First Encounter with the Reality of the Opposite Sex
by YBLalat

At last, SPM ended and I was on my way home for good.

The batch had initially wanted to hold a last day mixed party at the basketball court to commemorate the end of the big exam and ultimately, the disbandment of the 1998 bunch, but some tech-savvy students stole the public phone line at the dorm and used it to make illegal calls to their Sarawak and Sabah families. To make matter worse, the head prefect was also involved in the scheme, with the offering of his slightly secluded room as a safe haven for the operation.

Then, the warden’s phone bill came into his mailbox and hell on Earth was officially declared. For that, we were all denied the permission to stay for another minute on the school ground and to organize the farewell party and almost immediately after having the last SPM paper submitted, we were ushered away from the hostel, and so ended the best five years of my life at Muzaffar Syah Melaka.

I was fast asleep in the car all the way home. In my mind was only my sheer gladness that everything was all over at last. “Five years is enough”, I said to myself, “now you relax”.

As soon as I arrived at the door of my home in Kuala Selangor, the phone rang. My father, seeing me busy with my laundry-filled luggage, picked it up and answered. “It was from Petronas”, he told me with a confused grin across his weary face, “you are to report to their Permata branch at Bangi in 8 days”. Fuck.

**********

Permata is a motivational and training camp for Petronas employees and its Bangi branch is one of the largest in the country. It was chosen to be that year’s meeting place for the selected oversea scholarship holders from all over Malaysia. All those who were going to pursue their studies at the States, UK and Australia were asked to report in and undergo a week-long general introduction program to the oil and gas company. “You are very lucky to be selected to be part of our big family from the hundred of thousands that applied”, the fat guy with the corporate suit said, “so you and your family should all be proud of this and study hard”. “Give yourselves a huge clap, alright?” interjected the skinny motivational guest speaker. Bloody wankers.

I was grumpy throughout the whole Permata ordeal. Added that I had not yet recovered from my fatigue from SPM, I also didn’t have enough rest from the 24-hour program. There were always some crappy love-the-company talks and get-to-know-each-other bullshit that they planned for us day and night. The room was splendid and the food was nice, but all I needed at that time was some privacy and more time to relax on my own. In fact, even to this day, I am still angry that Petronas had stolen my right to take my time off after the SPM and get a temporary job at a fast food restaurant and learn how to be a mechanic from my uncle. Thus, the rapid decline of my CGPA right now is a sign of protest for that.

One early morning a few days through the middle of the program, I was sitting alone on a very comfortable leather sofa in a somewhat hidden part of the front door lounge, far away from the other pompous and loud-talking scholars mingling with each other, when suddenly a rather lanky Malay girl in a white tudung and a bright brown sweater-like dress came over and sat next to me on the sofa. She didn’t say ‘hi’ or salam before sitting next to me or when she was approaching me – she simply walked over and sat. I was reading the day’s newspaper at the time, with both my legs crossed on the coffee table and my whole back rested fully onto the embrace of the sofa, and was totally unaware of the girl’s approach. Only when she shifted her weight fully onto the next cushion next to me that I was aware I was not alone.

“Hi”, I greeted her, a bit in shock to realize that it was a girl.
“Hi”, she replied back, almost in a near uninterested voice.

That was a nice progress, I said in my head, mocking the ludicrousness of the situation. I had never seen her before in my entire life and I certainly was not in the mood to get to know people since I was still pissed off at the program. We did not say a single word to each other after that and for a very long period of time too, and I just sat there, still and bewildered, and watched her and what she was doing, or at least, what she thought she was doing, sitting next to a total stranger and not saying anything.

The front door lounge was a small and confined area surrounded by huge pots of indoor flower plants that grew high above the neck of a young adult. There were two sets of sofa in it; each was complemented with a coffee table and a small writing desk with the week’s newspaper on it. The room was spacious and with proper lighting, making it a very relaxed spot to waste your time. At the time, there was only me sitting there, trying to seclude myself from the others, and waiting for the dining hall attendant to call us to a served breakfast, and the other three or four seats were very much vacant to put your butt on. Instead, the girl placed her cute bunny ass onto the one next to mine.

It is not much of a big deal for me then if she were to sit on the sofa next to me. “Okay, some girl sits next to you. So what? Grow up, Lalat, you are not a kid anymore.” But the truth is she was sitting next to me on the next cushion of the same sofa. I could literally feel her body heat through the cushion and her dress’ fabric and listen to her breaths going up and down. I don’t think I need to mention her awfully strong perfume and lavish facial makeup - you know how girls are when they dress up for special occasions.

I tried my hardest not to stare at her face, or any part of her body for that matter. Although she was sitting next to me, her face was facing to the far left of me, enabling me to see what her hands were doing. I took a few peeps at what she was occupying herself with. At first I thought she was playing with those tamaguchi toys that you need to feed and pamper all day long. But on second look, it seemed to me she was holding closely and strongly a square white thing near her left breast.

Wait a minute – her left breast? Oh God, please don’t test me with this, I prayed.

She seemed to be struggling hard with it, whatever it was. Her hands were frantically tugging it up and down and jerking it from right to left like it was some smelly dead rodent grappling from the edges of a cliff. Her breath would go from fast to slow in a fraction of a second and sigh and moan and grunt to the annoyance of the bastard sitting next to her. I was curious as to what the trouble was all about, and partially inclined to offer my unwilling assistance – not that I felt that that would be the gentlemanly thing to do. I was sincerely curious and annoyed, that was all.

I waited for another go at her, hoping that another peek would finally reveal to me what she was occupied so madly with. Her hands gradually grew tired and her shoulders began to drop down repeatedly as a sign of hopelessness. I waited some more but the chance never came by and I was becoming more and more anxious to know; thus I spoke first.

“What’s wrong there?”
“Oh, well, nothing much actually.”
Come on, don’t tell me lies, woman. I know a maiden in distress when I see one.
“You look like you need help.”
Okay, now I started to sound like some gentleman asshole. She didn’t ask for your help, brother, so why bother? But, no, no, you just had to show to the world the type of a romantic savior that you are. Idiot!
“It’s my nametag’s pin. It’s weird.”
“How weird is it?”
“It won’t bend over.”
“Is it rusty?”
“No.”
“Let me see it then.”

The pin was indeed weird; an odd-looking son of a bitch it was. The pin was not in its proper shape to stay attached to its casing once you stick it through the fabric. No wonder the pretty damsel was sweating bullet cartridges trying to pin it to her dress. I bet that the poor Chinese child slave labor that assembled the pin in a factory in downtown rural China was either very sick or very hungry that day that he/she worked.

Looking at it closely and trying to figure out how the devil the pin could be repaired, I came closer and closer to the conclusive notion that the pin was indeed beyond repair. Throwing it away for good was the only solution, and the best solution there was, I thought to myself, but I didn’t say that to the hopeful girl. I couldn’t just say it like that, and not without showing her that I’ve tried my best to help. It was indeed my idiotic fault at the beginning by offering her my heroic and chivalrous assistance when she had clearly stated to me that she did not ask for it. But my ego was at stake here, man. And so the bumbling fool continued to act like he knew what he was doing:

“Was it working yesterday?”
“You mean the pin?”
No, I meant your head. Yes, the pin!
“Were you able to wear the nametag yesterday?”
“Yes, but I didn’t use the pin yesterday. I hung it from my neck.”
“Okay.”

Great! I bought myself more time while I wrestled the pin to conform to the casing, although I knew all along that it won’t bend no matter what I tried to do. The girl was eyeing me from the side, with both her hands anxious and holding onto each other in a great big fist of hope. The pressure exerted onto me by the damsel to do this pin right was so high that I couldn’t even listen to myself speaking. Those few seconds that went by was the most tiring period I’d had since listening to the pointless, rambling speech by Petronas’ Human Resources Department Director the day before. I just had to do my best – but do what I didn’t know – or at least show her that I was trying.

The pin was hopeless and I knew it all along and yet I invested my energy into it – a typical, pretentious heroic deed.

“You are working it okay?”
“Not really, the pin is tough.”
Yes, there went my honor. No speck of shame was in that reply – artless honesty.
“Have you tried pulling the casing towards the pin instead?”
“Nope, the casing is fixed to the plastic. No use trying that.”
Nearly drowned by the sound of my huffing and puffing, I could hear the cataclysmic echo of a broken heart, a shattered hope. The girl was slowly realizing my approach to a great horrific dismay, just as I had seen her in dismay before.

“You can’t bend it?”
“No.”
Oh, that was painful. Saying ‘no’ to her then was like twisting a stabbed dagger into my own ribcage. Not being able to bend the pin was like not being able to kill the evil warlord king with my jousting sword and thus, not being able to save the princess from his dark and damp dungeon. It was a knight in shining armor’s worst nightmare. In the faraway distance, the evil king’s laughter was starting to echo.

“It’s okay if you can’t fix it.”
“Yeah, okay, sure – try asking Mr. Rahman for a new one.”
“Okay, Mr. Rahman, is it?”
“Yeah, he’s the skinny one.”
“Okay, thanks for your help.”
Yeah, sure, whatever bitch.

**********

The balcony door was a bit heavier than I had expected it to be. I swung it open once more, but this time with both hands, and in the process of doing that, nearly knocking off the maroon curtain from the top of door and onto my snoring roommate. The night sky was completely clear of stars that early morning. The wind was not blowing as strong or as cold as the night before. The empty silence was eerily soothing and the smell of the early morning moist atmosphere was exquisitely refreshing – but still I couldn’t sleep. The girl and her nametag’s pin and my failure from the day had haunted me throughout the night.

Looking back, I felt stupid, really stupid. Why I even bothered helping her, I don’t know. She was clear when she refused my initial offer of help, but instead of walking away and respecting her decision, I insisted further and not bowing down. I could not exactly pin down why I reacted so. Maybe her forthright refusal for my help had subconsciously insulted my ego, or challenged the sincere intention of my offer. Maybe at the time I thought that she was only a woman, a weak being, who knows not much about what she was doing and how to do it and thus God created me.

I wish I knew the answer then. It was so painful to be a girl’s letdown.