy, and my heart ached for weeks.

"Come on, it's getting late," I roused Lili as she sipped the last drop of her coffee.

"OK, let's go. Walk with me to the bus stop," she picked up her purse, ready to go. "So, are you going to call Jean-Claude later?"

"May be."

CHAPTER 6

Tony and I did not talk much about what had transpired in his room. In fact, we never did talk about it at all. But from that day onwards we were drawn to each other like magnets. Of course Tony's parents could not conveniently be out of town everyday. We had to look for an alternative place where we could have total privacy. We soon found it in an abandoned house a few blocks away.

Number 178 was the last house on Melody Lane. It was also the grandest. Its last occupant, a Mrs Sheridan, had passed away and left no one to take care of the house. She had married an Australian pilot who was killed when his cargo aircraft crashed in Western Australia's Great Sandy Desert more than twelve years ago. Their union produced three beautiful children, all of whom were studying in Brisbane when their mother died in her sleep. The authorities pronounced it death by natural causes. The children came back for the funeral but soon left to be with their Australian grandparents. The house was left unattended. The neighbourhood kids believed it was haunted and dared not venture beyond its gate. Weeds grew wild, covering the once beautiful front lawn. Creepers took command of the picket fence, half shielding the house from public scrutiny.

In that house, in Mrs Sheridan's bedroom upstairs, what was known to my parents as my "study sessions" with Tony took place almost every weekend. If only they knew where and what kind of lessons I was receiving! My parents almost never questioned my weekend activities, especially when Tony was involved. "Not only has Gabriel found a friend since KC, he has also found a good tutor," my mother would tell our neighbours. She was right. Tony was a good tutor.

My "study sessions" had to come to a stop by the end of that year. Despite the heavy "extra-curricular" activities, I did exceedingly well in school and received scholarship to attend one of the country's elite boarding schools to continue my education. Although devastated at the thought of leaving Tony, I welcomed the opportunity with open arms. I needed to get away from home. My father had become extremely irate and abusive as his health deteriorated. My sister thought the school would expose me to kids my own age again after tagging behind Tony all those months. My mother was also eager fo me to go, fearing I might catch the TB virus from my father.

The weeks that followed were hectic. My mother dragged me to town and had me measured for school uniform and formal attire at the tailor's. Then we shopped -- new clothes, shoes, socks, underpants, towels, blankets, bedlinens, toiletries and other stuff. From shop to shop we went. By the end of the first day, my mother had given a whole new meaning to the phrase "shop till you drop".

After class finished, Lili and I walked to Morton's for our café au lait. I had grown very fond of Lili. She was very sweet, with a smile très désarmant.

"Lili, Gabriel, attendez!" Jean-Claude's familiar voice rang behind us.

"Salut, Jean-Claude," chirped Lili. "Comment ça va?"

"Très bien, merci. Où allez-vous maintenant?" he addressed us both.

"Au Morton's, comme d'habitude. Est-ce que vous voulez venir avec nous?

"Non, j'ai un rendez-vous avec un ami, et je suis déja tard," he began to hurry off. "Gabriel, tu m'appeles ce soir? Je rentre à dix heures."

"OK, I'll call you at ten, then," I replied. Jean-Claude gave me a wink and walked briskly to the nearby train station.

"Uh oh, be careful Gabriel. He likes you," Lili teased.

"No, he doesn't," I protested.

"Oh yes, he does. I can tell these things," Lili mused. "He tells me that you never call him even though you always promise to."

"Well, you know me. Despite this gorgeous, sophisticated façade, I am a very shy person underneath."

"Yeah, way underneath," Lili retorted.

We both laughed and headed to Morton's.

"OK. Out with it," Lili commanded once we were seated at our regular corner.

"Out with what?"

"Oh, come on. You have that look on your face. Trouble at work, again?"

"Well, you guessed it, Lili. I don't think I can take it anymore."

Lili slowly sipped her coffee. My eyes left her face and wandered about the restaurant. It seemed quite deserted.

"Gabe, may be you should consider quitting, soon..?" Lili broke the silence. That was my intention, but I needed to find another job first.

"I don't know, Lili. I wish I was back in school."

CHAPTER 5

The afternoon was rather warm. The neighbourhood was deserted. I supposed everyone was indoors cooling off with a nice, refreshing glass of iced lemon tea if not already having lunch. Instead of the regular route to his house, Tony suggested that we took a short cut via a tree-sheltered dirt track, passing his affluent neighbours' high-walled backyards.

Within a few minutes we were in his mother's garden, ablaze with bougainvillaeas and all sorts of perennials. "Mom's pride and joy," Tony said, gesturing to the well-tended plants. I nodded and followed him into the house.

Quickly I called my mother to let her know I would not be coming home for lunch. To my surprise, she said I could stay at Tony's the whole afternoon. My father was in one of his coughing fits again and she would prefer that I stayed away for a while.

The chilly crabs were simply delicious. We washed it down with lemonade Tony asked me to make. After lunch, he took me on a tour of the house. Our last stop was his room. It was a large room, almost the size of my parents' bedroom and mine combined. His parents made sure that their only child was not deprived of anything. He had his own entertainment corner, complete with sophisticated AV gadgets and games. On the walls were pictures of his favourite movie stars, singers and sports personalities.

Tony turned on the stereo and I soon found myself slowly sliding onto the plush carpet, feeling loggy and drowsy. Tony tossed me one of his pillows and settled himself among the many throw cushions a few feet away. Ahh. This is the life, I thought, hardly able to keep my eyes open anymore.

I woke up one hour later, my clothes damp with perspiration. I got up and opened the windows to let the afternoon breeze in. Feeling a bit refreshed, I returned to the carpet. Tony was still deep in slumber. In his sleep, he must have pulled off his T-shirt and shorts for he only had his white briefs on. His back glistened with sweat, moist beads forming on his forehead. Instinctively I reached for a magazine and started fanning. He stirred and opened his eyes.

"Hey...what time is it?" he groggily asked.

I consulted the alarm clock on his nightstand. "A little bit after three," I told him, putting the magazine back on its rack.

"Aww...it's still early. Wake me up in one hour. We'll take a shower and I'll send you home."

Tony drifted back to sleep. I stared at him, wondering how he could nap in that sweltering heat.

At such close proximity, I noticed a new slimliness about his sprawling body. The muscles on his arms and legs were evenly toned, his stomach lean and flat. His well-defined chest was hairless except for the sparse fine ones growing around his nipples. He reminded me of the pictures of Greek statues in my school book.

As if mesmerised, I began touching his body, tracing the smoothness of his chest with my fingers, down to the plane of his stomach. Surprised at how hard it felt, my fingers lingered there a while. Tony grunted, his eyes still closed. When his breathing returned to normal, my fingers resumed their journey downwards. Tony let out a low groan and spread his legs. I noticed the healthy bulge of his crotch. The thin cotton of his underwear strained to confine its growing contents.

"Go on, touch it," Tony whispered, fully awake now. His voice was throaty. I hesitate, not sure what I was supposed to do. He took my hand and guided it into his underwear. Then he opened up my palm and enclosed it around his pulsating member. My small hand hardly covered it. "Stroke it, slowly...," Tony mumbled between gasps. I did as I was told, having found a rhythm that seemed to please him. I felt a strange pressure rising in my own abdomen, my heart drumming against my chest.

"Faster now, Gabe...," Tony was breathing harder and harder, his pelvis thrusting wildly. A moment later he stiffened, and I felt warm, wet liquid spurt into my palm and landed on his heaving chest. For a second, I panicked, thinking that I had hurt him. But when I withdrew my hand, the wet stuff in my palm wasn't blood. And the look on Tony's face was not that of pain, but of pleasure.

I felt a pinch on my left arm, which brought me back to Mme le Blanc's classroom. Lili smiled. "Your turn, Monsieur," she pointed to the exercise book.

"Je m'excuse, Mme le Blanc. C'est la question numéro treize, n'est-ce pas?"

"Oui. Où étiez-vous?"

CHAPTER 4

"Bonsoir, Gabriel!" the voice of my teacher woke me up from my reverie.

"Bonsoir, Mme le Blanc. "C'était bon, votre weekend?"

"Très bon, merci. Es-tu prêt?"

"Oui."

I liked Mme le Blanc. She was a very good teacher, and her dedication was rather phenomenal. She grilled us with questions at the beginning of each class until she was sure that every single one of her students had a firm grasp on the previous lesson before she started on a new subject. This evening, we were grasping the logic behind French's tricky grammatical rules. I followed her into the classroom, the air behind me thickened with the smell of frangipanis.

Inside, Lili waved me to the seat next to her. I inched my way over and planted a kiss on her cheeks. "As per normal this evening?" she whispered, asking whether we would stop for café au lait at our favourite coffee place. "OK," I whispered back as Mme le Blanc began to address the class.

"Bon. Tournez à la page cinquante-cinq. Nous révisons le dernier leçon. Nina, veuillez-vous commençer?"

KC's was not the first death that I had experienced. The year before, when I was ten, my eldest sister passed away after a protracted battle against tuberculosis which she had contracted from my father. Her departure sort of softened the blow of KC's passing. And when my father died a couple of years later, I was much better prepared.

The year following KC's drowning brought some changes into my life. I grew quieter and became more reserved. The absence of kids my own age made me gravitate towards older boys in their mid to late teens. Being around them made me realise that there was a lot more to the world of teenagers than what KC had taught me.

I learnt new games, new way of speaking and expressing myself plus a whole new set of vocabulary that I had to know. The boys introduced me to new secrets and teenage code of conduct. One of them introduced me to my first lesson in carnal knowledge.

His name was Tony. At sixteen, his body was finely developed, like a body of any highly active teenager should be. I did not quite remember how our friendship started, but it was his passion for badminton that brought us together.

The incident at Maiden Tear had dampened my enthusiasm for swimming. The once inviting community swimming pool no longer beckoned. Instead, my attention slowly turned to the animated yells and cheers coming from the nearby all-purpose hall where active games of badminton were played almost every afternoon and on weekends. Tony and his three friends played every Saturday from morning until about lunch time. They would play doubles and take a dip in the swimming pool before going home for lunch.

One Saturday, I waited for Tony and his friends to show up. At about nine o'clock they arrived, but one of the boys, Tony's regular partner, was not with them. Tony's face lit up when he saw me. "Don't worry guys, I can double with Gabriel here," Tony smiled at me. "What do you say, Gabe?"

I was only too glad to join them.

We played a few good games until it was time to go home. The three older boys took their customary dip in the pool. I sat on the diving board, watching. Tony remained in the water after his two friends left, swimming from one end of the pool to another in no particular style.

"Hey, Gabe!" he suddenly yelled. "Why don't you join me?"

"Naah, not today, thank you," I said, pained at a sudden thought of KC.

"OK. Suit yourself."

"How come you're not going home yet?" I asked.

"Well, my Mom and Dad aren't home. They're out of town visiting my aunt. So I can stay out as long as I want," he elaborated.

"Well, I can't. If I don't go home for lunch now my Mom would send a search party," I said, getting off the diving board.

"I've got an idea," he said. "Why don't you come home with me?"

I protested that I had not had lunch yet.

"Precisely. My mother prepared more than enough food for me to last the whole weekend. All I have to do is to heat it up. You like chilly crabs, don't you?"

That sold me. My stomach was already growling, anyway.

"Come on, then. You can call your Mom from my house."

Quietly, I followed Tony home, my mouth watering at the thought of juicy, tender crab meat in his mother's famous chilly sauce.

And who knew what sort of dessert she had prepared for her son...

CHAPTER 3

KC was already in the lake doing his backstrokes by the time I finished changing. He occasionally disappeared under water doing his diving acts. His head bobbed in and out, urging me to join him. "OK, OK, I'm coming," I yelled at him, carefully hanging my shirt and pants on a nearby bush.

As soon as my body hit the water, KC began to swim away and dared me to catch up. The water felt good against my skin, so I ignored him. A clump of flowering hyacinths attracted my attention. Their bluish purple blooms rose high above the surface, their stems long and elegant. I swam closer to inspect the waxy little petals. "Hey KC, look!" I turned around, purple stalk in my hand. KC was nowhere to be seen.

His body was discovered almost one hour later by a diver, his feet entangled in a thick web of hyacinth roots.

At first I blamed myself for KC's death. He would not have gone to Maiden Tear by himself had I not followed him. And had I not been distracted by the hyacinths, I would have seen him struggle with his dear life. I hated myself because I was not there for him, that I could not do more than run to the two fishing teenagers to get help.

Standing erect in the graveyard on that scorching late afternoon, however, I did not feel a morsel of guilt. I was extremely sad, yes, and very very angry. Angry because KC died on me. He did not play fair. Surely he knew that at that point of my life he was my only true friend. There were other kids in the neighbourhood, but somehow we never did click. Besides, most were girls, and girls were, well, delicate. Their parents never allowed them to do whatever boys did. They were not adventurous. They had to be home long before dusk, they had to shower, powder themselves and help their mothers in the kitchen while the boys would still be kicking a soccer ball or running around playing hide and seek in the neighbourhood.

"Amen..." The last prayer had been said. The casket was now lowered. My heart sank at the sound of the first shovelful of dirt hitting the wood. And the next, and the next. After the dirt had been evened out, friends and relatives scattered flower petals and sprinkled rose water over the grave. Aunty May placed a bouquet of white gardenias at its foot. Her face was calm, but I knew her eyes were telling a different story. KC would be missed dearly, he was the youngest, most pampered child in the family.

People started to leave one after another. When the last of them had gone, Aunty May looked at me. I shook my head and indicated that I wanted to stay just a little while longer. She handed me a small wicker basket full of rose petals, kissed my forehead and quietly walked away. When she was a decent distance away, I knelt down and slowly emptied the contents of the basket, my lips murmuring a couple of simple prayers I knew. That finished, I got up and looked around the deserted graveyard. It was getting dark now so I eventually decided to make a move. "Goodbye, KC. Be happy wherever you may be."

The frangipanis were in full bloom, riotous pinks and whites everywhere. The scent was overwhelmingly sweet.

I never looked back.

CHAPTER 2

May that year was extremely warm and dry. The earth had been deprived of rain for at least a couple of months. Everywhere the grass was turning the ugly colour of brownish yellow. My favourite cherry tree in the front yard was beginning to shed its leaves, its blossoms fell to the ground, littering my mother's well manicured lawn.

And on that particular day at mid-month, the sun was especially hot. The air was still, there was hardly any breeze at all. Nothing moved, not even the blade grass growing in abundance in the cemetery. The starched collar of my mourning garb had long wilted. All present were standing motionlessly. Occasionally, suppressed little sobs escaped the mouth of some bereaved souls, followed no doubt by dabs of handkerchieves on the cheek to wipe away tears mixed with sweat.

We were all sombrely waiting for the casket to be lowered into the ground. It was a modest casket, one that a family with a modest income could afford. Inside, a small body, dressed in a smart blue outfit, lay rigid and lifeless. KC was my best childhood friend.

We went to the same grade school, KC and I. Although he was two years older and was never in my class, we became very close. We did practically everything together. It was easy to like KC. His head always teemed with eccentric plans, his eyes full of mischief. He taught me how to ride a bicycle, and when I had finally managed to balance the two-wheeled contraption, he would suggest that we ride to the beach. To the beach we went, although it was twelve miles away. We would go hiking at Peacock Hill, although it would take us at least two hours on the bicycle to reach the famous municipal landmark. He taught me how to climb trees, in what he said Tarzan the Apeman's style.

That, I could never master. So many times I would disappoint my mentor and as many times I would find myself kissing the hard ground, my arms having failed to reach the intended branch. Each fall would give me a fresh scratch or a broken rib, but it did not stop me. I supposed I wanted to be as good as KC was.

There was however one thing that I could do better. I could swim faster, always outpacing him everytime we went swimming at the local community pool. I was also a more graceful diver. I knew KC was not pleased at times but he would never show it. He would secretly go to the pool after school and practised his backstrokes and repeatedly dived from the board until Aunty May summoned him home for dinner.

One Saturday afternoon, I was idling away in a hammock in the backyard when the familiar ring of his bicycle bell brought me rushing to the front porch.

"What's up?" I asked, when I saw him grinning in the driveway, his dark eyes twinkling. His "Oh, nothing" quickened my heart by a beat or two. It was never nothing with KC. He was definitely up to something, but I did not want to give him the satisfaction and tried to look disinterested. A minute went by. Two. As I was starting to hum my favourite tune, KC leapt onto his bicycle and asked me to go get my swimming gear. I rushed into the house, snatched my swimming trunks, shot "I'm going swimming, Ma" at my mother and raced after KC. "Be back before your father does!" I think that was what my mother said. I was by then too far to hear her properly.

KC did not slow down as we approached the swimming pool. "Not here!" he yelled at me over his shoulder when he saw me getting ready to stop. "We are going to some place different today." Too out of breath to argue, I complied. It was ten minutes later that I realised where we were heading. I stopped dead in my track. He did, too.

"What's wrong, now?" he asked.

"Are you sure you want to go there?" I asked him back, suppressing a feeling of uneasiness rising in me.

"Yeah, why not?"

"I don't know. It's dangerous!"

"Not really. Says who?"

"I don't like it, KC... My father would wear me out if he knew about this."

"And who's going to tell him?"

I was fighting a losing battle. "Ohh, all right. But only for a short while, OK?"

Maiden Tear was the name local folks gave to the lake, a legacy left by a mining company after it could not find any more precious tin ore in Princess Valley. I was too young to remember exactly when the company left town. In any case, enough years had gone by for nature to turn the tear-shaped machine-made lake habitable to many species of plants and other living organisms. Blue hyacinths thrived in the lake, cat-tails grew wild along its bank. A local fish farmer had released hundreds of little tilapias, catfish and other types of fish in the lake, which by now had also become a favourite hangout for anglers.

"Well, come on. What are you waiting for?"

KC was already tearing his shirt off his back. A moment later he was tugging at his pants and hobbled to the water's edge. Gently leaning my bike against a boulder, I paused and took in the scenery. The place was quite deserted except for a couple of older teenagers trying their luck fishing at the far end of the lake, quite oblivious to our presence.

I slowly slipped into my swimming trunks, as a strange anxious sensation came over me.

CHAPTER 1

There he came. Even from this far, I could already tell that it was him. His long, graceful strides never lost their rhythm even when he walked up the slope. His dark leather backpack was carelessly slung across his left shoulder.

He approached the row of sandalwood trees that graced the driveway. Suddenly he stooped and picked up something from the ground. It must be the sandalwood seeds. He told me once that the brilliant red nuts were a wonder. They were like jewels. He smiled to himself and resumed his walk in my direction.

He was getting closer now. The buckles of his shoes tinkled faintly. His golden hair glowed as the rays of the setting sun peeked through the leaves and fell upon his elegant form.

He was not aware of the pair of eyes looking at him. I was sure of it. Standing on the balcony amidst the flowering bougainvillaeas, I was almost obscured from sight. But then, he looked up, saw me and waved. I nodded. Soon he disappeared under the porch, greeting everyone he knew in the front hall, his voice happy and cheerful.

That's the way he was; so warm, so friendly. He could make my gloomiest day bright, my darkest hour light. I liked him from the first moment I laid my eyes on him. That was almost a year ago.

I had just started my French lessons that summer. After taking my proficiency test, the school administator decided that I should join the advanced class taught by Mme le Blanc. And that was how I first met him.

I could still hear his voice downstairs, merrily chatting away with students and colleagues while waiting for classes to commence. Soon the sound of voices ceased as students and teachers left the hall for the classrooms. Soon, he was walking up the wooden staircase towards his own classroom, towards where I was waiting.

He was now standing next to me. "Ça va, toi?" he half whispered, his fingers squeezing my right arm.

"Ça va, merci," I smiled and looked at him. He looked back, tiny furrows forming between his eyebrows, his hazel eyes studying mine.

"Tu es sûr, Gabriel?" he asked again, a look of genuine concern spread across his handsome face.
"Oui, trés sûr. Et toi, tous va bien?"
"Pas mal," his eyes still searching. "Allons," he said, gesturing towards the classroom.
"Après toi, Jean-Claude."

I wanted to linger still on the balcony. It seemed so peaceful there. The sun was about to hide for the night behind blushing clouds. A gentle breeze, heavily scented with frangipanis, brushed against my face. The fragrance engulfed me, almost intoxicating.

I did not very much like frangipanis, which now bloomed in profusion in the garden below. Their sweet smell sickened me, it reminded me of death...